The alternative times can be accessed at the at ace alternative times.com and on Twitter at ace all times. Second 11 students will be tra traveling to Elbridge Museum of Contemporary Art in Mfield Connect. Participate in the museum program sensory friendly museum tour which includes guided tour through two of the museum's current exhibit exeations. There we go. allowing students to explore current works on view with the museum educator and then create process-driven art inspired by those artworks in the museum studio. Third, on April 22nd, a students will be participating in all around ACE building and Earth Day activities. Students will be able to choose from the Earth Day activity menu using Google form this week to prepare for the day. Katy students from the aquatic science class will be going on a field trip to White Memorial Conservation Center to learn about microvertebrate and what type of microvertebrate represent there.
I haven't taught I learned about phonics instruction when I was in college. I taught fifth grade for 14 years. Having the tool kits to be able to address what I need to address has been the greatest thing I could have asked for. One of our biggest difficulties in fifth grade is how do I target a student who was reading out a kindergarten first grade level? I don't have those resources. I don't have those books. Through art, I do. And those are some of those kids and we speak about that 200% over that. Those are kids that are making two to three grade levels worth of growth in a span of seven months because we took this test in March. Um so it's kind of w and the like the goal of these coaches. I speak about this but there's also this woman over here Chrissy who lives in the Park Avenue basement which is why she has that cough.
And so I'm not sure that this data is is super reliable if we have a third of our kids aren't taking the test. Mrs. Townson, does the data only show like does it only show who the test is assigned to? Cuz our kindergarteners don't take it at the very beginning of the year. Well, it shouldn't. I would hope that it was um smarter than that, right? Because it's third through eth. Um, I wonder and I feel like maybe I misspoke originally about maybe the kids this I would hope that this only reflects students who did take diag who were here and did take diagnostic one compared to the ones that actually did but then that would not have a discrepancy. So I can look into that. I'll ask I ready and see like who are those kids right? like who are those kids that aren't represented and then you know ask the questions of okay what do we do about that I mean you think about it our whole district has 800 kids basically so K and one shouldn't even be in this right right and two but on so maybe maybe that's why they're saying the assessed and maybe it's the total all the schools that's why I I I will contact them and say like who are those kids?
Our workload has had um the severity of needs on our students have required us to hold additional IEPs, meet with different service providers, and we're all very willing to do it, but we cannot continue at the capacity that we're being asked to work. We can't give the service level that we feel each of these students deserve. So our proposal is to reduce our capacity, our case load number from 10 currently with the mod severe program to eight and to the at mild moderate from 12 to 10. and that will allow us more opportunity to work with our students and provide more opportunities for them to be in inclusion practices. Another concern that we had is that in the beginning of the school year, we have brought to the attention to the members of personnel that we have had safety concerns and that we had tried to find ways to provide safe conditions, not just um where we were feeling as though we weren't being heard.
I got I got all my [Music] mind. We up in the sun in our eyes. [Music] Um, Miss Guthrie, I'll I'll turn it over to you. Can you please call each one of your state champions up here? You can have them face have them like maybe behind the board so they don't give their back to the board. Come up here. You guys like right right around here. right behind them, behind the board. That way you have back to them. And can you can you just introduce them? And they're welcome to say a few words and they deserve it. These are four captains. Three of them have been captains now for like three years, right? And then one just became captain this year. Without them, our team wouldn't work because we go to them to motivate our team to help us with things. If there's girls who are struggling with things and the coaches don't have time to help it, we go to them and we ask them, "Can you take care of this?" and they're willing to no matter what.
Questions or comments on matters under legal review will not receive a response. Members of the governing board may not discuss items not on the agenda. Personal attacks are discouraged. At the conclusion of a call to the public, individual members of the board may respond to any criticism made by an individual who addressed the board. The expectation of the governing board and district is that everyone treats one another with respect and that the speaker presents their viewpoints in a civil manner. If more than 10 individuals request to speak, the board president reserves the right to limit individual speakers to two minutes and may set a time limit to the call to the public session. Then I call you to the stand, please.
Our hope is to manage expectations by in your voter pamphlet putting in what we hope are conservative interest rate estimates, conservative assessed valuation, property valuation projections and then hopefully we outperform everything. Yeah. On your end your assessed valuations outperform you get more building than we thought hitting the tax rules, right? Maybe you get 12% growth and we're only estimating eight. That really helps out on the tax rate. Okay. And thank you very much. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Mr. Ar, are you finished? Did you have something to wrap up? That's it. Okay. So, let me move on to the next item. Now, I move on to item five. Call to the public. Lisa, I don't have any cards, so we can skip that. We now move on to item six, consent agenda. Motion to approve as written. Second. Lisa, we have a motion to second.
