And now that we're getting towards the end of the year and some of our faculty meetings, we started to introduce uh, the concept of UDL or universal design for learning, which we talked about at our last um, uh, school committee meeting. And um we are really excited to be bringing in um a UDL guru uh Katie Novak to kick off our opening day and we are ordering her book which is entitled UDL. Now for our staff um our wellness committee uh took a lot of time this year to prepare uh presentations um to inform uh our community about our new wellness policy. We um were able to visit all three faculties from each of the schools. We visited school councils, the boosters, the CPAC, um also the PTO. Uh I was uh had a really great time actually went into the um health classrooms at both elementary schools from grades one through five um with a separate presentation that was, you know, more um child-friendly.
So So I guess follow me too. Um, did you when you were talking to Michael, did you show him those two options like kind of how we said like that through court have it in set back more or that? I showed him this option. The other option I didn't because I think if we push we can't push anything back on that other option, right? All we have to have is enough room there for the road to get through. With that other option, I mean, there's no moving anything back. I mean, it's going to have to be where it's going to be or that there and there won't be a through road there. You know, the playground has to be flat. Um, correct. Slide that. No, I Yeah, but yeah, if it could be a little bit more on that slope because if that doesn't matter, but we could push it even further.
Um have been doing some deep dives into the world of AI over the last year or so. So AI will not replace our teachers. So if there's any rumors out there, just so you know, he said will not. Will not will not for the record. Eric, can we get AI to somehow drive buses? That would be great. Oh, autonomous buses. Oh, no. Let's start with electric buses first. Oh, yeah. Just kidding. No. Okay. Okay. I believe they went out of business. Oh, okay. Anything else, Dr.
And um we um have collected a lot of data from those presentations. We also sent it out to families, by the way, in the newsletters. And so our charge for next year is to take that information that we uh took um from those presentations, all the feedback and input and make some adjustments to the policy um in terms of areas that need clarification or wherever there might need to be some updates um due to federal regulations. We have one last thing that we're trying to book right now. Uh that new sweet and savory club that you voted in. Um they have agreed to have us come in and do a presentation and do some cooking with them. So, we're just waiting to hear back on some leads for that. And then finally, our steam committee really um picked up some um momentum this year. Uh we were able to u not only enlist some staff but also some parents.
Yeah. I think what they're trying to kind of how you had said previously about just kind of curving around to the side maybe. Yeah. But yeah, I think I mean in that location just trying to work where we can get as much in there with the best options as possible. Okay. I heard you want to speak up. Um, at Wilson, we feel like this building, I know you can't turn it down, is such a nice gift, but it's a death sentence for Wilson Elementary in 5 years because it could be a Claflin grade school and Hollywood have grade school, but Wilson wouldn't have it. It would close Wilson in five years. How do you feel about that? That's what we're afraid of. And I know I know you it's such a great gift but it's so scary for Wilson and my patrons tell me this here.
Any questions? Anybody? Um, you know, the only thing I had was uh I I saw that the updates policy 130 were not discussed. Uh so basically the the committee members isn't comfortable with it the replacement of what it would choose to be. Yeah. If anything it's more conservative. Okay. So Okay. I think he's talking he's sorry you're referring to the one with the philosophy statement. Yes. Right. Not the five,000 versus 10,000. Obviously. Yeah. That that's that's aligned with what I would want. Yeah. Yeah. No, I would say yeah, we're I feel comfortable with it. It just aligns well with that. It didn't make sense to have the other version in there, right? Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Um, thank you, Dr. Kate. We're moving on to action items, then. Um, okay. Action item 11.1, approval of bills for payment. Can I have a motion, please? I make a motion to authorize the payment of bills in the amount of 5,639,480.85 as presented.
Um and through that collaboration uh we developed something called the Eureka series which is uh our attempt to bring in somebody from the steam um fields uh each spring and each fall come and talk with our community and inspire students. We were very lucky uh to have one of our parents uh Eric Erica to works at UMass and knows um Victor Ambrose who was the recent 2024 Nobel Prize winner and I know we talked about that event and I I saw some of you there. Um so he he and his wife Candy were here the other day and gave a nice presentation to uh it was a small group of people but the people that came were clearly very interested in that topic and um I was really excited to see after during the meet and greet session some students going up to Victor and speaking to him individually and and just you know some of the kids saying to me how you know they thought that it was so exciting and inspiring.
