001Thank you. >> Great. I will take roll call. >> Can we have quiet, please? >> Today's Monday, November 3rd, 2025. This is the committee of the whole meeting for the District 65 Board of Education. The time is 5:01 p.m. I'll take roll call. Wymer >> here. Wilkins >> here. >> Pinkard >> here. >> Hernandez >> here. >> Anderson >> here. >> I want to note that Maria Updike and Omar Salem are not in attendance as they are traveling for personal purposes. Maya Wilin is not present due a work due to a work-related travel and will join us virtually as allowed by board policy 2.220. Omar Salem has resigned as a member of the district 65 board of education. The process to fill his vacancy has been initiated in accordance with Illinois school board code and
002district 65 board policy. Public notice and updates will be provided. The work of this board continues. Now we're going to move into public comment. Typically speakers are allowed three minutes each. We have 88 speakers this evening. In order to give everyone the opportunity to share their voice, each person will be allowed one minute. >> Okay. Members of the public are welcome and invited to address the committee during open public meetings. Speakers are discouraged from using the public comment period to heir specific concerns about staff members being mindful that the public comment period is not a suitable forum for factf finding of resolutions or 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
003that you have one minute to address the committee. Also note that it is not customary for the board to respond to public comments. The best way to correspond with members of the board is by emailing schoolboard district 65.net. If you are asked to complete your statement, please do that so that we can allow the person behind you to share theirs. Okay, I'll call out the first uh few names. Kelly Post, Brian Harris, Michelle Chelbeck, Brittany Vessa, and Nicholas Sublof. Good evening. My name is Kelly Post and I'm the president of Deck. I am here to advocate for our educators. While much of the conversation has focused on how closures will impact the future, I want to draw attention to how we can bring this school year to a meaningful close, one that honors the people
004and communities who will experience profound change. First, educators in schools that are closing should be compensated at their predium rate for the time needed to close out their teaching spaces after the last day of school. This will relieve the pressure to pack up classrooms while students are still present, allowing children to enjoy their final days in their familiar, joyful spaces. Second, educators affected by school closure should be placed in new buildings with positions that closely match their current roles. The thoughtful placement will help them succeed as they adjust to new environments and colleagues. Finally, I ask that all new district initiatives, curriculum rollouts, and major changes be paused for these times. Let us give our educators, students, and families the space and time to focus on rebuilding relationships and creating new connections. Thank you, [applause]
005>> Ryan. >> Oh, one minute. All right. So, good evening. I'm Brian Harris, the director of climate and safety for the district. Born in Evston and alumni alumni of District 65, the proud parent of three black and Latinx children who despite everything going on in the world continue to show resilience, leading me to have continuous conversations with them. Our community and our district is facing unprecedented times. Since moving into the role in July, there has been nationally publicized school shootings, the SDRP conversation, which has caused a stir of emotions on all sides, and the presence of a federal agency in the community on top of the daily student situations. My team and I minus 19 from last year's budget cuts. This is a lot more than anyone expected. A tornado in the sense of things.
006Every time and myself and my team feel like we can catch up and catch our breath, the goalpost seems to move. But we adapt, we adjust, and continue to do what we can to keep our students and our staff safe and we'll continue to do so. I can never remember a time when our district and our community combined was with so many challenges at the same time. As a trained mental health clinician, [music] >> [applause] >> My name is Michelle Quebec. I'm here to share the frustration felt by many of us here in the room today, particularly the last minute inclusion of a brand new scheme involving Orington. What began as a seemingly objective and straightforward process now appears to be changing into something else entirely. We are at the final hours of this very
007painful process. And why are we suggesting new options? And after the surveys have closed, the community engagement sessions are over and and all of the final disc discussions are wrapping up. This is emotionally reckless reckless and risks eroding the trust of the board as process. I'm deeply concerned and honestly confused why Orient Elementary was now added to the list of schools being considered for closure. This decision contradicts the district's stated goals of maintaining walkable neighborhood schools. It also negates and diminishes the datadriven process established by the SDRP facilities committee. The committee engaged a transparent rigorous process to evaluate every school using objective criteria and community input. Orient was evaluated in early drafts of those. [music] [applause] Hi, my name is Britney Vega and I yield my time to Michelle. >> Orington was evaluated in early
008drafts of those closure scenarios as were all the schools but was not recommended for closure. Orient scored high on measures of harm of close within both the baseline and scenario specific scorecards. Orient school scored similarly with other geographically isolated schools such as Walker and Lincoln which is not being considered for closure. The geography score matters a lot. Geography is one of the most heavily weighted categories because the community made it clear that walkable schools were the top priority. Just as important, geography is the one factor that can't be changed. As an architect, I will tell you that it's not hard to repair, renovate, or add ADA compliance. But you can't change where a school sits on a map. Orient serves a geographically isolated part of Evston. borded by Green Bay Road to the west and
009downtown Evston to the south. Closing Oington would force students to travel outside those natural boundaries. Crossing busy streets to reach schools in entirely different neighborhoods. This directly contradicts [applause] >> Good evening. My name is Nicholas Sabof, a parent of two oriented students and a future Eagle. And I yield my time to Michelle. This directly contradicts the district's own criteria which prioritizing reducing transportation costs, maintaining community based schools, and keeping kids safe. If Orington were to close, the likely scenario that students would be forced to cross Green Bay Road, a four-lane ID do designated hazard to reach whatever north side school remained open. The entire Orington community, roughly 225 children would either be busted or required to cross a dangerous street two times a day to reach school. So I ask, what is the plan for
010transportation? Is the district planning to provide buses for every child? Are we try I thought we were trying to reduce the transit costs or are we just hoping that crossing guards on Green Bay Road will make this okay? Just a few weeks ago, a sixth grader was hit by a car while biking and cross McCormack even with a cost crossing guard present. Crossing guards ar don't eliminate risk there. The best way to keep kids safe is to reduce the number of children who have to cross the roads in the first place. Beyond our children's safety, losing Orington would leave the entire northeast community without a neighborhood school that matters. The school is the center OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD. >> [cheering] [applause] >> WE HAVE Orley Henry, [cheering] Jason Davis, Samantha Schwimmer, Anthony Hubz, [cheering] and Michelle
011Kubz. [applause] I'll repeat it. Orley Henry, Jason Davis, Samantha Schwimmer, Anthony Kubis, Michelle Kubis, Ashima Herbert, Jessica Clansy, Kamal. >> Thank you. >> And can you please hold your applause so the people can hear their names to be called when they're coming up. Thank you. >> My name is Orly Henry. I'm the parent of a first grader at Orington. If we are committed to walkable neighborhood schools, Orington must remain open. Closing Orington is at odds with the community's determination that walkable schools is its highest priority as it means that every current Orington student would either need to be bust or contend with major hazards. I know there are concerns about the scorecard data, but it cannot be disputed that there simply is no walkable school in northeast Evston without Warrington. I also note that transportation
012costs have been a major pain point for the district. Any path forward that relies on busing as a substitute for a neighborhood school not only thumbs its nose at walkability, but worst is worse is financially counterproductive to boot. We want to support this process and rally around a shared vision for the future of this district. But the direction the board has taken is not only lacking in vision, it also appears to be untethered to the work presented by the committees and guided by who knows what. Hi, I'm Jason Davis, the father of a first grader and incoming kindergartener at Orington. All of this jeopardizes the legitimacy of any decision the board makes. Just the latest examples of this are the board focusing only on Haven feeder schools without thoroughly vetting other scenarios and introducing a
013new scenario at the 11th hour with limited opportunity for board discussion or community engagement. We are hurdling toward a decision that may not be aligned with the priorities the community developed. We deserve to know what are decisions being based on. What is the vision? A balanced budget is unfortunately not a vision. We are committed to this district. We understand that hard decisions have to be made and we all have skin in this game. We will accept the fair results of a legitimate process, but this is not that. [applause] I haven't started speaking yet. Can I have the timer reset, please? Thank you. My name is Samantha Schwimmer and my family cannot afford to live in the Orington community. We're fifth W residents and for the past 5 years we've traveled one and a half miles
014to be part of Orington and it hasn't been easy. Busing was a disaster so we've made financial sacrifices just to ensure our kids could arrive and depart school safely. The walk from our home to Orington is about 45 minutes. It requires crossing multiple hightraic streets with no consistent crossing guards. Beyond safety, there are deep emotional impacts. My children at times have struggled not because the Oregon community hasn't been welcoming, because they can't walk home with friends. They've missed out on neighborhood playdates and impromptu playground games. They live the reality of being from somewhere else. Recently, District 65 made the important decision to stop the practice of busing children away from their neighborhoods. Now, here we stand again considering a scenario that will bust children away from their neighborhood up to two miles away. And this
015precise reversal is contrary to what Foster Legacy stands for. And it is unsettling that you are considering the very injust injustice. [music] [applause] >> Anthony Kubis, father of a fourth grader and hopefully an incoming kindergarter at Orington. >> Um that you would consider this injustice. Um and and that you pledge to end that you're not just closing a school, you are shifting the burden of harm onto another set of families. You are telling the Orient community, now it's your turn. Your trauma doesn't matter to those um that have experienced this before. and let's go repeat harm somewhere else. Based on your own analysis of the entire system, Orington ranks as the second most harmed community, second only to Walker. Kingsley and Lincoln would ranked lowest. This was your methodology, your process, and now to disregard
016that data is such a clear bias to um undermining your integrity and the process of your fiduciary duty as board members. Let me remind you about the Orington teachers who are extraordinary. Many of them are here tonight and their retention rate is 84% the highest among the north side schools. The core group of teachers at Orington uh have been at Orington from 15 to 28 years. They are the reason we are the exemplary the only exemplary school in the district. My name is Michelle Veron. And let's be clear, the scorecard waitings account for 75% of this decision framework and and Oregon outperforms in every way. You've since modeled scenarios to close Orington and keep Kingsley open. But consider the geography. The new Foster School and Kingsley are just 500 yards apart. And while ADA compliance
017is critical, let's be pra pragmatic. A building can be modernized, but it cannot be moved. The reoccurring expense of busting an entire school population far outweighs the one-time investment of installing an elevator. Orton is a supportive community ready to help you. And when you have that level of engagement, you don't close it, you build around it. We want to help turn the light back ON THE LIGHTHOUSE. >> [applause] >> ASHIMA HUBARD, ORINGTON PARENT. In 2021, when our daughter entered the tweet program at Bessie Rose, we were excited about raising biiterate children in a diverse community. Although there were stark differences in academic achievement between our neighborhood school at Orington and Bessie, we chose culture and language, confident in the program's expansion plans. Since 2021 when our daughter entered kindergarten at Bessie to the end of
018last school year when our daughter completed third and our son completed kindergarten, we've navigated through shifts in building administration, announcements of closures and staffing changes. But we held strong through all the changes and broken commitments because we were committed to maintaining our Bessie community. However, we noticed growing gaps in our children's academic skills and that required private tutoring. We began to question if the instructional model could outweigh the con the constant instability of a looming closure and move. Therefore, after four years at Bessie, we made the very difficult decision to have our children attend our neighborhood school, Orington. This year was met with many emotions, but our family was warmly welcomed. Like children are, our kids have been more resilient than we could have ever imagined. However, saying children are resilient cannot. >> Jessica Clearary,
019I yield my time to Oshima. >> Saying children are resilient cannot be used as an excuse to continue flawed processes. As much as I hate acknowledging this, I'm not ignorant of the reality that a school or schools will close. While I'm advocating for my children's school to stay open, I understand that a family is fighting the same for theirs. What I'm asking for is that we use objective and consistent criteria when making monumental changes. As much as I'm trying to give compassion to the current administration and board for to fix a problem that's been looming for years, it is this current administration's responsibility to be clear and consistent in their communication and decisions. This was a challenge when discussions and decisions were uh raised regarding Bessie and that inconsistency, mixed messages and wavering reassurance have
020also made their way into this process. While pitting a community against each other has never been the um the intention when plans appear to abruptly veer further away from the objective database decisions from before, this is what breeds hostility, conspiracies, and separation. I understand that you are not in an easy position, but we need to do better. >> [applause] [applause] >> Good evening everyone. Uh my name is Kamal Ganjalhani and I'm an Orington parent. Orington is not just the best performing school in D65. Is not just a school either. It is the bedrock of our community. It's a place where our kids hang out after school with their neighbors in the schoolyard because it's truly a neighborhood school. It's a place where our young children can walk and bike to and from home with their
021parents or alone if older without having to cross busy streets, traffic, pollution, construction. It's a place where our kids feel safe. To many of us, Orington isn't simply a school. Orington is family. Please keep Orington open. Thank you. [applause] Next, we have Chris Miller, Sheila Safe Safreed, Meridel Wallington Wington, Mary Hardy, Charles Dan, Noah Pearlman, and Michelle Martin Cone. Hi, my name is Chris Miller, father of a second grade at Orington. I yield my time back to Kamal. >> Sorry, me again. Oington is a place where our community comes together to play, to celebrate, to share culture. And there is so much culture at Orington. Even though we don't have a bilingual program, our Orington children speak over 30 languages. In my daughter's kindergarten class alone, the kids speak Persian, Ordu, Mandarin, and Czech in
022one classroom. Our Warrington families are not all affluent. In fact, most aren't. I personally know of more than one family that struggles to pay their rent. We are diverse in many ways, but we all have a deep affection for our school and we are welcoming to all. Please keep Orington open. Thank you. [applause] My name is Sheila Ciphered. My husband and I both grew up in district 65 attending Walker Shoot, Lincolnwood, and Haven. This district shaped us. And now, as a former Orington PTA president, I stand here on behalf of parents, teachers, and neighbors who have poured their hearts into this school. A school that is so much more than a building. Orington success didn't happen by chance. It was built through years of love, grit, and partnership. Families volunteer. Teachers go above and beyond.
023Neighbors show up for one another. We've created something so unique that we've been approached by other schools on how we were able to connect with our community and even commended us for it. Orington is a place where children, caregivers, and staff feel seen, supported, and safe. We also have had the opportunity to re-engage with families who have left and come back to Orington. That means Orington has done something right, and we are proud of that. Rightsizing our district has been a long time coming. This is what our schoolboard ran on and it's what our community voted for. >> I'm Meridell Walkington, mom of an Oregon first grader and I yield my time. >> The process has been informed by public input every step of the way. The data was clear, the reasoning was transparent. But
024as personal interests and influences have entered this process, schools seem to rotate weekly on and off the chopping block, creating confusion, division, and distrust. This instability erodess faith in the system and distracts from the real goal, building a stronger, more sustainable district for the future. If the concern is community, from the very beginning of this process, Walkability was identified as the community's highest priorities. It works for family. It keeps children safe, parents engaged, and neighborhoods connected. Yes, we have too many schools, and that must be addressed, but it should be done using the values that matter most to Evston. community voice, equity, and care for our most vulnerable families. If the concern is equity, Orington ranks near the top among North Side schools. Closing it would widen inequities, not close them. The [music] >> Hi,
025my name is Mary Hardy. I am a mother of two or children in kindergartener in a second grade. And I yield my time to Sheila. >> Uh, the goal isn't to protect one school. It's to build one strong unified district by data, not emotion. If the concern is diversity, as an Asian-American parent, I can tell you firsthand, diversity lives at Orington across race, language, income, and family makeup. We don't just talk about inclusion. We practice it every day. And if the concern is academics, Orington stands as the only school in our district rated excellent. We strengthen Orington and allow more students to benefit from that environment. We strengthen Evston as a whole. Exemplary schools lift every neighborhood and attract families to invest in our community. The truth is keeping orrington open strengthens this district. We
026are not asking to be spared. We are asking to be seen clearly. The data early the data spoke early in this process and you serve in positions of trust. We ask that you hold yourselves accountable to that calling. [applause and cheering] My name is Charlie Dan and I'm a D65 parent. The board recently asked for two additional scenarios to be modeled for the SDRP phase 3 process. I'm concerned that what beca what started as a fair, datadriven, and transparent process is at risk of becoming something less credible. One of the scenarios recently requested 2A includes the closure of Orington Elementary. The STRP facilities committee, whose datadriven rankings were rigorous, fair, and transparent, did not recommend any scenarios that include the closure of Orington. This is because Orington is near the top of the list of
027schools that would be most harmful to close along with other geographically isolated schools such as Walker and Lincoln Elementary. When asked if she thought closing Orington Elementary was a good idea worth exploring at a recent board meeting, Dr. Beardsley said, quote, "Orington consistently scored high, i.e. harmful to close on the baseline and scenario specific scorecards. So, we did not bring forward an Orington specific scenario. >> Hi, I'm Noah Pearlman. I'm an Orington parent and I yield my time to Charlie." So what process did leave lead the board to request this scenario? Is there another framework being used to consider school closures besides the one that has been vetted by the administrators and presented to the community? If so, I urge the board to be more transparent with the community about what's driving its decisions. I
028would also like to note that Orington uh the Oregon community was not given the same chance to participate in recent listening sessions as other schools because it wasn't on the original list. And I'd like to point out that the STRP website has not been updated to reflect the additional scenario 2A. Another sign that the process is drifting away from something that began as fair and transparent. I urge the board to honor the fair and datadriven scorecards that were generated by the SDRP facilities committee to alter the process at this late stage is unfair, unaccountable, and untrustworthy. Thank you. [applause] Good evening. My name is Michelle and I'm speaking in support of Orington. I'm the mother of a current student in Orington and aunt Haven. Both of my children went to Kingsley in the past, but
029we pulled my daughter from Kingsley and enrolled her in private school midyear during kindergarten because we had such a bad experience. We considered pulling our son as well, but ultimately didn't because we did not want to have and did not financially plan for two kids in private school. Our son went to Kingsley from kindergarten through the fifth grade and we witnessed amazing teachers leave and watched the school deteriorate over time culminating in a terrible final elementary school year for him. This school year we reenrolled our daughter in district 65 and she is attending Orington. We were extremely nervous to return our daughter to District 65, but we are really happy at Orington. The staff are all welcoming and seem genuinely engaged with the students best interests at heart. District 65 and its educators have created
030a strong community for students to grow and to learn in Orington. It fit our family's anecdotal experience when we learned that Orington that Orington earned an exemplary designation from the Illinois State Board of Education again last week. That designation is reserved for the very best schools in the Okay, next we have Alvaro Vega. >> Yes. >> Ryland Flores. Paul Pack. Paul Park. Jane Park. Carrie Husinga. Melissa Brody. Alfonso ana uh anatum. >> Good evening. My name is Alvarado Vega Jr. and I yield my time to Michelle. I'm a parent of two kids at Orington. That designation is reserved for the very best schools in the state based on their overall performance and only the top 10% of schools achieve it. To receive an an exemplary school designation, a school must demonstrate growth. The student growth
031percentile is a measure of student growth that compares a student's performance over time to that of their academic peers. It includes the current year score and up to two prior year scores, allowing the growth percentile calculation to represent a true growth trend. Growth is weighted as about half of the designation score and proficiency is only about a quarter of the score. Plus, there are additional scores for chronic absenteeism and climate survey participation for those of you noting growth and proficiency alone don't equal 100%. By scoring this way, the Illinois Board of Education requires schools with high proficiency students to make them even higher performing and also makes it possible for schools with lower performing kids to attain an exemplary designation by demonstrating their kids' growth over time. In other words, the focus is on the
032children's demonstrated improvement over time. Oington is the only district 65 elementary school of all 10 schools to achieve the exemplary. Hi, my name is Brilen Flloness and I'm a mom to a kindergartener at Orington and um hopefully another Engle on the way >> is the only school of the 10 schools to achieve the exemplary designation when the latest results came out last week. Plus, Orington has maintained its exemplary rating since 2017. That's seven years in a row. I do not envy the very difficult position that the board, Dr. Turner and Dr. Beardsley are in. Regardless of the decision made, there is no possible way to make everyone happy. I understand that the financial reality is that some of our schools must close and that it's going to have a very personal impact on many students,
033families, and educators. But I argue that and making that very difficult decision. The elementary school of all 10 that has achieved the exemplary education or designation should not be part of the closure discussion. Instead, additional students should be sent to Orington and Orington's best practices should be replicated across the district. Our daughter received such a warm and wonderful welcome to Orington this year and it is clear that the amazing staff and community are well positioned to provide any students reassigned to Orington next year with a similarly smooth transaction transition. I implore you not to close Orington. Thank you. [applause] >> Good evening. Um, my name is Paul Park, uh, and I'm the, uh, parent of a first grader at Orington, uh, with two more future Eagles at home. When I left the military, my wife
034and I searched for a community where our children, the kids of a German immigrant and a second generation Korean-American, could grow up confident in who they are and where they belong. We found that home in Evston and more specifically at Orington with its inclusive spirit and outstanding education. At Orington, every child belongs whether a new English learner or a third gener generation Evstonian. Students are seen, valued, and supported. Dedicated teachers and staff create a space where children thrive academically and socially and emotionally. Our school is the heart of our neighborhood. My son looks forward to walking to school with his friend from down the block and playing with classmates at nearby homes and playgrounds. [music] I'm Jane Park, mother of the same children. And I yield my time to Paul. Uh so my my son
035looks forward to walking to school with his friend from down the block and walk and playing with classmates at nearby homes and playgrounds on the weekends. These everyday connections are exactly why neighborhood schools matter. I believe every child in district 65 deserves this kind of connection to thrive. When children from different backgrounds learn together, they engage more deeply, think more critically, and grow in ways that benefit everyone. That's why I urge you to reconsider closing more than one school. Creating school deserts anywhere in Evston would remove children from their communities, taking away these vital bonds. Every child deserves a school that feels like home. Thank you for your time and consideration, and please keep Orington open. Thank you. [applause] Hi, my name is Carrie Heising and I'm the mother of two elementary students. I respectfully
036urge the board to keep Orington open and return your focus to closing low harm schools instead. Orington should never have been made should never have been made a candidate for closure for many reasons. Walkable neighborhood schools were the principles that guided this entire exercise since Orington is the district's most geographically isolated school. Please look to close other schools that are located just too close together. Oington is the district's least expensive school to operate and the school that requires the very lowest cost capital expense. Aren't we here because of a budget crisis? We need to cut costs and that would logically mean closing expensive schools that need extensive repairs and retaining the school buildings that were built to last and remain in very good shape. Please remember that a school district's core mission is to educate
037its students. I'm Melissa Bryote. I'm a parent at Orington of a first grader and two future Eagles. and I yield my time to Carrie. >> Orington has once again been recognized by the Illinois State Board of Education as our district's only exemplary school for the seventh consecutive year. Kudos to the teachers, staff, and administrators whose work ensures growth and success for all students. When a school achieves this level of excellence, you send more students there, not close it. When a school is welllo, low cost, and educating all students, as Orington clearly is, don't close it. Keeping Orington open is the right move for the district. According to your own data and expert analysis you've been presented, closing any school will cause harm. I just ask that you please don't close one of your highest harm
038schools. Close some of the lowest. Thank you. [applause] >> [applause] >> Hi, my name is Alons. I have three kids in Arlington Elementary and I'm here to support uh Arington. We we moved to the US two years ago uh from the Czech Republic. Uh and uh we we found uh Evansson and Arlington area based on two criteria, safety and great schools. We had what being in Europe, we had one website to go by, it's greats.org. And when we Yeah, that's all we had to to do. and we we we ended up here. Yeah. But the same reasons why we came here. Yeah. If you close Orington then we uh we we might have made a mistake. Um it's not safe. If you close Orington and we have to cross highways to go to school, then
039it's not safe. Defeats the purpose. If we close Arlington, then uh we are not longer uh close to a great school like we were before. Um I am from Africa. My wife is from Czech Republic. My kids speak Czech. They didn't speak English when they got here. They spoke some English, but not enough. Arrington has offered them that bridge from their native language to uh being very fluent in English. Now [music] >> I'm Jennifer Pan. I'm a mother of a fourth grader at Orington and I yield my time. >> Speaking of diversity and languages, uh Orington Diverse museum shows transportation. Travis groundington. [applause] >> Hi, I'm Paula Schmidt. I have um one child at Orington and I yield my time to offs. Arlington has has is one of the best schools in town. An exemplary
040school, the only school in the district that is designated um exemplary state has exemplary state designation. I come from a place where you we farm and you take your best produce to the market. you push your your best foot forward. Um I I would think that you would keep such a school within the district so that we the other schools can emulate what we are doing. Right. Yeah. Thank you very much. [applause] Next we have Katie Weston, Jamia Powell, Alexa Calicott, Sarah Johnson, Heather Brunner, Michael Ball, Jason Paul, Michelle Campbell. Hi, my name is Katie Jerpin Weston and I'm here um tonight to speak as a D65 parent and a longtime public school educator and school administrator. I'm not here to advocate for one school over another and in fact um I think it's really
041important that we um bring the conversation back to building community and what's best for kids and staff. I've been increasingly saddened by what feels like a sole focus on maximizing utilization rates with little to no discussion on how to actually improve teaching and learning while cultivating a sense of belonging for students and staff. Students and staff are not mere numbers on a spreadsheet. It is irresponsible and harmful to proceed without a comprehensive vision and viable transition plan which is a monumental task made even harder with a vacant board seat. The very real threat of ICE, the closing of Bessie Roads and the complexities of opening the foster school, opening Foster and ensuring a thoughtful transition for Bessie Roads should be a top priority and not just one of the many big things the district is
042juggling while also trying to close one to two neighborhood schools. Regardless of what schools close, this effect will be felt across the entire district. Thank you. [applause] >> Hi, we're waiting on someone in the overflow room, so we're just going to skip and have someone else go. My name is Sarah Johnson. I'm a D65 parent, former special education teacher, and in my current role at Lur Children's, I partner with special education teams across the state. We've heard the district make the case that programs are not tied to schools. But successful programs are tied to people. The success of programs like STEP and RISE is because of the hardworking teachers, pair professionals, and related service providers who built relationships with students, families, and one another. Making decisions without carefully considering the impacts of these and other
043services will ultimately drive teachers out of this district. This will impact our students for years beyond the closure of their school. Please consult our special educators in this process. They know more about what their children need than any spreadsheet can tell you. [applause] My name is Heather Bruner and I have two children in Washington's Twe and a child in Lincoln STEP program. I'm also a veteran special ed teacher with over 18 years in public uh schools. I'm urging you to protect what works and save our schools. STEPP works because teachers and principles have together built systems that keep the students safe and learning. But those teachers have voiced their concerns in these meetings for moving the programs and so do I. So I asked the district toured buildings, but did they observe step classrooms with
044students actually in them? Because touring empty rooms is not understanding how STEPP actually functions. Have they accounted for classrooms with bathrooms for toileting? If not, where will those students with toileting needs go? What about their dignity about being changed in front of their peers? What about the safety of students who alope? Will every building have the safeguards in place by August? When where will the students receive speech, OT and social work? Where will the space be? This cannot be an afterthought. Protect what works. Save our schools. STEPP works. Protect STEP. [applause] Hi everyone, my name is Jia Pal. I'm a D65 parent of two daughters at Lincolnwood. One of my daughters is in the STEP program. The other has a 504 plan. As a parent of a child on the spectrum, I know how firsthand
045how difficult transitions can be. For students in STEP or those with IEPs and 504 plans, school closures just don't mean a change in scenery. They mean a disruption to the specialized services and trusted relationships that are essential to their success. These changes can cause significant setbacks. And as a parent, I feel powerless to prepare my children for what's ahead. The district washed nature of this process is deeply concerning. It feels like financial considerations are being prioritized over the well-being of our children, educ educators, and families. I understand that unexpected challenges arises, but when decisions affect multiple schools, programs, and communities, we need a clear plan and open dialogue. Research shows that students on the spectrum and those with serving plans. >> I'm Alexa Calcott, and I yield my time. >> Thrive. Um, they thrive in
046a stable and consistent environment. Our schools already have an infrastructure with sensory rooms, gated playgrounds, and in-classroom bathrooms that support these students daily. Recreating these accommodations elsewhere will require time, funding, and training. My daughter has made meaningful progress in step thanks in part to having the same teacher and a familiar and supportive supportive environment. With school closure, students like mine may be separated not only from their teachers and peers, but from their siblings. As a single parent, I want my children to attend the same school, share the same opportunities, and grow together. My daughter in step is working towards more inclusion and a general education, and that process will be disrupted if she's forced to start over at a new school with new teachers and unfamiliar classmates without her sister by her side. I stand
047here not for my children, but for all the families who rely on schools and D65. We are a stronger community when we advocate together, and I urge the board to listen to our voices. >> [applause] >> Hi, my name is Mike Bowl. I have three children at Willard. We live in the new foster school attendance area. We're in support of the foster school. Uh but most of our Smith Park neighborhood is in the second ward and we're separated from the fifth by an industrial corridor. My three kids don't want to go to the foster school. We're sear here on the on the list. We've worked very hard over the last 5 years that they've gone to Willard to create community around the school they attend. They love their teachers. They love their friends. We've become
048very involved in the Willard community. I've done a science demonstration for the science fair the last four years. I've taken over the Willard Owls yearbook. My kids trick-or-treated in the Willard area because that's where their friends are. My son won the Justin Win award because of how confident he's grown in that setting. We've poured our energy into growing these connections because we were told throughout this process we could stay at our neighborhood school. I don't know how you guys are going to make this decision. I don't know why you're focusing so much on the money in the buildings when it's the kids that matter. I don't know how you can send out an interest survey with only yes as an option of whether you want to attend the foster school. I don't know how you
049go about drawing boundaries when you clearly don't know enough about the neighborhoods you're trying to tear apart. Please slow down. [applause] >> My name is Jason Turo Paul and I am a D65 parent. I have been an elementary school teacher for the past decade and I am deeply concerned at the long list of questions that the board has delayed answering until after schools are closed. We've already heard about how this is going to affect special education students. It is also going to affect general education students as well. In my experience, when teachers are overwhelmed, the quality of instruction suffers. One of the first things to go is small groupoup instruction. The kind of targeted teaching that helps struggling students make real progress. And our data shows our students are already struggling. I want to be
050clear, our teachers are amazing, but next year they are going to be overwhelmed. They'll be adjusting to involuntary transfers, new teams, new buildings, and in some cases, new grades. They'll be managing larger classes in overcrowded classrooms because 103% utilization means just that. When teachers are in survival mode, intervention and indivi individualized supports go away. Please slow down. [applause] >> My name is Michelle Campbell and I'm a District 65 mom and change management practitioner by trade. I've come today with one question and that is why are we still here? The majority of the community members, caregivers, and teachers, the people that you all are supposed to be working for, have come out in mass to reject this plan and continually ask that to slow it down and are showing its countless flaws and better options. And
051yet, we are still here. Our community and its most vulnerable members are fighting ICE each day. They're losing benefits that threaten their most basic needs. And yet, we are still here. This process is being helmed by board members and district leadership who have continually shown they're untrustworthy through crisises and critical decisions including COVID budget mismanagement an indictment of a superintendent and yet we are still here in down one member. I am pleading with you as an exhausted mother, neighbor, and community member to extend your deadlines to help families leaving Bessie Roads and going into foster next year to support the children who need it most right now and to make a better student focused plan. >> [applause] >> Next we have [applause] Zaki Tazik, Katie Armistad, Paula Fitz, Liz Woolins, Lauren Greenwood, Maido Shama, Terry
052Harkin, Derek Lace. >> Uh, I believe I requested two minutes as an accommodation. We have two minutes. >> Okay, great. Thank you so much. Uh my name is Zoki uh uh Soi Tasich. I'm a district uh district 65 uh district 65 parent. I'm here tonight to speak on behalf of a group of over 50 district 65 uh parents who submitted a summary proposal to the board on November 1st, 2025. These were parents from Link, Lincoln, Willard, Daws, Washington, Nicholls, and Chute. The proposal gives a district the ability to hold SDRP3 goals while incorporating slight adjustments. It includes four actions that could result in a approximately 12 million dollars in net annual benefits to the district through a combination of feasible cuts and revenue generating options. We hope that all the district parents will get behind
053this and we uh urge you to sign the related change.org petition called D65 Save Eson schools from closure. I have a lot of copies of our letter as well as a more detailed version of it for anyone who's interested and I submitted into the uh um into the record. [applause] >> Okay, cool. >> Good job. >> Um hi, I'm Katie Armistad. I'm a district 65 parent uh and co-founder of invest in neighborhood schools uh amended STRP3 path whatever it takes how to move forward with STRP by shifting the order of operations not starting over and adding rigor in phase three slow down protect what's working find a better path given that school closures harm children are an unproven method to reduce budget deficits there is no broad community approval and new data is still surfacing
054school closure should be the last option explored board, not one of the first. We request that district 65 amend phase three of the school deficit reduction plan by following the recommendations below, which would allow the district to still carry on the STRP and work towards the main goals stated by the board president of having a balanced budget, increasing cash on hand, addressing utilization concerns, and centering student achievement and academic excellence. Before voting on school closure scenarios, the district should one Hi, I'm Paula Fitz. I'm a D65 parent. One, assess admin cost and financial processes. Explore additional administrative and other cost reductions which can result in an at least at least an additional 1.5 million reduction. conduct an independent financial audit of the district's finances and share the plans for fiscal fiscally fiscally responsible stewardship of
055funds and processes. This should be in line with the finance committee members feedback from October 10th 20 10 2025. Number two, analyze revenue potential. conduct the revenue generating analysis stated in C SDRP3 to see a more accurate picture of the deficit that needs to be addressed once all revenue options have been considered. The community has provided over 20 initial ideas to analyze with a net 10 million 10 plus million annual income potential. Hi, I'm Liz Woolen, a district 65 parent and co-founder of Invest in Neighborhood Schools. Also consider a referendum on the March 17th, 2026 ballot that may support if that many will support if school closure decisions slow down and proper financial stewardship systems are in place. Three, show proof of concept. demonstrate the district's capacity and student flow through the closure of Bessie
056Roads and successfully opening Foster as case studies showing their final financial impacts on the deficit, community impact, and student outcomes. Four, evaluate facilities and assets, conduct a repair prioritization analysis for the deferred maintenance costs across schools, and have a third party conduct a new independent assessment to restore faith in district contracting. Relatedly, stop referring to $188 million as if it was a onetime lump sum payment. Review additional options for district 65 owned properties and assets. >> Hi, I'm Lauren Greenwood, a D65 parent. There is no justification for holding a vote on school closure scenarios without first implementing the recommendations above as part of SDRP3 and evaluating the results resulting data and its impacts on the deficit. We ask the board to fulfill its duties in representing the needs and desires of the community by adhering
057to our recommended path. If after analyzing the above, school closures do surface as a last resort option, we recommend the district do the following in closing scenarios. One, prioritize special programming. Diligently analyze the impact and goals of specialized programs like STEP and rise and twe ensuring there are inputs from the Spanishspeaking community. Demonstrate with transparent, verifiable data that changes will not harm Latino Hispanic students. include detailed closure and transition plans for each of the scenarios and their impact. >> Good evening. My name is Mahmud Shaman. I have three kids in district 65 schools, two in Nicholls and one in Washington. To continue, conduct proper data analysis. Conduct a data audit. Fix data and analysis issues. Incorrect input data. Running static models. Emitted measures. Arbitrary weights. Commit to transparent practices to share data sources and shortcomings.
