Recaps of Board of Ed Meetings

 

A few personal thoughts: I appreciate the fact that the BOE had concerns about the disparity of days in the semesters, as presented in the first draft calendar. I think they were correct to address the issue, even though it displeased some parents. Because they spend too much time on this every year and it creates uncertainty, I like the idea of developing some governing principles for the calendar and sticking to them, but I strongly believe the the principles have to be consistent with placing best educational practices first. 

I think it's a reasonable compromise to have, as a target, the third Wednesday in August as a start date, with the understanding that we might lose the Columbus holiday and have to make other adjustments, when that start date creates too large an imbalance in semester days.

Thom Higgins

 

 

All member of the board were present

3.0  Meeting Opening

3.03 Pledge of Allegiance - Ellsworth Elementary School

4.0  Recognition

4.01 Special Olympics State Champions

In June, each of the Special Olympics Team203 Track Athletes below participated at the Special Olympics State Meet in Bloomington, IL and placed in their respective events:

1st place: Abi Adesanya - 100m Run;  Maura O'Gradu - 100m Run & 4th place 200m Run;  Katie Smith - 50m Run, & 6th place Tennis Ball Throw

2nd place: State Champions - 4 X 100 Relay Kevin Briegel, Tyler Nowak, Ryne Briegel and Abi Adesanya

2nd place: Abby Kunz - Softball Throw

4th place: Kevin Briegel - Softball Throw; Tyler Nowak - 100m Run, & 6th place 200m Run; Haley Wiskari - Softball Throw

 

4.02 National Merit Scholarship Semi - Finalists

More than 1.5 million juniors in some 22,000 high schools entered the 2013 National Merit Program by taking the 2012 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of Semi-finalists, which represents less than one percent of high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state. These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 8,300 Merit Scholarship awards, worth more than $34 million, that will be offered next spring.

The following students from Naperville Central High School will be recognized for being Semi-Finalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program:  Kirthi Bellamkonda, Gabriel Carrier, Lydia Fern, Neil Jindal, Lucia Korpas, Anthony Lu, Eric Lullo, Anna Marchenko, Daniel Parker, Nicholas Pratt, James Schelli, Christian Schulz, Daniel Shen, Arjun Singh, Durva Trivedi, Amy Wang, Maggie Wang, Eugene Wu, Thomas Wu, Kangni Xiao, Vivian Xu, Hanyao Zhang, and  Rock Zhang.

The following students from Naperville North High School will be recognized for being Semi-Finalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program: Sahil Batra, Mollene Denton, Sunny Duan, Isaac Heine, Allison Hollatz, Anthony Intini, Gavin Mitchell, Bennett Samuels, Divya Shanmugam, Praneeth Tripuraneni, and Jason Zhao.

 

4.03 National Network of Partnership Schools - District Partnership Award

The 2011 - 2012 School Family Community Partnership Core Team won a 2012 Partnership District Award from the National Network of Partnership Schools at Johns Hopkins University. This is the twelfth annual Partnership District Award to be received by District 203. The awards committee carefully assessed the documents submitted by D203 for its Lunch Bunch activity.  The Activity was praised for its simplicity and productive design to keep schools on the right track for improving their partnership programs.

The following people recognized were active members of the 2011 - 2012 SFCP Core Team:  Nanette Awe, Dan Bridges, Julie Carlsen, Catherine Cohoon, Kari Dunlap, Chuck Freundt, Yvonne Janvrin, Jessica Jozwiak, Jeannie Matula, Kathy Meyers, Suzyn Price, Bob Ross, Theresa Tinker, Nancy Voise, Carolyn Wenig, Bill Wiesbrook, and Mary Wilkerson.

4.04 Good News

 

5.0  Public Comment

Jaensch: The only comments I see are dealing with the school calendar. We’ve done this before with other issues and we found it often helpful to have, in this case, we have a report from the Supt regarding the school calendar. I think it would be helpful if he went over his report and we review what’s happened so far, invite any board discussion and….I think it would help give you more depth to your comments, make them more effective. So if there is no objection I would like to move 6.04 in front of the public comment. Any objections?

None

Bridges: the purpose of this report is to provide the BOE and the community with an overview of the process used by the Dist Admin. to recommend a calendar to the BOE for their approval. My report will provide the following; an overview of the policy and contractual requirements that must be considered,  recommendations made by the DuPage Regional Office of Education to all county school districts, overview of previous years surveys, overview of spring 2012 calendar survey, review of the calendar development timeline and some areas for improvement, or future  direction regarding calendar development.

Section 1, policy and contractual requirements:  board policy 6.20 states the board upon the supt’s recommendation, and subject to state regulations and collective bargaining agreements, annually establish the dates for opening and closing classes, teachers institutes and in-services, the length and dates of vacations and the dates designated as legal school holidays. The Illinois school code provides districts guidance and direction regarding the development of the annual school calendar. The code requires each district in the state of Illinois prepare a proposed calendar consisting of a minimum amount of days to insure sufficient days for student attendance. The code sets forth guidance for a number of items such as, day of attendance, maximum institute days, minimum proposed emergency days, parent teacher conferences and half day school improvement. The code does not provide guidance on start and end dates. The collective bargaining agreement with the NUEA contains language that must be considered when developing the school calendar. The language in the agreement addresses the scheduling of certain work days, patent teacher conferences, and certain in-service days. It also speaks to the total number of work days in a school year.

Section 2: DuPage ROE recommendations: the ROE provides school districts with recommendations to consider when developing their calendars in order to insure compliance with the Illinois school code and to offer consistency within the county. The ROE recommendations for the 13-14 calendar include: the school year should begin with one or two teacher institute days preceding the first student attendance day. The first pupil attendance day for an early start date should be Monday August 12, 2013, and Wednesday, August 28, 2013 for a late start day.  The spring county-wide institute day will be scheduled for February 28, 2014, the day after Thanksgiving should be a day of non-attendance, the winter holiday break should begin Monday, December 23, 2013, with students returning Monday, January 6^th, 2014. Spring break should consist of five days, commencing Monday March 31, 2014 and student returning Monday April 7^th. As I said in the introduction regarding the ROE, these are guidelines and recommendations. They are not requirements.

Section 3 Previous Surveys:  Community surveys regarding school calendar were conducted in 2005, 2007 and 2009, as well as last spring. Results of previous surveys indicated a strong preference to end the first semester prior to winter vacation, this will allow HS students to complete final exams prior to the break. As a result of those findings from previous surveys, the 2012 calendar survey did not ask a question regarding the desire to hold final exams prior to break. Comments made by respondents in the 2012 survey suggested that this was still the preference.

Section 4. 2012 Key Survey Findings: Over 3500 responses were collect from parents, staff and HS students. 2006 of the responses were from parents, analysis shows the percentage of respondents mirrored the percentages of elementary and HS parents. Key findings included, start later in August. Parents were most in support of a later start, followed by staff and then students. Most frequent reasons given were to enjoy the August weather and other summer commitments. Parents preferred a June end to the school year, but teachers and students preferred an earlier end. When asked about the importance of balancing the number of days in semesters,  2/3 of the the  parents and staff gave  no level of support for balancing.

Section 5 Calendar Timeline: the following timeline represents milestone dates in the calendar approval process for this year. On May 7^th an overview of the key findings of the calendar survey were presented the BOE. On May 17^th, calendar committee meeting was held and detailed results of the survey were shared with the committee. Three draft calendars were discussed and considered , the committee agreed on one calendar.  On May 23^rd the draft calendar agreed on by the committee and administration was presented to the BOE for their first review.  The next day the calendar was posted (on the D203 website) for public review and comment. Comments received generally supported the calendar. Early June; while meeting with H&S presidents to discuss my transition into the supt’s position, presidents were offered the opportunity to provide input or to make comments regarding the proposed calendar. Comments generally supported the calendar. The most frequent criticism was that the last day of school would be on Monday June 2^nd. June 18^th by a 3-3-1 vote, the proposed calendar failed to meet approval. July 16^th, the BOE provided the administration with direction and priorities upon request for development of a new calendar. The consensus priorities were to balance the days in the semesters, keep finals before winter break and start as late as possible to accomplish the first two priorities. On August 20^th the current tentative calendar we presented to the board and was approved by a vote of 5 to 1.

