001Hi everybody. Um, we are re or I am reconvening to open session. The regular meeting of the Fairview District 72 Board of Education is March 19th, 2025 at 7:04 p.m. We have established that we are ready have a quorum. 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 join us for the pledge of allegiance. All right, we're going to start with approval of minutes. May I have a motion and a second to approve the minutes of February 19th, 2025? So moved. I'll second. Mr. All right. Any corrections or comments? No. Okay. All right. All those in favor approving the minutes of February 19th, 2025, say I. I. Any oppose? Say nay. All right. Minutes are approved. Next item
002is the approval of payment of bills. May I have a motion and a second to approve the payment of bills in the amount of $235,4927. So moved. I'll second. Okay. Anybody have questions regarding the bills? Sargon, you're okay. Yep, I'm fine. Okay. Board secretary, can you please call roll call vote? Yes. Jacqueline Bjay? Yes. Saji Phillip? Yes. Christine Sya? Yes. Ester Tamura? Yes. Diana Diaak? Yes. Sargon Gulana? Yes. Thank you. Okay, perfect. Those are approved. And the next item is um PTA. Um do we have a member of the or sorry representative from the PTA? Hi Sylvia. Good evening. Um we've had a slow and quiet month. Last month we celebrated our very much successful multicultural night. Um a big thank you to the community for coming um and making delicious food, showing off their
003wonderful dances and their costumes. Um, thank you to all the admin, faculty, all the teachers who helped set up. It's a huge help when they come in and help us set up. So, a huge thank you to them. Upcoming dates, we have a stress-free fundraiser at Slice of New York here in Skoi on March 22nd. It's all day. Spring break is um next week. And then we have a very fun PTA March Madness event on Friday, April 4th. That's all. Thank you. All right, next item up is school activity report. Does anyone from the board or administration have any good news to share? Good evening. Uh on the at the primary level, um we are always very busy doing really fun things. Um I don't know if you know this, but St. Patrick's Day was
004just a few days ago and there were leprechauns that destroyed some kindergarten rooms. They made all kinds of messes. The kids had so much energy. They made their lep leprechaun traps on Friday and they could not stop smiling and talking about just the fun that that they had and and what those leprechauns did in their classrooms. Um so that was really fun. We also um at K12 Karen Kemp in our food service department, she does this awesome program with our school nurse about um introducing fruits and vegetables to students. It is phenomenal. They the last um session they tried beets and beet juice and some of the kids even liked I would say most of them tried it. Now did all of them love it? No. But there were students who were like, I liked
005the juice. And so it's just such a wonderful way to introduce them to things. As we know, like sometimes kids will look at food and they're like, "No, I don't like it." And they've never even tasted it. Right? So when they're in the classroom and they start learning about the importance of food and what it does, it's actually just wonderful to see them actually take that risk and try something new. Um, and it's been really successful. There's one more month. April will be the last month of it. She does this January, February, March, and April. So, it's been really successful and wonderful to see the kids get to try uh new fruits and vegetables uh on with our older students um second, third, and fourth grade and all the way through 8th. We are Kogat
006testing this week. So, our students are um focusing on that um just a couple couple um times during the day um over it started what day is today? Wednesday. So, it started yesterday, Wednesday, and tomorrow. And then we'll have makeup testing when we come on Friday and then when we come back from spring break. Winter clubs are ending this week. Uh the Skookoi Park District clubs. And then after spring break, as soon as we get back, we will have our Fair View clubs starting up which include clubs that happen during the lunchtime for the primary students. And then after school for middle school and then we have potentially another round of the spring or the for spring sky park district clubs which will be after school. So, just lots of opportunities for our students to
007be involved. And then finally, as you know, we're heading into spring break and we are having a spirit week. And it has I don't know if you know, but today was wacky Wednesday. And in all ways, it was a wacky Wednesday, including dismissal weather, including before the board meeting, travel to get here weather, all kinds of things, including fun hairstyles, mismatched socks, all kinds of crazy mismatched um just spirits throughout the school. So, it's been a lot of fun. Um, and we have a couple more days of that. So, we always enjoy enjoy our spirit weeks here at Fairview, and this week is no exception. We're we're all in for spirit. Any questions for primary. Okay. All right. For middle school, um, we are finishing up the quarter. Uh, today actually was the end of
008the quarter. So, fourth quarter starts tomorrow, which is crazy to think about that we're in quarter 4. Uh just a quick shout out too for uh our electives teachers in middle school. Um they teach you know four quarters worth of students. Um and uh in the change this year to uh in the past few years to electives um many of them have done different types of activities and ending projects. Uh Mrs. Chong has done a series of like art exhibits for middle school which have been really cool. Uh and uh Mr. Cliff does a karaoke uh karaoke with um ukuleles that is really exciting for students. So, um, just thank all of our electives teachers, um, that that that work really hard to give the students cool experiences. Uh, we finished up our winter sports
