Follow up to the Sept 29th BOE meeting

First, I would encourage you to look at the draft proposal of the EEE committee community members; it starts out with a Executive Summary (pg 5-7) that provides some background on why this document was written and by whom, hinting at the built up frustration of various community members and groups; page 8 sets out an Introduction, rooting the proposals in the June 24th BOE resolution to declare racism a public health crisis; and starting on page 9, the proposals sets forth several Recommendations.

I am still trying to find a good way to have a public discussion about this document; I have interacted with several individuals (mostly via email), and I know some folks are talking about the proposals on facebook, but I feel strongly that the various viewpoints and arguments, for and against, need to be out in the open – there are firm opinions on both sides.

Secondly, I asked some questions about the Strategic Plan to the Board, and recently I received a reply. Here is the email I sent to the Board:

During the Sept 14th BOE meeting, Ms. Angela Ward and Four-Point representatives presented the Strategic Plan that you and the district administration have been diligently working on for many months. If I may, I would like to submit two clarifying questions to help me understand some of the nuances of the Plan.

Question 1: How exactly will the district “look closely” at the correlation of Special Ed and race?
I very much appreciate the emphasis on the “opportunity gap” and the “achievement gap” throughout the presentation, and it is very clear that we as a district have some major issues to address. We already know there is a high correlation of Special Ed to race (and likewise, discipline to race), so I guess another way of asking the question is “what are we going to do about it?” Board President Amy Armstrong spoke, near the end of the meeting, about addressing these types of issues from the policy perspective, and I would like to hear more of that discussion.

Question 2: What exactly are the non-negotiables?
I believe it was Scott Joffus who was talking about slide 10, titled “What are the non-negotiables?” However, I don’t think the question was answered. Was that intentional? Or did I miss it? Mr. Joffus spoke at length about some excellent overarching, structural concepts that I whole-heartedly agree with (eg, K-2 literacy), but I still do not know what the non-negotiables are.

I look forward to seeing the new Vision, Mission and Objectives statements prominently displayed on the school district website once the Strategic Plan is approved at the next board meeting.

Meghan Neary of FourPoint responded with the following:

1) In response to your first question, the strategic plan contains several ways in which Unit 4 will “look closely” at and address the correlation between special education identification rates and race:

a) Analyzing and reporting special education referrals by race and school is both an outcome (high-level indicator of district success) and a measure (shorter term indicator of implementation progress). This means that these data will be reported to the board and public regularly (frequency is still TBD, but it will be at least twice a year). While this doesn’t solve for disproportionality issues, it will place them front and center for Unit 4 and its stakeholders. 

b) Achieving instructional excellence is the first priority of the plan and it includes several strategies. Improved instruction is the best way to lower special education identification rates among Black (and other) students because students may be mistakenly identified as having a learning disability when in fact they have experienced ineffective instruction. There are a number of ways that this will be addressed (which may be easier to discuss) but one key approach is through the non-negotiables (see question 2).

c) Similarly, implementing tiered interventions—both for student behavior and academics—is a critical part of the plan as well as the new board resolution. Students, especially Black students, may be referred to special education prematurely before they have had exposure to small group remediation, tutoring, etc. A systematic approach to providing these interventions will be put in place, which should reduce the number of inappropriate referrals.

d) Addressing systemic racism is a key theme in priority two of the plan (educational access) as well as in the new board resolution.  Similar to ineffective instruction, national research shows that Black students may also be referred to special education not because they have a disability but because educators and administrators hold implicit biases or are not culturally proficient. This will be addressed in a number of ways, including through training of educators and administrators beginning in January 2021.

2) In response to your question about non-negotiables, the strategic plan defines an approach to school improvement and includes a strategy for focusing the central office’s work with schools. The central office has a finite capacity and schools can only do so many things well at once. So the idea is to focus on a number of high-leverage initiatives that have widespread buy in.  These non-negotiables have already been defined with the help of principals and central office staff and are in different stages of development and implementation (again, happy to discuss), but they are as follows:

a) All schools will take a consistent approach to school improvement planning that will include the non-negotiables and additional strategies to meet the needs of their students and to eliminate opportunity gaps for children of color. 

b) All schools will take a common approach to School Improvement Leadership Teams focused on ensuring effective implementation of the school improvement plan. 

c) Principal and leadership team members will meet regularly with central office leaders in Data Consults to review data, discuss implementation of the school improvement plan, and coordinate central office supports. 

d) The district will engage elementary school teachers, interventionists, coaches, and school leaders in developing and implementing a data-based K-2 literacy plan. 

e) By January 2021, each school will identify and begin building staff capacity on at least one component from Domain 3 of the Danielson Framework.  Over the course of the 2020-21 school year, central office will also convene a group of teachers and administrators to develop a comprehensive instructional framework that is based on the Danielson model, with a specific emphasis on culturally responsive practices. 