Section 6 Recommendations for future Practice: since assuming the position of ast supt and then supt, I’ve talked about the importance of improved communication. Not only must our communication with our parents and community improve, but our internal communication must also get better. I will continue to work toward that. After speaking with individual board members it became clear that communication regarding the findings of the survey could have been better. At its May 7^th meeting the board was presented with an overview of the key findings , but did not see the detailed findings that were used by the administration and committee used to develop the proposed calendars. Some board members have indicated they may have had a different opinion or approach if they had seen that detail. It’s important that the board be provided with sufficient information before being asked to vote. That will be a work in progress that we will have to continue to address from an administrative standpoint.

In reviewing the feedback from parents and community members, I believe we can do a better job of keeping the community informed of the business being brought before the BOE.  I’ve taken a step toward that by posting before this evenings meeting, on the district’s website, notice of tonight’s meeting, a list of the topics to be addressed and a link to the agenda.  We’re also in the process of beginning to explore recording and archiving all meetings on our website, so there’s a record of the information we discussed and agendas are clearly presented…

In regard to the calendar; I believe moving forward, the development and usage of some sort of standardized calendar should be considered. The advantage to this approach would be our community would know that start and end date will into the future. My recommendation for consideration is the target start date be the third Wednesday in August. The start date would then range as early as August 15^th as it did this year, to August 21^st.  Although some years the date would fall in the high teens, it would never come earlier than the third week of August thus allowing time for Summer activity in the month of August. Per the board’s request, I have provided this report and this overview of the process used to get to where we are this evening regarding our calendar. At this time I would welcome the opportunity to address any questions.

Weeks: I guess I’d like clarification on the process here tonight. Are we going to have discussion before comments?

Jaensch: I think it’s important that the community knows where we are on this. That could affect their comments, but that doesn’t mean we can't continue our discussion if something new comes up.

Romberg: I appreciate these comments. My question would be, knowing what you know now, what would be your recommendation for a start date for the 13-14 school year.

Bridges, I would suggest the original recommendation . If were up to me to establish the start date it would be August 21^st, thereabouts. There are some concerns that were brought forward that need to be considered. The number of days of imbalance between semesters;  that needs to be looked at. There are some ways that can be addressed with  the calendar that was presented.  Could look at attendance at school on Columbus Day, could push the start date to Tuesday instead of Wednesday. That  moves the end date off the Monday, and brings the semesters closer by two days.  If you consider the two testing days in April (the two PSAE days) where content isn’t being delivered, that reduces it by an additional two, that brings the discrepancy down to five days. Direct point to your question, my recommendation would be to go back to the calendar that was recommended by the committee.

Romberg: there were three overarching parameters: exams before break, balancing semesters and start as late as possible. How many semester classes (HS) are affected?

Bridges: Approximately half of the offerings at HS are semester courses. Most are elective courses, only 5 are AP courses. Talking to principals and dept chairs there did seem to be some concern about being too high an imbalance, there was never really a set number, but an imbalance of 5 to 7 days would be manageable.

Romberg: just for clarification, the earlier start date was talked about by the board when we were at 10 days. Something about two weeks was a decision point, so I appreciate the clarification.

Price: so if that is the recommendation, it is old business, so it’s something we can reconsider.  Or do we want to put it off to the workshop meeting?

Jaensch: before we rush into things, if we have a vote on this, we would post it on the agenda. Second, based on Dan’s comments, … he hasn’t presented to us a proposed revised calendar.

Bridges: I would not be prepared to re-recommend for action, nor could we, but based on the boards direction,  the administration can use the initial calendar as a template, and come back for the October 1^st meeting.

Jaensch: that’s really where we are. We have an approved calendar and we can change it, we’ve done it before, it can be put on the agenda if the board wants to. Possible looking at this as Dan recommends, not just look at 13-14, but we set a policy so we don’t have to revisit this every year.  My personal observations, I’ll jump right in there and say that, if I had seen the overwhelming numbers that supported the later date, I’d  would have attacked this differently. More importantly is that we get it right. Nobody was being disingenuous or trying to hide anything, but I don’t think anyone on the board necessarily knew the vote was 5 to 1 by parents 3 to 1 by staff, 2 to 1 by students.  For me, I would support looking at this, especially if we make it a standard start week going forward. I’ll entertain a poll to see if this should be placed on the agenda for the next meeting.

Weeks: I concur with you, but I think there is a bigger issue here. That is one of communication and transparency. I recall the first time this came up, I raised the issue, we appointed teachers parents who had all of these details, and we weren’t happy with what they came back with... I agree if I knew it was 5 to 1 I would have banged my fist harder...  I got sick and tired of all the messing around and lost sight of our job which is to represent constituency.  I do recall asking Dan what do the teachers think about the balanced semester, and I recall very specifically, the answer shocked me, but he said they are very ambivalent about it and they didn’t think it was a problem. And yet I jumped, did jump on and say I think it is, and I voted to support that. I think I was wrong to do that. I think we have to get past the place where we think we know better. We should have asked for the survey. We asked for their opinion and we didn’t care enough to get it….We have to get to the point where if we ask for an opinion we have to listen to it, otherwise let’s not ask.  It clearly boils down to a HS issue, 60%, or whatever it was, want a later start, and those are the JH and elementary (parents?? TH)… We have an obligation to listen to the majority and that means we have to reconsider this.

Crotty: Every year, I talk about the August creep. First we moved back a few days from Labor Day, then it moved  back the week before that, and now are three weeks before.  Always my concern.  I appreciate the community input and we will have it to make a better choice. You mentioned a policy, would this be an administrative policy?...I would hate to be tied  down and not have flexibility if we should need it for some reason at some point.

Bridges: my recommendation would be we develop an administration regulation procedure that’s attached to board policy 6.20. Should there need to step outside… we would have the flexibility, rather than changing policy, we would use administrative regulation to make adjustments as necessary. Also lay out a timeline in which information would be posted so if there does need to be an adjustment, it falls within the parameters of the time line, so it can be quickly and easily communicated if there needs to be an adjustment.

Dennison: I appreciate you going back and getting more information. Couple of things that surprise me: one was the insignificance of the Monday holidays, and the second was the balanced days in semesters, which from what I’m seeing here, is statistically significant…  I  would support going back and taking another look at this.  We represent you guys, we’ve been elected to represent you guys, if that’s what the facts and data is telling us then let’s go back and give it another shot.

Fielden: I would certainly want to go back and review it, but for me, it’s not a condition of if we are going to put parameters in place, (but??) how the calendar is going to be reviewed on an overarching pattern, I hear the third Wednesday in August, it might be a good place to start, but I also think there’s got to be some other parameters, such as testing and so forth. I agree with Susan, I don’t necessarily favor a policy, but I do favor posting on the web some guidelines that are easy to access. We spend an inordinate amount of time debating this calendar every year… rehashing the same issues to get back to the same place we are now. I voted for the first (calendar) I did hear Dan very clearly that it was a compromise calendar.  The committee was assigned to make the recommendation; I took that recommendation, and wanted to honor that. I think there has to be some tempering of that too. The board wants to be careful not to overpower the committee… The committee should have some confidence that when they bring back the recommendation, the board is going to pass it.

Price: I agree, I also voted for the first calendar as well and am open to reconsidering it.  I think it’s an issue you have to serve what’s best, and there’s a way for us to balance that fairly.  I think that our supts and we have information that wasn’t reflected in the survey. Surveys are not an exact science…  have to be careful with them… That said, we certainly should reconsider it. There are ways to be more flexible. I think one of the other concerns we had, the reason I reconsidered it, was that the makeup of the committee came up. We would like to see a committee that is reflective of the curriculum in the district… We would like to see principals, teachers and  curriculum folks on the committee, who can provide an understanding that if they are recommending something that’s two weeks (difference in the semesters) that’s ok… or that we can eliminate a holiday.. or how we can move things around…

I do think that exams before break is critical…I think it gives our kids a competitive edge. I think it’s an effective use of our classroom time, not having to come back and spend time reviewing, material. It certainly gives our seniors and important advantage in applications. I talked to board members of other districts that don’t have it and they said they wished they could move to exams before holidays… They know their kids get waitlisted, where ours get accepted. I think that’s a value we can provide our students.

