All right. Can I have our student ambassador come to the program podium? It's not a Tuesday. My brain isn't working. Hey you guys. >> How are you? >> I'm good. How are you? >> Good, thank you. >> Of course. Um, I haven't presented to this many people in a while. So, hello everybody. My name is Ka. I'm a senior. I just had to introduce myself. Um, okay. So, basically all of the sports stuff is kind of winding down and starting up, so I don't have a lot to talk about, but it was just media day, so I got a lot of funny pictures up there. Um, baseball is starting, tennis season for the boys is starting, softball is starting, all the things. Uh, track, some of my track friends are very proud. They say that everyone on the team has PR or run a season best since the first week, and I thought that was really cool.
How will instructional quality be maintained with larger cohorts? Does this align with the district's overall goals and strategic plan? Per tonight's agenda documents, the average class size in title buildings is listed as 16.1 students. I would like to know how that number was calculated. I want to know if they took all teachers, including music, art, and P.E., and divided students by that number, or if the calculation only included grade level and homeroom teachers. If the actual number is larger, I would like that accurately reflected in the district's projections. If 16.1 kids is the true average class size, why are we planning to have 26 or more in K through 2 at Terrace? What's the limit at which you will hire another teacher and split the class into two cohorts again? That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And then I have a blue card from Chris, I'm sorry, I can't I can't remember this.
We have seen our overall sectioning FTE for next year is at 307.1, which for our sectioning FTE is a slight decrease from previous years. Although when you look at our non-sectioning FTE or what we sometimes refer to as below the line, that has gone up for this coming school year. So, overall in terms of our total FTE we're at an increase of into next year of 1.6 staff in terms of total positions and people that we would need to bring in. In terms of a cost though, it is offset a little bit cuz some of those numbers are coming up because of students that we are bringing back from out placements and from other districts sending us students for transition 99, which we will be um gaining some tuition payments for that. So, we actually will be seeing a reduction in our staffing cost relative even though this number is going up slightly for next year.
Um and then finally just dates. We have a lot of dates coming up. As Miss Darling mentioned, we've got spring break coming up next week. That's going to be uh March 23rd to the 27th. Right after that, we have a long weekend for Easter. Um and it's actually Good Friday 43 and Monday after uh the Easter Sunday 46 are both uh days off of school. So, just so everybody knows that. And then meetings coming up committee the whole for April will be April 20th and the board of education meeting will be April 27th. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next up, we have our teaching and learning update. Miss Rivera, mine as well will be very quick. I want to thank the parents and our teachers for completing the five essential parents and educators for completing the five essentials survey. Uh we greatly appreciate the input.
Um and so what that would do is shunt October 15th to the first day of school. And that would impact our early childhood students, kindergarten students, um sixth grade and ninth grade students cuz that is the grades that the physical is required. Um why is it important? It just really helps um meet the legal health requirements. We're protecting staff and students. Um getting those compliances early also, it really moves the manpower that health services spends from the first the first three days before school starts to October 15th to we can take all that time, focus it before school starts, and then we know that we are compliant or we're not compliant and these students are not allowed to start until they are compliant. The motivation with going to first day exclusion as well is in the beginning of the year, we're all excited, right? We want to be with our friends, we want to meet our teacher.
I want to say thank you so much for having me come today. Uh it is a pleasure to be here in person and to present to you today. >> Thank you. >> So yeah, thank you Mr. Brown. Appreciate it. So why is early learning so important and why has this been such a push in your district? So as Dr. Perkins had said nine years ago we started our relationship together and with that it was looking at the kindergarten individual development survey which as you know is the survey it's the state assessment that demonstrates kindergarten readiness and so with that as we know that Illinois has this push throughout the state to really focus on our early learners and it is so important that we begin with the foundation and being a K12 and as Dr. Perkins said you also have that prek you are a unique district where you are going prek through 12th grade and so the state has now decided that it is time to put into law that this developmentally appropriate practice and play-based instruction and your district started this years before the actual mandate.
Kindergarten alignment, we're having a meeting this Wednesday afternoon just to look again at ESTI, which is the report card um screener that that kindergarten teachers use throughout the year to see how kids are doing with the skills, and aligning that with our reading curriculum and our math curriculum. We also have SIOP training. Uh tomorrow is the last day of training for the four Prairie Crossing teachers that have been training this year. And then, in the fall, we will have eight Prairie Crossing teachers training as we're really looking at our ML program and our ML students, and um addressing needs with that SIOP training. For assessments, uh we've been coordinating with the high ability team for placement of the CogAT, uh that assessment and what that looks like. It's normally kindergarten, second grade, and fifth grade. Um this is our high ability assessment. And so, we're continuing to have good conversations about that.
