Uh the goal is now that we have a strategic plan, now that we have these measures that we go out uh to our staff, our students, our families, and try to triangulate what it is that we should really focus and work on. Um as I said, as a superintendent, it makes no difference to me what that is. I'm happy to lead the district in whichever way our staff, students, families believe they need to be led. And so the exercise over the last several months has been what are we going to pick? What is that thing going to be? Um so that would be our primary measure. There's probably when you do this likely uh one or two secondary goals that kind of support that primary one and then you know we have 11 measures we're looking at. So if there's one at the top and a couple other that support them, then the rest of them not are not important, right?
Um so other than that they didn't ask us any questions was kind of interesting. Um but my understanding is that from here uh the finance committee and select board are making recommendations to town meeting regarding our budget the budget that that you voted. Um, and my understanding is that there'll hopefully be support of of that budget. Um, you know, including the $245,000 and the plan moving hopefully moving forward. Of course, this is only the first component of that plan and it'll require quite a bit more commitment moving forward. But, um, my understanding is that that they understand that plan. So, while as Dr. Save Maguire mentioned that plan doesn't solve a lot of problems. It does solve one big problem. Um and you know ultimately saves hopefully 11 jobs and and um other programs. So our hope is that they continue to support that. Um we'll know more June 3rd uh at town meeting.
They're still important, but you're not going to throw all your chips on the table on those. Your goal with those is don't go backwards, right? Maintain where you're at. And what we know from the research about high performing schools is if you move that top measure, all of the others will move up right alongside with it. And the plan is now that we're here, now that we have the strategic plan, now that we have the measures, now we have a process year overyear to identify and have the board approve and select or challenge uh the selection from the stakeholders as to what that most important priority should be. And then once the board identifies that and approves it, the administrative team and everybody else go all in on moving that forward. This year, uh, there's this whole process. This has been shared with the board in print before this, but really we're at the point of working through the surveys and information to come up with a statement of work, which I will share with you at the end of this presentation.
So, um I understand there's lots of new town meeting members and we hope that all the all the established town meeting members and the new town meeting members are interested in supporting schools and um hopefully we we find that out on on the third. something it just is there a is there a reason this year that were you thinking this? No, go ahead. I'm um I am Go ahead. every year um I guess except this year uh we've had a joint meeting where we were we would open our se in in in open session there and were contributing members of a larger meeting with the finance committee and the select board. Did they offer any I mean they invited you uh who can speak about certain things but certainly not you know for the whole committee. Did they offer any um did they even comment as to we're not doing that this year or it just didn't happen?
After that, tomorrow I will send out to all of our staff and say, "Last night, I presented this as the draft statement of work and look for consensus amongst our staff that that is the right thing to work on for this year. I will come back on May 19th with the results of that feedback from our staff and ask you I might tweak it based on the feedback we get or might just reinforce yeah we're on the right right path here but on the 19th I will ask you to vote up or down our recommendation for what we will work on next year and then over the next year you're going to get a lot of updates on that top priority where we started was first with our administ administrative team. We knew a bunch of other surveys were coming out soon. But before we got the results of those surveys back, we wanted to check in with the leadership team, which is all administrators and department chairs and uh Josh, the DGA president is part of that team as well.
No they didn't. Um, as you said, we have had per, you know, for for a number of years have had a joint meeting of the bodies. Um, and for whatever reason, they elected not to have one of those this year. Um, we actually really weren't even on the invite list. They did have a list of invitees at the end of the agenda and it wasn't us. So, so we went and it was fine. and I'm glad we were there, but it um but at any rate, no, they they didn't uh didn't express interest in in in a joint meeting this year. Wow. Chris, thank you, Madam Chair. So, I was really optimistic this year, this budget cycle, that we were making some progress uh with the other town departments. Uh, so I have a couple of I have a couple of questions that I'm going to try to stay on the rails for.
uh to see what did the leadership team think like what does the leader's gut say is the most important thing before we went out and asked everybody to see if the leadership team had its pulse on the feelings of our staff the board and incoming board members were all part of this survey feedback and you can see here up at the top uh attendance by far 35 comments uh a total weighted comment score. So for each prior each one you could pick your top one was three points, your middle priority is two points, your bottom one was one point. So that is total comments raw comments they picked any one of those is their one, two or three and then the weighted is that multiplier is added. You can see right now regular attendance uh from the leadership team is really up at the top.
