001[Music] Hi everybody. I'm reconvening to open session the regular meeting of the Fair View District 72 Board of Education. It is August 20th, 2025 at 7:02 p.m. We have already established that we have a quorum. I would like to request that all members of the public be respectful of everyone at this meeting. Please ensure that you have silenced your cell phones and please join me in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Can I have a motion and a second to approve the minutes of June 11th, 2025? >> So move. >> I second. >> Are there any corrections or comments regarding the minutes? >> No. Will all those in favor of approving the minutes of June 11th, 2025 say I. >> I. >> Any opposed say nay. >> Minutes are approved. Next, we have the approval of
002the payment of bills. Can I have a motion and a second to approve the payment of the bills in the amount of $452,5610? So moved. >> Second. Go ahead. >> Are there any questions regarding the bills? Would the board secretary please call the roll call vote? >> Yes. Saji Phillip? >> Yes. >> Ester Tamura? >> Yes. >> Hbert Witworth? >> Yes. >> Christine Sya? >> Yes. >> Jaclyn Bate, yes. Thank you. >> Bills are approved. Next, we have the parent teacher association report. Do we have a representative from the PTA that would like to report to the board? >> Good evening. Um PTA had a great break this summer. We're ready to come back. Um our first general meeting is going to be um September the 16th at 7 p.m. This will not be our
003traditional general meeting. This is going to be a more of a welcome to the PTA. Um details will follow the next few weeks when students go back to school and sign up. Our first actual um event will be the PTA 5K. Um right now it is around September 27th, but more details to follow. We're excited, uh Katie and I are both excited to serve again as co-presidents and we're ready to um do lots of fun things for the kids. So, thank you. School activity report. Does anyone from the border administration have good news to share from the district? >> I just made the comment that I'm going to share mine first because it's probably the least exciting. Um, we just completed our annual financial audit for the district. Uh, it was successful again. So, we'll
004be getting those reports later on in the fall. Uh unfortunately due to some uh timing of the tax bills in Cook County which is delaying a lot of our the revenues we get in this year. Our audit will probably will probably not receive the final report until November. But it was a successful process and I want to thank the office staff again for having everything prepared, organized, allowing them to do their work in a timely fashion. Hello everyone. Um, at the primary level, we had our getting ready program once again. Uh, wasn't this week, but it was last week and the in the previous week. Um, this is where we have students come in who might just need a little bit of a jump start before they start school. For kindergarten, we allow anyone in
005kindergarten who would like to come. It's two and a half hours uh for two weeks and it really just gives kids that like getting back into school feel but not the whole entire day. So uh we always really love having kids back in the building. So that was very successful and I just want to say a public thank you to Rebecca Hoffman who organizes that and really takes the lead on that. She did a phenomenal job. We also just since then we've had primary teachers love to get in their classrooms and prepare for their kids to be there and really personalize um everything for them. So teachers have been in their rooms getting everything ready. They're really excited for the kids to come back. I think we all are. Um it's wonderful to have those
006that energy and those smiling faces in the building. We are looking forward to this Friday, as parents know, we are having the first or maybe first time in a while, school supply drop off and meet the teacher event, which we think is going to be really helpful, not only for parents to be able to get in the building, just have set eyes on the teacher. This is great for new families as well because there'll be so many people in the building and they can really connect with each other. It's not a very long amount of time. It really is just to meet the teacher. Hello, here are my supplies. But it's just great for them for parents to be able to see the classroom for with their children. And also we know that littles cannot
007carry all those school supplies. So, you know, we will avoid that and allow them to be able to, you know, have some help um and then putting them where they need to in the classroom. And then finally, um I don't know if Dr. Whitaker is going to talk about this, but we've been doing a lot with summer curriculum in terms of our new reading program for both primary and middle school. teachers have been spending a lot of time learning this new curriculum and this is going to be something that we will be working on all year long. But I'm just really proud of of the effort and um just the dedication that the teachers have had during these summer months as soon as we were able to get our hands on that curriculum. So I
008just want to give a shout out to our staff for for preparing with that new curriculum because it's a lot right whenever you're learning something new and they want to do a great job for the kids. So that's all from primary. >> Thank you. Good evening. Um, this summer we were hard at work preparing for our second year of preschool. Um, we submitted all of our necessary paperwork um to ISBY to continue with our second year of our preschool for all grant and we're so excited to report that our enrollment is really high this year. We are so far ahead of where we were last year. We are pretty much almost full. Um, right now we have about 50 students um, already signed up and registered and ready to start on Tuesday, which is really
