001[Music] i am reconvening to open session the regular meeting of the fairview district 72 board of education it is april 27 2022 and i apologize we're a little bit late it's 7.05 but i would uh ask everyone please to silence their cell phones oh i mentioned that we have already established that we have a quorum if you could please just sign us your cell phones and i will lead you in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance thank you so first business this evening is to approve the minutes of the regular and closed session meetings of march 16 2022. can i have a motion and a second so moved ah second are there any comments or edits to the minutes we're all good in that case all those in favor say aye hi any opposed
002say nay the minutes are approved um approved payment of the bills um can i have a motion and a second to approve the payment of the bills in the amount of 144 567.55 so move second okay are there any questions uh regarding the bills hearing none in that case could the secretary please call a roll call vote yes mr carcass yes mr guiliana yes miss lanois yes i vote yes miss brown yes the bills are paid so a pta report is there a representative for this oh excellent good evening i'm stephen larenz one of the co-presidents um in the last month um the dei committee began publishing the families of fairview newsletter spotlight we're hoping that families will fill out their form that could found in the newsletter so that we can get to know
003more about some of the different families in the district um parents were hard at work um these last this last month preparing for this morning support staff breakfast we're glad we were able to celebrate all their hard work that they've done throughout the year and also at the same time other parents have been working very hard to prepare for this friday's teacher appreciation luncheon again it's a small way for us to show how much we appreciate everything the teachers are doing and also those same parents are also preparing to show continue to show um our appreciation throughout teacher appreciation week um next friday we're looking forward to celebrating a multicultural night we'll be in the big gym from 6 to 8 p.m and then finally um our next and fi our next and final general
004pta meeting of the year will be next wednesday or not next wednesday a couple wednesdays may 11th at 6 30 and it'll be in person once we know the location in the building we'll announce that on the pta newsletter thank you great thank you very much so school activity report does anybody from the board administration have good news to share from the business district i think we're looking at it aren't we go ahead anyone mike or you want to start us off we mentioned uh the amazing penguin fundraiser for the african penguins that are seventh grade students with mrs che and our science department started um kind of as an idea to try to provide for the organization to contribute funds to have nests that are built and uh we came in today just over
0052 500 which will be over 75 nest and will impact like i think close to 1200 pairs of penguins um which is amazing so uh kudos to all of that group and everyone in the community i mean the amount of kids that came with like their own money and just said oh just giving my my own allowance or money from a birthday was absolutely incredible and i think it moved teachers as well to see kids being so generous and families as well uh and then we also in uh the middle school we placed uh first in the uh niles township feeder math competition um so that was very exciting and niles west we had a group of students that went there and competed and did an amazing job and came away in first place so
006they're really excited about that we're wrapping up our final spring seasons next week with tournaments uh a week from saturday so then that will be our athletic seasons for the square so more to follow probably in the may uh may bore me so thank you we last week at our kindergarten and first grade uh general music concerts which were in person and the kids did an amazing job it was so awesome to see them performing up on the stage and they were just beaming with excitement and joy so many families especially at the kindergarten and first grade level that have never even stepped foot in fairview um didn't even know what our auditorium looked like so it was a really special morning we were so proud of the students for all their hard work and
007mr alex clift our music teacher gets all the credit in the world because he really pulled together um coordinating all the songs all the music all of the details so it was just really great success for both of those concerts and then tomorrow night in here we're really looking forward to kindergarten parent orientation for all of our new incoming families so we have about 32 students registered now we have about 22 families that are coming tomorrow night hopefully we get a little bit more that trickle in tonight and into tomorrow and then really exciting our fourth graders are looking forward to celebrate america which has been a huge tradition here at fairview for many many years so we're able to bring it back it's actually going to be my first one that i'm able to
008attend because kovid we weren't able to do it the past two years so the students were presenting those um projects today to their classmates and then they're really excited to have that tomorrow night in the main gym from 6 45 to 7 30. so all great things thank you we have good news from our our wellness and insurance committee every year with the big thing that we do is the wellness and insurance our screening for our employees and why it's a big deal is because if we hit a certain 50 threshold we get a premium payback for our insurance company what that goes toward is in reinvesting in our wellness programs here at school and that's been a pretty big deal over the last as it's grown over the last six or seven years uh
009this was the seventh straight year we hit the 50 threshold uh this year we had 71 percent of eligible employees that participated which is fantastic uh which again that money is going to get reinvested back into our programs for next year with our employee wellness and um everyone that participated got one of these shirts modeling it for you guys right now uh we do have these for the board too so make sure you don't leave without one and then um the nice thing about this when you look at the bigger picture there's 120 school districts in our insurance cooperative and only about 30 to 35 percent of districts hit that 50 threshold so it's nice to be among that group so thank you to the employees that participated and thank you to our committee for
010putting the event on excellent news thank you anyone else no i have just one thing to share with the board in the audience today i received an invitation to a graduation ceremony at west point and i also received a letter dear dr whitaker our son simon lee graduated from fairview in 2014. he will be commissioned as a u.s army second lieutenant upon graduating west point uh united states military academy on the 21st of may 2022 he is majoring in mechanical engineering he is branched in the armor thank you for your help and encouragement while our son simon lee was attending fairview elementary school best regards sylvia and henry lee and i'll pass around his photo but this is something that every teacher every staff member should feel so incredibly proud this is what fairview is
