Meghan Hennesy’s speech at the Mahomet-Seymour School Board meeting Jan. 17, 2023

The following is a transcription of Meghan Hennesy’s speech at the Jan. 17, 2023 Mahomet-Seymour Board of Education meeting. To listen to the entire speech click here.

I do have some things that I would like to say tonight. Because my level of frustration has just continued to build meeting after meeting. When I moved to Mahomet, I moved here, like lot of people, for the schools. When I moved here, I got very involved in the PTO, worked in the classrooms. People got to know me. Worked on the Dawg Walk, became a face that people saw in the schools, and understood what was going on. I took on roles and leadership for the community. 

And at that time, people started to come to me and say, you know, my kid is struggling with this. I’m struggling as a parent with this. As a community member, I’m struggling with this. And staff members would come to me and express that they were struggling and that they needed some help. 

And long before I sat in this board seat, I came to the board that was sitting at the time and implored them for some action on curriculum; for some action on bullying and the assaults that were taking place’ for some action on class sizes; on diversity; on student privacy with respect to technology that we were bringing in; with financial responsibilities about going one-to-one, doing that without plan for replacing those at the time. 

And unfortunately, I didn’t get any response from that board. I got the thanks, a head nod, and you know, the formal we appreciate you showing up to to share your thoughts with us. 

And so I thought, you know, all these people came to me and said we need a voice, we need someone there who is willing to be our voice. And so I ran for the school board. When I ran for the school board, I ran with the intention of creating a space for those students who were asking for help; for those staff members who were asking for help; for the teachers who were asking for help. for the parents who were asking for help. And for the community members who wanted a voice. 

And I thought that it was important to create a space so that we could have a collective discussion about the mutual life that we build together as a community. And in the four years that I’ve served on this board, it’s been different than what I expected when I ran. I am sitting here four years later, with the same problems that I stood up at that podium and talked to the board about with no movement on them. The same problems with bullying our kids are facing; kids telling the same stories about challenges that they’re having: the bullying that they’re facing the assaults that are happening; the drug problem that they encounter. 

And for years I’ve now heard, but we don’t tell the adults because we don’t feel like anyone helps us. And so as adults, we may feel like we’re helping but the kids tell us differently. That’s a problem. Pleas from community members about discussion items that this board could take on, in my opinion, go unheard and unadded to agendas. We’re in a situation where the Superintendent and the Board President control what gets put on an agenda. And if they don’t want to talk about it, in my experience, it just doesn’t make it to the agenda. 

You can ask in a meeting for it, it doesn’t make it. You can ask per the rules that they’ve set up to get it on there and it doesn’t make it. And it’s supremely frustrating because it’s not just things that I want, it’s things that the community is coming to me because they want to voice in it. 

Um, I have seen shocking things like this school board voted against a measure that would ensure we don’t have any appearance of impropriety through quid pro quos. So members of the school board went up to Chicago, on the taxpayer dime for an IASB weekend to the tune of 12 to $20,000, somewhere in there. And beforehand, voted against a measure that would prevent us from going out to dinner and being wined and dined by companies that then come and ask to contract with the school district. This is shocking to me. The appearance of impropriety and the potential real quid pro quos are dangerous for this district. But this school board voted against that because we want to go up and… I’m not really sure. I went on one, saw everything that I needed to see, haven’t been back since because I don’t think is an appropriate use of the taxpayers’ money. 

But we do find time to add things like multiple meetings that are focused on giving away assets of the district. We had two, three, maybe even four meetings on giving away 13 Acres, on giving away Middletown Park. We kept being told that we were doing that because we are trading partial use of tennis courts. To date, there are no tennis courts. The district has not seen any benefit from that. And at the time those of us board members who wanted some sense of security about giving those pieces of land away in the form of if what we were told didn’t happen, we would get that land back, we were told you’ve got to just trust them. The tennis courts are going up. Tennis courts are not going up. They aren’t up now. I will believe it when I see it. 

But it is our job as fiduciaries of this district to protect the assets and we did not do that in my opinion. 

We held multiple meetings about expanding a TIF for the expansion of this road that’s going in. In my opinion, the district traded a $1.5 million, we owed $1.5 million to $3 million to put into road, would have been our responsibility as developers of this site. And what we have given up is well over $10 million over the life of that TIF. That is not appropriate for the taxpayers. We just keep asking the taxpayers to burden this. 

And that road is going to also have a secondary impact of bringing more houses, more kids, more students to school buildings that are already busting at the seams. And so what I found was that there don’t seem to be the types of discussions that go on I anticipated: that were focused on kids and their needs, staff members and how we appropriately support them, and community members and how we do this to the best of our ability respecting that the community is the one who funds these issues. 

