Yeah, that's all I have to say. Um it's been a pretty great month. I guess I wasn't here last month so great two months. >> Thanks. >> Thank you guys. Drew. >> Yep. Your turn already, sir. >> Uh I'm not used to going uh we've switched around a little bit, so I was uh anticipating to go after public comment. So, um I had a a statement that I was going to read uh maybe depending on what that public comment looked tonight. Uh I'll wait and defer to uh the public uh to to speak to whatever the public would like to talk about. Uh but I will say one thing uh from this statement uh and I I want to make sure this is uh very clear here. Our students deserve to know that the adults in this community will stand up for them, support them, and ensure that every one of them feels safe and valued in our schools.
I really hope you guys reconsider this because it is going to emotionally hurt the children that need to leave because of this financial burden. Thank you. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Okay. Um those are all the blue cards I have. Did anyone else in the audience wish to speak? Okay. Thank you very much to our speakers. Next we have strategic goal monitoring South and Forest Elementary Schools. Dr. Ahmadi. Okay, thank you. Did we decide who's going first? I don't know where my South is. Okay, I it looks like Forest is going first. So, would you come join us, please, up front? Okay, Principal Soy Key and Assistant Principal O'Brien. Take it away. All right. Uh good evening, Board of Education and Dr. Amund I am April Soyke, the principal of Forest Elementary School. Hello, I'm Tracy Reiner, assistant principal at Forest Elementary School. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share a few highlights from this school year of the work that we're doing at Forest and how it aligns to the strategic plan.
For example, especially in world languages, where there might be a sequence of courses. So again, there may be some changes that occur. And not just because of creative scheduling, but if some courses are canceled or students can't get into a particular course, they might pick a different different elective. So that also can increase and make changes along the way.
So, when we look at our revenue, again, no major surprises here. Our revenues are coming right in line with where we would expect them to be almost across the board. And in fact, our state revenues actually are above the historical trend line. That's because we we actually started receiving some money for transportation claim items uh this past month. So, that was that was good to see. Our expenses are again right in line with where you would expect them to be. Um I've I've been telling my staff that these treasurers reports are rather boring. Uh but that's the way we would like them. We don't want to see any surprises uh within these reports. Uh expenses are all coming in in line and then uh salaries and benefits are slightly lower and we know the reason why that is with the salary acrals that will happen over the summer.
>> And I can tell you from my past experience with Belvidere, all nurses regardless of RN or certified got 15 um paperwork hours before their expected start date. And then in Rockford, the nurses got five days. Granted Rockford's 38,000 students. So, Yeah. that's the You got you kind of have to compare the days to the enrollment. So, if everyone was compliant, you don't see an issue with doing the paperwork to make sure everybody in a perfect world would start the first day. Correct. >> Okay. I do anticipate people to be out of compliance. However, >> [clears throat] >> when we as nurses, when we are spending from middle of August to October 15th chasing down paperwork, chasing down paperwork, it is tedious and we burn up so many manpower hours. Um I wear several unique hats. Um so, I am certifying CPR for our cardiac emergency response team.
>> Okay. So that research is now out there. It's been around for years now so that we are able to track that. But there is a direct correlation. So really bridging how they're coming into your kindergarten is really important. It sets them up for success if we provide the correct environment. >> And so with I truly want to say thank you to the department of office of teaching and learning because that collaboration not just with the leadership of Dr. Perkins but the entire OTL staff. We have been in constant communication to improve and align all areas, not just that instruction, but also looking at those standards and looking at how it will truly go beyond the kindergarten classrooms. >> And with that, we've we have more work to do. We're still, I would say, at the beginning stages, but a lot more work to do.
So uh I've been talking with some other uh administrators about how they're planning to address it and use it. A lot of schools have used I-Ready and some have [clears throat] used it and not been pleased with it. Uh Forefront what we're hearing is it's um it's a one-on-one session screening. So you have to sit with each student and then the midyear and end of year could be up to 15 15 minutes. So it seems like that would be pretty daunting. So um And again it's frustrating because they give you choices. So But why why don't they give us the just the tool? They make us choose and yeah. And the schools that want to go with a tool that's not one of those two, they're paying for it privately. Yeah. But yeah. >> [cough] >> This is a K8 um law though. So they we have to screen K2, but we have to identify three through eight.
