What percentage of the students are benefiting for it? Because there seems to be a lot of apps that is being entertained and and and put into our schools, but yet I don't know that we actually see who's actually taking advantage of it, who's using it, and when you come down to the cost per student, what is this costing us per student if in fact not all the schools take advantage of this? I think our what we have statewide are expectations for universal screening for progress monitoring for interventions. Um what we don't have statewide is you must use this particular screener, this particular intervention tool, this particular So um >> but you did that for kindergarten assessments. You said you had to use John Hopkins >> because for the kindergarten assessment, we wouldn't be able to report statewide um with reliability and um validity um what our students um what skills our students are coming in with and what um skills our students are lacking.
>> Okay. Thanks. >> Any other questions or >> Okay. >> Well, thank you. >> Thank you, Julie. >> Moving on to item 6.1, our superintendent report. Right. So, um, do we need a brain break? That was a lot. So, I want to, if you're watching from home, get some popcorn. We got a night ahead of us still. Um, we are just really grateful for a lot of the the work that's been done to this point this evening to hear about this really important progress. Um I don't take it for granted that a lot of this work requires multi-dep departmental community student focus and that was the case a couple of weeks ago and I was just I don't know about you all but I was absolutely inspired by the work of our uh student board members and our superintendent student advisory at our speak and spark.
>> Yeah. But at that case, what students are coming in these are, you know, five-year-olds. what they're coming in and what they lacking changes in two months. So again, you know, it's the quality and and the need to have something like that versus say dyslexia where this is something that is long-term lasting. It's not a one-time shot and then go away. Do you understand? So again, it's boiling down to the priorities and where the greatest need because we cannot be everything to everybody, right? And we have to always be conscious about what it's costing us because you folks take up over onethird of the state budget. So anytime we want to cut places is very difficult because we don't want to cut education but there are areas in which you know the department has to prioritize and then to think that we're not going to cut your budget if you're supporting a program you know you're in La La Land if that's what you think because it there's only so much money to go around >> and and the the pendulum does swing.
Um, if you did not have a chance to read or to watch that, um, I would highly recommend hearing it. What an incredible evening. I I got to tell you that it was truly inspiring. Um, over 25 clubs and organizations and families and um, if you showed up and to support your child or your student that night, I want to thank you for coming out. And more importantly, I really want to thank you all for guiding us through this really thoughtful experience where we we got to hear not just what they were doing, but also the connection of what they were doing to everything else happening in our district. And so, um, just a lot to celebrate. And again, um, I couldn't be more proud of that experience. Um tonight um we are going to hear uh in a few minutes uh coming up some more information board about the projections of our finances and the challenges that lay ahead.
you are correct. And um right now the department um does have committed initiatives in literacy and in math and those are the commitments that we're directing our funding to. So we are um really trying to be cognizant on the overall um asks but we are not yet um requiring every school to use the same tools but we do have a focus. We do have focused initiatives in each of those two major areas. Well, I hope you will have a universal plan and instead of peacemealing it, and I'm trying not to peacemeal, you know, three bodies here for math coaching, another two bodies here for this, another one for this, that you will come in with a universal plan on how we can address some of these areas, shortfall areas, and what we can do to help our students and not far into the future, but it's needed now or was needed yesterday.
Um we also are as part of this work over the last few months and the months ahead we are going to be making some very difficult decisions around the $8 million reductions that we received from our state funding. As I may have mentioned before, this was information that was brought to us really after we budgeted and it's also a function of what many districts are facing. Unfortunately, I feel like every time day you open the news and you hear of another district with 45, 50, sometimes 100 plus layoffs. And uh um this cut these cuts that came from the state in terms of this reduction of funding for our school district combined with rising benefits, utility costs. I don't know if you've checked your electric bill recently. U makes it sure extremely important for our district to really think about this from a 360 lens.
We do have a plan now for English language arts and for math. We have our priority initiatives which are not peacemeal. They're very um thoughtfully um determined for these um so the department can say we have these high lever strategies um that we are committed to. >> So when did have you developed those? The English language arts were developed two three years ago >> and the literacy levers >> and then um math came out last school year. >> Okay. Well, it doesn't seem like it's it's comprehensive enough to all the schools at this point and it certainly doesn't seem like it's it's being implemented and it's being you utilizing all the necessary tools. for example, dribbles. I don't know if I'm saying that correctly, but other other types of of very um economical type of of screenings and stuff that we need uh to have the students being diagnosed so that they can get the right help and then the money's to help the students.
