[1/26/26] D65 - REGULAR BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING

001I'm going to reconvene the open session. >> Okay. Roll call. Today is Monday, January 26, 2026. The time is 6:00 p.m. Roll call. Hernandez >> here. >> Optek >> here. >> Wymer >> here. >> Wilkins >> here. >> Hank >> here. >> Anderson >> here. Let's have approval of the meeting. >> I move that the board approve the agenda as presented. >> Second. Hernandez, >> yes. >> Optek, >> yes. >> Wymer, >> yes. >> Wilkins, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Do we have the need for translation services? gracias. >> Okay, we're going to move into Do you have any comments, Dr. Turner? >> No comments. >> Okay, into uh public comments. Members of the public are welcome and invited to address the board during open public meetings. Speakers are discouraged from using the

002public 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, we 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 two minutes to address the board. Speakers may not yield their time to someone else. Speaker, please refrain from applause between speakers. So we may respect respectfully allow all speakers an opportunity to be heard. Also note that it is not customary for the board to respond respond to public comments. The best way to correspond with members of the board is by emailing schoolboard district.net. >> Great. We'll start with um the first five are Kelly

003Post, Megnappic, Emily Garcia, Christina Shestler, Billy Garcia. Good evening. My name is Kelly Post and I am the president of Deck. At the last special board meeting where the closure of Kingsley was approved, the meeting concluded with many public thank yous. I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the more than 720 educators who have continued to provide a consistent, stable, and high quality educational experience for students despite their school communities and sections being repeatedly added to and removed from agendas. Transition plans are currently being developed without educator input. We are the boots on the ground. We bring decades of collective experience along with new ideas about how these transitions can be done thoughtfully and in the best interests of students in district 65. I strongly encourage board members and cabinet to get

004into our schools, ask the hard questions, and listen to the wealth of knowledge available to you at no cost. Nearly 800 students will be impacted by new school placements next year. Yet the educators who know these students best and understand what they need to be successful have not been included in these conversations. While I cannot speak for all five unions or every employee in District 65, I can say this clearly. Closing Bessie Roads, closing Kingsley, and opening Foster School will not be successful without meaningful educator involvement. You have the opportunity and the obligation to engage educators now. If you choose not to engage with us, the confusion, disruption, and implementation failures that follow will be the result of that choice. Buenes nozzic and I am here tonight as a Willard Twe parent asking you to

005keep Willard Twe open. not just for my children, but for all the bilingual and Spanish-speaking students who stand to lose the most if this strand closes. Because the district has still not surveyed Willard Tweet families and we know that data informed decisions are important, we want to make sure that the board has the right data to help support in addition to what's been presented in the memo. Um our we created our own community survey in January of 2026 which received a 68% response rate from Willard Twe families. The data shows that if Willard Twe is shut down 47% of current Willard Twe students will leave the program entirely and the students who leave are not random. A majority of Spanish-sp speakaking families 58% said that they will not follow the program to foster. These are

006the very students this program was created to serve. Closing Willard Twe would push them out of bilingual education altogether, losing an estimated 45 children who could be working toward their seal of biiteracy, which is something I know you have said you value, Sergio. But when families are given the option to stay at Willard Twe, the picture changes completely. 97% of all respondents and 97% of Spanish-sp speakaking families say they would remain in Willard Twe. Closing Willard Twe doesn't even solve the problem it is meant to solve. The district's own modeling shows consolidation yields an average class size of 17 while keeping Willer Twe open yields 18 students on average per class with only two additional sections because of the 45 students who would stay in Willard Twe instead of leaving Twe entirely. Losing nearly half

007of our Willard Twe students is a very real loss as it puts the Haven dual language pathway at risk and weakens the long-term bilingual pipeline into ETHS. Closing Willard Twe will push Spanish speaking students out of the program designed for them. Thank you. >> There's a chair. >> Hi, good evening. My name is Emily Garcia and this is my daughter Sophia hiding here. She's a first grader in TW at Willard. I'm here because I want to work towards a solution for the twe placement problem that is truly equitable. A solution which offers something positive for all stakeholders. If we come to a solution through a process of building consensus, a decision that is respected and trusted by all will result. I think keeping a strand of Twe at Willard and one or two at Foster

008is a path towards accomplishing that goal. There's been a lot of focus on whether Twe is a magnet program or not. Isn't it true and fair to say that in actuality it is both? Can we embrace it as both? Can it be a neighborhood school in some cases, for example, at Foster where it can fulfill the needs of the underserved community residing there with a walkable school option should they decide they want that and also be a magnet program at Willard to provide a choice for those same students whom walkability may not be their number one criteria. The monolingual population of the fifth ward has a choice of school to attend. They can choose to attend King Arts or their neighborhood school. Don't Spanish speakers residing in the Haven feeder pattern also deserve a choice?

009Is it just or equitable to make decisions for them and without their direct input? To deny them of choice because it is often difficult to get their input does not align with the concept of equity. board, please consider designating the Twe Strand at Willard a magnet program and opening a neighborhood option at Foster. Thank you for your time and consideration. Buenos, my name is Billy Garcia, a sixword resident and parent of Sophia. uh consider a TWWX. I support adding a twe stand at the new foster school. It is welld deserved for the fifth ward residents, but I strongly oppo oppose closing Willard tweet program. Families in the sixth and the seventh ward also need walkable access to dual language education. In first grade alone, four out of nine students of TWWS TWWX students live closest

010to Willard and five out of nine students closer to Foster, showing the need for both schools to have strands. Furthermore, the safety maps for foster only address crossings within within the fifth ward leaving children outside the ward, especially across McCormack without protections. I would not feel safe with my elementary kid uh crossing McCormack, would you? Additionally, Seenor Hernandez and Miss Watkins, in the recent past, you have said walkable neighborhood schools are your main goal. Seenor Hernandez, on June 11th, 2024, while closing or voting for closing Bessie Rose, you stated dual language classes at every school and expanding dual language to all middle schools better serves the entire community. I urge you to vote no on closing Willard's Tweet program. Let us expand and strengthen dual language education, not dismantle it. Our tr our children and

011our community deserve nothing less. Thank you. Chase Mammo Christina. Tonight I'm asking the board to keep tweet at Willard. Removing it works directly against the district's stated goal of creating a larger st a larger student community in middle school. In reality, eliminating Willard narrows that community. Haven would become the only middle school with just one twe feeder while both other middle schools benefit from two. That means Haven's dual language students enter middle school with the expectation that they will have fewer bilingual peers, fewer relationships, and a more isolated Spanish class experience. These concerns were shared widely during the SAP 3 process, however, did not make it directly onto the administration memo, whereas it labeled at least one feeder be a priority. Thank you. You have >> Christina, you had about 30 seconds more. The clock

012I was just resetting. Did you want to continue? >> Um, no. I'm okay. >> Okay. Next we have Celia Carino, Anna Lebron, Jessica Get Greer Beakman, Juan Espinosa. Good morning. Uh my name is Selia Carino Soy uh Padre and Willer Esco. The administration say they have been engaging with the tree community and with respect that's not true. The only time that I remember that the whole cabinet came to Wheeler was last month in January 15. But it wasn't to create a conversations about removing the product and to foster the topic was different. So I'm asking you why stop you to come to our twe community last year to introduce the idea of moving to twe at Foster. Why? Why you didn't come before to us? We wouldn't be here if you really come to us

013in advance. You would save a lot of anger, a lot of problems. And this is continually repeating and repeating to other communities in district 65. Something have to change. And I really urge your board members, we have to stop this way the community engagement it is. I do a lot of community engagements in our community and different organizations. It's a lot of work. And sometimes you put a lot of efforts and just few people who come to work come to work with us. But I think connections are very important. And what you did last month coming to Wheeler, it was a good step because even many of our community was was able to get to know who is really our superintendent, our assistant principal, our technical staff. If you come in front to us long

014time ago, many good things could happen. And right now, look at all the problems, all the cows. This is not the way you need to work. You got to I really urge you board members to support our voices to do a change in our community. We really need you. >> Thank you. Yes. My is I am from Spain and I have two daughters in the TWE program at Wheeler. The district have mentioned in their memo that there is low enrollment in the TWE program. I am extremely concerned about the administration lack of transparency regarding which schools are actually having those small class sizes. Wheeler is not one of those. We know that Bessie road closure is causing a decrease in enrollment and we also know there is other schools outside of the heaven pattern that

015they had to combined tweet grades because of the administration failed to engage Spanish speaking families to attend those program enrollment remains robust even as after foster opens. The board must ask those questions. They demand a specifics. The lack of clarity risk addressing a non-existent community issue, one that is rooted in a disinterest in the TUI program and important strategic decisions that they're going to decrease the interest on the program. The ACC program is also missing enrollment goals for both TUI and ACC. They are essential magnet programs vital to our community identity. The critical question remains, will the district dismantle these valuable programs or commit to their recovery and actively recruit families? The district is unjustly proposing to close wheeler successful twe program, a healthy school to address an enrollment issue elsewhere. Reducing the program to

016seven strang offer only a 7% utilization gain. Is it worth it to justify the significant emotional distress and devastating impact on Wheeler Twe community? Sacrificing the program for such a small gain is deeply unjustifiable. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Jessica G and I am from Mexico and I have a one-year-old daughter. My husband and I specifically chose to buy a house within the Willard school boundary because of the true immersion program. Uh, as we exclusively speak Spanish at home, it is very important to me that my daughter maintains her Spanish language heritage and culture. There has been a lot of distress in recent months within the Hispanic and Latino community caused by persecution and displacement. It is deeply upsetting to see the very school administration which chose to align with simile contribute to

017this hardship. The decision to close the tweet program at Willard and offer it exclusively at foster school sends an unwelcome message. It implies that Hispanic and Latino families should limit their house options to the fifth ward, the specific area where foster is located. This action effectively suggests that families like mine are not welcome in the sixth or seven word and should seek residence elsewhere, reinforcing a sense of exclusion. Like my like my own, many other Spanish-speaking families in my neighborhood and community are facing a difficult challenge. It is truly heartbreaking that the administration is not choosing to expand this vital program to more schools to offer us all walkable options. Instead, they are restricting choices, making making it s significantly more difficult to Spanish-sp speakaking families. Please, I urge you not to close the tree

018program at Willard. My family and our entire Hispanic and Latino community desperately need accessible tree programs in in Nervi schools. This is a lifealtering decision for many of us. Thank you for considering the true impact this decision will have. Hi, my name is Greer Beckman and I'm a parent of two children in the monolingual program at Willard. I'm here tonight to show my support for the Willard Tweet community. Closing or relocating the Willard Tweet program would disrupt student learning, fracture a successful school community, and negatively impact the district. The closure of Willard Twe disrupts student learning. I'm worried about the students with IEPs who would have to decide between keeping a consistent environment with trusted educators and support staff but losing their Spanish language learning or keeping their Spanish language learning but losing the consistent

019environment with trusted educators and support staff that allow their children to thrive. This is not a choice parents and students should be asked to make. The closure of Willard Twe will have a significant negative impact on our Willard community. While my children do not participate in the TWE program, they benefit immensely from having this program at their school. At Willard, our TWE parents and students make Girl Scout troops happen. They serve on our PTA. They host a beautiful celebration of culture at Hispanic Heritage Night, show up to appreciate our teachers and staff, and create a welcoming and inclusive environment at our school. The closure of Willard Twe negatively impacts the district. Twee is an amazing program our district offers. It is much sought after and helps our district stand out when compared to other area

020schools. When looking to boost enrollment, it seems clear the district should be looking to develop rather than destroy this amazing program. I'm deeply concerned that the district continues to operate from a scarcity mindset rather than one of abundance. Foster can have a wonderful tweet program and Willard can too. I'm hopeful that you as the board will see the value in having Twi in as many schools as possible and continue to nurture this amazing program. Please work to grow our district and see beyond the current crisis. Vote no on the closure of Willard Tweet Buenoes. Uh my name is Juan Pinosa. I'm a Willard Twe parent and a first generation immigrant from Venezuela and a native Spanish speaker. Uh, I'm asking you to vote no tonight or not vote because this proposal is being advanced without

021what I think are some basic inputs and workable plan. Having read Friday's memo, which was posted at 6:14 p.m. on Friday, um, uh, I have a number of concerns. One is again the district has never actually surveyed Willard Twe families and still as of last Thursday has no plans to do so. Two, the memo overstates and obfuscates will twe engagement in the SAP 3 process which was tiny and the process never clearly presented the option of closing twee at Willard. Three, this reduces the haven feeder pattern to a fragile single-sight elementary twe model which has some operational risks. Four, uh, transportation and before afterare and logistics are still unresolved, especially for working families like mine who need before and after school care and transportation. Five, the process and communication have been mismanaged in ways that

022have undermined trust in the district as many Willard parents in the room will tell you that the district is asking you to vote while admitting key projections and operational details are not final. Uh seven, the entire reason we are here tonight is that the confusion over pro proper program governance which is emblematic of the insufficient rigor and care taken to date. and eight, this adds avoidable execution risk while the district is already closing two schools and opening a new one. I want to focus on two additional things. First is the memo says that they're keeping eight strands as an added cost. I think uh this is misleading. What they really mean is we're losing an opportunity to capture cost savings, but eight strands is baseline according to the plan as it stands today. And second,

023the memo keeps claiming that keeping seven strands with one at Twe, one at Willard, and one at Foster might have increased uh transportation costs, but that is phrased with a lot of speculation if likely and would because again, the district doesn't know because the district never asked us. So, please vote no tonight and require that they do the work first. Next we have Jennifer Chimeos, Mark Sarfski, Bevon Seafford, Jamie Kapper, Alex Boner. Hola, member is Jennifer Camos and I am a Willard Twe parent. At the January 15th meeting for Willer Twe parents, it was said that the long-term goal of the program is to grow and expand it. Yet, the current direction is to reduce strands while simultaneously stating growth as the objective. This is contradictory and raises serious questions about the program's future and

024what the vision truly is. Many families like mine chose Willard's community specifically for the cultural and educational diversity that Tui offers. It's been a defining factor in our decision to live here and invest in this district. Reducing strands from 8 to 7 limits the district's ability for future enrollment and growth. Families have been forced to abandon hopes of a bilingual education because of the Bessie Roads closure or because they were denied through the lottery system. Yet, you claim low enrollment. Any reduction only compounds this inequity and limits opportunities for students who would greatly benefit from bilingual learning. Twi is one of the district's greatest strengths. I respectfully urge the board to consider how your decisions align with your stated commitment to growth, equity, and inclusion. Keep tweet at Willard. Thank you. Good evening. My name

025is Mark Zurfki and I confess that I didn't want to tell my son I would be here tonight. I have a fourth grader in twe at Willard who like many was disappointed to hear the district's plan to close the strand. We talked with him about Foster and he's since become excited about the potential of being a Phoenix, but I didn't want to lie to him. So last night I told him the school board actually had to vote on whether Willard's tweet strand should be closed. To say his eyes lit up would be an understatement. But what struck me was what he said. My nine-year-old looked me in the eyes and said, "Wait, so there's a chance our family can stay together?" Family. That's really what the Twe program is at Willard. And closing the strand

026is tearing that family and individual families apart. I appreciate the board taking up this conversation tonight, and I hope you all ask yourselves if destroying that family is worth it. Do the benefits of a dual strand that the district keeps citing outweigh the loss of a twe program in the second fastest growing Hispanic and Latino ward in the city? Is there a reason why Haven's feeder twe should only be housed in one school as opposed to the multischool model for the other middle schools? Should decisions about Twee's popularity be based on one expected downear due to Bessie Rhodess's closure or the previous two years when Twe growth districtwide increased by double-digit percentages each year? What if instead of putting out short-term fires, we focused on long-term strategy? What if we focused on in expansion instead

027of consolidation? If not that, what if Foster and Willard each had one twee and the district focused on growing both? Tonight, you have a colossal decision on your hands. As you consider the ramifications of that decision, please remember the impact you will have on families, those bound by blood and those created in the classroom. Thank you. >> Hello, my name is Bevon Ciphford. I served on the SAP 2 committee and the SAP 3 TWE committee. I have a child at Willard Twe. Thank you for discussing Willard Twe tonight and bringing it to a vote. We really appreciate it and I'd urge you to please vote to keep Willard Twi open. I wanted to speak a little bit about what the SAP 3 committee actually did. There were a couple of lines extracted from our outputs

028in the memo that was provided to you Friday night, but it wasn't the whole picture. The SAP 3 TWE committee did not recommend to close any twe strands. Reducing the number of tweeze the district was not a topic discussed or recommended by the SAP 3 tweet committee. We did evaluate priorities that were given to us. We weren't asked. We were told here's the four priorities. We were asked to consider them and evaluate them about tweet placement in the context of school closures only. We asked for clarification and that's what we were told. In other words, if a school were to close, what should the district consider for TWE placement? For example, walkability, double strands, should each feeder pattern have one, etc. So, no recommendations were made regarding specific schools. The committee was not asked what

029the priorities should be, but they were given. Um, we weren't even asked to rank them one through four. We were given kind of a complicated voting rubric and everyone assigned points to things and that's so double strands were the top priority. But I will say the proponents did not recommend just willy-nilly closing a strand, right? They said if we had to close a school that had twe in it, then should we place it at a different school that doesn't have TWEI or double up with an existing TWEI strand? Um, so it the other thing double strand proponents assumed was that there would be busing and to this day we don't know if kids who live more than two miles and across McCormack from Foster would get the bus. Um, what we did talk about was

030the or what our memo also said was minimize school changes for students by winding down programs rather than relocating strands. Avoid creating geographic gaps and twe access that send a message that TWWX and TWWS students are less welcome in certain areas. Thank you. Bues Jamie Kappa Mama de Mara and Aston uh second and fourth grade at Willard Twe. I'd like clarification on transportation and safety before this vote. The memo notes that if Twi were offered at both Foster and Willard, transportation costs could increase. Yet, it also states that no final transportation or financial projections have been made. At the same time, the current proposal appears to require busing students both into and out of the foster boundary to maintain program balance. I'm struggling to understand why families and the board are being asked to move

031forward without clear finalized transportation plans or cost. For Willard and Bessie Roads families who choose to remain in Twe at Foster, it is unclear whether busing is anticipated for which students and for how long. Families are being asked to make enrollment decisions without knowing how their children, especially young children, will travel safely each day. Finally, the memo does not outline specific safety improvements such as crossing guards, traffic calming, or arrival and dismissal supervision, specifically crossing McCormack for students traveling from the Willard and Bessie roads boundaries. Transportation and safety are fundamental to access and equity. I'm asking the board to ensure these plans are clearly defined and communicated before this decision is finalized. Thank you. >> Hello, my name is Alex Bonner. I'm a twe parent. Here we are. Another exciting episode of embarrassing D65 mistakes.

