001It is 5 o'clock. Uh we're gonna call this meeting to order and we're going to start with the roll call. >> Oak is joining via virtual so she's here. Wymer >> here. >> Wilkins >> Here >> anyone needing translation should be guided to find Manuel Alman. going once. Going twice. Okay. >> Uh I just want to reiterate that Maria Updike is not in attendance due to workrelated travel and will join virtually as allowed by board policy 22202. We're going to start with public comment. Members of the public are welcome and invited to address the board during open public meetings. Speakers are discouraged from using the public comment period to air specific concerns about staff members being mindful that the public comment period is not a suitable form for factf finding or resolution of disputes. Rather,
002we encourage members of the public who have concerns about specific district employees to follow district communication guidelines found in the student handbook. Please remember to state your name and that you have three minutes to address the board. Speakers may not yield their time to someone else. Please refrain from applause between speakers so we may respectfully allow all speakers an opportunity to be heard. Also note that it is not customary for the board to respond to public comments. The best way to correspond with members of the board is by emailing schoolboard district 65.net. >> We have um four speakers. It'll be Laura Buchanan, Katie Armstead, Jamie Hopka, and Molly Cusk. My name is Laura Buchanan and I'm a parent of a student at Willard. I'm here again tonight to ask the board to please work with
003district administration to change the district's outdoor recess policy, which I believe is excessively conservative. I first gave public comment on this topic two weeks ago and since then our child has had many days with indoor recess including a day last Thursday when the temperature was approximately 27 degrees at noon time and the weather was otherwise pleasant. Current district 65 policy is to keep kids indoors when the real field temperature which is an expression of temperature with windchill is below 20°. As written, the policy keeps students indoors unnecessarily on many days when outdoor play would be safe and very beneficial. After conducting research in the past few weeks, we've learned that numerous neighboring school districts allow children to play outside at much lower temperatures. In Gleno School District 35 and Glen View School District 34, children
004play outside when temperatures with or without windchill are above zero. In Northbrook School District 28, the threshold is 10° with or without windchill. In Lake Forest School District 67 and CPS, the threshold is 15 degrees. We were unable to find any examples of local school districts with policies equal to or more conservative than Evston District 65. However, within the last week and a half, we were disappointed to be informed by district administration that after considering they plan to maintain the current outdoor recess policy as is for the remainder of the school year out of concern out of concern for cited student safety. The risks of frostbite occurring during outdoor recess at lower temperatures is extremely rare, which is why neighboring school districts allow children to play outside at 15, 10, five, or even slightly above
005zero degrees. Excessive focus on safety at all costs has other unintended negative consequences. Extended time indoors can lead to heightened restlessness and impulsivity, increased peer conflict, and escalation of behaviors requiring intervention. These effects especially impact younger students who rely on physical play for regulation and neurode divergent students. It also simply limits our children's chances to explore their outdoor world, to be attuned to nature, to get much needed exercise, and to feel sunlight on their faces, which is especially important during the dark winter months. I would ask the board members to please work with the district to adjust the outdoor recess policy to be in line with neighboring school districts. If possible, please make changes to this policy before the winter is over so that all of our children can enjoy outdoor play. Thank you. >>
006Hi everyone. Uh Katie Arma said I wanted to make a brief public comment on two things. Um the first is the quarterly progress update um that was posted to the agenda today and then second just a brief uh comment on on outdoor recess. Um, I spent a lot of time with the the quarterly progress update I did in October too when we posted that one. And I think one of the things that could be productive for this board is we kind of set a new chapter for the district is setting more quantifiable goals particularly for our elementary school age children. Um, and it's very possible this lives in another document that I haven't seen. Um, I saw the attendance goals. I saw um the suspension goals, behavioral goals, but you know what are the goals
007for like a third grader, right? my daughter's in first grade. What percentage of first graders do we want at reading level by the end of the school year? Stuff like that I think could be really productive. Um, and then kind of allowing us to benchmark throughout the year to to see if we can hit that metric, right? So, what do we want to be? Where do we want to be in September? Where do we want to be in January? Where are we going to be so at the end of the year we hit hit that number? Um, and then secondly, just very briefly in support of uh outdoor recess, I know we have a ton going on in the district right now, very important things. Um, I will say this, when my daughter, who's in
008first grade at Lincolnwood doesn't go outside, I can tell within like five minutes of her coming inside the house, like she's behavioral worked up. Um, so I'm happy to hear that maybe next year we'll be revisiting the policy and kind of comparing maybe to other districts and preschools uh in Evston. So, thank you guys. Good evening. Um, I wanted to say thank you again to uh those of you who voted to vote for to have to seat the person that got the most votes. The next the person who had the most votes. That was so important. This is the only sliver of accountability to the voters and property taxpayers. the voting voting is essential and you know Pat you knocked it out of the park with with votes 10,000 votes for something that's amazing. So
009thank you again for understanding how important it is to um by you know use the voting um tallies for the next board member seat. I also wanted to say um you know with the new Nicholls tweet program um I know we have um on fe February 5th or 25th uh a meeting for parents to come to but please let them know how many students you guys plan to have uh in in each classroom. Um I do want that to be uh acknowledged and hopefully an answer to that. That's all I have to say. Thank you. gonna have to go fast. Uh, hi, I'm Molly Cusk. I live in the Smith Park neighborhood, which is roughly bounded by Emerson and Church to the north and south and from Asbury to Ashlin in the east and west.
010I've been a D65 parent for the past 12 years and counting. I'm here tonight to bring attention to a safety issue our neighborhood is facing with the redistricting from our walkable neighborhood, School of Dwey, to now travel north across Emerson to foster school, as detailed in the extensive I am sorry attachments that I sent you all last week. Um, we've unsuccessfully tried to raise this issue for the past four years. And now that assignment letters are out and permissive transfer requests are due, we're trying one more time to bring the safety issue to light. The stretch of Emerson from Lions to Green Bay that Smith Park K5 students would now use to reach school is highly unsuitable for pedestrian travel. Even going back decades to before the busing program began, nearly the entire neighborhood was
011assigned to walk south across church. A close look suggests that these K5 students would qualify for busing under the new 2026 27 assignment maps. First of all, the 2023 KOA traffic study that was discuss discussed in the meeting in December didn't include Emerson in the volume and flow assessments. So, it's unclear what data the safe route recommendations are based on, such as why LED crosswalks in tonight's are recommended at the intersections of Emer Emerson with Hartry and Dwey, but not Ashland or Wesley. Um in the busing eligibility scoring table for class three hazard which is crossing a busy road. Um the traffic volume data used for Emerson is from 2022 that early postcoid period and some I do data suggests that traffic in town is now 30% higher and expected to increase through 2030 and
012beyond. So it's currently unknown whether lowering the speed limit to 25 and adding a guard to Ashland or Wesley would bring the class score below 12. Even if it did, families walking to and from SACC or school socializations during hours not staffed by a guard would still be facing a 12 anytime they're crossing that stretch of Emerson. Now, a class one hazard is for walking along a busy road that has a curb. Current sidewalk conditions along Emerson from Lions to Green Bay suggest that a class one hazard likely exists because the sidewalks seem to be within four feet of the curb for that entire stretch. And almost all of these sidewalks run directly to the curb without a protective safety parkway in addition to numerous other impediments and dangers as detailed in the exhibits. Um
013even if neither hazard hazard assessment independently reaches 12, Emerson from Lions to Green Bay would still likely qualify as a multi-hazard per Isby guidelines because the class one and three scores combined reach more than 20. Removing the class one hazard by improving the sidewalks along these blocks of Emerson would be a significant undertaking by the city. Um, a good one to try though um and with a substantial budget and timeline and it wouldn't be in place in time for the August school year. Our neighborhood would like to know um what your proposed mitigations for the safety solution could be, but at a minimum make sure the KOA study includes all of Emerson traffic volume and flow. Expand theou to include bumped out LED crosswalk at Asterland or Wesley. allow an extended permissive transfer for that
014uh neighborhood until the walking route is approved or recon school consider the school assignments south of church. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Uh we're going to move forward with approval of the meeting agenda. I move that the board approve the agenda as presented. >> Okay. >> Wymer. Yes. >> Wilkins. >> Yes. >> Pinker. >> Yes. >> Hernandez. >> Yes. >> Anderson. >> Yes. >> There is a delay of 10 seconds. >> Okay. >> Next is the oath and seating of a board member. On February 2nd, 2026, Dr. April Jordan, regional superintendent of schools, notified board leadership of the decision to appoint Chris Van Norstrren to fill board fill the board vacancy. And at this time, I'm going to swear them in. Let's Okay. All right. It's the moment we've all been waiting for. Come on
015up. So I will read the oath and Chris will repeat after me. So we're gonna stand like this so you can see him and you can see me. Okay. I and say your name do solemnly swear or affirm that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of member of the board of education of district 65 in accordance with the constitution of the United States the constitution of the state of Illinois and the laws of the state of Illinois to the best of your ability >> I Chris Vandran do solemnly swear that I I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of member of the board of education of district 65 in accordance with the constitution of the United States, the constitution of the state of Illinois, and the laws of the state
016of Illinois to the best of my ability. >> I further swear or affirm that I shall respect taxpayer interests by serving as a faithful protector of the school district's assets. I shall respect taxpayer interests by serving as a faithful protector of the school district's assets. >> I shall encourage and respect the free expression of opinion by my fellow board members and others who seek a hearing before the board while respecting the privacy of students and employees. I shall encourage and respect the free expression of opinion by my fellow board members and others who seek a hearing before the board while respecting the privacy of students and employees. >> I shall recognize that a board member has no legal authority as an individual and that decisions can be made only by a majority vote at a
017public board meeting. I shall recognize that a board member has no legal authority as an individual and that decisions can be made only by a majority vote at a public board meeting. >> I shall abide by majority decisions of the board while retaining the right to to seek changes in such decisions through ethical and constructive channels. I shall abide by majority decisions of the board while retaining the right to seek changes in such decisions through ethical and constructive channels. As part of the board of education, I shall accept the responsibility for my role in the equitable and quality education of every student in the school district. As part of the board of education, I shall accept responsibility for my role in the equitable and quality education of every student in the school district. I shall
018foster with the board extensive participation of the community, formulate goals, define outcomes, and set the course for district 65. I shall foster with the board extensive participation of the community, formulate goals, define outcomes, and set the course for district 65. >> I shall assist in establishing a structure and an environment designed to ensure all students have the opportunity to attain their maximum potential through a sound organizational framework. I shall assist in establishing a structure and an environment designed to ensure all students have the opportunity to attain their maximum potential through a sound organizational framework. >> I shall strive to ensure a continuous assessment of student achievement and all conditions affecting the education of our children and compliance with state law. I shall strive to ensure a continuous assessment of student achievement and all conditions affecting
019the education of our children in compliance with state law. >> I shall serve as education's key advocate on behalf of students and our community schools to advance the vision for district 65. I shall serve as education's key advocate on behalf of students and our community's school to advance the vision for district 65. >> And I shall strive to work together with the district superintendent to lead the school district forward f toward fulfilling the vision the board has created fostering excellence for every student in the areas of academic skills, knowledge, citizenship, and personal development. I shall strive and I shall strive to work together with the district superintendent to lead the school district toward fulfilling the vision the board has created fostering excellence for every student in the areas of academic skills, knowledge, citizenship, and personal
020development. >> Congratulations. >> Thank you. Okay. All right. Next, we're going to start the curriculum and policy part of our agenda. First up is the midyear progress report, districtwide assessment update. Good evening. So, this is our quarter progress update for quarter two. I'm Donna Cross. I'm the executive director of research, accountability, assessment, and data, also known as RAD. Um so first we're going to start with just a quick check on our strategic plan goals for learning conditions and student learning cut off. Um so our student learning our learning condition goals we have some attendance goals so average daily attendance as well as some goals around the percent of students and the percent of level three four and five um incidents. So, um, as of January 6th when the state was or when this data was
021pulled, um, our average daily attendance is 93.9% um, which is on track for meeting our 95% goal. The percent of students with those higher level behaviors is at 5%. Um, and the percent of those higher level behaviors in comparison to the rest of the incidents is at 17.9%. Um, so some glows here. We our average age attendance is uh continuing on that positive trend as well as the percent of those three, four and fives uh both for the students and the percent of those incidents. Some grows our overall out of school out of school suspension rates are low um just for a district this size. Um however, there is disproportionality in black students represented. Next are our student learning goals. Our student learning goals were uh developed with uh the NWA map assessment being used.
022Um this year we have moved to Renaissance Star for our reading assessments um and the I Ready Math diagnostic for our math assessments. So how this data um is being presented to you is essentially we were able to convert the MAP RIT scores and and percentiles to the new STAR and I Ready assessments. um they are really well correlated. However, that's not a perfect one to one match, but we did do that across the past three years. So, you can see um our progress across three years using the same scale. So, first we have the percent of students meeting college readiness benchmarks for SAT um for both u language arts and for math. These are grades five through eight. Um and so you could see a very little change in our language arts and a
023slight dip in our percent uh for math. The next student learning goals is the percent of students at or below the 25th percentile. Again, we converted those scores. Um we do see a pretty nice decrease in uh for language arts grades three through eight. Um and a nice decrease in the percent of students below the 25th in math and that's K28. So now we're just going to look into our the actual winter data for Renaissance Star and for I Ready. So first we're going to start with Renaissance Star which is literacy in both English and Spanish. Before we jump into that data, I do want to just kind of quickly explain it. Um so you're going to see both in the report and in the presentation uh these kind of benchmark categories. Um STAR sets
024a default category to the 40th percentile being at proficient. That's based off of what is the average percentile needed to pass state summitive assessments, but that's across the nation. I AR has a more rigorous standard. It's it's harder to pass. Um so using the 40th percentile to make to meet that benchmark did not seem like the right thing to do. Um so instead um we looked at the cut scores due to we have the IR linking studies along with STAR. what would be the cut scores the minimum cut score needed for the at proficient on I AR um and then took that percentile for each grade level and averaged it and that came to the 67th percentile. So that's our district benchmark because we again we want our educators to look at data and see
025who is projected to be on grade level at the end of this year. So that's how our benchmark categories are determined. Um and then the other part of the the star data is how they look at growth. They use this using the student growth percentile which is very similar to how MAP does growth as well. Um essentially it takes the students grade level and their starting score and compares them to similar peers who are in the same grade level and the same starting score. So this is my example of my third grade class. Um the students that are in blue are going to be compared to other students with who are similar starting scores of them. Um, and if uh the the median growth that those students make is considered the SGP of 50. Okay.
026So, if I meet my growth target, I'm going to get my SGP of 50. If I'm higher than that, I might get an SGP of 65 or 75, meaning I grew um seort. So, that's how that data. Just want to make sure I explain there because this is new. Um, so there are four tests in STAR that we're going to be looking at both in English and Spanish. So, first we have Star Reading English. That's for a third through 8th grade. Um the graph on the left, they're all going to be the same, is going to be the percent of students at that at or above benchmark. So, 67th or above from fall to winter. Um in the middle, you'll see the percent of students who are meeting or exceeding that student growth target. So,
027that means they get an SGP of 50 or higher. Um and then, uh you'll just see the average percentile for the winter with that red dash line being our our district benchmark. Um so glows the percent of students at or above district benchmark. We saw a really great increase in grade three up nine uh percent uh grade four up 6% and grade eight up 4%. Between 53 and 58% of students across 3 to eight at least meet met or exceeded their typical growth targets. Um and then the average percentile for our eighth grade is the 69th percentile which exceeds our at district benchmark. some grows. Little to no improvement in the percent of students at or above district benchmark for grades five and six where are up just two and and no growth for seventh
028grade. So our early literacy in English this is K to2. Um so again you're going to see that fall winter change the percent meeting that growth and then their average percentile. Some glows here lots of glows here. Um our kindergarten increased significantly. additional 24% of our students are are at benchmark in kindergarten and then first and second grade up an additional 7%. Between 53 and 58% of students in K to2 either met or exceeded their typical growth for fall to winter. And the average percentile for our kindergarten is the 67th percentile that meets the ad benchmark score. So that's just the average percentile. Some grows the average percentile for grade two is at 55. Um and our district benchmark 67. So that's something we need to look into which is um three, four and five
029uh Spanish. So our our TWE students um you again can see the same information here. Glows we did see an increase for um all the grade levels with grade three going up 4% and grade four going up 7% and then modestly just 1% in fifth grade. Um 60% of students in grade four met or exceeded that typical growth um from fall to winter. Um and then grows the average percentile for all those grades are lower than the district app benchmark category. Just a note, this is the first time our three, four, and five have taken a Spanish language literacy assessment at the districtwide level. K1 and two have always taken both English and Spanish. And then they take Spanish and math. Three, four, and five, because math was so long, they only took that in
030English and then the math in Spanish. So this is their first time taking this kind of an assessment in Spanish. They've always had their benchmarks in different languages and formed of assessments, but this is the first time for that. So, I just wanted to note that. Um, and then star alphabetic and prana, which is early literacy in Spanish. Um, glows some pretty significant growth here in the kindergarten uh 19% um into that at or above benchmark category. Grade one of 28% and grade two up 4%. Um, the average percentile for grade one and two is higher than the at benchmark category. uh 69 and 74 and then 60% of students in kindergarten and 57% in grade one met or exceeded that typical growth target grows the growth in grade two is minimal with only 46%
031of students meeting or exceeding typical growth for fall to winter. However, their proficiency is significantly higher. So it does make some sense of why that growth may not be quite as much. I Ready math. So, I Readyy's uh math proficiency, they already have built-in benchmarks that are criterion reference. They are not norm to students. They are um norm toward the Common Core State Standards. Um so, these are the levels that you'll see in the report and you'll see up here. Um growth is very similar in how that's determined. um it takes the students actual grade level and their starting score takes the median growth from that cohort um and that becomes the endofear growth goal. Um and instead of seeing a uh an SGP or a student growth percentile, they show their growth as percent
032toward that end of year goal. At midyear, we would expect to see between 40 and 50% progress toward that typical goal. So keep that in mind. 100% means I've met my goal, my annual goal at the end of the year. So, we'd expect about 40 to 50% to be there. So, first you're going to see the from the fall to winter, the p percent of students that are either early, mid, or above grade level. Um, so that's the top left. Then, right underneath that, you're going to see the median percent progress toward annual typical growth. Um, the median basically represents the typical student. So, the typical student, what's their progress toward uh their annual growth? Again, we're looking to see that 40 to 50%. And then the top right is a comparison from winter to
033fall of where our students fell um in those uh criterion reference categories. We've got a lot of glows. So, glows, every single grade level increased the percentage of students performing early, mid, or above grade level from fall to winter. Kindergarten 31%. Incredible increase. uh second grade up 22%, fourth grade up 13%, and eighth grade up 8%. Uh there is a significant decrease in the percent of students two or more grade levels below or three or more grade levels below from 22% to 14% districtwide. And the median percent progress toward typical growth um is really high for eighth grade. It's 110%. That means the typical student in eighth grade has already met their year end goal plus a little bit more. Um and then grows the median percent progress for typ toward typical growth is a
034little lower in the grades three four five and six all still meeting that between 40 and 50% u but those are just lower in comparison to the other grades and to wrap up I just want to give a little bit information about the RAD data and reporting structure um so uh we have annually our achievement accountability report which um will come around August September and that's all the outcomes from the previous school year from AR, five essentials, our district assessments, attendance, behavior, kind of that final overall report, as well as some of the wonderful work that our students, staff, and community have been doing. Um, and then quarterly, you're getting these quarterly progress updates. That's what's happening right now. Um, quick snapshots of current data from districtwide, and that will be coupled with our interactive
035data dashboard. Um, so that will be coming in March. the next time I see you in March, we'll be launching the interactive data dashboard, which will give you summary tables for at the school and district level um for enrollment, attendance, assessment, and behavior data. So, if you're looking at this data and you're like, hm, I'm wondering how third graders are doing, you could filter in those third graders. Or I want to know how the fourth grade students at dolls are doing, I could put dolls in fourth grade. As long as there's at least 10 students in that category, it will show those summary tables. Once it gets below 10, we then don't show that. Um, so that will be coming in uh in March. It will update regularly, pretty much daily for enrollment and attendance
036and then after every single assessment period. So it's always transparent, available, and accessible without being a static report. And then uh the strategic plan scorecard is a display of overall progress and relevant data um according to our strategic plan strategies. And so KPIs in there, basically what's at the end of your uh quarterly progress report. Um so that will be uh essentially part of the data dashboard. The first one is the sustain sustainability dashboard which will be launched in April alongside the interactive data dashboard. So I just want to let you know like this is how the reporting structure is going to work. So this is a overall but you're always able anyone anyone is able to see our data live um whenever they want. That's it. Thank you for sharing that. Lots of information.
