I did not get anywhere close to being our state champion in OC that year. Um, but if I could have Nate come down here and just say a couple words about um, uh, speech and his experiences on the team. Hi. Uh, Mr. Makovich used this as an opportunity to prepare me for limited prep events in the future by telling me around uh, 10 minutes ago that I would have to say some things. So, uh, I want to use this opportunity to talk about how um, speech can take a group of people and make them into a family. I joined this team as a freshman uh because my sister convinced me around three months before freshman year to join. So I quit football and uh joined speech and I will never regret that decision. Over the past two years, these people sitting over there have become like a family to me and I would not trade that for anything else in the world.
So, you actually would be doing the month ahead at the COW meeting, so that you actually have a whole month to take a look at and decide what it is you need information on, data on, things like that. So, it's a little bit of a different structure, but it involves just a single night. It's usually a little bit longer night. Um checking schedules, it seems like common times for that, if the board want to go that direction, were a little bit earlier, 5:30 to 7:00 roughly for the COW meeting with the board immediately following. The people that I've talked to who have that type of schedule, generally their board meeting is very short because they've had a month to get information and have information, and there's far less discussion at the board meeting. The topic is always, you know, it always can go longer, but it does then only have just that one night per month.
So, So, looks Thank thank you. It looks like around July or August, um we'll start to get past some of the foundational information and get into some options. Correct. I think we're all set. Just to see. Yep. Great. And they'll be here next month for an update for us. Yes, I think Jennifer will be here next month. We can work with that. Yep. >> [snorts] >> But if there's not much of one, which there should be based upon this. Right. Now we got to ask questions. Exactly. >> [laughter] >> So. Awesome, thank you. >> Thank you. And CCC? Yeah, next up is CCC, which I just attended this afternoon. Um the main things that we talked about um were a couple different offerings for different courses for our high schoolers, which I thought were pretty cool. Uh two of the proposals were for in relation to math.
But my thought is is that if we did have somebody who is interested that we would already have a program to direct them to. And so that's what the memorandum of understanding would be if we signed it next month. It doesn't mean we have to pay for it. That would be something that we probably need to address down the road but it's just having a place for us to send our people to if they wanted to. Uh Southmont uses it right now. I didn't know we currently have IU are we partnered with someone or not partnered? >> We probably used IU we may Western Governors is another organization that we get a lot of teachers from and they could still use that. This is just something that we would be able to say oh you want to do that we have IU here's the form and there's a discounted rate and then they they have relationship with us that we could work with.
So, we're we're still on track there, but keeping an eye on that. Our rainy day fund spending so far is also at 0%. I am personally trying to keep this as low as possible. Rainy day funds, we always appropriate 400,000 um that we can use if we have some things that we weren't expecting. And if we have things like um teacher retirements, they have a lot of sick days. It's hard to budget for those larger amounts. We can use our rainy day funds for things like that. Um I'm I would like to wean us off of using rainy day um as much as we had been, so that is one of my goals for this year. That is all I have in terms of budget update. >> So, I I just want to go on record as saying that the the financial situation for public schools and for public entities in general is quite complicated.
You know, because of all our administrators and that are the heavy users of it, our district directors that are the heavy users of it. So, I I think it it more than meets our needs as far as what we do in the district. You know, it I think it makes it easier in a lot of ways because the support level is right there, a phone call away. You know, and there's not additional fees with that. You know, this this first year in 2026-2027, there's a a total savings of 42.6. The next year it goes up to 58,000 a year. And that carries out. I think they play nicely together because we'll we'll also use them for our point of sale system in the cafeteria, which is where we do our direct certifications for free and reduced lunch, things that come through SNAP or TANF. And so, we're able to tie that directly into our student system.
Education is often a profession that spans generations. The key issue the key issue is not whether relatives work in the district, but whether employment decisions are based on merit, qualifications, and fairness. As I stated, my concern has always been direct reporting relationships or situations where a conflict of interest could reasonably exist. If an employee is not in a direct supervisory supervisory relationship, I have not viewed that alone as a problem. If a conflict were to arise, then appropriate reassignment or other corrective action should be considered. I also believe we must be fair to employees who happen to have a family connection. It is not right for someone to be viewed as viewed only as the spouse of or the son or daughter of rather than as an individual who works hard, performs well, and earns evaluations or promotions on their own merit. Every employee deserves to be judged by the quality of their work, professionalism, and dedication to students.