009season since the last time we were here. Um, so that was boys basketball and cheerleading. Uh, our cheerleading team participated in the Little Nine competition. Uh, and they got fourth overall in the Little Nine. So, uh, it was really exciting to see the growth that they made over the course of the year. It's just an exciting event for them. Uh, you know, the girls did a really great job. Thank you, Miss Slaughter and Miss Makami for their time. And then uh Mr. Gillespie, Mr. Forey, and Mr. Berglin for basketball too as well. Um the last season started these past two weeks with volleyball for the boys and soccer for the girls. And so that will really start to ramp up after after break. Uh the next thing was uh the the last week we brought
010back an event that we did a few years ago, which is a schoolwide rock paper scissor tournament. Uh kindergarten through 8ighth grade and staff. uh which has been really uh a neat thing to have back because it's an opportunity for everyone across the building to find students and teachers and gets highly competitive. Uh our very own Dr. Whitaker uh participated and went against a middle school student and uh had a great uh challenge to her and she's moved on uh to the second round but then lost to Mr. Gillespie in the in the Sweet 16. So, our goal in this is uh on Friday we have the Falcon versus Fossil staff basketball game and we're going to have the final four participate in front of the whole school. So, more to follow. That could be
011really exciting or really scary thing for some students that are maybe in the final four, but um we'll send that out in the digital backpack once we know uh who who won that. So, it's going to be really exciting. All right. Thank you guys. Good evening. So, for preschool, the students just finished their unit of study on exercise. Um, and in order to celebrate every unit of study, we've been having a celebration of some kind. Um, and on March 5th, we had an exercise celebration in the NPR in this room. um where parents were invited and older siblings, if they had any older siblings in the school, were able to come and we had stations all around um the room and they were able to do some different exercises with their parents and their siblings
012and they had a blast. And so right now we're in our next unit of study about reusing, recycling. Um and so we're looking forward to our next celebration when we're done. I'll just I just want to add to that. Um, one of the beautiful things that happens with these celebrations is these parents are getting a chance to meet each other. A lot of times preschool age parents don't know a lot of people in the community because it might be their oldest child, their first child to come to school. And so what I really enjoyed other than watching the kids have such a fun time was the parents were connecting with each other. And I think that's just a really great way to promote community here at Fairview. I think for parents who are new, it's
013always a little bit hard because so many of you have have grown up here, have lived here a long time, and now there are new people. It's kind of hard to break into it. Um, so I think that's a really wonderful side benefit of what you're doing with the celebrations and encouraging those parents to connect. Hopefully they share, you know, phone numbers and do playdates and all that good stuff. I I think that was one of the hardest things, especially as a working mom when my kids were little was until, you know, getting to know other moms and and dads and making those connections. So, they get to do this almost every month, it seems. There's a celebration of some sort in preschool. Um so, hopefully they're building, you know, those connections, too. So, thank
014you, Carly. Uh we finished up the robotic season last Thursday at Niles North, which is a really cool experience for the kids. Um it was in their new edition, and none of them have ever been there before, so it was really neat to see. um was a great turn by, you know, uh parents, too. Um we have a pizza party tomorrow for the robotics team that Karen and the kitchen put on, which is great. And then we also able to work with the high school to secure some funding for next year's u robotics program to the tune of about $4,000. So me and Mr. Lays whenever uh we'll work with them to get some brand new stuff and be ready for next year. Uh fifth or sixth, usually sixth. I was going to get up
015and say the bills got paid and that's good news. But um tomorrow we're hosting our wellness event, our wellness screening event and we have 60 people signed up which is fantastic. It may be our highest number we've ever had at the school. So what happens it's part of the um wellness incentive payback from our insurance cooperative. So we get certain number of people participating. It's one of the um the core things that we need to reach in order to get a uh premium payback at the end of the year. So, it's become become a pretty cool event for our staff. Um this year the we have our yearly giveaway, our uh Falcon swag that we give out, Falcon Fit gear. It's a jacket this year. So, if there's a couple extras for board members, we'll