058For example, missing data, scorecard methodology, potential biases and limitations, assumptions and models. Ensure independent replicability. Proactively seek feedback. Validate assumptions as well. Study the drop in enrollment and enrollment projections. While district 665 enrollment has decreased over 20% in the last 5 years, district 202 has held almost flat. The district must conduct an enrollment study to understand why fans are leaving. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Good evening. Picking up. My name is Terry Harkin. I'm a D65 parent. We believe this analysis, the additional analysis will take work and time. Evston students deserve this investment. It is far better to invest in our students than to close schools and separate our communities. If you do this, you will not be alone. The community will be there to support you. Let's keep schools open for every child every
059day, whatever it takes. Again, this has been co-signed by over 50 Evston parents and caregivers from multiple D65 schools across the district, and the list is growing. Thank you. [applause] Derek Lays, Lauren McNa, Jean Clippertton, Scott Campbell, Estan Quinos, Andre Lombaro, John Brady, Kelly McCab, Jacob Carlin. I'm I'm Lauren McNamera, but you all called the name in front of me, so I'm not sure. >> You can go ahead, though. >> Okay. >> Uh, my name is Lauren McNamera. I have over 20 years of statistics, data science, and AI governance experience. The Legion of Data Nerds is back again tonight to speak as one non-denominational voice, urging this board to use evidenceinformed decision-making to build a thriving future for our community, our schools, and our children. We are applied scientists bringing a collective over 200 years
060of multidisciplinary professional expertise working with data analysis and research methodology. We want to offer solutions and provide clarity starting with articulating our concerns around how the choices made on modeling methods during this process have predetermined the results. A model will optimize for what the builder tells it to. It is possible to have a sound analysis with a model pointing in the wrong direction. The district models point us to maximizing school utilization. While related, this is not the same target as financial stability. Driving towards max school utilization sidelines finances and cuts asking what is best for our community and our children out of the conversation, including applying scrutiny to administrative staff and buildings. Hello, my name is Jean Clipperton. I bring 19 years of modeling experience. Statistician George Bach said, "All models are wrong, but some
061models are useful. The way the scorecard models will were built from the initial baseless 95% utilization target to the scorecard design and capacity definitions have limited what outcomes were even possible from the start. These tools, though well-intentioned, influenced not only our answers, but the range of questions we can even ask. The categories are highly correlated with one another, indicating they serve as proxies instead of measures. The model also lacks the sensitivity to respond appropriately to different scenarios and appears rigid in ways that suggested serving as an indicator for predetermined conclusions about school size rather than illuminating general tradeoffs. Unless we recognize these built-in biases, the board risks making decisions based on the model's assumptions rather than the district's real needs. [applause] >> Hi, my name is Scott Campbell. I have uh over 20 years of
062experience with data. I'm here because I know how important it is to ensure that the data guy guiding our closure discussions are setting up the district for the future. Currently, the data are underestimating enrollment and could be overestimating capacity, which will which will result in larger class sizes and greater transportation costs. This is crucial because large class size is the strongest factor linked to lower student performance. And I know we're talking about enrollment, I think, on this agenda. I want to stress that I looked at their report. It really needs to be broken down by school in that five-year forecast to make it useful. Um, now thinking about the scorecards now. So, so the enrollment numbers, they do not include any students from the fifth ward choosing to finish their school outside of Foster. They
063don't include any of the estimated 7% growth in Lakewood and Kingsley. That's in another demography report. They also don't include any students returning to D65 from private school. And if any of this is true, you're going to really you're going to have large class sizes. UM, [applause] The district has been advancing an argument that we have to urgently close numerous schools. In contrast, the board acknowledges a need for a vision. This calls for a needs assessment. How do we compare to other districts? What are our goals? We can't improve what we don't understand. And you can't prioritize everything. A needs assessment tells us where to start. It's a standard systematic examination of our current reality that reveals specific actionable insights. What professional development teachers really need, where achievement gaps exist, and how our resources align
064with our goals. At the moment, we are only talking about resources due to a lack of specific goals and a broader vision. The first part of this assessment begins with teachers and families. There's a unique opportunity to gather more robust data to inform these conversations. I yield my time to seven, such as an exit survey of families who have left E65, which is an alarmingly alarmingly large number. We urge the board and the district to slow down and conduct a proper needs assessment that centers on education outcomes, student well-being, and equity while considering utilization and finance to define a vision with key performance indicators that we can use to benchmark our progress against uh as we move forward. If conducted properly, a needs assessment provides an opportunity for the community to co-interpret data and identify
065shared motivations and objectives, thereby helping develop communities support and ownership. We, as a legion of data nerds, are also committed to giving teachers a voice at the seat and at the table. We are currently exploring how to field a survey with teachers at this very moment. The last thing I want to say is that without good data and vision, we cannot make sound decisions. Thank you. >> [applause] >> My name is John Brady and I'm a member of the financial STRP committee. We can't responsibly make closure decisions without a comprehensive forensic audit as other Hort and previously led districts are doing. The board needs more time to find additional savings through administrative cuts, transportation, cutting early grade tech spending, and projects coming under budgets such as Foster that will reduce the overall deficit. administration [snorts]
066when accounts for the largest portion of the operating budget has increased while enrollment has decreased. This is a clear need to rightsize the administrative cost, but this should not be examined by the district's own administration and warrants an independence audit. We have many untapped revenue options like leasing JH, selling Bessie roads, and engaging with a community for a referendum that is tied to a clear vision of [snorts] what the community wants that is best for the children and teachers of D65. The most important individuals in D65 are for the students and teachers. Invest in the teachers. invest in the students and by cutting additional schools, you will tank your chance at a referendum. Thank you. [applause] >> Hello, my name is Kelly McCabe. I have over 20 years of data experience as a researcher and
067epidemiologist. The solution to the issues of incomplete data is clear. We should use the upcoming school year to fill in the critical missing pieces. We suggest the district test its assumptions and demonstrate the feasibility of successfully closing Bessie Roads while simultaneously opening foster school. This realworld data will offer the most accurate insights to guide the district's next steps. After next year, the sale of Bessie Roads will no longer be an assumption, but a confirmed amount. We will know the exact cost of opening Foster as well as its true enrollment. Transportation costs will also become clear, which is crucial given their significant impact on the budget. We are already witnessing factions forming within our school communities. If the board doesn't adopt a transparent, datadriven approach, we risk deepening these divisions that are pitting Evston schools against
068each other. If nobody knows, we shouldn't close. [applause and cheering] Hi, my name is Jacob Harland. I have over 17 years of financial market experience. We'll continue to crunch the numbers and provide as many financial levers as possible, but we need to address the district's image problem. The Horton indictment, structural deficit, botched me uh Bessie roads closure, the threat of having to close up to four more schools, and declining enrollment from families pulling their children from D65 are contributing factors. Closing two schools in the north will leave a large neighborhood without a K through5 school. And so resentment, it's time to come together as a community. We have an opportunity to correct mistakes that put us in this situation. Let's rightsize the administration so that principles can run their schools, teachers can run their classrooms.
069Let's increase transparency and community engagement. Let's come together and celebrate the birth of the foster Phoenix. Not only for the launch of a new school, but for the rebirth of our district. We must move forward together, anchored in sound data with the district as our lighthouse. We are here to help turn that light back on. >> [applause] >> NEXT WE have Peter Buggera, Robin Telander, Mike Dice, Kelly Farley, Angel Burke, Beth Brady, Lindseay White, Maggie Waldron, Camille Walker. Cool. We good. >> Hello, I'm Peter Boggera. I'm a parent of three students at Kingsley, apparently a low harm school. School closures have long divided this community, but amid STRP3, there is also an opportunity, one I believe this board shouldn't squander. Much of the community would support closing one school this year. While the pain for
070current Kingsley families wouldn't compare to the harm fifth ward families have endured, most parents, caregivers, staff, and students today agree closures are harmful and should be minimized. Some say closing fewer than two schools is insufficient. I believe the present data is inefficient to prove there's no better way. Board members have a duty to protect district assets, and approving multiple closures without a clear plan or referendum fails that duty. Forcing a vote that limits options to two school closures on one board member's timeline stifles the creative, communitydriven solutions you've asked for. It's time to turn the light back on the lighthouse together. [applause] Oh, can I restart my time? Okay. Hi, my name is Robin Telander and I'm on the SDP facilities committee. Our committee is full of brilliant, committed community members, but we were never
071given the chance to present creative solutions and our scorecard was never meant to carry this much weight. So, here's my creative creative solution. Not one that serves my family, but one that I believe best serves our city. I speak in as an extremely proud Kingsley parent, a former special education teacher, and a child and family therapist. If Kingsley must close, let's close it strategically. The building is in great shape. ADA accessible and shares a block with Haven near Green Bay and McCormack for easy access and transportation. Renovate Kingsley so Park School gets a state-of-artthe-art building it deeply deserves. Its proximity to Haven would allow Haven students to become best buddies to Park students, a gift for both communities, while giving Park students access to Central Street for life skills learning. JH can also move to
072Kingsley with 276 students at JH 58 at park and Kingsley's capacity of 435 that fit works that closes four buildings Bessie roads last year Kingsley in 2627 park and JH in 2728. [music] [applause] Hi folks, Mike Dice here, Lincolnwood and Haven parent. First, I do want to acknowledge and salute teachers, staff, community, and board members who stepped up on Friday for the safety and care of our children and community. [cheering and applause] Last week, there was an attempt to bind the board to closings two schools, only for the revelation minutes later of millions of dollars in potential savings from foster construction. Money not included in the financial overview given by the district earlier in the night. This is not the time to trust shaky district math done on the back of a napkin. commit to
073a scenario that closes no more than one haven feeder pattern. This would minimize the impact to walkability and over capacity, incur minimal to no added transportation costs or hazardous crossings, protect K8 magnet and title one schools, and allow twe and step communities to stay together in their schools. This is not the time to add distance and barriers between caregivers and their children's schools. This is a time for caution and care. Thank you. [applause and cheering] Hi there, Kelly Farley, STRP finance committee member. Um, I want to first extend my deep gratitude for the school board members that were present Friday where the horrific ICE incident happened between Shoot and Oakton schools. Pat, Andrew, and Nicole were there along with dozens of others in our community. I was angry and heartbroken, and Pat kindly encouraged me
074to take heart in our community members coming together in this horrible moment. Our community is diverse, strong, and compassionate. I want to remind everyone that race was not included in determining the equity scores for reasons explained on the STRP site. I implore the board and the community to remember that as we think about the hardship on students of color who would be asked to go to a new school, travel new routes, and trust new teachers and classmates amidst the very real threats they face each day. Whether we live in the ambiguous regions of north, south, east, west, Evston, it's important to remember that those regions are not a characteristic to include in the category of equity. Equity as defined by the SDRP process includes students have one or more of the following characteristics. An IEP.
075>> Hi, I'm Angel Berg. I give my time to Kelly. An IEP, an English learner or low income. Low income, meaning a family of four needs to make less than $60,000 in annual income. Please think hard about that as we face the likely suspension or reduction of SNAP benefits this month. These three factors are considered ones that would cause disproportionate burden to those families in a school transition. That is what equity means in this process. It has nothing to do with arbitrary regions of Evston. If you do decide on two school closures, please do not phase the closures. The delayed rollout will mean a school much lower in their priority on scorecards with much higher equity and student impact scores will be targeted because we won't want to move students twice. Naming the schools now
076and building a plan matters to retain the integrity of the process. [applause] Hi, my name is Lindseay White. I'm a D65 parent. I stand here tonight echoing what I said at the last meeting. the data and the consultants we've hired have recommended two school closures and I believe we should listen to them. I love the creative problem solving that's come out of these meetings, but the fact remains that we're in a financial crisis and we have money to account for in this next school budget. I've heard many who are relieved that we had found extra money in Foster and Bessie Road's costs and they're hoping this is enough to move away from two school closures. However, the consultants and the financial team had all of this data before the last meeting and they've continued to
077recommend two school closures. We also continue to have a deferred maintenance problem that we need to look ahead to and consider and hopefully build public trust surrounding. We need to show the public that when hard decisions need to be made that we can face them together. No one wants to see schools closed, but this is the position we are in. And I'm not willing to look away from our underenrollment and our underutilization issues that will continue to be here unless we move forward with this hard choice to rightsize schools specifically within the Haven feeder pattern. Thank you. [applause] My name is Margie Waldron and I am a D65 parent. First of all, I want to thank the administration and the board for setting out a transparent and inclusive process from the beginning. As the school
078closure decision nears, I'm here to urge the board to be really specific about what other cuts will need to be made to close the rest of the deficit. Specifically, what programs are being considered and what will the impacts be on our children? I urge the board to consider the equity impacts of these programming cuts. There was a process for identifying equity impacts of building closures. Let's make sure there's a process for identifying equity impacts of programming adjustments. The professionals who are delivering these programs, social workers, psychologists, language specialists, special ed leaders, need to be consulted. I have heard them speak up in past board meetings. Let's make sure we are listening. What we've learned from community feedback sessions is that our community values and wants to uphold these programs. When each of our students thrive,
079all of our students thrive. Thank you. [applause] I'm Beth Brady, teacher and parent in district 65. And in the discussion of school closures, I've been concerned by some of the conversation I've been hearing in our community around equity and talking about what's fair. And I want to uplift what equity is. Equity means seeking solutions that account for and seek to address existing inequalities. This means that in the difficult decision to close schools that the children and families currently experiencing marginalization with their identities and circumstances receive prioritized care and considerations as scenarios are considered. I'd like to make a distinction here. Separate but connected are those who will be most impacted in the decision that is made. Families and children who do bear the weight of this decision should receive prioritized care and consideration during the
080transition. and we must commit to that, too. These aren't the same, but they both matter. Thank you. [applause] Hi, my name is Camille Walker and I'm a D65 parent. Regarding phasing school closures, I would ask you to really consider what this means for our community and our students. We need to give families and staff clarity on the path forward for our district. It's unnecessarily cruel having one school close, a student moves to another school, and then the next year or two they're forced to move again. The same with the shuffling of staff that has to happen. This is avoidable and unnecessarily cruel for our students and staff. However, just because we don't want our students or staff to move twice does not mean two schools in the haven feeder pattern should be off the table.