How are we thinking about the efficiencies? We need to consider how are we maximizing um our the people who are there because ultimately we want to keep everything as far away as possible from really hurting the quality of our classrooms um and the work that's happening of our classrooms. I'm proud to say that this effort has been a collective effort. Um there are parts to this work that are really directly in the classroom. There are parts of this work that are at the district level. Um but it takes a coordinated effort. Um through diligent work thinking about how we renegotiated our purchasing contracts, our insurance vendors. Um we have not stood still. We've rethought about investing idle funds. We we've taken money that was previously sitting in savings account and put them in them in interestbearing accounts. Why? All the while thinking about ensuring that we can protect the the burden of our staff to make sure that not one person has to lose their job.
And so that's where more funding comes in, which is why I don't want it spent on a lot of apps and a lot of consultants and so forth. I want it to get down into the classrooms down to the students so that they can get the help that they need and we have too much bureaucracy and not enough down to the bottom which is what we've been committ this committee has been trying to do and of course we get a lot of push back but I hope the parents understand where we're coming from because this is where we need it at the school level. >> Senator Kan. >> Yes, thank you. Um you mentioned that some of the schools do screenings for dyslexia. So what percent of schools and where are those schools >> right now? School um 90 we have 16 schools who currently use screeners that would screen 90 to 100%.
And unfortunately sometimes that is not always the case, but we're working very hard to minimize that as we have seen. We've also put a lot of attention to managing our cash flow. Mr. Obi and his team monthly provides reports on our spending, how those funds are spent. um there um every one of those funds are thought about very carefully and because of that we've achieved some significant milestones even so there are difficult decisions and we've hard we've had to think about um how we are approaching those decisions and at this point our goal is really to unlike some of our surrounding districts to retain at least 99% of our certified staff and So that is something that we really want in the classrooms. Now I that is our goal. Um Mr. Obafami daily I think gets news coming from the state or from our insurance premiums that says that number goes up up up and so that 8 million sometimes rises even more so.
Um, our goal is to get a 100% of our schools using they all use screeners, but some screeners go um deeper in and in identifying dis um um specific specific reading needs that could um flag possibly dyslexia. So, further screening would be needed after that, but it gives an initial assessment. Our goal is to um pilot a variety of screeners um in addition to the screeners that we currently have school year 2627 next school year and then 100% of our schools that'll also give a year of training 100% of our schools will be using screeners that are dyslexia sensitive by school year 2728. So, I guess the question then is how do you determine which schools will get the screeners now because some schools don't have them. >> We um we're currently soliciting the schools right now who will participate in the pilot using a variety of screeners so that we have feedback from the individual schools.
But I can assure you we are going to do everything in our power to ensure that we we retain as many of our staff as possible. And that's from the district level where we are going to have to um not replace all the staff and some of the attrition we've had and as well close certain positions to ensure that we can get to that market. Everybody will be a part of this reduction and thinking about how we make those investments to support our students and our staff in the classrooms um and make sure that those are sustainable. We don't take these decisions lightly. They are led by our core values. Humanization, integrity, courtesy, collaboration. Those values are why we do what we do. And when we find ourselves veering from those values, we have to come back to those. We make sure that we find ways to engage with each other around those values.
What was the strength? What were the teacher supports? um how valuable was the the information that the screener gave so we can make a um informed decision when we roll out the screeners in um 2728 school year. I don't know if you have the information, but I'm sure this committee would be interested in finding out in which areas you're finding that we're that we're having um more dyslexic students or is it statewide and just scattered? Because if there's, you know, I don't know what causes it. Is it drinking water? Whatever. You know, if there's something more that we could be doing that if we could help >> That's a great question. get more information and get other agencies involved to help us get this. >> And I think that's a good point. um when we have a 100% of our schools, it wouldn't necessarily um we wouldn't be able to identify dyslexia as we wouldn't um identify that.
And I want to thank um our partners across our unions, our staff, our families, our community members. This is a community that cares. And I want to thank you for those who've reached out to share and express their concerns. Um it's important for us to hear those voices. That is a part of the work we do. Um ultimately this is not a political charade in any way. This is about really centering the need of our students. I want to thank all of those for those collaborative process. As a reminder, and Miss Robinson recently said, you mentioned the audit. The audit said if there's one thing district 308 can do is plan. And I'm proud to say that while we may have hit some bumps, we are continuing to commit to that effort to plan. Thank you for your time. I want to now invite our board members to share some of their insights of of uh some celebrations across the district before you share your individual comments as well.
