Q: What is your understanding of CUSD 300’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and Social Emotional Learning (SEL) programs? Are you supportive of these programs? Why or why not?

For our kids to be able to learn they must be “ready to learn”. This does not refer to them having their Chrome Book charged or having a sharpened pencil and a three-ring binder in their backpack. Being ready to learn means that they walk through the door of their school feeling confident, happy, eager to learn; with a clear mind and a feeling that they are valued, respected, included, safe and loved.

Children are not made with cookie cutters. They are more like snowflakes. No two children are alike. Every child needs and deserves to be appreciated and celebrated for who they are. Each child deserves to be happy, confident and secure with themselves. DEI and SEL are tools that are used to help kids become and stay ready to learn.

DEI

During the February 23, 2021 BOE meeting, the D300 Board of Education published the following statement in support of our intention to proceed with our DEI program. Only part of the lengthy statement has been posted here in the interest of brevity:

A Statement from the District 300 Board of Education Regarding Equity and Inclusion for All Students***

(The statement below was provided by the District 300 Board of Education during the February 23 board meeting.)

Our country earned its independence with great difficulty and sacrifice. Our nation was established under the premise of equality and freedom. More importantly, and more specifically, freedom from oppression and a right for all to be truly equal.

The Declaration of Independence states:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

It goes on to say:

”But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.”

And yet, we find ourselves as a nation divided and still struggling with the very premise upon which our nation was founded: freedom and equality for all.

As a district, we are committed to creating greater equity and inclusion for all students. This means working to honor and support our students through various activities that include a focus on gender equity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, socio-economic status, and race.

As a school board, we remain focused on enriching our students academically, socially, and emotionally. In addition, we have a renewed focus on supporting the rights and individual freedoms of all students regardless of their race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. We are working to ensure that our students find images of themselves and their culture woven throughout the curriculum. While we do not take a position on these issues as a matter of defending one particular view as being more correct or superior than another, we do take the position that inclusion and equity are fundamental in our mission to educate students.

Some topics will be well received, while others may not. However, that should not and will not deter us from the work to be done. Marginalized students and communities deserve a voice. They deserve to see themselves reflected in our schools and curriculum.

To this end, the district has developed an inclusive process involving various stakeholders (students, parents, and staff) to help identify issues and develop strategies to address areas where deficiencies exist.

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Historically, our national effort to establish Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month is to be lauded. However, it is embarrassing that we continue to relegate a celebration of the contributions of countless Black and Hispanic American heroes to just one month each year.

As a school district, we are working to help eliminate this issue and bring these American heroes to light.

Superintendent Heid recently provided a response to a District 300 parent where he posed several questions as follows: “We have always had a flexible curriculum that supports the inclusion of Black and Hispanic authors, novels, and poetry. However, I am curious about what your children would say if you asked them how many novels they have been exposed to in their English or History classes written by Black or Hispanic/Latino authors? How many were about their culture/experiences? Black/Hispanic poetry? Black/Hispanic artists? How many theatre productions have you seen performed at our schools that are culturally relevant?” How many others could provide explicit examples as evidence that these are problems needing to be addressed?

It is time that we work to be more inclusive.

Does this mean that other groups will have similar representation? Yes. Does this mean that we will allow the nazi or rebel flags on campus? No. To be clear, there is an incredible difference between a symbol that represents the continued struggles and oppression faced by marginalized people and those that are universally accepted as symbols of hatred, oppression, bigotry, and other atrocities.

As the year progresses, we trust that our goals, objectives, and initiatives related to equity and inclusion will be fully defined and captured in our district strategic plan. This will allow families to have an opportunity to know what is being done and to have their own discussions at home with their children.

The goal is to provide students with access to information and provide them with the ability to formulate their own thoughts and feelings. Families have the simultaneous obligation to reinforce their own beliefs and values with their children. The two do not have to exist in conflict. Instead, they work in tandem to help students make sense of the world around them and their place in it. The only other option is the continued and intentional exclusion of information relating to the issues of race, religion, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation. And that is not an option at all.

Respectfully submitted by the members of the Board of Education.

***The entire Statement can be found here:

https://www.d300.org/site/default.aspx?PageType=3...

You can find more on our DEI program here: https://www.d300.org/DiversityEquityInclusion

Social Emotional Learning or SEL

Social Emotional Learning, better known as SEL has been incorporated in the curriculum here in D300 and across the state for decades. From the days when kids attended Kindergarten purely to learn how to “school” and interact with other kids, to complex interventions, SEL is one of the tools used to help kids develop into confident, well-rounded adults who feel confident in social circumstances.