Weeks: the ROE, you gave us their recommendations, was that just for this year?

Bridges: they provide a memorandum for two years. So the dates I gave you are the recommendations for 13-14.

After some discussion, the board agreed to place the 13-14 calendar on the October 1^st. agenda.

Public comment:

Gus Kartsonis: (spoke at prior meeting) Obviously I’m against the August 14^th date… starting on around the 21^st is a fair compromise as long as there is some guidelines so it doesn’t start creeping back… Want to go back to what the people have spoken in the three key findings in the executive summary. Start as late as possible 5 to 1 parents, 3 to 1 staff, 2 to 1 students… Parents prefer June end to school year by 60%, semesters do not need to have equal days by 2/3^rd of parents and staff…When you considered your key elements you said number 1 is balancing the semesters, contradicting a key finding. Administering final exams before holiday, that’s fair. And we can only take two out of three, and starting later in August was not even considered and that was the most important finding of the survey. I respect the fact you are working to make the best decision, however I do know that good decisions are based on the facts available at the time and good facts lead to good decisions. It sounds like not everybody knew what the facts were. I support you reconsidering it.

Tami Schultz:  I started the grass root initiative which as of tonight it has 898 signatures.  I had a very elaborate and impassioned speech planned; luckily I don’t have to go there. The one question I have for the board, I believe strongly in compromise, I think there is a way so the high school students can have their exams before hand and we can start later.  What has come up a few times…is do you have any research showing that exams before breaks, concrete research, that really does give our kids a competitive edge. I have a list of the top ten Illinois schools, the latest start date they have is August 20^th and only one has exams before break. I am in favor of compromise, I don’t have high schoolers… if that really gives our kids an edge I am all for that. I’m wondering if we do have any proof of that at all.

Eileen Bailey: I have three elementary children. The one thing I haven’t heard addressed at all, that I’m disgusted at, is how the board could spend over $12,000 on a survey and most of you weren’t aware of the results. How can you spend $12,000 of taxpayer money and say you weren’t aware of the results. The results were so clear in the survey. I don’t understand in this day of free on-line surveys how you could spend this money and then not be aware.

Rebecca Techin (sp??) I just want to give my appreciation to all of you, let you know how much people appreciate your willingness to re-open this topic. I am a H&S president, getting a lot of emails and calls over this issue. My children are elementary age. About the college application thing. When I applied to college, I applied in November/December. I knew where I was going by March.  I looked up my university who uses an application common to a consortium of 400 schools. I was able to find that the date that the vast majority of applications are due is Jan or February for regular decision. Early decision was before the end of the first semester. If this is one of our most important things, I don’t understand how doing exams before Christmas would be affecting applications that are due January 1^st. maybe February 1^st if we are getting them early. The rolling applications I don’t believe are affected because they are by definition rolling.  If that is one of our criteria, and one of the things you will be considering, as you reopen this issue, I ask that you take a look at the empirical data, the data that Tami has asked for, are we doing the best for our students by giving them exams before break?

Jaensch: I think Mr. Bridges wants to talk about the survey

Bridges: Prior to the calendar survey and the use of consultants to create the survey was even discussed as an issue at the BOE, one of the goals I presented to the board was the importance of making sure we were fiscally responsible in using resources appropriately, and I had begun to work with my cabinet on indentifying our use of consultants, the purpose of the use and the cost. So we can look at those critically, we will be looking at it with them. Typically consultant use is approved throughout our normal budget process.  That may not be something that specifically catches a board members eye, so we have to find a way to better communicate that to our board members in terms of our use of consultants, our purpose for our use and the cost of those.

Jaensch: I can only speak for myself, but I was surprised, very surprised at the cost of the survey, I thought it would be a tenth as much. The board in not going to approve every single survey, or every single project we do, but as Dan alluded to, part of what he’s doing is making sure he has a process in place and it becomes, in my mind at least, a culture that these things are not automatic, everybody in the district that could use a consultant has to consider the cost vs. the gain. I think we screwed up, that’s my personal opinion.

Romberg: I would like to ask Dan, having had my children go through 203 schools, I know that our HS teachers at both schools are very committed and have impassioned reasons for exams before break. I have my own personal reasons for it, but let me ask Dan if he can speak to it tonight, or maybe he can ask the principals to speak to it at a future point in time, but at the end of the day, we are here as a governing board to take the best information and deliver the information as effectively as possible for kids. I’m not a teacher… but I respect those teachers who are making that decision and giving us that guidance.

Price: the danger of that though is you can start proof texting research. Is an end date in June or May better for students? Is the start date in August or after Labor Day better for students? I know we have research that students lose knowledge over summer… We spend a lot of time reviewing because we have students who lose a lot. I just want to caution us, that we have practices that we believe  based on our students and faculty are best for our students, and give them a competitive advantage.. Talking about family time, having two weeks that are uninterrupted is quality family time, and a quality break for students taking AP classes.  I think we need to be careful to not be doing research battles as well.

Bridges: let me comeback in October with discussion of the recommendation for the calendar, and provide some information and rationale in terms of why the recommendation is what it is.

Fielden: we are also to discuss what parameters for future calendars (look like) as well.

Bridges: correct.

Fielden: I asked my kids and oddly enough 100% said they wanted exams before break. For the same reason that you said Suzyn, and I did see that in the emails,  the two weeks are an important family time.  I think that you (Dan) understood that and that is the reason why it didn’t show up on the survey.

Romberg: I think if you ask teachers there are some curricular reasons for why it makes sense in our two HS.

Fielden: I also want to agree with Syzyn, it’s not a data driven decision for me, it’s a value driven decision for me.

Weeks: we can give lip service that we want to listen to the experts. We didn’t listen to the experts.  They brought a recommendation and we said no, we didn’t like it. I would like to see empirical evidence,  I’m not sure it’s not a urban myth that having, you know, things before do give us a leg up.  I think the point is pretty well taken that a lot of very fine schools don’t. So there’s got to be some evidence someplace, but what I really want to say is, I don’t think the point being raised and the point that I have gone away with on this is just that we spent money on a survey. We spent money on a survey and didn’t even bother to look at it. I think that both Mike and I did say mea culpa, I should of asked, I didn’t ask. I hope it won’t happen again.

6.0  Communications

6.01 Student Ambassadors Report

I have a couple of things. I’d like to talk about today. Our Sodexo contract, there has been recently many concerns about the food selection and also the quantity of the meals being served. Many students have found they are paying for their meals and receiving less. We understand new laws have been passed regarding the fruit and veggie act where  every student is required to have a fruit and vegetable with their mean, however,  whether they choose to or not, those students who are opting to not get the combo meal are slowly pay more and more for those individually priced meals. Also our creation bar that served waffles and stir fry has been taken away, and that was a fun treat once a week or once every other week so students are upset that this has been taken away. So needless to say many students have been addressing this concern with the contract. We are two or three years into the contract and if possible we would like a handful of North students on the committee for the possible continuation of this contract.

Regarding our mobiles, we have 6 mobiles in the back of the school. School is looking to put them somewhere else. The current architect is looking to put them in the courtyard.  The courtyard is our one time a day that we can go outside and get some fresh air.. If we are to fill that in that is our only spot where we can go. Hopefully we can put them in the front of the school, Idea of putting a second floor above the small café. Lots of ideas for the use of the courtyard for students use.

Bridges: There have been no specific plans made to fill in or use the courtyard.  Architects have reviewed the facility they have looked at a number of spaces and options. But there are no plans at this point.

 

6.03 Superintendent/Staff/School Report

Bridges: I’m going to ask Rodger Brunelle to give a brief update, we had a little difficulty as did many districts regarding the PTC Wizzard. Some of our families had difficulty today.

Brunelle: We had about two hours of system slowness, from noon to 2:00 to 2:15. We contacted PTC at 12:05 when we noticed system slowness. After about 2:10 - 2:15 they had restored the system, by 5:00 we had more than 11,000 booked. But for a period of two hours we had some frustrated parents. We had a lot of people that hit the button right at noon.

Price: I went on at 3:06 and it took 4 minutes.

Weeks:… we spend a lot of money on this, it should work.

