001here. >> Amanda here >> please stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I have a motion that the board of education approve the agenda as presented. So move. >> Second. All those in favor? >> Yep. >> Abstain. >> Motion carries. May I have a motion that the board of education approve the consent agenda as presented? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Any items to be pulled for individual discussion? Um, Maria, please call the role. >> Sarah, >> Yes. Taylor, >> Yes. Motion carries. Anyone wishing to address the board may do so at this time. If multiple individuals wish to address the board on the
002same subject, the group is encouraged to appoint a spokesperson. Please state your name and affiliation with the district. You're asked to limit your comments to three minutes and abide by the public participation policy of the district. Please understand that the board will not respond to your questions and concerns during the meeting. A member of the administration team and or board will follow up with you after the meeting. >> It's the great background. >> I know. I'm like, this is a way too formal for me. Um, my name is Katie Coons. I am I am a kindergarten student at Waterberry. I wrote it down so I'd make sure I get it all in in three minutes. Um, as a 20-year teacher in elementary school, and I want to address the water main break situation at Waterberry
003a couple weeks ago. While I totally understand that no plan is perfect, I am really disappointed in the timeline of events and lack of communication afterwards of that day. For some reason, the call to evacuate was not made till 10:35 and parents were only given till 11:15 to drop everything, pick up their child before being busted to a school they've never been to. Why was this call made so late? There were no bathrooms or sprinkler systems for over 2 hours with kids present. Why were we then given 40 minutes just to pick up our kids? If the call had been made to evacuate earlier, parents would have had maybe two hours to get their kid as it was. Parents who were at the school for pickup only to learn that their kid was then accidentally
004bus to the middle school. It was a little bit more chaotic than needed to be. There simply wasn't enough time and enough staff prepared to dismiss kids who were able to go home. As a person who works in elementary school for 20 years, coming from in the building, there were things that could have been done differently. However, these issues could have been remedied with a simple PR email or message to parents at the end of the day explaining that we understand it wasn't perfect. We already know what to do next. Blah blah blah, the usual PR email. But nothing was sent out. Nothing was sent out that day or the next day or the day after or the day after, which makes parents think like, hm, did we think that went well? So, I finally
005sent an email to the superintendent and CCD uh Dr. Pakora as well asking those same questions. And unfortunately, I was given very few answers. In fact, I was given the PRtick email that should have been sent out on Monday. Magically the next day we get an email from the principal to the whole school. So I want schoolboard to know where leadership needs to improve in a future crisis so parents can be confident that their teachers their kids are safe at their school. Your teachers are absolutely amazing. Admin should be the same. And no, I don't believe it would be perfect by any means. On a side note, I think it's also important to have a separate system for emergencies than parent square. Many teacher or many parents have turned it off so that either a
006digest or you get nothing which means in an emergency you don't get it till after the emergency is over. A phone call system that forces it out would have been would be incredibly helpful. My husband had no idea what was going on because he digested everything. I'm like, "Ah, there's a thousand text messages." And a very quick side note as well, the website, the Katyville website needs to be better. You have teachers on there who haven't worked in the district since August, and you have teachers who've worked in your district since August, not on there. So, please update it so we know who those teachers are. That's it. >> Thank you. Um, moving forward with the school board president's report, the I have not received any self monitoring report. So, moving over to finance and
007facilities, Sarah. >> All right. I don't have numbers today. I just have summary. Aren't you excited? So, we met on Tuesday, February 10th. Um, first we reviewed an update on the district's investments. District funds are invested in several different accounts. Win trust bank is used as a checking account for payables and is a money market investment to like short-term stuff or current use stuff. PTMA is used for short-term investments. And Fifth Third Bank is used for long-term investments. All of these investments are staggered with varying maturing dates so that money can be taken out as needed. Next, the committee discussed an update on architect services. After reviewing submissions, the district would like to move forward with the DLA architects. Um, we talked about their experience with health, life, safety, and facilities assessments and also that
008they have experience with similarsized districts with a lot of positive reviews. Um then we also discussed approval of the fiscal year 25 audit which was part of the con consent agenda. This was completed in January. We discussed the difference between acral and cashbased accounting because they use a different system and we use a different system but it all worked out to be the same thing. Um the auditors I'm sorry I just said that the auditors use the approval basis and so they move revenues and expenses into the appropriate year. Um so then we have these final documents the AFR the annual financial report the ACFR the annual comprehensive financial report and all of the required communications letters and all nothing was found in the audit that was surprising. Everything was all good. Next, the committee
