District 225 board touches on Fagel's departure, COVID testing, Glenview Aquatics
A seemingly innocuous agenda for Monday's Glenbrook High Schools District 225 board meeting turned much more interesting.
Controversy. COVID testing. And swimming - a big deal in these parts.
During public comment, two of the five speakers addressed hundreds of pages of documents released July 28 through Freedom of Information Act filings. The documents included an unnamed district employee's request for a meeting with board Superintendent Charles Johns to discuss the behavior of since-resigned Glenbrook South principal Lauren Fagel, and cellphone text conversations between Fagel and other members of the Administrative Council.
"It's clear we need an immense overhaul," said one speaker, Glenn Farkas of the Glenview Community Action Network.
Board President Bruce Doughty and Johns responded.
"We will not tolerate a culture that is toxic to our teachers, staff, parents, administrators and, most importantly, to our students," Doughty said. "The district and its attorneys are continuing to review this matter, consistent with due process, and it may result in further board action."
Johns, pledging to improve workplace culture, focused on positives that occurred over the 2020-21 campaign; the "countless examples of supporting and leaning on each other during a very trying year," he said.
"That is who we are in the Glenbrooks, not these messages," Johns said.
Other than the now-settled topic of masks, little changed from the board's initial plan to resume in-person learning to begin the 2021-22 school year, as directed by the Illinois State Board of Education.
The mask-optional argument broached by a large public contingent at the July 26 board meeting was made moot by Gov. J.B. Pritzker's Aug. 4 executive order, based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mandating that masks be worn indoors at prekindergarten through 12th-grade schools regardless of vaccination status.
What did change concerned SHIELD, a free, state-supported COVID saliva testing program the district proposed to be required once weekly for athletes and students in other high-risk activities, and available to all students voluntarily.
Board member Skip Shein queried why there was no baseline COVID testing in the plan to establish where district students were at entering the term. Though the number of kits for baseline testing would exceed the 5,000 ordered before school starting Aug. 18, according to district associate superintendent R.J. Gravel, board members came around to Shein's argument that baseline testing should be done even if it extended past the first day of class.
"Let's not have perfect get in the way of practically possible," Shein said.
The plan, updated for mandatory baseline testing for students and staff, vaccinated or unvaccinated, at a cost not to exceed $60,000, was approved by a 6-0 vote.
An item on Glenview Aquatics, whose largest portion is the Glenview Swim Club, stemmed from an external audit of its funding within the district budget. Findings included potential overstaffing, overlapping of functions and "considerable discord among staff," Gravel reported.
Though board member Michelle Seguin requested five years of budget figures for the program, which became fully enveloped within district coffers in 2007, Gravel described Glenview Aquatics as a historically self-sufficient entity through user fees, save last year when the program's four pools had to be closed.
Hearing about the "toxicity in team culture" the audit discovered, board member Joel Taub wondered if the district might be better off divesting itself from the program.
On the other hand, Taub said Glenview Aquatics is a source of community pride, as the program has helped produce numerous athletes who, for example, won the boys 2020 Illinois Swimming and Diving Association title.
Though approval was held for a future board meeting, a revised organizational structure was presented Monday. Its flowchart had Bob Pieper as district liaison, Kelly Brown as operations director, 12-Under lead coach Steve Iida as head swim coach and Matt Purdy as assistant liaison. Five other lead or head coaches and many assistants and student workers had yet to be identified.