Fairview District 72 Board of Education Meeting - 8-18-2021

001[Music] good evening everyone i hope you can hear me um i apologize we're starting just a few minutes late i think everybody's just still visiting because we haven't seen each other for two months um so i'd like to uh reconvene to open session the regular meeting of the fairview district 72 board of education being a august 18th 2021 at 705 we have already established that we have the quorum i would like to remind everybody to silence their cell phones and join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance thank you so first item of business this evening is to approve the minutes of the regular unclosed session meetings of june 16 2021 can i have a motion and a second arm motion second okay all those info oh sorry are there any um amendments

002to the minutes or comments okay all those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed say nay the minutes are approved uh next item is to approve the payment of the bills in the amount of 226 dollars i'm sorry 226 and 28 cents in june and four hundred and nine thousand five hundred and eighty five dollars and 36 cents in july can i have a motion in a second second okay are there any questions for jeff regarding the bills no okay and thank you for laying it out so clearly between one month and then next it made it a lot easier for us first time around okay uh if we're ready to vote could the secretary please call the role uh yes uh miss bruce d here uh but yes yes mr yes uh i

003vote yes miss downing yes uh miss lenoy yes mr guliana yes and miss brown yes the bills are paid so next item is a pta report do we have anybody representing the pata reporting oh hey sorry um i'm steven larena i'm one of the co-presidents of the pta um thank you for having us here tonight uh we hope to be here every at every board meeting one of us or one of the other officers will be here for the presentation for the report uh before i wanted to get started i wanted to thank the board the administration the teachers all the staff for all the hard work they did last year to get us through i know is a very challenging school year for all of you and for the students for the families thank

004you for doing your part for making that as best as possible and i know you've worked hard everybody's worked hard to try to do that this year as everybody starts to come back we also wanted to thank aaron mohib and amy lickman who were the co-presidents the previous two years for all the work they did for the pta and getting us this point we have met with the administration to try to set up different events for this school year kind of trying to go back as as best as possible to what we did before um knowing that with everything going on that might have to change we might have to adapt some things or completely not do things depending on what we're what we're advised to do or told to do um and we're ready

005to do that and and work with the administration making sure that our students and our families when they are here for certain events that the pta is in charge of that we're following the the rules that the state and the the school has set for us and for everybody um some of the events that we're trying to plan for this year are similar the ones we had before the connect for respect 5k coming in september the pta halloween party the winter dance and bingo multicultural night the book fair different pta benefit nights at local restaurants classroom parties and different events in the spring for teachers support staff and eighth graders a lot of the same things that we've been doing in the past hopefully we can get back to doing them again again depending on

006what happens in the coming school year um also so at the end of last year the there's a new pta equity committee that was um was approved by the pta that um we're hoping this group can work with the um soon-to-be-appointed director of community and student engagement to work with parents and families and students um on this important topic of equity and diversity and inclusion that's pretty much it thank you very much well good luck with all your plans thank you okay so school activity report um does anybody from the board or administration have good news to share i just wanted to share i saw walking around the neighborhood and driving the welcome kindergarten signs on the yeah i thought that was really really sweet and i hope that and i guess there was some

007feedback already that the families really loved it and the kids are so excited so i like that i saw those two great great addition to our referendums that was our primary principle in the kindergarten teams idea so they they made it happen uh they were delivering signs i think trying to sneak signs on to yards but that didn't always happen but kind of just a cute story one of the future kindergartners came by school to deliver a handwritten thank you note to mrs larkin which was really sweet and he was really excited to start school before the sign but now he's really excited so it was pretty sweet but thank you it's it's those creative ideas that we so appreciate and thank you to the board for letting us just run with things like that

008um but yeah i think it brought you know smiles to many faces uh whether you had a kindergartner or not so great job everybody i just wanted to bring up a couple of things the fairview sports camp was a huge hit for a lot of kids so if we can keep doing that that was a great um way to get them out but not like a full-fledged full day and it's for middle schoolers and it was a nice sort of rite of passage like oh i'm old enough to get to do this so it was fun um and the pair the new family orientation and the new family connections i heard a lot of community members meeting new families that have moved in and getting excited about planning things and showing them around and i

009just think um having been a family that moved when i was young it was it's a great thing that we do so i think the new um family orientation was a big hit despite the rain i think it went really well um oh okay thank you that's better uh the gwendolyn brooks uh youth poetry awards held in the city and it's through the illinois humanities council so over entries were submitted to the program and we had four fairview winners a fourth grade winner a fifth grade winner a seventh and eighth grade winner that's great yeah it's awesome [Applause] and i'm sure i can um pass along dr whitaker the the actual entries we have those and there's an award assembly this weekend on saturday that's virtual i've gone in the past in person it's an

010amazing experience for kids that go to the event and read their poems in front of a pretty large group and we also had two honorable mentions at two of those grade levels as well so um of the 360 plus entries we had six fairview students recognized so that was really the exciting news that that our students got this summer excellent and then i'd just like to share with the board on your tables uh we're very excited uh these brand new ipads for k1 one to one uh with what's called the logitech tran it is a enhanced stylus uh sort of like the apple pencil um for a lot of the fine motor skills that we're hoping uh will it will better the students with that um but these are brand new for our k1 um

011we found that the ipads are much better for those grade levels and more appropriate so we just want to share with the board what that all looks like i do want to add i had a kindergartener who had an ipad last year and it was a lifesaver i think it was great great good movement anyone else i just had one small extra thing to add um we said goodbye to gloria a couple of months ago but i wanted to say welcome to drew who is out there somewhere thank you drew drew tate savers has taken over as uh cindy's assistant and uh her role is pretty pivotal for us at the board all all this stuff that i read every month that all comes from drew so thank you drew we look forward to working

012with you and welcome and uh i'm sure we'll be getting you up and running i i know it's a baptism by far at the beginning of the school year it's like i'm sure we're going to be in very good hands with you thank you okeydoke so uh if we're done with those uh we'll move on to administrative reports um superintendents report please sure thank you um in the board packet was the report for august i will just hit a few highlights this summer we have tried to continue to communicate well both with the board and with the community about our plans for returning to school um as you would suspect those plans have continued to evolve as we receive new guidance and as things continue to change i'm going to circle back to that after

013i get through the rest of this report because there are a few things we need to discuss in terms of that back to school plan i the district hosted the village of skokie's police test annually they bring candidates to take a test to see if they qualify to become police officers and so just spirit of mutual collaboration we had individuals come in on a saturday morning and they took their test the village was very grateful to the board for allowing them to use our space because it was large enough that they could spread and socially distance people and we have a great parking lot especially on a saturday that was wide open so thank you to the board for it for that the past couple of months was filled with summer curriculum work our teachers

