District 30 Approves New Staff, Debates Statute

The Northbrook-Glenview School District Board of Education approved six new staff members before focusing its shredding gaze on the language of some proposed policies.

Because the school year has already started, the approval of the certified teachers (seventh grade math, third grade, fifth grade, Spanish, special education and Mandarin Chinese) was mostly ceremonial. The Board also approved five non-certified teacher assistants. 

With "regrets and congratulations" the Board of Education accepted the resignation of Paul Suminksi, who departed to become an assistant principal at Deer Path Middle School in Lake Forest.

"He's going to have an outstanding career," said Supt. Edward Tivador. "We can certainly be proud of those teachers who are advancing their careers with District 30 as their background and impetus for doing so. This is certainly one of those cases."

The Board then focused about an hour and a half of its time on revising potential policies. Part of what made the policy reading so tricky was that the language had been borrowed from statutes not originally conceived for use by schools. 

"This whole thing was not designed for schools, and that's why it's an awkward document," Tivador said.

Although much of the discussion was about the proper punctuation and capitalization, board members also tried to find the precise words, debating the difference between phrases like "portable storage device" and "USB disk," or "computer and "electronic device."

• On potential punishment: "If the recommended disciplinary actions are being directed to the superintendent, it should say so," President James Bream said. "We can't leave it ambiguous. It's important we keep the board a neutral body."
• On the Board's power to revise language: "There's all this language that doesn't work for us in every case, and when we talk about changing it, the answer is always, 'It's the statute,'" said board member Carol Sullivan. 
• Tivador clarified that adding to the language is allowed.
• On downloading copyrighted material for other than personal use: "What if someone's sitting on our network on a ripoff site downloading something they shouldn't be downloading, and it gets tagged back to us?" Bream asked.
• On being careful with the revisions: "We have to be careful that we as a governmental entity don't take on powers or responsibilities that we don't have," Bream said.
• On the language as a whole: "I'd like the way it read if it were an essay, but it's not an essay," Tivador said.

Because this was the first reading, no action was taken—only questions asked (including a discussion of whether "real life" and "real world" are appropriate descriptors for the difference between school and private life.)

"It's important to have the collective discussion, because value comes out of that as well," Bream said.

Before adjourning, the board looked back at the past summer. The highlights:

• Nearly 1,110 students turned out for the first day of school.
• 20 new staff members joined the district this year.
• The Northern Suburban Special Education District's budget is down about 6 percent this year (or $2.5 million). Tuition is up by about 3 percent.
• At the end of the fiscal year, the district had a $1.1 million surplus in its operating budget.