Well, when we get to October, oh we don't mind a couple days off while uh mom or dad calls around to try to get something that they were informed of back in March, April. Important for us is to remove barriers. So, I have provided three local resources. I'm sure there are more out there, but um these are the ones we are in contact with. VNA especially is very um happy to work with us. Just spoke with him via email this morning. He is very willing Sunny at VNA is willing to block off times just for D301 students to come and get all their health care requirements on a specific day or a few days during the summer. Um so they only block appointments for D301 students. Um just touch base real quick. What does negative the negative impacts that October 15th does? It really is disruptive.
So you are ahead of most districts in the state of Illinois. Yes. And it was because of the leadership and the understanding that Dr. Perkins and the collaboration with your office of teaching and learning that has really pushed this into all the classrooms. Yes, we're focused on prek and kindergarten, but we are also thinking of how this impacts your first grade, second grade, all the way through 12th grade. So again, we started this work um as the um pioneers and having a space um to come together to collaborate. Uh again, making sure that our instruction is aligned from prek all the way through 12th grade. Um and using developmentally appropriate and creating that environment. um using the kids assessment as our platform and now this shift um I think that is going to um there's something coming into law on Thursday possibly. Yes. And so that shift uh and we'll see where we uh land with the playbased instruction.
The SAT school day scores will become available to students on April 2nd. And we Everyone that was taking the IREAD assessment has taken it. Uh most scores are already available. Um and we're really plotting out our plan for intervention, and getting ready for a summer window for students that will take it again. And remembering that our second grade students take it, but it is a third grade test. And so, um but it helps us to know students that we can start working working with them. The ILEARN grades 3 through 8, we just finished up We're just finishing up checkpoint number three, and getting those makeup tests completed. And the window for that closes April 10th. And now we're turning our attention to the summative ILEARN. The window's April 13th through May 8th. Most of us are taking it Most of the kids are taking it um that week of the 27th.
So I I hope that you take the input that people have and listen diligently to what they have to say and I will say I've been attending these meetings and if you're ordering the weather like we have tonight it's not keeping me away but it almost did. But I am appreciating the the conversations and the openness that I've seen in the last few weeks and so I appreciate that very very much. >> Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> Tonight we have a special presentation C&E Elementary Kayla Bonanno. >> I practiced it. >> Before Kayla starts I want to give her a huge shout out. She is doing kind of time [clears throat] and a half at C&E while while I'm sitting up here and I just want to thank her for that. She's along with Trevor and staff there doing all they can to keep things afloat.
The one thing that has impressed us the most this year is the way you opened up your classroom to others. Um she welcomed a future educator into her room this year, just growing that person. Um and just her willingness to mentor there obviously reflects practice um and reflects the kind of professional that you are. Uh don't mind my cheat sheet here. I didn't want to forget to highlight she's just a team player. Recently, there was a situation a teacher had sent an email out and something was weird with her projector. I think it was flipped upside down and needed help. And Bailey doesn't even know this teacher super well. She's on the other side of the building. They don't see each other often, but made time to run over there and fix that issue for her. So, she just doesn't hesitate to to help Linda and lend a helping hand.
At that time we'll come back together as a full board. We'll look at those rubrics. Um and then we'll be discussing that in the April meeting. Um I do not see us probably doing anything as far as voting per se until the May meeting. Um the other thing I will also share is that um the board and I have scheduled uh negotiations with Tim Miller um I believe on April the 14th. Um and so we'll be meeting with Tim to look at negotiations at that time because I really want the board to have all the options as we sit down and really make a decision of which direction go. So So at this time we're going to begin opening the bids. Um like I said we had three proposals. The first bid is from the EMS group. Okay, our um the way they have this broken down is annual billing pricing structure and then you also have monthly billing.
I guess [laughter] >> next on the agenda, consent items. Dr. Hoover. >> Good evening, President Duckworth, members of the board. We have six consent items for your consideration tonight. They are 3.0 01 consideration of the minutes from the February 23rd, 2026 regular board meeting. 3.02 Consideration of the allowance of payments that includes invoices, net payroll, payroll obligations for a total allowance of payments of 15,212,42058. 3.03 Consideration to approve the petition to the Indiana Department of Education for the Common School Fund loan. 3.04 Consideration to approve the agreements for the Academy of Science and Medicine. 3.05 05 Consideration to approve the transfer of bus contract H66. 3.06 Consideration to approve the resolution regarding potential purchase of property. These consent items are presented for your approval. >> Approval. >> We have a motion and a second.