014and administrative staff have just done a great deal of planning but also creating uh i think this is one of the the funnest parts about summer curriculum work is that our teachers have great ideas that maybe they don't have enough time during the school year when they're in front of children every single day but they can take advantage of the summer and the board supports that work by providing compensation i always say it's never enough because teachers they just spend countless hours preparing and thinking about students and curriculum and projects but it is nice to be able to provide some compensation towards that work and we have some great projects that we are looking forward to sharing with you um in the coming months i hope to highlight some of those projects at board meetings

015just so you can see the types of things that our staff are working on i think it's one of those things that keeps us fresh um it is good to tap into those creativity and to be able to reflect in the summer months about their craft and our staff do a wonderful job of that we are continuing to work on grants for the federal government as well as for the state jeff and i work on a variety of grants together and we are in the process of submitting grants and collaborating with the private schools within our district boundaries to make sure that we are providing for their needs as well as we are required to do so we have worked on the tentative budget which you'll hear more about later this evening the master facility

016plan has been consuming a lot of our our time and thoughts in thinking about some some great possibilities for our district going forward in terms of physical space personnel wise nick and i have frequently communicated over the summer um so appreciative to to have that type of relationship where we can just impromptu get together and meet and talk about things that are going on and how things are affecting our staff community as well we are you know continuing to monitor uh the um planning for onboarding new employees we have several new staff members coming on board which the board will be acting on later tonight as well we are i have spent some time investigating the shield covered testing program which i'll loop back to when i talk about back to school we held the

017getting ready program which was a two-week summer school program to try to help students um ease some of that anxiety about returning to school but also fill in some of those little gaps that they might have from the past year or just the fact that in summer time kids aren't doing as much reading and and thinking about schools that program is a great way to kind of get their brains going again um so we're so happy we can continue to offer that um so i would like to um oh finally um cassio da silva is here uh cassio comes to our september board meeting our director of buildings and grounds and cassio and his team work tirelessly through the summer i always invite cassio to this meeting um this summer he didn't have a tremendous

018number of new projects but it's the ongoing maintenance that keeps the building just sparkling clean and fresh um we're refreshing we're we are replacing carpeting on a regular basis we're painting filters um all of the systems you know get those preventative maintenance checks um and so he and his team do a great job and i just like to take this opportunity from from myself and i'm sure i have the same sentiments of the board thank you cassio thank you for all of your hard work [Applause] one thing most people don't know about cassio is he's been in the district for a long time and he knows this building inside and out every nook and cranny how everything works i i just don't know what we would do without him because it's it's all up here

019but it's just we're so lucky to have an individual who's dedicated his career to being with us and staying with us here at fairview um and doing the work that he does and leading his team is is just so important never more important than last year during covet and keeping the facility exceptionally clean um and it took a lot of extra work um to do so but they really did a phenomenal job so thank you cassio and i now i would like to loop back back to school planning i have communicated with the community at large the basic parameters you know currently we are keeping an approach that is layered in our mitigation efforts um i kind of parallel this to school security where you have lots of different layers built into your processes and

020into your facilities to make sure people are safe same with our coveted mitigation strategies all of the work that we did to our hvac systems our filters um our cleanings the the uh materials we use for cleaning um all of those are all remaining in place uh with the children uh the hand sanitizing whether it be washing with soap and water or using the purell prior to eating when they come into the building when they're leaving the building coming in from recess all of those pieces will remain in place i know that we have heard a good amount of discussion in the community about the use of masks it is my position to support the wearing of masks in our school because of the governor's mandate as well as the recommendations from the cdc and

021all the various health organizations and i say that because we had a very successful year of in-person learning last year we had a very limited number of students who developed covid we had a very limited number of adults we could count on one hand how many and i believe that's because we had all of these mitigations in place and they worked so my position at this time is that we would recommend that all students wear face masks i know that's controversial and we can certainly discuss it a second piece that i've been researching is the university of illinois shield testing program it's a free covid test it is a saliva test so it's non-invasive they nickname it's the drool in the tube test and i would want the board's opinion on whether or not we

022should offer this on a voluntary basis to students and staff i did survey our staff and 96 of the staff said that they would take advantage of that testing program i don't know again how the community would feel about it but sort of in the same vein as last year when we gave parents the option of remote or in-person learning this would be another one of those things where parents could make a decision for their children the test is free of charge to school districts it seems like it would be something that we could put into motion um at this point in time we would not be able to put it into motion for the first or second week of school because you have to have parents opt in or opt out you have to

023provide an upload of data all of which is done in a secure fashion but it does take some set up time so even if the board directed me to continue with trying to obtain that testing for our school district it wouldn't be something that i foresee being able to begin in the next month or so so that's something that i think we need you know i need some direction and some input on [Music] beyond that our teachers are really excited and ready to roll we understand that you know there may be quarantine um at some point for some classes or for some students we've gotten pretty good at contact racing so we hope to really tighten the number of children who are being identified as close contact so that fewer children have to be removed

024from school but in terms of quarantine that's another reason why having an easily accessible coveted test could be helpful because if they're older students and they've been vaccinated they can test through the quarantine so that they can stay in school um so there are benefits um there are disadvantages um any sort of testing that you do at school takes students out of you know something else so they would have to potentially have a shortened period of lunch or recess or something of that nature um we would have to manage it which would be another thing for our team to to to do but really you know wanting to open up for board discussion because i know there is there are a lot of feelings about these topics and want to be able to have that

025discussion with all of you and certainly answer any questions that you might have about the plan cindy can i ask um just to confirm that the testing would be limited just to the students and teachers and staff right it's not community testing it's uh correct yeah and would the results be available within a day what's that turnaround look like my understanding is it's within 48 hours okay cindy can you explain kind of the the logistics of that how that would work with fairview if you've looked into that further with your teachers or is there a medical or who is that responsibility fall on sure so from what i've learned in researching the program it is intended to be fairly um fairly straightforward and low uh a low level of requirements for the district to provide

026they provide the personnel they once you upload your data they manage the database they manage the delivery to the lab to have the tests uh test results determined um however i'm not foolish enough to think that it would be that easy you know we would have to you know there are parameters with the test you can't eat within an hour of doing the test so we would probably have to do it in the morning time you can pick two days a week you can pick one day a week so that's something that could be determined you could you could only have students participating in extracurricular activities um do the testing um so there's a wide range of ways in which you could do it but i do think you know at this point keeping it