032The only board meeting where the rules are made up and the kids don't matter. Last time you finally closed Kingsley, months after it should have happened, instead of giving families the closure before the holidays, you treated them to a festive game of will it close. One week is happening, the next week is not. And then surprise, back on the chopping block. If the goal was maximum stress for parents and children, congratulations, mission accomplished. Those families deserve better. And now it's Willard Twee's turn. Willard Twe families are being strung along by a board and administration that makes decisions with all the precision of a blindfolded dart throw. The superintendent even announced they were going to make the decision unilaterally, which was a bold move considering it wasn't something they legally had the authority to do. So

033naturally, instead of pausing to reflect, we just kept marching forward because why legality get in the way of a bad decision. To the board members, if you adopt the administration's recommendation, let's be clear about what you're doing. You're not just closing Twe at Willard. You are crippling the entire Tweet pipeline in the Haven feeder pattern. Don't take my word for it. Look at the Willerto Tweet community survey which shows that only 42% of Spanish speaking Willer families plan to attend Foster next year. The other 58% will either leave the Twe program or leave D65 entirely. But here's the inconvenient part. If Willard Twe stays open, 97% of families, both English and Spanish speaking, remain in the program. Apparently, stability works. Who knew? And according to the district's own data, eliminating the tweet strain at Willard

034increases average tweaks class sizes by just 7%. Apparently, all this disruption, anxiety, and community damage is in service of slightly larger classrooms. I I don't know a single parent, a single student or teacher who is excited about that. Marginally more crowded classrooms is a really strange hill to die on. I recently attended the Willard tweet. There we go. >> My name is Shelley Bonner. To continue um our written word, we recently attended the Willard Tweet transition meeting a week and a half ago and somehow it s managed to sink already sink below our already low expectations. Deservedly angry parents searched for answers, but were given milktoast platitudes and indifferent apologies and sent on their way home. Poor communication appears to be one of the few things District 65 administration executes consistently. Engagement with families wasn't

035forgotten. It was delayed until after the decision had been already made. It's much easier for the administration that way. So, let's not pretend this was about community input or careful analysis. The decision came first. The data was dragged in later to make it look official. The data should be informing all decisions, not the other way around. And why is this happening? Because the board and administration appear deeply concerned that Foster might open without enough students. So, the solution is to dismantle successful programs and force families into a building they don't want to move to. All to avoid admitting the plan might be flawed. If you want to start rebuilding trust after these self-inflicted wounds, here's a radical idea. Keep Willard's thriving twee program open, build fosters program, not by taking kids out of their home

036school, but by touting we's many benefits to those fifth ward families. Many members of this board have spoken about how impactful TWEI is. stay consistent to that message and encourage families to enroll in this amazing magnet because this isn't about numbers on a spreadsheet. It's about children, community, and a bilingual program that is working and thriving. And no amount of procedurable procedural gymnastics is about to change the fact that dismantling it is a choice, not a necessity. Next we have Thomas Weber, Andrew Futerman, Matas Cacino, Bolis Boris Hosek, could you reset the time, please? Uh Thomas Weber, future Willard parent. Um, at a moment when Spanish-sp speakaking families across the country and in our community are living with fear following ISIS raids in Evston, ISIS's murder of Alex Prey two days ago, and ISIS abduction

037of a 5-year-old child last week, tens of thousands of people are protesting the unlawful and unjust treatment of immigrant families and their allies. And today, this board is being asked to close one of Evston's strongest bridges to those families, Willard's Twe immersion program. Think about the message that sends about our community's values. Willard's TWE program has been around for 20 years and is an exceptional program. It builds meaningful lasting connections with immigrant families. Closing it will leave the sixth and seventh wards with no twe program at all. Even as Spanish-sp speakaking student populations in those areas continue to grow. Dr. Stacy Beardsley told this board, quote, in 2017, quote, "A growing population of native Spanish speakers in North Evston requires uh an additional tweet strand at Bessie Roads." Willard was essential then. What has changed

038now? The administration claims it must consolidate single strand tweet programs. But why is only Willard under consideration? Dwey, Daw, and Oakton also have single strand tweet programs. In 2022, the SAP recommended shifting Oakton's tweet program to DAW. And when that proposal faced public backlash, the administration abandoned it. Why was that community protected? But Willards is not. In a 2021 survey, our community expressed that we wanted to expand Tweet to more schools, not co cut the program at existing schools. On January 16th, 2024, Sergio Hernandez echoed this sentiment, saying, quote, "Why I ran is I wanted to see a district-wide expansion of the two-way immersion program. If you vote to do the opposite today, you will once again prove that families cannot trust this board to uphold its commitments." Thank you. >> Good evening. My name

039is Andrew Futterman. I live in the fifth ward and my daughter is a third grader in the Willard Twe Strand. I'm speaking tonight to urge you to vote no on the proposal to close the Willard Twe Strand. To be honest, I don't understand why this proposal and STRP have been intertwined all along. Closing Willard's Twe Strand will not save this district any money. Cost estimates were speculative at best and based on faulty and incomplete data. The only actual justification that I've seen is based on the benefits of double strands. But if that's the case, tonight's proposal does not advance those goals. If the goal is program improvement, then call for a comprehensive evaluation to determine the best way to improve TWEI moving forward. Decouple these conversations. Accomplish the herculean task you all have set out

040for yourself in the next year. Then at the right time, undergo a comprehensive evaluation on how to best serve the Twi community. Don't rush into this decision. That will hurt children. that will hurt our community and that no one is asking for. I urge you all to vote no. Thank you. >> Good evening, Matias. Um I'm a parent of two kids at uh Twe Willard. I prepare for a one minute speech. So we have some time here. So I want to just first of all encourage you to please acknowledge the frustration in the community. We've been here I think I was here in January. It was freezing a year ago with Dr. Beasley, Dr. Turner. I think it was the parent advisory committee. I was one of them that was representing you know Wheeler on

041those things. It was two of us that we decided that was only two per uh school. We spent hours and hours and I paid for hours of babysitters that my kids are with right now to be here. We put sticky notes on the wall. We made a lot of good drawing things and here we are again. So the question I want to ask is again why why why would you vote yes? It just cannot cross my mind the reason why you would just sit there and say yeah let's close it. There's no numbers actually justify that. There there's literally no numbers to justify that. It's not enrollment. It's healthy. Sixth and seventh worth like growing Latino community. We can have a successful foster wheeler pro uh twe program at Foster without shutting down twe at

042willer. The guidelines on you know the classroom sizes that's fine. That's a guideline but it's not for bilingual education. Actually, you know, you can research GPT's American Council of the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Smaller classes improve by being well learning outcomes. The walkability data on the table, that's because we're considering Foster. There's 112 students there. If we take that out, it's not that number. That's all made up numbers. Please, the feedback of the community, no surveys. We're here tonight presenting the things that we did on our own. Nothing from the district. Please vote no. Thank you. Hello board. My name is Boris. I have two kids in D65 2I Wheeler program. Um I'm very sad to have to be here again, but I have to be here with all my community because we have to

043tell you dear board of the suffering that we're going through. Um and it's not for something that we find valuable or useful or or a difficult decision that we have to make like when we're talking about we have to close the school Kingsley very difficult we're thinking about the money but here we're talking about a topic that has no benefit nobody is benefiting of closing to Willard there's no good reason and it's more all the parents that are here today supporting these cause are telling you we love the program it's fantastic we are a good number of the people that are enrolling the in the program and we are telling you half of us we might not be able to follow foster for many different reasons and that is the first blow to the TUI

044program is that what we want I'm thinking one year two years three years from now we continue to cut programs continue to cut TUI families like mine as you can tell I have an accent I al not from here are going to start to fly away different parts of of the city because fifth, six, seven worth are not the place for us to be here. I don't think that's the future that we want. I think that the future that we want that the board should be p pushing for is we want a community that that is emboldened that brings other people that brings diversity that brings people like me and brings people from Latin America from other places to be in Evansson. I think that's what we want. Please vote no in closing to a

045program. Next we have Magg Diwir, Rita Schillman, Russ Shan, Laura Buchanan, Andrew Roland. Good evening and thank you all for your time. My name is Meg Dur. Um I want to focus on a particularly narrow issue uh related to the Willard Twe program. Um I have a daughter in the program who's in kindergarten right now and through this process have been connected with a number of parents who are native Spanish speaker fifth ward parents. Um, these parents came to me because in my capacity as an attorney, I've worked with a number of families on special education advocacy projects. And these are parents who have children who have IEPs or 504 plans and are very concerned about the lack of information and lack of guidance they've received about how their child's transition to foster if that

046was their choice or into the general population at Willard would be structured. Um the FAQs that were posted on the district website continue to say that this is a to be determined decision. Um the board memo does not discuss IEPs as part of the transition plan. Um and I think more concerning is these parents have not had any outreach from the schools. Um and in particular they have not had any outreach in Spanish. It is easy to pick up the phone and call families. We know who these IEP Spanish speaking families are. Um, and this was a comment that was brought up as part of the small group discussion at the January 15th uh, Willard meeting and is something that I think really needs to be stressed, not just as part of this process, though

047very much so, but going forward. There's a number of families who are not bilingual, though, holy cow, I mean, amazing. Um, but there are a number of families who aren't. There are a number of families who aren't like me who can easily access the English uh, language part of the district's website. um it's different and it's harder and direct calls, direct communication for children who don't speak English as a first language and who need the special education support is particularly important. Thank you very much. Hello, I'm Rita Schleman. I'm the site coordinator for the school age childcare program at Lincolnwood. And I am here because of the closing of the summer program that we have for uh in the summer. I'm here to represent Natalie Copper. Due to illness, she was not able to come

048here, but she is the president of the EACCP for Evston. And um I'm here to tell you that our program is a program that carries the district 65 name where we offer safety, nutrition, and enrichments to students across district 65. Um we we since we do have a very good base with them, but summer programs are also the ones that really help us to commit to the families, especially with the incoming families from kindergarten. they see our program, we build relationships, we build safety for the kids and they continue our program continues to thrive and numbers increase which also brings revenue to the district. So by cancelling the summer program for SACC, it's also doing an injustice to all the parents in district 65. Um, I'm also here to say on behalf that nobody was

049informed until the last minute saying that our program did not make money last year for the summer, but it was also it was also granted to um we have permission to open the program in late January, but applications for the program were not sent out to parents until late of the end of the school year, which a lot of parents were feeling not safe. Not I'm sorry, not that they weren't feeling safe, but they felt like they needed to find other resources. And because we did that, we also lost money and revenue to the district. So, I'm here on behalf of SACEC to please consider reopening the SACC summer program that will also help families, District 65 revenue, and um just our program that's been around for almost 50 years. Thank you. Hi, good evening.

050My name is Russ Shonne, uh, father of two at Willard. I'm in the monolingual program and here to support, uh, my twe community. Um, and I'm also here to ask you to vote no on the resolution. Someone once said that your brand is what people say it is. When you ask many PE parents what they think of district 65 administration, the feedback is not good. and that's putting it lightly. Despite that, the reputation of Willard Tweet is excellent. The program is thriving and an integral part of the Willard community. This is an asset to the district and an opportunity to attract families. Yet, the administration wants to close it. I don't get it. I really don't. If Willard Tweed closes, Haven would be the only middle school pattern that has only one elementary school with

051Twe. Doesn't make sense to me. If this decision is about savings, how much would it actually save out of the $188 million budget? We haven't been providing clear or credible numbers. I would argue this is an opportunity for this board to decide going f forward what it truly wants to pri prioritize, excuse me, administrative raises or programs like Willard Twe. At the January 15th Willard Twe meeting, I asked why families should trust the district after how they've been treated. Dr. Beardsley said trust must be earned. On that we agree. The district can earn trust by showing it can open foster well close two schools humanely and prove that its savings numbers are accurate. The administration has cherrypicked data to justify a unilateral decision. Closing Willard will erode community trust and this board needs that community

052trust going forward. Vote no. Thank you. >> My name is Laura Buchanan. I'm a parent of a child at Willard. I'm addressing the board tonight in regard to the district's outdoor recess policy. I was concerned and confused last week when my child reported having had indoor recess on Wednesday and Thursday, days which were sunny and reached noon time temperatures of approximately 30 and 21 degrees, respectively. When I asked school administrators why the children had been indoors all day, I was informed that district guidelines are for children to have indoor recess anytime the real feel, which I presume is windchill, is below 20°. I'm asking you to revisit these guidelines, which I believe are overconervative. If children have to stay indoors when the real field is below 20, that means they're inside for a substantial portion

053of the winter and maybe even portions of March. In contrast, our daughter's preschool had kids outside on Wednesday and Thursday last week, making sure to keep kids safe. CPS policy allows students to go out if it's 15 degrees or above with or without windchill. So, I'd request the district to consider adopting a similar policy. Being able to enjoy winter weather is one of the great pleasures of living in the Chicago area. If Evston residents followed the current D65 policy in their own lives, they'd rarely engage in routine winter activities, including playing in the snow, ice skating, and skiing, all of which promote a healthy body and mind and bring joy. Keeping children indoors for an extended period during the winter results in physical, behavioral, and mental health downsides. Reduced physical activity, increased restlessness, and challenges

054with focus and regulation are common when children lose regular opportunities for outdoor play. Regarding safety concerns, there are ways to make safe plans for modified outdoor recess if necessary, including shortened recess and ensuring children have the appropriate cold weather gear. There's a lot going on in the district, but given that we still have many cold days ahead this winter, I'm hoping this can be addressed quickly. It is so necessary for children to get outside during the school day if at all possible, even if it's for a shorter period of time. Thank you. Uh, good evening. My name is Andrew. I'm a parent of three in district 65. Uh, and I want to start by thanking those board members who spent so much time and effort uh, serving this district. I know the work is hard.