Um I know we have building issues, we need to do some condensing, all those kind of things and there's no easy answers. There's not an answer that's going to make everyone happy, but I want you to listen to people, listen to the community, listen to parents, listen to the students. And one of my biggest fears, no matter what we do, is how we mix up ages. You know, we we brought the second grade over there. And speaking to Mrs. Sprague's um rumor, you know in how the rumor mill and the gossip goes, I heard talk about maybe doing something different to put another um maybe fourth grade or something. I I don't know and I only believe a little bit of what I hear, but um I just think kids have to grow up very quickly and too fast sometimes and when we mix them with older kids sometimes that you know it can be a good thing but it can also be a negative thing.
You can do this. Okay, here we go. Perfect. Say cheese. Savannah, yours is upside down. Savannah's upside down. That's my kid. Everything's upside >> [laughter] >> That's right. Good. Hold on, everyone keep smiling. Hold it. Keep holding it. Your parents are very invested here. Okay, great job. We're so proud of you. Thank you FOR BEING [applause] RESPECTFUL. AND THEN I HAVE STAFF MEMBER. If Mrs. Adkins would come on up and join me. This is Bailey Adkins and she teaches fifth grade. You look so nice tonight, too. Um So, this year Bailey has continued to grow tremendously as an educator. Fifth grade can bring its fair share of challenges and unexpected moments and she handles every day with grace and calm and thoughtfulness. Um and it just really stands out. Your classroom is a place where students feel very supported, expectations are very clear in there, and learning is taken very seriously.
And then our cleaning supplies/equipment was around $30,16656. Like I said, this was an approximate, but it at least gave us an idea for a total cost of 515,69129. So that's that the cost that we're kind of looking at. Uh we are going to do an actual um cost analysis for 2025 and uh the board will have that and we can share that publicly when we do um sit down and do a cost analysis between the bids as our our current custodial cost. What will happen after today is the bids. Uh we're mainly just going to read the cost connected with the bids. Uh I then have created a um administration, excuse me, administration compliance review checklist. We'll go through each of the bids, check off to make sure that they had all the requirements that we asked for in the RFP. And then the board will be receiving a rubric for each of the proposals and they will go through and independently evaluate each proposal uh based upon that rubric.
Outstanding player, Bailey Hape. For the last two years, we probably have been the player of the year if it had been for Matty Shirley at Central. Ustanding [clears throat] thing about rights for the next two years. Three of the five starters were sophomores. So, but we're going to do some rights again. >> Go. And [laughter] >> I was able to go to that state championship and went down on the floor and congratulated every one of you. >> Did you see Mr. Owen there? >> Uh, did I? Well, I did. I see you there. I saw you. I saw you. >> I rode the I rode the uh firetruck afterwards and I saw Louise. There was no question about it. Even [snorts] when you get old, there are some things you still remember. >> True state champion, Mr. >> Amen. >> No question. [laughter] >> President Doug, that concludes our public shoulders concludes our moment with rights.
As you look through that list, did anyone have any questions? >> No. Okay. Total for um the uh last minute dated February 26, 2026, 180,985 And then we've got a list of claims as dated today, March 16th, 2026. There's nothing unusual on this this list, but did anyone see anything that you would like to ask a question about? >> No. Okay. Total dated today, March 16, 2026, claims 450, 6439. We'll go ahead and move on to the fund report if you're ready. Our very first line is fund 101. That would be education fun. balance the end of February 2026 3,446 we'll go ahead and buzz down a couple of lines to fund 300 to operations you'll see that balance at the end of February was 92978614 and pending any other questions I'd like you to go ahead and go to the next page that would be in your finance packet F25 you're going to go to the very bottom on the Last column you'll see the balance at all funds at the end of February 2026 914271092.
It truly is remarkable. And so thank you for leading that, and thank you to our school leaders. It truly is um it's pretty remarkable how that works. Not all schools do that. McKinsey is next. I'm just letting them know what's happening. >> Yeah, we we we did McKinsey one year. The last since 2015, we've done every building, and now we're going back. This is round two. That's Blue Ribbon phase two. Yeah. And in addition, 2016. Yes. Yeah, that was great. Um thank you again for the tour. It was really great to get in there. I hadn't been in there in several months, so to see the progress, to see the old administrator offices that are now bright, colorful classrooms, Yeah. >> that was really nice. >> And I just also, our partners are truly incredible. It was amazing. Ms. Means texted within 5 minutes, the project manager was there ready to support us in the tour.
