Congratulations, Luke. All right, we're going to transition to speech. Um, so I've got Coach Justin Makovich here who's going to come up and celebrate. So, um, our speech team, I'm looking to see if it's up there. Can you just go to the next slide for just a second? Thank you. So, I wanted to celebrate that this is the second place instate team as a team. So, state runner up. It's super exciting. It's so fun as a principal. Um, even though I'm not there to be like monitoring and refreshing on my phone, um, like every I don't know how often, Justin, three or four seconds. I think I do it on that Saturday night waiting to see. And so state runner up is amazing. Um so I'm going to introduce Justin. He's going to celebrate um the whole team and we have a state champion amongst them too.
If there's some questions we have here today, we're going to be able to answer those for next week. So, definitely the advantage is the disadvantages, I just wanted to make sure people knew too that there's there's a couple of changes. It's not always consistent. We always every year have at least two holidays that cannot we don't have board meetings because of the holidays. We have to move those to Tuesday. So, it's not consistently on Mondays. Um there is a short lead time for the board to review the packet from Friday to Monday. So, you really only have the weekend. And if you're anyone who has a child in a spring sport right now, you probably don't have much time left on the weekends. Um also uh Monday admin only have Monday to answer questions that you give to us. So, if you've reviewed over the weekend, we get all the questions on Monday and have to answer those.
Was the intent to have something specific there. Right. Yeah, Dana, I think we have something in our current We're going to put our current number. Do you recall the current number? It's there. I think it was like a reasonable amount. It didn't have a dollar amount, so I think we were still looking into that. Yeah. So, when we finalize that, we'll bring it forward. Okay. Yeah, we we can provide that to you. It's just it's it's This is I hate to sound that it's it is important, but it's more perfunctory, and we can backfill what we currently have. And it's something that would obviously be adjusted over time as if the meal out goes from seven bucks to 12 bucks. >> If the board approves it. Yes. You guys would have to make any You guys would have to prove any change to that. >> Got it.
So the bank actually this is a form from the bank they want us to start reviewing that that we are following these and we currently have these in place but we haven't really put them in writing. So these are the in writing the things that we follow for these files and so we're going to review it with the school board once a year just to see if we needed to make any changes to that. So that's what these are. So this is just kind of a slight change from what it's been in the past as far as It's just in writing. >> [clears throat] >> official official review where we have the minutes that we did. It's the same process that we've been following it's just not been in writing and so we're putting it in writing so that everybody knows. They're getting tricky out there.
There are also 10 that are essential. Um all are currently active with four new ones available for adoption. And then lastly, five that are discretionary that include three new options. Um between now and the May meeting, I just need feedback regarding the new and new essential and discretionary policies. Um unless otherwise directed, all recommended updates will go forward with a second reading. >> Okay. May I have a motion? >> I'll make a motion. >> Second? >> I'll second. >> All in favor? I. Opposed? Passes 4-0. We move to superintendent comments. >> Yes, so thank you. We'll start real real quickly. Uh you you people have asked uh many times for transparency. It's our hope that we can get more financial information out to everyone. So, Kim is going to give us an update tonight on our finances, kind of where we are in a couple different accounts.
>> Got you. Thank you. Yep. Any other discussion? Proceed to vote. All those in favor of um approving the Five Star contract, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 6-0. Next, consideration and approval for student information system vendor. Yeah, so our current vendor is PowerSchool. Our recommendation would be to adopt Harmony as our student information system vendor. I appreciate all the work that's done by our directors and building administrators. We've looked at this several times and had meetings and obviously there's a huge savings here on this one. Again, just being really efficient with dollars. It's about a 50 to 60,000 dollars a year savings on this. I recommend your approval. I move we accept Harmony as a student information system vendor. Second. Moved by Bryce, seconded by Katie, to accept Harmony as our student information system vendor.
As does the three-year revenue comparison for the same time frame, lists revenue received across the debt service, operations, education, and exempt debt service funds. And then finally the self-insurance first quarterly analysis lists our self-insurance fund and wellness clinics claim activity and balance reports for the time period.
