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communication arts technology is a three-year program of study that focuses on video and film production television news broadcast journalism narrative film and electronic media the classroom area of communication arts has 15 computers equipped with the adobe suite of software students in communication arts produce a weekly newscast which involves gathering stories taking a camera crew to various locations in the school editing news packages and then putting them all together in the studio students also study script writing and storyboarding and cover school events such as prom fashion show mr kate may tech and tech scott talent students will also learn advanced movie making techniques and study the history of cinema first year students in communication arts study the basics including getting familiar with audio and video equipment and learning basic editing skills second year students will study journalism and broadcast news production students in their second year get to work on the school's weekly newscast cat tv news third year students are involved with project-based work these students will also prepare for and take a test to receive their adobe associate certificate communication arts students are involved with many activities including skills usa and the 10 day film challenge students also go on class trips to new york city and philadelphia to visit museums and television studios communication arts technology offers an exciting opportunity to explore the world of television and film production

the focus of study in culinary arts program provides students with a hands-on experience in the preparation service and managerial tasks involved in the food service industry areas of concentration include safety sanitation cost control culinary math food preparation culinary terminology a la carte and banquet service and dining room procedures culinary arts students are afforded the opportunity to earn the following certificates foundations of restaurant management and culinary arts level 1 and level 2 certificates and serv-safe sanitation certificate culinary arts students have many career path opportunities students entering the food service industry right out of high school may find employment in both front of the house and back of the house typical front of the house positions involve direct guest or customer contact and back of the house being indirect customer contact career paths might be fine dining fast food catering institutional feeding such as health care military private shack cruise line and travel and tourism to mention a few our culinary arts students have the opportunity to articulate credits with atlantic cape community college culinary academy johnson wales university and the art institute to meet the expectation of our articulation agreements our culinary students do accomplish quite a bit of academic studies their classroom activities cover curricula such as purchasing receiving and inventory control menu planning and development cost control food costing nutrition sanitation as well as cooking methods meats poultry seafood baking and desserts [Music] our culinary students accomplish many projects during their three years in culinary arts all three class levels complete various progressive cooking projects throughout the year such as soups sauces protein dishes yeast doughs and desserts the senior class begins a research-based american regional cuisine project in september culminating in april the students prepare and serve a regional menu to a table of four guests projects and activities our students seem to enjoy the most are yeast raised dough lessons the juniors and seniors prepare delicious sweet doughs such as sticky buns and donuts and savory doughs like whole wheat not rolls and pepperoni bread our sophomores love the yeast raised introduction lessons on focaccia bread and pizza our students have the opportunity to learn while using industry standard kitchen equipment our practical learning environment is equipped with excellent commercial equipment such as our rationale combi oven our rationale oven is computerized and can steam bake fry pan sear and grill it's a state of the art piece of equipment which has become popular in our industry

natural sciences is a general program that focuses on the studies and activities related to the natural environment as well as its conservation use and improvement students will learn about topics such as fish and wildlife plant resources and the recreational and economic uses of renewable and non-renewable resources over the course of three years students will also complete many projects including learning how to drive a boat hunter safety building bird blinds and building and installing osprey platforms along with hands-on work students will be keeping up with current topics by reading scientific articles and journals and we'll also learn how to read field guides to identify fish trees mammals and shrubs [Music] upon class completion students will earn their new jersey boater safety certification and may go on to pursue such careers as an environmental engineer commercial fisherman animal rehabber or ecologist to name a few a tech prep agreement is in place with cumberland county college that allows students and natural scientists to earn college credits while they are still in high school there is also an agreement with paul smith's college where students taking this course can earn two credits

[Music] automotive technology this course trains students to perform a variety of automotive services these include engine tune-up the electrical system fuel system brakes vehicle maintenance alignment and tire service engine rebuilding heating and air conditioning emission system and exhaust and drivetrain service first level students will concentrate on safety shop awareness and orientation second and third level students will focus on a more in-depth study of the areas listed above in automotive technology students will follow a curriculum based on the guidelines of the national automotive technicians education foundation natef this curriculum is presented in a task list format which the student will adhere to as required by natef one unique aspect is that the class utilizes live work live work provides students with the real world experiences they will encounter while working in the automotive industry upon entering their senior year students will study for and take the natef program and of course test that is nationally recognized as the industry standard of accomplishment [Music]

computer science technology teaches state-of-the-art methods in this information age critical thinking problem solving and creating new applications are all part of the class this provides students with a foundation for college study in computer science and other disciplines network administration robotics drone research java programming web development and social media are all part of the level one through level three computer science and technology cte program careers discussed include pc support network administration programming robotics drone and aviation companies and more students will build install and administrate a full it network and learn data and digital telecommunications networks students learn python which is an interpreted object-oriented high-level programming language with dynamic semantics they also explore the world of esports and gaming drone flight programming and commercial pilots license training are part of the program and students will obtain the faa uav pilot's license certification students participate in competitions like skillsusa robotics and the congressional app challenge robotics programming includes virtual vex iq robots as well as physical robots for detailed study and competition this teaches the all-important stem fundamentals from robotics to raspberry pi microcomputers computer science technology is a class where all are welcome to come learn about the latest in computer technologies come join us

early childhood development early childhood development is a three-year course that prepares students for a career in the child care field and for higher education students learn materials in a variety of functional ways like thorough instructional theory practical lesson planning and legitimate teaching with actual children in their laboratory preschool upon completion of this course students are eligible to take the nocti examination that nationally recognizes their knowledge and understanding of content in the early childhood development cte students are awarded a certificate upon successful course completion and may have their portfolio reviewed by atlantic cape community college to see if they have mastered the six contempencies needed for a childhood development associate's degree some students go on to pursue a degree in early to high school level education some choose another route such as family law social work or children's literature some students opt to take their cda directly after high school and work as an in-classroom aide while earning their bachelor's degree [Music] in the classroom tech students work very closely with actual preschoolers this gives them valuable hands-on experience and shows them what it's like to work in this field students help organize activities events parades and holiday fun for the preschool class all throughout the school year the range of activities students participate in ranges from field trips to storybook land to arts and crafts one example of arts and crafts project would be the milk jug igloo project that the tech students work on with the preschool children for use during their study of arctic animals the igloo then becomes a fun space in which to read and learn for the preschoolers upon completion of the project students study parenting skills how to build strong families and child development during their time at tech they will also learn valuable skills in classroom design and learning how to write lesson plans from start to finish tech students are also exposed to many online softwares teachers use today to help organize events and plans during this course students will get to know the preschoolers as if they were their full-time teacher by making food for classroom parties reading stories and even playing games with them if all this sounds like something that would interest you or a student you know then come in and learn more about early childhood development

entertainment production technology focuses on the processes involved in music production through studio recording and live events we also focus on sound production for television movies and radio upon class completion students will receive a certificate of completion from cape may tech and soon to be added is the pro tools operator certification after high school students will be able to work in recording studios as engineers in broadcast production at radio and television stations or can also work as engineers in live event productions such as broadway concerts theaters sporting events and corporate events students who complete the entertainment production technology course here at tech receive nine credits tuition free at the art institute of philadelphia the class equipment shop manuals provided are full of resources which lay the groundwork for understanding the processes that make studio recording and live event production possible these processes are then applied through hands-on demonstration and exercises to fine-tune those skills and prepare for real-world applications students produce multimedia projects like read along children's story books radio commercials music recordings and will be involved in live event productions like the annual tech scott talent show and our flagship event the annual prom fashion show the prom fashion show is possibly everybody's favorite event to be involved in many students also find themselves drawn to producing podcast style productions where they can interview guests and talk about topics in which they have a personal interest the primary software used in class is avid pro tools which is an industry standard it's a comprehensive full-featured recording and music production suite students will learn to use audio hardware like microphones amplifiers equalizers compressors mixing consoles and lighting systems the entertainment production classroom features a full professional recording studio and is outfitted with an avid pro tools hdx recording system the same system used in professional recording studios throughout the world schedule a visit to cape taksoon to learn more about the exciting and rewarding career opportunities available through the study here of entertainment production technology

small engine and diesel technology small engine and light diesel is a three year course focused on the power sports industry students work mostly in the shop on tasks related to general repairs that are commonly done in the automotive and powersports industry students are challenged with diagnosing and repairing most mechanical problems as they learn how to research and locate the needed parts upon graduating this course students are awarded the natef certificate in the small engine repair area they also have the option to complete ase student versions in the automotive industry by the time a student completes the course they will also have three years of work experience in all areas of mechanical repairs and diagnosing of cars trucks atvs and motorcycles small engine and diesel technology is excellent preparation for an entry-level position in an automotive or motorcycle repair shop

all right hi i'm emily i'm a junior and i am in level two of the cte travel and tourism we are sitting in the front part of our classroom right now so i guess i'll give you like a little bit of an overview of what our class is on so each year so sophomore junior and senior year we learned about different things in the travel and tourism industry your sophomore year you learn about lodging event planning and you also briefly go over like conventions and um restaurant and beverage in your second year which is my year we go more in depth to restaurant and beverages so we do a lot of cooking fortunately i can't do that right now because of coping but we do a lot of different um cooking projects and drinking projects and things like that and then next year my senior year we'll learn about conventions and events on a really big scale so like arenas and sporting events and things like that so we do a lot of different projects in this class the class is really hands-on one thing that we do is we actually plan the advisory dinner so each cte gets like a different board of advisors and then we basically design a really big dinner just to thank them for all of their support so we work with many other ctes in the school we work with culinary arts and food pro they do like the food and the drinks and the hors d'oeuvres and everything we work with agriculture they help us do the floral arrangements we basically set everything up we plan it we order all the tables and the tablecloths and things like that we set everything up and then we host it the night of the event and then of course we send out thank you cards and thank everyone for their participation we also get um three college credits each year so then we get nine college credits at the end of the year by the time we graduate and then that goes toward a hospitality degree from accc so atlantica community college so if you want to go there you already have nine college credits going toward a degree there thank you for your time thanks for listening and thank you for recognizing our efforts from travel and tourism

cosmetology is specifically designed to prepare its graduates to obtain an nj state cosmetology hair styling license which is required to practice cosmetology in the state of new jersey students must obtain a high school diploma complete at least 1 000 hours of prescribed cosmetology training and passed the written and practical portions of the state board exam in order to be licensed this course prepares students for a professional career in cosmetology or one of its related areas and focuses on hair skin and nail care for men and women and barbering career paths that a student might take after high school include stylist nail technician color expert salon manager salon owner teacher or member of the state board of inspectors it could also lead to other interests outside of the field such as a career in sales or in scientific research the program is science-based and also includes history communication skills and life skills the general science area includes sanitation general anatomy and physiology skin hair and nails and barbering projects include exploring safety issues and practices professional image sanitation hair and scalp care hair shaping and barbering wet hair styling thermal styling chemical applications manicuring pedicuring nail tech services skin care facials and makeup application superfluous hair removal and salon business management students must complete four technical papers one research paper and one senior project students study them a ladies standard textbook and this year they are fortunate to be using a mindtap program specifically developed to go along with our curriculum to help with our special circumstances this year our students love to be involved with giving and receiving spa facials and practicing hair color applications and foil highlights in class students use the same equipment used in any professional salon each student purchases a kit at the beginning of their program and it is truly a salon in a bag it includes everything that they will need for the program and beyond cosmetology it's a career and technical education class that will benefit any student who wishes to have a career in this exciting and ever-changing field

[Music] hvac in sustainable energy is a three-year consecutive program designed to give students the understanding and hands-on skills needed to enter into the college and career fields of heating ventilating air conditioning and refrigeration and green energy applications such as photovoltaics solar water heating and building weatherization in this class students learn about thermal dynamics the theory of refrigeration electrical theory and sustainable energy they also learn about the importance of refrigerant recovery and the impact that refrigerants can have on our environment by ozone depletion and global warming potential they learn that it is of critical importance that refrigerants be handled responsibly and of the potential consequences to our environment and quality of life if they are not students learn about and use several hand and power tools as well as trade specific equipment such as refrigerant recovery through class projects students will build an entire hvac system from scratch a small refrigerator from scratch and will complete gas piping and wiring projects sheet metal and duct projects solar electric and solar water heating projects and geothermal heating and cooling projects one popular activity is when students have to diagnose the faults that the teacher puts into their complete and working projects and they love to actually put their new knowledge and skills to use while building projects upon course completion students receive numerous certifications like the osha 10 hour construction certification the csst gas line certifications the epa universal refrigerant certification and the r410a refrigerant safety certification after high school students can look forward to direct entry into the hvacr trade and can also work as an apprentice in the electrical and plumbing trades if this seems like something you or a friend might be interested in then come on down to cape may tech to take a closer look at our hvacr sustainable energy cte

in welding technology with mr jackson students will complete three years of work including welding terminology and hands-on practice they will learn arc welding brazing and oxy-acetylene cutting before moving on to gas tungsten arc welding guess metal arc welding and pipe welding later on alongside different welding methods students will be tall welding safety as well as the setup and shutdown of all tools and equipment during their third year in welding technology students will use what they have learned in the classroom to layout and fabricate school projects and even do job cards for the community once they have completed three years students will be awarded with a welding certificate or a number of hours this course will prepare students to enter the metals construction industry meaning they will be qualified for jobs such as a pipefitter iron worker boiler maker or sheet metal worker

in pre-engineering students learn to think like engineers by using the engineering design process then they focus on communicating ideas using methods like technical sketching and computer-aided design programs the final step is taking ideas and making them come to life using an assortment of prototyping tools like 3d printing laser cutting and other computer controls billing routing machines in class students can earn credits for atlantic cape community college and the rochester institute of technology and can get certified in autodesk cad the faa drone license and aviation weather credits after high school students can work towards a four-year bachelor of science degree or study to get certified at an accredited engineering technical training school once one of those pathways is chosen a student will specialize in mechanical chemical electrical or civil engineering career-related math and science are taught as well as technical writing all theories introduced will have an application project that will reinforce the concepts as well as give students hands-on experience career-specific equipment used in class includes 3d printers laser cutters and a wind tunnel just to name a few projects are the core of how we learn in cape may tech pre-engineering some of the larger scale design projects include but aren't limited to puzzle cube labyrinth robotics pumpkin chunkin electrical circuit prototyping drone systems rocketry coastal waterway testing shoreline monitoring wildlife management habitats and more all class levels are involved in pumpkin chunkin this involves designing some sort of manpower engine that will throw three to four pound pumpkins up to 300 feet using up to 500 pounds of counterweight teams that create a safe and working machine can compete at rowan university's annual asme sponsored pumpkin chunkin competition pre-engineering is also known for robotics starting with the freshman exploratory class students build small robots to see how robot systems go together to create something that accomplishes a specific task when students enter the pre-engineering program they get more advanced into robotics especially in level 2 junior year students will design build program and compete in the state and national skills usa mobile robotics competition ultimately when a student graduates high school from our pre-end program they'll have a better idea of what type of engineer they would like to be with a lot of basic training and how to think like a problem-solving engineer

the exploratory program consists of a rotation through four exploratory classes all four classes have specialized training in computer skills job skills life skills study skills and thinking skills each class provides multimedia experiences relating to the career choices listed in the course outline these learning experiences allow every student to sample each course offered in the 10th 11th and 12th grade occupational programs and investigate related career options the exploratory classes will enable students to make an informed specialization program choice for their next school year students will participate in career awareness learning activities in the following areas in exploratory a student study pre-engineering computer technology communication arts technology entertainment production technology travel tourism and event planning in exploratory b they study advertising design and commercial art technology hvac and sustainable energy technology carpentry and property management and law enforcement and public safety in exploratory c students learn about allied medical cosmetology culinary arts early childhood development and food production technology and in exploratory d students study automotive mechanics agriscience and horticulture natural sciences diesel mechanics and small engines and welding technology all in all students have a well-rounded enriching experience as they explore traditional and non-traditional careers as they participate in the integration of academics technology and vocational and social skills

advertising design and commercial art teaches the technology skills and procedures used in the print and digital design industry these theories are applied to projects that start with textbook study then continue with teacher direction students are involved with district and community service projects like mural painting and yearbook production and they compete in regional state and national contests such as skillsusa they learn the fundamentals of design design theory and the creative design process and develop solid drawing skills along with skills for website design and banner and poster production all students are trained to use adobe illustrator photoshop and indesign cs2 students learn both personal computer and imac technology some industry related equipment that students will use include the slab roller screen printing light tables wash out booth and printing press computers scanners printers and various fine art tools and mediums after high school students can follow career paths leading to jobs in advertising and design architecture business of art and design computer animation environmental design fashion design and marketing fiber and texture fine arts furniture design game art and design graphic and interactive communication illustration industrial design interior design jewelry design photography and digital imaging and product and entertainment design there are many favorite projects during the three-year course of advertising design but photography ceramics and silk screen printing are the most popular among the students at the end of the three-year course of study successful students are awarded the adobe certified associate designation for their mastery of adobe photoshop students also earn credits at atlantic cape community college

