001of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay, we now open the floor for public comments on agenda items. Do we have any public comments this evening? There being no public comments, we will move on to presentations. So this evening I am honored to give the very first diamond award for the 2526 school year to an individual that uh exemplifies what it means to embrace, empower and excel I would say each child, each staff, each community member each day. Um, this person is the person who delivers communication on behalf of the entirety of the district, who paints a beautiful picture and shows truly captures exactly what happens in the district every single day in the most meaningful way. He brings the
002heart and soul into what happens in the school and shares that out publicly with the entirety of the community. Um he's always behind the scenes as it was the case just now. Always behind the scenes making sure everything runs smoothly and flawlessly for every individual in the organization. It does not matter. Today he was out distributing Chromebooks to every single student last night with his team out making sure that every Chromebook was ready and prepared for every student today. So everything went flawlessly. In a meeting this afternoon, someone said, "Oh, I don't have this." We basically blinked and turned around and he's like, "Oh, you all should have access to this." That's just how um Eric Hansen operates every single day and it is for every single employee, every community member. It doesn't matter. Um
003hands-on with everything and always is looking to innovate what we do. How could we do this better? What additional efficiencies can we create to make this run more efficient for the students, the staff? We don't even think of the idea. and he's like, "Oh, if you want, we could make it easier by doing X, Y, and Z." And he does just that. So, on behalf of myself and the board of education, we would like to recognize you, Eric Hansen, with the very first Diamond Award for uh the district for this school year. You are the calm that always brings for all of us. I think you're the calm in any storm, in any chaos. You bring the calm for all of us and for everybody. So, um that's why there's no picture up there today
004before. I think Hyram was avoiding >> answering. Absolutely. We need to take your picture. So, Eric Hansen, come on up. You get the first diamond award for this year. >> Yeah. Wow. >> Uh, if anybody knows me, not being prepared is very difficult for me. So, uh, no. Uh, no, thank you. Uh, thank you the board of education. Thank you, Dr. Null. Thank you, DT. Um, I truthfully appreciate the honor. Uh, I do everything here because I love this organization, the school, and everybody I work with. Can't see a better place to be working with or for. Thank you so much. No, you're right. Okay. Yeah. >> Excellent. Thank you so much. That's a great way to start the meeting. Um, and going in from the diamond award to sharing a little bit about the
005work for for this school year, what we'll be doing. So this evening we're really excited to share with the board of education the 2526 district goals and particularly the action steps and work that we have ahead of us. Um you know our mission and vision is to embrace and empower each child each day. And really part of us developing the goals was really to to create an action step that actually says how are we going to do this? How are we going to live by that every day within our schools? What we do know is academic achievement results equal kids. Opportunities for students, opportunities for them not just here in Diamond Lake, but long term and putting them on the trajectory that they're going to be successful uh in their education and even beyond. So,
006as a district, we developed three as a district leadership team, we developed three goals in particular that focused not just districtwide, but school by school, team by team, and classroom by classroom. So the three district goals where we've coined kind of the the words the three Ps professional learning communities or PLC's uh positive behavior intervention systems or PBIS and presence. So we'll dive a little bit deeper into what specific action steps we've worked on as a district leadership team and as individual building leadership teams to really uh bring some clarity around what does that mean in terms of a goal. So what you see here is is really kind of the image of not just creating these as district goals that sit here at a district level, but then how do those cascade down at
007a school level with our school building leadership teams to team levels in particular. So what does that mean to a third grade team or to the kindergarten team and then at a classroom level and ultimately at the very point of that what you see is that it is student achievement. the student goals in particular that help to make sure collectively together those three wrapped around goals will be able to support the whole child. But what we know is no one creates success alone. These aren't goals for us individually. These are goals that we're all collectively working on. So what you see up in front of you here are three big buckets essentially in terms of a recommended plan of action and then action steps that we'll dive deeper in. So with professional learning communities, we're
008looking to really focus specifically on deep implementation of the PLC practices. What we know is professional learning communities aren't about teaching. It's about learning. It's about how do we collectively work together to work smarter not harder to ensure each and every student is successful. Uh for positive behavior intervention systems, really focusing on how we can foster rich learning environments based on positive behavior PBIS systems. That's really about how do we collectively teach students appropriate behaviors? Um, as we know from preK all the way through eighth grade, they're still learning and how do we help to manage those opportunities um while making sure that students have a chance to learn and be present in the classroom as much as possible. And then the last one is presence. And I know I shared with the board previously