037Um, lots of good stuff there. I think we're making progress in some areas. So, that's great to see. Um, I do have a question. It it is it feels like this one is persistent, so you probably know where I'm going to go on the first page, the behavioral incidents, disproportionality by race. Can you talk a little bit about that and if you're seeing it in certain areas specifically and I know that there are lots of strategies in place to address that but just remind us of sort of where we are with that. >> I just yeah at this point too as you as the board does ask questions. I think Dr. will be bringing up members of their team to potentially answer questions and so we'll distribute questions to appropriate people. >> Thank you. if
038it's data specific or report specific. >> It's a question around suspensions. >> Can't see who's there. >> He is not asking if they've been able to break it down. >> Hey Jess, can you text? Because I can swear I just saw him. >> So we might need to put that question on hold for a minute. >> All right. The next Brian Harris can actually come in and really speak to some of the like I know they've got face leaison that face leaison are pulling small groups they're looking at grades I think four four five and six but they really started to look at those fourth and fifth graders how do we start to capture those fourth and fifth grade behaviors prior to getting into middle school each face liaison is working in small groups at
039schools and then rotating through some of their small groups and I believe that was also in um in the climate in safety and MTSS report. Um they routinely facilitate restorative conversations to resolve student conflict. They do lunch groups in fourth through 8th grade. Um and they're also in kind of a non-judgmental student voice space. Um to to date face team has supported a total of 162 district 65 students. >> Oh there I I usually have the same question on these reports. So, thank you for jumping in. Um, I'm looking at the just the first question. Um, the out of school suspensions, disproportionality by race. I know that's something we've been working on. Just wanted to understand better about like the strategies we're implementing, how they're going, and then like from a data perspective, and maybe
040this is you, Donna, like how have we broken it down at all? Like I know some of it is by age level, by school. Just if you could speak to that, too. That would be great. >> Right. So, in terms of the data, that's something that I'm always looking at weekly on a weekly basis, whether I'm looking at branch of minds, um, referrals, out of school suspensions, in school suspensions, um, where we are as a district in terms of disproportionality rates, schools that have the highest disproportionality rates. Um, I think what we got to look at is we have our counselors in the building who are doing restorative, having restorative conversations with our students. We have our face leads on who are on the front end having restorative conversations with our students. Of course, you
041have your social workers. I think everybody's all of our our um mental health teams in our in our buildings are coming together to try to reduce our suspension rate. I think what we have to realize too though is that there's certain behaviors that we just can't have in schools. And you know, we want to make sure that all of our students are coming to school feeling safe. We don't want our students to come to school feeling like, you know, they're going to be attacked, >> that they're going to be exposed to, um, substances, things of that nature. Um, and so yes, we, you know, our our suspension rate is not where we necessarily want it to be right now, but it's always a work in progress because, you know, human beings, we're dealing with little
042human beings. And so, you know, one of the things we do if there is a suspension is we do have re-entry meetings. And so, the re-entry meeting is not necessarily to say, "Hey, this is the behavior. All right. Are you going to have a good day?" No, the re-entry meeting is us coming together and identifying what the trigger may be, what the issue may be, um, and then how the team, school team is going to support that student and how we're all going to wrap around so the behavior does not happen again. Now, when we're talking about suspensions, we do have, you know, a few students who might have uh more than who might have multiple suspensions, right? And so then they need an extra layer of support, add a layer of support, whether that's
043not just being in school, but some re reference or sorry, some referrals outside of school that might help them. Whether that's like using peer services for substance abuse issues or looking into mental health um services, individual or family counseling, things of that nature um to to address whatever the behavior underlying behaviors are. But at the school level when we're talking about the re-entry piece, it's not it's the restorative piece. But let's work together to identify ways that we can make sure that these behaviors don't continue to escalate. We want to break that pattern of behavior if it is a pattern of behavior or it's a one-off. And that's bringing the families together, that's bringing the school teams together, and then myself at the district level. >> Got it. That makes sense. So, it sounds like
044there's a combination of like preventative measures, but then also restorative measures and you're sort of trying to work the full cycle. Um, when just curious like do you know like what the typical time away from school is for my out of school suspension? Just I'm just trying to like put it into context. >> So, I want people to think about it like this. When we're talking about out of school suspension, we're not just saying out of school suspension. We're talking about resetting expectations. Mhm. >> Well, what does school look like? And that's how we want to we want to phrase it, right? We want to frame it like that. And that's what our buildings do. We need to we need the time for the school team to get together to develop a plan and to
045have a plan in place for when that student returns. So, we're talking about like one day, right? Typical is one day. >> Okay. have the school team get together, have that mental health team get with the building leaders, um, communicate with the parents, communicate with the district, everybody working together. So when that student does come back to the building, there's a plan in place and it's a plan that's sustainable and not just a plan that's going to, okay, this is just going to be what it's going to be for a couple weeks, but something that's going to be sustainable, so we're not here at the table again three or four months from now. >> Great. Okay, thank you. That's helpful to know. Um, good. I have some more questions, but they're related to the uh
046FYI, climate and safety. So, I'll wait until we get to that part of the agenda. Um I I had another question, and this isn't about this. It's about um the data on fifth through eighth graders. I'm just wondering, I know there was a slight dip in math. I think it's the next slide. Is that something we should be concerned about or like is it pretty, you know, that 4% change? >> Oh, so you're talking about the the college rate. Okay. So the college readiness benchmarks um that's basically it's it's a projection that uh NWA MAP did along with ACT and SAT essentially saying uh this predicts the likelihood that the students will score a certain ACT score a certain SAT score to get in school and uh that would equate to around like a C
047in a in a freshman college course. So it's kind it's a pro it's a projection. It's a prediction. It's not prophecy. Um, and so it looks at grades five through eight only, if that's as far down as it goes. Um, and it says if a student continues to make this level of achievement or growth, they would be projected to hit they would be on track to get a a 530 on the SAT or a 22 on the ACT. Um, and so when we're we're looking at this, we we do we especially when we're looking at winter because winter could be kind of an interesting point. they really we really want to look at like a a a spring to spring. So because our goals were all based off of spring. Um it is something that
048would I would say needs attention because we want to make sure that our kids are leaving here as prepared as possible but also understanding that the college career benchmarks equates to around the 68th percentile um for the fifth or eighth grade. Sometimes it's like the 63rd depending on the grade level. So it's not like it's not a low bar. It's okay. It's it's it's uh it's around this 68th percentile for the SAT. Um so it is something that we we want to look at, but it's it wouldn't be something that I would say like we are failing at math. >> No, we we want to keep that number we want to get that number up to above to above 50%. We want at least half our students meeting that. Um, but I want to look
049at that in addition to the other data that we're looking at. >> Yeah, that's what I was thinking because the other data on, you know, other tests for math didn't seem to show any sort of reason for concern. So, I was just trying to figure out how to interpret >> and and where I I think the I Ready diagnostic is really helpful in that is it is the relative placements that it's giving you is based off a gray level expectations for common core. So even though the test is adaptive, it's still telling us they are, you know, early on grade level, mid on grade level, like this is our that's our northstar is like are our kids ending the year on grade level in math? That to me is a better indicator of where we
050need to put our attention. Um is what grade levels are not such seeing the same amount of growth that we saw earlier? This is like probably going to give you whiplash. um you know where the where are the gray levels where that growth was not as high where those grade levels were that and in the report you kind of see the breakdown by grade level where that you know that bottom two percent is not shifting up and then that top 2% is not getting or that top two categories are not getting higher. Um, so that it allows us to again more focus on the grade levels we need to focus on versus on looking at this as like an aggregate. >> And I want to give Sonia a couple of minutes to kind of speak
051to some of the specific interventions within fifth through eighth grade that you guys >> can I ask a point of clarification? So if you go back to that previous slide showing the college benchmarks. So you said 50% is the goal for math but we're at 75% for language arts. Why do we have drastically different goals there? >> So, um, these were written, uh, back in 2020 based or BA 2022 based off of the 2021 data. So, when we're writing goals, we want to make sure that they're attainable and reasonable in the time that's that's brought to us. So, the baseline for uh, SY22 for math was 45%. So, going up 50% is attainable and reasonable in the time. And then for language arts, it was 72%. to making an 80% goal. So, they're different just
052because they're they're they're different baseline starting points. >> The other thing I would add to this um which is going to get really complicated in night one is that the when NWA NWA maintains this college readiness benchmark both for ACT and SAT. We shifted to the SAT in these benchmarks because the state of Illinois went to the required test of SAT. They have now moved back to ACT. um when the when they moved to SAT when we looked at the normed benchmarks we used the linking study that NWA puts together and essentially those cut score scores on the math side were much higher we are mirroring the linking study in NWA when we land these percentage goals and so that's where we're leaning on them when we shift down to ACT those numbers get a
053little bit more balanced and it's just a function of their linking study. >> I'm just going to push you on this point a little bit. So, philosophically, I'm not sure that I agree with setting our goals entirely on our internal benchmarks because then we do end up in a situation where if we've done poorly in the past on math, we're looking at incremental gains off of a poor base. So, and I think that's why we then end up in a situation where we have higher standards for uh language arts versus math. Coming at this from a new perspective, my pers like my position is why aren't our goals 100%. >> Why aren't our goals 100%. >> Why are we not like like why wouldn't we set the highest standard possible as opposed to build incremental
054improvement on our current base? >> I think our goal is always 100%. However, I think when we're writing strategic plan goals, we have to have strategic goals and and usually we write goals like smart goals. So, they do need to be, you know, attainable and and and relevant to the current state that we're in. So, I I've always want to be 100%. I want 100% of my kids to meet growth. I want 100% of my kids to walk out of here on grade level. Absolutely. That's always our goal. But as we're thinking about strategic initiatives and the work that we need to do as a district as a whole to improve student outcomes, we have to write goals that allow us to do that. Because if I set a goal for 100%, it's almost as
055if I'm setting myself up to not meet that goal. That's the goals are done in fiveyear increments so that we can make the incremental or more growth more and then we continue to set that goal higher. Um and then again like Dr. Dr. mentioned um if you when you look at the linking study the math and the the language arts like cuto offs are vast are a bit different um so that is something to look at I did attach the linking study in there so you can see the the cut scores >> and I think what's really helpful to understand so this is just looking at the numbers right these are the goals and the benchmarks but understanding like the strategies behind them to try to get there which I'm sure we're going to talk
056about in another meeting because that's where the work really comes in It's like, okay, you know, this is our goal, but what are we going to do to get there? And understanding like the work that goes into it helps us understand where we think we can realistically get. So, >> I think that's where Sonia is going to come up >> because that's a clarifying question before >> Sonia comes up. Um, I know we're um understand why we're looking at SAT and ACT. Um, but what's unique is our students all go to a high school. Have we ever had a like do we understand the performance what a 75% or 51% means for performance in 9th grade which is really we're preparing kids from the high school high school is preparing them for college. So do
057we have that um I know we've done it in some other areas but I'm curious in this area of math. >> So um I get the opportunity to work really closely with ETHS um especially Dr. Perry Levy. Um so as we were switching over to these assessments, they were in our conversations um you know in meetings kind of working through us. We also provided for them some of our pilot data for our middle schools and even high schools so that they can better set their cut scores for I Ready. Um so we were all part of those kind of conversations both for the I Ready and the STAR. Um and so I was able to look back at uh historically um looking at ETHs has kind of cut scores for their kind of three levels
058of reading. Um and I wanted to look at both like what did it look like for years prior and what does it look like here. Um and essentially like their no support or reading like their no support class their highest level. Uh last year we sent 78% of our kids ready for that course. this year at if currently if we were to send them this right now it would be 75%. So we're seeing pretty similar. Um and then for math um we look like we're going to be sending based on their cut scores that they they got to select based off of the data and the national placement tables. Um we we look like we're going to be sending um more of our students into that geometry pathway with honors than we did in previous
059years. um just based off of what we have >> that would be great to add. I mean the since we have that relationship now and I know the great work has done on the star to to have that as a lens because that's something more approachable for us. Thank you. >> The other part that we're working on now is a data sharing agreement that goes both ways. Right now it just goes one way which is super fun. Um but I would like to get that data going back so that we can measure student outcomes after 8th grade. um which then is going to let us understand students pathways of continuous learning from K all the way to 12, pre-K all the way to 12. Absolutely. >> But I also want to I also want to
060add that ETHS has been using the STAR assessment much longer than this is just our first year. So as slow as we must um and and a little bit of grace as we do the transition. And I think what's key is the collaboration >> which has been ongoing between our team and ETHs to continue to align as we get staff, as we get students, everybody up to this new assessment. We're monitoring all the thing and with all of the changes that's happening at the state level. She's going to come back and talk to you a little bit about what's happening at the state. So, it's a lot of moving pieces and things that are going on right now that we're just trying to be thoughtful and methodical and make sure it's it's aligning as much
061as we possibly can as we make the changes. But yes, all of the things that everybody has suggested is definitely on our radar. >> And just to add to that, our internal district benchmark is higher than what ETHS is using for their cut scores. Um, and we did that purposefully because again our goal is I need you at proficient in eighth grade walking into ETHS reading on eighth grade level or higher. Um, so our cut scores are actually a bit higher than theirs. >> As Sonia's stepping up, I just want to add the course placement is they take we provide scores for fall, winter, and spring. So that is the lowest it will be. It may adjust forward but depending on spring scores. And then just to speak a little bit to the comment about
062different expectations. I know those numbers are different. To be clear, when we look at AR, the percent proficient in ELA is 51.3 and the prof percent proficient in math is 49.6. So that is a function of the expectation around SAT and the way the way they define that to 22. When we look at a standard definition of grade level proficiency, we're performing within basically a point and a half of each other across reading and math. >> I want to just build on something Maya said that I think is really important because it actually ties together these two separate threads. So the when it comes to the smart goals, uh part of what makes something realistic and attainable is you have the resources to support whatever that goal might be. And so as Maya said, you
063know, the the resources that we have are going to be a big part of achieving our goal. So if you set a marginal goal, an incremental goal, you'll end up asking for incremental resources. And what I would just like to propose and you know, kind of in in the spirit in a constructive spirit is, you know, right now we have 49% of our students are at least one grade below on the math benchmarks. I would like to propose what would it take to get that to 100% are at grade level or above so that everyone is thinking about what that means in terms of teacher training uh curricular support uh after you know preschool afterare programs I just I think that the realistic part can sometimes be used as u a little bit of an
064unnecessary constraint um if again you're starting from a low base. >> Yeah. I also want to comment so it's it's not just your resources but you're using your resources with fidelity and you're using your instructional practices with fidelity. So be I think really what we're focusing on is the fidelity. The district has great resources um and they have great teachers. So how do we continue to use these resources consistent consistently and with fidelity across the board? And as as you start to see that within a district, you start to see your your achievement rise. But I'm going to let Sonia speak to >> There are a couple of things I just want to give some context here before we get into all these questions. Uh and I'm very glad we're having this conversation. This is
065really important to grapple with and understand what our charges moving forward and what work we need to do. So this is a good thing. Um keep in mind that I is a criterion referenced assessment which is a shift for us from the past. So people are still thinking percentiles, national norms where we do well. But when you think about grade level standards, are we at grade level? It's a much higher ask of our kids to show certain things at certain levels coming into the grade level and moving through the grade level. So that is a higher benchmark to begin with and people have not made that shift in their head. So we need to keep that in mind. The other thing is like Donna said, it's a prediction at this point by that system based
066on how they did in fall and winter where they are going to end up. that can change first half of the year in most of the grade levels three four five six in that band especially a lot of the content jumps up late in fall and they have not had a chance to practice that so the way I'm interpreting this data is that practice and application time is coming in the second half of the year typically that's when that happens so we got to keep that in mind too going back to that particular one that you were talking about our um college readiness benchmark really fifth and sixth when I drill into the data that's where the work is. That's what it's telling me. It is telling me something that we need to do something
067there, right? And focus and that's important information. Um those are the babies who were in K&1 were during pandemic were interrupted. So I went back to see what is happening here and to make sense of it all and we also made two different curricular changes in that time 2020 and 2022. Eureka math we went from everyday math to Eureka math and two years later we jumped to I already math. I'm saying that to say that was a lot of shift and adjustment for teachers and students and coming off of the pandemic. It was just a lot to take in and there's a learning curve involved, right? So, and then ELA adoption happened and we we're keeping with that like making progress and we're giving it the the time it needs. But in K5, it's the
068same teachers pretty much teaching all of that and making these curricular changes. Um, that said, what are we doing right now? There was a conversation about ETHS. We have partnered with them and I've been looking at this data and and my question is how can we send our kids with fewer or no gaps to the extent possible into nth grade. That is our responsibility and that is what I'm really focused on. When we looked at their cutoff scores and all that we worked with I Ready in the fall we had about 20% of our eighth graders placing in the pre-alggebra track. So we got huddled together as a math department with the department chairs brought in some skills and what we needed with IETS talking to them what is it that you are looking for
069for our kids when they come in so they are in an algebra track and track track and not in a pre-alggebra track because that's a disservice. So we worked off of their list with them and I have come up with the intervention guidance that our teachers are working on. Winter data alone the learning that's happened in the teaching we've dropped it down to close to 12% of kids. So, I'm hoping we can drop it some more with the trimester 3 intervention cycle. So, that's an exact like intervention we're trying with eighth graders right now. But really, it's it's telling me what we need to do K7 because it's not an eighth grade problem, right? So, that's what we're focusing on with that data. So, I wouldn't lose sleep over it, but it is telling me
070something and we do need to do something moving forward. I would also recommend that this is the first year we have this I Ready as everyone implementing all the time as a diagnostic. So, it's hard to do now, but over time, let's track the cohort. That tells us a better story. They're coming into kindergarten now. How did they do in first, second, third, same kids? What were their needs? And how did we bridge them? That will tell us a much better story than a little bit distort story where we feel like eighth grade is pulling up and you know all of this. It's true, it's happening, but what is each cohort doing every year? If that makes sense. Are there other questions that I didn't answer? It's kind of related to these interventions. It might
