Could you just state your name and address? My name is Sky Zeller. I live at 90 Terrell Farm Place. Okay. Um so, my husband has been a teacher here at Cheshire High School for over 20 years. When we chose to raise a family here, it was because we believed that Cheshire's public schools would provide an education that was comparable to a private school. We have now been part of this educational community with our two sons for eight years. And we find ourselves preparing to leave the district for middle school. This is not a decision that we are taking lightly. It reflects growing concerns about the direction of the curriculum. These concerns began after COVID when increased technology use started to replace teacher engagement. >> [snorts] >> As early as second grade, students who finished their work were directed to programs like Prodigy instead of receiving deeper instruction or enrichment.
Um and we have submitted those that request utilizing that process I believe since 2020 to 2023 school year. Okay, so you're saying that you're affirming the legislative intent of this section. Right? In your testimony or maybe that's not your exact words. What are your exact words? Uh Propose it seeks to affirm the legislative intent. Okay. That we are following that we are following the temporary position. And um it is the those positions are temporary. And then they are reevaluated at the end of every year. And so we are following the uh procedure under the statute. >> Okay, but it does say it shall not exceed one year. And the legislative intent and it's not, you know, you don't normally just take a legislative intent by one statute. You look at the overall framework of the budget intentions of the budget. And the intentions of the budget, overall legislative budget, is that you and every agency has to get approval for positions.
Now, I'm going to talk to you something something else. school pride. Do you think there's a difference between school spirit and school pride? >> I guess not based on the definition that I just gave. Not >> really. >> Maybe school spirit is more how you show your pride, >> but you have to feel it, I think, to have school spirit. >> Do you think they're connected in any way? >> Yes. So, how so? How are they connected? Because I think if you don't feel pride for your school, then you're not going to have any spirit or want to show, you know, you're not going to want to wear the gear or do any of the things that are sort of typical school spirit. >> Yeah. There we go. That was a quick quick little interview. I know I never can take you guys. I know it was I know it was quick.
So um every week we're able to highlight a new core word. We know that core words make up about 80% of what we say. So, we've been able to highlight that word of the week and give students, staff, peers different opportunities for them to showcase and use that word. Along with celebrating just what makes Cumberland unique, we've also instilled a new um thing this year called our silent cheer. So, you'll see you'll see students there pictured um holding a pom pom. So now at all assemblies we do have what we call a silent chair and ask students to um wave their pom pom to really just make it a more sensory friendly experience. And then um lastly we continue to support our students with positive behavior interventions and supports or PBIS um including teaching and reinforcing those positive behaviors through student videos. We've had students are working on having students create all new videos to help support expectations, of course, educational lessons, and then supporting the check-in and checkout system.
>> Thank you. >> You get a little certificate. And in the village of Woodridge, Mayor Cunningham has named tomorrow in your honor. >> Congratulations again, Troangs. We're proud of you. Next up, we are celebrating DECA. So, it's a really nice night tonight. We get to celebrate things both in the realms of athletics and activities when we have our comp competitive activities and athletics. So, I'm going to introduce Paul Crick and Ruth White who are here to represent DECA from Downers Grove South. Um so we're here today to uh recognize um three uh of our uh DECA members who are going to be competing this following week at DECA Nationals in Atlanta. We have um competing in third place they took at state qualifying for nationals and buying merchandising as Niha Higa and Sarah Hij. And Sarah is here today. Her partner couldn't be here because she's at a a lacrosse game.
So, that again, that was on purpose so that with this '26 issue, we layer in debt service to keep that aggregate payment between both series approximately the same. Okay, everybody see that? Okay. All right. So, I'm going to talk to you a little bit about the interest rate market. So, not like there's not anything going on that's influencing the markets right now, right? Um Okay. So, the the gray shaded area, if we looked at this together before, is what the Fed has been doing with short-term interest rates. And the different colored lines represent points on the yield curve for what we call the Municipal Market Data Index or the MMD. So, we've talked about this before. It is the index that we look at every day in the tax-exempt bond industry. So, what are the trends in rates? We know, again, gray shaded area in the back, that the Fed has not done anything with short-term interest rates for a little while now.
Any discussion, questions, comments? Sounds like a great opportunity. I agree. Roll call, please. Mervich? Yes. Pappas? Yes. Ward? Yes. Dogan? Yes. Gorman? Yes. Hurst? Yes. Wasson? Yes. Motion passes. Next I need a motion and a second to discuss and approve the SkillsUSA overnight state competition which is occurring April 23rd to April 26th this year. So coming right up here soon. [snorts] Uh motion and a second, please. So moved. Second.
