001bye here uh okay this is the september 14 2021 meeting of the woodstock community community unit school district 200 board of education please rise for fun of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all dr liberal here dr ferris president mr gilmore here mr hathaway here mr homer president here mr parisi here okay first item in the business tonight is our consent agenda there is a personal addendum uh please take a moment to review the personal personnel addendum and the consent agenda and if any board member would like to pull any items let me know so whenever anybody's ready there's this adjusted motion in your tackle the reading of and approved the consent agenda as printed in the board
002agenda including the september 14th 2021 routine personnel matters addendum second published by mr friesie seconded by dr goodwill low call please mr bracey yeah dr goodwill yes yes mr headley yes here i'm sorry mr missouri yes dr ferris yes mr gilmore yes next sentiment our communications communications are required for community members and district employees to express the point of view not to debate an issue there's a sign-up sheet for the public to identify their name address phone number name of the organization represented if any and a brief description of the topic free address comments are generally listed limited to three minutes and according to voter board policy two phone two three do we have a list the only things we have are asking the stickers yes thank you for the opportunity um i wanted to
003address the i have a prepared statement i wanted to address the board's reaction to my question during the august board meeting regarding the district stance on anti-racism and whether or not the board was aware of the attempts to make it part of the curriculum by the state district or faculty members or really any other means i was a little concerned because it's a lot more complicated than just something like you know anti-racism doesn't doesn't mean it's just not racism or teaching that racism is bad there's actually a pretty vibrant movement with anti-racism and i'm sure people have heard about it so i was a little concerned that it was that the reaction i got was was almost like confused and a little bit of bewilderment so i just have a fair statement just explaining what
004anti-racism is so anti-racism isn't the opposite of racism the term is in my opinion is a misnomer that unfortunately is white says successfully obfuscated what the intention of it is and what they're trying to do in action with that term the term was created or at least you know thought of by critical race theorists and insists that american society in this beginning this is my interpretation of it insist because they'll they'll likely have different and varying definitions of what it means and what they attempt to do and it's likely evolved over the past four decades or so so insist that american society and white people in general are perpetrators of a massive conspiracy to prevent black people from succeeding it alleges that all disparity between whites and blacks are a direct result of racism and
005that the only way forward is to fight against whatever the anti-racists declare is racism that's really the big sticking point is because a lot of their general statements can seem like very well intended and well-meaning they want people to have access to equal opportunities and not be left behind type of thing and i think every popularity obviously agrees with that but unfortunately it's it's left up to kind of their interpretation of what that means so for example take standardized testing there's been some instances already where standardized testing has kind of been declared as potentially racist and that they're gone away with altogether so i know that's not something that's probably around here but that's just an example of what when you leave it up to a theoretical body to dictate what is racism and then
006the action to get rid of that is something that they would declare as anti-racism when it's not there's nothing that proposes that a test to study cognitive abilities has any type of racial you know movement or momentum so anyway anti-racism excludes any other explanation to be considered so they would directly relate the disparity that may show up in a standardized test or maybe a hiring practice as a as explained by racism itself and not by you know potentially thousands of other you know contributing factors so it's in my view it's a very anti-scientific anti-intellectual explanation of something that everybody wants to try to you know help and fix in some way and then the other really bad part of that is that they think that anybody that that denounces or says that wait a minute
007that's not the right way to look at it that they're actually racist and part of the problem so an intellectual debate that's why it probably really hasn't been any debates because they won't debate the issue is that because they they label the person that's debating it as a racist or as facilitating this this great movement of racism in america so i just have a couple other quotes from some of the people that are more famous in the in this movement um well there's another quick statement so equity not equality is the desired outcome if you're an anti-racist so you want equal outcomes but the equality is kind of like a byproduct they probably would say that they want equality but what they really want is equal outcome and whatever you have to do to get
