Reverend: Key ideas for equity panel not adopted

CHAMPAIGN – The guidelines for a new equity committee of the Champaign school district include some, but not all, of the suggestions made by community members about who will be on the committee and how it will operate.

The Champaign school board created the "Education Equity Excellence" committee in September, as part of the settlement agreement in its consent decree case.

A group of community organizations and individuals offered recommendations to the school district for the procedures to govern the committee. The recommendations came out of concerns of black community members that the committee would not sufficiently address their concerns or provide them with a voice about equity issues.

"We worked so hard," said the Rev. Evelyn Underwood, president of the Ministerial Alliance of Champaign-Urbana, one of the groups working on the recommendations. She said those drafting the suggestions tried to be reasonable and "watered down" some recommendations they felt could be controversial. She was disappointed that what she deemed the most important suggestions weren't adopted by the district.

"This is such an important committee," Underwood said. "This let me know they don't want to work with us."

The purpose of the committee is to provide a way for the district and the public to communicate, to foster a climate of equal opportunity and to have a diverse group of community members who will review data on academic achievement, special education, and attendance, discipline and graduation rates.

Underwood sees the new equity committee as not just replacing the district's Planning and Implementation Committee, which met monthly and monitored equity in a number of areas during a federal consent decree, but also as providing the oversight of equity issues that the federal judge and court monitoring team did under the consent decree.

Two of the most important issues for the black community were ensuring that the committee reflected those most affected by the equity issues in the district – primarily poor black students – and having the committee meet often enough to do its work. The community recommendations included meeting once a month, rather than twice a semester; having the committee's composition reflect the economic and ethnic data of the students under consideration; and including at least two African-American parents, two high school students and representatives of organizations working for the betterment of African-Americans.

The procedures approved by the school board Monday call for a committee that reflects the district's student enrollment, with at least five, and up to 10, community members. School board President Dave Tomlinson and board member Stig Lanesskog said that number of committee members will provide for a good cross-section of community representatives.

Superintendent Arthur Culver also noted that anyone can come to the committee meetings and provide input.

The procedures also provide for meeting twice a semester for no more than two hours, although Tomlinson has also said the committee members can decide to meet more often.

"That's not enough time to do the work that needs to be done," said the Rev. Vanessa Buchanan, also a member of the Ministerial Alliance. "They don't plan to do anything."

The district did adopt some of the community suggestions. They include limiting terms (other than those of the superintendent or central office administrators) on the committee to six consecutive years; adopting a policy for filling vacancies on the committee; providing the meetings shall be subject to the Open Meetings Act; providing that minutes of the meetings shall be shared with the school board and the public; having the superintendent make a report on the committee to the school board twice a year; and specifying that the committee shall define the scope and purpose of any task forces it establishes.

Tomlinson said the board received more input on the committee procedures than on any other administrative procedure in the past several years.

Also on Monday, the board adopted guidelines for public participation at its meetings. Public comment will be limited to the beginning of its business meetings, but the board will allow public comment throughout its study sessions.

Applications

Anyone interested in serving on the Champaign school district's Education Equity Excellence committee can submit an application to the school district. An application form will be posted by next week on the district's Web site, at www.champaignschools.org.

 

 

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