055Uh, while I'm a tweet parent, I want to zoom out a bit. District 65 is down to about 6,000 students according to Illinois report card. Meanwhile, schools like St. A's have weight lists in the hundreds and families, they just want strong schools here. And if we get this right, D65 could grow back to 8,000 students and once again be a destination district. Right now, I see two consistent gaps. First, vision. There is no clearly articulated, consistently communicated vision for academic excellence at district 65, nor for standout programs like Twe. When asked, different administrators offer different roundabout answers. That lack of coherence makes it impossible for families to understand what we're building towards and why programs like Twe matter or how to transform the tragedy that is STP into an opportunity. In the end, the story

056appears narrowly framed around compliance and current enrollment rather than growth, excellence, and attracting new families. Uh second, data and transparency. The district often seems to hide behind the word data as if it's some sort of shield and excuse. So much so that families stepped in to gather and analyze tweet data around families because they couldn't get clarity from the district. It took from September to yesterday about 6 months for the district to actually ask for and engage and show interest in the data that the community gathered as a stop gap. And that's just not collaboration. It's not alignment. It doesn't build trust. It undermines it. If you have if you could just share data effectively, you would have a community that has your back and wants to build something. And we do want to build

057something. We all want D65 to succeed. We want to help rebuild enrollment, strengthen programs, and make this a place that families choose. So, please work with us. Next we have Jamie Hopka, Virginia Mcclabe, Kelly McCabe, Esta Estabban Quinos, and Liz Wins. >> Good evening. Each of you was required under Illinois law to take the school board member of oath of office. As a reminder, the very first obligation you read was, "I shall respect taxpayer interests by serving as a faithful protector of the school district's assets." Well, these are taxpayers. And the bilingual programs are a district asset. Before I talk about Willard, I just want to uh remind you guys that Baker Tilly found or flagged almost 600,000 missing in June 30th of 24. So, please make sure the audit goes to the end of

058June 24. And also that when BDO said it it would work with the district on scope and areas of risk, that should mean direction from this board, not the administration. This same should apply with Crow, especially when Horton era allies remain in highpaying D65 roles today and may have incentives to redirect or minimize uh scrutiny. Finally, I want to speak in support of Willard. Many Willard parents have been clear they want biiteracy. They do not want their children standing outside in 17 degree weather waiting for buses to foster. Remember Sergio saying that two years ago? If the district insists on their lies that there aren't enough TWWSX students, then this board should offer a Spanish immersion program like Lincoln Elementary in Oak Park, academically aligned with TWEI, accessible to all students and without unnecessary legal

059constraints tied to ELELLL classification. There are ways to deliver what taxpayers want without forcing families out of their neighborhood programs and schools. Thank you. Good evening board members. My name is Virginia McCabe and I would like to talk about Twe. I know it's hard to participate in class. I like Twe because I focus in class. I learn together. I love my teachers and I would be sad if they left me. We need more kids in Twe. I like Twe because it makes me feel better. I go to Washington School and the teachers there help me. Maybe join after school clubs to learn more to learn more. Please try to be more interested in Twe. Join people that be nice to you. I love Twe. Thank you for everything that you did to listen to teachers.

060You can do better. Thank you. Good evening board. I'm Kelly McCabe. Um mother of Virginia and we go to Washington. Uh I also have a fifth grader in Twe. We're here to support Willard Twe uh because my children's bilingual education has really been a highlight of our experience with district 65. And when I describe the Twe program to families outside of Evston, they're genuinely astonished that our children attend a public school that offers such highquality bilingual education. Twe is an exceptionally valuable program. It should be protected, supported, and expanded with meaningful input from the students and the families that it serves, such as Willard. Important decisions should not be subjected to the whims of administration with a history of manipulating and distorting incomplete data and a demonstrated inability and unwillingness to listen to the very

061community that it claims to serve. Twe is a high demand program. I personally know several families who are deeply disappointed after being turned away from the program. The enrollment and the lottery process itself lacks transparency, but that doesn't mean that it it can't be improved. Twe stands as a shining example of what attracts families to the district. Something that truly sets us apart in a positive way. At a time when this district is hemorrhaging students and urgently needs to rebuild trust, it would be illogical and frankly irresponsible to disrupt the only program that is successfully growing. If anything, this board should be investing heavily in ensuring that Twe expands, that Twi families feel supported, well resourced, and that the program is protected as it currently exists while positioning it for long-term success. Twe is the

062most promising path to attracting families back to the district, reversing trends of declining enrollment. If this administration is looking for programs that truly require intervention, it would be far wiser to focus its attention where programs are failing students like math. Thank you. My family and two kids are a case of a family that bought a house near a nonwe school before we knew how enriching it could have been. After reviewing our chances of getting into twe, the administrative steps and the low probability dissuaded us from making the efforts to apply. We are an example of the unmeasured interest and demand in Twe. The administration's recommendation to close tweeze program falls on its own stated rationale. If the justification is that single strand programs are unsustainable, then what happens to Daw, Dwey, and Oakton, all of

063which operate single strand tweet? Will the administration unilarly close those programs next? This inconsistency exposes flawed logic. Or is a target also on their backs? The math doesn't support this decision either. Closing Willard Twe saves about two quote unquote saves about two classrooms or 45 students, many of them native Spanish speakers, the very students this program was designed to serve. It jeopardi jeopardizes Haven's middle school program and weakens the pathway to ETHS and it doesn't improve utilization or help reduce the budget deficit in the process. The district desperately needs to reverse enrollment declines and TWE may be the only program that is truly growing. This is a textbook case of letting the perfect become the enemy of the very good. We have a very successful program that families want. The response simply cannot be to

064dismantle it. If anything, the district should be looking to expand Twi, including recruiting out of district families to pay into Twe as a way to generate revenue. Tonight's vote is critically also about governance. Will the board exercise its authority or delegate it to an administration that has repeatedly failed to earn community trust? Please vote to retain board oversight and Willard Twe programs to strengthen Twi and the district as a whole. >> Good evening. My name is Liz Williams. I'm a D65 parent of three and a founding member of Invest in Neighborhood Schools. I appreciate the board scheduling a vote on the proposed move of the Willard Twe program and giving the issue the consideration that it deserves. Before you vote tonight, I ask you to consider the following questions. What is there to gain from

065closing a deeply valued program if there is no financial benefit? Do we know what it would cost? What is the impact of adding this burden to the important work already ahead of the administration and the registration team? Why can we not support a single strand of twe at Willard and a single or double strand of twe at Foster as we do in other feeder patterns? Why can't we make this the year that we celebrate what's working in D65, including Willard Twe? Thank you for your consideration and partnership in making D65 exceptional. >> That concludes public comments for today. >> Okay, that concludes public comment. Uh the next the next item on our agenda is a discussion of the special education audit. Just in case you can go over this, too. Ready? >> Good evening. Sure.

066Um, first I'd like to introduce myself. Um, this is my first year here. As many of you know, my name is Jenny Sulik. I'm the director of student specialized services. I have 24 years experience as a director of special education. Prior to that, I was a special education teacher and a school psychologist. All of my experience has been in early childhood pre kindergarten through 8th grade including datadriven uh directions as well as MTSS first want to go over what the department is focusing on. We're focusing on resources and aligning systems to improve student outcomes, control long-term costs, and sustain inclusive practices while keeping IEPdriven decisions making central. I will get into the audit. I'm just giving a little preview here. And next I want to talk about um the collaboration I have with different groups

067and and partners in order to keep a communication loop and a communication system. So with the community I meet with caregivers council for disabilities inclusion group that is parents in the district who have students with special needs. I meet with them on a monthly basis and we have at least four parent sessions per year for parents to come and learn about special education processes. I also meet with uh Evston case which is an advocacy group. I meet with them at least on a monthly basis as well. also meet with the Moran Center as needed and that is an advocacy group supporting families with um advocacy and legal matters as well. My union connections I'm co-chair of the joint committee of special education and inclusion. Um this is important throughout this audit because some of the

068recommendations of the audit that work is going to be done in this committee. I also participated in the deck exec superintendent meetings and I participated in ETAAA negotiations. As far as the board of education, Dr. Smith and I meet with Pat Anderson who is our school board liaison bi-weekly. The schoolbased I meet with RSP team leads. RSP is related service personnel. So that's OT's, PTS, speech and language therapists, school psychologists and social workers. I meet with them as a whole group once a month and then each by discipline is a group once a month. I also meet with the traveling specialist on monthly basis that is our assistive tech coordinator, hearing itinerant, vision it tiner, adaptive PE and our traveling physical therapist. I'm I wasn't done. they have more meetings. >> Um I meet with

069the IIEES coordinators on a weekly basis and this is a lengthy meeting where we take all the information from um community as well as all of our meetings and build capacity there in that meeting to bring back to the buildings. I meet with our attorneys at least once a month. That's a scheduled once a month meeting and then on an as needed basis. I'm also in the buildings supporting families, students, and staff. >> Oh, no, that's okay. Thank you. So, why did we conduct this audit? In previous leadership in 2020, there was an audit conducted by Wested who conducted this audit. And what why we wanted to do it again, this decision was made last spring, was to continue to evaluate the effectiveness of special education services for students with IEPs to assess efficiency and

070use of resources across the district. How the audit was conducted is the auditors reviewed a lot of paperwork, a lot of district policies, a lot of records, our service delivery systems. They uh did a analysis of uh staffing, transportation, student placements, MO is maintenance of effort and I'll talk about that in depth a little bit more in the next slide. Uh they also did staff surveys and um analyze those results and looked at student outcomes. They engaged in interviews with district leadership. Uh what the audit examined was legal compliance and IEP implementation, staffing models and service delivery, continuum of services, fiscal sustainability and maintenance of effort mulligan that I'll talk about in the next slide. Okay, maintenance of effort. Mo, this is going to be also threaded throughout um the next slide in this presentation.

071This is a very important piece of the audit as well as our fiscal responsibilities in the district. So what maintenance of effort is is it tracks how much we are spending in local funds, state funds, and federal funds on students with special education needs. So we need to maintain the effort of the services that we're providing students. This is tracked every year. What we spend Oh, thank you. becomes the new threshold becomes our new budget. We can always spend more on services. But if we spend less, we have to say why. We have to defend why we're are spending less on services for uh students with special needs. There are a few allowable reasons for this. One is if the staff leaves voluntarily if some uh retire or if um some leave and through attrition

072we don't hire them back. Some is if stu we have less students receiving services. Another is if we have students who are in uh programs that are cost a lot of money like a residential program and they graduate we don't have that expense anymore. Uh another is a oneost highcost program for example if we had somebody come in doing some coaching one year we didn't have them come in the next year so that would be an allowable reduction. So the reductions can be incrementally made throughout the years and we have to justify why those reductions were made. If we don't make mo if we don't prove MO then our idea grant our federal grant is not approved. I'll just go over the overall conclusions of the audit. which was that district 65 special education program

073is legally compliant. That's good news. And strongly inclusion focused, but rising costs, uneven systems, and stagnant student outcomes require strategic refinement to ensure long-term sustainability and improved results. The recommendations that follow from this audit are to strengthen the processes that are aligned with special education and IEP processes already in place established by IDEA individual individuals with disabilities education act. So that is the legal process that we follow through special education and IEP development which means that we are entitled to provide services for students who qualify for them. So next few slides is just an highlevel overview of the seven recommendations that came out of this audit. There's a couple of slides that I'll provide a little bit more context to. Otherwise, this is just a highle overview and then after that goes into a three-year

074plan for each one of these recommendations. The first year is really collecting more data, analyzing data, strengthening systems and processes. Next year is implementation and then the third year sustainability. So the first couple of recommendations, the first is to improve student outcomes through data use. So really looking at how our students are performing, what services they are receiving and how they are making progress. Next is improve consistency and effectiveness of MTSS. In the 2020 audit, it was recommended that we strengthen MTSS. Dr. Plaza and her team have done a phenomenal job in implementing interventions, providing professional development, data review systems, problem solving. In this audit, they just recommended that we continue to look at the consistency of implementation across the district. The next recommendation was to strengthen the continuum of services. What that means is

075that the services that we are providing uh students. So in students IEPs, we write goals, individual goals and deficit areas, skills that kids that students need to learn. Then we talk about what speciallyesed in instruction do we need to provide in order for them to reach that goal. in the least restrictive environment. The least restrictive environment is where the instruction needs to take place and can only be outside of the general education classroom if they cannot be achieved satisfactoryily with supplementary aids and services. The next slide will talk a little bit more about what what's on the continuum for placement. I know this is hard hard to see. I apologize, but there's a lot in there. So when we look at our continuum of services where we're providing services, the least restrictive is the general

076education classroom with no supplementary aids or services. Then we go down to in the general education classroom with supplementary aids and services. Then we'd look at resource services or providing special education for less than 40% of the day. Then we look at other types of classrooms where students are receiving special education outside of the general education room for 40 to 79% of the day and then less than 40% of the day. That could be called a self-contained classroom. It depends. A different districts do this differently where students may be in a special education classroom for the majority of the day but then also have a home room that they participate in. We also have kids in out of district placements and then there's residential placements where kids live and go to school at the same

077facility and then home hospital placements. The next is addressing the growth in out of district placements and this is an an area where we're going to have to do some more digging and analyzing. If you look at the trends here in 2122 we had 60 kids in audit district placements in 22 23 that increased it increased again a little bit then about stay the same and decreased this year now I added that information from 2526 the audit didn't add that I just thought that would be beneficial for this presentation to show that we have already gone down um part of that reason is we had a bubble of eighth graders who graduated last year. Another reason is we have been in reintegrating kids back into the district. Another recommendation is refining special education staffing models.

078And this is a lot of the work that the joint committee is is working on right now. What the audit states and what we have been working on the committee even before we got these this audit two weeks ago is that it's not a formulaic process. meaning that different positions can have different roles and responsibilities in different districts. For example, in some districts, assistant principles lead the 504 process. In our district, in kindergarten through fifth grade, our social our school psychologists lead the 504 process. And in middle school, our social workers lead the 504 process. So what the joint committee is doing is taking a time analysis in all of the roles and responsibilities that they perform in district 65. We need to look at the and control the rising in uh specialized transportation cost.

079We are obligated to provide specialized transportation if students special education services are outside of their home school or if there's some physical or mental limitations that qualify them for specialized transportation. As you see there was a big jump from 22 to 23. My understanding from that and again this is two week old information and there's a lot of analysis in the three-year plan after this but the the highle overview here is there was uh increased insurance requirements in that year. Some of the other things that we've been doing is Lori Adalzy is working on Mckin Vinto. Previously, the transportation was charged under specialized transportation if his student was Mckin Vento and also have an IEP. That is since shifted over to being covered by Mckin Vento. We're also looking at the number of students we

080have in out of district placements. As that reduces, as that number reduces, transportation will be reducing. Also looking at the routes that we have going out to specialized programs. Do we have single routes? Is there reason why we have single routes? Can we double them up? Another recommendation is to stren strengthen fiscal oversight and maintenance of effort practices. again increasing and strengthening which we have been doing the collaboration between departments, between finance, between human resources in order to to keep track of our budgeting for staffing for transportation. So to ensure if we are making incremental reductions in in our services that we have that documented and can prove that when we go to apply for IDEA grant. Here is what our maintenance of effort has looked like for the past several years. In the second

081column, that's how much there were state and local expenditures. In the third column, federal expenditures, which is the idea grant, and the idea grant is supposed to supplement services for special education. It's not meant to supplant. And then our total expenditures in the last line as you see there was a couple of big increases in 23 and in 24. And where those large buckets is that we we know right now looks like some of that increase in the out of district placements. Cost and tuition has also gone up in the last few years. The specialized transportation has also increased. We have um used staffing from contractual agencies where we had to. If we can't find district employees to provide services, we need to contract out so we can provide those services. Those services are generally

082cost more than if we hired our own employees. The next few slides is the three-year plan. I want to allow time for discussion and and questions. So really through the three-year plan again that the first year is continuing to collect data developing systems and then the second year is implementing and the third year is sustainability. >> Are we in year one or is year one next year? >> Year one is we're looking at calendar year January 26 to January 27. There's a lot of work that happens over the summer to create systems and continue to go over uh data analysis and and pending that we just got the report two weeks ago. Don't want to wait until August till next school year to start implementation. >> I'm not going to read through these, but so

083let me know if anybody has any questions or would like me to elaborate on any of them. Do you have anything to add? Okay. So in summary, in conclusion, the district will implement a datadriven prevention focused and fiscally sustainable special education system designed to improve student outcomes, strengthen indist capacity, reduce the reliance on out of district placements that goes handinhand with a continuum of services. Why do students need to go out of district to provide services? what can we offer in district so they don't have to go out of district to to receive the ser services that they are entitled to and to ensure long-term equity compliance and cost predictability. All changes to special education and related services will be made in accord accordance with the IEP process. So all services placement staffing is driven