008that be it you know remove the test entirely is is part of that agenda or potentially so even i mentioned even hebrew mixed candy last time he declares that being not racist isn't enough that one must be anti-racist and that we're either all being racist or anti-racist so if you're not anti-racist then you're a racist in perpetuating this american sin of racism um so another quote from him or another explanation from him i don't know if this is a paraphrase or a direct quote but his definition of a racist is one who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inaction or expressing a racist idea and an anti-racist is one who is supporting an anti-racist policy through their actions or expressing her anti-racist idea but who decides who's racist and anti-racist his definition
009is like circular logic because the definition of what he's trying to define is within the definition so it's self-referential it doesn't mean anything and that's kind of part of this issue and that's maybe where some of the confusion was because that's not what it means and he won't even this is somebody who's very high on this list of influential people who are anti-racist and he can't even really offer a coherent definition for how to really enact it so anyway crt and anti-racism have no place in academic setting other than an example of something to avoid like describing the characteristics of a poisonous snake or plants when you're out in the woods some other quotes from critical race theorists gloria lansing billings believes crt is a program for making race the central construct of understanding inequality
010so any other potential problem be it location or you know parents in the home or anything those are secondary to being racist in racism derek bell in his interest convergence thesis alleges that white people have no motivation to do the right thing unless it directly benefits them and and that as well whites have made things worse by making racism more difficult to detect i think he was referring to white maybe allies or white people that are joining in the civil rights type movements robin d'angelo stated racism is the ordinary state of affairs and in every situation the question the question isn't was there racism but rather how did the racism affect the situation so in any situation it's not was that racist potentially that's not even where they're at they're saying how did racism affect
011that so it's it's the default you know so the default answer to any disparity or any problem that can be that can be addressed so i mean i have some some other quotes from people or not quotes but some things that if you guys are interested in looking into there are some opponents to crt and anti-racism to look at much more articulate than me and would take far too long to discuss but i'm you know willing to share that information i know there's an email to email and some things too for people that might be interested but i was just very concerned because you know obviously racism is something that everybody is aware of and and would never want to you know teach to kids as far as something that is you know noble or
012moral so to so the response that i got about anti-racism was very concerning being that you know but you know it's it's pretty it's pretty common to see what these are these terms in modern sociopolitical discussions right now i think some of the responses you received the last time probably was through the fact that you weren't discussing in terms of defined movement that we did sign all right are you anti-racist both yeah we're not different right you you're right and that's that's the problem with that language that might have been something with confidence for the reception right as far as i'm aware uh there's nobody who's coming to this board that's asked to implement any type of program of any sort and i'm not sure that that does anyone's better firefighting about it but i
013mean are the the district exists to educate children and partner existing to explore different views on things sure right or wrong or whatever to explore different things right and so at this point and what you're asking is anyone come to your board and said you need it's more of a hopefully that i've clarified that position and please be aware of it and you know be aware of that because it is you know it's not a conspiracy where some people are you know they're trying to act like this is a big conspiracy trying to take over the world or something this has been a growing movement and it's it's filtering in from from colleges it's coming into more where it wasn't really before it wasn't really in middle schools and high schools until maybe five ten
014years ago it's getting to a point where it's manipulating how kids look at reality and it's a little bit more pervasive than just offering an alternative opinion it's something that's expressed as fact from from teachers and it looks like it's not a part of this district which is i'm very thankful for but please be aware of it and be looking out for it and just educate yourselves on it you know if you want to send materials via wcusd200.org okay thank you very much thank you for your time thanks for joining clarifying again uh that's all the people who signed up does anybody else wish to address the board at this time sure do you want to tell us your name is reporting cam sure good evening my name is jose cruz i have a freshman
015at woodstock north seventh grader at woodstock middle school yesterday uh it was an unfortunate situation where my 12 year old had to go home because she had a headache because of all the situations with revolving copay this is probably an uphill battle right but i guess i just want to bring some awareness and as a parent um you know i i'm i oppose these masks i really do and you know i these kids are going through so much being at school and you know they're constantly battled or going getting challenged every day just to try to fit in in school and you know i'm doing everything i can possibly have these exchanged you know as frequently as possible a lot of these kids don't understand that a lot of these kids just want to comply