Um, the first being I'm just curious, Dr. Sab Maguire, you you were very passionate when you spoke this evening where I'm are you able to share with where some of these comments are coming from? Well, yes. Um well, some of them came from that evening and then there was another finance committee meeting held in April um that I watched some of and heard some comments made about you know um the school department um and and the suggestion that we needed an outside a third party auditor and that uh that perhaps we needed that. Um and that um I also heard uh one of the members talk about whether or not we have given uh equal voice to folks who may or may not uh feel the strong need to support schools. Okay? And I'm not and I'm paraphrasing so sure know that. So, first of all, as a 12-year member of the school committee that just got reelected for another three years, I'm not going anywhere.
Uh then we kind of went through uh the data, used a little bit of AI to help look for some themes in that and weighted comments. So if you said attendance was your top thing, then your comment got three points as well. So we could look at the priority based on the language that was used as well. Regular attendance overall across the leadership team and the board uh was the top when you added up all the points. Student interventions and supports was the top amongst the board of education. When you dig into those comments of student intervention and supports from the board of education, the great majority of them related to student attendance. Um then culture of support and collaboration is really teacher morale which you'll hear more or staff morale which is more you'll hear more about that tonight. And then expected behavior from the leadership team uh was really high.
So, through the chair, I would like to make um a suggestion that we demand a joint meeting with the select board. I would ask that the school department reach out to the chair of the select board, Heidi Brooks, and I'd like a joint meeting set up with both boards, cuz this is un unbelievably upsetting that the largest budget in this town was left out of the financial planning process. It just blows my mind how the same voices year after year after year asked the same questions year after year after year and continued to question this school department and this committee as if we're doing something wrong. I'm fed up with it. I'm fed up with some of the comments that are made. I thought that's where they might be coming from. It is extremely disappointing that this is the road that we got to go down.
About half of the comments in expected behavior were behavior related to attendance. Then there are three surveys that you're going to hear about tonight that were uh given out. So climate, this is the one that replaced the five essential survey. This is the statemandated climate survey. We use the comprehensive school climate inventory. This tool was also selected by the leadership team. You'll hear that tonight. Uh we do an annual spring survey. This has evolved over the years, but last year in conversations with the board, it was important to have an outside entity uh analyze and provide feedback on that survey. So that there was no question that like administration was putting their thumb on the scale, right? So, it's completely an outside group that uh helped us develop the survey and then analyze it. Ryan will present on the first one Jill will present on tonight and the spring survey Ryan will present on and then Rob will be here to present the second year uh or second set of data on our morale survey.
But I am I would like to request I don't know how the rest of the committee feels, but I want a voice to that table. I need to have a conversation with some of the elected and appointed officials in this town as to where where these comments are coming from and why are they being made. I'm seeing heads go up and down. So there's an agreement there. Um I think then we should ask for a joint meeting um so that we can address those questions before town meeting and maybe okay help them see it our way. I just know that I'm personally getting extremely tired of the budget cycle and nothing to do with the school department here or or the way it's operated. Mr. Kylie, Dr. S Maguire does the you know certainly do a fabulous job here, but it's the same antics that are pulled year after year, specifically coming from members of the finance committee.
The biggest takeaway that you're going to see from this uh in the biggest part of this exercise is verifying that the leadership team and the rest of the stakeholders in our organization uh both align with what the statement of work should be for next year and I will uh share the results of that with you at the end after you have the opportunity to make your own conclusions. So with that being said, I'm going to invite Jill forward for the climate survey. Hello everyone. Um, first I just want to say thank you as we've all thanked you for serving as board members. Um, I've been a resident of Downers Grove for 24 years now and I just appreciate all the work and everything that you do for our schools. I know there are long meetings but sometimes there's cake too though. Oh, by the way, Jill Browning is your role.
Yeah, I did listen to that finance committee meeting and um the question of bringing in an outside consultant to look at our budget um it was only made by one person and there was push back by other members so I don't feel it is a reflection of the whole committee. Sure. Um, and also the comments about certain segments of the Dartmouth population not caring about education. That was one member of the committee, a different member. Um, and I don't believe it reflects the entire um, Fincom's opinion. Um, but that is too, you're right, that is too too many. Yeah. Um, so I do feel that last year at this time we had a better understanding of how both the select board and FINCOM felt about our actual budget and this year I don't have a firm grip on that. Do you, Mr. Kylie? No, I I have a sound understanding of how the town administration feels about it, which is better than where we were um, previously.
