to the best of my ability. I further swear or affirm I further swear that that I shall that that I shall respect taxpayers interest by serving as a faithful that I respect taxpayers interest by serving as a faithful protector. School district assets. Oh, of the school district assets. of the school district assets. I shall encourage encourage I shall encourage and respect the free expression respect the free expression of my opinion by my fellow board members of my opinion by my fellow board members and others and others who seek a hearing before the board who seek a hearing before the board with respecting the privacy of students and employees by respecting the privacy of students and employees I shall recognize that a board member has no legal authority. I shall recognize that a board member has no legal authority as an individual as an individual and that decisions can be made only by a majority vote at a public meeting.
And that usually starts, I think, at 11:00 p.m. Uh, so I usually sleep a little bit, go back, wake up, and go come back. Mr. Web's there the whole time. Don't know how he does it.
um that amount of money split to employees across the district and issued as a stipen would not be like a significantly impactful amount of money to staff whereas a class size reduction could have been and also the purpose of doing that was to look at what the impact actually was in our schools and we saw across different schools how it was implemented and the impact um but we did that with onetime money knowing that if there was not continuing funds we could not um do that again and this year we had um less than 1.5 million dollar to spend. And so even if that was our only financial priority with no other priorities, we could not maintain that 25 to1 ratio. Um in addition um because of you know attrition essentially there won't be any significant disruptions to the school sites from the ratio adjustment.
So, for the past four-ish years, we've just been paying for well our So, over the past four years, we've just been paying for I don't want to say just, but of these things listed on here and that we're talking about Umbrella and GOG Guardian. And now we're now we're talking about Umbrella GoG Guardian and EDR XDR working together to to basically perform the best cyber security thing and it's so two two separate things right so put GoG Guardian aside that's its own standalone sits by itself right these five things that we've talked about tonight in the last EA agreement we had five pieces we're going to talk about two that we've moved out in uh Department of Homeland Security and that those are free right now, but we'll explain that. Um we added XDR into this. So that those five things, we restructured it. We restructured it moving forward because we were able to move those two things out, move this in, and then stay about the same cost.
Can made only by a majority vote at a public board meeting. I shall abide by the majority decision of the board. I shall abide by the majority decision of the board. While retaining the right to seek changes while retaining the right to seek changes in such decision in such decisions through ethical and such decisions through ethical and constructive channels and constructive channels. As part of the board of education as part of the board of education I shall accept the responsibility for my role. I shall accept the responsibility for my role in the equitable and quality education of every student in the school and the equitable and quality education of every student in the school district. I shall foster with the board extensive participation of the community. I shall foster with the board extensive participation of the community, formulate goals, formulate goals, define outcomes, define outcomes, and set the course for Primo 2011 school district.
Are there any questions on any of those events, Mr. Merrill or board members? If not, that'll conclude my report. I don't just uh just by way of information, the board is not actually kind of expected to be there to hand out diplomas. I won't be there this this month, so you guys will have to carry the weight. It's cold. Dress warm. I was going to say dress appropriately. Yeah, dress warm. Bring a blanket to sit there. All right.
So yes it means larger class sizes but it doesn't no one is losing a job because of that. Um and you know I think if the board is looking to reduce that class size ratio long term it just needs to be made a budgetary priority. Um a big constraint to our budget this year was the 15% um reserve ratio that we wanted to to keep in in reserve largely because I believe the board mentioned you know what was going on with Isaac what's going on at the federal level we wanted a lot of money in savings and you know if we are not able to touch that money we want to continue to grow that pot it's difficult to approve like large budget item continuing expenses because over time it will and depending on you know our numbers greatly reduce that amount of money and so Um it's unfortunate but um that we did have some recommendations for class sizes and some things related to that but they didn't make it out of the bargaining process um because of primarily there were some members of the bargaining team that felt that the board's comments about narrowing the recommendations being highly focused being very specific about the SOFG goals prevented us from focusing on ideas that might have been more um creative or I guess applied to things that were a lower priority and so a number thing number of things were left um on the cutting floor I I guess as a result.
