This post covers the latest news on the district's upcoming Special Education audit and the settlement agreement that led to it. It also looks at some of the controversies on how we got here. Tonight's Board of Education meeting also includes an item to discuss reorganization again. That and other updates are discussed below.
SpEd Audit:
The biggest news out of Unit 4 this month was the Special Education (SpEd) Audit Agreement being approved by the board. WCIA had coverage earlier this month at the August 20th special meeting:
After a settlement, the Champaign School District will undergo an audit of their special education programs.
The audit will be done by Dan Cates, a former superintendent with expertise on special education, with oversight from attorney Neil Takkif.
The Board of Education approved of its authorization at their special meeting Tuesday night, with four members voting for the settlement including the audit and three members abstaining.
Julie Duvall, the CU Autism Network executive director, said the district needs to be transparent and able to handle tough conversations in order to improve their special education programs. She also said SPED students and their families should be able to weigh in on the audit and eventually see the final results.
That full article and video segment here. Some key details of the audit are now publicly available on the district's website in tonight's school board agenda packet:
The audit shall specifically address the following areas for the school year of 2023-24 and first semester of the 2024-25:
a. Continuum of special education placement options and appropriate determinations of LRE for students, including provision of supplementary aids, curriculum, and services to ensure ability to participate in regular education to the extent practicable;
b. Special education programming compliance with age range requirements and class size requirements;
c. Adequacy of special education transportation and supervision, including means of transportation and average travel times for students, and student safety;
d. Special education personnel staff development;
e. Special education personnel substitute qualifications and training;
f. Related services adequacy;
g. Facilities adequacy for special education programming;
h. Special education records maintenance and information confidentiality compliance;
i. Coordination with private providers for special education students;
j. Administrative oversight of special education best practices;
k. Hiring policies, practices, procedures, and training for special education personnel,
l. Parent communication and coordination of special education services, and
m. District Title I spending plan
Dr. Cates shall submit an initial report by March 1, 2025, but that final completion of the audit may extend as Dr. Cates finds appropriate to complete the full scope of the audit. At the conclusion of the audit, Dr. Cates will publish a public report on best practice findings and recommendations and will provide the public with a presentation on these findings at a board meeting. The District has permission to facilitate a dedicated webpage of Dr. Cates’ findings.
Dr. Cates shall review the implementation of recommendations within two years of his final report and will produce a written document and public report regarding the District’s implementation of final audit recommendations or lack thereof.
This is from "Exhibit A" (starting on page 7 of the PDF file) of the Cate's agreement executing part of the settlement approved last month by the Board of Education.
Previously, there have been some prolonged fights over board agendas revolving around items and "agreements" being added that appeared to be in conflict with the actual settlement terms. For example, if one compares this to the bizarre "agreement" from last month, one can now see that it did not reflect the full scope of the settlement terms.
In hindsight, with more of the details of the actual agreement public and confirmed, it raises serious questions about why incomplete and apparently erroneous executing agreements kept being put on the agenda... for a settlement that was still in the process of being approved.
My questions to the board leadership, district, and administrators involved in the process went unanswered. It is unclear if there is a reasonable explanation for what might be charitably seen as "bad optics," or if this indicates a more deliberate attempt to torpedo the settlement agreement during the process.
I also received no response about growing public concerns that the district's legal team is being weaponized for factional or political ends. This is a concern that predates these public facing documents and board actions with the settlement agreement, including by one of the board members themselves.
Details of the public portions of the final agreement were difficult to find until this month. While the settlement agreement has been approved, the individual contracts related to it still have to be approved. Prior to this, almost everything occurred within closed "Executive Session" portions of school board meetings. Board member Betsy Holder explained her view of the agreement and when the public portions of that agreement will become available:
In a somewhat unprecedented settlement situation, a family in the community sacrificed their own personal and monetary settlement interests on behalf of their child in exchange for the terms of this audit moving for district wide change to help the entire SPED community. I am cautiously optimistic that this is the start of a path moving forward. This is not a forward facing document, but once it is executed it will be available via FOIA. It will govern the terms of the contracts with Dr. Cates and Neil Takiff.
This is a comment from a public social media post and a generally positive review of the board's actions and behavior at the previous special meeting. Social media posts and friends of the family have appeared to confirm that the family at the heart of this complaint and settlement was board member Amy Armstrong. It's not clear why other board members (Baker and Vazquez) abstained from voting for or against the settlement too.
It passed 4-0-3 (for / against / abstentions) with the support of Bruce Brown. who had generally been aligned with Baker and Vazquez on other contentious issues before the board lately.