While I was hoping for more concrete steps, I appreciate that this these are high-level strategy discussions, and my take-away is that some of the low-level action steps are still being finalized. I am glad that focus on addressing systemic racism is baked into the new scaffolding of the Strategic Plan – it is up to us, the community, to hold future Boards and Administrators to the promises in this plan.

I am a little worried about the cavalier use of buzzwords like “instructional excellence”, “improved instruction” and “school improvement”. Do we not always try for “improved instruction” and work towards improving schools? What were (or are) we doing for the past 50 years if not “instructional excellence”? Will new/incoming teachers be required to be trained and/or educated in the ways of “instructional excellence”?

The response about non-negotiables did not really satisfy me; when I hear and use the phrase “non-negotiable”, I think about a goal or objective that we will not compromise, no matter what. The “non-negotiables” listed above all seem to point back to some “school improvement plan”, which will include non-negotiables…. In re-reading the response, it seems like a re-hash of the slides and presentation on Sept 29th.

2e mentions the “Danielson Framework”. I had never heard of it, so I looked it up (the framework may have been mentioned in the Sept 29th BOE meeting, and if so, it went over my head):
https://danielsongroup.org/framework

If the District is going to fully embrace this framework, I would want to see community buy-in, which would require that the community at least has a basic understanding of what the framework is, which would further require some way to access this information: in other words, the framework needs to be distilled and, essentially, translated so that any Unit 4 fifth grader can understand it.

As much as I agree with the intent and general direction of these plans, I am concerned about how much of this work is placed solely on the shoulders of Unit 4 faculty and staff; what about involving the community more? The one non-negotiable goal to “eliminate opportunity gaps for children of color” is a tall order – can a school district even achieve this goal acting as a single agent? Would not we have to involve various social, neighborhood and city services?

Meghan Neary invited me to ask if I have any more questions. *grin* I plan to take advantage of that invitation. If you also have questions, feel free to leave them in the comments. You can also send them to u4boe@u4sd.org.

Sept 29 BOE meeting

Official Unit 4 Vimeo: Part 1, Part 2

Communications

Mike Sitch: From CFT. Two concerns with re-opening plans. “Seems to appease the parents who want their children to return to in-person instruction.” 

Christina McDuffy (PTA Council Treasurer): Also speaking to the re-opening plan and the concerns the Council has. 

Dr. Zola giving a superintendents report: updates from the June 24th Board Resolution to Declare racism as a public health crisis. Pretty much reading the slide deck available on BoardDocs.

Bruce Brown: thankful for comments in regards to re-opening plan. Reminds us that there is a complete demographic that is not benefitting from virtual learning, and would benefit greatly from in-person instruction. 

Heather Vazquez: Very much against having BOE meetings on Tuesday for many reasons, one being that it conflicts with the Champaign City Council meetings. Looking forward to finding alternatives.

Elizabeth Sotiropoulos:  Read a long statement very quickly (original facebook source, my google doc copy). Wanting to see updates and policy recommendations from committees as stipulated by the June 24th Resolution (acknowledges the updates from the DAC, and also recently from Dr. Zola). Also questions how the district oversees collections and fund raising; she points out that several organizations have conducted book drives, fund raisers, etc, that benefit specific schools and specific students. Declares that these initiatives need to be tied to directives from the Resolution. Also expresses concerns about how Unit 4 “Board committees” have become echo chambers; can committees be majority students instead? Where is the diversity?

Gianina Baker: Very hard for me to understand what is being said. 1) Pre school? Faith School? FACE School? I didn’t catch it. Who added the training? 2) I didn’t catch it.

Amy Armstrong: Direct community efforts to change Illinois State School Code (she points out that the very word “code” means most people probably don’t understand it – AGREED!!!). Contact legislators.

