And on November 20th, no attendance for EC and elementary, junior high all day, and high school all day. So, there's essentially some flip-flops happening here to free up families to attend more than one conference if they have students at different levels within the school district. Um yeah. I think I'm mixing up some things in my head. When it says all day, that means parent-teacher conferences is an all-day event? Or that is a full day of attendance? This is the student attendance. So, the kids will come all day. Okay. On the on the days you see all day. These are the list of the parent-teacher conference dates and these are the attendance structures for each of the Got it. Yeah. I think that's where what I originally thought and then I got myself complicated and now I'm back >> on track. So, in October, the parent-teacher conferences will be for junior high and high school.
So, therefore, early childhood and elementary will not have parent-teacher conferences on October. So, they attend school as normal all day. The flip then is, Dr. Mitchell described, parent-teacher conferences for um uh elementary and early childhood would occur, hence the change in student attendance. So, but there are no parent-teacher conferences for junior high and high school in November, so those students would be attending all day. Um thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. >> want to say just one comment just to say thank you to you and the team. Also, this is a big part of our strategic plan where our unions um all of our unions have been participating, specifically actually OESPA and OEA, in our district leadership team to think about professional learning opportunities. And so, this is a big turn in our district to elevating the voice of our educators in the leadership of professional learning practices.
So, I want to thank those unions for that. I also just uh the parent-teacher conferences, as someone who is I think I saw you at the last parent-teacher conference, but yeah, it's feeling that having to be in two places at once and, you know, deciding kind of which kids and which teachers can have very limited amount of time. I appreciate um you making that more accessible for parents so that they can engage with their kids' teachers. Okay. Information item 11.2, the Chromebook refresh. Oh, I'm going to start out by saying that over the last uh 2 years or so, we've been employing RFP in the process of buying things. But we're in a unique situation with the um the situation in the Middle East, as well as the um the the uh cost of everything going up, cost of petroleum, shipping, uh supply uh supply chain issue.
So, we are trying to do something different to still be able to realize some good pricing in our Chromebook refresh. With that, I'm going to hand it over to the director of technology, Brent Kaigler. Good evening. Uh as Raphael mentioned, I'm here tonight to um provide information, answer questions uh about and request for the approval of our purchase of our uh Chromebooks for this next year. Uh if you recall, uh a few months ago, we didn't or we approved the uh reduction in our refresh rate. So, this year's uh purchase will only be for 1,400 devices. And as uh Mr. Obafemi mentioned, I this this process, the procurement process, felt like we had to do something a little bit different to take advantage of uh pricing. Um as we began this process looking for different models uh that we would be looking for uh for the fall, we reached out to our vendor and quickly discovered that the price of a similar machine had already increased by uh over 25%.
Um yeah. Uh some of that uh after investigating and realizing and speaking to various people, uh it is um uh can be related to the uh tariffs that might be going on, um the AI data centers, uh the popularity of that, uh those are sucking up the resources that might be used for the Chromebook devices, uh and then, of course, the uh uh world uh situation dealing with uh petroleum, uh not only in gas prices for shipping, but also the creation of the plastics. Um so, we're seeing that price increase. Uh now, for the expedited or the reason we felt like we needed to move quickly uh and why this didn't go through a normal RFP process, um uh as I said, when we reached out uh to our vendor, our previous vendor, uh not only had the price increased, but they could no longer hold a quote for any extended amount of time.
Um uh and they suggested that uh or said that uh even uh it wasn't necessarily that they didn't want to, the manufacturers wouldn't up upheld or um keep the price that they uh were first quoted because of the manufacturer's ability to uh for the cost of that. Um as we looked at it further, again, the supply chain is be- was becoming very restrictive. Uh we wanted to make sure that we did have devices on time to prep them during the summer. Um and we uh wanted to make sure that we had equipment that would uh last longer. Um again, since our refresh rate has reduced, we're now looking at devices that need to last for probably 8 years. Uh so, uh even though we are uh suggesting a different uh process and the uh expedit- uh expedited process, uh I don't feel like we uh neglected our due diligence in either our research or evaluation.
Uh we did request uh the device that our vendor uh previously uh had quoted. They did uh in in order to save some uh cost on that, they did recommend a different uh chipset, um MediaTek, rather than the Intel processor we had before. So, we felt like we needed to uh get a hold of the device and do some benchmarking to make sure it was still adequate and performed just as well if not better. It did perform better than the previous model. Um we also reached out to various vendors and manufacturers uh on what they would uh charge for a similar device. Uh trying to find the configuration at the price point was difficult. Uh many times, the vendors uh would quote us a previous generation of a device or a lower standard of device. Uh and even with that, uh they couldn't hold it.
They said as supplies lasted. Um and so, again, we had to uh move we felt like we needed to move quickly. Uh we also heard from other districts that they were using an expedited process to procure devices. Um so what we did in order to do this is that uh knowing that we needed to go to the board for approval, we went ahead and did sign a letter of intent that we would like to purchase uh these devices from our vendor. Uh and we also investigated uh the leasing opportunities uh to procure those devices. Uh so tonight and it lays out in the memo the cost, um but uh tonight we're requesting or providing information so that you may approve this uh procurement process at the next board meeting. Just to be clear, we we thrive and we pride ourselves on going through a comparative process.