Hi Sam all right sorry okay we should be live here in just one second okay I know you couldn't see me I was turning on my video okay thank you hi we're just waiting to go live this is this is like the uh the um the rocket that went off on uh on Saturday I hope so it was it was a successful launch yes it was it was great those are always very exciting to me well it's nice that we're able to do it ourselves now and not have to rely on other countries to get our get our men women up there yeah yep uh we're we're we're live everyone so anytime uh anytime you like thank you Rod sure so can we have a call to order please roll call Mike Davenport here charel Fuller shelle you're muted please here thank you Dan Nicholas here Terry pavisic here Joanna Vasquez Drexler here Zoe Boyd here and Sam B here thank you thank you everyone we have a quorum next item is a pledge of allegiance we can all stand and say the Pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag FL of the United States indivisible and Justice all thank you everybody next item is a a superintendent item Hank take it away uh good evening everybody uh I know we've moved to uh this virtual setting and unfortunately we can't all be together tonight because of changes in the Illinois Department Public Health uh rules for tier 2 mitigation in DuPage County otherwise I'd love to be together with uh [Music] the sorry right uh to uh personally thank everybody for their service to The District 99 Community yesterday was school board uh member day in Illinois and uh it's our opportunity to recognize the uh volunteers that school board members are uh and the service that they provide for overall Community as a former School Board member myself I know the amount of work that it takes to be a a school board member and as the person that Farms off a lot of work to school board members I know how much work it is so uh thank you all for for your service and for everything that that you do uh we did on behalf of the community provide uh school board members with a small token of our appreciation which is uh the same commemorative Hammer that we gave out to our neighbors oh there we go on Q very good Mike there you go there you go so really cool thank you so much very cool also at this point uh this is the point of the Year where we traditionally recognize board members for their uh professional learning uh that they've done with the Illinois Association of school boards and uh we have several board members receiving recognitions this year uh board member Davenport with uh as a master board member maintaining that certificate uh year after year Dr kupka with the level two uh recognition uh board member pavisic with a level two uh Rec nition uh board member panado also level two and board member Vasquez Drexler with the leadershop member recognition for attending emies so uh congratulations on your recognition thank you for uh your professional work uh around becoming a or continuing to develop as a board member um so uh thank you all and uh thank you for uh your continued dedicated work for the district thank you Hank thank you Hank appreciate it um uh next item is the uh approval of minutes for our October 9 19th uh business meeting and our November 2nd Workshop meeting can I have a motion to approve the minutes as submitted uh so moved second Ry pavich I Joanna Vasquez Drexler I cherelle fuller hi Dan Nicholas hi Rick panado hi and Mike Davenport I the minutes are approved thank you um next item is uh our uh reception of visitors um is there anybody uh do we have anybody that's wanting to to talk uh here in the district office nobody is here and we have received comments through the virtual uh format however none of them are on action items so they'll be read at the end very good all right so next item then is uh our recommendations and reports of superintendent uh take it away he all right I'm gonna have Rod pull up the presentation for this evening and share that uh screen with all of you but we're going to start with the return to inperson learning as uh as many of you are aware uh the metrics across uh Illinois and DuPage County and even our own School Community uh continue to not improve uh over the last few weeks uh brod if you'll move to the next slide so the the different metrics that we look at are uh include the Illinois Department Health metrics um we've been in Orange for two or more consecutive weeks so that puts us at a substantial level uh our metrics continue to get worse in the Illinois Department of Public Health metrics they also continue to get worse on the Illinois Department of Public Health County School metrics uh the DuPage County metrics we have to extrapolate right now off of the idph metrics uh we're waiting for that document to be updated it's typically updated by 3M every Monday however there's some challenges right now with the two Data Systems between uh idph and Dage County holding hands with one another so we expect that that document will be released uh sometime uh tomorrow however um based on our conversation with the health department this afternoon and them looking at the preliminary data from idph uh our metrics continue to get worse and continue to move further into the substantial range then we use the Northwestern uh dashboard to look at the ZIP codes in the district 999 Comm Community when we look at that our community positivity rate continues uh to be to become a higher number up to 13.11% as of last Friday we always look Friday to Friday and the number of new cases is 504 per 100,000 so every one of those metrics continues to go in the wrong direction uh Rod if you go to the next slide when we look at are internal cases um we know from the past when we aren't having people return to school for in-person numbers that some of these numbers are lower or lag because uh there's really no reason to report that a a student is ill unless they can't participate in class however you can see that our numbers of positive diagnoses uh have have crept up and now we're sitting around 10 or 11 right now our staff numbers have gone up over the last couple of weeks and then the asymptomatic or close contact quarantines uh have increased amongst our staff but decreased amongst our students in the last week um Rod next slide so at this point we keep monitoring the data and uh we're in that adaptive pause for last weekend this week we had always planned on being remote for the thank the two days of Thanksgiving and then by the following Monday uh we'll make a determination if we're coming back that week we've always said that we look at two- week Trends so uh in order to return the week of November 30th we would have to see numbers start substantially declining for this week and then for next week and then on the 30th we'll make a determination if we're coming back at that point or if we're continuing uh the Adaptive pause and continuing with remote learning at the same time we're in the process of uh Gathering feedback hopefully everybody in the community received their uh surveys to provide us feedback on how uh specifically the two weeks of hybrid learning went we'll be looking at that information as well as working with our leadership teams and the variety of teacher committees to start planning on what second semester looks like um assuming that all of the guidelines and everything that's come out from the state is the same uh if those guidelines become less restrictive or more restrictive that could impact how we return in December or coming back after winter break so a lot of planning going on right now but we've learned a lot uh over those weeks of of hybrid learning so at this point any questions that um any board members might have um Hank um just in observation just looking at how our our numbers have increased and you see the strong parallel with what's happening in the in the in our broader community and so just something that you keep emphasizing in our Communications to our our own Community here is how you know we can have an impact if people will will you know be safe and wear masks and you know we do have it within our power in this in our own Community to to stem the tide here and um and I I just the observation just that hey look there you can you can clearly see everything everything that's happening outside the school you know it parallels what we're seeing in the school and um if we could just just come together as a community we could we could improve things so that we could get the kids back because that's something we all want to so yeah from the beginning I've been dedicated to getting students back for in-person instruction but it has to match the safety metrics that we've been provided by the health professionals and say it's safe to do that as soon as those metrics are are where we need them to be we will definitely bring students back for inperson learning that's what I've wanted as the board well knows as the community well knows that's been our the mission of our Administration from the start and our our teachers are behind us on that that um we just need to make sure that the health professionals are saying that the conditions are right in our community to do that so as you said Mike if if we do our part in the community and limit the mixing of groups and if we're not with somebody that's in our household both people wear masks and keep their distance from one another then we can start driving these numbers in the correct direction and and the CDC just put out some information in the last few days that you know maske wearing helps both the person both both people right they've now said it's not by wearing one you're not just protecting others you're protecting yourself so um we continue to get more and more information that says washing your hands wearing your mask keeping your distance from one another is is going to be the three key strategies that allow us to get students back to school yeah I I just feel like clearly we can't have it both ways here because we're looking at how the numbers are trending so we have to do our parts because I I want the kids back in school too I I just wonder One Thing do Sports impact our numbers do we have any idea about that are they driving up the yeah they driving up the numbers not here at school I don't know about youth cases in the community I haven't looked at that that data um you know and it's really hard as we talk to the health professionals they have some new data from Illinois as to where people have been in the days before they started showing symptoms but that doesn't necessarily mean that they got it there right that just means that they were there okay so it's really hard to tell and there's also uh some challenges in contact tracing and people keeping track of everywhere that they've been and you know it's hard data to gather so it's really hard for us to pin it on anything uh in the in the community necessarily uh that's why just everybody doing their part is what's going to change this yeah thanks so Hank um when you have your discussions with the health department are those discussions also Beyond just the actual Community numbers are they centered around the impacts to our kids you know the the the higher case of depression and the I mean don't hear any of that coming out of the health department I want to make sure that they're considering those impacts as well especially considering that you we all know that the rate of of serious cases among School AG children are much lower and I'm just trying to get the sense of are our health professionals in the state balancing that out when they're making recommendations yeah that's a great question Dan and we yes the answer the short answer is yes um the the long answer and the evidence to that is some of the Chang ches that were made if you remember back when the metrics were first released uh it seemed like there was a hard line between moving into substantial and schools moving fully remote but as the fall went on and uh the response of uh hospital beds filling up due to mental illness the uh number of uh responses due to uh drugs and alcohol uh the rising amount of domestic abuse all of those things that we look at that's when the health professionals were really telling us you've got to find a way under these new guidelines to get students back and that's when you saw all of us tear up the plans that we had that weren't going to work in moderate or substantial and that's when we came back with the two periods a day and you know one passing period and schools uh across the area started going to like 25% models you saw a whole whole bunch of changes amongst the high schools in the area so that we could come up with a plan that would work in higher levels of community transmission uh because the Health Department's not only because we knew that it was important for kids to get back but the health department was saying schools you've got to find a way if you can to get kids back to what's normal and we we worked really hard to do that and it took some time to retool that plan and the problem is is we you know once we got them back we got them here but then the the community numbers not related I don't think necessarily to schools entirely or we know not what was going on inside of our hallways but just the larger Community the spread started growing at a rate where we're reaching levels where the health department says we can't guarantee that your your PPE or your safety measures are going to keep transmission from occurring within your school and at that point we can't have people school if we can't be sure that we can keep them safe right I mean I I it's a tough balance I mean not to be cold-hearted but the the community at large if you look at the numbers over the last three weeks the numbers are skyrocketing Illinois so people obviously are not doing what they need to do to control this virus and the ones that are suffering are the kids and if the kids are the ones that are at the least risk I'm wondering if they're safer being in school because being in school means they're going to be wearing PPE they're going to be wearing their masks they're going to be in a controlled environment if they're out of school they're out in the community at large which has proven to us over the last month that the community at large isn't taking this seriously or isn't taking this as seriously as they should so I I I'm not criticizing I'm trying to struck to strike the balance of what's right it feels like the community because of the community spread we punishing the kids for something that they're at least risk to get seriously ill ill so these are great points and things that we talk through with other superintendant with the health department the the challenge is um schools are not separate from their communities so when we are open and people are leaving their houses to come to school kids are leaving the house to come to school there's more people out in the community as well you know theoretically our students should be at home during during the day engaged in school and doing their their work remotely right now and not out where they should spread it and then after hours should be say following the same protocols that everybody else is following uh the challenge is is we have uh a school with you know when we're running the M modified hybrid model we have over 1,200 people coming in on a single day that that's big numbers that's not like a small elementary school and in that school we have people of all ages right we do have students but we also have staff as well and we have parents bringing students to school and so now you have you know if it was just kids then yeah the theory is is probably more solid that we're not seeing the same rate among students but the students need to be here with adults and those rates are are worse and the impact on adults is worse however the health department reminded us today that rates are growing equally at all age levels right now so this isn't a thing that isn't happening to kids uh and the the greatest increases in the last month in our area have been youth cases so um yeah I just know in reading some articles today good news on the vaccine front but they said at the very earliest you're talking April May June of next year to have widespread distribution if these numbers don't get get ready we're going to lose an entire year for these kids and I don't think that's fair because this population is the one that are least at risk and they're going to lose a quarter of their High School experience and this I don't know it's it's getting to the point where I'm feeling these kids no matter what the numbers are should be back at school because we're punishing them for because of the rest of the community again not criticizing Hank it's just it's a tough balance and I'm struggling with these things as you know from conversations it's it's difficult and we're on the the cusp of losing the entire semester with the exception of two weeks heading into next semester and potentially losing an entire year um for these kids and I just don't know if that's fair yeah and I I agree with you Dan but I also want to be careful that we're not entirely losing thank you uh an entire year right we're losing a year of in-person instruction C but our students and teachers and everybody associated with the schools are working really hard to abely they're losing an experience is what it is they're losing the experience which is to me just as important as it's not the yeah it's just not the same so so guys I I agree with you but my son went to uh he did hybrid he totally enjoyed it however I do know that there are adults in the school district too there's the administration there's staff there's also adults that these kids go home to I I know we're all losing experience as a result of of Co and I do want the kids back in school but you have I'm considering all things and and I was a proponent of hybrid I sent my son to school however I know it's it's so many more things wrapped around this other than their experience and I agree I want them to have the experience I want the experience of vacations and things too right now so we all I mean it's it's it's a tough situation I would just say you know we just need to be careful how we're framing this you know so I I hear I agree with what you're saying too Dan and and Rick your emphasis on the fact that they're you know it's not the same and that they are losing out on an experience but it's not a total loss and you know nor are they being punished no more than any anybody else is right I mean the the words we use you know kind of say something about how we're approaching things and and it's certainly not in any of our none of our intent to you know to be punishing any of the students on the contrary we're we're bending over backwards you know to make this loss if you will be as less as it as it possibly can be um so uh but I just don't know I mean the other the other piece of it is I just you know just to cut right to the chase I'm not going to do something you know that's drastically different than everybody else around us I mean from a it just that just doesn't seem to make sense to me um so we have to look at you know we have to take H Hank's guidance um very seriously we need to take the guidance from our Departments of Public Health seriously and we need to look around us as we do with so many other things and and you know hey what are the other districts doing and how are they approaching this and and to learn from their experiences as well and I think we've been doing that I think we're going to continue to do that and to not do that would be um you know would really be putting ourselves out there and uh because there certainly as we've seen all the way through there are people on both sides of this right um uh and PE people feel very passionately on both both sides of this and they have very valid points on both sides but uh you know it's it's it's we we need to do all we can uh you know to create the best possible experience we can right now and to not have it be a total loss and as best we can not make the students feel like they're being punished in some way yeah I I all could agree we would we all want the kids in school but it has to I I I've said that from the beginning yes well if there's nothing else can we can we move on to uh Item B Hank Equity audit results yep I'm gonna turn this item over to Rob uh to lead us through this section all right thanks everybody for having me I'm excited to talk to you about the next steps of this ever evolving journey of equity and inclusion in District 99 um so I'm going to add on to uh the presentation that we gave last year uh if you remember uh we gave uh quite a lengthy presentation that had some staff members and talking through the different work uh that they've been doing over the past few years um so Rod are you controlling all right can you advance one slide please Rod okay before we get started on the the meet of the presentation I just want to remind you that every time that we meet as an equity and inclusion Council we're framing everything around our district goals and the two main ones that we're framing it around is first our student experience and then second our staff experience next slide so last year I talked about our district 99 Equity team uh at that time we were on our year three of a formalized equity team we had spent two years with some uh consultants and the Consultants worked us through an equity program called The Deep Equity uh program the first year of the equity team was a lot of learning and building that team together to function as a team and then the second year was to plan and start to implement uh things that they learned so things that came out of there was we added a workshop we have our usual uh Cooperative learning assessment literacy type workshops uh but we added a workshop Focus strictly on Equity um in the workplace and then we also at that time made a commitment and and created these late start Mondays in which we engage almost all of our staff so our teachers our support staff our administrators uh in rooms together learning so that's what happened in those first two years last year was year three where we were again implementing those and then uh as we all know the pandemic hit so um some of those late starts uh we didn't get to at the end of the school year uh but one thing that we did do last year is we changed the leadership structure so it's still still an effort that's led by staff but what we were finding is that as uh we engaged more in the work we had more and more staff members who raised their hands and said hey I want to be a part of leading this this is really great work that we're doing uh so we we modified the structure that we had and we created a districtwide what we call the equity and inclusion Council and then we knew that our work was now leading us into building based work so uh off of that underneath that council is also building based teams so we've been able to expand the number of people who are involved on the team um including our students so our change makers if you remember the foundation funded uh a partnership that we had with a place called my name my story where we trained some students those students are now leaders and they're part of our Equity teams so we've been expanding uh as more and more people are stepping in and leaning in and saying this is really great work and I want to to be a part of the leadership of this one thing I will note is in the past we had two different groups we had the diversity um committee and then we had this newly formed Equity team what we found is as we were starting to do planning and figuring out big picture where we're going with this work is that uh it didn't make sense to have those two teams meeting independent of each other so when we redid this organization of Staff leaders we merged the two of those together so the work that the diversity team was doing about recruiting and retainment that was all merged into this Council work now so we talk about the Recruitment and the retainment we also talk about um the professional learning and the atmospheres that we're creating and all of that stuff is in now one large conversation with these uh different Council structures next slide please this is the mission statement that came came out of the equity team um we presented this last year the piece I'd like to highlight and keep highlighting is really the last line on this statement which is about students not having to give up who they are so we want them to engage in school work we want them to learn um and we want them to be able to do that without constantly trying to figure out how to navigate um uh different environments you know we want them to bring their authentic selves to school next so if I were to break down our Equity work into uh two main pieces uh it would be these two words here belonging and predictability uh a majority of our work that we've done over the past few years has fit into that belonging realm so uh uh improving culture even more continuously improving and creating uh better environments where everybody feels like they belong and that they're included uh but the Council recognized we also have some structural things that we need to work on um so the predictability so I'll get into a little bit more in depth in the next few slides uh what we mean by these two words so belonging is uh pretty clear what that word means it's How does each individual feel uh that they're included in the environment the quote down below though I think is powerful because it gets back to the teaching and learning which is our main mission in the district um and so this author in her book she talks about how it's important for us to create this belonging environment because uh the less time that a student has to focus on trying to navigate a particular culture or change who they are a little bit code switching uh the less they have to do that the more time and mental energy they have to focus on their academics so uh uh trying to create these environments where students can bring authentic selves to the classrooms so then they can focus on their academics slide so this is just a list uh celebratory list of things that we've been doing in District 99 over the years related to belonging in the student work realm and then also the adult work realm um I'll highlight again the top bullet point there under students which is the change makers um so we trained I think it was about 180 students um on being uh leaders and an interesting thing is that this year so I I talked about how we have these late start Mondays where all staff are engaged in this learning around Equity we're still doing those this year it's just in a remote uh environment but those are being led by our students so these Chang maker students are now creating the lessons and they're helping to facilitate the conversations with the adults around Equity um theme recently was um um looking uh with an equity lens at what remote learning is like for students so really great conversations that the students are leading us adults in uh to to help us constantly improve so it's really really great work that's happening there um and then in our adult realm uh a few of those bullet points are related to the great work that the equity team did around professional learning educating all of us and continuously improving um I'll highlight that bottom Point down there because uh this is also the time of the year when Pete would usually come and talk about recruitment back in the springtime and the efforts that we had um again unfortunately because of the pandemic things like career fears uh didn't run you know everybody was trying to figure out how do we do this stuff in a remote environment those didn't run so we didn't have the opportunity to do as much targeted recruitment back in the springtime but we did still do those practices that the diversity committee brought in uh those practices of um bias training for an interview team before they start their interviews um uh Department chairs being intentional about uh who they're calling in for interviews and things like that so we still did our practices we were just a little more limited because we didn't have opportunities to go to those Career Fairs to do targeted recruitment next slide so predictability is an interesting thing because usually I think of predictability as a good thing you know I can use some data I can make a prediction and and things go according to that when we look at predictability um through an equity audit lens though um it's the opposite of that um so the quote down here is from one of our Consultants that we had in the first two years and is saying that it's actually a bad thing if we're able to predict the outcome of a student based on their demographics so um looking at the demographics of a student incoming nth grader we should not be able to predict what that student's outcome is going to be by just their demographics Alone um so in the equity realm we're focused on trying to dismantle predictability as much as we possibly can because we shouldn't you know we should figure out what the student needs when they come in give them what they need and then uh they're successful so predictability in this case is trying to take that apart so that way we can't predict uh what their outcome is going to be next slide uh again just um noting some things that we've done in the past so uh we have uh been working on some things um trying to dismantle predictability in these four areas um the largest one is uh discipline so if you remember last year uh you approved the path program so the alternative suspension program that um we were hoping to start implementing this year uh we're doing it on a limited basis um but we've been working programmatically at pieces to try to break up uh predictability in that sense next slide so when the equity team uh finished their year two and then we reorganized into the equity Council the question was asked well what's next what do we do now so we've got this great professional learning that's launched uh what do we do now um there's some systemic things that we uh need to really just inspect and see what is it that uh might be inhibiting the growth of students um so at the time we started to become aware of this idea of an equity audit we uh pursued that and what that resulted in is that we partnered with the DuPage County uh Regional Office of Education they provided us with a uh educational researcher who specialized in equity and she came and led us through this process so the first thing that she did is she helped to assemble a team of um staff in the district and just wanted to know a series of questions what are things that are we are really proud about that we've done in the past in District 99 and what are some things that we think we need to work on so she worked uh collecting that information around the background and then that also helped her as she analyze the rest of the data and ultimately coming up with the recommendations there was another part of this audit which is the quantitative so if you've uh looked into the audit it's where all the charts and the graphs are and that was uh quite a large data poll that we did um to then have them analyze and try to find some themes for us and then qualitative uh she met with some focus groups and did interviews and asked a series of questions those questions are listed in the AUD it um but then she summarized what the thoughts were from those focus groups in the qualitative section so she used those three big pieces the background the quantitative the qualitative to then in the final part of the audit to give us recommendations of um based on what she's learned from us what we should be working on in the next few years next slide so here's some things that she noted in the Equity audit the background piece um they're listed here so she noted that we've made some really great progress in these areas our hiring practices that was the diversity committee um AP enrollment changes in curriculum empowering students um engagement of family caretakers and our professional learning next slide uh in the quantitative section what she found is that we have little or no predictability in graduation rates and attendance so um a student's demographics from a big picture lens like this uh we can't really use that to predict their chances of graduating and we can't really use that to predict uh predict their attendance rate so that's something to celebrate is that we don't have predictability there one thing I will note though is that um just to remind you we're looking at large data across the entire District so uh while we don't predictability in those two things many times those two compound onto an individual student and make it into a big problem for individual students um so I'm not negating that to say there aren't issues there that we need to work on I'm just saying structurally across the district we're not able to predict outcomes for graduation rates and attendance next slide but here are some areas where she did find predictability one of those is in discipline uh you'll see in the charts here that overall for the past few years our discipline has actually been decreasing so across all groups of students the discipline has been decreasing however it's been decreasing at a slower rate for our students of color and our students from lowincome households so a celebration that um disciplined data is decreasing um but the data does show that it's decreasing at a slower rate uh for students of color and students of low income households so we have we have some work to do there um we also have some predictability in our AP and tcd enrollment those have been relatively stable however the demographics of students in those courses does not match the general demographics of our student population um so some students are being drawn into courses and some students are being drawn into other courses same thing with semester grades um the distribution if you look at the charts there the distribution of grades um there are differences is based on student demographics uh and then our Dropout rates next slide qualitative so again some celebration that came up from those focus groups is that the researcher found that District 99 has uh made significant efforts in fostering belonging through these different activities that are here um uh increased cultural representation in our courses our staff mentoring and our advocacy uh expanded EXT curricular options for students and uh professional learning so we've made some some really great strides in the sense of belonging through those areas next slide and then what she found is that we have some more opportunities for improvement in belonging so the audit is helping us to figure out what are our next steps and um what do we do next to to continuously improve in the areas of belonging and in the areas of dismantling this predictability next slide so the end of the report this is a summary of the recommendations that our partners have uh come up for us um the first bullet point is a recommendation that we increase our communication and visuals in the schools related to our Equity work so we have on our website posted uh the work that we've been doing but what she's saying here is that we need more visuals in our school tools to show our commitment to this work uh to people who are walking around inside of our buildings um she also says that we should uh develop a long-term plan uh to focus on increasing our staff diversity monitoring this Equity work to see what's working and what's not working and what the next step should be um to evaluate all our curriculum for anti-bias language and representation um embed culturally responsive pedagogy teaching practices uh bullet point here decreasing the predictability in our discipline and our academic programming uh and then continue to focus on our staff culture So she recommends that we put together a long-term plan to focus on those and at the same time expand on our student leadership involved in equity work uh continue our professional learning that we're doing right now and then um create she calls it this Equity advisory committee which is basically our Council but having um more students involved having more parent Guardians involved so more stakeholders involved um in the process of making decisions for our journey here next slide so like I just said the things on the left are the things that she recommends that we continue to uh support and continue to do that we've done great things with and then the right side is uh create a strategic plan so a multi-year plan to help address the recommendations that she has in the report to help us to monitor our progress to see how are we doing on these things and then like any good plan it's to plan for the next Equity audit so um you know multi-year plan at the end of this plan or towards the end of this plan this is when we want to have another audit to then look at the same things and see our progress and how we're doing on there and then just to wrap it up just a reminder that everything that we do in District 99 is around this mission statement in particular in our Equity work it's that uh underlying word all over there so it's focused on um making sure that every student feels like they belong and that we can't predict that students uh academic outcomes based on their demographics uh next slide so uh I can take questions um I don't know if you've had a chance to read through the entire uh Equity audit it's quite lengthy but um I think it's I think they did a really nice job and it's helping us to figure out what our next steps are in all of this so what questions do you have while you're forming questions I just want to point out that at next month's board meeting we'll we'll talk specifically about discipline and predictability inside of that and the board and I'm sure the community knows we've been looking at that data specific for several years now and uh kind of break that out and continue that larger level discussion that we've been having as Rob said we've been making some progress um and we still have some some progress to make so spoiler alert for next month's sportly does anybody have any comments questions I I'll take this opportunity real quick I was going to say something during uh the report out on the ISB resolutions but uh you know every year at the triple ey um uh it seems that I attend at least one Workshop uh that where they're talking about how to start something or how to do something or encouraging us to do something that we're already doing at District 99 and have been doing and this year uh even without the conference going on um uh all but virtually um uh yeah one of the belief statements that uh I I voted in favor of and was passed was uh that the Illinois Association School boards urges its members member districts and the leadership of member districts to integrate the principles of equity and inclusion in school curriculum policies programs and operations ensuring every student is welcomed and supported in a respectful learning environment and here we are going into our our fourth year Rob is that right well it's the fourth year of this formalized team but the reality is District 99 has been working on this for many many years right um so just my congratulations to the entire team and and a job well done and a job we we're going to continue to do uh well and I suspect you know the the goal is is uh you know Perfection right to to to to achieve all of these these these goals that we're after knowing full well that it's a difficult task and we may never completely get to where we really ideally want to be but if we don't aim for that we're never going to get as close as we're going to get by by by making this effort and making it kind of just um you know part of the way we do business here so even after all of us who are on my screen right here uh are all gone um and other people are are are driving the ship um I mean that this work continues so this is kind of a lasting l Legacy that I'm proud to be part of and I appreciate your hard work here Rob thank you thanks well you know it it we made a commitment that it's staff l so really the congratulations goes to the the group of staff member who's who's been involved in it um Hank and I presented at a few conferences last year around this and the difficult thing with having such a large group of Staff who want to be involved is that you can't have all of them go to the conference and do the presentation and see how great the work is that they're doing um so able to bring a few of them with and then they could report back out but yeah I agree I think the team is doing a great job um an interesting thing that we have is uh we chose uh well one of the reasons why we wanted it to be staff L is because that's where the most influence for change is is they're influential with their peers they have conversations you know informal conversations um and really helped to encourage people to have this continuous Improvement mindset uh where we're at now is when we look at this predictability it's going to take some um positional Authority so administrators and Department chairs um so now we are looping them in because to make changes like that the for the most part the members of the equity Council don't have that positional authority to make those changes but our administrators and our department chairs do so now we're starting to see a partnership of the people who specialize in the influence and the people who have positional Authority putting those two together to really make good change all right well thank you again um why don't we move on to the next agenda item uh calend year 2021 insurance premiums hey some rare good news here uh Rod if you'll pull up that next slide so uh every year at this well every year since we move to a January one renewal date uh we report out at about this time on what our insurance cost were and what the recommendations were for uh next year's insurance rates uh the overview is there for on for you on the screen overall costs were way down last year some of that is you know the pandemic causing uh elective surgeries and those kinds of things to be put off stay-at-home things um but we were way down down to the point where even when we factor in an added cost Factor next year if some of those things coming back uh our Consultants are recommending no increase in insurance premiums for the next school year so that's a good thing for everybody um Mark's been working closely on this as well uh Mark what anything else to add to that um not too much really you covered it PR well with the slide really hits all the major points um you know we have the ppos are the plan that really are measured this way what what our claim history is compared to what our um expected claim history is for that period of time and it fact that it was so much lower was a good thing the hmos are basically operated on a zero profit loss for us whatever the premium is we pass it on and it does have an impact on uh the board contribution portion to the hmos but that's that's running as expected as well so they across the board felt there was no need for an increase in any of the plan premiums it just as a safety check it's the the health benefit account is a is a seasonal type thing it it's a high point and low Point actually this is normally uh kind of in the middle a middle midpoint for that plan and so last year it was U um you know $300,000 lower than it is this year um so we we are improving in that side uh with about a $1.3 million Reserve right now compared to what was 100 One Million last year so um that's that's a positive but you know that fluctuates and it's an unusual year with all the different um po um out of pockets and things like that but anyways it's it's looking really good and we have really good working committee with the insurance committee and it was a unanimous agreement let's go ahead and not have an increase this year and monitor the plan as we go forward so later on this evening this is an action item to approve a 0% to increase in insurance premiums for the next year right I like it any questions from board members food Management Services right we've got uh well this is just pretty quick pretty quick in all three of these items I got in a row here pretty quick but um wait we skipped next one is post post compliance report I can flip them pretty good either way let's go with what's in order though so everybody sh it's tax compliance sorry the post issuance is a report that um we're required to provide I am required to provide it every year um to you it's a October 31st year and is what we've been reporting on um an Arbitrage is simply if we issue a bond and it cost this I'm gonna say 2% in terms of what we have to pay for interest on it along with all of the the um ISS cost of issuance if we invest that in u the proceeds before we spend them for whatever project we have if we invest those and get 3% interest in the open market with our investments um and if unless unless um there's a couple exceptions that we use um we have to give that extra 1% back to the federal government or we have to pay it we can only earn up to the Arbitrage limit so if we we earn 3% and and cost 2% we got to give give that back to IRS and that's because they are giving a special authority to issue um non taxable bonds to the investors and so because of us taking money out of the IRS coffers if you will by by selling bonds that they don't pay federal tax on um this is a way of them recovering some of that loss in investment and the taxing Authority so but the two big exemptions are if it's if it's an issue that's Bond issued and its original issue is less than $15 million which five of ours happen to be um less less than 15 we have 10 Bond bonds still outstanding going back to 2002 five of those bonds are not subject to Arbitrage because they're just too small they they don't care about anything less than15 million to be tracking Arbitrage and the second is if you spend it all within three years four years actually um then you can uh they they also give you an exemption for that it means that you didn't really get it to just sit on it to to just put the money in the bank and sit on it for 10 years and then spend it so they give you a time pattern for for spending it and um uh we're following that when we with our other