And where where is all this data held? Is it held at Cisco facilities? Is it held on site? Do you want to just talk to that? I mean, if we're if we're if we're looking at millions, possibly millions of, you know, links and websites and everything that anybody can access on any device connected to the network, where's all that stuff being stored? So, it is a mix. Um, some of these tools are cloud-based, some of them are on premise. Um, our firewall, for example, is a physical appliance located in our data center. Um, same goes for ICE as well. Uh, all its logs are stored locally within servers we run in our data center. Uh, the rest of the tools though that we've mentioned, they are cloud-based solutions. So, they do report up to the cloud. Uh, I believe data retention for XDR is that one year worth of data that they store up there.
The course for Prim 2011 school district. I shall assist I shall assist in establishing in establishing in establishing and and in environmental design a structure and an environmental design to ensure all students to ensure all students have the opportunity to attain to have the opportunity to attain their maximum potential for a sound organ organ organization. their max maximum potential through a sound organizational framework. I shall strive I shall strive to ensure a continuous assessment of student achievement to ensure a continuous assessment of student achievement and all conditions affecting the education of our children and all conditions affecting the education of our children in compliance with the state law in compliance with the state law. I shall serve as education key advocate. I shall serve as education's key advocate on behalf of students on behalf of students in our school district or schools and our comm community schools or schools or schools to advance the vision to advance the vision for money 2011U for premonu and I shall strive and I shall strive to work together to work together with the district superintendent with the district superintendent to lead the school district towards fulfilling the vision to lead the school district towards fulfilling the vision.
So, the next item on the agenda is uh call to the public. If there's anyone here that would like to address the board, we'd invite you to do so. We'd like to keep you limited to u perhaps about three three to four minutes. And um just um just a caution not to not not to be personal to any board member or any member of the staff but uh and we can't comment on what is being asked or or asked or commented about but we can also refer that to staff to look into. But uh welcome uh looks like we have somebody that would like to be there. Valerie Borega, is there a microphone out there? We got one. Great. and I understand you can't um respond and that's fine. And my my last name is Bergo um 1980 Blige graduate. Um what I was wanting to address the board of is one of the elephants in the room and um I don't mean to rain on the parade after all the wonderfulness from your board meeting but it's um one of those pleasant denials that um has not been addressed for a while even before I came to Blige.
Okay, thank you for that. I'm just going to be transparent and say that I have a hard time u making decisions when student um classes are going to get bigger. Um that was a very first adamant thing I did last round and I was very open and public about that that any budget decisions um I would personally and not this is not speaking for the board just me as Sophia I do not feel comfortable in making budgetary decisions when we're increasing student sizes because I've seen how reduced student um sizes work and I I I was very adamant last year about not creating band-aid solutions and it sounds like this year and I I'm I can't wait honestly to get our ASA back um results and all the testing, but it sounds like we're doing some really good amazing things on our outcomes too that we're getting our kids and moving our needles.
It is secure. It's not a publicly available repository where anyone can access what it accumulates, right? Um, it is limited to just the people within our organization. we delegate that access to for each of these systems. So how how secure is the stuff that we store on site? I mean is it just a I don't want to give anybody any idea. Well, so now that everything is cloud-based and hosted, most of our predominantly, I don't want to say 90%, but it's right there. Probably all of our data is hosted on servers in someone else's data center, right? So, wherever Tyler Technologies hosts their data, wherever Infinite Campus hosts their data, that's on their servers. As far as in our data center, it's gone from a very large footprint down to a handful of servers. So there's not a lot of data on our local servers anymore in our data center, which we like, right?
The board has created the board has created fostering fostering excellence for every student in the areas of academic skills excellence for every student in the areas of academic skills knowledge knowledge citizenship citizenship and personal development and personal development based on based on 105 105 Illinois compiled statute Illinois compiled statute 5-10 5-10616 five Welcome [Music] [Applause] It's the entire state of Illinois. Everybody has Secretary Person. Hi Mr. Hi Mav I miss I All right. Mhm. Second. Yeah. I would like I would like to nominate Mo Brown. Second we have to Mr. Hi Mr. Hi Dr. Hi Mr. Hi Mus. Hi Miss Hi Miss I All right. I would like to nominate Alejandro Gos. I would like to nominate myself for vice president. Yeah. Roll call. And when we vote, it's the last name of the nominee. Mr. Brown. Hi. Mr. N. I Mr. Davis. No. I nominations M I Mr.