What had to be here? No, the building in 5 years it'll become part of the school district and it can be like classrooms for Claflin Elementary or Hollywood Elementary and it might close Wilson. If if it was anything, it would be for the junior, senior in high school or like seventh and eighth grade. I don't there would that that that would not be big enough to house an elementary school at all. But some classes some classes and it'll spill over from Hollywood and we we're just afraid it might close Wilson in that would be here. Well, this is what my patrons are telling. But no, the grade school wouldn't come here. The grade school would go to Hollywood, right? But Wilson would not have attendance center because we're so small. We would get closed. I don't think Do you think it would affect Do you think it would?
Second, Mr. Cerrone I. Miss Robinson I. Dr. Martin I. Miss C. I. Dr. Marilo. I. Miss Wenmouth. I Dr. Pock. I. Motion passes. Seven nothing. Okay, moving on to 11.2, approval of girls flag football. Can I have a motion, please? I feel like there should be a drum roll. Um, I make a motion to approve girls flag football as a new IHSA sport. Second. And I have a question. Can I have a comment? Yeah. You might be needed. We'll see. Mr. Arson, come on up. Yes, you are officially need. You want us to ask you? you. My my question is there were two plans presented. Are we do we need to approve the JV varsity or as opposed to the other plan or is that something that you just go do if and when this gets approved? Yes. I guess we can hear you, but they Yeah, we definitely want you to be heard.
So that was a great event and we are looking forward to coming up with somebody else for the fall. That makes sense. Sally, you're the the first part that you mentioned, the kids that were coding with Python. And so, I just counted this today. In the last three or four months, I've interviewed 154 college grads either for full-time or as interns for our company. Just about every single one that moved on had Python and projects they listed that they worked in Python on their resume. So, that is definitely something that is like the new thing. That's great to hear. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, and I just want to say that event um with the Nobel Laurate was amazing. It was really great and I loved how the students were so engaged and they asked such great questions. It was really I'm sure it really inspired them in a lot of different ways.
This building won't I don't think this building would have any effect on any this specific building would not have an effect on like closing down other buildings. It wouldn't be that big to house. I mean, we're talking about like like two classrooms out there. Maybe maybe three classrooms. That wouldn't be enough to house an elementary school there. Okay. Because I'm getting a question. I wondered what you thought. Just so it doesn't hurt Wilson at all. In five years, we're talking about after daycare if I'm not going to say in 5 years it won't hurt Wilson. But on the other side of it, like I don't see how we would ever close a building to move things around to get them all to fit in this day 4500T daycare building. Yeah. I agree with the day. But I'm talking in five years after Medicare. No, it'll still be still.
The um the final recommendation which you would if if you were to approve tonight would be for a varsity and and JB level sports. I just want to confirm that to clarify. Yes. Yes. Can I ask does that that's what's in the recommendations. Okay. Yeah. I just want my comments are I just have comments. I don't have questions. So, um I'm so happy with this proposal. It feels like we're going to have opportunities for more students which is I think was brought uh to the surface and the conversations we had uh last month. Um, and I think it's just a a good testament to what, you know, a a community board does and, you know, partnering with the district to figure out, uh, what the best options are. And so I see our coaches in the audience as well. So, thank you for, uh, for being here and and for helping out with everything.
Talk about a humbling experience sitting with those people in that room. It was just so thrilling. So pretty. So thank you. Anybody else? We did capture the Eureka series. It's on our YouTube page for anybody that wants to go back and see it. Awesome. All right. Uh where are we here? We already took care of Joe, right? You want to add? Sure. Um if we just do the sub updates real quick. Sure. We get out. Uh Jess, anything for success and technology? Yeah. Um we had actually an amazing meeting back on April 17th. Um Joe talked to us about the content filtering and um and also the BYOB device that he touched upon earlier. Um and whether or not those protections are are to be extended outside our Wi-Fi to into the h the home as well. Um which as of a parent of a sixth grader, I would appreciate that because I have more strict restrictions on our devices than than what comes home.
