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Students, parents and mentor praise mentoring partnership and urge board to preserve FFA agricultural leadership class
Summary
A community mentor and multiple FFA speakers told the Crete Monee CUSD 201U board June 16 that mentoring programs and an agricultural leadership course have produced measurable benefits and should be preserved; the board said it heard the comments but later moved into closed session on personnel and approved the district budget.
Danzelle Franklin delivered a testimonial to the Crete Monee CUSD 201U board on June 16, describing three-and-a-half years of work under a school contract with R Kids Count LLC and saying the partnership produced mentoring conferences, a rapid-response mentor team at dismissals, self-defense workshops, civic-engagement programming and community healing events.
"This partnership... allowed me to do some very impactful work within the school community," Franklin said, and later described his memoir’s arc "from gang leader to school leader," linking his personal history to the mentoring work he said he has done in the district.
The board publicly thanked Franklin. "We will try to find a way for it," one board member said, encouraging him not to leave the district assuming the relationship is over.
Following Franklin, two generations of the Fleming family and a student representative spoke about the high school FFA (Future Farmers of America) chapter. Gerard Fleming Sr. urged the board to value agricultural careers alongside athletics and questioned spending priorities and rising property taxes.
"I don't think it's fair for anybody to be able to decide who gets educated in what field," Fleming Sr. said, arguing that career pathways such as farming and agricultural engineering deserve the same respect and support as other programs.
His son, Gerard Fleming Jr., who identified himself as president of the high school FFA chapter, told the board he had learned the district planned to remove the agricultural leadership class—part of the FFA pathway—despite sufficient student interest.
"I found out that we are losing classes... the class that we're losing is agricultural leadership," Fleming Jr. said, warning that students who are not enrolled will be removed from the program and that the chapter has helped the community (he cited roughly 1,300 pounds donated to a food pantry last summer).
A student who participates in both ROC and FFA told the board FFA provides unique leadership training and college and job connections that other classes do not replicate; they said removing the course could jeopardize the chapter’s ability to function.
Board members responded that they ‘‘heard you loud and clear’’ and thanked the speakers; no formal change of course was announced during the public meeting.
The public-comment segment concluded before the board moved to routine business and then into an amended-budget vote and a closed-session motion later in the agenda.