011all about preparing our students to be wonderful young people beyond fairview um so i just wanted to share that because it's really good news for all of us um and it's just one of those indicators that our students go on and they are successful in life which is ultimately all of our goal so i'll pass pass the photo around um but that was my good news the other thing that struck me uh cindy actually just mentioned that to me before the meeting she said that she had it um they told us that family hasn't set foot in the school for nearly 10 years and yet they wanted to come back to fairview to make sure that we knew what had happened in their life they i mean i don't know if they went to the
012high school as well but it meant enough to them fairview meant enough to them that they wanted to come back and tell us and it was a wonderful boost for all the staff here as you said um but it's it it just shows you the fairview effect is that once a fairview falcon always a fairview falcon it stays with you so thank you for sharing that just to echo what you were saying about um fairview's not just a place where they come in to get you know go through k-8 um from what i've heard from kids that i've graduated um from fairview and at niles west they say fairview is like being home and when you go to niles blast it's great um great opportunities you meet new people but fairview is like being at
013home and that you know i think that's um part of the the value we bring like our kids are so uh content and happy and small and also well-educated it means a lot to them it made me smile when you talked about um colleen when you talked about the celebrate america project i've still got two of those in my basement and my kids will not let me get rid of them and they're in their 20s for heaven's sake so some lasting facts are more valuable than others but one of these days okay thank you um so uh moving along our first presentation this evening is from frederick quinn and our update on the construction yes i'd like to introduce jack hayes jack is prepared to provide you an update uh as to where we are
014in our process we had a very uh lengthy bid opening yesterday afternoon had to keep my attention span for almost two hours and that's not easy but jack is going to update the board on where things stand and what our next steps are so thank you jack yeah thanks for having me um as mentioned we did have our bid opening yesterday over the slide was last year we've been working with archon to develop the bid packages and the scopes and the schedule and so forth to put the package out on the street to interested bidders and pursuing bidders to make sure that we got good coverage on the project so we uh we did go out for bid we did receive bids yesterday afternoon for 24 bid packages which is most of the project but
015we did defer four bid packages because the work is so late in the schedule and it involves scope such as landscaping parking lots fencing that we don't need until the end of the project that asking bidders for pricing today for work that's not going to be done for a year is not really in anybody's best interest because they would inflate the prices to a point where it wouldn't be to your advantage um or put themselves at risk as well which isn't fair from that standpoint so we did go we did open bids on 24 bid packages ranging with for everything from demolition all the way through painting of the of the new facilities we received 99 bids which is pretty good coverage that's more than just over four bids per package over the average some
016of course had higher than that and we did have a few where we only had one bid and some of that is a little bit to be expected on on specific items like window treatments or caulking they get very specialized but one package in in particular which is earthwork and grading and excavation we only got one earthwork package and it was over budget overall the bids were accounting for some contingencies and allowances and alternates that we've kind of factored into the makeup of it we're around three and a half to four percent over our previous budget um so now the hard work comes is to factor in how do we look at those bids and do some value engineering and potentially re-bidding such as things like earthwork where it's it's just not viable the way
017the bid was submitted right now to have one bid and have it over budget we don't feel good coming to you and making a recommendation to award without further vetting out that that bid package so we're working with the engineers right now to do that and the design team to make sure that we can repackage that we've already identified in that package some schedule and sequencing things that will benefit the district because one of the variables in that package is trucking and i don't know if you're all aware of what's happening in with regard to trucking there's a shortage of trucking it's become very expensive and diesel prices have skyrocketed so it's a variable that we need to rethink and resequence maybe some work so there's not as much haul off and import to your
018site for stone and dirt and that's what we're doing so we're going to go through that process and come back to you with those packages that we are confident and comfortable with awarding in the next package and then we may have to then go recommend that we go back out for bid for one or two of these packages so we're a little bit over budget but we've got kind of a strategy based on what we heard yesterday to come back with to you with and uh to try to minimize that to the greatest extent possible questions yeah about the um you said you had just the one bid for the earthwork um presumably that's something that happens pretty early on as well i mean having only one bid for for painting or window treatments would
019be okay right because you're not gonna need that for another year anyway but something like the earthwork that's like job one close there's a few things that come in front of that um we have to do a fair amount and a signif actually a significant amount of site utility work yeah to reroute water storm and sanitary sewers yeah i remember that now and then demolition of the east the library edition okay or the library wing and those activities all kind of preface or or come before actual earthwork and a fair amount of the earthwork is actually tied to the work for the parking lot and the storm detention and everything over here on the west side so that's what we're looking at um and rethinking how that's going to go so we do have the
020time to re-bid earthwork from a scheduling standpoint um so it does work out when you said earthwork i thought it was more related to that redirection of sewage and so on i thought it was related to that and that in as you said that's job number one but yeah that's where we started not jump number one we had a good coverage and good competitive bids there good so bear with us we're working on it and uh we'll continue to keep you updated uh how long what what is the timeline for getting bits to us we got several weeks more to wait or days or well we actually would like to come back to your board meeting next wednesday yeah with just a few like demolition and site utilities yeah to get started um and then