009exciting. We have about only a few spots left and some we have to save for students who come to us in the middle of the year with IEP. So, those we have to save, but other than that, we're pretty full. So, we're really excited to continue with our second year. In other news, um, we're continuing to work with um, a wonderful volunteer group that we've had in the past um, with our therapy dogs. Um they're called the Lincolnshshire Animal Hospital Hospital Dog Group. Um and they um are wonderful and have reached out to us wanting to return. They really enjoy their time here at Fairview, which is I think speaks volumes to our students and um it's really wonderful to have them come and this year we're hoping to incorporate our preschoolers as well. So
010we're really excited about that. >> Great. >> Thank you. Although summer months are a little quieter at Fairview, uh we did have a lot uh going on and it started the summer off with our uh Fairview sports camp. So, just want to thank the board for allowing us to continue to do this. Um most of our coaches are at our sports camp and we do uh two weeks of basketball, um two weeks of soccer and two weeks of volleyball and we have a lot of our student athletes come participate and get to spend time with our coaches which is really valuable for when the season starts. So, thank you for allowing us to do that. Uh recently we held our new family new student orientation uh before school started. Um we had a good turnout
011but and even since then we've had some more students that have registered. We have close to 29 new students starting at Fair View this year and that's not including kindergarten obviously. So that's grades 1 through 8. Um so we welcome them, let them tour the building a little bit and then we welcome them to our popsicles in the park event that was held uh recently for our entire community which was great to see to see families and students. so excited to come back for a popsicle. Um but then also to see each other uh and prepare to be back for the for the school year. So um this week too we had middle schoolers back in the building uh you know checking out their locker uh going around the building looking at their classrooms and
012seeing kids is so exciting. So I know some of you are probably ready to have them come our way next week and we are ready for them to to start. So thank you. >> Thank you. >> And this Barry Corey everyone big sheet is tight there. Uh it was a pretty busy summer. Uh we started off with updating the audio equipment in our big gym. Um before it was it was very antiquated, very old. So it was very good to update that. We also put in two beacons in the in in in both gyms. They are security beacons. As you can imagine, gets pretty loud in PE and sometimes the announcements can't come through. So if there is an emergency now, the PE teachers and students will see the siren and hear the siren. So
013that's good. We also upgraded our intercom. Uh we added more zones. So for for uh a lot better uh communication there and then as a benefit to that our teachers are now able to initiate a lockdown right from their classrooms as well right from their classroom phones. So they can also do an all call now around the building and outside and initiate a schoolwide lockdown. And then finally we added um eight dual-sided displays around the building that serve as clocks, but they also are emergency alerting beacons and sirens as well. So if anything were to happen, um those act as you'll see the sirens come on or you hear the sirens come on, you'll see the flashing lights and a message come across on all those beacons. So it was it was a very very
014good summer. Next item is our board discussion items. Would the superintendent please introduce the reports to the board? >> Absolutely. Thank you. Um first up, uh Jeff Far will be providing the board the tentative budget um for this current school year. >> Get up here. There we go. So the 2026 tenative budget um is presented every year in August and we are doing this in advance of again like I mentioned earlier the finalized audit numbers. So we're doing this based off of the u unudited numbers from last year's financials. This is a quick operating fund summary. So in our packet in the board packet there's a much more extensive description of these items. I'm trying to bring out the highlights right here of what we're looking at for this coming year. When I talk about
015the operating funds, these are the three most predominant funds. This is the education fund, the operations and maintenance fund, and the transportation fund. These percentages you'll see up there are based off of last year's final numbers, not off of last year's budgeted numbers. So, we're anticipating a 3.4% increase in total revenues. Uh, like most of you know, we get about 80% of our revenues from local tax dollars. Those dollars are going to be delayed as I mentioned because Cook County has delayed the tax receipts until October or November. We're still waiting for word on when that's going to we're actually going to get them. We are seeing about a 3.4% increase in local tax revenue based on the CPI. Again, as we remember the levy, we're we're limited to the CPI from the previous year.