I'm a special ed pair professional have been for about three decades. This this is the fifth school district I've worked for. Um what I was wanting to address is that when we have when staff has an issue with with um somebody in a certain position that has um exclusive rights then we don't have HR an HR person to go to um for when we want to deal with something and um I have been dealing with something that has been causing me a lot of mental emotional stress and even financial hardship because of the way this issue has been handled. And I have approached I I've had in the loop our superintendent and Mr. Webb and I've talked to Miss Penrod and Mr. Kluff about this issue and there's nobody that they can tell me who can help me and other staff that have issues. Um we don't have an advocate.
So, that's just me personally. Doesn't mean that I'm not going to sit on this and there's a lot to think about and I I know that there's collaborative work. Um, just me personally, I have a hard time um, swallowing that because we do have uh, a vision and we have money and we could prioritize it if we wanted to, right? Um, it's just it's just hard for me. Um, I'm just going to say that. But I do love how all the work that was put into this because some of this stuff does make sense to me and some of these items on here have not been have been I've been hearing about them for the last two three four years and I'm glad they're finally getting aligned to our guard rails and being put at the forefront especially when it comes to our facilities and some stuff that I see here in transportation.
That heavy lift on that part is all on that. Now you pay for it. It's software as a service, but that's just where where we're at. And I I will also add to what John was saying there about what we do have on in our data center. Uh Scott and I have done a lot of work in the last couple years to perform what we call network segmentation. Um there's different concepts around that. John mentioned a little bit earlier the idea of zero trust. Uh we try to build all our connections and all our software and all our devices with that model in mind that if we are putting a new device or a new user on the network, what do they need access to? And we give them that but not a scent more, right? We need to protect all our assets because we simply never know when a user might be compromised from something like fishing.
So it just year after year doesn't get addressed or resolved. So, what I'm asking the b the board is to please consider it could be anonymous um with talking to your sta the staff at this school district if they have something that they need to possibly resolve because about a half dozen staff that I understand this is also going on with. Um there's nobody that we have no recourse or anybody to talk to because all those staff members have told me we don't know we don't have anybody you can talk to that can help you out. So when there is issues um who do the who does the staff go to because they're fearful of leaving their job. I will not be returning next fall mainly because of this issue. Um I love Blige always have. Um, my kids went to school here. My two oldest graduated from Blige, seven of my siblings.
Um so that's great to see. Um I don't believe I have any additional comments or feedback. I I just really appreciate all the work. I know it's been a lot of back and forth and I I appreciate all of this and this makes more sense to to me and I know that when Katie has an opportunity to give her two cents. This this is probably going to make her really happy. Um so I appreciate it. I was just going to say as a classroom teacher, I totally agree with you on the class sizes issue and I think going into bargaining next year. Um, if you know something hasn't been done by then, it should be a number one priority of ours in bargaining when it comes to how to spend our money. I appreciate that. Thank you. And madam president, if I could just add one more thing and I'm going to sorry, I'm not like your traditional guy, so I'm going to I'm going to go to a weird place.
And even if they are compromised through a method like fishing or a brute force hacking, um we have other methods in place. John will talk about them in a moment such as Cisco Duo. Uh we protect most of our major systems with that if not all our major systems. And uh that is our multiffactor solution where even if a hacker does have someone's credentials and they're trying to access one of our internal data sets or external data sets hosted in the cloud uh they're going to be met with a secondary form of authentication that is very resilient to any sort of compromise. Do you know about what the add-on cost of XR advantage is? Uh the line item cost. No. Um I do know our last we were paying just right under 400,000 annually prior to this. 500. Just under 500. Sorry. Just under 500.