081The data does show us that this is what we need to do and I fear that phase school closure is simply a distraction from closing the schools that the data has led us to. I urge the board if you do want to consider a phase school closure in order to look at creative costsaving measures, please name that second school by November 17th and let our community move forward and process. Thanks. [applause] Next we have Terry Shepard, Jake Wines, Annie Cawthorne, Jim Randelli, Randonelli, Hannah Jones Lewis, Claire Mallerie, Richard Rickus, Sue Libra, and Erica Cather. First, >> I believe the topic of tonight's meeting should be equity. I believe North Side Haven Feed Theater School should be responsible for helping us to bring our district back in order. I was a DSRP participant. I wanted Willard
082gone. However, due to the data, I saw that was not feasible solution to our plan. Willard was too large to close. Was I happy? No. But I supported and continue to support the plan. Equity. Then I looked at Lincoln with data. Why do they get to have as few as 10 kids in the class yet you want to close the ACC at Oakton when our class size is down? Equity. Next, I looked at Kingsley data. We wanted ACC at Kingsley for our second strand. Parents, PTA, and the principal said no, not interested. Now, we have a school in the fifth ward where these same kids can now walk as close as across the street to go to school, close Kingsley, and introduce an ACC curriculum at foster. Many parents still have a clue. Many parents
083still don't have a clue as to what ACC is. My husband would say, "Sometimes you don't know you're sick until the doctor tells you." So, educate this community so they will understand the importance of an ACC curriculum and give the teachers ACC teachers a stipen. [applause] Hello, my name is Jake Wis. I am a D65 parent. And guys, this sucks. >> Like, do you guys feel it >> for years? >> This sucks. You guys feel it, too. And the number one fear that I have is I don't want to do this again. Do you want to sit in that chair again? No. You want to sit up here and listen to us tell all our stories of all these dreams you got to rip away from certain kids going to school? No. This sucks. So,
084we've got to do something about it. And it's y'all's job to do something about it. It's us to inform y'all on what to do about it. And you guys to take that and do the best you can with it. But do not make us do this again because this sucks. [applause] Hi, my name is Annie Cawthorne. I'm a District 65 parent and tonight I'd like to talk to you about equity, what it is and what it's not. Equity is not equality. For things to be equal, we assume that we all start at the same place. But in equity, we take into account the unique challenges that individuals face. Equality can be thought of as sameness, while equity is more like fairness. With all that being said, we cannot claim to uphold equity for our most
085marginalized students if we are not willing to follow the data and make the hard choices right now. As we've seen in the attacks from ICE this week, from Oakton parents being taken from kids in fear to walk home from school, things are harder for black, brown, Hispanic, and lowincome families. Please consider the impact of not naming a second school. Evston, we can do hard things and we need to do it now. [applause] My name is James Rond Elli and I'm a D65 parent. It's troubling to see phase closures proposed in a way that deviates from the process and distorts the criteria leading to choices not supported by data like closing a fuller school with a higher equity impact score that undermines the integrity of the process and harms our most vulnerable students. I understand these
086decisions are emotional, but your responsibility is to make decisions based on objective data and financial sustainability. The status uh the reality is clear. This district cannot maintain the status quo without increasing financial deficits. The phased closure cohort appears like an attempt to undermine the process to benefit their own interests. Closing one school now lets them argue next year that it's too disruptive to move again, forcing closure of a more efficient, higher capacity school that ties your hands and will increase class sizes where ratios are already high, undermining equity. Teachers need stability. Delaying this risk losing educators amid statewide shortages. Please break the cycle of irresponsible finances that has plagued District 65 and show the community you can make hard decisions. [applause] >> Hi, Hannah Jones Lewis. I'm a District 65 parent. No one wants to
087be in this position. No one wants to talk about closing schools, places that hold our children's second homes, their friendships, and sense of belonging. I don't want that for my children. But the truth is, we're here. And as painful as it is, we have the chance to lead this process together with honesty and courage rather than have it forced upon us later. We cannot bankrupt our district for our own comfort. We cannot cling to what feels familiar just because change feels unbearable. If we all believe in public education, then we must make choices that protect it, even when those choices are hard. It might be uncomfortable and we might wish we had different choices in front of us, but it is time for this board to act. The process to determine school closures has been
088fair, transparent, and data driven. We said as a community that equity is important to us. So, here we are. Equity is not a talking point. It is a responsibility. It means we do not close the doors. My name is Claire Mallerie and I yield my time to Hannah. It means we do not close the doors on schools that serve our most v vulnerable students. Equity is also not a word that we bend to protect our own comfort or a slogan we pull out when it's convenient. It's a principle we live by to protect all of our kids. We can't keep changing its meaning to fit what we wish were true. We must move forward with closing two schools, name them by November 17th, and focus on the Haven feeder pattern. The scorecard data about these
089schools were clear. Enrollment is lowest, fewer buildings are ADA compliant, and the free and reduced lunch numbers are lowest, and none are title one schools. But as we do this, we have to decide what kind of community we want to be. Across our nation, we're living in a time when fear and division dominate public life. Bullying, silencing, cruelty. We cannot replicate that here. We must do better. We can disagree passionately without demeaning or heckling administrators and each other in these meetings. We can model the courage and respect that we want our children to carry into the world. Make the hard choice. [applause] Hi, I'm Richard Rickus, former DAS parent and former school board member. And I just want to plead with the board to just close Bessie Roads in one school. Why? We need more
090time for financial analysis. Today the round table published that in the last 8 years we lost 2,000 students and yet we have 130 more staff than that same starting point in time. We need to look for other opportunities besides closing schools. We need time to win back families who left. And if you close two schools, more families will leave the district and we won't win back families that left. This, especially since we're looking at north side schools, will drain support for public schools we can support in the vote dense north side wards and ultimately doom any potential referendum. Our schools will crumble even further. And unfortunately, your legacy could be an increase in two separate and unequal school systems in Evston. Wellunded private ones and underfunded public ones. For those who are still seeking Sergio's
091removal from the board [applause] and I am a Wheeler Twe parent and I support Foster School. Thank you so much for your time tonight and for all the work you do for our school. The administration has said they want to remove the TUI program from Wheeler because there aren't enough Spanish-speaking students in WS six and seven, but that's simply not the case. Through a recent foyer request, we learned that 30 Spanish speaking students from these warts currently attend TUI. And since the district hasn't yet had a chance to fully engage with our Hispanic and Latino families, a group of will our parents reach out directly through through this outreach. This is what we found. We identified an additional 10 more K through five students who wanted to access twe at willer but were turned away
092or chose private school instead. We also found seven preschoolers and 15 younger children from Spanish speaking families eager to join the program. [applause] >> Erica Crowther I yield my time to Anna. and learned that half of the Spanish speaking Wheeler tweet families from the fifth ward want to stay at Wheeler even without transportation. That's up to like close to 60 current and future Spanish-sp speakaking children across WS five, six, and seven ready and waiting for twe at Wheeler. Now about the proposal to close the eighth strand, the district says twe utilization is too low but it is 69% and growing. While district-wide enrollment is dropping 3% each year, two enrollment is growing five 5% per year. At this rate, we will need a ninth strand by 2030. If we cut down to seven strands now,
093we will outgrow that in just two years and risk undoing years of progress. So, I will end with this. We exist. We want to state cutting a strand now will weaken something that's working, something that is growing. Twe is just a just isn't just a program. It is a promise. A promise that every child deserve to learn, belong and thrive in two languages. Mucha gracia. [applause] Next we have Elizabeth Jackson, West Needle, Jodie Wickenshimer, Robin Brown, Russell Shenan, Vic Filipini, Noel Morrison, Simone Camponyi, and Kenneth Mantel. Can I have all of it? This and another minute. There you go. Uh my name is Elizabeth Jackson Sterling. Uh I go by Miss Jackson and I've taught in district 65 middle schools for over half my life. Uh I am the current deck vice president. I am
094here to tell a story. On May 17, 2022, toward the end of a truly chaotic year being one of the deck reps at Haven, a chaos that is well documented by local news outlets, I reached out to then board members Joey Halper and Donna Wang Su and Sula Kim, who had been quoted in a news article related to events at Haven to request a meeting. Initially, I received a prompt response and we had a meeting time set. But then at 2:24 that afternoon, after talking to the superintendent, I received this message from Miss Kim. I think I read too quickly. If you are not also a parent in district 65, then I think it would be best to reach out to deck leadership with any concerns about haven or personnel matters. I do not want
095to circumvent processes that are in place for addressing the these issues. Thank you. Mr. Halpern soon followed with an email CCing Dr. Horton that said, I am writing to also rescend my acceptance of your request to meet. It is not about opposition as much as it is about process. >> [applause] >> Hi, I'm Wes Needle. I'm a District 65 parent. Um, I had a speech, but a minute's not enough, so I'm going to change it up a little bit. Um, first off, I want to say from hearing things earlier tonight, um, there is no such thing as a low impact school. You can advocate for your school and not try to bring down others. So, thank you. [applause] Um to to the board, I I really think that it is so important that you build
096back trust with the community. Um that is that is so important to me. I think that's so important to others. Um and there are really two things I want you to consider. Community feedback. I have felt from a couple board members that they are truly listening and truly trying to find creative solutions. I appreciate you and I thank you. I also think that you need to value the feedback of teachers. Teachers have advocated for one school closure on top of Bessie roads and have advocated for two members to step down who are part of a failed administration. Thank you. [applause] >> Hello school board members and community. Um, I'm Jodie Wickershimer and I think back to a February 2018 finance committee meeting where Raphael Obafi showed the financial arc that the money would run out
097in 2025. Check the meeting minutes. We knew that this was coming. The fight that we have right now is for public education to be available. that we are in control of making decisions for our school district so that the Illinois State Board of Education does not take away our ownership and authority to do that. So, please pay attention to the financial decision that was coming because we have 6,193 students who are in the district today. I brought one of mine with me because she needed to see how this process was playing out and how people are engaged and we are ready to go the distance with you. [applause] Good evening. I'm Vic Filipini. At your last meeting, I informed you that your datadriven STRP process has utilized fundamentally flawed data. Yet nobody from the board
098and none of your staff contacted me to get documentation for that flawed data. That failure assures that this data driven driven SDP process is one of garbage in garbage out. It is irresponsible to continue down a wrong road when you know it's wrong. You have to do better for the community and the students. I do want to thank the D65 and Lincolnwood faculty and staff. however, for efforts related to recent responses both to the guntoing ICE agents that appeared Friday at the border of the Lincolnwood campus and to the food insecurity among our community members due to the government's shutdown. These efforts reflect what D65 community can do together. Your facts be damned full steam ahead SDRT process is how to tear the community apart. do better. [applause] >> Hello, my name is Robin Brown.
099I am a parent uh my 12th year in this district. I'm now in my second Trump presidency while having kids in this district. I've been a parent through a pandemic, a genocide, too many school shootings to count, and many other local and global crises. Despite imperfections and challenges, I have been proud to be a part of this district. I still feel that way, particularly after the horror inflicted on our community on Friday. As masked armed agents terrorized our community, I was grateful for Dr. Turner's timely communications and the safety measures enacted by school admin. I was comforted to see several board members at the rallies against ICE on Friday and Saturday. Thank you. Regarding school closures, I'm going to skip what I was going to say except to say this is not new. As I
100said, this is my 12th year. People have been talking about closing schools that whole time. You have the tough decisions to make. Please make them. Make them decisively as you've made in phase one of SDRP. I trust you. Thank you. [applause] >> Hi, good evening. Russ Shown, uh, Willard parent. So from my perspective, the real challenge here is not a financial one. It's a deficit of trust between the board and the community. What's needed is a trust deficit reduction plan. Restoring trust will also strengthen the district's financial future. Three pillars of trust: competence, problem solving, caring for others. I believe this board truly cares, but as a whole board, the board still needs to prove its competence and problem solving ability. Here are three actions I believe can do that. One, test your assumptions. If
101a school must be closed, close one and verify your data. Savings by research show the most you'll save is 1 million per school. That's less than a percent. Two, engage this community. There are great people here with skill sets. And lastly, I don't believe board members who served under Dr. Horton should vote to close MY NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOL. >> [cheering] [applause] >> OKAY. NICOLE MORRISON, Simone Campony, Kenneth Mantel, Timothy Hin, Tracy uh Wal, Rebecca, or is it Walter? Rebecca Walter, Thomas Weber, Mitchell Hubbert. >> Okay. >> I think they went to the overflow room. I They went to go get them. >> Please come. You can come up to me. >> I wasn't called first, but I'll go anyway. Um, good evening. My name is Thomas Weber. Um, I served as a member of the STRP
102finance committee. Some of you may have seen my op-ed in Evston now last week calling on the board to ask more questions about the STRP process. Although there are more pressing problems we could be discussing tonight as we steal reel from ISIS's actions outside our schools last week which all but guarantee that certain community members cannot attend tonight including some families of the students in Willard's tweet program which is subject to closure. I understand that four members of this board still want to push forward quickly with multiple school closures even though our projected 2026 deficit is less than 0.0 02% of the operating budget. I think it's fair to say that there are still many unanswered questions tonight. I hope the board takes the time it needs to make sure that people feel heard in
103answering those questions. As you know, from Foster school closure half a century ago, a school closure can haunt a neighborhood for decades. Thank you, [applause] >> Ryan. Are there folks in the overflow room? >> No. >> Okay. Well, that concludes our public comments for >> I want to thank everyone for their comments and for being in attendance and we're going to uh now move forward with our agenda. I move that the board approve today's meeting agenda as presented. >> Second. >> Wymer. >> Yes. >> Wilkins. >> Yes. >> Pinker. >> Yes. >> Hernandez. >> Yes. >> Anderson. >> Yes. >> We're now going to move into the committee reports. We're going to start with finance personnel and buildings and grounds. Nicole Pinker's going to lead this portion of the meeting. >> So, we're going to
104begin with a discussion on a tax levy and uh Tamara. >> All right. Thank you very much. Good evening everyone. Um I have a brief presentation on the preliminary tax levy and I will go ahead and get started. Next slide please. Adila. So I'll start with the timeline here. So, tonight we have the presentation of this preliminary levy. >> All right. Uh, tonight we have the presentation of this preliminary levy. On the 17th, we will have an agenda item for the board to vote to approve the preliminary levy. At our December 15th meeting, uh, there will be a truth and taxation public hearing. I'll talk a little bit about that more later in the presentation. and um it's not required, but I'm recommending that we hold that truth and taxation hearing for trans transparency purposes.
105Following that, the board will uh hopefully vote to approve that 2025 levy and then the certificate of tax levy will be filed with the county clerk the next day. We're required to file that certificate by the last Tuesday in the month of December. Next slide, Adila. And so since we only talk about the tax levy once per year, I like to have just a high-level review of what some of the terminology means. Uh so as far as the levy, the levy is simply what we ask the county to bill taxpayers on our behalf. CPI is the consumer price index. The 2025 levy is based on the 2024 CPI that's released uh that was released in December of 2024 of 2.9%. PEL is the property tax extension limitation law. It's also known as the tax cap
106law that limits what we can ask in terms of tax levy by the lesser of 5% or last year's consumer price index plus the value of new property within the district. This limit applies regardless of existing property valuation changes. So if property increases 50%, we're still limited by that um the lesser 5% or CPI. EAV is equalized assessed valuation. That is the amount that is that the tax rate is applied to. So each property has an assessed valuation. The tax rate gets applied to that assessed valuation and not the market value of the property. And then lastly, the limiting rate is the maximum rate that the county clerk may bill taxpayers on our behalf excluding debt service. Debt service is a separate it's on the same on your property tax bill. It's on the same
107tax levy, but that is a separate uh rate. That's called a non-capped rate. The uh all the other funds are included in the capped rate. The calculated limiting rate for the 2025 levy is 2.9059. I'll talk a little bit um more about the how that is calculated on the next slide. So tax levy is based on two known factors and two estimates. Those two known factors are the prior year's taxes build to taxpayers which is also known as the tax extension as well as the prior year CPI which again I mentioned that was 2.9%. The estimates that the tax levy is based on is the value of new property as well as the EAV or equalize assessed value valuation of existing property. These four numbers are used to determine the limiting rate. And so you
108plug those four numbers into that long formula that is there and the result of this formula is the maximum amount that the tax levy excluding debt service can generate. Next slide please. So here we have a 10-year history of the consumer price index. Uh so you'll note there between 2016 and 2019 the CPI was relatively stable. Um that peak there between in 2021 and 2022. Again, as I mentioned, PEL limits the um amount that the district can levy for to 5%, but I just put those actual CPIs there for illustrative purposes. So, we see that huge jump in 21 and 22. Of course, that was related to the pandemic. And then the CPI came back down for last uh tax levy and then now it's at 2.9% for the 2025 tax levy. On this slide,
109we have a new property history as well as equalized assessed valuation history. One thing to note about Cook County, in particular, North Cook County, uh there is a trienal reassessment that occurs. The trienal trienal reassessment years represented here are 2019 and 2022. And we are in the uh midst of a trienal reassessment right now. So for 2025, so if you look at 2019 and 2022, there's uh large variances there between the EAV. So you can see uh what looks like big jumps there in those years. Um and that's really because of that trienal reassessment. Um in 2020 in 2019 that uh increase was about 24.63% 63% in EAV and in 2022 we saw a 17.04% increase in EAV. I am forecasting or assuming a 15% increase in EAV for the 2025 levy. That's a conservative
110estimate. Um but going with that amount to um again be conservative and with the understanding that 2025 for North Cook is a trienal reassessment year. Additionally for new property we ran some sensitivity analysis on that new property number estimating that to be $10 million. Through that sensitivity analysis um we have lots of room there for that number to be increased. um that impact we would have to go up to $246 million before there would be any impact on the tax levy. So plenty of room there. Next slide please. So next how is the tax levy allocated? Uh so firstly the revenues from this levy will be received in the spring of FY26. So just a few months from now. Um and then in the fall of FY27. And I will make just a quick note
111about the 2024 levy. We still have not had the second installment tax bills released to taxpayers. So, um we have no updates on when those bills are going to be released to taxpayers either. So, keeping that in mind, our taxpayers could likely be hit with um somewhat backtoback bills for 2024 as well as that first installment of 2025 levy as well. Um, so now going down to the second bullet point, what are the recommended allocations based on? Based on current fund balances and in alignment with those two questions there, how much revenue is required to maintain healthy fund balance reserves in each fund? And are current reserves sufficient to meet fiscal needs for the tax year? So, I'm looking at the near-term, which is within the next 12 months, as well as long-term projected need
112per fund to determine um those allocations. So, here we have the recommended tax levy excluding our debt service fund. As you can see there, the the graphic is an illustration of just where our revenue comes from. So, about 77% of our revenue is coming from our local property tax revenue. So, I'll talk through the table that is on the left side of the screen a little bit. That second column there that says 2024 taxes extended, that is the dollar amount that the county build to our taxpayers for the 2024 levy. Again, we're still waiting on those second installment bills to be released to taxpayers so the district can begin to receive um the revenue from that tax levy. The far column there on the right is the 2025 levy request. Um so and I'll talk
113a little bit about how those allocations were determined. Uh in particular as we're working towards establishing a balanced budget policy, there's some movement between the funds uh as far as allocating revenue. So I'll start with the educational and special education levies there. Although those levies are separate, they both roll up to the educational fund. The special education levy reduction is being shifted to the educational fund. So you'll see a drop there. The special education fund is the last line on that slide or the last line in the table. You'll see that reduced, but then there's uh an increase in the educational fund levy. the transportation fund levy is being reduced because that fund has achieved a healthier fund balance as a result of the 2024 levy. So that reduction has been shifted to the tort
114immunity fund. Uh going back to the budget for this fiscal year for FY26, there was a projected deficit in the tort immunity fund. So again, with uh in keeping in mind the board's um desire to move towards a balanced budget policy, that $1.6 million levy will help to balance that fund um and take that fund out of deficit. And then lastly, the levy request for the educational fund absorbs the additional tax levy increase. Uh, one thing that I want to note here about this levy request, even though the levy request is about 143.3 million, the amount that will be extended to the district uh is based on that limiting rate and that is about 140 $140.8 million. We ask for more than we expect to receive to account for those two unknown factors that I
115mentioned in the formula. So, if we were to um ask for only the amount that we were expected to receive and then uh some of those numbers were not quite as high, then we would in effect leave money on the table and not be maximizing our levy. And then lastly, there's a note there at the bottom of the slide. The estimated impact to a home with a market value of $450,000 is an increase of approximately $180 for district 65. So, as I mentioned, the debt service tax levy is also known as the non-capped levy. It falls outside of PTEL limitations and is driven by our debt service schedules. The corresponding levy amount for 2025 is about uh just over $7 million for the debt service tax extension. And then that corresponding tax rate is.1533. So
116when you add the debt service tax rate to the uh capped tax rate then that total tax rate is 3.0591. Next slide please. Adila. And so this slide is a summary that capped tax rate again that's all funds excluding debt service is estimated to decrease from 3.2476 2476 to 2.9059. And the reason for that is the relationship between tax rate and equalized assessed valuation is an inverse relationship. As the EAV rises, the tax rate falls. The non-cap tax rate is estimated to decrease from.1715 to 0.1533. That total capped 2025 extension is estimated to be about 4.25. 25 million more than the 2024 capped tax levy extension. The levy request is $4.99% higher than last year's tax extension to ensure maximization of the levy. And again, we request more than we expect to receive to account
117for those unknown variables in the formula. And as I mentioned before, a truth and taxation levy is not legally required, but um I recommend that we go ahead and hold that public hearing and truth and taxation hearing for transparency. >> Thank you. >> Um can you um can you say a little bit as as to um the value of having that truth and taxation conversation? >> Sure. Um so legally if we were presenting a tax levy that was more than 105% of last year's um property tax extension or the taxes bill, we would have to hold that truth and taxation hearing. I believe there is value in having the truth and taxation hearing even though we're not legally required to do so for transparency purposes. It allows the community to see the levy um ask
118questions about the levy, etc. Ultimate ultimately it's the board's decision if we want to move forward with that hearing. Um but it's really for transparency purposes since we are not legally required to do so. >> Can you help uh understand the shift in the sped levy? >> Sure. >> To the education levy. I don't quite understand why that's happening. >> Sure. So on the uh Illinois State Board of Education budget form as well as the annual financial report, special education fund rolls up to the education fund. So there's no separate fund with the ISV. So ultimately we're and the special education fund within our books is in a healthy situation. So it allows us to spend down some of that fund balance and then shift some of that money within our books to the educational
119fund itself. Um, so not taking anything away from the special education fund. Um, but really it's a reducing some of the fund balance reserve that's in there and pushing some of that money to the educational fund as well. And then one thing that I will mention as well, we can always shift money, budget transfer money or fund balance transfer from one fund to the other if needed. Um that would be a resolution that would be presented to the board for approval, but we can do that as well. >> You're welcome. >> Tamara, can you um describe what the truth and hearing that what that looks like? >> Sure. It's uh the board president would simply open the hearing. Members of the public could sign up to make comment on the tax levy. Um there's a
120short presentation which I would do just probably one or two slides and then we have to present our cash balances as of June 30th as well. So that is one uh thing that has to be done with the levy before the board approves it whether we have a public hearing or not. That portion has to happen as well. Um but it it's more just like the the budget hearing where if members of the community sign up to comment um then they can do that and that's it. So, >> thank you. You're welcome. >> Question. And just just as a um is our budget for next year Well, this money wouldn't come in until it's not next year's budget. It's the year. >> It comes in a portion of it should come in in the spring.
121So, it would be on this budget and then the other portion comes in the next budget cycle. >> And is our budget assuming that we're saying yes on the levy? >> Correct. >> Okay. And that's dependent if the county can send it to us on a timely basis where right now they have they're not able to. >> Exactly. >> Uh the other piece too that I was thinking about so and going back to the question around the shifting of the special education funding to to the educational fund. Uh again we're in the process of doing a sped audit. So again, just one of my things again as you're saying, if we were to find something, there were some findings in the in that sped audit that required us to augment the special education fund, that
122should be no issue in regards to reshifting that funding back to the sped fund. >> Correct. We wouldn't be able to adjust the levy, but we can shift the money between funds just by board resolution. >> Thank you. >> Any more questions? Okay, then. Um, thank you, Tamara. >> Thank you very much. >> Um, Oh. Oh, yes. Go right ahead. >> I'm trying to be. >> I love that. >> I love it. Uh, love having you here. Okay. Uh, second is discussion foster school update. I assume that's Kirby. Is Kirby in the house? >> We just said you get to talk before midnight. Normally, you're you're last. >> Deal. Are you able to pull pull those out? Can you pull up slides? >> Those are not. >> No, that's the curriculum one. >> Give you
123a minute. Um, I'm here to update the board on the foster cool construction specifically at the request of a board to look at the financials. Um, and I would like to note I'll show quick uh in a minute when Adila can pull them up. Um, it's she's still pulling them up. >> Uh, we we are uh public and open about uh kind of the financial status and we've created a web on our web page which I'll show the the the point where you can click onto it to just get a sense of where we are at on a monthly basis. We take the numbers and the bills from Cord and Clark. Our owner's representative Turner Townsen Nihiri does a financial report review and analysis on that and from that report we create a monthly scenario
124where we show three different graphics that give you a sense of how the budget is doing compared to projected and actuals. Um we also do analysis to to give a sense community a sense of what kind of contingency is remaining and how much of the allowances have been used. And um if you just I can take the clicker somehow you just forward to the slide. >> Uh so on our web page you can see if you go to the foster school website um right there budget at a glance you click on that and you will see one more >> is it on on the side >> is it just not on oh it's not on I'm an engineer, too. Um, we have three different graphics. So, this is the monthly budget update, which shows you
125construction cost was the hard cost. Then the soft cost of the design and construction fees. You can see it based on budget, which is the dark bar. The light blue bar is projected because that's how how it's looking. And then the actual is just how much we've spent actually to date. So, you can see how much how far along we are. In the yellow is furniture and equipment. Um and then the project contingencies on the bottom. Uh for the project contingency, we kind of made it an equation. So on the left side, you you if you take the original amount and you add in how much money we save from low bids, 3.2 million, but then you subtract the change orders and you subtract the design upgrades we bought into the budget. Then you get
126the the uh resulting contingency. As of September 30th, it was 3.3 million. Uh the separated side is there's also remaining allowances. Allowances are built into each bid project we have. We have 23 bid projects. Allowances are built in there usually around 10% or so. Uh those are for unforeseen unexpected costs in the allowance thing that they they know will happen. Um there also some build and design things happen. So we'll buy and know we have to put in a security system but we haven't got they haven't got the full scope of it yet. So they put an allowance amount in that bid approval package. Um, so that's where we're at as of September 30th. And then the last graphic on the website is just the table, which is the same summary of the former two
127numbers. You can also see the percent of how far along the project we're done at. So as of September 30th, we're 50% done with the project in terms of how much money we've spent, which is correlates more or less to how far along we are on the project. A little delayed because we hope to open the school in uh less than 12 months. And obviously um we uh the budget out of 22 months 50% shows a little more than that. >> So any questions by the board on this? >> Yeah, just um so what we spend is that correlated to the bids that have been So we we've approved some bids, right? And we but is that the same as 50% or >> uh No, not exactly. I can show you another graphic. This is
128the update as of October 31st. So this is the bid summary page of where we are since we've just paid our October 31st bill. U these are the brand new numbers from Cord and Clark. Uh you'll see that um on the percentage side on the right we're 100% done with bid group one. We're 90% done with bid group two which is pre-cast steel concrete and excavation bids. In bid group three we're halfway there in terms of payments. Uh bid group four we still have quite a bit to go. We only not 6% done. And then bid group five, the last bid, we have we are going out to bid or just went out to bid these last months. >> So here as of October 31st, we're 58% of the way done. The contingency has went
129up to 3.7 million. That's because we save four $400,000 on uh the playground and the landscaping bid that you approved last week. The other part of the budget shows uh the soft costs. Um and again overall 55% done with the budget. I would like to talk about the remaining work. So we are of the work we hard construction costs. Uh it's 35 million. We've we've uh we have 20 million to go. No, we have 15 million to go. We've spent 20 million. That's shown on the bottom. Oh, that's not shown. So Oh, nope. That's not shown there either. Um that's shown on another financial. basic. But essentially, we've we've spent we have a $35 million projected hard construction costs. We have $20 million that we've spent. We have $15 million to go. That's 43% of
130the budget still to work. And you can see all the work that stills to be completed. So, the whole goal of a contingency is to make sure that you cover your budget. Our whole goal, according to Dr. Turner, from day one, uh we're going to build a school for $48 million. um and that and we committed to that from day one. So, we're committed to that. Uh and I um at this point we uh expect we don't know what to expect, but we we're planning with the contingency to get the job done uh under the existing budget. >> Kirby, what's the final constru What's the date that you think construction will be completed in preparation for opening next fall? Well, we'll we'll start doing punch list work in May, so we can move in in
131June and July. >> Okay. >> Um, next year, obviously. >> Uh, we have move moving moving is unknown because we're going to be moving from Bessie Roads a number of equipment, both both tech equipment that uh and furniture equipment to move into the building. Um, plus we have the furniture setup install from the from our vendor. Um and then there's the the huge punch list that the contractor will work with the contractor get to get the real building ready so by the end of July um we can hope hopefully hope >> open a have a open house for the community. Okay. And >> so while we have a contingency of three million or more, you we can't we don't know if we're going to keep that cont. We want to keep it. We might necessarily
132want to grow it, but we write we can't make use of those resources yet until you get to 100%. Complete. >> Yes. Correct. You're not I mean it would be wise for the board and wise for the district to make sure we don't uh spend that money. Um, I would also like to point them out we don't have that money to begin with. That's part of the deficit that we're dealing with. So, any money saved here just reduces the deficit. I believe uh the def the deficit discussion last week was was $6 million that we had to make up which already accounts for a potential savings of 2.5 million here from the 48.5. And I think Tamara you can talk more about that. >> Wait a minute. Can you >> So you're saying say that
133again, >> Tamara? Can you can you chime in here with the explanation on that? Because I I think and and this is hugely important because we had a lot of conversation last week that was um misinterpreted and gave false in in inappropriate hope. And so I I want the CFO to really chime in and give clarity for the board and for the community. So, the the budget, as Kirby mentioned, the budget for Foster was initially set at $48 million. Was it 48.5? >> 48.5 million. So, the $6 million assumed uh that we've assumed that will have to be transferred from our working cash fund to meet the shortfall between completing construction and the lease certificates, which was $40 million. that $6 million. If you add the two together, that takes it up to $46 million.
134So, we've really already accounted for some bit of contingency there. So, um if we chop into that contingency more, then that $6 million will drop, but it won't be reduced by the full amount that Kirby is sharing with us. If that makes sense. >> Because 2.5 is already >> correct. Correct. >> Okay. Any other >> any other questions? >> I have a question. >> Okay. >> Can you can you talk a little bit about how you came up with the amount for the contingency fund? Was it based on recommendations or guidance or um past experience? >> It's usually Maya, it's usually a a percentage of the total budget. So, we sat with Corded and Clark and working on making sure we could achieve the $ 48.5 million. We set around a $2 million budget, a
135two $2 million contingency. That is typically at the time we we and you reduce the contingency over time. Um, so we that's usually 10%, it should have been close to four when we started. We were at two because we were very tight. Uh now though the contingency is basically a plug which means how much do we project versus uh how much we expect it to to spend and um that right now is at $3.7 million. So the contingency is basically how much money we have left over that we project at the end of the project. >> Got it. Thanks. >> Sure. >> Thank you. Was that the last ler? Yes. >> Any other questions for Kirby? >> No. >> So again, just as a reminder, we're always transparent with the foster budget. It's on the
136website and anybody can access it at any time. Um and so um that was one of the requests that the board asked for us to have that um the the new way of reporting how we are moving along with the foster budget on the foster website. And so I just would highly encourage board members as well as the community if you want to see in real time how we're moving along, that is the place that you go to um that the district is leveraging as our transparent measure to monitor that project. >> I will say that I mean the um and I probably missed it, but the new information about the we've already um accounted for some of the uh contingency. It's important to make sure that that's clear there on the on the website.