027optional so that it's at the fingertips and it's a convenience for people who want it for their children or who want or for the adults in the building who want it um rather than having to you know then potentially have symptoms of a cold in school and now you have to go to your provider and pediatrician and figure things out and get tested um not to say that it's not a good idea to get your child checked out if they have any cold symptoms but um just trying to make things easier for our parent community and for our staff there is no cost like i said um were to manage everything internally they would actually compensate us nine dollars per test but we don't have the capacity to to do it ourselves so that wouldn't

028be something i'd be interested in i would like to look into whether or not the testing could be conducted outside of school hours so if parents wanted to participate they could bring their child to school 15 minutes early something so that it's not interfering with the school day because that's that's of concern to me as well um you know there's just there are a lot of details to all of this and i guess what i'm asking from the board is you know generally do you support the idea of of providing this as an option or do you feel as if you know it's just not something that we should be getting involved in because i know there are those feelings um you know just looking for some direction after i can try to answer as

029many questions that you might have diana did you ever get us or maybe we can reach out to the fam the community and see how they feel um i think that it should definitely be voluntary um and if the parents don't want to to volunteer just to have that option um and then just not disrupting the day and maybe they can i don't know if they can do it at home and bring their their saliva with them and handed in to the teacher in the morning just to not destroy i don't think that's an option um and i know other testing companies do provide that as an option but with this one i think they're trying to control the collection um and if they're going to support us um you know they would do that

030on our site um but i don't see any reason why it couldn't be an after school or a before school type of situation um i did ask the skokie health department if they are providing cova testing because that would seem like a really easy alternative rather than doing it at school but they are not offering cova testing they're only offering the vaccinations i like the idea that the teachers um the teachers feel comfortable and they want to do this and 96 feel like they would like to offer this to school as a board member i'd like to support them and if it is optional that means the parents that don't want to utilize the service don't need to but the ones that do it just makes life a little bit easier and of course you're

031addressing the issue about kids missing school so i would be personally in favor of that i have a question um with a uh either a staff member or a parent that opts into it is that then essentially signing up for regular testing or is it more on an ad hoc basis for the students i would say that we would want to do a regular testing one of the benefits is to identify an asymptomatic student who's carrying covid so that that student can then be identified and quarantined so i would suggest that for students it should be a regular testing i did ask the question if we don't have 100 participation does it does that really benefit us to have a few kids testing and maybe a few kids not and they said any testing is

032better than no testing um and you know that you might catch a few asymptomatic positives kids is a better situation than not catching any but it also would benefit families especially those who have children old enough to have received the vaccine it would benefit them if their child becomes a close contact at school that child could test out of quarantine and the testing requirement is on day one day three day five day seven so there's at least four tests that the family would have to secure for their child to be able to keep them in school so to me that's the convenience to offer it here um you know in addition for our teachers same thing the majority of our teachers over 90 percent of our teachers have been vaccinated they still could become a

033close contact and so they too would be subject to quarantine but this would provide them that convenience of right here at the building on their planning time on their lunch break to be able to try to test through the quarantine period so i do think that that's of benefit to people who wanted to take advantage of that the only downfall is it's a 48-hour turnaround right and you can go to local areas and get the rapid test as well which would you would have done that day true i do know the there's like a coronavirus response act that is nationwide there's no cost to any cova test and mult facilities so yeah again i think as adults we all have aware options with all of this um and you know some parents may not want

034their child to be subjected to testing at school but then they're making that decision that if their child is a close contact they're going to have to you know and we'll help them of course we'll direct them in the right you know way to wherever is most convenient but then that's going to be their responsibility um so i'm going to jump in with just a couple things i like that we're investigating this and and potentially offering it as a school-based person who did have testing available on site last year i can just speak to the fact that the the staff opted in to be tested and then i was on a routine testing schedule it gave me just peace of mind frankly going to a home with an unvacated kid i felt a little better

035about that but then the students who opted in uh i want to say it was like a 30-second like it became part of their routine going down to the lunchroom like they'd go to the lunchroom they'd swing in get their tests done and go to lunch so it it just did not and and that was not the saliva test that was a nose swab and it didn't really affect the instruction like the pacing of the day didn't seem that off um and groups of kids who some opted in and some did not it was a non-issue it was like you go in this lane i go on this lane and then we meet at the table for lunch it became very um you know it just was not that that big of a deal to

036kids i don't think um but as adults in the building and i think parents just liked having that option as a working mom if i got a call that my kid was symptomatic or something like it it helps me to know i don't have to get him every three days somewhere to test out so as working parents it really helps me to say fairview's got it covered but i also like the opportunity that if you don't need that convenience you don't have to sign up for it we're not making anyone do anything so i think unless we find out something about the shield process that you are not comfortable with it sounds like everything is okay at this point um i'm curious about like i mean i'm sure there's hipaa and stuff but who collects

037the data and where does it go is that on patrick does he input you know what i right it sounds like they staff they do but there would be responsibilities for our tech department um patrick specifically um and oh there he is um yeah i mean there's a lot of details and i guess you know i'm just looking for some general consensus do you want me to continue down that pathway of you know asking parents if they want to opt their child in to this um you minimally have to have a hundred testing and so with my staff survey results alone i think we could do it if only our staff did it okay um you know and that would be another option although i think it would feel a little unfair um you know

038we could offer it to the staff only um but you know if we're going to offer it to the staff why not offer it to others um you know i think the children deserve the opportunity and their parents deserve the opportunity as well so um i just you know didn't want to go down this road because i know there are strong feelings on both sides of this and thought that the board should weigh in on it i think if you do a survey get the parental community's um thoughts on it but i think just to make it clear that it is 48 hours so if you are looking for a quicker let's just say they were exposed or they have cold leg symptoms it will take two days for you to get that result it's

039not going to be within that day so what do you do for those next two days i i was thinking what you were saying getting community input that surely would just be whether they sign up for it or not if they want to sign up for it it means they're in they're in favor of it and if they don't they don't would you not agree i'm sorry i'm just saying that you were talking about gaining um the opinion of the community as to whether they wanted it or not yeah the teachers want it which is what they just clearly do but i was thinking in terms of asking the community you're effectively asking them when you're offering the test so if they agree with having a test they'll sign the student up and if they

040don't agree with the test then they won't yes so there's no real need for an actual communication it's just about offering it and either they take it or they don't i think there's a little i think there's a little bit of value to understanding if there's critical mass in the community one way or the other does does the majority of the community are they in favor of the test are they not in favor of the test um you know i'd be a little bit concerned with uh does it create tension between students on both sides you know you if one if one student is opting in while another student is opting out you know how is that perceived to be interesting and interested in knowing you know how other other schools handle that did you

