Everybody ready? Good evening, everyone. On behalf of the Community Unit School District three hundred Board of Education, we would like to thank you for being in attendance, both virtually and in person for tonight's board meeting. At this time, we would like to reconvene the meeting of the Community Unit School District three hundred Board of Education for Tuesday, 09/23/2025. Madam secretary, please take the role. Burkett? Present. Fiorentino? Present. LaMarca? Present. Linmark? Present. McKenday? Present. Nelia? Present. Zettler? Present. Seven board members present.
Thank you. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Doctor Smith. Members of the Board of Education, community members, staff, and students, we would like to acknowledge the passing of a District three hundred student. District three hundred would like to honor Kya Douglas Brus, a student at Jacobs High School who passed away on September 20. Kya will be forever missed, and district three hundred would like to offer deep condolences to the family, friends, and Jacobs High School community. At this time, I ask all in attendance to observe a moment of silence in honor of Kaya.
Thank you. Approval of the agenda. There have been no changes to the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Madam secretary, please take the vote. Fiorentino. Aye. McKenday. Aye. Malia. Aye. Zeller? Aye. Linmark? Aye. LaMarca, aye. Burkett? Aye. Motion passes seven zero. Thank you. Dear district three hundred community members, all community unit school district three hundred board meetings follow rules of decorum that promote civil productive discussion by requiring all intended and attendants to remain in their seats,
be respectful, listen attentively, stay focused on the agenda, and avoid personal attack or interruptions. These rules ensure a fair and orderly environment for decision making and public participation. Board members will respect others by treating all members, staff, and public with courtesy and listen to their points of view with an open mind, stay on topic by focusing on discussions on the issues at hand and avoid personalizing debates or disparaging remarks about others, follow-up procedures for speaking and debating during the meeting. The board will listen and be respectful and will consider public comments,
but will not dialogue or engage with speakers in this forum. The public will sign up to speak in advance if they wish to come comment according to the established process, respect time limits by making their comments within the allotted time, stay on topic to ensure their comments are relevant to the board's business, speak respectfully when expressing their opinions, and do so in a professional manner. Persons displaying disruptive behavior will be act asked to stop their disruptive behavior. Additionally, our district safety officer or his agent may warn them that continued disruptive behavior will
result in additional consequences. If the disruptive behavior continues, the individual or individuals will be removed from the meeting. We look forward to a productive meeting. Thank you for your cooperation. Item seven, public hearing. We are now opening the public hearing for the by fiscal year twenty twenty five, 2026 budget. Is there a motion to open the public hearing for the fiscal year 2025 or 2026 budget? Second. Okay. Madam secretary, please take a roll. McKendy. Aye. Guarantino. Aye. Burkett. Aye. Zettler. Aye. Nalia. Aye. Linmark.
Aye. Lamarca. Aye. Motion passes seven zero. Doctor. Frank Williams, chief financial officer, will provide a brief overview of the fiscal year twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six budget. Great. Let's see. Okay. Good evening, members of the board, doctor Smith, administration, and the public. Today, I will be be presenting on the FY twenty six final budget. Budgets serve as the District's financial roadmap guiding us toward our long term fiscal and educational goals. Every dollar of a budget should be allocated with the future in mind, aligning resources to support the realization of the District's vision.
The critical question becomes, what actions can we take today, whether in the classroom or through our facilities, to advance that vision, which again is future looking? Achieving this requires discipline, data driven, and strategically planned financial decisions. And the FY 'twenty six budget reflects that commitment, but with the input from many stakeholders across the district, it provides a clear framework to ensure our mission translates into measurable progress. This budget is more than numbers on a page. It's a strategic tool that empowers us to transform today's decision into tomorrow's success.
Since August 13, the budget has been available for public review. From our last discussion to the final version, significant time and effort has been dedicated to detailed examination of each budget line. This process evolved not only reviewing historical trends, but also evaluating each item through the practical lens of our daily work to fulfill the district's mission. This rigorous approach ensures that every dollar is aligned with student success and organizational excellence. The result is a budget that is both fiscally responsible and strategically positioned to drive long term impact for our schools and community.
And I'd like to recognize Josh Motley, our financial analyst, who took this time and effort working beside me to create this particular budget. We'll take a brief look at the unaudited FY twenty five figures. As of today, we project the fiscal year will close with a fund balance of 209,600,000.0. In alignment with the board's 30% fund balance policy, FY '25 is anticipated to end at 40.19% of expenses of cash. This strong position not only reflects disciplined financial stewardship but also provides the district with with the stability and flexibility needed to sustain priorities.
However, the reduction of state funding due to our transition to tier two, PTA limiting our new revenue growth to 2.9%, and continued uncertainty surrounding federal grants combined with the anticipated enrollment growth of 4,000 students over the next decade. Future fiscal investments in facilities beyond FY '26 would need to be carefully reviewed and strategically analyzed to ensure the long term sustainability of our Fund balance. As outlined in the Master Facility Plan, the District has identified a significant number of capital projects needed over the next six
years, creating a safe, secure, modern learning environments that meet the demands of today's educational landscape is a top priority. When coupled with the challenge of addressing projected student growth, the financial commitment to these capital projects becomes not just necessary, but fundamental to the District's ability to deliver on its mission and its vision. Over the next few slides, I will compare my August analysis to my final budget recommendations starting with the revenue. Revenues are derived from three main sources, local, state,
and federal, and are spread out over all of our accounting funds. From a local revenue perspective, we we receive approximately 7% of our total funding. The largest component is property taxes, supplemented by interest income from investments. Instructional fees and other local stores has been waived for the past several years in response to COVID. However, as we look ahead, the reinstatement of instructional fees is under consideration for the 2627 school year. Corporate personal property replacement tax or CPPRT was also classified as a local source.
At the time of the budget development in August, CPPRT was estimated at historical levels due to uncertainty in state distributions. We now know the district will receive an additional 1,300,000.0 above, and this additional revenue will be allocated to the capital projects fund. From a state revenue perspective, that's about 26% of our total funding, with the largest source being our evidence based funding, followed by mandated categorical reimbursements. Transportation reimbursement is the most significant categorical, though it has historically been prorated by the state.
This means districts are reimbursed at less than full cost. So for FY '26, we will receive approximately 75¢ for every dollar that we ask to receive back from the state. While actual transportation expenses continue to rise, the district is fortunate to have a strong partnership with Durham and within the next few months, I will bring forward a proposal to renew our transportation services for to the board. From a federal perspective, it makes up roughly 4% of the district's total. The largest components are the title grants and the IDEA funding. However,
continued uncertainty at the federal level has reduced anticipated revenue. Compared to the August projections, the district expects $1,500,000 less than federal funding, which is reflected in the Education Fund. Together, these revenue streams demonstrate both the strengths and the vulnerabilities of our financial structure. While local revenues provide a stable foundation, state and federal uncertainties underscore the importance of disciplined planning, creation of fund balances, and strategic use of resources to ensure the District can sustain its mission in the face of these challenges.
Expenses represent the spending authority to the administration by the Board of Education. Once the budget is approved, the administration is expected to operate within that authority without exceeding it. For f y twenty six, I am requesting $417,500,000 to operate the district. As is the case in all school districts, salaries and benefits represent the largest share of the budget, accounting for approximately 61% of our total expenditures. Since August, we have taken a deeper dive into the budget to refine the projections and ensure alignment with priorities. This review resulted in adjust adjustments that reduced the preliminary August budget by a little
over $500,000 while also identifying sufficient savings to set aside contingency dollars. Contingencies provide flexibility for unanticipated needs. And for FY '26, allocations have been placed in the ed and operations funds. Excluding contingencies, this final September budget reflects a net reduction of roughly $3,000,000 from the August proposal. Key adjustments between the August preliminary budget and the final September budget, including the Education Fund, a detailed review of expenses, including comparison of historical spending patterns versus budgets,
identified $4,900,000 in savings. In the Operations Fund, adjustments to correct inconsistent data points resulted in an increase of 2.5 with 1.4 of which represents contingency allocation. Debt service fund, the $2,400,000 increase reflects the proper budgeting of alternative revenue bonds. These bonds are repaid with local dollars and do not impact the actual tax rate associated with debt, but they must be recorded in that debt service fund. Transportation fund, as part of our capital maintenance in f y twenty six, the improvements will be made at both of our transportation sheds.
Recording these in a transportation fund allows the district to maximize our reimbursement through the state. In our capital projects fund, we did find some savings. They were realized due to a lower than expected cost for the Parkview Elementary School project and through our reprioritization of other projects. This fund remains our primary source for capital maintenance and facility upgrades. And in the Tort Fund, for FY '26, I am preparing a risk management plan, which will be presented at a future board meeting. This plan will allow us to strategically allocate certain expenses such as salaries associated with
risk management into the Tort Fund. Through this careful analysis, the FY twenty six budget reflects both fiscal responsibility and strategic foresight. It provides the resources needed to sustain day to day operations, supports the District's mission, and positions us to consider future challenges. Here's a projection of what 06/30/2026 may look like. Assuming the district receives all projected revenues, every penny, and that we spend every penny anticipated, we would close FY twenty six with a fund balance of 197,600,000.0, which is approximately 12,000,000
less than our beginning fund balance. This equates to 40.59% of cash to expenses, meeting our requirement of 30%. Also shown are the two plan transfers, 2.5 from the O and M to the Debt Service Fund to cover that alternative revenue bond payment that I just mentioned, and $7,900,000 from the O and M to the Capital Projects Fund to support our ongoing capital maintenance and prepare for the larger projects that have been outlined in the Master Facility Plan. These strategic transfers ensure that resources are directed where they are needed to sustain those operations. The final FY 'twenty six budget reflects a planned deficit of $11,900,000
As discussed in August, it is important to distinguish a planned deficit versus a structural deficit. A planned deficit occurs when expenditures intentionally, meaning we actually can't control them, exceed revenues for a given year, but only when there are sufficient cash reserves to responsibly absorb that difference. In contrast, a structural deficit occurs when recurring expenditures always exceed recurring revenues, which is not sustainable. Thanks to the Board's foresight and strategically building cash reserves over the years, the district is positioned to responsibly manage this plan deficit.
This approach of building cash reserves is a common and prudent practice in public finance, allowing us to prioritize investments that advance our mission, support our students, and strengthen the district for the future, as well as prepare for uncertain times, which could come sooner than later. Thank you for your time. I will take any questions. Any questions from the board? No? Okay. We will be voting on the approval of the fiscal year twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six budget and resolutions later in the meeting under roll call items. Do we have anyone signed up to speak regarding the fiscal year twenty twenty five,
twenty twenty six budget? No. Seeing none, is there anyone who wishes to comment on the budget? Hearing none, at this time we are closing the public hearing. Is there a motion to close the public hearing for the fiscal year twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six budget? I move. Second. Madam secretary, please take the role. Lynn sorry. Lynn Mark? Aye. Tarantino? Aye. Birkett? Aye. Amarca? Aye. Zeller? Aye. Malia? Aye. McKendy? Aye. Motion passes seven zero. Thank you. Board discussion item eight. 8.1, recent board members communication.
Thank you. I'm gonna take that over from here. Let me introduce my myself. I'm Darcy Kria. I am one of the private attorneys that works at a outside law firm that represents this board of education. I've had the honor of representing this board over the past twenty eight years. It's been a highs and lows during that time. I have practiced thirty three years in Illinois, and I only represent boards of education. So, I'm real honored to be here tonight. So after that introduction, I wanted to talk about the agenda. We've got two discussion items,
recent board member communications on social media, and the second topic is a censure of board members. So I wanna talk about the setup of the agenda a little bit, just to kind of explain for our audience tonight. I'm really glad that you're here, by the way. This conversation about the communications needs to happen in open session. The Open Meetings Act in Illinois actually contains about 33 exceptions where a public body like a library board or municipality can go into closed session to talk about an
issue at hand. You watch the board do that tonight on matters of employment, safety, and I think it was student issues. And those are three very common exceptions that you'll hear for open meeting. This topic about board member communications is not one of the exceptions. Those are strictly construed in Illinois and the board honors that. And so it's going to be a little bit different tonight, but I, again, the the the conversation is going to happen in public. And what's gonna happen is you're gonna hear me give advice to my client, which is the full board.