016be able to to make sure we get those for you. So, it's a it's it's always nice to have this event and then we have a breakfast along with it for everyone participating. So, thank you. Very good. Okay. Thank you guys. Um, next item is our board discussion items. Will the superintendent please introduce the reports? Sure. First up, um, we have been talking, um, you know, a lot this school year about, um, our budget concerns. Um, you have heard from Mr. fair on numerous occasions about our projections going forth and um you know we as an administrative team have taken um this very seriously. Um it's very um it's not a fun conversation um to think about you know how we can cut back um but we've done it and we have some recommendations for
017the board this evening. Um the you know the following list of rejuctions are based on our current needs, our current student needs as well as enrollment projections. Um our enrollment has dropped um over the past couple of years and so we have some um restructuring due to smaller classrooms um going forth. um and you know trying to really seriously address the budget concerns because we know that long-term we can't sustain um our financial stability by continuing in the same um way that we have. Um so I'm just going to summarize the personnel plan that you have at your sides. Um Mr. Farah will put it up on the screen for members of the audience, but um what we're recommending is that the position of technology coach be eliminated going forward. Um, at the third grade
018level, we will recommend that the classes be reduced from four sections to three sections. That's based on our current enrollment. Kindergarten, again, based on current enrollment and registration only really started about a month ago. Um, we um only have enough students to uh, you know, have two classes at kindergarten. Um, that is one that will fluctuate. I I do believe that we're going to see registration and enrollment throughout the summer. Um but it's not responsible for me to recommend three sections at this time when we don't have the students. um the Spanish elective in middle school. We're recommending that we uh eliminate the Spanish elective um and over the course of the next year that the administration take time to study foreign language um more generally um to see whether or not we can offer
019a program that will be um more meeting the needs of what our students need when they go to high school. Um, Mike has done a good amount of research on this and our high schools offer a wide variety of languages. So, we need to really come back to the board with a recommendation on whether or not we think Spanish is something we should continue with long term. Um, or if it's something else. Um, we will be recommending the reduction of a 33 e teacher. Um, so currently we have 2.33 e teachers. um we'd be reducing that to two. We're also recommending that the director of community and student engagement position be reduced from a full-time position to a part-time position. Um how we um would kind of rework that is to look at those um
020responsibilities of that role that have been very successful for us to see whether or not that those responsibilities could be taken on by another current staff member or if we'd be looking to employ a part-time staff member for that position. Uh we are also recommending that the school office be reduced from two full-time employees to one full-time employee. Again, we have employees um that are uh working within the district that don't have full-time schedules right now. They're they're working a full-time job. However, they might be a bus driver and we need other hours to fill their time um to be able to give them that full-time employment. We believe that offering our bus drivers full-time employment have really helped us survive this nationwide shortage of bus drivers. Um so the way this could look is
021that potentially someone who's driving a bus route could help us out with um the photocopying that goes on which is one of the responsibilities of the school office right now or the laminating or some of those types of tasks um that are a little bit more behind the scenes. Um, so while we're talking about going from two to one, it's really going from two to one, but then looking at how we could build that back up with current staff members. Um, I'm sorry, that's a typo. Yep. Yep. Um, and then, um, our instructional assistants who support general education classrooms as well as special education students. Um, we'd be looking to reduce that total number by two. Um Jeff is going to pull up the personnel plan so you can and you also have it by
022your side. Um so you can kind of see the overall um you know kind of where this lands. So Jeeoff if you want to take it from there. Yeah. And I think in this iteration we still had it wasn't a reduction of two aids. It was a reduction of one on this in the form that you're seeing. So, we looked at a a reduction of about five and a half positions and after accounting for the projected salary increases for next year and that's not all finalized yet, but we're looking at anywhere from a 1 to 2% savings off of last year's salaries as a as a as a whole. So, um, this has been obviously as it relates to total positions, we're still at a place where we're above where we were say 3 or
0234 years ago, but this is just another way of taking a step back and reassessing the plan that we currently have and also moving toward the cost savings that we're looking for. So we we feel that this is sort of a firststep approach to trying to bring our budget back in line to where it needs to be. We really focused on positions that weren't necessarily studentfacing positions. Um the technology coach, for example, that's someone who has typically supported teachers with integrating technology into the classrooms. Um you know, we feel that over the years our teachers have come a long way. um and that probably those needs can be met, you know, through Mr. Corey, who is a former teacher here at Fair View, um and tech director now, um or other ways of supporting those
