Um we called families, um we invited their siblings, we we did the the campaign. So, we did that as soon as we had knew the amount of spots that we had available. I would be curious um like uh Mr. Mr. Hall was saying in regards to why students are leaving because I think this goes back to something that Mrs. Rub and I would say it was what do the parents want? And it ended up turning into a lot more than it needed to be. That's all our point was is what do the parents want? Not all parents find IB necessary. I was one of them. My kids are just as successful. But as a mom of elementary kids, I like the idea that they were close. I'm a room mom. It's right there. You know, I can run to it. So, we had said that before there's people in UP that they don't have a community school and that's, you know, maybe what they're looking for.
I don't know. But I would like you to see why people are leaving. And I think that would be a good piece of information for us to see why they're leaving because as it was when it first opened. It was it was great. It was packed. It was, you know, we were turning people away and now we can't fill it. So why? Let's find out why. You know, is it a community school thing? What is it they're looking for? So I think what you're doing campaigning, marketing, however you want to say it, get the word out there and see if we can't get more people in, you know, enticed by it, whatever you want to say. But again, you know, it's hard to say because it just depends on, you know, what what's important to that parent. So I think holistically, I don't think we know we have been promoting the student body of 5,000 kids for the longest since I've been here, since my kids was in school.
In the late 1990s, just the population, the student body has been promoted at 5,000 kids total. That number has been out there for a long time. Up until the last couple years, last couple years has been 4,400 thereby 4600 kids. I don't even think we know just where did the sun drop come from and who does those kids you know that number to 600 what grade levels we don't know that I don't think we know that so we're trying to figure out why just CSK dropped just as a district as a whole why have we lost 600 kids five 600 kids over the last couple years we've been around some um data reports to tell us where where our students have moved. Have they gone to private? Have they transferred out? Have they moved? Um I would guess that um the residential checkins did. I'm sure that that had a large um impact on on that percentage.
And was it a big number in University Park? Was it a big number that had kidn people parents had kids at CSK? Was that reflective of the national investigation? I can tell you that it's just and a lot of it has to do with change. I mean, I can tell you 12 families that I know personally that are friends moved out of the district because they were never going to send their kids to our high school. It's a fact. They're all going somewhere else. They're either going private, they're going to Lincoln Way, they're going I don't care where they're going. They just said they're ne they moved out of the villages. Mooney has a great turnover rate. I mean, when a house goes up, it sells. It's a great price point, but unfortunately the last two years I've talked to our care our stigma. We have to change it.
We have to change everything about there's so many good things that are happening in our high school. And I have people that I know that are friends that would never send their kids here not realizing how amazing this place is. That's correct. And they and and I'm telling you right now, it happens every day. It's not just it it's about the stigma that we have and the negativity and we have to change it. And I think working with the Donovan group at the beginning is working with the Donovan group and changing our communication department because we have to get all the good that comes out of this of these schools out to the public to change that. And also I can tell you when I moved in my house 30 years ago, there were probably a hundred kids in the area. There are probably 10 right now.
It's older people in my neighborhood now that have bought houses. There are no school age kids around me. Just there's like two. That's it for 10 houses each side. So, I also think that the population has changed. It's not t those families have grown up and those kids that went to our school are now off doing whatever they're doing and they've not been replaced by new people who are buying in my neighborhood don't have children. Right. When I moved there in 2000, my kids were um one and three or, you know, two and four. And all the families in my subdivision, they were a lot a lot of young. Most of them are gone. And the problem is it's older people will come in or somebody with kids will come in because of the school district. I had a conversation with somebody and I do a ton of new construction in Pieton and I was wondering why Pieton and why Mooney and CIT and UP and why we can't get new construction and four people said school district stigma was it was a fact and that's for two years since we you know trying communication getting the positive stuff out getting all of that everybody doesn't realize that when you step outside of our community I asked Dr.
holiday. How's Thornton? Thornton has the same issues or different issues than we have in Lincolnway or uh Evston or whatever district in this state. We they all everybody has issues. It's how we handle them and how we present them and how we try to fix them. And I think it's our job, the seven of us, to change the stigma of what's going on here and communicate everything out. Well, I I can tell you this too. Um you you definitely have communication. Um, but people and I know you all tease me about this, but I when I talk to people, um, it's all about, oh, everybody's want now want to go to rich. Why they want to go to rich? Because they have all these shiny new things. Regardless of what um what's there or what's not there, everybody looks at they are doing these things for the kids.