137But no, this is great. Yeah. >> So, I think what what we can do is Hannah can work with uh Tamara just to make sure that's explicitly spelled out on the website so you know everyone is clear on that. >> Okay. So, next um u we're still on the foster school update and we're going to get a day in the life of the new foster school from uh Dr. Shemica McCoy and Chariss Belle, principal. Hello. So, tonight we are going to be talking about the day in the life for Foster School. Uh, since we have gotten to this part of Foster, the building is almost ready, as Kirby was just sharing, we've gotten a lot of questions around what would it look like for a foster student to enter into the space. everything from what
138type of curricular resources would students receive, if there would be ACC, if there would be STEM. So, tonight we're going to share what that experience would look like for students by going through a narrative of the day in the life. The historical experience of foster school exemplifies the symbol of the phoenix. The phoenix is a mythical f figure who dies and rises from its ashes. The old foster school was closed and felt like death to the fifth ward community. The new school is rising from its ashes, filled and informed by the legacy of the old one. The core values are of the new school, identity, inquiry, and justice. This is what is guiding our thinking around the curriculum. The former school was steeped in the African-American identity of the fifth ward. The new school that
139we will be opening sent will center learning around inquiry learning and collaborative structures. The act itself of restoring a neighborhood school to the fifth ward is an act of justice. This phrase represents the three core values. So as we go through our presentation tonight, we will be focusing on the firm foundation which is the three core values for foster identity, inquiry and justice. We'll talk about the day in the life of a foster elementary school student and also discuss ACC re-imagined. So for school will be a neighborhood school that aspires to provide four main things. It will provide a unified vision across the learning environments. It will build capacity of teacher teams in empowering students to work collaborative collaboratively together. It will strengthen factors that contribute to school improvement to student math and reading achievement.
140And it will do this by leveraging every student's culture, language, and background as a tool for learning. And so I'm going to borrow a metaphor from Zoretta Hammond, the culture tree. She compared culture to a tree and identified three levels. The bottom roots were named as deep. The middle was the surface and the top shallow. what we could see. Culture is what a human being uh culture is what a human being uh sorry hold on a second. Culture is what a human being creates and what a and what creates a human being at the same time. And in order to achieve these three values, we we will grow the school from the ground up. The roots are what will stand for identity. the guiding principles, the Enuzu Saba and Sanc Kofa. The middle will be
141the curriculum, the inquiry learning frameworks that will be anchored in inquiry learning and collaborative teaching and learning. And at the very top, social justice that the outgrowth will be students over time who are equipped equipped to solve problems and empowered to take action for justice. We know about a tree that the deeper its roots is, the taller it grows. At Foster, we are rooted in identity. And so the seven core principles of the Inguzu Saba, uh, which is well known as Kwanza, those seven principles are unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, purpose, cooperative economics, hope, and creativity. Another guiding principle uh and value of the school will be sofa. This comes from the West African tradition that teaches one to look back to the past to build a better future. So students will learn to
142value their history and cultural heritages to make future wise choices. Culture in the mid level will be fortified by inquiry and equipped for justice. Each lesson at the uh at the school will be informed by the Zoretta Hammond's learning cycle which basically um sparks students interest uh and curiosity in the beginning of the lesson and it connects it to their students to each student's lives and in the middle of a lesson it chunks the learning into small steps and provides opportunities for students to think and discuss and at the end it helps students to review the main concepts. concepts that were taught so that learning sticks. Another structure will be inquiry learning in collaborative structures. Here students will engage across uh language arts, math, social studies and science. They will engage by uh being driven
143by asking their own questions, investigating answers and solving problems collaboratively. Then we will be coming into bloom with structures that help teaching teams align vertically to plan and design learning experiences and connect the core beliefs and frameworks to daily classroom practice. And some of the practices that you will see is AC ACC morning routine, grade level principles, fifth grade crossover identities, uh projects and rituals and community celebrations. So now we're going to take a journey by looking through the narrative of a student's experience at Foster School. We'll start by looking at their before school experience and then go into math, literacy, science, social science, and after school. As our Foster School students arrive at school, we want this to be an opportunity for them to have a very welcoming experience. starting off with the soft
144start where they're able to enter into the school, get breakfast, have an opportunity to engage with their educators and other staff members at the school. And this is a space where we would like to welcome some of our community partners that we are looking to partner with through our RFP process that just launched last Monday. This gives an opportunity for any of those before school programs to come and provide additional enrichment activities for our students at Foster. For our third three to five um third through fifth grade students, this can also offer opportunities for leadership and action. Dating myself here with safety patrol. Anybody remember the vest? Kids don't know about that these days. um or other things such as tech buddies. ACC morning routine practices will influence um social emotional learning in morning routine.
145There will be characterized by bimonthly community circles. Um this gives an opportunity for the principles the principles of Kwanza to lead in lessons um in lessons throughout the week. That time provides an opportunity also for older students to lead the learning and to take leadership roles on a daily basis. However, in classrooms, morning meeting is an opportunity for students to repeat the creed, speak affirmations to each other, and it gives an opportunity for them to discuss ideas and get the hook for the day's lesson. literary literacy K to5 literacy the school across the environments will use my view uh a English language arts curriculum that is used at Oakton school um this curriculum has a gradual release routine that is used at each grade level that starts with readalouds shared readalouds close readalouds during the
146week and it ends each six week six week unit with a project bas projectsbased learning research opportunity in the K2 space. We will use the same curricular resources that build strong reading habits across the district. We will use hegardy for phmic awareness foundations to build phonics and geodess to build background knowledge in math. uh as a student is learning math skills, this part of the day will fortify their inquiry skills. I Ready teaches students learning of math concepts and how to use math discourse to explain their reasoning using academic language. Building thinking classroom principles help students develop autonomy and practice in uh representing their thinking visually. These all exercise their critical uh thinking skills and problem solving skills. By building student competence through cultivating learning habits, we will develop academic identities amongst the students of
147readers, writers and mathematicians. Win time. Win time is an opportunity for small group individualized instruction and an opportunity to differentiate for the different different level of students. This is also an opportunity um to build relationships in a smaller setting to accommodate instruction to the needs of the students. Deeper learning in the content areas is something that is a main aspiration at Foster School. Deeper learning in science and the content area of social studies increases language arts and math student achievement. It is one of the best ways to cultivate the content knowledge and disciplinary habits that are needed for being able to engage in interdisciplinary experiences such as STEM later on. In content area instruction, we will use inquirybased frameworks and learning strategies that build background knowledge. On the left, you see a science in uh
148inquiry framework and on the right you see a social studies inquiry framework. At the end of the school day, our foster students get to walk home, something they have not had an opportunity to do. [applause] This will give them an opportunity to be able to stand proud, stand tall, and be excited about the education that they just received and the experiences they encountered. As they're leaving, they have the option to stay at school, something they often also have not had the opportunity to do, or walk home with their friends, thinking about what curiosity awaits them the next day. Their afterchool experiences will give them the opportunity to stay without having to worry about a bus, participate in sports activities along with any of the other afterchool enrichment experiences that we are able to provide through
149our RFP uh community partners. On last Monday, we held a meeting for the RFP process which we just launched. And this is an opportunity for our community partners to submit proposals to participate or provide um opportunities for our students at Foster School. In this proposal, we wanted them to really think around nine key areas that we would like to have partners, but also opening up any additional ones that people have that we may not have thought about. So, those um proposals are due by December the 12th at 5:00 p.m. We know that some people were not able to make it. So, we are having a virtual Q&A session on this Friday, November the 7th, at 11:00 a.m. But we are really excited that we had over 40 partners sign up and over 30 partners in
150attendance last Monday to partner to be a part of our foster students experience. Anyone who is interested in being a partner, the details will be available on our district 65 website. We just had to give that plug while talking about their experience because we know that it's not just what we do on the district side, but it's also through the support of our community and partners that will make this a great experience for our students. So here I would like to say thank you to board members Pinker and Rhymer who and who joined us last month with central administrators and myself to visit classrooms the ACC magnet um classrooms at Oakton. I would also like to publicly thank the administration at Oakton and the ACC team of teachers for sharing their classroom experiences and taking
151time to answer our questions about the program. So, this slide is going to um describe a little bit how the two uh programs are different, but it's also going to explain a little bit of how they're very much similar. At the Oakton ACC magnet, there are students that it is a magnet program that draws students from across the district and children opt in. It is one strand within a school that has two other programs and students participate and they have a culminating experience in the Quanza celebration in December. At foster school, we would have a we will have ACC reimagined. The context is slightly different. We have stu it is a neighborhood school and there will be students there from the all from the attendant zone. It is not a magnet. The experiences will be
152built into the model of every foster school student experience. It'll be rooted in the three core values of identity, inquiry and justice which are unique to Foster and ACC re-imagined experiences will be expend will be extended to our twe that will be within with inside our school. How the two schools on how the two programs will be very similar however is both will leverage cover uh culture both cultivate students identity both seek to empower students and develop their self efficacy. the crossover fifth grade celebration um will be almost like a rights of passage at both schools when they finish and um at both we will overlay instructional experiences before during and after school around African centered pedagogy and we will both use districtbased curricular resource materials to forward learning. So in the day in the
153life um um walkth through we've seen a on the a lot of the indicators that are on the left side of the screen but I just want to point out four uh things that occur maybe on a annual basis or in a yearly basis. There will be grade level and guzaba principles and that means that each grade at foster school will focus on one of the principles and by time they complete the six years they will understand all of the seven values that are highlighted in the saba or the Kwanza principles. Each year however there is one principle that is chosen for annual study in depth that the whole community shares together and it results in a community celebration. We will try to coordinate the sequence of these uh themes with uh Oakden school. Also,
154each grade at the end of the year participates in step up promotion activities where they get an opportunity to meet the teachers of the following grade and have some experiences of what the following grade might be like. And that special step up promotion ceremony um that marks when a fifth grade student moves on to middle school um will become culminated by identity project and a crossover experience. So these are some of the cultural values. I want to restate that foster school core values are identity, inquiry and justice. And these have these come from multicultural traditions. Throughout this presentation, we have mentioned how Sanc Kofa looks back to the Foster School's African-American origins and has played a pivotal role in the school coming to be and the current building of the school's future. But if you
155look to the right, I draw from a metaphor uh of footprints in the sand. And this poem comes from Anthony Machado, which is a Spanish poet. This image of footprints in the in the sand exemplifies an inquiry inquiry learning stance that all the students will take to forge paths that are not yet paved and to use critical thinking skills to solve problems that are not yet known. And last but not least is social justice. And at the bottom you will see that the indigenous tradition of reaching back includes making decisions that are most likely to benefit seven generations into the future. We are teaching our students to be responsible, vigilant guardians of justice. And so I will end this on a bilingual haiku that starts with a Japanese good morning greeting. Oho des the rising
156sun at the new foster school. The phoenix is rising and we have a great opportunity to create positive culture at Foster School. Thank you. [applause] Okay. Um So I I want to first say that um I'm very passionate about issues of African- We all are, but um beyond being a board U member is what I spend my life doing. So please don't take my questions that I'm asking as a critique of what it is. Saying I have problems with what you're saying. It's just it's what I spend my time thinking about. So the first um question, so I'm it's positive what I see here. Let me make sure I say that. Um but I I do have a question one about the Amplified Black Voices survey, the focus on STEM. Um, and I didn't I
157saw the mention of math, but I didn't feel the integration of math as um as a constant framework that young people were going to be um having to focus on and particularly given our math scores. I um believe Foster offers a unique place to try to reimagine what it means to make the use of math not something that kids do, particularly black kids, lat Latino kids do for a grade, but it's something that's core. So I do think in the identity and the inquiry it's can be fundamentally there but I want to ask you how you're thinking about it now being there and how um there can be collaborations with a lot of folks here a lot of folks in um Evston to sort of really push on the on the math as a as
158a core literacy the same way writing is speaking another language math in today's era has to be that >> I think I think it goes to the partner slide. >> So I was going I was going to say that at the partner meeting one of the things uh underneath the inquiry learning is we encourage partners to submit uh pro proposals that would promote mathematics and literacy achievement. Um I would also like to um I would also like to say so there's opportunities to have extension of mathematics learning in the before uh before school space and in the afterchool space building mathematic fluency is something that I've noticed in particularly is a need um all the way um all the way through K to2 basic addition mental math uh multiplication um division whether it's with whole
159numbers or decimals uh but to that end I would I'd like to say that last year I actually at at Betsy Rose I spent the whole year um doing a six-part series of mathematics by literacy um that worked on um creating visual ways to communicate math uh concepts. teachers uh got to work together um across the school year and observe mathematical lessons being taught inside their class classrooms by the consultant uh where we have the whole team the whole team of teachers watching the professional learning uh on roll uh with their own with their own students. Then in the afternoon we allowed them to collaborative collaboratively plan around uh units together so that uh we could equalize what type of experiences that people were having um and that they would be able to communicate with
160what are the expectations the academic expectations for the grade level above so they will be accountable uh to their partners. So in addition to the building thinking classroom that also uses vertical uh um dry erase boards to have uh children's thinkings in small groups and buddy pairs um uh be elucidated to uh the teacher and the teacher using uh moves and questions to actually have them compare their work to each other that builds the critical thinking. We also have a a math form that would be a math professional form that will be used across the school to help students who are gaining language at the same time be able to acquire mathematical concepts. Okay. So um I think social justice is critical. Um I also feel oftentimes that um our black students, minority students, the
161focus on social just the assumption is we focus on social justice. I would challenge us to think about how math the same way we have identity social justice. I missed the um I've written down sorry the third the three inquiry the inquiry the math and um computational thinking doesn't have to be math computational thinking is is woven in there and so the same because I mean nowadays social justice is data science right so how do we how do we just make that visible so that parents and others are seeing that when I'm coming here I'm going to encounter engage and utilize computational mathematical thinking in all aspects effects and I think we can do it. I think there's enough expertise, but if it's not woven in, >> then it's easy to not be something that
162we hold ourselves accountable for. >> Let let me chime in here. So, the district uses the I Ready um curricular resource as our primary resource. However, we've spent a lot of time around um the building thinking classrooms, which is an instructional framework that goes beyond the algorithm computational way that we teach kids math to really inquirybased math, right? So you walk into a classroom, kids are given problems and you see them engage in the discovery of math versus the traditional way that we have we have been t we probably were taught math where the teacher is standing up at the at the board put the problem and have kids thinking that there's one way to solve a problem. And so through that building thinking classrooms which the educators across this district have done a a
163lot of work around that particular instructional framework that lends to the inquiry type learning that you're specifically talking about um that that the kids at foster school will also be exposed to. So I just want to want to name that particular piece in terms of like the additional supplementing of it uh as it relates to the real world application of those things that typically come up in the steam and then the the math opportunities like robotics and those other places. those opportunities is where we then will leverage through that RFP process with community partners to then be able to provide those opportunities for kids either before school or after school in those spaces. But within the spaces of the school in which we control and are responsible for that essentially will get us the academic
164results when it comes to improving better outcomes for students here. That will come via the implementation of the curricular resource that we have engaged in a process with the CAC part of the district and then with the additional supplement of instructional strategies like the building thinking classrooms that will allow us to expand that out and be able to provide kids those inquiry opportunities. So even though it was just named here, you know, the the three core values of um identity, inquiry, and social justice, really being thoughtful about how to provide those well-rounded opportunities that you just described, Dr. Pinker, in the actual educational experience that the students will be exposed to at Foster School. >> And last, um just want to call out the um um um Evansdale. So, one of the, you know, one
165of the structures that was here when Foster wasn't here and Kirby was a leader of that was really bringing out of school organizations together for Evans. Spent a lot of time working with that. What a wonderful opportunity with um Fleetwood and with the school to reimagine what that is. And so using, you know, bringing back up that work and how to connect what the RFP is to that work. I think I'm really excited about seeing that happen. I would I would just also like to add that um part of social justice includes students being able um to use the skills that they gain through um working in diverse collaborative teams to represent data and and to organize uh their explorations. And so I think therefore being able to integrate mathematics into more rigorous science study
166is also going to help them to be able tackle to tackle um problems local problems of their identification of their self-identification. Um, I have a a question. Since we have an ACC program at Oakton, will there be any opportunity for the staff who are going to be teaching at Foster to collaborate those teachers to kind of bring the programs together at any point? >> Yeah, that's that's a good question and let me chime on this because we we actually in full transparency was discussing this um and to really so let let's just name it like this. We're bringing a school back in the fifth ward that will essentially have a larger prop population of supporting our historically marginalized students. We have to make sure that coming into that demographic at that school, the adults have
167the tools in their toolkit necessary to work with that particular population. So, with that being said, it's going to require us to be thoughtful about a professional learning sequence opportunities with staff this summer that sets that staff up for success to then be able to open that school when it's time to open that school. So essentially the request is going to be coming back to this board saying hey we want to carve out two weeks of professional learning for the staff that's going into Foster to make sure that we set culture is tight when we walk in there to make sure that every it's a one band one sound to make sure that all of the rituals and the experiences that we talked about we have given the educators at that school the opportunity to
168develop their capacity and the awareness around that that's going to cost us money to have to pay the staff this summer to be able to do that to ensure that school opens and is ready to accept kids. And so to to that question, we going to come back with a plan and say, "Hey, here's the budget board. Do you support us being able to do this opportunity now that we've identified the staff who will be able to go in this school to ensure they're set up for success?" So those things, it's good that you bring that up because that's what we're thinking about and it's going to take the financial resource to be able to pay educators going into that particular school this summer that's outside of the normal new teacher orientation and all of
169the other opportunities. But this is a unique situation that we we got to invest the resources to make sure that that that this is done right. And to follow up on that, um, what is your parent engagement going to be like around creating this new re-imagined ACC? >> I think the parent engagement is going to have to incorporate itself into the parent engagement of the school. >> Okay. >> Uh, uh, and that's over and that's overall. So I think definitely making sure that we have programming that is available in both languages to get um the experiences. We actually did um on in our intent to roll uh meeting uh to attend meeting we got feedback um from uh parent stakeholders on what were some of the experiences that they liked to see and um in
170the new school of which multi- uh cultural representations were something that were um important to them. uh there's face liaison that also support making those making those connections in addition to uh PT PTA um organizations and so I think with the help of the face the internal face leaison uh position uh that is already within the district uh PTA that so far in my experience has been extremely import u important in supporting initiatives of uh of schools and also in addition collaborating with community partners that those three things are are going to give a good support to um the programming and supporting the um values of the school. >> Yeah. And I just want to expand on that cuz what I I hear your question a little bit different Pat and I hear your question
171saying and you can I don't want to speak for you but I hear you saying how will we intentionally engage parents in getting ready to walk in and you know be ready for this experience in the foster school and then how do we how are we thoughtful about making sure that they're part of this process too and I think we have um community engage. We have a community engagement plan um that encompasses those things that allows us the opportunity to share this information and kind of make it real and visible for families as well before walking into the school so that they understand essentially the culture and climate and what we're trying to set up in the school. So, I think it's a bold thing. I think what uh principal burkel just named is more
172of once we're in there and we're established but there's work that we have to do on the front end to engage our families and I think that's the piece that I just wanted to lift up is what I kind of heard you also >> yes >> asking >> and if I can add to that um some other elements of what we've done for that parent and community engagement piece last year prior to principal Raquel coming on board we had the SAP transition committee that was doing some of the background planning work for the community component. So last week we actually met with that team as well along with principal Burkel to discuss the pieces that that team had created along with the vision that she has thus far and how some of that bridge work
173is taking place and areas that they'll be able to continue being a part of that should they desire to be. And then um some work that we have upcoming is starting to work on the mission and vision, the school work plan and the transition work for the students in the community. And those are all areas where we want parents and families to be a part of because that's really crucial as we move into the next phase of the work for foster. >> So one of you I want to thank you for again giving us this vision of what what a day in the life will look like. So I really appreciate that the team did that. um very hopeful. Um the one piece uh uh that I'm wondering about and just going back to the
174parent piece. Um and I know you're talking about leveraging the PTA, leveraging possible community partners, which is great. Um maybe at some point in as part of those community conversations, maybe having a parent advisory committee similar to the bilingual parent advisory committee specifically for foster to really kind of help uh parents really engage intentionally with elements of ACC, right? um a and just the overall onboarding and ho how so again just just an idea as I think about how again we have I know it's BPAC bilingual parent advisory committ are required by state law if you have a bilingual program right so but this would be kind of almost like an advisory piece if it doesn't work out with the PT or maybe they'll think about it together collaboratively something that asks folks when you
175engage community but but having again community parents as well as partners right kind of have be part of that advisory committee to to help um get get ACC reimagined off the ground and and implemented as best as possible. Uh the other piece too that I that that that I'm interested in um and I know we've talked about u building thinking classrooms um and there's always talk from the community around how we can reduce uh technology use and then really engage with um have students engage in group work and collaborative work and and what I see part of social justice is again collective work like you know change happens when folks collectively get together and fight for something uh or or advocate for something and Um so my hope is as a as we continue to
176design not just in Foster but you know across um the school district as we really improve our our our instructional practices right uh that's what's going to differentiate us from AI right because I that's what's on the horizon for our our students um you know what what what is going to differentiate our children and what's going to AI proof them to ensure that they have a livelihood in the future. So my challenge, right, not not just to foster, but just our administration and what we do as a school district is how can we continue to um differentiate ourselves and make our children um these valued members of society uh that won't be displaced uh by artificial intelligence, right? And that's a lot of these principles here that you're talking about. That's social justice, that's collaborative
177work, that's collective problem solving, that's inquirybased approaches to to education. um a and being proud of who you are and knowing your roots. Uh that's that that's the next level of education. That's where we want to take our kids and and that's is that's what's really going going to um again ensure that our our kids are are tech proof and and can have a a livelihood uh in their adult lives. So just wanted to share that. >> Just want to say thank you. Um one of the things my questions have been answered so just one of the things that's very exciting to me is that this is integrated. This is Foster. ACC reimagine is really Foster. It's encompassing as I'm understanding it, which I'm excited to see how that manifests. And then I just want
178to um give a shout out to the voices in our community uh to Dr. Turner, to Pat and Dr. Pinker uh for really finding a way uh and and the whole team uh to really find a way to make this happen. So, I'm just grateful. >> Thank you. >> [applause] >> Oh, >> so next we're going to uh u have a discussion about the forensic audit, but >> Okay. So, um, we're going to move into a discussion about, uh, the board's request for a forensic audit, uh, to engage in the process [clears throat] to complete an investigation and evaluation of the district's finances during Dr. Horton's tenure. uh this is being done to investigate any financial irregularities and to ensure safeguards and processes are in place to protect our financial resources as we're moving forward.
179Um so we're going to discuss talking about the development of uh preparing for the RFPs for a forensic audit. So Tamara, I'll let you take it from there. All right. Thank you. Um, so in uh preparation for the discussion, I reached out to our legal counsel to get some guidance on steps to take for this process. Um, one of the recommendations that was made was to consider engaging the services of one of the big four accounting firms because of the um the ability of those big four accounting firms to handle such a high-profile audit as well as the fact that those firms are well known and highly respected. So, that was um one of the recommendations that came from that contact. Um, what I would need from the board to begin the RFP process would
180be areas of focus that we want to look at for the forensic audit with the forensic audit. You should tell the auditing firm um the areas that you would like them to focus on. And then as they are engaged in that audit, if they uncover additional things as they're looking at those areas of focus, then they will increase that scope as well. So I think one one of those areas of focus is our transportation um expenditures. >> Okay. >> Then um another area um is stipens. >> Okay. >> Particularly um stipens for administrators. Not necessarily stipens for teachers but more stipens for administrators. >> Administration. Let's say administrators. any any no bid contracts? >> No bid contracts. Okay. >> And I'd like to suggest that we move not not just may that we go back
181maybe 20 years because so not just the Horton era but really looking at deeper and whether this has been an endemic issue because again I I just want to try to pull back as much as possible to see if there was issues prior to uh that administration. Do you mean a a forensic audit back 20 years or that I mean >> Yeah. Yeah. That's what that's what I'm suggesting. >> Would that be would that be >> financially like >> financially? How would that what would that cost to do that? Will that be >> I can certainly um pose that question. we can pose that question in the RFP documents um and see if canop sorry go ahead Nicole >> let me ask a question in some sense um one of the ways it helps you
182think about which areas to focus on is you could you could look at summaries of costs that have happened over periods of time as a way to say where there is so I'm curious on the 20 years is there a way to look to see if we have big dips or changes to just, you know, to to think about going back to a >> to a full in deep in depth. >> We had we had staff in our business office that had been there for about 20 years, right? So, prior to So, so again, I've been through three superintendent um and again, they were presenting what we thought were balanced budgets. So I want to know if again did were those balanced budgets even back then or or were there accounting practices that were kind
183of moving things around to make it seem like there was a balanced budget. So I just want to make sure that we dig deep. Yeah. So that that's just my my only intent here. >> My my I hear you, but my concern is narrowing it down so that we can come with a final answer to our questions. >> Sure. And so what I can say is maybe we can put an envelope around the Horton years that we want to look at specifically um because this information may be very important in how we view our financials moving forward. And I would like to have some information sooner than later because I know we have to do we have to go out for the bid first and then we have to employ them and then they have
184to do the work and then we get the report. So, um that's that's what I'm thinking about. So, I I think if there's if we can put a specific envelope around that time to kind of narrow it down, we might be able to get more answers sooner than later. So that was my question about time. >> Oh, >> you go ahead Maya. Go ahead. >> We hear you, Mike. >> Okay. All right. I just wanted to chime in too. So I think it is an, you know, I think it's important to look back and see, you know, some of to to get a understanding of the past and and things that um need to be addressed. Um I also want to make sure as a part of that we get the information we need to
185understand you know what we need to do if anything going forward. I know there have already been a lot of changes in practices and changes in how we um handle accounting to address some of the issues. I think for me a an important part of this is seeing, you know, are there additional opportunities or are we in a place now where we've sort of gotten on track in terms of some of our processes so that we've got information to move forward with. And maybe this is a question we can ask as part of the RFP is the time that the envelope of time that we want to look at for specific expenditures. >> Sure. >> That was my c curiosity was I think I'd seen somewhere FY22 24 and I it seems to me like
186we have to do FY2124. Um >> so that period uh 21 through 24. Okay. Mhm. >> I mean there's very specific dates, right? >> Yeah. Uh, another question I have and I I would I would expect this is something that legal could look at is there's a certain dimension of this that is person or individual based um and there are recommendations uh on people, you know, people who know how to read the the the detail. Um, do they have recommendations that way? Uh the other question I have relates to what Maya said is that if if we're willing um to include as part of this financial audit um an audit of our board policies um around finances to ensure that we have board policies that have the highest standards um and um reflect best practice.