Did anyone have any questions about any fund balances? Okay, we'll go ahead and move on to that bank to fund balance and for us to balance each month. We want our banks to be in balance with all of our funds. And you can see there that we are balanced to the penny. We're all doing the right thing. So, we'll go ahead and we'll move on to the fund transfer report. You'll see the um you authorized me to move money back and forth to banks to pay bills timely out of certain accounts. So, you'll see that we did have a transfer there. And then we also had the education to ops um uh transfer. And then we we're back on track with that 8,400 to 800 transfer every month.
It's just really great partners as well that are doing wonderful work. Yep. Thank you. Any other questions or comments on Blue Ribbon phase two? Okay. We will move on to 3.2, the Summer Learning Academy update. Let me make sure I acknowledge the team here presenting. Mr. Kuznik, Dr. Haas Brown, Dr. Thorpe, Ms. LaPlant, and Ms. Niemeyer. Good evening, Madam President, Dr. Smith, members of the board. We are proud to once again bring to you our update for Summer Learning Academy 2026. We've offered this for many years. Sometimes it's had a different name, but for 2 years in a row now, we've called it Summer Learning Academy. So the shoot and um start for this evening, we're going to talk about some adjustments we've made both for budgetary and to be honest, calendar reasons. It's a unique year. Don't forget that our regular school year goes past Memorial Day this year.
We had a discussion about the the culvert that this pipe goes to. Uh that was an issue while there was still an increase in peak runoff. uh subsequent we will hear that this evening I believe uh between Mike Carter and the applicants working together they have changed the size of the um uh um infiltration basins to allow for no increase uh in peak volume therefore no impact on this culvert. So um I guess that's all I have. Greg, if you want to >> Sure. Mr. Lopez, do you want to take us where you're at? I know that there's been significant progress and we've gone down from 45 to just a handful now of of comments to address. >> Yeah. >> Do you want do you want me to One second. Mr. Lopez, you want me to read this? >> Yes. >> Okay. I was passed a note.
Um but those class numbers come with choices that are going to have to be made. There's no doubt we'll be coming before you whether it's April, May, saying yes. How would you like me to split um 48 students at an elementary level? Right? Is that two classes of 24 or is that three, right, of something smaller? And we all know what we like and want, but there are financial constraints with all of that. So, those are things that won't happen tonight, but they'll be out there and they'll be in front of you. You'll see the numbers and you'll see what happens with everything. um trying to consider additional resources for our substitute teachers, fully staffing our school, including priorit prioritizing, right, attracting full-time employees that we've previously been forced to use outside contractors and services for. And um we do not want to there's nothing more less than I want is to hire somebody from an outside vendor when we're paying a premium for that when they could have just applied directly to us.
That would be directly having you know, working with our Department of Education to include a required a module or course in nutrition and healthy eating and also um developing a master um education nutrition education volunteer program so that we can have sustainability of this program. Excellent. Because those people will be trained to go out into the communities where they live so that they can influence this aspect. So it is children's or you know, our K through 12 kids is the highest priority but also parents. So 4-H program is also included in this because they are doing lots of work now more and more towards uh teaching children how to develop a recipe, how to cook and uh so that early on they it gets ingrained that the healthy eating is important for their performance in the school and their development. Okay, so 0.9 million. Does that include the fringe and everything else that go with it?
Um, this is like my favorite month for some of these things. Um, swing singers competition season is over, but showtime is next week. They well I'll talk about this in a minute. Perform with the middle school on the first night, the 24th. So come support both middle school and high school show choirs. Um the spring play is happening I think in a little over a month, maybe month and a half. Um night of jazz happened. I don't have any pictures up there, but it's probably one of my favorite nights of the year. It's all of like the jazz bands and they sound amazing all the time. Um, choir concert is tomorrow. Come see me. I'll sound amazing. I promise. Um, uh, the drama program had a murder mystery party yesterday. A great turnout. Um, I won't tell you who the murderer was because that's still a secret, I guess.
