After last week's District 87 school board meeting saw more than two hours of public comment and 50 attendees, the Unit 5 school board and superintendent were prepared Wednesday night for a large turnout of passionate speakers.
“We really just continued with our practices as far as requiring a sign in, having our head of security present as well as a police officer and at every meeting our board president goes over the guidelines and expectations for public comment,” said Superintendent Kristen Weikle.
Although the numbers fluctuated, the room ended up hosting around 200 people, with a large number of them coming to speak during public comment.
Differing from policies of the District 87 school board, Unit 5 requires anyone who wants to participate in public comment to sign up before the meeting begins and limits their remarks to three minutes rather than five.
Board president Amy Roser opened the meeting with the expectations and policies required of anyone in attendance. She said her goal for the night was to have a civil public meeting where everyone who wished to speak their mind had the opportunity to feel heard and respected. Roser also noted that all members of the audience were required to wear masks for the entire meeting — a request that was met with hostility from a group of audience members.
Anticipating the hot topics of the night, Weikle gave several remarks on mask mandates, social media misinformation, sexual education and critical race theory.
Based on the guidelines given by the State Board of Education, she said all students and other individuals are required to wear masks on the premises. On the topic of sexual education, she assured parents that students are only being taught age-appropriate curriculums and that parents are allowed to opt their students out of the new standards from Senate Bill 818.
“Educators are using these national standards as just one of many resources in their tool belt,” she said.
Although Weikle assured parents that critical race theory is not being taught in Unit 5 schools, she did introduce a new Multicultural Studies course that will be an elective for high school-aged students in the district. The course “helps students learn to think critically about a topic but does not tell them what to think,” she said.
Weikle also said the district is working with an outside consultant to complete an "equity audit" in order to “learn to best support and educate all students.” The results of the audit, she said, will be available to the public in August.
Following Weikle’s comments, Roser made yet another request for attendees to put their masks on. When several members of the audience refused, the board took a brief recess. During this time, several audience members reported seeing a man raise his hand in what they interpreted as a “white power signal.” Following the recess, Unit 5 attorney Curt Richardson said district policy and state law allows for the board to have those individuals ejected from the meeting and banned from the premises in the future.
Roser said the behavior was disappointing and that the individuals involved had “the desire to cause a scene.”
The public comment section of the evening began with Lindsey Dickinson, president of the Unit Five Education Association teachers union, speaking in support of the district’s efforts toward enhancing diversity, equity and inclusion.
Three current Unit 5 teachers also spoke about what they are doing in their classrooms, noting that most of what some parents are claiming to be happening is simply not the reality.
“The mission is a daunting task but not impossible to achieve,” said former Unit 5 teacher Camille Taylor, outlining the systems that have indoctrinated all of us from a young age and the ways we must work to combat them. Several audience members stood in support of her remarks.
Two former candidates for public office also spoke in favor of the formation of a more diverse curriculum. Gavin Cunningham, who ran for a spot on the Unit 5 school board in 2020, praised the new sexual education standards’ inclusion of LGBTQ+ representation and said educators in the district should “love, embrace and educate (their students) even when the parents won’t.” Cunningham also called out those asking for a “color blind” curriculum when it comes to race, stating “if we don’t see color we don’t see patterns.”
Jill Blair, a former 2018 candidate for the Illinois House of Representatives, gave statistics of systemic racism in the community.
Offering opposing viewpoints were several of the same speakers from last week's District 87 meeting.
Becky Swan, who was featuredon Fox News anchor Sean Hannity’s Facebook page for her remarks from that meeting, spoke on many of the same topics, stressing her strong opposition to the new sexual education standards, teaching of critical race theory and the mask mandate.
Althea Shoon, who also spoke at last week’s meeting, accused the board of having a strong liberal bias. Her daughter Alex also spoke in opposition to the new sexual education standards.
Due to unrest in the crowd, there was a second recess taken by the board about halfway through the public comments.
“It would be nice if we always had a great turnout and if they actually stayed for the full meeting. Often, we will have people come for public comment but do not stay for the rest of the business and that’s where a lot of conversation and learning can take place as a community member,” said Weikle. “A lot of the people who spoke we have never heard from to say, ‘Hey, is this something Unit 5 is even doing?’ so I wish people would be a little more informed either by calling their principal or calling the district office just to ask questions and we would be happy to have that conversation with them.”
In other business:
- The board and audience recognized four members of the Normal Community High School girl’s track and field team who brought home three state championship medals. The 1600 meter relay team made up of Abigail Ziemer, Carina Engst and Jordynn Griffin and Ali Ince won in 3:57.34 for a new school record. Freshman standout Ince made history, taking first in the 800 meter run, just .01 seconds away from breaking the state record, and in the 1600 meter run by posting a new state meet record of 4:40.85.
- Weikle introduced three new members of the administration: Jon Haws who will be associate principal at Parkside Junior High School, Megan Bozarth who will be principal at Carlock Elementary School and Heather Rogers who is the new principal at Cedar Ridge Elementary School.
- Weikle said the district will not require students to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, and a student who has been vaccinated will not be required to quarantine if they are determined to be a close contact with someone who has, or is exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19. The district also is looking into ways to conduct voluntary weekly screening for students who are not vaccinated. Those who are participating in the screening will have a modified quarantine if they are determined to be a close contact.
- The board heard a report on the first reading of the handbooks for the next school year. Minor changes were made, including the addition of completion of FAFSA as a graduation requirement, applying behavioral policies to virtual learning and allowing for hats and head coverings to be worn at the middle and high school levels.
- The board has completed the first of a three-session anti-bias and anti-racism training.