Public Hearing on the budget

Not any public discourse (no questions from the audience)? Because…. Why? This is a hearing? I think part of the reason is that the language and jargon is very high level and uses a lot of vocabulary from the Accounting profession (and lots of numbers and large movements of money). “Sales receipts being paid into the Debt Service” basically means we took out some large loans to build buildings, and now we apply some incoming sales tax money to pay off that debt. Also, board members have good questions – I suspect they have spent much more time dwelling on the budget. Community members, in my opinion, have not.

Heather Vazquez: asks who keeps the fees for late “revenue production of their property taxes” (the county does). Page 4 – additionally planning for healthcare, etc. Will we be accounting for saliva testing (hat tip to the University of Illinois for spearheading en masse saliva testing)? (have to have more discussions about that)

Elizabeth Sotiropoulus: Asks about the relationships between raises of teachers and admin. How does an individual school update books, posters, etc to adapt to changing policies and the June 24th resolution?

Gianina Baker: received any more CARES money? (yes, we received $150,000) Do we anticipate any increase in retirements? (Ken Kleber says no, not really) Does it cost more students to not be in school (eg, remote learning) (in essence, yes, because the cost of everything has gone up)

New Business

Superintendent Search update

Ray & Associates rep held several stakeholder meetings over the course of a couple days, also took in all the survey results. Oct 20, 6:00 pm, another zoom meeting to provide feedback/comments to Ray & Associates. She talks about the Stakeholder Summary Report, but nothing is available on boarddocs. Is it anywhere else? 

Lots of positives shared. One of the biggest issues highlighted is systemic racism. Also a significant feeling of a lack of trust, resulting in silo events. 

In the ensuing discussion, the idea of putting anti-racist and “educational justice” language into the search itself (as well as on the school website) was mentioned several times. The board members agreed that they will be passing the Strategic Plan later in the meeting.

Orlando Thomas provides an update in the context of the June 24th Resolution. Restorative practices implemented at all levels. Book study with Ondine Gross’s book “Mediation in Schools” “restore the respect”

Bruce Brown asks about the relationships and program with the City of Champaign; Orlando says the administration is waiting for direction from the Board.

Amy Armstrong expresses concern about providing surveys that get an answer the board wants, wants to get an accurate survey (maybe via a third part); trust building.

Other good questions and conversation surrounding discipline, interventions, etc. Thoughts about tracking and collecting metrics (both within and among cohorts).

Report about teacher and administrator salaries

2nd quarter planning

The cost of testing each student and staff is outrageously high – on the order of $5.x million, once per week for 27  weeks.

Amy Armstrong shares a touching statement about how we are not serving some of students, especially those with special needs.

New Chief Communications Officer – Stacey Moore

Strategic Plan Approval – unanimous board support

Fiscal Budget approval – unanimous board approval

Board committee representatives updated

Consent agenda – approved (no explanation of items, though)

Public Comment

LeeAnn Kelly: reminder again to adapt a trauma-informed framework in response to the promise to recognize and address racism.

Rochelle Harden: Reporting from the EEE committee. The community members have been meeting A LOT (sans Unit 4 officials), going over what they can do to work towards racial justice. They have been very busy soliciting input, communicating with CFT, working on a very large google doc (my read-only copy here), soliciting more input, etc.

Benjamin Gully: very pointed, a bit sarcastic, highlighting the massive gap between the ideal put forth by Unit 4 versus the reality (in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic).

June 24th BOE meeting public comment

I have been collecting some of the statements that were read at the June 24th BOE meeting (see Resolution). The Board President mentioned several times during the meeting that comments emailed to the Board about the meeting would be attached to the agenda, but I have yet to see them. I personally find it helpful to have the text handy to augment the video recording of the June 24th Board Meeting. Here are a few I have collected so far (always looking for more):

• Mike Sitch, VP of the CFT: https://wp.me/P3Bvaa-1PL
• Moriah Ward, Central teacher: https://wp.me/P3Bvaa-1Ph
• Diana Hildebrand, Garden Hills teacher: https://wp.me/P3Bvaa-1Pj
• Drake Materre, representing CCARC: https://wp.me/P3Bvaa-1Po

 

 

Facility Referendum endorsements

I am pleasantly surprised by the number of groups that are publicly endorsing the Unit 4 facility referendum – you can read more about it on the “YES” campaign facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/Yes4ChampaignSchools/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED

To date, the groups include:

