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it was five but we waited. Okay. Um and as I mentioned before, some of this was I I forget any of this. This this running what it would be Yeah. um and the the individuals. Um but we also got to be careful that we have a lot of experience and we want our students to have the the best teacher. But, I appreciate it. I've already had conversations with the union president of the board next year of offering it if it's something that the the board would be in agreement with. Okay. Thank you. That I rest my questions. You feel okay now? Yeah, for now, yeah. I'm going to ask each board member, are you comfortable supporting the cuts as presented? I am. Um I am I'm comfortable supporting these cuts as presented. I think the only thing that I'm a little bit nervous about is are they deep enough?
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Um I did have one question about there was a page about AI an AI tool. AI powered writing tool that was that's supposed to like give feedback to the students as they're writing. Um so I was a little concerned about that. Uh it did say that it could be turned off. So I was curious about >> Yeah. the AI assistant >> haven't made any final decisions on how to approach that yet. We have used an AI writing feedback tool at the middle school for a number of years and we've got rid of that with Amplify because it's part of of their suite as well. All of this these curricular resources and pretty much every piece of software has some AI embedded within it now. It's kind of um amazing how the industry has adopted that. Um the feedback can be really beneficial because students can put their own writing and get like immediate feedback instead of having to wait for their teacher to grade the paper.
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>> Not required. Okay, so that's a D26. Yes. >> Exit. Okay. Thank you. The next one is a policy 7:20 harassment of students prohibited. Uh minor language change across out the word school on page one. And on page two, we are changing the name at the top from Mr. Brian DeRue to Ms. Belinda Quinones. And that is one of the uh Title IX Yep. Next is 7:185 teen dating violence prohibited. And there's just on page one a very minor change. They cross out the word the term. I don't know why. Continuous improvement is usually what they call it. 7:220 bus conduct. Um this one the next several are actually have no change to the policy. This is only in here because it had not been reviewed for 5 years. So, ISBE periodically just reviews it to see if there's any updates. They're not recommending any updates.
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Thank you, Lorna. At this time, we'll ask for a motion to agree to the NDA agreement. I'll make a motion. I'll second. The motion is seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Motion passed. Thank you. Thank you. Item I is miscellaneous. I'll open that up to our board members this can go first. Do you have anything? I'll minimize mine. Uh I got here a little after 5:00 and I saw the tech department laying on the floor, making sure all the mics work, and the screens work, and I appreciate you guys so much to do this. Cuz, you know, having meetings in the board room is one thing, >> [laughter] >> but moving it You guys do great work. I appreciate that. Um graduation, holy smokes, it's coming up soon. I just want to ask everybody that's coming to graduation to be kind.
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So, at this point, does anybody have any questions? >> Thank you. Any questions? Mrs. Ferris. >> Mrs. Ferris, first, please. I'm sorry I didn't see you. >> Help me here. >> You're on. Your lights's on. >> Okay. All right. First of all, I want to commend you all for for the presentation. It's really well done. Um and and and certainly it's very comprehensive and it's exactly what should be done um in in this in your office. Um, I especially liked Bill's presentation because he hit on a lot of things that I had questions about because the questions that I have revolve around the comments that I hear um throughout the year and the comments that I hear are that safe doesn't support um teachers have just kind of thrown up their hands because many times um the student is sent back. Um there is no account well I shouldn't say no little accountability for the students and the teachers just feel voiceless so they are just throwing up their hands and maybe not recommend uh referring uh students to the office because quote unquote not much is going to get done or they'll be sent back and that's what I hear in contrast to this wonderful presentation.
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I I mean, for us to I don't want us to have to come back in you know, two weeks again and then we're told, "Okay, we're cutting another million dollars from our That would be impactful. Um I think and I think we would still be within the minimum budget requirement at that time. So, I think that's my only concern, which I think it's after the referendum is a valid one. You probably had everybody's support. You will always have our support. Support decision. If the Board of Finance reduced we are at 275 thousand dollars, I think you could decide as a board that you came up with tonight more or less that brings that number up. Sure, you could go back to the Board of Finance and say, "We took 275, but I know I think that's a hard that's a a difficult decision, right? The no's were very it was evident that it the it wasn't close.