So, that takes a lot of scaffolding and support and responsive teaching. Um and then at the same time, we want to also be sure that we are um looking at this through the asset-based lens that Astrid spoke about and that we are addressing their social-emotional needs as as adolescents or as children or as high schoolers um and we're meeting them with where they are um in terms of their social-emotional growth as well. Okay, so we're good. We're good. A question maybe doesn't have an answer but don't we have native speakers who need to acquire those skills? >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Which [clears throat] is why, you know, our scaffolds are not meant just for these multilingual learners. They they benefit everyone. You know, so um everything that we talk about tonight doesn't just benefit the multi- lingual learners, it benefits everyone. Which is also why that there's no magic wand statement is so important.
Uh, and the students that just spoke are members of those. At the Suburban Youth Council, this program, Asian and immigrant students from across the Northwest suburbs join twice a week to advocate for people who look like and sound like them. District 125 students have emerged as leaders, whether it's distributing know your rights information in freezing weather, sharing over 500 voter guides to immigrant-owned businesses, or lobbying for healthcare expansion in the Springfield. Last year, this council sought to understand their peers through a survey on food stigma. They identified that a root cause of the racist stigmatizing incidents was a lack of education on Asian culture. As the students discussed the results, I heard them realize in real time that the same mentality that renders our communities, our food, and our traditions perpetually foreign are the same ones that enable ISIS terrorism. The reason students are advocating for the Teach Act is because now more than ever we need well- educated communities.
Really appreciate hearing all the things that are going on in our buildings. >> Okie dokie. Next, we have annual monitoring of district technology report. Mr. And it's my pleasure to introduce our chief technology officer for the district, Mr. Adam Denver. >> Thank you. Good evening. I'm Adam Denver, chief technology officer in the district. I want to thank the school board and Dr. Amade for this opportunity to present tonight. This year's memo focused on more technical items than in years past. This is a reflection of today's landscape and the challenges of protecting data as well as the district's commitment to safety and security procedures. Tonight, I'll provide some safety and security updates. Then I will talk a little bit about artificial intelligence where we saw an increase in staff usage and the roll out of some AI literacy lessons. Finally, as in years past, I will conclude tonight's presentation with an update of our device replacement cycle.
So Justin, come on up. >> Hey everyone. Uh so I uh always feel like honored to be here obviously talking about the speech team because speech is something that's very important to me. Um, this is my 21st year being involved on the Downers South Beach team as a competitor, as an assistant coach, and as the head coach. Um, this program is so important to me specifically. But I think when I look at my students and see what they do, not only in high school, but beyond high school, I really see the value of what speech does. It's more than these awards, which are cool, don't get me wrong. It's really about the people that I get to work with and the people that they become because of what we do on our speech team. Um, and this year we have uh the second year in a row of getting second place, which I think is a fantastic accomplishment.
Fortunately, this the last couple months actually, there haven't been a lot of questions, but sometimes there are and they require some uh some look, some data, and things like that. And we're not always able to get the answer in time for the COW. And finally, just on a personal level, Monday is absolutely for an administrator the busiest day of the week. It's extremely long. It's extremely difficult. And having meetings at the end of the day that sometimes go long, which is fine. That's part of our job, right? Um it's very difficult because you're dragging by Tuesday, Wednesday, and you feel like you kind of never recover during the week. And we do that twice a month. Sometimes the meetings are shorter. Uh sometimes not. So, just as an administrator, Mondays are difficult. Again, we've been doing Mondays for 20 years that I've been here. And so, it's fine if the board wants to stick with Mondays, but I'm just throwing it out there.
Yeah. Okay, thank you. Pappas? Yes. Ward? Yes. Dogan? Yes. Gorman? Yes. Hurst? Yes. Mervich? Yes. Watson? Yes. Motion passes. All right, next are our committee reports. First one up is facilities. So, just really quickly, we haven't had a real meeting with facilities since last month, but um I have put at your tables this timeline that you all have. The board has asked for a little more concrete information from STR, our architects, and Jennifer Costanza, one of the principals that we are working with, um put together this timeline that I think um responds to exactly what it is the board is looking for with the deliverables and the dates. Um this will consistently be updated, and it will continuously move out as we as their services continue with us. One thing you may want to note is that anything that references Caserta is the demographic study.
I know they are. I mean but we've we've put a lot of different layers in place. The bank has helped us with that so but yeah. Kristen gets emails all the time like people trying to change employees you know like spam emails so she doesn't change anything obviously through that. Now that we have frontline it's all through there when they change their bank accounts so so It's always I can't I can't take your call you got to reply because I'm in a meeting and they send me emails and they say but like yeah I got to go. >> [laughter] [clears throat] >> Okay item C6 2027 budget calendar. Again that's just some dates for you guys to keep in mind for um when we'll be advertising the budget uh and then the work session that we'll have on August 17th before our board meeting. Are these dates going to be pretty well set or do we I mean can we kind of put these in our calendars and rely on them?