071be for Dr. Steth perhaps. I might not have an answer yet, but it's a tension that I'm feeling particularly with what you mentioned, Chris. Um, aiming high. One of the things we're struggling or navigating as a board is defining what a sustainable budget is. And so, I saw on page 22, which is which we're with financial implications, we're going to identify interventions as well as their cost. And so knowing that the significant interventions, I mean, if we're looking at like building level interventions, I we're talking multiple millions of dollars in a budget where every million matters if we're not if we're going to reduce the harm of of of closures. Uh so that's just a tension point I'm feeling. It was the question I want to ask. So what interventions are being considered? And um
072I'm looking forward to June when we can get a sense of financial impact of those as well. >> Do you mean for math? >> Well, page 22 is financial services and that was some confusion for us. We were >> the last point on page 22 >> in the board in the memo. >> In the memo >> maybe that wasn't supposed to be there. >> Was that not supposed to be there? uh by April 30th, 2026, collaborate with the assistant superintendent of academics to develop multi-year financial plans and funding strategies for key instructional improvement initiatives under consideration. >> It's Tamar and I working together. Oh, go ahead. >> So, that's Dr. Smith and I working together. Okay. Um and we're >> we should have something to present in April, I believe, with that. But yeah, we're
073working together on that piece. >> Okay. So, we're not to the point of identifying correct actual interventions. Okay. We'll look forward to hearing more. And there's there's there's elements with the instructional our academic walkthroughs. There's elements of of having a brand new team come together and also using this data to identify like what what should those be? >> Yeah. >> It's just something I want us to hold is like we know with capex 2.7 is nothing, right? And we're going to have to keep stretching that if we really want to be sustainable. And I'm wondering if the interventions, if we really want to keep pursuing excellence, you know, like and equitable outcomes that bridge these disparities, we're gonna have to set aside money and that's going to hurt. >> How many um I'm just connected
074uh to what Andrew said. Just what is the number of interventionists that we have from the standpoint um for math and for literacy for K5? Separate K5 for uh middle school. So we have 20 interventionists total. Uh elementary does reading and math depending on the need of their building. So it's not content specific. Middle school we have one that does just math and we have two that do just literacy. Okay. And given I was just just curious your question given how much better I guess is I don't know if better is the word u we're doing in in literacy than math the is that something that y'all then think about whether you switch whether we add more for math or whether we move from math to literacy. >> So we've done both. I've asked for
075both. I've asked for both. Uh in middle school because folks are content specific with their lensure. It really depends on the staffing that they have available. Principles are the ones who hire their interventionists. Uh and so they make that decision based off of the need for their population. For elementary, most of our um buildings you well all of them use data to determine what area. It just depends on the allocation in the building. Um one interventionist typically services about 25 to 30 kids per cycle and we have three cycles a year. Um so their case load is already pretty high. So asking them to prioritize one is fine but then you have another group of kids that's not getting intervention. So then you have to start exploring do we have more than one intervention in
076most of our buildings. Some of them do. >> I I also think the key here is that we are also deeply analyzing tier one in ter tier one instruction. So tier one instruction is are we having those small groupoup learning like how are we tackling that? Because if you were doing tier one instruction with fidelity, you have fewer students in tier two and tier three. So this is this cons considerable part of Regina and Sonia's work is like that tier one instruction and that has to be super super solid across the board consistently. >> Right. And I I want to add we just are in year three of adopting standards aligned curricular resources for literacy. We use a structured literacy approach which is a lot of work. the next edge of growth for us as
077a district now that teachers are in like year three of really being consistent and when a comment was made earlier around the fidelity of the instructional resources. Now, our next edge of growth is really being thoughtful about how do we ramp up small groupoup instruction and how do we ensure that small group instruction is an extension of whole group instruction and it's not viewed and seen and here we use small groupoup instruction. We use a term win time. It's not seen as this isolated thing where kids are doing things that are unrelated to what they learned in whole group instruction. that takes a lot of time to do and what we're asking teachers to do now as it relates to standards align instruction is not an easy task to do. So we have to be
078thoughtful about how we bring educators and even our school leaders along this journey of what essentially the demands of of of improving academic outcomes for students. And so I think you know when we talk about we can't put even though Dr. Plaza just named we have 20 interventions in place it's impossible to to think that um we can rely on our academic interventionist to fill that gap completely. That takes the effort of everybody being able to do that to really move the needle and to to improve uh academic outcomes for students. So, I just really want to name that because it it's a herculean task to do and and we're we're moving this this along amongst all of the other things that we have going on. But I want to just celebrate the the staff
079who have been working, the educators, the pair of professionals, all of the folks at the school leaders, all of the folks at the school level that are are really boots on the ground really trying to do what it is necessary to fill those gaps with the amount of time we have while still undertaking the herculean task of planning lessons and doing all of the things. And so I just want to say that very transparently because we want we want to wave a magic wand and get instant results, but we also got to bring the humanization to this is that we got people uh behind this that we're bringing along. And so I I just really it's important for me to say that because it's it's going to take time, but we're moving in the direction
080to get the results. And the research says for our our our good friends who are the researchers, this type of change, it it takes at least five years to to to turn the corner on on this level of change of what we're asking to do overnight. And I just want to remind us we're just in year three of implementation of two standards align instructional resources both for literacy and for math. So, I just really want to publicly say that this is great conversation and I'm really excited that we talking about this today actually y'all instead of instead of SDRP because it's really it's it's always been about improving academic outcomes for the students in this district. And so, the fact that we're spending time talking about this is hugely important. But do know we are
081in school buildings and when I say we, district staff, academics team along with myself multiple times a month inside classrooms and actually seeing educators and staff personnel really working extremely hard to bring this along. And so when we see the data starting to move, I just really want to celebrate them publicly um because we don't get a chance to do that enough. And so I I want that to go on record for my good friends who are sitting out here is to put the positive press about how district 65 is really trying to move academic outcomes for students in a very strategic and methodical way. But it is going to take us time. So I just want to say that >> just want to add on to that for the math because that question came
082up here. What we really need is we need to focus on three things in math just so everybody we can all be on the same page. Fluency is a skill that's really important for our kids. And by fluency, I don't mean memorizing facts and regurgitating them. Most people think that's what it is. It is so not that. It is number sense. It's flexibility with numbers and coming up with efficient, effective strategies to solve a problem based on the situation. One solution for a particular approach for one will not work for another. So they need to know how to work with numbers. We need to do focused work on that in the K3 space. And it needs to be non-negotiable and built into our day with some creative thinking about where's 10 minutes every day for
083that practice. So by the time they get to third grade, if they don't have leaving third grade multiplication and division and all of these flexible strategies down, it gets really hard to access content in fourth and fifth grade and then that's where you start seeing the breakdown, right? So there is that. We solely own that and we need to think about that in our department and to find time during this day to do that. Now the second piece is conceptual understanding which is what Dr. um Turner was talking to about the tier one instruction which is really important. So let's think about a 60-minute block and and like she said the 20 minute win time is not just the practice small group time as a teacher. If I'm if 40 minutes instructing you and you
084get five minutes to practice how is that going to look like versus mini lessons practice get feedback mini lessons practice get feedback before you go into small group work. We also own that and we need to really tighten up which is why you've heard me talk about building thinking classrooms that really forces people teachers to put the cognitive load on the kids to do the thinking talking and writing most of the time and not them. So we're trying we need to get across a district unified with that way of thinking and I would like tier one to look like that in any classroom that you walk into. Right? So that's the work. The third piece application this is really important. Um you learn all of this now you need to apply it and solve problems.
085What does that require? Reading skills, comprehension skills, writing skills, reasoning skills. This is where I'm hoping the gains we're making in our reading arc applies here and transfers here where kids need to use that as well. So, we kind of co-own that because there's a lot of reading comprehension, writing, defending reasoning skills that come into play. So, something to keep in mind and it is a three year, fiveyear from now. Where are we? How can we turn this around? And and that's the professional learning. Going back to your question, I believe a lot of professional learning for teachers is needed. When we rolled out Ready that year, we did not have time uh the space to do professional learning like would have helped teachers. So, we need to do that ongoing basis with them to
086help support them to turn practice and and to make the change shift to the kids to doing the thinking and the and the learning. So, yeah. >> Can I ask you a question about um instruction? >> Yes. Oh yeah. >> So how are we supporting uh instruction in the instruction framework beyond the walkthroughs, right? So at the end of the walkthroughs, we are giving them we're we're sharing with leaders. We debrief with them the school leadership team and we give them um highlights of what we saw in the areas of need and what they're doing really well. We're started second round now. We just started last week second round. So we're able to compare with what we did first round to say, "Hey, we're seeing improvements in this, but this still is an area of
087need." So maybe in your next PLC or half day or team meetings, you might want to think about lesson planning where you add, for example, something like anticipating student misconceptions and how would you address that? Have your teachers >> I think she's talking more specifically about like what additional work is what are educators doing in PC's to build their capacity? what professionally what I'm I can just jump in here and clarify if that's okay. What what I'm saying is is I know that we have cut instructional coaches uh in some schools and in some schools we have the assistant principal that is the instructional coach and do you have any concerns that during these walkthroughs you're peeking into a classroom or a building for a day and I mean Dr. attorney. You said a couple
088of days a month in a different building and that when you are there, the things that are happening in the classroom aren't necessarily representative of how things are progressing on a regular basis. >> I'm going to approach that. >> It it does, but I'm also going to approach this from a school leader standpoint. The principal and the assistant principal are instructional leaders in their building. And so as a school principal, you have school work plan goals. Those goals we recognize might be I have to get Exx on I Ready or Exxon star, but there is still an instructional piece to it. These school leaders and the assistant principles and if they have an instructional coach are in classrooms on a regular basis. We then work with school leaders in PLC's that tackle a problem of
089practice. For instance, I was working with a group of leaders for this past session and it was looking at the cognitive lift in classrooms. The cognitive lift is putting that intellectual load on students and each of these school leaders were in classrooms in each other's buildings and they were also having conversations about how to support instruction within their school to foster the cognitive lift of students. So it's it's really it's it's not just supporting teachers but it's supporting the whole ecosystem of a of a school building and that's instructional coaches, principles, assistant principles, it's interventionist, it's educators, it's I educators, it's how does everybody come together within a PLC in the building to recognizing what that building needs to support their students knowing that each building is different. So, Regina and Sonia can also pick
090up on this. >> Sonia and I good evening everyone. Sonia and I meet um monthly with building leaders on a onetoone basis where we get an opportunity to give them feedback on not just what we found out in during the walkthroughs but where they are on their own school work plans looking at it from their lens towards us. How can we support the goals that you have for your building as instructional leaders? Um, oftentimes those conversations uh bring up um their desire to work with a subset in their building, provide some kind of specific um uh grade level support in certain in a specific area. And so we try our best to be responsive to those types of conversations. And so I think I'm I think I'm responding um to the question in a in
091a way that um that I could best articulate that we work >> with school leaders not just as as a whole group in our walkthroughs, but also we come back and and talk again with them to make sure they >> But do you have any insight in Do you have any insight into what kinds of teachers future instructional time or the like what happens in between your time >> your walkthroughs. >> Yes, I can like just specifically today I met with the building leader and they were working with with their coach um they were working on the professional learning they were lifting up that they lifted up at the past um staff meeting and then how they were using their planning their grade level planning sessions. So they are >> working on their internalization of
092lessons and watching the learning progressions and looking at how they're progress monitoring their students growth. >> Thank you. Okay. >> And I I did want to just jump in and talk a little bit about so again we we've set into place in the past couple of years um and again with conversations with uh district 202 just trying to make sure that um we have an alignment across the whole educational continuum in Evston, right? Um so so I really appreciate again us starting to implement I ready right which and and diagnostic tests that really kind of get to um how we should uh you know what strategies we we need to implement uh in specific schools and in specific classrooms with specific students. I mean, I think that that is we have sh we're shifting away
093from map which again I thought was honestly useless to to something that's more diagnostic that is helpful to to educators uh to be able to make an impact then and there uh within that school year. So that's that's a great thing. Um so we we we're setting all these wonderful things in place. But one thing that that that I I want us to consider as a system, right, is is we can have all these wonderful strategies. We can have incredible staff, professional learning. Um, and again, we have it all. Uh, but one thing that we need to start looking at is chronic absenteeism, right? Like if a student's not there, then they can't take advantage of um of these wonderful uh strategies that we're trying to implement to to change their academic outcomes. So, again,
094looking at the Illinois report card, um, and and I' I've done a breakdown, and anybody can do this. Um, you know, you I'm looking at years 2018 to 2025. Back in 2018, chronic absenteem absenteeism in this district was at 9.9%. Right. Um, it it grew after the pandemic. I mean, it went low in 2021 and and then it it rose to 21.3% in 2022. Uh, and then in 2025, again, we're starting to see a gradual decrease over 17.2. Right? Again, this is chronic absenteeism. And what does that mean? Right? you need to have at least 10% or a student misses 10% or more school days per year with or without a valid excuse. So again, we know the research is clear on that which is why we measure this at the state is that if
095a kid's not sitting in a classroom 10% of the year, they're going to fall behind. So now looking now as I do we I did a breakdown by by demographic. So I'm looking at black students back in 2018. Um it was pretty high. It was 13.1%. Um, we hit a high of 33.1% in 2022 and in 2025 we're starting to gradually come down, but it it's 26.6% of black students who are still showing chronic absent as of 2025. For Hispanic students, pretty close to same thing, 25.3% of students chronically absent, right? Back in 2018, it was only 11.1%. White students, on the other hand, you know, they've stayed steady throughout you. again uh you know back in 2018 it was 7.9 2025 they're 8.6 6. So, not too bad. Now, students with disabilities, uh, 23.1%
096in 2025. English learners, I broke it down, right? Uh, they're at 26.9%. And I I mentioned that because again, it's thinking about the the the current climate for, you know, uh, you know, uh, immigrant families and English learners. Again, I'm wondering what what those numbers are this year. Right. So, um, low-income students are at 29.1% from 20 at 2025, uh, 29.1% chronic absenteeism. So just something to consider and and I know Brian again there's a again with the face leaison and again we're trying to do the best that we can to to to ensure and we have wraparound services we have our uh our uh you know psych you know counselors and and psychologists uh again we have a whole team but again all these wonderful things that we have in place that we're unf
097that are unfolding are really great but as a system I want us to make sure that we're we're looking at root causes and and I I appreciate what Sonia said in regards to okay well let let me dig into some of these numbers and oh that this cohort that you're seeing in regards to the the math uh uh u uh results is is a co is a court that had to stay at home right so always thinking about what what is root cause right and I think chronic absenteeism is one of those things that we should yeah you again that that we should be paying attention as a school system in regards to how we impact student outcomes >> yeah it's always going to speak to that piece because when I got here in 2015
098I came in that role of student engagement coordinator where my focus was on chronic absentee. Well, actually it was on truency, chronic truency. >> And so what I did during that time frame that you're naming um up until uh the co year was try to set try to change the language and change the focus from chronic truency to chronic absenteeism where we're looking at absenteeism as a whole versus the student who does not call in, the family who does not call in, but the family who might be calling in 50 times a year, right? And so absenteeism is absentism. If a student is not in school, they're not here to learn. And so at that time I put in place I put in place systems and uh uh processes in terms of following up with
099students. And so then we had COVID, right? And so what that did was it disrupted the systems that were in place and after that things just kind of fell apart, right? But I think right now um what Dr. Plaza has picked that back up and is leading that work and I think that's putting it back putting chronic absenteeism and putting students attendance back on the radar and putting it back on the map in schools and so you know when we're talking about systems you know once a system is broken it takes a little bit of time to get it back repaired right and so when I first got here there were no systems and so no consistent systems and I think we had that few year period where things were just kind of disrupted and
100so I think with Dr. Plaza lead network. I think it's getting back to where it needs to be. >> Right. And I just got to say again, this isn't just an issue with our district. This is a state and national issue around chronic absentes, which is something that's being kept track kept track of everywhere. So again, I appreciate the work that's again y'all are doing to try to again write or at least create processes and systems to be able to address the impacts of this. >> Can you um um can you come back up? Um can you go back to the um learning conditions slide please? Thank you. Um so we are tracking behavior. So in some sense I think of learning conditions we're looking at learning conditions based off of behavior issues and problems.
101Do we track posit? Is there any way to track positive behaviors? And so to see um you know what, you know, what's the demographic of kids getting positive behavior and I say that I have a um a certain young person who's in this district and um has some you know branching mind incense. I know that's in the system and then has, you know, gotten the Haven Star and that's on a paper and I don't know if that's actually in the system and so I'm I'm focusing on the oh I got a call cuz it's in the system but you know that other moment of oh he did something great. Are those things captured? because it'd be interesting to know particularly from a demographic standpoint um good in good good behaviors and begin to see um
102do we see you know if we look at certain patterns what are the what are the what are the patterns there and if we also look at behavior um is I know this you can't break everything down here but understanding middle school versus elementary school are there you know what are schools that are doing great are there certain classrooms that are doing great and in that sense it's important to capture the good behaviors because I just might be a teacher who's not or a school that's not tracking you know telling you the negative. So is there any way to sort of see what's what are things we can build upon as opposed to I think right now my focus is on what are the behaviors we need to change and I want to see are
103there examples or documentation of you know right you know great examples of teachers and schools doing it well and we want to model model that. >> Yeah. So I can't speak to that and I wouldn't lie and say I can that doesn't mean it's not happening. Um maybe somebody else may know. >> Uh so we don't have a formalized way of tracking positive behaviors in every school. Um some of our schools do do that as part of their school work plan. Uh and they use internal ways of documentation. Um thinking about using half days participation, being able to do fun activities in half days um before after school events at times. But we do not have a formalized way that we do it. We do look at uh it's more global like how kids feel
104like a sense of belonging and engagement through the panorama survey that we give twice a year. >> Um but that does not because it's supposed to be anonymous. It'll give you the breakdowns right by race, gender, grade. Um but it it doesn't always give us like a here's this group of kids and we're going to shout out this is happening. But we do take some time to analyze it by school. So like, hey, King Arts is doing an amazing job in their students reporting a sense of belonging. King Arts, can you tell us what you're doing so that we can call that out? But in terms of like tracking positive behaviors, it's super dependent on the individual building right now. >> That would definitely be something over time worth uh having a convers over time.