And that's another thing to keep in mind, real briefly. I do not represent any one board member. I don't represent miss Zettler as the president or even miss Burkett as the vice president. I represent the seven members of the board, the board as a whole. And that job is fascinating and complicated and always, keeps me on my toes, especially when there is an issue that divides a board. So that's why I'm here tonight, and that's why we're in open session. Now I suggested also that we put censure of board members because that is a topic for discussion.
I'm gonna explain, in a couple minutes here why that is and what options the board does have in front of them. This is the first time that I'm talking to the board about this. I've spoken with miss Zettler twice. I've spoken with miss Burkett once, but I want the board to know I've not spoken with any other members. So I wanna make sure that my client tonight really understands what's happening, what their options are, and I wanna make sure if they have questions, they're free to ask me. So So you're gonna watch this happen public in open sessions, so, that should be very entertaining for all of you,
and, I hope that you leave with some better understanding about how this process works. So I'm, excited to show you inside, behind the curtain here a little bit. Now one other thing, there's no action items tonight. So the way that it works with the public body is you discuss an issue and then later on in the agenda, you'll see action items, where the board can actually take a roll call vote. We do not have any action items tonight, and that's by design. One of the things that happens, I recommended we not put action items on the agenda tonight for a couple different
reasons. I was torn about it, I will admit that, but, one reason is that I want to make sure that the board has time to thoughtfully consider the options in front of you. What are the options? And sometimes what happens, especially when there's tension or conflict, boards can feel rushed about their vote and how they're voting and what their vote should be and what are we even voting on. So I assess that coming into this meeting, I just wanted to make sure that my client, the board, felt comfortable with what we were discussing and what the options were.
And so if they want to take action, they're they're perfectly able to do that by majority vote. Everything that they'd be voting on would be like majority, so four members would have to vote yay. But it's not gonna happen tonight. That's gonna happen at an a coming up board meeting. Now, there's two in October, one in November, one in December. I just looked briefly at the agenda. I don't know when if action is gonna be taking, which meeting we'll pitch it to, hopefully soon, depending on which board members are available, etcetera. But anyway, I want the community to know that that was my recommendation,
and sometimes that is dissatisfying to the community that seeks an answer immediately. And I respect you for that and I understand it, but I just felt that given the complexity of the issues that it would be better just to take a pause. So I'm gonna listen very carefully tonight to see what, if any, action the board wants to motion up and potentially take, but that action will be, taken at a a subsequent board meeting, not tonight. Okay? So I wanted to explain that. I wanted to own it. That was really my decision.
It may be the wrong decision, but I'm hoping it was the right decision, as I, you know, I'm trying to work through this issue with with the board. Now the, the other thing that we we set this up tonight just to be clear, how we're gonna start is that after I'm done prattling, which will not be much longer, I promise, we're gonna I'm gonna turn it over to miss Suttler. She's gonna start I think I believe she has a statement. She's gonna read a statement, talk to the board about what her communications are. I believe that mister Fiorentino has a statement also. But the point is, every single board member,
I'm gonna make sure that their voice is heard during that first part, questions, comments, statements, how are they feeling about a thing. They have may have questions for each other. It's all fair game. So I'm gonna try to, like, you know, encourage that, make sure everybody feels like they have time to talk to each other about the issue. That's all gonna happen right in here. Okay? And then what's going to happen after, you know, that happens, there's no time limit for that or anything. I'm just I'm gonna kind of assess how everybody's doing, whether they have questions. Once the board speaks and interacts with each other, we are immediately going into public comment.
We know that's why you're here. We respect that. We are grateful that you are here. We want to hear my client wants to hear your thoughts on on these topics. And so we're not waiting till the end of the meeting. Okay? We're gonna do it right away, and that's important to the board. They want to hear from you. The way that works, I think when I last checked, we had over 20 just over 20 people that had signed up. If you wanna sign up for public comment, I know when you came in, there was an option, but if you've changed your mind and would like to speak in public comment, just go out those doors. Someone will help you do that. Okay? So we wanna hear your voice.
Three minutes each, we have a cap of a two hours, is how this board operates, two hours of speaking time. But with 20 some odd people, we're gonna be just fine on that. Okay? So I just wanted to explain to you how that process works. But your voice is critical. You're gonna see, one of the things that we've done is also then after public comment, we added another discussion item, may god help us, for the board to talk additionally more about the issues at hand, taking into account your comments. That's how important they are for the board. Alright. Now,
let me shift into this is my last part. There have been calls for board members, you know, like miss Sattler in particular to resign. Alright? So resignation, any board member can resign of their own accord. That's an option. Okay? Second option, some people have called, I can see it, for her to be fired. That is not an option that the board has. So let me explain that. In Illinois, there are some states where a public body can vote to remove a board member. Illinois is not one of those states. So Illinois does not allow the board to vote to remove any member.
Now there is an option of bringing a petition to the regional office of education, Lake County, in this case, I think is I'm sorry. Kane. I said it wrong. You sit in, like, four counties. Kane County is your regional office of education. Thank you. So you can the public can bring a petition to the regional office of education for the removal of a board member. In thirty three years of doing this, I represent hundreds of school boards throughout the state, The I would say that this is extraordinarily rare. It does happen on occasion.
The reasons for the removal that the regional office would do are you with me? It wouldn't be this board or even the district. It's actually up one rung higher. They're also called intermediate service center, so ISC or ROE. When I say that, that's what I'm talking about. They can remove a board member for probably the most common reason in Illinois that we see is nonresidency. So if one of the board members does not reside in the residence, where they were elected, you know, to serve, that can be cause for removal by the ROE. The second most common,
which is not common at all, as you might imagine, is conviction of an infamous crime or crime involving a child. That is actually quite rare. It does happen on occasion. Again, that's not really the issue that's in front of us tonight. Dereliction of duty. Dereliction of duty usually falls in a category where the board member just stops attending meetings. Okay? So that's one way. Another can be a violation of an oath in office, and I think that, you know, potentially, that's probably one of the issues that we'll hear about in the public comment. Again, it's I have not seen that happen in thirty three years of representing only school
boards in Illinois. That that would be extraordinarily rare. It's not to say it's impossible. It's just rare. Okay? So that's something that would be taken up with the regional office of education in Kane County. So that I wanted to just simply explain that calls for the board to remove a board member are totally understandable. You can state your piece on that if that's your opinion. Understood. But I wanted you to know that legally, that is not an option that this board has, at least not in the state of Illinois. There are some states where that is allowed,
but not here. Okay? The other thing, let me finally, that the board can do here's what they can do, is the board could vote by majority vote to censure a member. So this does happen on occasion. That's why I listed it. I saw that as one viable option. I'm not recommending it. Right? I that that's not my role as the board's attorney. My job is to counsel the board. I'm gonna listen very carefully to whether or not I'm thinking that that's gonna be an issue. And if there is kind of a sense up here that the board would like to entertain a motion to censure one or more members,
we're gonna pick that up at a later meeting. Okay? How does censure happen? The legal parameters for censure are the board, members vote. They would take a roll call vote, and, again, it is by majority vote, so four members, of more, would have to find that a board member's conduct cause a significant disruption to the functions or operations of the school district. And school district means let me describe that, because it is multilayered. It means the board's operations.
It means the work of the administration. It means the work at each building. You know, how do the buildings function? Does it impact the community? Has it impacted your students? Right? So disruption to the operations of the school district is all encompassing. It can include any and all of these facets of what a public school system how they serve their community. Right? So we'll be listening for that. I promise you, in my role as their attorney, the board's attorney, I'm gonna be listening for that, and if there is a motion to entertain or take up the center of a board member, just know that we're gonna get that on the agenda for a future board meeting.
It is my fault. It's not on tonight. I just felt like it was rushing the thing, and I just wanted to make sure my board understood what they were doing. Usually, how essential works also is I would draft it on their behalf. They would all have a chance to review it before they voted on it, which is usually kind of how we like to practice, just because I'm that means I know they're informed about what they're voting on instead of doing it on the fly. Alright. So against that backdrop, I'm gonna stop talking. I appreciate your time and attention today. I'm really glad to be here,
and I'm really proud to represent the board tonight. Alright. I'm gonna turn it over to miss Zettler, who I know has prepared a statement. Thank you. I have a few things to say this evening, and I wanna make sure that you understand these comments are mine and mine alone. First, I'm sorry that the district has been disrupted by recent attacks on me, the board, and the administration. I'm sorry that resources meant for running the district and to give our kids the best education possible have been spent the past two weeks on dealing with this manufactured disruption. I'm sorry that people in the district
I am sorry that people in this district, including parents, have been targeted by members of phony astroturf groups who have done this before for years to office holders and employees of public and private entities, including hospitals, corporations, entertainers, and even libraries and school districts because they don't agree with their lifestyle, their beliefs, or what books we have in our libraries are simply in the hopes of removing leaders from positions that they want to fill with people who agree with them.
We have had these groups right here in our own backyard for years, and they, for years, have been busy attacking, harassing, and threatening teachers, administrators, board members, and guests, even our kids. Today is not new. These groups recruit people to find or manufacture evidence to use against leaders and employees on social media, create an uproar, and then use it against them to try to get them fired or removed from office. This is why I will not apologize for the post that I made to my personal face my personal Facebook page on September 10,
and I I in this district have been the target target of such deceit. You condone murder? First of all, enforce laws. Condone murder. Condone murder. Listen. Right. Let her speak. I'm gonna ask that Whether it's right or wrong, let her speak. Give her the opportunity to speak. We're gonna we're gonna give you the opportunity to speak. I know that this is difficult, but the public, we can do this, and you're exactly right. If we're unable to get, you know, some decorum, we're gonna have to stop the meeting, and we do not want to do that. So hang tight, let her get through her statement,
and I promise then we'll open it up with public comment after that. Okay? Thank you. First and foremost, the port post is my speech, my property, my intellectual property. It was stolen from my private page, altered in a way to change it to look like I was celebrating the horrific murder that took place on September 10. I was not and I do not. In fact, I wrote the piece because of an emotional process that I went through when I heard about the murder, the start of which took me aback and caused me to look into my heart as to why I had my initial reaction and how I could deal with it.
I spent some time researching others who were talking about the same feelings and found an article that, for me, was spot on on how to process these feelings and what to do about it. So I posted my initial thoughts and the, article that helped me work work through my thoughts. This is the post that was stolen, manipulated, and blanket posted all over social media as if it was one post that I was the one posting it. I posted it once and only once on my personal page. Unfortunately, I believe that these attacks will continue to happen all over this country,
the county, and the state. Please keep in mind that if you see posts that urge attacking individuals, that you look at them closely and consider that the post may be one of these manufactured attacks. Thank you for your time and for reaching out with your concerns. We do take them seriously. No. No. Agreed. Mister Fiorentino Come on. Come on. We got we got this. Mister Fiorentino, did you have a statement? I don't wanna put you I know. Did you wanna make your statement? Or any other board member for that matter, but Steve, you okay going next? You alright? This has been a very difficult week for many people in our school system and
our community. I want to sincerely thank our staff for all their work and countless hours dedicated to managing this issue. I want to thank our engaged and passionate community and acknowledge that I read all of the 150 plus emails and messages that we received. Mrs. Zettler is a hardworking public servant and I know we share a true passion for our students, staff and public education. I believe the recent challenges stem from Mrs. Zettler's struggle to separate her political views from her role as a School Board member. In my opinion Mrs.