 

6.04 2013 - 2014 School Calendar

 

6.05 Administrative Compensation Report

 Compensation report

Zager:  this is the administrator and teacher compensation report.  State law combined the two reports. You are required to receive the report, there’s no action required on your part. We will  post it on the website and forward it on to the state Board of Education.

 

 6.06 World and Classical Languages Update

 Jennifer Hester, Associate Superintendent for Learning Services

 Powerpoint Presentation

Hester:  The purpose of this presentation is to provide the BOE with a brief update on two timelines. The first timeline is the Jr. high and HS world classical languages timeline and the second is the timeline for developing the curriculum for our current 5^th grade immersion students who will attend Jefferson as 6^th graders in the fall of 2013.

Let’s look at the Jr high HS timeline. There are three areas of focus. The first is vertical articulation, the second is assessment development and collaboration and the third is the jr high HS instructional observations.

For the vertical articulation,  this is when  jr high and HS teachers will meet on our institute day to look at the rigor and the content in levels 1 through 4 in Spanish and French, Our HS teachers will have the continue this conversation and work during our late arrival times with some jr high representation.

In terms of the assessment work, the goal of the assessments work is to develop assessments that measure the sufficiency of learning, we call summative assessments.  The real goal is that we develop those so that the structure and the rigor is consistent with the AP exams.

 For the instructional observation, these are an opportunity for the jr high and HS teachers to observe each other teaching twice a year. We are going to do that in October and May, so that we can look at consistency in our instruction.

 Moving to the 6^th grade immersion students transitioning into world and classical languages, the two areas of focus are the 6^th grade immersion development and then the 7^th grade Spanish development for 6^th grade immersion students. Bob Ross and I have meet with Nancy Voise to go over what we need at Jefferson to make the immersion program successful, and between October and December we will begin curriculum work on the 6^th grade immersion. Moving to Jan and February, we will continue the 6^th grade curriculum development, and also begin the conversations about 7^th grade curriculum. Additionally there was already a meeting with parent about what the dual language program will look like at Jefferson,

There will be another meeting during this time frame to give them more information. We already have our teacher hired art Jefferson who will teach for the immersion program. We will make sure we have all staffing needs considered. We will continue the curriculum work in March through May, and then in June and July we begin professional learning although that occurs as we write the curriculum as well, and then we continue the curriculum writing for 7^th grade.

 Questions:

 Weeks: who is the dual language coordinator?

 Hester: Julie Knight

 Romberg:  There seems to be a little push back from HS counselors that some of the kids who have taken successfully taken two years of French or Spanish but don’t want to go into French 2 or Spanish 2. Who oversees that?

 Hester: Carrie Ray is the person responsibility, but ultimately the responsibility for that articulation falls on me.

 

6.07 President's Report

None

 6.08 Board of Education Reports

minor comments

 7.0  Monthly Reports

8.0  Action By Consent

8.01 Bills and Claims

 8.02 Board Meeting Minutes - 8/20/12, 9/4/12

 8.03 Personnel

 8.04 Life Safety Surveys - Madison & Washington Junior High Schools

 http://www.boarddocs.com/il/naperville203/Board.nsf/files/8Y2KJ552079C/$file/MJHS%20WJHS%20L-S%20Survey-HB%20Summary%20Letter.pdf

 http://www.boarddocs.com/il/naperville203/Board.nsf/files/8Y2KJD520CA5/$file/Washington%20LIfe%20Safety%20Survey-Schedule%20%20Costs.pdf

 http://www.boarddocs.com/il/naperville203/Board.nsf/files/8Y2KJ9520A5A/$file/Madison%20Life%20Safety%20Survey-Schedule%20%20Costs.pdf’

 Passes unanimously

9.0  Discussion Without Action

9.01 First Reading Policy 5.90, Abused and Neglected Child Reporting

 Bridges: Current policy adopted in June 2009, based on IASB at the time

Jaensch: We have done this consistently over the past several years, where we go through our policies, sometimes as needed, sometimes on a regular basis to make sure they are up to date and meet all legal requirements. Plus to see if times have changed and we need to make any changes that are called for.  We are currently reviewing with IASB (Illinois Association of School Boards) policies in a comprehensive manner. Suzyn Price is our representative there. Would you like to make any comments?

Price: We are doing a comprehensive review which is called for at a regular basis. We update policies as laws change or as circumstances come up. This is one of those situations where something specific to address that needs to be done before we finish the comprehensive review.

Jaensch: I’ll let Mr. Bridges do the introduction.

Bridges: I’m going to begin with some very similar comments. As the board knows, this is more for the community, one of the primary powers and duties of the SB is to formulate, modify and adapt board policies. Policy review and update is a regular activity of a SB to create an effective policy manual. Although review of individual policies is an ongoing endeavor, since last year D203 has been involved in a comprehensive policy review in collaboration with legal counsel from the IASB. The purpose of our work is to develop an up to date SB policy manual, looking comprehensively at all the policies. At this time the IASB and their consultants have completed a first draft manual. They have met with our administrators to review sections 1, 2 and 8. Sections 4 and 5 are scheduled to be reviewed next Friday. But…issues regarding policy may come up that require more immediate attention. As we have been following a matter in a neighboring school district regarding reporting suspected abuse or neglect, it’s an appropriate time for our district to review its policies related to mandate reporting. Before I continue I’d like to address the issues in the other district. Over the past several weeks media outlets have reported on a matter regarding West Aurora SD that took place in 2010, when I was an employee of that district. Because many of those stories have commented on my involvement, I would like to make a brief statement at this time:

I believe that it’s very important that the State’s Attorney office be able to review the process and decisions made in 2010 without hindrance and without interference. For this reason, I have not been and will not be commenting further about this matter outside the scope of the SA’s investigation. I’ve worked cooperatively with all law enforcement authorities on this matter, since the spring of 2011 when I took part in the reporting of suspected abuse by a staff member to DCFS. Regarding the current issue that has been recently raised, I continue to cooperate fully with the investigators in the Kane Co. SA’s office. It’s important for me that the BOE know, for the families and members of the community of 203 to know that I am committed to focus my work on leading this district and providing for the safety of all our students.

In your backup material, you have our current policy and the recommend revised policy. The current policy was approved in June 2009. At that time, it was based off a model IASB policy. Changes in legislation, changes in the school code necessitate it by updated. The draft policy is presented for review and it represents current model policy. I will speak briefly to bring to your attention the changes regarding the current policy…

Weeks: excuse me Dan, before you go away from that statement, I want make a statement before we get into this and that is…. the board has been privy to certain information that is not going to divulged for the reasons that Dan said. I have received several emails implying different things.  I want the statement Dan made to sink in. The authorities are dealing with this. We are making sure it’s being done fully and properly and we have confidence that everything is being done properly. Sorry to interrupt you.

Bridges: Because it is related to this policy, I felt it was important to make this statement. Back to the recommended policy; the proposed policy by the IASB, I’m going to highlight the significant changes for the current policy we have, to model a recommended policy. You note in the initial paragraph it speaks to the obligations and requirements of the employee. With the new language, new requirements specifically state the addition of  “ for a student age 18 through 21.” The previous policy had stated specifically an abused or neglected child. The current policy is more specific as it can deal with students are in transitions and connections program. It also goes on to state a report, or cause of report to be made, that it be made and that any direction given by the DCFS to complete the report must be followed. Another significant change is the addition of a new paragraph in the proposed policy. It is the fourth paragraph, this is the new language that I think is helpful to all SD’s regarding employee conduct. It states the supt shall notify the state supt. and the regional supt in writing when he or she has reasonable cause to believe that a certificate holder was dismissed or resigned from the district as the result of an act that involved an abused or neglected child. Supt must make the report within 30 days of the dismissal or resignation and mail a copy of the notification to the certificate holder.

Weeks: did you get that language from the updates state version or did you write that?

Bridges: I got it from the IASB and their legal counsel.

Jaensch: I can tell you it’s straight out of the school code.

Bridges: We will be bring this back to the board for discussion at the October 1^st work session. We will then ask for action on this specific policy at the October 15^th meeting. I have asked Bob Ross and Kitty Ryan to work with District staff to review the requirements of this policy and to insure we have appropriate policies in place to insure all staff are aware of and understand their status as a mandated reporter. Will provide the board with an overview of those processes at the October meeting.  \

Questions:

Weeks:…what’s way more important than our policy is what are we doing to insure that everyone knows the policy and knows they are a mandated reporter.