There's a huge bubble right there that are very close to on track. So they will be doing title services as well and IReady tutoring to get them over those little bumps for ready for next year. So we're looking forward to uh our percentage rates increasing with passing. Uh over at the elementary, we have a huge number of century students. That includes autism, um our emotional disability room. We have been steadily increasing with small grants throughout the year our sensory needs. We have spinning, we have kettle bells for weight pools, we have blankets, we have combs. We work well with our co-op sensory and OT services that have given us some ideas and we're slowly continuing to increase those things that we have for our students. In October, we were Prodigy Math Champions for the state of Indiana, which was a huge deal for us. So, that entered us into a national competition to possibly get a tech grant for our school and we'll find out here at the end of the year.
So, huge numbers on top of the 54% that passed. [clears throat] Yeah, so huge wonderful numbers that exceed how the state did by a long shot on those on those data pieces. So, we were very excited. [clears throat] Um, you can score up to a 650 in IREAD. Lowest score is a 200. 650 is the highest. So, we were super excited to see that 18 of our students in second grade scored in the 500 range and above. So, that was awesome. We're going to recognize some specific students next month um, as those scores become more official and it's not preliminary data. We're going to recognize some students that have high scores um, upwards of 550. So, we're excited about that and then had some really great success with our special education population. We had a student with an IEP pass, which is a quite the feat when we're talking um, you know, students may have specific learning disability in reading for an IEP identification or um, speech and language, which impacts their reading in a great way.
Uh there is also a recommendation to have a new principal at North High School. >> That is correct. >> Katie Elmer. And we all know Katie. She's our uh chief deputy under Rick Cameron. And uh I think she will do a great job. And that's not to take anything away from uh the great work that John Skinner has done at North and we sure appreciate what he's done. So with that being said, [snorts] any other comments at this time, Mr. Gamblin? >> Mike, are we voting on her tonight? I did not see her name. Is she's on this too? >> She is. She's under reassignment of administrative appointments. >> Yes. >> Okay. Any further questions or comments? Roll call, please. We'll start with Secretary Dere. >> She may be Yeah, >> Amy, can you hear us? >> Let's go ahead and move forward and then >> with the rest.
And then pending any questions I'd like to submit for approval. >> Any questions? >> No questions. Can I get a motion to approve? >> Motion. >> I have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion?
So, June 12th and 26th, uh we will offer to families for $40 um a day, and those are only going to be at Amy Beverland and Skiles Test to help support those sites that have construction and renovation going on. And then once summer learning academy is over, we are happy to offer for families uh childcare from Monday, June 29th to Friday, July 24th from 7:00 to 5:00, and again that'll just be at Amy Beverland and Skiles Test for $175 a week. All right. So, at the high school level, we will offer um credit recovery from June 8th through the 25th for grades Students in grades 9 through 12, that's invitation for those students who um did not pass classes, just some credit deficiencies there to help them graduate and and get a handle on things before they move on to the next level. And then we're also going to offer LTech, which is a little bit longer.
And so I feel um uh pretty good about uh where we are with the commission and all of the work that we've done uh with the plans. I will uh turn it over to uh Will Park with SMMA, our civil engineer, just to give a quick overview of the changes that were uh made in response to the last hearing. uh touching on uh what the vice chair indicated were some increases to the subsurface detention system to um get that hydraology uh level to be net zero even in the 100redyear storm. So um with that I'll just turn it over to Will Park with SMMA. >> Uh good evening. My name is Will Park, senior civil engineer at SMMA out of Cambridge. Good evening. Um, so it's been mentioned a few times that we uh had one more round of revisions and review uh revisions from our firm and review from GCG Associates.