Zettler's actions and that her failure to apologize or show remorse placed her in direct opposition to Board policy and the IASB code of conduct. The IASB is our governing state body, the Illinois Association of School Boards. We all took an oath and it stated board members must conduct oneself with respect and civility towards others. Following her post, I waited to hear a response or receive a call explaining her choice of words. At the same time I continued to receive countless number of messages and calls from extremely upset community members.
It was apparent that the perception of many in our community was that all members of the school board were aligned with missus Zettler's words. I therefore made the decision to publicly share my thoughts. On Friday night, September twelfth, after counsel, prayer, and discernment, I posted my comment. It read as follows. I am disturbed and disgusted at the words recently written by a fellow board member. I want to be clear, these words and sentiment in no way represent my beliefs and values. I then go on to request a special meeting.
In my fourteen years serving on the school board, I have never considered writing about another board member and have never, never witnessed this type of darkness surrounding our board. In all the years of sometimes navigating disagreements or debate, I have always taken that directly to the Board member as I have done with Mrs. Zettler on several occasions. This issue was different and became a public outcry due to her choice of words. So I felt as though a special meeting would have the following benefits.
Show the community we're not complicit or in agreement and allow Mrs. Zettler to share the reason for her work choice. This plan would have also shown swift response and accountability. Protect our students and staff from further impact by what was rapidly becoming a community divide. Allow staff and the board to return their focus to the important work in front of us to minimize costs and time associated with this issue. Have the next Board meeting this very meeting and future meetings focus on Board work,
student achievement, celebration, finances and continuous educational improvements. Unfortunately my request and the request of many others for a special meeting was not granted and we endured over a week of disturbing emotional emails, protests, articles in local newspapers, postings, etcetera. Much of this continued fallout could have been prevented. I would like to apologize if I contributed in any way to any distraction from educating our students or creating a divide in this community.
I was solely taking the action I felt was warranted given the circumstances. I ask for peace and forgiveness so that we may all focus on students, staff and learning. In reflection to better understand what has occurred, I utilized two documents which I'd like to briefly cite. The ISB code of conduct for member of school boards, specifically the following principles. Principle one, I will represent all school district constituents honestly and equally and refuse to surrender my
responsibilities to special interests or partisan political groups. End quote. Number two, I will avoid any conflict of interest. And number nine, I will respectfully listen to those who communicate with the Board, seeking to understand their views while recognizing my responsibility to represent the interest of the entire community. The next document also from IASB is titled School Board Members Approach to the Job. In it, our State Board instructs us to do the following and I quote,
Be responsible for group behavior. You are responsible for not only yourself but for the group. If the group doesn't do its job or breaks its rules, you personally share that responsibility. These were the writings and resources I consulted. This is what compelled me to write a public statement and request a special meeting. These guidelines, along with dozens of well written messages from this community. We have a responsibility to everyone in District 300 to monitor ourselves and one another.
Political or any other violence must not be tolerated and absolutely not celebrated. This board should not align itself with words that give any impression of this belief. I will make my recommendation for future action after carefully listening to the community members that will be speaking during public participation this evening. Thank you. Alright. Other board members? Does anyone have a statement or any, like, a prepared statement or anything you'd like to say or contribute? Can we do that after? Yes. There's no no no no.
I'm still hold on. I'm engaging with them. Again, we're doing this in open session, but, yeah, there's gonna be another point where we can after public comment. Absolutely. Are we able to get a copy of what Nancy read? Yeah. We It's very hard to hear what she was saying. Yeah. Nancy, would you willing to share a copy of that, right? I am. I don't know if one That's fine. We'll make a copy. Nancy's willing to share it. Mister Fiorentino, did you have a copy of that? Are you willing to share it? Wonderful. Thank you both. Does the board have any questions? Any of the members have questions about what I talked about or any of the
issues that I raised at the beginning? I'll keep asking you. I know it's it's sometimes tense, but I'll keep prodding. I'll make sure. Okay? If anyone has questions at any time, just ask them. Go ahead, miss Burkett. So it seems to me that we're at the crossroads between freedom of speech and the operations of the district. Can you talk a little bit more about the right to freedom of speech and then how that intersects with where we're at with the operations of the district? No. That's a great so the freedom of speech quest that's a great question.
They all board member, everyone in the room obviously enjoys freedom of speech and, right guaranteed by the first amendment. Freedom of speech and association is actually in there too, among other things. The board enjoys those rights, not a heightened right to freedom of speech, not a lesser right, but after you're elected to a board of education or any public body, you enjoy those rights just like any other citizen. The they're not lessened or taken away or greater than anyone else's. What ends up happening is that, I think,
you know, mister Fiorentino made the point about the code of conduct and the conflict of interest. And oftentimes what happens when you have free speech issues with elected officials is that, obviously, they can be interpreted and and the statements themselves are maybe for or against, an issue, and that obviously in and of itself can be a conflict. It also is part of the larger discourse that we have and it's okay to disagree, it's okay to have differing opinions, it's all of these things are very welcome and valued.
That's what the District three hundred teachers and educators teach your children, you know, how to navigate in a world with diverse opinions and high conflict and these sorts of things, so it's no different than what students are learning and what the board experiences. So where it moves into an area of disruption is really what the issue is. So it's not that I will personally, I will defend each of your free speech rights until the day I die. Like, I value that and I hold that, dear to me. What we're dealing with here isn't so much asking a member not to exercise their
free speech. What it is is has it caused a disruption to the work of the board? You know? So a couple of the things and again, it's it's one of those situations where the facts will tell us what the situation is, right, just the cold, hard truths of the matter. I have been able to determine that there have been over 250 email messages sent by members of the community at large, mostly in district, some out of district, as sometimes these issues do, result in,
that's fine. So there have been a number of emails. All of those emails need to be responded to by a member, typically, of the administration. And so the administration, you know, doctor Smith, her team, the cabinet, they're working on responding to those messages. There have been over 80 phone calls or voicemail messages. Again, those are when a phone call or an email comes in, you should know on whatever topic the administration works very hard to respond to that. And in a district this size, very large district, that comes with the territory. But this issue has obviously caused, you know, that's resulted in these this is happening.
There have been, to date, approximately eight I think eight Freedom of Information Act requests. That will probably increase, which is, again, fine. That's the public's right to know. So the Freedom of Information Act comes in, Individuals from the community at large or outside the District 300 community can ask for documents, etcetera. An example of that are the statements that were read. Those can be, FOIA ed now in the way that I'm gonna turn that into a verb, but they're subject to release under the Freedom of Information Act. So the administration is now, after this meeting, it's I can take a good guess, that there will be a number of FOIA requests that come in that the administration
now has to respond to. Totally legit. I'm not complaining about it. I'm just trying to make a point of what happens when a board member's speech, where does it come into that line of disruption? So that's really the issue before the board. If you want to censure, you know, that's something that you're thinking about doing is censuring miss Zettler, that's absolutely your right and I think, really, the decision would have to be from the board, do you think that this what has resulted has been a disruption? A censure is just that, it's not a removal from the board, it's basically, you know, do better. We're asking you to, you know,
etcetera. I would draft it. You would review it. We would vote at it. You know, the public would see what the century would look like. Board would take a vote at a at another meeting. So that's really the issue, it's not that we want to restrict anybody's free speech rights at all, that obviously is not the goal here, but it is to, I suppose, since you asked my opinion, what I would, recommend or my advice to the board would be to communicate in a manner that puts the d 300 students and community at the center of your decision making and not an individual board member.
You know, so just as your attorney, again, that's my, you know, that doesn't come from the school code, that's not coming from a Supreme Court case or anything like that, it's coming from just a pragmatic advice that I would give a board. By the way, the censure comes from a 2022 Supreme Court case, and in US Supreme Court case, and the US Supreme Court said that a public body can censure a member, and you won't believe why, but it is actually based on the First Amendment, that the public body has a First Amendment right. No joke.
It flows through all of our discussion tonight. So it's actually on a First Amendment basis, the board can take that vote by majority vote to central member. Answering that. Before we move on, I have a couple of questions of Mr. Fiorentino. Mr. Fiorentino, in your statement, you said that, none of us reached out to you. Did you reach out to any of us? You actually didn't you misquoted me. I did not say any, board. I was reflecting on you, miss Sattler. You sent me one message, and you, kind of threatened me in your text about,
harm to your family. So that was the only It's not true. That's the message I was not true. See the text. I see the text. Okay. So to answer your question, I miss you misquoted me. I did not say that about the full board. I was referring to you, had not reached out. So Did you did you reach out to any of us? Any of us about your question, about a a special meeting or anything. Did you reach out to any of us before you before you, posted that message on your on the board? I'm not sure that's really important, but I It's absolutely important.
At the moment, I I I penned that message. I had not reached out to, board members. I had reached out to, the leader of the district. Okay. And I sent you I actually sent you four messages after you posted. One of them was to ask you if you had read my entire post. You did not respond. The next one was to send you my entire post so you could read it. You did not respond. And then, yes, I did write to you because somebody made a death threat on me, and I asked you if that was something that you posted after you knew about
the death threat. You did not respond. But it actually did you actually did post it after knowing about the death threat, putting my family in danger by ratcheting up what was going on. Quiet. Miss Settler we please be open and honest about what happened here? Are you asking a question? Yes. Can we please be open and honest what happened here? I didn't hear your question. Can we please be open and honest to what happened here? Absolutely. Okay. Yes. So I asked you four different times. You I sent you messages four different times. You did not respond to me.
In fact, I sent you a couple of procedural messages. You didn't respond to either. Missus Etler, No. We did not discuss it. My statement. This was this this issue Oh, okay. My god. This issue is not about you and me. It's absolutely about us. No. No. It's what what was what was put out there, and then I responded. And I shared my thoughts on both. So I stand by that. I I, I did go through the District three hundred channels, shared with them what I was doing. I then talked to the vice president.
Frankly, I was very uncomfortable to talk to you, miss Sattler. Very. Any other board members questions, comments? Miss Burkett? Yeah. I'm sorry. It's this is just so you all know a lot for us all to process through. This is our first time hearing advice from our legal counsel as a group. It's our first time hearing statements from our individual board members about this matter. So it is not that I don't have an opinion on the matter or thoughts on there. I am working through those right now in front of you all. That is why I actually am grateful that we will we can we can have
some more time to process this. So what is said tonight may not be the perfect statement about what has happened because we are also working through it. We are humans who are working through a situation we've never found ourselves in before. So I ask for a little bit of patience. I also very much wanna hear what what everyone has to say before I say much on the matter. So please don't take that as me not caring about the situation or having some set opinion. I very much do not. Thank you. No. I'm glad you saw I should have also mentioned the Open Meetings Act does not
allow them to talk in they can talk in groups of two, but when they talk in groups of three, they're actually that's potentially violative of the Open Meetings Act. So I did admonish, the board that as this started, to restrict their communications to just, you know, two by two, individual communications. So, again, I'm glad, miss Burkett, that you raised that, and that actually is also part of what I should have explained. So, this is the first time that they are able to discuss this at least as a group. Okay? Alright, Does it sound like we're gonna turn it over to public comment now?