Reorganization Discussion:
During the controversy of how new members would be appointed to the Board of Education in light of two resignations, there was talk amongst board members about reorganization after the appointment process played out. This was complicated at the time by the fact that one of the resignations was by the board vice president Jamar Brown. A previous Cheat Sheet covered some of the controversy about elected a new vice president prior to having a full board to vote on the issue. The News-Gazette had an article about the walk-outs and quorum denying tactics surrounding the issue at the time.
Eventually the Board voted to make board member and board parliamentarian Heather Vazquez also the Vice-President of the board.
More recent discussions about board reorganization have also been heated, with the Board President and Vice President accusing a newly appointed member of attempting a takeover, with designs on becoming the new Board president himself. Other arguments have revolved around whether reorganization was part of the detente that ensured a quorum and the vote for Vice-President while the board was still dealing with two vacancies earlier in the year.
Those recent discussions mostly took place at the contentious August 12th Board meeting around the 1:28 mark (agenda packets available here, video here). Banks, for his part denied any desire to become the president and explained that he felt misrepresented. A distinction was made between the president, who had been voted on by a previous full board and the decisions made about other board officers during vacancies.
There have been arguments about whether the law and district policy allow for reorganization. I can't speak on the merits of the legal arguments, but others have noted other similar scenarios throughout the state over the years. It may come down to how a majority of the board decides to proceed and then whether anyone chooses to take the disagreement to court. I'll leave it to the reader and the lawyers to draft their own opinions and legal interpretations, however.
July Meeting:
The News-Gazette coverage had some brief highlights of the July meeting here. The censure drafted by the President and district lawyers appears to have been dropped from the agenda (and I haven't heard it raised again since).
The July meeting (video here) began with a discussion and debate about the agenda as well, also revolving around disagreement on reorganization. The board began Executive (closed) session without approving the agenda (having failed the initial vote). This did not make any sense to me at the time, as going into Executive Session is an item to be carried out on the agenda itself. The board came out of closed session and immediately returned back to approving the agenda.
The second agenda discussion added to confusion about whether they were passing an agenda as amended by the president (although there did not appear to be a motion or vote to amend it first). The removed item was 6. E. the appointment of a parliamentarian alone (as opposed to a broader reorganization of the board officers). The board then returned to Executive (closed) session after resolving the agenda issue.
The public portion of the Board of Education meeting finally began at 6:42pm and adjourned at 8:37pm. The News-Gazette overview mentioned above was concise about the arguments raised during this meeting. The discussion about a "risk management committee" began around the 1:19 mark of the video and went on for about 40 minutes. President baker was opposed to the idea, while member Banks assured this was about ensuring the Board of Education has the information it needs and that there's nothing "nefarious" about the proposal.
Board communications began with a statement by Heather Vazquez admonishing people to not simply refer to board members by their surname, e.g. Baker as opposed to Dr. Baker. Communications got heated again towards the end after member Holder took issue with her husband being brought into the board's disagreements. She accused some of trying to interfere with her livelihood and work clients.
There was a brief special meeting earlier in July that was just to confirm recent hires in a timely manner. This is pretty common for school districts that generally only have one regular meeting in July (as opposed to two during school semesters). Agenda packets can be found on the district's website here.
Other Unit 4 Related News:
- A critical perspective on BTW after the previous school administrators were removed by the district, from the News-Gazette. There was also an update on the litigation by the former Assistant Principal Rebecca Ramey here.
- The board president wrote another column on navigating school board policy in the News-Gazette. Board member Bruce Brown wrote an opinion piece hoping the board could focus on the needs of the district and students. A Unit 4 graduate and now Unit 4 parent wrote an opinion piece calling for reorganization.
- There was an article in the News-Gazette explaining the growing costs of MTD bus service for the district.
- Tonight's meeting will also have a presentation on the the Affirmative Action / Equal Employment Opportunity audit on diversity and hiring goals within the district. The report showed positive gains in diverse employment goals by the district and is available here. There were other hiring updates in the news last month here and here.
- There was a general update in the News-Gazette on area Student Resource Officer collaborations between police departments and school districts, including cost figures for Unit 4.
- A former Unit 4 Board of Education member was caught up in the arrests of campus protesters. There were several arrests over the summer related to the protests that occurred on the University of Illinois campus during the Spring 2024 semester. Updates on those charges and concerns about the "mob action" law being used is available on the County Cheat Sheet page here.
- A 13 year old student appears to have been charged with the recent threats to district schools, according to the News-Gazette.
- There appeared to be some ongoing delays with late registration according to WCIA.
