Black History & LGBTQIA+ Issues

Bill Clevenger expressed concern that with hot-button issues like these, "often times one snippet becomes the viral conversation," and he says we need to "look at what is contained in the curriculum and have the total picture."

As far as actually handling these issues, he says board members need to "vote our own conscience," as well as "rely on our professional staff in the school system to make recomendations for the board to consider." He said there have been Board Members who wanted to "sit side-by-side with the superintendent and run the school district and that's simply not good governance. Good Governance means hiring an executive and expecting that executive to do the job, and that covers this topic as well."

Misty Fronk says "it's good for everybody to know complete history, whether it be black history or lgbtq," but "if we're going to teach children history that may be contradictory to their parents beliefs, or whatever, the parents should be notified in writing and have to sign something saying that they are okay with you teaching their child that, at that particular time."

Misty Continues: "We have to make sure that when we do teach this, that the teachers are very well prepared, so that they don't misconstrue a child into thinking, you know, anything that they're saying can be taken out of context or racist, because history, yaknow, we wouldn't want a child to think that a teacher is talking about the lgbt community and she's racist because she's talking about that. So we have to make sure that, if we're going to teach that, the teachers are educated on how to present it so it doesn't sound like they're downgrading one part of the history over another part."

Jacob Jenkins says "this is a very important question, but first I would say that School Districts need to follow the law around whatever the subject is," whether it is "lgbt or black history". He says it is very important to follow "the law and state statute" surrounding that information.

Jacob says "This is one of those questions that sometimes divide people, but right now, I'm worried about making sure our kids can read first. So it doesn't matter if you're teaching them black history or anything else, if they can't read, it's a mute [sic] point."

Jacob also addressed Clevenger's comment about "good governance," saying that the Board has "only one employee", the superintendent, and that "when we cherry-pick superintendents to carry out what our agenda [is], that too [needs addressing]," as it is not good board governance and "moreso lacks accountability, and we've seen that here a few times." He says "It's not necessarily that we want to hold the superintendents' hand, but we wanna make sure they are not also complicit in helping to break the open meetings act 16 times."

Mark Reynolds says: "I'm very sensitive about what our children are being taught, especially about sex. Sexuality to me is an age appropriate type of subject." He says "I wanna protect the innocence of our [1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade] kids."

"I don't feel it's appropriate for them to be immersed in the LGBTQ agenda and the ideologies that go with it. Innocence only lasts for a short period period of time, and I wanna give our children the ability to be innocent for as long as possible."

"Someone asked me awhile ago about banning books that I thought were objectionable, I don't believe in banning books, but I believe in books being age appropriate for the audience, so I don't want a 3rd grader reading about two men having sex together. I don't want them reading about two women having sex together."

"If we found it appropriate at 7th, 8th, 9th grade, fine, but I want to protect the children from things coming out of Springfield that I find abhorrent. There are laws that I object to and I strongly fall on the side of protecting the kids."

Misty Fronk and several members in the audience clapped after Mark's answer.

Hannah Wolfe later says "our job is to prepare kids for the real world. We can't hide certain things, and if Jim has two dads, then Jim has two dads and that's just what reality is, and not something that is age appropriate or not."

(I previously wrote an opinion here, which was removed. You can now read it here)

Will Wetzel agrees with Jenkins that "first and foremost, we have to comply with the law." Will says the Illinois State Board of Education "sets outlines for curriculum", and it is up to school administration to implement it.

He says "our job, as a School Board, is to hire administrators and allow them the latitude to choose a curriculum based on feedback from our teachers, from our teaching professionals, and from the Illinois State Board of Education, in order to come up with the best curriculum possible for our children."

He agrees with Jenkins again that "we need to focus on where our issues are, which is reading, math, and writing." He says "When we have only 70% of our children graduating from high school, that shows that we are not preparing them for life, and that needs to be our focus."

Hannah Wolfe said "one of the reasons we teach history is so that it doesn't repeat itself," so we need to be "brutally honest about what that history is at an age-appropriate level. Whitewashing it isn't going to help any of us; it's not gonna help any of our kids or the next generations."

She says "our job is to prepare kids for the real world. We can't hide certain things, and if Jim has two dads, then Jim has two dads and that's just what reality is, and not something that is age appropriate or not."

She continues "I think just teaching a nuclear family and that things happen a certain way is a dangerous area to get into, but I think we really need to just teach our kids the truth and set them up for the real world."

Jalynn Walker withdrew from the School Board Race.

Datrice Weathers withdrew from the School Board Race.