187>> Okay. And for that board policy audit, are you thinking of that in terms of the forensic audit or separate? >> I do not feel strongly about that. It might make sense to separate that. >> Okay. That's you feel like that's enough direction to start the RFP process? I do um one clarification for transportation services are we looking at all transportation services are we focusing on one area we looking at so in essence really it's our special ed or general education uh transportation services I think it's the >> yeah special education >> okay >> and then and then there was a point I know we talked about no bid contracts And that's following what the Illinois statute is of no bid contracts for contracts that are 35,000 or more. >> Right. >> So the to
188that 35,000 point that $35,000 I believe is just a couple of years old maybe. Previously the limit was 25,000. So should we lower that to 25,000 then and have the board look? Okay. cuz back 2021 it was definitely $25,000. That was the limit. >> Okay. >> And then can you just give Oh, uh just more of a question of timeline uh you know obviously an RFP then um time to do the work. What are we looking at here? So, I would say um it will probably take us a couple of weeks to get the RFP document done because we want to have legal review it and make sure that all of our tees are crossed and eyes are dotted. From there, um you would want to have that open for I would say at least
189three weeks for firms to be able to put together a proposal for the services that they would be providing us. Um and then from that point within that document we will ask them for uh the length of engagement. So how long would it take them to get through all of the records etc. >> And I think here this is this process is important for us as board members to be actively engaged with you in the vetting of who's doing the audit making sure it's something like we have to own this this process. make sure we understand it and uh um definitely lean on all your expertise but we we have to do our part in it. >> All right. >> And then so to clarify, can we do two RFPs >> for the one for
190the forensic audit and then one for board policy? Yes. >> And the forensic audit. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. and IASB may be able to provide those uh services to the board as well to look at board policy compared to uh best practices for finance. So they may be able to do that. Um but we can definitely do an RFP for that as well. >> Okay. Okay. Next question conversation. Um taxi service transportation's RFP process. So, um this is in relationship to special education, uh transportation. Um and can you share with us um the process we're going to how to begin talking about the process for RSP? >> Sure. So, the contract that um we had with Bright Lift uh to provide that taxi service, that was a three-year contract. We are currently working on an
191extension to that contract that will take us through January 31st, 2026. Uh in the meantime, we will be getting a bid for those services together. Our legal council is working on those bid documents. We're reviewing the bid documents right now. So hopefully this week we'll have a response and we can move forward with releasing those bid documents. Uh the goal is to have a company to present to the board before winter break. So hopefully by our December 15th board meeting, we will have gotten through that bid process, reviewed the bids, um and then have a vendor to bring forward to award a three an additional or a three-year contract at that December 15th board meeting. That contract would be for three years um like typical transportation contracts for three years with the option to extend
192for an additional two years. Um and that would be if the board decides to extend as well as the provider extends as well. And then with the the goal in having that contractor presented to the board for possible approval December 15th, that would allow for a contractor if Bright Lift does not win that bid, it would allow them about six weeks to prepare to pick up the business from the district. >> Right now we have about 55 um vehicles that we're using with Bright Lift. Is there a way in um I think in there's the RFP process but then I think there's just an education to understand around special education transportation and it's a very costly um um area for everyone right and so how it'd be great for us to figure out how to
193you know understand the continuum of it because it's easy to see a number and go whoa why are we doing that but the reality is that's you know just the reality of the cost and so how can we better educate ourselves so that we can be informed. That's not necessarily for you for us to do. That's something we have to do in order to um um make sure we're understanding that space. And I imagine it's also connected to the there should be some strong connection to the special ed audit. >> Yes. And and it will help us understand the the RFP process and the results of what we get. We'll be able to evaluate it >> if we have more understanding of what it actually entails. Yes. And that the most costly portion of our
194uh transporting students whether it's our students requiring special education services or McKenna Vento students really it's the the taxi service the students that require that individual transportation and there could be various reasons for that. Um, and what our manager of transportation does as much as possible is route students onto traditional buses um, and even pair students in the smaller vehicles as much as possible. One thing I'd like to find out in regards to the data that drives transportation is um the how we've gotten better at identifying students with special education needs and also the growth of uh children who require McKinto right who are homeless. So if there's a way to kind of see throughout the years how that has grown and how that's impacted transportation, right? Because that I think where we're finding much
195of an increase in in in transportation uh and the most expensive is in trying to meet IEP needs and then and students who have or are increasingly qualifying for Mckin Vento services, right? Because they're ending up homes. So just just as as we discussed that something to always just to consider, right? uh like every other school district and and now we're with the with the challenges that we're seeing at the federal level, SNAP benefits being cut. Um you know, housing is going to become an issue for families and and I think it's just uh and of course the unaffordability of this town. Um it's just something that to always consider as we as we think about the why, right, where we're transporting students. >> Yeah. I I just want to build on that question as
196well. Um because I know if I remember correctly, we made some pretty substantial changes to um how we handled transportation services and how people were able to request transportation services. Um and I believe that's had an impact on our spending over the last year. Um, and so I just want to understand and make sure that's being taken into account um, for the RFP in terms of the volume of services we need and how that's handled. Want to make sure you know we think through how that's taken into account as well. >> Okay. And that um, thank you for that Maya. So the the RFP will be prepared and presented in such a way that takes into account the current number of students that we have routed on uh in taxis right now and that number
197can change depending on student needs. It can fluctuate up or down. So a student may be able to be routed to a traditional bus or we may have additional students that require that individual more individualized transportation service. So, it does fluctuate a bit, but uh the RFP will be put together based on what we currently have, the students we currently have routed. >> Great. That's great. >> Okay. Okay. More of of that later. We'll return to that later. So, okay. Now, um let's talk about Is this still under me? Yeah. Um let's have a discussion on SDRP phase three school closure consolidation scenarios discussion. First I got the first few It's not that blue one down there. Okay. >> Oh, is it on? >> Okay. Good evening. Thank you. >> It says October 27th. >>
198October. >> Oh, >> my glasses work. >> Sorry. Right. My eyeballs are burning. All right, good evening. Thank you to everyone for joining us tonight as we continue to talk through the structural deficit uh reduction plan phase three update school closure scenarios. That discussion will continue tonight. All right. So, here's here's our agenda for tonight. The goal is really to get board direction on key assumptions of the SEP financial model. Our agenda, we will um review the updated two school closing scenarios that uh we were charged with in addition to the third scenario that was added on which was the 2A scenario. um board will go into a board discussion around the financial modeling components uh based on um what we discussed at the October 27th board meeting and again you know it's focused around
199these three things that the board has already indicated uh our priorities which are rightsiz and facilities school closing scenarios reinvesting in buildings the deferred maintenance and future capital projects and then the financial sustainability with our structural deficit um I just want going to start as I always do. There are some hard decisions ahead, but despite it all, my team and I will continue to remain optimistic again because we will continue to commit to making sure that the students remain the center of our work. We know that District 65 has a strong history of providing an outstanding education to students of this community and that is because of all of the staff, the students, and the families here. Um, we know that we're we're discussing some financial times and we've made some personnel cuts and we
200have everything that's happening in the world with ICE and SNAP and all the things. Um, but we we appreciate the fact that our schools continue to be welcoming places for our students to grow socially, emotionally, and academically. And last but not least, again, regardless of the outcomes, our goal is to really put things in place to continue to ensure a bright future for our current and our future uh generations of District 65 learners. So, as a reminder, these are the three primary drivers that we h that have led um and will continue to lead these discussions. declining student enrollment and underutilized schools, school buildings that are in need of significant repairs and improvements, and then ensuring that long-term financial sustainability and investing in our future is priority. As we reflect back and take a look,
201understanding this um and what our current reality is, as a reminder, our schools are operating at a 58% occupancy. We have 18 school buildings plus the Foster School that are operating. There are $188 million in recommended facility repairs and improvements. And while we have made some strides uh over the years in investing in our buildings, um there are still a lot of buildings in this district that are in poor or very poor condition and still there's a need for millions of more dollars of repairs. We have made great strides in reducing the budget by $20 million with over 100 plus reductions in full-time equivalent positions. But at the heart of it, the problem still remains that there are still an additional $15 million of reductions that we still need to make. And while we experience
202a 2.3% increase in our expenses, what's happening is our expenses continue to outpace our revenues. Um, which is essentially causing this structural deficit. Um, one action step that is on the table that we'll continue to discuss is closing schools to be able to support support that. And so I will turn it over to Tamara who will uh walk us through a quick review of the evolution of the structural deficit. I got it kick started for you Tamara. All right. So uh for the the evolution of SDRP, the structural deficit reduction plan, uh Dr. Turner reviewed some of the high points there in the reductions, the operational reductions that have already occurred. But as she mentioned for FY27, we are looking at 10 to 15 million more in reductions to bring the district closer to financial
203sustainability. This slide, the top portion of this slide is uh mostly historical information. The budget FY26 budget there is the projected deficit. Um and I'll talk a bit more about these numbers on the next slide. The bottom portion of this slide is more forwardlooking. Um, and it illustrates what is forecast to happen financially should no further operational reductions occur. And again, this next slide I'll go into a bit more detail that dives into that what can happen if no further operational reductions occur. So this slide provides uh an an overview of the magnitude of the structural deficit. Um again illustrated here projected outcome if no additional operation reductions are made. I want to really focus on FY26 and moving forward. And I'll start with FY26. The projected deficit there is uh just under $200,000. However,
204that deficit would be about $2.3 million higher if the district had not employed a financing strategy utilizing the remaining debt service extensionbased authority uh that we had available to us to make that principal and interest payment on the 2022 lease certificates that funded foster school. Um, so again, if if that financing strategy had not been employed, we would be looking at a deficit closer to $2.5 million for this fiscal year. That financial lever is not available to us moving forward. So that is why when you look at FY27, the projected deficit, again, if nothing were to be done, is about $4.4 million and then it increases from there all the way through fiscal year 2030. the fund balance transfers that are illustrated there for FY27. The $8 million includes that $6 million estimated transfer from
205the working cash fund to cover the remaining expenditures related to foster school. And then the $2 million each year represents a $2 million transfer from the operations and maintenance budget to the capital projects budget to uh finance preventative and general maintenance on our facilities. And then down at the bottom there, that last line where it says days cash on hand greater than 90 days, you see that with no further action in FY27, we're projected to go well below that 90 days cash on hand threshold to 70 days cash on hand. Um, and then by 2030, the district is effectively in an insolvent position with um in the red there. All right, I'll turn it back over to Dr. Turner. >> Stacy, that's me. That's >> Stacy. All right. >> All right. So, now I'm going
206to shift us to talking through school closure scenarios based on the feedback that we received from our last board at the last board meeting on October 27th. Um, essentially district 65 administration was asked to prepare a series of items for this meeting or our next meeting. Tonight we will share scenarios 2 AR, 2D Dr, and 2FR. These are two school closure scenarios with adjusted boundaries and program placements. We will also share an analysis of simultaneous closure defined as closing two schools this spring or a staggered closure defined as naming two schools in November and closing one in June of 2026 and one in June of 2027. Finally, we will also share sequential modeling with revised scorecards based on the assumption that Kingsley closes. Administration will provide the remaining items at or prior to the November
20717th meeting. First, I will walk the school board through the sequential modeling. For sequential modeling, we built off of scenario 1A, which was closing Kingsley School at the end of this school year. This is the original map on the slide and data about utilization for 1A. The focus when we modeled this scenario was minimizing walking distance, minimizing bus transit, and managing for utilization. In the scenario, the district moves from eight TWE strands to seven with the strand at Willard closing. Students who are in the Willard Twe strand continue in Twe at the TWE program in their home school or their feeder pattern if TWEI is not in their home school. For students in the Willard boundary, in this scenario, they would attend the twe program at Foster. in scenarios uh tweet pro twe placement is
208being guided by input from the program's committee which emphasize emphasize placing the strands where TWWS students live and recommended double strands where feasible the utilization ranges for 1A from a low of 46% at Willard to a high of 83% at Oakton I am now showing you the revised baseline scorecard before taking Kingsley out to support sequential modeling. The normative values for the categories and criteria have changed for the following reasons. We are now modeling using the October 1st, 2025 enrollment data for district 65. Official one, excuse me, October one is our official state count date. Prior to this, we were modeling off of our October one data from last year. Additionally, we revised capacities for Willard, Oakton, and Dwey. These three school for these three schools, the overall capacity was lower in the master facility
209assessment than the values we were using when we calculate using core teaching stations times our deck, which is our district educator council guidelines. With the adjustments to the lower capacity value for Oakton, Willard, and Dwey, we are using the most conservative or lowest capacity numbers for all of our K5 schools in King Arts. We also made an adjustment to adjacent school data. King Arts um had not originally had sorry, King Arts had not been included in the Walker adjacency school data and Walker had not been included in the King Arts adjacency school data. The order of the scorecards did not change with that adjustment. So this is the baseline data using the enrollment data that we will use today. So for the next step for sequential modeling is to remove Kingsley from the scorecard and
210the data sets driving the scorecard and then recalculate the values nor using normative values. When we rerun the scorecard using the sequential process, we see a good deal of consistency with the exception of Willard which sh which shifts up relative in relative order to other schools in the scorecard. That is the one shift in order. You will notice that there are shifts clearly in the normative scores. So on this particular scorecard, Kingsley is no longer there. The order remains the same with the exception of Willard moving up. The final step in sequential modeling was to isolate the three schools in the Haven feeder pattern that have a scorecard that have a scorecard Orington, Willard, and Lincolnwood. These normative values are different than the previous slide due to the fact that the normative values are relative
211to the schools in the data set and this is a small smaller data set. The data values that drive the normative scores remain the same and the relative order of schools on the scorecards. As a reminder, Foster is in the Haven feeder pattern as of 2627 school year, but it is not modeled since the building is yet to open and we would not have had comparable data around income and costs. >> All right. Now, shifting to timing of closures. Can I ask you a question on the other one? Okay. Go back to the other >> uh slide. >> Right. >> Oh, sorry. I'm driving two things at once. I draft one thing. >> So, just as I'm Yeah, as I'm reading this, so um it's so like closing Kingsley. Now, looking at the scores of
212here, just the importance here. Lincolnwood is is now has the is the most the 3.4 means it has the highest equity. So if we look yes in this scenario, keep in mind equity is the number of students moving as well as the count of students that have IEPs e or are low income. And in this scenario when we close Kingsley by looking at the previous map um essentially that Kingsley Kingsley boundary is split >> and some of the students are assigned to Willard and then a larger percentage are assigned to Kingsley. So that number of impacted students does go up relative to other schools. That's why the five because more more fewer kids are assigned to Orington. >> Yep. The five means that that's the large at that point once we close Kingsley and reassign
213those students. Lincolnwood has the largest enrollment of those three. Now, if we look at the next column, Orington actually has the largest number of students that are EL IEPs or lowinccome >> once we in this in this very specific scorecard relative to Willard and Lincolnwood. will would have the least. And keep in mind that with this baseline scenario, we the students that are in the twe program are reflected at Foster. >> And so even just with step at Lincolnwood, it's >> so the students for step and rise are always reflected where they live, okay? >> Rather than where the program is. So that step number that step number would you know we account for the program but they do not show up in the number. >> And then of course just as I'm just in
214geography pretty much is going to be the um this wouldn't necessarily change the geography uh scores at that point. >> Sorry Chris. >> Yeah. No sorry I think you misspoke there. >> Did I miss? >> Yeah we misspoke there. Dr. Vinc we were glad we have Chris in the >> Yeah. the the STEP students in this situation, regardless of their where they live, are counted at Lincoln where where I at. >> Okay. >> Thank you for setting the record. Stay there. DON'T GO AWAY. Come on. >> Come on. >> All right. >> Thank you. I was just going to walk. >> No, thank you for setting a record. All right. We good? >> Everybody else good back there? I apologize. I didn't mean to take you on a roller coaster. >> You were going down.
215>> It was possible. It really was. It really was. So, I apologize. There's a lot to keep track of. >> All right. So, now I got to remember where the heck I am. All right. So, timing of closures. And I got to put my old lady's glasses back on so I can read. All right. So next, the administration engaged with our facilities committee to gather the group's thoughts and provide an analysis of simultaneous two at the same time closure options or staggered one closure followed one year followed by a second closure the second year. Specifically, we applied the conditions that the board defined at the last meeting. Two schools are named for closure in November 2025 and they are either closed at the end of this school year or one is closed at the end
216of this school and one is closed at the end of the next school year. Before sharing the analysis, administration heard the concern last meeting about students moving multiple times, two new schools in two years or the equivalent of three schools in three years. To test this concern, we model the staggered closure with the goal of minimizing moves. In scenario 1A, we attempt to minimize the chance that students need to move to a new school twice, which has the impact of three schools in three years. This model moves the current Kingsley boundaries into Orington, assuming that students who live in the foster boundary are attending Foster. As a result, you see that the Orington boundary is now further east and a portion of the Orington boundary to the south is going to Dwey. This increases transportation
217needs and decreases walkability for some students, but would allow us to minimize the number of students who would shift schools twice in a staggered closure. This shift also adjusts boundaries for Dwey and Lincoln and we need to adjust the Oakton and DAW boundaries due to the reduced capacity constraints at Oakton. Overall, 31% of K5 students would have a new school assignment from their current school today. Previously, we'd been speaking to the baseline. We'd heard people say, "Hey, talk to us about where we are now." So, this is from where students are now. 31% of the K5 students would have a new school assignment when comparing to students in current boundaries. This number includes boundary shifts, programmatic shifts, the closure of roads, and all the foster mo students moving to foster. All right. Um when we
218calculate the number of students moving, if no additional schools are closed, the comparable number of students moving is 26%. This includes students leaving roads, students entering foster programmatic shifts and boundaries. >> Say that again. Say that. I'm sorry. Say that last one. >> So that we So in one R 31% of the students would move from where they are today to where they would be in their new assignment. >> Okay. >> The baseline is 26%. Okay. >> Okay. So the baseline would be 26%. All right. Whoops. There we go. All right. If the board wished to do a staggered closing, the bo the board could then close Lincolnwood at the end of 2627 school year. And just to be clear, we needed to focus on one scenario to model this to see if we could
219maximize or minimize the multiple moves of students. We focused on this particular scenario. Um the board could then close Lincolnwood at the end of 2627 school year. these bound with these boundaries, Lincolnwood would close and that school community would shift to Willard. This would result in an additional four to five% of students in the district changing schools. This process would decrease the number of students who need to attend two new schools or three schools in three years to less than 1%. We still would not guarantee that it would be zero. The important thing to note is that when we focus on staggering and limiting multiple moves, it does constrain other options in modeling. In this case, the model increases transportation impact, decreases walkability, and results in greater utilization variances in order to make sure that
220we do not have multiple moves in a staggered closure. to limit multiple moves in a staggered culture closure. >> You have a question. >> Is the boundary. So I guess my um my question is that the transportation is based on the boundary and and is that the same boundary that we have for you know Kingsley if we were just closing Kingsley. So is so is does the transportation is transportation increase because it's staggered or is it >> the boundary that you're looking at right now on the western edge of essentially Orington is the western boundary of Kingsley currently. >> Right. >> And so those students don't require transportation to get to Kingsley. When you close Kingsley you have to negotiate Green Bay and that has a potential to increase transport. It does increase transportation need
221and the district has to negotiate determine how to take care of that transportation need. >> No, I get that. I think it was it's the staggered isn't changing. It's not that it's staggered, right? Because it's it would be the same if you closed them all and you had Willard. >> So, you would still have the same transportation, right? So, that's okay. >> So, if you're staggering, you want want to keep the school communities together to avoid multiple moves. And that's why >> originally when we drew this we did not have that B boundary as far to the left and that could have net resulted in up to 170 students having multiple moves. So pushing it all the way to the western bounds of the Kingsley boundary means they go to Orington right away. Okay. >>
222And doesn't result in a multiple move if that were to be the end barrier. But I think the key here is to understand that like as we exit out of this, we're gonna want a real sense of the values from the board that we want applied to modeling, right? >> Because like and I'm going to give you feedback on simultaneous and staggered in a quick second here, but when if the voice becomes try to keep school communities together, the impact of that is utilizations have greater variance. There's increased transportation and decreased walkability. In the other scenario, there would have been more kids in that Willard boundary that would have been walkable or Lincolnwood walkable because that line wouldn't have gone as far west. >> I guess I guess where I'm trying to where I'm Yep.
223>> you know, too many images. I'm um losing it right here. Is my understanding that the boundary moving this far this direction was more about the utilization of Willard or So that's what I'm trying to understand. Was this >> the boundary going this far west was to avoid multiple moves and to try to keep school communities together because we'd been hearing both those values coming up. So we brought scenarios and when we get to the other scenarios that is what we allowed to drive the models this time was trying to keep school communities together. >> Okay. All right. Now for some feedback on whether uh kind of whether simultaneous or staggered um is viewed as positive. So our modeling demonstrated that we can decrease the number of students who would be impacted by multiple new
224multiple new schools to below 1%. Next I'm going to share the analysis of specific advantages and disadvantages for simultaneous closure or staggered closure. The administration's facilities committee unanim their unanimous feedback to the administration was that to close the schools simultane sorry let me say that better the administration facilities committee's unanimous feedback to the administration was to close schools simultaneously at the same time there was concern raised about what these discussions and uncertainties do to our community and our schools when stretched over a year or more specific Specific concerns include ongoing challenges to to the school closure decision as well as elevating stress, anxiety, and division in the community as well as for our school staff. The administration's committee discussed the possibility of students being assigned to three schools in three years with a staggered closure.