009discussed student fees. That's also in tonight's thing. Um, our recommendation is that there's no increase in student fees or in lunch fees for this year. There will still be an early registration discount through April 30th and a multi-ent discount for anybody with three or more students in the district. Uh lastly, we discussed the opportunity to refinance existing bond debt with lower interest rates. So refinancing certain bonds would save taxpayer money over the next nine years. And then um we also talked about like make this option to aggressively pay down bond debt which would increase debt payments in the short term but would bring additional savings in the long term. So just different things to be weighing and figuring out. The next meeting for finance and facilities is scheduled for April 14th at 6 pm. >>
010Thank you Sasset. Dr. Castillo. >> Uh yes, the SASID um board of directors met yesterday and the for approval there was the appro uh the proposed uh school calendar for next school year similar to what we uh had last month and uh also entering into a license agreement with Skyward. So they're going to use Skyward as their student information system just like we have. Uh and then uh also reciprocal uh reporting agreement and intergovernmental agreement between the Lyall Police Department and Sasset. Uh we did have a close session to discuss uh personnel items. >> That's it. >> Thank you. Wellness committee Amanda. >> So the wellness committee met on February 19. Oh no, that is today. I'm sorry. Let me start. The wellness committee met on February. Uh the committee's overall vision is to promote
011wellness, well-being, and felt care for both staff and students. Um I'm proud to be a member of that committee. I think we do a lot of good stuff there. In December, the wellness committee distributed more than 200 jackets to staff as an expression of appreciation for their continued hard work. They're lovely. It was a wellaccepted gift. I know many who have already given feedback that they were excited to get those. Um the first wellness challenge of the new year was the ED portal. >> Uh it was a scavenger hunt. The initiative encouraged staff to engage with available wellness resource res resources and to take a proactive step to support their well-being. It included increasing physical activity, managing their stress, improving nutrition, and prioritizing time to recharge. Again, we got good feedback on that um from
012members of the committee who said they used the opportunity to learn new things about their website. Um yeah, the next wellness challenge is going to feature anal and wellness choice board. staff will be invited to compete in 10 activity I'm sorry to complete 10 activities from a menu of 25 that are designed to promote social and emot emotional well-being. The staff who compete a minimum of the 10 activities will be entered into a prize drawing. And lastly, in April, staff will have an opportunity to participate in the 2026 EVC Walk of Things Steps Challenge. Our next meeting will be um April 1st. April 1. That'll be a fun one. monthly. Isn't that spring break? It is. It's my birthday as well. >> It's spring break that week though. You might have to >> readressed. >>
013maybe you have to come during spring break for a meeting. You never know. >> All right. Uh Brian financial dashboard. >> Great. Yeah, you bring that up here. So we'll look at the dashboard here. This is through January 31st. So about seven of the 12 months are in the books here, right? So again, this is through January 31st. Here are the revenues for the fiscal year through January 31st. Um most revenues are are on track. the very top one, local property taxes. Virtually all property tax revenue has come in. Uh state revenues, it's about the fifth one down or so. We've received the second installment on the transportation claim. There's four installments over the year. Um so that kind of caught us up a little bit on state revenues. Um and then federal revenues are
014probably trending a little high. We might come in higher than expected federal revenues due to Medicaid revenue that we received early in the year and just trying to make the most of of the federal grants that we do have. Uh all revenues through January 31st are about 25,680,98 or about 89% of budgeted revenues. Here are the expenditures for the year through January 31st. Uh most expenditures are on track. The only real alliance to highlight I brought up in past board meetings u the other objects uh that's trending high that's primarily tuition for outplay students sassid as a prepaid model so we pay a lot on the front end so that's why that's like 93% of budget expenses um we won't pay much till the end of the year where they do a true up also
015capital towards the bottom there fund 60 capital outlay um that's largely the Greenbrook expansion project and that entire project has already been paid for um so we pretty much met all those expenses there. Again, mostly everything else is on track as far as expenditures. Total expenses um through January 31st are 19,38,379 or about 58% of budgeted expenses. This is the fund balance report through January 31st. So you see total revenue is about 24.3 million, total expenditures about 17.7 million. Then you have that column of transfers um transfer fund to fund to mainly pay for the Greenbrook expansion project. Uh ending fund balance for all funds through January 31st 26,475,48. It's about an 85% fund balance for all funds. And on the bottom right there you see operating funds. Uh the operating funds fund balance is
016about 26 it's 26,41,999 by 92% um fund balance or 337 days on end for operating funds. This is just a graph of the treasury balance. Again this is all funds that's just a gra a graphic representation of that fund balance of 26,475,000. Uh the current year is in yellow. Um so you just see a comparison to previous years following similar trends to previous years and again really spending down against that fund balance. So you see our fund balance lower than previous years kind of that that planned spending to bring it more in line with board policy. This next one is just just operating funds. So not um all funds but just specifically operating funds. That purple is the current year again following similar trends of previous years. and that fund balance slightly lower than uh