Does the board feel alright with that? Alright. And there's a question. Please do. I I have a question, to one to, mister Florentino, in regards to his post. I know several times you have posted in different occasions about how you are a servant leader, and, I respected you for that. I just wanted to find out, like, when you made a decision to offer a special meeting to, the the community without including any of the board members, I know I wasn't included. Was that something that a servant leader does? As,
I think miss Burkett just said, you know, we're processing some of these things. So I may not have done everything perfectly in the perfect timing. I apologize if that was not in the right order. I did suggest that to, and ask for an inquiry from for our attorney as well as our superintendent, which in the board manual, in the board Code of conduct in the state. It does suggest that. So I did follow that. But no, I did not call you or an individual board member. I as I said in my statement,
I was responding to something that was very unusual, something that I have not faced in fourteen years. And, from what we've heard, it doesn't happen very frequently to Darcy's comments. So, the order of what I did things may not have been perfect for that. I am sorry. My intention was that we, get through this, so that we understand our community to a greater degree and we put less burden on our, staff so that they can be working towards what they should be working on.
And we heard some of the messages. I, you know, I can't imagine the amount of time that we've had staff spending on this and we have had community members very upset for now almost two weeks and I felt that that was burdensome of the system and so I was trying to take action in a very expedient way. In a unilateral way. Did you did you realize that after you made your post, we're now we we got several more additional emails based on that post requesting for
this special meeting? So so meaning meaning meaning the the staff had to had to even respond to more emails after that after that post. What I'm what I'm a little confused by, miss Kende, is that you're not talking at all about the 250 message that we received. That's what's concerning. I I am I am talking about the the reason the reason there's a reason why I'm why I'm why I'm saying what I'm saying is, as a board members, we're all leaders. And when we and and and as and as and as leaders One second. Hold on one second.
I mean, at at every single point in time, we need we need to act Hold on one second. Any more outbursts, and we're gonna take a recess to consider whether or not we're gonna move on. Okay? It's appropriate for me to do that. We are getting ready to sit here, and I'm getting ready to sit here and listen to you guys say whatever you want about me for the next two hours or so. Okay? That's fine. That's your right. Okay? But let's stop attacking anybody up here on the dais who are we're all sitting here doing our best. So please, if you cannot be quiet and respectful, we will shut this down.
And I've given you lots of lots of opportunities to do that, and you have not taken it up. You keep getting worse. So that's my last warning. One more outburst, and we are shutting this down at least for recess and maybe for the rest of the night. I do not wanna do that, but I'm not gonna sit here and tolerate this this anymore. Okay. Sorry, Tola. Go ahead. I mean, all I'm saying is we've had we had issues that we were dealing with already that we're trying to figure out how to how to handle. By making your post, you added to it. Because we had we we did we then had more emails that we had to
address. So that's that's just the point I was trying to make. And I understand. You were trying to process something. And I and and I I just it's just, I was just very disappointed that none of us, you didn't speak to any one of us. I mean, even even we if we didn't have anything good to talk about, you could at least reach out to us and see and and kind of check the temperature and see where we're coming from. But, I'm just I'm just gonna leave that for now, and then I'll I'll speak later on. No. And I understand. Go ahead. I just I think for point of clarification, mister Fantino mentioned that a special meeting was not granted.
But I think probably most people don't understand how that process works. So maybe Darcy can You were reading my mind. So the special meeting process works when a board member, requests a special meeting. That's considered by the board. Oftentimes what happened, I think, in this situation was that this was obviously a regular meeting. The media, the public is all notified. The, you know, the board is all free to attend. And my understanding is that holding a special meeting last week with because there's a forty eight hour at least a forty eight hour notice requirement,
not all board members would have been free to attend. Right? So that was, I think I believe part of the issue, if I'm not mistaken. And the other issue is that this one was on the books. We knew that the public was free and we knew the media had been notified. So that, to my just my basic understanding, mister Fiorentino is the reason part of the reason why that decision was made. The, the other thing that I want to just mention is that there is, because the budget has to be voted on tonight, what we'd like to do is move the consent items,
or the action items from the consent, which are very short, up before public participation. Would that be alright with the willy board and the settlers? Is that okay? These are very quick. They just wanna make sure, it's really for that budget because the budget hearing requires a vote tonight. Would that be alright if we went that direction before? Okay. Okay. Moving on to some item 11, consent items. Less less than $35,000 Consent items less than 35,000 are standard procedure items or items that have been previously reviewed and disclosed at the
board operations committee meeting and need no further discussion. Is there a motion to approve the consent items less than $35,000 So moved. Second. Madam secretary, please take the role. Tarantino? Aye. LaMarca, aye. Linmark? Aye. McKeinde? Aye. Malia? Aye. Zettler? Aye. Burkett? Aye. Motion passes seven zero. Item 12, consent items. The consent items of greater than $35,000 have been previously reviewed and discussed at the board operations committee meeting and need no further discussion.
Is there a motion to approve the consent items greater than 35,000? Second. Madam Secretary, please take the role. Malia? Aye. McKendy? Aye. Zeller? Aye. Lamarca? Aye. Lindmark? Aye. Fiorentino? Aye. Birkett? Aye. Motion passes seven zero. Item 13, roll call action items. Is there a motion for the approval of the fiscal year twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six budget adoption and resolutions? Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Hearing no discussion, may our secretary please take the role? Fiorentino.
Melia. Aye. Zettler. Aye. Linmark? Aye. Burkett? Aye. McKendy? Aye. LaMarca? Aye. Motion passes seven zero. Thank you. Moving back to public participation. We have, I think, 23 26. Okay. 26 speakers tonight. I will call each of you individually up to the podium. Please state your name and relationship to the district and limit your comments to three minutes. Please note the following. Each speaker has been provided with the guidelines for public participation. Minors need to be accompanied by their parents or guardians.
The board will consider your comments but will not dialogue or engage with speakers in this forum. Questions raised may be assigned to the superintendent for an answer as appropriate. A member of the administration may reach out to the speaker to give them relevant information or to ask for additional information. This is done to make sure that the board has all the information needed to properly address the speaker's concerns. Charges, complaints, or challenges against staff members or the district will not be heard in open meetings and should be made in writing to the board and superintendent.
We also ask that speakers refrain from personally attacking district staff or members of the board. Pursuant to board policy this evening's participants must limit their their comments to three minutes. We ask each participant to be respectful to all individuals who have signed up to speak and adhere to the allotted time limit. We also ask speakers that speakers conduct themselves in a civil and courteous manner and refrain from trying to engage members of the board in dialogue during public participation. Failure to abide by board time rules or those found out of order by the
board may lead to exclusion from the meeting to be fair to all participants. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. I have one more thing to read. Public partition please note that the open meetings app provides any person the opportunity to address the board under the adopted public participation policy. That being said, the board would like to advise the public that we will not consider consider statements read during public participation that are not authored by the reader to be credible unless the board has previously received the statement in writing from the author. Additionally, the author should indicate that he or she has granted the public participant the authority
to read the statement on his or her behalf. Our first person of public participation is doctor Davis Scarpino. Good evening, Doctor. Smith and members of the board. My name is Doctor. David Scarpino and I have been a community member of this district for over twenty years. I address you tonight as the past school board president, former associate superintendent of schools, and former principal of Hampshire Elementary School. I have devoted my career to public education, and I feel compelled to speak plainly about the responsibilities that come with being elected
in office. In The United States, we are guaranteed the right to free speech, but rights do not absolve us of accountability. With leadership comes the expectation of sound judgment. When a board member speaks or takes to social media carelessly, especially on sensitive or divisive topics, the impact extends far beyond personal opinion. It places a strain on the very institution we are charged with serving. Regrettably, because of one member's recent comments,
our superintendent and her team have been forced to set aside the critical business of the district to manage unnecessary controversy. Their time, which should be devoted to student learning and advancing our strategic plan, has instead been consumed by damage control. That is not what they were hired to do nor is it what this community expects or deserves. We have urgent work ahead with our strategic plan, including the possibility of constructing additional facilities.
And let me remind you, it takes no less than two years to plan and build a new school. Everyday loss to distraction is a day stolen from our students' future. As a former superintendent, I often mentored administrators. My first rule was clear, three d t, don't do dumb things. Don't say or do something that will land on the front page of the newspaper or on the television news or on social media for the wrong reasons.
A member of this board failed that test, and the consequence is not personal embarrassment alone, it is institutional harm. We must do better. Members of this board must do better. Our students, your children deserve nothing less. Thank you very much. Mike, look. Good evening everyone. My name is Mike Lipp, I am a Hampshire resident. As we gather tonight, I want to address troubling reality that weighs heavy on our communities. The presence of an individual who exhibited a chilling lack of respect for human life.
Imagine walking into a room and encountering somebody who expresses joy over another death, murder, execution. This is not a matter of personal disagreement. It reveals deeper issues of character. We, with such statements I'm sorry, I'm nervous y'all so but with such statements come up, not from a Board member's responsibilities. She's in charge of thousands of children. She was elected to educate moral in our schools. It raises serious concerns about the values we uphold.
Allowing individuals with a lack of decency and compassion to occupy influential positions risk endangering our principles that we cherish. Leadership is not merely about making decisions, it's about setting examples for our youth. It's about fostering an environment where respect of life is paramount. We find ourselves in crossroads in our country right now. It's our choices. We can erupt and endanger our future generations. Harmful comments can put potential targets at risk,
including our students, and isn't finding bystanders in danger in the conflict that they cannot navigate. This isn't about political disagreements, social divisions, it's about safeguarding our families and our communities, ensuring that those who harbor dangerous, and influence other communities, especially with our children. We must stand against the anticipation of I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Honestly, our leadership should reflect integrity, compassion, like your speech. Thank you for letting us all know because you let us know.
You were the only person that gave a public comment from District 300, so I thank you for that. And that was inviting everybody, not just your board member, to let everybody know at the same time. This is a community issue, and it was bad. So I really thank you. I commend you. That's leadership. I really, really appreciate that. I've I kinda caught myself, and that's why I'm shaking because that's a leader. I'm gonna cut my speech off until my three minutes, but that's a leader. That's what a leader does. When there's bad especially with our students, they uprise. They come up. They'd be a leader. It doesn't have to be, oh, you didn't let me know. She you let everybody know.
She didn't think about what you put on social media. He did. That's the difference. Next speaker, Christina Constanti. These are two speakers that are gonna be hard to follow. I'm Christina Consandi. I'm a parent taxpayer, and I've been coming to these meetings for at least five and a half years. And so I had to change my speech, due to mister Fiorentino, his comment. I appreciate that. I know the community really appreciates that. Doctor. Scarpino for standing up, and as a leader of our district for many years, you know, we all appreciate that a lot. I know we've had our differences throughout the years,
and I can't believe you weathered through it, you know, I barely did. So anyway, I wanted to talk a little bit more, about the comment. I know, Nancy, you said, you know, people are attacking you, but you did this. Like, you did this. You started this. And this comment and that we're talking about is not one comment. This is a pattern of behavior that I've witnessed over the last five and a half years of you. And, I mean, I can't speak for everyone on the board, but there's been a few people that are supporting you. They've publicly supported you on that one comment.
I know you have the majority on the board, so I understand you're in control of the board. And, you know, this comment in question was disruptive, as it's been talked about. It was disgusting and, frankly, beneath the dignity of a school board. It showed a stunning lack of judgment and a failure of leadership at the highest level of our local education system. I'm not naive. I knew that you weren't gonna resign. You're never gonna resign. And I know we're not gonna hear an apology, which we heard no apology to us, to our community, to Doctor. Martina and her staff for wasting time,
effort, and our tax dollars. So, I just want you to know that we, as a community, are not powerless. We have a long memory, and we will not forget come 2027 when your seat and a few others are up, and that is really when the community will have its chance to respond the right way at the ballot box. These people are elected by us. If you don't show up at these elections, this is what you get. You get a biased school board that can do whatever they want. Alright? Please come out and vote. Either way, come out and vote in 2027. Okay. Well, I have forty one seconds, and I haven't gotten gaveled.
