This post covers some of the more recent months of news and meetings for Unit 4 and its Board of Education. It breaks down some of the longer meetings, such as the nearly 5 hour meeting with reports on the AVID program and Unit 4's "Report Card" data from the Illinois State Board of Education. It also has a breakdown of the nearly 3 1/2 hour meeting that focused primarily on the transportation department and its sheer lack of capacity to fulfill its mission.
It’s all hands on deck in Unit 4’s Transportation Department, but bus delays and cancellations are inevitable with the district down 21 drivers.Administrative staff are filling in as daily drivers in the ongoing struggle to get kids to school on time and, as of this semester, the department has decided to avoid cancellations as much as possible in favor of delays...The district needs more bus monitors too — 27 more, to be exact — but Walker said the focus has been more on drivers since that’s who they need to get buses on the road.
Throughout the presentation and board comments afterward, there was a lot of criticism for the community for complaining, shame parents for being upset, and outright dismissing people demanding solutions. On the positive side, I think they showed strong support for their transportation team that simply does not have the capacity to do what is being asked of them or their mission: to get kids to school and on time.
There were pretty clear hints on the policy side that this all seems to be leading to the "drastic" changes suggested in prior board meetings. For some this raises fears of returning back to "neighborhood schools" while still not addressing the historical ramifications of segregation in Champaign.
Superintendent Boozer highlighted plans of bringing back "The Promise Zone" program towards the beginning and the end of the meeting. She touted it as being data driven and targeted solutions as opposed to cookie cutter solutions. Informational slide from her remarks (click to enlarge).
The old Citizen4 blog still has an archive of Unit 4 information and coverage over previous years of debates and challenges, including the previous push for "The Promise Zone" as a sort of implementation of activist Imani Bezzell's "Great Campus" concept from roughly a decade before (e.g. mentioned in this 2006 News-Gazette article).
That Citizen4 blog post also has links to previous Promise Zone materials (video link of the presentation to the February 2017 school board meeting (presentation begins at the 21 minute mark of the video, presentation slides, list of principles, overview, etc.) that may be instructive on what the concept once was, though not necessarily how it may be attempted this time around. This doesn't appear to be related to the similarly named HUD program, or at least no connection I have found yet.
There was a financial audit report between the public comment and the Transportation report for anyone interested in that (the full audit report, overview, and supporting documents available on the agenda page).
The meeting was nearly 3 1/2 hours long, so here's a quick list of highlights and approximate timestamps to help people with limited time navigate the meeting videos (part 1 and part 2):
- The meeting began with the usual updates, good news, and boosting student achievements.
- At around 14 minutes Superintendent Boozer highlighted "The Promise Zone" as program they will be bringing back to use data to direct targeted intervention (e.g. on low scores, absenteeism, etc.). This was touted as a way to address the district's severe achievement gap among African American students.
- At around 22 minutes was the single public comment of the meeting (there were none in the second opportunity towards the end of the meeting). There was concern about the "drastic changes" proposed at a previous meeting and a lack of follow up. The speaker argued that the public hadn't heard anything since or seen any related agenda items. There was also criticism of the Superintendent's blaming of teachers and a demand for accountability.
- After a bit of a technical delay the extensive Transportation report began at about 1 hour and 6 minutes. The introduction covers the main points about a lack of capacity to meet its mission. They acknowledge that they only get about 80% of the kids to school and on time.
- Around 1 hour and 54 minutes in is the Q&A with the board.
- Around 2 hours and 58 minutes in the board moved on to news business and the rest of the agenda if you're interested in pavement and roofing repair projects.
- The last round of board comments starts around the 15 minute mark of the second video. Most of that involved descriptions of the Board visits to Unit 4 school campuses, although there were some remarks about issues discussed earlier if folks are interested (e.g. the liability requirement on reimbursements or Superintendent Boozer touting "The Promise Zone" once again).
ISBE Report Cards and the 11/13/2023 Meeting:
The nearly 5 hour November school board meeting did not have public participation at either the beginning or end opportunities. During the communications section, Board President Baker expressed her regret for her previous remarks and assured the public that she wants to hear from them. She stated her belief that she should also be held accountable and will try to re-earn the trust of those who felt dismissed. The rest of the meeting was almost entirely composed of reports.
There was a detailed explanation of the Property Tax Levy, how that impacts the amount of taxes people may end up paying on their homes, how the burden is split between commercial and residential properties, and assessment value processes. If your property's assessed value went up, you may pay more taxes, even though it's likely that the tax rate itself will drop slightly.
The Tax Levy report begins at roughly 25 minute and 40 second mark of the meeting video. Page 3 of the PDF presentation has a helpful chart of the "Life Cycle of a Property Tax Bill" from the school district's perspective. The Kathy's Mailbag feature in the News-Gazette also recently discussed property tax levy questions.
The mathematical acrobatics of tax levies versus tax rates can baffle even those familiar with the multi-step process from estimates, to statutory limits, to final figures. Previous Cheat Sheet post on Tax Levies versus Tax Rates here.
There was a report on hiring and vacancies around the 49 minute mark.
There was a long presentation on the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program staring around the 1 hour and 16 minute mark (AVID presentation slides here). Kids from the program talked about their experiences, including the eye-opening experience of visiting Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in New Orleans recently. The AVID program exists across schools in the district to connect kids with the tools and skills towards the college and career opportunities it also highlights. It's difficult to quickly sum up, so I recommend watching the presentation if you have the time.
After that and starting around the 2 hour and 12 minute mark was the presentation on the ISBE report card data, technical overview of what that data means, some analysis, and breakdowns. It was split up over a couple hours to answer 3 "Essential Questions" beginning with how ISBE determines school designations (presentation slides here with lots of helpful graphs of the data).
