001Sorry. of United States. >> Dr. Big >> here. >> Dr. Paris >> present. >> Mr. Gilmore >> here. >> Mr. Hley >> here. >> Mr. Homer. >> Yes. Here. >> Mr. Miss Mr. Cruzy. >> Okay. First item tonight is our material also agenda. Uh first of all your desk any members wish to have fully attended please uh indicate so now is there to wish to make a motion to suggest motion materials please include the agenda when move to w the reading and and approve the consent agenda as printed in the fourth agenda along with the agenda 2026. Yes. >> Second motion by Mr. Second by Dr. >> Mr. Hley. >> Yes. >> Dr. Bidwell. >> Yes. >> Mr. Ho. >> Yes. >> Mr. Melli. >> Yes. >> Dr. Fris. >> Yes. >> Mr. Gilmore. >>
002Yes. Introduce the following resolution where education community school 200 wish to recognize contributions of these individuals [clears throat] and where district 200 results their accomplishment therefore be resolved the board of education of wood community school district 200 special recognition and certificate of achievement on behalf of the citizens of the district and Second. Second. Mr. Gilmore. Seconded by Mr. Roll call, please. >> Mr. Gilmore. >> Yes. >> Mr. Hollow. >> Yes. >> Mr. Hibley. >> Yes. >> Mr. Melli. >> Yes. >> Dr. Ferris. >> Yes. >> Dr. Bidwell. >> Yes. >> Good evening everyone. teacher like this student not only experiencing she's a true sheet and the biggest cheerle appreciate all that you've done. We have a couple friends here who would like to share with you first. I to start our little poem. Miss times
003miss science. She teaches us to divide times when we learn it's so make us happy with their lives. So snappy. I'm so happy Miss Science is here tonight. She's a great teacher and I love being in her class because she makes me happy when she sings. She enjoys silly and she makes sure everybody understands the work before moving along. And and last but not least, she made fun. Thank you. [applause] She explains the way she makes a great place because she teaches us because she teaches us to do it. Heat. Heat. [applause] Okay. Heat. Heat. She cares. She understand every small little >> [applause] >> This is so [applause] All >> [applause] >> right. But you can take off. If you don't want to want to stay here, you're welcome to stay. Don't mean to
004You're welcome to stay. We do. Thank you for coming. We'll just take a bit of break and then let you uh let it Heat. Heat. Okay, now we have the rest of which is communications. Communication of community members and districts [clears throat] are done 230 [clears throat] and otherwise Um, I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to address you this evening. I wanted to speak to a parent whose name appear on that list. That's what we're calling. When you see your child on something like this, it is absolutely terrifying. I know she ever experienced the angel hand safety as a many parents I would refer to other parents child understand why list did not include last names and their college panic. The schools took the time to investigate and verify the immigration first and
005that decision matter was terrible to say this clearly. The school did what it was supposed to do. The district did what it was supposed to do. [snorts] I want to thank police department investigation every time not because we were found here like that is hard. It seems a child your child is the target. At the same time we deeply grateful that we were involved and that the situation was taken seriously from the start. We also need to acknowledge this weapons. So we it can be I hope this incident drives that home. One post, one message, one moment of cruelty or judgement can follow someone for the rest of their lives. Through multiple conversations with Dr. I reassured the parent that this situation was realized. The students responsible for creating and studying this message will face
006appropriate consequences. Just as importantly, the students who are targeted by sons and daughters will continue to be supported. Social workers can be available and I can assure that accommodations including class changes will be made if needed so no student has to be traumatized by return of those involved. I don't want to think this is your first comprehensive response and staff high school particularly the team high school who showed up for our kids incredibly frightening moment as parents this us talk to our kids about talk to them about the current consequences of their words that they are who they associate with and what they choose to share matters Again, thank you for your actions. Um, they are noted and we do appreciate it. Thank you. >> Thank you for coming for your support of our stuff.