024teachers. So, um you know, never never easy to come up with decisions about bringing things back a little bit, but for the long-term uh financial health of the district, we felt that, you know, now is the time we needed to make some changes. So, I'm happy to answer any questions about any of that. You eliminate the Spanish. Uh, how many kids we have? The a lot of them. How many kids we have Spanish? Yeah. So, Mr. Leeka could probably answer that more um thoroughly than I could and I'm sure he doesn't have the numbers at the at um at the top of his memory right now. Um, Spanish the Spanish elective. He's curious as to how many students have chosen that elective. Um, and you know what I would say is um, our concern with
025that elective is that it's not when we had a full Spanish program, students would cover enough Spanish curriculum to be potentially to be able to place into a higher level of Spanish at the high school or a second year of Spanish at the high school. The elective was never intended to do that. It's really just um an introduction to the Spanish language, the Spanish culture, which is wonderful, but it's really not helping those children kind of forward their foreign language skills. Um, you know, it may encourage them to think about taking Spanish in high school. Um but he was curious how many students have taken those electives to not one probably less than half selected in so maybe students selected we prioritize students that want to take Spanish high school Spanish by the time they
026graduated senior year or students by the time they graduate. So that's part of the conversation as well is that they're taking many other options when they go to high school like what is needed for the college regard for which time. So, I hope that you will feel that we took, you know, that we've taken this situation seriously um and that we've tried to identify areas of our personnel plan that, you know, maybe are not um fully meeting the needs of our students or, you know, the best use of our funding. We've really tried to prioritize those programs that have been, you know, the most critical um to to try to continue to maintain. So, okay. Okay. Uh, next up, um, another area that we're always looking to try to find some cost savings, um, while
027continuing to provide our employees the very best insurance plans possible. Um, Jeff is going to provide us with the annual insurance committee report. Okay. All right. Thank you. And so this is information um we get together every year with our wellness insurance committee and discuss not only wellness options or opportunities for our staff, but it was it was originated as something to try and look at our insurance plans and find cost savings over the course of time and ensure like Cindy said, we're offering the best benefits package for our employees. Uh right now we offer three medical insurance plans, group health insurance plans, PO uh HMO and HMO blue advantage. Uh we have people enrolled in each one of these plans. Uh our PO is our highest um our highest enrolled plan but also our
028most expensive option and it's through BlueC Cross Blue Shield. And for those of you who don't know, we're also part of an insurance cooperative with 120 other school districts that helps in uh ramping down the costs as it pertains to health insurance fluctuation each year. So, uh if we were out in the market by ourselves, we would be getting bigger increases every year. But because we're part of this pool, it's been very successful. In fact, I believe Fairview was one of the first districts in the pool in the early 80s. So, we're long-standing member of the pool. Here's a look at our committee. So again, we've met we've met every year since 2014. It started to look at explore healthcare options when the Affordable Care Act was coming out. Uh and since then, it's kind
029of evolved into more of a wellness committee. But we do take we do make a note to take take a look at our plans every year uh and to see if we need to make changes based on uh cost increases, our trends over the last five years. So, we've been hit pretty hard by PO increases. So, we've been at about 9% increases over the last 5 years. As a whole, the cooperative has been 6.4% for a 2.7% change. That's huge. The 5 years before that, we weren't close to 9%. It's really been within these last four to five years that we've been hit hard. Our HMO's been been in good shape. So we're actually below the pool average at about 5%. Again, 23 and 24 were we like to look at them as anomalies. That
030was a time in medical in healthcare that people were going back to the doctor. People were going back for things that they did may not have needed in the two previous years when people put off elective things because of COVID when people were not going to the doctor as frequently. So we really thought saw spikes and we weren't alone because if you look at the pool average there it was 9.7 7.2 8.8 8 huge increases. [clears throat] Not to get into the minutia of everything, but the increases are simply calculated by looking at what is the cost of all the medical care that it for your school district and then dividing that by the number the amount of money that we send for premiums on a monthly basis. Uh for a majority of our staff,