016and be have the nicest little mask and they can want to use it for as many times as they need to to just to try to fit in and comply and just like there's pros there's a lot of there's a lot of cons to this as well and i think we'd be very naive to think that these 100 help all the time and these kids are exposed so much you know um and i know this is happening everywhere i know this is happening to other parents you know with one kid i know because they live in the same household but you can't sit here and think you know just because one kid everyone's had i understand there's there's there's protocols about this right but anything we can do and possibly get rid of these things
017because you know these kids are suffering and it's almost like an abuse and as a parent that's the way i see it that's my content any other public comments at this time okay then we'll move on to stat comments are there any stat comments four comments all right they're being done we'll move into the superintendent we've got a late start tomorrow it's all schools starting an hour later staff have professional development activities in the morning buses run one hour late in the morning and all dismissal times remain the same after school we're looking forward to parent-teacher conferences first week october preparing information to go out to parents shortly so they can schedule the conferences half-day school on the 6th which is a wednesday no school on thursday 7th through friday and uh parent-teacher conferences on
018wednesday evening and all day thursday conferences will be remote again this year as it were last year information will go out the parents doing this don't schedule the conferences which we look forward to you know the remote form actually worked well for us last year so we've been to continue that and have the opportunity for our staff and parents to interact and to get feedback on how the semester's going to different starts of the year that we've had we'll talk a little more coming up how it's going but it'd be great to get parents point of view and to have that interaction between our teachers and repair so we encourage all parents to take part okay thank you uh we have an unfinished business so our next island is new business the first side of
019the new business is a review of the 2020 2020 sorry review of the 2021-2022 strategic plan goal so we brought him back uh the one revision the board asked for i'm not sure if we hit on that or not we put it in there i'm not sure if that's what they're looking for but the way it reaches now is reportedly right on the board on options that can be offered for students to allow remote learning classes and growth experiences and opportunities during the summer to kind of open to have remote and also what else we could do on just different opportunities different ways to grow so we can definitely look into that as the year goes everything else was i think what we talked about but we're absolutely open to feedback or anything you'd like
020to see different before we go back for final approval um do any other board members have any uh comments or comment questions or concerns regarding the strategic plan report so we will vote on this in our next meeting yes they got two weeks they were so the crux of the update is transportation is a struggle for us right now in a variety of ways but what we're going to talk about tonight really is uh staffing you know we we knew we were short staffed and issues that we thought may come should have come to fruition and we're struggling to get buses to school on time or we're still going to get kids home at the end of the day and it's not going to like that for anyone's part our drivers are doing an amazing
021job of them are dropping off the route and they're going to pick another round up right away the transportation office works non-stop weekends nights everything they're going to happen we just we're short staff right now we're recruiting staff and you know it's a long process to go from the time we recruit them to get them through the cdl process you know become approved by the state probably four to six weeks somewhere around that period so you know even though we've hired a number of staff in the last couple weeks not only will it not fill our void but we're also losing staff you know that's not by great numbers when you lose two and you gain three in eight weeks you're still a negative loss um you know we're at a point now where you
022know we're down 15 16 drivers every stop we have is driving like a regular driver there's a reason they were so they didn't quite be doing that constantly our mechanics are driving non-stop so they can't do the work we need to do it's getting done but you know by them and over time or through you know other avenues our office staff is driving constantly we can't sustain it but even if we could there's going to come a time with cold and flu or anything else you know coveted outright of any sort we're we're not going to provide even what we're probably now service wise it's a real concern and i wanted to bring that conversation to the board just about what what are some things we could do if the board is there some radical
023ideas here the board doesn't see fit to follow through i understand i think we have to have a conversation because my fear is it's bad now but our parents have been amazing our staff's been amazed everyone's working through this together my concern is it's gonna start getting a lot worse you know in a month six eight weeks as we get in the winter and we're gonna we're gonna hard time sustaining uh our transportation that is that are lovely remotely necessary so what we have tonight discuss and that's all we're asking you to do i only want to prove it tonight without having discussion and bring back and take your questions and get feedback from a number of people but we looked at start times we changed them basically one of the things we do now
