CHAMPAIGN – The Champaign school board named 10 community members Monday night to a new equity committee for the district.

The board chose the committee members from 32 applicants.

The Education Equity Excellence committee was created as part of the district's settlement of its consent decree. It is to be a diverse group that will help to foster a climate of equal opportunity, and is supposed to review data in areas such as academic achievement, special education, attendance, discipline and graduation rates.

The committee members named Monday are Nathaniel Banks, a former school board member and University of Illinois administrator; Jamar Brown, a parent and chairman of the city of Champaign's Human Relations Commission; Jerome Chambers, president of the local chapter of the NAACP; Nancy Hoetker, a parent and president of the Champaign school district's PTA Council; Virginia Holder, a parent and a lawyer, farm manager and event planner; Lily Jimenez, a parent and bilingual teacher at Urbana's Washington Early Childhood school; Annette Jones, a parent and University of Illinois Foundation administrator; Karl Radnitzer, a parent and Millikin University professor and administrator; Cristina Madrano, a parent, doctor and president of Hope Community Health Center, a free medical clinic; and Melodye Rosales, a parent, graphic designer and publisher.

Jimenez was at the special meeting at which the committee members were named. She said she has recently become more involved in the school district, in providing a voice for Latino parents.

Jimenez said she would like to continue to work for Latino families, and she'd like to see a forum for those families to share their experiences in the district, both what they like and what they think the district could do better.

She'd also like to work on getting more Latino parents involved in the schools, and ensure they have access to programs and information they may not have now because of a language barrier.

Board members said they were pleased with the number and quality of potential committee members.

"We ended up with a very strong pool of candidates with a lot of experience," Tommy Lockman said.

Kristine Chalifoux agreed.

"I was really touched by what some of these people wrote to why they wanted to be involved," she said.

In addition to the community members, the committee will include Superintendent Arthur Culver, Deputy Superintendent Dorland Norris, Assistant Superintendent Michael McFarland, teacher's union President Deb Foertsch, Central High School Principal Joe Williams and school board President Dave Tomlinson.