• Champaign Federation of Teachers (CFT)
• Champaign Educational Support Professionals (CESP)
• Champaign County League of Women Voters (LWV)
• Keep Central Central (KCC)
• Champaign County Young Democrats
• Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 149
• AFL-CIO of Champaign County
• The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 601

 

And in case you missed it, Stephanie Stuart, Kathy Richards and Amy Armstrong had a live “facebook” chat – I encourage you to watch/listen to the chat and read the comments posted by participants:

 

Board members continue to actively meet with various stakeholders. At the October 11th Board Meeting, several meetings were mentioned, including an opportunity the PTA Council had to interact with the board and the administration at the Mellon Center on October 13th.

Teachers Union (CFT) endorses the Unit 4 Building Referendum (Nov 8)

Champaign Federation of Teachers

Local 1925, Illinois Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO

For Immediate Release:

October 11th, 2016

Champaign Federation of Teachers Endorses Unit 4 Building Referendum.

“It is clear that the physical conditions of the buildings impact the learning conditions of students and working conditions of adults; our endorsement is a message to the community that something needs to be done,” says Jennifer White, President of the CFT.

The Executive council of the CFT approved an endorsement of the referendum at its last meeting.  Under consideration for this endorsement, the council discussed the following points

• There might be different views on the cost, location or buildings addressed by the referendum but what we can all agree on is that the need for improving our schools is real and the board has done a more transparent job of seeking community input by having multiple stakeholders at the table.
• The physical conditions of the buildings are both unsafe and are not conducive to learning
• There is a relationship between quality schools and property values; if the schools continue to decline so will home values in the area.  School improvement however will help improve property values.
• Capacity issues must be addressed

The Champaign Federation of Teachers strongly supports the November bond referendum; our students deserve access to quality public schools.

The Champaign Federation of Teachers represents more than 850 teachers working in Champaign schools.

For more information, please contact:
Jennifer White (217) 493-1721

 

For me, this is a big deal. Why? Because teachers have a pretty darn good idea what is really needed in their classrooms. Much more so than I. Consider also that the CFT just recently completed an extremely lengthy and contentious contract negotiation with the district administration and the school board, and yet they are still in support of this referendum. To me, that speaks volumes. They could have remained neutral or said nothing.

Supporting the Unit 4 November 8th facility referendum

Friday afternoon I submitted a “Letter to the Editor” for the News-Gazette (UPDATE – now published in Tuesday’s edition):

I will be voting Yes on November 8th to support the Unit 4 facilities
referendum.

It was not an easy decision to make, nor is this an easy letter to write. In
regards to the Sept 25th NG editorial “School tax plan is just too big”, I
understand this is a heavy tax burden. There are some that do not want their
taxes to go up. I respect that – I certainly do not want my taxes to
increase. It is important that we support public schools, and I am willing to
put my money where my mouth is.

I believe the current referendum does in fact move us forward. Therefore, I
encourage you to vote in favor of the school district’s plans on November
8th. I would further invite deliberation with those that believe the
referendum does not move us forward.

There has been a lot of useless “talk” in regards to the funding our local
public schools, and this is a responsibility I lay at the feet of our
community as a whole. The current school board has bent over backwards in an
effort to gather feedback and discuss their options in open session. I would
even say the board has done too much; our community is too complacent and in
general, we fail to exercise real democracy.

To vote is good. To be an educated voter is even better; weigh your arguments
against others. But best yet is to care about other people.

Charles Schultz
sacrophyte@gmail.com
https://thecitizen4blog.wordpress.com

 

In Sunday’s Opinion section, I see that the League of Women Voters has also thrown in their support in favor of the referendum. I heard from a Chamber of Commerce member over the weekend that the Chamber recently sent out a vote, so it will be interesting to hear their opinion as well.

I like the way that the LWV’s letter put it – sure, there are things we would rather change about the referendum (and/or the process that we have taken to get here), but overall, the good outweighs the bad. I have another blog post that will be published soon that is an interview I had with Board President Chris Kloeppel, and the bottom line that came out of that chat was “Does the referendum move us forward?” And I believe it does.