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So, there's some benefits to it, but there also can be some like abuses to that as well. Or shortcutting of using AI, which is something that we deal with quite often. So, we haven't really made any final decisions on how to process through that, but we'll do that with the teachers when they get back. And then the other question I saw in there that there were some supplemental materials that were online, but the rest is all like that chunky >> Yeah, there's there's a big chunky book and there's a workbook. So, um workbooks are coming back cuz we have them in the math curriculum at the middle school and they'll be a part of the ELA curriculum, which is good for There are some pieces that we do on technology and we have uh with the pilots at Savvas, we did use the LightSpeed technology field test.
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Um so we would just be reaffirming that this was fine. We actually accepted this because of our policy um process that we went through in January of 2025, but IASB has not updated it for 5 years. Dr. Thomas, I had a question about this after reading through it. Um it didn't really address, like other policies do, where a report about can be who Who would a student go and tell about um misconduct on the bus? Students can tell the driver, they can tell their teacher, they can tell the the administrators at the building, they can tell pretty much anybody. Okay. Is it the drivers then who fill out It depends on the incident. So if the driver is aware of the incident, drivers do fill out bus incident reports, yes. Um sometimes they're brought to uh the administration or to a teacher who brings it to administration.
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Uh it gets a little crazy when the doors open. I've been there, done that. Please don't run. Please keep the lower three bleacher seats for the people that can't climb. I know that your kid's important to you, but there's people that can't walk steps, so just be considerate of other people. Um if you need a seat on the floor, I think you can reserve one, but you need to call the office, [clears throat] not the day of graduation. You probably should start doing that now. But don't wait till Saturday, cuz you won't get a seat. There's room on the floor. Just call, they'll have your name on it. It's a great day for everybody, but it's going to be hot in there, especially if you're in the bleachers up the top. So, we're all excited. Thank you. Thanks, Johnny. You know, Uh I will share something.
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I want to believe every word Bill said because he said it with such conviction. It is like the best honestly. And I'm not I'm not, you know, throwing throwing smoke here. It is the best. And if it works like that and that's the way it is, perfect. But I can't honestly and I know it's not going to be perfect. I absolutely know that and I know you struggle with the same things that all the other schools do. But my feeling is everybody I hear from can't all be wrong and the consistency, the expectations, the standards need to be uh you know you do such good work, hold the kids responsible, hold the teachers responsible. But in doing holding them responsible, they can't be sending up a kid for uniform or any kind of dress code violation and the the kid is sent back saying, "Oh, [snorts] it's okay." Um, and and I get it.
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It was a landslide. And I'm conscious of that and I think we as a board need it's a really tough position that we're in. Um and I'd like to hear from but I am supportive of these cuts. Okay. >> Yep. Okay. Okay. Thank you for your comment. I know that's one person. Because that was a lot of what I was going to I am very much in agreement with a lot of what Jordan said. I'm not a huge fan of the technology cuts. I think this is actually a really good jump start. We've been talking a number of us about how we're going to approach technology in the future and I think this is a good jump start. I go so far as to say maybe a blessing in disguise. Um so, I'm happy with what's happening there. I don't think the 52 thousand for non-certified teachers, I don't think that cut is going to go through.
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As Sorry, can We did that with the field test teachers, they used the LightSpeed technology cuz it does give you like a dashboard [clears throat] of what kids are actually working on and they found that to be very helpful, especially during like online assessments um for various reasons. As you can guess. So, um you said this will be used for English 1, 2, and 3. What about the honors program? The honors will get the same, but they have different units. So, there's five units in each of the books and really we think it's feasible to do about two or three units and then the honors classes will do a fourth unit. So, it's very rigorous to begin with, so the honors have that extra unit that they'll be working on. We're going to see how that works for next year. So, we worked with Savvas to kind of identify what those units would be cuz we have identified over a period of years what are our power standards in Batavia.
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When that happens, then we actually go back and can review videotape from the bus to see the incident cuz bus drivers can't always see exactly every single thing that's happening in every seat, but there are cameras that allow us to do that. So I'm I'm curious. Should there just be some kind of sentence or something? I don't know if it's in the the student handbook instead of just where or a student can go or to report something something that's happening on the bus that might not even be happening to you, but you might have seen it or you might have heard it. And they other policies say go to a the principal, go to a teacher, go to the the complaint manager, or go to what whatever adult in the school you trust. This doesn't really necessarily say where any kind of reporting what direction that would go to.