bonds that we have that are the master facility bonds um if you recall we have three of those bonds out and we are um spending it fast enough that I don't believe we're going to have pay any Arbitrage on that even though we do have interest getting earned at a higher rate than the cost for one of those bonds so we're looking pretty good on all that looks like we'll have some additional interest to consider what to do with when we get to the end of this project um and we'll be presenting something probably for you before too long I think this is an annual report that you give to us too right Mark right there's there's 15 different bonds I have to make sure that there's other things like there's reporting to the federal system for which is called Emma uh it's a it's a system so that the bond investor if they have a problem with their bond or we have a problem in the district um we reported to this National mechanism somebody who's a bond holder can go and look once or twice a year and know that okay that there's been something going wrong with District 99 the things that we've reported that on that system actually have been very positive but each we have two u in fact two Bond upgrades that we have had U over the last five years and so um we we went from you know daa to AA plus and in the course of a couple years so um and that's helped and it chosen the interest rates that we were able to sell the bonds at for the um Master facility plan we we have and the economy coming in helped us and with economy being low we jumped on it so we we took advantage of it when it was there uh but there's no now outstanding Arbitrage that we are concerned about right now there's no bad issues or B failures with these bonds that we we need to report to the federal government uh everything is fine and I have report that's what's one of those the other document is a report that I sign each year for you guys representing that thank you Mark anybody have any questions all right so now now food management now this one's a quick one and we have to first um did kudos to Jer ethd the business manager for the district who helped uh she was instrumental in getting this program going for breakfast and for lunches through the um the USDA and um now we'd like to do it for suppers um there it's been a moving the with the pandemic kind of stretching out and unemployment and issues being so significant uh USDA is is um asking us to do supper as well we we we have nearly a million lunches and breakfasts that we combined that we've um issued already and jeree was able to manage this coordinating it with both District 58 and 68 mostly but even over the summer a little bit with District 61 and Darian helping them out with with some of the distribution and that's really our key point and our our part of this but um in order for us to get reimbursement from Chartwells we have to amend the agreement with them to allow for um supper and so now we'll be doing that with if if the board approves this and um what that does is it helps us get get more meals out to kids uh we'll be doing six or seven days a week of meals to to families um one for each kid and not just for high school age kids it's all the way through the age of 18 um to the age of 18 on these kids so we're we're helping quite a few families with their needs Mark I this is uh you know uh tremendously you know needed and and uh you know Jer is just she's awesome uh but uh I you know the question I have to ask is uh where where do we find the time to do this too um well that's why I say you know it was quite a Quite a feat for Jer to do she she actually monitors the Food Service program for the district and and does the monthly reports um she donated a lot and she spent a lot of time on this the all three districts you know coordinated and because District 99 has the largest freezer and refrigerator capacity itself so we we helped with even sharing some of our facilities when we put these things together there be an opportunity for people to to volunteer to help uh community at large is just well actually right now Chartwells is going to provide that service and help with the delivery so for going forward for this adding this extra piece they're going to help with the um the delivery piece of this and um actually the the reimbursement for the meals more than covers the cost of the food so the delivery cost will be able to picked up there and some of the additional Manpower that they're using will be able to be picked up as well USDA is going to reimburse this for more than what chart Wells is is charging us for just the meals well if it does get to a point where help is needed I hope I hope there'll be you know you'll let us know I mean I I would sign up to help well you know we've had enough employees because a lot of employees when the kids aren't in school there's a lot of instructional AIDS and so support staff that have helped they so it's and Jer was good in helping getting them you know rounded up and and working with them to to get out so she had a lot of help but she she found the help too though so she she's did a great job with this well thank you U she's a she's our Superstar right I just yes just got an award too yeah that's right yeah so um all right any any questions uh from the rest of the group for Mark if not uh we're going to move to iasb resolutions um so uh you want to put that slide up for okay so uh here's the uh here are the kind of a it's a summary of the resolutions that we voted on uh the other day um and you can uh you can read through that you should have all gotten a report out on this too um via email I know I I saw I saw it just the other day so but you related we passed resolutions uh there were there were some resolutions that that that districts put forward that uh that the resolution committee um recommended against um uh accepting and in fact all but I think one of those uh never even saw the floor because uh there weren't enough votes to to to bring it up for a vote um so but these are the things that that we did vote um to um to support and so uh you know relating emergency pandemic response at a regional level supporting local decision making uh to designate e-learning or remote learning on Election Day in emergency circumstances U addressing the teacher shortage and expanding the issuance of provisional licenses to all curricular areas was adopted um a real need for that and and supporting teacher preparation programs and scientifically proven methods literacy and reading instruction and uh refor the reaffirmation of existing positions uh for State authorized charter schools and and host District participation in the renewal process and enrollment of students and funding and uh there were some housekeeping things for deleting out ofate no longer relevant position statements and um and then the new belief statement on education Equity that I already mentioned so anybody have any questions uh about any of that hearing none let's move on to the uh Capital Improvement plan all right uh this is another yearly item that comes before the board uh traditionally before we started the master facility plan the budget yearly for this was usually about 1.2 million uh give or take uh as we have so much work going on related to the master facility plan we've dialed this back a little bit for the last couple of years at a total of 1 million and I'll allow Jim to provide the overview here in a second just reminder for the board that we don't take action on this as a slate of items the board approves items as uh as they come up and are Bid out and get completed that way so uh Jim if you want to give the overview here we do good evening everyone so we this is 2122 Capital Improvement as Hank said we're at $1 million for this uh Year I'll go through these items fairly quickly uh there's a few that I'll elaborate a little bit on let's start with the fact I I just want to make sure that every realize that the concept budget number that's on the right hand column that's the number that we're predicting that these projects are going to come in at with architect and Engineering fees construction management and also contingencies so we'll bid these out and we'll see what the numbers come in at but this is a good guess at what we think that they're going to be just wanted to remind you of that large uh repair and maintenance services these are uh large items like asphalt concrete mechanical units at our buildings that we uh fix for unexpected breakdowns that may occur throughout the course of the year so we set aside $100,000 and each year we really go through this and if we have monies left at the springtime um we uh add to some repairs that are needed in the buildings to take off the for the next year's list annual bleacher inspection repairs this is for interior and exterior even though they're brand new they'll be under warranty so mostly interior for this coming year this is for the inspection and repairs for both campuses FF is Furniture fixure equipment you'll see that's both for North and South these are needs for chairs tables desks that are in classrooms so you'll see in future years this number getting bumped up uh a great deal we'll explain that more in further meetings but for this year these are the numbers that the schools will have to get some furniture fixtures and equipment also it it and these are annuals uh an annual grounds repair this is for outside Green Space and turf repairs for both schools next line line item is for North it's the auditorium curtain replacement these aren't the made um curtains these are borders and traveler curtains so uh a few on Auditorium stage are just getting old and falling apart so we're going to go ahead and replace those the big project at North uh next year will be the chiller replacement this is the large Battleship 270 ton Chiller that feeds most of the 1999 Wing uh it's 22 years old we're putting dollars into it each year it it has faltered on two or three years so we had it assessed by our mechanical engineer and his recommendation was to replace it the entire unit so that's what we're doing switching over to South repair repaint T Court surface area the top layer here at South is uh cracking uh so we're going to take it down not all the way to the base because we're seeing that the base is in good shape so just cold joints and longitudinal cracking is being uh seen at the South Campus so we'll repair those cracks we'll put a new layer on and we'll reine it over there South two more it's South the one's a roof replacement it's a small roof about 4,000 square ft uh it's above the small gem hallway uh so this is going to take the roof down to the gypson duck we're going to replace with new membrane which is a a synthetic rubber will'll insulate it and they'll put a coverboard and Vapor and replace both areas that's two little about 4,000 square ft and lastly a South is the dock stair replacement this is the loading dock by CMG stairs are olded they're uh falling apart so we're going to replace these and also put in a new railing that's the list it's a short list of year uh but I'll entertain any questions if anyone has any any questions for Jim Jim uh just a couple quick ones uh on the carrier Chiller replacement I assume we're gonna we're going to get to uh something a little more efficient than what we've got right now so there'll be some savings going forward as a result of this correct absolutely and and in mode of everything that we're doing with the mfp all the units you know like the ones we're putting on the auditorium all the big units that we're placing are really energy efficient again we have air conditioned our campuses and they've grown in size uh we will lose out that we're air conditioning more area but we're getting that back with the efficiency of our uh units at both schools so it's you know it's kind of a wash so it's good to see that good good and then the uh the small gym uh uh roof replacement uh are we able to do anything more with some insulation there it'll be new installation so we're bringing it down to the deck okay everything above that will be new along with the rubber synthetic on top so you know potentially greater our value is as well as a better roof and what was there so uh these are investments that um you know will pay dividends going forward so sounds great thank you I understand you correctly did you say a deck deck the gypson deck is all the way to where the if you can imagine it's like your rooftop at your house it' be where the wood is okay it's actual structure you walk on and then and then the roofing gets and the installation gets built on top of that okay other questions Master facility plan progress right yeah thank you Jim thank you the the next slide here the first portion is the budget coming back uh from uh last month to here where we're at uh slight decrease in contingency uh we rolled into this last year last year in the I think it was around this time we had talked about while we did the Science office at North uh including the math office that shared an adjacent wall with it and uh getting some efficient of scale there and it was definitely all impacted by the master facility plan at that point we talked about what on on the south side of town was waiting out there that was an equivalent and that was uh some of the special services department areas uh that would have to come back at some point where a lot of that space is being uh Disturbed and moved around and a lot of those offices are kind of Nomads right now as we push things around the building so next summer we'll consolidate those offices in a special services office uh remodel uh last year when we talked about it this time we said that if we had funds available in the contingency we would do it as part of the master facility plan because that's what caused it uh however if we didn't have contingency it would have been the first one on the capital Improvement item list that you just saw uh so since there is fund funds available inside of contingency we're going to include that project that provides some Equity across both sides of town so far as offices go and that reduced the contingency uh this month as well as some of the completion of phase B items from the summer so right now we're sitting at a contingency of $2.4 million uh as I've said many times heading into that last year this upcoming year white has requested for us to hold at least $1 million in there for the last summer of work which we still sit well with and we are working on the plan right now for um the classroom and Corridor uh Renovations for that long range we always knew we were going to have work coming out of the master facility plan with a variety of corridors and classrooms and uh some of that contingency will help jump start that work and we'll be bringing you that plan after the first of the year so uh we we've been starting to collect some contract contractor allowances back you can see phase A and B there uh phase C uh we're not into yet so we won't start capturing those back until next year this time so uh that's kind of where the budget is any questions on the budget no thank you uh Hank sorry I was trying to move things a little too fast that's all right yeah um I I will I just will ask a general question and and I I think I've asked this before in terms of you know the the huge increase in costs uh that we're seeing um that well I we as in the the public at large in in material costs and and such related to uh supply chain issues that sort of thing are we we pretty well insulated from that because of our our guaranteed Max is that well we're insulated first because if you remember we're we're over 99% uh bid out for everything if you look at the unlet numbers there you can see we have less than a million dollars of exposure between North and South that's how much we have left to go out and bid so nearly a 100% of the project has already been bid and those costs are already contained in the bids that we've received from those contractors is there any danger in in contractors not being able to honor their bids because materials are costing them so much more than they expected that would be a possibility but they have to enter in uh to pretty much an agreement with kind of an insurance with us I can't remember the exact name of it Jim can help me out here um where if if they drop out they actually forfeit money to us and we recapture portion of those costs and then we'd have that would go towards got coming back in yeah we have a 10% Bond on their contract okay we're not going to lose them um they would lose more money on the bond that they would owe us than they would for the material cost Mike okay so I don't foresee you know we're already meeting with these contractors for fac some of them are already on campus uh working uh so I there's not one that's even nudged that they would excellent backing out good good and I want to add that we've already bit out almost half of that million dollars that's unlet and we're doing the other half this week uh so we and the first round came in pretty good so you know I think it's Friday morning's the last one and I'm foreseeing that that's going to come in pretty well too so we'll probably see a little bit back of that million as well which is good news excellent that's great news thank you thank you appreciate it so any other questions on budget and then I'll show a couple of quick pictures and show you what we've been working on the last couple of weeks so uh some of the major work at South has been the auditorium you can see there you know the helicopter flying in HVAC equipments uh this is a board members if you want to go for another walk here in the next few weeks this would be a great time to do to take a look at the auditorium you can get in on the upper deck which is that top photo um it's a picture cannot capture yeah how stunning this space is becoming and how just the volume that we're adding to North High you or to South High you can see it in that bottom uh photo there of just the volume in the height and if you drive by South High you can see how how tall the fly Tower is but uh South High is getting a a ton of space here and finally getting the auditorium that they deserve it's going to be fantastic uh when it is done I'm looking forward to opening night and then uh next slide there Rob the other spot where we're making a lot of progress is in the Commons at both schools but it at South High it's really starting to take shape we've enclosed it uh with visin visqueen for the the winter months so that it's weather and tarped in but it kind of gives you now a feeling of what it's going to be like when the glass wall is up and you can really get a feeling for the volume of space here also being added to South High and how much it's going to drastically just change the feel of that building um so really exciting space coming in there so uh once again always a tour tour welcome to the board members if you want to come and take a walk of this space over at North High same thing that Commons is coming along uh and the southeast corner is now open for students uh so we were able to get students into the first and second floor the third floor or I'm sorry the second and third floor were able able to open in time for students to be back in the hybrid model the first floor is now open and as soon as we can get students back they can take advantage of that fine arts new Wing uh the visual arts Wing that's there uh the commons is now uh fully concreted and it really once again you you get a feel for how big these spaces are and how much square footage we're adding onto our buildings now when you get inside of them in North High we've wrapped up uh or pretty close to wrapping up then the bleachers and Squad rooms if you remember that lagged behind uh South High because of the foundations and footings uh but both of those projects are wrapping up and we're in the process of ordering for both schools some of the temporary like banners and displays that go onto those uh structures so we'll spice them up a little bit here uh in a little bit with those uh kind of those Spirit banners and those kinds of things coming online uh this is a view of the second floor uh new CTE Career and Technical Ed uh Wing what you're looking at is from the fabrication lab out into the two engineering spaces um those of you that want on tours of some of the more modern buildings buildings in the area this will be a call back to some of those spaces uh but just totally different open Innovative spaces than what uh our schools have had in the past you've seen some of this at South High I wanted to get a snapshot in here of some of it at North High so once again board members if you want to meet up here in December and go for a a quick walk and see some of these spaces uh they're pretty fabulous and we're working on getting pictures and virtual tours uh set up for the community soon as well so any questions on any of the master facility plan this is just so exciting to see it all coming together oh I'm just so impressed you're just Hank you and your team and and uh and Jim fabulous fabulous all right that's it for m facility plan uh next one is foas and we've had them and we've filled them and they're all available on the website right all right so the consent agenda right so we have uh we need a uh a motion for the Board of Education to approve the consent agenda as presented which includes a Personnel report appointments classified B Personnel report retirements Administration resignations exempt retirements classified retire resignations classified and c financial pages and D acceptance of donation District 99 Education Foundation grants go moved second before you take a vote I just want to call out the Education Foundation for another round of just amazing grants for our schools uh details are in the memos but it's over $6,000 in funding seed projects lot of this is to respond in to Innovative curriculum uh as teachers respond to the pandemic things in CTE helping with uh some of our culinary classes in our science classes virtual online Labs uh that are going on so just some really creative stuff and creative responses that our teachers are taking to try to make remote learning uh more like in-person learning or at least transfer the concept steps better uh using the tech tools and innovative ideas out there uh if you go online to our Twitter account you can see some of the project from The Culinary classes as we worked with Chartwells and our teachers to pack up all the supplies and equipment needed for kids to cook and do culinary at home so some really exciting stuff going on and uh we of course thank our partners at the Ed foundation for making all of this uh possible and funding some Innovative projects so thank you not surprised to see Mike Mike Hines involved in something called Gizmo yeah yeah right true true sounds like fun stuff all right can we have a a roll call panado hi Carri pavich hi Joanna Vasquez Drexler hi cherelle Fuller hi Dan Nicholas hi thank you Mike deavenport I all right motion carries uh next item on the agenda recommendations for Action approval of the calendar year 2021 insurance premiums right you know motion to approve is presented yeah sorry second it's okay moved is there a who who was firsting and who was seconding I apologize I think I think it was uh Dan who was first Dan's first I saw him saw okay and then did does Terry get the second it it's fine if I don't I sure she is Terry get a second yeah that's fine okay thank you Dan Nicholas hi Terry pavich hi Rick panado hi Joanna Vasquez Drexler hi cherelle Fuller hi and Mike Davenport hi motion carries and then second item is the approval of the food Management Services covid-19 emergency contract Amendment so we need to needed a motion to approve that Amendment with Chartwells for 2021 school year to includes supper meals andov all right Joanna was first and I think Terry was second oh okay R first and Terry second thank you unless unless I'm wrong but that's no you're right it's fine go with it all right good deal Joanna Vasquez Drexler hi Carry pavich hi Rick panado hi Mike excuse me charl Fuller hi Dan Nicholas hi and Mike Davenport hi old business second reading and approval of policies uh these were policies that were brought last month for first review uh almost well all of them except for one are related to the federal Title Nine changes that the board was trained in at the last board meeting and the last one is related to substitute teachers we've received I've received no questions on any of these over the last month so we recommend that the board uh approves these changes and takes action to do so okay so how about a motion from uh one of our committee members on this I'll make a motion second second I'm sorry Rick was first and Joanna was second or cherelle was second cherelle okay thank you um Rick panado hi Joanna Vasquez Drexler hi cherl Fuller hi Nicholas hi Trey pavisic hi Mike Davenport hi motion carries thank you um there isn't any new business we'll go to reception of visitors um we had here in the room however we received several comments that I will read to the board okay and if I go on for more than 30 minutes you can stop me I'll stop you putting my timer on all right the first one is an anonymous submission I would like to take this time to express how upset I am with the policy of the district I don't want to hear about space staff or any additional justification or excuse for this nightmare you are putting our kids through make it work you have the educational model to address kids at home on quarantine and the safety practices to keep kids safe at school enough is enough failing grades teens crying sharing social media suicide codes hopelessness lots of motivation pure damage there was no excuse in August and September with the positivity rate at 3 to 4% now uh higher rates there's still no excuse idph has excluded schools from closing leaving it up to the districts AG has one youth death due to covid many more suicides and overdoses that does not take into effect the mass suicide attempts severe acute depression academic uh failings leading to possible College denials and the long- lasting and permanent mental health struggles students are being medic ated at increasing numbers because you have taken their focus away enough is enough districts around us are still in session and safely doing so you're asking children to seek help and offer supports that is not good enough they don't even know how to do this they are children stop minimizing our students Health stop minimizing the damage you are causing by justifying this is an unprecedented time it's tough on everyone just stop you have a model that is Advanced enough to cover remote learning if needed playing video games all day eating never turning on the Chromebook crying all day in therapy failing classes what more proof and scientific studies do you need to wake up if 600 students at one campus are quarantined what about the 12200 that are not what about the positive cases that should now have immunity since that age group of positives is our fastest growing you have negative students and immune students that should be in school you need to look at the num see that ibp is listed places of outbreaks in schools are down on the list barely a statistical blip teen and youth are not being Hospital hospitalized in any meaningful numbers nor dying inperson is proven to be safe by your own definition most classes have maybe 10 or less students spacing masks and shields start prioritizing the people that matter most within the school system start prioritizing children you just need to do it because we will lose a student there have been close calls already listen to them and stop ignoring them the next one is from Lisa Costco as we all can agree this has been an unprecedented time trying on all especially the students each student is impacted and affected differently depending on their situation struggles learning style year in school Etc with the board consider allowing students a covid curve for those students with classes with grades negatively impacted by an unexpected semester of e learning maybe a petition type request per student per class to the teacher Department board for classes for which they are being negatively impacted possibly something like allowing one grade up if getting a c or below in a class for example my son a senior ggn is struggling with an AP calculus course not only is unprepared for the upcoming AP tests and is in talks with hiring a tutor for next semester to help with the test he is overwhelmed and extremely anxious with the excessive time and work expected of him in the midst of a pandemic he does not need the AP course he took it for a challenge he had known the entire semester would end up remote that he had predict now predicted lower grade negatively impact his GPA just in time for for college applications he would have chosen a different class but thus here we are it would be a huge help and relief to him and I'm sure other students and other similar unprecedented situations to know that they have a potential source of help please keep the students whose grades are negatively impacted by this unavoidable situation in any decisions you are making on how to proceed their grades need help this semester thank you for your time and consideration Paula dolman in-person learning for our children is essential District 999 students are falling further behind their peers academically from neighboring school districts Additionally the mental health of our children is greatly impacted Callie Norris the portion of District 99 special ed students have been allowed to attend school in person on a regular basis I'm wondering what criteria to is used to decide if a special education student can return to school is that that they are not physically and or more severely mentally handicapped then their level of need is automatically deemed not as important our child who has an IEP is suffering more than I can even put into words I would have thought that a high respected districts such as ours would be better equipped to serve to service its entire special education population through this pandemic especially after seeing all the regression of these students in March through May earlier this year most of my students teachers have been amazing and as much as they want the kids back in school like we do their hands are tied we are watching our troubled Learners Decline and decline some more every week it is heartbreaking we need to support them better and get them in the building for one-on-one help before we we lose them all together many districts are supporting this concept and are doing it well and in very safe ways why can't we please can we work on getting more learning disabled students into the school thank you Jim devit I don't understand why if covid cases are so low in teens they are not they are in remote learning my daughter who's doing very well in school is doing much much worse now she said she could focus better in the classroom than at home and I believe her she tells me about how strict the school is making sure PPE is worn as well when I drive around I see groups of teens close together un masks and I can't help but think that they would be so much better in school where they are protected from the virus all of this back and forth with remote and hybrid is taking his toll on kids and increased anxiety depression suicide and poor grades it seems to me like the teachers union are the ones playing with our children's education and future for what they're supposed to care about the students when it feels like it is the last thing that they care about our seniors great are losing opportunities I'm sorry our senior students are losing opportunities for scholarships grants and athletic opportunities to kids from other states who haven't who have already returned to school as well we see the same numbers you do we read the same reports you are yet somehow you think you know better than us our kids want to return to school please make it happen ASAP Amy gay please let our students back into school Under the hybrid plan there are so many factors that warrant the need to be back in person from social emotional use issues to the decrease in actual learning that's happening from remote only many schools are successfully doing a hybrid plan and many more are doing full iners while following covid protocols to stop the spread in the school setting even countries that are shutting down or not keeping kids even countries that are shutting down are keeping kids in school though this is not this is where it is being passed and spread our children are being wrongfully punished by not allowing them in school please get them back on the hybrid plan ASAP Lisa lockerby can you please provide an accurate overview of exactly what metrics will be used to determine when students can return to in-person hybrid learning when District 86 is still in their hybrid learning mode this creates confusion and frustration both for students and parents clearly the virus in is in Hinsdale just as it is in Downers Grove however the interest of students mental health in the superintendent school board make the decision to keep having students in school even on a limited basis thank you for your assistance sorry this is a longer post so I'm having trouble getting it on my entire screen here this is an anonymous submission it is a copy of a guide for parents to take back their schools by Paul bis um it reads there is nothing in the state statute that requires remote learning accommodations for teachers and I suspect that nothing in current collective bargaining agreements overtly or inherently require a district to go fully remote learning rather School superintendents and their school boards in the case of Chicago the mayor are surrendering dictates from teachers unions the unions threats and intimidation are working on politicians management more concerned with keeping their seats in executive positions than with the well-being of students who have not vote or voice there are five indisputable facts in the reopening of schools discussions that should be consistently talking points one the science is overwhelming that covid-19 has a minimal impact on children they are least likely to be contagious and practical affordable measures can be taken to enhance the health safety beyond what is needed to control the spread of the virus two the research is overwhelming that remote learning is a poor substitute for in school learning the longer School are taught remote the longer children are taught remotely the more severe the academic social emotional physical health damage will be the increase in teen suicides opioid addiction and juvenile shootings can all can be directed and attributed to school campus closings three while all children are adversely impacted remote learning as a substitute for in school instruction is a devastating impact on poor children and children with special needs this will dramatically widen the achievement Gap with all of its negative well documented consequences for all working parents are enduring hardships with many parents who can't work remotely having to leave their children at home are not going to work at all only one in six black and Latino families can work remotely five most parochial and private schools and many public schools in Illinois have successfully reopened imperson instruction with either completely or partially with no serious problems Nationwide the majority of states have reopened their public schools in person with very few problems no mandate the teachers teach remotely the federal government mandates the three types of accommodations for teachers with particular needs none of these require schools to allow teachers to teach at home additionally there are no state requirements for remote instructions unlikely that Lo local collective bargaining agreements provide such accommodations what is provided to teachers is the following one American with Disabilities Act Ada under the Ada schools and businesses have to make reasonable accommodations for employees with just disabilities or medical conditions so long as it won't cause the school or business undo hardship forcing a district to allow teachers to teach from home is not considered reasonable it was also creates an undue hardship on School District's customers to students the Family Medical Leave Act FMLA the FMLA does not require school districts to allow teachers to teach remotely under the FMLA teachers are entit entitled to take leave or care for a son daughter spouse or parent with serious health condition however during leave employers are not required to pay work workers they must maintain workers group insur health insurance and they must give employees back their jobs or comparable jobs when they return from leave teachers who might choose FMLA could use their own sick days so they could be paid during all or a portion of this time once they exhaust those sick days with compensation ends family first uh Corona virus act FFC the FFC does not require School District to allow teachers to teach remotely under the FFC a teacher May request time off to care for his or her child if the child's school or child care provider was closed to the virus and the child is required the teachers's parent care the payment under this act for the first two weeks of a teacher's absence is equal to the teacher salary up to $200 per day after two weeks the payments is equivalent to two-thirds of the teacher salary up to $200 per day with the total benefit cap to $2,000 district teachers who wish to utilize this benefit make much less money if they are forced to chose this benefit during their time on leave this benefit will probably be extended school districts are caving to unions too many school districts are making teacher accommodations that are not required to provide when teachers have a medical condition a family member with a medical condition or a child whose school or daycare is close to the virus teachers make these decisions because they do not have a long enough long-term substitute teachers to fill positions in the event that many teachers actually choose to apply for legal benefits on under the above reference act uh this continues on for a while we have three minutes per response I will forward the REM remainder of this post and all of the rest of the posts onto board members we're going to move on to the next submission how is the district helping parents address the mental and emotional I'm sorry this is from Kathy calbeck how is the district helping parents address the mental and emotional well-being of students not managing e-learning very well this PO next one is from Laura hoppy or hope I'm sorry Laura hope thank you Dr thean board members who striving to return our students to the classroom and fully supporting those who have to remain at home please continue to adhere to the guidance and consider levels of community spread for pivoting back to hybrid the teachers and administration are doing a fabulous job under really stressful circumstances the next one is from Carrie sson these numbers you are presenting are extremely low with the low incidence of teen H hospital hospital hospitalizations and mortality being considered additionally can you please tell me if the positivity rate includes multiple tests for one person a person can only be at risk once and therefore is being considered as a district are you asking these questions the community does not feel you are making students a priority look at those with low numbers with clear safety protocols we don't feel you're being honest with the safety and health of our students why are other Illinois districts successful what are you doing about teachers not following guidelines there are many not following guidelines thank you board member Dan for acknowledging mental health it's huge and Way Beyond what the board can even guess this needs to be a priority and then finally in Anonymous submission we are losing a year of Social and academic growth we are going to lose the student life we are punishing them we are worried there is a remote option please they need to be back period they're are losing everything and they are being punished schools are not open not 98 this board and it admin is not bending over backward there's a remote option for people passionate of risk there's nothing for the majority the majority so uh those are all of the posts they become part of the board record and I will circulate them separately uh to all board members as well and they will be part of the minutes as posted after this board meeting uh that concludes the virtual submissions and nobody has come in person while I was reading those okay thank you Hank um moving on to our Communications and announcements uh a report on lend nothing to report okay thank you uh sasset um nothing really reported could actually probably be changed by now but uh as relates to District 99 remote learning continues at sassed through the week of November uh 20th and transition program and Ed program are still in person that's it okay thank thank you um District 99 Education Foundation Terry you're on mute sorry here you go I forget we make it through I don't want you to hear the game in the background got it you're not watching your husband is Right Terry yeah I'm not watching it no um but anyway uh as you know we just approved almost uh um $6,400 of um of funds to go to um three different uh uh groups of teachers for Teacher grants and that is so exciting and we had an election of officers uh AR our president is uh still Julia Beckman uh vice president Megan Schroeder Treasurer um Diane Richards secretary Mora Bates and we are looking for a donor relations coordinator so if um if anyone in the community is uh so willing to join us in our mission of of um providing uh extra grants for our teachers please uh contact Julia Beckman on the website and you will be able to um to join us and and Remember December uh 1st is giving Tuesday so it would be really wonderful if all of our board members would uh remember the District 99 foundation on giving Tuesday and maybe uh uh contribute to maybe our future grants so that would be a really wonderful thing and anyone in the community who would like to give to uh the foundation that would be a good opportunity to do that so that's uh that's all I have right thank you Terry thanks for the hard work of the of the foundation and I'll Echo your encouragement that uh that we all get involved on that uh giving Tuesday yes that's that's really an important thing for the community also so all right so thank you um I have no further report on iasb um we have uh two upcoming board members board meetings sorry uh one on December 7th Workshop meeting at 6:30 pm and one on December 14th our regular uh business meeting 6:30 pm uh the one on the 7th is scheduled to be at the ASC but will probably be Zoom um and the 14th is scheduled to be at South High School if we indeed meet in person and don't Zoom that um the next item is our closed session and I need a motion wait wait Mike Clos Sam added a question in here as we were talking in the chat that I just want to address I saw that okay question about hiring younger Tas to assist students in person while most all teachers stay home a remote viable option for a hybrid in the future uh so that we could put in a lower risk population in the building as much as possible uh Sam I like you're thinking outside the box here uh however you know the goal is to have teachers inside the building working with kids and uh we also would run into some discrimination problems if we put an age range on who we were hiring to have in the building so I I love the way you're thinking and it's outside of the box but it it doesn't fit inside of HR and hiring practices unfortunately so um but that is you have tapped into the strategy that we are following for teach that can't come in the building right is that we put a a teachers's assistant in in the classroom to help them work uh remotely with the students that are there so um and and Sam to just extrapolate on that uh we're not seeing any issues with Staffing of our classrooms right now because of teachers that need to be home and and covering with Tas we're not facing resistance from the teachers union there there's no issues related to Staffing preventing us from bringing students in it is purely me following the recommendations that we're getting from the health professionals that are saying with the rates of the community transmission the way that they are that it's not safe to bring people back to school uh if th that guidance should change from the health department or better off our metrics should change in our community we will immediately start bringing people back as soon as the data points in the right direction for two consecutive weeks I'll encourage too Sam uh uh you know at this point all idea all ideas are welcome ideas absolutely I mean really I mean this is this is where you know where new ideas come from so don't ever be afraid to throw something out um and ask a question appreciate it um and that goes for the rest of you too um so uh we need to go into a Clos session and we need to go into Clos session for two reasons one a NE ation when an action against affecting or on behalf of the district has been filed and is pending before a court or administrative tribunal or when the district finds that an action is probable or imminent in which case the basis for the finding shall be recorded and entered into the minutes of the closed meeting in second student disciplinary cases can I have a motion uh for that please so moved you're you're um muted there Julie thank you I'm sorry who seconded please uh who is the second okay Terry pavage hi cherelle Fuller hi Dan Nicholas hi Rick panado hi Joanna Vasquez Drexler you're muted uh Joanna what's I thank you and Mike deav for I okay we're GNA move in Clos session now when we um we there isn't going to be any action taken after Clos session oh so we'll stop broadcasting here so this will be the end of the broadcast we will uh on the meeting come out in a in a journ there will be no other action items uh following this so the the live broadcast will stop um our student board members will drop off uh as well as administrators that aren't involved in the closed session we'll have that discussion and then we will