105Yeah, >> I just wanted to add another celebration here back on the final slide saying where further updates are coming. Um, you know, I think this is a win. Uh, we have an interactive dashboard coming that will break down by school, by grade. I'm curious, will it break down also by like race, IEP status? Will there be will this break down by like you said break uh uh disagregate by school by grade? Yes. >> Will we be able to disagree by like race? >> Yes, I e status as long as there's at least 10 in the filter, >> right? So it's >> So let's say I go to DAW's third grade, >> right? >> IEP and it says, "Nope, there's not 10." So if I clear out third grade, I could just look at Doll's
106IP and there we go. Yeah. Yeah. >> Um, so as long as there's not less than 10, it'll show you summary tables by a school at a district level. >> So, I just want to celebrate this interactive data dashboard that's coming soon. And I want to celebrate the strategic plan scorecard. And I want to celebrate the memo that we got and the way that it's constructed and Dr. Turner and the team and also us as a board emphasizing transparency and accountability and just really um this is these are good steps moving forward. So, just want to lift that up. >> And schools, uh, both principles and teachers already have access to our own internal dashboard. So, they don't just see the summary tables, they see the list of students by every demographic they can over
107multiple years. So, they this is their second year with it. Um, so they have they have this access at their fingertips that is updated on the daily. >> Can I ask one more question about the literacy portion? >> Yes. Um, I'm looking at slide uh I I think I'm looking at page 10. It's the star early literacy English K through two slide. Um there's a pretty uh large drop between the um winter benchmark uh top left chart between kindergarten and second grade. and it's sort of a progression downward from kindergarten to first and second grade. Um the average percentile also tracks. Do you have any insights as to why that is and what are the action steps you're taking to address the um the low levels of achievement in second grade in the second half
108of this school year? After looking at the window data, I definitely see the point you're making. Um, one of the things I've been working with leaders on is them using the progress monitoring that's embedded in our foundations resource. Um, there's a unit test after every foundation's unit. And basically the guidelines are if students um 80% of your class does not pass that test, you go back and do the reteing portion of that unit and then reassess. meaning you give more time to that particular series of letter sound phone name um instruction before you move forward so that you make sure that it's solidified. Um so that is one of the strategies that um I'm approaching this particular piece with. I also note um when I've met with the coaches, the second grade um foundations uh
109learning sequence is pretty intense. Um and so it's when students begin to branch into general generalization into multi multiple syllable words. Um and so that fidelity to the actual lesson plan is imperative. Uh oftent times what happens is is um we've our past structure um allowed students if you could do a CBC a basic three or maybe four-letter word um it appeared as if you were reading and reading well and that you would guess that you could make that journalization into a multiple syllable word. Um, and so with that being said, oftent times, um, I found that some educators may, uh, move through that particular those lessons a little faster, um, because it appears students are strong in reading where they do need the additional support of digging into those um, constrained u letter sounds
110uh, at that particular level. So we also are lifting up the concept of fidelity to the actual resource of which I'm working with the instructional coaches and that and the um assistant principles. >> Okay. So same >> thank you. And then I just wanted to ask one one more thing about um interventions and support for students that are not meeting grade level benchmarks. Um, previously in the district, we had uh volunteer literacy tutors um that had come and been trained by the district and were working with students um that had just you know not se but but some literacy needs or or assisting the teacher with some extra um practice for those students. Have we considered strategy of um calling or employing or asking for volunteer support um from parents to assist with um reinforcement
111or enrichment? >> Uh no, I have not um approached that particular strategy at this point. >> Do you think that would be worthwhile? Um I think because the science of reading is one of the pieces where we would definitely have to go into some indepth training. Yes, we could consider it but we definitely would have to go through that particular process um to make sure that our students were given the richness that they need in order to move forward. It's it's it's we need a little bit more than a body. Um, and so I think our interventionists are doing a stellar job. Um, we have doubled down and got getting gotten them letters training. Um, and we're currently working our third grade teachers also adding in some um some supports and and being to learn
112how to teach um an older student how to read. Um, so I think that there there may there is viability in that idea. Um, and I'll I'll look into it. >> Thank you. If I can just pick up one thing, >> we did end up retiring the program and partially it was a costcutting measure because it does require considerable amounts of coordination on the district level and does require training to make sure that tutors are prepared have resources and curriculum. And so it is something that was impacted by the cuts over the last couple years. And the other thing too with like tutoring programs, I go, I sound like a broken record, but it's fidelity. So if if somebody is using a tutor as this child is not behaving well, so I'm going to put
113this child out of a class, then the child is missing tier one instruction. So tutoring is great, but it it's got to be program fidelity, and it can't be a behavioral intervention or just, you know, I'm overwhelmed and because then students are missing out on tier one instruction. What does and I'm sorry. What does fidelity mean? That's a rookie question over here. I've heard you use it a few times and just wanted a definition. >> Like so everyone's doing everyone's following the same process. So if you have a tutoring program and let's say you want to pull students between the 25 and the 20 the 25th and the 50th percentile to tutor, but then you look at the tutoring program and you're realizing that four of the students pulled were in the 90th percentile because
114they had a behavioral issue. That's not meas we can't measure that because we can't measure progress that we're supposed to be measuring within this group. So it's we set parameters like for instance you have an instructional program or a curriculum. Are we actually following the curriculum guidelines or am I kind of doing something else and I'm going some I'm doing another lesson and then it's hard to measure did this curriculum resource work or did this teacher decide that perhaps they wanted to teach another book. They didn't like this book. So, it's really that's that fidelity of like I'm following this program and I'm following it like with the students in front of me, but I'm actually using the curricular resources that we have for the district. >> How do you maintain uh teacher flexibility and
115autonomy in that process and empower them? >> They're baseline resources. So, like I think you Regina, if you can speak to kind of like there's there's a pacing guide and there's a curriculum guide. There's options for different types of books. There's options for different types of problems. But we still have to be teaching X skill. So in essence, um when you're teaching foundational skills, uh students have to have a particular scope and sequence to master between K and two. Um, if an educator chooses to teach the second grade series of letters in order, but they're actually in first grade, then it throws off the sequence that students are learning. In those particular areas, it sounds a pretty rigid, but pretty much that's how language is learned. You have to follow follow the scope and sequence
116of the letter sounds over the the series of time. I think I hear you asking about teacher flexibility and um a choice and autonomy. Um and so yes, we do have a pretty um controlled list of particular um text that students are reading during their comprehension comprehension time with Whiten wisdom. Um that is a resource that we've adopted. educators do have time during their morning meeting and during volume of reading time to bring in other resources. So there are segments that they have some um flexibility within but there is because of the fidelity and the ideal that if you're at DOS or if you're at Washington you are experiencing third grade. And so in order to do that, we do have to hold true to we're going to read this particular text in our second
117unit. >> I had a follow-up question about some of the outliers. We positively mentioned the 110% for eighth graders. Um part of also interp we didn't do any interpretive work of why that is. And then there also on page 10 of our memo there was the star lectura reporting third through fifth that the fourth grade is way higher charting way higher than third and fifth. I'm just curious about those outliers and what we can make of those. >> That one was for star right the fourth grade. >> So two questions essentially math eighth grade and then fourth grade. >> Got it. I can speak to the eighth grade math. So here's what's happened. Um 68 we've changed the scope and sequence in the past in almost three years now. Um we are doing four years
118worth in three years if you're aware of that. Um algebra 1 standards are heavily in eighth grade. More than half of eighth grade is algebra 1 standards and seventh grade has quite a bit of eighth grade standards and sixth grade has seventh. So we've pushed down and made changes over time. So what that's done this is my interpretation. What that's done is it's raised the bar and you hear sixth seventh. This is the other reason for the sixth kind of not looking that great. It's fast and furious. They're exposing a lot of concepts, but they're getting exposed to a lot of algebraic thinking and concepts. So that shows up in seventh grade. So by the time they come to eighth grade, and our eighth grade teachers are telling us this this year, they feel like
119the kids are coming better prepared into eighth grade than before. So we have raised the bar up. And I think of um Tom Nson when she says for differentiation, when in doubt, differentiate up. So with the scope and sequence, we we went up. We raised the bar for all of our kids. It's expectations. expectations, expectations that's being communicated from the teachers to the kids. So kudos to all of our teachers and by eighth grade our kids are doing much better with their growth for that reason. >> So and we've partnered with um ETHs closely and they know our scope and sequence. We've adjusted it with conversations with them and to address this sixth grade issue and make it even better. What we're thinking right now is our publisher didn't have the scope and sequence. We
120had to create it to make this happen and our teachers came together over three summers and did it great. But now they do have an accelerated sixth seventh pathway leading into algebra 1 which is more sane scope and sequence. So as a math department we have reviewed it this year and King Arts has offered to pilot it next year to see how that goes and that might just give sixth grade teachers some breathing room in our kids and I'm hoping that shows up too. But we have that resource now available. It's not a new curriculum. It's the same publisher. It's the same materials. They have redone it for this ask. Does that help answer your question? Okay. >> So, yeah. >> Sorry. Oh, the fourth grade. >> Oh, >> double star. >> Can you repeat
121the fourth grade question? >> Well, it's an outlier for meeting exceeding and On page 10 on our memo, Starl tour meeting exceeding and then growth percentile fourth grade is just exceedingly higher significantly higher than third and fifth in both of those categories. just a little bit of like analytical context of why that might be. >> Well, uh, linguistically speaking, in third grade, they're leaving with like truly the essence of the beginning stages of biiteracy and and it's always going to take longer for dual language students, tweet teach students to learn. They're learning two languages at the same time. So, we cannot it's comparing apples to oranges in a lot of cases. So the so by third grade they're still learning the context and keeping up with basic um literacy in the younger grades by third
122grade. By fourth grade is the sweet spot because they already have that foundational build in two languages now. But by the time they get to fifth grade, the content and vocabulary gets higher in in both languages. So you'll see a dip usually um by fifth grade because as language progresses in and in in um exams and everything else both languages will also up their their vocabulary. >> Um Sonia, can I ask um um another question with respect to math and um given we all know where our math scores are um particularly for our African-American and Latino young people. So, I would assume that um we're going to make great progress in in classes, but we also need to do a lot of progress in other ways. So, if we're not, how are you thinking that
123we as a community >> can support math growth if we're not, you know, necessarily going to use tutors and if we're not, you know, we want to be respectful of fidelity. So I'm trying to understand that cuz my understanding is it's not necessarily a lot of that support in the school teachers get to go home. So it's not they're not staying after school and doing all these math clubs. So how should we be thinking about that? >> How to wrap around support that it's going to take a village to raise up these math scores. >> I do think we need to shift our thinking towards math fluency. Like I said, that's our best um lever to get everyone up by the time they get into fourth grade. those early grades. If we lose that window
124of opportunity, it becomes very hard. So, if I'm focusing anywhere, I'm going to focus K3, but also be creative about the day and our minutes and where can we creatively fit in that practice and everyone's doing. You could be lining up to go to gym. You could be talking about some numbers and counting and whatnot and some strategies, right? So, how can we be creative to think about numbers all the time and call them into our conversations with our kids? Um, let's estimate this. Let's do that. What shape is that you're looking at? You don't have to be in a math block doing that, but math vocabulary and fluency throughout the day embedded in our conversations and everything we do is the way to go because we're not going to get extra minutes during the
125school day. Let's be real. And tier one instruction, the fidelity of implementation and what it should look like, like I said before, like it really should be kids spending most of the time talking, writing, thinking, asking questions, and getting the instruction when they need. It's like when you're learning a musical instrument, right? You don't want to watch someone play 40 minutes and practice 20 minutes, but you're going to get feedback along the way after every little move. So, we really need to rethink that we are not the people imparting all the knowledge to these empty vessels in front of us. They know something. They can build on things. How do we leverage all of those kids and their knowledge in the classroom and build on it and let them explore and do more in the
126classroom? I mean, yeah, that those are the only ways to do that really and application time. Um, where they're practicing working on different types of problems throughout the day and a variety of problems. Yeah. If we don't have other supports, we have to really get creative with our tier one time. Yep. >> Just to talking about supports, I just wanted to recommend if and you may be already doing this, but I know ISB is in the current process of creating plan. They did a literacy plan uh which is again research based and they've worked with the school districts across the state to really try to get some really researchbased practical right >> uh resources to school districts right given that we're in a bud budget crunch that's that's the best that this can do right
127is try to provide technical assistance >> yes we are very much yeah our our school coaches schools that have coaches and math people are involved in that conversation with ISBY they're doing a second revision right now this is a good time our I ready curriculum people have also heard this loud and clear and they're inor incorporating more number sense and number talk routines in K1 which we are getting the upgraded version this fall. So it's all kind of coming together at the same time and learning from our past mistakes. We're working with our staff development committee to get teachers that training that they need before they lift it in August and to follow up with them throughout the year. That's the other piece going back to the previous question is getting teachers together talking thinking
128and planning with them together and supporting and giving them feedback as they implement is really really important to change practice >> and again I'll tell I'll tell you as a teacher when when you give teachers space to have this conversation right around the content that they're trying to teach and you sit with your grade level team or your you know your content level team in middle school or at the high school right I mean it's those are just the best times because again you really get to sit down strategize or with your bilingual teams, right? Just sitting there and really kind of planning out it's it's just the best. So, whatever we can do to continue to to make sure that our teachers are talking to one another and strategizing and again with these and
129and really working through just some of these really great strategies that we're trying to put in place, right, to ultimately impact uh and create better outcomes for our students. >> Yeah, we need to hold that time for them to learn and grow and plan together sacred. And also the last thing um interventionists if like Dr. Plaza was talking about um they go between math and ELA because those are the needs in the buildings and oftentimes it's the same kids who need so they do cycles if at all there's an ideal world where we can have a year-long focused math intervention happening with kids who need that to get that fluency up and those gaps that that would be great you know to have that I think that would help our data is showing that our
130tier three where they're getting interventions they are doing better and moving up a grade level so it's Thank you. >> Okay, since everyone's up here, I'm going to go ahead and ask my question because I was really excited about the climate and safety MTSS FYI item and just wanted to ask about that. I know it says that in June 2026, they're going you're going to co-design a district-wide tier support system that integrates academics, behavioral, and social emotional interventions. I would I know that you'll probably get into detail later, but would just love to hear high level what that's about. >> Uh yeah, so what we've done is uh Brian and I work very closely together. What we've done is uh try to mirror the MTSS system for academics to look the same for social emotional
131learning and attendance as well. So the process looks exactly the same. The thing that's different is the data points that we're looking at. Uh and so academics and social emotional automated taring happens through branching minds based off of the universal screeners that they take. Interventionists in our buildings then help lead the conversation around academic, sometimes social emotional, sometimes we use CARES teams in buildings uh to really think about is this accurate? Do we have other data that's saying hey maybe it was just a bad test day or hey they did surprisingly well but everything else is showing me that they're not there yet. so that they can uh analyze the data, do additional diagnostic assessments to really figure out where they need support. We do the same thing for SEAL. Um, but we look at
132attendance, their sabers and my sabers responses, behavioral incidents, grades in classrooms, health office visits, right? Am I always sick during math? Um, and so maybe that's more anxiety than it actually is, or maybe I just don't really like math. Um, and so we we've kind of built that system so it looks consistent in every single space that we're talking about. And then we give them time to start drilling into the data to figure out who are we actually talking about? Not just a number, but like the actual person. >> Wow. Great. That's great. >> I look forward to hearing more about that one. >> Any more questions on this agenda item? Okay. Thanks. Great conversation. You all >> on the Yes. On I jumped I skipped the other FYI item, but anything else on the
133midyear progress report before I move on to >> Well, just we um Kenya, because it might be a question to ask, so I just want to ask this. We've had a whole conversation around progress, right? Um but we didn't disagregate at all and talk about our black and brown kids or our what we did for Spanish. Um and we didn't talk about social economic status. So how to you know in some sense there's the whole but we also know we often times are talking about the disagregated data and even in the equity the state says we're supposed to be talking about that. So how how do we help me understand when do we have conversations that are at the the whole district and when do we have conversations that are at the disagregated level >>
134so all the time um so everything that was mentioned by Dr. dress plaza and Brian um for behavior attendance enrollment uh disproportionality and behavior incidents you could do by race by IP all of that is on our internal district data dashboard so that helps our principles and our educators and health visits is also on there um they're able to see the whole picture holistically consistently every single day so that's that internal piece that's part of that data conversation and everything is disagregated by grade by race by IP status by EL status by gender. Um so you the summary tables are that everything is presented in that way. The ex the external data dashboard is going to be essentially the same. Um it's we wanted to present it today but there's a lot happening and so
135and we we need a little bit of time to again get in with all the work with SDRP we had to kind of push that timeline back a little bit. But in March, um, you know, you'll be able to see our our our version one of this, um, which will consistently be getting better and better and better by feedback that's being provided by by leaders. So, this has been basically a two almost threeyear work to get that internal for principles. Year two got it for teachers and they only get access to the kids that they have access to um, and now externally for all of you. So we do disagregate that data but for for what this quarterly progress update is meant to be is meant to be a snapshot in combination with the data
136dashboard. So moving forward you'll have that data dashboard to answer those questions as well. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> It's an interesting point though that you asked that because when we get our I think we're going to have three times a year quarterly updates on the strategic plan, right? Because it's we have equity initiative in the strategic plan. will be getting. It's just it's odd, right? I I was wondering about that too is why are we seeing more race diseasation, but we will see that quarterly too in the strategic plan, but not necessarily everything on the same category. So, it's a point of I'd like to keep talking about how to see more of that. I think just something to point out once that data dashboard is up, >> you get the quarterly progress
137report, you can turn right to that data dashboard >> to be able to see those p patterns and answer those questions and the leaders in the process of their PLC's and all of that work are already operating at that level because the dashboard's been available to them over the years. So, I do think that it's going to feel, I think, uh, better and clearer to the board when you have both pieces together. >> Thank you. >> Okay, great. Great discussion and thanks for asking all of our many, many questions tonight. Okay. Um, the next items are just FYI items on the ISBY accountability system update. Any questions on that? >> Interesting to see how that changes things. Um, and then the next FYI item, climate and safety, MTSS. Did anyone else have any questions on
138that FYI item? All right. Well, that wraps up this portion of the meeting. I'll turn it over to the finance personnel and buildings and grounds. Okay. That's um I am um serving in Maria's spot because of the um the lag. Maria, feel free to uh send me any texts that I need to do. So, the first thing we're going to uh talk about is the school construction update. Kirby, come on down. Uh, so just a quick update because it's been a while, but um this is actually a slideshow that is up on the website. We have October, November, we missed December, but we have a January update with pictures and just gives a little snapshot of where we are. So each of these slideshows shows what's been completed, what's currently been worked on, and what's
139next up. Um, if you walk through the building, the elevator's pretty much done, which is an amazing thing because anybody in construction industry will tell you that the elevator installers are notoriously difficult to get on the job and get done in time. Uh, and they're critical critical uh, milestone to to complete. Um, you walk in classrooms, they're pretty much done on the second floor. There's still quite a bit of work to as they move down to the first floor. Uh, and they're doing a considerable amount of flooring work right now, installing both the stone tile, the ceramic stone tile and the LBT in the classrooms. Um, but bathrooms flooring is done. Bathroom tiling is done. I can just show you a couple glimpses. This is the outside work. One of the last parts of the
140out exterior building is the insulated panels that run along the second floor. Um, the drama and the music rooms are over there. That oversees the top top part of the build of the first floor. There you can see a little picture of the classroom windows. So we have uh fourth and fifth grade science classrooms. Um and that's one classroom. So you see one facing northeast and one facing southeast. The science classrooms up on the top floor do have a ceramic tile. They don't they aren't the the LVT flooring. Uh and you can see the sink work and the cabinetry on both sides. the sliding um uh ceramic boards, metal um um dry erase boards that also have storage behind them um with the windows and the cabinetry below the windows over there. >> Uh just
141a view because it's an interesting uh visual of all the intense wiring that goes on in the building. Um, and the intense amount of coordinated uh uh pulling of wires through many different pipes and many different alleyways up in the ceiling and underground. This is a view of uh on the on the left is a bathroom. You can see the epoxy flooring. You can see the ceramic tile walls and he's installing the toilets. And on the right you can see how when they lay ceramic tile they put in spacers first before they grout it so it's perfectly plum and even. and that's up on the second floor. And then to give you a sense of the remaining work, um this is the amount completed. So on the left you can see they're considerably completed with
