Though the Manhattan School District’s board meeting was brief, most of it focused on a family speaking during public comments to highlight their concerns about special needs programming and to request improvements from the district.
Julia and Paul Bartczak came and shared their experience with District 114’s special needs program with their son, Bryce. Their son is no longer in the district and now is excelling in his current placement, but Bartczak detailed her plight of not getting adequate, consistent care with staff trained in special needs. Bartczak alluded to issues with an administrator but did not identify the individual.
“The actions were reinforced by this administrator’s rhetoric used in drafting communication to us as the parents, in-person confrontations, and toward our son, that became a trigger for escalated behaviors. We became significantly disappointed with the leadership at Anna Mac and gross lack of professionalism,” Bartczak explained.
“My wish for the administrators, staff, teachers, and community would be to reflect on my experience and ask themselves, how could we have approached this differently? How could we have maintained a more productive and collaborative relationship? What didn’t I do to help preserve a healthier relationship? We are here tonight sharing our story as a call to action for change,” Bartczak said.
Her statement exceeded the five-minute time limit, but President John Burke allowed Bartczak’s husband Paul to continue reading her statement, and when his five minutes were up, another person in the audience continued reading. Burke apologized and explained it was protocol.
Additionally, the parents had reached out to Mayor Mike Adrieansen, who listened to their concerns and offered to contact the school district to address them. He was unable to attend the meeting and had sent a statement to the board, as well as the parents.
A parent read Adrieansen’s statement at the meeting, which offered tremendous gratitude to the district but highlighted that he had heard repeated concerns from the parents of special needs students in the district. In his letter, he explained he connected them with Janine from Advocates for Acceptance and urged the board to listen to the parents to improve programming.
Outside of public comment, the meeting included a presentation of fall benchmark data by Director of Curriculum and Instruction Cheryl Donovan.
“Our teachers come to work every day to help kids grow, and it certainly is evident in their data, Donovan shared, noting that, for the most part, students were at or above benchmark standards.
“We are still small enough to have our staff in grade level centers, where the nine people teaching that grade level are sitting around a table, and they are talking about more than just data, but it’s how is that data matching what I see in the classroom and making decisions that are based on what our kids need, not just what the book tells them to do on the next day,” Donovan said, expressing great pride in the work and instruction of the district’s teachers.
Following Donovan’s report, the district discussed the ongoing transportation woes but is hopeful the recent decision to add a bus to the fleet will improve the conditions. The 11th bus is expected to begin routes as of October 20, but parents should check PowerSchool for notifications and information.
Supt. Dr. Damien Aherne’s report included that the district has a current enrollment of 2,019 students. He also reported the district received one commercial FOIA request on purchase orders.
The district also is working on its tax levy.
“The levy is a significant piece of our financial operations and is basically when we ask the county and our community for the funds needed to operate our district. I’ll be attending a levy workshop in Springfield tomorrow, and we will have an estimated levy for the board to review at our November meeting,” Aherne advised the board.
The levy will need to be finalized and filed with the Will County Clerk’s office by the last Tuesday in December, Aherne said.
Additionally, the Illinois Association of School Boards conference is coming up, which board members will attend to learn about various topics in several education sessions.
Aherne also brought up it was principals’ month and commended all of the principals and vice principals in the district.
The board did enter into closed session and, upon returning, voted to keep several dates of closed session minutes closed, while opening up the following dates to become public. December 18, 2024, January 13, 2025, January 15, 2025, January 23, 2025, and May 14, 2025.
Stephanie Irvine is a freelance reporter.