225The group felt strongly that moving students more than once should be absolutely avoided. In discussion with the human relation with the human relations department and based upon board comments last week, we also note that staggering closures can be difficult for staff and lead to potential staff retention issues. um when we talk about staggered closures because it increases uncertainty and we've seen how that plays out for folks at Bessie Roads. It was noted that by the committee that chance of students being moved to a new school more than once is greater when we focus on closing two schools in the Haven feeder pattern. Additionally, there was discussion and concern communicated about the possible impact of closing two schools in the [snorts] Haven feeder pattern on a potential referendum which we heard tonight. largely the concern was
226outweighed by the concern of impacting um about the impact that drawing these decisions out would have on our community. So we see the advantages and disadvantages, but the committee really said unanimously to administration that the closure should be simultaneous and that the addition of stress, anxiety of dragging this out and community division far outweighed the benefits is staggering. We note though and they noted as well that closure will be difficult, but they said prioritize it. It's not worth the toll on the community. All right. Now, moving into two school closure scenarios. As we shift into looking at revised school scenarios, I'm going to remind us again that we're operating on revised data for these scenarios. Specifically, we're using October 1, 2025 enrollment data. We have revised capacities for Oakton, Willard and Dwey so that the
227smallest capacity is captured either using our de uh guidelines times teaching stations or the master facility assessment and that we adjusted the adjacent school measures for King Arts and Walker. If we do not make any changes, these are our boundaries and our feeder schools for next year with our program assignments. same >> and just kind of reggrounding that would result in utilization rates in the following feeder pattern. Chute for K5 average utilization would be 73%. Haven would be 50% and Nicholls would be 68% with the note that in our shootute feeder pattern we do have four title one schools. Nichols will have one title one school next year and King Arts and Bessie Roads were title one schools. Foster will be a title one school. All right. Now, with the updated data, we went ahead
228and we recalculated the school scorecards with those three adjustments to the data. And where we landed was Lincolnwood and Kingsley to FR an overall score of two, Kingsley and Willard an overall score of 2.9, and Lincolnwood and Norington 3.1. So, the relative order remains the same. And please note again with normative values when we make that data set smaller the normative values change because it's just relative to this subgroup which was the request of the board. All right. Now jumping into the three scenarios 2 A is the closing Orington and Lincolnwood school. Um, and just as a note, and I'm gonna just call this out, since we shifted the objectives today to focus on keeping schools together, um, what you're going to see, and we've zeroed in solely on the Haven feeder pattern. The map
229in the top right is going to be the same for all three of the scenarios because ultimately we're deciding these two these three scenarios are more or less saying which three schools will be in the f the haven feeder pattern next year foster and which additional two. So the map in the top right will stay the same in the scenarios. We also have seven tweewide in all of these scenarios um with the twee section at Willer being closed, but students all having access to the program again at Foster or in their neighborhood school where they live or in the feeder pattern depending on where they live. Um we also adjusted to try to minimize movement with step. When Lincolnwood stays open in these scenarios, we keep step at Lincolnwood. We also then looked, we'd been
230moving step to Willard. We made a decision to move away from moving step to Willard and we're moving step to Dwey when we close Lincolnwood. The reason for that was with the potential of closing two schools in the Haven feeder pattern, we are hearing concerns about capacity and what if families come back? What if numbers are a little different than we expect? What if twee students say hey we want to stay at Willard even if it means not being in the twe program. So we moved do we moved step to Dwey. The reason we landed on Dwey was when we looked at the actual enrollment in step there are a number of students that in that program that particular step program that are in Dwey and Foster. So it has geographic proximity to where those
231students live which again is trying to honor some of the program committee feedback. All right. So now just kind of calling out a couple specific things to this scenario in 2 AR step is going to Dwey because Lincolnwood and Orington are the schools that are closed utilization rate is 75% and estimated cost savings are 3.988 million so rounding up to 4 million. In this scenario the Haven feeder pattern would have three K5 buildings that are ADA accessible. Strengths include avoiding closing adjacent schools and moving schools as and we keep school we move schools as a whole. Challenges include a large number of students crossing a hazard the as well as the lowest projected savings of the three scenarios that we bring forward tonight. There is movement of the step program and variations in utilization rates
232with nickels being over 90%. I want to call out that in each of these scenarios, students will need to be transported by bus and this information is included in the transportation tables. In all of these scenarios, there will be an in this particular area an increase of students requiring transportation. Our next scenario is 2DR and we close Kingsley and Willard at the end of the 2526 school year. Similar to the previous as far as date, the average utilization rate is again 75% with a slightly increased estimated cost savings of $4.2 million. Strengths of this scenario include step remains at Lincolnwood. The closures are not adjacent to each other. The schools we have remaining schools on both sides of Green Bay which is a north south hazard up in the Haven feeder pattern. Um and again
233school communities largely can stay together. The challenges include um that this scenario closes two buildings that are ADA accessible and one that has experienced a partial renovation which is Willard. This scenario also reduces the greatest number of seats of the three scenarios because Willard is a foursection building where the with four sections per grade where the other buildings have three sections per grade. This scenario also pushes the Lincolnwood capacity to 88%. This is a combined factor of keeping step and closing the K5 building with the second largest capacity behind Foster in the Haven attendance boundary. A final challenge is that Orington remains open. It's the And not that its day is open, it's the Orington building. So don't take me in the wrong place that way. The Orington building remains open, which is the smallest
234building by square footage of the five in the Haven Theater pattern, and it's the oldest with the smallest lot size and limited parking. When we shift, I want to make sure we're still on 2FR. Yep. When we shift to 2FR, which closes Lincolnwood and Kingsley at the end of 2526, we again have an average utilization of 75% an AV and an estimated savings of 4.29 million. The strengths of this scenario include the highest overall estimated cost savings. It aligns with the scenario scorecards. It maintains one additional ADA accessible building in in addition to Foster. and the three and remaining Haven feeder schools are geographically distributed. Challenges include a significant concern about closing two schools that are adjacent to each other which intersects with a concern about the closures impacting a specific geop geopolitical area or
235ge sorry geographic area in Evston. The step program has moved in this scenario. We have similar concerns about the smaller footpin of Oregon and Nickels continues to have a high utilization rate. Before I hand over the over um the mic to Susan and then the board, I do want to underscore and note that there are critical items that drive our modeling today. You see, models that that value keeping school communities together and work to minimize step movement where possible. These scenarios um did um have an impact then on walkability and transportation. They decreased walkability and increased transportation. The administration would ideally like to hear from the board tonight about relative values so when we bring back future scenarios we know they reflect the priorities of the board. Susan, >> should we ask? Do you want
236us to before asking? >> No, I don't want to go. >> Okay. Wait. >> I think of the level of information that just provided. I think you should ask anything specific that wouldn't necessarily be related to the financial model. As we go through tonight and we're going to talk about some of the challenges, that's a separate conversation. But if you had spec specific questions about the information >> I think yeah because I think really what you're what you're pointing to is in the boundary is created to keep sort of Kingsley sort of whole moving there >> as well as Lincoln situations because we tried to emphasize we were hearing hey communities matter can we keep these communities together >> so we felt like it was helpful to see a different way to model this >>
237to show you know so that the board can become kind think about the different values that we want to show up in any final models. And so the walkability b like so not changing the school. I mean so the question you're asking is this this privileges keeping kids whole keeping communities whole. Another ver as we said we're about walkability right and we say well um families if we're closing two schools we can't promise that we're going to keep communities whole but that probably then will shift. What's the implication of saying that? >> So, um, if so, if we deemphasize keeping communities whole, >> yes, >> then essentially in this scenario, we would see, you know, if I'm using the one that's up here, essentially that Kingsley community, part of it would go to Orington and
238part would end up going to Willard. And if you look up at the top, you know, where Willard is, there's a section of that Orington group that lives much closer to Willard, >> right? >> That would get mapped to Willard. We would kind of balance out utilizations a little bit more and walkability would have a stronger leg to it. And I think what I hold um and I we heard tonight, you know, like just reemphasizing school closure absolutely has an impact. We don't minimize that. Um, and staying whole with your community feels important. Yet, every day I get up to walk to school and a few months in, can we recreate some of those communities? Can we recreate some of those friendships? We heard people talk tonight about how do I invest in my new
239school community? And so the boundaries last, you know, our commitment is to come back to boundaries every five years per board policy, but comm community boundaries last longer than the impact of our relationships in that grade this right now. I'm not saying this as well as I want to, but I think you understand where I'm going. >> There's a long-term and a short-term impact piece that I think we're trying to hold. And is the is the implication my my belief of the implication of of closing still closing these two schools but putting walkability forward that would does that lead to the you that leads to the utilization challenges that would more more kids end up at Willard in the end >> we would yeah I so yes we would essentially we could maximize walkability within
240boundaries of utilization that the board has said are appropriate and right now we're working on always keeping utilization below 90% wherever we can >> so the move >> and I think to that you know you notice that like the dewy boundary you know I it was high then it went low in the new boundaries now it goes high again it would probably come low again a little bit and that would reduce some of the numbers at nickels which would be helpful ful for their utilization as well. >> And just to add on to that, so I'll just use this as an example for 2F what Dr. Beersley is talking about Dwey moving up into Orington because Orington in this situation has to go so far west to take up the the Kingsley boundary that you
241run into capacity issues at Orington. So Dwey needs to go further north to help out which takes part of that Haven community up there and assigns them to Nickels. So you get a higher nickels enrollment in this particular scenario. >> And if we um if we if walkability becomes prominent, what happens to the the western uh boundary line of Orington? >> It still goes across Green Bay. >> Okay. >> But it does not impact as many families. >> Okay. >> Is that a fair comment? >> I've looked at so many maps. It's hard to hard to say absolutely. But we would essentially have to rerun the model with the uh with the objectives weighted that way to say we're going to prioritize uh walkability as number one and see what the the model spits out
242for for the new boundaries and then kind of fine-tune it and clean it up based on the direction and the values of the board. >> Um so, uh Dr. Basley, you mentioned shifting to lowest capacity data. Can you just say a little bit more about that shift? >> Sure. Um so this was partially a conversation that we'd had with some of the community members and what was noted is we share two different ways of calculating capacities in our building. One was using the master facility assessment and in the master facility assessment for our core classrooms they used a particular square footage amount which I believe from the report was 36 square feet per student. So they calculated capacity using in our core classrooms that metric. There's a different square footage for special education classrooms and
243for arts classrooms, things along those lines. Um the when we so we have that and then we also have our debt guidelines which call for class size maximum well guidelines of 23 in K2, 25 in 35 and 28 in middle school. And so when we calculated for the baseline, we used the used the deck guidelines in all but three schools, the core classrooms times deck guidelines is a lower amount than the capacities that are indicated in the master facility assessment using the square footage model. And so what we heard from the community was, hey, in those three places where the capacity is actually higher using deck guidelines, they asked if we would use the lower capacities. And we were initially aware of that and we were making sure we did not fill those schools to
244as high a level of capacity. But to address those concerns, we shifted the three capacities for Willard, Dwey, and for Oakton to the lower of the two values. So it now means that every school has the lower of the two capacity values to calculate our utilization. And really what that's an indication of those three schools have some classrooms that have a smaller square footage base. >> Thanks. And then there was on page slide 19 there was um I think it was it was compare comparing the delayed >> y >> the it says false false hope and what does it say after that on the advantages of staggering >> the advantages of staggering you know second bullet >> sorry that was intended to be deleted at some point that was a quick note to myself but
245um that was >> yeah that was meant to be deleted. I don't honestly know that was some quick scribble but I think possible advantages calling out there is the time for developing creative solutions or partnerships and that possible greater support for referendum. >> Okay, thank you. And then one last question back to the the map. Um, we've had this conversation before, but um, when I'm just looking, you know, geographically, so the Walker utilization stays pretty consistent at 64%. >> Um, we have talked about, you know, we've obviously modeled across Green Bay, >> but we haven't modeled across Gulf to my memory. Can you just explain that rationale? Yeah, we have we have thought about that um and we've talked about that with our facility subcommittee um largely. So those students are also crossing church and
246if we added that crossing of Emerson that's kind of you know church is not a hazard but is a busy street. Emerson absolutely is a hazard. So when we talked to the community to the facility subcommittee about that they veered away from that idea and more into thinking about program placement and the other boundaries within Haven but that's something we could certainly revisit. Walker had been traditionally a very strong and consistent enrollment school up until the kindergarten class of last year and we saw a dip and that was actually reflected in the demography numbers. So we've been kind of watching that but that was it was just the feeling of that that street is yes busy and two you're crossing church as well and so the advice was to work elsewhere that haven feeder pattern
247>> just go I'm sorry >> thank you >> just um you probably I look at the uh dewy boundary and that's if I think of who's my friends and I'm going to walk to my friend's house that's a very long way the reality is because of where king arts are what what what percentage of neighborhood kids are at King Arts just as a way we see Dewey here but in reality there's a lot of kids in the who live in that King Arts area that actually attend there right >> so what you're asking is who are what is the percentage of really just the blocks from Dodge to >> Yeah cuz here I look at like whoa that's a you know like friendship groups and that's a that's a lot in terms of how big
248that that you know that space is um and just as a way of accepting it, understanding that it's a there's another option there which is um the magnet school and just the reality of just wanting to know that there is a large percentage of kids who are there and >> I think it would take us a minute to pull that number because it's not as straightforward as >> it's not as a decision like that but you're looking for essentially the dumpster to church dodged canal >> just as a way of saying that yes >> King Arts kids that are there. >> Yep. >> It's an option. They're there and that they're they're, you know, within a walkable space. Okay. >> Okay. So, um, tonight, I think last meeting we wanted goals and objectives of what
249we want the board to, uh, start providing to us so we can really be productive at the November 17th board meeting. Um, so there's an approach that we're going to follow here, um, which is kind of foundational questions around all of the pieces that we've been talking about to get us to being able to fine-tune the various aspects of the financial model as well as the school closing scenarios. And I think we started referencing some of those last week. And so we're hoping that you'll give us clarity and we can reach consensus or come to consensus on at least a couple of different ways that we're going to look at it. So again, that we can start narrowing and getting explicit with what it does for any potential school closings as well as what does
250it do for us as we look to address the district's structural deficit. Um so um just again recommendation that's where I'm starting. We always want to start where we left off. Um at this point it is the recommendation that you close two schools. Uh we focused on uh strategic reduction financial models D1 and E. We are wanting to get clear on what does preserving financial sustainability mean to make sure that as we come up with whatever levers we're going to aim for to get us to a financial reduction plan that will make us sustainable through FY30 that those boundaries and those are things you all agree to. We're going to look at the financial levers that we have that we're talking about that we've created some amounts around, but if you say you aren't interested
251in that line item, we take it off. But the if you tell us that that is something we can consider in our uh moving towards whatever the number is we're going to reduce by. Um we want you to tell us today no, don't do that. Yes, you can do that. Um, we do and we did hear tonight. Absolutely. We are really recommending that there continues to be transparency and communication with stakeholders. Um, and so I think that that is something that this board has to commit to and how wherever you end up with all this that there is regular reporting. Um, and I believe you've been doing that, but you need to continue doing that. And then we will talk about some options in really quantifying what reinvesting in the building strategically can mean in
252relationship to various financial levers for that. So um we want to mirror back what I think you put a statement out probably about a month and a half ago uh which is the first focus is right sizing the facilities in the district. Um, so foundational questions. I don't want you to answer and give me answers right now, but really at the end of the day, for us to move our work forward, we really need to understand where we're at with school closures. Um, to address underutilized facilities, deferred maintenance, and structural deficit. All of those pieces are critical as we move this piece forward because they have to go together. I think it's really important for as we try to ground ourselves in research and best practices which I know your community demands you know are
253we in agreement with um you know ranges that best practices say 80% 95% you know as Stacy comes up with her capacities what are we targeting for school closure so that it is grounded in uh leaving space potentially for the future but a number that we know is appropriate in alignment with what research says and then ultimately based on the capacity percentage is there amount of schools that the district is willing to close. So here's what we're hoping to get from you tonight so that we keep moving towards finer financial models, more fine-tuned financial models. So the first question in front of the board tonight is are we getting close to the school closing scenarios I would start with one are we in agreement that three and four are too many and two is appropriate
254one is appropriate we won't talk about timing of it right now but is the board in agreement with my recommendation of two school closings So, so I think we have a couple options. Um, I've used consensus models in the past. Um, of which, um, you use a ranking system of three, two, and one. So, if I say, are we in agreement with three two school closings? If you're in agreement with that, you would say, I'm a three. If I'm a two, it means that I'm okay with it, but I probably have a couple questions. If I say one, it means I'm not in agreement. Now, ultimately, we're not voting tonight. All we're asking to do is give us more clarity on where are we starting to narrow down what are we modeling. So, my question,
255so three, we agree. Two, I can live with it, but I still have a couple questions that I want to ask. And one is I I can't agree with that. And again, it isn't timing right now, but are we in agreement as a board that we believe that it the district because of its current enrollment, its projected enrollment, as well as its current capacity that we are comfortable with looking at two school closures? I'm I'm comfortable in replying to that [clears throat] for the two for the two school closures. I would say I'm a two because I have some questions about some additional information that could be coming forward that may impact the financial picture in terms of the special ed audits and the other two studies that are be going to be done for
256the uh buildings and the life safety plan. Um I'm also concerned about the capacity our capacity to do that while we are opening foster school. So that's that's what's on my mind >> and and again my my the question was is not when and so and so would it be that you may not be interested at all in closing schools? >> No, I'm interested in closing schools. Yes, but you want >> Yes. I I understand the financial implications of not doing that. >> Okay. >> Because I'm als I mean because the picture includes the f the financial levers that we're going to have to pull and that would include teachers and programs. So that's also part of my consideration. So that's why it's >> a two. >> Excellent. >> Yeah. I'm I'm a three, but
257I also have the same questions around programmatic. What what what's the impact if we don't? Perfect. And I really want to know what's the impact on staffing and and the uh and just pro pro programming in general if we don't act. >> Uh and if we do, >> I think the recommendation we've gotten is occupancy 80 to 90%. Looking at the adjusted occupancies, I think the highest scenario was 75%. Is that right, Dr. Beardsley? that's room for us to you know should our demography report um you know should that we diverge from that um there's still room um and so I am uh three on two schools but also with concerns about how do we how how do we execute this um and then still ongoing concerns about um where are we going to find
258the rest of the cuts and what do we truly mean by sustainable, what's truly sustainable? Because even Yeah, >> great question. >> I'm a one because of um I believe in the occup get the occupancy without um having to close a school. I've seen it done and I know in the innovation and what's here in Evston, we can do that. Um, so occup so that doesn't mean if we can't create a next step that addresses our occupancy that I wouldn't be for closing the school. I think the occupancy in the um up in the Haven uh feeder pattern is problematic. And second, the walkability, the visual for me that um as much as I hear the Orington families talk about crossing to get if they had to go to King uh Kingsley, I think of
259the cross of going backwards that way. So the walkability for me, it's hard for me to imagine Lincolnwood and Kingsley both closing and what that means. So, I just would like to try every imaginable way to keep one of those schools open, but have it have revenues. That's the important piece of here. Revenues have to come in to uh to make that possible. That might be pie in the sky, but I believe it's possible. >> So, so Maya, >> I have a three. >> Okay. >> Oh, thank you. Okay. >> All right. Yep. Go ahead, Maya. >> Yeah. I was just saying I'm a three on the two school closure. I think that if we were just looking at the numbers and the utilization and budget, we would honestly be at a three or four
260school closing. I don't think that that is recommended or the best option going forward at this point given all of the other considerations and the impact that it will have on students. And so I think the two school closure solution is a good way to give us some flexibility knowing that we still have the special education audit and there are some other levers we plan to pull to get us to a good realistic spot moving forward. Okay. Thanks Maya. So the next question then is about the timing of it, right? And so um you know this is I think a big debate that was discussed last time. I think uh Stacy did an excellent job tonight. One bringing it back to the facility subcommittee to get have them weigh in on it and give some
261guidance to her as the administrative person that's um making the recommendation around facilities. So, you know, the question becomes too, again, in order for us to model this, the question is when would it occur and is it a phased in approach? Would it be all at once? Um, and I think it's important for us to understand that because then the next question is going to be, you know, kind of what could be some potential boundaries and grandfathering that could be impacting us as well, too. So, um, the next question is when would this occur? Would we be looking at FY26? uh would be 27 um because we're in FY26 2028. What what would be um the board's consensus around uh the timing of if we were to implement a two school closing? Again, we're not
262voting tonight. Uh what would be the desire of the board to um when those would be implemented? Would it be staggered? Would it be all at once? What's the preference? and maybe we break it up which is let's do staggering first and then once we do staggering then we could talk about what year. So let's look at talk about staggering and where we'd be for a three two or one. >> As as the person who brought up the concept of staggering and just want to be clear when I brought that up it wasn't to name two schools and to stagger it. It was to potentially get to a second school. I would think it would be if you're going to name two schools should just close two schools. I don't understand how that you keep
263how you how you stagger if you've named it. At least that's from So just want to be clear why that was the context of why that was put forth. It wasn't name them and then 26 27 and 12728. >> Thanks Nicole. Yeah. And I think the I I agree I actually agree with that because it's um what I'm hearing from the community is that first part of the stagger is I don't I want to protect the kids from having to move. I want the families to be able to plan. I want the teachers to be able to plan. And that that's my major concern with the staggering. Although [clears throat] I'm still concerned about opening Foster because it's a he it's going to be a heavy lift. It's going to be a heavy lift. I
264mean, we're talking about closing Bessie Roads plus two schools and opening Foster. So, that's that's the big picture I'm looking at, you know. So, when I'm talking about these school closures in my in the forefront of my mind is also opening Foster. So, um, I've heard a lot from the community about make a decision, let the teachers know this this So, that's where I'm landing. >> Yeah. So, I'm I'm foreclosing. I mean, I'm not for the staggered approach. Um, and I want I want certainty for our community, for all stakeholders, so they're they're able to plan, right? um and knowing that what we're what we're hearing too from the community is again um okay there's a call for looking at administrative cuts, right? So that's going to be the challenge. So we're going to cut
265administrators who kind of help lead some of this work in regards to that those processes on those transitions. So that's my that's the concern that I have. So I mean so that's kind of where I'm landing on this particular piece. I'm really concerned about replicating some of the things that have happened with Bessie Rhodess. Um and I um my inclination is that um delaying this isn't going to help. Um and so that's where I'm at, but then you know still willing to listen um if that was um something we needed to do to make sure we execute it well. But I think I'm primarily it would be FY27, beginning of FY27. >> Maya, >> yeah, I don't feel like um I feel like doing it all at once is the best way to move forward.
266For me, I would have considered staggering if we got a strong recommendation from the administration that that's something they felt they need to do in order to be able to handle the change management of this. Um but given the recommendation that um they would prefer not to stagger um and that in a lot of ways staggering would make things even harder um from an administration and a community perspective. I think that moving forward at the same time is the best route. >> Thanks Maya. So now the really tough question. Um when would it occur? So, would we be looking at FY27 if we move forward with a two school closing? Would we look to put that off for um another year? Um I think that that's again another piece for us because then it is
267looking at other programmatic reductions, staffing reductions, all of the levers that we currently have listed for you for finances. Hopefully there's additional savings that come through special education through the special education audit as well as a transportation audit, but again those won't be known for a little bit. So I think you know and certainly we can talk about what that looks like financially but again are we looking at 27 26 27 27 if we were to move along with this because you still got to approve closing schools. And my understanding was that it would be at the end of this academic year. >> Y same year. >> Yeah. I didn't think we could I didn't think we had another year to work it out. So >> yeah, I mean from the beginning of the process,
268it was proposed as completing it this year. >> Perfect. I agree. >> Okay. >> Obviously, we will still have to do a vote, but what we will be doing is showing you a model then of how this all moves forward and what the financial implications are for that piece of all it. Um so then the next piece is if this is implemented for the 2627 school year there are critical components that we need to uh provide to Dr. Beardsley about timing of this because if we grandfather um certain aspects of the plan and don't implement it fully, there is um definitely not going to see the savings that we would hope to see potentially from this for next year. And again, if we want a balanced budget, we need at least $4.6 million of reductions
269that need to be identified for FY27 based upon the current financial projections. So the piece would be is, you know, do we know where we're landing on new boundaries going into effect and any potentials where previously the board has um provided ex exceptions to that. And I don't know if you want to add anything to that. I think that's certainly your area that you need help with. >> Yeah. And I I'll kind of talk you through a couple of the things to think about. And some of these may become requests for us to go back to, but um when the new boundaries go into effect, so if we close at the end of the school year, there have been some questions that came up in community feedback sessions about impact on middle school. And so,
270you know, K6 in my mind is an absolute because we need that to have reliable enrollment models. But there may be a question about whether we look at seventh and eighth graders and see if they finish where they are because that is a window of time where your peer groups and your, you know, are pretty tightly wound in that space. Um, it does mean for families though that if you have a sixth grader and an eighth grader, you might have a sixth grader that is going to Nicholls and an eighth grader that is going to Haven. So, you know, that is would be the con about not doing a straight K8. So the first thing we'll have to do is say well do the new boundaries go in effect entirely K8 or do we want
271to look a little more deeply into that 78 impact and allow them to finish where they are. Then the other things that we're kind of modeling on number one we've brought up >> did you think about fifth grade as well or just seven seven eight >> the um that could be something that's brought up but what I would say is you know when we look at two school mo you know so that is something that we could potentially model if the bo you know and see if it's feasible so um then I want to move into this a good question um I want to move into the things that have actually let me go the other pieces that are in our models are number one we are we had to make some decisions about how
272we model capacity we are modeling capacity on the fact that the students that live in foster would be in foster so we looked at scenarios tonight that have two school closures in the haven feeder pattern there is board agreements from setting of the new boards for next year that the students in the haven feeder pattern can decide actually students in foster could decide to stay in their neighborhood schools or go to foster next year. If we allow that agreement to stay out there, it's going to be very difficult to predict enrollments in schools. Um, and families always have an opportunity to return to their homeschool. So, they could say, "Hey, I'm going to stay where I am." And then last minute change to return to homechool because we're not paying for transportation. So that could
273create a lot of variability that could have a negative impact on the startup of foster school. However, that is also something that is already out there as a as a possibility for foster families. >> Was it designed as permissive? Was it always as permissive trans? You know, so in some sense seats have to be available or >> so the the what was communicated out was that essentially they could stay if they want to. What I that we would recommend as administration is that we move to you request a permissive transfer and it's pending available space. And I think to your question around fourth or fifth grade, we would want to try to honor those things for families if it's kids trying to wrap up in a school community. But it is difficult for us to
274say that it's just a cart blanch and that, you know, we would need to be adding sections and adjusting things along those lines. The way it is written right now is we said to families if you want to stay where you are you would have to final file a permissive transfer and it would be approved and we would want to add a caveat that it would be approved if there is space available and we generally hold to be fully clear we generally hold a few seats we don't full fill all the way to capacity which would be a deck guidelines 23 in case a family does move in last minute before the school year starts or early in the school year. As you well know, that didn't work perfectly this year. We've got some folks
275that are in different schools because classrooms did become full. >> So, let me ask you a question because I have a concern about the fifth graders as well. >> So, if they stayed, if they were allowed to stay, if they wanted to in their school, >> Yep. Would they then go to the feeder pattern middle school of that school or would they >> they always return to the the feeder pattern where they live for middle school? >> Okay. >> Yeah. All right. Um, so, >> so I mean just just just from a reality check, it's you I mean I might want to go um I might want to stay at Willard if I'm from if I live in Foster, but if Willard is at 100%, you're not I mean we're not going to have a
276policy where we're going to not let kids in the same question I asked about foster the the seats first go to the students in the in the attendance boundary. So, we know that we have capacity at Foster for every single student that lives in Foster, right? We have modeled for that. That's where we're accounting for them. >> Um, the place that gets more difficult is if, to your example, there are a number of students that live and foster that maybe want to stay at Willard. And if that were to push it across capacity, we what we would it the way it's communicated currently from the board, we would need to add a section and keep them there as opposed to say, hey, we need to return to home school. You have a seat at fall.
277>> So there is a distinction between there's space to add a section versus there's all sections are full, right? So we could have a situation where every class like every classroom is full and we cannot but understand that that's a budget impact if we add a section. And so like if we have if we were to say we're at 25 kids, we have three kids that are still interested in being here. We would then have two sections of 14. And so it does have a budget impact. And again, as we're looking at right sizing, we need to know the section potential section closure. So that has an impact because we won't be able to capture those savings. Right. >> Okay. >> Then the next one, and I'll share the administration recommendation on this too, is
278that we have said for roads families that they should be able to attend foster school if they wish. We believe that we should continue to honor that commitment to roads families because it's been a long and bumpy road. So no road and roads but that we believe that that commitment should be continued. Um the last piece of this that is embedded in the modeling is that and we've talked about this but I always want to make sure it's as clear as possible. We are trying to get the students in TWE programs to the TWE program that is closest to where they live. So the way this is modeled, it could be that I am a twe student that I'm gonna that is in Washington, but maybe I live in Oakton. In this situation, we would
279reassign that student to the Oakton twe program to get kids closer to to their homebased TWE program and that would also put them back in their feeder pattern middle school because right now when that student finishes TWE at Washington, they then go to shoot for middle school. Okay. And that is, you know, that has an some impact. It it has an impact on transportation needs. I'm not going to say it has an impact on transportation cost because you only impact cost when you're adding buses, but that is what we've been modeling on. So the kind of key things here when we talk about boundary changes is when does it go in effect, who does it go in effect for and you've asked about and wondered about carveouts potentially around fifth or you know seventh and
280eth. And then the additional ones of how do we deal with like previous commitments to foster families, previous commitments to roads families and program placements. >> Do we I'm not going to ask that. Okay. >> so, um, I've got a, um, a pretty strong perspective on the first question. I think as much as possible, we should try to keep those seventh and eighth graders where they are. Um, just from a developmental perspective, I mean, I think it's hard on everyone, but I think from a developmental perspective, it would be really, really hard and potentially disruptive to overall schools if we move those seventh and eighth graders. Um, so if at all possible, it would be great to keep them where they are. Any other thoughts, Maya, on what uh Dr. Beersley just mentioned on some
281of the other topics? Was that just the one that you felt strongly about? >> Yeah, that's the one I feel strongly about. I mean, I think, you know, I have some other thoughts on the other ones. Um, I think as much as possible it would be good to move students to what will potentially be their neighborhood schools, but I'm definitely interested in hearing what other board members think on that as well. So my concern is about the fifth graders and the seventh and eighth graders because they the fifth graders have had a long tenure assuming that they started they may have had a long tenure at that school. Um and then to take them to disrupt that I think would be harmful to the students. Um and with the same with the seventh and eighth
282and we have more capacity in the middle schools. >> No, we have less capacity. >> We have less. Yes. Okay. >> And and here would be ours. We again as long as we're starting to narrow and have less options that we're looking at. We could make a determination with maybe just even the numbers of students that that would impact at the maximum amount. and you cut me off if if that's not possible through your modeling, but I think if you again you give us if we're going to talk about potential carveouts and it's not everything then I think it's just what would be some things that we could model for you which then could potentially say okay it's it it doesn't work or it does. So, I'm hearing fifth graders. I'm hearing seventh, eighth graders.