And it's there's no rainbow. It's raining out right now. contractual increases, right? We know that um you settled Greenfield settled with some collective bargaining agreements last year and we're going into negotiation with some other ones this year as well. Special education transportation needs increased by $233,000, a 21% increase. These are done to accommodate mid-year moveins and the needs as reflected in IEPs. Um something that potentially is being looked at to add next year and this is for next year. This is not this year would be the potential of an EL teacher possibly restored at federal and restoring a possible float custodian. Um these are some of the hopes that some of our schools have and some of the and some of those things aren't hopes. Some of those are we're going to have to pay some of those anyway regardless. Um on the next page you'll see a local appropriation comparison by cost center and you'll see you know the FY26 revised local in the first column the increase or decrease in the second column the percentage in the third and the overall number there uh the high school is down And Andy, you mentioned if you can just help me.
It is not easy as you know, yes, people will ignore. The 4-H youth development program is also changing. It's evolving nationally. It was a outside the uh school curriculum program. Now it's entering into the school. The new movement, it will be adopted into the school curriculum, the 4-H youth development program. That builds leadership, that builds ability to take control of their lives early. We have to address this issue. >> should open it up to questions. So, when you're referring to the schools, are you referring to Department of Education? Um, correct. Any any local schools that we uh So, this program is going to the success of this program is going to be based on the implementation through the Department of Education. That is one component. So, I just wanted to highlight that component of this because it is also partnering with government institutions, uh government organizations to work collaboratively, take community by community, GIS-based, data-driven approach to address the hurdles that may be.
And I will just leave it at that. And uh yeah. All right. So uh otherwise uh I want to thank uh the district administrators and schoolboard members uh who attended last week's uh city council meeting. I was watching it at home on my sofa on YouTube. Sorry. Uh to advocate for the conditional use permit of 812 Main Street. Our ability to use that property helps the district not only from a logistical and operational standpoint, but also in avoiding the financial impact of having to look elsewhere. Uh President Meadows, you referenced uh a few times uh in your address the importance of living within our means. Uh and the fact that three board members and three district administrators took the time to advocate for our district uh underscores just how important it is to do so. Um, hell, even tonight you'll be looking at the RSP enrollment analysis.
We will briefly walk through each of the five goal areas and share a couple of examples of what is new at Forest this year. This year at Forest, we worked really hard to intentionally design our building schedule to ensure that grade level teams have common planning time each week. So, if you were to walk into a common planning time, you would see, depending on the day, uh classroom teachers collaborating with a combination of special education teachers, multilingual teachers, interventionists, and administrators to plan tier one instruction, analyze student data, and respond to student needs. These meetings also serve as a proactive MTSS structure, allowing teachers to bring students to their team for informal problem-solving and to determine next steps to support students. We've continued to strengthen how we leverage our WIN time each day, where teachers create flexible small groups based on student data. These groups are revisited regularly so that students can move in and out of groups as their skills develop, which is by design.
Any questions on my part? >> Um if AP Art History had a zero enrollment in 2025-26, why is that a cancellation? >> So AP Art History has one request for this year. So we're canceling it. >> I'm sorry, I'm talking about it at North right now. >> At North. So we put zero in whether it ran with a number or not. >> [clears throat] >> So if the course did not run, then it's automatically zero there. Usually those >> you offered it last year is what you're saying? >> We offered students to enroll in it. But if it was under 20 and we opted to cancel it, that number would be a zero. And AP Art History is one of the courses and and even with music theory, although not always at North with music theory, I know that. Um is one of those courses where we have talked about doing even alternate years, where we would plan to run, for example, in even years or odd years, so that students could plan when they make their four-year plans, they would know when to plan to take those courses.
When we look at our fund balance, uh you can see we're tracking very closely to the the previous year uh with just a slight uptick. Uh this slide is helpful again because you can see the percentage change from the uh prior year monthto date to the current year monthto date and just how each year uh varies so significantly depending on when we pay certain bills and when we take in certain types of of income. Uh but again it no major surprises here or with our our uh bond and uh uh construction costs. Uh this slide looks at how our budget is doing compared to our projections. And again we're coming in right in line with where we would expect. You'll notice the one red item on there is other objects. Uh that is because of the rising cost of of of goods and services mostly in um utilities that we're we're seeing.