Skyler's middle school special ed teacher. This is Skyler's first year at Big Hollow, but uh not her first year in teaching, and she's done a fabulous job here at the middle school. Enough so that uh was recognized by her peers in her first year in our district. And last but not least, Kelly Schmidgall, elementary instructional coach. Kelly's just been exceptional and uh as an instructional coach in our district, she helped us bring the program here and uh um has just really truly been exceptional and and honored by her peers. Um and we uh just wish her the best of luck as she just accepted a job in Lake Bluff. So, uh Kelly, we're gonna s be sad to see her go, but uh she's just been an amazing addition for us. So, thank you all. Appreciate it. Not >> yet. >> No, >> I had this off the agenda, but they snuck it back on.
As things wind down in our classrooms, they are ramping up in other areas. We are excited to welcome everyone to our one of our two town hall community meetings this month. Sorry. One will be this month, one will be in June. And where we'll be sharing information about the future of our district while also offering opportunities for input about how we have to think about our capital improvement. Many families, if not I think the whole community, received information about both those events. The first one is May 18th at Thompson Junior High School starting at 5:30 p.m. and then on Tuesday, June 2nd at Boulder Hill Elementary School starting at 5:30 p.m. And now I want to invite our board members if you would like to share some of the additional celebrations cuz there is a lot to reflect on this coming year. >> Okay. Um we were honored to celebrate our educators during Teacher Appreciation Week last week.
Um our last item under celebrating orals is a new one. So sometimes uh you know some of these groups we recognize pretty regularly. This is a group that we have not recognized before because uh it is a new recognition from the Indiana Department of Education recognizing some uh third grade students with uh designation as a national math star. So, uh we've got some elementary students here that we would like to recognize. So, if you could come forward when I call your name. We've got one student from Cedar, Elean Evelyn Riggsby. One student from Evergreen, Bo Step. Five students from Maple, McKenzie Hooser, Lincoln Vanstrom, Cameron Nifnax, Aiden Wan, and Jacob Cox. And then two students from Sycamore, Nathaniel Kirk, and Mercury Wang. And I know we've got uh several principles from those schools here, assistant principles, and I see some teachers as well that came to recognize these students.
Which kinds of programs are um run by coaches and the money doesn't belong to BCSE? So, any external So, a PTO, for example, is the most common one that you'll see districts often times erroneously um keep be the um custodian of those funds and house them under their extracurricular account. That is not allowed. So, any external program is is managed independently. You know, even if they like a fund PTO does a fundraiser, the money goes to the PTO's account. It's maintained in their own bank. They have their own board and their own treasurer and their own checking account. Um Booster clubs. Yeah. Like And the band booster club or if you have a booster club for football, um those are ex- we would expect those would be separate nonprofit entities and they would hold their own funds. But when schools have fundraisers, I think I hear a lot about the sports tickets, but much of this, particularly at the elementary and middle school level, is not necessarily sports related.
And we talked about their effectiveness, but also how we can improve those. And yeah, and we've done it not just for the high school, but for our middle school as well. We also talked about the behavioral health resources you identify. And this is one topic I felt was very important to touch on and where our voices mattered a lot because as students, we see stuff that sometimes adults don't. and we have a good idea of what works and what doesn't work when it comes to like um like correcting behavior. And so I think where where we're at is a really good place and I think we can expect to see like a lot of improvement. Um and lastly, we talked a lot about um how deli is perceived throughout our community and what we could do to improve the image of DC. And so one big thing we discussed was the many different like logos and images we used to promote and like how we can condense that down into one single like um image consistent picture.
Gelhausen um to serve in the Open City Columbia Township Library Board. I'll make that motion. I have a motion. Do I have a second? >> Second. Okay, that motion Motion to be You got to be quick. I've got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. of those the same? Okay, that carries. Next up this evening is you have the final proposal for 2026 summer school. Um, mainly what we're going to be doing at the high school is credit recovery. Um, we are doing middle school math and language arts. Um, and then at the elementary will be the I read remediation which is required by law as well as the jumpstart for kindergarten. Um, we are funded a little bit differently this year. It's going to be based upon credit hours that the students are here.