021at the board meeting on the 18th we'd like to come back with kind of the next critical set of packages and then and that at the board meeting in the 18th then we can give more of a comprehensive plan as to a couple of the packages we might want to go out for revit and what that schedule would look like gotcha thank you yeah is there any other questions well thank you for for doing that and uh we'll see you when you've got something for us to approve all right very good thank you great thanks very much for your report thank you okay so next on my list is um something i'm very glad to see back on the agenda because it's actually been missing for a couple years because of covid but our parent
022mentor program presentation i believe we have some of the graduates from our most recent parent mentor program which obviously had to take a two year hiatus and we're really really glad to to see you guys back yeah so i've asked colleen to give a brief introduction uh just a reminder of what the program is all about colleen uh was gracious enough to oversee this program for administrative team um you know we often have to sort of delegate different programs to different administrators so that we're able to give it you know the attention that it deserves so colleen has shepherded this program along and she's going to introduce the parent mentors to the board hi everyone you've heard me talk a little bit about the program over the past couple of years but like mary ann
023said we're really excited to be able to have had it back this year um the program allows for a unique opportunity for parents in our community who have not grown up in america to learn about what school is like here in skokie for their children and for their families so throughout this program parents in our community become familiar with what goes on in the walls of fairview how our teachers teach each day the curriculum that's used classroom management tools how teachers interact with children and really how our school operates it breaks down barriers between parents who are not once comfortable with entering their child's school building and allows for relationships to grow and foster between parents and our community and our school so without further ado i do have some amazing parents who are seated
024right behind me we had four parents volunteer this year to be part of this program and tonight we have two of them with us um mrs ella aslani was with mrs rachel oronin up in middle school this year they're standing behind me just wave when your name is called mrs julie pack she was with mrs bernadette gonzalez so we also have natalie shimoon that's here with us tonight natalie she oversaw she was our parent mentor program coordinator this year so she what she did is she works with all of our parents who are working in classrooms each week with our teachers and she's in charge of all of the coordination of that and what that looks like here at fairview and helps them to maintain making sure that they're getting all their hours in so
025it's a big job and it's hard to coordinate many different people's schedules so we're grateful to her for taking on that role this year and then we also this evening have with us mrs alex garcia so alex she oversees the entire parent mentor program um through the el parent center so we're grateful to each and every one of these ladies for all of their hard work and i think they each have something prepared tonight to um share with you a little bit about their experience here at fairview this year hello my name is julie if you speak quite close like this we can hear you much better you no you just need to be close to the microphone that's all thank you um much better okay um my experience of parents mental program was very
026positive personally i ca i we our family moved to this 72 district just right before pandemic so my son noah he didn't have enough time to meet any friends so after he started school he spent a little bit hard time so i just want to do something for him and i founded this program and also i came to the united united states when i was 30. so i don't didn't know about anything about school or school system so i really want to know so that's the two main reasons i joined this program [Music] now i'm very glad that i joined this program because it was a great opportunity to see the school and super system and meet other teachers and yeah and students too so i think it is really great opportunity for me and
027my son noah is much happier now and he build up more confidence after i joined this program and i learned a lot things from my teacher mrs gonzalez i realized that our teachers are really doing a lot a lot of work so i really respect about it and so i highly recommend this program to other parents if it can join because i really enjoy this program thank you thank you thank you hi everyone my name is ella russo aslani i'm a mother of two children at fairview a kindergartner and a third grader i'm one of those helicopter parents that wasn't comfortable with the kids starting school and i tried to find ways to learn more about the school system that was my main reason for joining the program um i have to say that i
028learned about it from a parent and i just didn't have a clue about you know what what is it and um i was surprised that um and i was surprised actually that he had more than just the participation in the classroom so for me um all the elements that were in the program um mattered um it was somehow transformational because after being a stay-at-home mom for eight years i finally got to explore other areas and what can i say i had unique classroom experience here i worked in the reading intervention class with mrs aronin so it was a class of special needs basically i have to say that as i was aware of some strategies and tools you need and um um you have to be prepared to work with these kids i feel like
029patience is like the most important thing and i was really blessed to work with the mississippi miss rachel and witness our patients [Music] i don't know what else i have i have so much to share i just stress over the fact that many parents that are in the community could benefit from this program and many of them can't really participate in the classroom and i would like to see more innovation i would like to see um [Music] maybe parents being exposed to the webinars that we participated in uh even if they cannot come to school and be part of classes so as i said at the beginning there's the class of participation but we also had a support group where we were exposed to cultural exchange and we also had some trainings and opportunity to
030be exposed to different speakers with different topics and we also had webinars um where we basically got prepared to be in the classroom um i'm blessed i did it um and [Music] it helped me actually motivated me to get my teacher license substitute and also gave me like a push to go on and purse your master's degree [Applause] hi everyone my name is natalie natalie i am mother of two kids isaac and miral shimon and this for the school and that i was back can you speak a little closer that'd be great thank you thank you i was the coordinator of the furview for this year and before i participate in this program parents manager as the parents manager so and this year it's kind of different it's a the as a whole program it's