016So, if we get a 3.4% increase in CPI, that's what we're limited to the next year outside of any new property. And last year in our district, we had no new property come on the books. So, we're limited to 3.4%. We're seeing a 2% increase in CPPRT. So, those of you who have heard me talk about this before, CPPRT is a large chunk of money. It's called corporate personal property replacement tax. And we get a large sum there because we have so much commercial property within our district boundaries. That number skyrocketed back during COVID and now it's coming now back down to pre-COVID levels. We were actually anticipating another drop this year, but we just got word last week we're actually seeing a 2% increase. So, we're going to be at about $1.2 million for
017CPPRT dollars, which is good news. Uh the state and federal money, we're stable, but only it's only 9% of the budget, and we're still holding to see if anything changes in that regard. Thankfully, we don't um get that much from both the state and the federal. We get a large sum about $540,000 from evidence-based funding and that holds from every year because we're in the the tier that has the most local capacity. It's to subsidize education. Last year we had a huge number of tax objections. Typically, we see a large number, but this was large even for our district. We had about $800,000 in tax money that we had to give back because of tax objections. That's a large downside to having so much commercial property here is that oftentimes those are the largest taxpayers
018and they're objecting to their taxes more. The good thing is that we should see in our levy this upcoming year getting some of that money back. So a few years back they had a recapture law that was put into place where that money that when you have tax objections can come back on your books through this levy. The bad part is it gets passed on to other taxpayers but we're able to recapture some of that money. For expenditures, we're looking at a 2.2% decrease in total expenditures for the operating fund. A large portion of that has to do with personnel plan changes, uh benefit changes, um seeing a 7% reduction in total dollars for salary. And again, this is off last year's final numbers. And then a 2.7% uh increase in benefits. And we had
019a large the biggest supply adoption we had this year was for the reading adoption, which is about $150,000. There's two transfers out of operating funds that we approved for the construction which is 389,000 for O andM to debt for to pay for debt certificates and then 79,000 which was about five or six years ago we NTDC uh started their project and we've decided to pay for that over the course of time with our with the funds that we have on hand. So we're looking at about a $1.1 million operating deficit after transfers this year. I will say right now that in the next month between now and where as the final budget has to be approved oftentimes we're able to refine these numbers even more where we see the expenditures go down and the revenues
020go up. So we're trying to kind of aim small here and be conservative but over the course of time before next month's budget where we have to finalize the budget we're hoping that the revenues will go up and the expenditures will go down because we'll have another month of information on our hands. I did also want to comment on the salary bit. There's a there's a portion in the the tenative budget summary in the packet where it states that teacher salaries went up 3.75%. It's actually 3.4%. So I just wanted to not to note that that because that is a big chunk. Thank you to Mr. Connor for pointing that out. The 3.75% is the highest bandwidth within the teacher contract to pay for salaries. But because of CPI this past year being at 2.9,
021salaries went up to 3.4. It's 2.9 plus.5 is the contract language we currently have. Mentioned some of these already. So other factors influence the budget. The delay in tax revenues. That's really a cash flow issue right now to make sure that we have enough cash flow to pay. Uh student fees, interest earnings, we're being very conservative right now based on the market. We're tracking the tax objections as we did this year. Uh word I'm getting is that last year was an anomaly more than anything else. I'm really hoping that's the case. you know, continually monitoring state and federal monies to see if there's any changes there. Uh expenditures, construction project, you know, we're still trying to tie all of that up. Uh facilities assessment and plan, we talked about that in the spring. Uh based
022on the monies that we have now and the the declining fund balance that we do have, we are taking a more hesitant approach to the facilities assessment and whether we want to lay out large dollars on hand for those projects. We're really priorities prioritizing only those items that are absolutely in need right now. A large portion of the expenditures are current vendor contracts and renewals that we had this year. You know, renewals were the gamut. So, we're having a large like electric supply right now is a huge one that we're seeing a large increase on. Other contracts we've had in place where we're seeing a 0% increase. So, it depends on the vendor renewal and what what type of contract we have in place. And we are seeing based on what we're hearing from other
023districts really the benefit of having our in-house transportation and food service program affords us great cost savings because a lot of these companies right now are trying to are hiking up the increases to other districts like these contractual um people that don't have an in-house. There you'll see a summary of our revenues expenditures over time. The FY22 to FY25 are the final numbers and then the FY26 are the budgeted that we talked about and then that green trend line is the operating fund balance. Again, a large portion of that decrease is due to the funds that we used on hand for construction. So that's where that that trend line there in 2324 goes down. So we'll have 30 days before the next meeting to have to put the tenant budget on display and then approve