Eventually, I believe the plan is going to be to show them digitally, um but that's in our in our goal for the coming years. What's happening in the elementary schools? In the elementary schools, the plans are written in conjunction with the Rams, Pat Castle, as well as classroom teachers. What's really important to note here, um Kristen earlier presented that CDE um multilingual framework. This is a shared responsibility. So, it's not one person that owns this plan. It's a group and a team of folks that own that plan. So, the initial data dive might be done by Pat or our Rams. However, we can't get that holistic picture around a student and we can't do that asset base without involving the teachers. So, it's a a shared responsibility, multiple people. It is meant to be a living breathing document, right? So, if I identify an area of need for a kiddo and the kiddo's progressing and I'm I'm progress monitoring, the plan is meant to be updated and follow the child, so that we continuously are meeting the needs of the kiddo and we're looking at our Kelp rubric for that specific grade level band.
Uh, but as we know, with challenges come opportunities to really grow and to learn how to push through things and to develop that resilience and that perseverance. Um, and I'm here to tell you everyone, those are really the life skills that will get you through um the long hall in life. And so, we're so excited that you develop develop those skills here. Uh, and we couldn't be more proud of you and are excited to share your stories with this group and with our board of education, too. Um, we're gonna start with Isabelle. That's okay. Mrs. Kelly and Yep. And Mrs. Van Gilardi. Um, so Isabelle, hi. Here you are. Um, Isabelle Deas. Um, Isabelle's going to share her own story and she has worked with Mrs. Megan Kelly, her counselor, and Miss Vanillardi, her social worker. You ready? Okay. Take it away. >> Yeah. Wherever you want.
We are also excited to equip some new spaces with audiovisisual equipment for meetings and presentations including the new cafeteria at North and the library and cafeteria at Central School. Next, I will give an update on artificial intelligence. It is worth noting while we have a plan and we put in a lot of work, we are still in the early implementation stages. Teachers and students are not required to use AI tools at this time. Two summers ago, our AI task force kicked things off by creating the AI and District 62 guidelines. And last summer, additional work was done, which I will now review. This past summer, the task force created the district AI student expectations document. While students may not be using AI in school, we know many of them, even if they're not 13 years old, are using it on their own, and it is important for them to learn about how to use it responsibly.
So thank you We say camp, my friends. So therefore, uh, forgot about that. >> Mayor Barnett in mayor has also the mayor of Downer's Grove is also named today in your honor. And, uh, Mayor Cunningham in the village of Woodridge has also named today in your honor. So, CONGRAT All right. Well, now that it's over, I feel a little sad. Um, but just um congratulations on behalf of both me and Dr. Dement. Congratulations to all of our students, our coaches, and thank you on behalf of both of us, to our families. Um, I think uh both Luke and Adam spoke about that they can't do it without the family. So, thank you for all the driving and all the support um and just all the love and care you give them and thank you for sharing them with us. Um I think that concludes our celebration.
Um and then leaves other nights open when we have things like negotiations, or you need to have a special meeting, or you're interviewing, or things like that, it leaves a little more leeway with that. Again, that's a pretty big leap in model from what we're doing currently. Um I'm not recommending any preference of any of those. I think it'd be really helpful not to have board meetings on Monday. But outside of that, um again, I want to reiterate, it is up to the board. It is your schedules and your time, uh and you have to be able to be here. And if Monday is just always the day that works for everybody, then absolutely we stick with Monday. But again, I just wanted to throw that out to the board for discussion. When I first read this on Friday, I kind of panicked, and I and Dr.
Right now we don't have dual credit um math classes at the high school, and so they're proposing to have dual credit algebra and dual credit trigonometry, which um they came to give me a presentation that I thought was was great, and I think it offers some really cool opportunities to our students. Um next we talked about um a couple offerings for aviation and for drone for our students, which would be uh I thought would be absolutely fantastic, and it would be part of the regional pathway program. Um The offerings for our students, it's just really cool to see the different programs that um Steven Brooks is working to get uh for our students in the offerings for that, and so uh I appreciate Thank you very much for all the work that you're doing. Um those programs that and you can correct me if I'm if I missay something, but it sounded like that was an opportunity that came to our district for us to be the sponsor for that or to at least host that program here, and he jumped jumped on that.
And there's transition to teaching that would be somebody who has a bachelor's degree or this might be somebody who doesn't have any college experience. They have three or four different programs. So what I'd like to do is send that to you guys here in the next several weeks through board notes so you can get a chance to look at it and then bring it for approval at the May meeting. But no we are not committing to whether we are paying for for this or not. We I don't think we need to do that right now. Okay.