This is wonderful. Well, thank you guys so much for listening to me and then for everyone else. And, I'm sorry, what was your name again? Darcy. Darcy. We haven't met yet, and I appreciate you taking the time to tell us about a lot of these things. I know a lot of us don't know how it really works. I'm I'm glad to hear. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. Thanks. Our next speaker is Mike Berry. Christie's a little shorter than me. Thank you. My name is Mike Berry, and I am a community member and taxpayer in the district. So on 09/10/2025, Charlie Kirk was assassinated in front of his wife, his two children,
roughly 3,000 spectators in person, and countless others watching via the Internet. Shortly after that, Nancy decided to create a Facebook post where she I'm not going to repeat it, but I think we all know what it said, where she basically celebrated the death. Charlie was murdered because of his political beliefs, because of his faith, and most notably because of his views on gender dysphoria. Nancy believes he deserved this. This is not a question of political affiliation or beliefs at this point. This is a question of safety. 23,000 students walk through the doors of the schools in this district every single day.
Excuse me? Sorry. Keep talking, bud. 23,000 students walk through the doors of this district every day, and those students and their parents have a right to feel safe. How can a conservative student or their parents feel safe when Nancy clearly believes that those who do not agree with her views deserve violent acts committed against them? Her attitude toward this terrible tragedy will empower the students who agree with her to become violent when somebody says something they don't like. Nancy has made it very clear over the years that she absolutely despises everyone who disagrees with her.
She has taken every opportunity to mock and insult them, but until now, has never made a wish for a violent act public. Make no mistake, this woman is dangerous. She is creating an environment of hate and violence that has no place anywhere in society, but especially in our schools. She should be held accountable. She should resign. And I would like to add one more thing. Mister Fiorentino, thank you very much for everything you've done. And, miss Vayer, shame on you. Shame on you for attacking him, for letting the community know about this vile,
disgusting act. Next speaker, Holly Juravsky. I'm Imajid. Good morning or good evening, everyone. My name is Holly Juravsky. Counselors, I'm glad you're here tonight. I'm here tonight because the leadership of D300, especially board president Nancy Zettler, has failed our students and our community. Leadership demands integrity, moral clarity, and a focus on education, not politics. Sadly, this board has fallen short. Let me explain how Ms. Zettler has disrupted this district. First, on academics. Under Ms. Zettler's watch, she came on the board in 2019, our students fell or slightly before our students fell further behind than the state average
in both reading and math during the pandemic. Now, while Illinois students overall lost ground, D300 is significantly worse. Even today, our scores remain below pre COVID levels and yet the district graduates ninety five percent of the students. This tells us we are handing out diplomas without truly preparing students for the future. Second, on moral leadership, Ms. Zedler publicly described Charlie Kirk's tragic death as Karma. It's a bitch. This was agreed with by Patrick Malia,
Ms. Leslie LaMarca, and Ms. Tola McKindy. I don't know if conversations on Facebook can constitute a quorum or an Open Meetings Act violation, but that's something to discuss later. Regardless of politics, celebrating the death of another human being is disgraceful. And four of our seven board members think this is acceptable. Our students are held to higher standards of digital citizenship than our president of their Board of Education holds herself to. I highly doubt any of these people will discipline themselves, so please remember this at the ballot box.
Third, on ethics, Ms. Settler has used her social media as a weapon against her opponents. She's used her allies and proxies to blackmail a current board member and even called my had someone call my employer when I ran for school board in order to get me fired when I disagreed with their social agenda. Most concerning, she openly discussed students' disciplinary records with a Jacobs School psychologist in a public forum. Not only is this a shocking lapse in judgment by an attorney, but also a blatant violation of student privacy.
Our children's records are not political talking points. They are protected under the law under 105 ILSC 10 and there are screenshots available if you wish to review this discussion. This information will also be provided to the State Superintendent and the ISBE as an ethics violation. These actions form a pattern of academic failure, moral failure, and ethical failure. District three hundred families deserve leaders who put students first and uphold public dignity and service. Ms. Zettler refuses to hold herself or other board members to a higher standard.
And for the good of our Next speaker, Erin Nissi. Good evening, members of the board and doctor Smith. My name is Erin Nissi. I'm a former d three hundred educator of ten years, taxpayer, and the parent of three daughters. One who recently graduated and two who are current students in this district. I come before you tonight because of recent posts on social media by a board member. Let's be very clear. The assassination at Utah State University was a school shooting. School shootings are targeted acts of violence, often carried out in public spaces. Schools, campuses, and community gatherings.
That, we as educators and parents work tirelessly to keep safe. To reduce that violence to something acceptable is not only disgusting and offensive, it is dangerous. Illinois State Standards for Speaking and Listening Standard SL1 teach students that public discourse should encourage civil, respectful, and productive conversations even when people disagree. I ask you board members, if my daughters who attend D300 schools were to speak freely about their beliefs, beliefs that may differ from yours,
you ask for respect and you keep rolling your eyes at everyone. What kind of respect are you giving? If my daughters who attend D300 schools were to speak freely about their beliefs that may differ from yours, do they deserve to be assassinated? Is that karma? The Illinois Education Association recently stated It's okay for you to speak, right? Not hers. The Illinois Education Association recently stated they stand firmly for the right of citizens to share their beliefs publicly. I found this ironic because I definitely was not encouraged to speak freely during COVID
about my opposition to prolonged school closings and mask mandates. I'm glad to hear their stance has changed, and I hope it stands true, especially for my educator friends in D300 that are afraid to speak up against what was said because of their jobs. But let me be crystal clear. That does not mean equating murder with justice. That is a betrayal of the values of education, safety, and civil dialogue. Some have pointed out that the comment was followed by a thoughtful quote, but let's not erase this does not erase or soften her words. The reality is
what was said was believed that it was appropriate. Board members are free to dislike Charlie Kirk or anyone else. That is your right. But as a parent and a former educator in this district, I cannot trust that you have the best interest of all students, all staff, and all community members in mind, especially those who engage in debate, discourse, and advocacy for the rights of as non Democrats, conservatives, or simply students with differing viewpoints. For these reasons and the safety and trust of our community, I respectfully but firmly call for you to do the right thing and resign as
board president. Our students deserve leadership that protects their voices, not Thank you. Next speaker, Linda Prestia. I didn't write anything down because I'm gonna speak with my heart. My children were home the day that Charlie Kirk was assassinated because we came home from the dentist. We turned the news on and my son gave out a huge gasp and went to his knees. And my daughter looked at me and said, Oh my God, Mom. Somebody was just assassinated. And I said, Yeah. And she's like, Mom, it's Charlie Kirk. We know Charlie Kirk. I said,
Oh my God. And I heard a human response from two children in this district, a 12 year old and a 17 year old who goes to that high school over there. And your party, the Democrat party that you used to lead in Dundee, the Dundee Democrats, that's who my son equated you with. He found your quote circulating on social media and came running down a couple days later, and he said to me, Mom, this is the District three hundred School Board President. She's a bully. I said, That's right. She said, What? And he said,
She's saying that Charlie deserves this, that the assassination that we saw was justified. I I couldn't believe it. I was taken aback. I couldn't believe it, but I did believe it because it came from you, a highly partisan political hack who ran for state rep, state senate, and now she figured out she could get power by running for school board and she's elevated herself to school board president. And her end game is our children, folks. She has no compassion. You result your response was a bully response.
My kid goes to that high school. He is afraid of the assassination culture that you and your party promote. And that's what your post did. It promoted an assassination culture, and we are fed up with it. I am not gonna sit down idle the next several years. If you don't resign, we are going to demand we are going to demand that everybody in this town, in this district 300 knows who you are and and knows exactly what you did because you will never live this down. Charlie Kirk's life mattered. Your life mattered. Your family's life mattered.
Nobody should be, you know, promoting assassination on anybody. I worry about you and your soul because you don't promote the ethic of life, and shame on you. Next speaker, Jennifer McGuire. Good evening. My name is Jennifer McGuire. I, of Sleepy Hollow, I have two kids in the school district. I wanna make very, very clear that I am not speaking on behalf of the Sleepy Hollow Village Board of Trustees. Instead, I am speaking as a parent and a conservative talk radio commentator. Okay? Before posting about Charlie Kirk, you didn't take the time to think about how your words would affect the children
that looked up to him and idolized this man. My children did. He showed nothing but respect to people that disagreed with him and deserved some in return. That being said, Nancy, karma is a bitch. It's very clever that you change the b out for a dollar sign. We all know what you meant. Anyone who has this much hate and lack of tolerance should not be in charge of making decisions for children in the school district. We are we are not trying to move your First Amendment right, but hold you accountable for your values because they do not align with my values
and the majority of the values in this in this district. I'm sorry that you find a successful Christian man with family values so offensive. For my family, there are values, and we try to follow and embrace his exact values in my household. I look for that in my school district as well. I think the majority of this district would agree. I wanna thank you to the attorney for stepping up and being fair. It is unfortunate that our tax dollars do have to go to you for this matter. For Tula, something that I did add, if you did know about the Open Meetings Act,
you need to brush up on your skills. Because if mister Ferentino did reach out, what would happen is he would be in violation of a rolling meeting in the Open Meetings Act. Act. So I suggest you brush up on your Open's meeting before you insult him because you should be insulted not knowing that rule. That is all that I have for tonight. Thank you for your time. Next speaker, Michelle Hippler. Good evening. My name is Michelle Hippler. I am a, past SUNS graduate of 2008 and I am a community member. The senseless act that took a young man's life on September 10 in Utah stands
in dark contrast to the values that we commit each and every day to raising our children, to the teachers that help us in our schools, along with our community. It is not our color, race, religion or political views. Nancy Zettler seriously violated her position as Board of Education School District Board President. With her voice heard through the social media for all to see and for many to even hear it as to what she had said. She violated moral principles in which the community expected her to uphold when she seeked
her position, including the Board of Education standards and beliefs for education, and much more for the betterment of our youth. This is not to be overlooked and Nancy Zettler needs to be removed from her position immediately. Thank you. Next speaker, Kim Stevenson. Good evening. My name is Kim Stevenson, retired school nurse from district three hundred and forty year resident of Algonquin. Tonight, I wanna speak openly about something that grieves me deeply, the vulgar insult of another person's death. As a follower of Christ, I believe we are called to love our enemies,
pray for those who hurt us, and mourn with those who mourn. Death, especially through violence, is never cause for celebration. It should not be mocked, belittled, or used as an outlet for cruelty. Nancy, your words karma is a bitch were not only heartless, but reckless. Coming from anyone else, those words sting deeply. But coming from the president of our D three hundred school board, who is responsible for more than 20,000 students and their families, they cut far deeper. Your position magnifies the impacts of your words, and in this case your words spread hate when compassion was needed most.
What gives it even more what makes it even more jarring is that you wrapped that vulgar insult in a message about empathy. But empathy can't survive alongside such spite. Just as apology crumbles the moment it's followed by the word but, your gesture collapsed under the hatred that preceded it. Leaders do not get the luxury of careless cruelty. Each word carries weight and your words betrayed your responsibility. A leader who indulges in hateful speech forfeits the trust of the community they serve. Your comment crossed a line that cannot be excused.
For that reason, my prayer and my request is that you step down from your role. I am deeply concerned. Concerned for our students, families, staff, and community who need to trust in the integrity of you as a leader. True leadership is not a shield from accountability, it's a magnifying glass that intensifies the consequences of one's actions. Words like yours corrode respect, foster division, and erode trust in the very institution you lead. Stepping down is not only appropriate, it is necessary to protect the integrity of this board and affirm that hatred has
no place in this leadership. Tonight, I stand with those who mourn, and I choose courage and compassion over silence. Our d three hundred community is hurting, and healing cannot begin while hate sits continues to sit in the seat of leadership. Thank you. Next speaker, Eileen Wagner. Good evening. My name is Irene. I have three kids in the school district. They all attend Jacob High School. And, well, it's disappointing what I've seen and witnessed and heard. This is the first time I'm doing this.