I’ve heard it said in this boardroom that I don’t think the board members are ever going to come together. And I am to the point where I actually believe that. I believe that because my priorities have not changed from the time that I decided to run for this board. My priorities are still trying to look out for kids. do our best for children. to best support the staff. And when they come to us and tell us that they’re in dire need, rather than critiquing them for the way that they do it because we have a culture that forces them to feel like the retribution will come, and they can’t have open conversations with the board. We gaslight and sideline into a discussion about how they did it, rather than solving the problem that they came to us with. 

I don’t believe that we are going to address curriculum. Curriculum has been a blank spot since before I joined the board. Four years later, it’s still a blank spot. Before the gaslighting starts, and I’m told look at the website, I have looked at the website. What you see on the website, primarily our learning standards, and learning standards is not curriculum. 

In the time that we have had directors of curriculum this district has spent over a million dollars in salary. And if I look at that website, I don’t feel like that value is translated into the work that we do. But we don’t have discussions in this room about that. 

We have kids who talk to us about bullying but we don’t even put it on the agenda for discussion here. I’ve been trying since I took the seat on the board to have just the creation of a space for people to come and tell us about their experiences with bullying and diversity and inclusion. And this board will even create a space for those discussions to be had, let alone have discussions in this boardroom about those issues.

And diversity has become a buzzword that we use to whip people up into a frenzy because it’s something that everyone has their own definition of. And we take advantage of that. and we say it’s bad to talk about it. When really, instead of using labels that shut down conversation, what we should be doing is understanding that children and our employees are coming to us with real problems and asking for us to solve them and we are just ignoring them. And there’s no label you can slap on that that’s going to make that feel okay. 

And I don’t think that this board is serious about the types of priorities that I have when it comes to curriculum and protecting kids and protecting staff, and shoring up those items and making sure staff has appropriate supports. And the reason I say that is we just canceled a study session that was scheduled in January because ‘there was nothing to discuss.’ Nothing to discuss. I find that shocking. We’ve had discussions about bullying. We had discussions about curriculum. There was nothing to discuss. 

And in point of fact, the board had decided that that meeting was supposed to be about talking about district goals. And you’ll see it on an agenda tonight. But it’s only because I followed up after the agenda items had been released and said we did as the board decide we were going to talk about district goals in January. This is the last meeting that we could do that. We should put that on there. Now, do I think a real discussion about goals is going to go on shoehorned in between all the other things that we have listed here tonight? No I don’t. And do. I think that we’re seriously gonna take a look at that? I do not. Because the study session would have been the place to do that. And instead, we just canceled it because we didn’t have anything to do. 

The board decided that we were going to have that meeting. And either the president of the board or superintendent decided that they would cancel that meeting. The board is supposed to act as a board. One board member doesn’t have any more power than the other, and the superintendent does not speak for the board. It is supremely frustrating to be hand tied by those two individuals who refuse to put things on agendas and refuse to bring things up for even discussion of the board if they don’t want to.

I’m having difficulty because we have all of these very real problems. We have students coming to us this year in pain. And I hear from the superintendent that we’re going to sit back and listen, which I can appreciate. But we have very real problems that need to be addressed. And while we sit back and listen, when it comes to kids in pain, a lack of curriculum, we only deliverable, by the way the district is responsible for, we don’t have. 

I read about going to chamber meetings, meeting with developers, meeting with community members, all which is fine and good, if we had the core of what we’re supposed to be doing done. But we don’t. And so sitting back and listening while kids are in pain is not appropriate, in my opinion. 

And we find the time to talk to community members, developers special interests, we find the time to push referendum the community has already told us they are not interested in. We push that through in a manner that doesn’t add anything to the discussion and ensures that it’s gonna fail again, leaving us to continue with class sizes that are bursting at the seam. And then we hear in the community that phone calls are being made, asking people to run for the school board. 

Okay, I get it, you don’t like the dissenting voices. But dissension is important because this is supposed to be a system of checks and balances. The school board is supposed to check the power of the superintendent, not just be a rubber stamp for everything that goes on. And there’s no clear indication to me that we are just to rubber stamp in the fact that school board is supposed to direct the superintendent through policy. 

And this superintendent and the previous superintendent also came and weighed in on whether or not they wanted us to implement said policy. It’s a little bit like letting the fox in the henhouse, when the person you’re supposed to oversee with policy gets to decide whether or not those policies should be considered or recommended or adopted. 