283Um, you know, at some point, right, that there has to be a hard stop for what that is because, you know, those are um going to be cost. Um, anybody else have any other specific thoughts that they want to think about? Um, I think it's really important to talk about the al they also Bessie roads and and and what I think Dr. previously raised about foster school boundaries and and and probably revisiting that that original commitment is not in the best interest of the district as well too. I think that's the other one as well too that could have implications to foster school >> which the piece of honoring the foster the statement to foster families. So Stacy, in the um the the foster the there's a large percentage of Bessie Rose kids who are
284foster who are foster boundary kids and then the the Willard Twe. So it's Willard Twe Foster Twe I'm sorry Willard Twe Bessie Rose Twe combining into Foster. Are there nine are there non Bessie Rose non Willard Twe kids in the foster or are all foster kids students that would be in the twe program at foster live in the haven feeder pattern or they're at Bessie Roads and do not live in the Haven feeder pattern. Those are the two groups and that current number of Bessie roads that doesn't live in the Haven feeder pattern is about 90 right now. Correct. >> Yeah, he's checking it. But yeah, it's those two. If you're at Willard and in the tweet program and you do not live in the Haven feeder pattern, you would return to the tweet program
285in your feeder pattern. And so I do know there are some Walker families there. Walker is in the chute feeder pattern. They would be in a chute feeder pattern tweet program. And for me the for the the priority would be for the for those students right for who are in two-way immersion programs. It's it's it's meant to again really serve uh TWWS to the students who are native Spanish speakers, right? And for me and that's that equity piece that's part of these calculations that I I think whatever we can do to ensure that those students are are as approximate to their neighborhood um uh programs um to to way emergel bilingual programs. That's that's key. Um, and I know there's this piece around the, you know, the fidelity and how you run two-way immersion and
286how it should be 50/50, but again, for me that that that's got to be something where again we we prior we were prioritizing where the TWWs students or the Spanish native speaking students are in in proximity to their pro to uh, tweet programming. So technically I know there's that's really three that's two strands from Betsy Rose and one strand from Willard but is it a combination of two tracks? I'm just want to in my head I hear three tracks and I know Foster is >> so when we look Yeah. So when we look at class sizes >> particularly at roads but we look at the class sizes at roads and Willard and then we also note where those students live with boundary adjustments. We have essentially there's enrollment that justifies two strands at Foster, but
287not less than two strands, >> but not more. >> I think we should continue to honor the um proposal that we've given to the Bessie Rhodess families. >> So, just to add, I do have that number for you guys. It is. And these are K4 Bessie Road students since the fifth graders will go on to the middle school. So K4 Bessie Road students that do not live in the Haven feeder pattern with the proposed foster boundaries is 77 students. That number could fluctuate depending on what happens with the foster boundaries if Dwey needs to go f further north or vice versa. But you're yeah 77 students. They're looking about 80 80 kids in addition at foster. >> Okay. >> So, just to echo my support for the fifth, seventh, and eighth sensitivity and then uh
288maintaining our commitments to Bessie Roads and um and then your recommendation was shifting uh twe students to their home school, right? >> Yes. I'm I support all three of those >> to their home school if it has a TWE program or the TWE program in their feeder pattern. >> Feeder pattern. Yeah. Yeah. I want to say this, but I don't I because I believe it needs to be said, but I don't. So, as I I believe we're honoring Bessie Rose families, I do as someone who lives in the fifth ward, I do think I want to make sure we're not being um quick with the with the decision to not allow um foster families have the option of attending um the schools that they're from. Now, I believe and and um want Foster to be
289the best school here that everyone wants to get there. Um but I do think um I just think we should think about that and and talk to families about that. Um you know, I'm curious, >> especially the fifth graders. >> Yeah. But definitely fifth graders. >> That's a major concern. Yeah. So, I think the same way we're saying we're honored it for Rose, I think we just need to make sure we have the conversations if we're not honoring it for uh Foster. So, I don't I'm I'm a it's hard for me to say that cuz I really like let's we want it back and let's let's create it. But, I do think there's um some fairness and just thinking about that for and having some of those conversations with families to make sure we >>
290Can you uh tell us what that looks like for you? Um well the challenge is because of the school. I mean like the reality is you >> I do get the challenge but you said have conversations. >> I think that should be asked. I don't know if we've asked it. So I think there's been a lot of conversation with Bessie Rose families about what they want to do. Um and I think there's been conversations with um foster families about King Arts, right? I don't know how many conversations there have been. Um and again I'm I'm understand that statement. Um, and I truly want believe people need to end up in Foster. That's where their school is. So, I'm really talking about folks who are who are um who are already there, not forever my family's
291going to go here. Um, but um just something I just think we need to um just ask. >> So, so the request would be for some outreach to future foster families. No, it was it was the the survey that we had asked just to ask folks just asking around you know you want to go are you here's where you are you are you a rose or you're a king arts how do you know just what people are uh thinking in that sense that also helps us understand um the work ahead to um make sure people understand the how phenomenal foster is going to be so just having clarity of what people are thinking and then doing the work to make sure that they end up at foster because it's >> so I'm going to push
292on the process a little bit here too. So So right. So I think at this point that's one voice for one um board member and I'm thinking maybe we do a and for this situation. Therefore, we gather data that shows that if we're honoring what you're suggesting or we don't honor it, we at least bring both that we can do those nuances to it so we understand the exposure and the challenges when we do that because I think ultimately uh Dr. Beardsley part of it right it's it's just all the moving parts and probably Chris right as well too. So, so if that's the only potential carve out beyond what we talked about is is that tipping us to too much analysis and therefore it's very hard to model it based upon fifth grade, seventh
293and eighth grade, Bessie roads and honoring um what we had already promised to people that would be coming back to foster school. Well, what I think I heard was and I'm say back is a request for us to look at the possibilities around uh carveout option for fifth and seventh and eighth grade. Um I heard support that we continue to honor the commitments to the roads families move and we also heard continue with the way we've been modeling with twe families. of roads and twe would be consistent with the way we're modeling. But then I heard a request around kind of getting some feedback from foster families. >> Okay. >> And so that my one concern there is a little bit around timeline. >> Um because also figure you know timeline for when that occurs
294and if that's an expectation to bring that back before the next meeting or what that expectation is. >> Could it just be a survey? Yeah, it I think it would have to be a survey at this point. Yeah, it's just we generally give we generally give two weeks on a survey. >> So, we wouldn't be able to do the full two weeks, but we'd kind of have to push it out and >> keep it short and sweet. >> Yeah. >> And I'm going to also push too, which is if we decide to keep fifth graders and honor seventh and eighth graders, parents might end up with kids at two different schools, >> but we understand we're honoring fifth grade, right? And so that would be a parental choice if they want to let their child
295finish up. Okay. >> Okay. Perfect. >> Stacey, do you have anything else on this specific topic? >> Uh, and boundary changes only because I think I'm going to get >> I think I've got it. I think we've covered the the key items. >> Okay. So then I'm going to go back to can we narrow we've already narrowed the school closings to two. We had three brought forth to you tonight. 2 A, 2 F, 2 D. Are we going to continue bringing those forward or are we going to narrow those at all? >> So these >> in in my estimate that's going to take some further consideration. Perfect. No problem. And and I'm I'm happy to wherever you want me to stop pushing you tonight, I'm happy to stop with that piece of all it. I
296think as long as we get down to two, we're getting closer to being able to narrow what we're trying to come up with. >> Anyone else would like to respond? Um I would just like to name uh the dimension of to a was not an administrative proposal and um was brought to us by and personally requested by a board member who is now not going to be with us. Um, and I've been receiving all of the emails and um, my approach to this process has been to take it seriously and try to honor the recommendations. And so I'm in this odd spot of having to respond to emails for a scenario that I wouldn't have selected to be under consideration, but um, now I'm trying to be sensitive to what it's raised as a board
297member. So just to name that before I >> are you there Maya? >> I am. Yeah. I you know I think that we have I think that we have a process that we put a great deal of thought and time into. And I think that we need to soon, if not at this meeting, at the next, but we soon need to make a decision based on that process. Um, and I think that, you know, we've looked at the data in a lot of different ways. Um, and like you, Andrew, you know, the the the one scenario wasn't initially on the table. Um, I think that we were flexible and wanted to make sure we looked at all of our options. So, we had the administration do the work of looking at that scenario. But I
298do think we need to come to the point and and you know take a real look at the data that we have and the scorecards that were developed and you know like eventually we we do have to name the schools and I don't think putting it off is helping us. >> So are you naming school? You're asking >> can you put up slide again? And I'm I'm on a slight delay. So um but I'd love to to see that slide again. It it should it should be up there. So it's 2A Lincolnwood and Orington 2D Kingsley and Willard 2F Lincolnwood and Kingsley. And again, if we're saying we want to continue with these three, we can continue working on financial modelings around these three. Are we considering the two that were previously um there or
299some variation of the three that are up there? So this is where the sequential I'm sorry. Go ahead. Keep going. >> Okay, there I see it now. It took me a minute. Um, so I, you know, like as we talk about this, it seems from a score perspective, we keep coming back to the same things, either 2D or 2F. I think that unless someone has a really compelling reason for not focusing in on those two scenarios, I would ask that we start to narrow it down. Um, you know, we looked at this data in a few different ways and it seems to always point to the same thing. Um, so I don't know if anyone else has like a specific reason or a compelling reason to open this up, but I would prefer to put
300our efforts into like the most likely scenarios at this point. So, um just just to be sure we're all clear on the sequential the only thing that the sequential modeling did um because by moving Kingsley kids mainly to Lincolnwood, it does it decreases the gap between Lincolnwood and Willard, right? But Orington doesn't it doesn't impact Orington. Is that the is that the best way to understand it? So it doesn't shift the the school that under the scorecard that would be Lincolnwood. It just closes the gap between Lincolnwood and Willard. >> I'm looking at it I'm looking at it from that lens. Give me a quick second. the so updated score. So once we remove Kingsley that's the updated sequential. So Lincolnwood is in the sequential modeling Lincolnwood is a 2.4 four. And then you were
301specifically asking about Orington, Nicole. >> No, I was just saying uh part of the reason for doing the sequential was to see if you did it that way, does it actually change what what what would happen as opposed to doing it >> relative orders at the end. Um and the relative order stayed the same, but Chris is going to jump in for one move. the the sequential modeling was to address some of the community concerns uh brought up regarding the baseline scorecard, specifically the decision to model the baseline scorecard uh with the FY27 boundaries and then go through our iterative process of selecting uh scenarios to model based on that one scorecard. And the concerns raised by the community was well what happens if you close one school the boundaries need to change when you
302close one school what happens to the scorecard next I believe that's what I was hearing and so this uh tries to answer that question so that's why you'll see when Kingsley closes we run it through the model we get the 1A boundary where central is kind of the dividing line between the Lincolnwood and Kingsley closure and it gets split between Lincolnwood and Kingsley And Lincolnwood's original enrollment was around 180 students um with foster opening, no school closures. And then it goes up to >> 274. >> Correct. Yeah. So those are the the Kingsley students that are being placed there and and then what happens next when you run the scorecard. >> And so that's the so this is the it becomes the most it has the most students of the other three schools. So what
303if you do a sequential then Lincolnwood has the most students. It's at 274, Oregon's at 224 and Willer's at 244. And so then the so then we run it again and it's the it then probably must be because of building functionality and everything else that lo the other the other categories. >> So I think that's okay. So I think it's just it's like it's it's not necessarily the [clears throat] Yeah. So it's the other it's not equity. It's not the equity score. It's the >> Yeah. And the school proximity score would change because now Kingsley is removed from the school proximity. So Lincoln would uh would lose that proximity school to to Kingsley and all the other >> that should help it right >> in that particular situation. Um yeah. >> Okay. Omar, I mean
304Sergio, excuse me. >> Yeah, you know, >> I think it's I think we Yeah. >> Yeah, I know it's late. Um, so yeah, I'm I'm I'm uh with Maya in regards to um and then I think with the dimension that uh Dr. Wymer kind of shared is look the that Orington piece there isn't a compelling argument to have that the two-way scenario. So, I mean, if we could narrow it down to just the two 2D and 2F, I mean, and and just model that for the next go around, um, which is November 17th. I'm fine with that. >> Any other feedback? >> 2D and 2F. >> Okay. Again, you'll have a final vote. You're going to go through public hearing process. Again, we're just trying to narrow down what we're bring forward. So, okay. You
305always have the right till you vote that that you have that option. All right. >> Can I just can I just ask a clarifying question? Now that the board has given direction to narrow down uh some of the two school options, what should we prioritize in the next modeling? Becau because I mean we can essentially come up with almost an infinite number of of situations based on the blocks that are selected. >> Walkability. >> So So that's essentially the the question that I'm asking. So um walkability. >> So our model has four primary objectives. It's to minimize the distance between schools and walkable blocks. So that's the walkability piece that you're talking about. Minimize the distance between schools and blocks requiring transportation. So that could be due to hazard or greater than 1.5. The third
306objective is balancing building capacity to maintain utilization. And we can set parameters about what the min and max value are, but that's the other objective. And the final objective is to minimize change from the board approved FY27 boundary with foster opening to minimize the number of students that would need to move. >> For me for closure, I want us to own the impact on walkability. So not doing the balancing utilization because in that sense you can in some sense you know you which we see you have kids walking you know >> walk they're going to one school where they're two blocks from another school >> and just because we have four objectives is not we to need mean we need to run the models with all four objectives. >> Okay. >> So I' I've heard
307walkability. Are there any other >> I would agree with that >> walkability as the number one priority for the modeling? >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Any other >> I mean I think from the modeling I if I don't know if there are if there's any other room to look at how boundaries will change maybe maybe it's not. I think that we've done a lot of modeling and we have a lot of data. I think one thing that would serve us well is to just sort of go through the two different scenarios and talk about the real impacts of each. I know we've seen it on the slide and had some conversation about it, but going through each dimension on the scorecard, talking about like what that would mean from TRA for from a transition perspective,
308talking through, you know, the students impact and I think we've got all of the data for the most part. I mean, maybe there are a few things that other people would like to see, but I'd like to have a real discussion about the pros and cons of those two scenarios to really think through um what the impacts would be, >> right? I I'm going to underscore that. And so, what is the impact on for instance the number of teachers and and and what you know what's that transition look like? what does transition look like for students and specifically for you know IEP you know two way you know English learners uh McKinventto kiddos like what what is the impact on them and and on on their access to the programming right so so those pieces
309u and if I'm hearing from you you really want to dig into that portion which helps if we're at two scenarios right if we want to be able to do comparative analysis between one scenario over the others Right. And some I think first we start out because it needs to be iterative, right? You need to say, "Okay, here's some potential boundaries that would go along with this school closing then, right? Maybe we give two or three different scenarios for boundaries, right? Because that could impact it, right? Because I'm assuming would we start out with one boundary?" >> So, we've we've already, you know, so tonight we had a different set of boundaries. Last time we had a different set of boundaries. I think we'd be rer runninging it a third time here to further elevate
310walkability and we'd bring a third set to try to reflect what's been communicated tonight. >> Okay. >> And in that sense we can have a here's walkability, here's utilization, here's you could actually you would have run them all so we can look at the >> we have at least some comparison maps to look at. >> Okay. >> Thank you. That's very very very helpful for the team because it gets pretty complex. All right. Sorry, I didn't interrupt. I I also just want to add one additional thing specifically around the scorecard. The the scorecards were like an initial starting point and and they have their value, but now that we're starting to narrow it down, I think ch like shifting the focus to look at well like of the students changing schools, how many are we
311talking about? What does transportation look like? What's walkability look like for for those students now that we're getting to this stage? >> I agree with that. But my only Yes. My concern is when you do that, you part of the what makes these scores are the things like cost of building utilization. If you remove that from the impact, is that what we're saying? We're going to look at it. Removing that naming things in the scorecard. >> Correct. No, I'm not suggesting that we move away from the scorecard just to start looking at the more nuanced details of it around >> we're going to dig in now. >> What do the like who are these 200 students that that would need to move and what does that look like for that student population now that we've
312narrowed the focus. >> Yeah. And I think that feels reflective of what Maya was asking. >> Okay. So hopefully that was the hardest part of tonight. So I really appreciate everybody very thoughtfully discussing that piece. So then for the financial modeling right so that'll assist us with the scenarios and the boundaries so that we can get to some of understanding what are the section closures what's the actual transportation numbers that because we've just got placeholders. Um, one of the couple questions that are currently where we get challenged, right, with the right sizing savings currently in the model of maximizing as much as we can out of school closings, we reduce the $2.7 million that we have allocated for capital projects and reduce it by a school coming offline. So probably in each one of these
313models there's about $500 to $550,000 where we would take the 2.7 million and reduce it because we're we did that based upon a square footage calculation. We know we have a lot of deferred maintenance. We know we have a lot of projects that need to get done. So, if we keep that in to just maximize our savings, then that would reduce, you know, over time those buildings, you know, if we make the decision we're not maintaining them. Would we want to reduce the $2.7 million by the schools that are coming offline and reduce that number? >> You're saying we there's $500 that you spend on a school, but if we close it, then we're saying >> we'd reduce the 2.7 that we mean we don't spend any money on it. >> Right. Exactly. >> But
314that's >> there will be still costs associated with what you have to do to mothball it. Right. But ongoing we have $2.7 million in the budget of of which at some point those schools would come up for some sort of if we kept on the trajectory with 2.7. So the question becomes is when we know we have as much and I'm leading you right now. when we have $2.7 million, do we want to reduce that amount? We don't have to make that decision right now, but just know that that figure is in currently taking the $2.7 million down. >> So, when we were we were given $2.7 million and we'd started at 7 to 10, >> right? So, um, I am no expert about this, but everything I've seen comes in ranges, >> and we
315were just given 2.7 million. So, is there a way to present us with a few ranges that would reflect the new um what whatever the models are, the scenarios are >> um because it feels like we're still riding the bare minimum. >> Perfect. And we're going to talk about that as right because tonight we're going to talk about deferred maintenance. We're going to talk about long-term capital needs and we're going to talk about what are some options outside of the $2.7 million as well too because you know if if there isn't a referendum that gets passed, we need to consider what could be other options as well. So I will show you that. I've got slides and figures on that for you. >> Yeah. And I just really think that just demonstrating that just I
316know it's not a lot of money, but demonstrating the discipline means something so we can build on that. >> So my suggestion for that one, let's table it till we look at um the deferred maintenance and capital project needs. Um would we want to lease these facilities? >> Lease these facilities or better yet we leave it as an option. But do we want to continue taking that as a cost savings for our C and and I would also challenge us which is your team is going to have enough again if we're closing these schools effective next year the the team to now try to find somebody to move into that spot to get a lease for all of those pieces to all of it seems like a layer that at this point especially with if
317we are phasing in the reductions and not taking all of them and FY27 I'm presuming something I think we've got some wiggle room to not add that to the administrative team's plate, but that will reduce the $4 million numbers that we're seeing tonight. >> So, just clarification because I, as I recall from Kirby, um we heard from our consultant that we can't expect to make money leasing. Uh, so my I I want something permanent with any properties that we have that will be for the good of that neighborhood and the community as a public. I mean, so I'm not even just personally looking to make money off of these properties. I think it has to be for the good of that community. >> Um, so um, >> so we would remove that. >> I mean,
318hopefully we can make money. Hopefully there can be missional aligned things, but I think we really have to be sensitive. I'd rather not plan on the lease income now so that we're not um we we're building as much um um possibility as we can. >> Okay, perfect. So, does anybody have a different viewpoint on the facilities in relationship to not counting on the savings for leasing or the potential revenue source for leasing? >> I mean, I generally agree. I think my question with leasing and or other options is I just I don't understand what the op the other options realistically are. So it's sort of hard to make a call right now without like understanding not just the financial impact but it you know like even what schools and what how how likely you know
319how likely it is that we would be able to sell or lease and what revenue that would bring in. It's just it just raises a lot of questions for me that I don't know if we have the answers to yet. >> And if we end up phasing in and doing a phased in approach to the deficit reduction plan, of which we're not taking all the reductions in FY27, we could take it out as a potential lever in future years if that was the interest of the board. So I would take it out for this FY27 again if there's a desire to phase in the savings and not do all of them for next fiscal year. I think we need to I mean we still have to understand our special ed audit understand if we need
320building the spaces early childhood like there's still I would think it would be problematic to move into leasing >> one of these places we close right away because then that takes you no one's going to sign a one-year lease that removes those buildings from being part of whatever hopefully phenomenal long-term plan we have >> excellent so the leasing can be taken out but I think It's an opportunity for us to have some vision about what we want to do with these buildings. So, >> love it. >> We can't and I don't think we can count on it at this point if we're going to We have a lot of work to do already. >> So, but in my mind, that's a future vision piece about what we can do with the buildings >> to to
321use them for the communities that they're in. >> Well said, Pat. >> Well said. We good with that? Okay. Okay. So, it'll be removed as not taking it as a potential um reduction or revenue offset. So, okay. And then from there, now that we've gotten clarity, we'll work closely with Dr. Beersley on section closures and all of the other related potential levers because that all is tied to where the boundaries lie and and what potential staffing and students will be in those buildings. >> There are about two or $300,000 of levers. I've mentioned them in a previous board meeting that I just don't really see happening. >> Sure. >> And we'll get to those. Okay. We got those coming. So, this was all just in relationship to right sizing because we have the the line
322items and the amounts. It got to what was on the slides earlier tonight. So, this will help us fine-tune those. Okay. Am I missing anything from your side of it? Okay. So, we're going to move forward to then reinvesting in facilities. So again, if we're going to close schools, what will happen to them? Some of the things we have to contemplate there is sounds like we're going to do some visioning. Keep, sell, or repurpose, right? You know, if you keep them and and we don't do anything with them, there's going to be still some ongoing cost associated with them until you make a final decision with them. If you sell them, they certainly can help offset your current deferred maintenance needs. um if you repurpose certainly leasing could be a potential or various options. So
323as we look at reinvesting in buildings most specifically on the schools that we close you know we will want to contemplate and I'm sure when you do your master facility plan we can get back to are we taking those amounts out and not considering them as projects that we're doing in the near term future. Um, so I sounds like we're going to hold off. We're going to vision. I My assumption is though if we take a school offline, we would not be you contemplating doing capital projects for those facilities. Is that an honest statement at this point? Okay. >> All right. So, what I want to get to you and and I'm going to get you focused on, you know, and I think somebody brought it up tonight. Um, yes. So, this is all of
324your schools. These are all of your projects that had been identified in the last master facility plan getting you to the almost $189 million. Just so we're clear, those projects are from 2022 to 2040. Just so you know, the team has been doing projects on these facilities as needed to the extent that they've done $6.4 million of projects, I'm assuming, through this last summer. So really what I'm trying to get at what is our deferred maintenance number? I have indexed it for inflation 5% over each year so that it isn't a stagnant number because we know costs in 22 were much different than they would be today. So, if we looked at really just trying to quantify deferred maintenance for all of your schools right now that you have, we're looking at about $69 million
325when we index and subtract out the completed projects. Again, you're going to get better numbers from your architect, but I really want us to kind of get to what is the magnitude of what is the current challenges in the near term of what needed to be done that was identified by your architect when we take out AC. And it's not a one for one cost because there will be having to do improvements to unit vents and the various air conditioning units. But this was in anticipation of schools that would be a major overhaul to bring every school up to uh what standard should be for air conditioning. If we take out Bessie Roads and we take out an estimation of what that amount would be, we're talking about $41.6 6 million in current uh deferred
326maintenance. So again, it's not 189 million. It it's probably closer to 41.6 million when we and actually if we then go over one step further um again um index for all of it when we take out the completed then we're at 63 million and probably about 35.2 million. So that's taking the $6 million of projects. Now everything we've been doing is time bound. So um Mr. Wymer, there is a Dr. Wymer, there is a conversation which is this is only taking it to FY30, right? So right now what we're doing is taking it FY30. So that's what I'm also modeling for your master facility projects. When we index the 189 million by 5% and we take out what projects have been done, the projects that need to be completed that were identified in the last
327master facility plan index for time was 175.5 million. When we take out Bessie roads, when we take out what would be considered then upgrading all of the equipment in in a building for um air conditioning, it's approximately 85 million. So the defer the truly projects that need to be completed to continue along the lines of what you currently are functioning your buildings at I'd probably bump it up to 100 million but it's between 90 and 100 million and you will get more accurate information when you do your master facility plan. And again then there has to be a prioritization of if we're going to prioritize just making sure our buildings don't fail that they continue to remain open. There are probably some projects that are still even on that master facility plan. And I think
328you can approach those conversations, which is if you are not in a place that you cannot pass a referendum to address your facility needs, this is zeroing you in on how do we make sure we keep our buildings open and functioning in the way that they currently are. So I tried to put it very simply on one page then, right? Because there was a lot of numbers there. So, as of FY27, going for 27 school year, we've got approximately $6.9 million of projects that need to be completed that have been indexed. When we back out Bessie Roads and the potential that there were projects in there that are upgrading our facilities in ways that are nice to haves versus making sure we keep our buildings open, that number is about 35.2 million for deferred maintenance.