These requirements are These requirements were known and anticipated. Likewise, the increase in staff over the past decade reflects a growing and changing need of our students. The district added positions because students required additional support to succeed. Reducing compensation for the dedicated professionals who serve our students every day is not sustainable or responsible solution to our deficit or district's financial challenges. We are also concerned that the auditor's document presented [clears throat] at the last board meeting suggested a potential staff reduction. This year alone, we've already seen the impact of unfilled positions across several programs. Those vacancies are affecting both students and teachers. In fact, the injury reports have increased for teachers, which is deeply concerning and should not be accepted as simply part of the job. When positions go unfilled, students receive less support, classrooms become strained, both staff and students have overcome Both staff and students have to overcome.
So, uh without further ado, to get into some more of those details, I will turn it over to you, Keith Palles, Jake Giblin, and Gina Secardy to uh give you a little more detail on our how all those pieces came together for our FTE. >> Okay. Thanks. So, as uh Jeff stated, this is literally hundreds of hours collectively put in looking at student requests, our staffing needs, and coming together to provide students with as many opportunities as possible for courses next year. And um the documents that I shared um are really just a snapshot. At this point, it's a snapshot because things will evolve over time. Um and they'll evolve in a variety of different ways. So, for example, in the memo that I provided, I stated that there were eight courses that we uh are planning to cancel. That actually has already been reduced to seven through creative uh what we call stacking, when we take like different courses or levels of courses and put them together, same period, same teacher.
Registration is in full swing. And just as a friendly reminder for the dual language program, Monday, May 4th, correct? Is the deadline for registering for the dual language program. So get registered. >> Thank you. Uh just a committee of the whole update. Um there was a pretty short meeting. We just did a review of the bills and the facility usage fee update which are on the agenda for tonight. Uh next up we have the consent agenda. Included are those items that are routine in nature. Should any board member wish to remove an item from the consent agenda. The item will be discussed at the end of section 8. 7.1 are the open session minutes from February 23rd, 2026 regular board of education meeting. 7.2. Our total bills and payroll for approval are in the amount of 1,963,63345. 7.0 resignation dismissal retirement. 7.4 is employment. There's none.
We have a student that is going along and then October 15th we do need to exclude them. My experience this year is we had about 40 to 50 sitting in the library. Then we moved them to a conference room. And so it's very disruptive to the whole building. These students are missing out. We've moved them from one area to the other. Um and then a lot of social emotional. Parents were very unhappy of the separation, but it is school code. So, we have no choice. Um there are support there is supporting data out there 2025 that supports why first day exclusion works. And um they found that the one I'm most impressed with is 74% fewer exclusions over time reported by district. So, that is huge. These are our um neighboring school districts that already have employed first day exclusion and seems to be working very well.
Um but we have already started the professional development um with that and again positioning ourselves to be ahead of the curve. You know, as we mentioned, this preKK alignment has been a major focus in your district. And with that, we are able to look at the alignment between our prek and coming into our kindergarten. Over the years, we've always talked about those educational gaps that we see in our state assessment scores, but even beyond that, we see it in the classrooms on a daily basis. And in order to really narrow and tighten that gap, we need to first start with that alignment and that transition from preK into kindergarten. And so with that, we are trying to support through the pre2K committee that we formed. You were a pilot in the state for the last three years truly leading the way for other districts. We have multiple districts reaching out to hear how your district has done this.
There'll be more information out about that, but so we have time to get the makeups completed. We are within the the ELA ELA teachers are um really making a concerted effort to understand the performance task that the students have to complete, which is basically, they have to read two sources of information. Um they have to write either a narrative, an informative essay, a persuasive or argumentative, and do a little bit of research writing where they've you know, we're giving them lots of sentence stems. According to source one, in paragraph five, you know, that Indiana communities um have cleanup efforts, or whatever this article is been about. So, so they're getting better and better at that. We're showing them also the released scoring. So, the state shows us, this is a one, um this is a two, a three. This is what you're shooting for, you know, your essay should look like this essay.
So thanks Kayla I appreciate it very much. >> No worries. So today for those of you who don't know me my name is Kayla Bonanno I'm the elementary school counselor. We're actually going to talk about new leadership our reading program and some STEM innovations that we've been working on all year long at C&E. So obviously Mr. Tipton a long standing person in our community for Central Noble has taken over for Doc and I'm going to tell you just update you it has been a very smooth transition. We've tried very hard to make this transition just for our building and it has stuck. We've done very well with our teachers and our staff moving forward. Trevor has been great. There's really not a moment we've had any big hiccups that we haven't been able to smooth through. So it's been great having him and we're we're lucky to have him here.