041i'm not you you were saying that that didn't yeah i mean i just have a small sampling population of kids but it didn't it never came up about who was tested who wasn't tested the kids don't talk about it they're more concerned about like what's gonna happen at reset um that's my experience as a teacher i never heard the students um talking about it they knew if they were being tested or not so i didn't even have to keep track of it um so as a teacher i found it kind of a non-issue my concern is well i mean i don't have any concerns with offering the test i think anything optional is fine i agree with marianne that by asking the parents whether they want to have their child tested is giving them the

042option to utilize service right so it's not a mandate it's not forcing every parent has a choice but the ones that want it and value it can do it this way if they want to you know i feel like making it optional and before school or after school is kind of a good way of you know not cutting in not making a mandate not making it public even whether who's getting tested or not um and it makes like i'm a working mom and so just thinking of other working moms and dads out there it would be a lot easier for us to manage that i mean and i just jumped on the website real quick the shield website and in terms of um it says fast notification current notification time for the saliva test is

043less than 24 hours compared to a two to three day turnaround time for most currently available tests so i think they've improved their turnaround time um i want to mention uh so the teachers i can understand they make their choice as an adult they're there for the procedure they're uh you know like i said over the age of 18 they're an adult but as you know having a young child and uh not being present as a parent i think there's a different uh perspective with this task being done at school like when i but the parents making the decision for the child to do yeah but and the medical choices as a parent is evident in the school from you know one side or the other that you know if it was done maybe before

044school or after school there's a different but i mean i had a kindergarten last year talking about political stuff telling me political conversations in class that i was like what so i do think kids still have these discussions it's surprisingly yeah i i think i think you're right i think kids do have conversations i think our older students are going to be talking about whether they're vaccinated or not um and we're going to need to you know it's it's a great opportunity for us to reinforce um you know being respectful of each other's you know points of view and um you know if it turns into something that makes someone feel bad we're going to consider it bullying or harassment and there's going to be consequences for that um you know when we were talking

045about masks way back at the beginning of the summer you know the the struggle with keeping it optional for those who are vaccinated at that point was then you have some kids who are wearing masks and some kids who aren't and there's going to be tensions and kids are going to make fun of each other and they're going to be hard on each other and you know that is not what we stand for here at fairview and that's the message whether it be masks or any other any other issue and we've talked about a lot of them here at this board table um you know i think that's the time for teachers to intervene and to use it as that moment to you know guide children in in the right direction and and make sure

046that you know conversations are respectful they don't have to agree they can have their own opinion um but we're not going to allow it to turn into something else um so this is why i wanted to have the discussion because you know i understand you know i'm hearing what you're saying um [Music] you know we can try to put this together and have it be as discreet as possible um i think the before after school option is a great one because you know i'm very protective of our instructional time at school i hate losing a single minute um you know and that might be the best way to do it discreetly um so it's not um in a situation where other kids are seeing it but you know i can't promise that this they still

047may talk about it um you know so i mean personally i could i could support it if it was before or after school and if parents opt in to the program i think having it happen during during instructional time or even during free time where where where children see each other going in for testing could create opportunities for division ed um i think there's a little bit of you you you have opportunity for tension between kids there um and i understand there's anti-bullying policies but as we all know a lot of times that goes unreported by the children so i'd rather i'd rather see it happen discreetly but could support it in that manner so i i've done as much research as i can i've completed as much information as i can for the shield

048testing the next step is that i have to gain consent from anyone who wants their child or any adult who wants to participate i can't set up you know the times i can't i can't go on to that next step until we kind of cross that threshold so am i hearing from the group that you're comfortable with you know trying to ascertain how many people would be interested in opting in and that if then we can schedule it before after school um that that would be a goal is that sort of my opinion is definitely move ahead with it establish how many well you already have with the staff you said but uh established from the community how many people want to do it um in terms of the logistics of uh one in an

049ideal world having it either before and after school i would not want that to be a constraint i would not want it to be that because there's too many and doing it before or after school um is in impossible so therefore we don't do it i i certainly wouldn't want to see it go that far that might be the ideal sargon i i do understand what you're saying but i i wouldn't want it to be the deal breaker if you said i mean so wouldn't a first step be just understanding how many peop how many parents want to opt in absolutely so maybe we take that as a as an opportunity to see how much interest there is within the community see who opts in and we we can decide on the next steps from

050there well except obviously if you're going to be implementing this in the next few weeks um cindy's going to be making these decisions before we get to meet again but um so i think really she's looking i don't nothing else i'd like to at least start with the staff we know where they stand they're adults they can make these decisions it's no interference to their job responsibilities if nothing else i believe we can hit minimum 100 with our staff and that would buy us some time to then roll it out to the parents explain it because they need to know what they're opting in or out of um and then um you know get a better handle on how many would be interested i just don't want i don't want there to be an appearance

051if we're doing something for our staff that we're not providing to our students but it also would allow us to implement this kind of see how it works test it out on the adults first before we bring the students into the mix um so there could be advantages to doing it that way um so if that's does that work for everybody start with the adults obtain um and understand what the interest level is in the community for students and then we know what kind of numbers we're dealing with you know if we have 600 students that want to be tested we're not going to have enough time before after school to do that so that that's sort of you know we find that out but cindy there might be 20 kids that want to be

052tested and should be offered that if they want to if their parents want to and i don't want the fact that some parents are worried about kids getting bullying each other to affect a person's health livelihood right so i think we need to prioritize what's actually important life over like oh my kid might get might somebody might say to my kid you didn't get vaccinated or you didn't get tested today you know i get that but worse bullying happens on our playground that we are some of us are aware of and some are not but i think this should be a really important priority i think it is for our teachers our staff clearly you as well um so i want to make sure that if you do this like marianne said if you can

053do it before or after great but i don't i don't want it to be a deal breaker because it is important to me and i think it's important to a lot of other people yeah i don't want to downplay bullying i mean we we as parents don't have control over what happens on the playground because parents don't have control of what happens in the classroom we as parents have control over whether we want to take our children to go get coveted so that that is an opportunity that we have yeah um i understand it becomes a little more convenient but i think i think as a i think as a first step taking the action of cindy uh suggested taking the action of implementing it with her teachers may be a good first step in