009just increasing student attendance so that all students can engage in learning. if they're not present, they're not here, they're not learning. And we know how critical that time is and how do we maximize each and every day. So from there, we went forward as a team and really looked at what would be the specific action steps that would be needed in order for us to achieve our goals. So we took it from the idea of a telescope and microscope vision, the idea of telescope, what's our north star, our big picture areas of focus, but then the action steps. What are those microscope moments that we have to dig into and look very specifically to make sure that we are hitting exactly where we want our students to be from from the 3000 level view of
010a district perspective. So joining me this evening to share a little bit about the action steps Peter Dr. Peter Cunningham will share a little bit of it as well as Dr. Burgerer and Dr. clip just to dive into specifically what those action steps are and what those mean within the district as a whole and then even some examples of the school level action steps. I'll turn over to Dr. Burgerer first. So looking at the first piece when we talk about professional learning communities, one of the big things that we had set to go and ready for all of our staff at the start of this year was an actual PLC handbook that really gave our staff the complete outline of how these professional learning communities worked. We first trained our principles that already happened over
011the summer. Principles then went and brought it to their um building leadership teams. Building leaders then took it to their individual grade level teams. So before school even started, we were already in this mindset that is built on the four pillars of what do we want students to know and be able to do? How will we know if they know it? What if they do? What do we do if they don't know it? And what do we do if they do know it? So that we are always differentiating our instruction to ensure that we're meeting the needs of kids. So this is going to change a whole system for us in terms of our meetings to make sure teacher collaboration and datadriven decision-making is are always incorporated in everything that we do. With that, I
012will turn it over to Dr. Cuttingham. >> Thank you. So, last year we talked about with for the for the members of the board that were there, we talked about trying to really be aggressive with a lot of our different approaches. And that was after taking a couple of years of really looking at the organization top to bottom academically. And so, in that, we began really a professional learning community or PLC push as Dr. Burgerer was talking about. We really revamped and rewrote all of our unit plans to ensure they're covering standards that lead up to um state testing that when it does time out. We introduced a number of curriculum and curricular training that really pushed uh the especially the upper grades, the rigor and the level of what we want our students exposed
013to at grade level and put our staff through a number of PD elements on ethical test prep and and we're encouraged by that. Um we think that we've early indicators indicate we should see some really nice um growth on some of those measures especially in reading. So I I say all that that moving forward as we continue to use our PLC's one of the most important ways we can strengthen how staff interact with in their PLC's and ensure students are growing is what we call common formative assessments. uh which really is is essentially taking um a pulse on how students are doing related to whatever standards we're measuring and then making adjustments in our instruction. So I'm not sure who has the clicker. Thank you Dr. N. So just what this is a picture of
014is on our website if you were to go to the instructional personnel page we've now put every proficiency scale up for every standard at all grade levels and we've tried to organize it as best as we can. So, if you were to go in and pick third grade, you can see all of ELA, dual ELA, math, social studies science, you can spot all of them. Um, this is an example of a steam one. I believe this is one of Miss Levy's. And so, she kind of gives the standard at the top and then she names um just where she takes that standard from the engineering design process. So all these sh and the teachers will make sure at the um curriculum night and as well in our communications that we'll have common language across all
015grades K through8 in terms of how we describe these and how teachers will use them. And so if we were to look probably let's go if we can go to the next slide. So if we were to zoom in on three because three is what we consider proficient. Um four is really applying the skill above and beyond. Um this what teachers are going to be working on this year is taking a look at let's say we're looking at three and there's two elements there independently identifies problems or challenges and ask questions and then the other one is create solutions starts to follow a basic engineering design process. So what the team of teachers would do is they would meet and talk about what are assessments that will give us an idea that we can develop
016that we can tie to this standard. So these are ones I named not the teacher. So this would be when I looked at it. This would be if I was brainstorming Miss Levy um or Miss Cashman at the K2 level. It could be an engineering group project where there's steps that they've hit the process as a checklist. Uh it could be a quiz that gives a scenario with multiple choice or short response questions so we can see um and including what questions they may ask. Or it might be you're walking around and doing in small groups and you're marking off if you're seeing students ask questions if you give them prompts to do it. uh and PE. This is very common as well where they'll walk around and check off when they see pieces that
017are important that are happening. Uh a lot of our departments may use that. So, this will be an extraordinarily important piece that staff will be working on all year to make sure it ties very closely. Uh each of the standards looks a little bit different, the scales rather, and so a lot of our work with the Marzano group this year will be around adjusting our scales, making sure that they're very clean from our assessment to what we want students to learn. More importantly, our goal is that it will be in the hands of students and whether it's the language that we have or that we make it studentfriendly and students will be able to track their progress at all grade levels, kindergarten through 8ighth grade with the teacher so that the feedback is very clear.