084by what students need as a result of going through the special education process. We will continue to to look at our fiscal responsibilities and incrementally make reductions as we build systems and processes and to to continue to develop our continuum of services within the district. >> Anything to add, Dr. Smith? No. Any questions or discussion? >> Question. Um, lots of questions, but it's a lot of good information. Um can you talk a little more about the continuum of services um and if there are any guidelines for how students how a student may progress through that continuum. >> Yeah. >> And especially with progression to out of district placement. >> Sure. So if we go back to that triangle if you don't mind. So, I I took this triangle from um I don't know if you're

085familiar, there's on ISBE, there's a parent guide to special education services. Um it's a very lengthy document, but I often refer parents to it. In fact, our first CCDI session was reviewing this because it's broken down into very userfriendly chapters to see where your child is at in the journey. This is from 2020. They updated it again in the spring. they updated this procedural uh book again in January 2026. So, I don't even know what the the changes are. And I'm wondering if one of the reasons that they adapted this is because it was starting to be misinterpreted that it was a step by step that you had to go through each one of these steps to get to the next one. And that is not how it works. This is just explaining what the

086least restrictive environment is, which is general education, and then what less restrictive placements are. Less restrictive means le more time out of the general education classroom, which means more time not with typically developing peers. It also means more time to get the specially designed instruction if you need it in a separate setting in order to reach your goals. So that is part of the special education process is we do an evaluation. See where students strengths are. See where their deficit areas are. What is the adverse effect educationally? Develop goals to teach kids skills on those deficit areas and then what specially designed instruction do they need and where can we deliver that instruction so they can achieve that goal. We first consider a general education classroom. But if a if a student's doing a completely

087separate program, they may need to be pulled out of the the the general education classroom. The biggest difference that I will say with out of district programming from in district is uh the staff to student ratio. >> The other piece too is that we are consistently going back to making data driven decision. Oh, sorry. We are consistently going back to making data driven decisions. So, as you're writing the IEP goal and as you're writing where we want a student to meet, it is based on data rather than I want them to be happy. I mean, we do, but it it needs to be based on data and that's a really key piece to this in order to adequately and accurately measure student progress. This is also the work of the joint committee. The joint committee

088is working on two things. They started working on workload last year. We are now really diving into that that workload. There's an overall workload plan. What we're diving into per discipline of again the time analysis and their roles and responsibilities in the district. What we have just started working on is the continuum of services. In the staff survey, a number of staff said, "We used to have self-contained programs. We don't have them anymore. We can't address all of our kids' needs." And it's really looking at more than self-contained. It's looking at this whole continuum of what do students need? And that's driven by the data that we will be collecting on our student outcome data, their progress monitoring, their goal data, their achievement data, and to say what do they need in order to continue

089to make progress. >> And just for clarification, the workload committee is a deck committee. >> Yes. Which is the teacher >> bargaining unit. I just want to clarify that. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um, thank you. I think you've done an amazing job so far. I appreciate you coming. um being an expert in this, presenting tonight. So, thank you, Jenny. Um I I want to touch a little bit on something you just talked about and I know that we previously had contained classrooms in the district and now we have fewer of those and much more um inclusive environments. And I think I've heard and this is not my area of expertise, but I'd like for you to speak a little bit about the impacts of one or the other and and how you feel our

090district is um addressing student needs in this new model of inclusion versus some containment. >> Sure. So, we're still looking at inclusive practices, right? We want all inclusive opportunities that we can give kids. We also want them to continue to grow academically and functionally. So that may mean providing specialized design instruction. Um in fact I just had a conversation with uh the co-chair for for the committee and we were starting to talk about this and she was talking about bringing in some some research to to ground this work and we'll bring this uh audit to ground this work as well. There are benefits to full inclusion. There are benefits to self-contained. Where we're at right now is there's there's some work to be done and looked at between a co-eing model and a self-contained model.

091There are other services that we could look at providing like that 40 to 79% in a resource room versus full self-contained. So we really need to look at what our students need individually and then look at what does that look look like as we group them together how many in every grade level to see where we can fill in some of this full continuum of services. Did that fully answer your question? >> Y thank you clarifying question just related to that to the area you're on. So, as a way of trying to understand, you have a classroom teacher um and then with inclusion, we're um we're we're including kids in and we're oftentimes having parapros who are then working oneon-one almost like a um the teacher translator in some sense working between the teacher >>

092also have a special education teacher. So, that co-eing model is having a regular education teacher and a special education teacher in the same class. >> I'm saying like right now. So right now in the classroom we have a regular teacher a special education teacher and then parapros per >> only if the paras are written into the IEP. So a paraprofessional support time minutes would be specifically written into a student's IEP. >> Understand that. I'm just I'm saying in reality in our classrooms today just trying to understand um regular teacher general ed teacher um special education teacher and then as necessary parapros >> correct >> so um >> but I think so in classrooms classrooms could be made up of that structure but that is not that doesn't exist in every classroom is what you're saying

093right >> right that's I was where we were going between inclusion classroom teacher parapro then I thought you were also saying inclusion with having um co- co-eing so what what do we have right now what is what is the model we have >> we have co-eing we have some push in we have some pull out for resource services we have step and rise classrooms we don't have self-contained for kids that don't qualify for for step and and rise and self-contained could be the option it doesn't have to be the option Do we we need to look at the student outcome data to see are they progressing enough in that co-eing model? They can still receive co-eing for some periods of the day and some specially designed instruction for some other portions of the day. We

094really need to look at what the students needs are and to drive those services. And the paraprofessional is part of the IEP process. It's a related service on the IEP process. So we need to continue to also look at that that process and when kids are qualifying for a pair professional, is it an individual pair professional? Is it a classroom pair professional? How do we fade those services? Because ultimately the purpose is to teach kids independent skills and not inadvertently have them be dependent on a pair professional. So, it's to support students and what we want to do is fade those those uh supports to um as the children grow. >> So, I'm familiar I'm familiar with our co-eing model in the middle school, but do we also have a co-eing model in the elementary

095school? >> Okay. And Jenny, when you were talking about um the evaluation of um job assignments and job duties, are the parapros are there assignments also being evaluated in terms of the number of minutes and the um appropriateness of their placement? >> Outside of the committee, the committee is really working on certified personnel. Okay. um the pair of professionals. Um I don't know if that will be part of the work next year. Right now it's really focusing on our related service staff and our IEES teachers. But in the meantime, we are looking at pair professional training. We've provided a training already this year on fading plans. We need to continue to do that. We need to continue to look at services and what's least restrictive. Is it a classroom? Is it an individual? and is

096there room in in schedules to be shared in some some circumstances? Um part of that increase in that that maintenance of effort could be because of contractual services. So if we are looking at incrementally reducing any services to to students again we're entitled to to provide those service services when they qualify for them. But we need to continue to build the capacity of when do they qualify? How do we fade them? could also incrementally then reduce those contractual services. >> Thank you. I have a >> I was gonna ask about I was gonna ask about Mo. >> Oh, okay. >> If you have something along these >> mine's mo related uh on slide 14, uh the number the last numbers we see are 2324, I believe. I'm curious if you know where we ended for

0972425. Um this is actually this is slide 16, isn't it? I believe site 14 is the Yes, the transportation. So where we ended for 2425, >> we don't have that information yet. >> We don't have that >> because that's it's kind of always a year to rear. So it's it takes this year to put it together. >> Okay. And that's the same reason we don't have MO is because it's being calculated a year behind kind of our normal >> schedules behind. Thanks. Um I'll wait for my next one if you want. Um, but isn't our Bright Lift contract is that 100% special education um transportation? >> No, there's some McKenna transportation in there as well. >> Is there transportation that is provided outside of the Bright Lift contract to um special education? >> Um I

098do not believe so. Not this year. >> Last year there were some compass. There was with transportation and with special education. >> Okay. Okay. So that gives us a benchmark. I wanted to go to the MO for a minute. >> Sure. Um, so what I heard you say and I just want to confirm is that any reduction in the state and local expenditures from one year to the next have to be documented such that we are not providing fewer services to each of the students but that we can reduce the state and local ext expenditures if we reduce the number of students for example that we have um or if we like are there other um reasons that we could reduce that mo? >> Yes. So um this maintenance of effort this this worksheet goes

099to ISB every year before our idea grant can be approved. If we forecast or we know that we have spent less than the year prior, we need to say why under those federally allowable reasons. If staff leaves, if student enrollment services decrease, if there's a one-time expenditure that we're no longer needing, or high expense IEPs are no longer here to to provide services. So they can be done incrementally and then if it's not done incrementally they're going to come back and say how did you reduce so much in a short amount of time and again they have to be allowable under those federal reasons and if we if we don't have enough reason to make those those reductions then they can say well you do not qualify to get your federal funding through the idea

100grant >> and then is that like a one-time thing or is that a forever thing? So, do you like say for example in some miraculous way we can reduce our local state and local expenditures by $10 million. Well, let's say that then we're not going to get the because we've decided to I mean I don't know you're going to make miracles, Jenny. I have all the confidence in you. But at any rate, um would then our MO reset >> and then the next year we go back again. >> So whatever it is the year prior is your threshold is what you have to meet. >> Okay. Um, and why I say there's a why there's a three-year plan and why I say there's incremental changes because again it goes back to we have to legally

101and honestly ethically provide the services that students are entitled to if they qualify for them through special education services. Understandably, we also have to be fiscally responsible, but we need to look at what why we're providing those services. Do students qualify? provide training for fading if it if we're talking about pair professionals. So all of that is going to happen incrementally. >> But if we were to for for some reason not qualify for an idea grant in one year that doesn't preclude us from going back again the next year. >> I don't know. I never not qualified. We >> you didn't qualify for your idea grant. That's a lot of problems in a district. If the federal government comes in and says, "We're pulling your idea grant," then there's some there's some issues there with

102providing a free and appropriate education for students. And I I think that's the the key to this is that we have to that that's our ultimate goal all the time is that free and appropriate education for all of our students. And we have to be consistently focusing on the needs of these students. And so, yes, we want to be fiscally responsible at all time, but I I'm always going to go back to that. We have to meet the needs of our kids. >> Yeah. But we had a 20 25% increase in year-over-year spending two years in a row. >> And so, if we have the documentation that says we no longer have those students outplaced, but we're providing that service in house >> and it costs us less. >> That's an allowable reason. that should

103be an allowable reason >> so we can be efficient in um making sure we're providing quality services. I guess one way to un so how have the number of I don't want to say students because just because it's a student doesn't you know doesn't necessarily represent the the cost so I don't know what the actual appropriate term is here but when I go from you know 202127 and 2023 23 24 my assumption is that the number of services that we're giving to young to people has dramatically increased as opposed to is it just the cost. So is there any way to have a added at some point another column that can sort of help understand costs are increasing because you know you like as someone used to live in Chicago and you would say hey

104I think I might move to Evston right so are is our percentages going up here or is this just you know the cost of insurance the cost of programming and we're outplacing or are we dramatically increasing the number of people we're serving? So, we're not dramatically increasing the number of of students that that we are are providing services for. That is slowly trending upward. Um, our enrollment is trending downward. The number of students that we have um who qualify for IEPs, like I said, is slowly trending upward. We're not that out of line with the state. Uh we are are at 17% there. It's 16%. Um, we need to continue to watch that. That also kind of goes along with MTSS implementation. The purpose of MTSS is to to mitigate deficit reductions. And before we

105say that a student qualifies for having a disability. So, we need to look at our that special education process building capacity of when students are qualifying for special education services. And so part of the the the challenge here is in the conversation of how to reduce is is not a reduction of quality. It's more trying to understand efficiency and effectiveness of services. And that's why I love how you're how you started with who you're in conversation with. So you're in conversation with the families and the educators and the teachers. So it's a collective reinvisioning what we're going to do. And now and you're warning us that it's going to be a slow roll because of the mo right. So the mo the mo is going to require the cost coming down over a slower period

106of time because we have to stay within even those ideas of what we might want to do. You might sort of know but you're going to have to implement them over a period of time. Is that a >> Yes. because we are like you said we're we're we're actually looking at improving quality of services right like looking at our continuum of services looking at paraprofessional support that is also looking at quality of services which can go in line with if we bring more students back from out of district placements because we're providing more we're offering them a less restrictive environment and we're saving some tuition payments and transportation costs for out of district >> and the other piece of this too is there's a poss possibility that as we start to say, "Hey, we want

107to bring more of these students back in the district." We're going to have to provide some very specialized training and professional learning to our special education educators, to our parent professionals. So, there's a there's a possibility there's a bump up in order to go the bump, you know, in order to start to decrease cost. I mean, we want to bring students back, but we have to have the expertise in house in order to provide them the services they need. >> That was exactly my question. So, thanks for starting to answer it. Are there additional things, resources we should be thinking about at a high level? I'm sure you'll come back. So, sounds like professional learning, maybe recruiting support. Are there additional things we should be thinking about? >> Yes, we should be looking at what

108students are are receiving out of district. We should also be looking at if our students aren't making the progress, why aren't they making the progress? Is there additional programming or professional development that we can provide? And then it's also work in conjunction with uh at our director's meetings that Dr. Smith leads with the other directors. So for Regina looking at literacy that were also aligned with general education practices and curriculum when we're looking at specially designed instruction and then piloting some of those programs and of course providing the professional development. So, some of these costs that you see here may actually still be in line if we're providing more professional development or purchasing some materials before you start to see them go go down. As far as to to to come back to your question,

109I think about more specific in these these um numbers is and Tamara since she has been here has been working on the the coding so that that we can track the the spending more incrementally and then even further. or so with it with Heather Smith and Tamara this year. So we can go a little bit further than what what Mo was even asking us to do. How much are we spending on speech and language services? How much are we spending on contractual speech and language services? So we can really break down where we're spending and why. And just to add to that, just so you know, past practice was lumping um the tracking of special education under instructional under one bucket versus itemizing it out so that we can really name where we're spending money,

110right? I think over the past few years, we we talked a lot about, well, we spent a lot of money on agency and stuff as everything was getting lumped into one kind of group. And so now under Tamara and and Heather's leadership, they're working to itemize it out so that when we run reports, we will be able to track over time exactly where the expense is coming from in special education and it's not lumped in. I I would also add to Maya's point, I think um the previous uh assistance group of schools um Dr. Romy D. Christopharo prior to coming, one of the things that she really um has started to put in place and Jenny is is continuing to do that work is really IEP writing, right? As she talked about that trend, our

111enrollment is going down. More students are getting identified essentially that's what's increasing. How are we writing those IEPs to meet the needs of students um is hugely important and I think Jenny and her team has picked up the baton and is continuing to that do that work. But that level of work will still be needed for us to to your earlier point Dr. Pinker in terms of getting to efficiencies um with with with program placement because the once we can p really get good at really naming the needs that the what students really need then we can be thoughtful about okay what programming and what professional learning and what other resources is needed so that we can build that continuum of services and we won't have to right because IEPs are getting written for stuff

112that we don't have the capacity to do in-house and we got to because this is a legal document we got to outsource or outplace um them so that to ensure that kids get the services they need. So, so it's a to Jenny's point and just to kind of tie a bow on this, it it's a three-year process based off of the findings that is going to take us really, you know, we're trying to get to the fiscal aspects of it, but we also are trying to our focus as a district is program quality. Um, and we get the financial aspects, but we're doing that simultaneously um in the process. So, just wanted to kind of highlight that. So I I I just again I want to thank you and your team um for for again

113just sharing the the outcomes of this audit. Um and I really appreciate hearing to some of the things that have been done to start ensuring that we really get to a targeted approach on serving the specific needs of students. Right? A lot of times we discuss students uh in in these islands. Well, this is a special ed kid and this is a multilingual kid and this is a general ed kid. What about the kid who's, you know, who's a multilingual kid who need has special education needs who's Mckin Vento, right? Uh so and and and to to it's so refreshing to hear um that that we're really starting to look as a district and and that different departments starting to communicate and cross collaborate. I think that is critical and and and we need to

114get our teachers to do that as well, right? So, so I really appreciate the work of the, you know, the joint committee and that you're engaging all of these different folks, all the different stakeholders to be able to continue to move forward on how we really target uh the specific needs of students. Um, and fiscally, right, because then we think, right, I appreciate hearing how we moved away from our general instructional fund to to Mckin Vento for some of these uh services that we provide, right? That is going to bring us cost savings in the future. Um the other thing I want you all to to be mindful of too is to think about um as you discuss approaches uh is really looking at early childhood as a means to help us identify earlier. So

115then we're able to successfully move kids out of IEPs, right? I mean again that is a researchbased approach. I've been talking about it for years, but again hoping that some that's something that that the joint committee will continue to have conversations about is uh and maybe applying for early intervention funding. um at the federal and state level so we can capture kids developmental issues as soon as they hit our our school system. Uh I think that'll again pay dividends in the future. Right. So so I I think that's something that I I really hope uh the joint committee and and Jenny the work that you're going going to continue to do are really considerate about. Right. Um and I think that's all I have but thank you. >> Thank you. >> I have um one