we go community unit school district 308 board of education meeting can i have a roll call please mr bauman mrs doyle here mrs croner here mr lightfoot present miss morgan here mrs moyer here mrs swanson here please rise for the pledge of to the allegiance for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all as we have no public comment we can move directly to item 5.1 board member comments would anyone like to go first i can go first i actually have comments tonight i attended the 2020 resolutions committee for the illinois association of school boards virtually on november 14th it was a unique experience for me i'm sure i don't know if it's any different in being in person to be perfectly honest so we had several new resolution items that districts had proposed a couple of those had been not recommended and so we didn't even vote on those um so if you would like information on how those the results of those votes i think it was emailed so i just thought that was very interesting there were at one point the highest number of attendees was 289 out of how many school districts 852 52 yep so that was interesting as well but i actually yeah enjoyed that experience surprisingly but it was good i was glad i was able to be a part of that and participate and recommending things to recommend basically is what it is so there you go those are my comments anybody on that end sure um just because i thought it was fun and it involved our students i spent two 12-hour days uh last weekend in this building helping to officiate uh swim meets and the reason why i wanted to share this with you is not only because it was it was good to see kids from the district competing and doing things within the building but it was more that they were doing it safely and with masks and we had the two teams they were separated one in each gym and what i really wanted to share was i i can't count the number of times that parents that are officials from other teams said to me they can't believe how great a job our district does in staying safe and being able to prepare for and execute events and activities under covered restrictions the coaches went the extra step of recording a video on here's the door you come in here's where you're going to get your temperature checked here's where you're going to have to fill out this form you're going to go there and you're going to stand here and it went really well it was a couple long days but kids got to do what they've been training for so that was a good thing so kudos to our staff custodial staff and coaching staff for making these things happen thanks for sharing that brand appreciate that anybody else have anything they want to share just that i wanted to give a shout out to litany hamilton and heidi jezek for planning some parent coffees that are virtual um i think it's very hard on parents right now and these are things that are talking about handling e-learning self-care mindset for parents and mental health and i think we've talked a lot of times about how the students are fragile and how we have to watch out for that during over but parents are also fragile it's also a struggle for them so these coffees are a great idea i'm glad they're offering things like that i think the parents have to let us know if they need more and i know they need more and then i just also want to say that i'm hoping that we're going to make sure that all of our staff has the right equipment that they need during this time to stay safe no matter what they're doing especially our special ed teachers because they do a very hard job i've watched teachers that have to get up close with kids to carry them some of them diaper some of them do other things and we have to make sure that they have the equipment that they need to be as safe as possible and we also need to think about whether or not as the numbers change we're going to keep them in the schools or take them out of the schools to keep them safe because they're precious people because they do something that is hard to do are you also going to talk about the food pantry oh he's got that one yeah okay um so i the only thing i want to add in here is just um i wanted to kind of give a shout out to our director of communications tonight um teresa comedis has been kind of working 24 7 7 days a week to be the point of contact for every piece of information being filtered down from the department of public health from the governor's office and as we know that is now changing again every day at 2 30 and the amount of work that this one person is doing who also volunteers in her own community as a school board member and is e-learning with several children at home as well um not that it's not happening everywhere but what i have seen over the last week is just something that as a as a board member i am intensely grateful for but as a parent i'm even more grateful for because i still have the opportunity to find things on our website and i understand that they can't get changed instantly um but she does a pretty darn good job with her team of making sure that our entire website gets updated just as fast as it can even though the stuff is changing every 24 hours so i just wanted to give a shout out to theresa who can't be in here because we again are limited to 10 people but we we don't necessarily deserve her and she is very appreciated so i wanted to make sure i made that comment because the amount of information that i've been reading through the last few days is enormous it's it's it's great work mrs doyle i appreciate you saying that we uh i probably spoke to teresa 10 times this weekend and hershey faith and i and dr hildebrand were on the phone for a couple hours regarding different situations yesterday and she is she's doing a absolutely wonderful job and like you said she is working seven days a week so we appreciate everything that she's doing for 308.