031more developed it's better but first of all let me to say i would like to thank you the doctor with with kerr and mrs larkin and mr lapecture so let us let us join with all of you today and the board meeting and and about this program about this program it's it was good opportunity for all of us since i was a teacher in my back home for three years i was teaching two different level fourth and fifth grade and i participate in many and after war in my country so i participate in many village of on my north north iraq and my country so when they told me about this program and the first time they i tell her oh this opportunity it's like close to my job it's i like it to work
032and absolutely i'm not thinking about anything just i was a participant in this program but in the first time at three years i working with many teachers actually seven teachers i worked with because in each year i was working with the two teachers and one year of this three year i worked with the three teachers yeah and i participated with all teachers to help the student with many things in a school but for this year i was participate as the coordinator and all of the parents manager here it's working as a volunteering in each one it's working in a class in more than 100 hours in each one of them wow yeah so i think it's a good opportunity to all of us to to be close from school to know the system of school
033health because as i know when i comparing between her and my country it's completely different it's not same at all yeah so all all of the parents they have this opportunity to join in this program to see how the system is going here how is the process is going here to know exactly how how is the good way to teaching their kids in a school house they can't help them and has homework in each kid so i think it was the good opportunity for all of us to know exactly what's the school's going on how it's working with and help us as a parents and help uh help the teachers too in an escrows too and absolutely i thank you for the mr lapecca and miss larkin to help us to success this as a
034whole teamworker so thank you for all of us thank you [Applause] i'm alex garcia and i try to make you super quick so this is a statewide program that the whole goal is to do parent engagement so i want to thank all of our members for pushing this through it's very important for our community our whole goal is to recruit immigrant parents that they have so much to learn about the skills the school system but we have many goals in mind so some of them are to develop their confidence skills some of them are need to go back to work so we help them and support them with training to find what is what they're looking for a lot of our parents are looking to work into the schools because of the hour so because
035they really have a passion for education so we work with them to make sure that they get whatever is they pay a professional transfer their credits from back home or get a go back to school or get a substitute license because many of our parents now are working back in the school so that's that's huge another goal is to really build a connection between the community the school community and the parents as an immigrant parent sometimes we feel very uh intimidated to come into the schools we don't know it's very different back home so it is very powerful for us to gain that confidence that we know the school and us are working together for the benefit of the community and our children and the last thing is that it really is very important for
036the children to see people inside the school in a position of power that looks like them talks like them and it represents them i think that's very powerful for the kids and i've been doing this for nine years and i still amaze every time that i meet the new group of parents because we have so much to learn we have different minorities in the in skokie but everybody's kind of isolated and when we have this program everybody learns from each other and we learn that we have the same goals and it's a very powerful opportunity for the parents in the community thank you for doing this and supporting the parents thank you thank you ladies i just want to say i'm so proud of each of you um for alex and mrs shamoon who graduated
037the program and our moms who stood up tonight it's very hard to stand up in front of a group like this in a very formal setting so i can see that confidence which is so important i even heard that one of you were thinking you maybe would never leave fairview and i'd say great we have hired many of our parent mentor graduates to work back in the building or we've helped them find work in other skokie schools because we're very committed to growing our workforce through this program so i hope that you'll keep coming back not just as parents but as assistants in our classrooms or other parts of our school building so don't be shy even though the program's over and you're graduated we want to keep in touch with you in this capacity
038as well as in your role as fairview parents so i couldn't be more proud of all of you congratulations [Applause] i just wanted to add my congratulations to on behalf of the board i mean you know i i've missed hearing from from our graduates for the last two years i mean this is just such a win win win win-win situation that that uh everybody benefits the school benefits and most importantly the students benefit and the parents benefit and uh just just all the things you mentioned the fact that they they see people that they they recognize as being from their own culture or other cultures and and it just i love it it's great thank you very much for coming this evening be don't feel obliged to stay for the rest of the boring stuff
039but we're really really glad you were able to come this evening and share that with us thank you very much uh superintendent report sure i will hit a few highlights like i do every month i'm very happy to report that our facility project has officially passed all of the village commissions uh last week we passed through the village board which is sort of the final step so i think jeff and i are both happy to have village commissions behind us on this project but they have been just very complementary of the project and very proud that we're trying to improve our little corner of the skokie community these relationships you know with the village and other agencies really come in handy especially when i heard that they were resurfacing laramie avenue this summer which is
040not going to be a great idea because of all of our construction traffic and so it was nice to be able to reach out to the village and kind of state my case as to why maybe they should think about doing it in another year and they have agreed to do so um but it's just again all about those partnerships and relationships that we have in the community that come in hand hashtag one fairview i wanted to let you know that we are working with a local artist to design a a special graphic representation of what hashtag one fairview is going to mean and so that is in progress but we're really excited it's almost done we will also be vending um the district equity leadership team the delt which you've heard much about we'll