024the final budget. We'll track those revenues and expenditures during that time and have uh more firm projections. Well, the final budget hearing is September. We'll have the audit report is tenative for October, but will likely be in November where we'll also look at financial projections along with the tenative levy. And then we'll approve the final levy in December. And then the budget process will begin again on January 1st. So, ran through a lot of information there pretty quickly. If there's any questions, please throw them out there. Okay, thank you everyone. >> Okay, our next item is the uh first reading of board policies. Um the board cover memo was in your packet. Um if you have time over the next couple of weeks, if you have come up with questions, please, you know, give me
025a call. We can walk through these. Um but we will be discussing them again at our September board meeting. Okay. Finally, the superintendence report. I will just highlight a few things. Um we have met with PTA. We're really excited about their calendar of events for the year. Um so those dates have been finalized for everything from um the 5K through the winter dance, etc. So that is great. We're really excited about doing all those fun things for their students again and we appreciate the partnership. Thank you, Sylvia. Pass it on to Katie. Uh you both do a great job. Um we will likely next month have some of our staff come to report to the board about the summer curriculum projects that they completed this summer. I'm always so proud of the work our teachers
026do over the summertime to continue to improve their craft. Um they're just such a dedicated group of people um that they're willing to to work through the summertime. Um we are busy implementing year one of the district's strategic plan. Um so we are grateful to have that blueprint to to guide our efforts this year. Um and finally I will just mention um the the hard work of our maintenance and cleaning crew. The building looks like it's brand new. The kids are um going to feel great coming into the building. We had some nice improvements including um improved lighting throughout the interior of the facility. Um that will hopefully we'll see some energy cost reduction with the improved lighting. Um but the the crew just has worked really hard. Today they were washing exterior windows. Um
027so we feel like we're really ready to go and to bring the students into a place that's really ready for them. So if there are any questions from the board, I'm happy to address anything else within this report. But, um, I think we're just all really excited to get the school year going. So, >> next item is our board committees and representatives. Jackie, any updates on NTDSC, >> Freedom of Information? Regarding Freedom of Information Act requests, I can report that there was one Freedom of Information Act received since the last board meeting and it was responded to as required. Information items and correspondence. We have one submission for information items and correspondence this month. Jackie, could you please give us a summary? >> Yes, definitely. >> We received one item from Daniela Termini who thanked
028the board for the beautiful flowers received. Mom, baby, and the rest of the family appreciate the thoughtful gift and messages sent. Public comment. At this time, I would like to invite members of the audience to address the board in public comment. The public comment period is designed to gain input from the public and not for immediate responses by the board to the question or comment presented. If you wish to address the board, please come to the microphone, state your name. A threeminut timer time limit will be set. The board secretary will keep time. Hello, good evening. My name is Roxan Salgalo and I'm here today as a concerned community member, parent, and advocate for the dignity and safety of every student in our district. I'm urging this board to formally declare Fair View School District
029a safe haven for all students, regardless of immigration status. This is not just a symbolic gesture. It's a powerful affirmation of our values and a necessary step to protect the rights of vulnerable children in our care. Under Plyer versus DO, every child in this country has a constitutional right to a public education. That right does not depend on immigration status and it should never be threatened by fear, intimidation, or uncertainty. By adopting safe haven policies, we send a clear message that our school is a place of learning and not enforcement. We know that fear of deportation can lead to chronic absenteeism, emotional distress, and academic decline. When families are afraid to send their children to school, we all lose. But when we create an environment of trust and inclusion, students thrive and so does our
030community. I want to share a recent and deeply troubling incident that occurred right here in Skoi. A grandfather who had lived in this country for 30 years legally on the path to citizenship with his son sponsoring him was recently detained. He lived with his son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren who are of school age. He has no criminical record criminal record. His sudden detainment has traumatized his family and sent shock waves through their neighborhood. The immigration process can take years. And this man was doing everything right. His neighbors, alarmed and heartbroken, has stepped up to support the family in the wake of this injustice. This is not just a policy issue. It's a human issue. So, I asked this board to commit to the following. Prohibit immigration enforcement on school grounds without a valid court order. Refuse
031to collect or share information about students immigration status. Provide families with access to legal resources and community support. Train all staff to respond appropriately to immigration related incidents. Districts across the state and country have already taken this step. So just a few 73 and a half and Evston district 65 and district 202 have already done that. East Prairie 73 and a half hasn't called it safe haven or safe zone but just um provided the information for community to know and also protocol on how staff follows it. They've shown that standing up for students doesn't jeopardize funding, it strengthens community. Let's join them to make this process easier. I will provide you all with a template resolution developed by the National Education Association. It outlines clear, actionable language that aligns with legal standards and best practices.