CASEL, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning defines social-emotional learning, SEL, as:

“Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.”

CASEL has identified five core social-emotional competencies all students need for life and school success. In D300 we develop the whole child which includes building an academic and social-emotional foundation for all students.

1. Self-Awareness - The ability to accurately recognize one’s emotions and thoughts and their influence on behavior. This includes accurately assessing one’s strengths and limitations and possessing a well-grounded sense of confidence and optimism.

2. Self-Management - The ability to regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations. This includes managing stress, controlling impulses, motivating oneself, and setting and working toward achieving personal and academic goals.

3. Social Awareness - The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others from diverse backgrounds and cultures, to understand social and ethical norms for behavior, and to recognize family, school, and community resources and supports.

4. Relationship Skills - The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. This includes communicating clearly, listening actively, cooperating, resisting inappropriate social pressure, negotiating conflict constructively, and seeking and offering help when needed.

5. Responsible Decision Making - The ability to make constructive and respectful choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on consideration of ethical standards, safety concerns, social norms, the realistic evaluation of consequences of various actions, and the well-being of self and others.

These are tools that all of us use every in life. It is essential that our kids master these tools so that they too can make their way through life successfully.

Q: Why are you seeking this position?

A: I am running for re-election to the D300 Board of Education because I believe in public education. I believe that education is the one thing that you can earn throughout your life that no one can take away from you. I also believe that every child is entitled to a great education and the chance to learn to love to learn. To accomplish these goals we have to make sure that every child who walks through the doors of one of our schools feels welcome, valued, safe and loved. Only then are they really “ready” to learn.

We all lived through COVID and there are not many of us who were not negatively impacted by it. As members of the Board throughout, we were responsible for making sure that the students and staff of our district remained safe during a time when what would happen next was not easy to predict. Of course, that meant making several difficult decisions. Making those decisions was not easy but the thought of a child or employee dying or getting seriously ill, was too much to bear.

Now we are back in school and in the recovery stage and things seem to be going better but we still have a lot to do. Many of our kids are still suffering from emotional issues and we still have work to do to get our kids where they should be academically. I’d like to continue working on these and other issues like finding and retaining great educators and support staff and strengthening the working relationship between the district and our community.

 Q: What experience and background do you have which qualifies you for this position?

A: In addition to being on the board for almost four years, I have been a resident of Algonquin since 1999 when my husband and I moved our family here. I almost immediately became involved in D300 and have spent a lot of time over the years working to support the district and the community. In 2005, I worked as Co-Chair of Advance 300, a grassroots community driven organization crucial to the passage of referenda in 2006 that helped put the district on a course towards being one of the most financially healthy and transparent districts in the state.

In 2011, we resurrected Advance 300 and worked with the board and administration to fight the state’s continued diversion of property tax dollars, meant for our schools, to Sears Holding Corporation. This diversion has cost D300 hundreds of millions of dollars over the years and while we weren’t able to prevent the extension, we were able to get back several million dollars a year that would have otherwise continued to be given to Sears.

In addition to local activism, I have also proudly served on several Board committees including the Community Finance Committee, the Legislative Committee and the D300 Foundation for Educational Excellence as Chair of the Foundation’s Literacy Committee.  All of this and, of course, having raised two children who went through the district, I believe, qualifies me to continue as a productive member of the Board.

Q: What will be your highest priorities if elected?

COVID seems to be behind us; we are back in school and in the recovery stage. But, while things are going better, we still have a lot to do. Many of our kids are still suffering from emotional issues and we still have a lot work to do to get our kids where they should be academically. In addition, while we are doing great financially (we just built an amazing new elementary school without having to run a referendum), the district is growing and we may need another new school soon. I’d like to continue working on these and other issues like finding and retaining great educators and support staff and strengthening the working relationship between the district and our community.

Q: Give an example of how you have worked collaboratively and professionally to reach a resolution with someone you disagreed with. What did you learn from that and how would it help you be able to work with the other board members, Superintendent, and teachers union?.....

I have been on the board for almost 4 years and I have been lucky to have already experienced working collaboratively and professionally with my fellow board members, the Superintendent and our unions. Before I get to the heart of the question, I’d like to give everyone a very brief look into how school boards operate and how ours operates in particular. Keep in mind that this my perspective on these issues. I only speak for myself.

There has been a lot of misinformation and unfounded speculation being thrown around. So, hopefully, I can help to clear up some of that because the fact is that we have a very good school district staffed with very good people who are passionate about the well-being and education of our kids.