031which is the teaching staff, it's 80% is paid by the board and 20% is paid by the teacher themselves. So that's that bottom number right there. Uh when they do that calculation, you want to be right at about 100%. You want your claims to equal the premiums that you pay. So it's paying for itself. [clears throat] The increases aren't necessarily based on that 100% because they also have to factor in market increases, things of that. So they'll try and factor that in that into you know what is the increase for next year? we need to be make sure that next year the premiums that you're paying as a district meet the claims that your district incurs. So we met with our consultants at EBC and they presented a menu of options that we could make
032to our plan given the fact that we were at 9%. Another key point of this too is that teachers share the increase above 6%. If we get a 6% or above increase every year, that cost above 6% is shared 50/50 with the board. So, it's not all on the board at that point. The teachers are paying a little extra because they've added increase. The important thing to note also with these recommended changes that I'm going to talk about, it doesn't affect the integrity of the plan itself. It's still a very very strong insurance plan. We are very very lucky to have the deductibles and the premium and the premiums that we have. When you compare it to other school districts, we are in very very good shape. But we did look at three areas specifically
033on that menu of options that we thought would would create a cost savings that would be beneficial to both the board and also the teachers. Yes. employees are 100 the employees and the board that's total premium paid. So of that 900,000 if we're looking at if that if that hypothetically was just teachers that again I was using simple numbers up there that $900,000 80% of it would be paid by the board 20% of it would be paid by the teachers. Yeah. The recommended changes that we're looking at right now affect three areas. the PO deductible. So, right now, our PO deductible sits at $500 for in network and $1,000 for out of network. This was actually changed 2 years ago when we went from $500 in network and $500 out of network. I'm sorry, $500
034family going to $500 and a,000. So, we actually changed that uh two years ago. But again, 500, 500, 500,000, both very good. We went, we're moving now to 750 and,500 individual deductible versus family. And then coupled with a $1,500 in network and $3,000 out of network out of pocket. So, what we're trying to do with this, and that's about a that'll save us about 4% off of our premium for the year. What we're trying to do there is raise those numbers so that our claims are have to reach a higher point. and then we're feeding the plan less. Um we're also adding two smaller um points. It's the adding the office visit co-ay which is we're removing the office visit co insurance and adding a $20 or $40 office visit co-pay. Then the entire visit's
035covered and then adding emergency room co-pay. So right now everything is covered at 100% whether you're admitted or and not to the emergency room. This would add a $150 co-pay which is then waved if admitted. So we're just looking we're drilling down to some of the details of our plan and trying to find savings where we can. So the effect of the changes and we haven't we just actually the EBC just approved the final rates today. I should be getting the actual numbers and the fig uh the actual premiums within the next week or so. But we're projecting about a 5.4% 4% savings on the PO from a 9% increase which would bring us below that 6% threshold and would sever it would reduce the cost for both the board and the teachers. Um, and
036the big factor of this, and I know people are looking at it as a short-term, okay, this is what's happening to the premium this year, but we're hoping again, like I said, moving those deductible numbers up will reduce the number of claims that are fueling the plan right now because we're we're with those low deductibles, that's feeding our claims, right? Uh, quicker than it would if we raise the deductibles. And over the course of time, cost of health insurance, cost of medical care has gone up. So, keeping those deductibles where they've been for a long time, especially that single deductible 500 when we're hitting those, we're hitting that deductible quicker. Two other big things that have come out this year. Uh, one is that most of or all of our employees that are currently in
037advocate on our HMO plan need to move over to our HMO Blue Advantage because advocate with negotiations with Blue Cross Blue Shield will no longer be part of HMO Illinois. And that's a pretty big factor considering we have about um 10 of our employees, 10 to 12 of our employees that are on that on that um or on that HMO and have advocate. And then we're moving our open enrollment back two weeks to accommodate these changes because they have to get everything loaded. We actually do everything online right now for an enrollment. We ch made this change last year so employees are able to go online and make the changes themselves to their benefits. So, you know, we're making a big push for employees to really I think a lot of people will sign up
038for insurance and if they don't use it a lot, they don't really look at it. So, we're trying to get people to really look in their insurance and and make sure that the plan that they currently have is the one that would fit them the best. And we're talking about not only the doctors that they need, but also the cost of the plan because our PO is extremely expensive for what you're getting. It's great care, but is extremely expensive. So, we're encouraging people if they can go to an HMO or HMO Blue Advantage and receive the same quality of care and have their own doctors in that plan, we're having to explore that. So, we've sent out information on how to look up your doctors when the Blue Cross Blue Shield website where you can