142everything on the inside of the building except for on the right there's one more major thing that hasn't started which is installing the kitchen equipment. Uh, and then everything else on the right is an exterior part of the building and that is uh awaiting the the April 15th um city ordinance that says you can't uh you can't get a permit to dig anywhere in the city unless it's after April 15th, especially into the into the streets. Um, so that that's a sense. Uh, and it also talks about that we're we're uh there's 10 million left. So only 28% of the construction work is is remains. There's one more bid that you'll have to approve. That's the AV and security camera bid. Uh that is due on uh a week from Wednesday on the 25th. And
143so after that uh the following board meeting from that, we'll hope to come to the board for approval for that bid set uh as we go out to bid to to install the AV and the security cameras in the building. >> Any other questions? >> Um couple of questions here. Um you gave a cost. So are there any outstanding unknowns for the cost of construction? >> No. >> Okay. um >> except for the the AV bid. >> Okay. >> We have a budget of $500,000 for the AV bid and we hope to come in under that, but we'll see. >> Um you know, everyone's in the season of trying to figure out where they're going to school. These are beautiful pictures. Is there a um question? I'm sure we can't do tours for families, but
144is there a video or something of of you know the school coming to life that can be shared so people can actually see it timeline like those classrooms? It's like, oh, okay. Wow, those are beautiful classrooms. Is there a way um and you might already have that have a video of that up? >> No, we haven't really taken videos. We've been well documented through pictures. Um our O takes a weekly picture and provides weekly picture report. The construction crew and the architecture firm both take picture reports. There's a monthly report that we post that show those extensive pictures. Um, but we we surely could do a video kind of a walkthrough, get a sense of where the building, what the space is, >> so people can have sort of like, okay, this is a real
145this is really real real real. >> It's a nice way to concretely sell the uh building or at least give people a sense that this is going to be a a true modern building with um with an amazing learning experience inside. Sure. >> Okay, >> I'll work on that. Dr. Is there a So when I did my walk through, I remember distinctly there was no plans for a scoreboard. Uh I'm curious now about the AV. >> We do have a plan for the scoreboard. >> We do. Okay, good. >> And the scoreboard is going to be coming from the Bessie Road School. They have a nice pretty new modern functional scoreboard. >> Okay, awesome. >> You mean in the gym? >> In the gym. We went back and forth on a a shot clock and
146we were told and realized that uh there are no basketball games in the entire state uh K through 12 that have shot clocks. So, okay. Yeah. >> Was good. >> Speaking of which, we're we're in FAM finals. So, yes, >> thank you for Lewis Jones, our athletic director for giving us that insight. >> And just a clarification because this I've been asked this numerous times and I I think I thought that I knew the answer but I didn't want to say it. Can you describe the floor in the gym? Is it a middle school floor or a K5 floor? >> It's a It's a K5 floor. >> So, people can hear that. Okay. >> So, I mean that that's another how much that floor is going to host middle school and high school events is
147is going to be up to the the consideration of that league and whether they want to play on a K5 floor, which means to be specific, Dr. Panger, that is not a wood floor. So, standard for K5s and it's the buildings. It's also it was also quite a cost consideration and at the time we were looking at that consideration. We decided that uh we're going to go with the K5 standard. We're going to go with that flooring. Um to put in a wood floor, you have to you have to change the concrete pour and how that's set up and it's considerable cost more. And at that time we So once we made that decision, you you really can't go back either. >> Okay. >> And this last slide is just this is the updated um
148contingency tracker that's also on our website. Uh, and it remains the same as it did before. We have no net effect to the contingency overall. >> Kirby, thank you so much. Um, this is great news and I know that uh after the meeting this past week, there's a lot of families that are getting more excited about foster um all the time. Um, I'm wondering the remaining allowances of 2.2 2 million. Um, when will we have a final number for what the remaining contingencies are? That's my first question. And then my second question is you had a table in the slide that was just before this one in which the items on the right were 100% and the items on the left were not. Can you just describe what those percentages refer? >> Sure. It's the
149percent remaining to get done. So on the items on the left, uh the general trades, which is your carpentry work and your general work around the building, there's 40% of that contract still has to be completed. Um they still have 42% of the painting job to do. They're almost done with plumbing. They only have 16% left. So you get you get a sense there. Windows are almost done. They're just final finishing on windows. But on the right, uh the kitchen equipment has been ordered, but it has not arrived on site and it's not ready to install. You have to have the flooring done in there. They're pouring the flooring this week and next week and then the kitchen equipment will come in. Um playground and and all the outside things. As you know, especially if
150you've seen the site from the outside, there's nothing done on the outside because that won't start until the inside's wrapped up and the springtime has arrived to some degree. March. >> Does that make sense? >> Yep, that's good. And then contingency, when is that finalized? I am not going to commit to anything related to that in any way, shape, or form except to know that um it uh if if we're looking at um you know 70% of the job is done, that means 70% of those allowances probably can be put on the shelf. So if we're still 2.2, you can do your own math, but that's all conjecture. Um but a considerable amount of conting allowances will be remaining. We just can't uh be 100% on when and where and how. But >> of course,
151>> in terms of timing, uh we're looking at June for having the bill the building going through its final uh checklists and punch lists. So in June would you know I would I would commit to June giving a really pretty good estimate of um how much allowance will come back to us. >> Thank you. >> Sure. Kir Kirby um for the the outdoor finishing touches when when do you estimate that will I know you have to get a permit to start all that work and hopefully the weather will >> yes >> cooperate weather needs to cooperate March April May is the is the time window for all that work >> okay >> great thank you >> the memoran Um, are there any questions? Are we about to do the memorandum of understanding between the city
152of Evston and District 65? >> So, I'm here for any questions on that. I presented that in late November. Uh, we went through the details and provided an MOU with a letter. >> If you have any questions, I'm happy to. So there's been so at our uh city city district meeting um when the issues of both for 202 and uh D65 how we interact with the city to pay for public safety um and it you know became clear that district 65 is responsible for paying for all of the um crossing uh equipment that we need but 202 is being paid for by um by the city um it was raised and offered by a couple of aldermen that it might be possible to discuss this. So I know we so it has been uh questioned
153if we sign this right now will it um limit those conversations um going forward but in a um you say in a a conversation quick conversation with Luke he said that they're open to having conversations with us um both with us and 202 around um public safety these types of issues and that us moving forward with signing this does not limit uh those conversations. He is not saying that they will you know necessarily um make changes but I don't think we have to connect those two issues together and signing this and allowing the process to move forward doesn't stop conversations which I think are um more willingness now to have conversations about shared costs with regard to uh to public safety. So we can vote on it. >> We can vote on this and there
154and there's a you know gentleman's agreement to say yes we can have a we will have the conversations and it won't be you sign your name on and so now it's not. So let me be clear the city did not promise to take on any charges. I'm not saying they said that but they said hey let's have conversations. Let's talk about this because it was raised and it it did seem you know that it need to be discussed. How do we have shared conversations about public safety when so many kids, you know, uh, Dodge and Dodge and Foster? If you're coming from high school, you're walking down Dodge and Foster. It's not just a a D65. seems like this is just um this issue is a great opportunity for Mayor Bis and Luke Stowe and
155the city council to show that they're committed to public education um and to providing infrastructure that not only benefits the school community but the broader community. Um, so I think this is a chance for them to really really step up and show that they understand that they're willing to make a commitment to again to uh to D65. What I what I would express for me is just the desire to be an equal full partner with the city and um happy to explore what that means. Um but it does feel a little bit off if there's double standards among the districts if if one so so just I think to stay with the positive for me is we want to be your equal full partner and and insist on that. Um, so that's that's the encouragement
156I would give. I guess I'm not on the the liaison committee, so I have no >> and I think some history I think that's also going back, you know, trying to understand the history of decisions that have been made that we're all living through. And again, we're we have multiple buildings. The high school has one and so sometimes, you know, decision for one building might be different for others. But I just felt that there was like, yes, we can have this conversation. We're open to having a conversation. and other aldermen have had other people sorry have um also said that they're open to have it but we can separate you know often times you might think oh this contract is opportunity to force that conversation but I believe that there's true let's have the conversation
157while we still move forward in making sure Foster has the pieces that it needs to open on on time >> yeah because thisou basically gives the board direction to Dr. Turner to be our signatory. So that's so before you sign anything, just let us know. >> I never sign anything without this board knowing. >> Thank you. >> Well, that's yeah, that's that's where we are with this. We're Yes, that's what we're doing. >> Any other questions folks have about uh the MOU before we move it? >> Okay. Um yeah the cost you want to remind us is what 200 is can you put up the cost is there a cost slide >> there there is not >> so I think it's what two if I can 200,000 >> yes >> that's about the that has
158to do with the crossing at >> on Emerson and also Dodge and then all the other okay >> it's where you see the two little stop signs with the blue C's in them those are the two lights and then the crosswalk is where the big the big arrow pointing to the >> the crosswalk sign >> and part of this particularly on Emerson you think of the senior center the senior homes that are right there so these crossings is beneficial for everyone it's not just a D65 is really going to uh um create um better quality of crossing across Emerson uh for everyone so that's also why it's like hey we really need to look at this as a holistic set of car >> I think one point of to the board is that uh past
159administration um went through an ordinance approval process and the there was a stipulation within the ordinance if you want this school approved you've got to follow the the cra traffic report and you have to pay for the things in the traffic report. So it it made it so that the board had to approve basically paying for the crosswalk at Dodge and Foster or they wouldn't get the ordinance approved and we couldn't build a school. Mhm. >> So that process of thinking about like well how does the ordinance get written and negotiated is another learning point going forward if we build a new building that that ordinance could also be another opportunity to say well how can we be an equal partner in that? >> Okay. >> Is it possible to ask for just uh in
160a month or so an update about just how this shook out uh the conversation? >> Oh yeah. I mean I think that you know we um also there's the um also out of the last meeting um was a agreement to have a focus conversation between um the uh city and district 65 which I believe there's days circulating right now to begin to have those meetings in February. So I think there's okay we need everyone understands that we need to have some conversations and as that happens of course all the information will be uh shared back here make sure everyone's aware I'm wondering if there's a chance and again coming coming to this uh a little bit late but I guess I'm wondering if there's an opportunity to align the expectations with theou because it sounds
161like like you said there's kind of a good faith agreement that we will discuss uh how the cost might actually shake out. But theou doesn't read that way. So I I feel a little bit of a trepidation about this disconnect potentially between uh this open collaborative discussion what will take place and then what we're actually voting on today. >> Yeah, I think I I agree. Um but I also think the the conversation with the city around public is going to be bigger than just the items in here. It might be SRO. It's it's really saying let's really have a holistic conversation. So here I think it's um um maybe a little bit of trust um and and even the ability to be able to say, "Hey, I could say that Luke said we can have
162this conversation." I think also was saying, "Okay, there's um some accountability for a conversation happen and then it's on us to figure out how we move it forward." But we didn't want to stop. You know, I would say myself, I was like, "Oh, do we need to have this conversation before we sign this?" But what's the implication on making sure that the contracts get signed and the work gets done? Um, and we are on the hook. We've actually already Is it true we've already agreed to do it in getting the school back? Correct. >> Well, the ordinance requires us to do to do the crosswalk, not the stop lights, >> right? Okay. >> Um, and Chris, just just in fairness to the city, um, they have worked closely with us to make sure that Foster
163is going to be on schedule. Uh they also have given uh in or let uh another ordinance uh stipulation pass and when we prove that we didn't need uh large fencing on the roof to hide mechanical equipment that couldn't be seen from the street. Um they gave on that which saved us considerable amount money as well. Um they also been very helpful and with council member Burns to help pay for part of our field track and the restore the field lights. um and have taken uh the majority of those costs through the through the tiff. So, there's been lots of opportunities to work with them. They've always worked with us uh and you know, whenever we we needed a permit um maybe expedited, they they've helped make sure that the the school got priority consideration
164on those matters. >> Thank you. >> Sure. >> Can I ask a quick question about the diagram that's on the school safe walks? >> Yes. Um, the crossing guard should be positioned at six intersections. Can you walk me through why those intersections were designated as needing a crossing guard? >> Th those are as recommended by the KLOA study. So that's directly from their map. We're actually looking at that and understanding um given where families live. uh that those assignments the number and the location will be revisited uh and represented as part of the crosswalk overall map. We have a whole district to to address crosswalks given the new attendance boundaries and things like that. So transportation department is going to be working on that. >> Yeah. Six. >> Thank you. >> Can you send the
165board um that traffic study and what I'm just curious what factors designate the need for a crossing guard generally? And then this is a example. I know you just did the study, so I'm curious what those factors were. >> I'm I missed that last part. Maria, could you restate that? >> Sure. I said I am interested as a whole in understanding what characteristics of intersections would indicate that a crossing guard is needed. >> Sure. And and I I'm glad to share the KOA report. It's a 2023 report that fed into the approval of the construction of the school. >> Okay. >> And I'm curious too because what we're going to talk about in just a minute, uh, it's not just traffic, right? It's also number of students and flow of students. So, it's complicated in
166determining some other things. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Any other questions? So, I move that the board approve the memorandum of other standing. MOU between the city of Evston and Evston Skoi School District 65 for the payment of the installation of traffic improvements at three intersections near the future foster school. With this approval, the board also authorizes Dr. Angel Turner to serve as a legal signatory of theou on behalf of the board. >> Optike Wymer. >> Yes. >> Wilkins. >> Yes. Pinker. Yes. >> Hernandez. >> Yes. >> Ben Newandr. >> Yes. >> Anderson. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Thank you, Kirby. He'll be back in a second. Um, now discussion transportation policy. Okay, good afternoon. Um, I just want to start by apologizing. I am losing my voice today. So, if it goes in and out
167or if I can't quite articulate, just ask tell me to repeat and and I'll do so. I just also want to say thank you to Tamara and Lou for all their hard work in in this process. It's going on about a year now that we've kind of had these conversations. So, just want to say thank you to them and and all the work that they've done. So first thing that we want to talk about are our two transportation policies. We have 4112 which is our magnet school and designated program student policies. And essentially what this says is that our magnet school which is King Arts and Bessie Works Bessie roads currently it'll be King Arts next year and our TWE students as they fall under the designated program students will are eligible for transportation under
168similar criterias as our other transportation policies. So that's the hazard transportation and the 1.5 mile cutoff under school code. And essentially one thing that the district is exploring is the potential rescion of this policy and aligning it with 4110 more cleanly and just have one transportation policy. And of course the um impacts of that are that we would potentially establish a more uniform transportation policy and then lose any of the fees that we collect from our King Arts students and our TWE kids that are not on free and reduced lunch. and we need some board direction there on how they would like how you guys would like us to proceed. Our other transportation, I should note in the in the 4112 in regards to our TWE families, what we're saying is that they would still
169receive transportation under the same criteria even if they do not live in the attendance area. They would just would not be charged a fee. So if you live in Lincolnwood's attendance boundaries and are going to Foster for TUI and are TWE student, you would get transportation for crossing the hazard, just not paying the transportation fee associated with it. 4110 is kind of our baseline transportation policy that covers all students in the district and we're just essentially here trying to clean it up with school code and make it more clear. So there's a line that with the rescension of 4112. So we just got to strike a couple lines in there that reference that particular policy and then clarify transportation eligibility for K8 students unless the board has certified with ISBY that there's adequate public transportation
170available. And there's the direction that we need from the board as well. Should we move forward with the amendments in policy 4110? and you all have seen them in the in the board memo. PreK transportation is another topic. Um the the essentially um under Illinois school code, Illinois school code, we are uh districts are not required to provide transportation to prek students and currently our approximate costs are 1.5 million excluding prek summer school transportation. And if the board chooses to eliminate prek trans, excuse me, prek transportation, we would save approximately a million dollars. But of course, there are other impacts of that that now you require all the prek families to arrange their own transportation and potent potentially impact the program enrollment in the district. And we approximately 222 out of the 338 family center
171and JH families I believe 312 JH families uh receive transport or 222 out of 312 JH families receive transportation. So you're looking at 67 68 69 70% of families receiving that transportation. And there's the direction that we need should we continue providing the prek transportation as we are um hazardous roads. Um we have them listed here under our uh ID dot findings that that we found. Uh and I do essentially has a calcul calculation of a threshold of points that you're required to meet. And these are are preliminary findings. Of course, we would based on the board direction, we would submit them to I do for for approval. It assumes no crossing guards because that impacts the calculation from potentially two points for a traffic crossing, traffic signal crossing to a half a point if
172there's a crossing guard located at that intersection. And then of course what uh Kirby just mentioned regarding the the work that we're having with the city of Evston for for the fifth ward and the additional crossing guards there on Emerson and and the traffic studies. Just a quick clarification, Chris, because you're saying you wouldn't have crossing guards on ha on on hazard streets. Is that what you're saying? Because it it it impacts is that what you're saying? >> It it would impact the the calculation. The board does have the discretion under um under the guidelines that we have from Isby to add one or two additional points. So if you're like McCormack for example with the crossing guards there I believe come come come come come come come come come come come come come come
173comes out to 11 and a half and the threshold is 12 based on board discretion you would give them a write up for the justification why you would believe that it's a hazard for your school community and they would approve or reject that they have to within 30 days once it's submitted to ID do for approval. So based on here we have we have crossing guards on on McCormack. That's where we asked for the waiver in essence. >> And it's important to understand that the old boundaries did have Walker crossing McCormick but of course they did receive you know hazard transportation across there as well. And you have Green Bay which is Green Bay and McCormack which is right by Haven. I don't think we would eliminate crossing guards by Green Bay and Haven or
174Green Bay and Haven Green Bay and McCormack because of Haven being open. And then um Lou ran some uh four different potential options. And I just want to make it clear that these are just provided examples to illustrate the different approaches that we could take. But ultimately, it's the board's decision to determine what are hazard hazardous words hazardous roads in the district. and the board has full authority to adopt amend these proposals. These are just starting the conversation for talking points. Um so we have option A which is I do only and that the rough estimate is about 3.5 millions in cost and I should start by noting that our current transportation costs are about 4.2 2 million uh with with some caveats of where step and rise are located. Doesn't include prek transportation. Um
175>> no park no park no uh no um out of district no cabs. So this is just uh >> in district and and and busing but not at our >> okay >> no specialty programs. So our our preliminary findings are essentially approximately $3.5 million in cost based on those criteria. Um if the board were to adopt ID do guidelines only. Uh in part of the the savings is in part because of the uh new attendance boundaries being optimized to uh for hazardous roads and crossing as part of the modeling criteria that we that we worked on through that SDRP process. Option B would be the ID do guidelines plus um having Ridge as a hazard and it would run all the way through the district um from uh Orington all the way down to Oakton
176um Chicago and Lincoln's attendance boundaries and Gross Point in Willard's attendance boundaries. And the cost there is the rough estimate for the cost there is 4 million compared to 4.2 our current spend. Um, option C, uh, are essentially option A with changing school start times. And the start times that Lou modeled here were an 8:00 a.m. uh, elementary start and a 9:00 a.m. middle school start time, middle school magnet school start time. So option C is I do only and changing those start times, you go from 4.2 million to approximately 3.1. And option D is I do DOT, Bridge, Chicago, and Gross Point and changing those start times. And you go from 4.2 to 3.6. And a majority of those savings come from being able to double up our special education routes. >> Go back
177one. >> I just I'll just kind of elaborate on on how we so when we went go when we went through all of these different guidelines, we know that double routes are obviously so much more efficient and cost effective. So, and it's really about we were taking numbers from all the different um new boundaries and we were looking at how many routes would be needed for each different school and obviously uh how many routes we had at the early time and at the later time. And so that was all based on uh looking at how many routes we need at each school. And that's how we came up with okay 10 double routes and this would be one single route and then our special education routes at at uh at 15 routes. So, um, and
178then also in our, um, option B, again, these is, this is just kind of serves an as an example. I mean, the board would ultimately determine what streets would be, you know, um, that we'd want to provide transportation. Um, so we just took those some of the similar streets, you know, maybe um, uh, that we would that would be similar, but now they're a boundary, so we're not really crossing that in some of the new boundaries. So these were just the ones um that would just serve as an example that would still be obviously busy streets in the throughout the city. Uh but again this is just purely an example and then go to the start times and as you saw so as we were clarified student numbers like this is very uh pretty predict
179uh reliable calculation. This is bas Okay. Thank you. I now granted >> depending on permissive transfers, I mean there could be some variance of a route or two or something like this, but >> this is not an estimate as much as it is really a >> yeah this was a deep dive and and really that we were planning out in terms of how many double routes left over for a single route. >> Okay. Um and so then when we go to option C with changing school start times again there's no more real movement that we'll have the amount of double routes that we can uh given um at shoot and at um and at King and so what it does is since some of our schools are um the duration of the day is different.