041be meeting with our consultant dr dubiel for a full day on this coming friday and the goal of that work to will be to develop our equity implementation plan so it will be a a concrete representation of the goals that we will be working towards over the next year and then beyond um so we'll be hopefully bringing that to the board in in may or june at the latest um but you know more exciting work going on there um let's see i had a couple of meetings with nick connor our union president about the amended calendar that you'll be hearing about later today we've also had discussions about the legislation regarding covet sick leave and how we're going to manage that for this past year with our employees who did have to take time off
042due to covid either illness themselves or having to be home with with school-age children who were either quarantined or diagnosed with covid so a lot of details to work through there but i think we're definitely on the right track um we are prepping because we do believe we're going to see refugees coming in um from the ukraine uh we do have ukrainian families in the community and we do know that um we have worked with refugee one um previously um when there was an influx of refugees to the chicagoland area so we're kind of preparing for that um and and you know learning a lot about um their culture and what their needs might be when they do arrive to school um and then you know the other big piece uh this month was what
043you've already heard about in terms of the bidding process um you know a little disappointing to have um the cost be a little bit more than we thought i'm not surprised by that because of what's going on in the world in the market right now so we're expecting a little bit of that but i think we have some really good brainstorming going on as to how to kind of work through that and and get back to where we need to be so that are just a couple of the highlights from the report i'd be happy to answer any questions that board members might have so when you are planning the the preparation for the refugees that you know you think might uh that we might encounter please let the board know if there's anything that
044we can do um to approve or to you know financially whatever it is that you think that we need let us know i think um i think many of us would be very happy to thank you yeah we have such an amazing community i know when we put out an ask um you know everybody just jumps right in um and so we're not hesitant to do that many of these students could qualify as homeless because they are refugees so there are funds set aside within the district budget for homeless students currently we have zero homeless students but we always have that money set aside um for the time and place when we need it so um that's probably where we'd go to first um and it could be basic needs um you know clothing shoes
045um things for a house um but you know we'll just have to see um everywhere up to school supplies backpacks those types of things so um but yes we absolutely will thank you anyone else no thanks very much excellent report um so uh now we're moving into our board committees and representatives and the first one on my list is finance personnel committees so so yeah yeah uh thank you yeah the finance and uh personnel committee met uh last week thursday i believe and we discussed uh the educational support staff uh compensation which will be coming up later in the agenda and we also discussed an update on the facility project financing and then the amended budget that has to go along uh with the project financing that we will be uh discussing towards the end
046of the meeting um sargon is there anything i've missed nope short and sweet thank you um on edread i [Music] i have a report on my phone um okay so first of all this last monday was the ed red legislation dinner uh they had actually postponed it it's usually in january but they had it in in may april because it was their 50th and of course january was right in the middle of um the the rising and the pandering the the new variant so uh they postponed it so doctor carmen ayala who is the state superintendent of education she came and spoke um and there was also a panel afterwards and the main theme of dr ayala's talk and also the panel was about social emotional learning uh being that this is the challenge that
047we have in order to uh help our students get past covid and uh where they need to be um i unfortunately miss the april 14th meeting of edred um but i was given an update um cindy almost already mentioned the administrative uh leave and paycheck protection act that was passed uh which is protecting uh no that's not the right one so i'm sorry the the one uh concerning reimbursement of time for uh covid that that was actually passed by the governor the budget has been passed by the governor um including 350 million extra to evidence-based funding so extra funding there also extra funding in in special education and transportation [Music] there was a excuse me a minute yeah there is a bill out there at the moment which will be affecting fairview which is uh
048hp 3296 um and that's one i've also been thinking about in in my position um my day job um and that's actually about a career advisement for students between age uh grade six and twelve so obviously the middle school students here would be affected by that and that is that there needs to be at least um one uh career advisement uh for students by 2027 uh when i say career advisement it's actually one program for career advancement uh so that's coming into play but there's some uh opt-out options on that so we're not quite sure how that's actually going to play when it actually comes into being but um the other one that they talked about was the senate bill 3900 uh which is the right to read act that also would affect fairview because
049that would require all teachers of reading to be trained in evidence-based reading training um i think that wouldn't necessarily be a challenge for fairview i think we're quite confident that our teachers are adequately trained but they're concerned about um there being certain areas where teachers are not formally trained or not sufficiently trained in evidence spending evidence based training um the other things that are that were talked about are relating to educators basically there was some changes in teachers evaluations and the licensing renewal needing fewer professional development hours uh reducing of the fees for renewing your licenses or re starting your license um and this is all with a view to um helping the teacher shortage situation because uh any way they can get teachers back into the classroom either returning to the classroom or signing
050up to be in the classroom the better because there is this shortage statewide much here but statewide so that's quite a lot going on with ed red right now obviously session will be closing next month and so by the time i speak to you next month it will be a little bit more finalized as to what's actually happening for the year so um marianne there's a couple two other two other points that actually affect the uh that were on edward that actually affect us it's uh their senate bill they had a couple finance committee meetings sub-community meetings since and i was at the ad red regular meeting so senate bill 1975 this is a bill that is going to affect us with regards to levy uh what happens is that if we under levy in