I'm a little nervous. I wanna say the evil murder that that, that took place, who took our I'm sorry. The evil murderer who took Charlie Kirks away from us. He was the one of the greatest and brightest individuals of our times. Charlie Kirk, stood for Christian values and stands, was welcoming versus the propaganda Our kids are fed daily within the school walls, the garbage they are exposed to on social media and television. What happened to Charlie was most horrific event in history. He was assassinated in front of his family and his children and wife.
This was not about Charlie who spoke about as he was not evil or spreading hatred. This was about free speech. Charlie was murdered, murdered by an individual with evil heart. Hence, when you are a representative of District 300 and you go on social media and make a statement that karma's a bitch speak volumes, shows you have no empathy for human life, You yourself, by that statement alone, promote violence. Charlie was a beautiful individual inside and out. He will live with us forever.
And whoever believes in any in any way that his murder was justified, support political violence, which has no place in society. Nancy, you need to resign along with the board directors, that liked your post because that is very, very disturbing. Nancy, you have to go. That evil does this type of evil does not belong within the school walls, within the community. I came from a communist country where freedom of speech was not was not valued. And I, you know, I value freedom of speech.
I serve my country. I I think it's a very critical thing, but freedom of speech also has consequence. You and the position that you are at, you have to. Kids look up to you guys to say something like that. That's horrible. So that's it. Thank you so much. Next speaker, Christine Evans. Thank you for affording me the opportunity to speak. I just want to make one comment first of all and that is that Nancy's post was not public to begin with. And it was made public by a group of people who chose to make it public.
Neither here nor there, neither here nor there, it was not a public post. That being said, oh dear. Can you open this for me again? I have lived in this area for thirty three years. I am a taxpayer, and I am a former educator. And I am very proud to be a member of District three hundred and the successes that our students have had and it's a great district. We have great kids, we have great staff members. This evening, I am here to speak in support of the First Amendment. Recent comments,
also accusations, were made against certain people on our board, certain staff members, certain teachers based on what their opinion was in a private post. This issue is bigger than supporting an individual for whom I personally have a great deal of respect. But it's much bigger than who said what, who post what, or who read what. Whether the whole article was read, whether it wasn't read. This issue is much bigger than that and that is that we in The United
States have freedom of speech without fear of retribution. I am hopeful that D300 will honor all of our First Amendment rights. Thank you. Next speaker, Theresa Knapp. Hi, I'm Theresa Knapp. I live in Pingree Grove. I'm a former teacher. I've been in the district for fifteen years. I'm going to speak positively about the school board and my experience with the district. I've had some great experiences with families, students, teachers, administrators, superintendents, community leaders, and the school board. Even though it's a very large district,
I like and admire the fact that people here work together, and they do an outstanding job. They provide a great learning environment for the students, 22,000 students, that's quite an accomplishment. I don't like public speaking, but I'm here because I felt it was important. I'm grateful to have this opportunity tonight to talk. I'm speaking out as a show of support for the first minute right of free speech, and I support the school board and their right to free speech. Thank you. Melissa Raisovich. Hello, everyone. I'm Melissa Rycevich. I am a former d three hundred student, and I have two kids who are currently in the school district.
I have, was born and raised in Dundee, so I've been here my entire life. As someone who values our public schools and our D300 community, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in front of you guys this evening. I want to start off by saying my deepest condolences to Kirk, his family, all of his supporters, friends, everybody that admired him. There really is no room in this world for public violence, for political violence, and most importantly for gun violence. It really breaks my heart to think that Kurt's kid can go down the rabbit
hole at some given time in his life and actually find that footage somewhere and see it. It's absolutely heartbreaking, and I think we can all agree on that. I really think that we should be using this moment to speak out against hate speech instead of politicizing a tragedy, which was an unwarranted death. Everybody should have the ability to speak their minds without retribution, which is what our country was founded on. I did not see any celebratory words in Nancy's post at all. What she had said was her initial reaction,
karma's a bitch, and then she posted something that went on to explain why we should have empathy for those who do not have empathy for us. If you guys took a moment to read Kassem Rashid's post, it was actually very heartfelt and meaningful. But I see a lot of people did not read that. Maybe you guys should become d 300 students because reading comprehension is great there. So this is a comment here that I wanna bring to attention. I think it's worth to have I think it's worth to have a cost, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to
protect our other God given rights. That's what Kirk said. A lot of people find that ungodly offensive, especially when we're talking about school children going to school in a place that they should be protected and and dying because somebody's, you know, needs the right to to bump stock whatever the hell that is, and AR fifteens and and on and on we'll go. I I respected you. So we will clearly agree to disagree on how you guys, like,
the fact that Nancy's post hurt your feelings. I personally thought Karma's a bitch spoke directly to the words that Kurt himself said in regards to gun violence. I also wanna remind people that this is a district, Kane County, that voted overwhelmingly for Harris. Thank you. That speaker? Shh. Size? Kyle Knops. My name is Kyle Knops, and I'm a parent at District three hundred. I've got two little girls that go to the school. And when I read your post and I read the entire post,
so what you first write is what you meant. So your senseless words and actions are not acceptable as the president of the school board. These comments undermine the district three hundred's credibility and reputation with the students, faculties, and members of the community. This public official is inciting political violence against someone who doesn't agree with her beliefs. I certainly hope that the district holds members of the board to a much higher standard than this. The community and taxpayers of district three hundred deserve much better than this.
I'm disgusted that I learned tonight that there's multiple people on this board that agree with her. And you should all step down, And if you don't, you're getting voted out next time. So people need to show up and vote because when you don't vote, this is the garbage you get left with. People have no credibility, disgusting freaking people, Disgusting people. You should be ashamed of what you wrote. You're disgusting. I can freaking look at you. Next speaker, Gigi Land. And I will one more up or select that last gentleman.
We will close this down. Gigi Land. Good evening. My name is Gigi Land. And I'm here tonight not just as a D 300 parent since 2016, but as the PTO president of my children's elementary school in D 300, so I'm not speaking on their behalf. I'm someone who sees every day how important it is to build school community that is welcoming, respectful, and supportive of our kids. I believe in free speech. Every American has the right to express their view. But with that right comes responsibility, especially for those of leadership. That's why I'm disappointed in the habitual divisiveness and hateful rhetoric we've seen from certain
board members and by the fact that other board members have appeared to endorse this divisive commentary. I would never purposely use the little platform that my board has built to create a hostile environment or make people feel unwelcome. If my small volunteer leadership requires that level of restraint and respect, surely elected leadership should demand even more. Rather than using your platform to bring people together, suggest solutions, or strengthen our schools, you have chosen to post content that is inflammatory, racially, and politically divisive, and hostile in tone.
I am not speaking out as a conservative or a liberal or Charlie Kirk superfan or a d three hundred board antagonist, but many families in d three hundred were fans of that young man who was murdered. And to say that it was karma that someone was murdered was offensive, disrespectful, and beneath the dignity of this board. Politics should not distract from the work of our schools. What matters is ensuring safe classrooms, well supported staff, effective use of resources, and real help for students who need it. That's what our community expects and what children deserves. What gross misuse of funds are being spent on countless legal counsel,
no offense, and have been for years that should be going to our schools. But what also troubles me is how far we have all drifted as a community and a country. On both sides of the spectrum, the extremes are drowning out reason. Every issue becomes a fight, every viewpoint becomes an attack, and every disagreement becomes political. When did we lose the ability to simply disagree and still respect each other? How did we get to a place where we can't have different viewpoints without hostility? That kind of hostility, whether from board members, parents, neighbors, is not serving our schools,
our staff, and our kids. It's getting us nowhere. Let's take that energy and put it where it belongs, into our schools and communities. Volunteer, support a teacher, mentor a student, show up for a family in need, be the examples our children need to see, and amplify the good. Our children are watching. They deserve leaders and parents who model unity, responsibility, and action, not division and hostility. It's time to move away from the extremes, away from the hate, and back to common sense and compromise. Our students, our staff, and our families deserve better. And for the record, I was one of the two fifty people who emailed the board,
and I have not to date received any response. Thank you. Next speaker, Michelle Bedding. Michelle Bettag, I'm a community member. Nancy Zettler, your reputation precedes you. I am not part of a fringe group. I've never been here. I actually just saw this on social media. I can't believe I'd walk in here and see you, the the president of the school board, claiming to be a victim. Never in my wildest dreams would I see a person that hate has no home here say something of a young man who is 31 years old,
shot, brutally shot in front of many, many kids, and many of his wife and his children, and for you to celebrate it is just mind numbing. Our kids my kids are are grown now. I am grateful that you are not in control of a board that that they are under. Every parent is worried about school shootings. Every parent is worried that one day they're gonna get a terrible phone call. I guarantee you, whether it's the Catholic schools, the community schools, and for you to sit here and flame the fire of these people are are
it it's it's absurd. I I just for you other board members, for you to sit here and like that as well, you know, is this a political man? No. He actually didn't claim to. He sat there and he talked to be talked to people and reasoned with them, and he never raised his voice. He never did anything. If you didn't agree with it, that's one thing. But you to be celebrating murder of a young man shows that you have lack of empathy for human life and for our kids, and for you to be so just just respectful to parents that are here that
elected you is is mind numbing. I I just Can't get over what I've witnessed here tonight. And I hope the counselor you've done a great job. Amazing, actually. I hope that all of you search in your hearts and accountable. And and, gentlemen, your statement was awesome. It was great just to see somebody stand up to these bullies who have, you know, for what they say as far as cult you know, cancel culture and, you know, that we have all this hate. We don't have hate. We've lost someone that we liked.
We lost our guy, and we're we're hurting. And for you to sit there and celebrate it, it it just it's disgusting, and honestly, it's just pure evil. It's evil. Thank you. Next speaker, Tyson Schrock. My name is Tyson Trock. I am a member of the community and a parent of a couple girls. Luke chapter six forty three through 45, a tree and its fruit. For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorn bushes,
nor are grapes picked from the bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasures of his heart produces good and the evil person out of the evil treasures produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks. This is the reading of God's word. Next speaker, Matt Kotopka. Good evening, board members, staff, and District three hundred community. My name is Matt Katapka, a community member and a parent. I stand before this Board for the first time ever to address a profound violation of trust and leadership. As it has been discussed, Board President publicly declared karma got them and much more inappropriate words I refuse to repeat in response to
the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The statement is not only unacceptable but a grievous breach of ethical standards that govern District three hundred, revealing a clear disdain for those with differing beliefs. The Illinois Association of School Board Code of Conduct, which shapes District's policies demand that Board members uphold high moral character, represent all constituents impartially and foster respectful discourse. Ms. Zettler's initial remark dismissed a violent death as the deserved karma, mocks human dignity and inflames division. By framing a political and religious figure's assassination is justified,
she abandons even the slightest impression of impartiality. This violates District three hundred's policies against using board authority for political ends that undermines the trust of families who expect leaders to model civility for our students. Would miss Edler dare to say karma got them if an LGBT activist were publicly assassinated instead of a Christian conservative? I highly doubt it. She most likely wouldn't be in her position anymore and I would support it. Her selective contempt exposes a blatant bias favoring one side while scorning the other. This double standard is incompatible with the Board's duty to serve all students regardless of
their family's views or fate. This is not a minor misstep, it's a pattern of betrayal of shared values. Ms. Zephler's words dishonor human life and fracture our community's unity. I demand her immediate resignation. If she chooses not to resign, I'll keep fighting to make this happen for our children, leaving no stone unturned to hold her accountable. Our students deserve a leader who embodies the respect and integrity we teach them, not one who sows division with reckless rhetoric. Ms. Edler, you have the power to end the disruption you are so worried about by simply stepping down. Thank you. Next speaker, Mary Nueve.