024is dearson you know is a separate fleet for us basically because of the times so we have a you know drivers dedicated years and they're not driving you know in an elementary or high school middle school route that's something we can change and by changing that we open up about 15 rounds to the point where we today probably be fully staffed or real close to it now you know again i'm not here telling you our idea is the greatest thing in the world i'm not telling you we had this great idea the other day we're in a bad situation and we're bringing conversation to the table of how we can potentially fix it but there are negatives for sure and and we acknowledge that and it may not be something we want to do but
025at least we want to talk about so you have it on the screen we've got it up there what we basically look at is for you know our elementary schools are our first through fifth grade moving back to start time 25 minutes in the end time 25 minutes so the seven o'clock 7 30 start you got a 7 55 start about two o'clock disposal you got 225 dismissal again that 25 minutes is significant we think that that's something we can work through if there's time in the morning that parents are dropping now and they still need supervision at that time we could absolutely work on that at the school it would be teachers maybe support staff potentially we can work on that middle school 25 minute 25 minutes start and then on the back end
02615 minutes we shaved 10 minutes off the middle school high school schedule an hour a minute an hour a minute an hour because when i'm packing we had to kind of truncate that schedule to make sure that we weren't um elongating the bus travel so middle school started 8 30 eight fifty five star 345 dismissal high school eight twenty start eight forty five starting now at 330 dismissal clay would stay the same the big change and what it's concerning obviously is deers and dudes and currently starts at 8 40. there's no it either has to go before or after our other routes the way it says we look they're going after it's late real late it's an hour before which is early really early i mean by our acknowledgment a 7 10 start is is
027incredibly early um and that's why we're discussing it i mean it's not a slam dunk but you know it's a change that allows us to provide we think will be adequate bus service throughout the year at our current staffing level you know again if parents used to the current dismissal time needed some help uh with supervision we can try to provide that you know and we understand and work with people however possible you know so anyhow i hate bringing a change to people because we changed so many times last year and i get that we don't have to do this but if we don't i i fear we're going to be looking at situations that are coming up in maybe the near future maybe the distant future that really you know limit our ability to
028to get kids to school at home in a reasonable amount of time not asking anyone out tonight and want your feedback if you have no interest in it at all then we table it and if you want me to if you have questions we can answer questions i can absolutely go out to our staff make sure parents are aware before you took action we'd be able to get feedback there whatever you want we're open to we want to have a discussion you know well i think it's safe to say the nursing staff is not going to be in favor of this yeah but i mean i think people all understand that we're we're in a tough situation uh and they're gonna have the conversation the the teacher union is that the dinners in building we
029haven't gone too young you know i don't want to go to them until i got read from the board one way or the other we met with all four of our unions to give them a heads up and again nobody wants change like that that's really early but also i think everyone understands that the situation with our transportation is serious i think you mentioned at the beginning of your discussion that one of the problems or one of the things that's making me difficult is that peer-to-peer is on its own separate bus table from the other school does this change without the same routes i have now the problem is a driver so those 16 drivers only do deers and we're 16 short right now by moving them into basically we looked at as moving into
030tears now we have three tiers we have an elementary tier middle school high school tier those are very similar and then we have a separate deers in tier currently you know the separate years until now can they can only drive deer in this situation they can they will drive deers in elementary on the high school route and the situations you talk about in the future are things like we have a flu outbreak or something like that and our drivers have to call it just insane that's what you're concerned about in the future i'm considering we cover the test this week it could be it could be a covered outbreak at some point it could be flu color and flu season where we typically you i mean you're getting seven or eight drivers in a bad
031flu season a day easily it could be you know if we lose two or three more drivers before the other drivers come on we're in a delicate situation it's a number of things that concern with respect to the drivers i mean you feel that if we were to follow a plan like this that you would have sufficient drivers at least for a while and hopefully in the event that it would be the worst case in our house think of that case you know with a flu outbreak we're in the same situation we're in currently where we've got enough people to plug the holes for as long as we can the problem is if we flew out break in a month we're already at you know we're already at that saturation point where everyone that could
