Last month there was a Cheat Sheet post on possible demographic reorganization plans put forward for Unit 4 by Cooperative Strategies, a consulting firm working for the Board of Education. That post had a preliminary overview, links to coverage, and a lot of background information. This month's post covers a lot of the fall out and cascading responses between the public, the Champaign school board, and the consulting firm. There are also the usual Unit 4 updates and news items afterward.
Demographic Reorganization Updates:
There was a rally before the school board meeting on 10/10 by the Unit 4 Families for a Smarter Solution group. Illinois Newsroom had coverage of the rally and meeting here with a lot of details. WCIA's coverage also included the text of the Superintendent's letter that caused a stir separating the consulting firm's task and Board's focus on the achievement gap.
There was a great deal of public comment from parents, residents, activists, and organizations at that meeting (public comment starts at 27:27 in the meeting video here). The local NAACP branch made a statement about its concerns at this meeting as well (also laid out in a News-Gazette guest commentary here).
In between the two Board of Education meetings in October, there were also in-person focus group meetings by the district's consulting firm on the issue, Cooperative Strategies. Coverage of the 10/17 and 10/18 In-Person Focus Groups:
- From Illinois Newsroom on 10/19: Parents at Champaign Unit 4 open houses: don’t move students next year
- From the News-Gazette on 10/19: Community members hold Unit 4's demography consultants' 'feet to the fire' in Tuesday meeting
- Blurb from WCIA on 10/19: “It won’t make the kids happy”: Unit 4 parents meet in Garden Hills
- Coverage from the first in-person focus group meeting at Carrie Busey Elementary from Fox Illinois: Cooperative Strategies addresses Unit 4 School of Change concerns
The 10/24 School Board meeting (videos, agenda packets) had a bit more of a response from the Board members themselves after additional public comment (begins on the first video around the 2:31:45 point). Illinois Newsroom had an overview of that meeting here. Excerpt:
[Unit 4 Superintendent Shelia Boozer] spent twenty minutes of the meeting detailing her efforts to implement the district’s 2020-2025 strategic plan. The document focuses on ways the district can undo systemic racism and improve academic outcomes for Black students, multilingual students and students with disabilities.
In addition to balancing spending between schools, Boozer described new training for teachers and administrators, supports like therapy and more. One of her top priorities is to expand the AVID program (Advancement Via Individual Determination) to all schools in the district. The program gives low-income students mentors, peer networks and writing training to help them excel.
Boozer framed changes to the schools of choice as one strategy – a way to remove barriers to low-income students and students of color. Board members echoed the sentiment.
The latest coverage from the News-Gazette's 10/28 "Meeting Minutes" feature also had an overview of what we've learned, remaining questions, and some other highlights about the reorganization plan and players. One particular personnel change at Cooperative Strategies seemed to puzzle a lot of folks:
An email sent this week from The News-Gazette to Cooperative Strategies’ Ohio-based point person on the Unit 4 project came back with an automatic reply noting “Scott Leopold is no longer with Cooperative Strategies, LLC.”
Asked how his departure from the firm, after 17 years, would affect the district’s plans, Unit 4’s Stacey Moore said: “Mr. Leopold is still the lead on this project until the district’s decision is finalized.”
According to his LinkedIn page, Leopold is now director of planning for HPM, a strategic management services company based in Birmingham, Ala.
More at that full article here. I haven't heard any clarification or explanation about how a former employee will be running lead on their company's project, however. The other big highlight is that the Board and others appear to be coming around to pushing the Board's original timeline (which originally would have finalized plans presented in November and approved with a vote this December).
The villages of Bondville and Savoy, which are also part of Unit 4 came up at the Board of Education meeting as well as a special Savoy Village Board of Trustees meeting this week. Discussions about the diversity of those towns as well as their desires for the district were brought up in public comments in both meetings. WCIA's coverage of the Savoy meeting highlighted some interest (and financial pitfalls) in leaving the Unit 4 school district:
The Savoy Board of Trustees voted unanimously to encourage the Champaign School District to create neighborhood schools Tuesday night. They held a special meeting to hear from concerned families.
