Unit 4 Updates

The past couple Unit 4 school board meetings have had some interesting highlights (agenda packets available here under the "meetings" tab). In the January 27th meeting (video here) there was a presentation on "Building Trauma Informed Schools" that described various programs and initiatives related to trauma, crisis response, and concepts like Psychological First Aid. The full presentation is available at the school board video at the 32:40 mark and the presentation slides are available here in PDF.

Just as a quick example, in collaboration with the Center for Childhood Resilience (CCR) at Chicago Lurie Children’s Hospital, staff have been trained in programs like Bounce Back and CBITS:

In this week's February 10th meeting, there was another presentation on "Community Schools Update" which had an overview of various community collaborations and ways the school might begin to coordinate them along a strategy. There appears to be concerns among the board and organizations that locally there are a lot of organizations and collaborations, but communication between them is complicated and efforts are often duplicated. The full presentation in the video here at the 52:30 minute mark (slides available here):

On page 12 of the presentation slides, used by the national program's presenter, it gets a bit more into the sales pitch for consulting and the direction of the training they offer. The gist appears to come down to developing a coordinator position that can work with and organize the various efforts under a strategy focused on the board's goals. Beyond the change management jargon, it sounds like training to help organize a mess of good intentions and hard work into a more effective one.

The two recent meetings also had updates on reading and math scores across 1st through 8th grade. The charts show overall Unit 4 scores versus the national average and highlight scores for African-American students specifically:

• Reading on January 27th: Video presentation at the 8:20 mark. Slide presentation here.
   
• Math on February 10th: Video presentation at the 19:50 mark. Slide presentation here.

In the most recent list of upcoming events there was an item for the February 27th Education Equity Excellence (EEE) Committee Meeting; 4:00 - 5:30 p.m. - Mellon Board Room. With the recent focus by the local Champaign County ACLU and NAACP on equity in Unit 4 since the consent decree, there may be helpful information there. More on the EEE Committee and its creation after the consent decree here at their webpage.

There was also a presentation that got into minority teacher hiring and retention and the increasing challenges with reaching the district's diversity goals during the ongoing Illinois teacher shortage. Competition with other districts is increasing while the number of applicants continues to drop. A lot of the information presented at this February 10th meeting was preliminary, but it was stated that there will be a more up to date future presentation to the board when its ready.

That discussion including a brief overview of the employment audit report is available at the 1:50:00 mark in the video here. The full report is available here. The report itself is very long and involved, but it does have a short introduction, including a brief "Findings and Goals" on page 5 that helps summarize it.

The next regular board meeting is scheduled for February 24, 2020 at 5:30. Remember school board meetings generally spend their first half hour in "executive session" for non-public issues such as personnel and disciplinary issues. The public portion of the meeting generally begins at 6pm.


Referendum Project Updates in the News:

The News-Gazette had an update on various referendum projects and construction a few weeks ago here. They also had a photo tour of some of the construction here last week. Excerpt:

The next step for several projects is interior work.

Centennial High’s north addition is on the verge of becoming weather-tight, meaning indoor work like drywall and finishes can soon be done and ready to turn over by the end of the summer.

McKinley Field is still slated to be ready in time for Champaign Central to use the track this spring, although issues with the soil have made those plans contingent on weather. All the while, some interference with ongoing classes was inevitable.

Full article here, including some comments on contingency funding. In the most recent February 10th school board meeting, how contingency funding can be used from one project's savings has been used to cover additional unexpected costs in others. It's a bit buried later in the meeting at the 2:21:50 mark in the video here and later during some of the more detailed phase 1 project bidding information.