220 Priorities
Reopen Well
It’s clear the most pressing short-term issue for District 220 is how we reopen schools well for in-person learning amid the Covid-19 pandemic. As a parent whose kids have been back in school for a total of three days since March 2020, and as the chief supervisor of remote learning and occasional Zoom class panic (while trying to do my own work), I am thrilled that as of March 29, 2021, both of our kiddos are back in school full-time.
However, it’s critical to recognize each family is different and has a varying set of aggravating or ameliorating factors when it comes to the Covid-19 pandemic. If a student’s or a teacher’s family has someone in their household who’s immunocompromised, for instance, that family should have the choice to continue with the style of learning that is safest and best for them. If a family has a multigenerational household in which social distancing is difficult and would like to remain remote, the district should be able to provide them with that option. We need a flexible, agile and understanding approach to reopening schools.
It’s hard to tell where things will stand on our reopening timeline by Election Day on April 6. What’s clear are the many stakeholders in our community—students, parents, teachers, staff, administrators, local businesses and homeowners—who should have input in the reopening process. When these groups are invited to participate, whether by committee or survey or some other means, this needs to be communicated and emphasized.
What’s also clear is that even though the district has been coordinating with the Lake County Health Department, before we return to some degree of normalcy, we should put together a physician-led crisis cohort to conduct a thorough review and come up with a pandemic plan—a formalized set of learnings, processes and best practices specific to 220—in case we ever encounter this kind of extraordinary situation again.
Communicate Effectively
I would love to increase the communication flow between the school board and the community. For instance, I’m grateful we have access to our school board meetings, but it’s often very difficult for a family to find the most relevant pieces of information in a three-hour YouTube recording of a board meeting or by trying to peruse board minutes. We have an opportunity to pair social media with the regular email updates from the board to give quick, helpful updates. We should also use tools like Zoom to hold regular listening sessions with different constituencies in our community. When we do, we need to be clear about the ideas being offered and topics being discussed.
We need robust communication with the community, especially around finances, logistics and decision-making. We need to break down what’s being spent where and why. We need to explain what the Board of Education does and why in ways people can easily understand. We should commit, for instance, to 220's history of balanced budgets—while allowing funding flexibility for pandemic circumstances—and show the community (beyond board meetings) how we were able to get there.
What if, in addition to using social media channels to show the Board of Education honoring students and community members, we also posted short graphics and videos to break down board decisions and tax levy processes for families? What if we posted brief, digestible updates on how the board is implementing the $147 million referendum? What if we broke down summer projects and spending into bite-size pieces? What if we let our community know what specific education legislation we're tracking?
What would it look like if the board did everything it could to increase transparency and communication? What if the board and its committees hosted regular coffees, virtual sessions, town halls and Q & As? What if we invited all stakeholders to speak into difficult decisions? What if we asked for regular input about elements of a strong, rigorous, inclusive and comprehensive curriculum? Increasing our communication grows transparency and can ease the perception that the board is being persuaded by emotion. Effective communication demonstrates how the district uses studied, considered research before making decisions.
Represent Our Community Mosaic
The four school board members elected in 2021 will be dealing with much more in their four-year board terms than the reopening of schools. With the hiring of a new superintendent, Dr. Robert Hunt, comes the opportunity to work with all segments of our community to develop an inclusive, cohesive strategic plan for the next several years.
When it comes to implementing the referendum and in general, to awarding contracts, I am committed to making cost-effective, equity-based decisions. This means exploring and expanding our range of options and perhaps partnering with different suppliers, companies and organizations.
This also means when we consider hiring throughout the district, we ensure that we strive to accurately represent our community's unique mosaic. We have a high school with more than 36 percent students of color. This should be reflected in our board, in our administration, our staff, our educational programming and our schools—not only when it comes to race but also with regard to geography, class, age, ability and experiences. We become a more inclusive community when we expand the number of stories and histories being taught and shared.
Growing up, I was the only Asian American student in my class from pre-kindergarten through my senior year of high school. Not until college at Northwestern University did I have my first instructor who was a person of color. However, I am so hopeful, with the emergence of Courageous Conversations, Be the Change Barrington, the Board of Education's prioritization of equity and the hiring of Nate Rouse, the district's director of race, equity and cultural initiatives, that we are engaging in the necessary and messy discussions that allow us as a community to fully understand each other's experiences. These are resources I did not have access to while growing up in the Chicago suburbs, and the open-hearted community they cultivate gives me hope.
When we sit and listen to one another and begin to experience life through each other's lenses, that's when we can stand with one another to take an honest look at a culture that enables racism, sexism and ableism and hold ourselves, including our district leaders and our school faculty and staff, responsible for instilling empathy, inclusion and respect.
Negotiate Long-Term Contracts
The ability to negotiate a long-term contract with teachers in the Barrington Education Association, or BEA, with fair compensation to full-time employees is key. Having a five-year contract with the BEA gives stability to our school district. (As a former newspaper guild member who worked to renegotiate our contract every two years, I can attest to this!) We should also work on additional items like better compensation for substitute teachers. Overall, it’s important we continue aiming for long-term contracts with the BEA (while allowing for flexibility) so that we can continue to attract high-caliber teachers, who are not only core to caring for kids but also to helping our community shine as a destination district.