051one year you now have the flexibility to go back in the future and recapture the under levy that you did the previous year um don't want to get into the mechanics of it now but if it comes to affect us i'll let you know this second one is we had a it was essentially a strategy session because as we look at it right now tax bills for the fall are going to be delayed until after the new year uh what that means for us is is not that much right now because we are able to with our reserves and our cash flow we're going to be able to stabilize and be fine until the new year but it means a couple things for our taxpayers one is that that fall tax bill is going to
052bump up against the spring tax bill as far as due dates the second part of that is a number of districts are going to have to issue tax anticipation warrants districts that don't have the fund balance that we do are going to be in some financial hardship so as a committee we are trying to strategize how we want to handle that from a legislative standpoint or lobbying standpoint and let the assessor know who's trying he's the assessor essentially when he took over two to three years ago is trying to change a lot of things and how and and right a lot of wrongs however it's getting it's getting caught up in a lot of bureaucracy and it's there's some troubles with trying to get things put the right way so there's a lot the huge
053delay it's going to affect a number of school districts so they're trying to strategize right now how to help those districts and how to not have this delay in tax bills affect them so that was another huge thing that we talked about at the ed red level but there's a lot going on yeah i was familiar with the whole levy thing that they mentioned that less so in this last meeting apparently but um but i didn't know about the delayed tax bill nobody mentioned that that's really interesting and it's a big deal you don't appreciate the fund balance until something like that happens and in this state sadly it happens more than it should um but because we have fund balance we don't have to be you know stressed about it we don't have to
054put out the warrants it's it's another reason why you know when the community asks why we have fund balance this is a reason why because we can operate even if the state doesn't come through yeah and that obviously if you talk about the property tax money that is what 90 of our income yes if we don't get 90 of our income for six months what what are you going to live on basically yeah that's when you need a fund balance okay well thank you for that extra update um ntgse yeah um board member downing is absent this evening and i also believe we did not have a representative at the last meeting uh just with different scheduling conflicts and whatnot um so there is no report this evening okay hopefully we'll get a couple next
055time on pta liaison i just wanted to add to steve was here and gave the report but just how much work has been going into the cultural night coming up next week and this week's teacher appreciation luncheon and then there was talks about having in-person end-of-year parties for the k-4 so that's exciting getting back to normal ish excellent great thank you um the only other thing i wanted to mention was to thank aaron for coming with me to the iasb dinner that was this last week it's been dinner's dinner's dinners for me and it was at lincoln junior high school the brand new high school actually just crossed the road from my house it's actually closer to me than fairview um and the speaker there was ralph matiere who was talking about state funding uh
056situation he's always entertaining if you ever get to see ralph materia i highly recommend him because very understandable lots and lots of data but very very understandable and very entertaining so uh thanks for coming with me thanks for giving me a ride because it was pouring with rain so um moving on uh freedom of information requests i can report that there were no freedom of information requests this month information items and correspondence mr secretary did we have anything uh the board did not receive any correspondence this month okay moving along now we come to public comments so um i can invite members of the audience to address the board i remind them to state their names and we will have a three minute time alert and the secretary will keep time is there anybody that
057wishes to address the board hello good evening what's loud so um we heard some great things tonight uh related to school sorry could you state your name yes my name is rafael kavor and i have a sixth grader and a third grader thank you you're welcome uh so we heard some wonderful things related to our school obviously this you know school rankings um the fund balances that you were just talking about and i think all of our parents were very proud of our fairview community and the school that district that we represent but i do come here tonight a bit disappointed as a parent uh concerned and uh annoyed as a neighbor and i wanted to get mine and my parents and some of the other parents feelings on the record so first i am
058disappointed at the initial reaction that our school administration and the pta had uh to a situation related to the upcoming teacher appreciation lunch as many of you may or may not know one of our wonderful parents antonia she began planning uh an extremely thoughtful and caring event to celebrate our teachers for um the upcoming teacher institute day and with it being a celebration and being that cinco de mayo was just around the corner um you know she had an awesome idea of making it fiesta theme i thought it was great she reached out to the district reached out to the pta uh for approval got their approval uh then she was you know excited she began planning uh you know put together taco trucks churros pinatas sombreros serapas so she thought of it all and
059um you know months of really envisioning her her vision and planning and arranging and making sure the event would be a success uh it was kind of shattered this past weekend when you know minority consensus and a woke ideology that goes around in this district uh called in complaining about how somehow this is you know culturally insensitive and inappropriate and my concern is that it was you know met with no resistance uh but kind of acceptance and without really any open discourse you know antonio wasn't able to you know this person wasn't able to talk to antoni about their feelings um so you know that theme that vision that you know hard work that she put into it was kind of canceled and her you know as far as she gets thought uh we know
060that the appreciation of lunch is still happening but not how she had envisioned and she's the one that put the work into it um and the person who uh you know called in who knows because they're remaining anonymous if they could care less about it you know that if the teachers deserve the celebration or not now i believe that we as school district can allow ourselves to be controlled by a small mob of activists who don't express the majority views of parents parents of all backgrounds so many latino parents in the community myself included were baffled when we heard all this news second i'm concerned because i see this woke ideology and you know in our communities in our country and their agenda is totally counter-intuitive to their so-called goals of diversity equity and inclusion