032possibly drive this driving there is no more give this allows us to be staffed fully and that if an emergency situation does take place we can then fill in and try to keep the situation steady and going at a reasonable rate for as long as we can with respect to the high schools when would zero hours start uh it's the same 25 minutes later yeah okay and would this eliminate the need for having late starts i don't i don't think we should do late start right away just i think it's too confusing it doesn't it doesn't give us the pd time um that we talked about but i don't think we should do like starts in this schedule at the same time i think there's a lot of confusion there all right dr mona we've
033looked at how that affects us and the conference with athletics i'm not that's not the highest priority but it is an issue obviously in terms of getting the high school kids out yeah it's 15 minutes later so there and then i also read an article recently in uh massachusetts is now using their their uh their guard for bus drivers they brought them in to all the school districts and we looked into that at all in the national guard coming in i don't think i have the power to nationalize the uh national government but their whole state is they're using them as bus drivers throughout the whole state right now and there's there's that's it's working so i think it's something at least we should uh you know somewhere get that into the pipeline i can
034ask our state representative yeah that's both yeah it's got to come from somebody i'll do it if i need to but i don't mind to me it's like they're there for emergencies this is an emergency let's see if we can get them out there and help us in a situation like this so at least i think we should push that at least to see sure where that would go all right i mean i'll just chime in a little bit um you know obviously the biggest change here is dearson and i'm the only parent here on the board who has a kid in dearson and um mike and i have actually gone back and forth quite a bit since you know all of this has been discussed and you know i know a lot of people
035will see this time and kind of be shocked by it but i want people to know too the alternative there were a lot of concerns that i had like for mike got a huge email from me with like all of my concerns and you know he looked at reworking this and as early as this time is and addresses every concern that i had in terms of you know staffing kids getting home after dark child care and people being able to afford kids club early in the morning preschool meeting lunch and snack you know just a million and one things so if you know i i think at this point i trust mike to say if this is the crisis and we need it and um you know i think that this is is workable if
036it needs to be but not ideal obviously and you would continue to try and hire bus drivers the turnaround time for someone getting an application into our system and getting a phone call is under five hours yeah i mean as soon as someone applies we're on it i mean brian watches it every day to make sure and we you know as far as you know our i mean we needed our transportation department regularly and i met with our drivers our union today i think they would all say right now we're in crisis moment so if this is something that we're going to consider at the next meeting we need to do and in my opinion we need to do a full court press on information i think we need to inform parents not just about
037this plan both why it's here and what we've tried to do um you know we've talked a lot i think the board members know about you know what you've done to try to hire what you've done to try to outsource you know all the different creative ways that you've tried to solve this but i think it needs to be communicated because we're looking at a real problem that's here but getting worse um and i really appreciate that where that you're bringing this to us and making sure that we've got some ways of solving it um my other question and this is something i asked before and i think michelle sort of alluded to it and we were talking about um needing morning child care if for example dearson was shifted downward um is this we're
038still going to be able to offer the after school care until the same times that's that's yeah that's our point absolutely i think you know john that was our plan to communicate both the plan and then just the back story of how we got here just so people understand and obviously not everyone's at every board meeting and if there are you know different agendas and always paying attention to this part of it but just you know how we got to this point with you know we've tried to recruit drivers we tried to work with we've called all the major carriers to look at you know outsourcing um to some degree or to help with that we've looked at all kinds of different options and you know we are where we are today and after all
039[Music] i guess it sounds to me like you're wrong for me to get more information get information to parents staff and come back in two weeks if i'm reading the board correctly i mean do you need signs and all that stuff parents for something else you want me to do come back before we go out to parents that'd be a a good step does anybody have any objection to using this i think this is too big we want information about the parents we want feedback i want to meet the staff i want i want to have their questions and concerns and then in two weeks bring them back and see where everybody's at and if there's a proposed time absolutely unless anybody has any other questions or comments i think i think the parents need
040to know that this is not a woodstock problem this is the state and this is a national problem you know the city of chicago have 75 bus drivers quit one day our people aren't quitting is just you know but it is a state and national problem and everybody's facing this so i think we've got to educate the background a little bit too i'm going to defer to my very skilled communication director on that and i'm sure he's going to help me with that and get the message out well and i think there's some uh i i've heard some people wondering if it's a an effect of us running our own system instead of outsourcing the system and the districts that i know that are outsourcing that are using the larger carriers it's even worse and