329When we take that through for FY30, again, we're at about $90.2 million of total projects. When we take out AC and Bessie roads, it does include the 10.8 million that you have um now currently in the model of the $2.7 million that you would be investing in your schools. And again, that's a pretty arbitrary number, but at least it's a number. Um you'd be at about 79.4 4 million of projects that should be completed between now and 2030. So again, we're not at 189 million. 79 million is not a small number. 10.8 million isn't really chipping away at that. And that probably other projects will come up, but you do have other levers available to you should your community not support the the master facility plan projects. With that being said, I want to just
330go through then these are what those options would be to you because I know we talked about we don't have a solution for that one. The magnitude isn't as great as what that $188 million is, but you do have other leverage that will become available to you. Specifically, you could increase the $2.7 million, but again, that has further cuts to your programming and services. 76% of your budget is is in salaries and benefits. you will be if you make that number bigger, you're going to be eating into your programs and services that you currently offer. You also have the ability to issue life safety bonds as a board. That process has been out outlined and identified. Dr. um or Miss Mitchell is is very well aware of that. Most of the projects should be identified
331as through your architect of what would qualify. Again, those would be critical projects so your buildings don't fail. So that is something you as a board can do to address the $79 million worth of projects that would be needed to be addressed. Dub will come back available to the district in 2031. That is your debt service extension base that allows you to borrow money to invest in your facilities in conversations with your financial advisor. Those dollars don't come back until 2031 in a prudent way, but that will come back to you to put towards your facilities. Certainly, there's revenue that could be generated from the sale of your properties if you chose to do that. Certainly, we're talking about that in some of the financial models in relationship to Bessie Roads and using those to
332offset the foster school construction needs that still need to be completed. You could do an operating fund tax rate referendum, but again with where we're currently being challenged, that may not be an option for you, nor would a cap capital referendum, you could do a combination. We have started modeling some of what that could look like for you. But I thought what's really important for you, it's it's not 188 million, still not an insignificant number. And you do have levers available to you in order to address to ensure that your buildings stay open. And my hope would be visioning, reimagining when you come alongside your master facility plan project with your architect. What a beautiful time to really have those conversations about how do we reimagine whatever facilities are left? How can we use them
333and partner with the community? I think all of those become opportunities for you. I think the only piece we need to continue for the financial modeling piece is are you asking us to increase the $2.7 million that we currently have in the financial model? If you do, then we have to go deeper into other areas in the budget and certainly we still don't know what is in front of us related to the audits that you mentioned. So my question is, should we be modeling more than 2.7 if we have some of these other lovers available to us for the financial model? >> I'm in favor of keeping it at 2.7 million. >> I mean, yeah, I mean, we would probably have to do a life safety >> vance. I don't see the other options. I'm
334in favor of 2.7 just knowing that we're going to have to reevaluate like Dr. Pinker just said moving forward. Good. >> Perfect. And again because if if not then we have to make find other areas to cut in the budget to do it. So as long as we're good Sergio. >> Yeah. 2.7 but then exploring some of the first levers and and the last thing I would like to see and I'll go on record now. I given that the city's going to be looking at raising property taxes again. Working people are continuing to get pushed out of Evston because of the high cost of living. Again, whatever other levers that we can try to leverage uh to to come up with revenue to pay for our maintenance costs, I'm I'm happy to explore those. >>
335Um Maya, any difference of opinion about the 2.7? >> No, I'm on board with the 2.7 as well. >> All right. All right. Going to keep us pushing along. So, the last piece is as we said, the foundational questions. Again, this was the piece that I asked you to because this drives what number we're going to reduce by, you know, so it's around the 90 days cash on hand. Are you committed to a balanced budget? Are we making all the reductions in FY27 or are we going to stage them? Are we planning to um how are we going to cover the remaining funds needed to complete Foster? Just so we're all clear, if the contingency comes under again, we were looking at issuing lease certificates. We were looking at selling Bessie roads. We were trying
336to eliminate the possibility of drawing down your savings account for it. The piece that comes is if you do come in ahead of budget and ahead of contingencies, it lessens the $6 million that we were going to utilize from your savings account to finish um foster school. It does not change the fact that you have a $4.4 million deficit next year and you will not have a balanced budget. So those potential savings that the team's doing a great job with still doesn't change the fact that next year you have a $4.4 million unbalanced budget that you'll have to address. And for the reasons that uh Miss Mitchell raised earlier, which is you're also picking up the lease certificate, which you have had two years previously, of other revenue sources that help to offset that. >>
337If I know if Maria was here, she would definitely say balanced budget. >> Just have to bring her here. >> I agree. Yeah. >> Um, so, so here is again, just so we're clear again, these were numbers that were shown and you did a great job, Miss Mitchell, talking us through it. Again, $4.4 million. Again, balanced budget. Again, not 90 days cash on hand. If we do nothing, this is where we are in FY28. You're going to have to find $8.4 million more of reductions. And every year that we don't solve this problem, you're spending your savings account taking you below what the recommended um cash balances on hand would be again jeopardizing um any borrowings that you have to do because you could have a rating reduction. Um and so all of that is
338just prudent for us. So here I know it's been a long night. So I really appreciate everybody hanging in here. So are we good with 90 days cash on hand? I'm good with 90 days cash on hand. >> Maya, >> yeah, I am. >> All right. Are we good with a balanced budget? >> Yes. >> Okay. And we already talked Thank you. We already talked about keeping 2.7 million. The only other piece is funding um best uh foster school. Again, that number could change. I guess the biggest piece is my my recommendation to you is to try to mitigate using your savings account as best you can to pay for the remainder of that. I think at this point again you'll know better where that number is heading. You ultimately there's a several options that
339uh Miss Mitchell got. So how you can hedge yourself for that that you don't have to necessarily make that decision today but you could do a couple different alternatives. again trying to determine what what that final amount is but knowing that there still is going to be an amount there. Um I guess the question is do are we could are we interested in selling Bessie roads because I do think if that is the case you probably need to start that. I had somebody reach out to me on LinkedIn about buying Bessie Roads and I haven't even passed you yet um but somebody reached out to me. So I know there's definitely interest in the school and we I believe there's been a mult at least two or three people. So I think that one is
340probably one that if there is an interest to pursue that that that probably would be something that we should probably start sooner rather than later because ultimately the resolution for whatever amount is left for foster school will be in next year's budget and there will be a consequence to what that could look like and perhaps Miss Mitchell can walk you through more clearly or the financial adviser could come back to you more clearly but I would assume Let me know. Is it the um desire of the board to minimize using their savings account to pay for the remainder of foster school? Yes, it is. But I guess I would love for us to have a decision tree as we think about selling buildings. It's, you know, it's like, oh, let's sell Bessie Rose and we
341sold Foster and, you know, we just had to build a whole thing. So, of course, I assume we might sell a school, but I would love for us to have a conversation about a decision tree or what that means. >> Yeah, I agree with that. Perfect. And and again, you'll have a couple different options and you have time on this one, but I think it's just important for you to start solidifying yourself on that will come up at a later point. Um, and again, the models all show that piece. Um, all right. So, let's just go ahead and get into the conversation then. What's Raining? Um, we talked about school closings. We talked about that. Um, we will take out the avoided capital cost because we want to keep that. And we're also going to
342take out the least closed facilities. So, if you look at that, that's $950,000 that comes out of 2F and it's almost a million that comes out of 2D. So, we're down to 3.2 or roughly 4.4 or 3.4 for two off. And then we will then uh work closely with Dr. Beardsley and Miss Mitchell to just make sure all the remaining numbers that are up there uh we feel confident and and we'll get clarity on once we get boundaries and all that drawn. All right. So then these are the pieces that again as we push to figure out how deeper do we have to cut, what's the next layer, these are the items that are remaining for you that we originally came up with when we kind of got you have the yellow band on our
343financial models. At this point we're estimating $1.4 million in revenue levers. it did go up because Sergio gave me good news that um that there is an agreement with the local university in relationship to the field that's being built that will be coming back to the school district. So that number is a little bit higher than what was shown previously, but much of this is around increasing student fees or fees within the district. So understand the consequence to all of this and then we can model it now which is if we want those things and we want to do otherwise we potentially could be reducing programming and services and what we offer to our kids. >> So up here are we saying we're going to increase we're only looking at the revenue side of before
344and after school care not the cost side. >> Yep. The expenditure side. So these were the levers that we worked in conjunction with the finance committee. So the revenues is one side of it. So that would be increasing our revenues. Then we have our expenditure levers which were estimated $500,000 for transportation savings. We talked about that at the last meeting obviously once we go through some of your um RFP process for taxis. That number may come down. We've got crossing guards on there. Um and again I've worked very closely with Miss Mitchell on these things looking and continuing to reduce purchase services. non-instruction consultants figuring out if we can consolidate low enrollment classes, extended device replacements, reduce um technology license. There's been conversations about reducing iPads for K4. We don't have a placeholder in that
345because that's certainly a significant decision in front of you. And then um centralized purchasing and again utilize uh shared services. One of the things that we've talked about closely with the administrative team and Dr. Turner, which is ultimately once you make the deter determination on some of the capital projects, 90 days cash on hand, most likely that this would be exactly the same process to identify whatever is left to make reduction very similar to what we did for SDRP phase 2, right? What is the amount? How are we calculating it? Where are we going to go? And and then bringing what those recommendations would be back. But as we've modeled to you, these are the numbers that are currently behind how we came up with what is still needing to be reduced for the district
346in order to maintain 90 days cash on balance budget. All the other things we mentioned. >> You mean this is what you already have in your budgets, but we now have to come up with 4 million more or is this? >> No, this was included with our modeling. All of this has already been when we come across we say revenue levers, expenditure levers, whatever the amount if we're $4.5 million in reductions. This just goes to help with whatever that would be. And maybe these aren't ones you take this year, >> but you leave them on the table for next year as an option to come back to again if you phase in year over year reductions. >> Okay. Okay. So I would just suggest is there anything up there that the board is saying heck
347no? >> When does this when do these decisions need to be done by? >> So ultimately what my recommendation for you is let's finish up the school closing conversation make that decision then ultimately I just want to be for right we're getting people are challenging our numbers right again we're trying to throw as much at you to give you options. So these are part of our options right now. Just like we talked about with school closings, these probably aren't all available to us honestly or stickering out there, right? And that is true, but ultimately we're going to have to get to what how do we get to 4.5 million if we phase this in. Okay, so no, you don't have to. But I want just to be clear, these are the amounts and this is
348where they came from. All right. So, this then becomes the financial model summary that we showed at the last time. I've suggested D1 and E as your options. D1 is foster school is paid through working cash and a Bessie road sale. $2.7 million in reductions or in capital X uh investments. It would require $5.5 million in reductions for next fiscal year. 6 million, 1.7 million, 1.2. Those 90 days cash on hand, balance budget, your investment to um capex piece would be is it spending down a part of your working cash that only impacts your 90 days cash on hand. So that is there. Again, you might have the ability that flexibility comes into play most importantly for keeping 90 days cash on hand how you decide it. Last one is issuing lease certificates. We can
349model whatever those pieces are. They're easy. They're all up there. So, here's what D1 looks like. Again, if we cut $5.5 million, we would have a surplus of about a million dollar. This is taking $2 million out of working cash in the 5.5 million is is the reduction in order to maintain 90 days cash on hand. And all of it's predicated on maintaining 90 days cash on hand and having a balanced budget. Here is model E where you would find another alternative source um that you would not spend down any of your working cash in order to um preserve that. The challenge with this one, it's a $4.6 million reduction for next year. The reason why it's less, but the 91 days cash on hand is there instead of 90 is because we wouldn't have
350a balanced budget if I went below 90 days cash on hand or we would if I went a little bit lower. So, this one again agrees with balanced budget in a slightly higher, but we had you with the parameter of a balanced budget, you could come down by $100,000 or so to get you to 90 days cash on hand. that if you're committed to a balanced budget, that's where you're at and it kicks up your 90 days cash on hand. So, I think the only pieces that we had left um for our questions um I think I've got the capex amount. We can leave ourselves the alternatives around how we're going to fund foster. Um all of it's there. We've got the information on the school closing so we can fine-tune what that is. We've
351got the one chart for you that says, "Okay, then when we narrow that down, what does that do do? Are we in agreement with the phased approach then to reductions?" Again, originally we were taking all of the reductions in year one. Um, but the phased approach is probably the only last question on the table. I'm interested in the phased approach because there's still information that we that may impact what [clears throat] we what we do in real time. So, I don't want to [clears throat] >> lock in. >> I don't want to lock in if we can have a better outcome based on realizing some savings in other areas that will keep us from approaching programs and services and staff. >> Thank you. >> When you say a phase approach, you talking about the phase
352>> phasing of the financial model is all we're talking about right now. talk about that language. We'll use that language interchangeably. >> Okay. >> So, in relationship to the implementation of the reductions, are we in agreement that we are going to do all of the reductions in FY27 in relationship to the financial modeling reductions? That's the question. >> I feel like >> does that work, Dr. Turner? >> Yes. flooded with saying you're contradicting, right? Because we're using this term interchangeably when we use phase. So there's a phase on the school closure scenario and then there's a phase in terms of the financial modeling approach. What you are talking about is the phase part of the financial modeling approach. >> It's the implementation of the reductions. Correct. >> Right. And the timing of when they would
353be made. I I think we have to do the phased approach as well. Um I think moving away from three and four school scenarios. It just that's where we're at. >> Same >> phased financial model. What is it? What was it model >> for the financial model? Right? Because we're only talking about the financial models piece. So it is we will over time implement the needed reductions to maintain 90 days cash on hand to maintain a balanced budget to main $2.7 million in uh capital expenditures. Okay? And then we'll come back at the next meeting with what that looks like then with the two D and 2F and and then make sure that we've got more explicit numbers so you'll know what further reductions potentially need to be made with that piece. [clears throat and
354cough] >> Okay, I believe that's it. >> Maya, did you have something? >> Uh, no. I was just agreeing I think had handling the financial model over time as long as we keep the 90 days cash on hand at least that amount. I'm comfortable with that. All right. Okay. So, I believe I have everything that Miss Mitchell and I need. >> She's like, "No discussion." >> So, the >> No discussion. No questions. >> No. Oh. Do y'all have any questions? I'm sorry. I feel like we did discuss all the way through. My eyeballs is like on fire and the of everybody I think is we're fading. Um upcoming the upcoming board meeting just to remind folks next time we'll convene will be November 17th. At that point the board will come to consensus on the
355scenario um coupled with the timeline I believe and how you want us to approach >> um stuff. And so just really want to close that out. Again people can go on the website district65.net sdrp to learn all things. We will continue to update all of the FAQs. We will make sure we put whatever we said we were going to put earlier that somebody said the scenarios, right? Like 2A and all the things. We'll make sure we do all of that following this meeting. I think that was the last slide. Um and so I'mma turn it back over to Madame President. So we are going to move the transportation policy discussion at this time so that we can >> do it for tonight. >> Yeah, we want to table it. >> Table it. Okay. >> Okay.
356So I Yeah. [laughter] >> Just poll a vote. You can just >> So, do you want to make a motion to Yes, we'll make a motion to move the uh transport approval of transportation policy agenda item to our November 17th meeting >> or to a future >> future meeting >> or for a future meeting. >> Yes. >> Second. Okay. that >> yes >> actually let me and actually before I say yes on this I'm looking over here and I understand there's a lot of modeling that is dependent upon our decisions around transportation which is sort of why we moved it here uh so asking I mean we're all t but I'm looking at y and understand what's the reality of what you do you what's the reality of >> so not having so um not
357having the answers to transportation will make it more difficult for us to deliver an accurate financial model with scenarios. >> Well, we started the we started the vote. So, I think we have to finish and then we'd have to reverse that if we want. >> Well, there was a second that we invoke. >> Actually, we did. My name was called and I said yes. >> So, we need to amend the vote. >> But you were the one you were the only one that voted. >> Were you the only one that voted? Did everybody else vote? No one voted. So, we have to amend the motion procedurally. How >> I just I mean I know we're trying to get to a thing on the 17th and um the transportation cost with everyone is a real like
358even >> Yeah. If we're you know so like >> you say >> I think they need us to do it now. We got to add special meeting >> the if so without this we would have to make some assumptions on transportation costs in our models which you know so without this information what we provide will be less accurate >> hopefully I mean we've all been thinking about this is >> it's not as much a discussion and just >> I think >> try to do it efficiently >> and I would I would I would just say that >> if there are any intricacies to being added that we have allowed Lou is here and so if you have specific questions he is gone now >> because it's technically 10:30 p.m. >> Yeah. >> And so with
359that being said if you have some specific questions he's done >> it's not it's not really questions for us. It's like I don't they don't they can't finish the models with unless >> well I mean I think the other way to look at this too is like maybe we make some assumptions now but you know I think some things could maybe change depending on where we land on the school closure scenarios as well. Um so you know it might be helpful to to sort of wait. I you know I get that we can't do all of the models but maybe we make some assumptions and then when we're certain on what our direction is I think that that helps me make some decisions about transportation as well kind of which comes first chicken and egg
360>> can we do this can we do a will of the will of the board on this such that you so that you have the so you have something you can work on but it's not binding I mean in some sense I'm trying to get them what they need >> but I say yeah y'all could just move yeah move forward. I feel like y'all have been discussing it and you know y'all were ready for it. So go ahead. >> Go ahead, Dr. Pink. >> Oh, is it me? >> Oh, I move. So, can or do we have to do Can we >> No, you can make a new motion. >> Okay, new motion. Um, I move that the board adopt the amended transportation policy with consideration to the following options as outlined in the attached
361memo. Do >> I have a second? >> Second. Wymer. >> So I I have a point of order. It's late. U as this is written. We still haven't identified our options though. I'm voting on something that we haven't identified our options. >> Are we going to go one through? >> I think we have to walk through it so that we before we I think we have to table the motion and then just talk. I mean there's a document here with the prop there's the proposed >> Okay. And then this is calling the question essentially. >> Yeah. >> Oh, okay. Got it. >> Yeah. Thank you all. >> This is calling for y'all to be able to discuss it. Right. >> That's what select >> I can't vote on. >> And some of the items there
362are options that can be selected from. So we're going to do that. >> Yeah. >> To provide clarity around what the policy should be. So, >> uh, just starting with the K through eight. >> Do we need to finish voting? I mean, okay, cool. Okay, cool. >> Discussion. >> Okay. >> So, yeah, I guess it's still me. Um, KA transportation eligibility. Option one, everyone's read. Um, okay. Option one, maintaining K5 coverage plus shootute west of McCormack. Option 1 B expand to include grade 68. Option 1 C certify adequate public transportation for grade 68 and eliminate general education busing. >> I'm in favor of option 1 A. So, >> so my only caveat, there aren't any K. Well, I guess if we're required to bus them, we would have to. So, if there's kids in 68
363who would be required to bus cuz they're more than 1.5 miles from where they go to school, we would deal with that, right? >> Based on current policy and practice, uh, option 1A is our current policy and practice. Uh option 1B could expand it to include 68, but our current our current practice is that adequate safe public transportation is available in the in the Haven and Nichols feeder pattern, not in the chute feeder pattern in Skoi west of McCormick. >> Okay. Option one A. Yes, >> one A. >> Maya Maya, >> I'm not sure if I'm Yeah, I'm not sure if I'm completely decided. I'm leaning towards option one A. Um it it you know I I think I think safety is really important. Um but I know we've got budget concerns as well. I
364think right now if I had to decide I would be at 1A as well, but I kind of want to see where everything lands before um drawing any kind of final conclusions. And I think for modeling, right, because I think what we want to do is we want to get the model. So we we may change our mind. I mean, right, because right now we it's just what we're trying to get the will of the board right now. We're not voting on the actual policy, but we're we're giving this as a tool for the team to go back >> to model this for us. >> Okay. >> So if we say, okay, well, option 1 a, let's maintain what we have, then that they'll be able to model it. And if we're not happy with
365it, >> okay, >> have send it back. Mhm. >> Okay. Number two, ELLL student transportation. Um, continue option 2A, continue transporting ELLL students enrolled outside of their homeschool current practice. Um, is that the only option? >> Yeah, it's only option. >> But now the issue is more students are going to be all students are really assigned within their home. >> Right. So it would be a permissive transfer choice if someone's doing ELLL outside of them. Is that >> TWEI would be an exception? So Walker students for example do not have a TWE program at their school. So they could be assigned to Daw or Oakton. And for TWWS and TWWX students, they would still receive free transportation to their TWE program for their required EL services. everyone just but TWE and that's okay. >> Yeah,
366that's the current policy. TWWE students are transported in accordance with the magnet transportation policy in 4112. >> Okay. Andrew >> 2. >> So yeah. Yes. >> Yes. >> Everyone's Yes. >> 2 >> Maya. >> Yeah. Keep keep it where it is. Yes. >> Okay. Three. Magnet. Magnet and program. Bessie Rose, King Arts. Well, magnet program, King Arts, Twe and ACC, student transportation. >> Um, I said that for next year. >> That's why I took Bessie Rose out. No. Okay. Option 4 A, maintain current feebased busing. Option 4B, apply a universal transportation policy to all students, including magnet magnet uh programs, removes current policy 411 and eliminates fees. That instinctively is saying that we we wouldn't my interpretation of that is we would not be busing magnet students unless they lived 1.5 miles outside. Right. >>
367Or across a hazard. Yeah, that's correct. So, so essentially instead of the the current policy around magnet school transportation 4112 is that if you're more than 1.5 miles away from your assigned school for ACC, Twe or King Arts, you could receive transportation for a fee. Um, and of course, if you're a fee waiver student, you you get your fee waved. I think uh when we've looked at it in the past, Lou and I are our are estimated and uh Miss Mitchell can correct me if I'm I'm wrong, but I think it's about like $30,000 in revenue that we get approximately from from magnet school transportation under under that policy. So, this is really just asking the board if they want to continue that practice and if you're more than 1.5, you can receive transportation to
368your magnet school or program for a fee or you can resend the policy and just say if you're in the ACC program, for example, at Oakton and you do not live in Oakton, if you're more than 1.5 miles away, we'll get you to ACC because it's the standard transportation policy. More than 1.5 less than 1.5. >> Okay. >> Is everyone clear with that? >> Okay. >> Who wants to go first? >> 4 A. >> So we want to Y'all are voting to maintain magnet transportation >> current maintain the current. >> I'm just curious on that. What is the cost of So there's we we get 30,000. How much do we spend on busing for magnet programming? Lou and I talked about this this morning and I don't want to misspeak by giving you an inaccurate
369number but I believe a majority of those routes to King Arts the magnet I believe we have six of them and they are double routes. So by eliminating that transportation there would not necessarily be any realized cost savings for King Arts specifically. But we can confirm with with Lou on that because again I don't want to miss >> as we I mean as we move into a walkable district and everyone has a school and choice I would love to know the cost of that. We do have to figure out money savings here. So I'm a I'm a 4B until I understand the uh cost structure of what what the real costs are. >> Yeah, we can have Lou uh reach out to to you with additional information on that. Maya >> Maya >> um I
370think I think if there are no uh if there are no cost savings there you know if there are no differences in cost I would leave as is but if there are cost savings then maybe I'd have a different perspective >> so this is one that's really important for y'all modeling right this magnet one is a real cost issue The way that we're currently modeling that the magnet school transportation is more than 1.5 and less than 1.5 with a hazard. The rough estimates would be that would increase transportation based on on what we're seeing. I think the current number of King Arts students that are receiving transportation are less than 200. and in the in the modeling I think it's uh like around 150 and 150 in each category somewhere around there. Those are rough
371numbers. I don't have them pulled up in front of me the transportation charts but I I think it's somewhere around less than 200 currently and about 300 maybe a little bit over 300. >> So that was I think that was three to one of four of three to one four for four for 4 A. Okay. Hazardous route transportation option 5A. Submit all hazard data to ID do for formal. We already did that, right? Submit all hazard roster to ID dot for formal review and certification. Option 5B. Eliminate hazard transportation not. Yeah. Can you explain this? >> So hazard transportation under under school code is not required for public school districts. Um, it's something that boards and school districts can choose to do, but it is not required under school code. >> I thought this was
372written. I I think I sort of read it previously different. It's like whether we're going to only do hazard route for ID do or whether we're doing hazard. >> Yeah. So, so that is an option if the board wishes to pursue that. We we if we're going to have hazard transportation, we get reimbursed for that and we would need to submit those hazards to I do DOT for approval and then only those I do hazards could be reimbured for students that would cross those roads. >> So that's 5 A and B. So one is submit all of our to see what comes back as a I do hazard. What comes back as a hazard? I do hazard. >> Go ahead and >> Yeah. or or or you could also be more inclusive with transportation. So
373you could have the I do hazards that we get reimbursement for and have district 65 defined hazards. So our our preliminary assessment of it uh is on the district's website on the SDRP hub and it's it's G McCormick, Emerson, and Green Bay I believe. um where where currently uh I believe portions of Chicago are. Oh, I I missed Dempster. Uh yeah, Dempster is an ID dot hazard. Um but but like current practice uh would be like Chicago for example as a hazard, but on our preliminary assessment of it based on updated traffic volumes um on I do as part of the calculation, it does not quite meet that threshold. And then the other piece with hazard transportation is crossing guards. So pretty much at any of the intersections that we have in the district that
374are hazardous, if there's a crossing guard there, it will not meet the threshold for I do approval. So McCormick, for example, meets the threshold over 12 points. If you place a crossing guard on there, it reduces the calculation because of the traffic controlled intersection and it falls below 12 points. I believe it falls to 11.5. We have crossing guards on place on on ID dot hazards where we're busing. >> That is correct. Currently, yes, we have 50 to 55 crossing guard station throughout the >> district. Are they on the they're not on the they're on the ID do hazard? >> Some are we do have crossing guards on McCormick. I I know >> some kids that don't take the bus. >> That is correct. Yeah. >> Choose not to. >> But we're but we're paying
375to bus you across the hazard and then we're putting a crossing guard there as well. That's what I'm trying I'm trying to understand that we're double supporting the hazard >> for for the students that do cross that hazard. We're paying for the route. Not everybody that would cross McCormack, for example, would necessarily want to take the hazard transportation. >> They don't want but they're provided hazard. >> They're provided the option for hazard transportation. >> I mean, but we I mean one a crossing guard or a bus. It's interesting to go. We do a bus and a crossing guard, >> right? And then that's important to note that this second option is factored into number four all together. >> It looks like it's just 5 A, 5B, but then >> Oh, okay. That's what was that's
376what was confusing. >> Yes. >> And then notice with the crossing guards, our uh intergovernmental agreement expires. >> Yeah. The 700,000, >> right? Which means that the district takes on and assumes the entire cost. Right now, we're in a cost sharing. Mhm. >> So there's options of I mean if there's a I do hazard we have to provide transportation or crossing guard we should like we don't we should >> it's optional under school code the current practice has been to I to provide students that have to cross a hazard transportation >> right and we have just the repeated pattern we have gotten flooded for not having a crossing guard there even though it's it's on a hazardous route and we are providing the bus transportation So the proposed policy right which I'm reading here is
377continue to follow the D65 hazard crossings and not just >> I do approved hazards. We're expanding safety for district 65 families across the district >> in this proposed policy is what I'm reading >> which again we we we've been getting emails about that >> as the I mean yeah but I'm just trying >> we are we I hear what you're saying you like we providing both though >> we're providing both right we're providing options right >> but it should be I mean >> at a and it'll be this will be the proposal will be at a loss of 10,000 >> uh families may have to make the selection. >> Well, they I mean it has to be >> Go ahead. Sorry. Go ahead. >> I was just going to say I think we at least
378need to submit to I do to see where we stand. Um I I feel like you know just from a responsibility perspective we need to at least identify what those hazards would be from a do perspective and then if we if we need to possibly add more but I mean you know student safety is number one. I I agree students say believe me my my uh nephew was the young man hit uh crossing uh crossing um getting the haven but I'm also the reality of just trying to understand the cost of crossing guards at places where we're providing busing. And it's like either we're you're either we're busing you either we're providing crossing guards and we're not busing unless you're 1.5 miles and we have a lot of crossing guards so you can get across
379the street or we're busing to address the hazards. I'm just you know it's late so maybe I'll leave this alone. It just seems like if we're trying to cut money >> double cost to be so I can choose to walk you're riding the bus and we're acrewing the cost for both of those. So I think the options here then is to but submit all the hazard data to get that formal review so that way we have a clear picture or we just eliminate hazard transportation alto together. That's five option 5 A or 5B. >> I mean we can't eliminate hazard >> or or the third. >> Oh and that's and is that a third option because that's a FYI that's confusing here in the agenda. Um um >> or main current coverage with crossing guards.
380Is that what that's referring to? So, is that supposed to be a third option in under hazard transportation? Because it says FYI here. >> Yeah, it's it's confusing. >> It's a little confusing. Yeah. >> You see how it says FYI? >> Yeah. >> So, what about a policy one one for each uh hazard, one mode of of crossing >> choose, right? Is we're saying the option of Okay. Well, a family has to choose. You either take advantage of the crossing guard or you not. >> Well, it doesn't it can't be on a family basis. >> It's not the family. We decide. >> That's what's happening now. People are choosing now. >> Yeah. Yeah. The the challenge with the crossing guard it comes to or excuse me it's late. The the challenge with uh crossing guards
381and hazards is that they're interconnected. So as soon as you we as I said previously as soon as we place a a crossing guard as a hazardous intersection I do well it will not meet the threshold for I do approval for a hazard. >> Can you just on the next meeting can y'all can this particular one be more talked about? I don't like just understand the implications of it. >> Yes. >> No we didn't on that one. >> Okay. >> But do y'all need that question answered for modeling? >> No. We'll just continue to model under the current assumptions of our preliminary I I do findings. >> Okay. Okay. Good. Okay. Well, that's me, right? >> Did you want to have a vote on this or do you want to just have this a discussion
382and you'll continue it? >> Yeah, they got I got what I needed. Okay. >> But we now have to make sure we come back and actually Okay. Um, approval master facilities use agreement. I move that the board approve the intergovernmental agreement between district 65 and the city of Evston regarding the use of master facilities as presented. >> Second. >> Wymer, >> yes. >> Wilkins, >> yes. >> Pinker, >> yes. >> Hernandez, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> Me again. Approval of extension of contract with students centered services LLC for SDRP phase three work. I move that the board approved the extension of structural deficit reduction planning consultant services contract with student centered services LLC for three for phase three work. >> And I just have a comment. I just um just want to thank
383thank you Dr. Harkin. Um I don't know how we could have done this and gone through this process without you. And so I'm I'm hardily um supporting this. >> A second. >> Oh, a second, too. >> Yeah. >> Wymer, >> yes. >> Wilkins, >> yes. >> Hank, >> yes. >> Hernandez, >> yes. >> Anderson, >> yes. >> So, that's me. Yeah. Okay. Uh, the packet included some FYI items. Are there any questions or comments for discussion on any of the items? I have one. Um, there was the joint committee with the city. Is it possible just to get a sense for those who didn't go watch the committee about the demographic reports and what was found? >> Stacey here. >> Sure. Um so at the high level essentially city of Evston uses CAP data which
384is sourced by a government agency for their projections. That's a 50-year forecast out. We have secured two different demography reports 2021 and um and essentially model 10 years out. Um the city essentially said that you know is that the trends are very similar. Our demography plan shows city of Evston population going up slightly 0.05% shows our enrollment decreasing by 7.3% over the next 10 years. Both call out an aging population. both call out the impact of de decreasing birth rates. What the city employee did state is like anytime you forecast out, you're going to have some variation of numbers, but the trends are very similar with a lot of the same storylines around housing, aging population, and decreasing children. Does that for those that were there, is that >> a fair synopsis? >> Yes. >>
385Yep. Is there any other business to be discussed? As there is no further business, I move to adjourn adjourn today's meeting at 10:46 p.m. Thank you to the community. here. Pinker >> here. >> Hernandez >> here. >> Anderson >> here. >> I move that we table Is that on? >> I move that we table >> the approval of the transportation policy >> to a future date. >> Second. >> Wymer. >> Yes. >> Wilkins. Yes. >> Inger. >> Yes. >> Hernandez. >> Yes. >> Anderson. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Now close. >> I there no further business to be discussed. I adjourn this meeting at 10 >> 49. All in favor say I. I. Meeting is adjourned.