180So like our elementaryaries are six and a half hours our middleles go seven hours. So, in order to double up the special education routes uh because they are um they run longer uh we only have a half an hour in between dismissals to um like a King Arts uh a Kings King art bus route. We have a half an hour to get all those students home and then get to the new school uh or to the next school. And the way that the uh sped routes are designed, it's just not enough time. So this is just again another example of something that you can think about because if you switch those where middle and magnets are early um or elementary is early and middle and magnets are later that combined with the duration of the
181school day. Now that gives well over an hour that we can double up our special education routes. So instead of um 15 special education routes, we can have six double routes there and then three others. So that's where the savings gets generated because the amount that's how you that that's how the efficiencies happen is by having one bus service two schools and then again the option D is the is the same thing except for the extra hazards and like I said these are just >> and does this mean that if I'm a hazard then means the only way to cross a h is busing so we don't have we wouldn't have crossing guards on ridge is that what this would I mean, is that what you're proposing? >> I'm not proposing. These are just examples
182for ways to think about it. >> Well, let me ask it another way. Currently, do we have do we have we have crossing guards on streets where we where we would bus across? >> I take McCormack. There's crossing guards there, but it's also a hazard. So as we go into the crossing guard section, you'll be able I mean these are just all decisions basically on you know budgets that you want to set for crossing guards where we can put them or do you would you rather b them and I mean so these are just all things that really need to be thought about and ultimately give us some direction >> and so but your can you go so but your your estimated cost would mean if I live 0.25 25 miles from Oakton, but I'm
183on the other side of Ridge. Is this assuming then that I'm a bus is picking me up? So, this accounts for everyone. Okay. >> Okay. Y >> and exactly with Chicago Avenue like those when we were running all of those numbers these were >> and I also just want to note that part of the cost savings that you are seeing here is due to the the Kingsley closure which uh is currently four single routes that would essenti that are essentially being eliminated. I think I just wanted to uh kind of surface uh one really exciting thing that's that's embedded in these recommendations, which is the flipping of the school start times. Um I think that would be very popular uh with with families. Uh I think at least most of the folks that I most
184parents that I talked to like the idea of uh of the elementary schoolers starting a little bit earlier uh and middle schoolers a little bit later. So I think that's that kind of makes sense almost separate from just the bus discussion, but it's nice to see it has benefits here too >> with the change in the um start times means a change in the end time and that gives you enough flexibility after school to implement some of the costsaving plans that you >> right because there some of our special education routes you'd have over an hour now right now >> uh from you know uh 3 3:00 basically 3:05 3:30 there's only a half an hour, okay, to to pick up all the students, take them all home, and then get to the next school
185on time. >> Um, and so that's why even at um uh King Arts, we can have some um ridership numbers that are lower because it it doesn't impact costs very much because they're all part of a double route and we need to have the routes short enough that they can complete it. Otherwise, I mean, you know, if there was a a King Ars route, two King Ars routes that have 20 students each, sure, they can become 40 on one route, but that really doesn't impact costs at all because they're already all part of a double route. And this way, the way start times are now, they can move quickly enough so they can stay part of a double route and get to the next school on time. So, that's I know this is kind of
186a little bit in the transportation ways, but just so you can kind of see And then again the duration of the school day the difference in the durations. So, I mean there's, you know, as long as there's an hour or, you know, hopefully a little bit more than an hour, it can be done for our for our sponsors. >> And under one under uh policy 4-10, there's a a statement regarding unless the board has certified to the Illinois State Board of Education that adequate public transportation is available. How what's that process and how's that done? We are currently working with legal on that. >> Okay. >> She legal council has reached out to ISBY. Um the individual responsible for that was out until today. So we should be hearing back shortly. >> Okay. >> Question
187from Maras. Can you um confirm the end times for elementary and middle schools if we change the start times? What are we thinking? >> It would be the same length of school day just an hour up. I don't I don't know quite when they end. I don't know if Dr. Beardsley can speak to that or not. >> I could probably just doing the math. If it's an 8:00 start for K5, it would be 8 to 2:30 p.m. If it was a 9:00 start for middle school, it would be 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. And magnet, if it was a 9:00 start, it would be 900 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. >> Curious about the impact. So, I did a little bit of a d I popped into a database and looked for research on this and
188it there seems to be clear benefits of moving middle school to a later start time, but the the benefits are mixed as far as educational outcomes for elementary age. Um, and so I'm curious, such a big shift for about $400,000. Um, and my biggest concern is, um, that a ton of working parents, uh, that I know of, uh, send their middle schoolers to pick up the elementary kids after school. Um, so I don't want to be like a rain on the parade here. Um, as much as I'm really curious, it'd be really important that we engage with the community and got some significant feedback on this just because it could have disperate impacts on folk based on different life situations. Yeah, there's a lot of different considerations and that happen for all of them. >>
189The flip side, you can have your So, in either in the morning or the evening, it's a problem, right? So, you can have your middle school drop off your elementary school student. >> Yeah. >> But then they have to be somewhere to four, right? >> But there's an academic case to be made for moving middle school later. >> Ambiguous from what I saw about elementary, but >> yeah, just we're coming. I'm coming from just the transportation. >> Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But we have to think more different things that >> Yeah. that factor. >> All right. I'm going to keep the conversation moving because we're going to go back and hopefully receive direction from the board on each of these talking points, giving you guys more time to discuss. Um so, uh and this is just
190is the breakdown of potential cost savings. The crossing guard program. Um so this is part of our intergovernmental agreement with the city of Evston. We do have a cost sharing agreement with them and you can see the estimated cost um for the crossing guard program that we have how much the city of Evston is projected to pay versus how much we're projected to pay. and we take full responsibility of the crossing guard program and cost um on July 1st, 2027. And then here's just some additional information about it. Um our projected forecasted cost for this year is about 660,000 and which means we're projected to pay approximately 460,000 and in FY28 when we become fully responsible for the cost if the caring guard program remains asis uh assuming the same approximately 5% annually annual increase
191it's going to be approximately $137,000 to maintain the current program that we have >> 737 >> $737,000 I'll take it. >> So, >> well, >> and really the direction that we're looking for the board here is how much do you want to spend on crossing guards? What budget range should we allocate for crossing guards for FY27 and going forward knowing that we will be responsible for the full cost in FY28? And that would include the um foster study that we've done and adding you know at least six crossing guards to the foster feeder pattern. So when we look at utilization if we uh modify the pl the placement of crossing guards that could give us a different outlook in terms of the financial outlay. And I I really appreciate this um utilization report about how
192many kids are crossing at what stops because um I think that deserves a a longer look to help us get to um kind of what where the greatest need is and to make sure that we supply that. And you know hazards and crossing yards they really go together. >> Yeah. >> So those are just kind of need to be thought about and the direction how we want to go. >> Okay. So as far as the administration and what we're looking for from the board, we're looking for direction on how you guys would like us to proceed. So, just circling back to the top, um, in regards to 4112, that's our magnet school transportation policy, as well as TWE being included in there. Is it the board's will and direction for us to continue to explore
193that as an option? any >> or do we have questions? I guess >> if you have any questions, it's your opportunity to discuss it as >> Yeah. I guess like what's the upside? I feel like for all of these we need to think about what's the benefit and then I mean the costs are there but but other scenarios too. I mean, you know, the benefit for this is it's more in line with our policy. Um, it sort of supports um some of the programming that we have. 30,000 isn't a ton of money. >> Um, >> in the current m this current policy would mean so I'm I'm thinking about if I live 0.25 miles, I live 0.5 regardless of where I live. If I go to a magnet school, I get busy, right? That's to
194me, if I live 0.25 miles away from King Arts, I should be walking the King Arts. Now, there's a hazard distinction there. So, this So, not taking hazards. If I'm a Magnus school, regardless of distance, I get transportation. Is that how this re is that the reality of the policy? >> They would essentially um follow policy 4110 just like everybody else. So if you're more than 1.5 from King Arts, you would receive transportation just like anybody else that's more than 1.5 miles from Orington. >> That's what I'm saying. If we do if we eliminate this currently, let me ask it. Currently, if I attend King Arts, regardless of where I live, I get I can get so I can live 0.25 miles and get transportation to King Arts. This is saying it's following along the
195other. If I live 1.5 miles or whatever we establish, I only get transportation because I'm >> just like okay. >> Yeah. So essentially the the pro would be it's a it's one clean policy and the con would be >> um we do collect some fee revenue. >> Okay. >> Can I ask just one clarifying question about the policy? If if students have a permissive transfer to another school, they need to get there on their own. Correct. >> Correct. >> Okay. Okay. You want any more questions around this or >> is are you asking us to make a >> No, they want direction. Yeah. So So do we support >> the recision of this particular policy? I support the recision. >> Yeah. to make a more uniform policy and more than one. >> Yes. >> Yeah,
196I agree with that. >> So, do we take a vote? This is what I'm Is this a consensus? >> Consensus. Okay. Consensus. Sorry. Consensus. Consensus. Okay. >> Regular vote. This is consensus. >> Yeah. Consensus. Yes. >> Right. Because when we come back for the regular board meeting, when we come back for the regular board meeting, what you all have taken consensus on today, they will come back with the motion for you to actually take approval on February 23rd. I think it's the next board meeting, right? Correct. >> Yeah. February 23rd. >> Yeah. >> So, this is just consensus. >> So, they can bring it back as a motion. They know what we want now. They can bring it back in the motion language. Okay, cool. I have a bit of an issue in lumping together
197the TWE students getting a bus with other magnet students getting a bus because the TWE students we haven't designated as magnet and they are required to make up the composition of a tweet class. So, are we saying just for clarity that if a TWWB student from Lincolnwood I think I heard you say this Chris is going to foster would they what what policy do they apply under? If it's if it's to if we resend policy 4112, it would just be 4110. They would live less than 1.5 miles from Foster, but cross McCormick, which is a hazard, and would be eligible for transportation under 4110's policy for hazard crossings without a fee. >> Okay. >> So, for the other school, so I guess Maria, to try to apply it because hazard McCormack is the is a
198hazard, so everyone's going to have a hazard. But if you're talking about um chute or nickels where we're having uh twe right it would be more so what's the application to to that uh situation. >> So currently for nickels it's uh 628 and there is no transportation for 6 to8 because of the adequate public transportation being available. >> This is dual language not twe right. >> Yes. and and eventually so part of the agreement with the Bessie Rhodess families is to provide them with transportation even if they do not live in the Haven feeder pattern to Haven for the duration of their uh middle school experience through 8th grade. So there so there will be Haven dual language transportation for our Bessie Roads families that do not live in the Haven feeder pattern. So everything
199we're discussing now is K through eight knowing that we're consulting with legal and we have we reserve the option to come back later and certify transportation. >> And just a bit of information on the TWS And that's been calculated in those other models. >> But that's only for current Bessie roads. No one else can then say, "I want to go to I want to go to dual language at Haven to get transportation." Correct. And and um I think multilingual is gone, but that we will be expanding our dual language program. So it'll be six through eight at Haven next year, sixth grade at Nichols next year, and then the following year, sixth grade at Shoot. It's going to be one grade level per year. And then eventually there will be a dual language program in
200every middle school. Well, I will say is I think just to be clean on this whole magnet I mean the whole magnet and twe how to articulate it is not the twe it's not a magnet policy applying to twe if we've clearly said twe if we're moving with twe is not magnet how to just be clear in this transportation policy that we're treating twe English transportation as twe English and not as transportation under the magnet policy. >> Doesn't the recision of the the re rescending this policy just remove that entirely? It just removes any designation. >> Yeah. So it removes it by rescending it, >> right? >> There would be no program designation and policy. It's strictly based on distance from school eligibility and whether or not you cross a hazard for every student in
201the district. Yeah. >> So, >> one clause on that though is there is transportation for EL in a separate portion of a policy. >> Those are your >> included. Yeah. >> Okay. Okay. >> Are we expecting this $30,000? I guess how much do we expect the 30,000 to go up once twe is expanded to all middle schools >> or would it would it not? Like I guess is this annual tra transportation fee revenue. Is this for now? Um I guess like in the future if we hadn't rescended it we probably would have gotten more with twe and middle schools. Is that how it would work? Would have worked >> dual language. I keep >> sorry dual language. Yeah. >> So uh my understanding in conversations with multilingual is that the dual language program is not
202like the two-way immersion program. So it wouldn't quite fall under those required DL services >> and it would fall under a later consideration of certifying public transportation when we talk about that. >> Yeah. >> So 30,000 is going forward. >> Okay. Next. >> So my my understanding from what I've heard the consensus is to continue exploring the rescion of policy one. Yeah. >> 411. >> Can you just repeat that, please? >> From what I've heard from the discussion, it sounds like the consensus of the board is for us as the district to continue the exploration of the rescention of policy 4112 and bring it back for a first and second reading to the board. >> Or is this may count as the first reading? Bring it back as a second reading to the board. >>
203Maria, for your sake, should we actually each verbally articulate where we stand since you can't see us? We're doing all a bunch of nodding aheads and eye contact. Would that be helpful? >> Yeah, you guys are really delayed. You're in my ears and then I'm seeing you do the thing like about a minute after you say it. So, really >> that'd be great. Thank you. >> So, yes, I am supporting rescending 4112. >> Yes, I am as well. >> I also support >> Nicole does so as well. >> I as well. Chris does. >> Okay. I support that too. >> And uh next question is should the district move forward with the amendments to policy 4110. So that's just the extra designation of the K8 and then removing that magnet specific language and you can
204see the red line version in the memo. >> I support that. >> That's Pat. >> Any questions? Anyone? We just come back and edit this again if we certify >> six through eight. >> Right. Right. Right. >> It's changed to K through eight. But >> yeah, I support. >> Yep. >> I support. >> Me, too. >> I support. >> All right. Thank you. prek transportation. Should the district continue providing prek transportation? >> So with this question, you're asking should it continue to supply prek transportation for the gened students in prek? >> Correct. If if any three-year-old through 21year-old in the district has transportation requirements as part of their IEP, we are required to provide those services. So this would not eliminate prek sped transportation for individuals that have it as part of their IEP. >>
205So is this 1.5 because I think Tamara this was conversation we're having earlier. The 1.5 is for students who are not who are gened uh prek students. >> It's both. >> So do we so in that sense because I think a large majority of our pre of our prek are are they sped students. So yeah, can you speak to Janette? >> So there's 26 that have transportation written into their IEP. >> Okay. >> So we updated that approximate savings to1 to $1.2 million from the $ 1.5 million that uh we discussed last time. >> This is not to be confused with Head Start. >> Okay. >> Right. >> But the but the majority of students who take advantage of prek qualify for low uh for free lunch. Am I right? So so that that's the
206>> that's the catch. on report card it shows 40 47% uh for 2425 uh 80 plus% racially minoritized uh almost 40% with IEPs. >> This is a um a really um um we're talking about values here, right? >> Correct. >> So one I think I remember seeing a chart earlier when we were talking about spaces of where kids live and I'm just curious the um here there's no we're not looking at all around where you live. So again, can I live 0.25 miles from JH and I'm getting transportation or when we get to prek is you're just prek regardless of your proximity to JH. >> Uh because uh it serves almost like a special education that I can do wherever you are. >> And I understand how it serves. I'm just asking us as a
207view. >> Why isn't prek viewed the same way as well? We're going to change policy 4 colon 1112 to where you provide prek transportation to any students gen students who live 1.75 miles or 1.5 miles outside of the radius. >> Yeah. And we might lower it, but I'm just saying it's uh you know I I live in the fifth ward. I know folks I see folks who are getting on the bus who live right there. for prek is that it's a half-day program and some of the children that are on the bus are going to daycare programs in the other half of the day and maybe not returning home. >> Absolut absolutely and that's why the the the costs are so high because it's it's it's really two routes for each route. You have an
208AM inbound, an AM outbound, a PM inbound, a PM outbound, and all of the and required to have aids too. So, >> yeah. So, I understand we do it right and I'm not I'm just asking I'm just having we're also thinking about our costs here and I know parents who have kids in prek and they have to figure out transportation. So, I'm just asking us to um by having no constraints on it um is how do we think about that? I would like to pause on this one and then revisit because I and as we as we have conversations with the community on how to mitigate some of these costs, right? Um I know some of the great ideas that I heard for instance when we first went embarked on the STRP process was around
209again maybe having preks at the local school buildings, right? >> I'd love that idea. But again, something to explore. What does the cost mean? we have to retrofit the the building to to to qualify for you know to make it amunable to prek uh standards. So there's great idea but there's costs, right? But I but again I I just think at least in my what I value, right, is just making sure that programs that are that really support our most marginalized members in the community. We we we again continue to try to support and then find creative ways to ensure that they continue having access to it. and pre-K programs. Again, if we think about now, now going back to the academics conversation we were having earlier, >> you know, we're starting to identify more
210students who have special education needs. The research is really clear, prek can help us help mitigate um you know, special education costs, but the investment has to be made, you know, again from zero to to to five. Um zero to eight some folks talk about in the pre-K world. So I'm I'm again I'm again I'm just I want I would want us to pause. I want to revisit at this at some other point and yeah just that that's kind of where I stand on this. >> I would really be concerned about students not getting prek services if we you know put this in policy. I think like this is one of the ones where you know I know I've talked about this before. It's sort of seeing possible cost cuts one by one is difficult.
211I think this is something we need to lay on the table with other options and figure out like if this is one we need to do or if there's something else we can do because I feel like this one could be painful and it with if we don't provide um transportation for this would be for preschool for all classrooms >> correct? Yes. It could change the composition of what the preschool experience is going to look like for all of the students that are receiving special education services in terms of having access to typically developing well quote unquote typically developing peers. Um, and my thought is, is there any kind of cost sharing that could be done with the preschool for all for transportation? I'm just throwing that out there as >> maybe there could be
212a fee, a charge, >> a fee. >> And do other pre I mean, one we should know, do I mean, there's other preks in the community. Is everyone doing bus service or parents getting their kids to um prek all around the city? Even you know the Y and I know there's different so I'm not you know I know there's different soio economic sector >> part of the challenge. >> Go ahead. I was going to say, have we investigated, you know, part of the challenge here is that it's a half-day program >> and so parents who work um you know, don't have a way to pick up their child and get them to the daycare in the middle of the day. Have we investigated or discussed a full day prek program for these 200 or you
213know I don't know if it's 222 are going half day or if it's 338 are going half day. >> Yeah that's a good question Maria we have explored it. the folks who have done that level of work is not present at this time. But what I can remember is it's something tied to the the grants that we received for um early early childhood that has us I want to say it has us in this situation of being able to offer or have to offer the half day programs. But we'll take note of that and get that exact response to you. But we have explored it. I just can't remember off the top of my head right now, you know, what what the decision was. We want to go obviously full day. That is what the
214district would prefer to offer. But it's it's something else more to it that I just can't remember the rationale behind why we can't because it's something tied to those those uh federal grants that we have >> cuz that was okay. Thank you. Quick question, Lou. Have you isolated by any chance the cost of the midday routes? Um I'm just curious, right? In a trade-off situation, if we're spending, let's just say half on >> Yeah. >> Uh those routes. >> Yeah. >> Maybe a half a million dollars or something to to offer a full day program. Barring what you were talking about, Dr. Turner. I don't know if we've isolated that. >> Yeah. So each each route, like I said, is an am out and plus all the aids uh is over $200,000 for each route.