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I've had three sixth grade girls uh actually reach out to me and ask me a number of questions about change in curriculum at the middle school. And uh I'm actually impressed that we got sixth graders asking a board member about how their curriculum is structured and and and how it's going to change and what it's going to affect. And the first question that they asked, which I think was the most important one was are any teachers going to lose their job because of changing the structure? And I gave them the number. But for the students, they were thinking about the teachers first. And I thought was we're sending the right message in this district. They had a thought. I'll I'll give you the question. I I didn't really want to answer that question but I did. This counselor don't want to talk about the problem.
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Between here and there, they can change their clothes. I get it. But you guys have 15 people in that office at this point. This is not a two or three man operation. This is 15 people. And that's a lot of people trying to help students grow and help behaviors and also uh guide them and manage classrooms. Sometimes you have to um it's a lot of people. So it can be done. We're we're 2,000 students. So again what Bill says gospel I believe it but in reality I don't know if everybody in the office is in the on the same page and that's I think where the comments fly from the criticisms fly from and again you know what it happens all the time but I can't help but make it a point to say because I hear it all the time and that's where that's what concerns me.
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I just don't. And I think because of the comments that we heard, everybody's coming from Central Office for Central Office. I spoke in defense of Central Office last night and I am still going to defend Central Office, but I think the number of comments that we've heard we would be remiss not to discuss that. Um I think we need to give really serious consideration to that because I don't know what people are going to be having. The people that have chosen to speak to speak. Those who have come to give public comment have definitely made their voices heard. So, I think that's an area that we really look at. So, what's your suggestion? I don't know that I have one. Um except that I don't think that that goes away. I really think So, you don't want to cut your personnel cut? I don't want to.
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So, looking at all of the ELA standards, what are the ones that are most powerful for our students? They looked at that and then matched them to the units and identified either three, two, three, or four units that we'd be covering each of those classes. And so, will the English one and two of those novels also be put away for a year? Yeah. Okay. But we're still keeping novels for the literature composition. Yeah, all of the AP classes, a lot of the electives will still have novels as well. And if a teacher, if I let's say I'm let's say I was a teacher that field tested Savvas this year and I did my homework over the summer and I kind of really got a good grasp on it. So, let's say come right after winter break, I'm like, you know what? I think I can feel like I can introduce a novel.
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Yeah, it this would be covered under in the student handbooks. There's general information about reporting any kind of issue, whether it's on the bus or in school or even after school or things like that. That to me would be covered in the handbook cuz it's really more of a procedure as opposed to policy. Okay, I did not to be fair I didn't go and look in the handbook. Yeah. The next one is 7:230, misconduct by students with disabilities. Similarly, there's no change here. This is just part of a 5-year review cycle. Uh the next one is 7:280, communicable and chronic infectious disease. Same thing, part of a 5-year and there is no recommended change. The next one is 7:300, extracurricular activities. Minor changes on page one uh under number four uh they just change it by an insurance policy. They added the word insurance and then at the end under family insurance policy uh they took out the word concussion a little bit later.
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>> [laughter] >> So, but I didn't have that primary there and he gets it's sitting right there on top. So, we did the instruction with the teachers should be aligned. I also want to go add, sorry. And again, but the camera was always on us but I think if you we could have turned the camera around and look at the standing room people in the back. Although it's kind of like a church, there's always seats in the front and everyone wants to come in the front but we had standing room only. It's it's great to see our our kids that I had in class. Some of them had Katie, some of them had Steve, some of them had Mark. Uh some of them had me and survived. Uh some of them miss the old me but it's nice to see the faces look a little older but the names are gone for me but it's it's really nice to go back and talk to students that were here and they say, "Wow, this school is really good." And I go, "Yeah, keep coming.
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We have a handbook. Follow the handbook. It says appropriate dress. This is what it is. ABC. Then that's what it is. Yes, you're dealing with anxiety and all this stuff. But you know what? Kids rise to the occasion. If you hold them up here, they will reach that goal. If you guide them, yes, it's a full-time job. Um, one other thing, um, I noticed on on the 10 top things, uh, attire, dress code is not one of them. And I hear that a lot. >> It was one in within one of them. >> Yeah, it is. But but it's not one of the top 10. Um, not a biggie. Um, and but this is to me, >> yeah, >> that the consequences of the top 10 things, there's only one that says suspension. So, I mean, honestly, I get we're building, we're talking, we're doing restorative justice, all of that works.
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