032I hope you'll consider it as a starting point for this district's commitment. And let's be the kind of district that doesn't just talk about protecting families, but takes real action to ensure our schools remain safe, supportive, and free from fear. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comment. Good evening. My name is Marcy Shahinolu. I'm a parent of two children here at Fairview. I'm a civil rights lawyer and I am the wife of an immigrant. Um I am here today to discuss um piggybacking off of what Roxanne has said. Um, I chose to raise my family in Skoi because of the diversity that exists in Skoi. Um, my my belief is that Skoi is great because of our strong immigrant community. Um, unfortunately, communities like ours are under attack by the current administration, and we
033cannot bury our heads in the sand or afford to stand silent about ICE and its enforcement activities that are occurring in our community. In case any of us are unaware, the Department of Homeland Security changed its long-standing policy in January of 2025 to allow ICE to conduct immigrant immigration enforcement activity at schools, on playgrounds, and on school bus stops. Prior to January 2025, those places were considered sensitive locations, essentially safe zones where immigration enforcement activities could not be conducted unless there were certain specific limited circumstances. Uh, now those places are fair game for immigration enforcement activity. We must therefore prepare ourselves for when ice comes knocking on our school doors or approaching parents or children at our playgrounds or on our school bus stops. We must stand in solidarity with our immigrant friends and neighbors
034to help try and lessen the fear and anxiety that exists in the face of these ICE rates. I do not exaggerate. You can Google yourself like I did this afternoon. ICE detains children at schools and a heartbreaking number of news articles from reputable sources will pop up explaining how children have been detained at schools or parents and their children have been detained at schools. These ICE raids and the immigration enforcement activities by ICE stand at complete odds against the core values that Skoi and Fair professes to uphold and that we hold dear, which is that we we welcome everyone. I urge the school board to take a principled position on this issue and to adopt the National Education Association's safe zone resolution and model policy that was distributed to you. Thank you for your time
035and consideration. >> Thank you for your comment. >> My name is Connie Clark and I am a parent of a a Fairview student in fifth grade. I've also been an educator for over 20 years and a member of the National Educators Association. Last year at our meeting, we did discuss the possibility of having to put forth a policy that school boards enacted in order to be able to protect our students and also our teachers. Our kids, immigrant or not, are definitely showing a lot of dysregulation. And the fear that kids are experiencing because they don't know, is somebody in my neighborhood going to call on me? What about my neighbors? What about my friends? My daughter and I traveled to the Illinois State Fair this weekend. My 10-year-old said, "Mom, why are there white people
036and black people? I don't see any brown people." I'm going meaning that the largest populations of people who do not define as white or black were not present at the fair. She's noticing that when we go places they're not as crowded. She's noticing that the people that are that are around her are looking a little different. In the case that anyone is wondering since I know you haven't had a read the NEA um document yet, but it I'm simply going to read it for a moment. It is the right of every child, regardless of immigration status, to access a free public K12 education, and the district welcomes and supports students. The district has a responsibility to ensure that all students who reside within its boundaries, regardless of immigration status, can safely access a free public
037K12 education. Federal immigration law enforcement activities on or around district property and transportation routes, whether by surveillance, interview, demand for information, arrest, detention, or any other means harmfully danger the learning environment to which all students regardless of immigration status are entitled and significantly interfere with the ability of all students, including US citizen students and students who hold other legal grounds for presence to access a free public education. if there's concern about the NEA statement being politically um motivated or something of conflict, when you read through it, it is really what each and every one of us want, not only for our students, but also for our teachers. And what we're asking is that you adopt this as a policy and say, "Look, this is going to be a safe place for all of our students."