215You know, it's compared to 80 because basically it's it's double and they all need aids. So, >> right >> that's that's that's why the cost it's not like that we have just uh you know so so many routes um and we been able to do a lot of um savings on it recently by having some inclusion routes as well. So that's why we've been able already to make significant savings. Um but then it would be hard to predict if it if it ended up being um uh sped only how they would sign off. Um would they be half day? Would they be full day? So that would be some that's why there's somewhat of a range of now what the um what the overall cost would be uh because of those variables. But yes, that's
216why the prek routes are so expensive. Could we explore charging a fee on a scale? I don't know if that's something we've done before. >> This in general seems like an area where I think what I'm hearing is we need more data, a little bit more investigation and figure out how transportation fits into our larger vision for prek. >> Yeah. And also related to there's 1.2 million, let's say, a year in transportation because we're taking everyone to one place. And back to what you were saying, Sergio, we know there's an expense cost of trying to make classrooms uh prek eligible in school because of the restrooms in some sense, but I'm curious, those are one-time costs versus the annual cost every year of transportation. Be interesting to have a you know the what's a five-year
217cost of prek programs in a building versus the ongoing transportation costs. And what I'm struggling with is that even if you move it local, if it remains a half day program, you've got a bus. >> Oh, was the assumption of a full day program. >> So, what was that? A full day. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, so that's a point of interest for me with what Maria said and then also um what Maya and Pat have expressed about possible ways to share that expense. Um I'd like to hear more. One of the discussion points though of having prek spread out is that you lose the professional learning community where you have all early childhood educators in a single location. When you have just like one or two prek educators, there's a big difference between a prek,
218you know, prek and then you go into K12. With the way we have this set up, we have an entire community that's focusing on supporting our youngest students. >> I understand that. And but I'm I'm curious, but we're we're maxed with how many kids we can have in pre-K because it has to be in this building and how many kids are there in the community that would be that would want prek, right? So, there's a what we can hold here, what is plausible, and then the cost of that and how do we how do we fully understand that? Um, we're not going to understand it tonight, but it seems like there needs to be some deeper exploration of that. Yeah, >> I think this is a pause. >> Yeah. Okay. This one, but we but
219that would mean a it's probably a it's a pause, but I think from a policy standpoint, we're not going to have those answers to make to do a transportation to address this one this year. Do you think >> like that's probably a push off for a year? We have to >> we're affirming that we're keeping prek transportation >> for this year as we then go into we focus on trying to have a holistic understanding of prek. Okay. So I'm a yes to uh keep prek transportation. >> Yeah. So this is >> no. >> The consensus is to maintain prek transportation for another year. >> Yeah. >> And bring it back to the board at a later date. >> Well, for the Yeah. But the board to do some work on prek education that then would
220wrap in a conversation about prek transportation. >> Yes. >> Hazard road designation. And so we presented several options. Ultimately, it falls on the school board to decide and the administration in conjunction with the school board will submit those findings to IDOT for approval. So really what we're looking for is uh hazard road criteria, what which roads constitute serious safety hazards requiring this transportation under policy and school start times. Should the district explore changing elementary and middle school magnet school start times to optimize transportation efficiencies? >> So, you already noted that we there's the discretion if it doesn't meet the 12 points. IDA policy is you can add one up to two points to get you to the 12. Um I'm curious and I I wasn't able to ask this before because we didn't get this
221far enough ahead. Um um to see streets that come close within that 10 that could possibly be bumped up. Um, do we have any besides the ones we've already bumped up that could qualify with those extra points? >> I don't want to say absolutely off the top of my head. I know we looked at a lot of roads in the district, Lou and I, together. We have it on a spreadsheet somewhere. >> I don't want to say with certainty because that was approximately a year ago. >> Okay. Yeah. Is this assuming that Emerson is going to not be a hazard? >> That is the op or the assumption that we are operating under with >> So that's important to say because the these numbers would be different if Emerson is a hazard, right? Because that
222would mean foster kids are bust. >> It would require additional busing depending on what option the board selects. If it's changing start times, they could potentially be doubled with other routes, but they may have to be single if all the double routes are filled up. We're hoping it's going to be okay. >> Having a problem thinking about this separately from the crossing guard discussion. >> They do go hand in hand. >> Yeah. Like it's almost like I need to see scenarios of how we could get students to school safely with either bus or crossing guard and what that does with cost because it's just hard to >> Well, one thing and usually the hazards that we that we've had if you place a crossing guard, it doesn't meet the threshold anymore. >> So, you know,
223so you know, say there's a McCormick I mean unless you you know applied for the um for the recalculation but even McCormick just straight up would be it's a hazard but if there's a crossing guard there it's not a hazard anymore. Mhm. >> What's a philosophy like? What do you feel in terms of should kids be >> walking ac I mean like do we feel we should have kids we can put crossing guards or the systems and they can walk across or do we feel that a hazard you know a dumpster and let's say a dumpster and a McCormack or too hazardous for a second grader. Let's look think about a second grader having to go across. >> Right. I think it depends. It's almost like you have to look at distance as well as
224you know like what the hazard is to sort you know if it's 02 miles and a cheap a crossing guard is cheaper and we feel like we can get people to fill those roles then it's an easy crossing guard but I know that's like lots of different scenarios across everyone in the district so it's not so >> well >> and to complicate this too right so we were we're closing Kingsley and we've been hearing from a number of parents um who are on the west end of Warrington's assignment boundaries right at the edge of 1.5. They're going to have to choose to walk Isabella or Central. You know, I don't want my kids walking on Central at 3:00 in the afternoon with all the in and out. Um and then they're going to have to
225cross Ridge. I mean, it's just um so I I feel like we do have to have some conversation and particularly thinking of our folk who are getting re reassigned um and on the the edge of that 1.5. I'm just sensitive to that. I want us to be thinking of that >> bridge would solve a lot of those problems for Orington. >> So, I think that there is it the hazard or is it the point 1.5? Right. And I think there's a there's a at what point do we because we can do 1.5 do we really want kids walking 1.5 or do we want kids not walking one I mean we have the choice those are two you know the distance and I think when we did the STRP we were using 75 as the as
226what was deciding walkability. So I do think the distance is one we probably have to feel like to me do I think a kindergartener how long how far do I think a kindergartner should walk >> and well I'll be honest as someone who uses the bus I they stand out sometimes a long time waited on the bus in the cold and I almost feel like if they could walk to school they would rather walk to school so I mean you know and some of that can't be avoided so >> well I I would there there's hazard roads but then there's also hazard stretches. So when I think about um roads like Emerson for example between Asbury and Dodge there is no stop. There's no stop sign. There's no stop light. Um, and so even if
227we reduce the speed limit to 25 miles an hour and we put crossing guards there, it's essentially a four-lane road and people are going to drive very fast down that road in the same way that if we were talking about Dempster, there's no stoplight. And so, how do we, you know, without a mitigation? I'm curious sort of for some of those neighborhoods why we're like how do how do how do we not designate that a hazard for 20 for the next school year if we don't even know if we're going to be able to mitigate the issues that we know are making that road dangerous yet >> and Emerson is interesting too because Emerson actually has higher traffic than some of the roads that we've designated as hazards like Green Okay. >> Yes. >> Um,
228so it's got, you know, I'm looking at the numbers right now. It says 10,600 for Eison, 10,150 at the busiest part of Green Bay right there by Haven. So that there's like some contradictions here. And even back to Ridge with the Orington folk, um, that's almost 10,000 on Ridge up to uh, Sheridan. So um, I'm not helping. Well, this doesn't make it easier, but >> and that's why we that's why we just when we just set an example because obviously there's I do hazards and then there's D65 hazards that the board would determine, you know, we want to deem this a hazard for D65. So that's why we kind of did that. We we just looked at these streets as obviously heavier streets, but it's certainly >> the only >> could be any street. This
229was just kind of >> Yeah, we're not stuck to what's >> Yeah, this was just serving as an example of ridge and >> continue to to refine >> as we make sure >> when I look at Yeah. When I look at these two specific uh board directions needed um I would differentiate them based on kind of the level of complexity. I think the question of which roads constitute safety serious safety hazards that's a a big kind of challenging question for us to get our arms around. I think the second one should the district explore changing magnet start uh explore changing uh start times. That to me seems like a more straightforward thing to pursue. So I don't know if there's a way to to separate these out just for for time efficiency tonight. >> Yeah.
230>> Well, I think this might help but also could complicate it more too. had is I don't think we need to name all a ridge right so ridge has segments where they've measured traffic at different rates and so so you know I'd be you know it's different for instance in an ocean boundary where even the furthest person on the other side of ridge isn't walking a super great distance whereas I'm thinking of the new Oregon boundaries and it's you know so so I think we could be specific to segments of roads too >> so we need to give them we need to come back with some options in that sense to sort of help. >> I I just I do want to say that there is some urgency regarding these hazard designations considering that families
231have until March 1st to submit a permissive transfer and whether or not they get transportation to their currently assigned school based on the boundary that they live is somewhat time sensitive and could potentially be a decision factor if or not they submit a permissive transfer. So, I just want to put that out there that we were hoping to get a decision today from the board, not a decision, get additional direction to the board of what we should submit to I do, but I just want to put that out there in regards to families and their decision by March 1st for permission. >> Can you go back to the list of ABCD where you actually, you know, so there's the I do only, right? And I mean, I think we're all clear we're going to do
232the I do only. Then the question becomes which streets become the additional ones? Go back. >> Which additional streets? >> What are the additional streets? And so now you're you're dealing with >> Are you talking about the map or you want the bullet point? >> Well, you had the list of the streets, right? Okay. So, here. So, I do we know is uh Dempster U McCormick and um Green Bay and um Right. So, those are we really only have a few that are dot. So, everyone else is walking or we have crossing guards in in locations. So then we get to Okay. Right now we have Ridge, Chicago, and Gross Point. Are those the other ones that we use as is that what we're currently? >> Yeah. I mean, there are a couple other ones
233like Central, but now that's a natural divi. It was Central and Kingsley's boundary. Now it's a natural divider with um Lincoln Wood and Willard. >> Yeah, we took into consideration the new boundaries, so >> students may not cross. Andvious this was just serving as an example. And obviously if there was uh different streets that we explore then we would like we were calculating all the double routes and single routes that would be altered as well. But like I said this was just kind of a >> and how does >> as a starting point that you may want to >> how is Chicago impacted by all the new bike lanes? And so is Chicago still a um you know do we see Chicago Avenue the same way now with the bike lanes going in as we
234did two three years ago without all the bike lanes? Is it smaller, easier to to move across? >> It's two lane, >> right? >> Yeah. >> Ridge, which is four. >> Right. Right. So, in essence, the equity in what, you know, what's a what's a framework for looking at this from an equitable standpoint to decide what are the district 65 additional lines that we need to quickly uh come up with. How do we do this quickly? >> Can you show the other two? There we go. >> That's just changing. >> Can you name the slide you're on, please? >> All right. That's just a ch. Okay. >> That's the same. It's the same hazard. >> Yeah. So, it's Ridge, Chicago, and Gross Point. >> Yeah. For example purposes, we kept everything the same. and it's
235ID do only plus the addition of ridge gross point in the west and >> I mean the quickest way would be to take this example and use it as a starting point of I think I would be comfortable with the I do plus Ridge plus Chicago plus uh gross point >> then I go like why not um Dodge right I'm like why is Dodge given the complexity of kids crossing that to get the crown so I do think the issue of the the why the additional streets there's clear what I do why a street is and we probably have history you know why other streets are and from an equity standpoint how do we be clear that those other streets um aren't just the loudest voices saying I need this to be a crossing that
236we thought about it all the way through and so that's why I would say oh if Chicago then Dodge like I I can't understand why Dodge wouldn't be and um and Chicago would be Dodge has fewer crossings. Yeah. I mean, >> maybe. No. No. I think that I'm thinking of Aspbury. Sorry. >> Yeah. >> Has fewer crossings, >> but you have to get there to get to Aspberry. >> Is there any Do y'all have any history on the Dodge versus um is it really just no one's asked or Dodge versus Chicago to help me understand why Dodge would be wouldn't be a street and Chicago would be? Well, it's similar to central Chicago Avenue. >> Yeah. Uh, just to somewhat answer your question, and unfortunately, it's not going to be the answer that you would
237like to hear. It really ultimately going to be a a board decision on what they want to designate as hazards. We've presented the the ID dot findings. If it's the will of the board to add additional hazards, >> we do need to make Do we need like a list of potential additions and just like look at that and figure out what it means from co from a cost perspective? Like I I hear streets thrown out, but I feel like looking at them, looking at the cost and making some decisions is what we need to do at this point. >> This is busing, right? So it's not you could put crossing guards on Chicago Avenue and kids can get across. This is keeping it busing, not uh crossing guards. I I I think just to make
238sure I understand I mean I think maybe what Nicole is getting at is what's the objective criteria that we would use to distinguish for example Dodge from Chicago. I'm not 100% clear on how we ended up with some of these additional streets on here. So I understand that it's a will of the board but we're not traffic engineers. So like I don't exactly understand what we're basing this on >> as to why like the additional hazards are on there. >> Well, how the board decide like what data are we using to decide which streets to include? >> Um I think that's why I do DOT and ISBY have given those guidelines for school districts. And I it hasn't been noted today but we've noted it previously. Hazard transportation is completely optional under school code. No
239district is required to provide hazard transportation. If the board chooses to provide hazard transportation, they submit those findings to IDOT. ID dot approves them and then they get submitted to the state for reimbursement. >> Well, I think if we're going above and beyond, so ID do has its objective criteria, right? It has its 12point scoring system. >> If we choose to go above and beyond that, there should be also a scoring system >> as part of that. Can I also ask a clarifying question because what I hear also is like how do we come up with these streets and I feel like we've been talking about this with the board since like last May. Um and some of the streets that have been thrown out here are streets that were brought up in previous discussions
240that we've added. So to to just >> say that very transparently, Chris, like they they brought up these some of these streets were brought up because in previous board, if you go back and track some of the previous board meetings, board members wanted these streets added. So that is why the district what I hear him saying though is and correct me if I'm wrong. If the street is is was going to be added and if I add uses a 12point criteria system, are we running the streets that folks have thrown out to be added against I do 12point >> objective criteria? >> Yeah, that would be one way of doing it. Um, I just think there has to be some documented process that we're using so that five years down the road if >> this
241discussion comes up again, we can use the same criteria, you know, maybe traffic patterns change. But I I think it's difficult. I just I don't feel like honestly I know enough or have enough data to really be able to make a decision on this. >> Yeah. No, that's fair. So my question goes back to is are we capable of doing that or do we need to create our create a different set of criteria based on that? >> So everything we've run against ID dot's calculation of the major roads in the district. Like I said, I I have a document. I know we've shared it. I we may not have shared it with the board, but we have it internally of all the roads that we looked at and their actual calculation what it would be
242with a H or with a crossing guard, without a crossing guard, whether it meets the threshold. I would have to dig it up. It was close to a year ago that that we >> Yeah. So, I'm wondering So, so two things cuz I want to I hear want to move us with where we're going because we're we're not going to get to consensus on this, but I do think what the next step is. one, we've heard Dodge, we've heard Chicago Avenue, add them to the ID dot guidelines, run them against the same criteria. If we've used this criteria, the ID do criteria to assess these particular streets, then let's run these two additional ones against that. Whatever we criteria we've used that ran all of the streets, let's give it to the board. They can
243decide what streets because to your point these are we've heard some we've added other we based off history what we know if we give them what we've ran through the criteria they can select we want I do guidelines for blah blah blah blah blah blah blah then then we can move this this conversation along because it will have assessed against the criteria and they have they will be able to decide and collectively come to consensus on the streets they want us to consider and then we can run the calculations and do all of the things. That is what I'm proposing a next step. >> I think that makes >> I'd like to add one thing to that. I think that's a great idea, Dr. Turner. Thank you. And thank you for that um idea, Chris.
244Um I think though in taking Andrew's suggestion also what we need to consider is where students would be crossing. So I think there's the partial streets that um Andrew mentioned is of note and so by the criteria that are set by I do I think we've designated here some partial roads and we should be mindful of that also. So potentially Chicago Avenue from tip to tail is not a hazard, but potentially in one section or another it is. >> And just for the um I'm not necessarily proposing we add um Dodge as a hazard, but just as a C trying to understand why Dodge hasn't been added as a hazard in >> comparison to other I'm saying added to the they run the streets already. So if Dodge isn't on there, at least we what
245what we've heard you the streets you all have proposed, we could come up. >> But just to keep us honest, just it'll add a few more streets, but we're prioritizing north south and there's some significant streets that cut through boundaries that are east west. Can you just take the major half mile blocks and look at those because some of the traffic on those is actually greater than Dodge Ridge or Chicago. So just keep us honest in what decision we Yeah, we have all that information that we did a year ago. We'll bring it back to the board at the next meeting is what I'm hearing and we'll re-update it with the updated average daily traffic volumes from ID dot. >> But what but we are saying for sure I do. So from a standpoint of
246families on the ID do you can they can rest assure that there's transportation that's I mean we need to say something. So as people beginning to uh have to make these decisions we're having some clarity. At a minimum, the board will have hazard transportation. It's whe the question is whether or not they will expand it is what I'm hearing. >> Correct. >> And your same document can be used for us to finalize crossing guards like the same a street is is on the ID dot is going to be 68. Whether we have it hazard or whether we choose that it's important enough, hazardous enough to have a crossing guard would be using the same information. Correct. Okay. So essentially then that same document, what I hear you say is that same document the board will
247be able to determine what streets they want to go or want to determine as additional ID do hazard routes coupled with where they want where you all want crossing guards to be placed and located. And that all should be off of the, you know, data about how busy the street is and also just data showing us how many students are crossing. Of course, that changes constantly, but at least we sort of know, you know, what's which, you know, what's busy. >> So based on those statements, I'm also hearing some I'm moving us on from hazards. I think we we've heard the direction that we need to take. >> I'm hearing something similar to crossing guards. Just bring it back in the same document and the board will make a decision around hazards and crossing guards
248in conjunction with one another. Yeah. >> On the 23rd. >> Well, and okay. So, just so we can make a quick decision then or leading up to that meeting, you've you've so helpfully calculated right that Ridge Chicago gross point is essentially $500,000. Are you able to just run that calculation for the the you know, eight streets you're going to give us? run the calculation for the cost savings. >> Yeah. The or the Well, it's actually extra cost. >> How much the cost is how much it's going to cost? That's what I meant to say. >> Yep. >> Is that possible, Tamara? >> I the two of them run those scenario. >> Okay. >> Yeah. We would we would just look at the numbers >> that just that'll crystallize things to make it just >> Yeah.
249So add the cost savings to or the cost >> and crossing guards too. I mean >> the cost for all the things. everything. >> Well, for the crossing guards, it's the cost per crossing guard does not change from crossing guards. It's just the flat cost. Correct. >> So, it's either we're going to have 61 or not. So, that will help us get to looking at um where we want to come out in terms of a total cost for the crossing guards. >> Well, yeah, you would either You would set a budget and then we would >> Okay. And then that that would determine how many crossing >> that would help that would definitely help the board then decide what the budget is because they would then determine where the crossing guards and then it would
250allow them to assess okay the total amount let and they might have to say okay let's reduce it by two because the budget is by where are the places that we want to reduce it at you know what I mean so >> it will help to inform their decision of how much they potentially want to budget for us >> budget and like, okay, there's not going to be a bus, so we know we're going to need a crossing guard at this street. So, think through all of it. >> Is there any legal just liability of, you know, once you do crossing guards and any liability for where you don't place crossing guards? That would just be something we need to make sure we, you know, >> I think the only legal I mean, in my
251mind, and and legal would probably, I mean, if you decide not to put a crossing guard there and kid gets hit, >> right? So you you don't know till you don't till you know. You know what I mean? So like >> Okay. >> Yeah. I don't you you don't know the the risk mitigation the risk factors to it until >> Yeah. >> I mean I think you can look at it the other way too. There's plenty of intersections where we don't have crossing guards today that probably need one. >> Oh where we have crossing guards and we still have accidents. So Okay. Um Okay. I know this isn't um so what can we what are what are we saying that can be clearly beneficial right now for families who are having to make decisions so
252out of transportation um if someone's listening this and they're trying to figure out what they need to do we are saying I do hazards yes we are keeping the current ID do hazards we have and providing bus transportation around that we said no on the um the magnet we're not we're getting rid of the the the 411 >> 412 uniform policy. >> Yep. Okay. >> 4:112, which allows us to >> transport students 1.5 miles outside of >> Okay. >> Yeah. So, I think that that that brings a little bit of clarity >> um for families. I think folks still won't know like hazardous routes, I do all the things. But I I feel like the central part of the we should still be able to move with the with the two main policies of of
253knowing then it will be a matter of where crossing guards will be and where right like that will come after you all have had that level of analysis. But I still feel like it's still enough of families to Dr. Beersley, do you agree with that or no? >> I you we certainly can communicate that. You know, there are families that are going to continue to struggle to make their decisions. Um but we can certainly communicate that. >> Chris Lou thoughts Chris does that get you what you what you all need as you move? Yeah, I I believe we have the direction that we need from from the board. Um I think there based on the decisions around 4110 and 4112, there's some relief for Willard Twe families that are assigned to foster that they can
254now make their decision. They'll know that they have transportation if they're less than 1.5 and cross a hazard. The board has said I do only so they know that McCormick will will be a hazard in Green Bay and anybody that crosses that that's a tweet family tweet TWWS TWWX will receive transportation >> and so for the to your point Andrew for the families the Kingsley families who are now going to Orington who live 1.3 miles. We have not we have not created a solution that addresses theirs because we're deciding whether central or that area is going to be an additional hazard or um crossing guards or whatever. So just being clear because we know that's a question. We do not have uh a decision on that and we will try to get to that decision
255in the next meeting. Okay. >> Yeah. We should take into consideration though you know some of the different traffic patterns there as we do that >> and we will because we will now have a >> we'll have a we'll have a score for that particular area so that we can actually have that conversation and understand it uh at the next it'll be a we'll know what it is. Okay, >> Maria, anything? >> I think this has been a very productive conversation and I appreciate everybody's input. Thank you, >> Chris. I'm sorry you haven't gotten all your questions answered, but you've done a tremendous job. Thank you, Chris and Lou. >> Thank you. >> Okay, Kirby. SDRP3 update, school transition plan update. >> Are you waiting on me for something? I'm sorry. >> No. Uh, we're
256going to the the last one. Uh, school transition plan update by Kirby. >> Last one. Bringing them home. >> So, in the midst Oh, low battery power you. Um, so I'm going here to give you update on the transition pro process and planning and hopefully uh provide some concrete uh understanding where we're at and um we can move forward from there. Uh just give you a little background. It's going to happen. I swear it off. Did someone turn it off? >> Yep. Someone actually turned it off. Can you believe that? >> Um, we started out with six key goals as we bought this process. We started with just the leaf system that we were looking at uh a new attendance boundaries and Bessie roads. Uh since then with the closure of Kingsley and updated attendance
257boundaries. This is the work has to some degree doubled in terms of scale but also um much of the same work aligned across two schools and then all the schools affected by the attendance boundary changes and Willard Tweet. So given that nature we we have a firm footing of what we're specifically looking to do which is good. Um always always centered around students um equitable and inclusive support for families. Um as Dr. Turner always has consistently tried to strive for is transport transparent communication and just being honest in where we're at. Um critical hard thing I think the hardest thing to do is 0.5 uh as we close schools preserving morale student learning community cohesion really difficult because not everybody's happy with this. Um but hopefully on the other side of this we'll get there.