116clarification and then a question. So knowing that we even later immediately after this have to make very hard decisions that include finances. So we are not projecting like a massive savings. I know you were probably kidding with the 10 million right but we're not projecting massive savings immediately. I think something just to hold right is that um um as has been named this is a balance of efficiencies and also ensuring the highest quality. So just to make sure I'm clear I'm seeing nodding heads. So I just want to clarify for our community. And then the second bit is um I had originally this is before you came uh Jenny so um I've been understanding that there'd be kind of a qualitative community dimension to the audit as well of engaging our sped community say like

117case CCDI can you just tell us quickly what's been done or will be done around the audit and socializing it getting feedback critical feedback from folk who will bear the whatever it is that we actually ultimately offer they will bear that. Yeah. So the the first part of that is that when you do like a financial audit, you can do a management discussion and analysis that you attach to the audit which explains like for those of us who might not be finance folks like this is what what their the financial aspects are of this of that audit and then that's how you release it. We would like to do the same thing for this special education audit. There's a lot of people who are not well verssed in special education language. There's also, I think,

118as Jenny mentioned, there's some aspects of the staffing model at district 65 that are very unique. So, our first step is to write out this management discussion and analysis. We'd like to attach those two together and then we can make this public. And then the other piece is we've already we met today with both deck and ETA. We walked through them, the entire deck. I think I know I spent over an hour with them. I think you were almost two hours with them. So, we had this really great discussion. They brought up a lot of really good points and it was just it was very robust. We also will go back to CCDI case man. So all of those community partners that we are part that Jenny has developed like this deep partnership we will

119continue to work with them around that. >> That's encouraging and I think um um yeah I think it'll be very important. You know we we're struggling right with with credibility um and there's been um a variety of experiences for our sped community. And so I think I see hope here uh and I think getting that out and then we can also be held accountable by our community >> and we will continue to provide updates on our progress for board. >> That was going to be my next question. >> But thank you. >> One one um how does space enter into your conversation? So we're talking a lot about school buildings and we're inclusion and we're trying to understand as we move forward with this. Can you speak to how space mediates what we can offer

120or why we might send people out and is there work that needs to be done um around understanding the spaces that need to exist in schools to implement the program in the way in which you want? >> So Dr. Beardsley works diligently on the seats and sections document and then we as a collective group um all of my team Dr. Beardsley's team we then collaborate on what is needed. We can't let space drive what we're providing students. We have to make sure that we we make those spaces work for those students. So that's a a deep collaboration between accountability and academics to say like all right, we need x amount of x amount of classrooms for this. We we need a step classroom. And then that's also really working with leaders, educators to really determine

121like what what space is needed and having those deep conversations. But it starts with the collaboration around that seat and sec sections document and that includes the number of EL students, the number of IEP students, the number of regular ed students. So we have all of that in a document and then we start to kind of lay it out >> but to the so yes I know y'all I mean definitely it's there but I guess is it translated into a way so when you see Lincolnwood and you know the um a classroom is there a language if you will about I know I need this type of classroom that then Stacy you know is able to implement so I'm just asking is there a language around um classroom spaces is that is necessary. >> Well,

122I think if you're talking about so the co-eing model, you're it's it's a regular classroom. If you're talking about specialized programs, step and rise, yes, there's those specialized programs. Um, you know, Park has its own building, Rice has its own building, but really if you're talking about like that co-eing model, what you would need to discuss is like, okay, where would I do a pullout session? Where could the RSPs pull students? And that also is a discussion. Okay, >> I just want to elaborate on that a little bit more. So, it is looking at specialized programming. It is looking at self-contained, which is a bigger conversation on space and district programming, but for kids at their home school if they need to be pulled out of the general education classroom more. We wouldn't say that,

123well, we can't provide that services because we don't have the space. Staff is really creative about finding space. Is it in the general education classroom when you're doing centers? Is it in then the library? Is it in the hall? What makes sense? Um obviously we want to provide appropriate spaces but if sometimes we have small groups of students who need specialized things and we will find the the spaces to to provide those services. >> I think what what what I observed when I went to Lincolnwood was that there were at least two classrooms where there were small groups that were being were using that classroom. And so previously, if that classroom had a, you know, gened student body in it, then they wouldn't have that available. And the comments that were made um to me

124were it's great to have this space because we used to do this in the hall. And so I think the question that Nicole is asking is really around how do we quantify and qualify those spaces so that as we're thinking about how we want to use our buildings that we are booking in or accounting for that need. >> Like Dr. Beth said on a broader level when we're looking at programs when we're looking I'm going down to the to more granular if an individual student needs it was trying to answer Nicole's questions specifically is we wouldn't say that we can't provide that service because we don't have the space do we want to take space into consideration for all of our services yes and working collaborative >> I don't know a concrete example might answer

125the question but as we are beginning to plan for next year I' I've already gone and met with principal Pinsoft at Lincolnwood and said based on what special education has told me, these would be the requirements for the STEP program >> and she confirmed those. We then went and marked in her floor plan those spaces and then we're backing into the rest of what we can offer in the building. >> Yeah. And I just want to add a rule of thumb always is special education gets scheduled and placed and staffed and all the things first and then everybody else works because they are with them having a specialized program and all types of things they are the they they are they need the most and we want to make sure that that is done first

126and then we take into consideration everything else if that makes any sense. So that's just a that's just a basic 101 rule of thumb in and how we operate whether that's scheduling students whether that's looking for for space. So those things is naturally part of our formula. Um if that makes any sense. >> When you hear us refer to student centered scheduling that means you start with your IE and your multilingual students. >> Use the mic. Use the mic. >> Sorry I had to have it. When we talk about student centered scheduling, you start with your IIES students and your multilingual students because they might have shared service providers and they might have shared co-eing models. So you want to make sure that you are most efficiently starting with that group and then you are

127scheduling with the rest of them and that's something that we actually have specific professional learning with our school leaders and specific sessions around this student schedule student centered scheduling. We're really fortunate to have Dr. Plaza who was the principal at Orington and she's a scheduling genius as is Annne Reven Schneider over at chute. So that's that's like the basics. One last question. Um when you're looking at uh achieving reduced reliance on contract services, is there what kind of recruitment or plans in that area are are you starting to think about? So really looking at our >> Pull the mic back to you, Jenny. >> Sorry about that. >> We will work with um HR on recruiting. Um it's also um looking at our vacancies and what we need hopefully earlier than later. the earlier you

128post for for positions, the the bigger the pool often that you have of candidates to hire your own employees versus having to to contract out. Um, a lot of the times um the why districts need to contract out is they may lose somebody late July, August, resign, and you can't find a somebody or for very specialized positions. >> Thank you. You're welcome. The only thing I'm just going to say is that's what we did last year is a collaboration. So, we had the special um specialized services staff also come into the um job fair in addition to the HR team to work collaboratively to make sure you know they had their eye uh there as well. >> Thank you. We are going to move into our >> Genie. Jenny, can you I'm sorry. Can you

129give that that clicker to Stacy? >> Dr. Beersley. Thank you. >> Sorry, I just didn't want to. So, we can keep moving. >> Yeah. >> Yes, we're are moving. We're moving on to um the approval of consolidation of the Willard and Bessie Roads two-way immersion program to be located at Foster Elementary effective the 2026 27 school year. >> We're just going to have our multilingual team come up and join us and then we'll begin the presentation. All right. Thank you, school board. U this evening we're returning to the topic of consolidation of the Willard Twe and Bessie Rhodess Twe programs into a two strand twe program at Foster Elementary School starting in the 202627 school year. On December 15th, administration bought brought forward a discussion item sharing the district decision to move forward with the

130consolidation of these strands to foster. Administration relied on policy 610 and 6160 for this action. These policies communicate that administration has the authority to implement the instructional program which includes the placement of programs. At the time, the school board was deadlocked on school closure and the administrative team was seeking decisions so we could move forward with planning and communication of school assignments based on the school boundaries for 2627. This decision was informed by best practice, community engagement in the SDRP3 process and financial sustainability. During public comment, a member of the community shared that some of the district materials refer to TWE as a magnet program and asked why the magnet policy did not apply. The administration immediately reviewed district materials and noted that there is inconsistency in the terminology used to describe the tweet program.

131The magnet reference was not consistent but does but does exist in our materials. As a result, we reached back out to legal counsel, provided relevant documents back to 1999, and asked council to do a review to determine if TUI should be considered a magnet program designated by the board. Additionally, we asked the attorney to determine if TWEI was to be determined a magnet program, should the consolidation be brought to the board for a vote. The attorney reviewed board memos and minutes from 1999 to 2025. Unfortunately, administration was not able to provide materials from 2004 to 2014 due to gaps in his in records as well as unavailable backup materials referenced in in minutes. While motions approving the TWE program and its placement did not refer to TWE as a magnet program, there was commentary from

132a past from past board members asking whether there were plans to make TWEI a magnet and potential plans to revise the magnet policy and selection procedure for TWE. No such revisions occurred in the magnet policy. Given the notable gaps in information mentioned above, it's difficult to feel confident that the full history of the TWE program, it's difficult to feel confident that the full history of the TWE program and whether it has magnet status is truly known. As a result, the administrative team is coming back tonight to ask the board ask for the board's support of the consolidation of the Willard and Bessie Rhodess tweet programs to Foster Elementary for the 2026 27 school year. Additionally, the district team is making a commitment to review our policies, procedures, and promotional materials related to academic programs and

133come back with recommended language and revisions to avoid these confusions in the future. We will use the next several months to do that and to bring something forward. We didn't want to rush and end up with something that wasn't complete and clear. Before I pass to the multilingual team, I want to be clear that we know this process has been difficult difficult on all of us, the Willard community, the district 65 community, the administration, and the board. The administration brings this recommendation forward because we deeply believe it is the right thing to do for the TWE program, including the students and families of Willard. Willard has a strong community. The community cares deeply for the tweet program and we hope that these families will become part of a new and vibrant foster community should the

134board support consolidation. This proposal strengthens our twe model, builds a stronger foundation for growth and operates in a financially sustainable manner. I am now going to hand to the multilingual team where we will explain some of the rationale for the proposal. >> Good evening. Uh we first want to start off with the vision of the tweet program and that is for students to develop strong literacy skills and language proficiency in both English and Spanish in order for them to become bilingual, biliterate and bicultural. Some key terms we want to that we just want to keep coming back to and just refresh are we have our TWWs which is for our native Spanish speakers who are also English language learners. are eel. We have TWWXs who are English proficient native Spanish speakers who are formerly EEL

135or have Spanish as their native language. And then we have our TWES which are our native English speakers. Okay. So, we are asking the board to approve the consolidation of the Willard two-way immersion or tweet program with the Bessie Roads tweet program and located at Foster Elementary for school year 2627. The cons consolidation ensures that ELEL's and bilingual students have consistent access to a high quality fully resourced TWE model. By bringing students together in one building or in one school, we can guarantee equitable access to certified bilingual staff, appropriate class sizes, and the full instructional model with fidelity. In terms of enrollment, current and projected enrollment shows that maintaining small separate strands across multiple buildings is just not sustainable. Consolidation allows us to rightsize the program so each strand is viable, balanced, and able to

136maintain the 8020 language allocation in K1 and 50/50 model with integration over time. This move strengthens the program for the future. Consolidated sites allow us to stabilize staffing and protect the bilingual pathway for students and ensure financial sustainability while maintaining program quality. And with that, in terms of alignment to committee guidance, this recommendation directly aligns with the committee's priorities around program quality. So ensuring strong consistent highfidelity tweet model and capacities and financial sustainability. So making sure we're using resources strategically to sustain the program long term. And based upon the analysis conducted a part of SDRP and SAP 2 and SAP 3, district 65 is recommending consolidating the twe strands from Roads and Willard and creating two TW strands at Foster Elementary School. This would mean that the two strands at Foster would roll up into

137Haven for middle school as Haven is opening their sixth through 8th grade program, dual language program next school year. Also, Nicholls will then open up their sixth grade dual language program for school year 2627. And then the year after that, Chute will then open up their dual language program in sixth grade. So, we hope by school year 2930, all three middle schools will house a dual language program and we will have a full K through 8 dual language program in district 65. So this is a reminder of the timeline for the SAP 3 process that we did which was part of the larger SDRP process. uh the SAP 3 committee was tasked with uh providing input to ensure that twe was represented throughout the SDRP process and the essential question of the TWE committee was

138what are the key priorities related to the tweet program that should guide the SDRP committee's efforts in right sizing the district. So this committee aimed to create flexible guidance that could be applied across various outcomes such as school closures, consolidations or boundary changes across the district. So the committee looked at four priorities which were developed through previous SAP processes, researchbased best practices, and educator and admin input. Over the course of three meetings, the committee looked at data for each one of these four priorities and then the committee was asked to rate each priority under the lens of student accessibility, EL student impacts and conditions for program quality. This table shows the final rankings of the committee. Additionally, committee members were given the opportunity to draft more detailed guidance that could be shared with the SDP

139committees. And then this guidance has been used throughout this process across multiple committees and decision-making processes. >> So an example of multiple committees using this information is that do it every time. An example of multiple committees using this information in a decision-making process, the SDRP program subcommittee um analyzed programs throughout the district, including the tweet program. Um the multilingual team presented to the program subcommittee um outlined their d their information and then using um an analysis tool that we used for the program subcommittee they came up with three key points for twe um the first was establishing and maintaining at least one twee program in every middle school feeder pattern. Um, also the second was double strands. Um, noting that the feeder patterns are strengthened and the program is strengthened with double strands and also

140prioritizing the walkable access for TWWS students but while also maintaining that 5050 to 63 6733 classroom size. We did have a discussion around yes we would love to minimize disruptions to existing tweet communities but the priority was around those first three um sections that you see highlighted. Okay. So, we are looking at program quality. Here we go. Okay. Um, we're going to be focusing on how double strands help support program quality. So, this will increase teacher collaboration and collaborative planning, which is always a huge concern for our educators. Last spring, we sent a survey out to twe educators asking about their perspectives on having two strands in each in a building. We had 23 responses and at least one ed educator from each twe building. I want to share one of those responses from an

141educator who is currently at a single strand school. I believe that having more than one strand in one building is beneficial because it increases opportunities to collaborate and strengthen language proficiency. Educators have a chance to share ideas and collaborate with one another, creating activities that develop a greater awareness and appreciation for diverse cultures. One of the other pieces that can come out of having double strands is at Foster there's leadership with dual language experience. So this would allow for PLC's to focus on not only language acquisition skills but also giving twe educators feedback and evaluation from an uh an ad admin who understands both languages of instruction. One of the key pieces or the big challenges shared with us um from building leaders who have single strands um tweets in their building was that schools

142desire structured professional learning com uh communities so PLC's focused on curriculum and student growth. However, with only one TWE educator in each grade level, the and different literacy curriculums for monolingual on Twi, how can educators collaborate meaningfully across strands and programs during their limited planning time? So that was one of the other pieces that came out of as we were thinking of double strands admin and educators feel like this would be a great time for PLC's to take place for educators to focus on language acquisition for the students in both English and in Spanish. And lastly um having a greater number of bilingual staff for educational support. So there's a greater likelihood um to have an interventionist haresie um educators and special classes or the different arts classes where you can have educators that are

143fluent in Spanish to support student successes and student needs throughout the whole day. >> All right, I'm going to pick up on capacities and sustainability. Um during the process, the district is needed to answer two important questions. How many twee are needed and where should those strands be located? The question about the number of twee was raised in the facility subcommittee when we began modeling one school closures in August with eight twee. It was during the analysis of these scenarios that the subcommittee raised the question about whether eight strands was too many. When we ran our first Kingsley scenario, we had two strands below 50% utilization and four strands total that were under the 70% utilization. The question about eight strands versus seven strands was then taken to the academics department and the multilingual team

144who supported modeling with seven strands. As you can see on this slide, districtwide utilization is 75% with seven strands and that is utilization and that is the utilization calculated with a 90% capacity reflected for two-way two-way immersion classrooms. One of the speakers mentioned earlier that sometimes you would have a lower class size for EL classrooms. That's applying our 90% line. Um, additionally, it was shar was shared in a previous memo, average class size moves from 16 students to 19 students when we shift from eight strands to seven. It's also been previously shared that 17 of the 40 classes that had 15 or fewer students this this school year were twe classrooms. I think something important to note, you know, we have heard from public comments that twe enrollment is going up. We can see there