They're building up these things for the kids. They're building up their facilities when I can't key they're growing they're building all these new pretty things I don't know if they're educationally they're getting better but they the stigma is out there that they're doing these things for the kids they're they have new fields they have bloom they're building a new I I've had tons of people talk about now sending their kid to Bloom because they're building this indoor football facility HF is pretty so as much like we joke about it but that's a a real thing out there people want those things. So I remember Mount Carmel, they got a big rise in in with kids going there when they redid their facilities and as long as and and one of the things I I see is when I talk to parents when I'm out there even kids in the community.
Oh, I have I know four families that are that are sending their kids to Morgan Park. What is Morgan Park doing? They have a new football field. They have a new baseball field. They're building facilities and they're like, "No, we're not going to." I'm like, you you have you live right here. Well, we just dropped them. So, boundaries don't really matter anymore except for here. And new and new things. They want new things. Uh people, that's I'm sorry, but it is. So, so is the recommendation to bring this back and just eliminate that bullet point that no classroom openings will be filled after the 15th day of school. Correct. and bring that to the board next week for a vote with the other policies again. Okay. Can we clear that up again? Again, because Yeah, because again, you know, I I might look at it from a different point of view here.
Again, looking at the more sensitive point here. Okay. So, just say for example, you're talking about the recommendation coming from the headman is to change that date, correct? presently is presently is where the 15th day of school and we want to go to what? Um I would say recommendation at minimum would be if we wanted to try it out for one year and fill it fill see how many slots we feel we can do the end of the first trimester or we can just take it out totally and say that there is no um there's there's no cut off. So if the percentage of University Park go down to 25%. And now for whatever reason this date come where other kids can come in and fill that other percentage of University Park 15%. We're we're not we're not touching. So we're not University Park 40%.
That's that's exactly what we've been saying. We're not changing that. the number of University Park students would still come there. That's never been a question. Okay. They still have to be eligible from Yes. to fill those slots. The date is giving them more time um to figure out where the numbers are because remember if registration comes and then all of a sudden the first two, three, four weeks of school, you know, it's hectic. It's crazy, right? New families coming in, trying to get them registered, people complaining. I've been trying to get registered. Look, Ken, Ken knows people, I'm trying to get registered. I can't get a hold of anybody. You got to give a little bit bigger window to allow administration to be able to say, okay, now we have three, four weeks. Let's try to get these filled. And then their goal is that if you're at 25 students and you're supposed to be at 40, then your job is to get 15 University Park students to fill those 15 spots, not six from Mooney and nine from here.
Nope. Everybody stays in their category, but it coming from their village, right? That's what I wanted to clarify. Understands if if they're supposed to have 40% of that population and they're sitting at 30%. Your team or whoever does it is going to go out to University Park residents to try to fill them up to the 40%. Correct. Absolutely. And if they don't And if they don't, then they remain those remain. They're not going to no it remains vacant like it is now. We're just going to try to get those children moved over to give them the experience and to ease up on some of the overfilled classrooms that parents may not understand what CSK is all about. That's what I I wanted to say also is maybe we need to make sure that we're getting that information out that this opportunity is for children to get a different type of education.
Well, so when you go to University Park, you say you don't have this percentage, you want to go to University Park, say, "Hey, you still got 10% to go." Yeah. And you still don't get then let's just say there 17 seats at that point. Um those 17 seats, we will not fill them with any other students besides 17 University Park students. Right. And if you can't get 17, it just stays open. They just stay open. The perfect example is we have 15 14 students in fourth grade where we got other fourth grade classes that are that's ridiculous. Okay, we beat this horse to death. Let's let's move on. Uh okay, that's all I've got for that. Um next up is the safety and security update. Yes, we've asked Mr. to come and give some update on safety and security. And I think this is actually quite timely uh considering we we've heard some issues out at the um Michigan State just recently, it's still out there um our need to constantly evolve in what we're doing.
