On April 29, 17 community members addressed the Board of Education regarding district spending, support for teachers, and how community members’ pleas are being addressed by the Board.
During public comment, the Board cut off some community members’ microphones while they were still speaking. This happened due to the speakers exceeding the three minute time limit. When microphones were cut off, some people in the audience yelled and protested for the microphones to be turned on.
Board Statement
Before public comment commenced, Board of Education President Lisa Hessel made a statement on behalf of the Board regarding recent criticism by community members on the timeline of new D128 initiatives, district spending, communication and leadership.
Hessel began by mentioning that the U.S. News and World Report ranked both Libertyville and Vernon Hills High Schools among the best high schools in Illinois. According to Hessel, this status of excellence could be impacted if D128 were to not comply with the Accelerated Placement Act enacted by the State of Illinois.
“Maintaining our high rankings is a testament to the excellence of our teachers, our students, our staff, and administration under Dr. Herrmann’s leadership…We cannot allow our schools to be impacted by non-compliance [with the Accelerated Placement Act], which could result in our loss of recognition by the state, loss of funding and loss of our IHSA status,” Hessel said.
Additionally, Hessel addressed community members’ pleas for new initiatives to be put on hold until a clearly outlined plan is put in place.
“We understand that change is hard and can be scary. Yet, change is necessary to make our excellent schools compliant and to ensure that all students have the opportunity to reach their full academic potential,” Hessel said. “We are listening and carefully considering the concerns that some parents and teachers have expressed about our plan.”
Petition
Community members Wes Polen and Robin Cleek presented a petition signed by more than a thousand community members to the board.
The petition outlines eight statements supported by these community members, such as it being unacceptable that there’s no detailed plan to implement new initiatives, there’s no sufficient multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) in place, and D128 teacher’s concerns were ignored.
“On behalf of the 1,068 concerned community members who reside within the D128 boundaries, we respectfully ask that you press pause on simultaneously implementing multiple initiatives this August,” Polen said.
When presenting the petition, Polen and Cleek acknowledged that the district had made an attempt to address some of these issues. However, they expressed that the adjustments were not enough to ease their concerns.
“While we didn’t feel it was appropriate to amend the petition after so many people had signed it, we do acknowledge that some attempt has been made to hastily fashion an MTSS plan, but we find it insufficient for many reasons the specifics of which we can’t enumerate in under three minutes,” Cleek added. “Similarly, we saw the statement that standalone honors and AP won’t be touched, but we still find that an incomplete description of what it will look like now that the benchmark has changed drastically.”
Slowing down and listening to the community
Elizabeth Hutson, D128 alumna, opined that the initiatives being implemented at D128 don’t necessarily reflect the district’s struggles, and that the Accelerated Placement Act has the potential to create more problems.
“I don’t believe access to opportunities is an issue here at D128… I recognize that’s a serious issue in other parts of the state, but not here. Our teachers are invested in student success and pushing for excellence…but now, these programs [D128 is] trying to push through essentially lower the threshold to access,” Hutson said.
Hutson urged the Board and the community to push back on these initiatives, despite it being state mandated, so D128 can focus on other issues.
“I heard it said at the last committee meeting that we don’t have a choice in these matters; that this is the law and we have to comply… If the students, teachers, parents, community, and at least some board members have concerns about these mandates…why aren’t we pushing back?” Hutson questioned. “We can do the hard thing of pushing back on the state and this initiative, and rather roll out programs and solutions that make sense for our schools’ legitimate issues, not the ones that others struggle with.”
Libertyville High School senior Jack Birmingham shared his perspective and urged that community members protest against the Accelerated Placement Act and other initiatives they believe don’t serve the community’s best interest.
“[D128 has] time and time again been able to overcome and surmount different obstacles that have stood in [their] path. Why should the state’s mandate be any different? It is a mandate, it is a law – laws can be unwritten. Laws can be peacefully protested; we’ve seen it before. We’ve seen a group of students walk into school without masks, because they believed what was happening to them was unfair,” Birmingham said.
Additionally, Birmingham questioned if these simultaneous changes are in the best interest of the D128 community.
“Some of the greatest minds in history have done incredible things, and they did not get there by doing things by the books or doing things because their superiors told them. They did these things because they had the courage to speak up for what was right, and stand up for what they believe in… [are these changes] really in the best interest of our students?” Birmingham said.
District Spending
Marnie Navarro, D128 community member, discussed district spending and provided data to back up her claims that the district’s money isn’t being spent well.
“Fact: D128 has a $100 million annual budget, a 72% surplus, and spends $28,000 a year per student. Fact: Since July ‘21, Superintendent Herrmann has added four new hires and three newly created administrative roles, six figure roles, in the past three years, signing and binding our district to three-year contracts on unproven commodities at a whopping cost of two and a half million dollars,” Navarro said.
Navarro also drew attention to the cost initiatives like the Accelerated Placement Act and Equal Opportunity Schools are bringing to D128.
“We are hemorrhaging money spent on expensive outside consultants exceeding $300,000. Equal Opportunity schools, $88,000. Tony Frontier, $3,500 a day…You all extended [Herrmann’s] contract for five more years at the cost of $1.5 million,” Navarro said. “To add insult to injury, $17,000 [was spent] for [Herrmann’s] personal office furniture, a new kitchen for the sparsely attended administrative office, while LHS crumbles down.”
John Hetzel, D128 community member, questioned the Board’s action.
“The board has been negligent and it needs to be accountable for itself,” Hetzel said. “There’s evidence of this gross financial mismanagement. You’re costing the taxpayers a lot of money. We can’t make this stuff up – we speak truth and we speak fact, and we would be willing to supply anybody in this community the documents for it because we FOIAed a lot of them.”
Support for Educational Support Personnel and Teachers
Some community members pleaded for the Board to offer more support for Educational Support Personnel (ESP) and teachers. Representatives from both the ESP union and the teachers’ union gave statements to the board.
“[ESP] are the backbone to this district, encompassing roles on campus safety to administrative support, from IT specialists to paraprofessionals, occupational therapists and beyond. Despite our invaluable contributions, we find ourselves continually burdened with additional responsibilities, while our voices and perspectives are disregarded,” Sara Cardinale, co-president of the D128 ESP Union, said. “The recent proposal to add six new ESP positions as MASH and ARC tutors is yet another example of this trend.”
Nikki Olszewski, who represented D128’s teacher union, addressed the Board after public comment was over to make a statement on behalf of the union regarding the simultaneous changes and lack of support for ESP and teachers.
“After the [Board] meeting last April, teachers were starting to get concerned. While heterogeneous classes is a noble initiative, [teachers] were not sure based on the data presented to us [by the district] that this change was needed in our district,” Olszewski said. “We’re being asked to take our most vulnerable students and remove the supports that enable them to stay at the same pace as their peers.”
Additionally, Olszewski expressed that D128 staff members’ expertise and opinions regarding these changes are being ignored.
“It seems that our voice, our thoughts, our expertise, our concern for what’s best for our students, and our time means little to the district administrators who override our hard work,” Olszewski said. “The plan is not our own, and is constantly changing by the administration. We have four weeks left of school and have only been told a draft version of what will occur next year.”