145is a small overall increase but these numbers indicate that even when we consolidate to seven we have a strong ability to still expand the number of seats. What we do is we match when we're taking kids in kindergarten we work to that 5050. We seed our native Spanish speakers and then we match with native English speakers. And so we have room to be able to receive more kids. we have a foundation to grow on even when we move to seven strands. As a result of the utilization data, the administration is recommending seven strands. If the district moves to seven strands districtwide, we are estimating a savings of four to six sections and approximately 300 to $450,000. Additionally, offering two twee as opposed to one twee at Foster and one at Willard is an estimated transportation

146savings of8 to $160,000. To be clear, these are estimates. When the community says we have not given hard figures, these are estimates because we do have exceptions in place for families. So we're modeling around expected ex exceptions and doing ranges. We are working hard to be conservative on these estimates because we do not want to overpromise savings. The next question became where to locate the strands. This table shares where where our twe students live using the previous board approved boundaries. We did not have a chance to update the slide since the Kingsley closure vote. The data table shows that the vast majority of twe students in the Haven feeder pattern live in the foster feeder pattern. It can also be noted that geographically Foster is closer to many of the Orington and Kingsley families. We

147also have heard the question come up about transportation. I do believe that transportation comes back to the board for discussion and ideally a vote in February. But when we discuss transportation for twe families potentially from Willard to Foster, McCormack and Green Bay are hazards. I don't see anything in what has been brought to the board that would remove transportation from the Willard families because there are ISB hazards that that essentially would trigger transportation. Now, that is transportation that is free for TWWS students. It is transportation for a fee for TWE students. And again, yes, that would need to be voted on, but I don't see anything in what has been discussed to date that would shift that commitment because of the hazard. >> What about TWWX? >> TWWX, I believe we still operate with TWWX

148as TWWs. So, they're included in free transportation. We don't want accomplishing essentially reaching that threshold around language to be a punishment around transportation. Okay? We don't want to say you've achieved a benchmark on access and now you pay us for >> trans does not seem right. >> It's TWWX that were former ELELS. >> TWWFs that are former ELS. Thank you Kim for the clarification. All right. Um I am now going to pass back to Kim to talk about placement's impact on classroom compositions. So the ML team has been monitoring and collaborating with our colleagues around um looking at the data and from our perspective we wanted to ensure key factors of program quality were being considered throughout the process. And so for us specifically we were looking at classroom composition for the balance between TWE,

149TWWS and TWWX as well as considering impacts on our EL students. So if you look at the table on the top left is Willard projections again it's projections with no foster students. So that's really um students in the sixth and seventh ward. So you see we project 62 students that is without kinder right because we don't have those students enrolled yet. Those are currently enrolled students in K through four now and next year they'll be one through five. Um you can see that we have three grade bands there that will have very low numbers for our TWWs students. Um and two of the classrooms are projected to be 11 or less students. So then on the right hand side that's the foster projection and that's with no Willard students. So that's no sixth and seventh

150ward. So this would be foster enrollment area and current roads students. Um here we project up to 177 have the possibility to enroll in foster. Um and that is roughly about a strand and a half. Um all but one of the grade bands would be a double strand at that amount. And you can see we begin to shift a little bit more towards TWWs and and a little closer to balance. Um where we get the greatest balance is when we really look at all of the schools coming into Foster. Um we have the potential of up to 239 students with this projection and all grade bands would be double stranded. clarifying question around that probably the question I always ask trying to understand foster I'm also trying to understand Bessie Rose numbers which go down

151every year >> right >> so the 177 that's really 114 neighborhood foster kids and then 77 >> um roads roads kids >> right that's your road students that do not live >> do not live in foster and with the majority of the foster kids be Bessie Ro like so how how do I understand foster 114 from the standpoint of who's Willard and who's you know who's Betsy Rose you know I mean that's the number it's hard for me to understand where the Willard Willard foster kids are in the data >> where the Willard foster kids are so in the foster numbers if you live in the foster attendance boundary regardless of whe where you are currently in school, you're counted in that foster. >> So the 177 is the 114. So if I if I

152currently go to Willard but I live in foster, I'm in that 114. The 62 are nonfoster uh twe kids who who live in the Willard boundary. >> Not sure where you got the number 62. >> Right under the >> That is Yeah, that is uh sixth and seventh ward. >> Okay. Sixth and seventh ward. Okay. Yep. But that doesn't include any Bessie Road students that live in the sixth and seventh ward. >> No. And it's roughly 10. Um when I looked at that number, I calculated 10 currently at roads that would be in one of those north side schools. >> I think we're going to close a summary and we have a summary and then we'll open up for any any questions. >> Sorry. There we go. So we are asking the board support to

153consolidate the Willard and Roads TW strands to foster to ensure a highquality fully resourced twe with equitable access to certified bilingual staff appropriate class sizes and a full instructional model with fidelity. In short, this consolidation is a commitment to dual language. It is a strategic investment to protect and strengthen the twe pathway for our students for decades to come. All right, we're whatever questions we're available to answer. >> I just want to make sure I I heard one thing correctly from the presentation. >> Can you make it? >> Um, so does everyone who's currently enrolled in Twe Edard have a spot? Um, if we move forward with this, I just want to make sure I heard that correctly. With this plan, should it be approved, we would keep we would assign Willard as a cohort

154to foster regardless of where the Willard Twe families live. >> Got it. Thank you. >> So, any person who is at Willard Twe would be assigned to foster ideally to keep that group together should they choose. >> Thank you. >> I have a whole list of questions. I'll just start with one and see where we go here. U so so that I'm clear between staffing and transportation we're protecting between 380 and $610,000 of savings. >> Yes. 300 would be staffing 80 for busing on the low side and then 150 would be the swing. So yes, that's correct. You did your math. >> Yep. Um and would the movement of Willard Twe the consolidation at Foster would would that strand be replaced by a gen edge strand at Willard essentially then resulting in no savings? So

155in many cases, so we will see where numbers land, but we have built out our initial seats and sections for Willard and there are additional seats available in monolingual without adding additional sections. And so I don't foresee that we would have to add a section at every grade level. We may need to add a section at a couple grade levels, but again, as permissive transfer requests come in that will give us more information. >> Is that related to the there's a variable of like 40 to 42 >> that shows kind of a range? You know, I said essentially the I think the range I gave there was four to six sections. So, you know, we may need to open two additional sections at Willard in grades that don't have as many available seats based on

156our current sectioning. >> Can I clarify the cost saving question? So, can you can you say what the cost savings is from moving from eight to seven strands? The >> independent of where they're placed. the so independent of where they're placed is tricky because if we keep if we put the two strands at Foster that is a lower transportation cost by 80 to $160,000. >> Okay. How just if it's the same so in the best case all kids in the haven feeder pattern either go to foster or you have a they stay at willard. So h how does the hundred and like kids are still moving. So essentially what we did to get to that is we worked through the different routes and the routing of buses and transportation savings does get complicated but we

157worked through essentially the impact of Bessie roads Kingsley and this decision and it does because of single routes and double routes essentially it does get complicated but we walked through every single route and the transportation was essentially between Chris and Lou they were able to identify that in that case because technically we would be busing fewer students out of the fifth ward than we would into the fifth ward that there would be a savings of one to two buses there and that's one one route a year is $80,000 >> and that's assuming because we're doing the one the model of one bus goes to one school >> the I'm not going to speak exactly to that but Willard currently is at three buses and we would have been able to decrease two buses And then

158we think about the impacts on the other schools because now we do have multiple changes in place. But we literally the team started with okay what are all the things we know and then what would be the impact of either one of these outcomes. >> Um it occurred to me so I I was a part observer for the facilities committee of STRP3. We though though though though though there was you know abundant critique from um community um we had somewhat of a transparent process to lay out here's scorecards here's how it was about how did we identify willard uh out of all the possible twe single strand tweet programs >> the Willard was identified um initially I had mentioned the Kingsley example Willard was one of the two schools that in that modeling was below

15950th percentile that I just as I said once that came up in the facility subcommittee meeting like I'm facilitating. So then I return to academics and multilingual and I say hey this came up like these utilization rates are coming in really low when we have eight twe strands a recommendation came in to go to seven what is your department's reaction to that and because of the fact that we have been working together for the last two years around seats and sections and minimum class size guidelines. You know, last year when we did minimum class size guidelines, the multilingual team specifically said, "Hey, can we hold lower classroom, you know, minimums for TWE classrooms for one more year so we can get through the SDRP process, but it is better to get away from some of

160these small classrooms." So I went to them and they said that does make sense to us potentially that we go down to seven strands. So I said, "What would be the guidance that we have for where we then place those strands?" So the first question, how many strands? where do we put those strands? And that's where essentially I was given the input from the SRP program subcommittee as well as informed of the SAP conversations and is able to go back into some of the SAP work. The community has said, hey, nowhere did we talk about closing a strand. Closing a strand came out of looking at utilizations and saying, you know, and the reality of class sizes in the district and a v variety of places. And then it goes to where and that's the

161where is based on where the density of native Spanish speakers live. And I do understand that's where some of I think the real frust one of the sources of frustration from the Willard community because they can look at their class sizes and see that their class sizes are fairly healthy. And it's due to with the guidance being closest to the native Spanish speakers, the TWWs's and we included TWWXs in that when we looked at it. >> Can I I'm a um there's two two questions for me that I'm I'm trying to grapple with and would love your thoughts on this. One is as I you know if I say okay I'm going to take your guidance and dual strands matter then I go okay well then are we going to dual strand shoot and so

162help me understand why I would say okay I'm a dual strand haven I'm not going to dual strand shoot >> I can take this one for a minute and then you can pick up let me start with the buildings and then they can start with they get in with the good teaching and learning academic stuff um essenti When we began modeling with eight, our first several models were double strands in each of the three feeder patterns. >> And what transpired there was we ran into kind of our structural building limitations in other places. So I'll start with chute. When we go to a double strand tweet program in chute, Walker has three classrooms per grade. Daws has three classrooms per grade and essentially Oakton has four classrooms per grade but we have a commitment to

163ACC at Oakton and so when we doubled up and made two TW strands in any one of those three schools we're down to a single monolingual section which shrinks the attendance boundary of that school in if we want to keep it at a reasonable capacity if we want to keep it below 100%. So Oakton was the place where we went furthest on this and it shrunk the Oakdton attendance boundary to a very small footprint which then had a re chain reaction on the other boundaries essentially created a lot of change created imbalance and kind of an underenrollment effect in a school. Um, so we have essentially structural problems that potentially down the road we could address when we are looking at our buildings to be able to accomplish this. When we look at um nickels

164feeder pattern, Washington is a double strand because of the number of native Spanish speakers that live in the nickels feeder pattern. We need a third strand there. >> Now, could we try to go to three strands? If we do, we have that same problem at Washington where we're down to a single monolingual and we shrink that attendance boundary and that then means kids are walking farther, traveling farther to get to their schools than they would be currently with these attendance boundaries. So three is an odd number. If we can't put it in Washington, we have a single strand there. So, we've got a building structural problem and then we've got numbers that justify a third strand in nickels and it we it doesn't make sense to add it to Washington. >> So, I hope that

165helps. >> Okay. Did you look at moving the dewy twee to foster >> the We did not because we work within our feeder patterns and the native Spanish speakers in the nickels feeder pattern have justify a need for three strands in the nickels feeder pattern. We would be moving kids across the feeder pattern if we took the dewy strand and we moved it to foster. And so they then are would have to transition from foster to Nicholls. And we we work to keep kids in that same peer group to support the transition to middle school. >> Do we have any student outcome data based on two strands or one strand? >> Not. Yeah, not at the moment. We can pull that up. Um, I'm just curious because I think we're basing our decision on like

166professional learning and things that are not rooted in student outcomes. I was just curious if that also correlated. Um, and I I guess I just want to understand when the scenarios were announced, this is probably a question for you, Dr. Turner, when the scenarios were announced in September and the twe community appeared in every scenario, was there a reason why or did you think about like meeting with the their community to kind of talk about their concerns, especially after they came to the board asking, you know, why this was coupled, why they weren't warned, why they didn't why they weren't communicated with >> in what month are we talking about? What month? >> The month the month that the scenarios were released was that October. >> Dr. Turner, do you want me to take this

167for a quick minute? Yeah. >> So, when we announced the scenarios on September 29th, we had had a lot of impacted school communities. We between the scenarios and I'm not going to count, but I think we had approximately six schools that were named in those scenarios. it might be five that were named in school closures and we had the two-way immersion impact with Willard. We then essentially sent out a survey that had over a thousand responses. We went and we did community engagement sessions across the district and engaged I don't have the exact numbers in front of me but it was there were I think there were five total with healthy participation. We had Northwestern aggregate the survey findings and the community engagement findings for us. And there was a specific area in the feedback

168that specifically addressed Willard because of the volume of feedback that we got in on that. And so, you know, there is we gathered a good bit of information we did here. where we treated the Willard community in the same way that we did the rest of the schools that were impacted in those scenarios. And the reality is we had a lot of change and a lot of different things going on as we did acknowledge at the meeting earlier this month last week or I'm losing track but earlier this month with Willard. There are a lot of things there are things that we would want to do differently and I heard someone say something that I said at that Willard meeting like it would have been good to decouple these things. We were moving through a

169school closure process. We're moving through a deficit reduction process. They were together. In hindsight, if we could have decoupled them at a point, it could have led to stronger communication with the Willard community. But I think we have to hold this change in the context of the other things that we were doing. And so, you know, all the way up until December 15th, we were looking work trying to work through potential school closures. and then again into January. >> I guess when I when I think about >> Thank you for your response and great response, Dr. Beers. >> Thank you, >> Maria. Can I jump in? >> Sure. >> Um, with this proposal with the two strands at Foster, that will be the only feeder pattern for Twe into Haven Middle School. And what what

170effect will that have with the programming that's offered at Haven? >> Um that would be similar to what we would be doing at Nicholls and then at Chute in the future. Um they will follow their cohort and again with two classrooms. There is room for students to get moved so they're not with the same group of students from K through five. They can see other um students who are are also in TWE. There's also opportunities um like Washington does where students kind of intermix during their arts times or their fine arts times. And so with that, that would allow for some more flexibility within Foster. And by the time they get to Haven because they section their classes differently, they will have um social studies time where they can interact with other students who may

171not have gone through Foster. They could have gone through other um through Orington, through Lincolnwood. um because that is just open for other times for interaction. It wouldn't be necessarily with the same cohort or the same group of students. They would have more opportunities to mix and meet other students. Um so again, having the dual strand definitely allows for more interaction with more students as opposed to the same 20 in one classroom if it was a single strand. So can I ask that same um so then back to trying to understand the intersection of dual um two strands twe at foster. So what I see is a value of dual strand is that it creates community but I'm then going well whoa we have foster and because of the dual strands we sort of know

172what the demographics are going to be in the other half. So, how are we not creating two schools and you know like so can you speak to me about how to make sure that foster is a place of community and connection for the kids who live there and doesn't become a twe program where the twe kids there and the twe and that you know so I'm struggling with that and so help me with with that a little bit you understand what I'm saying >> maybe speaking to the Washington community a little bit >> because that's a good example of like a strong double strand but also a strong school community. >> Yeah. And I was going to say I think Chariss has mentioned it or has touched upon that um and I know in our

173meetings as we're talking about Foster and how we're building that community. It really is finding those opportunities and times where there's going to be that crossover and we don't want it to be two separate schools or have students feel like well oh I'm a twe student and I'm a general education student. Um and so that really is in the development and how we're thinking about what um curriculum they're using. So throughout the whole building they'll be using the same types of curriculum so that they can have those conversations. They can do building thinking classrooms in math whether it's in English or in spa in Spanish. There's after school activities. There's so there's all those things that are in play that would happen in any other elementary school. Um like in Washington and it's just kind

174of building that in. So we are not trying to see it as two separate schools. We really want them to feel integrated during PE. They're seeing other students in their PE time. During fine arts classes, they're seeing other students. So, it's not just this is my bubble and this is all I know. We want them to be interacting with people in the community that for our students who live in the fifth ward. And even for our students who may not necessarily live in the fifth ward, but have friends throughout the district and again out of that bubble. Um Stacy, you mentioned that even with combining the strand from Willard into Foster with the capacity that would be held there, there would still be seats available for other students who wish to apply to the tweet

175program. Is that correct? >> The when we were speaking earlier on seats, I was speak I think we were speaking about Willard capacity and Willard sections. Um, and I think one thing that comes up is I think sometimes I think maybe something that is happening here is we're saying, "Hey, if we're going through three strands to two, do we have fewer kids going into Haven?" So, is that then diminishing the potential Haven dual language program? What I want to call out is that the Besie roads population is 55% fifth ward families, 45% or non-fith families and those families are almost exclusively from the nickels or chute feeder pattern. So if we take that 55% and we take the Willard, that really is, you know, and families have choices, no doubt about it, but you have

176potential long-term for two good strong twee, but you don't have the demand for three. Okay. And Pat, the if everybody comes and you know, if everybody comes essentially um we will be in a classrooms will be close to full. will be in a good place if we have one grade where we might need a third section but we would have space to do that for one year if we needed to do it and that's if everybody comes that's not the initial indication that we're getting but we have the ability to do that if other people apply like kindergarten absolutely haven feeder pattern we've got room to bring in kindergarteners we would match TWWs with TWEs and build good strong kindergarten classrooms does that get to the question >> yes Okay. >> Uh and then choice.

