Prairie State Wire

Illinois State Board of Education, Gender Equity Advisory Committee met Oct. 20.

Here are the minutes provided by the committee:

I. Welcome & Roll Call

Present:

Anna Koeppel, Illinois Department of Labor

Sergio Hernandez, Illinois State Board of Education

Dr. Johnnie Thomas, Rich Township School District 227

Dr. Leslie Ward, Illinois State Board of Education

Michael Phelon, The Outlet Illinois

Ann Storey, Illinois Community College Board

Deanie Brown, American Association of University Women-IL Inc. (joined after roll call)

Sandra Westlund-Deenihan, Quality Float Works Inc

Absent:

Jami Hodge, Williamson County CTE System .

II. Approval of the October 6, 2023, Minutes (roll call vote)

Motion made by Ms. Koeppel to adjourn. The motion was seconded by Mr. Hernandez. No requests for changes were raised. The minutes were voted for acceptance as presented unanimously by the members.

III. New member status update

Ann Storey was recently appointed as a member. She previously served as a committee member.

IV. Drafting the Report

a. The committee accessed the draft report and leveraged the meeting as a working session to populate and add detail to its sections with initial focus on the recommendations.

i. Recommendations identified during prior committee meetings were reviewed and confirmed as being listed in the draft report.

ii. School Year 2023 Perkins data and its current limitations in intersectionality were briefly discussed. As part of its continuous improvement, ISBE is working to ensure the data will provide the desired view, but this will not be available in the near term.

iii. The committee was reminded of federal Perkins’s funding legislative limitations in how the funding formula is applied.

iv. Recommendations outcome updates from the Whole Child Task Force were shared with the committee.

v. Additional areas of consideration raised were touching on teacher pipeline for increasing the count of male educators that represent student populations, ISBE’s CTE educator pathway grant management work underway, transportation limitations and the potential need for legislation to help further increase equity, as well as ensuring safe environments exist for students.

vi. It was confirmed that the GEAC is under the Vocational Education Act. ISBE will confirm with the Senator to confirm the report should focus on CTE elements, as opposed to education in general.

b. The committee’s short-term goal is to have draft sections fully populated for review by the next committee meeting. The subsequent committee meeting can be leveraged to enhance and finalize the report’s content. Ultimately, the report should be finalized from the committee’s perspective no later than the November 17, 2023 meeting. This will allow for ISBE to complete the report within the legislatively mandated timeline of report submission no later than December 15, 2023.

V. Old Business

No discussion points were raised.

VI. New Business

No discussion points were raised.

VII. Public Comment

No discussion points were raised.

VIII. Adjournment

Motion made by Mr. Hernandez to adjourn. The motion was seconded by Ms. Koeppel. Adjournment was voted for acceptance by the members.

https://www.isbe.net/Documents_GEAC/20231023-Minutes.pdf