017last year in that plan kind of spending against fund balance. Uh CPI, this is a CPI for January. I left December there, which is 2.7. Uh and then we'll kind of we'll leave that there throughout the year to measure where we are. That December one's a big deal. That's what's used for the tax levy. So that 2.7 will be used for when we do the tax levy the end of the year. So January came in at 2.4% 4% which is cooler or lower than what pe most people expected. Um this can indicate that the Federal Reserve policy is helping to moderate kind of inflation. Uh many economists still expect the Fed to do some uh rate cutting possibly in the spring or summer. Um but that's you know good news. Overall CPI is 2.4% for
018January. And I just wanted to highlight a couple things that's in my board report. Um, we talked about a little bit, but we did an architect request for qualifications. The district released an architect RFQ. We will need assistance for architect services for health safety inspection, facilities assessments, and long-term facilities planning. We received nine submissions from very, very capable, very talented architectural firms. So, we were very pleased with that. And really after evaluating those submissions, conducting interviews with the panel and talking to the references, we developed a short list and then uh boiled down to one DLA architects that we'd like to move forward with. They have experience exactly what we're looking for, experience in smaller size district like ours. They they work with one school school districts, four school school districts. Uh and they're local
019their offices in Itaska. Um and really uh great references that came back. Uh so the plan is the next few weeks to work with them on a contract and to bring the board um a contract with DA architects at the next board meeting in March. Uh approval of the FY25 audit. The audit was completed for the year ending June 30th, 2025. Um, and we talked about it already, but it's done on a cruel basis versus a cash is what we use where the emphasis on when things are earned or incurred as opposed to when cash, you know, changes hands, so to speak. All that to say, they move some revenues, expenses back into the correct fiscal year, whereas we do in a cash basis. Uh, and then Yeah. Yeah. So, like for example, we received
020revenue in July. That's the new fiscal year, but it was grant revenue for work that was done in May and June. Um, so the auditors using their method move that back. So then they they released this AFR and that's a big deal that's submitted to ISBY that's on our website. That's on the Isby website or AFR every district AFR and that's pretty much your audited actuals for the year. So um, so FY25 has been has been audited. It's officially in the books. It's submitted to ISBY. Those are the actuals for the year that AFR is and then the ACT for as well and the required um communication letters from the auditors uh or in the board packet as well. Um some highlights we're still at the highest financial status recognition. Uh the operating funds fund
021balance for last school year about 18.5 million. It's a fund balance of about 71% for operating funds. Operating expense per pupil about 21,189 that comes out of the IFR. And that in their report there were no deficiencies in internal controls or material weaknesses. Um there were no instances of non-compliances. So a good report overall. And then lastly, I just wanted to put this this is in your board packet, but I want to put this out to the board. This is an opportunity for the district to refinance some of our our current debt. Um current bond rates are a little bit lower than when these particular bonds were established in 2016. refinancing these 2016 bonds would save the taxpayer like 171,000 over the next nine years. >> All of this like >> Yep. Or property tax
022base. Yeah. >> Each one. >> Yeah. Yeah. Overall, >> right. Overall, it'd be a savings of about 175ation. >> Big big. It's like 20 bucks. >> They Yeah. They actually did um Raymond James ser bonds and for a home averaging about 350,000 the savings would be anywhere from like$1 to4 um per home. Yeah. Spread out. Yeah. Each year. Yeah. Um but it'd be it'd be again over the nine years of savings. So we're thinking about doing this refinancing option to save the district some money. Save the taxpayers some money. Um the another option they presented was to aggressively pay down some of this debt which would mean we would actually pay more in the next six years and uh levy a little bit more on the taxpayer. Um but then over nine years you're going
023to pay less. Um but I think we're leading just straight refinance um at the low you know make make um capitalize on the lower rates and get this lower overall payment. Um so that's in the packet. It's not an action item. However, next month if we move forward with this, I'd like to bring this to the board as an action item next month. Any questions? There's a lot there. >> Thank you. >> Um Dr. Castillo with the student and staff attendance dashboard. >> Yes. So, you will see the uh attendance uh similar to other winter months. Uh there are a few days where um we had more than the 10% of our students uh absent. So if we go to the next slide, there you go. So uh on the 20th confirmed it was more
024illnesses. So that's the first day where where we have illness um or over the 10%. If we look at uh the 26th uh and we all remember what the 26th is. remember we were off on the 23rd uh due to it being extremely cold. So, um their attendance uh at Greenbrook is amazing. Only seven uh students didn't um check in online. So, you know, that was great. But then the next day uh when they had to come in, which it was also cold a cold day, it was still cold. Um we had 6 uh eight students out at uh almost 17%. Uh but the rest looks uh looks pretty good. But I think at this month, aside from those two days, um they even looked better than last month. So if we go to Waterberry,