The district is considering proposals that could uproot many elementary students from their current schools, including Carrie Busey in Savoy. Some people suggested detatching from the district, but Village President John Brown said that outcome is unlikely.
“If you detach or a section of the village detaches from Unit 4, not only do you have to find another school district willing to accept you, but you also have to take along a portion of that debt,” Brown said.
That full article here. There was more coverage on that meeting at WCCU and Illinois Newsroom as well. Other speakers warned (or threatened depending on the point of view) that Unit 4 will lose even more families and residents to neighboring districts rather than accept the plans laid out thus far.
Those who can afford to leave may have to weigh concerns about crowding in those peripheral districts and related tax questions. The News-Gazette recently highlighted the crowding issues at one of the nearby school districts to the West, Mahomet-Seymour Community Unit District No. 3.
A map of the school districts around Unit 4 within Champaign County highlight some of the ongoing issues with racial disparities and long term effects of segregation in the area. From the Champaign County GIS Consortium website (click to enlarge):
One can compare the demographic data (available via national or state level data tools) around the area and see some familiar historical trends. The districts encompassing Champaign, Urbana, and Rantoul have racial disparities with far more Black students and far fewer white students than the state average. Every school district bordering them has extreme racial disparities in the opposite direction with almost no Black or Hispanic students and generally a vast overrepresentation of white students.
Compare with Fisher CUSD 1, Thomasboro CCSD 130, Prairieview-Ogden CCSD 197, St. Joseph CCSD 169, Tolono CUSD 7, or Ludlow CCSD 142 on the Illinois State Board of Education's Illinois Report Card data. Here's a snip of the data for the other district the Village of Savoy area borders:
This modern data has been highlighted in recent segregation overviews in Illinois from Governing Magazine that included Champaign-Urbana and surrounding areas mentioned in a previous Cheat Sheet post here. The News-Gazette had an overview of desegregation efforts within C-U school districts back in 2019, but that doesn't address how segregation evolved along and outside school district boundaries during those efforts.
Some of the trends date back over a century as the Black population grew in the area after the Civil War and into the Great Migration. During the Racial Nadir era here (roughly 1890-1930s) is when much of the county became "lily-white" in the parlance of the times. De facto segregation and the color line became more brutally enforced by local authorities and private vigilance efforts (with varying cooperation and conflict with local law enforcement bodies). This chart compares the changing Black population within the Twin Cities and the rest of Champaign County:
During the decades between the racial Nadir era here and segregation efforts in the last generation, a great deal of factors compounded these disparities including: racial covenants, open loan and realtor discrimination, redlining, community disinvestment and neglect, etc. The growth of the Chanute military base also played a major role in creating a new large African-American community within the County during this time.
Having an internationally renowned state flagship university in the middle of the county has made us unique in many other demographic respects as well. There's are additional aspects of diversity that set us apart from other regions of downstate Illinois. There are also a lot of examples of early activism and desegregation actions within Champaign-Urbana that put us ahead of many regional trends.
The districting, zoning, and bureaucratic systems that have created and maintained familiar racial disparities throughout the Midwest, however, have in many other ways made us sadly typical. Often people wonder how we could be struggling in our local education systems while having such a prominent university in the middle of it all. Some have pointed to a recent article in The Atlantic highlighting research suggesting that many college towns suffer even more inequality problems: The College-Town Achievement Gap.
Other Unit 4 News:
- The Champaign Urbana Schools Foundation issued a variety of grants for projects and classroom ideas, according to the News-Gazette. The CU Schools Foundation website also has an overview of the program and the grants here.
- Area superintendents participated in a TV special on issues facing area school districts, including Unit 4. Coverage by Illinois Newsroom here. Full video of the event here.
- Already mentioned in a recent MTD Updates post, was an update on Unit 4 versus Urbana's District 116 contract costs with MTD. The same News-Gazette article also highlights some of the local changes and competition in substitute teacher pay.