Well, that's about $320,000 coming to the district based on virtual education. Now, your assumption can't always be that if the student wasn't full-time virtual, they wouldn't be with us. They might have been the old hybrid where their percentages were different, but what we do know is that our platforms virtually are supplementing all the way from the AP course to the academic honors, the scheduling conflicts, all the way down to special services in terms of they have a um maybe need longer time to take a class than what would be on time allotted to kids who are behind on credits. So these three platforms have a variety of students from all levels, but they're working simultaneously under virtual education. And this team under Dr. Digits, his counselors, and our team that handles the virtual education with Mrs. Brimberry, um kids have opportunities here. Might be one class, might be a medical, as you know, might be medical, and they're working through those things with those kids virtually.
There are lots of graduation plans to create and transcripts to uh go over and then all the auditing to make sure that no mistakes are made. More scrutiny is going to come as we go along. as Indiana um embraces virtual learning, we're going to see a lot more uh less of the we're going to see a lot less of the wild west and a little bit more accountability here. So, speaking of accountability, also um I also looked into how Indiana online and some of those other schools are doing um in their data in state tests and graduation rate and attendance rate and the numbers aren't good. um they're not going to be great for us at first. Um accountability is going to have to catch up to non-traditional and virtual learning. And in other states, um we've traveled um with the national cohort uh for the past couple of years and we see states um that come out with an accountability plan similar to what we have here.
So there's something you can say called point of order. I don't know that a lot of people know that, but if there's something going on with the structure of the town meeting or you feel like you're being bullied or some crazy thing you don't feel is right, you stand up in your seat and you got to yell pretty loud. Point of order and then the moderator will say, "Come on down." And then you go to the mic. And I've probably used it, I don't know, four times. and I've seen a couple other people use it, but I think a lot of people just don't know that it's a tool that you can use. So, and I think that's one of the thing on the on the podcast like how how can people prepare, right? So, we do have um typically town government has a forum about the warrant articles.
And it was um I don't know if I should read some, but he wanted people to be aware of how town meeting worked and how the finance committee worked. Um I >> Okay, as as of now, you're 2 months out from annual town meeting. I thought it'd be a good time to go over some of my duties and responsibilities as moderator and those of the finance committee and put them in the form of a public service post on Facebook. Just as our federal government has separation of powers, the same is true of our state and local governments. For local governments, there's an executive branch and a legislative body. In Munson, that would be the same in Ashuelot. The executive branch are vested in select board and the legislative powers are vested in town meeting. So, he goes on to explain how the finance committee is under the legislative and that should also be independent.
So I don't know. Um, all right. So, uh, it we we've already talked about it very briefly, but it can be difficult to get record public records. I did ask for the calendar here, 25 salaries, and I I think I waited most of the 15 days. Um, some people get it right away, I didn't. and what I got I just honestly I I couldn't understand what it was. Um so I wrote I don't know maybe last week at the end of the week uh or maybe it was Sunday I don't know but I said you know I I really don't understand what this is can I just have the line of what the salary was you know the last day of December 31st 2025. So, you know, we're we're supposed to be informed because if we're not, they tell us we're misinforming. But then when you try to get the information, it becomes almost like a a herculean challenge.
That's the difference, right? >> Right. Because we we have a surplus every year. They say we have a deficit, but we actually have a surplus. And it's, you know, anywhere from 1.5 million to 2.5 million. And as the budget gets bigger, it gets bigger. And I brought this up at one of these early override meetings and I was told, well, we do have a surplus, but we have to keep at it for the bond rating. So in my mind that's like like nonsensical. Um >> well Julie and then and then just to talk real numbers I mean we actually >> when you talk OPE that's like >> high 4850 over $50 million. We are not in >> great shape financially right. So, so you're taking a slice of it to to um we say we're in good shape and we get this bond rating. >> Mhm.
Oh, there's there's a strike. That one was fouled back. So, we've got a runner on first base here with Domestico up down two and one uh to McKee. Domestico takes a look at her fielders. Butermann moves over a little bit. She wheels and deals. Changeup in for a strike, strike two. That's a nasty little changeup she's got there. You know something? I was just going to ask you don't watch much softball as you do. I watch a lot of baseball. But in terms of pitch variety here at the high school level, is it that pre- predominantly but what you're saying >> that ground ball right over to Kazanjian getting out of the inning, uh Butermann over to Kazanjian, and that's going to be one run on one on two hits uh for the Mustangs who take a one to nothing lead going into the bottom half of the second inning.
So very appreciative of that. Uh we'll continue doing that project and the goal for next year is to have um everybody out and about again um with community service day. Um currently we're in the process of interviewing and hiring for a position that we still have uh open in our building that uh hopefully we'll have finalized by the end of this week. Have an offer out for that. And then um just on the athletic activity side with postseason coming up, it's going to be pretty pretty hectic again around here with regionals and postseason play coming up for a multitude of different sports. Uh seniors that are able to opt out for finals essentially tomorrow is their last their last day here. and uh part of the graduation report that I thought it was important to bring up tonight because we got this data that our uh our graduating classes GPA average is a 3.4 and we got confirmed today that everyone's going to graduate.