>> Okay. For this evening, we want to just kind of quickly review. We did this at our public work session, but we want to have it in a board meeting, too. Um, you guys might get sick of me, but we are going to run with this bucket uh visual because we had some really good feedback, and I think we do public finance is very hard to understand. A visual makes [clears throat] it a lot easier. So, I actually do have plastic buckets. They're not here tonight, but we I will be bringing them at some point. Um, so just kind of reminders, how do public schools get their funding? Indiana public schools use fund accounting, which means there's buckets for different types of money. We have our education fund, which that is funding from the state based primarily on our enrollment, our operations fund, and our debt service fund.
Any discussion? I did call Josh today. Um I don't know if I'm definitely in minority here, but if I am, that's fine. Uh Wednesday at the work session I brought up I've been reading and looking into this. I've got concerns and it's one thing when we always sit back and we say, "We're looking at cost reduction measures." My concern is anytime we look at surveys where we're doing really, really good in technology and staff's very happy with what we're doing, and we're looking at cutting back on technology. More times than not, anytime I see reduction usually means one of two things. Either we're going to stop doing the work or the work's going to get shifted to somebody else. And I'm I'm worried because I don't know enough about what we're approving as to whether or not a reduction like this means our teachers are going to have to pick up more work.
I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have over those items. Dr. Henry Wooden, questions at this time? Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, we move to continue Yeah, I'll start. Um One of the things that I love is that I can experience things as a parent experience things as a parent and as a superintendent. And what I'm going to begin with is something that I've been aware of but never uh participated in, ever gone through it. So, this weekend our student athletes had the opportunity to complete their required athletic physicals through a partnership with TriState Orthopedics and Pro Rehab Physical Therapy. Um the staff donate their time on a Saturday morning and make this a very convenient, inexpensive option for families. It costs $10. And that amount is actually donated back to our schools. And so, um my son has gone through it before but just seeing it that there are hundreds of kids there and very efficient and just a great way for us to get those physicals done for students.
What we're really talking about here is getting really, really good at that tier one instruction and providing these universal designs for learning, like Kristen said, that will be beneficial especially to a multilingual learner but are equally beneficial to any kiddo, right? Any kiddo could benefit from additional vocabulary, academic vocabulary, right? That's going to help them access instruction. It is also super helpful for our multilingual learners. So, you probably will be hitting this but can you talk a little bit now or if it's embedded in the PowerPoint um the type of professional development that you provided for staff? We do have a slide for that. So, that's coming coming up. Okay. Um one of the areas that we addressed in terms of um looking at our whole program was curriculum and service delivery. Uh the the ser- services that we deliver through our multi- lingual program.
While the state passed this mandate in 2021, 5 years later, students across the northwest suburbs, including at Stevenson, still feel like the law has not been fully implemented. I encourage you to take Hannah's question into consideration and even go beyond that and ask a young person in your life to name three Asian-American civil rights leaders. To this end, Stephvenson students identified a set of demands before you. Above all, they stressed that Asian-American contributions be made more accessible to the student body. This can be through curricular updates like increasing the number of Asian-American authors or including intentional diaspora histories that represent the full spectrum of Asian-Americ. The students also know that this can be a larger lift, especially for those who never learned Asian-American history. Fortunately, they have done their research and identified and will share free resources, including professional development, book lists, and lesson plans because they are deeply invested in the district's compliance with state law.
And yes, I did use Google's AI tool, beautify this slide, to change the topics tonight on this page from words to buttons or images. And I'm now giving credit to using this AI tool. So, in collaboration with the district safety committee, the tech team has been rolling out new safety and security communication tools. Part of the standard response protocol is lockdown. If any staff member were to determine there is a serious active threat or a danger inside a building, they can initiate a lockdown. This system was tested during our required lockdown drills at all schools this year. It alerts and directs students and staff while calling the dispatch center with details of details of where the lockdown was initiated. Text messages and notifications are also sent to key district staff including SRO Moresco. This year, the E911 notification system was also updated to improve the information district staff receives when a 911 call was placed.