039actually see are your doctors in PO, are they in HMO, are they in HMO Blue Advantage? Uh, we're having people evaluate whether or not we have a flex spending option where people are able to take money out of their paychecks pre-tax to pay for medical care, to pay for different medical benefits. And then we're also reaching out um we're having people reach out to me. I'm I'm going to make myself available on a number of different dates between now and May 12th. and during that May 12th to May 23rd period to make sure everyone's got their questions asked. I think the one thing about this that we need to remember is that this plan not just governs doesn't just govern the teachers, it governs administrators and also our support staff. So, we want to make
040sure that with all of these changes, everyone feels comfortable with the change that they're making because I don't want to feel like people are are having their questions not answered. And it's also this is a very personal decision for everyone. I understand how important health insurance is and we want to make sure that everyone feels um feels good about the decisions they're making. What is the difference between the HMO and HM uh Blue Advantage? It's a smaller network. It's a smaller network of doctors and hospitals that are available in the HMO and the HMO Blue Advantage. So, the HMO Blue Advantage is less costly because it's fewer doctors available in that plan. The the one thing that we've said to to folks that are looking at that though because HMO blue advantage not a lot
041of people take it go into that. The one thing about being close to Chicago though is that there is a large segment of doctors even in HMO blue advantage that you have access to. But I think with the HMO and people that there are people that sing the praises of HMO. I've always been I've been in PO. I've just been in PO. I was the flexibility is really what did it for me. But now I'm looking to make a change. I'm looking to possibly change HMO that people that have HMO sing its praises. But again, you have to get a referral for a doctor. You have to you have to go and know what you're talking like you have to know who you need to see and whether they're in the plan. Yes. Okay. Any
042other questions? There's a lot of information. Sorry. Yeah. So, thank you, Jeff. Um, I'd like to thank Nick Connor also because this has been a collaborative effort with the teachers union. Um, which is important. I'm sorry that I should have thank I should have thanked you right off the bat. Oh, but uh the entire committee really Trisha uh Trisha Klein, Meredith Malad, Karen Kemp, Patrick Stoneberg, Amir Fakuri, uh Lisa who? No, Lisa Hilgenorf has been integral to this because she has an insurance background. So, having her in the room and talking about it has been very, very helpful. And also communicating out to our staff, too, cuz my our staff likes Lisa a lot more than they like me. So, that's it. But, but we do appreciate the teachers union working with us on this
043because it is a plan that affects every employee that takes insurance in the district. and you know that's our support staff. Um these are really big financial decisions for them. It is for everybody but in trying to find ways to keep this affordable for all of our employees. Um we really appreciate the collaboration um and feel like we're making some really good headway um to you know it's hard to talk about eliminating positions. It's hard to talk about changing insurance but that's where we are right now. And I just appreciate the effort of everybody in the building to start thinking about this with us and working with us to try to, you know, work through these issues um so that they aren't these are short-term issues um that, you know, we don't want to turn
044into long-term issues. So, thank you everybody. Pardon? Go ahead. Uh no, so we do offer healthcare coverage for people up to halftime. Yep. And we it's scaled depending on number of hours, number of what type of position. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. The superintendent report, I'll just touch upon a couple of things. The Fairview spring edition will be coming out right after spring break. Um AIO is gearing up for spring break. It's a great time to get different projects done around the building without students. So, we're going to be replacing the carpet in the school office, um, which is much needed. Uh, the gym floors, all three gym floors, including the cafeteria, will all be refinished. Um, so they will be bright and sparkly when the kids get back. Um, the Thor Guard gets
045reinstalled. That's our lightning detector system. Um, it gets reinstalled over spring break. Um, this is an important one. The buses get all get cleaned and disinfected from top to bottom, inside and out. So, you know, any of those, you know, germs that are lingering in our buses, um, will be taken care of over spring break as well. And then there's ongoing maintenance, um, throughout the building that the team will be working on. So, um, there will be folks in the building next week, um, you know, working away on those things that we can't do when our students are here. So, any questions about the superintendent report? Thank you. Great. Um, moving on to committees and representatives. Um, Raphael is not here today. So, does do you have any further updates? No. And I'd read. Okay.