But when there's a market imbalance, that makes it difficult. Because even from the initial time of having conversation with vendors, prices kept going up. It wasn't going kept going up because it was just a confluent of different things happening in the marketplace. There was not an imbalance in the marketplace. There were more demand than supply. And when that that happens, there's a lot of bidding of the prices going up. What we're looking at, if we were to go through the RFP process, it'll be longer time. It was no There was no stability like it was last year of being able to get the the best product at the best price. And and and I'll tag on to that. Um so with the RFP process, you look for the best quote. Uh however, many vendors or what we heard from them that they would have had to pad the prices on an RFP process because they knew it would take weeks to complete that process.
So we felt like even if we we did go through that, it would wouldn't be the best price. And we did negotiate the lease rate that we agreed upon. Um went back and forth with the initial pricing, the interest rate on the lease, and uh given that just the other thing, interest rate is is trending up. If uh which I'm going to bring uh the next board meeting, if you look at the um CPI data that was released last Friday, uh interest rate is actually is the highest it's been just in the month of uh March. It went up by 90 basis points in 1 month. That's the highest it's been since '22 from the height of of COVID. So interest rate is actually going up. So those are some of the things that we tried to work through to be able to get a better pricing for financing financing because it helps our cash flow since we know our cash flow situation is challenging.
So instead of paying uh close to 500,000 up front, we um we propose a lease option. So during the 3-year duration of the lease, we'll be paying just over $41,000 in uh in interest payment.
Any questions? No, I I get a little uncomfortable that there was no RFP, but I understand the circumstances. The situation. Oh, I I want to add though, and I think that this is important that it doesn't also preclude any of the information is also still not public to us what came of it, right? So I think Mr. Bafemi, I think one of the advantages of the RFP is that it creates that competitive work um uh opportunity and it's and it and it holds a very high standard, right? So in this situation where we're dealing with market forces, it doesn't lower our commitment to naming and all the other factors that are important in a transparent and process that really speaks to integrity. So I just I I I want to underscore that. And unfortunately, yes, it also it's terrible that we're in this pigeonhole where they can set whatever price they want, sure, and those forces are changing.
So I want to thank you for naming that, and I want to say that there's other things that come up for folks on the board, please name those now because I'd rather those surface now for us as we're thinking about this. It's very helpful. Any other questions, comments? And as far as the leasing, it matches the usage, right? So it's kind of Yes. Yeah. So it's So we're we're leasing it for 3 years, and we're hoping to keep them for at least double that. Potentially up to 8 years. >> Yes. Okay. A computer in 8 years? Yeah. [laughter] Exactly. A Chromebook in 8 years? It better be shiny. [clears throat] >> [laughter] >> Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Going to action items. Action item 12.1, approval of bills for payment. Can I have a motion, please? >> I make a motion to authorize the payment of bills in the amount of $3,467,193.44 as presented.
Second. Any discussion? Mr. Serone? >> Aye. Ms. C? Aye. Dr. Martin? Aye. Ms. Wenmouth? Aye. Dr. Murillo? Aye. Dr. Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Action item 12.2, approval of 2026-2027 budget calendar and resolution to designate the preparer of the tentative budget. I make a motion to approve the 2026-2027 budget calendar and resolution to designate the preparer of the tentative budget. Second.
Any discussion? Okay. Dr. Aye. Ms. Wenmouth? Aye. Dr. Martin? Aye. Dr. Murillo? Aye. Ms. C? Aye. Mr. Serone? Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Action item 12.3, approval of IHSA membership renewal. I make a motion to approve the IHSA membership renewal as discussed and presented. Second.
Any discussion? Ms. Wenmouth? Aye. Dr. Murillo? Aye. Mr. Serone? Aye. Dr. Aye. Ms. C? Aye. Dr. Martin? Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Action item 12.4, approval of hazardous bus recertification. Can I have a motion, please? I make a motion to approve the updated list of hazardous bus route bus route areas as presented for the purpose of recertification and authorize the district to submit the required documentation to the Illinois Department of Transportation and to the Illinois State Board of Education for the 2026-2027 school year. Second.
Any discussion? Mr. Serone? Aye. Dr. Martin? Aye. Ms. Wenmouth? Aye. Dr. Aye. Ms. C? Aye. Dr. Murillo? Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Action item 12.5, approval of junior high and high school course titles. I make a motion to approve the junior high and high school course titles as discussed and presented. Second.
Any discussion? Dr. Martin? Aye. Mr. Serone? Aye. Ms. C? Aye. Dr. Aye. Dr. Murillo? Aye. Ms. Wenmouth? Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Action item 12.6, approval of natural natural gas reverse auction. I make a motion to approve and authorize administration to enter into a contract with Direct Energy as the awarded supplier for the natural natural gas reverse auction. Ms. C? Yeah, there's nothing to do. As discussed and presented. Second.
Any discussion? Ms. C? Aye. Ms. Wenmouth? Aye. Mr. Serone? Aye. Dr. Martin? Aye. Dr. Murillo? Aye. Dr. Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Action item 12.7, renewal of 2026-2027 building administrator contracts. Can I have a motion, please? I make a motion to approve the renewal of the 2026-2027 building administrator contracts as discussed and presented. Second.
Any discussion? No. Dr. Murillo? Aye. Dr. Martin? Aye. Ms. Wenmouth? >> Aye. Mr. Serone? Aye. Dr. Aye. Ms. C? Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Action item Wow. 12.8, renewal of 2026-2027 district administrator contracts and addendum to multi-year contracts. Can I have a motion, please? I make a motion to approve the renewal of the 2026-2027 district administrator contracts and addendum to multi-year contracts as discussed and presented. Second.