But we could report to you on um the the trait schools that um are identifying more students with reading traits um that um could lead to a diagnosis of dyslexia. >> That would be a good start. Thank you. >> Okay. Um, I want to go back to when you determine these screeners again, you're going to leave it up to each school to determine which ones they're going to use and how many choices will they have. There there was a screening workg group that identified um suitable screeners. So, right now it looks like there's four that um schools could possibly choose from, but it's two different types. Four um and it might remain four or we might move it down to possibly two. Isn't it better and more cost effective when we go with one or two instead of having many more choices and then too when you have teachers that transferred between schools and if they trained on one then they have to train on another or not be familiar.
>> Thank you. Uh Danielle Stone, junior at Asiggo East High School, was named a Chicago Bears community high school all-star. Danielle was recognized by the Bears for her service, leadership, and character both on and off the flag football field. I was there for the presentation, anxiously waiting for Caleb Williams to show up, but apparently he was not on the agenda. Um, nonetheless, congratulations on this incredible achievement. Danielle, >> surrounded by a lot of her friends. >> Oh my gosh, she was surrounded by Absolutely. her her teammates. >> It was a very cool event. >> The the boys football team. It was it was pretty incredible. Yeah. >> Uh the Asiggo Wildcats had an impressive showing at the Special Olympics state basketball tournament uh two weekends ago. Uh the orange team won gold, the junior high team won silver, and the silver high school team uh earned bronze.
Um it this leads to so many different kinds of issues. So I don't understand why you wouldn't want to do something that is across the board and equalizing for all of the students but a good program that will identify um what needs to be identified right. Um I I across the board um is there is value in that. Um the other side of that conversation is it takes away um choice between two maybe equally um competent tools but who's choosing see it gets chosen with different so we get I'll use example so we have a principal in one school that determine that this is a good program and they do it for nine years and then a new principal come in and they stop and they change and do something else, you know, and it just caused a disruption in the school and the faculty and especially the families.
And additionally, Andrew Bias, always screw his name, Andrew B, as he's known in our house, won gold. Davis Watson earned silver in the individual skills competition. Uh we've already started soccer season, so I'm sure you'll be getting more updates soon. And congratulations to all those athletes. >> They're going to come out for a celebration. We're going to have a bit of a celebration later in the season. >> I was going to say, can we clap for Danielle, too? >> Yeah. >> We have some other recent sports news. The Asiggo boys swim co-op had a successful showing at the IHS state finals last month. >> Congratulations to our athletes and we look forward to celebrating them soon. Additionally, Aubrey Lambertie, uh, senior at Asiggo East High School, has been named to the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association 2026 Girls Allstate Special Mention Team. Congratulations, Aubrey. Many of our schools proudly rock their socks on Friday in celebration of World Down Syndrome Day.
So, again, it's very disruptive at times when you have stuff like that for choice because you're not sure what what they're choosing. There's no there's no um expectation that you're going to have something that is consistent across the board >> on on this. We do have criteria and we will have an approved list >> but you're going to have list of choices and then again you know you leave it up to different schools and so if my kid is in one school and and I see that another school is doing and then my son is not getting it I'm going to want to probably jump to the that school. I mean you just create a lot of unnecessary by giving choices. I mean it's not as if you know you can choose between chicken and fish. You're talking about, you know, uh, a bonafideed type of screening that we hope will be vetted by the department and have outcome base across the country that we know is going to be reliable and that, you know, the the teachers can really get into it and that the families can certainly understand um these programs and not have to have one child in one school and one child in another school and they have different type of screening going on.
Students and staff wore their favorite crazy socks to school to raise awareness, celebrate differences, and promote inclusion. Fun fact, March 21 is symbolic because people with Down syndrome have three copies of their 21st chromosome. Wow. Um, the Asiggo High School graphic design team of Jack Cron, Sam D. Carlo, Grayson Fischer, and Mackenzie Andrews won the award for top cohesive presentation at the Val Regional Graphic Design Team-Based Challenge. Congratulations on this accomplishment. Engineering students from Oswiggo East High School competed at the Illinois's Design Educators Association regional CAD design competition. Congratulations to Colin Chat and Dominic D. Matis for tying uh for third place. >> Students from Asiggo High School and Asiggo East High School's Business Professionals of America chapters competed at the state leadership conference. A total of 40 students achieved medals in their respective events with 34 qualifying for the National Leadership Conference. Congratulations and best of luck to the 34 individuals.