177So um part of for me um part of the the beauty of bringing foster back is it allows I can stay in school in my neighborhood but again many kids are still going to choose to go to King choose to go in someplace else. for our SP TWS students speak to choice and what the implications of two strands only at Foster because now there wouldn't be a choice to go to uh to Willard. So it's like the only option is is foster. Well, currently because of feeder patterns and how students are um enrolled into their feeder pattern, um that kind of limits choice. Generally, um students will have an option. Let's say a student lives in um the Orington community and they wanted to join Foster or they choose not to join Foster if they're

178a TWWS and they want to stay at Orington. We still have our TPI program at Orington. So, they'll be receiving ESL services, um having a certified um EL teacher working with them throughout the day. They unfortunately would just not be able to participate in a dual language program. So, it's not like they won't be getting their services. It's just not part of a tweet program. Um, and that's kind of it's just like that throughout the rest of the uh elementary schools in the district where we don't necessarily try to place students furthest away from their school if there's a twe program available and they can go there. >> But Bessie Rose was in in essence was the choice program for Twe, right? And um and I think it is in like the closure of Bessie

179Rose. This is actually a question I'm actually I'm curious about this. the closure of Bessie Rose because the decision was well maybe it's better not to have a choice program and to just place Twe into the neighborhood or is it well we really thought we were going to have a choice program because we were going to have a school that could you know that could handle both of them. So is it a decision of the of the district to say twe there shouldn't be a magnet tweet program and magnet should twe should just be neighborhood based >> or did we end up in that because of what happened with the building? >> So so what what it said in the survey right is that the priority was to put programs where TWWS students are right

180and I think that is the will of the of the district of what was shared right that so so having the double strands at Foster, right? Really addresses that huge population of TWWS students that again, this is what this program model is is made for, right? And and there's different program models as as they mentioned, right? There's there's TPI, right? So, we have I got to tell you, when when I first arrived as a board member, we we didn't have those options. And a lot of times people were being told to not sign up for TWWs people TWWS families were being told not to sign up for multilingual services >> which is why I I ran. So so now we've expanded those services. So when I when people say well Sergio you said you you

181were going to No, we've expanded two way multilingual services across all schools >> um or where where it's needed. Right. So along with the curriculum that's culturally responsive. I mean, we've adopted a lot of things to really improve and optimize this program, but what what we hear what we heard from the surveys and from CDRP3 is that again, the preference for the community is to um bring the program to TWWS students because again that they're the ones who really, really, really need the program. For a lot of us, like including myself, I'm I'm you know, I'm from a bilingual family. I'm I'm TWWX. You know, we I benefited from the program from from a from the program. Um, but did my kids really need it? I I I felt it was a necessity for them

182as a lot of our parents and I I agree with them that that this is something that continues their culture, right? And and I I understand that it's really really hard. But at the end of the day for me um it's about what the was said in that in that survey and and SDRP was um folks were asked what should we do with T you know with the two-way immersion programs and multilingual programs in general that they should be placed as top priority where TWWS students are. So no magnet >> the TWWX TWE it's a nice to have for those for those families but for the people who need it that should be the power. >> I think the question we're asking though isn't necessarily should we or should we not have a program at

183Foster. I mean we know that we need that and we know that there is a high quantity of TWWS students at Foster. I think what we're asking is do we have to relocate the Willard program to Foster and what are the benefits or the um negative aspects of of making that move? And I think what we've focused on so far, what the administration has focused on is the dual strand. They've focused on enrollment, but admittedly enrollment hasn't actually been surveyed and the survey that we know has been taken indicates that we're going to lose about 45 kids from the tweet program in general. That's sort of best case. Um, so that I don't know how that affects what our classroom compositions look like here. Um, and I think what we're not we're not thinking about,

184right, we're sort of self-fulfilling our prophecy, right? We had COVID, that was a big hit. We closed Bessie Roads, that was a big hit. And so there's been a a reduction in demand for Twe partly as a result of that. And so if we are now removing twe from an area of our community where it has a very robust culture and community and program and despite, you know, removing the TWWs students that are fifth W students, we'll still have a sufficient program and we know that it will actually be an increasing population of TWWX students and we know that there's been more TW TWWX students moving into that area. we are then eliminating the option there and the growth for that in our community. And I think we're doing a couple things that are that

185are long-term questions that we as a board really need to grapple with. And it's what what are the aspects of our districts that are shining stars? What attracts people to our district? What makes our district great? It's our diversity. I think a lot of people moved to Evston for that. and and if we are removing that diversity from an area of our community because we're dis we're disincentivizing people to move there, then that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for us. So I I I want us to be mindful that amongst the numbers and the you know dual strand conversations and the arguments that the administration is is making and I don't disagree with them in principle but they are not including some very important factors that I think we as a board are responsible to govern

186and we have abdicated that responsibility for many years and we now have an opportunity to say, >> "Please hold your applause." >> Yeah. What What do we What do we want? And I I I just want us to be mindful of that. I think I've been very upset with how this process has gone in terms of, you know, just the unilateral release of that decision on December 15th. I felt like that was it. I was shocked by it quite frankly. Um and I'm shocked that we're here today. I'm glad we're here today, but you know, there's still unresolved questions about whether Twi is a magnet or Twi is a language program. I think we need to address that. Um, I do think that it's both. Uh, and I I want us to really think carefully

187about restricting our ability to attract additional families to our district by by reducing, you know, essentially popular programs. >> I have a question. Um, >> Andrew, can I just I just wanted to make sure that Nicole that your question was answered. >> Sergio answer I I assume if if Sergio's answer is what is what you would say then? >> Yeah. So, yes. And the one kind of technical piece that I would put underneath it is that when families apply, essentially that application was reviewed and then they're assigned to a school. And so registration in the most recent history has a set of a subset of schools that they had assigned to Bessie Roads. Bessie roads did give us some flexibility, but you know, if some place became full or if a family is like, "Hey,

188I really don't want to be there." But essentially, since our commitment is to keep kids within feeder patterns, they're mapped to essentially the attendance boundaries are mapped to a T twee assigned to that twee school. That is the current system. Whether that should be the system long term, but that is the current system. and a family may come back and say, "Hey, I don't want that. I want this." If we do, then we say, "Hey, we can put you on a, you know, you can put in a permissive transfer and we can get back to you if that's feasible." >> Uh, this is, you know, an incredibly hard decision. I think the issue of access has been uh for TWWS students has been um u of concern for me. Um I going back to your

189slide, I just the statistics are very sobering. I don't know if you can bring back the slide with the breakdowns of the three um well that's not the current Willard projections but I' I've had a a person reach out to me uh concerned about the the limited number of TWWS students in the Willard um program um and how it it leans TWWXTWE heavy and um concerned about its impact on uh sense of belonging and student learning for TWWS students. So I'm just can you speak to the linguistic cultural impacts of um uh TWWX TWE uh tweet strand. >> So when that is why we try to stay within our 50/50 model and give ourselves some flexibility. But if you look at the top left um table there, if we were to go heavy on let's

190say our TWEs, let's use that first grade for example, 63% will be English dominant and 38% would be our TWWXs who may have been in EAL or just have Spanish spoken at home. What that does then is it limits the models that are in the classroom for our TWES um in picking up the language of Spanish, so their second language because they're not getting exposure to TWWs students who are using Spanish every day and are building that it kind of then becomes more of an English-heavy classroom which we have seen in some of our buildings. Um, and so we try to rectify that and we try to make sure that we are including as many TWWs students and creating that 50-50 model because reach research shows that that's when students learn the most and that's

191when they're working with one another and seeing one one another as the model for whether they're learning Spanish or whether they're learning English. And so that would take a hinder on some of the the goals that we have as a tweet program if we are focusing more on our TWES um as opposed to our TWWS's. Um and you know a parent came and spoke about a program in Oak Park that yes they do have interest for a Spanish immersion program and but that has a different goal to than what we are offering and what we are trying to support. We want to make sure our TWWS's are supported and are meeting that compliance piece that was also brought up by a parent because legally that's what we need to do. And then we also want

192to make sure that we are using the best model out there and that's a dual language model or a twe program. And so with that it then becomes Spanish emergent for TWES and it becomes that compliance piece for TWWs's. And so when we break out of that or we're not um you know we're not as in complian with that 5050, it then topples some of that research. It would the students don't become as strong in their L2s or in Spanish if we're going to focus on TWES at that moment. And so then that's where we don't see the best results with um students learning that second language. And just to remind me, the um will the Bessie Road students go to Haven or will they go back to their middle school feeder patterns? >> The

193Bessie Road students part of that agreement was that they would continue to Haven. >> Are they required to or is optional? >> They will be essentially in the same way that we assign we'd assign them to Haven, but you can always return to your home school. So that's the way to maximize choice essentially. >> Will we require to transport them to Haven? the that commitment remains in place until this cohort works their way through. Yes. >> Any other questions? >> Um I have a couple more. Um so part of this is uh you know since the maybe we have the cart before the horse here because we still have a policy question that we have to decide upon. I know there's been that's been hard in conversations of uh we don't even know what we

194will decide if TUI is a magnet program or not. Um, so I guess my question is how are we going to go about defining that status? Um, ideally I would prefer that we would define that status before we take this vote, but I also realize that there's timeline implications. But so that's my question is how are we going to go about defining that status? >> Does this define us voting? Does this mean that Twi is is magnet? So >> are we implicitly stating by voting on this that we view Tui as magnet? Yeah. What we wanted to do tonight because we knew this was a difficult decision was to focus on one decision was we worked with council like one of the motion languages did include stating that this is an academic program until a

195review is complete. We didn't feel like making anything complicated tonight beyond this was worthwhile. So we are here not beca we are here because there has been inconsistent language and there's been inconsistent practice over time. So we are ask coming to the board to ask for a vote because that clears the highest benchmark for approval and so if it were a magnet you would vote and say whether that was you would vote to say whether we could do this or not. If it's an academic program it could be within administrative rights to do that. We are coming to say hey let's things are unclear let's ask the board to vote to make the decision. So regardless of where this could land long term, this would be the highest bar bar to clear to make a

196consolidation decision. Now to uh Dr. Wymer's question essentially, you know, we're early in figuring out that process, but what I would, you know, we need to basically pull out all of the programs that we have that includes RISE, STEP, ACC, TWE. We need to take a look at the language and policy around academic programs around magnets. Frequently the word selective enrollment is also used. That's the thing that's used most frequently, frankly, on our website. There are real living definitions for these words. We need to take those definitions. We need to come to agreed upon definitions for those. Then we need to review our programs and say where based on the way these programs function in the district where do these you know essentially belong do they belong as an academic program do they belong as

197a magnet? There is no language in our board policy for selective enrollment. So we need to determine that and then we would come back to this board and said we've taken the dive. This is you know the commonly understood definition of these things. This is the way these programs function. This is our recommendation for where these would how these would be categorized and what policy would these would live under. I think we would also you know when as we were reviewing the magnet policy with council the magnet policy is very general. So there could be a conversation about do we want to clean tighten up some of this policy. We don't want to make huge changes because a new program could come along and we want to keep policy flexible enough to you know essentially

198absorb a program or if there's a name change you don't want to lose that program and policy but we want to make sure that if there's some changes to policy to make this clear so nobody else has to sit in the seat again we want to do that I gave us in the memo six months to do that I would like this to be done before the end of the school year but we all know that we have a lot on on our plates and I want to make sure that the district has time to do the work to bring it to the board to get feedback to get it right so that we can have things cleaned up and set going forward. >> Uh I know uh one of the most pivotal things for

199me in my thinking has been being able to visualize our locations of our TWWS students and and making sure access is part of that. But that's also been a complaint of many Willard Tweet parents has been that we've excluded uh folk from our data. So can you speak to the trustworthiness of district data that really we're making decisions off of? >> So the data that we use and we've worked closely, you know, we went had a lot of conversations with the data nerds. We we use our school information system data. The classifications around students comes directly from families and through language screenings. And it is the same data that we report to is ISBY and ultimately is reflected in ISBY. The we have been iterating on scenarios and a variety of things since the end

200of September. We also when you know in late October shifted to this year's enrollment data. So we have tried to be as clear and as consistent about the data that we show and what it represents the time at which it was taken and you know essentially which model you know is it with Kingsley closed is it with others but it is straight out of our school information system. The input from that comes directly from parents in our registration process or from our language screenings. Every student has always been included. When we did model the closure, the Willard twee students were reflected by where they lived and then mapped into twee seats. And we have explained that there also when we went back to the initial scorecard in July, those Willard students were reflected by where

201they lived. So they were included in Willard if they were twe students that lived in the Willard boundaries. So very much consistent sourcing. We know that it's difficult because we've had to change iterations, but it's always the data from our school information system and it's what we report to is >> Can you just clarify? You made a comment saying that there's been conversation or something with the data nerds. There were reactions. So, I just want you to clarify. This is in response to emails that data nerds have early on. We and I apologies from individuals in that group. We did individual calls with those individuals. We did Zoom meetings. We ran through data and to my understanding responded to all of the questions and concerns that they had. There was also back and forth. It

202was in their interaction that we actually adjusted some of the capacities around our schools because they said, "Hey, you've got your debt guidelines, but then you've got your master facility plan." So, we agreed to go to the smaller capacities. So, we have worked to respond to all of the data questions that we can. And in particular, that group did come with a number around both process and data. And we, to my understanding, were able to respond to those questions. And when there was something we needed to fix, we fixed it. >> Thank you. >> I see a hand raised, but this is not the time for public comment. So I ask you to submit your response in writing. >> Thank you. on page four in our memo. Um, so I just want to name that

203there's a a tension of a promise was made by the board to Bessie Roads students and that's a pinch point because uh it takes us I believe it's um the strand has a capacity for 130. Um the 77 nonfoster Vessie Road students have preferential enrollment right at Foster. they have an exception to >> which then bumps us up to 190 above the strand capacity. So that that just to name that there's history here shaping even capacities that's not owned um by everyone on this board. Um and um would then result right in possibly busing if if we were to keep a one in one a will one strand at Willard and one strand at Foster then the busing of additional uh fifth word students up to Willard at least temporarily till the the the 77

204students worked their way through the system. So, it's just it's this is a complexity that is um just um >> I do want to >> saying the information around actual enrollment, right? We never like we don't have it. We don't know how many Bessie Rhodess kids are going to choose to go to foster versus maybe their home feeder pattern twe program. We don't know how many kids are going to go to foster in general. We don't know how many twe Willard students are going to go there. So, we're like asking to they're ask we're being asked to make a decision without, you know, any data on enrollment. I understand the pinch point you're referring to. It's a gap. >> If a if a twe Spanish student decides to stay at Willard, what is is that

205even possible? >> What's the implication of that? >> That would be possible and then they would just be then transitioned to a TPI program. So we do have an EO educator who works with students who Spanish well where Spanish is not their native language and so they work with those students and occasionally a few Spanish speaking students who maybe opted out of tweet. So that is currently already in practice and so they would just opt to not follow the cohort to foster and they could stay at Willard and get e services there with their e >> and if you had enough then you would have y'all would y'all are going to give services where you need it in essence. Mhm. >> Okay. >> I think in reflection on kind of sitting here today, I think

206that what I want to see us do going forward is plans plan and execute for the outcome we desire. And one of the things that I think was sort of missed in this was really welcoming Willard Twe families to Foster. You know, the day in the life of Foster didn't have anything about Twi. There was never an invitation to the Willard families of hey, come check out this beautiful school and really asking them to be a part of Foster founding Twe. They have an awesome community and they would be a great asset to foster and we missed the opportunity thus far to really welcome them into the fold and into the process. And I think that would be our ultimate goal. >> I think that's a hard lesson learned, but I don't think that's a