061and their motives to me are just simply evil and you know we can't just be silent about all of this can you finish your comment please yes ma'am lastly i'm annoyed that this person um a neighbor of ours uh you know called into the school said that he or she wishes to remain anonymous um and i think that shows a lot of lack of disrespect in cowardice and it speaks volume to her his ability to not be able to defend his or her argument so and the irony of all of this is that on monday our kids were served fiesta bowls for lunch okay thank you very much for your comment is there anyone else wishes to address the board nope we're good okey doke so we'll move on to our action items for this
062evening uh the first one i have on my list is to adopt a resolution reaffirming the transportation hazardous areas do we have a comment on that yes can i have a motion in a second a motion [Music] okay so this is a resolution that the district considers annually um and the hazardous uh intersection is the fact that tui splits the district and we also have the edens expressway with the off and on ramps that create a situation that's unsafe for children um so annually we ask that the board continue to pass this resolution which allows us to continue to provide transportation for students who cannot safely walk or bike to school we've been passing this resolution for a long time he's not going to change we'll probably do it for a long time to come
063every year okay anybody got any questions about it okay in that case all those in favor say aye aye any opposed say nay the resolution is adopted uh the next one we have here is to adopt part-time teacher contracts for 2022 and 2023. can i have a motion in a second so moved our second uh we already discussed this in closed session so could the secretary please call the role yes mr carcass uh i vote yes miss lenoy yes mr guliana yes and miss brown yes the contracts are approved next item is to approve the educational support personnel salaries for 2022-2023 this also was discussed in closed session so i could dissect oh no i need a motion and a second first of all another second okay and could the secretary please call the role
064vote yes miss brown yes mr giuliana yes ms lenoi yes i vote yes mr carcass okay thank you to our support personnel salary we are rewarding you with a raise so next um to approve the amended 2022-2023 calendar can i have a motion in a second our motion second okay any discussion on this one uh i think that the memo was fairly clear um legislation was passed to add election day as a legal school holiday so we needed to add that to our calendar i was waiting to take this action until we could see whether or not additional days might be needed due to our construction project to either start school a little later or end a little sooner it doesn't look like that's going to be an issue which is why i'm bringing the
065calendar at this time um i will note though in looking at the calendar and having discussions with the union um we have moved the observance of veterans day to monday november 7th it had previously been put on friday november 4th and we moved it on to monday so that would be a day off and then tuesday election day would be a day off as well we know our fairview families appreciate those longer weekends if they get a chance to escape skokie and we know our staff does as well so that seemed to make a lot of sense with veterans day we do have the ability to observe that holiday um you know close to the holiday and we also do things within the school building to teach the children about the holiday but and we'll
066certainly continue that but so those are the two changes um it would be happy to answer any questions but like i said i did um discuss this with the union the calendar committee they felt comfortable with it as well so so veterans day would actually be on the friday correct the 11th correct yeah correct okay but just saves chopping up a week because that'd be in a day correct in two days i am always a strong proponent of um keeping school weeks intact as much as possible full school weeks are fantastic for us um when we have a day off mid-week and you know just we lose um some of our momentum so um as much as possible if we can keep our weeks solid that is helpful to all of us this could even
067be a permanent thing because the election day is always going to be on a tuesday so you've always got this second day into the week day off right we'll see okay does anybody have any questions about the calendar okay in that case all those are in favor of approving the calendar as presented say aye aye any opposed say nay calendar is approved um now the more complicated ones so can i have a motion and a second to adopt a resolution authorizing the transfers to debt service so move second okay mr fair i'll do my best in the board pack if there was a summary on the facility project financing and that essentially broke down everything that's happened up to this point with regard to the financing so the monies uh that we we have received
068the money from our bond issues that's in our accounts currently which is about 15 million dollars there's a breakdown there in that page of how the project is being funded this debt service transfer is for one of those items we issued five million dollars in debt certificates what we did when we issued those was we pledged our own money from our own finance from our own current finances to pay those debt certificates off how we're going to do that is a transfer from our operation operations and maintenance fund into our debt service fund for those payments every year what the resolution we're adopting tonight is going to allow us to basically approve it tonight and then every subsequent year of the debt certificate payoff we wouldn't have to adopt a resolution this resolution is good
069as long as we budget that money in our approved budget every year and there's already a schedule attached the schedule is in the board is in the packet as well uh for the amounts this year it's about forty nine thousand dollars so we'll be transferring that money into the debt service fund to make that payment um there are other transfers that will go along with this process and that's broken down in your board packet as well but based on what we know right now uh the next transfer that we'll have to make for payment for these projects won't be until next fiscal year because currently we have enough money to make our other payment june 1st 2022 is when our next payment for these bonds is due so tonight you're just approving a transfer from
070our operations of maintenance to our debt service fund which is already pledged when we issue the debt certificates so just make sure i'm hearing you correctly we're authorizing these transfers over to the debt service fund as needed throughout the the life of the debt service through the life of the death certificates was it which is until 2036 so 15 years 2013. i don't think i'll be here in 2036. i refuse to comment on that very different okay so basically this is a one-time authorization for you to to pay our bill it is and and there's a more the other transfer that we're going to do in the fall is more complicated we'll have to do it every year but this one is we'll just do it once okay anybody got any other questions we're good