054understanding you know how it would play out with the rest of the students [Music] you've been quiet aaron did you have anything it uh no i i think i agree absolutely with uh shereen if if this is something that the the teachers have spoken and the teachers want we should absolutely support uh that and i think if then this organization is going to be in the building and it's free of charge it i i would say opening i i think opening it up to the students and families for those who want it uh i think that that makes a lot of sense um i can understand that before after school for me personally that that wouldn't be a deal breaker um but but but i understand those arguments um and i think whatever is the

055the sort of the best most efficient way that we can implement it for as many people as are interested in it i think that's what we should do you feel like you have your direction yeah and i'm hearing i i do hear the concerns that are being expressed by you know board members and i know you're talking with your friends and neighbors too and um i i know that our staff are very good about intervening um you know those concerns that you're hearing we can address this directly and point staff in the right direction if they're hearing students having these discussions about vaccines etc um you know we have such a wonderful opportunity with the start of a new school year and to kind of re-establish what we expect and how we all behave when

056we're in the school together um on a you know a wide variety of topics and so we're going to take advantage of that opportunity and this could certainly be just one more of those but um i've definitely heard you know what the board members have had to say um i will take the next steps to try to get this ball rolling and we'll see you know what the community thinks um we'll try to schedule it at a time where it's not a loss of instructional time and so that it can be you know more um you know private for the students um but you know there's still always that opportunity they're going to talk about it so i don't know if you want to do a straw poll around the table or if you feel

057like you have consensus i feel like we have but if you want to just firm things up with a straw poll i'm i'm happy to do that um i would like you to proceed with investigating it for the teachers um and with a view to uh to then uh uh communicate that to the community and and um get their opinion and with a view to then offering it to students as well that's my opinion if you want to anyone else i agree yeah i agree and wrong fairview you're great that was you sorry it's hard with my ass i couldn't tell which you should speak you spoke right yeah so just to clarify you're starting with the teachers and then we're going to survey the parents and then make a decision at the next board

058meeting is that correct um no i i that's why i'm glad we were doing this because i don't want any confusion um what what i was hearing the board say was absolutely you know the teachers you know we already know we have the teachers who are interested and opt-in provided to them uh provided information more detailed information with a plan to the community and ask you know either they opt in or they opt out and for those who opt in provide the testing to them with the caveat that if we can do it before after school that would be better if we can do it in a more private way that would be better you know but to offer it to any students who want to take advantage of it thank you cindy you said

059it much better than i did thank you that's what i would agree with anyone else i support it i agree i think you have your consensus okay good okay thank you thanks for your explanation i appreciate it sure uh so that concludes that completes your report yes uh i think that's your longest one yet okay so now we're i'm moving on to the other administrative report which is regarding our master master facility planning update from our friends at arcon so um yes we have uh another exciting presentation from our architects we have who's going to who's going to start george i'm going to say hi and then go back there real quick so you get a little moment of pausing until this okay he's going to go behind the curtain and get our presentation off

060and it looks like mr huck is coming to the mic okay so while george is uh setting us up for the screen behind you here i just want to thank you for another opportunity to come and present to you um we're going to walk you through the things that we've been doing since the last time that we met there were a couple specific things that you asked us to come back to you with responses on we've got those uh things we'd like to present to you um and then uh we want to share with you some of the uh the things that it might happen as we move forward with the next steps are uh in a overall summary tonight is about us sharing with you the long-term road map the master plan it's not

061about approving specific projects to move forward out of that master plan yet there's work that has to happen behind the scenes before we get to that step uh everything from how is it going to get constructed how is it going to get funded how is it going to all those things have to be a piece that will come back to you after this tonight is really about this this road map and making sure that you're comfortable with this as a long-term master plan so i could kind of hear back there and he stole probably three quarters of my thunder so i will get into a little bit of the slide that i have stalling perfectly well um thanks for having us here again tonight i know it's been about a month since we were last

062here and a lot has happened since since our last meeting i know if you recall when we came here looking at the master plan options last month we had three three options that were presented we kind of weighed the pluses and minuses and as we kind of talked through them we ended with a direction that the board gave us to pursue looking further into that one option b that we're going to talk about tonight um but what what did looking into mean uh over the last month we we brought a civil engineer on board to uh start analyzing the site i know it big when we're using kind of the pen approach we're looking at where things should be situated how they should be organized but really wanted to get the logistics behind it the

063feasibility of it and our engineer that came on board started looking at different things existing site conditions existing storm lines sanitary uh water lines that are on the side how how the site is designed to make sure that we don't have some glaring conflicts that when we come to this table today we say i'm sorry everything we showed you didn't work right we didn't want that to happen we want to make sure we came to you to give you more affirmation of the design that we've been showing you the master plan it is feasible so they worked through those pieces the other part of it and another very important piece was looking at the village of skokie and setting up a meeting with the planning department and kind of walking them through the project through

064the master plan and making sure they understand it and see if there are any problems that they see with it address any concerns they might have and we had a really good conversation with that uh it was at the end of at the end of july where um we had we had the 28th actually uh where we we walked through the initial concept plan for the option b uh asked a couple questions they they walked us through different uh ideas from or different concerns they had one was making sure that we had the appropriate setbacks off of laramie make sure we we stayed in line with the existing two-story addition that we're not projecting further out towards the street to make sure that we're not going for any variances simplify the zoning process they looked

065at the site circulation and parking that was another key one to make sure that as we analyze the site we provide the correct amount of parking stalls if we potentially show you an option that grows your parking lot from i think it's 89 to 100 and plus 120 stalls is that the right amount uh so that is some of the homework they assigned our way to uh to make sure we dug through and make sure that it was addressed on the master plan so as we further develop it or we go to the next steps it addresses it correctly uh as we came out of that meeting we had we wanted to make sure we we circled back to the community one more time uh we had our second community meeting that we got to

066present to in early august i think one of the members out here in the corner same exact where he started before we moved them forward um and and we we actually ran through the the stuff that we're going to show you tonight and and started asking the same types of questions and we had a really good conversation and analysis that came from that and that brings us to tonight uh if you i think i heard you say about the mastic or did you not say it when i was up there uh one of the tasks we came out of this meeting if you recall the first question was what's this going to look like right this is early this is us looking at the math the whole idea tonight is to make sure that the

067master plan is appropriate for the school district it ticks off all the the check boxes we dotted our eyes we crossed our t's from an overall plan but what we also wanted to start doing is looking at initial concepts of what can that start looking like so we could show you that today of where we stand on early schematic designs again it's going to evolve many different ways when from now until whenever these become projects if they become projects but at least we can give you kind of that point of reference of what things can look like and again i think believe jeff mentioned that our goal tonight is to walk you through the master plan as far as a plan for the district to see if there's as we address any concerns and have