Miss Nueve? Oh, okay. Good evening. My name's Mary Nueve. I'm a resident of Dundee Township. My son graduated from District three hundred about ten years ago. I have come here as a concerned citizen. First, Mr. Fiorentino, I have to commend you for your speech. And I wish you well because you've got some vipers in your den. I will be praying for you. Ms. Zettler, it concerns me that you have sat through here, even your opening remarks. There was no remorse, no, gee,
maybe I was too harsh, nothing. That concerns me deeply. I'm not gonna stand here and reiterate what everyone said, but I walked away with four points tonight. One is anything you put online is public. I mean, that's, like, lesson number one I taught my kids when they started using the Internet. Come on. Come on. The second thing I walked away with is you claimed your family had been threatened with murder threats, death threats. And you also wanna propose your,
freedom of speech, you get a warning. Charlie Kirk did not get a warning. He got shot in the middle of his speech. Death is wrong. Murder is wrong. I don't care what your ideologies are. This is a room full of people. We have lost our way as a society. And I am aghast. And it's not just you, miss Zettler. I'm seeing other people being hateful on the web. This is a person who lost his life in front of his wife, his children, and a student body at Utah University. We should be appalled as a society.
And if we're not, we got some housekeeping to do. I don't care what your title is. And in regard to freedom of speech, as everyone has stated, there is consequences for your freedom of speech. I'm pretty sure if I went in tomorrow morning and told my boss he's an asshole, he would show me the door. You're getting the benefit of a hearing and a vote. That's very fortunate for you, maybe. And then I addressed the room. Go and vote at your local election.
I I am an election judge. The presidential elections, people come flocking to. The reality is your local elections is what decides directly who's going to affect you and your families and your community. Get off your asses. Get to the polls. Next speaker, Alicia Hahn. She left? Oh, she left? Okay. I'm sorry. Next speaker, Sharon Fetting. Hello. My name is Sharon Fetting. I didn't write a speech. I just kinda wrote some stuff down. Everyone, most everyone had great speeches.
I don't think I have to repeat everything. So I just wrote a couple of things down I'm gonna say, is one, murder is bad. Never thought I would have to remind that to a board member, that's an embarrassment to d three hundred. You talk about death threats. I hope you reported them to police because I would. So I'd be interested if you're gonna be reporting any death threats. Plus, I wanna remind you, you and you and you and you all threatened my kids for three years, making them wear masks to get poison shots,
to isolate our children who would not wear a mask. You were willing to cut my son out of football practice and keep kids home if they opted out of the shield testing or they or they didn't get the COVID shot. That was you guys. And if I didn't fight that if I didn't fight back that week and then you found out that they couldn't do that, Within a week, you guys with retract it. So talk about being threatening. You all threatened our kids during COVID. I don't agree with death threats.
I wanna make sure I say that. Since there's a full house here, I just wanna so for people who don't normally come to board meetings, I just wanna remind you that the Illinois State Board, I think it's Bisbee, they lowered our proficiency score for state of Illinois rather than work harder to improve our kids' math and English and language arts. But yet our administration in Illinois has jumped up 70% in the last fifteen years, but enrollment has dropped 5%. Make sure you go and vote.
This is what's happening. They lowered our kids' standards and supposedly, Pritzker is praising how good they're doing now. It's because they lowered the standards. I'm so glad my kids are out of the school district, but the rest of you, you better start paying attention to what's going on because this is what we get. We've been fighting it for five years. There's a group of us that have been fighting it for five years. Pay attention. What else? Oh, I just wanna remind you guys to make sure these are the people who wanna give your kids mental health screening in 2027 and 2028.
Parents, stand up after kids out, say no because this is the person who's gonna give your penta health screening. They're the who's gonna be who's gonna be, like, looking over these determining? I mean, like I said, they wanted all of us to be in masks and get COVID shots. Because it's coming out now. We're finding out how bad those shots are. All those kids that are getting, mitrokaititis and just passing out and dying. I mean, pay attention, people. Make your own choices. That's all I'm saying. Make your own choices.
God bless America and God bless Charlie Kirk. Next speaker, Stephanie Parazonski. Good evening. My name is Stephanie and I am a parent of a child in District 300, taxpayer, community member. I've heard a lot about diversity, equity, and inclusion in this district. And it's inclusion unless it's someone with a different political or religious belief, apparently. Celebrating the murder of someone because they have a different ideology than yours is nothing short of appalling and shameful.
And I'm talking to you, Nancy. And the other board members that liked her post, Shame Anuel. What kind of message are you sending to the students and families in the community whose beliefs don't align with yours? Not that this seems to matter to you when you let your fingers loose on the internet to spew your hateful rhetoric. Parents and community members, take note that the president of the board, someone tasked with a huge role, lacks self control and basic human decency.
Additionally, I find it quite hypocritical that you read the rules for decorum for this meeting. One of them is, being respectful, but you weren't being respectful when you posted what you did. And this isn't about freedom of speech. This isn't the issue that we're here about. I wanna be clear about that because we all have freedom of speech. Praise god. The issue at hand is a fact that Nancy has been tasked with and took an oath to being president of the board and representing students and families impartially,
and has failed miserably at doing so. So, I'll close with this. I hope your heart and heart softens and you repent of your hateful words and lack of accountability. Because when you sat up there, and instead of saying, I'm sorry, you know what, I take my statement back, you just doubled down on it. What a shame. I expected so much more from the president. Board members, I hope you make a conscious decision on this matter and take into consideration that if the script was flipped and someone made such comments about the opposite party,
someone belonging to the opposite party, how would you vote? Evidently Nancy is not fit for this role or any role involving community leadership or children. And I'll leave on this note. One more. We're not our Trumpers to the lady that said that. We are humans, and murder is not to be celebrated. Just FYI. Good night. Next speaker, Julie Austin. My name is Julie Austin. I'm a parent, a community member, and taxpayer. I wasn't planning on speaking tonight, but with Nancy Zettler's opening statements,
I could not sit idle. I'm here to address the board president's harmful words posted on social media. We all know why we're here. I'll read it anyways. In regards to the awful and horrific assassination of a young man named Charlie Kirk, but for the purpose of what I'm about to say, it doesn't really matter who was killed that day. All life has value. And that is that not what we teach our children? I did read her social media post, every word. My thoughts are that her comment alone negates every decent word in that article that
she linked. If she wanted to truly be a good person and set an example for families and children of this district, she would have simply posted the article for others to read with her sincere condolences to another human's family, friends, and colleagues regarding their brutal murder at yet another school shooting in front of literally thousands of college students, children, that will likely be traumatized for life? What about those kids and their families? What about the fact that they all heard gunfire, witnessing a brutal killing before their eyes as they ducked and ran for their lives?
I'll point out that this was just a mere two weeks after a school shooting at a Catholic school. And should it even matter that it was targeted toward a single person that day, unknown at the moment? It's still a cool school shooting where life was taken. And also, is it proper behavior to teach children that opinions of adults that are their subordinate? Two, is if they speak out and have an opposing opinion of religious or political values that you should deserve to die when they don't match with yours. People will argue
that it was on her personal page, not on a district page. Should that matter? Should you only be a good person when everybody's looking? And let's not forget that yes, although we have first amendment rights, this is a direct breach of the code of conduct for school board officials that they are sworn in by. And since she is an elected official, it is our job to assure that they are held accountable when they step outside of these boundaries because if not us, then who? Then who?
Not speaker, Anna Harlow. Hi. My name is Anna Harla, and I am a parent. I wasn't planning to speak, but here I am. I would like to ask one question to miss Zeller. If a child of a parent that you know is a Catholic or a child supporter or just a person that has different views than you, what would be your first thought? Would you help that child? Because now we're talking about a person that has kids around. I mean,
you're the board decides what kind of curriculum, what kind of stuff is going on at school when they have meetings. So what what were you trying to show by that comment? That you change your mind? Please explain. How am I, as a parent, should feel safe my children sent to school and thinking that there are people that like post talking about a person being assassinated. Because I did watch couple of videos of Charlie before,
but I really didn't realize how people are right now vicious. That they don't that they just say something. They don't think about, hey. Listen. Maybe I can take a deep breath and and think about it. What are we teaching our kids? That it is okay to bully or it is okay to because you don't like that person because that person is Catholic or because that person is Trump supporter or because that person is gay or lesbian or whatever. What are we teaching our kids that we can't just say their words and and
brush it off, especially as you, as a president of a board? Thank you. Next speaker, Amy Goracki. Good evening. My name is Amy. I'm a community member. I believe I'm the last one to speak, so I will make this quick. And I just want to reiterate what I've heard tonight, and that is that, Nancy, you did not have any remorse for what you posted. You, stood up here and called us, fringe members of a a fringe community. I am not one of those. I did read your whole post,
and I did try to understand what you were trying to convey with your post. However, that initial gut reaction that you posted first on there is what hit the hardest. And it is what we are all hearing and it is what we are all seeing and why so many of us are here to stand up and let you know how we are affected by that and how the district is affected by that. So I would ask you to please do the right thing and resign tonight and stop all of these proceedings and stop wasting the money and do the right thing.
Thank you. Let me just say, on behalf of the board, I wanna thank each and every one of you, those that spoke and those that didn't speak, even those of you that weren't nervous. You did a great job, and the board is deeply appreciative of your comments. Thank you. Alright, board. Now we've got a discussion item back on, this is the last item on the agenda. Is there anyone that, you know, miss Suttler, do you wanna start off? Or is there anyone on the board that would like to make a comment or continue the discussion? Please. Yes. The past few days' events has been very saddening for me,
and I wish there are other topics we could be applying all our anger and energy towards, like school shootings, amazing food pantry project, and common sense gun controls. I want to address my social media activity that has raised some concerns. I used the care emoji on a post that while ultimately calling for empathy and opposing, political violence began with language that could be misinterpreted as celebratory about a serious incident, upon reflection, I realized that in the in the world we live in now, this can send a mixed message that doesn't align with my faith and my values.
I want to be absolutely clear. I oppose all political violence regardless of the victim or their views. As a black woman, a daughter of immigrants who worked all her life for her achievements, knows while I may strongly disagree with certain political positions and rhetoric handed by this individual to marginalized groups, I truly believe violence is never the answer to political differences in a democracy. I also believe our First Amendment rights are very important, either you like them or not. I I I grew up in a country where there was no First Amendment rights.
And to me, this country is going towards that direction of no first amendment rights. I am reminded of my why every day and remain committed to this board and to finding constructive, inclusive ways to address the issues our community faces. I apologize for any confusion my actions may have caused about where I stand on these fundamental principles. As a Christian, I am not here to shove my religion down your throat, but I would like to make some statements. Most of the rhetorics in our community is coming from folks that consider themselves as
Christians, including Charlie Kirk. As Christians, we we all receive several unmerited grace from our God. Where is the grace, love, and forgiveness you are extending to others and even those who have wronged you or different from you? Thank you. Any other board members? Any discussion, questions, conversation? I just wanted to thank everyone for coming out. As Christine had said, this is our first chance as a board to, come together, on this matter, which is why a lot of us chose not to make a statement tonight, but rather hear from our community.