The second section dealt with what the data tells us and began around the 2 hour and 47 minute mark. The presentation mainly focused on the ISBE Report Card data, but not entirely. The presenters also included additional data compiled by the ECRA Group comparing the district to 6 other Illinois districts with similar size and demographics that painted the district's struggles in a more flattering light. They showed the district closer to state averages in most categories than those similar districts, which were struggling even more in many other categories than Unit 4 (e.g. slides 27, 28, 35, and 40).
The third part focused on the district's work towards its strategic plan and the years long process of seeing results from many of the newer initiatives in the data. The Q&A portion began around the 3 hour and 49 minute mark. The board had a variety of concerns and technical questions that took up most of the rest of the meeting. One glaring issue throughout the presentation that raised concerns was the continuing achievement gap, especially for Black, Multilanguage Learners and others.
The rest of the agenda was quickly finished after the 4 hour and 36 minute mark and was wrapped up in less than 10 minutes (consent agenda, some final announcements / communications, etc.).
December BoE Meeting:
In the opening communications of the 12/11/2023 meeting, Superintendent Boozer had an overview of the E-Learning Emergency Days in case of expected inclement weather (at exactly 11 minutes into the meeting video here). This policy became a point of contention in January when the district announced an E-Learning day after many kids had already boarded busses or were on their way to schools. The slide from the presentation related to this policy notes that "the Superintendent will announce the possibility of an E-Learning Day as soon as practical (but no later than 2:00 p.m. the day before). This will provide time for staff to gather resources and prepare accordingly. It will also allow families to make necessary arrangements."
This policy was not followed and staff and families were caught off guard when the possibility and reality of an E-Learning Emergency Day was announced that morning after kids were on their way to schools. From WCIA coverage:
Parents at both Urbana and Champaign schools were stopped in their tracks when the districts sent out a call to move to E-learning around 7 a.m.
Thomas-Stagg has two boys in Champaign schools. She said it wasn’t just the fact that administrators called off in-class learning, but her son’s computer was still at his school, making E-learning a tough ask...
“So many of the teachers that I know were already at school and were preparing for the day,” Thomas-Stagg said, “and then had to figure out, do I have to go back and get my kid from preschool?”
That full article is here. Adding to the frustration, many interpreted the Superintendent's email explaining the reasons for the E-Learning day as blaming the teachers for being unprepared. The News-Gazette also had coverage in its Meeting Minutes feature discussing where districts get their weather information to make these kind of decisions.
Towards the end of the Superintendent's presentation, at the 29 minute and 25 second mark, she took a moment to highlight some specific concerns. The topic was on the ongoing transportation shortage, cancellations, and delays. She acknowledged the hardships to local families and assured them that the district is pursuing solutions and doing everything possible. She also addressed technical concerns about the transportation reimbursement program for parents and insurance liability costs.
This discussion included an important explanation by Linda Matkowski, Chief Financial Officer at Unit 4, is that the transportation reimbursement is not the same as an employee's tax free mileage reimbursement, but as a 3rd party contractor where it's considered taxable income.
This became an extended conversation about district transportation and ended with Board Member Heather Vazquez suggesting that the district reevaluate the school assignment process and Superintendent Boozer embracing starting a process to look towards "something drastic" in that regard. Later she reiterated that it may take "something very drastic" to the school assignment system. Vazquez stated that the Board understands that it is drastic, but also timely.
The embrace of moving forward with a new process of making drastic changes to the school assignment system comes less than one year after the turbulent reorganization approved earlier in 2023. The News-Gazette had coverage of that approval in January 2023 here.
After rounds of fierce feedback from parents who feared sudden disruption, the district changed course. The firm came back to Unit 4 with a proposal that would move few elementary students next year, instead of 64 to 79 percent of them.
The Unit 4 board unanimously approved the new assignment scenario at Monday’s meeting, which will take effect in 2023-24.
“I think if we had done any other scenario right now it would’ve felt like we were doing this to the community, and not with,” board member Gianina Baker said after the vote.
The consultant company that helped craft that process, Cooperative Strategies, still has an overview of that process. It is still online and available here with other informational links. Unfortunately, the last Unit 4 Cheat Sheet post was way back in the middle of that process (although it provides a bit of a snapshot of some of the turbulence).
The December school board meeting also followed up on November's ISBE Report Card discussion at the 3 hour and 9 minute mark of the meeting video. That previous meeting had run extremely long (nearly 5 hours in the public portion) and there were more questions. If you're interested in more follow up Q&A of that presentation it's available.
The News-Gazette's coverage of the nearly 4 hour long December meeting is available here.
Other Unit 4 News and Updates:
- The Assistant Principal of Central High School had an opinion piece in the News-Gazette on the primacy parental involvement in educational outcomes.
- The CU Schools Foundation recognized impressive Unit 4 alumni, according to the News-Gazette.
- The News-Gazette also reported on Central High School students that have started a petition against digital hall passes over surveillance and other concerns.
- The News-Gazette had updates on the metal detectors now on-site and being installed at local middle schools in their 1/12 eEdition. This follows other coverage of security upgrades in the wake of the BTW shooting incident here and metal detector expansion here. The December BoE meeting included a presentation and approval of the Raptor Visitor Management system (around the 2:48 mark of the video).
- There was a second proposal for ARPA funding from the City of Champaign towards programs in Unit 4. This followed the initial proposal falling through due to a lack of staffing to follow through on taking advantage of the previous City of Champaign "Blueprint" funding. The News-Gazette and WCIA both had coverage of the second attempt of the district to use that funding. I'm hoping the next Unit 4 post will have some updates on this.
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