First, board members do not negotiate union contracts. We have extremely talented members of our administration to do that. We do provide some guidance and we may approve or reject all or parts of the contracts at various times within the process but we leave the negotiations to the professionals. It is also important to note that our board, the administration and all of our unions (the human beings that populate unions) have very good working relationships because we all have the same goal – educating our kids. This does not mean that there is never a disagreement, but we respect each other and our common goal.

Second, we, the members of the board, are a diverse group of people. And while we have the first African American man sitting on the board now, I am not referring only race when I say diverse. We have diverse backgrounds and educations. We are members of different political parties and we worship in different ways and we are in different places in our lives. Some of us have younger kids and some of us have young adult children. Some of us are even grandparents and have grandchildren in the district. We all bring our life experience and professional expertise to our jobs as board members. And as I said above, we all respect each other, the administration and the staff and we all share a common purpose.

Third, I know that there are people who question our actions or motives in large part because we don’t argue or debate issues during the Board business meetings each month. There are reasons for that. First the Board’s role. Boards of Education have two main roles. To oversee the district’s finances; making sure that our tax dollars being used wisely and, overseeing the general operation of the district and its education of our kids. We do not micro manage the operation of the district. The Board hires the Superintendent and the Superintendent runs the everyday operations of the district.

She and her staff keep us informed and, when necessary, involved in the decision making. This is no easy task. We are the sixth largest district in the State of Illinois. At any given time we serve around 20,000 students and we have several thousand employees. Our budget is over three hundred million dollars. Running a school district, especially one the size of ours and as complicated as ours, is not unlike running a large corporation, except we don’t make widgets, we educate human beings.

The reason that we rarely discuss issues at board meetings is because they are discussed at different times and the board conducts its business at the meetings. But if you want to see more free-flowing discussion of issues, especially financial issues, I urge you to come to our board committee meetings which are held every month right before the first board meeting of the month on the second Tuesday of the month. There we have open discussions on finance and facilities issues. Relevant members of the administration are there to walk us through data and answer questions. Several of us attend those meetings and are informed and prepared to vote on those issues at the Board meeting that evening and the second meeting of the month that occurs on the fourth Tuesday of the month.

In addition, information about a variety of topics is presented at virtually every board meeting where we do often ask questions and discuss our opinions, questions and concerns. After those meetings, if any of us have further issues or want more information, we are free and encouraged to individually talk to staff to get those answers. In addition to that, several days before every Tuesday night meeting we are given a packet of information to review. Most of the time those packets are hundreds of pages long and, again, we can ask questions. So, when we vote, we are prepared.

So, for any of you who are still here, I will now answer the crux of the question. Throughout my career as a trial lawyer, I have negotiated many, many settlements for my clients. Most of the time, because of the nature of litigation, I did not agree with my opponent. Litigation is, by definition, working to resolve a controversy. That does not mean, however, that we would argue or debate. It is never personal. When you work through that kind of disagreement, like virtually any disagreement, the reason you are negotiating and the level of professionalism by which you conduct yourself makes or brakes your ability to be successful. The way your treat the person on the other side as well as the process, with respect, determines your success.

As I mentioned above, we are successful as a board because we are all in this for the right reason - we respect and value the district, the community and our mission – educating kids and preparing them for the rest of their lives. We all value and respect public education. The present D300 Board works well together because we respect each other, we respect the district and we all have the same goal, to protect and educate kids. Oh and one other reason – we love the kids under our care.

Q: What role do you think state laws and guidelines from professional agencies should play in the decision-making process of a school board member?

In actuality there is very little that a school district or its board can do that doesn’t involve regulation by the state or federal government. Revenue, spending, curriculums, sports, discipline, food service, HR, bussing and many other areas are all regulated by statute, Federal and state. In fact, it probably would just be easier to list what areas of education in the U.S. are not regulated.

In general, I do not have a problem with regulation of education. I think that it’s a necessary evil. Without regulation, education would be a free-for-all, without consistency or reason. What I do object to are the so-called unfunded mandates that seem to flow freely from Springfield on a yearly basis. An example is transportation. D300, like virtually every other school district in the state, is required to provide transportation to any of its students who live father than a mile and a half from the school they attend or closer if walking to school would require them to cross particularly busy or otherwise dangerous roads. The mandate itself makes sense but the kicker is that the state doesn’t pay for all of our costs to transport students. And since the state is already good at not paying its fair share of what it costs to run a school district, every unfunded mandate increases our burden to pay the cost of education.