I do wanna say that I don't condone violence in any way, shape, or form. That's my personal opinion. When I sit up here as a board member, I don't bring my my personal opinion to the table unless it has to do with our children. That is why we are sitting up here. That's why you're sitting out there. At the end of the day, we're here for our kids. I've been a a member of this community, for some time now, and I've been a board member for a very brief time, a couple months now. I've seen nothing from any board member that would make me feel that they don't
have everybody's best interests at heart, and that is in our board work that I'm discussing here. At the end of the day, that's what I'm here for is the board work, and I'm here for the kids. Thank you. I'll I'll go ahead as well. Like I said, this is the first time we've ever been through something like this. And I am sitting here wrestling with, like, how do we do what is best for the community and the students? And trying to center myself around that. I appreciate everyone's words tonight. Even more than your emails, hearing you speak gives a real sense of how the community is grieving,
at this time for a senseless loss of life. I mean, I to, like, I I share I think what other board members have shared, I don't condone violence in any way, and no one no one deserves to die that way, no matter what our differences are. You know, as a parent and a board member, I I don't think of our kids as differences. When I'm volunteering at a football game, I'm not trying to fig figure out what kid comes from what kind of family with what kind of beliefs at all. I I enjoy our district. I enjoy the community that that it brings, and, I I hope that you can find trust back in the board again and realize
that that's not where I where I'm coming from, anyway, as a board member. I really I do my best to try and put anything like that aside and just think what is best for the whole, what is best for everyone. So I will need more time to kind of digest everything I've heard tonight, as as I think about, like, a path forward toward healing for the district. But, really, that that's my wish, that we can come together and, keep really focusing back on the kids because that's that's what brought us all here. So, I appreciate your patience in letting me really think through this. This is a heavy situation that we're finding ourselves in.
Thank you. Well, I hear a couple of things. Mister Fiorentino? Yeah. Yeah. Please. If you do have one. Yeah. Absolutely. I do. I do. Because we've heard a lot tonight, and, I wanna thank you as several board members have said for being here, sharing your thoughts, and your passions to us directly. Coupled with everything else that we've heard over the past week and a half, I'm trying to balance them and to make some recommendations that are in my heart. So I'd like to again reference an ISP document,
a state document which is titled The Role of the President. And it states, I quote, The Board presidency is very important. It's too important to be just bestowed lightly. The President should be a leader and one who can draw the Board together as a unit. However, like any other member, the President must subordinate self interest and look beyond personality differences if the Board is to work effectively. These words of our state and Board policy lead me to my request. And I publicly request that Mrs.
Zettler step down as the leader of our school board. She has broken and is in conflict with several codes of conduct and board policy. I feel that this would be a positive step toward rebuilding this board. In the role of school board member, we must remain neutral and do our best to represent all people of our community. I urge the board to focus on board governance, our students, and staff and uniting of our community. Let's commit to being peacemakers in all we say and do. And I'll say if Mrs.
Zettler refuses to comply with this contingent request by many, I ask this Board to take action to remove her as a president. In closing, I will move forward. I will pray. I'll be in a peaceful and forgiving way and ask each and every one of you to join me. We must focus on our students. We must focus on our teachers. We must focus on our staff and our community. We must work together to provide the very best learning environment in District three hundred. Thank you. Alright. So what I'm hearing is that, for an upcoming meeting agenda,
this is where I'm gonna ask for the board's, you know, input, I'm hearing a motion to, remove miss Sattler as president of the board. Is that a motion that, my sense is I'll just tell you what my sense is, is that that should be included as an action item on a next an upcoming board meeting agenda. This is hard to do because I'm trying to determine consensus, and it's I obviously, we're not gonna take a roll call vote on that, but it will be my recommendation to the board that we add that as an action item at an upcoming, board meeting.
Okay? Do you understand why I'm advising that? I think I don't know what the board wants to do, right? But I, as your attorney, the board's attorney, want you to be able to at least consider the options that are available. One is removal as presidency. Remember how I said not as the board member, but as the president? That is a proper motion. So I'm gonna recommend that we add that on an agenda for an upcoming board meeting, okay? Is there anyone on the board that has a different opinion on that or you think I'm on the wrong track there? I think I talked about Centure. Yeah.
I can talk about Is that an option? That is yes. I can also talk about Centure. Thank you. And so I am I you know, also a recommendation at this point would be a motion to censure miss Zettler. Be also put on an upcoming board, agenda. Again, like I said, those are really the only two options that the board has, you know, for these would be roll call votes and it would be majority would prevail on on those motions. So motion to censure and motion to remove as president of the board. Is there I recommend those as action items at an upcoming board meeting. Anyone have any thoughts on that,
objections to my recommendation? Is there something we can discuss, like, among ourselves, like, in a closed session to No. She's asking it's a good question. She's asking a great question. Can you listen to my question first, please? No. No. No. She's asking a great question. Go ahead and finish it. I I hear you. I hear you. What do you wanna finish it out? Is I wanna know if if, the the options that you've put on it you said you can't we can't really you can't really get a consensus. But we can is there a way we can talk about it amongst ourselves to know for sure that's the direction we wanna go? It's a great question.
And and how you would do that because these issues do not fit into a closed session open meetings act exemption. There are 40 of them and, you know, sometimes things fit, sometimes they don't, and this one doesn't. This is not a closed session discussion. We have to have the discussion in open session. That makes it unusual, but that's where you know, it's alright. And what that means is that the board, again, I think that this is the reason that I didn't recommend an action item tonight. I think we're hopefully, that advice was sound. Because I was seeing that it's a thoughtful process.
You guys need to really think it through and take into consideration what the public has said and what your fellow board members have stated. So, yeah, I'm gonna recommend the way you'll discuss that or the forum in which you'll discuss that is actually at the next board meeting. So I'm recommending that those two action items be placed on the next board meeting agenda just to allow my client, the board, the opportunity. It doesn't mean they, you know, items can be removed as action items from the board agenda, again, through the motion vote. So the way that it will work at the next meeting is if somebody wants
to remove an item from the agenda, they can make a motion to remove it. This is under Robert's Rules, and either Colleen O'Keefe, the, legal counsel behind me, or I will help you step through how that looks with Robert's Rules. But you can take items off as action items during the board meeting or and, again, it would have to carry a majority vote to take off, or you can leave it on and it would be called for a roll call vote. So I think the proper form for that would actually be at the meeting in the open session. That's a great question.
And it is unusual for the board to have to tackle that question like that, but that is how it would work. So I'll just say one thing. Please. Thank you for holding. Oh, please do. I just wanna say to everyone, please understand and realize that uneasy lies the hairs that wears the crown. And also, that we are all human beings just like you are. So just keep that in mind with everything that you're doing. Please. Are there any other motions? Yes. Go ahead. Can I ask a question? Please. When when we talk about censures, we're talking about,
the fact that the the centriable I don't know if that's really I'm creating a verb here. Act is the disruption. Correct? And since we've had two board members post, that on social media, their personal opinions, would it would both be censurable acts? Okay. Now that's causing division. I'm just asking. No. This is good. I will this is thank you. Since we're having open meeting, I'm having the discussion part in front of everyone. We're gonna do it. I absolutely. That's how it's gonna work.
Thank you for that question. In my humble estimation, again, this is as your attorney, the 250 emails plus, the 80 calls, the eight FOIAs have all come in based on miss Suttler's comment. They did not come in, in my again, I can stand to be corrected here. I've read most of them, they did the emails, they did not come in based on mister Fiorentino's, you know, social media posts in response to miss Suttler's post. So in my humble opinion, I don't think that's where the disruption lies. Right? I mean Now
I mean, that's Thank you. That was one of the questions throughout the last couple of weeks. I did ask. I'm a data person. And so was there data behind where the disruption came from? Did it come from from the first post? Did it come hey. I'm not asking for your opinion. I listened to everybody. Now it's my turn to talk. That was my question. Yes. I reviewed all of those email messages. Like, obviously, I couldn't review the calls, but the email messages were all over one they are all based on missus Zettler's comment and not mister Fiorentino's.
I appreciate that. Yeah. Any other questions? Yeah. Is it does it make sense for us to consider at all intent in either situation Yes. Of hosting? Intent is good question. Of course, I think the intent behind the thing is critical and we definitely would take it into consideration. I think the problem with social media, as you all, probably have experienced or seen happen, is that the intent gets lost very quickly because it's in the public forum, the conversation escalates, it happened to probably many or most of us in this room or our children,
we've seen this happen. So we take the intent into account, but at the end of the day, the intent it is a factor we consider, but the disruption exists no matter what the intent was. It doesn't those two things don't so if the intent was pure, first of all, that'd be a very hard thing to determine, purity in that sense of the word, because who knows? And the point is is that a disruption exists irregardless of the intent. It's, speech is like that, especially speech in the public forum, you know, it can it's interpreted multiple different ways by multiple different people in a variety of
context across people in our community, people outside the community, so it's very difficult, if not impossible to discern. Should you take it into account? Absolutely. I have no problem with that. But ultimately, if the disruption occurs, the intent is legally immaterial. Doesn't matter, you know. I have a quick question. The two items that you're suggesting for our next meeting are the censure and the motion to remove as board president. Yes. And those are the only two legal things that we can do as a board.
Yes. Just for clarification. Those that's we can't do anything other than those two That is correct. Okay. Because the other, you know, we could consider removal from the board, but like I said, that's not an option in Illinois. And the petition to the ROE or the regional office ISC, intermediate service center, that's not a petition either that would come from the board. That's actually a petition that can come from individuals or community members, not from board actions, so to speak. Yeah. So you're recommending what you're recommending is what is all we can do legally at
this point. That is correct. Those two things, censure and, potentially a motion to entertain removal from the position as president, those are the two legal, I think, motions that the board can they can entertain. And just because I'm recommending they go on the agenda doesn't mean I know how anybody's gonna vote. I have no you know, I don't know that. And even in a closed session, I wouldn't even ask for a voice vote. I really am just trying to pay attention to what the public said, what the comments were made, and I'm trying to advise my client accordingly.
So I think that it is advisable to put those two motions on your next board meeting agenda. Yes. Thank you. Without commentary on how you vote, and that's up to you. But I do think that that those are the two actions that the board has in front of them. Yes. Another question. Yeah. If we do if we do move to, remove as president Yes. How is that process? Yeah. There's a motion to remove as president Uh-huh. And that's voted on by roll call vote, so again in open session, and it would require a majority of the quorum,
so, if, four people that's a quorum, four people on the board is a quorum, the board meeting can proceed with four people, that's how it works. A majority of a quorum, if four members are here, is three. But otherwise, the majority of a quorum is four. So that's how I usually say it, you need four votes. There's one time when you need three, but it's a little bit unusual. So what would happen is there'd be a roll call vote and then a majority vote would prevail. It doesn't take super majority or higher than a majority, it's just a simple majority, actually, for both motions. What would happen then, pursuant to Robert's rules, is the vice president would assume the role of the president.
And, we would, well, probably what we would do, I would recommend Colleen and I would talk about it. We would probably recommend the appointment of a president pro tem or pro tempore, Latin for temporary. And so you would vote, then there would be motion language for motion to appoint it's usually the vice president as president, pro tem or pro tempore, and then that would take a roll call vote. You would at least then have a president for the evening. Right? And then you could also entertain, in addition, a motion to elect x,
you know, one of you. You can motion yourselves up, you can motion someone else up, and you can motion for other people to be elected as president. So we would do a pro tem on the vice president just so you have someone, you know, in the role of the president in that meeting, assuming there's a majority vote to remove the settlers. I'm just wondering how That's how it works. It's a little quirky. It'll be driven by Robert's Rules, so the format of it is a little kind of strange. I mean, it seems similar to when we do it in the first place. Yes. It's when like, the organization. That's exactly right.
It's a even though it's not an organizational meeting, which is what we call the meetings where you elect the officers, the officers, serve at the will of the board. So even though we usually only look at that in an organizational meeting, it can be motioned up at any time. That's a good that's a good question. And again, all of those discussions happen in open session. Those are, you know, it's a very, the organizational meetings and who is president, vice president, secretary, those are the three officers of the board. Those are open session discussions. The board have any other questions or concerns or anything,
statements? No. Do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Please call the roll. Okay. Amelia? Aye. Fiorentino? Aye. Burkett? Aye. LaMarca? Aye. Lindmark? Aye. McKendy? Aye. Zettler? Aye. Motion or motion carries? Manager.