microphones brown yeah johnson here hillenberger here nolan here rabe here gorman here if we get a motion in a second to prove tonight's agenda second brown yes yes please join us in reciting the pledge of of the united allegiance of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right thanks to everyone who came out tonight and those at home um watching on our youtube channel so um dr stern or more visitors um yes i'd like to recognize our vice president president of the teachers association thank you for being here and i'm excited to also have um director paula by with us to give us an update tonight on the work that continues to occur in our district and then a special presentation i'd like to um recognize uh that we have athletic director steve diversity dave simmons and sandra mcguire with us who had this this great idea about this holiday basket drive and it's coming together um just amazingly well and i'm really excited about that presentation for the board excellent all right this time with public comment uh one person signed up mr chapman good evening i want to share with you the exemplary educators for the month of october the six educators that are being recognized are alicia basic emily hahn ashley kluan lisa scott noel karani and donna basic and so they are recognized by cea and best members and i did share a flyer with you guys a little bit earlier today so you guys have that so it's contactless and then next month i will share november's exemplary educators at the board meeting so thank you for your time great thanks i'd also like to mention that along with the exemplary educators of the month this week is american education week where we honor all our educators across our nation and um especially we honor our educators here in our district that have been doing a phenomenal job and we'll have something special planned for them a little bit later this week [Music] great move on action reports and we need a motion in second to discuss and approve the consent agenda second revenues and expenditures are in your board packet revenues are currently at 41.7 percent compared to 39.43 a year ago expenditures are trending at 27.43 compared to 29.61 a year ago and impact fees came in for a hundred ninety one thousand seven hundred fifty dollars and fifty three cents for 28 new home starts and then transition fees also came in at twenty thousand one hundred and twenty dollars and two cents this month the bills payable reports are typical for november there's one big bond payment in there for 5.555 million dollars and then northern cain's bills payable is also included [Music] due to our payroll and our nihip insurance bills increasing we continue to reach our daily ach limit about a year ago i had to to increase this and then we're at that limit again so i plan to increase the amounts for both the education fund and the payroll accounts to be able to cover these two expenses usually it's the first payroll of the month and those two kind of coincide [Music] and then another banking thing for our collateral we watch our collateral along with old second bank they monitor it monthly to make sure that we are fully collateralized um back when we were doing our referendum proceeds in 2017 we bumped it up a lot to make sure we covered the referendum dollars that came in and then over the last years we've been obviously we used up those referendum dollars so but we've never reduced our limit back so looking at the trends for our balances we're roughly seven to ten million dollars so i'm going to reduce our home loan letter of credit um down to 15 million so that still gives us room in case there is a bump in it but enough to cover where we've been truly at and we'll just watch it and increase it if we need to and then next on the agenda is our tentative levy so with that i have a short presentation that can that i'll share some more details with you any questions for date on that all right fam oh sorry again um not on that but the consent agenda i do sorry i didn't catch this before but i can't find the minutes and the meat in the pack i didn't notice that till today i read the through it yesterday if it didn't strike me yeah it didn't show up in the in my reports was that in there did anyone else get not get it or yeah like i'll say oh you're right it goes right though we'll have to let's extend the approval of those until next month about the table approval of the minutes from the consent agenda and accept the consent agenda with the tabling of the approval of the october minutes until the december meeting go move yes nolan yes oh sorry rabe yes brown yes yes the next motion and second to discuss and approve the tentative tax will be okay um so in your board packet or in the tax levy i have a whole memo explaining a lot of the stuff that will be in my powerpoint so i'm going to just kind of do quickly go through the powerpoint and not fully read my memo so so tonight's presentation is for the 2020 tax levy tentative tax levy the final levy comes out in december and it's due by this last tuesday in december of every year so we'll make sure we meet that deadline this first slide i'd like to show the trends of eav and new construction and kind of the total tax rate back in 2015 central's eav started going up which caused our tax rate tax rates to come down this is true as long as our percentage increase is high enough to cover the bond payment increases estimated eav this year is about 3.03 percent as opposed to 0.66 last year so last year was not even a full percent and then two other quick facts that i always like to remind people or refresh people back in 2015 the board abated one million dollars and then 2016 another half a million um just to help keep the tax rate to come down which shows in our big drops that we had there and then also when we were planning our referendum um our estimates came in our actuals came in lower than we originally anticipated so kudos to the board back then and and continue to try to keep our tax rates low so this slide just kind of shows those exact numbers on the previous slide just in a in a graph form so that way you can kind of see the relationship as eav goes up tax rates are going down and then in september kane county tax extension officer provides an estimated projection they call it their the actual projection is included in your board book um i didn't put it on the slide but in that report they give you their projected numbers in september and then when the final numbers come out um i've been recording them so you can see the september column for new construction then where it truly landed and as you can see the new construction numbers tend to go up from their projected to the final and then eav always goes down in the history so over with all of these changes we kind of track what goes up and goes down and then that's how we come up with where we think our estimated numbers are going to be so for 2020 the 14 1 is what they're predicting so i estimated 14 9 with a slight increase of last year was only 500 000 but years before it's like in the 1 million and 1.5 million so it kind of went a little bit higher and then the same with the eav it tends to go down last last year i think it was like five million dollars that went down which was a lot so i'm hoping it doesn't so we just did the two million on that one and then i did reach out to the king county tax extension last week just to see sometimes they kind of give you a sneak peek you know more revised numbers in september and they were identical numbers so didn't change my my projections um a quick overview there's four main variables that are used to calculate the tax levy on the screen you can see the four different ones you have your previous year's extension base at 43 million dollars your cpi at 2.3 percent and then the projected variables from the slide before is your 14 9 a new construction and 791 million for total eav and then these four variables get plugged into a more complicated spreadsheet and then it comes up with our estimated tax rate this slide doesn't change very much every year it's kind of always at the bottom but i like to keep showing because i always get asked the question why is our tax rate so high compared to other school districts and this is one of the biggest parts of it is that we don't have a lot of commercial it's not a secret that we're out in the country we just don't have a lot of commercial businesses and industrial to help offset the cost so you can see central is at the very bottom with the amount of commercial that we have so i just always like to kind of point that out so for my recommended levy for 2020 we're recommending 45 million 855 000 which is a 4.89 increase it is under the five percent um the five percent truth and taxation so if you know two truth and taxation hearings required no posting in the newspaper um because we kept it under the five percent um we expect to get 45 million five hundred thousand um which would be an increase in about one point eight million dollars for um for next year um bonded interest levy went up the interest payment went up about three hundred eighty seven thousand dollars so then if you put it all together with those increases your total funds would be about 4.37 increase so our anti anticipated tax rate you can see there's 2020 and 2019's numbers um we're estimating if those all these variables hold true 6.75 76 cents compared to 6.80 so the five cent decrease over last year um it's not a lot but every little bit helps um and then if eav comes in higher our tax rate will be lower and vice versa if it comes in lower than my projected then our tax rate might go up a little so just when analyzing all these different scenarios going back and forth this amount of the levy request should get us all the money that is available to us it'll help us continue to increase opportunities for our students while remaining fiscally responsible to our community and then usually march april we'll get the notice on what we're actually going to get and then we can move money around and then the last part normally when i first started here it kind of was trending 50 in the spring 50 in the fall in the last year and a half it's kind of shifted probably due to covet and then they were moving their tax payments delaying the interest and all that stuff it's kind of shifted to a 44 56 so the budget reflects that as well but we still if you were to total it we're still total collections we're still getting 99.6 percent of our taxes so they're still paying it's just the timing of it that's it that's very thorough thank you excellent thank you any questions or concerns for dana all right kellenberger yes nolan yes sorry brave yes brown yes jansen yes gorman yes the next week motion second to discuss and approve kylie gard is the student activity funds treasurer second and that also um jenny garner quit and kylie gard is replacing her so we would like to recommend her to be the treasurer for the activity accounts at the high school and then after approval i will get her added to the checking account for a check signer and all that fun paperwork so there's a resolution included in your packet for signature nolan yes brave yes brown yes johnson yes kellenberger yes gorman yes all right moving on to information items dr mangan would you like to update us on the remote learning so as we've been uh looking at how how is performance been going in terms of these unprecedented times one of the analysis that we're doing if you've paid attention to what's going on out in the nation and you hear us weekly report new york times chicago tribune everybody's talking about the numbers and d's and f's that students are receiving across the nation as we're undergoing both remote and hybrid learning so one of the analysis that we wanted to do is we had made the choice to actually try to bring students in face to face because we believe that having that face-to-face uh element is an important element for our students so i did a comparison at the middle school and high school level because primarily that's where we see our d's enough so that we have some at the elementary not at a a large amount so i did analysis of total marketing period i did a three year trend analysis because i wanted to do a comparative of students who had been in our system in just a normal traditional setting so we're looking at both 1819 which is traditional setting that they were in 1920 understanding that the grades at the end of 1920 didn't really count so this is first quarter so that we were in a traditional setting in first quarter for and then i looked at this year how did we fare in first quarter in all three areas what you're looking at here is the total number of grade marks so i took all of the 80s that students get in high school all the b's the students get and then i divided out by the enrollment to determine how many a's per basically student do we have uh to see if we had a standard trend that was going on and you can see in the past we sit about three eighths per student if you just averaged it out and when you look across the way we're actually a little high on the a side and it's interesting as i've been talking to other curriculum folks in the suburban area that's a standard thing everybody's seeing is the a's it's kind of we're calling it bipolar data it's kind of off to the side and skews the a little bit but we're a lot closer than other districts are we're very very close in terms of what that is but the interesting marker that starts to happen if you kind of look at the trends there you can see that for bees and c's c stay pretty consistent but your b's go to your c's your c's are transferring to your d's and your d's you're kind of transferring to your f's so we're seeing a reverse trend of what we'd want to see we're seeing more students that are getting d's and f's underneath this environment partly because we can imagine schedules trying to get kids engaged in the process and our teachers talk about student engagement how do we pull them in and some of those elements so then i wanted to do a comparison between my remote students only and my hybrid students because when you look at in totality it doesn't tell you a true picture on is there a difference between having students face to face versus having students in a remote only statute so the blue represents our remote students and the red represents our hybrid students and you can see for the most part that our hybrid students are performing at a much higher rate so having that connection even though for middle school high school it's two days a week having that personal connection making that face-to-face element having accountability to a teacher definitely is making a big difference as opposed to our students who are remote only at a rating where they're functioning at a higher rate than even the a's were previously and if you look at bees same thing we're still at a much higher rate of bees in the hybrid and then with the remote students sees it starts to pan out a little bit um but the good news is for our mold kids i mean for our hybrid kids you can see that our f's are way way down uh remotes are much higher than we'd like to see um not something that we would really not expect but i think it goes to the point that the board made the right decision when they decided to bring kids in face to face and to work with them and to get them the face-to-face connection with their teaching staff i also want to look at these because obviously these are borderline and going into the the wrong range of where i want them to be and i looked at the number of these comparatives so how many students had 1d how many students said 2ds 3ds etc so we can see if we had a major issue going on good news is you can see the numbers are pretty low for five b's which is good because there's six uh courses uh but when you look across the way you can see that we have a much larger increase of the number of students who are actually getting one d so you can see that you kind of slide from c's to d's which is something we of course don't want to see then i looked at it comparatively with remote students and hybrid students so we could see okay well let's purse out is there a difference between the students who are getting that face-to-face even if it is only two days a week versus those kids that are never coming to school you can see the enrollment numbers that we have on this uh 320 students are remote at the high school for first quarter and 992 are hybrid but when you look at that you can see definitely our hybrid students are a lot much lesser percent of those students are getting 1d 2ds they're still a little bit lower in 3ds they start to pick up at hybrid which is an interesting piece we'll we'll take up a little bit more and dig a little bit more into there but for the most part uh students are definitely performing much better in a hybrid model than what they are in their remote model we have a different uh um homework policy this year yeah compared to last year were like could this be that kids just haven't they have the five assignments they haven't turned in if they could potentially get full credit for so these rates might not be as accurate as they have been in the past well i think that no homework policy is consistent with what we've done traditionally so everything that we had done pre-covered went into effect this year in the student handbook was very made clear to the parents in our remote plan that we expected the same thing as we had in the traditional setting so we still expect the homework to be turned in we still expect to be doing all the work i think the challenge is that i think it's good that we're alternating the monday thursday because we're connecting with those teachers twice a week and not back to back but i think that trying to find that scheduling time taking into account you know we all know when you're at home it's difficult to stay focused on just work you have siblings you have parents that are doing things you have music you have tv you have all kinds of things you could be doing even as adults when we're home sometimes we throw a little laundry in instead of being focused we can't throw a little logger here but when we're home you know a few minutes here in a few minutes there it pulls you off your task so i think it's just them learning how to reschedule and learning some new strategies which i know our teachers are working diligently to kind of work with those individual students to try to help them along the way but i think it's just the change in pattern that it's not as consistent like it is at the elementary it's not daily you know it's only twice a week uh then i looked at the f's and you can see um obviously way more f's than we'd like to see um and you can see the enrollment off to the right hand side uh and you can see for the 2021 year we're you know about 40 somewhere between you know 40 to 50 um students more f's than we have in the past um with two f's were equal to what we were in 1819 but when we start to look then three four and five f so those are the kiddos that we might be a little bit more concerned with those would be the kiddos that maybe jeff herman or his crew is working with to try to get them on board teachers are working diligently with to figure out what's going on obviously we're very concerned with the five and six f's that means they're almost failing the entire quarter at the high school the good news is they still have a quarter to catch up but the middle school not so much that grade kind of sits there and kind of hurts them as they go along and then we looked at the f's between remote students and hybrid students and i think this is an important fact again uh so you can see that for sure the hybrid kids are outperforming uh by a large marker um from what those of the only kids are so having that connection and that face to face with their teacher is definitely making a difference um for those students um we look at the same thing at central middle school central middle school had a much better marker in terms of apps it's a smaller building i don't know if that's the part if it's a just a more tight culture but you'll see that cms very probably the best of all three schools and i think it may come to being a smaller unit but when you look at the comparative between 18 19 19 and 20 and 2021 they're at least their a's are sitting right there a little bit lower here could be rigor it's hard to say b stayed right there flat c's we had a few more c's in 2021 and a little bit inch up in both the d and the f mark across the way at central middle school looking at remote to hybrid again hybrid students outperformed for the a's but underperformed for the b's very slightly very close so they're almost matched to match uh for the b c's d's and f's uh f so much longer for the hybrid kids not much a little bit lower than the remote so you'd like to see an inverse there but overall it's a pretty solid line for central middle school and then students with these uh you can see we have quite a few more with d's uh but not more with 2ds more with 3d so it's up and down and when you're seeing zero it's like one or two students it's less than one percent so we just didn't pick it up on on the marker and then hybrid students with these again you can see the percentages fall within line we have more students that are hybrid with the d1d with two ds with 3d so we have almost the inverse here of what you would expect at cms interesting enough don't know why it's the only school that performed that way the other two schools performed the reverse of that and then with s you can see for 2021 and we have 20 which is not huge but it's still a lot more than what they generally see they usually have only five and so we have 20 kids with one f uh six kids with two fs so you can see for the f markers uh definitely we're seeing a lot more kids scaling off into hitting f's at central middle school there's similar percentages of kids full remote from cms to the high school yeah yeah um we have 76 kids that are remote only 76 kids and 260 that are hybrid but it's a much smaller population uh for f's at the hybrid school you can see the percentages so when you start looking at enrollment wise you can see those f's flip so it looks like a lot more f's when you look at it by proportion you look at the percentages you can see that fewer kids received enough just because of the proportion of the enrollment of how many kids are hybrid versus how many kids are remote because you only have 76 remote kids and you have 260 hybrid kids when you're going through this esther did you do you make a feel for the fact of how many of these what potentially yes due to incompletes rather than we had quite a change so when quarter one ended we had quite a change of kids who were sitting with incompletes and so they were not brought in we just picked those up so this does not include any incomplete so they shifted but i will tell you many of the students who are sitting at incomplete at the end of quarter one many of them were either near enough they didn't swing off so i'm guessing a student are missing assignments one of the things we saw in our staff survey uh was student engagement and part of the student engagement was work completion so are the kids actually completing their work is part of the elements that they're concerned with as a staff in terms of student engagement and then cranials you can see the same markers that i use for central high school and for cms you can see for 2021 um a's are already lying if you have to be between 18 19 19 20 right there b's are a little bit lower and you can see c's are sitting right there in the midline you're picking up a few d but your f range is really out of whack compared to where it's been in the two years pre-order so you can just guess that students are going from b to c c's to d's d's to f's so we're losing those kids about one one slide over for quarter one uh for hybrid versus remote students again you can see that our hybrid students are outperforming our own students consistently for both a's and b's pretty consistent with c's you know much lower with that much but quite a bit lower with d's and f's in terms of percentage so that's good to see and then he came out quarter one students with these uh you can see that's the number of students that have these uh so you see overall we have 310 students with 1d 27 which is in line 3ds is in mind 40's is a line so really the big marker is those kids are shifting from either bc to a d whatever is going on that's that one slide that's occurring and then students with d's for remote hybrid you can see that a larger proportion of remote students definitely have the 1d 2ds about 3ds it flips a little bit and then 40s it goes back to remote so overall our hybrid students are way uh performing uh those remote students so the choices that we made are panning out at least in the data um students with us again 46 so we're almost doubled um a little bit under 50 percent there in terms of the f's one half you can see our two f's are up three outs are up four f's are up five f's are up and six f's so definitely we have some challenges with some students who are disengaged trying to marry up those students and we're looking at those students to figure out how to intervene to figure out what's going on there to try to make connection but when you look uh you can see where they're sitting and definitely it's our remote student sitting at home we have some major challenges there to pick up what's going on with those kiddos at home how do we connect them to the school so we can see here again it's really really important for us to make those connections with those students see those students get those students into the doors of the school so our teachers can actually make those connections they're doing a great job of connecting with those kids that are here so i think the data kind of reflects that we didn't make the right decision and we did a good job and did what we should have done for kids any questions are we are we seeing any uh increase in the parents looking for to bring students back into the school no we saw almost an even split a few more that came back at the elementary school level but i would say middle and high was pretty much a shift at the high school moore went back out actually went more remote than hybrid um at the middle schools was a fairly fairly even swap okay are we seeing did any i don't know if you went down to this data you know when i was in high school you might have seen teachers that were way more likely to have people trending to d's and f's did anything stand out and if so how are we addressing those teachers specifically i'm currently crunching all the teachers to these students as well as on crunching attendance to students um to see if attendance is making a difference in there right now my attendance is not showing uh that that is making a difference i'm also looking at content uh it could be specifically not a teacher issue but it might be a content or a conceptual issue that might be more problematic or more difficult and how do we help intervene in that content area so right now i'm trying to dice all that out right now to take a look at all of that and um and try to determine how do we go about interventions and all of these classes are remote only it's strictly remote yeah so dedicated remote these are all dedicated uh no at the high school they do a mix of remote and um hybrid kids together so high school kind of has it all blended together in some cases there are some teachers that are just remote for some courses but because of scheduling we could not accomplish that so some of the teachers would have to do all of them at the middle school primarily for the core it's primarily remote only or hybrid um for the most part but the high school we had to blend just because of the way scheduling is and then physics and chemistry the nature of some of those coursework are you able from this data at all probably probably not because it's probably too early but are you able to identify whether actually we're getting better at this in terms of actually the teaching staff are actually getting more more sort of their debt to the process and it's actually being reflected through in terms of the grading or those are just too early to tell them i think it's true early quarter one was our first grading mark you're only nine weeks in and really was like eight weeks in and really was like five weeks in because we asked the kids do we ask the teachers to really get to know their kids and spend time so the content they covered here was probably a lot less than normal i think we'll see more i think qualitatively when i'm talking or getting survey results definitely i think staff is feeling more comfortable feeling a little bit better getting better at the resources getting better at jacking those things so i feel like qualitatively we're probably going to see better results but again it's not just the teaching it's also our students engaged how do we get them engaged are they completing their work how do we intervene with that how do we help parents one of the things we're talking about doing is a parent focus group with select groups of kids so as i get down into the data and pull a group of kids out maybe having focus groups with those parents and saying listen what do we need to do here we're really struggling we're getting these we're seeing this is kind of a common component of this group what can we do to help support you at home so i think that's probably the next piece we have to look at is how do we pull those focus groups together to figure out how do we work with them in partnership to help their students succeed i'm more concerned obviously at the high school level because it impacts their gpa it impacts their college growing rates it impacts all those things um and so how do we help parents help their students who maybe are disconnecting and they're at work and don't recognize their kids aren't doing what they should be doing we're still doing regular town halls with all the tc stuff right well what the director of town halls we're still doing town halls every tuesday town hall yes okay yep and i'm assuming that's bringing us some some feedback in terms of different things we can do and yep it's a totally consultative process for everybody right yeah we do that we just had ccc tonight we talked a lot about what do we need to do with the survey results so some strategies try to look at different elements there yep thank you in addition to that um we are beginning our 12th week of school without a covert related outbreak in our facilities this is really due to the diligence of everyone to follow the three w's by wearing their mask by washing their hands by watching their distance in addition to our our protocols are strong sanitation and disinfecting protocols that are in place and teachers and students adhering um to that but there is community spread throughout king county and last week i reported on friday that we have six positive staff and 16 other staff members with either symptoms or exposure and we also have many students that are out either due to exposure symptoms and 24 confirmed covet positive cases these are the current numbers and they don't represent staff and students who've already been cleared to return to school so the idph monitors schools outbreaks and no school district in king county has experienced an outbreak of covid in their buildings that said the positivity rate in king county is 16.7 percent and that percentage they would really like to see below eight percent um as the board knows i have weekly meetings uh with the regional office of education the king county superintendents and the king county health department in our phone call today with executive director barbara jeffers of the kane county health department she is calling for a two-week adaptive pause and what that would mean is that starting um next week when we do not have students in in school that would be week one of the adept applause and um she's calling for there to be only remote instruction during that period so next week it would not affect our students however the the week that begins on november 30th at monday november 30th through december 4th that would be the second week of the adaptive pause and during that week all of our students will be receiving their instruction remotely so um the king county schools will adhere to these guidelines so forth by the king county health department participate in that adaptive pause hopefully our numbers can start to come down a little bit another unknown factor is actions that the governor may take so we're currently in tier 2 mitigation and that is that tier 2 mitigation is set to expire the wednesday before thanksgiving so next a week from this wednesday um however there's been some indication that the governor may take um a swifter action if he if he deems that he needs to but we are following the advice of the ken county health department we will participate in that adaptive pause and information will be sent out to staff and families tonight related to that the students who work on the hybrid schedule how will they be taught during that course period we're going to work with um our administration and our teaching staff to make sure that our students that we're in the hybrid model are taking whatever materials they would need home for that remote instruction and then teachers will follow the schedule that they're they follow now and they'll just be remote instruction for all students and we're we're prepared for that way what does what we've made we've made preparations for this yes well we will be prepared for this well what we will be doing is giving staff an option so students will be our staff teachers not all staff teachers will be able to choose to either teach remotely from home and or remotely in their classroom right obviously our expectation is that the same instruction that we have put forth to this point is still up here adhered to no matter where they're teaching so we still want that synchronous instruction that we've always required we still want the same instructional pedagogy to be occurring i think for the biggest group that's going to have challenges will be our elementary group because they haven't gone remote i will say that all along we've told teachers to get prepared in the event we go remote so nobody should be surprised we've told they need to get on campus they need to get everything set up they need to be teaching as if they're going to go remote so that has been a plan since day one we've communicated that articulated that had conversations multiple times regarding the expectation that they need to be prepared because we didn't know uh at what point we would be you know i think we always said it's not