018Students know where they stand and it actually really builds their vocabulary and ownership of what they're doing. It's very powerful and we're excited about that next step. >> Dr. I'm actually going to go over the next two goals. Um the first one is uh continuing strengthening our positive behavioral interventions and supports or PBIS. Um Will Carr who is the coach did a lot of work with teams last year in this area. Um so at the district level this year we are focusing on two action steps. building systems of frequent, specific, and positive feedback to recognize staff excellence and to strengthen learning environments for students and stakeholders and utilizing datadriven decision-making to support school level PBIS structures. So, the um each school met with their building leadership team and came up with action steps around those.
019And some of the things that they're going to be doing this year, um, they are going to be implementing a new curriculum, character strong, across preK through 8th grade. This will help students build critical skills that directly support their academic and their personal growth. Um, schools are also rolling out PBIS rewards. Um, this is a platform that will allow for that specific positive feedback to students. Um it will continue to reinforce the culture of recognition and celebrating. Um the PBS teams are meeting monthly to analyze school data. They um based on that data they will create monthly action plans to ensure strategies are responsive and effective. Sorry, my glasses are falling down. >> Um this the third goal that we're talking about today is attendance. Um we know that consistent attendance is one of the
020strongest predictors to academic success. Um so ensuring that all students are in school every day is essential. Um so at the district level we're going to ensure that there's consistent use of common attendance procedures across all schools and building an understanding and communication about the impact attendance has on learning um for staff, students and families. So at the school levels, um the teams are really going to work closely on monitoring student attendance data so that interventions can happen quickly and when concerns arise is instead of waiting until a child has missed 40 days of school. They're also going to be looking at unexcused versus excused absences and putting different supports in place um based on the needs of each individual family. um they are going to be making supportive phone calls home to families when
021attendance um before attendance becomes a concern um making those connections with teachers is one of the greatest interventions to getting kids in the classroom. So they're going to really work on doing that. And then um the principles are also going to work on putting in their uh weekly updates to families just the importance of attendance and that there are supports out there if families need them. We are here to help as well. Um so they will work on on communicating that out in in their weekly bulletins. Um our PBIS and attendance goals I feel like they are really tightly connected. um when we create positive supportive environments for students um and they're here they will benefit from them and then from that we will see the outcomes in academics and and and in all the
022whole child really so I really do feel like those two are really connected um that will also help support then our student outcomes in the end Thank you Dr. Cunningham, Dr. Dr. Burgerer and Dr. Clip. Um like like we have shared so far, these three Ps we do feel like really put the whole emphasis on how do we best support students. Some things are measurable and a little bit more clear and concise. Are they in school? Are they not? Attendance is pretty easy to measure. Professional learning communities may not seem like an easy measurable how is that working? But when we're tight in terms of our alignment, the teams are meeting weekly, that they are talking about the standards, that they have those skills to know what proficiency means at each level, and they're talking
023about how are we delivering instruction, students are able to benefit from the collective good of all the teachers within that team rather than the one individual teacher that they may have in their classroom. So um while it's not maybe as measurable how often those teams are meeting or what they're doing specifically, we can definitely see a correlation between when teachers work collectively in teams. Better student outcomes are a direct reflection of that. So next steps in terms of that process and I know Robin shared a little bit about this. The the building leadership teams have met the building principles um went through with their building leadership teams to go through these are the district goals. So what does that mean specifically to us as an individual school site? And it does look different in terms