025uh again, Waterberry was uh pretty much under for every day of the month. Uh and on the 20, if you look at the 26th, they still had, you know, again, the cold day 40 uh and they reported 20 students uh on the 23rd that were absent. And then Springwood again, our big day, the 26, which was still cold. Uh but the rest um look pretty good. And just like our students get sick, our uh staff is uh does as well. Um again, Mondays and Fridays are are biggest days, but they're pretty uh comparable. the days of the week that were off compared from last year to this year and then administrator support staff and teachers. So, as I mentioned before, uh on future years, we'll get a little bit more comparison there. That's it. >>
026Okay. Thank you. >> Um continuing with superintendent report, Dr. Castillo. >> Yes. So, school board at your place setting, you have a pen. Uh so this is from the Illinois Association of School Boards. Um and as you know, you guys were officially recognized uh at the spring division meeting on Tuesday, February 3rd. Uh here is your plaque for the people that weren't in attendance. Okay. So the governance recognition again this year, which is uh was only uh given this year to 38 school districts out of the 840 school districts in the state. So that's amazing. So, thank you for your leadership and thank you for uh for all that you do for our students. Uh second item is as we uh get ready for another registration uh for the following year, uh just remind everyone
027that we're uh still using clear as our um automatic automatic verification of um >> residency. >> Thank you. Uh so again uh our current families whose residency uh is confirmed through clear you don't no longer have to um verify again but only our families with uh kindergarten students as well as uh any new families uh do have to verify residency uh at their buildings when they register. Okay. And I know our uh secretaries really love the clear um uh system just because it saves a lot of time on their end. >> Saves a lot of time on the parents end. >> That's true. Yeah, very true. Uh the third thing third third thing I wanted to bring up and talk about is the uh water main break at Waterberry. Uh so I really want to
028thank the staff uh the administrators uh our board member who was there uh side by side with Lynn uh getting kids making sure they everyone was okay and getting them as quickly as possible to to their families or transported here. Uh it's during those times that we know we are truly a Keenville 20 family where we come together and really uh make sure that everyone is safe as quickly as possible especially in a situation like this. So thank you very much. Really appreciate uh what everyone did that day to ensure our kids were safe as well as our staff. Again also to our staff here who uh were ready uh Mr. Oaniano, your staff that were ready here once this the buses came. um you're ready to assist. Our transportation department uh was wonderful. We
029told them we were going to need x number of buses and they were ready to pick up, drop off, pick up again and drop off. Luckily, we only had to transport the uh students one time here. So, that worked out well. Uh and then as for general comments, uh yesterday we had our kindergarten roundup and this morning we tried something new at Waterberry and had a kindergarten roundup. uh in the morning. Uh it's always nice to see the kindergarters come in and uh the parents ask their questions. So uh can't wait to uh get the school year started and see how registration goes for our kindergarten. That concludes my report. Next we're going to have Oh, I'm sorry. Any questions? Uh okay. Next we're going to have uh Dr. Buckley. She's been saving her voice
030all day because she knew she had this presentation, >> but she has a microphone. >> I'm going to be absent tomorrow, so it's going to be on the Friday. Um, I had seven meetings today, so it was just too much to my favorite presentation. Winter benchmark data. Um, we talked in fall that NWA MAP changed their norms and they told us that we should expect that our scores would drop and that all school districts should expect that their scores would drop. And I was bouncing off of my walls when I was doing this data. If you take a look um at our second grade map reading fall, the three fall are on the left, the three winter on the right. Overall, the dark green and the and the blue together, that's the 51st percentile and
031above. We went from 48% of our kids to 56% of our kids at or above the 51st percentile. Our teachers are working so hard, our coaches are working so hard, and our kids and our parents are working so hard. So, I was so very excited to not see the drop that they said that we should expect. In third grade, we see the same thing. The dark green to the blue at or above the 51st percentile from 42% of our kids in the district to 50%. So half of our kids at or above the 51st percentile. Fourth grade, we always take a very close look at fourth grade. Fourth grade is the kids who were in first grade during CO. So this this data always looks a little different to us if we know that we
032have to intervene more in fourth grade. But we did see a jump from 45% of our kids to 51% of our kids in the dark green and the blue. And we saw the largest drop in students below the 10th percentile in the red. And in fifth grade math from the 25th to the 50th, so the light green into the dark green, we saw an increase from 55% to 54 or 64%. I'm was extremely happy with our reading data. Moving on to math, this is the first time that first grade takes the math assessment. Um, we went for That's not true. Sorry. They don't take reading until the spring. um they went from the from 61% to 66% of our students at or above the 50th percentile. If they are scoring this high now, we can