041they don't have control over ideas like this to try to address it because of the contracts that they have with those systems so okay if there's nothing else then we'll move on to our update on the back-to-school plan what was that uh you know being in the buildings there's a great energy our our kids are back our teachers have great energy with them and i mean it just it's amazing for us to have kids back it's not perfect i mean the gentleman talking about masks and that's a huge issue quarantining is a huge issue according on the bus is a huge issue and that's separate from our other bus issues um these are all very very real concerns obviously when it comes to mass and those other concerns we're following the guidelines of the state
042which has been you know the boards want our want to you know our legal advice that we have to follow those guidelines i think our kids are doing a great job i really do they're doing everything we ask of them and what is a tough situation as a gentleman said i agree with them it's a very tough situation our staff has done an amazing job i think we're trying to really work with kids too as they see a need get mass breaks get them out you know i think you know when parents have asked us about that we've really tried to work on that as much as we can um you know the bus is still our achilles heel that's where we see our our quarantines the vast majority of them um you know that
043we don't we haven't had a classroom quarantine yet because we're keeping three feet with mass very few in the cafeteria but the boss is gonna that's where we're gonna see them and continue to see them and that's those i mean you can get anywhere you want the health department's following guidelines from the cdc and the best science that they have to to set those guidelines so um very positive we're very positive kids are having great experiences but to be honest right the quarantines the bosses you know people get upset it's a big deal we understand we're working with them and maths are different and then you know people all dealing with the varying degrees so i mean a very positive uh start to see to the year we're very excited about that issues we're still
044working on any questions for the board or comments you've had a rough start of the year and with all of us and all the things going on and again i mean we're thankful that you have the administration that is doing his greatest job is dealing with you know navigating the issue so yeah thank you and all the staff for everything for the parents mean i i appreciate that i appreciate the board support but our staff has done an amazing job they really have i mean they step up time and time and time against our kids i'll tell you our families have been amazing i mean whether it's questions or concerns we're still you know so much support our kids are having a great experience and our kids have been great so i appreciate the support
045it's been a team effort we really look forward to carrying that into the fall thank you okay our last sentiment is the approval of health dental vision and other insurance contracts brian's going to update you on that real quick evening everyone the insurance committee met last wednesday a committee is made up of district administration members of all four bargaining groups and two members of the board of education present from the board ms gilmore dr fedwell what we had was a presentation from our consultant which we've used for many years the horton group they went over a review of the performance of our plans uh went over our claims and the difference how each planet had performed and then they made recommendations all of their recommendations were to renew the current plans that we're doing due
046to the good performance and how the how we've been doing as a whole with our insurance program the committee had some questions then there was discussion and then there was a unanimous vote to accept all those recommendations so you'll see in the in your information those five plans are recommended to the board to be reviewed anybody have any questions just overall we've had a good insurance year um so we were able to keep those rates down which benefits obviously the district financially than our employees as well so those good news we're lucky so no major increases or changes of any sort so pretty good all right if not if there's no further discussion there is a suggested motion in your materials move to renew a contract with optum for the district's reinsurance plan effective october
0471st 2021 renew a contract with voia for the district's ancillary coverage effective october 1st 2021 renew a contract with bcbs for health care administration effective october 1st 2021 renew a contract with delta dental for the district's dental coverage effective january 1st 2022 and approve the renewal of a contract with vsp for the district's vision coverage effective january 1st 2022. do we have a second second seconded by mr masala no call please yes yes mr headley yes mr homeless yes dr ferris i'm staying mr okay uh i'm excited to believe that there's actually a committee report this week yes the foundation committee met and they're moving forward with plans for the fundraiser we still don't know if it's going to be a virtual fundraiser or an in-person fundraiser and we've already really assured your report so
048we have to deal with that many other communities matter there's any other community reported that well okay then i would entertain a motion to adjourn some of the priests he wrote the second uh second please second nothing by mr headley yes [Music]