024of the action steps as it relates to a kindergartener versus a middle school student. So really making sure that those action steps are developed. What I will tell you is they're developed by the BLT. They did share them out on August 15th, but I feel like that's still a work in progress this year. Uh just to make sure that not not only are we doing are we creating these goals, but that they're actually matching the needs within each of our schools. um and not just getting stuck to well we created it for our SIP plan and now we're sticking with it rather than okay is there something that we could be doing that is even better maybe we do hit that attendance goal and things are working what could be something that we could do
025to even enhance that further so I I see this as as live working documents every 90 days that we'll probably continue to come back to and see what modifications do we need to make um from a district level from a school level from a classroom level and um to the board as well we'll modify and update and update the board, I would imagine, in both winter and spring about our progress towards those goals and action steps and potentially any changes that we do see that we might need to make. Um, you know, when I go back to the mission and vision, it is about being three schools, one district, and I think encompassing district-wide, three goals that then become schoolwide, three goals that then become um classroom goals or team goals down to the student
026level. I think that's one way that really helps to live our mission and vision for how we can embrace and empower and excel each child each day. And I think collectively with the leadership team that we have here, I have the faith in them and the building leaders to be able to truly support each and every classroom, each and every staff member so that we can live these goals and action steps each day. And we'd welcome any questions the board might have. Um, looking at the attendance, like when you say kid is gone 40 days, like I'm sure we all were like 40 days, it's so many. Have you are you guys looking at like why that kid is gone 40 days? Is it I'm not asking like a specific kid, but are you looking
027when you get the data the reason they're calling in sick or their parents are or they're just not showing up or cuz like it just shocks me to think a kid is missing that much. >> Yeah. So to answer the question, yes, one of the systems we have put in place for this year is we have we're I we will be pulling district attendance data monthly, but then each principal is working with their office staff to be able to look at it on a daytoday weekly basis. So, if we have a kid that has two unexcused absences, they're calling home and finding out those reasons because if it is something simple that we can help fix, we want to be on it at day two, not day 42. Um there are um a number of
028different reasons why kids miss a higher number of days. Um and we typically can get down to the bottom of it. We held I did a lot of attendance meetings last year with parents. Um, unfortunately the systems got put into place after I started pulling the data and I'm like and it was late in the year. So starting in the beginning of the year before it gets to that point I really do think will help um not not get to that high number of of absences because if we can just call and just say you know we've just noticed that you're not here. Is there something we can do to help? And sometimes it is really that simple. So, um, we definitely will be looking into the wise behind it and trying to offer the
029supports to to get them here be to fix those barriers to them coming. No other question. No, >> okay. Um, thank you all. I think that, you know, seeing these three goals makes a lot of sense to us. Um it sounds like you guys have made tremendous progress in kind of a short period of time with um at the district level, at the building level, and even down to the you know the team level. So I think we're really excited to see kind of the trajectory um that this takes us. And it and to me it seems very obvious like that all of these things are big needle movers. So um yeah, we're really looking forward to it and thank you very much for all the work you guys put in so far. >> Thank
030you. Okay. Um that wraps up our presentations. We are going to move on to the business agenda for the evening. We have five items up for action. Um the first item up for action is the omnibus vote agenda. Items under the omnibus vote agenda are considered routine and or non-controversial and will be approved by one motion. If anyone board member, staff, administrator, or citizen wishes to have a separate vote on any item or items, that item or items will be pulled from the omnivous vote agenda and voted on separately. It resolved that the Diamond Lake 76 Board of Education accepts and approves the omnibus vote agenda items A through C as listed. May I have a motion to approve, please? Yes, >> that motion is approved. Um, the next item up for action is personnel.