033have very very high hopes for in third grade when they start taking that I AR. We are doing fantastic things in math in second grade from the 51st to the seven um above and above 42% to 57% of our students In third grade, we again see a dip in the students who were below the 10th percentile. So the students who um were probably receiving interventions already, we saw those those numbers go down and then from the 51st to the to the above 54 to 68%. That is huge massively huge growth. In fourth grade, ma math is their thing. They're definitely these fourth graders definitely like math a little bit more than they like reading. >> And at or above the 51st percentile, we went from 53 to 65%. It's fantastic. And in fifth grade, it
034stayed pretty consistent. However, if you take a look at the students who were below the 10th percentile, so in the red, you can see the number doesn't even show up. It's three, four, and three. So, we cut those numbers in half based on classroom interventions and intervening and pull out interventions. Moving on to Springwood. Springwood sixth grade, they went they from 10% of their students at or below the 10th percentile down to five. So they cut that number in half and then at or above the 51st percentile they went from 55% of their students to 59% of their students. In seventh grade they were pretty consistent. There was a little bit of a drop in the students at or above the 76 percentile but they were pretty consistent. And in eighth grade, take a look
035at that jump from f from fall to winter. Up to 76% of their students. 65%, sorry. Math. Thank you, Manny. At sixth grade, we went from 47 to 55% of the students at or above. In seventh grade, we see a a a decrease again in the percentile of students that were below the 10th percentile. So, they went from five to almost two. It's a little o little over two. And in 8th grade, they made a slight jump from the 51st and above from 54 to 57% in red. And it's it's very difficult at the middle school level to see growth because we know that students have to be at at grade level by third grade in order to make sure that they can be very um successful in middle school and high school. And it's
036very hard to see growth and our Springwood staff push our students and they're doing a fantastic job. Moving on to fast pitch data knowing that this was going to probably cut out on you. I only put on the main slide. So there's not the um the individual like letter name and letter sound. Kindergarten, this is their first time taking this test. And this is in our English taught classrooms. This measures letter names, letter sound, initial sounds, blendings. So we're starting off in a really fantastic place with our kindergarteners. And again, it's their first time taking the assessment and they take it with a teacher that they don't know and it's one-on-one. They did a we're starting off in a really strong place in our dual language classrooms. And as a reminder, half of these students,
037we have two parents sitting here. Half of the students in our dual language classroom come from English speakaking homes. So they are learning to read and write in Spanish and their home language is English. So, we're going to see a deficit in these scores because they're these are in Spanish and they're just learning Spanish and they're coming from homes where English is t was spoken. So, we're looking forward to seeing our spring scores from our dual language classrooms. In first grade in our English taught classrooms, Waterberry had a great drop in from fall to winter in the students that were at or below the 10th percentile. and Greenberg stayed very consistent with the number of students that were at or above the 25th percentile. And it's again t testing letter name, letter sound, blending, fluency,
038but it gets harder obviously as they go into first grade. And our first grade dual language classrooms again where half of the students home language is English. Um, it was very consistent with last year's data and Greenbrook saw an increase at or above the 50th percentile from 29% of their students to 38% of their students learning to read and write in Spanish at or above the 51st percentile. It's unbelievable. Early math, so we're testing um their basic numery skills. Can they if we put three numbers in front of them, can they put them in order? Can they count up? Can they count backwards? Can they find a discrepancy between the numbers? We stayed very consistent from fall to winter. Except with the drop from in Waterberry, if there students that were at or below the
03910th percentile, they saw a very big drop. Now, second grading, this this test is more like MAP. It's it's called a reading. It's a little bit more consistent like MAP. It's not individual. It's not a one-on-one assessment. the students take it on their computers. We did see a little bit of a drop at the um at our per students at or below the 10th percentile, but it is a bit a little bit different than MAP. So, we need to take a dive into this data with our grade level teams. They're doing a fantastic job with their coaches and their admin at really really looking at their map data. So, now looking at our FastBridge data to figure out where where is FastBridge saying some of the map the deficits are as well. So for a
040reading and a math, you'll see that the scores are very consistent from fall until winter. Third grade again staying very consistent with some minimal movement at the students that were at or below the 10th percentile. And fourth grade, again, this is that grade level that we spend a lot of time making sure that we have appropriate interventions. So, we did see a a jump in the students that are at or above at or below the 10th percentile, especially at Greenbrook. However, I know that they've been hyperfocused on looking at state standards and map and preparing for AR. So, just make sure that next time we take a little bit of a closer look at at FastBridge because I know they're working so hard. And fifth grade, again, the data is very consistent from fall to
041winter. Bassbridge AMath again is like map. It's not one-on-one. It's on the computer. Just like I stated with reading, very consistent. We do see a drop um a little bit of a drop in our students that are at or below the 25th percentile. So, the yellows and the reds. We saw a drop there. Third grade. we see some growth at um at Waterberry at the students that are at or above the 25th percentile and at Greenbrook we see a drop at the students that are at or below the 10th percentile. So we're pushing at both ends making sure that we're meeting all of their needs. again very consistent in with um from fall to winter. In fourth grade and fifth grade it looks almost exactly the same. So I'm very very proud of our teachers