Uh I'm chief communications officer here at the district. I think I've met all of you and u excited to be here tonight um to present about the comprehensive school climate inventory which as Hank said replace the five essentials and um as you may know all schools districts in Illinois are required to issue a climate survey every year and we have a choice between the survey tools and for many years we've used the five essentials and it's similar to the CSCI both are state approved surveys they measure the perceptions of our school community our families amilies, our students and our staff. Now, um the important thing to keep in mind is that it's the student response rate. It's not the feedback, but it's just the student response rate that counts um for our summitive designation. So, both of our schools are rated as commendable. So, that is factored into that calculation.
Um so we have that. Um I I do believe that um you know that there is support but it obviously the the boards act um you know as they will act and I have no communication from them as to um you know their level of support for the plan currently in FY26 or or moving forward. um as a as a body. Was there any indication at that meeting at the TW? No, last last Monday. No, no, the agenda for that meeting really wasn't about the school budget. It was about the town budget and projections of the future. I think that we thought something was going to be discussed, but we just didn't get there. It's just extremely disappointing. I'll leave it at that. Um, so I've only been on this board or committee two years. Um, and I know last year we had a joint, but I don't recall the year before whether we did and has that been something we've always done.
We cannot customize these questions. They are not open-ended. It's off the shelf from the company and it takes about 20 minutes to complete. Uh the differences with the CSCI is that it measures 14 dimensions, not just those five. Um and it has indepth survey questions about school safety. Um and it we find that it's more relevant to a high school setting as well. Um it's also issued to all students, families, and all staff, whereas the five essentials was just the teachers. Um we're able to issue this to all staff. And as Hank said, the decision to switch came from the district leadership team. They reviewed both um several different um survey instruments and here are just a few of the comments that captured their feelings whereas that let let's go for it um and the board of education al also approved that change um the survey window as dictated by um the state of Illinois and that window is February 18 to March 18 March 28th and I just wanted to put in when we issued it to students was March 19th and March 20th towards the end of that window um and we didn't get uh a lot of everyone then.
It's been past practice. Okay. Been I don't think it's unreasonable to request. Yeah. feels exclusionary this year. It feels pretty bad. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Had a better word for that. But any other comments about budget? Okay. Um new business. They're going to talk about the last day of school. um which will be Friday, June 13th. That's an interesting day to find out. So, I believe that uh originally it was going to be on the 12th and it was going to be a half day, but we had uh a school cancellation day. We had the dreaded snow day. So, we are proposing that Friday the 13th, 2025 will be the last day and a half day and a half day. That's correct. And we need to vote on that. Motion to approve the last day. I'll make a motion to approve the last day of school, which is Friday, June 13, 2025.
So, we um were able to target and um students who had not yet responded to the surveys and we tried to get clever with some of our text messages. I don't know if if you students received any of these or maybe you you uh were good and you filled it out the first time. They did it the first time, so they weren't harassed, but we were borderline on harassment, but we tried. Um our response rates are up there. They're similar to the um surveys that uh Ryan has issued. um 61% and that was similar between north and south response rates. Um the staff and you can see the teacher broke broken out down below. The DGN also includes T99. So I that that is not captured right there, but those are the separate response rates. So the majority of staff who responded were teachers. Um and then we got a strong family response rate as well.
Second. All those in favor? I I opposed. unanimous. Um, also in your packets, we have a school committee meeting schedule for the entire next 12 months, which is unusual. We only do it like usually six months at a time, but um, no harm in planning ahead. We can always change it if things happen. Um, has everyone had a chance to look and is there are there any um, conflicts that you know about? Yes, Kathleen. Uh I certainly don't want the committee to shift on my behalf, but I the earlier um times in the summer, um while I I'm not saying that I won't make an valiant effort, I I just work till 5 and I do work in Boston on Mondays and even when I leave early, um I barely make it back to town by 5:30. So, um I will may I if the committee at the if the committee decides to start at 5, um as long as you know I'm not sherking my responsibility, I may or may not have to be late to on account of my employment.