So our last conversation revolved around the new teachers coming to the district there. There would we estimate between five and six new computers. Those computers run about $1,300 per computer. So when you do the math on that, that comes out to about $7,800. We originally wanted to change out and get all the clear touch panels completed and we had nine or 10 that we needed to get to complete the rotation for those clear touch panels. Um that does include bringing the ones from Wilson that we've used reap grants from from um they're not counted in that 10. But even right now for just five panels, the total uh bid for KCAB is $23,356 for five of those panels. So um big jump in cost there. So we also need to replace the computers in Miss Kry's room. Um we'd like to do half of them this year.
So, as we know, um we just finished up in March, just before spring break, we finished, um this year's, um AELA, which is Arizona's English language learner assessment. It's how we measure um how well our students are are doing. What I provided for you is reclassification, and I gave you three years worth of data. um for the for compared to last year I did not give you the breakdown of growth simply because AD is in a transition um with AELA um and so the the the scores don't match what they would be what they were last year in other words the finish line changed so we I wouldn't be comparing apples to apples so reclassification is a little bit you know more solid but if you if you take a look here I broke it down by school um and then by district and then by the state so that we get an idea of um what what the entire state is doing and how we compare.
Um I thank uh Mr. McDonald and all the students beautifully highlighted the importance of the arts within our district. And I just wanted to extend my congratulations to all the seniors. Their dedication and passion was extremely evident during their performance and I wish them all the very best. In addition, I had the privilege of attending the Sundown Mountain completion ceremony on May 8th and it was really inspiring to witness the success of the program and the accomplishments of the students and I wanted to say how thankful I am for Principal Musse for all of her hard work, leadership, and commitment to support the students in the program. Thank you. >> Uh last week I attended the Club America event at Willow Canyon uh to speak and welcome the friends and family to their family night and it was just such a warm uh [clears throat] welcoming evening and I really appreciate all the families that are supporting their children in that student club.
So, >> I didn't see it till before the meeting. For our final award, we'd like to recognize Mr. Bob Gold, our big hall superintendent, for being named the 2026 Superintendent of Distinction by his peers at the Lake Region of Illinois Association of School Administrators. Thank you, Bob. >> Okay, last but not least, is Miss Lancaster here? Oh, she is here. All right. So, we had the awesome privilege last Friday of u or Thursday >> of surprising Miss Lancaster. She was uh selected one of 600, right? 600 for the golden apple award for Illinois. So, uh our second gold apple at Big Hollow in the last three or four years. We asked the we asked them last week, how how many schools can you do you know have had multiple? and they said Chicago public schools and Evston's. That's the two he could come up with.
Thank you to our PTAs, PTOs, HSAs and more for taking the time to recognize the hard work and dedication put in by our staff members. We know your efforts to make this week special for them was greatly appreciated. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you to everybody. >> Um and secondly, doctor, and I want to emphasize the word doctor, uh Dr. Adakora Agoro, an evening custodian at Grand Park Elementary School since 2015, graduated with his PhD this weekend. >> Wow. >> In addition to working in the district, he's dedicated lots of time and effort to pursuing this degree and serving as an adjunct professor of pure mathematics at Northern Illinois University. Congratulations to Dr. Agoro on this incredible achievement. >> That's like way to >> I have to look up pure mathematics. >> Yeah, it's supposed to be pure mathematics. Uh we recently celebrated students from Plank Junior High School, Oswego High School and Oswego East High School who concluded their time in the SD 308 dual language program.
So, let me tell you a little bit about this. The Indiana Department of Education has partnered with the National Math Stars to recognize exceptional mathematical talent across our state. So, these students that are recognized tonight were scored within the top 2% of third grade students in math in all of Indiana. Nice job. Little math stars, huh? Uh, and so we, this is based on their iLearn assessment data. And so we have uh the the state sent little packets for each student that has a certificate. And I think there's even a medal in there because it's pretty heavy. So you can uh pull out those medals and take a look at them. But we are very proud of your hard work in math and thank you for our teachers who have done such great work to uh create students that are math wizzes. So congratulations. So, if you guys want to scrunch together a little bit, we'll take a picture and they'll give you your envelope.