068this conversation answer questions that you feel comfortable and confident as a district at this plan you'd like to adopt so the diagram you're seeing here is is part of our civil engineer and us working together at looking at conflicts that we noticed on site or uh ways that we can get around of existing systems uh property uh the color coding that you kind of see from the reds greens and blues really was was kind of delineating all your different storm lines sanitary lines and water lines that are coming through your site uh as you can see where we have that blue edition that we're showing there's a lot going on there right uh a lot of lines that are heading towards laramie and as we first saw that we were like is that gonna work

069is there is there an issue of concern and talking through engineers there there are ways that we would probably want to reroute all those lines from the south end of the property which is the left uh to the north end of the property which is that drive along the auditorium and kind of exiting onto laramie that was one of the first conversations we hadn't had with the village to make sure that they understood that and that was making sense for them because whatever we do on our site it works in-house but once it gets off our site and gets onto the city streets we want to make sure that we are addressing it correctly and they don't stop us before we get too far right uh and that that open dialogue actually had a really

070good outcome the other thing on that south addition that we were looking at for that south peace was the shape of it uh originally when last month when we were here that shape was a little wider and encroached much closer to those tennis courts and the playground and we wanted to make sure that from a feasibility standpoint we didn't want to damage either of those two pieces so uh there are some modifications made to the addition to bring it further away to distance itself from that that that tennis court so we can maintain at least i think it's 31 or 32 feet of distance between that built structure to those pieces so at any time you would ever choose to do that we would be able to maintain those two pieces those the playground and

071the tennis court without damaging anything uh on the east end against laramie um the you can see that the blue edition which is the other piece that came out of the front which would be the two-story piece uh aligns exactly with the existing building to the north which is the other two story parts the middle school area and uh those are modifications that were made that you'll get to see as we get further in uh in the back site that that we're still continuing to develop would be the the idea of uh adding additional parking stalls getting bus parking on there in the back corner uh looking at widening lanes to help alleviate circulation and i don't know one of those topics came up last last month during the community meeting and that is something

072that we're going to want to continue to investigate from a site circulation perspective uh that is a whole process that we want to make sure that we understand where where traffic is going how traffic is flowing on and around our property or the property so that'll be something that evolves as we get deeper and deeper into it but there here's the initial stages of how that site could work now i'm going to turn it over to jeff to start talking about the plan and then i'm gonna go hide behind the curtain as i get the model ready so thank you okay so one of the things i i do want to mention is george is walking back there the engineering firm the civil engineering firm that we've hired is our consultant for uh helping us

073with the master plan and ideally any projects that come out of the master plan we specifically selected them for a number of reasons uh it's ericsson engineering they're out of gray's lake uh they were the engineers civil engineers who worked on the 2000 editions here the the addition in the front the addition of the gym in the back they also happen to be currently working with your neighbors immediately to your north on their master plan and the third reason is because i've known those folks for 20 years the president glenn erickson is a school used to be a school board member in gray's lake he understands schools i feel very comfortable with them and have worked as i said with them for 20 years very successfully so uh they really helped us understand some of

074the unique things from a historical perspective with your school some of the things that you know why you might have some issues with some drainage in that courtyard between the 2000 edition and the old building how we might be able to solve that as part of this project uh the fact that there is a underground water line from the uh drinking fountain down there by the playground that runs right along the fences that kind of thing and how maybe we need to stay away from that so those kinds of things started to help us shape this option so this is exactly the same as the option b you saw last time with a couple of really i would call them minor adjustments as george mentioned on the south end we have changed the orientation of

075those large pre-k and k classrooms to where they're long dimension is going east west so from bottom to top as opposed to north south left to right that kept or allowed us to move a little bit further away from those tennis courts avoid some of those water lines that we really don't want to impact what that does is it sort of forces us to spread a little bit north and a little bit south maybe more so than we initially had thought not a big deal another piece that uh we heard from the village about uh staying back on the same property line or at least along the same building line as the 2000 edition happens along laramie with our new additions you can see where george's cursor is we've lined up the new and the

076old uh to be in the same plane where before we had bumped out to where the current uh east face of the existing library is what that did is simply slide orientation a little bit so that that addition extends just a little bit further to the to the south or to the left on your page same square footage same number of pla spaces uh same advantages of circulation being solved all of those kinds of things are still happening we've just basically taken a exact we've taken a room that might have been in the long direction going east west and rotate it 90 degrees that's essentially what it was uh the other piece that we we wanted to talk about if you remember george started out by saying there's there's really three big things you asked

077to look at the civil engineering piece the uh village input and then the question of what might this look like and we felt it was pretty important to study that even though i think my answer to that question last time was that'll happen when we get we had a little bit more conversation about that and felt that it was important to show you something so that you could say yes that fits within the parameters of what our expectations are for future projects so we want to show you some three-dimensional things and how we're starting to address the uh existing building one of the things that you've got going on on the existing building that 2000 edition is a very prominent very nice easily identifiable entry it's that two-story glass space where the roof pitches up

078it's like it's like i think you saw me as like a gulls wing right cindy a falcon falcon wing thank you uh that's really nice and we don't want to have our additions uh in the master plan anything that might happen down the road conflict with that so one of the things we've done is we've sort of reshaped an area that we were calling a team area which is right where george's cursor is there and made it actually it was essentially a widened corridor and we actually made it a space a room with a uh oval sort of exterior wall and the idea is that we want to sort of defer to that entry and we'll show you in the three-dimensional views here in a second but we want to defer to that entry let

079it stand on its own without us competing with that and at the same time address this idea that we're we're putting an addition on a major area of exterior uh plaza that you have and how might we be able to replace some of that uh area with uh with an opportunity for an outdoor learning space or an outdoor cueing space or just an outdoor hangout space um so you'll see a little bit of that and that's why that oval is right there the the big thick black line represents the exterior line of the building at that point so with that george is going to pull up um one of the saw oh i'm sorry one of the other things he's he's given me a reminder here uh part of the conversations that we've had is

080to uh to look at recreating one of the advantages your current library has which is the ability for after hours use directly accessed from the outside without it having to go without people having to go through the rest building at the same time how might we have a space that's dedicated to [Music] use after hours or buy an outside source for special ed type programs like an ntdse program and this classroom that we have that he's highlighting right there is in is one of those extra bubble classrooms that we've talked about having um as a special education space which we think would be a really good candidate for that ntdse program so you could access it from the outside you could have a space right outside in front and without having to go through the