So that's actually a good presentation title for evolve. So Mr. Tobias, you want to share with us where we're at? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, board president, superintendent, members of the board, and cabinet for having me here tonight. Uh, I was asked to come and discuss some recent observations, some visits, uh, I've made with schools regarding our quest for a metal detector process. Uh, it's very interesting to see how some schools deal with it um, in one capacity and others um, still have a work in progress in some other capacities. Uh having metal detectors is not an an easy thing to just initiate. Say we put them in place, plug them in and and go to work. Uh requires staff, requires procedures, requires process. It's a very exhausting process with metal detectors coming into a school. Uh they're great. They can be a deterrent. Um they can be useful in identifying threats, but they do require a lot of hands-on searching process constantly.
um with students coming into the building. On the one hand, you could say we have metal detectors and and we can deter that threat. Um but at the same time, we might create other threats and other dangers with lines of students, uh groups of them as they wait to come into the building. Uh as soon as you put metal detectors in, you've totally disrupted your process of of traditional entry for anybody. I'm not saying that's good or bad. I'm just speaking to the observations I've seen. um metal detectors um can add anywhere from 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes um to the arrival of students in the building if they're going to be used properly. Um and all the identifying hits or alerts that you get from them are investigated properly. Uh the investigations of those hits or alerts do take place uh on person, whether it's a wand, a pat down, uh bags are searched, pockets are emptied, and just about anything can hit on a traditional metal detector.
They have sensitivity settings that can be calibrated. Um, but anything from keys to a wristwatch, uh, to maybe buckles on a belt, um, hinges on a laptop, uh, undergarments, um, wired undergarments that are worn by people. Anything sets them off. Um, and it's not just, um, one or two things or or three or four people that come through the line. Uh, it it is going to be an exhausting process. It's well worthwhile. Some might argue in a sense, but I do want to be sensitive to the other dangers that are created when we do have those long staggering lines. Um, kids late to class. Um, there are other options out there, too. I've observed um, and have researched. Beyond traditional metal detectors, there's other devices such as what the packet I put in front of you today. Evolve, um, is another system. They market themselves a weapons detection system.
And I'm not here to sell anything to you tonight. and present an observation of another uh device I've learned of and have seen in use at other um community schools not far from our district. Uh the device itself um can be calibrated to have more ease of movement and flow of students into the building or any visitors um as far as what our procedures will do. Um it has a camera operating system, a digital system uh that can pinpoint or target um items that you don't want into the building either on somebody's or within a backpack. Uh the packet I gave you in front of you there gives some visuals to how this device works. Um there's also um some description uh descriptors that talk about um traditional metal detectors. First, a system like Evolve and there's a couple case studies I included in there that talks about how it's been used at other schools.
A school in Champagne, Illinois, as well as a school in Nebraska. Um these devices can be marketed primarily to your school as well. They can integrate to current camera systems and technologies. Um they can also integrate into alarm and alert systems uh through a Wi-Fi access with local first responders, police, SRO's um as well as building admin at the same time. Um the the procedures for using metal detectors or evolve can be similar. Um, but this system here can be done with um, less staff. Um, and it's marketing itself is more accuracy. And I'm not speaking to be an expert on any one of these features right now. I'm just speaking to my observations of what I've seen, what I've learned, and what I've researched. Um, some of the the pros and cons between metal detectors and and other options like Evolve. Um, the list can be pretty grand from the simplicity of of long lines to no lines to things looking like a prison and the perception of that to items um uh devices that blend in with your school and and can have decals and and work um with very ease and transparency.
Uh a lot of us have passed through these objects, these um alternative metal detector devices. If we've entered a lot of public events, McCormack Place, White Sox Park, Wrigley Field, a lot of businesses are using these and and we don't even know it because we walk through seamlessly. Um you wouldn't know it unless um uh the attendant gives you an alert and then maybe there's a secondary search that takes place for you. Um without me speaking further, I have a video I'd like to show you that was shared with me. Um uh it's it's pretty good um in terms of some of the details. It's about four minutes.
Um but let me get you to watch it and I'll try and answer any questions you might have after that. And this would be um an alternative to standard metal detectors that that ping and and alert on anything metallic. This one's supposed to be an AI intelligence system uh that eliminates the lines uh lots of flow of traffic and pinpoints exactly where you want your security to target um either an individual something on their person or in a bag. So what we have here is our standard configuration express system. This is a dual lane configuration for high throughput screening. We can screen up to 3,600 people per hour in this configuration. What you'll al also notice is that there are some tablets that are connected to this system. These are wireless tablets which gives you some flexibility in the positioning and uh where you want to uh place the tablets.