if it's when uh this were to happen to us you need to be prepared so i do feel pretty confident that our teachers are ready um i also feel confident that if they don't have the materials at home that we will open the doors here at school and have them come into the schools to instruct so that they can use the tools that they may need here because they may not have those same services as tools at home but we're giving we're giving them the option to to do either right we're teaching staff the rest of staff we still have to work out the schedules and all the we just found out today so now i'm working on you know bus drivers cooks all of those other supported services and exactly what that looks like will be our next task tomorrow okay and none of the supports that people were using in the schools will be available so like those people that have their kids in the cafeteria after whatever we were doing in the district right for other child care and stuff like that all that will be closed no we were told that daycare can still uh maintain and stay here so we believe that we can continue with the daycare that we currently have in place they're not shutting down daycares they're just asking that we take a pause here in education so we'll do the two-week pause but still maintain i think the programs that are here will continue to happen i know we have administration who uses some of those daycare elements as well so we hope to keep maintaining those processes already in place did she give a metric as far as what needs to be seen the friday before or the friday of the second week there was no there was no sub metric it was just that um hospital uh hospital visits are on the rise hospital admissions are in the right eyes positivity rate is not turned around and so um and she did emphasize that look the spread is not coming from schools i mean she emphasized that and the phone call with us but that said it's time to really try to you know just bring things down and bring that positivity right down if we can and so that's why they're calling for the two-week adaptive pause which i anticipated that at some point they would be calling for that um based on the fact that our numbers haven't really turned around since the end of october for a region one of the big issues i mean is obviously a question of dependability rather of of schedules right how much notice will will be given or expected to be given for what happens next after that well again we we have our weekly we have our weekly updates and um we'll still continue with those weekly updates through the adaptive pause and we continue to look for guidance from isb and from the governor's office as well um that said as of right now that the message was is that the the goal if at all possible is to bring the students back for the two weeks before the winter break okay but we i mean we like to sort of call that the day before or a week before no we would not want to call it the day before but a week before um maybe too soon that's too soon yeah okay yeah i think it depends on what kane county health department says and the governor i i think the other challenge we're up against and one of the reasons we chose to give teachers choice is we have a lot of daycare issues right so if a school shuts down that means our teachers have nowhere for their kids to go as well and i'm not comfortable having kids just in our buildings while teachers are teaching some districts are allowing that i am not comfortable allowing that for liability reasons as well as trying to keep the buildings clean for our custodial staff um so it would be our preference that teachers work within the buildings if at all possible but i just feel like it's very difficult to do that and i believe it's very difficult to figure out what we're going to do with some of our other support staff um given that we just found this out today trying to figure out and plan for that and communicate that with them so they're prepared for next week because most of our support staff like our paraprofessionals lmcads those individuals do not work next week our teachers work on monday tuesday but the other individuals are off for the week and i'm glad you brought that up because parent-teacher conferences will go forth as planned um next week teachers will be present for parent-teacher conferences is there any likelihood of splitting grade levels and saying we really recommend the pause continue for 612 but we can bring k5 back do you anticipate being all or nothing this at this point it's currently notice now but in the future there could be um an adaptive pause that's called for a specific building and it might not be for a two-week period it could be for a one-week period but it could be up to two week period and that could be for an individual classroom that could be for a wing of a building that could be for an individual building in the school district there was one district that questioned about the high school like they could see maybe having an adaptive pause for their high school but their their elementaries they wanted to be able to keep open uh but for this adaptive pause it's um all school facilities closing for the two weeks did she say she discussed this with the governor with the illinois department of health well not with the governor but it was with uh she stays in close contact with the other directors in the illinois department of public health he's hoping to get an update from the governor hopefully in the near future and just to clarify we're required to follow this we follow the recommendations of the idph and the king county health department so there's issues that that that come up that come in play related to liability if you would go against the guidance of those governmental agencies okay can that communication will go out tonight yes to staff into families again the one thing i would stress that i hear from from everybody is the the whole question of just certainty knowing what what is coming up and giving people as much notice as possible and i'm sure we're aware of that but it's it's worth passing back if you can i'm sure everybody else is worth that too but it's and we spoke about that today in our full conference about staying ahead of that in the communications center thank you thank you all right next director holloway has an update for us on building grounds including gym restoration so thank you first thing i'd like to do is introduce a new member of our supervision team uh we were lucky enough to hire this uh gentleman i think he's going on three weeks now for our second shift supervisor vacancy uh mr nick demius he's our new second shift supervisor so bringing him on has been a great asset to uh helping our cleaning routine he brings a lot of experience to the department and he's been a great asset in a short time he's been here so i wanted to introduce you to him um the summer report that we're going to present that's in your board packet was something that we've talked about the last couple months and how we utilize our work order system school dude and gathering of data um i can't take full credit for this presentation as mandy's and esther both work very hard and helping put this together i'm just the lucky one that gets to to share it with you guys but we've we've taken the data we've broken it down there's a lot of things in school do that we could do as far as categories and organization so we broke this data down strictly to the custodial areas and then more specifically to cleaning so in your in your report you have some more details of our work order so we pulled for the last two months all of our work orders that were categories as custodial in action is custodial so in your report you have all of those what's in the presentation here is just that's been related to cleaning so in your report the green highlighted ones are the custodial ones that are reflected in the report and the white ones are custodial ones that were moving items or building things or setups or things like that um so we kind of looked at it by tickets and um wanted to break it down to show what our staff does on a regular on a regular basis and how we handle those things and then the time parameters so you could see the high school and country trails have the vast majority of the tickets in this last two month period and this is just custodial tickets so this is not maintenance tickets we probably do almost double this work on a regular basis but this is just strictly custodial so we broke it down by the the time parameters for how long it takes a ticket to get closed out so when a staff member submits a ticket it comes to our office a copy of it goes to the building principal a copy of it goes to our office and then our office disseminates those tickets to the appropriate staff member whether it's a day custodian night custodian maintenance make sure it's categorized correctly and we break that down we disseminate those tickets so we do that regularly all of our supervisors throughout the day to try to turn these around the same day cleaning cleaning tasks things about disinfecting all those kind of items we try to turn around within 24 hours of the same day so at the high school we turned around 21 of those tickets in the same day and then within 48 hours is kind of our guide based on um the necessity of the job or the you know how important the job was within 48 hours is kind of our guideline to get tickets turned around um so at central middle school we turned around uh 22 22 of those open tickets in that time period in the same day and then within one day uh additional 15 so less than 48 hours at central middle school prairie knolls pretty similar the vast majority of them turned out same day and then one day country trails where we had a large amount of tickets over that last two month period uh 29 of them same day and then again the rest of them within 48 hours country trails we've had a lot of tickets we've had a lot of staff training at country trails country trails has had a lot of tickets generated for some repetitive type items that our staff we just needed to do some additional staff training so a couple of vast majority of those tickets were from the same staff member um so we we encourage staff to put in those tickets that's how our we've never claimed to be perfect we we work hard to be the best we can but we use these as a training time and a time for to have nick go out with staff a couple of those we put in all that detail information so that feedback goes right to the staff members we want staff to put in tickets when they have issues that helps us do our job um better again within everything within 48 hours slowly like the same thing lilly lake has got just because of the size of the building that staff is is pretty good but the size of the building is why why you have a limited number of tickets uh pv again within 48 hours and then the total ticket completion i think this is a great slide this is something that we're pretty proud of that we're going to share we're going to do a staff meeting with our staff to share this data with them also that the vast majority of the tickets that refer to cleaning and sanitation and stuff were getting done in the same day and then everything within 48 hours we're proud of that our staff is working really hard to make sure we keep up with that we've made that a priority nick's made that a priority next training um each of our new staff members individually going through a procedure and process with them to make sure that they're up to speed on everything so we're pretty proud of that data i hope this is a good representation for the for the board on what we do and how we do things congratulations thank you thank you thank you to your team as well great thank you any questions about that i think for the board i mean i know this is something that you requested and so we'll do this on a month by month basis i'm guessing you don't want him to report out monthly but maybe you do do you want it just in your board packet or do you want him to report it out monthly for you board packet yeah so we'll hopefully putting it in the board packet on a month by month basis so you can see the the breakdown now unless you want to present every month i'd be more than happy to present as much as you want to hear me actually i may turn it over to nick so that works out well i i have one question and an uncomment but the the question is who signs off the ticket to make sure it's finished so our super so between myself and my two other supervisors we randomly go through tickets we see every ticket that's open and every ticket that's closed okay we ask our staff to put in action taken and then we monitor those closed tickets and go through if there's a room in particular we've had some issues with or a staff member that that has some questions or something like that we our supervisors follow up on all those clothes look at this clothes by whoever was actually resolving the problem we actually did the one you got it afterwards perfect okay correct yeah and my comment is well it's it's actually really sort of just a thank you to you and your team for not just the hard work you've done which means it's a given i mean unfortunately but it's actually embracing the process because this is this is actually something that you can sort of you can hold up your head's applied to everybody absolutely i appreciate that thank you we did it yeah unfortunately haven't done it once need to keep it up we we will do our darndest well done guys thank you thank you would you also speak to the gym yes so um so we have a couple of projects that we're working on that jim roof and and we finished finally finished wrapping up the the high school gymnasium from the water damage and the new gym floor tech is not my uh expertise you have to disconnect pictures there we go so that's the the final version so the gym has been wrapped up we replaced the bleachers we repainted the ceiling painted the walls mr diversity is going to be updating some wall pads um the stain paint so as a result of the the water damage we were able to between insurance and o m funds able to get the new bleachers put in so those bleachers match the the upper bleachers and here's so we went with uh a two-tone stain um again like we do a lot of our things we've we looked at a lot of mock-ups a lot of different opportunities and we like to make sure our stuff stands out and and something our students and our coaches can be proud of to to play on in the community and i think i think we created a pretty pretty awesome gym here um so that project is finally wrapped up insurance money's been been received and and it worked out well so in the last couple weeks um also ongoing at the high school right now is the roof coding which caused us to have to do this that roof is is getting coated as we speak so weather dependent within the next two weeks that 20-year warranty uh roof coating will be completed and then we can protect this new gorgeous gym and the music room and everything else that was damaged because of that because of that roof so those are the two major things any questions about anything great work on that thank you thanks thank you all right that's the athletic director diversity we'll update this status of our winter sports okay so as we know um there's been a disconnect that started between the hsa and idph back in july well as we're currently still sitting here that disconnect has not gotten any better as you've heard through all the media but uh just to kind of give you a quick recap october 27th it started again when uh governor christie decided to announce that basketball was going to go from medium risk to high risk the day before ihsa was going to announce whatever they were going to announce so in turn then on the 28th ihsa director craig anderson came out and announced that their executive board said hey we're moving forward with basketball it's up to each local school to do what's best for yourself so you can only imagine what kind of turmoil that caused amongst everybody well little did we know that night there was a flood of emails to superintendents from you know and that same email went to all of the legal firms that represent all these school districts so then between eight and ten in the morning you could just imagine the amount of phone calls from district offices to ads to lawyers to everybody else trying to figure out what do we do you know how do we proceed so as a school district here it was a pretty short conversation between dr stern and myself we're going to follow the recommendation of legal counsel and you know idph and isb because and he said so graciously how can we go against what they're saying for sports but we can't bring our kids and we have to follow those guidelines and as he alluded as he alluded to earlier um we would void out legal representation we would void out insurance and we normally cannot put our district in that type of a risk for one season or that we just don't know you know because it's a high risk so we're going to say we're going to play you know through that though we had a lot of ihsa webinar meeting where we had hundreds of ads on with ihsa and we were doing straw polls and the final one came out about eight percent of the schools said they're gonna play well a lot of that eight percent the dominoes kept falling as november 16th was getting closer and closer and closer but uh you know we stayed firm with what we said you know we don't feel it's smart and safe to run a high-risk level sport without the proper recommendations from idph so we we didn't waver off of that we weren't going to offer a sport that put our district in huge jeopardy for liability for everything else and then of course the easiest most fox valley conference we decided as a group we're not offering basketball and we didn't come out like all the other surrounding conferences publicly and submitting a conference letter to the newspapers you know we just decided as ads and principles we're going to make the decision as a whole and stay united now every school was contemplating do they run open gyms because with that decision to move forward with basketball yeah we could practice but what happens is if they truly cancel the season and we start practice then that really handcuffs our community because now those kids can't go play aau or go do something outside because once you officially start your season you can't do anything travel or outside related until your season is done so the ihsa firmly says they're not canceling anything they're just going to keep moving it so all that does is just hurt our kids so we're we're not moving forward with anything until we get clear direction and then the last piece with our decision which supports everything is the duquesne conference which is the saint charles geneva they came out you know in the last week publicly and canceled our old conference cancelled so we're falling right in line with everything around us and we feel pretty good about it the last piece is issa did invite the governor's office and a lot of other agencies to their meeting this thursday publicly governor pritchard came out today and said he will not be in attendance he's not sure if anybody from his office will be there so once again we're not really sure what's going to translate from the thursday executive board meeting but you know nothing surprises us when when they meet and we get information so but what does that mean for us we're still moving forward with our low risk sports so cheer and dance started today um and you know it was great we had i think it was like 14 dancers and about 30 some of the cheerleaders in the field house so it's kind of nice to see them coming in they're meeting all the requirements you know with the check-ins and all the other procedures so you know we're confident doing that we're gonna we're still gonna offer our individuals opportunities that we do in the winter so in the past we had one male diver so if they have a culminating activity you know we'll sign him up and he can go dive we had one gymnast last year and if they're still going to offer that we'll sign her up as well so the low risk opportunities that we have we'll still continue to offer those you know pending work in school and doing those things so any questions on the status of winter sports i would say that we remain hopeful that um idph and the governor's office and ihsa can't come together because the governor is indicated he's moving basketball to the spring that could potentially be problematic for athletes who participate in numerous sports so um we still are hopeful that these groups can come together and reach a compromise that's that's best for our students that's that's what we're hoping and i guess we're going to get a good gauge on thursday when they have their next executive board meeting and to see if they want to you know not put the burden on the schools because i think that's that's a tough choice for school districts to make because you know it's one of them is if you go down that road you take on liability if you don't come to that road you could have a community that's upset because we're not playing so i think health and safety is the number one key and that's you know everything we use to make our decisions that's our number one at the forefront so hopefully we can get it figured out i know there's a lot of different things thrown out there truncating the remainder of the year with all the different seasons so there's no overlap you know it's one season at a time at this point and we hope we get it whatever we can and that's that's and trust me i want to play basketball with the rest of them because that's an awesome gym so but we'll get there when we can um you addressed high risk sports and lower sports what about armenia versus sports where they fall in so right now we don't have any medium risk winter sports so you're just fully winter yeah i'm just i'm just commenting strictly on winter what's in front of us right now but yes volleyball which is our next sport is a medium risk so there would have to be mitigations put in place you know to be able to offer volleyball in a competitive level you know because it has to be low risk in order to compete high risk there's no cop the the reader's not just high risk no contact so it's pretty much skills six feet apart you know skills and drills and that's it medium risk you can do it squad only and then low risk you can compete outside within your covered region and i address middle school a little bit yeah so middle school is kind of a unique beast all by itself because they don't some sports we do idsa some sports we do not so they just governed by the ncjc so the middle school ladies have met and they've decided they're going to run more on an intramural form skill based only so i know they're planning on moving forward with volleyball on november 30th but it's all skill based so you know which i think from a foundation standpoint sitting at the high school level this is gonna be the greatest thing for the seventh and eighth graders because now you're gonna spend your you know four six weeks just honing in on skills because so many times we get caught up in just game play gameplay gameplay we don't get our kids foundationally better so i think i think that's really going to help us you know yes we also want to play we're competitive in nature but you know trying to always find that silver lining in what is good so i i know that's the approach they're going to um the only thing that we worry about and i talked with uh the two middle school athletic directors is the numbers you know because we have to adhere to that 48 because we usually have two coaches if there's four coaches then it's 46 you know in that one space so we could be limiting opportunities for some of our kids at that seventh grade level where our numbers are really huge so it's kind of trying to figure out what that balance is can we stagger well so he's going to say trying to figure it out sport by sport because if it is a skill base my recommendation was like you said staggering you have an eight day day rotating different kids you know on those days so we don't we don't uh deter anybody from coming out with so but that's what i told them right now volleyball is on their forefront basketball would be their next basketball and cheerleading would be their next season which wouldn't be until february so we're working closely with them and trying to make sure they're following the medications that are set forth and we want to get as many kids involved as we can that's that's ultimately the key very thorough thank you holiday food drive next all right so i'm just going to introduce the two people that have been uh anxiously waiting to talk about this and then i will wrap it up but uh for the past nine years uh i'll just give the quick intro we've done some sort of food drive at the high school and since xander's been up at the high school and even when she was at pk she started a nice initiative so i'm going to bring up david zander to kick off and kind of talk to you about what our holiday food drive is this year and like i said then i'll wrap it up when they're done good evening so i think i'll just kind of piggyback off what steve said if you guys remember especially esther and todd back in 2014 we did this operation holiday food drive and it was through dlt and we ran it through all the buildings and we supplied food baskets for about 55 families in need now you fast forward to 2020 and a pandemic and we're at i think we were almost at 500 we narrowed it down to like 259 families so we decided to take on this initiative with our student council because in looking at everybody's slides and their presentations between esther and steve these kids want to get involved they want to do something they want to feel valued or they want to be of value they want to help others so we dave and i were just trying to think of ways that we could do get them involved and help the community and we were just going to do a food drive for the local pantries and the three of us started talking and then we kind of talked about why not do it for our own district so the brainchild was was born and it is quite an initiative when steve came back to dave and i and said 259 were like my gosh so every school is playing a huge part in this they're collecting specific items that it's and they are shipped every day to the high school dave and i steve set up tables kind of like this we've been separating the food by category and the kids will start playing a part in this tomorrow and then thursday and friday and i think i feel like i'm going to talk too much and i'll let dave kind of come in and finish this up um yeah it and we really appreciate giving the opportunity because like xander was saying they they just really want to make a difference and we've been able to see that you know they're really latching on to the idea of trying to make things better for people so it's just been really fulfilling to see kids take that kind of role in that initiative and it's it's moving along really well um tomorrow like sandra said we are in the process of putting the boxes together it's 259 boxes uh each of the schools is participating with various products that we're asking to bring in some of those are perishable some are non-perishable um steve secured the ability to use the the freezers to hold the turkeys because people have already bringing those in but i started looking at the numbers and it's like eight items per school plus buildings and grounds transportation so i mean we're talking about putting like 64 items in each box that would go out to 260 families now realistically we're probably not going to be able to fill every box with 60 plus items but at this point what we're trying to do is get an idea of how many items we actually have so we're creating a spreadsheet to go up there tomorrow and take a look at okay what items are we short in what items do we have a surplus of and then we can kind of fill in the gaps from there but i think just the idea of being able to make a difference and provide people and families with something is is going to be good for the entire community um the publicity is being pumped out left and right through various social media platforms um i'm i'm i i am horrified to admit i took part in a tick tock with two other staff members support for and it didn't go well but but we made the attempt just to try to get people informed and excited about participating in this so um we hope the the enthusiasm kind of continues and we expect it that it will and we're planning on having the boxes done by the end of this week getting the turkeys in there next week and sending the boxes out to families on monday and tuesday transportation department yep transparency yes you know i think everybody is playing an essential piece to this yeah community effort so just to kind of wrap up this uh the small little beast kind of took on a life of its own and i went to the athletic boosters with an early on meeting saying hey what can you guys do to help support this initiative and so they decided to open up you know a square up donation link and they're going to eat all the cost that it takes to run the square up which i'm not really sure what that is but uh as of 12 o'clock today they've generated about 7 500 in donations um next generation pediatrics uh they donated a 25 myer gift card for every box and she bought i want to say it was like 270 because besides the list that pam and i pam generated for me um it really was 508 of our students which kind of dwindled down when you condensed that to families it was 308 and then i'm like okay 308 is a really scary number what what is our truly free and reduce that don't pay fees and that was at 259 but then we've had principals reach out and say hey this family really needs to be on that list so that next generation came up with those meyer gift cards tonight we received a thousand dollar donation from the education foundation in the district and then clients farm reached out and they're gonna bring a squash for every box so i'm not really sure how they're gonna that's a lot of squash but uh i said we'll figure it out yeah oh i know and i'm like we'll take whatever we can you know and then i can tell you i know myself i'm sure xander and dave are getting it because those are the emails on there but just to pouring support from all the community hey do you need help loading boxes do you need help with this what can we do you know where can we drop food off because my my student doesn't go into a school i'm like pick the closest school that you live by and drop it off at the main office and you know thanks for your support so you know this is why this district is fantastic because a lot of a lot of like in the booster portion they're like holy cow we never realized this you know because they live in their little communities they didn't know but when we have a crisis or we have families in need everybody steps up and that's why you know this this district is is truly awesome and i would have never figured when we painted the mural on the wall in the gym and we thought we are central how how awesome of a saying that was back then we're like yeah that sounds kind of cool but it's really taken on a life of its own and now it's on the gym floor and it really truly is a great phrase of what we are as a district and this is just one small you know token and really without damon xander really spearheading all this and uh not being scared when i come with all these crazy ideas and numbers but uh you know we we don't know how to fail and we're not going to we're going to not let these families down and it's going to be great so we just wanted to bring this to you and kind of give you an update because i know you've seen the communications and it's nice to really know why do we decide to do this and even just kind of going back to the kids and their um obsession i think with just being involved as much as they can right now because of this remote environment they really need this but trying to figure out how we're going to get them into the building to pack up these wealth states socially distance so that's going to problem solving and trying to figure all this out and they have to leave the building then they have to come back to the building and they're still willing to do it you know these kids are remarkable thank you guys and what we've talked about before like what what you've done with supporting toys for tots in the past with the food drives with mentoring um our students it's just so because what we do in the district is more than just the academics it's really preparing our students to to so that they can go off and become leaders in their vocation and their family in the community and this is a great way where they're modeling their leadership you know for the community like you said we are central and your leadership with this is just amazing i remember when director diversity first brought this up in one of our admin meetings and he gave us the numbers and i'm like my first thought is wow that's big and he even admitted this is big but you know he goes we're not going to fail we're going to make this work and just the way that since then it's been so blessed by your leadership and by by our community just stepping up it's just amazing it does reflect on why this district is so special thank you next we have an update on the efe 110 intergovernmental agreement yes so um as the board is aware we became both the fiscal and the administrative agents for the northern king county regional vocation system efe 110 and as part of that then we need to update our intergovernmental agreement in the school districts that that comprise this are district 300 uh saint charles 303 district 246 and district 301 our district so we worked together on this our government agreement and um the superintendents ratified that agreement um on november 11th and never bring it to the board as information we're going to have legal counsel look at it one one last time but then we'll be bringing it forward our plans to bring it forward to the board for action in december we did receive a foil from local labs requesting guest speaker contracts for school year 2019 20 and then for this school year we weren't able to comply with the contract list mostly they were either guest speakers um that we had the wake-up call presentation there was a contract that we had on we brought in a wake-up call for our parents at a parent university um there was also numerous authors that we've brought in and some other performers that we brought in for various schools throughout the district so we're able to comply all right let's do it for public session we need motion and second to adjourn second rape yes brown yes johnson yes kellenberger yes yes