081main lobby if you chose to go that route likewise the library could be accessed with some lock-off doors to the hallways adjacent to it so you could use the library after hours again without having the rest of the building when it exposed okay so with that we're going to show you our three-dimensional model uh a huge caveat here um please uh look at this for what it is it's a study model it's not a hundred percent accurate as far as where windows are where uh roof heights things like that but it's to give you a representation of the existing building on the site so north is to your right you can see the falcon wing on top of the the main entry i think george just had his cursor on top of the existing library

082where the uh the space right up in front um the plaza is right there uh the the track and the field are far beyond on the back side so this gives you an idea north is to the right south is to your left okay so the next slide there george these are additions that we're proposing the one on the south where his cursor is that's the pre-k and kindergarten edition with a multi-purpose or assessment space as we talked about for the little ones that on that back end there it's close to the the fields and the track um you can see how we've now expanded the parking in the front uh to give you more drop off for the pre-k and then the two-story edition which is on the front of the building there uh

083george if you can put your cursor right on the main entry that's the main entry everything to the right of that is your 2000 edition our proposed master plan would imply that you have an addition to the left which is a two-story edition and you can see how we're starting to have these two pieces feel like they are of similar language architecturally this is that area that i talked about that's right outside the library it is a essentially a bench that follows along the curved wall there two story of glass behind that which would allow you to look into that library across the hallway we could come up with an entry in this area which would allow you to go into the library or for use by that ntdse space after hours without having to

084go through the rest of the building it gives you sort of a set back or void so that it's not sitting right out in front competing with your really nice entry this is if you were looking at it from street view again your entry or the double doors to your right your main entry this is this view of that that brick wall which extends above the roof line and the area behind that would be what you would see through into the library can i ask a quick question would that be the main entry then to the right where students are entering and exiting school where they do currently yeah that's your existing main entry and uh that operation would stay essentially the same uh and what george just did is he turned off the edition

085so you can what you see there is uh if you do that again george do a little bit of a before and after that's what you currently have you're existing uh the solid piece there is the elevator on stair and then the addition would uh essentially be to the left of that and again we're not proposing that this is a final design by any means we just wanted to give you a sense that we can make it look like it fits with the existing building is very contextual to the existing building not that you would ever have this view because you'd be in someone's backyard but if you could looking straight at the building a head-on elevation you can see the materials and the way the detailing occurs on the 2000 edition everything to the

086from the main entry to the right and how we would carry those through and anything that happens on the left in that two-story edition we would try and extend that language through so it would feel very very um fitting and very uh contextual okay so with that what we wanted to do at this point is really open it up to you with for any questions about the master plan overall um the massing that you see the uh uh the plan if you've had any thoughts since the last time we met with you and if you had any questions about those those things that we've been doing in the meantime such as the civil engineering study our conversations with the village in in this i have a question about um if if you look sort of

087i'm it's hard to look at it and talk about um directly behind the addition to the front you can see that the roof is alternate it doesn't look like it does right now it it's got a new elevated pitch to it do you see the pleats i mean the sort of gray looking part is that new so the gray part that looks like almost like a that's existing that's over your cafeteria and your art rooms that's existing that area yeah that's not a change i couldn't no george if you uh rotate the model so that we're looking straight down and uh just sort of walk your cursor around the addition that would be on the front of the building so right where his cursor oops just point to where the addition is on the front

088correct all of that right there is the addition everything that you see that's in a little bit darker of a shade of gray is existing all of that's existing that's the two-story that where his cursor is is the new the white roof and then all of that behind it is existing okay i wasn't sure if that was a new sort of a new roof no it actually pops up like that uh and i'm not sure that this model is exactly again this is just a conceptual uh model but i have been on the roof of this building and i know it's nowhere near straight and flat no it is not yeah there are many many a little bit up a bit around a bit up a bit it's crazy up there but um my understanding

089is that that area was at one time used for other things other than what it's currently used for now um and i think right now it's the the art rooms are in there yeah uh so it at whenever it was built it was built as a higher volume got it that's the room that's the building piece you're talking about right there yeah any other thoughts is there any blacktop left out for the kids for basketball and yeah much like um much like the parking and site circulation and those kinds of things that's one of the things we need to continue to study the addition on the south end sits on where you currently have a lot of your blacktop so what we've had conversations with the administration about and we've had with our civil engineer

090is identifying areas that it makes sense to put blacktop back so maybe all of that green space isn't all green space maybe some of it is blacktop it might make sense to have that very close to the gyms we've talked about having an outdoor learning space a covered outdoor learning space where we put that all of that i think will get developed at some point with the understanding that we still need to have those spaces yes so i apologize that we don't have that shown i think it's something we're going to need to develop more with the district uh hand in hand but a question i know it looks like from the this plan is that on that south and there's no more location for blacktop it'd be in the back somewhere correct that's pretty

091much correct yes you can see the um uh george run your cursor over the edition all of that's the addition and then if you turn that off george i don't know if you can from where you're standing isolate that that's pretty much where your black top is so your blacktop is right to the south of the main gem and it's to the south of uh right up in there uh that area i think we're actually showing some grass in our model but it's actually blacktopic in there so those that addition would sit on top of that we're going to have to find a home for that blacktop or rethink and work with your your administration to understand um yeah you can see there you go those are the two blacktop spaces how might we recreate

092those or is there something else that makes more sense now you've been living with that blacktop for many many years is it still the right answer going forward part of the next steps of this process will be to engage with for example our pe staff you know that track how is it functioning for them there's a basketball court within the the track there's also a um like i think it's a long john pitt i think that's what it would be called like do we still use that do we need that could that be a space where we built in some foursquare courts or something of that nature but we'll want to bring our staff into those more detailed conversations but also our students to have them weigh in on you know what do they use

093what do they like the most the gaga pit is where the addition would be that would have to be moved somewhere else because they like that um so that's sort of the next steps with this and i think you know we feel pretty strongly about preserving as much green space as possible um and playground space so it could be blacktop or green um but that would sort of be the next steps to drill down on what the needs are the kids and and the staff who use those spaces we've been uh we've been working for the past i'm going to call it four or five years with uh northbrook school district 30 uh their replacement middle school but also at their two primary schools and big conversations have been about just this they've had blacktop

094areas they're comfortable with those the teachers know what they're going to do when the students are out there as we began putting additions and doing renovations at these buildings we started asking the question are those still appropriate um through those design processes uh it's pretty amazing the changes that once they actually took a step back and started thinking about it and realize that okay maybe what we have doesn't include everybody maybe what we need or to is to do some things that are different so that everybody uh is included in in different ways so um we did recreate some laptop spaces for them but we also created some other types of play spaces as well and quite a bit more green space for them so i think that kind of conversation is something that comes