046NTDSC. Jackie, any updates? No. Unfortunately, the meeting was tonight also at NTDSC. So, okay. And then Christine, any additional PTA? No. All right. Moving along. Uh, regarding Freedom of Information Act, I can report that there was one Freedom of Information Act received since last board meeting and it was responded to as required. Um, and we do not have any online submissions. Um, or I'm sorry, we don't have any online submissions, right? Okay. And, uh, in for, excuse me, we don't have any submissions for information items and correspondence this month. Um, moving on to public comment. At this time, I'd like to invite members of the audience to address the board and public comment. Public comment period is designed to gain input from the public and not for immediate response by the board to the question
047or comment presented. If you wish to address the board, please come to the microphone, state your name. A threeminut time limit will be set by the board secretary. Okay, that's what I was saying. There's no online comments for public comment today. All right, we're okay. Okay, moving along to action items. Um, may I have a motion and a second to approve school fees for the 2025 2026 school year? So moved. I'll second. Okay. Anybody have any questions or comments? No. Okay. Um, board secretary, can you please call a roll call vote? Yes. Christine, yes. Mr. Tamura, yes. Diana, yes. Jacqueline BJ, yes. Saji Phillip, yes. Star Gangulana, yes. Thank you. Okay. May I have a motion and a second to approve the fiscal year 26 personnel plan? So moved. I'll second. Anyone have any additional
048questions or comments? No. Okay. Board secretary, can you please call a roll call vote? Saji Phillip, yes. Jaclyn BJ, yes. Diana Diaakus, yes. Estra Tamura, yes. Christine, yes. Sarang Gulana, yes. All right. Next item. May I have a motion and a second to approve the insurance committee plan design change recommendation effective July 1st, 2025th. So moved. I think I'm good. Any more questions or concerns, comments? No. All right. Board secretary, can you please tell Diana Diaz? Yes. Esta Tumura. Yes. Jacqueline BJ. Yes. Christine Sya. Yes. Saji Phillip. Yes. Sargon Gulana. Yes. All right. May I have a motion and a second to approve the non-tenure teacher contract for 2025 2026? So moved. I second. Any questions or comments? No. All right. Board secretary, can you please call roll call vote? Yes. Saji Phillip, yes. Jaclyn
049BJ, yes. Christine, yes. Diana Diaak, yes. Esta Tamura, yes. Sargon Bulana, yes. All right. May I have a motion and a second to approve the part-time teacher contract for 2025 2026? So moved. I second. Any further question teacher position? Any additional questions or comments? No. All right. Board secretary, can you please call roll call vote? Yes. Diana Dakus, yes. Jaclyn Bj, yes. Saji Phillip, yes. Christine, yes. Esta Tamura, yes. Gulana. Yes. All right. May I have a motion and a second to accept the resignation of a certified staff member? Yes. So moved. I second. All right. Board, any additional questions or comments for that one? Okay. Uh board secretary, can you please call roll call vote? Yes. Jaclyn BJ, yes. Saji Phillip, yes. Christine, yes. Esther Tamura, yes. Diana Diaag, yes. Guliana, yes. Two more.