Thank you. Any other discussion? Hearing none. If we could take a vote, please. Stacy Salt, yes. Julie Jetty, yes. Katherine Potter, yes. Mindy Hartman, yes. Jason Jansen, yes. Darling, yes. Ann Sanucci, yes. Okay, the motion is approved. Next up, we have uh agenda items requiring discussion and board approval. First up is 8.1, the approval of the custodial service contract bid. Mr. Shepard. Yes. Good evening. Uh the district, as we discussed in the committee, the whole was required to go out to uh bid for our long-term custodial contract solution. Uh keep in mind the prior contractor was Alpha Building Maintenance, whose contract was supposed to end June 30th uh of this year, but because of poor management decisions on their part, uh uh that was forced up uh a little bit. Uh tonight we are pleased to present to the board the recommendations of the bid process.
And I guess my recommend my reason is is that nowhere else in the policy is it referring to the full name of the district or lake and mckenry counties um and such Lake County. Yeah. So I don't know how Mindy I'll refer to you on this. All right. General preface. All my comments are I'm a lawyer but not our lawyer. Um I have no problem with adding that back in. I think I to your point it makes sense. It doesn't hurt anything. Okay. I agree. Just oppose if you oppose. I guess I think it makes sense to list it as well as the the preface that from this point on it'll be referred to as I like the way that that is stated. Okay. Um 130. Uh Miss Hartman also submitted a comment. Um, and she's just saying that this policy is reading like a strategic plan um, and we should consider whether it needs to be replaced or modified.
Thank you. Uh Mrs. Salt, I have nothing to add tonight. I have nothing either. Just what a great amazing weather day we had today for a change. We're not freezing. All right. Next up, we have the superintendence report. Dr. White. Thank you very much. Good evening to the board and to the community. Want to say thank you again even though they're not here but publicly just want to thank Dr. Qualls, the teachers of the junior high. Um and Audrey, Ameilia, Kaylee, Isabella, and Gabby for coming out this evening to share their amazing work. Um I'm happy to announce that one of our three Oaks teachers has been awarded special recognition in the category of early career educator by the Illinois State Board of Education. Miss Slack will be recognized at an award banquet on May 17th in Normal, Illinois. This month is Black History Month, which serves as an opportunity to highlight the achievements, contributions, and sacrifices of notable black Americans in classrooms across the district.
It will consolidate our successful preschool model, currently serving 182 children in 13 classrooms, expanding access to high-quality care for our youngest learners and freeing up muchneeded room in our current elementary schools. This isn't just about bricks and mortar. It's about building futures. It's about ensuring our children have the best possible start and that our dedicated staff can thrive in their careers. It's about investing in a community where every child has the opportunity to thrive. And here's the most remarkable part. We can achieve this without placing an additional burden on our taxpayers. Upcoming debt repayments in 2026 and 2031 create a unique window of opportunity, allowing us to make a tax neutral investment in our community's future. We have seen the transformative power of our preschool program and we know our children deserve the best. We have a sight, a need, and a path to success.
Um if you do, I just ask that you keep your comments to three minutes so that it gives everybody a chance to participate. Um and then the committee we will have a discussion and a vote on the budget. So I am going to open the meeting now for the FY2026 school budget. Mr. Adams. Great. Thank you. Uh first you mentioned it. U thank you to the administrative team for being here. Uh this is a process as you know that really starts back in November. Uh so we're typically in at least two budget cycles, sometimes three at the same time. Uh and this year uh in earnest we started in in November and really up through last Saturday right so we've had our meetings we've had two school committee meetings separate budget meetings then we've had two additional meetings with what we call the tri board which is the select board the finance committee and the school committee so uh we've been meeting uh throughout every month from November through April and here we are today where I and present a number to you that hopefully is acceptable where we can then submit that to the select board uh as they vote next Wednesday on an overall budget that will go before town meeting.
And that usually comes from the principal in the school, not necessarily the school committee. So when we talk about stability for kids or teachers, I think we need to think about what causes the instability like the state not funding the chapter programs. That's not going to change. And Doug Swellen wrote a wonderful email that I saw that said, you have to have your school districts band together statewide because you do care about the emotional and and physical well-being of the very child that you're educating. I don't know if you saw it, but I'm happy to send it to you if you'd like because he is right on and he has been up in front of you people on a steady basis, which I have not done. I will also say that the mayor proposed something and the last school committee meeting I attended. I was thrilled to in the round robin which surprised everyone hear various school committee members saying they were willing to think outside of the box.