Regarding curriculum, now is the time of year when we make sure that we will have ordered and coming and in place what we need for the start of next year. And I just want to finish with a reminder that um we're everything we're doing is intentional, and that we're continuing our goals of enhancing student achievement and growth through all those things that are bumping up effective instruction, using those high-quality curriculum materials, and also building our school families and engagement because we know with accountability, attendance um is going to be a big part of that, and so >> [snorts] >> we want to keep up those practices of get them here, keep them curious, keep them coming back so that we have that boost in attendance and engagement for learning. Very good.
After graduation, I plan to attend the Indiana University of Bloomington to double major in accounting and finance through the Kelly School of Business. Uh one of the biggest impacts that Central has had on me is the way it has supported me in getting a real head start on college courses specifically. Uh while a lot of schools do offer dual credit, what has made the difference here is the support that has been the highest through multiple different opportunities to go to different colleges through field trips with Mrs. Scott and specifically the help that I've gotten from Mrs. Scott with uh combining all sorts of different schools club credits into my high school transcript and fully applying them all the way through. Um and with that, I'm two classes away from my associate's degree and I cannot even graduate from high school yet. Uh that experience has given me a lot of exposure to real college classes that are not just higher level high school classes.
But they ended up being good. And like they both said, we're still changing stuff for next year to make it better or improved for everyone. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Hi, I'm Amy Drabble. Like Sean said, I graduated in 1990. Um and then I spent 28 years teaching across the county over at West Noble. Um Sean would call me every few years and say, "Hey, we have some openings." And I just could not let go of the theater program that I had grown over there. That was the only thing holding me back. And this past summer it was brought to the community here by Mr. Howell. And I can't tell you just the positive Sorry, I didn't have the positive energy you feel in this building. The staff we
All right. Awesome. Thank you, guys. Mrs. Aker? Mrs. Golden. Okay, Mrs. Golden. We're dividing and conquering. Okay. All right. So each month we've been recognizing students who display a different lifeline and this month in the month of March um our teachers picked our students who were the best problem solvers in their classroom. So we'll recognize all of them tonight. So for early learning, Wayne Young, Yuriah Padilla Flores, Oakley Brown, and Bo Smith. If you hear your name and you're here, you can come on up. For kindergarten, Rhett Stowers, Xander Roberts, Gabriel Herrado, and Camden Williford. Good job, guys. You can stand right here. You're doing great. For first grade, Joey Johnson, Kyla Bujorol, Chance Franklin, and Caleb Imbody. Wayne, you can come up here, buddy. She's going to take your picture. Okay, stand right there. Good job. For second grade, Owen Walker, Oliver Pelling, Blake Crouch, and Miguel Ramirez.
I tell you what, I just I just didn't slap my grandmother to leave you out. Want to go back to Andy Freeman just a minute. He told me when he was a student at Bossy High School he ran track. He claimed he holds the record for the 800 at High School. Check the wall if you ever go to Bosse, Randy Freeman's name. The uh On March 18th, I attended the Leadership Celebration Leadership Awards from uh That's uh Leadership Everyone. They do this annually. And I was impressed with the number of EVSC pr- uh programs, projects, and individuals that were nominated that night. Several. I'll read a few here. When I walked in the door that night, the first thing I saw First person I saw was David Smith. The uh Individual awards in community neighborhood, Susan Harp. She's a retired teacher at Dexter. Had Had a 40-year career.
That pattern has now continued into sixth grade where tools like MyPath have replaced meaningful opportunities for advanced learners, leaving many students to now teach themselves. We have also seen a decline in core academic offerings. Elementary world language has been eliminated, making Cheshire an outlier within our DRG. The science curriculum lacks a hands-on experience. Many students are reaching middle school without ever designing or testing an experiment or fully understanding the scientific method. We stayed through elementary school believing that middle school would finally offer more rigor, including an accelerated math option. However, we learned at dog parent night that this urges the curriculum board to reconsider this direction and to preserve academic rigor and achievement-based leveling within Cheshire schools. One of the key skills that I learned while earning my PhD at Yale was the ability to evaluate data critically and understand academic research can be used to support either side of an argument.
