Galesburg Reporter

Elmhurst Community Unit School District 205 Committee of the Whole met Feb. 8.

Here are the minutes provided by the committee:

Call to Order: President Caforio called the meeting to order at 5:35 p.m.

Board of Education Members

Present – Mrs. Kara Caforio, President; Mr. Chris Kocinski Vice-President; Mrs. Athena Arvanitis; Mr. Jim Collins; Mrs. Elizabeth Hosler; Mrs. Karen Stuefen

Absent – Mrs. Courtenae Trautmann, Secretary

President Caforio stated there are 6 board members present, 1 board member absent, a quorum is present.

Administration

Present - Dr. Keisha Campbell, Superintendent; Dr. Scott Grens, Associate Superintendent; Mrs. Tonya Daniels, Exec. Dir. Communications; Mr. Rudy Gomez, Exec. Dir. Technology; Mrs. Katie Lyons, Exec. Dir. Elementary Ed, Ms. Kerry Leuschel, Exec. Dir. Secondary Ed; Mr. Luke Pavone, Asst. Supt. Human Resources; Dr. Kevin Rubenstein, Asst. Supt. Student Services; Mr. Chris Whelton, Asst. Supt. Finance & Operations

Additional Administrators Present: Dr. Christine Trendel, Dr. Skip Kumm, Dr. Susan Kondrat, and Mr. Dave Beedy

Absent - none

Pledge of Allegiance: Board members led those present in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Public Comments: There were no public comments.

Reports and Presentations

Step 1: Strategic Planning – Phase 3 Implementation Update

Dr. Campbell outlined the purpose for coming together during the Committee of the Whole (COW) as:

1) Revisit prior Committee of the Whole data from the Illinois Report Card to identify implications for the Strategic Plan in Phase 3, Implementation,

2) Build shared understanding of the components of the Strategic Plan, specifically Phase 3, and

3) Elicit a variety of feedback from the Board of Education and school / District administrators regarding Phase 3.

The agenda structure included Step 1: Reviewing the Strategic Planning Process, where Dr. Campbell and Dr. Grens presented the implications for Phase 3 implementation by revisiting the Illinois school report card data that includes a need to further analyze data if being utilized to support Strategic Planning implementation (Phase 3); engaging ECRA Group to examine how Elmhurst SD 205 compared to other Illinois districts during the 2018-2019 and 2021-2022 school years; and use percentiles to indicate where Elmhurst SD 205 falls in the distribution of school districts across the state of Illinois.

Step 2: Phase 3 Priority Preview

Board Members traveled to table groups representing each of the four (4) Strategic Plan Priorities, which are the following: Priority 1, Student Success: 10’ presentation on one strategy / 5’ processing time, Priority 2, Learning Environment: 10’ presentation on one strategy / 5’ processing time, Priority 3, Financial & Operational Effectiveness: 10’ presentation on one strategy / 5’ processing time, Priority 4, Community Outreach & Engagement: 10’ presentation on one strategy / 5’ processing time.

The Board took a short break at 7:24 p.m.

Step 3: Learnings and Next Steps

As a team, the Board reflected on the learnings and next steps using the following guiding questions.

Priority Areas, Question 1: What are the implications of the four (4) Strategic Plan Priorities for the Board of Education in areas of governance; values; mission, vision, and goals; and policies?

Objectives, Question 2: How do the identified objectives align to areas of previous focus (e.g. Illinois School Report Card metrics from the committee of the whole meeting on October 26, 2022, etc)?

Strategies, Question 3: How can additional learning and communication occur for the Board of Education (and, general public) regarding awareness and support of the strategies presented tonight?

The team’s reflections follow:

- What are the implications for the Board’s governance role? Are there other questions from the board?

- These become the district goals and what will be monitored; how do we have a discussion on the metrics with mapping out the process and timeline.

- This is a deep reflection of the teams work and a large undertaking.

- How do we provide enough context with all the data that is reflected on the dashboard; how does the data relate to students, how does it impact students. We need to make room for the opportunity to continuously improve. Take time to pace ourselves to determine what is working, by asking how is this student different and what are some innovative and different ways to make sure all of our students are supported.

- Need some time to think about this information and come back at another meeting, go through these metrics, talk about them, and brainstorm to do some refinement.

- What does achieving our strategic indictors look like in the classroom.

- Creating the learning environment and district culture; preserving the individual building cultures but also creating some consistency so students have a similar experience no matter the school students attend.

- Love the work being done by all the groups and how it all ties in together. It helps highlight all the goals and priorities for us as a board of what we’re working towards, for our community to understand what we’re working towards, for our staff to know our goals, priorities, expectations and even for students.

- In the Learning Environment, we talked about attendance and it’s really good to see how far down you have to dig to figure out why students are not attending, then figure out how to get them back into school with what strategies are needed. All of these connect to student success.

- How do we bring our community into this conversation to learn.

- We have control over what our staff, teachers and administrators create in D205 for our students and happy to see that the work is being done to ensure a pathway for our students, to do better and to continuously improve.

- What is the next step and what can we look forward to with the strategic plan?

Board Communications: There was no board communications.

Upcoming Meetings

- February 21, 2023 Board of Education Meeting at 7:00 p.m. - District 205 Center, Rooms 215, 216

- March 1, 2023 Policy Committee Meeting at 5:30 p.m. - District 205 Center, Rooms 215, and 216

- March 7, 2023 Finance & Operation Committee Meeting at 5:30 p.m. – Dist. 205 Center, Rooms 215 & 216

Adjournment - End of Meeting: The meeting was adjourned at 7:58 p.m.

We certify this document as the correct minutes of the Committee of the Whole (COW) board meeting of the Elmhurst CUSD 205 Board of Education held on February 8, 2023.

https://go.boarddocs.com/il/elmhurst/Board.nsf/Public