007This is a scary thing. I think that one of the things that we continue from this is learning what we did right and what else we could do right. So, um, this is being analyzed more than just what's already happening. So, we can do even better. Hopefully hopefully it won't be a next time, >> but but hope this will be ready for anything that would happen and be prepared. But thank you for coming. >> Are there any other public comments? That's the only person who signed up. Does anybody else wish to address the board at this time to a member of the general public? Okay, we'll move on to our next to staff comments. Are there any staff comments or comments? Let me just lay with heard nothing but good things about the way the
008district responded and told to list um so far. So I would commend everybody who's involved in responding to handling. All right. Any other comments? super Yeah. Appreciate you. Just keep talking. You see something? community successful number of 24 Heat. opportunity for community to shine. Thanks for the message. Thank you. program. >> Okay. So, um we're going to talk a little bit tonight about how we recruit and get more educators into the field of teaching. And so, we actually do that in several different ways. I kind of wanted to start off with this because I've been hiring teachers, trying to recruit people into the field for about 20 years now. Um, and I think what I've learned in the 20 years that I've been doing this is that we need to really tap into the people
009that live around us and are local because that is where we're finding the people that we can recruit into the field of teaching. And so this um graph actually shows that when you look at it, there's actually nearly six and 10 young adults live within 10 miles. So they're actually coming back and living within 10 miles of where they grew up. and 8 and 10 and within 100 miles. Um so again, the more we can try to really tap into some of the local um talent that we have in the area, we're going to be able to get those those folks into our teaching and teaching career and into our system. Um so as we kind of look at this, I I've kind of divided it into three areas. And so we're going to talk
010about those things that we're doing with our current high school students and how we've developed some pathways to really get them in teaching and some of the other things that we're doing to support them. And then our classified staff, so some of our staff that are working as associates um instructional associates, you know, bus drivers. Um and then some of those uh people that again maybe they went to college in a different area. they were a biology major or they were business and so but they never thought about teaching but now they've kind of come back to it and are interested in teaching. So how do we talk to them and work with them to get them into the teaching field? So we're going to start really with the high school students. So we have
011developed a couple of career pathways, one in early childhood and one in elementary ed. Um we have a variety of courses that we offer in the district. Um, we offer child development, early childhood. We have a couple of dual credit courses that are offered in conjunction with Mar County College. We also have a club called Educator Rising. And so this club meets every month. And so they're able to really um take the kids, they go down to ISU, which is one of the best teaching schools in the state. And so they'll go on field trips and kind of really interact with other students that are wanting to become teachers. Um they have competitions kind of education based competitions where they're developing lesson plans and presenting they're teaching and so we have a lot of great
012activities really supporting those high school students and then just like athletics has a signing day a couple years ago they started have a signing day for teach for the students that are going off to college to become teachers. So they actually come in and they wear their t-shirt of the college that they're going to attend. And so it just makes that really special as they go off into the world and watching. So that's a few things that we do for some of our high school students. And there's a picture of that signing day. And then also one a big part is observations. We give them lots of opportunities to enter. And through some of these courses they do observations within the [clears throat] district classroom. So that's nice for them to and sometimes they request
013I want to go back to my second grade teacher. I want to go back to my middle school teacher. And so we try to you know honor those requests so they can go back and and observe in those classrooms. Then our um our classified staff, which you know, we have a lot of classified staff that do amazing things within our classrooms. And so we've a couple years ago I started having yearly meetings and and I'm actually having that meeting actually on Thursday. I have about 40 classified staff that have signed up. And so what I do at that meeting is I really talk to them about the various options of how you become a teacher. Is it maybe they haven't they've got 60 credit hours. So that next step to get to finish their bachelor's
014degree in a teaching field or maybe they're in the middle of going to MCC or haven't started quite yet and they need to get there. So how where again what are those pathways that they can go um to become a teacher and so just this week I'm actually going to have NCC is going to be there and also university center is going to be there too to really talk about some of those pathways in more detail. So, one of the things we've also developed in the last years is we have tuition reimbursement for some students that are classified associates. Um, and they can get tuition reimbursement through the district as well as there's a teacher vacancy grant that the state has had and so we've tapped into some of those funds to also support some
015of our associates that um are now teachers. Okay. And what a kind of an exciting thing, a student that I had at Wood High School in 2025, she is actually going to be a teacher next year in our district for the first time. So that's really exciting to me. All these years she's been working for us in different capacities. Most recently at 30 years in as a parent educator. Um but now she's going to be starting with us as a teacher. So again, it's just helping them helping them along the way to get to their to their end goal. And the last um thing I wanted to focus on was really that alternative lensure. So again, this is for those uh people in the community that maybe um went to school in another field and
016now they have thought about becoming a teacher or always wanted to be a teacher. Maybe their parents deterred them and said, "No, you need to go study medicine or or whatnot." Um, so those people we really have a nice with the state they have something called an alternative license and it really allows them to start working in the classroom while they're going to school to finish their um teacher lensure. And so they're assigned a mentor. It's a two-year process. They take those courses in the evening so it doesn't interfere with their um workday. Uh but again, an important part of this is really having that mentor that they're learning alongside and and touching base with. And then we really utilize this when it's hard to fill positions, especially like special ed, sometimes we have CTE.