071okay uh did we get the motion second we did okay in that case can the secretary police call the roll vote yes mister carcass yes uh i vote yes miss lenoy yes mr guliana yes and miss brown yes okie doke and finally um can i have a motion a second to uh place an amended budget on public display and to set a date of public hearing of june 15th 2022 for uh reviewing the budget so moved our second over to you again there there's a memo in the board packet about the amended budget with all the changes that i'm recommending basically this is what we had talked about when the final budget was adopted in september i didn't feel it was the right thing to do or the transparent thing to do to put items
072in the budget that weren't approved by the board yet we knew that the construction project was potentially coming down the pipeline and it could have been budgeted at that point but i didn't think that was the appropriate thing to do until we had board approval this it was also discussed with our auditor to make sure that was the recommended way because really amending the budget is a mechanism we don't typically use some districts will use it to alter their budget numbers at the end during the year things that came in high our mentality has always been if something comes in over budget or under budget as long as we have an explanation for that we're able to explain that to the board that should be enough with this this was these are large items that
073because they weren't approved by the board yet we didn't want to budget for so right now there's a list of items in your board packet that line that outlines exactly what we'll be doing when we submit the amended budget most of them being the proceeds from the bonds being deposited the transfers between funds and then also expenditures from our capital projects fund for the projects that were or for the items that we're currently spending on for architectural services and also for early construction uh you'll notice in there the rather large amounts for the capital projects uh because we don't have we don't have a rough and we don't have an amount yet as how much is going to be spent in the june period so we want to put placeholders in there so i don't
074know if there's any questions or if you have time to look at those but it's pretty straightforward as far as what we're doing is exactly what we talked about in september but now we have numbers attached to it so this is amending this year's project fy22 so right and we're actually and we're not approving it right now we're putting it on display so like yes like the difference between tentative in the final budget we have to have 30 on display for at least 30 days yeah so we'll come back and approve this in the june board meeting uh the deadline for amending the budget is june 30th so we'll be under that deadline at the june board meeting so does this get reported to state as an amended budget it does yes and it's like
075submitting it's like submitting the same it's submitting the same final budget form there's like one box you have to check that says date of amended budget and that's with the change and we get audited on the amended budget that was submitted well they'll look at both and make sure both are in line it all transfers and i've had discussions with our auditor to make sure we're doing the doing it the correct way so the real purpose of this is to make this year's budget look kind of more realistic as to what it was because at the beginning of the year we weren't we didn't have any of these building numbers it's filling in for more information yeah okay any other questions no other line items will be changed in the budget no no other nothing
076else that we budget the beginning of the year expenditures that we knew were coming revenues yeah in fact we um we just got approved for sr3 funds which is about a million dollars i'm not including that here because we don't know when we're going to receive those funds exactly so i also didn't that was the accurate thing to do to put those in here not knowing if we're going to get them and it is almost may we literally have two months of this budget year left and those are expenditure-based so we'll have to submit a report on our end and once they see that we spent that money then they'll submit or they'll process revenue and about 800 000 of that is going to cover the cost of architectural services so we've submitted that expenditure
077report already it's just a matter of when we're going to get the funds in okay anyone else okay um in that case could the secretary please call the royal vote yes miss brown yes mr giuliana yes miss lenoy yes i vote yes mr carcass yes okay go ahead post your budget thank you very much jeff appreciate your explanation i looked at all those numbers and thought jeff will take care of us i got it okay so finally items for future consideration does anybody have anything that they would like to mention or consider or talk about now i actually do have a few things um you probably saw it in your email but the iesp conference is opening up for registration in june uh the conference will between the 18th and 20th of november it's always
078the weekend before thanksgiving weekend and i strongly recommend it we had a couple of you guys came last year um and i do strongly recommend it consider the uh the trainings that they do on the fridays i know it's a little bit more difficult because it's a work day but um if you are able to to attend i i strongly recommend it um the other thing to mention is the resolutions uh you remember we reviewed those it's when people are doing the resolutions and then i went to the conference and voted on them we're at the stage now where you can actually make those resolutions if you want to so if anybody did have any burning idea about what they want to see iasb work on legislatively new laws that they want to see happen
079uh we can submit applications for that until june 22nd so if anything occurs to you please let me know um the other thing that's worth mentioning is that um the uh iasb is actually formed a new association a new national association with 21 other states uh we used to be part of national association of school boards and there's been a break away from them now we're part of cosba which is consortium of state school boards association and as i say there's 22 district 22 states in that all together at the moment that's just begun so um you it it's less important of the day-to-day but i think it's important to know exactly what we're actually a part of and what the the guiding principles are that are coming down from on a national level to
080what we're doing on a state level so uh the only other reminder is if you haven't done it already you must do your statement of economic interest by may the first so i hope you've done that and do read it because it's not the same questions it's quite radically different from previous years so that's the only other things that i wanted to mention and if there's nothing else i was just going to ask you can you can you just repeat the acronym for the uh oh it's consortium of state school boards association so it's cosba c-o-s-s-b-a if you google it you can find out more about it yeah thank you okay um if we're all done can i have a motion and a second to uh adjoin the meeting at 8 14 p.m i'll second
081can the secretary please call a role vote uh yes miss illinois yes mr guliana yes miss brown yes mr akakis yes and i vote yes excellent thank you very much for your participation this evening everybody i appreciate it [Music] you