038And this NEA model is very neutral in its statement and really just says this needs to be a safe place and you as your elect as our elected school board are going to hold that true for all of our students and it is not limited as we've seen to only people of Hispanic nature origin. There are lots of groups that um are impacted by this. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comment. Hello, I'm May. I have two boys here in the school. I would not be able to phrase as eloquently as my friends did everything. I I want to just echo their voice and um say that when we when we moved to Skoi, we came with the with one and only aim of having the best education, the best environment for our kids.
039And we got it. I would not deny that we got the best school. We we are at a very Uh but with this eyes situation we we would like it to be more like I want my kids to be more comfortable talking to their friends about it. It should not be an issue that they cannot um have a conversation with um each other. They they should be able to trust their friends and the the other friends should be able to trust u my kids. Um, so I would like for the board to do the appropriate things for Thank you. >> Thank you for your comment. >> Hello. Um, my name is Laura Priv. My children are going into sixth, fifth, and first grade. I just wanted to Thank the district for providing the opportunity for
040students to come in before the school year um to drop off their supplies and walk their schedule. I know that it eased a lot of nerves um that some of the kids were having. So, thank you for um implementing that and as Miss Shiovoka mentioned too, being able to come in was really excited to come in on Friday the future and it's just really great that that opportunity is there. Um, I also wanted to take this evening as an opportunity to mention that my kids were sad um at the end of last year to find out that foreign language was no longer being offered and I just hope that this decision will be cons reconsidered next year. Um, I also have it didn't get in there in time, but I do have a thank you
041from the Girl Scouts last year to Dr. Whitaker and to the board. Um, I'll put it on the table, but for allowing us to use the Um they had so much fun and made so many memories and um might not be doing it again this year just it was a lot but um but the girls loved loved it and we're thankful that the space was there for us. So again thank all of you and thank you to the teachers for everything um that you do for pair students and looking forward to a great year. >> Thank you for your comment. We we did have one online comment, but I think the So, you're good. Okay. Okay. >> Okay. The next item on the agenda is to adopt the tenative fiscal year 2026 district budget. Adopt
042a resolution placing the tenative budget on public display and set the date for a public hearing on the budget. Are there any questions or comments? Will the board secretary please call a roll call vote? >> Yes. Hbert Witworth, >> yes. >> Christine, >> yes. >> Jaclyn Boug, yes. Saji Phillip, >> yes. >> Esta Tamura, >> yes. Thank you. >> Next approved action item is the approval of the employment of personnel. Are there any questions or comments? >> Will the board secretary please call a roll call vote? Christine, >> yes. >> Jaclyn BJ, >> yes. >> Saji Phillip, >> yes. >> Tamuda, >> yes. >> Wworth, >> yes. >> Thank you. The last item is the approval of release of close session minutes of May 21st, 2025, April 16, 2025, March 19th, 2025, February 19th, 2025,
043and January 22nd, 2025. Are there any questions or comments from the board? >> Did you have a motion for that one? >> For the three that we just >> um it didn't ask me to Okay. Um, let can we have a motion to approve the release of the close session minutes? >> Yes. >> Can I have a motion in a second to release the close session minutes for the dates of May 21st, 2025, April 16th, 2025, March 19th, 2025, February 19th, 2025, and January 22nd, 2025. >> I move. >> So, we have Hbert moved and second. Thank you both. Will the board secretary please call a roll call vote? [Music] >> Christine, let me sorry a different order. Saji Phillip, >> yes. >> Isa Tamura, >> yes. >> Hbert Witwward, >> yes. >> Christine Sya,
044>> yes. >> Jaclyn BJ, yes. >> Saji Phillip, >> yes. >> Items for future consideration. Does anyone have any items for future consideration to share? Can I have a motion and a second?