And the exception lies here with this measure that allows you in certain circumstances to be able to create these temporary positions that is only good for 1 year. Now, if in fact you are interpreting it as an whether the AG is interpreting it and so there's a difference in legal interpretation that that means that as long as it's 1 year you can reevaluate and do another year then it circumvents the intention of the fact that you need to have all of your positions. Otherwise, what stops you from Of course you got to get approval, but creating, you know, hundreds of position and calling it temporary and then every year reevaluating and then get it again. That way you don't need to come through the budget process which is clearly not the intent of the overall budgetary legislative process. Would you agree? Well, well, Senator, as I shared, we have consulted with our attorney general and uh have they have advised us that our AG has advised us that we are following the statutory requirements under the statute as it's as the as the position is temporary for 1 year.
>> No, usually they go on a little bit longer, but you know, for time sake, I got to keep it a little quick. But um yeah, that I know I can never get you guys in in the room when I'm interviewing, but there you go. >> Can we reverse this at graduation when I'm up there? >> Just like something like that. Yeah, you know, maybe. Um also, quick caveat, this is going to be a little bit of a thing. But the whole reason why I'm talking about school spirit and school pride, that's kind of if you ask, those are the two big questions. You know, when I interview people, I ask them a range of questions and I kind of have two questions that I get into. School spirit and school pride is what I did this time. And I kind of discussed the two of them being in student government.
That brings us to goal three, our workforce. Um, we just like all of our schools, but Cumberland um want to celebrate our staff, our professional accomplishments. Um this year we've had uh the privilege um we've been able to celebrate uh staff celebrating 25 years of service. There's some here as well. Um as well as staff that are retiring after a very um uh wonderful uh career in in education and got some of those people over there too. Um and so thank you so much um for them. um our staff and students implement also a weekly snack cart for our staff and for our students to have some great experiences in terms of authentic learning and just having those day-to-day interactions with our staff. Um and then also we want to make sure we always celebrate our par educators any chance that we get for the tireless work that they do on a day-to-day basis.
SO S um Sarah and her partner are both sophomores. Same with our fourth place finisher and principles of business management. Uh Ardan Guadra will be competing also as a sophomore. So we are very excited that we have a very young program and being led by some very great people. If you would like to say something, you can come on up. >> Hi. Um I'm sorry. And I know they already introduced me, but I just want to keep it incredibly brief and thank my adviserss for helping facilitate all of this from sectionals to state to even our fall leadership conference. And even though unfortunately my partner couldn't be here today, I'm so honored to represent the DGS DECA chapter at ICDC this week. And I think it's such an incredible thing that we have such a bright future for this program because I think about last year like my partner and I didn't even place at sectionals last year and this year we somehow qualified for nationals and I think that just shows how much potential there is in this program for us to grow.
And before the war in Iran started, there was a lot of talk that perhaps there would be an interest rate reduction by the Fed sometime in 2026. And we've obviously been having the the the geopolitical issues in the Middle East now for several weeks, and now there's pressure again not only on oil prices, but inflation in general, and the bond market has been reacting, obviously, to this news like stock markets react. All the markets are reacting. So, if you look on the right-hand side where you see the the four lines, you can see right about where the conflict in Iran started, how rates started to go up pretty drastically. It has been coming down, and and this graph we updated 10 days ago. So, if I were to update this for you further, what you would see an actual continued improvement actually and little more stability in bond rates in the tax-exempt bond market.
Any discussion, questions, or comments? Roll call, please. Pappas? Yes. Ward? Yes. Dogan? Yes. Gorman? Yes. Hurst? Yes. Mervich? Yes. Wasson? Yes. Motion passes. Next I need a motion and a second to discuss and approve the admin non-EA salaries for 2026 and 2027 school year. So moved. Second.
[snorts] Do you have any questions? I was just going to ask on the um the professional development observations, are they is that like CKLA CKLA observations that they're just trying or other things? Those two observations for this year were funded through the um behavior grant, so we actually were visiting classrooms that because at um at LSC, they've actually had Conscious Discipline, this is their sixth year. So, we had teachers saying, "Okay, great. I've learned a lot. I've talked with people, but let me see it in action." And so, um these were classroom teachers that were using the Conscious Discipline. Okay. Okay. Thank you for keeping everything organized. >> you. Just two parts. All right. So, I've invited Amanda Whaley to be with us tonight. She's our dean of students at Prairie Crossing. She's done an outstanding job. Just so happy with everything that she's been doing.