042and I'm very proud of our principles and our admins for the hard work that they're doing. Um Greenbrook specifically is working with the DuPage ROE. They're meeting with the teachers every week looking at their AR data looking at the standards. The coaches are there helping pick apart the data. Springwood is doing individual goal setting with their students and the students are so excited to tell you how much progress they're making. I'm very proud of the work that we're doing. It's our teachers are coming like our elementary teachers are coming into their stride with HMH. Next year we'll see a full year of implementation with Amplify at the middle school. Just we're in a really fantastic place and I can expect to see continued growth. Have any questions? All right. >> Thanks. I'm not going to
043do my other reportings in your packet if that's okay. Thanks. >> Colleen. >> So, I recently met with one of our uh service providers called Referral GPS. And so, I thought I'd give you a little overview of what Referral GPS is and then how our district is utilizing it. Um, Referral GPS is a care coordination platform. Um it's designed to help schools connect students and families with appropriate community- based mental health um and wellness providers. Um what it does is it centralizes um refer the referral system so schools can submit track um outside providers in one secure platform. Um families are connected to prevetted mental health and support providers. um they can receive navigating uh help navigating insurance um availab availability providing matching so a family could come to us give tell us their insurance
044we could put in into the system it'll do all the work for them they can um tell me if they prefer a male or a female if they prefer um someone who um maybe's focus is on depression or anxiety and referral GPS will send the referrals to them and help um set up those appointments um how it helps families. It simplifies that process um with trusted providers. It matches families based on needs, insurance and language um as well as location. It reduces weight times through coordinated outreach. Um it also provides support during the referral process. Um and it removes that rever it removes that burden of navigating some of those complex um mental health um systems alone as well as whether your insurance will coordinate with it or not. um some of the numbers. So,
045we've been utilizing referral GPS for about three and a half years now and um treatment s searches conducted have been um 3,840. Um 1,293 um treat treatment profiles have been viewed. Um 493 treatment websites have been viewed. 122 treatment resources have been printed. 139 treatment phone numbers have been viewed. Um, families can also access this directly on the website, so they don't necessarily have to go through the school social workers to get um, some support. Um, some of the other numbers that I thought were pretty impressive were sounds like a low number, but it's really not. But two of our families got that wraparound um, uh, navigation care service. So, someone was with them through the whole process and continued to check in and found other resources that came up. and one family was fully
046funded through referral GPS. So insurance didn't cover some things and referral GPS picked up the bill. So it's a really wonderful resource that we have in the community. Um and so I thought that would be great to share. Any questions? Thank you, >> Mr. Aliano. I'm sharing some great things that are going at Springwood. Um first off, we're very lucky at the middle school to have common grade level plan times where teachers across the grade level get to meet and um previous when years back we used to call it kid day. It's a bad word now to say, so don't that's the last time we're going to say it. Um so we changed it to bag day. Um and it talk about behavior, attendance, and grades. And something we brought back this year, which we're
047excited about um it's about having a roundt discussion um about the student, about the whole child. So we do talk about attendance, we talk about grades, we talk about behavior, but what's the whole child? Um and I'm really excited about that because a lot of times when in the past when I was a teacher it was all about okay admin or okay psychologist what are we doing and now it's a roundt discussion what are we all doing and some people are like hey I have a good relationship with that student let me meet with them before school or during study hall I know some of um the social workers or the admin or um some of the paras have met up with these students because of these discussions so it takes a full team if
048takes everyone to help out that whole child. So, we're we're excited about that. Um, do we have some tweaks to do? Yep. We're always looking to make it better and we'll get stronger next year. Um, our ELA or excuse me, EL students finished their access testing. anyone who has dealt with this, this is just a huge task. And um huge shout out to Circle Lolo Stelter and um Maria, our librarian, always trying to how do we get these kids removed from class so they get the testing. It is a disruption in the school day, but they do their best job and I want to give them a huge shout out. It is not an easy task at all. Um Springwood, uh I messed up. All right, spring will participate in the dare to dream Latinas
049conference at College of DuPage. Um I will be meeting with and the admin. So Mr. Fogy and Mr. King will be meeting with all the students in the next five days. We call them ELA chats. We kind of look at what are some things that we need to start um changing and improving on and some things we could celebrate on and we meet with every single child within our school in the next 5 days which is exciting. is something that this admitt has brought along. The boys and volleyball season has officially begun. Um, visioning and hearing. I know I just gave Eel, Miss Circa and them a shout out, but vision and hearing, another task that is not easy, but Lisa, Unicea, Lisa from Water Baron and Unice and Kelly from Springwood. Um, making sure