It's also clear that so many of our teachers are lifelong learners and seek to expand their professional and extracurricular expertise outside of the regular school year. Teachers and staff who undergo extra training in various subjects can leverage this by also sharing new knowledge with their departments and colleagues. Learning for all of us should be a lifelong pursuit, and this appetite to become better teachers and human beings should be encouraged and supported.
Find a Healthy Technological Balance
While I am thankful we have so much access to technology and am so appreciative of the One to World program that paired our kids with iPads (particularly this year during distance learning), I’d like to explore what it means to strike a healthy balance between technology and time away from pixelated screens. As technology has become a permanent part of our children's education, let's appoint a Board of Education liaison to the already-existing District Tech Committee so we can keep up with what's effective (and healthy) for our kids.
To be honest, school-issued iPads can seem, at times, like they’re the sources of parental misery because of our kids’ inability to part with them. Their iPads have become so vital for homework, test-taking and communication that I wonder if an over-reliance on them is having detrimental effects on our kids. I have also heard from teachers that iPads are, at times, a major distraction in the classroom, and I know parents whose children have gotten headaches from excessive screen use.
As an “Xennial” who remembers what life was like before it seemed every house had a PC, I know we can find a healthy balance between a life with pixels and time with paper books and in-person games. At the very least, we must have regular conversations about digital boundaries and best practices, particularly around time limits, social media access and screen-free environments.
Examine Transportation Options
We need to continue taking detailed looks at transportation in our school district. Transportation constitutes one of the biggest parts of our operating budget, and we need to ensure it is fair, safe and equitable for all of our families. I’d like to maintain an open-minded posture around providing busing to communities that have been told bus transportation is not an option, particularly during this unique time of fluid hybrid schedules.
Out of a desire for safety, we should explore how to provide fair and convenient transportation for all families who want and need it. This could transform the landscape for Sunny Hill Elementary families and also benefit kids at any school who may need safer busing options—especially when it’s icy and frigid outside.
Mental and Emotional Health
As vaccinations increase and Covid-19 case numbers fall, and as we enter a post-pandemic reality, it is critical that we assess and address the mental, emotional and relational health of our students in District 220.
There’s been so much focus on academic learning loss, and while I believe learning loss is real and that gaps between students in our district need to be bridged through supplemental and accessible instruction, I think it would be incumbent on me, if elected to the Barrington 220 Board of Education, to urge our superintendent and administration to take intentional, concrete steps to come alongside our students and parents to ensure they’re being connected to the counselors and resources they need.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness cites a 2018 study by Daniel Whitney, PhD, showing that one in six youth ages 6 to 17 experience a mental health disorder every year. Even more, the isolation, uncertainty and turmoil of the Covid-19 pandemic has almost certainly augmented incidents of anxiety and depression among our kids.
As part of my volunteer work, I serve on the Northwestern University Alumni Admissions Council, and I spent part of my winter interviewing high school seniors who applied for admission to Northwestern University, my alma mater. During those interviews, one in four high school students acknowledged to me that they suffered anxiety and depression during the pandemic, and that for the first time in their lives, they reached out for help. Fortunately, the students who told me their stories received the help they needed and were embraced by the teachers and mentors in their lives.
I am concerned, however, for kids whose mental health has suffered and don’t even know they may benefit from help and counseling services. This is why I think it’s necessary, as our district returns to full-time, in-person learning over the next couple of weeks, for our district’s counselors and teachers to have conversations with every single student to gauge how they’re doing mentally and emotionally.
Some students may have adjusted just fine to the oscillations of the pandemic, but others have experienced consequential disruptions to their mental health or have even lost someone they loved to Covid-19, causing serious emotional trauma. According to the American Psychological Association, universal screening of kids through questionnaires and conversations can aid in identifying at-risk students. In addition, our teachers, coaches and school staff should receive training from counselors and mental health professionals in order to spot concerning student behaviors so they can come alongside those students to connect them with additional mental health services.
We also have phenomenal local organizations, such as Barrington Youth & Family Services, BStrong Together and the Healthier Barrington Coalition. I am proud of the resilience and adaptability of our kids during this pandemic, and we need to maintain and strengthen the partnerships the school district has with these invaluable nonprofits.
As school board members, we should also review student use of our current district resources around mental health, including our social emotional resources, text-a-tip, and the META app, which connects kids to school counselors. We need to ensure students and families know how to access these resources, and if the resources are being under-utilized, we should find out why and explore if there are more effective ways to assist students in navigating their mental and emotional health.
Finally, just as we have formed a district equity team around race, I think we need to consider a districtwide team composed of school board members, teachers, staff, parents, students and community organizations that advises and makes policy recommendations to the administration, superintendent and the board around our most vulnerable students, including neurodivergent kids and teens who have IEPs, or individualized education plans, and 504s. Each child has different life experiences, and as school board members, we need to demonstrate our willingness to bend and flex to ensure the mental health of each student in every part of our district.