What I would have liked to have seen happen differently is that I would want the board (and administration) to take a step back and force the “Yes” folks to deliberate with the “No” folks, in multiple venues and settings. The community has not owned this discussion (for many years), and thus the community is not well educated. Just read the NG editorials and comment sections for proof. 🙂 And even though Unit 4 goes through the formality of a public budget hearing, there is essentially nobody there. So my one biggest gripe right now is that the voters do not fully understand the budget picture, nor the bigger context of facilities and how all that affects education. As I have said in the past, we do not have a clear correlation between dollars spent on facilities versus academic achievement – granted, it is exceptionally hard to prove it one way or the other.

 

For an interesting stroll through public opinion against the referendum, I encourage readers to go through the 28 pages of the Online Survey Open Ended Responses, or the 14 pages of the Phone Survey Open Ended Responses. I am thinking a forum on that alone would be a good place to start off a “town hall meeting.” 🙂

Upcoming community-engagement events

As we head into the last month before the election (November 8th), there are a number of opportunities for the community to engage in various aspects of decision-making within the context of the school district.

 

Now through October 19th – Online Superintendent Search Survey

On Wednesday, Stephanie Stuart stated that a superintendent search survey is now available online. I encourage you to consider what kind of traits and priorities are most important for a superintendent and respond accordingly (note – there is a free-form response section as well).

http://www.champaignschools.org/news-room/article/14951

Champaign CUSD 4 Board of Education is conducting a search for a new superintendent.  The selection of a new superintendent is probably the most important decision a board of education has to make; therefore, the Board has hired the Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB) to assist in this process.

The Board of Education is seeking community input in the search process.  The Board requests that community members complete an online survey provided by the IASB, linked below. The survey will stay open through October 19.

The results will be tallied and used by the Board and Screening Team to develop a brochure to advertise the position.

Thank you for taking time to complete the survey.

English version: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HG58V38
Spanish version: https://es.surveymonkey.com/r/HG3NDMC
French version: https://fr.surveymonkey.com/r/Z2LWJ98

October 6th – Alliance to Reclaim our Schools Walk-in Day

Walk-in events are being planned at  Robeson, Jefferson, Westview, Carrie Busey, Garden Hills, Edison, Franklin, Stratton and Central. You can learn more about the Alliance at the AROS website:

http://www.reclaimourschools.org

They have 5 basic tenets:

• Full funding and support for neighborhood-based community schools: don’t close or privatize them
• More teaching, less testing
• Positive discipline policies and an end to zero tolerance
• Quality, affordable education from early childhood through college, including for undocumented students
• A living wage that lifts people out of poverty

 

I know Carrie Busey has put information on their PTA email list, and I hope others will as well.

 

October 11-12 – On-site Superintendent Search sessions

At the September 26th Board Meeting, Board President Chris Kloeppel mentioned that two IASB representatives will be meeting in various locations all day October 11th and 12th. There will be specific sessions for teachers, students, community members, etc. Keep your eyes open for more news.

 

October 13 – PTA Council hosts a tax referendum Q&A session with Unit 4 + BOE

The PTA Council has announced that they will be hosting a session that allows the public to interact with representatives of Unit 4 and the school board on the topic of the November 8th Facilities Tax referendum.

We have scheduled the first meeting! We have been able to work with Unit 4 and the School Board to create an open venue to ask any questions you may have about the district and upcoming referendum. We will also talk about how the Council works with the district and take nominations for a new slate of officers.

Date: October 13
Time: 6:30pm
Topic: Connecting with the District: Open Forum to discuss the upcoming referendum
Location: Mellon Admin Building
Dinner provided.

Please do let me know if you are able to attend so we can have enough food.
Everyone is welcome to attend, please share this information with your schools.
Thank you,
Anna (anna.c.simon3@gmail.com)

 

 

In other news, Unit 4 has updated their Referendum FAQ – a number of relevant questions have been asked and answered:
http://facilityplanning.champaignschools.org/faqs

 

“Own your own education”

Source: http://www.isbe.net/assessment/powerpoint/ext-review-lg-scale-asmt12.pdf

This post is a little long – for those that are impatient, here is the “tl;dr” version (google it if you don’t know what that means).

From the ISBE SARC public hearing, it is clear that there is still a bit of controversy surrounding PARCC; some believe it is better than what we had, others believe it is too detached from what students really need. There was a significant lack of student voice, and that particular silence rings loudly in my ears. We must ask ourselves, over and over again, what exactly is the purpose of public school?