good evening everybody I am happy to welcome you to first part of our open house this evening uh I want to thank all the people who helped me put this evening together and I just want to start off by letting you know a little bit about the format uh from 5:45 to 6 we're going to talk about the elll program um so that's from 5:45 to 6 and then from 6:00 to 6:15 we'll be talking about um the special ed program and then from 6:15 to 6:30 we'll be uh having an all school meeting and then after that you'll go to the team meeting I'm gonna go ahead and introduce myself my name is Diego Sharon I'm the principal uh I know that for many of you this might be the first opportunity you've had to see me uh it's certainly been uh a a strange year in that regard um um but I'm I'm happy that some of you are joining us and I'm going to go ahead and introduce us Alisia who's going to help me or I should say uh who's going to help me with uh talking about the LOL program in general so um Alicia welcome Miss Lopez sorry that's okay that's okay thank you Mr Sharon good evening everybody it's great to to be here so my name is Alicia Lopez and I am one of the elll teachers at Amis Regional Middle School and so we're going to tell you a little bit about our program um tonight and I'm going to share a slideshow okay is that visible there it is great okay so again I'm going to tell you just a little bit about the elll program um and then after I speak we will welcome ingred Hopkins who is one of the other elll teachers so what is the elll program elll stands for English language Learners in other places it's called ESL English as a second language and we work with students who are learning English as an additional language and I say additional because many students already speak two three or more languages so it's not always English as a second language um but here in Amis We call we call this group English language Learners and I am one of the teachers along with Miss Hopkins and Miss A and Miss Hopkins also teaches at Wildwood and miss a also teaches at the high school so a little bit about what we teach we support the students in learning English in four areas Reading Writing listening and speaking skills and the subjects we teach are English social studies Advanced elll language development and oral communication and of course some students are just beginning to learn English and just came to this country recently and some students have been here for a long time um but have another language that they speak at home and sometimes they still need support with some with academic language or the language that we use in school and that's what we help them with in the elll program so briefly I just want to um tell you some ways that you can keep in touch with school um there is a school messenger and I'll show the flyer in a second um and if you you can opt in and receive texts from the school with information announcements about things that are happening um Miss Hopkins and I both use talking points which texts in your language so we send a text or um an email in English and it automatically translates to up to 100 different languages so that's how we usually try to get in touch with people um um of course you can always feel free to um to email us as well and let me just show them this is the school messenger information so if you want to participate in school messenger you can send a text message to this number 6758 7 and just message why or yes and then you will get um information from the school this flyer um I think this is available maybe on the website I'm not sure I I'll will go ahead and send the link out to that in a in a commun and this is in multiple languages so it's in English Spanish Portuguese okay um and now I'm going to introduce Miss Hopkins so miss Hopkins is the other elll teacher and she is going to tell you more about the program continue your slideshow Miss Lopez yeah yeah I can I'll just keep sharing it thank you okay so how can you well I should say hello I'm ingred Hopkins the students call me Miss Hopkins and um I'm so happy to be working with your students um so how can you help your child to be successful in this this distance learning time first of course waking up on time that's not easy for Middle School the first class is at 9ine in the morning and of course students work best with some breakfast it's wonderful if they can have a quiet workplace a place with a desk maybe or even a quiet place in their room um with no TV in the background no music no phone that's the best of course we we hope you will encourage your child to check their their email and their Google Google Classroom page every day so they can see what they need to do for school we hope you will encourage them to turn on the camera on their computer so when they are in our classes we can see them and we can see if they are listening if they are learning we can help them better when they have their camera on and we encourage them to come to visit our classes after school between 2:30 and 3 the teachers can give extra help to your child if they need help in school um yes we of course we love for all our students to participate by speaking out loud and if they are shy at least to use the chat um but of course talking is the best for learning so we just want to say last of all that uh we are so pleased to have such a rich community of international students of bilingual students we value this strength of yours of your children's and um we are grateful and honored to have them in our community um because we understand they bring a very special uh unique perspective and um and so we welcome you and we hope you will let us know how we can support you in any way if you have trouble with computers supplies or you have questions please reach out to us we want to support you and thank you have a wonderful open house thank you Miss Hopkins so I I want to just add to what Miss Hopkins say about our students we feel so lucky to work with them um and that we just love them and are so proud of everything that they're doing especially during distance learning so thank you for listening to us and Mr Sharon back to you uh thank you I appreciate that Miss Lopez and Miss Hopkins I um I wanted to just um check in and um and and just share how important this program is to me I'm sorry I was distracted by something share how important this program is to me and to share with you um that when I uh first came and began my career as a student uh it was after uh moving from South America from Colombia where I'm from and I remember very clearly just what a challenge it was uh to show up in school uh in my case it was Kindergarten uh but I have very clear memories of just how nervous I was on the first day of school and just what a challenge it was uh to work hard and to try and learn the language and I know that when we're working with middle school students uh it become it only becomes more difficult as they get older and so it's really important uh to me that they have um and and I'm grateful for the the uh the work and support they get from Miss Hopkins and Miss Lopez um and and I just want to make sure that people are uh uh aware of the fact that we realize that I'm sorry we realize that um um that it's a it's a difficult time because uh having the opportunity to practice English is something that students could really benefit from and we did have that opportunity earlier in the year uh but we W to you know and that was a a really important time for us but I I do want to try and encourage families and students as much as possible uh to make opportunities to practice English and to get help and as Miss Lopez and Miss Hopkins said uh to feel free to reach out for support uh during that time uh so thank you so much to everyone uh for joining us for this part of the uh of the um presentation we're talking about the elll program uh I'm going to be moving on in just a moment um and we're going to be uh moving on to the next part of the program where we're going to be talking about the special ed special education uh program here at arms but I just want to be clear and make sure that that people know that at 6:15 we're going to be having an all school meeting and so whether or not you would like to stay and learn about the special ed program uh you're certainly welcome to uh but nonetheless we want to make sure that beginning at um at 6:15 everyone comes back for um for the program for the um uh for the all school meeting okay thanks so much thank you thank you and so let's see I think um so I also just want to take a moment to let everyone know that there is a um website if you haven't already been there that has the information and schedule for this evening uh I just put the link um in the comments um but it's also you can also find it through the um you can also find it through the Arps website so if you go to arps.org arps.org uh you'll be able to find that information there um I realize now that the um is the link available or do you see the link there in the chat no okay so it so if you do need that link you could either check the emails that everyone received today or you can go to the arps.org website arps.org and from there you'll be able to um click the link for the middle school openhouse and join us um from there so thank you for your participation we're going to be starting the special ed meeting in about two minutes hi everyone welcome back to our open house I know we're having uh our staggered meetings uh and we just had our e meeting with which we concluded a moment ago with Miss Lopez and Miss Hopkins uh we're going to be talking about the special ed program at arms in just a moment um and I'm going to go ahead and uh um wait just a couple more minutes for people to join uh I know the invitation uh and the links uh I see some students I'm sorry some people who are joining now uh so from 6:00 to 6:15 we'll be talking about the special ed program at arms and then will be moving on from there to the all school meeting at 6:15 okay uh I see um there's some people who have left and some people who have new people have showed up so I'm assuming that that means we have the right people in the room now uh so thank you all for being here uh from 6 o'clock to 6:15 uh we're going to be presenting some information about the special ed program uh I I want to say that um I'm I'm grateful that you're all here and getting information I also want to make everyone aware that this link will be available through uh the Arps YouTube channel and you'll be able to access this link in the future and we'll be sending this link out to people so that uh everyone's aware of being able to get this information after the fact um uh in the course of this year and working as the new principal at Arms I've had the opportunity to collaborate with a lot of people and uh and one of the people who I collaborate collaborate with constantly is the new assistant principal um Dorene Reid and it's been such an honor to work with her and we have such a a a good working relationship and so I want to bring her up to talk about um the special ed program and and what we're doing in the school with regard to that and to give you an overview of of the work that we're doing uh and the services that we're providing for all of you so welcome Dorian thank you so much Diego and thank you families and um and caregivers um this is I'm going into my 13th year here at the emis Regional Middle School um prior to my being um assistant principal I was the educational team leader um heading up Special Education team meetings determining eligibility and making sure Services were in place for all the Learners in the Middle School this year we're charged with an additional task of of trying to keep all students engaged in remote learning and especially our students who require special education services um whether it's speech therapy occupational therapy Physical Therapy specialized instruction in English and in math um to make sure that there is engagement at all all levels I invite parents that if you are having um difficulties and challenges of um engaging your your child at home to please reach out to their special education liaison we are here to help and to collaborate with you we understand and know that this is not easy for families and we just want to be a part of that problem solving to support you um we have a variety of things going on in special education um we have three main special education programs we have the essential skills program for students who have uh cognitive challenges um we also have the academic inclusion mainstream support program for students who are either on the Spectrum or have a neurological disability such as non-verbal learning disability in that program we really focus on social skills pragmatic development and making sure that students are making connections and advocating for themselves um in addition to the ases program we have the student support program and that's for students who um have an emotional challenge or a health challenge um that we want to engage in a more um social skills pragmatic um DBT type of therapy um enriched program for all students on IEPs we focus a lot of our work on organization self advocacy time management making sure that students can access their grades their Google Classroom so they know what's expected of them um and really working on how to be successful in school and again keeping in mind mind that these are different times and engagement is really challenging for a lot of students and families at this point um we want to encourage you and I want to encourage you to please connect with your child's liaison all of the web the emails are on the website um you should feel free to email them regularly they will respond they may not be able to respond during the school hours because they're actually doing direct instruction um with your students in addition to offering um specialized instruction we are also offering office hours for students and as Miss Lopez said after school support so the office hours are during the day that lunch time Block in office hours which is about 11:50 to 12:20 um and just an additional way to um make sure that your student does not fall behind academically or or emotionally and stay engaged um at this point I would like to introduce you to our curriculum leader of special education her name is ma McGee and here she is now to tell us a little bit about herself and her leadership in the special education dep Department Miss Mickey thank you Dorene my name is L McGee and I am the uh a special education teacher and the special education curriculum lead uh here at the middle school and so what we do is we service students who are on individual education plans or IEPs um myself and my colleagues act as liaison for your students um so we're the we're the communication vehicle between school and home for students and parents and we work together with the parents to make sure that the students get the services that they need so in addition to the uh my colleagues who are special education teachers we also have adjustment counselors that are here to also provide services for students and what we call Related service providers um OT PT uh and others that are here to help service your students so reach out to us as Doran said if there's anything that you need you would reach out to the SE teachers um Louise who is our admin assistant is also available um mainly to help facilitate the scheduling of IEP meetings and our uh what we call our ETL uh Miss Nancy Stewart she's also uh the leader for our IEP meetings here at the Middle School uh so once again if you need us please reach out um we'll be getting ready I believe to go into the all school meeting shortly so thank you very much and we hope you enjoy our open house uh thank you Miss McGee that was uh that was great um you know one of the things that I really want to just stress and and and uh and it becomes evident as you start bringing more people in is that it's it's really a collaborative team process and and there are a lot of people who are involved in making sure that uh not only the services that we provide are the right ones but they're done in a way that is particularly responsive to these very difficult and and challenging times and so uh as as Miss Reed said earlier I really want to encourage everyone uh to feel free to reach out uh and to ask for support uh and and to have the opportunity um to um to share with us if if there are particular things that you need because we realize it's a particularly challenging time um you know one of the things that that I'm really proud of of that we've been able to begin to do uh since we've started working here is to begin to develop that that team and the collaborative uh energy not only in in the faculty in general but in particular in the special ed department and I'm really excited about the direction we're heading in and I'm really uh um excited about the opportunity that we have to really innovate during this difficult period because I I know that as challenging a time as we're all facing there are also opportunities that exist with remote learning that we didn't previously have the opportunity to uh to leverage on behalf of students and so it's as valuable for us to understand and learn more about the challenges that your students are having as the opportunities that they're seeing uh because I think I I think what what we're all seeing is that learning is a really complex picture and for a lot of students there are things about remote learning uh that that they can support their learning in ways that we hadn't thought of or that we didn't imagine and and so that kind of feedback is just as important to all of us um as well in in in terms of planning um uh Miss Reed I I wanted to just I don't mean to put you on the spot but I just wanted to ask you if you had um uh in in terms of in terms of the um the program and the work that we we started doing this year what are some examples of some of the things that you've seen uh that you feel um excited about developing and working on so there are a few things to highlight um first of all it's great to be able to pop into classrooms and see how engaged the students are um I know as a special education department we started working on this last spring in terms of having remote meetings and now we're working on remote assessments um we are very excited to expand and really look at our academic skills model to make sure that we prepare students even more effectively than we already do to launch them into nth grade at the high school um so we're definitely working on that and making sure that we do carve out time during our department meetings to collaborate share resources and to really talk about what's working yeah you know and that reminds me one of the things that I I I feel is really important to say in the setting is that we' we have such tremendous professionals working both as teachers but also as par professionals yes and and I think the the par professionals have been uh so engaged and so uh consequent and supportive of the students uh and um and you know when you talk about going into classrooms and dropping in uh it's really exciting to also drop into sometimes into into uh pullouts uh and and these smaller meetings that are happening in classes and the and to see work uh students uh many students collaborating and working with Paris uh as not only the students you know that they're assigned to and so they really have a large role par of professionals do in our program uh and and it's a real benefit to all our students so um yeah so so thanks for that um so I want to thank everyone for um for their attention to this I want to remind everyone that the way this evening is working is that we have short sections uh because we're all on this live broadcast and so we're going to begin to transition to the all school meeting uh which is beginning in just a few minutes um but I want to just remind everyone that we're going to be um over over the next couple days you're going to be hearing all of you are going to be hearing uh or or getting an email from uh a professional in our school a teacher a counselor um in some cases even an administrator and we're going to be doing the conferences uh which we're calling Reflections this year uh because uh it's really an opportunity not only to share information about your student and their experience here at the school but also to hear about your experience as parents because uh we are really wanting to make sure that we're constantly improving our remote learning offerings uh and that's a really important part of the work that we're doing um and and so keeping that information stream alive is is really valuable so please um if you can uh make a time to participate in the conferences and the reflections so that we can have information from you that'll help us to better understand uh ways that we can be responsive to your learning your your child's learning needs uh and and how we can be a better school and a better uh Learning Community for everyone uh so thanks um thanks for that I will uh uh and thanks um thank you to uh Doren for uh the communication we'll be seeing you in a little bit yes thanks for time okay and like I said we're going to be uh staying on for just a a couple minutes and then we'll be moving back um into the all school meeting and I I'll be welcoming uh people as they begin to trickle in okay I'm seeing more and more people showing up we're I'm just going to wait couple more minutes till we start the all school meeting I want to remind everyone that the all school meeting is starting today at 6:15 we're just a couple minutes away uh and so I I don't want to begin welcoming people I'm sorry I don't want to begin the program until more people are in the room uh and and so that number is increasing which lets me know people are beginning to show for the 615 meeting so thanks again for your patience uh we had the ell program meeting at 5:45 uh we had a brief presentation about the special ed program uh at six o'clock and we'll be beginning the all school meeting in just another minute e okay I see that we're filling up the room's filling up quickly um it's a little different than usually when you see a room filling up quickly um so I just want to um give another minute for people to show up uh and take their seats sort to speak um so thank you thank you for coming to our open house I want to just acknowledge at the outset um what a tremendous year this is um I could have never imagined when I first began this process from going from the dean of students here at arms last year uh to the principal uh that I would be uh taking on so many new opportunities and challenges like I have been uh with it with this team of dedicated professionals that I have the honor to work with here at at the middle school um I want to just uh remember that before the school year started we had uh a tremendous opportunity to work together uh for two full weeks and during those two weeks uh we we really got to know each other as Professionals in a new context really innovating and creating opportunities I'm sorry mechanisms that are supports for students and that's been the ongoing question uh all along I get emails all the time from teachers and from others who are wanting to help students who who come to me with specific concerns uh specific issues and we go into trying to problem solve them and so I'm really proud of the the culture of the school that we're developing even though it's in remote learning I'm really excited about uh what this means for our school uh as we continue to innovate and as we continue to try and meet the needs of our students and our community and I really want to uh invite you to partner with us in this process um I recognize that it's it's very difficult uh to kind of bridge this expanse which is uh the the screen that we're spending more and more time on uh and I also want to acknowledge that that's a different process for us as adults than it is for our kids and and I know that our children and our students are spending a lot of time in that environment and so uh so this is a tremendous challenge for us and I and I want to acknowledge that in the course of this year we are working on trying to develop better and more efficient systems not only to teach your students uh and and to to let them know uh the important information that we feel we want them to know but I also want to just remind everyone that there is a tremendous amount that our students are learning and there's a tremendous amount that our students are managing uh that uh students have never been asked uh to manage before in fact it when I start to think about it I realize that our seventh and eth graders here at the middle school are learning more about the world than perhaps any other seventh and eighth graders have uh any other year just because of this of the of the special nature of this year um and so and so I want to acknowledge that but also just recognize uh how tremendously they're doing uh I see so many classrooms that I get the opportunity to virtually walk into uh and I see students generally working engaged having conversations having uh check-ins having opportunities uh to share and I'm seeing increasing engagement on the part of students on a relatively ongoing basis and that's exciting uh it's exciting because I feel like it gives us the opportunity uh to to continue to engage our community of Learners in meaningful work and I know there's a tremendous amount of work that our teachers are are putting towards doing that and so I want to just acknowledge that work I want to acknowledge the partnership that we're trying to develop with the community of of of parents um uh and and I and I want to really recognize the hard work that students are doing uh on on in you know in behalf of all of us um I also want to talk a little bit about the open house uh tonight and and the conferences that we're going to be having afterward which we're going to be calling Reflections not afterwards tonight but in the subsequent days uh and I want to frame those and and tell you a little bit about how we've conceived D of those so that everyone is clear about uh what what we're seeking from them uh when we talked about in the the course of our faculty discussions about the purpose of open house we realized we wanted families to have the opportunity to interact with and get a sense of the adults who are spending their days uh teaching their students and their evenings and afternoons and nights uh planning for how they're going to be teaching in aess ing the work that they've done uh because um that connection that the parent can make with a with a teacher just by by seeing and experiencing them is a really important part of what this night's about and so at 6:30 uh I'm G to ask you to join your team and the four team the links to the four teams Google meets uh are going are in are on the uh arms open house page uh and then once and you'll be spending the rest of of the evening from 6:30 to 7:30 I'm sorry no from 6:30 to 7: I apologize in in the Google meet uh for the team and that's going to be an opportunity for you to get a general sense of what the team energy is who the teachers are involved and and some exciting things that are going on they're also going to be sharing some schoolwide information that has to do with uh things related to uh things we've been thinking about that are course of students uh like homework and and and how we're working with uh with with those aspects and and helping students work with time management over the course of that time but but really most importantly it's really to have that opportunity to interact with and to see and hear from them um then afterwards uh over the next day or so you're going to be having the opportunity to hear from one of our faculty members who are going to engage you uh and and hopefully share with you information that we've gotten from the students in the course of their work in advisory uh with a form that we're sharing with them uh but they're going to have a conversation with all of you to hear about your experiences as parents and and so I'm really wanting to take this uh this question of what is the experience of that all of us are having through this remote learning process and really try and maximize uh uh our access to that information so we can make better decisions about how to improve and so I I want to personally invite all of you to come to this process uh to be engaged in it and to and to make time to learn about the things that are happening and to and to uh share uh with us about your experience uh because we're certainly asking students about that and we really want to make sure that we hear from from the uh parents and and other community members Guardians who are letting us know about your experience uh so that's that's forthcoming and in the next day or so those invites to the to the conferences which are calling Reflections this year so please stay tuned for that um I'm going to uh once again invite uh Dorene Reid the assistant principal to join me and to introduce herself here in the context of the all school meeting so welcome Doren uh I'll let you introduce yourself and I'm glad that you're willing to or here to join us this evening abely absolutely thanks Mr Sharon Hi everyone um again my name is Dorene Reed I am the uh assistant principal here at the arms Regional Middle School um in addition to that I have been here going on 13 years at the middle school so I know that the the staff and the developing Minds very well um as Mrs Sharon uh shared with us earlier we have a lot of um goals for your students um your students come to us from several communities several different backgrounds they speak several languages um they make up four teams Alpha Badger Riptide and tiger we welcome all of you and all of the families and students who might be listening as well um our vision for your child here in middle school is to challenge Inspire and to collaborate with with families and with students um we want your students to be engaged and curious in all their academics and their um just the adventures that they travel with throughout the day here at school we want to teach them how to collaborate and to be problem solvers in their seventh and eighth grade careers here um we want them to know and honor that we value diverse perspectives we we value their thinking and their thoughts and their Heritage and their background and we want to teach them and remind them how to care for themselves especially during this very challenging time and also how to care for others thank you thank you Daren um yeah and I think and I think one of the things that that we've talked a lot about together is really trying to make sure that we're responsive to U our student social emotional learning needs this year in particular and I think I think there that link in that communication uh and and even trying to think into how how we work with our students around the skill building is really everything has really changed this year and and uh I'm really excited to be collaborating with that uh I'm gonna I'm gonna say bye to miss Reed uh and I want to just let you know that uh you know the work that we do here at the school is very collaborative and and we've had the opportunity to collaborate with a number of people and we're very fortunate in the school um that we have people who are dedicated to really think ining into how we can support social emotional learning uh and so I want to have take this opportunity to introduce you to a couple of those people just very briefly um I'll begin by introducing you uh to miss Evelyn Akino uh who is our uh climate and culture coordinator here and giving her the opportunity to share a little bit about uh her work with students and I'm behalf of students um so aene welcome and uh and let us introduce yourself uh to the community and let us know a little bit about uh what you're excited about what you're doing greetings um welcome to all the parents and um it's been an honor this year given even with the challenges that we're facing we are we have the opportunity to build community in a different manner including um having the time and advisories as an opportunity to learn about one another and to build community in a smaller Circle um even though we're not in the building and with that we've Incorporated seal um lessons social emotional learning and I think more than any other year across the country that has um increased in importance in our schools of who are we and how are we going to handle the situation we're in and and building that resilience with one another and the skills that are necessary to bring us forth together so that has been um uh a strong um effort on my part to support the classes and um the school as a whole in building community and communication skills given um our new way of being here online um and we continue with um incorporating circles into some advisories and and building that capacity within the building um as we move forward um as we are so I I really look forward to seeing what we can create and what magic we create together um and and strengthening our relationships in our new um setup oh and in existence and please families feel free to reach out to us um we are really really committed to developing the relationship of working with you and your students um have them reach out to us individually as staff members or you hopefully you feel comfortable share connecting with us um we're here and we recognize we're in this together thank you yes thank you thank you so much I got the reminder uh that I was muted uh thank you so much Miss aino I appreciate uh the opportunity for everyone to get a a chance to hear from you and to see you and to hear about the work you're doing uh I also want to take a moment to introduce our two guidance counselors um and uh and these are really important people because they're people that you could reach out to uh and so um so without further Ado let me just introduce uh D Boyd uh and Luis GBA uh seventh and eighth grade counselors uh and if you just introduce yourselves real quick and and uh and let us know uh how people can get a hold of you if if they have any questions or thoughts okay hi everybody I'm Denise really really nice to um be here um I can be reached um using my email and um some Google meets as well um so I also just want to re reiterate that we know this is a really um different time um but I I am so proud of our teachers and the staff um peras um custodians everybody who has really um stepped up um and I'm excited um on one level because I I get a different venue I get to see your students in a different way even though it's not my preferred mode at least we're here and I want you to know that we are um caring um and really want to make sure that we're available to you um so without further Ado I will let Luise speak as the eighth grade guidance counselor hi everybody I'm Luis GBA I'm the eighth grade school guidance counselor yes and the theme of collaboration is you know one that we like to hold um we want to keep supporting your student and helping um them navigate through this new platform and to keep supporting and helping you as well at home as best as we can so we're going to keep continuing that work um through social emotionally as well as academically fantastic thanks thanks to you both uh and appreciate um and so hopefully that gives you a sense of just a small part of the the group of individuals who are working on behalf of of your students and this community and we're really excited about uh I'm really excited about giving you the opportunity now to click into your team links uh so please uh if you haven't already uh feel free to go click over to the arms Open House website and click on the link uh uh you can exit the Stream this link and then click on the link for uh the team meeting uh I'll stay here for a little while just to remind people of where we're going uh but if you have any uh um um any questions about that again just go ahead and click whoops um sorry about that uh just go ahead and click um into the arms Open House website and go ahead and click into the link for your um team meeting thank you so much I hope you all have a wonderful year I look forward to hearing from you go ahead and click into your team meeting okay I see people are clicking over if you're not finding where the link is just go to www.