Jaensch: not all districts have the comprehensive training that we have had in place for several years at least.

Bridges: this is correct. Bob, do you want to speak to this?

Ross: sure, the current state is when anyone is hired, they are required to sign a form acknowledging that they are a mandated reporter. Beyond that, HR has been coming out every other year to the buildings to work with supervisors to give training on all sorts of things including boundaries and ethics between employees and students, emphasizing this part of the requirement that exists. We are going to institute a summer mailing to everyone reminding them of their mandated reporter status. Beyond that, we are going to have our supervisors verbally remind everyone of their mandated reporter status.

Jaensch: … if you suspect or receive information, you make a report.  The employee shall promptly notify the supt or building principal that a report has been made. The onus is on the employee. Do we need to add language to protect our employees or supervisor, to remind them that someone made a report to them and they need to call DCFS. Do we need to do that or is that obvious in this?

Bridges: I think that moving forward with our procedure we can do that… We do need to makes sure that is part of this process.

Weeks: what are the protections for the person that reports and it turns out it’s smoke and no fire?

Bridges: there are protections in place for those that make good faith reports.

Dennison: I hate to get into over-legislating here. Is there any sort of necessity for follow-up to the reporter to say we took what you reported and action has been taken on it. Because we know there is an instance in the past where this happened…

Bridges: there is follow up by the state agency regarding the receipt of report. There is an acknowledgement of the receipt of the report and what they have done with the report.

Fielden: how does that follow up come back?

Bridges: to the individual who made the report.

Fielden: would you receive a copy of it?

Bridges: I’ll have to report back to the board on that.

Jaensch: just to make sure I understand, someone makes a report to DCFS they are bound to make an investigation and it will come out in one or two ways; cause for further action or there is no cause, in their opinion. I assume that what you want to check that either report would be reported to the Supt.

Jaensch: I understand the report is going to the one who made the  initial report, but if it doesn’t come to the supt. it doesn’t do a lot of good.

Current policy

Proposed policy

 

10.0  Discussion With Action

10.01 Purchase of Real Estate at 700-722 W. Fifth Ave., Naperville

Purchase contract 1

Purchase contract 2

 

 

Zager: the district currently leases four spaces for about $180K per year and is looking for aditional space.  The  option before you, will satisfy our current needs and future needs. The cost of the leases would go a long way to offsetting the cost. If we were to bond over the 20 year period at 3%  it would end up at about the same cost.  I think it’s a good deal for the district and I recommend the board approve it.

Weeks: Can you also explain why it’s advantageous for the district to own property rather than lease it because of real estate taxes?

Zager: Sure, the district doesn’t pay real estate taxes on the ownership properties we use for school purposes, but if we lease property, we typically have to reimburse for the taxes.

Jaensch: The key point is $180K is what we pay now. We are looking for more space which would have caused the lease cost to go up.

Motion approved unanimously.

11.0  New Business

Weeks: went to our website. We don’t have any minutes posted there for 2010-2011 or 2011-2012.

Jaensch: the minutes are there.

12.0  Old Business

13.0  Upcoming Events

 

 

Hi everyone,

If you're reading this, you're enough of a geek to be aware that a bit of a controversy has developed regarding the 2013-2014 calendar. Before I start the recap I’d like to offer a few thoughts.

Faced with three mutually exclusive desires; later start, balanced semesters and exams before break, the D203 board decided balanced semesters came first, with exams before break, second. They did so from the lens of what they believed is best from an educational standpoint. Then all hell broke loose. It’s true that 203 is going back a week earlier than many Illinois schools, but I believe from various conversations that nationally, the trend is to start in mid August, as is having exams before break (D204 and Hinsdale are moving to them as well).

We are living in an era of rapid educational change, increased expectations and greater competition for good jobs. The Common Core State Standards are going to require a far greater commitment to education by everyone, including the student and parent. We will rightly hold our schools accountable for making sure our children live up to the promise the Common Core holds for them. So I struggle a bit when parents rise up to protest about starting early in order to preserve another week in August for vacations.

For me the question is always, what is in the best educational interest of the student? Yes, a teacher can fit the coursework into a shorter semester, but as we have the ability to more or less balance the semesters, shouldn't we? As to finals before or after the break, opinions seem to be divided a bit, and here I think some in-depth study into the matter is warranted. I’m agnostic on it at this point. My bottom line is the District and Board must make decisions based on best educational practice, not we can make this work and hope for the best. Additionally, I think there needs to be some greater discussion about how to best address these three issues, define a policy and the live by it going forward.

Please note that the following is not an exact transcript, although I try to be as complete as possible. I paraphrase sometimes for ease and clarity. I only do a cursory proofreading of it, so it’s not perfect.

OK, here we go:

 

September 4, 2012

All board members present.

4.0 Public Comments:

Gus Kartsonis: Here to talk about my objection to the school calendar, August 14 start  is way  too early… starting school in the middle of the summer for those parents who have kids in activities they start at the end of July; completely out of sync with friends and siblings which start at the end of August.  Getting out of school May 23, I can understand if you contracted the summer break and gave more instruction, but instruction is the same, you just move the dates to the left a little bit, so have kids getting out when it’s still kinda cool and going back in the middle of the summer.  You sent out a survey,  I read the executive summary and it was overwhelming, 5 to 1 parents prefer late summer start. On June 1^st you sent out a draft calendar showing an August 23rd start date which I think is a fair compromise. Then all of a sudden the vote came and everybody’s opinion that was clearly expressed in the survey as well as the draft calendar, was disregarded….I think it’s wrong, and I’m just curious to hear the reasoning was why we are starting that early, and why the majority parents opinion and taxpayer for that matter opinion was disregarded. Lot of people mobilizing to express their disagreement. I’d like to hear at some point why it happened.

Jaensch: I appreciate your comments. We do have more people commenting on the calendar so I will move right along.

Terry Edmonds:  I had originally drafted an email letter to the Sun after we went through this elaborate process to provide our feedback on the school calendar. Similar to Gus and other families I completely disagree with the calendar that had been proposed. While they never ran this, I’m going to read a couple of excerpts because I think it’s important. A lot of recommendations that I had provided went into a black hole. Never got any response, and the recommendations I came up with completely followed all the guidelines outlined by the calendar in terms of having a balanced number of days between semesters. One thing I found particularly annoying is the fact that Kids were still in school on Dec 23^rd…  It’s hard for kids to be in school and do Christmas traditions, visit family that might live in other states/countries, and not be able to do it because the kids are still in school.  So that really requires people to take vacations after Christmas and that defeats the purpose.  So in some of the recommendations I came up with I really talked about instead of having two weeks of Christmas break, we shorten it to one. The kids are going back to school January 9^th the holidays are over after January  1^st. I don’t know what people do that one freezing cold week, but nothing that productive.  Why can’t we shorten that, and fit into what I felt was a fair recommendation for a balanced calendar. The summer break is the thing that bothers me the most.  Many other districts this year started a week after or at the end of August. True they are getting out the first week of June, but nobody had objections or the vast majority had objections getting out in June as well. Think it’s a shame to  send our kids back to school in August. I always started school after Labor Day, I’m not proposing that. But I think the recommendations we came up with were fair. We were trying to negotiate for a start that was a little bit later in August and I think if we could have come to that it would have been a win-win for both…Keep kids out is school in the warm months.

Jaensch: Thank you very much

Weeks: Just a quick question. Your kids are in what grades?

Edmonds: I have a daughter in 6^th grade and son is 2^nd.

Dina Kartsonis: My husband Gus spoke for the both of us. Our opinion is the same on this. We have four children in 203 schools. I think the primary complaint being voiced throughout: all of our kids and parents and that, is that it’s exceptionally early to have them start on August 15^th, and also when they got out the weather was not very conducive to saying this is summer break. I think a later start would be the better option and also letting the kids get out in June. We all did the survey hoping that our voice would be heard and we are stumped on what happened. It seems that the consensus was everyone wanted a later start, and we are questioning where was this decision made to continue again with August 15^th. If you can explain to us that would be wonderful and if you could reconsider this it would be even better.