031We have one new hire and we have one resignation. Be it resolved that the Diamond League 76 Board of Education accepts and approves the personnel items as depicted on the agenda. May I have a motion to approve, please? Yes, >> that motion is also approved. The next item up for action is um approving the press plus issue 118. Um before we uh take a vote on that. I just wanted to make sure that the board didn't want any further discussion or didn't have any other questions about it. Okay. Um so whereas policy creation and updates and changes to adopted policies are provided for district 76 through the subscription to policy reference educational subscription service press from the Illinois Association of School Boards ISB and whereas the policy committee reviewed the policies in a first reading
032the policies was held at the committee the whole meeting on August 5th 2025. Therefore, be it resolved that the Diamond Lake School District 76 Board of Education moves to approve the policy changes as presented and reviewed in IAS Press issue. May I have a motion to >> that motion is also approved. The next item up for action is approving the release of executive session minutes. You resolve the Diamond Lake 76 Board of Education approves the release of closed session minutes from board meetings held between January 2025 and June 2025. The list of executive session minutes is as follows: January 28th, 2025, February 18th, 2025, March 3rd, 2025, and April 8th, 2025. May I have a motion to approve, please? Yes. >> Okay. And then the last item for action. Did you want to have did
033you want to give any background on this? >> Sure. I'm happy to give a little background. The um LC Smart stands for the Lake County. It's a co-op that we would be a part of in the event that we would have any relocation needs in the district, reunification needs. This intergovernmental agreement uh essentially just puts us for a very nominal fee into the opportunity to have Lake County support in the event that we would need it. Hopefully, we never need that, but um this does provide immediate responses and support from surrounding districts and Lake County coordinates all of it on our behalf. Um, being that all of our schools are close to, if we had to relocate, they are not in maybe the safest areas for students to have to cross going across Diamond Lake
034or 60. We would need um some support with either relocating or reunification if that was the case. So, uh, this intergovernmental agreement allows us to get the support that we need very quickly. Uh, again, for a very nominal fee. There's a governing board that is overseen by the Lake County Sheriff, the ROE, superintendent from the school districts that uh there's probably just about every Lake County school district is a part of this now, which is great. Um including Diamond Lake if if you are to approve this, that would give us the ability then to tap into all those resources should we need that. Yeah. No, we weren't. Yeah, it was us and one other district in Lake County, but tonight we can be a part of it. And >> any other questions? >> I assume
035it's it's a one-year >> Yeah. >> agreement. So, it would be >> annually. Yep. I that I can't answer, but um I do know when I found out about it. There's a great opportunity again where where our schools are located and for the safety factor if we did have to relocate. I know I've shared with Joy examples of you know if there's a gas leak or something and if you need to relocate to have to do or manage those resources in addition to every student and staff member that is on campus it is really beneficial to be able to have the outside support um in those instances. So it would be my recommendation to do that. >> Yeah I think we're all on board. Um, be it resolved that Diamond Lakeakes School District 76 Board
036of Education accepts and approves the intergovernmental cooperation agreement for mutual assistance in response to crisis as presented. May I have a motion to approve, please? >> Mr. Becker, yes. >> Reyes, >> that motion is also approved. That wraps up our business agenda for the evening. Um, moving on to uh board discussion. Do we have any items for board discussion? David, do you want to talk about seedall now? >> Sure. >> There was a meeting >> extended school year. >> And how um Of course they did. Um, they talked about They are looking at contract for president. Thank you. That's really helpful. And again, we always appreciate your attendance there. Um, does anyone have anything else for board discussion? Okay. Uh, we had no foyer requests, notices, and communications. We just have essentially the seed all
037information that David just talked about. Um, do we have any public comments and petitions on non-aggenda items? Okay, there being no public comments, we will move on to others. Does anyone have any others this evening? >> Yes. >> Can I just make one statement? >> Of course, it's been we are only into day two of the school year, but now we have all of our prek through eight students here. Um, just to acknowledge the hard work of every staff member, um, the families. It takes an entire team to make sure every student gets Eric Rogers is standing at the door, wrangling them in, come get breakfast first thing in the morning. Um, but really and truly, it does take an entire team to prepare throughout the summer in order for it to be successful. But
038we've had a tremendous uh past two days with students and now that we've got everybody in the buildings pre-K through eight, it's there's a great feeling in all of the schools. So, just wanted to share that update board. >> Awesome. And on behalf of the board, we thank everybody for all the hard work that they've put in because we know many of you were here all summer. Many of the teachers were preparing their classrooms all summer. People have been doing all sorts of things. So, we greatly appreciate that and it's fun to see how excited all the kids are to come back. >> How is the attendance >> so far? It's excellent. >> Thank goodness. >> We're gonna keep it that way, too. >> Fantastic. Okay. Um, any other others? Okay. Then we will adjourn
039to executive session for 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 complete launch against an employee against legal counsel for the district to determine its validity. May I have um a motion to adjourn to executive session please? Yes. >> Okay. Thanks everybody. Thank you all for coming tonight. I know it's a long day. >> Thank me. Yeah. You know, it was it was a hike to get here. I have