050May have a motion in a second to approve the honorable honorable dismissal, reduction in force of staff members. So moved. I'll second. Diana, sure. All right. Board secretary, can you please call roll call vote? Yes. Esta Tamura. Yes. Christine, yes. Di Phillip, yes. Jaclyn B. Yes. Diana Diaagus. Yes. Sona, yes. Thank you. All right. Last one. Uh, may I have a motion in a second to approve the settlement of the tax objection related to the 20114 tax years pending against the board in Cook County Circuit Court at an amount not to exceed four mills. [clears throat] Mr. Fair will explain this once we get through the motion. Oh yes. Four mills. Sorry. Can you repeat that? Yeah. One more time. Approve the settlement. Okay. Approve the settlement to the of the tax rate objections related
051to the 20114 tax years pending against the board and Cook County Circuit Court at the mount not to exceed four mills and to authorize the superintendent or the superintendent's designate. the authority to sign such documents as necessary to settle this matter. Subject to attorney review and approval. Are there any questions? Yes. Four mills. How much time do we have? It's a tax rate term. It's just all you have to know is four mills is a tax rate term. So we speak we speak about it like 2.34. Four mills is a piece of that. It's like it's a divide four divided by 100. It's 4 hundreds is all you have to know. Let me let me just sum everything up for you. Okay, so the tax rate objections that we're talking about right now are from
0522011 to 2014. Everything drags on in the tax objection process, blah blah. This is coming from a this is coming from a group of taxpayers who have pulled their resources together to go after um large public taxing bodies for two specific reasons. excess accumulation of funds and also tax rates. So excess tax rates. Um they just do this. There's they're not pointing out Fairview. They're doing this to any taxing body. What happens in Cook County and this is the reason that they get in trouble is that Cook County when they issue taxes add 3% on to the district and what they're asking for. So, we levy the T Cook County adds 3% on top of that because they're trying to account for the fact that we're not going to get 100% in collections. The thing
053about our district is though is that we typically get close to 100% in collections. So, what they're saying basically is that we're getting too much of our levy. And this is back 2011 and 2014. So this tax these people that are you know filing these objections are trying to go after specifically that area or excess accumulation. Excess accumulation is you have too much money in your funds which if they looked at our funds now they wouldn't be able to say that anymore. Excess accumulation was like specific funds you're at like 150%. Okay. We've made transfers over time to accommodate that. So both these are not big deals. What they're trying to do though is go after all of these taxing bodies. So instead of going through and litigating this and having that be a cost
054and instead of them have what they're asking for is far larger than the settlement fee. We're deciding to say it's $15,000 I believe is the final number on there. We're deciding to say, "Okay, we would like to settle this instead of going back for those three years and having these claims litigated," which I think is a extraordinary cost savings based on what they're asking for. What we do every year is that we actually when we we have taxes coming in from two different years, but we have objections coming in all the time. And because we've already collected them, it's a negative amount on our revenue collected. So, we're getting these all the time. This is just a settlement that we have to agree to. There's other ones that we've agreed to through our cooperative, but
055this is just a separate one from those long time ago. Hopefully, that explained it as best I could. I apologize. We don't have time for tax love 101, but I'm more than happy to sit down with you and talk about what mills are. Yeah, it's not 4 million. No. also mention that these objections are particularly uh stressful for a small school district because you just don't know what's going to come your way and it's taking money away from the district that you can't plan for. And so when we see this start to happen, it does make us a little bit even more so nervous. You know, previously when we had the larger fund balances, we were nervous um but we knew we had larger fund balances. So, you know, paying out these wasn't such a
056big deal, but um you know, it's just one other thing that we think about um as we try to plan going forward. And like Cindy said, we already get we get these constantly from businesses that have their own legal representation. And we have we're part of a Nile Township property tax cooperative that we all we combine resources with no local school districts to go after these or not to go after, but to protect ourselves in these cases. board secretary, can you please call? We didn't we didn't do motion. We didn't. No, I don't have anything. All right. May I have a motion and a second to approve the settlement of the tax rate objections related to the 20114 tax years pending against the board in Cook County Circuit Court with the amount not to exceed
057four mills and to authorize the superintendent or the superintendent's designate the authority to sign such documents as necessary to settle sorry as necessary to settle this matter subject to attorney review and approval. So moved. Board secretary, can you please call roll call vote? Yes. Jaclyn, yes. Diana, yes. Esta Tamura, yes. Christine, yes. Saji Phillip, yes. Sarah Guulana, yes. Um, any items for future consideration for next month? Okay. May I have a motion and a second to adjourn the regular meeting of the Fairview Board of Education. It is now 7:51. So moved. Board secretary, can you please call roll calls? Diana, yes. Jaclyn, yes. Saji Phillips, yes. Christine, yes. Tamura, yes. Sarana, yes. Thank you. All right. Thank you everybody.