And and uh those were the the most outstanding between the last hearing and this hearing. Uh I believe that we um uh have come to an agreement. Uh but we will see soon. So is there anything I left out uh Mr. Lopez? >> Uh no, I thought that was an excellent summary. Thank you. >> Well, thank you. Uh that the I will say that the applicant has made a number of changes to the plan. Uh quite a few actually. And I won't go into all of them. Uh there were 45 suggestions in the first GCG review, but the two major ones uh that are really outstanding are the um the agreement to uh increase the size of the infiltration um basins significantly to hold storm water on site and um to connect to replace the 12-in pipe that connects the two storm drains uh uh on Waverly Street where a lot of the storm water is going.
Uh in Greenfield we're in a unique scenario in some of our classrooms and our grade levels where these programs are supporting teacher prep time as well too. So there's a necessity to that as well as well as not just the prep time necessity but what they're learning from this as well. Some other priorities are staffing and volunteers to maintain the level of staffing to provide small enough class sizes and provide individual supports. I think the class size you'll see not so much tonight. We haven't cut down every numbers. You have enrollment numbers in front of you. But what's small to one is all relative. And I I mean that really politely. Um and what's a lot to some right? What's a lot of money to some person to one person is not always a lot to the next person. So what one considers a small class number somebody else may not.
And the culture is created when the students are extremely young and they develop these better eating habits so that they have them as adults also. And you know, ideally, that's something that hopefully Hawaii could do and lead. Um so again, that's the nutrition side and then also has a food security site. But nutrition and and I think we all would want to eat healthier. I'm going to ask if you can come up speak. And how much money are we talking about? I know 13 we lost 13 food educators and we want to get back these individuals. So how how many What are we talking about? >> Only 0.9 million dollars. I'm sorry, 9 million? >> 0.9 0.9 And it is a if I can address this particular issue um there is education component included in this which is to build capacity in K through 12 schools about nutritional education.
That's kind of the only thing I have to say about sports. Um, yeah, and clubs and events. It's also been a very quiet month. I haven't heard a lot personally. I don't think Grace has either because Grace is in a lot of these clubs, but graduation speakers is happening. That was from last year. Obviously, they had their I think second meeting about it today. Uh youth and government has been doing a lot taking a lot of little trips. Uh few like drives. That one was for like periods and whatnot. Uh guest speakers for like honor societies. Yeah. And everyone is very excited for prom. The prom dress giveaway just happened at the library this past weekend. I wasn't able to make it, but I heard some very successful stories. Okay. Um, well, everything else is kind of winding down. If you can't tell, music, art, drama is all very much ramping up.
Hergert. Thank you. Sorry. It's all right. Sorry. And if you would please state your name and address for the record. So, I'm Chris Hergert. I'm actually the vice president of the union. So, hello. Um so, I'm the vice president of the union and part of our role or my role is to attend school board meetings throughout the year. And probably most beginning of the year it was me and a few others and lately it's been me with a lot of others. Uh, so we decided to address why. So, we're present here today because our collective bargaining agreement has been referenced several in several school board meetings earlier this year as a possible way to address the district's financial deficit. We believe it is important to provide perspective from the staff who work with the students every day. First, costs associated with the state mandated state mandated kindergarten are not the result of staff decisions.
Um so, to give you some of the um details, you all had a copy of the spreadsheet with all of the numbers and how those are broken down. The yellow areas highlight uh that there was some type of change in that particular cell from last year. So, whether it was an increase or a decrease, uh that's how all those things come together. And so, for the next part here to get you some more details and in the weeds a little bit information on how some of these decisions were made. So, again, uh section FTE is based on student request, enrollment, all those things. Sub-section FTE is not tied to the student request. Those are more of our support type of positions, social work, psychologist, etc., etc. Um one of the highlights as well is uh we did add a multilingual coordinator. Uh we're proposing that for next year, I should say, for your approval, which will help us coordinate some of our EL efforts and bilingual support throughout the district.
Uh as we know that that contributes to our Illinois report card. Also, I testing is in full swing. As you know, yes, we have to come back from spring break. So, please enjoy it because then the other half of testing will occur after spring break. Our schools have already started pre-pring break and then we'll wrap it up at the tail end. Um, this Wednesday is our book study for the anxious generation, our family book study. Uh, 6 p.m. via Zoom. Email will go out tomorrow. Uh as a friendly reminder, it's chapters four through six where we will be focusing on understanding the youth mental health crisis and then also connecting it back to um student learning here within Kyrie 26 and what purposeful learning looks like here. Um and then lastly, thank you to Mr. Fitz Simmons and um I'm going to say Miss Victoria, but Miss Beman um and your whole team for what you do behind the scenes with registration.