Jaensch: Thanks very much. I will say that as Gus pointed out, it’s not on our agenda, so it’s not really appropriate for a public discussion at this time but I would urge you, I’ve already spent a considerable amount of time on the phone today explaining the process we went through and at least one board members impression of how we got there. I would encourage you to reach out to individual board members and they can give you a lot more time and a lot more detail. I think that might be helpful. I can't guarantee you will get all the answers, but you will hopefully understand the process a lot more. I can sense there are some unanswered questions that we can try to do our best to answer. Thank you for coming here we do appreciate it. .

Weeks: Got similar emails. Can anyone summarize the findings of the survey?

Bridges:  The executive summary of the survey is posted on the website under the district calendar tab. Throughout the course of the spring, I had presented to the board a summary, an overview, of the survey that was administered, and how it was used by the committee. I did not go into great detail specifically regarding the survey. If board members are interested in that, I can meet with you to provide deeper information. As we prepared the survey, we did not survey this year specifically regarding administration of finals prior to the break, because it had been presented to me that that commitment had been made through previous surverys and the development of other calendars, and that that was the strong preference.  This particular survey was administered with the sense that finals would occur before winter break.

Jaensch: once again, at this point, since it’s not an agenda item, I have asked Dan to forward all the board members the detailed report from Baird. And also a direct copy of the executive summary that does a very good job of capsulizing the information and that was not sent to us directly. And then I would encourage you if you do have comments or questions  to contact Dan or myself if that’s appropriate. Once again, thank you very much. We do appreciate it, we really do.

 

5. Superintendent/Staff/School Reports

Bridges: we have a number of reports for you this evening. I mentioned to the board that throughout the course of the beginning of the school year I would provide you with brief overviews regarding our enrollment as we continue to watch our enrollment in the district. Our most recent milestone was the 6 day attendance, this is an important day in tracking our enrollment. Overall our 6 day enrollment compared to 11-12 is down 213 students and  is down 149 compared to  the projections.  Comparing 6 day enrollment from last year to this; Elementary is down 158, JH down 64 and HS is up 9. Compared to our projections, Elementary is 86 below what we projected, JH is 15 below, and HS is 48 below. Our next major milestone is actually today. Like to look at the attendance after Labor Day. We will  provide the board with a detailed report at our October meeting.

Weeks: can you give us the actual vs  projected for Mill and Beebe please?

Bridges: Beebe 683 projected vs. the 6 day of 676. Mill 700 projection vs. 655 6 day.

 

5.01 Canvas Update

Presenters: Rodger Brunelle, John David Son and Tim Wierenga

From the PowerPoint:

Since the last presentation in May:

• Contracts negotiated and signed

• Phase I implemented (early adopters)

• Collaborative work by Learning Services, IT and Canvas staff

• Integration with Infinite Campus.

• Training for over 200 teachers performed by IT and other district teachers.

• System available on the first day of the 2012-2013 school year for Classroom use.

 

• Feedback so far:

• High energy and interest from both students and teachers.

• Additional teachers requesting access based on peer conversations.

• More than 7800 students logged in and utilized some functionality

• In the last 3 weeks, another 120 teachers have been trained and

have access via building based trainings.

 

Wierenga:  have over 200 teachers as early adopters in all three levels. Have 7800 students in Canvas. We have confirmation of the success of the progress through having a lot more teachers and students asking to be part of the process.

Brunelle: The system is a highly secure system. When you look for that you look for four major areas;  uses encrypted communication on the internet, uses role based security, uses two factor authentication, and is continually audited. Not a lot of data we provide to it.  Most of the data is in the Student Information System. Most of the sensitive data is housed securely in Infinite Campus.

David Son: One of the other areas we wanted to talk about is digital citizenship and how our students and teachers utilize this too. These virtual classrooms are monitored  by teachers and students for any inappropriate content. Teachers have the ability to lock and delete  and remove any content. When a student posts content, it is in reply to something a teacher has created. Students don’t have the ability to just post content.  System utilizes monitoring. A teacher has the ability to be notified when a student posts something. Teacher has to set alerts. System does not scan for inappropriate content. This system relies on the users to monitor content. Emphasize during teacher training that they are the ones setting the expectations within the classroom for how students can appropriately and effectively use this tool.

So what's next? Within phase II, there are four key buckets we are going to focus on, starting with the beginning of the school year and running through the end of the school year. We are going to be focusing on training, and training includes additional teachers coming on to  use the system. Have 120 teachers requesting to be trained on the system.  Also focus on level two sessions for the early adopters to use the system at a higher level. We are also going to focus on communication with teachers, students, principals and our parents. Focus on other systems integrations like our Turning Technologies Student Response Systems, Turnitin.com which is a plagiarism site used in HS, Discovery Education, etc. One of the Key Focus’ is solidifying integration with these other key systems. Finally, product enhancements. Already getting feedback from early adopters, teachers as well as students, talking about things they would like to see improved. Campus has been excellent listening to these early adopters are trying to figure out how to roll them out.

Weeks: anytime content is added the teacher is notified?

David Son: Yes.

Weeks: Do they have the responsibility to monitor that, or if they want to they can?

David Son: It is on the teacher to monitor that. It is part of the expectation we set with them in their training. Have a choice how often they are notified. We suggest they set the system to notify them whenever something is posted.

Weeks: how discretionary is that part of it?

Brunelle: Teacher are in the system constantly using it.  They are going to see that content pretty quickly. No mandated monitoring.

Crotty:  Our kids are learning to be digital citizens already. They have collaborated on Blackboard already. They understand they are being monitored.

Romberg: I’m comfortable at Jr High and HS, but some concern with elementary (second grade) who may not be mature enough to use properly. Is our expectation that if he posts something naughty at 8:00 pm we expect the teacher to look at that at 9:00. I thought there was some sort of governor for the younger kids.

Brunelle: no governing ability in system. It comes down to the teacher monitoring the content. Don’t  have monitoring now with Blackboard.

Romberg. Is this something that parents understand, that their child is on the system and the teacher may not see what they post until the next morning?

David Son: We sent a note home specifically to the elementary parents, because of their role in the system. Teachers add them as an observer to their child's account. Talks about how this is an extension of the classroom and the things you brought up.

Dennison: 7800 unique users?

David Son: unique users. Just tells us they logged in.

Dennison: that’s a heck of a number

Brunelle:  we have teachers wanting into the system.

Jaensch: are teachers required to participate?

David Son: No.

Jaensch: do they have a choice on the modules they activate. Do they have the ability to pick and choose?

Davis Son: an individual teacher has the ability to hide individual components.

Jaensch: so if a second grade teacher felt their students didn’t need access to a blog, they could block it.

David Son: that’s correct.

 

5.02 Teacher valuation Committee Report

Presenter: Carol Hetman.

PowerPoint

Hetman: What I will give you a brief update to the changes for Certified Staff evaluations for the 12-13 year and a brief outline for future work.

Under PERA, the law requires districts to design and implement performance evaluation systems that assess a teacher's professional practice, and are aligned to the Illinois Teaching Standards. In addition the new systems must incorporate measures student growth, based on the timelines that are outlined in PERA. Finally, districts must evaluate teachers using a four level rating scale. Those four levels are excellent, proficient, needs improvement and unsatisfactory. Number of initial changes that went into effect Sept 1.  To put these new evaluations in place, District  adminstrators are required to work with the teachers union, through a joint  committee. As you can see D203 has a 14 member committee.  Work together to develop a new evaluation system, including the student growth system, and insure the evaluation system is research based, valid and reliable and insure the system Improves student outcome.

Committee began working in 2011. The evaluation that we have been using in the district was developed by Charlotte Danielson, which is the framework used by the state. For 12-13 year, the committee agreed that we would use the same documents for observations, we would use and retain the four domains and the elements under each of the four domains would remain the same.

Domain 1: planning and preparation

Domain 2: classroom environment

Domain 3: instruction

Domain 4: professional responsibilities.

Under PERA  they mandated specific changes after Sept 1^st Agreed that the summative evaluation would be amended. Move from three ratings to four,   there will be a rating in the summative in each domain and then there would be an overall summative rating. Added some new sections for evaluation comments.