 

My take-away actions steps are to:

• Form two or more local focus groups, one primarily of students, with two goals; 1) providing feedback to ISBE SARC, and 2) identify changes and the resources to make those changes happen. Right now, I am leaning towards the EdCamp approach.
• Talk to local SARC member Jean Korder (Urbana Schools 116); apparently, she knows a ton about assessments, and I would like her local perspective on the “good, bad and ugly”
• Push for more involvement and engagement in the local opt-out group that resulted from the last EdCamp. I very much want student input, and I very much would like to see it not die on the vine. On top of that, I want to learn what minorities think of this effort.

 

Continue reading for more.

Last minute news: provide feedback on PARCC directly to ISBE

Going to make a quick post, which I will update later. I just received an email giving notice that the Illinois State Board of Education will be holding a public hearing via video conference tomorrow to gather feedback and talk about PARCC. Aside from being very last minute, the only two locations are at the Springfield office and the Chicago office. Here is all I know at the moment:

 

In other news, the State Assessment Review Committee (SARC) is holding a “PARCC listening tour” to gather input from students, parents, teachers, and administrators about the second administration of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) assessment, which concluded in June.

 

There are several ways for you to provide feedback, including an online survey and a PARCC public hearing to be held via video conference in Chicago and Springfield on July 7. More details are available in the newsletter below.

 

I encourage you and members of your school communities to take the time to share your candid thoughts about the successful aspects of the test and what could use improvement. This feedback will be included in SARC’s final report and will also help guide our efforts to make the PARCC assessment as useful and beneficial for educators and students as possible.

 

Members of the public can share their input in three ways:

1.      A “focus group”- style conversation with one or two members of the SARC committee;

2.       A survey via the following links:

o   Teacher survey: www.surveymonkey.com/r/BJYKK7K

o   Student survey: www.surveymonkey.com/r/B5LHMMR

o   Parent survey: www.surveymonkey.com/r/H2GYWVX

o   Parent survey (Spanish): www.surveymonkey.com/r/M8FRW5X

3.      A SARC public hearing will be held via video-conference in Chicago and Springfield from 1 to 4 p.m. on July 7.

o   The Chicago location is the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) video conference room on the 14th floor at 100 W. Randolph St. The Springfield location is the ISBE video conference room on the third floor at 100 N. First St.

All feedback will be included in SARC’s final report.

 

I may be going to the Springfield office tomorrow – if you would like me to forward any concerns/feedback, feel free to drop an email or a comment below.

UPDATE:

The number is directly below.  Participants will be in listen only mode until the public comment period begins at which time an operator will provide instructions to participants. This will allow us to make certain that we don’t miss anyone that is intending to speak, and that we don’t have background noise that may disrupt the ability to hear.

• Callers need to state that they are with the State Assessment Review Committee call.

 

Dial In Number (Participants – Muted):  1-800-230-1092

 

UPDATE:

Agenda is posted

1. Introductions
2. Approval of prior minutes
3. Overview of 2016 PARCC administration
4. Review of survey responses
5. Review of focus group conversations
6. Strategy for future engagement
7. Review of 2016 PARCC administration report plan and timeline
8. Public comment
9. Closing

Town Hall meetings

Instead of updating my previous post, I’m just going to make a new one. From Stephanie Stuart of Unit 4:

(UPDATE: link to Unit 4 press release)

Town Hall Meeting Flyer

The Unit 4 Board of Education will host two Town Hall Meetings on June 23 and July 14 to gather community input on the school facility plans under consideration.

This school year, the Board of Education embarked on a collaborative planning process and formed a Special Board Committee comprised on community representatives to provide recommendations on a long term facilities plan. On Monday, June 13, the Tier II Committee is expected to present those recommendations to the Board of Education.

In order to gather input on these recommendations and determine next steps, the Board will host two Town Hall meetings that are open to the public.

• Central High School on Thursday, June 23, 2016 at 6:00 p.m.

610 West University Avenue – Enter at Seely Hall on Park Ave.

• Centennial High School on Thursday, July 14, 2016 at 6:00 p.m.

913 Crescent Drive – Enter at North Visitor’s Entrance

This summer, the Board of Education will also conduct a community survey to gather input. Information on this survey and how to participate will become available in the coming weeks.

Information about the collaborative planning process is available on the project website, facilityplanning.champaignschools.org.

This work is also explained and discussed on the Unit 4 Board Corner Blog at u4boardcorner.blogspot.com.