207lesson that's not going to be honored. >> So, I agree with you on that. going to be intentional about honoring it. >> Yes, very intentional. >> Um, at this moment, I'm going to make the motion. I move that the board approve the consolidation of the Willard two-way immersion tweet program with the Bessie Rhodess Twe program and located at Foster Elementary. effective for the 2026 27 school year. >> It has to be second. >> Second. >> Can you call the vote? >> Hernandez, >> yes. >> Updike, >> no. >> Wymer, >> yes. >> Wilkins, >> yes. Pinkered. Um, >> yes. >> Anderson. >> Yes. >> Motion passes. 51. and item 10, adoption of a resolution calling on the Cook County Treasurer and other Cook County officials responsible for the issuance of property tax bills to resolve

208systemic issues. Sorry. I move that the board approve the adoption of a resolution calling on the Cook County Treasurer and other Cook County officials uh responsible for the issuance of property tax bills to resolve systemic issues. >> Second >> Hernandez. >> Yes. Yes. >> Wymer. >> Yes. >> Wilkins. >> Yes. >> Pinker. >> Yes. >> Anderson. >> Yes. >> Next is approval of a forensic auditing service. >> Do we have to have discussion before I can make the motion because the way it's worded here? >> Yes. I think you brought up a really good point about interviews. Do you feel like we should do some interviews? We should interview the two firms. Are you >> If we do choose to interview, my preference would just be that we do it in public session. Um as

209we did with like the consultants who for um um student center services when we selected them, I think that' just be good for the public to see us engage. Um, if we wanting to interview both, I'm open to I lean a little bit towards Crow. I'm I'm uh, you know, just to throw it out there, I'm open to uh, interviewing both. I'm open to going with some sense of will the board now. >> So, having them over at the committee committee the whole meeting the next time and just having the conversation, that would that make sense? I mean, >> might give us >> I think we had the conversation last committee of the whole meeting. >> Okay. >> But as far as just hearing from them, >> you want to ask, >> does anyone feel

210strongly about one of the um firms? I mean, I I lean Crow, but um does anyone feel strongly about this? >> I'm leaning Crow as well. I mean, I think they've got the resources. They don't have to build up to what the requirements are. I mean that that that's that's me. >> I'm also in agreement with that because of um the history that they detailed in their proposal in terms of the types of forensic audits they've completed um and the fact that we will have um the opportunity to have more interviews in terms of the process. Um the also the um limit for not to exceed was not uh far above that of the other proposal. So that's that's my preference. Any other discussion? I don't feel strongly one way or another. And I think

211we I think we're going to get what we get out of it. I don't think we're recouping any money. Um I think we're going to inform policies that we need to write and that's the most valuable thing that is going to come out of it. And I think the other thing that's going to come out of it that's very valuable is where the board broke down and didn't um uphold our policies or hold uh the administration accountable for budgets. And I think that's what we need to learn. >> I agree with that, Maria. >> I think this is Yeah, this is us doing some d extra due diligence um ensuring that there is um a track record uh we're the highest level accountability we can. Yeah. So, so should I make the motion with Crow?

212It sounds like we're lenient. Or should we? >> I think that's I think that would work. >> Okay. So, I move that the board approve, and I'm just going to say Crow, is it Crow Ltd? Is it Crow LLP? Excuse me. I move that the board approve Crow LLP as the forensic audit firm to execute the scope of work for the period of FY21 through FY24 as previously outlined and agreed upon by the board. >> Second. >> Hernandez, >> yes. >> Optek, >> yes. >> Wymer, >> yes. >> Wilkins, >> yes. >> Pinkford, >> yes. Anderson. >> Yes. >> 6. >> Next is approval of the amendment to foster to the fost to a foster school contract. >> Okay. And just to be clear, this is a technicality. It isn't any additional um funding. We're

213just changing the way that um having a separate contract. Just saying that for people so they can be aware. >> And did everyone >> I don't think nobody heard you. My Okay. So maybe someone else should say let's see that >> it's a technicality the for the we've already allocated the money but instead of having two separate contracts which is rolling this into the contract that exists. So it's not a new amount of money. It's just the way in which the money is going to be paid out. I move that the board approve an amendment to the existing contract with Burger Contractors Incorporated for $433,800 to incorporate the scope of work detailed in bid package number 21 for site demolitions, excavations, and aggregates. Burger Contractors Incorporated was the lowest bidder for bid package number 21

214as a part of the bid group number five public bidding process conducted in October 2025 and is currently under contract with district 65 for work awarded as a part of bid group number one >> second >> Hernandez >> yes Wymer >> yes >> Wilkins Yes. >> Pinker. >> Yes. >> Anderson. >> Yes. >> 6. >> I move that the board approve to discontinue the school age child care SACC summer program. >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> Um so we did hear from um a representative of Natalie. I don't remember the name of the person who spoke um um expressing concern about this. Can you just tell us a bit about your engagement with those impacted with the union and those impacted? >> Actually, we've tried multiple times to meet with them. We've had meetings canled

215um or refusal to schedule meetings. Um in your uh board update today though that Dr. did write out she meets with um the union representatives regularly. We also have both our um SACC coordinators meet with them regularly. Um we've had consistent professional development with all of the SAC teams. So there is consistent communication. Um we have actually in the last few weeks tried to get to them to say hey this is coming and meetings have either been canceled or they refused to schedule something with us. and is in terms I just want to point out this has not been profitable since 2020 in 2023 24 and 25 we've consistently lost money and that was in the January 12th presentation >> and I know we talked about this extensively last year and really tried to see

216if there was a way to make it so you know we did not have to subsidize it and so it could be unfortunately we couldn't get there >> and can you remind us how much we've also cut our other summer programming so it's not Um, how much did we cut back or have we cut back summer programming? >> Um, last year we cut >> I mean this year. So, in essence, >> talking about the YMCA program, >> we we have rolled we are rolling over our YMCA program to the YMCA, which means we're cutting $400,000 that we paid the YMCA. We are no longer paying the YMCA for. >> So, we're doing a big It's not This isn't the only thing. We're doing multiple cuts in terms of summer uh summer programming as we try

217to do SDRP. Okay. >> This is part of this is part of that. And the only two we're keeping are ESY for our special education students and newcomers for jump start and newcomers. So we have the prek and the um newcomers program. >> One of the uh things that the um Zach P personson mentioned was that um entering kindergarteners often took advantage of this program. That is not the case. You have to be enrolled in well I have to double check rising kindergarteners but we tight we had guidelines and parameters that were not followed in the years past. So this year we tightened the guidelines and parameters around that program which included having according to policy having only district 65 students enrolled in it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Call a vote. Hernandez, >> yes.

218>> Oak, >> yes. >> Wymer, >> yes. >> Wilkins, >> yes. >> Pinker, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> 6. >> Next is ratification of a contract between the district 65 board of education and the Evston Teacher Assistance Association. Is there any discussion? >> Congratulations to the team. for creating a or getting a contract. It's our board representatives who were there. Appreciate the work that you've done. >> And just to name specifically, is it was Maria and Pat, right, that uh helped with this. So, just thank you. Yeah, >> I was just moral support. Pat did it. >> Well, you were there. >> It was team effort. It was a big team effort. >> Um >> really the administration that did it and the attorney. Yeah. >> Tiffany. >> Yes. >> Specifically. >> Thank

219you. and >> Tamara. And thank you. >> And Jenny was there. >> Yes. She's Great. >> Yes. >> And and I'm grateful to the teaching assistants. >> Yes. >> They're critical. They're critical. >> I I'm glad that we could come to a good agreement. >> Yes. >> So, I move that the board of education ratify the contract between the Evansson teacher teachers assistance association and the district 65 board of education. >> Second. Hernandez, >> yes. >> Wymer, >> yes. >> Wilkins, >> yes. >> Pinker, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Next is approval of contracts over 25,000. I have a question about the dual language education of New Mexico contract. That's a program that uh principal Bquel brought to Bessie Rhodess focusing on biiteracy. Last year it was bi literacy in math and this

220year she's focusing on biiteracy in science and social studies. >> So that's professional development. >> Professional development. Okay. And she's really focusing on that by that biiteracy piece. Is is is it only going to be used at Foster? >> Is it only going to be used at Foster? >> No, this is a Bessie Rhodess program. She she this she this was this year at Bessie Rhodess. It was last year and this year at Bessie Rhodess. >> Oh, I misunderstood. >> It's about to happen at Bessie. It's just us paying for something that's already happened. >> It's on It's ongoing. I think this is in year two at Bessie R. >> Yeah, that's what I was about to say. She she focused on biiteracy in math which is very important and now she's focusing on biiteracy

221in science but a little bit in social studies too. >> So is this just a like for professional learning for teacher support coaching and development. >> Oh okay. >> And the dual language program in New Mexico is is highly highly rated for that idea of by literacy and really focusing on developing literacy skills for students in various subject areas. Is this something that can be shared across the district or is it primarily focused for >> right now it's focused at Bessie Roads but as with anything else once you get a level of expertise there's always an opportunity to roll that out but right now this is where it's focused >> I would hope if given I assume Bessie roads teachers and we have the principal going to foster that if it's relevant if we're paying

222it should have some life hopefully >> I guess I so this is principal driven. >> No, she also has people coming in from this program, but it is >> right. But she's basically bringing this in. >> Yes, she's bringing in. I see what you said. You said >> my biggest question is just like I would think that all of our bilingual teachers would benefit from this. >> I think every school gets to determine how they want to leverage their funds to support the professional learning at their schools. This Bessie Rose technically is the only wall-to-wall dual language school we have in the district. This is what she chose for her educators to be successful. >> So that actually would be just to know this is a it's really we're just approving the contract, but she

223has choice funds she has to spend. >> Yeah. because they all >> it's not new money to what so like Oakton he spent a lot of time he's doing letters training with his teachers and what whatever their school improvement plan work is and what they're focusing on they make the decision as to along with their with their uh uh their sit teams in most cases determine what the professional learning and support is. So that's why it's not like everywhere. Um >> thank you for that clarification. It would be nice though to again when I think about you think about STEM, right? And then and math, right? Just overall and how that's a challenge not just again across the country in regards to math scores. I know, you know, just our district isn't doing that great

224in math, but by but but we're getting better and just thinking about I really understand again we we really want to make sure that principles have a choice for their specific buildings and what their specific needs are, but also thinking about what would be some beneficial professional development systems, which I know your team tends to do often. So again, when I think about biiteracy uh in in in STEM and in math, I like that's let's bring it all over. But uh again speaking to the principles, right, and making sure that okay, is this something that works for you? If you could think about a way if that's not it, then what what's your recommendation? Because I know that they're professionals as well and they they can make those decisions. So, thank you. >> That's a

225question about the spot staffer. >> Um is that a new two is that 200,000 more added into >> You want to come up, Jenny? Is that you? >> That's your Yeah. Or is it just Yeah. How to understand that is new money or existing money just allocated? >> It's so I and you chime in. So she gets a budget and then within that budget when we have exhausted we leverage multiple staffing companies depending on what the need. So we have one that she leverages for nurses. We have one that she leverages for something else. And essentially, you have to enter into a contract with them. And this that pot p pot of money is the same, but she's just saying that for the work that they're going to do, she's not going to extend >>

226that particular amount. >> Right. But I'm saying it was it didn't ex So the this $200,000 is not is it new money or is it already allocated? >> It's already in her budget. >> They won't start recruiting for positions until you sign a contract. So, you have a position open, but they're not going to do anything for us until we sign a contract with them. >> Yes. It's just more about was it new money or existing? >> No, it it's it's no new money. This has already been budgeted. And in that pot of money, I'm saying I'm going to take 200,000 from the pot of money, what has been budgeted already, and leverage it not to exceed this particular staffing company. >> But the money is already been budgeted in that existing budget. >> The

227money has been budgeted for that staffing. Right now, we're still looking for a couple of positions. We don't know if Spotter Staffing is going to have that position. It may be spotter staffing. It may be Epic agency that we already have a contract with. We may hire our own employee, but we we have to pay that staff member from that bucket of money. It's just either from a contractual agency or if we hire our own employee. >> And what is this for? I'm just c just for what position is this just a generic position or a particular? So, since we actually created that that uh scope of work, we've hired our own part-time occupational therapist. So, that's great. We have a speech and language therapist on maternity leave that needs to be covered and a

228bilingual LBS one teacher we're looking for. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. Thank you. I move that the board approve the January 2026 contracts over 25,000 including dual language education of New Mexico for 34,450 and spotter staffing not to exceed 200,000. >> Second >> Hernandez, >> yes. >> Upg? >> Yes. >> Wymer, >> yes. >> Wilkins, >> yes. >> Pinker, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. Next are proposed action items. >> I move that the board approve the items outlined in the consent agenda for personnel, appointments, leaves, and separations, the December 2025 board of education meeting minutes, and the January 2026 bills payable for January 2026. And before the board takes a vote, I just want to acknowledge because she's in the room. One of the appointments you all are pro approving tonight is for

229the appointment of the principal, the now the new principal at Rice um school. And so that is Teresa Lee and she's here. Just wave Teresa so folks can know. Teresa is um we're excited to have her. Just so you all know a little bit of context, she served uh she's the former assistant director in the early childhood center down here. Um she is a lifelong Everestonian and um was raised in this community. And so she has done an excellent job since I want to say July is when she moved into the role as acting principal um at Rice. and she's done a really great job really cultivating the staff um and and really uh building relationships with students but also bridging the gap with um Lydia Holmes who is a partner in um the residential

230home where a lot of our students um reside. And so I just want to publicly, you know, say thank you Teresa for all of your work. You this isn't the first time that you've kind of come in and stepped in and supported. and I want you to know that your work doesn't go unnoticed and um we're very grateful that you're working with our one of our most vulnerable populations and you and the team are doing a great job. So again, I I say all the time if we can learn from Park and Rice, you know, you know what a wonderful world district 65 will continue to be. >> Thank you. >> Can we get a second for that motion? >> A second. Yeah. >> And then I'll take the vote. Hernandez, >> yes. >> Oakdeck,

231>> yes. >> Wymer, >> yes. >> Wilkins, >> yes. >> Pinker, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> 6. >> Next, we have approval of resolution for dismissal of educational support staff. As noted, I move that the board approve the resol the resolution for the dismissal on an educational support staff as noted. >> Second, >> Hernandez. >> Yes. >> I don't really know what I'm voting for. >> Yes. >> Wymer. >> Yes. Wilkins, >> yes. >> Pinker, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. Um, any discussion about the FYIs? Uh, I just wanted to point out that Tamara um put together uh I really appreciate that Tamara, a budget at a glance, which has the budget for the year for some key areas. Um, and then what we've spent to date if you all have anything

232else that you want to see out of that. >> I like y's visual. That was nice. >> Thank you. >> It's easy to read. >> That'd be awesome to have on the website like with the dials. I think we already have the software for it. Used it for progress with Foster. >> Yeah. One of the things that I want to point out that I learned through the process which I think everybody else would would be glad to know is that the salaries and benefits will track um you know from a percentage somewhat. Now at the very end of the fiscal year there is a large payment that goes out so it doesn't track exactly but the rest of the expenses are sometimes a little volatile because it depends on when the money is spent. Just

233to remind everyone we're on cash accounting. So there I I wanted to see like how do we know if we're meeting or not meeting and so it's it's a constant conversation right now. >> I think it's an excellent tool. >> Yeah, I appreciate that. >> I just wanted I appreciated the ongoing attention to ensuring that our standardsbased grading is accessible and clear. So um >> I appreciate ongoing attention to ensuring our standardsbased grading is accessible and clear. Uh so thank you. It would be wonder. Yeah, as we all just had conversations about it with our kids. Um it'd be curious if there's a way to understand our parents getting better at, you know, using it. Is there any way that we can um you know, ascertain how they're, you know, as a quick survey or

234something about >> Yeah, I I that's something to absolutely think about. My deacto data is the the decrease in in emails. Yeah, >> I will say that even I was like, why are I'm seeing all these C's, right? I had to I was like, >> and that's something we can't fix this year. >> I was like, okay, no numbers. So, it's the C's without the numbers is what he said. Okay. >> Yeah, that's that's we actually sent that home to parents, too. So, that's we we'll have to make that correction. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Okay. And Tiffany, you congratulations on your what is the um >> Yeah. Yes, congratulations on that. I just want to I read Congratulations. >> With no further additional business, I adjourn this meeting at 9:33 p.m. All in favor say

235I. I.