050that we get those kids out of the classroom, least distraction, get them back in the classroom. Of course, we have to do announcements. That's the real world. Um, but they get them right back in the classroom right away. So, shout out to them. Lake Park has visited our NJHS students and the lady who reached out when the teachers from Lake Park reached out to me afterwards and was just so impressed with just the conversations that our students had with that staff member about their goals for the future and what they would like to do. I know Omar and I and I have talked about just today about getting our students actively talking about being a teacher or um what is their next step and things that we have to do at the middle school level
051for sure. One exciting thing is we are talking with Lake Park um and using some of their resources and we're talking about next year of how can we um get that gap closer as of where our eighth graders, our seventh grader, our sixth graders are already talking about that next level even before they get to Lake Park. Um eighth grade today had their field trip to Chicago Wolves All State Arena. And two more just where I always try to end with like something really positive and awesome. Um I have a great staff at Springwood. I'm I'm very lucky. Um and I want to say that what is nice is that just leading up to our meeting with in the Miss Circa's room, I had six staff members just in my room all the way until
052the last point. I was like, "Okay, you got to get in my office cuz I get something done." But they just wanted to just talk life. Um wanted to be supportive. um they were sharing stories. I'm very extremely lucky to have loving and caring staff um because I know we talk about MAP scores and I know we talk about the behaviors and stuff, but to have colleagues that are that close to an administrator is I'm I'm I'm lucky to have those members who always are so supportive. And then the last one, the middle school chair explosion 2026. So, Madina hosts a cheerleing competition at Lake Park and um a lot of the students and staff from all the schools go and attend it. It's it's an awesome event. Madina does a really great job. But
053I would have to say something about Springwood. Um I had some parents from other schools come up to me and um it was quite amazing. Every staff member that entered while they're waiting for it to start, our cheerleaders cheered for the staff member. So, you don't really get that much. Sometimes you're like, "Oh my god, that's my teacher. That's that. I don't want to cheer that teacher." But no, like Mr. Campbell walked in her and the whole cheerleading team was cheering Campbell. Um, our Kelly, our nurse came in, they were cheering her name. We were the only school that was doing that. And I was have to say the girl who was running it from Adana came up to me and she said, "Our section of parents and also staff was by far the most
054cheering for all the schools." So, I know we talked about math scores. I know we talked about those other things, but we are doing great things here. Um, it's about the whole child. So, I appreciate you guys always supporting us. Thank you. >> Nicole, >> sorry me. She thought she was coming up, but then she's like, "No way. This is for you, Mom." Um, well, first of all, I also want to thank all of our staff. Um, January is a very um busy month for different reasons. So, it's all of our benchmark testing and then you add into the fact the weather and e-learning and it was just a very busy month for them. And then we come into February and it's busy for a different reason because it's like just event galore. Like there's
055always something going on that's really fun. Um, so thank you to all of our staff members who work hard every single day to make sure that our students are growing as you heard in our data. Um, and are also just very happy and loving school because that's also important. Um, so some of the events we've had going on this month, um, it is Black History Month, so a lot of our, um, teachers are, it's kind of embedded into our social studies curriculum, so they're talking about different things from Black History. Um, we also have our art teacher who's doing projects. Um, we did our hot cocoa event. They got to also write and kind of finish Martin Luther King's I have a dream. So, what their dreams are for the future, which was really nice
056to see. I did enjoy the one student who wrote he would love to see inflation drop. I was impressed that he knew what inflation was. I think I might need to talk to him about my portfolio. Um um but they it was really nice to see what their thoughts were. Um we also had hundth day so some of our students took that aging serum and became hundred year olds and we had little granny's and grandpas walking around Waterberry which was really nice to see. Um, we also had our uh very first or kind of brought back our Olympics opening ceremony at Waterberry. So, we actually had a fake torch um and passed it from grade level to grade level and then ended on an assembly in the gym to highlight the opening ceremony and also
057just talked to them about sportsmanship and like the importance of the Olympics. Um, it was really nice to see because like on Monday we actually could hear them talking for the first time about some of the events they got to watch over the weekend and that was really really nice to see that it made an impact. Um, we had last week our PBIS hot cocoa event. So um, every student gets the standard hot cocoa free of charge and then they can use their paws to um, add toppings. And so we also had allergy-free options for our students who have allergy needs. And that's nice that we have a separate table so that they can get what they need and enjoy the event, too. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. We try. We're learning every year.