017Those are, you know, some of those positions are really hard to fill. So this is a nice ad. Actually, we've had some people subbing for us and then we've kind of they've done again a great job subbing and then we've been able to lead them toward this alternate lensure because they already have a bachelor degree. So that's a little bit about our different avenues and how we support staff members and community members and becoming teachers. And I just wanted to throw this in because again my career, you know, primarily at the beginning was trying to hire a lot of bilingual teachers and our dual language program. And next year we're going to have 12, we have a lot of staff members that grew up here and were raised in Woodstock to teach for us, but
018we're actually going to have 12 former D200 dual language graduates. So kids that grew up for our dual language program. Next year we're have 12 years of teaching for us. So that really helps because we have so many, you know, the need for so many Spanish teachers. So that program has really helped fill that need. So that's exciting for us too. Any questions? >> Does anybody have any questions or comments regarding the efforts to get more? >> That's that's incredible. That's amazing to have 12 former students. like we could do like a social post or some sort of story about that in you know district is incredible. really great job here and there last be honest know each other. >> Are we able to keep track of kids who graduate now interested in becoming teacher
019once they leave the district? >> We do. We do do some of that where we keep track like where they're going. But it's been interesting. Like I had one girl that she actually went to the University of Illinois and she was going to uh go on to law school. She graduated. She's like, I'm just coming back and looking for a translation job. And she's like, I'm not sure if I want to go to law school. And I'm like, hey, we have lots of options here to work in a district and I can help you if you want to be a teacher. Ultimately, she just said she worked kind of in a sub role for a while, but then she decided to become school social worker. So again, we have it's amazing how many people like
020come back and kind of just or they'll go back to their school counselors like Jana Land and say, "Hey, I'm kind of looking. They'll they'll kind of direct them to me if they're interested in teaching." And again, it's just trying to meet meet them where they're at and to help them to get into that pathway of how we can help you become teachers. So, >> and would it be safe to say that if somebody were to come back that that had a degree and so forth that we'd be able to find a place for them if necessary? >> It just depends. I mean, it's not necessarily every degree and it depends on the openings we have and if it's part of the bill and then we really have to look at that lensure and pair
021them up with the program. I've worked with Western Illinois University actually because they have a very good program. um to help with that alternative lensure. But again, it really depends on the candidate, the openings and you know the need that we had at that time. Spanish people I mean all the time but you know you know you know I mean we need this week I you know, but um still any other comments or questions regarding the teacher all this? >> Thank you as always. >> Yeah, thank you. >> Thanks for all you do. >> Really well. Really appreciate it. Okay. Heat. All right. Okay. You want to go to sports like pretty fast. Do [clears throat] you want uh you want to go to Fortnite or >> I didn't know if you I like I
022thought we were coming I was coming here for the whole issue at the school. Do >> you want do we're not having a discussion about it comment at all? >> No, I just want to know what was being done. That's all I hear about Dr. >> Okay. Uh if there's nothing else motion to move by second by Dr. >> Dr. Ferris >> yes >> Dr. Bidwell >> yes >> Mr. Mselli >> yes >> Mr. Homo >> yes >> Mr. Hy >> yes >> Mr. Two more.