258And then there the big task is there's a whole bunch of stuff to do and that rests within the district and that rests within the sta uh teachers, the school leaders in the classrooms um coordinating with parents. So onward this is the structure we've been working since November. We we on the left you have all the departments who have representatives and leadership that are on the steering committee which is the big blue square in the middle. That's kind of the the core hub of this work. We meet um often typically every two to three weeks as we created a schedule that goes all the way through July. That steering committee is going to be giving regular updates to both the cabinet and the board. Uh our focus of work is around Bessie Willard, Bessie Roads,
259Willard, uh Kingsley and then all the schools and families impacted classrooms impacted um due to attendance boundary changes integrated and linked as the work we're just starting to do is really involve school leaders uh bring in union leaderships and then coordinate with both the department chairs and classroom teachers. The department chairs again are um deck members, they're teachers, they work in the classrooms, but they're the they lead the fable uh content areas. So that's all um fine arts, PE um world languages um and uh library. Uh this is just to give you a quick you know scale of of how many people are in involved in steering committee and from which departments. So the blue is the academic department, the yellow is HR, Hannah's from communications. Uh I guess the other blue on the right
260it's supposed to be green is uh under Stacy and that's all the departments under accountability and then on the bottom we have the finance department including the grants Millie as our grants person. Our work thus far is really to set up and build action plans and then integrate and crossmap and understand how we logistically how we overlap and make sure we're coordinated. So that became with every department created their own action plans. Uh that followed a format that we all had consistent um major task subtasks ray which is the accountability framework of who does the critical work and who who needs to know. Uh then due dates and status and measurables and costs. We developed KPIs for the high highprofile um actions that came across and in in that created one unified high level uh
261action plan that we're we're tracking at our at our committee meetings looking at um cross mapping and then creating a coordinated timeline, a district calendar, uh working on a budget and finalizing that this just now and uh all leads to kind of a feeding into an accountab account accountability dashboard which we're going to have hosted on our our hub. And that's going to have the timeline, a status chart, and a calendar. And I'll give you a little preview of some of that next. So, we we categorized all our actions into um seven key action categories. And all this is very common sense. A key part of closing schools and transitioning schools and working with families to for the next steps and coordinating all the furniture um fixtures and equipment across things, communications. So building that
262hub which we have on live which is on the website now and adding to that as we move along that includes a FAQ that includes a calendar upcoming events so families can see that uh the staff reassignment process is a is a huge process. We've done some of that work last year with the reduction in force, but we'll be doing that again this year as um positions change as Bessie Roads and and Kingsley and Willard Tweet closed down and as we open Foster and then as new sections may open up in other schools as well given where students are going. So, it's a huge amount of work um highly highly led by HR. Um the disposition of of all of our equipment, our furniture and our fixtures plus all the curricular materials in the in
263the classrooms and etc. Um, that's work that has been going on and I'll give you a little update on that student placement. Uh, and then students with specialized needs. So, a critical focus on that on all students, but then also individualized um focus on specialized needs students. Uh, maintaining service continuity is also a critical aspect of that. And then the last two are financial activities and evaluation reporting led by our finance and our RAD departments. um and making sure that we uh we're keeping control of the budget, but also closing down all the accounts uh and the various um contracts we have with both Besser Roads, Willer Tree, and Kingsley and coordinating that at a district level. And in the end, uh providing a report that's going to include surveys and data and academic outcomes
264for our students and family outcomes as well. A little cut off, but I actually did some work trying to shrink it in so it would fit this. You guys can see it all here. Sorry, it's not very well seen on the screen. Um, so on the asset management schedule, this is literally think about all the stuff we have. Uh, we are on the in the process of doing all the inventory of the furniture, fixtures, and equipment, and that's led by buildings and grounds. They've done Bessie roads. Uh now that Kings got added, I think we have a that's midFebruary where we're going to inventory um that that's also coordinating with our finance department because per board policy, we need to keep track of all our assets and we need to give the board an update
265and get board approval for any disposition of those assets outside the district. So that's an initial template. Um, in March we're coordinating, we'll be coordinating with deck and classroom teachers and we're trying to figure out the timing and and how that works. But, uh, classroom and fable inventory of all that's in the building. And, um, in coordination with that, once we know the sections that are finalized, we know what schools in what classrooms will be, where they will be, and and then with the inventory, we'll know what we have. And then we can go to the foster and and Charlie's percal and we can also go to all the other school leaders and say now that you know what sections you have next year here's a list of what the things we have available let's
266start matching them up and making sure you get what you need that's coming out of Kingsley and and Bessie roads. So that's critical in both April and May. Um and then in June we have a commitment not to close any classrooms down until after June 5th. So students shouldn't be in their building in the middle of May seeing their classroom half wrapped up. That's not our goal and we we do not want that to happen and we're going to be crystal clear on that. That's not the inkling and typical nature of a teacher who's leaving. They're going to start wrapping stuff up they they know they don't need anymore and things like that just to be economical and efficient. But we're really going to try to push that to be the week after June 5th.
267Uh and make kind of a all all hands on deck in the building. No students are there. we really focus on getting um classrooms boxed up and dis and assigned to where they need to go in a very efficient way because we're all there. So, we're working with um our team and deck will have to be along with us as we move and figure that out. Um then it goes to board approval and that board of approval will disposition of assets. And then in June, mid June, it's the mass move to uh all things out of schools that go to foster and all things out out of our two schools that are going to other schools as needed, which sets us up so that warehouse can start figuring out what else needs to be saved
268in warehouse. And then really the dotted line in July is literally like thinking we probably don't have to touch Bessie Roads um or Kingsley unless something's been decided about those buildings until we're up and running with a successful Foster and a successful all of our other schools. And so talking to Dr. Beardsley like that's October, November, and December when we can start thinking about sale or donating or recycling those assets. um they'll get a little dusty, but that's that's okay because we need to focus on what's priority. Uh and then you could see a final asset accounting and then a final evaluation report to the board. Any questions on the schedule, the overview there? I'd say critical aspects are April and May working with teachers in classrooms to get things assigned and understanding where where
269they need to go and then the all hands on deck in June to get um to get it wrapped up and moved out. So, those are three window mo moments where we got to get it right. Uh, just to give you an update where we are now, as I said, we've we've done the work at at Bessie Roads. Um, we set up the transition hub on the website. Um, a ton of work has done recently just to start opening house open house schedule for all our schools for all families who have a chance who might be thinking of moving. Um, we're doing special in-person registration at both Fleetwood and at Kingsley over the next couple weeks. On Saturdays, uh, HR is has planned or has held staff transition meetings with the three affected schools. Um,
270we have a student assignment letter has been sent out last week. uh finance has identified all the contracts and accounts that are associated with our schools and and beginning to move towards uh setting up a plan for for closing those down at the right time. And then the dashboard that I talked about that we'll have that will include this this information will also go up in the next week. And that is all I have to present today because there's no more slides. any questions on where we're at or next steps or >> I'm cur slide I'm sorry the first one um and I know um foster is in transition no I'm sorry the second one but it's it's so integrated into all of this so can you speak to is there like a foster and
271a dotted line in some sense of so much of this also feeds into foster so is it connected in this process or is it its own separate Yeah, we I guess it's in a way that is a possible oversight because we're so focused on closing down and moving the schools that are affected where our students right are now. Um Foster is at the top is at the top of of the priority list of of and with doc with uh principal burkel being the principal best roads closing down best roads but also being the receiving school um she's an integral part of this whole process and making sure both sides work. So I will add maybe a maybe it'll be a circle because it won't be a >> Yeah, because I I guess I was less
272in some sense thinking about I'm assuming the principal but all the other conversations that are happening around the transition of you know kids here so many of them were there and just making sure that that's >> it's incorporating district 65 schools but it should get special mention because it is a specific new resource that we're adding. This is like ahead. >> No. Thank you. No other questions. >> All good. >> Any other questions? >> I was just going to say I'm uh at the end of my family of eight children. And this is exactly what happens at the when you're when you're eighth you're the eighth child. Just like this meeting. When you're the eighth child, the parents are so tired they just let you do whatever you want. No, but thank you for I
273mean thank you'all for um you know the clarity and understanding the process because this affects so many kids in the district and also um I've already been on the hub for putting that up there because I think that's a place where everyone can get >> and I do believe the intention is this this will be a monthly c >> Yeah, we'll always see you. You're not going anywhere. >> Yeah. And I think too is like we again acknowledging we took some time to make this decision and it put a crunch on y'all and I've been seeing that in people's faces and just I see the hard work and >> Yeah. Because I I think as a board we're also making that transition and so now we're focusing more on the logistics. >> Yeah. >> So
274thank you. >> Very good. Thank you. >> Okay. Uh number seven is other business. I do have a question um related to SDRP actually. So last we love and I'm asking this because the March 1 date for permissive transfers is quickly approaching. Um, and I know that there are a lot of families who are trying to make decisions and who don't have a lot of clarity, not just around transportation, but around like additional school closures and does that mean they might have to move twice and all of those things. Um, and so I know that we left off last time and Nicole, you and Maria were putting together some thoughts on what we could do, like what some alternative options would be. Um, and I'd like to ask for an update on that before we
275get to the next before we get to that March 1st deadline because I feel like parents need some sort of information. And I know everything won't be worked out for a while, but like what options have been brought up? Are there things we should be considering? I just feel like we owe people something. Uh because those budget numbers are still looming. So, >> so um I can say that that this week we will be meeting to have those conversations and to get guidance from legal around that and how we communicate with the board and with the community and uh I will share that information individually with board members by the end of the week. And will we will we have time to discuss as a board about how we're moving forward? >> Yes. Once once
276we get some clarity about the process, >> I think that we need to have that first so we know how to have those discussions. >> Yeah. >> And and so let let me just say that's that that will be happening this week and you will have that information. But to your I think there we can clearly say that if you're talking about March 1st, there's no there's no nothing that's going to be presented to the community by March 1st to impact um anyone's decision about where they go to school next year. So that's not a that's not like I don't want any perception like there's a proposals of budgets of of what to do um um to be discussed in October for March 1st decisions. folks need to make their decisions around where they're going
277to school based on the information that's available here. Are there any I know that you know like I know that we won't have any details or any you know like anything vetted by March 1st because it's right around the corner but is there anything you can share around preliminary ideas or thought starters or anything just so people have like some information because you know these are really big decisions that they're making and it's sort of like there's no there's been about things since you know >> um as we said we're we're um exploring what what how we what is the process for communicating and sharing but um never there was never a plan to have I to have viable proposals communicated by March that's is not first we're still waiting we just got one audit
278we're still waiting back for our our building audit which comes back in February which is a critical piece for any conversation. So still information is not here which is part of you know why some of us had concerns about going to the school closure because we felt that there was information that was to be included with SDRP3 that wasn't on the table. One piece the audit is here but the second piece related to the buildings is not here. So it's not possible to move that conversation forward until the rest of that information is here. We understand the um the timeline of October. Um and I think we all understand and it is important to say this is um all board members have the opportunity to be creative and to think about um um future going
279forward. But until all documents are in, there won't be any any proposals going forward because that wouldn't be that wouldn't be they wouldn't be complete. I understand. Oh, boy. >> I was going to say my concern is like October, right? So, it sounds like a long way away, but we're talking eight board meetings and and so just um Right. So, we're we're a month past the the the res the the closure of Kingsley, the resolution. And so it's just feeling that urgency uh especially then here seeing like all the to-do lists that the administration's going to be facing and wanting to know how we'll be interfacing with the administration and collaborating with the administration on how we move forward. Um it just feels like if we we you know it's pressing right? >> Oh no
280we I 100% it's pressing. Go ahead. >> We're pressing on it this week. >> That's what we're doing. We're pressing on it this week. So we're getting started. We're giving serious thought about how to organize this effort, how to communicate the effort and how to include whoever wants to join into the effort into the effort. So we want to be clear about the process and we'll be very transparent about that but we need to get some >> guidelines around it so that we communicate clearly >> about the process >> and also just to be clear the the we are in October we have a budget for next year we have to do regardless if we're closing Lincolnwood we're closing someplace else we're keeping schools open so that process in general this is just a uh
281hopefully have additional options. So hopefully we're all thinking about we still have a lot of work to do to get us where we need to be. I would just encourage us I know that all information is an end but given all of the steps that you know we have to go through to vet any ideas. I wouldn't wait until you know I would start before we have all information. No, we're I mean um >> but I just want to make sure that the way we communicate that is done with fidelity and transparency >> and I >> I need some guidance on that. So that's what we're going to start and that's going to happen this week. So and whatever information we glean from that meeting will be immediately shared with the board. Great. So >>
282Maria, you want to add anything? >> Yeah, I think you guys got it. Um if if that's done, I have one more item. >> Okay. Um, I wanted to ask the administration um to give some more explanation as to why we cannot change our outdoor recess policy to align with the surrounding districts and their uh temperature um regulations and why ours is different from the surrounding districts. We've uh received all the information that everybody has given us and we'll discuss it with the administration. >> I'm sorry, Dr. Smith, can you speak closer to the mic, please? >> Yeah, I'm sorry about that. Um, we actually took a look at everybody's information and we'll continue to talk about it with our administration. >> Well, didn't you I mean, I guess I got the response from you
283that you already did and decided not to change it until the end of this this year, but I'm wondering why that is. >> We can continue that conversation. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I I I'll chime in because I think I was very clear with board leadership um on January 9th when um the decision to close Kingsley and I stated that our primary for focus right now is closing Bessie Roads, closing Kingsley, um the transition of the Willard uh Tweet program that we've been dealing with and opening Foster. What I've also been clear with is and and we understand 100% two things I want to clear up. There is no temperature policy. These are guidelines that everybody is asking us to change to have us to stop, make changes, change the website, do all of those
284things. We have asked that we pause on being able to do that and revisit this at the at the end of the year. This is starting to feel very similar to the technology policy back in May when we came on when everyone wanted us to change the technology policy and it requires us to come together as a team to evaluate those things and make make sure that it's done with decency and in order. And so that's why Dr. Spth came back and said, "We hear the concern. It's something that we will look into to make necessary changes for the upcoming school year." So that's why the decision to do that was was important because as you can see from what Kirby just put up on the slide, it's a all hands on deck and if
285we continue to keep immediate things, right, we get it. Folks want kids to stay out, you losing the time like like we get it's guidelines, but it also takes communicating and doing all the necessary changes to make that level of update. And so that is why we made that decision. What I said very transparently to Dr. aspect is obviously this is still a concern. We will revisit it and discuss it as an administrative team to see what we can do but right now that's that's where we are in the decision. I hope that answered your question. >> So you're just deciding that you're over that there's too many other things to deal with and that's not something that's going to rise to the level of a priority at this time. I'm I'm deciding that the
286last I checked, the board gave me seven priorities and I'm trying to operate within the seven priorities that the board gave me. And so that's why we're not making that decision right now. The decision it there will be thought put into how we effectively do that. We just don't have time to add that to make the necessary changes right now. It's something that we will visit and we hear the concern that has come up. But to just drop and make immediate changes to that when it requires getting principles on board, communicating that we need to also run this by deck bargaining units and really all bargaining units cuz it's a whole lot of other folks that go outside with kids during that time. Like it's a whole process to get all stakeholders on board with
287just an immediate decision. And what I'm asking is that we hold off on doing that until the end of the year and then we can make immediate changes going into the upcoming school year. So, so that's my stance and and and what I was saying. With that being said, I hear that this is a concern from the from the board and my team and I will go back to the table, revisit this to see if there's an understanding, but I'm being very clear in where our position is right now with where we stand. And can I just ask when you do that, can we make sure we're getting comprehensive feedback from parents as well? Um, so you know, we're hearing from multiple community members. Um, because I'm sure not everyone's paying attention to this particular
288issue. >> And I just want to like be a board member, right, that's on the record here. Again, we uh delayed what was it seven weeks in making the decision and arriving at a decision which put incredible crunch on the administration and we have to own that as a board member. I am very sympathetic to changing the policy. I want kids outside as much as possible. I want to back that also recognizing it's admin and um I also want to have admin's back in this moment knowing that we put uh admin in such a crunch and so I will look forward to to when we can talk about this and support it. Um, and also just want to say um I I support admin getting done what we have to get done right now. >>
289May I just uh make one possible suggestion uh in terms of how we think about issues like this? Uh it might be good if kind of our standard response for stuff that is coming in in the middle of a busy season, you know, kind of halfway through the school year. might be helpful for like standard responses that we're going to add that add this to the road map for the next school year um or whatever we decide the timing is. >> Yeah, that that's what we said. Chris, >> I didn't I didn't really I didn't pick that up from the message. Um so that might just be a way of keeping us all on the same timeline. Um, and again, that could have just been how I I read it. But if our standard response
290is, we're not saying no, we're saying we're in the middle of a school year, let us put this on the agenda for 2728. Something like that might be might be helpful. >> I guess I would hope that we would we would think about that in the context of maybe a complexity versus benefit or harm matrix. And I think you know what I've heard from teachers I've talked to obviously parents I know for my own children that learning and their ability to settle in the afternoon and learn effectively is compromised when they're inside and especially an indoor recess um more and that's you know part of what the technology piece was about. Um, and as we look at our learning outcomes being, you know, less than what we desire them to be, I think it's important
291for us to understand that all of these seemingly small things contribute to children's ability to learn throughout the day. And that in the, you know, I I leave it to you, Dr. turner to understand what the complexity is of of a change like this, but um it seems like we're we're misaligned with surrounding districts. >> Thank you for that feedback. With no further business, I adjourn this meeting at 8:57 p.m.