PERA also requires a regular evaluation schedule for teachers and we have that. Teachers with tenure who receive ratings of excellent or proficient will be evaluated every other year. Those teachers who are rated needs improvement or unsatisfactory will be evaluated the following year. That will be new for us. The rating we use and we look to is the overall summative rating. The non tenured teachers have always been evaluated every year for the first four years and we will continue to evaluate them every year.

Committee agreed on a grid that determined an overall rating.  Rating for each domain. If you are rated unsatisfactory or needs improvement in any of the four domains, then your overall rating would be either unsatisfactory or needs improvement.

In summary, we want to accurately and objectively measure how educators are doing, we want to identify their areas of strength, we want to look at their areas of growth, and then align those areas of growth to professional development.

Timeline and next steps: Our committee agreed on the following:

2012/13: 4 Ratings begin; continue to work on evaluation documents in order to agree on new rubrics for specialist positions

 2013/14 New rubrics in place for specialist positions (nurses-social workers); begin informal discussions on measures for student growth.

 2014/15 Evaluate student growth model; pilot student growth model with a select group of certified staff

2015/16 Pilot new evaluation with broader group of certified staff including specialist positions

 2016/17 Implement new certified staff evaluation with student growth model for all certified staff unless state pushes up the timeline what that.

 Questions:

Weeks: I understand that the state of Illinois doesn’t require this to be complete until 16-17. I assume if we want to we can do it early?

Hetman: Yes

 Weeks: is there a lot  of work to do to get to this point?

 Hetman: for the student growth piece we will need to get Tim involved with that. Matter of resources. He has primarily  been working with the principal evaluations.

 Bridges: we are going to learn a lot of lessons this year from the implementation of using student growth data for our principal and ast principal evaluations. I understand your question. I’d like to think it might be easy, but then the process the state has gone through to establish the type of assessments that can be used, we are in the process of reviewing the kind of assessments we use. If you ask me that question today, I’m not so sure that we can do this much faster and do it well.  As we implement new assessments, we could potentially do it.

 

5.03 ACT report

Presenter Tim Wierenga

PowerPoint

Wierenga: Want to give the board a quick overview of the ACT for the 2012 class and also review the college readiness information provided in the report. As you can see from this graph, this is the last 10 years of ACT score at a district level. Back to 1982, the score for central was 21.3 and north was 22 and we can see that the scores have risen to 25.5 for central and 25.1 for north.  Last year’s scores were a bit of a flip-flop, Centrals score as 25.2 and North was 25.6. As you look at the graph the two schools since 1982 they wind their around each other in that period of time, within a half a point of each other. What that points to is there is excellence and equity between the two schools. In terms of the District, the momentum we have seen over these years, early on from 82 to 92  there was about a 2 point rise and since then we have seen about a 1 point rise.

When it comes to the separate scores, (D203’s 2012 class) English score was 25.2, math was 25.6, science 24.9 and the reading was a 25. 

ACT’s college readiness score is based on a 50% chance of getting a “B” in that college entrance class, or a 75% chance of achieving a “C” in one of those classes. What that means for those different courses is, for an entry level course in English Comp. the benchmark ACT score is an 18. For college Algebra the benchmark score is 22. Social Science is based on the reading score, and they expect students to get a 21 on the reading. And biology, which again, not as many students take an entry level biology course which is taken by many (science) majors, that would be a 24. Our goal in this is to have all our students work to attain these scores. The main reason for this is to give students as many options as possible once they get to college. If they are able to enter these credit bearing classes, and achieve, and get credit, it opens a world of opportunities for those students.

For the 2012 class, 89% of our students measure at a college and career readiness level for English, compared to 2010 at  89% and 2011 at 90%. For college algebra 78% scored at a college and career ready level. In 2010 it was 71%, and 2011 at 76% We have seen some significant gains. For Social Science, 77%  scored at the college and career readiness level. In 2010 is was 74% and in 2011 it was 77%. In Biology, our toughest benchmark to meet, the number was 63%, in 2010 it was 57% and in 2011 it was 60%. So we have seen about a three percent rise the last two years. As you can see in the Meeting all Four Categories, the state lists 25%. We over double that with 56% students meeting that benchmark, and that has risen from 51% in 2010 and 53% in 2011.

Questions:

Romberg: sat with some family leaders at NN last winter. One thing that came up is our science curriculum. We have lots of choices in English, algebra and social sciences, but where parents were a little frustrated is freshman have to take the DES class (dynamic earth science). You have to take DES,  but then don’t have the time to take the other rich offerings in science at HS. My question is we need to be doing better in science, and to get back to the parents' concerns, there are some great course offerings but  they can’t get to them if you take DES.

Price:  There was a response given, I think  by Kevin,  that  DES was developed for kids who weren’t going to be taking a strong science curriculum, but were going to be running into physics and astronomy in the ACT junior year.  If they were on the traditional curriculum they would take physics their senior year. DES was offering some of the subject areas that they will run into on the ACT before they took the class senior year.

Wierenga: DES as you mention offers a mixture of physics first, geared towards giving students that kind of mind set before they moved into the other classes, also some earth science and astronomy, also these were matched better to the Illinois State Goals. As we move into the  Common Core State Standards for science, the curriculum team is already gearing up for that review, to take a look at what that means, and how it impacts our curriculum.

Price: so what it means, the challenge to have physics first is what Leon Letterman approached having Physics first, you have to have the math to support the physics. And that is one of the challenges we run into regarding the math. Two questions: do we feel that DES has been an effective course, we have had a lot of complaints about it. How has it worked for us, as far meeting its goal, is it working effectively? We say physics first but then students on the honors track are starting with chemistry.

Hester: we are starting this fall to study the new  (science) standards that are out in draft form. Scheduled to be adopted this December. We are already looking at the standards, they would lead us down a different path than providing DES, but aside from the standards, we know we need to  do something about it anyway looking at the HS pathways and sequence, we are already starting the conversation.

Romberg: because the ACT doesn’t have writing in it, do you see that students in 2012, (a lot of colleges require writing portion we are not offering  because the state isn’t willing to pay for it) would we see a natural decline in ACT scores because it’s a practice test  for them now because students can’t use it for application to college.

Wierenga: last year was the first time that that has happened. We were pleased, looking at the initial data of the PSAE, as we examine the data, it does not look like the students struggled with taking the test.

 

 

 

 

 

Board member Jim Dennison absent.

I arrived at the meeting late, coming in during 6.06, Principal Evaluation Overview.

Presenters: Kitty Ryan, Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Education; Bob Ross, Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Education

 Thom Higgins: One of the PERA act of 2010’s requirements is that new performance evaluation procedures for principals are required to be in effect by September 1, 2012. The State has kept to the date even though it has been tardy in creating the necessary implementation structure. One of the new mantra’s in education is “growth.” As you will see in the following presentation and related documents, measuring student academic growth is one of the standards principals and later teachers, will now be judged by.

Briefly, principals will be evaluated in two major categories: Standards for Professional Practice will comprise 75% of the summative evaluation rating and Student Academic Growth Measures will comprise 25% of the summative evaluation rating.

 

PowerPoint

ISBE Illinois Performance Standards for School Leaders

Ross: we will observe each principal at least twice, more if we think is appropriate, in the same way as a principal observes a teacher in a formal setting. Will also have the results of the ValEd, or in the case of the ast principal, the other rubric. I will be the primary evaluator for the middle and HS principals. Kitty will be the primary evaluator for the early childhood center and all the elementary schools.  The principals are the primary evaluators for their ast. principals. And of course senior administrators will provide input as they have for years in our evaluation process.

Ryan: there have been questions on how are evaluators trained. We are in the process of that training right now.   PERA requires pre-qualification for both teacher and principal evaluators.  We, along with the principals and ast. principals are completing that rigorous training right now.  The training is broken up into a series of modules that take at least fifty hours to complete.  There’s content and then a test after each module.  Unfortunately, the State was very much delayed in releasing these.  It was much later in the summer when they were available to us, but we are going to comply with the time requirement.

Weeks: how and what do you do when you observe a principal?

Ryan: once a principals goals are established, they will help us determine what will be evaluated.  One of the things we are going to do for every principal is we will  talk to the principal about talent management. Carol Hetman has been leading that process.  One of these formal observations will be around that principals ability to talk to us about teachers that are future talents to develop and teachers that are struggling. The other observation will be on one of the principal’s goals.