It could still be. It could be, but it might not be. My district office we talked about. Yeah. I don't want to put oursel in a box on what it'll be in 5 years. We'll own it in five years. And then at that time, you know, if the daycare is running, great. Great. If if it's not and we need to use two of the rooms for a spillover for seventh and eighth grade classes, that I mean, that's what we have it right now. We don't have any grades below seventh grade here. Okay. So, and we're going to be talking about space here at the high school, middle school here pretty quick. So, it's more spillover for junior high. That's what I would foresee it as. Okay. So, even at that I I way I take it too in five years that we can take it over.
So, um, I appreciate it. Yeah, there have been a lot of champions along the way. So, I mean, this is obviously pending your approval, but it's it's been a very good process. And again, there's people sitting in the stands here who have been very helpful along the way. And there's people who aren't sitting here who have been very helpful along the way. Indeed. Yeah. Thank you. Just keep a keep an eye on demand. Yeah. You know, yeah. No, we're we're fully acknowledging the fact that we are we will continue to monitor these numbers. Um this is something that we think is going to grow even beyond this. But right now uh I think this is um this is the most appropriate response we can have and it matches what our district partners or our SBC partners are doing as well partners. Any other questions or were stakeholders excited about this recommendation?
Um but obviously that's something that needs to be discussed further. Um the meeting that we had had back on February, we talked about the attorney general's um packet and about cell phones and uh and so it talked about three different types policies. So btobell secured, often away and limited use can be used during designated time. Um, and so we had talked about doing kind of a a pilot um during refresh day, a cell phone free lunch day. Um, and so, um, Lisa and Renee and Cara Ford um, also talked to us about the experiences of the students and the staff. Uh, we talked about outside time for the high school and the middle school and noise levels too. Uh and then we talked about there was a different refresh day at the elementary school too where little cards were left on the table for different interactions and sit with different people.
But if we don't want to take it over, we don't have to. N that that daycare facility can still be ran by somebody else besides us, right? just it's just the building would be owned by the school then and they would lease the building from us to run the dayare. So if their daycare is still going and we're agree upon it, it will it could possibly still stay that way. And that's why I said we don't want to box oursel into a corner because we can see what not having daycare employees is doing right now to us. I mean, I I don't know in five years if we'll have enough daycare workers to keep that going. I would hope we would, but I can't I can't say that we're going to or that they're going to. You know, talking to Sarah about the daycare workers that they deal with on a Bart in Barton County.
All right. Uh I would say yes. It really hasn't gone out too much about the official recommendation to kind of grow from the initial. Um, I would think that everyone is excited for this. Um, I think everyone is going to be very happy with the product. What's interesting is, you know, we were in meetings last week as a conference and the Illinois State uh athletic directors have a conference last week, too. The IHSA is still waiting on some final details from kind of the higher authority as the the NFHS and the rules and things too. There are some constant changes happening with this based off it's small changes but things we have to keep an eye on is right now there's currently two halves and then a short uh halftime they're thinking about going to quarters uh to to make it mirror more like the boys football game.
Um so that was interesting. Um and then Mr. Campbell also noted that there was a lot of issues with phones. Um and ultimately the data really supports uh taking them out of the schools because kids depression, anxiety and suicide rate are being affected by them. Um and so within the attorney general's uh packet they mentioned um grassroots. So it really has to be parentled and culture needs to be changed. And so even before this was on our agenda, um parents in the fifth grade at Boils Elementary had approached Cindy to create this cyber security with a boil and police event which I just, you know, popped into and there was um a lot of talk about cyber bullying and safety. Um but it was really parent driven. There was a lot of concerned fifth grade parents about cyber bullying. Uh, and so I did uh ask one of those parents who had approached Cindy to come to the meeting as well.
I mean, it's a revolving door every couple weeks on their daycare workers as well. So, it's not anything, you know, new to our district um on what that's going to look like in 5 years. So, well, that's reassuring about junior high classes would be more likely to be in this building. But but just to be very clear and very straightforward, you know, before 5 years is up, we're going to have to be talking about some additions to what we're going to do here at the middle school and high school to add some space as well. I mean, with the amount of kids that's coming up from the elementary school and talking about having to split the sixth grade class that we have coming into seventh grade. So, I mean, even with that building, we're going to have to talk about maybe adding a classroom or doing something here in the next few years for the amount of kids that's coming over here.