And I know people who have done it for 20 25 years, and they still learn stuff when they when they do this. So, when people say I think one of the things that I want to make clear is that when people ask for transparency, it's hard to be transparent in a system that is literally extremely complicated. So, we'll continue to try to give information to you in a way that makes sense. If you have other ideas, please let us know. Second topic for us is the public work session. I put this on just for a couple things. Board comments or thoughts on anything that was brought up in the notes or anything that's published on the website regarding the questions from the public work session. And then I wanted to give you all some things that I've heard. Just asking. Okay, so so on Thursday of last week, is that right?
There's there's the the health piece that goes right in there. And then the state reporting piece is huge because again, Harmony is only an Indiana company. And so, they're all their state reporting is tied only to Indiana. PowerSchool again is international, and so, you're you're constantly trying to figure out how to get it to Indiana. So, I'm not saying there is no SIS that is perfect. There are four major players in the K-12 space. There's there's Skyward, Infinite Campus, Harmony, and PowerSchool. None of them are perfect. I think for a small school, and again, you know, this is some a recommendation from Five Star as well. From a budgetary standpoint, from a personnel standpoint, not having to rely on any outside vendors, that was their recommendation, too, to go to Harmony. And so, you know, they've already started helping Sam. I know we we've already sent stuff over, started working on that.
My position remains simple, maintain clear safeguards, prevent real conflicts of interest, and ensure every employee employee is evaluated fairly, professionally, and on merit. Thank you. Thank you. Any comments? Come before the board. All right. Appreciate everyone's attendance. We have artwork from Wright High School. Take a look at that. Appreciate you being here. Also, I believe we may have key students here. If you're a student, please step to the microphone and tell us your name and what school you attend, please. My name is Genesis and I'm a senior at Sig Tech. Uh my name is Dylan. I'm a sophomore at Wright's and I go to the Shepherd Academy. Hi, I'm Lauren. I'm a junior at Duke High School. I'm Clara Voss. I'm a senior at Signature School. Hi, I'm Hoda and I'm also a senior at Signature School. I'm Fatima Yusuf and I'm also a senior at Signature.
So, like Kristen said, we currently piloted for level ones and newcomers. We got a lot of feedback from staff, which was great, and we're continuously improving that practice and next year every student, regardless of level one, level four, will have a plan, including kiddos that have exited that we're progress monitoring and keeping an eye on to make sure that they're still excelling academically. And how about the high school? Who's writing those plans? >> Amy Russell is the lead, but it's similar fashion. She's working with um the teachers. I don't know if you have anything to add to that, Kevin. So, I'm not sure this is what you're thinking, but as you all know, Pat Castle is with us for a very small amount of hours that we've been able to use some of the grant money to pay her for consulting fee. And our largest number of multilingual learners is at the elementary school.
You want to stand? >> Yeah. >> Okay. You go right ahead. >> Good evening to the Stevenson High School Board of Education staff members and the Patriot community. My name is Isabelle Francis Deassis and I am a graduating class a graduating senior with the class of 2026. Before I begin, I'd like to thank a few people who have truly shaped my high school experience. First, my school counselor, Megan Kelly. Yes, she's right there. uh who has supported me in managing stress and encouraging me to advocate for myself. Also my social worker Laura Mangelardi uh who has guided me in my social, mental and emotional growth. Um intro introduced me in the BEu group, a space uh that has given me both community and the confidence to express myself. Both of them are here today and I'm incredibly grateful. I also want to thank my mom and dad who have always pushed me.
This document can be found on all school websites or by using our district AI jampot and they are reviewed with students as part of our AI digital literacy lessons written for students. These expectations provide a definition and common use examples of artificial intelligence and it reviews three important expectations when using AI to be safe, respectful, and responsible. By the end of this school year, all K through 8th grade students will have completed at least three AI literacy lessons. These lessons are structured around three main strands that progress developmentally across grade levels. In the early elementary K2 focus, we have recognition and safety, identifying AI helpers in daily life, basic concepts, understanding patterns and simple input output, and foundational ethics, kind, safe, responsible use. In the upper elementary third through fifth grade, our focus is on comparison and analysis, different AI types and their functions, historical context, AI evolution and timeline of understanding and privacy awareness, data protection and safe behaviors.