Weeks: so it’s as much of a conversation as an observation.

Ryan: In the case of the talent management it will be, but in terms of the other observation we might be observing a staff meeting, we might be observing a Home and School meeting, might be observing a number of things directly relating to the principals goals.

Weeks: has there been principal observations before?

Ryan: not the formal observations but certainly talent management has been for a number of years and other times that we have been present and used that as part of the evaluation.

Jaensch: how does the student growth metric work?  I hear you saying it can vary from school to school?

Ross: It’s possible.  What we’d like the like principals to do is have this flow from the School Improvement Plan (SIP). It’s important at a school that everyone is on the same page, and that page is the SIP.  We wouldn't want a principals goal to be detached from that. And at different schools we have had success at different levels and different areas.  So what’s appropriate at school A, might not be as appropriate at school B. From the SIP, the principal will determine, with our help, his or her goals. So yes, it might be different, and depending what we are working on, what the goals are related to, how we are measuring the growth of the students from one time to the next time we measure, could be a little different depending on circumstances.

Jaensch: so one school could have a SIP on literacy/reading and another have their SIP in math and those are the metrics you would look at, at those schools?

Wierenga: The way the legislation is written, they have to pick from either a type 1 assessment which is a national or state assessment graded outside our district, the second is a type 2 assessment which is a district created assessment. A type 3, which will be a later possibility for teachers, will be a  classroom created assessment.  What we are focusing on for the principals right now is primarily type 1 assessments.  Have to do it in a way so they can get some pre data and some post data.  Tests will be given early in the school year.  Another assessment then given later, most likely in January and then we measure the student growth based on the goal for that process.

Jaensch:  it’s the cohort growth, it’s not grade growth.

Wirengea: This is about the specific student’s growth over time.  At the HS level, we could set goals looking at how the student does moving from the Explore to the Plan to the ACT, rather than comparing one class’ performance over another

Ryan: it’s about attainment rather than achievement; growth and attainment are thought of in the same way and achievement is thought of differently. Achievement is what a cohort would achieve in the end of a course of study and attainment is what that growth looks like.  (I think what they are saying is achievement is talking about the level a student rose to academically. Attainment is how much growth did the student experience. You can have a student exhibit strong growth over previous levels but not be at a high level of achievement. Conversely, you can have a student come in at a high level and experience very modest growth, but still show very high achievement. T.H.).

Jaensch: what does 25% mean? Does it really mean anything?

Ryan: Yes, it really does. 25% of the summative rating for a principal is student growth. The growth towards the performance standards is 75% of the principal total evaluation.

Crotty: one of my adopted schools had a principal that was a guinea pig last year.

Ross:  five schools piloted this last year using the ValEd and  an alternate plan. We learned a lot and we found the ValEd to be very valuable.

 

6.07 Presidents Report:

Jaensch: I will echo Dan’s statement. It was a marvelous time last Wednesday. What struck me the most was the excitement for the new year was palpable in every building we went in, right from the teacher to the principal to the kids. Never seen so many people so excited to be in school in the same time.  It was a great experience and proud to be a part of this district.

 

7.0 Monthly Reports

Terry Fielden, looked over bills with Dave Zager.  8.07 was pulled off by Price for discussion.

Passed unanimously

8.07  IHSA High School boundaries.

Price: This is one house, I’ve not seen something like this before.

Bridges: This family moved in to a house after the board approved the boundaries to be IHSA compliant for eligibility. We are bringing this to you because they moved in after that date.

Passed unanimously.

No Discussion Without Action items.

Discussion With Action.

10.01 NTA Agreement

Zager:  The agreement has been ratified by the NTA. This is a 5 year collective bargaining agreement, through June 30, 2017. Financially this results in a 2.25% increase base rate of pay for each of those 5 years. When one includes all other components of pay including steps included it’s 2.5%.

Passed unanimously.

10.02 Lease of School District Real Estate to Naperville Park District

The District has leased five pieces of property to the Naperville Park District to serve the community’s recreation needs.  The prior lease term was for 20 years.  The five leases are, again, for 20 years term.  The school district may cancel the leases with a one year notice after the initial two years.  The properties include Wil-O-Way Park, Arrowhead Park, Mill Street ball field, Prairie Park ball fields, and part of the Ann Reid Early Childhood Center property (basketball courts and playground).

Passed unanimously.

10.03 Director Career 203 Job Description

Hetman: The CPI (Committee for Professional Innovation) has reached a critical point in the development in the Career203 program. The work that needs to be done now is very detailed and the key work involves all the implementation planning, creating the mechanics of each brick. Researching the status of each brick in the 22 buildings, what exists currently and how it works in each building. Do some fact finding with other districts, whether they exist in other districts and creating the mechanics of each brick and the templates and forms to support the bricks. Finally, drafting the communication plan. Work is substantial enough to require a full time person and a teacher-leader who would be on leave for a year.

Jawnsch:  we discussed it this last month, and we were universally impressed with the thought and detail that went into this.

Weeks: we are going to dedicate two full time people. We haven’t talked about the fiscal impact of all this.

Hetman: the direction we received is to do this as quickly as possible. One of the key elements is we have to build out these bricks.

Weeks: when will the teacher step up, have they been identified?

Hetman: Yes.

Weeks: hopeful of this process, but there are a whole lot of “if’s”. Don’t want to look at this as locking us into something.

Jaensch:  I don’t think it locks us into anything. We have to start identifying and defining some of these thinks so we can determine is their going to be a cost to it. Right now it’s all ideas.

Price: I talked about the status of any possible funding at the last meeting. My impression that this is very innovative and has the potential to tilt the discussion in some interesting ways.  I’d like us to be recognized for that, people need to know about and  the (the effort) be recognized.

Weeks: Julie works on the grant side; do you have any feel if we can find something?

Julie Carlsen: this is not something I’ve looked into at this point. Not familiar with the funding that would be available, might be able to uncover something.

Price: The likelihood is limited.

 Romberg: the other piece that Suzyn brings up is the publicity side.  Our community needs to know we are doing this, that it is important to us.  Know we are doing this in a thoughtful way and we have a lot of work to do,  it won’t fall in our lap.

Weeks: are we approving the job description or the job?

Bridges: You are approving the job position.

Passed unanimously.

 

10.04 Draft calendar 13-14 school calendar.

Bridges: we have had extensive conversation about the 13-14 calendar.  At the last meeting asked the board to provide some direction in terms of priorities. The board consensus established the priority of balanced semesters, finals before winter vacation but starting as late as we could. Days are 86 in first semester, and 88 in second. If we move it one day,  the last day of the year would be the day after Memorial Day, and we had some feedback regarding that.

Romberg:  we do calendars two years in advance. Is this final or tentative?

Bridges: my recommendation would be this is final.

Crotty: would our student ambassadors comment?

Jodi Nemethy, Student Ambassador from NNHS: I think I can speak for many students that it’s not so much starting early,  it’s more that  around the holiday break we are so stressed out, it’s almost like we are not experiencing the holiday break because we are so focused on school and then the next day is Christmas Eve. So if it means starting a week earlier I’d prefer that. We would prefer exams before break.

Wondering about starting in the middle of the week, is there a reason for that?

Bridges: There has been feedback in previous surveys preferring we not start with a full week for (the benefit of the) younger elementary students.

Jaensch: We have not invited public comment on this (specific) calendar. Should we put it off for two weeks?

Weeks: if we invite public comment again are we willing to change it based on that input?

Romberg: It hasn’t been our practice to resend out the draft calendar after the initial public comment.

Passed 5 to 1, Crotty dissenting.

Prior to the meeting adjournment, Board president Mike Jaensch read a short statement informing the public that the board had unanimously moved to name Interim Superintendent Dan Bridges the new Superintendent for District 203.

From District 203:

The Naperville School District 203 Board of Education invites the community to meet the new Superintendent of Schools Mr. Daniel M. Bridges at a reception to be held on Tuesday, September 4, 2012 from 5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.  Introductions and comments will be made at 5:15 p.m. The reception will be held at the District Administrative Center, 203 West Hillside Road, Naperville. The Board of Education will hold its scheduled monthly meeting at 7:30 pm at the Administrative Center, which is a change in starting time.

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