058There's a lot more hours allergies than you think. Um, we have our talent show next week. Um, we have staff performing. We have students performing. It's always a good time. So, we're really excited about that. And we also have ReadAcross America next week. I know there's several of our board members as well as community members that are going to come out and read. And it's always really a great event um just to have people come and read with our students. And then finally, as we talked about it, we had kindergarten roundup. Um, we had overall about 25 26 families between the two days come and learn more about our kindergarten programs, both dual and monilingual. And I think that's it. Next month, as we get ready, it is preparing for IR. So, as we get
059to celebrate now, it's back to getting ready and and grinding for some testing. So, thank you. >> Uh, John, >> evening. Um, a lot of things sort of saving going on in the school and late district and everything else like that, but it is hard to believe that we're already at our 100th day this school year. It's flying by really quickly and everything else like that. So, we did celebrate the 100 days. Our kindergarteners celebrate the 101 days. If you have not seen the video of the Dalmatians running wild over at Greenberg School, it was a sight to see and the kids really enjoyed it and they love doing that. Um, I'm proud to share that we're working towards our schoolwide goal with our greater cafe. We have completed level number two and we are
060almost at level number three. And the kids are every day they are looking at that meter to make sure we get that. They're really excited and gung-ho about that. Um, I know Dr. Buckley talked a little bit about us working with our coaches, our Greenberg staff and the Depage Roe preparing for our ISAT testing next month. I am happy to say that the ILT team and all the staff have really taken this on as something that we really want to focus on and we really want to try to know and not just each individual but as a whole building and we've kind of come up with a plan. We've got schedule changes. We have younger grade levels partnered up with older grade levels. They're going to be making signs and things before testing. The younger
061grade levels are showing support each day of testing. They have different encouragements for the students to go on and everything. So, we got a big thing celebrating for testing to try to change that whole anxiety piece to make it that a test is coming and more like a celebration and a happy time and we can all support each other on that. Um, we did have our parent teacher conferences on Friday and this is one thing I just we staff brought this up a long time ago and I'm just so proud that they want to keep it going. The staff on Friday teacher conferences when parents aren't able to attend or anything else like that. Staff just picks up the phone and just starts calling people at home and just trying to give messages out and
062the number of calls that they're able to make that day besides just individuals things like that is awesome. So, I just appreciate all their effort on that. Um, we're also looking at trying to get our five essentials taken care of and everything else like that. We're trying to work on make sure we get it all in. And I have to say that as of today, we had 60 parents fill that five essentials survey out so far. And that's the highest we've had in the last three years. So, I really appreciate that and everything else. Thank you, >> Andy. All right. at the ECC. Um we have had a lot of screening. We had our fourth of five screenings um just preschool screenings for the year. Um and we did get several more students. So we
063only have about a handful of spots open. So that's great that we know and we know that we will get some kids from early intervention this spring to fill those spots. So, um we're really excited that we are able to give that many students, um that opportunity to have that school experience before kindergarten. Uh we also did vision and hearing screening which is always interesting with the little ones and sometimes they understand it and sometimes they don't but um it's really important that we try because we have had kids that um have gotten glasses from that have had to get um uh more intensive hearing evaluations through that. So we want to make sure that we are identifying those needs as soon as possible if we can. Um we had a very fun uh parent
064or family engagement activity. We had um animal quest come and they bring a variety of different animals for the students. The students sit on the floor and the parents are in the chairs. So they they get to come too and one of the staff members brings, you know, brings the animal around and the other is talking about all the different um things about the animal and um everyone they just loved it. You might have seen um the videos and pictures and things on our um social media for the for the district. So it was a great day. Everybody really enjoyed it. We had a great turnout. Um so we were really happy with that. We also had our conferences on Friday and um for a lot of the a lot of those were um students
065who came later in the year who didn't get an opportunity to do that in November. So um we had a very nice turnout for that as well. Thank you. >> That concludes our reports. >> Is Um, may I have a motion that the board of education approve the 2026 2027 student fees as presented? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Abstain. Maria, please call the role. >> Her. >> Yes. >> Amanda, yes. >> Ben Steiner, >> yes. >> Natalie Kurski, >> yes. >> Taylor, >> yes. >> Far, yes. >> Sarah, >> yes. >> Okay. Motion carries. May I have a motion that the board of education enter close session to discuss the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees of the district or legal counsel for the district, including hearing testimony on a
066complaint lodged against an employee or against legal counsel for the district to to determine its validity and discussion of minutes of meetings lawfully closed under the open meetings act, whether for purposes of approval by the body of the minutes or semiannual review of the minutes. >> So moved. >> All those in favor? >> Yes. >> Stained? >> No. >> Maria, please call the role. >> Yes. Taylor, >> Yes. Sarah, >> yes. >> Motion carries and we don't have any action items for after the bill session. No. >> So, thank you.