We have school board members who are enraged and for two meetings we had to hear about the school code, the school code with respect to who sits in these seats, and where people sleep at night, and which lights are turned on, in which driveways we park our cars in. And we’re supposed to take the word of some people who own multiple houses and not take the word of other board members who own multiple houses. 

The best of my ability because we either like some people and their agendas better or we don’t. But I am sitting in this seat not really sure how I’m supposed to take one person’s word for it over another person’s word for it. If they say this is the house that I spend my time and it’s my residence, I don’t go around town like crazy peeping Tom looking in windows and making sure that that’s happening. And quite honestly we have real important business to be taken care of and I can’t believe that’s how we’re spending our time. 

That same school code that has that language about whether or not you can sit in a school board seat also has language about the responsibility of school board members: about retaining records, reporting on employment, adopting and enforcing all necessary rules equally and fairly, appointing teachers and fixing salaries, developing and implementing policies for recruitment and hiring of minorities, direct what textbooks will be used, direct what branches of study should be taught and what apparati will be used; sounds like a curriculum to me. 

So I’m left wonder, if we’re so focused on school code when it comes to certain parts of it, did we just not read all of it? Did we not comprehend the rest of what follows? Are we actually only interested in pushing school code when it supports the agenda that I’m pushing? I have my own theories on that, and I think that’s what’s going on. 

All the while, kids are telling us they’re in pain and they need help. Teachers are telling us that their classes are busting at the seams and they don’t have the resources. Teachers have to go online and ask for GoFundMe because they don’t have enough money to staff their classes appropriately. And we sit in this room and we talk about whose bed lies where. It’s a shame and I’m just not having it anymore, quite honestly. 

Before I was on the board, I used to come to meetings; I used to watch school board meetings they were 5, 10, 30 minutes at the most, very little discussion, motions would pass, contracts would come. No discussion was had. It would vote through seven-zero. 

But in the reality is that in the decade that I’ve lived here, I’ve watched this school struggle. I watched the real issues that we’re facing as a town and as a nation impact this small town. And I think we’re losing that battle. And I sat in this seat because I wanted to actually make change that would help this district change its trajectory. But none of that happens. And without changing the trajectory. I have real fear about where we’re heading. 

And so I think if I were to predict, I think you’ll see more trailers coming your way. I think we’ll see larger class sizes. I think we’ll see the asks of teachers get larger and heavier and more untenable. I think we should expect to see talk of shorter school weeks. We should watch for other ways to manipulate taxpayers into feeling like if we don’t do something the children are going to suffer. 

But for me, this is a result because at the moment that we needed to act, we didn’t; we didn’t change trajectory, we didn’t change our focus, we didn’t focus on what was important. And I imagine, maybe in May when the board turns over, this will go back to what it was before. I hope not, but I have no reason to believe with Max and out there making calls and asking people to run to the school board, that they aren’t people who maybe think similarly because the rubber stamp vote is a danger to this district and everyone who pays for this district. 

I’m tired of seeing issues swept under the rug. I hope that they won’t be, I worry that they will be. And I worry that, you know, we’re going to, as soon as this board turns over, see those contracts that we were supposed to discuss after the fall, come back to this board and mysteriously have not made it back to the agenda, come back in May or June after the board has turned over so that those folks that wined and dined us up in Chicago come and without any real discussion, have their contracts confirmed and pushed through this district. 

I’ve worked really hard to stay true to who I was when I asked for this job. It’s been difficult, but I feel like I can hold my head up high and I feel like I have done that. And the Mahomet-Seymour that I see is vastly different today than it was a decade ago when I moved here. I hear from parents for the first time that they regret moving to Mahomet, that the school system is not what they expected. And parents talk about how their children are thriving in other districts and people are moving out. And I witnessed how the important things in my, to my values, my priorities, have taken a backseat on this board. And as I look at the rest of this agenda, I see those types of things continuing. I see no real discussion about the things that are important to this district making this to this agenda. 

And so tonight, I’m going to actually take a stand because I can. And I’m not interested anymore in this performance art that’s being done. I don’t want to participate in it anymore. I refuse to participate in it anymore. And so tonight, I appreciate you listening. 

I came here tonight so that my voice and my reasons can be heard and people couldn’t make up stories about what it is that I’m doing and why I’m doing it. And I thought it was important because that has happened time and time again. And a person having their own voice and being able to have their own message is vitally important. It’s something we should be teaching our kids. And so I came here tonight to use mine, and I thank you for listening. Now I’m going to go.