They're called life skills. You'll use those as you go along in your entire life. That's the product of negotiation. Yeah. In a positive manner. And that's great. I I He got my vote. I'll vote for the kid for class president. So basically that's what these next two are is that we will serve good food um decent food in our cafeteria. And then the next one is about um the sale of food and beverages. You know, we don't give them things out of vending machines and what it means when there's an event at school and all of those kinds of things. I'm surprised you still haven't tried to get your own margarita sheet, but that's okay. in the ward vet office. Moving on. Moving right along. Um, I've been pushing that for years. Healthy food option. Okay. So, we're going to need a motion to move the board of education approved the Connecticut State Department of Education.
So this setup is much too big for her. So we found a smaller form factor mini PC that's just as powerful that has a monitor so that the kids can still work without all of this in the way. So that was slightly um less expensive. So it just kind of worked out in our favor. And then we're like all the monitors and all the teacher desktop stuff. are in in good shape and now we put their connection. So, you're very careful about where we need our replacements with the computers we have now. You don't just put Windows 11 on those ones. Or you could, but it wouldn't be worth the time and money because we need new ones anyway. Yeah, that was fun. They Microsoft announced that in the early 2004 20ou 2023 and um we were like, "Oh, great." And then notice was able to deploy some software so he knew the exact age of every device.
The class will be able to compare their findings to what microvertebrate represented locally. The students will also be joined by Melissa, our art teacher, to do a photojournaling collaboration and identify certain species in the ecosystem. Senior flexes week of April 28th will be run by Melissa, Danella, Diana. Seniors will be writing senior speeches, rehearsing the ACE graduation, and having special senior lunch. The ACE graduation ceremony has been set for Tuesday, June 10th at 5:00 p.m. The location of the ceremony will be Middle School Auditorium. A special thanks to Bravio Admiration for allowing us to host our event there. Thank you all for allowing us to share what's going on with our ACE family and remain a strong. Next, I'd like to invite uh DSABC up to give us a presentation on their programming. And I want to start by thanking them for their collaboration and support of our students uh and staff and teachers.
Um just kidding. Um, but similarly if I while I work with Mary Joe, Chrissy's in there and she'll be sometimes in the middle of meetings probably with some few people and I'll be like, "Hey Christy," I just mute really quick and I'll be like, "Christie, what do you think about this lesson?" And she'd be like, "Well, what if you did it this way a little bit? Give me 5 minutes. I can make something for you." And that is something we don't have. We we don't have time for in the the rigor of day-to-day the 30 minute lunch. That's really when I'm going to launch. We don't have time to do these little nuances. And having the resources of these coaches is truly one of the greatest aspects of this district is the people you see here and what they have done for us on a day-to-day basis.
Yeah. Okay. What's that number? How do you get that number? Right. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, should we move on to growth? Sure. Okay. Let's look at I already diagnostic growth math. Which which one? The first one on the left. There's two for math. the growth diagnos diagnostic on the left hand column the second one down it says I ready diagnostic growth this is actual growth from I ready so again when they take the test for one is it basing their n so because again according to like the numbers it basically says that almost 80 to 92% of our kids are one grade level or more below when they took the test at one. Is it testing them for that year or the previous year? Is it like they're coming in without a lack of knowledge or you know what I mean? Because it's a high number.
And that we have also asked that in the event that we cannot have that reduction in cap that we get back to our service support services that we used to have that was a reduction that was done where we used to have for instance in our mods program we used to have three team member support and it went to two and then we had higher incident reports that came in and this concern of being able to balance safety in our space and provide educational growth and opportunities had become an ongoing conversation. So, we're here to request a reconsideration of what we are capable of doing to provide these students their opportunity at equal access education. So, does that sound correct? Yes. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Wood. The next speaker is Natasha Gillespie. Hi, I'm Natasha Gillespie. I'm a speech therapist um in this district.
They're just like, "Yeah, I got it." And then they go over and they help. Without them, we definitely wouldn't have won. I'm super grateful for all four of them. Sad. Three of them are leaving off to do greater and better things. But um we'll have the rest of you guys come up and then we'll go down in the line and you can introduce yourself. Nice meeting you. [Music] Keep going. So, go ahead, Roch. Start us off. Wait, what do I say? Oh, I'm Ro and I. This is my second year and I want to see really motivated me to do better in academics. And it really was like like my escape kind of and I made a lot of new friends and yeah relationship I did. Thank [Applause] you. This is my second year. I feel like cheerleading has helped me so much. all the support I get from everyone just so much so much having the support from every single one of them everybody just so [Applause] Hi, I'm Canada and it's my second year love and I'm very grateful to be here.