okay good evening everyone and Welcome to our first ever pelum virtual open house so I'm Lee Whiting Jones I'm the principal I'm Jus nardy I'm the school counselor to have you joining with us this evening so it looks like there's a little bit of a lag with getting our content onto YouTube so we'll give it just another moment for folks to kind of hop on over all right and we'll get started so again Welcome to our first ever virtual open house we recognize that in this most unusual school year we're doing a lot of things differently and we're excited to be charting this new territory with you so we'll first go over our schedule for the evening so this mirrors the document that we sent out to you earlier this afternoon so we'll have a little bit of synchronous time together with Jess and myself and then you'll have some time to explore some of the resources from our school on your own so all of our staff members have made videos about their classrooms and content areas and I have watch them all and I'm really excited for you to get to see them you'll see singing and books and you might see a pet or two um so I invite you to watch as many of those as you like and they will all stay up on that document so you don't have to get through them all this evening and then we also invite you to take a fun family selfie of yourselves and email it to our Tech Teacher J Shri we'll put them together in a digital slideshow of all our pelum families and we'll put that up on our website so we can all see each other even though we're a part at the moment so Jess and I are going to share a little bit about our overarching school Vision our mission and our big picture work for the year and then as you look at the classroom videos You'll kind of see how this work shows up at every grade level and every content area a little bit differently so as we think about this year our vision is really anchored in three big pillars emotional well-being physical safety and anti-racism so we designed this Vision to really meet the moment that we're in as Educators and our vision for our school is a school where students feel safe valued and loved so we're going to talk about each of these three pillars and how it shows up in our work as a school um and we're going to do that through looking at the three big stakeholder groups so we'll look at how these three things show up for students staff and then family amilies so I'm going to be talking about physical safety and anti-racism and Jess is going to be sharing about the emotional well-being for each of these stakeholder groups so for students as you know we are in a remote learning phase and so at the moment students are um the safest place they can be and we're really really hopeful that we'll be phasing back into the building when Public Health metrics allow us to do so and at that time students will be um getting familiar with safety protocols to make sure that everyone is safe and comfortable in the school building in terms of anti-racist teaching and learning students are getting to experience that in two big ways this year so the first is a schoolwide project that we're so grateful for the support of the PTO and our friends at high five books to make happen so everyone in our school all students and staff are reading a picture book every single month and these books are from a curated list that we put together to really highlight the stories and voices of authors and characters who are black indigenous and people of color and we are also infusing our curriculum with something we're calling Black History Month all year long so every classroom is looking at a different aspect of black culture and the contributions of black Americans to our country so in one grade level they're looking at the contributions of black scientists and engineers in another grade level they're looking at the contributions of um organizers and civil rights leaders and thinking about how their work um moved forward how we think about social justice and activism in our country so we'll do a big celebration of all of our learning about black history during Black History Month in February okay so for the emotional well-being of our students the first thing that you are all aware of already is that they have daily class meetings with their teachers it's a great way for teachers to be able to connect with their students and check in with them making sure that everything is going okay we don't require that students have their cameras on but we do ask that they have it on maybe just for a minute so the teacher can check in and see that they're there then they are welcome to turn their camera off if that's more comfortable for them we also have grade level recess that's being run by our par professionals and it gives the students a chance to check in with each other and do non-school related discussions although they are welcome to talk about school but it's really supposed to be focused on having fun and connecting with each other we also have monthly all school meetings so it gives us a chance to get together as a whole Community um and do birthday celebrations and check in about whatever some themes are that we may be working on schoolwide we also have the let's talk curriculum it's been in our school for about two years it's been K through 2 grade and it's moving now to third and fourth grade and they're really focusing on anti-racism body autonomy and gender identity and fluidity and it's in partnership with UMass um the third thing that we are starting this year which we have not done previously at pelum is a universal social emotional learning screening with interventions and what this will look like is all of the teachers will be filling out short scales for our students to check in to make sure that there isn't anything that comes up that's concerning it's really important to do this all the time but it's especially important to do this this year when we aren't seeing our students daily in person and there might be things that might be coming up because it's tough not to be with their peers and then the last thing is access to myself and the intern students are welcome to reach out to their teachers and ask to speak with me anytime one of my interns Allegra who is from Smith also has office hours that the teachers are aware of and if they see a student that might be struggling they are welcome to suggest privately that they go and check in in algra's open hours and that they can have some time to have a break from their class schedule thanks chess okay so now we're GNA talk a little bit about our staff so again we're all in this remote learning phase together our staff have been amazing in shifting their teaching practices to using digital learning tools so all of our staff participated in a course through Global Online Academy in September to really deepen their practices with digital learning and they've also become experts at safety protocols so I have to give a huge Commendation to our phase one staff who when we were in the building with our kindergarteners and first graders for seven days in October were in incredibly Vigilant about making sure all students knew what the safety protocols were and were able to follow them effectively and so we're confident that when we do go back into the building together we'll be um feeling really good and feeling really safe in terms of anti-racism this is really an extension of work that staff has been doing for multiple years um in the pum community so over the summer the I think the entire staff including myself attended a workshop about dismantling white supremacist culture and that was really galvanizing for a lot of people it was really inspiring um and it's prompted a lot of change in our own practices and then in the culture of our building as well so we've been extending that work through some anti-bias activities together as a group and looking at our schoolwide practices and policies through the lens of dismantling white supremacist culture I say that with the caveat that anti-racism is not one-year work we are not going to be finished with that this year um but I'm really proud of the commitment of the staff and the community in moving the work forward and building our own understanding of anti-racist teaching and learning and then making that a part of our school Community as well so in terms of the emotional well-being for staff we are reading together as a staff all teachers and staff the book called onward which focuses on on resilience in teachers it's written by people who are coming from the helping professions and really focusing on not going anywhere near burnout and taking care of oneself and making sure that we are doing things that help us to remain positive teachers especially in a time where things don't always feel so positive and then we also took part in a two-day restorative practice Workshop in the beginning of the year we did some restorative circles with one another and we really practiced being able to communicate that way we also make sure to check in with each other on a fairly regular basis to make sure that if one of our staff members are feeling like they might need a little additional help we can make sure to support them in that way thank you okay and now we'll talk about families so you're in remote learning with us so your physical safety is important to us as well and um we've popped a link in here to an interactive covid testing map um we're really hopeful that folks are staying safe and staying well we'll continue to share resources about physical safety for families um and recommendations as we move forward through this together and then we've been engaging in conversations about anti-racism with our family community through our bimonthly teacher and family book group so so far we've explored two texts so we've um we you've read how to be an anti-racist and so you want to talk about race and coming up in December we're going to have a dialogue focused around the podcast series nice white parents so we're expanding our definition of what a book group is and we're looking at all sorts of media that just makes us think about anti-racist topics in new ways um and so I hope you can join us in December I'll send out more information about that date um and we'll plan to continue to meet every other month so we'll meet in December February April and then in June and then for emotional well-being for families this is again a very difficult time and and having as much support in your community and with other parents is really supportive and so one of the things that we are doing is the monthly Community Coffee it gives you a chance to connect with one another and also a chance to connect with school administrators just to make sure that you are knowledgeable about anything that we might be doing in the school and also able to talk talk with one another and then you also always have access to me you are welcome to email me at any point if you have concerns about your student but also if you need some additional support for your family I'm happy to connect with Community resources that are going to be able to help you guys in a way that the school maybe will not be able to and then we'll be sending out in one of the upcoming pum press uh newsletters a resource website that you guys can have access to that will also outline some of those servic that are in the community as well as just some reading material so that you guys have any information that might be out there about students and remote learning or not being able to connect with peers and finding some additional resources for that way and we recognize that openhouse is usually an interactive event and that this is not um and so Jess is going to be joining our community coffee next week so we rescheduled it for Tuesday just recognizing how busy everyone is this week so we'll come together in our community coffee on Tuesday Jess will join us in case you have any follow-up questions about this evening or just general questions um as we move into the you know the winter season a big holiday time um to just let us know how we can continue to support you okay and I will get out of there little bar um so I wanted to share this quote with you and I've neutralized the pronouns but I think maintained the Integrity of the quote so this is from Rachel Carson and she tells us if a child is to keep alive their inborn sense of wonder they need the companionship of at least one adult who can share it rediscovering with them the joy excitement and mystery of the world we live in we are so grateful for your willingness to co- te with us this year and for being that person for our students helping them keep the joy in this time the excitement the Curiosity and the Wonder for learning we know that it can it can feel really easy to get bogged down in the moment um and we're just so grateful for you and for the many many ways you support our school and our work and our staff and one another so thank you now it is time for staff videos and family selfies so we are going to send you off I'll bring the schedule back up so we invite you to take as much time as you'd like to explore all of the videos and resources on that document there's also a virtual school tour um so for those of you who have not been in the building for a while it might feel a little fun to take a virtual school tour and then again if you'd like to share a family selfie with J Shri you can email her at Krishna joh J arps.org so again thank you so much for joining with us um we appreciate you we hope you have fun exploring your children's classroom and our school okay thank you have a good evening everyone bye