095out of the projects once once we have projects yeah i just going through summer and seeing all the acting like the basketball and yeah i think it's just seeing that and losing that there's the value of you know seeing that these last few months yeah the intent is definitely not to eliminate opportunities it's to actually increase them sure [Music] any other comments or questions yeah i have another question um in the beginning you said you the water the sewer lines are those being relocated or upgraded uh both both some uh some will have to be rerouted uh there's some things that are happening on that south end that we're going to have to um if we go back to that uh we're going to have to reroute uh currently you have uh all the all

096of the water flows down that way the way george is showing down to laramie there are restrictors down there close to laramie which as the water's flowing and builds up it actually pushes the water back to the west and then to the north to your detention and then it floods and makes that area really wet so one of the things that we're going to be looking at is how do we change that so that the water actually instead of flowing south and east we get it to flow back to that west and north and then come around the north side of the building so that's a big piece that we're going to really be doing as part of this and by doing that that's why you see an additional sort of pink line which goes

097around the north end there we're going to be able to pick up and connect to the the appropriate lines in the street and pick up that area that's uh currently not really supported very well in that courtyard um after the 2000 editions and and it's not that it was designed improperly as much as uh the the rules have changed to to allow us to do it in a way that today will be able to solve the problem back then they really weren't able to solve it as well as as we could today and and that field space then the north of the track will be more usable to us because it does really hold a good bit of water and so playing on it you know really depends on the weather um so when we're

098talking about regaining some space even though it always has been green it hasn't really been utilized as much as it could and so that would be an improvement too absolutely one of the studies will certainly do with the civil engineers is look at how do we detain storm water underground as opposed to on the surface currently what you have is you have it detained on the surface with a a depression and that depression does what it's supposed to it gets wet if we can contain that underground in concrete tanks um for its temporary holding until this the system can handle it flowing out that allows you to keep the grass area level with the track level with the parking lot and basically dry i'm not 100 dry but it won't be flooded um it'll be

099a much more usable space is that parking lot going to require like a drainage since it's getting re oh sure yeah sure the parking lot um uh because it's growing you're going to be required to have more storm water detention because we're adding more with additions we're going to have to have more storm water detention uh because we're taking away um grass areas which can absorb water and putting solid in impermeable surfaces that will not absorb water we're going to have to find a we're going to have to accommodate that with underground attention and i would just mention for the benefit of the board uh any of the projects if they're approved any of the additions will require that the parking will not be addressed and that the water be addressed so you know if

100you were to approve a part of the project we still have to do the parking lot the water retention etc um so those will that will go hand in hand with any of the projects yeah in fact you'll start with that because you're going to want to have that that detention that water that storm water management piece resolved uh with the first projects one more question sorry in the in the june plan there was a buffer for classroom sizes you know talking to the civil engineers they're going to be options for like buffers for adding bathroom fixtures um just to make sure if there's future expansion options yeah absolutely absolutely the plumbing systems much like your electrical systems and your mechanical systems are going to accommodate the additions but there's always a factor of of

101you know what it what if added into that so that if you did have additional space that you needed down the road it would be able to uh be upgraded as well you won't necessarily have all that capacity today and have it sit there wasted forever what you'll do is give you the ability to add on to it that'll be part of future discussions absolutely absolutely one of the things we were speaking about recently was we currently have the ability to sort of close off the learning center to the rest of the school it's a great place for pta meetings and other events and so it's really nice to offer that space to the community but when you close off then you also need to make sure to have restroom facilities so that if someone's

102for the pta meeting is there they have it you know right there um and available to them so so all of those details will be things that continue to sort of unfold as the plan gets more formalized and george if you want to go to that first floor plan just so we can uh sort of show what dr whitaker is talking about the library um and i don't know if you can zoom in or not george from hang on okay so the whole library if you can outline that george it takes those three classrooms there and includes everything south of that in the edition so what he's going to outline in red [Music] is your new library so it's a little bit bigger than your existing library uh it'll be a lot of open views

103into it from both that north south corridor and the new corridor on the south side of it that goes north south that secondary circulation route where those arrows are it'll have connections to the stem labs it'll have connections to that courtyard so there'll be outside light coming in from uh not only through that main segmented curved wall there and cross that corridor but also on the left where you see the word maker space george up there that that wall opens up to the courtyard there so there could you have the potential for two-story piece of glass along that wall between the courtyard and the learning center we might provide one of the options you might have is to provide some lock-off doors in different spots so that you can right there where he's drawing a

104red line and then right here where he's drawing a red line so that you could enter through that little uh outdoor space somewhere in that box and have the library accessible to the community after hours without having the rest of the school open uh and what dr whitaker's saying is that you would have washrooms within that area perhaps maybe even inside of the library itself to accommodate that it also allows you to take that room which we have currently labeled special education down there and again as i mentioned it's a perfect candidate for something like your ntdse program that you'd like to have as part of your um you're being a good community person a good community uh neighbor so the lock off might be down to the left so that that space could also

105be accessed after hours so there's a lot of things that we can do a lot of things that we'll get to through the design process with you we don't have to have all those answers tonight but we know that we can accommodate that stuff down the road more questions okay look at well thank you very much for your very thank you george too a very thorough explanation and uh lots of diagrams which really helps to visualize it and i think we have an appreciation that this is just really the beginning exactly and uh there's a lot more decisions to be made um but this is an item that the board will be taking action on later on in the meeting and uh we really appreciate you coming out again and uh i'm sure we're going

106to be good friends well we would like that very much i'd be lastly i was just going to check since cassio is here this evening is this okay with you cassio are we good looks amazing are you ready to take it on that's the thing good we've been doing this for a long time and we've done a number of master plans with a number of school districts and i will uh i have no hesitation in saying that your school district has been fantastic to work with so we really look forward to the relationship continuing well i'm not taking the compliment i think the staff and administration should be taken back they have been very very wonderful okay thank you very much for your presentation really appreciate it [Music] okay so um moving along uh we

107have board committees and representatives and the first one on my list here is the edtech committee nora yep so dede and i met with administration uh earlier this week and just kind of went over the back to school plan that cindy laid out in detail um we asked some good questions we got clarification on things uh between monthly board meetings our committees usually meet and then we find out all the details so i the big excitement was principal larkin mentioned we have 77 first graders as of two days ago so um our first grade is booming which is great we will have five sections of first grade which keeps those class sizes really small which is i think great um primary has about 367 kids coming in i don't have a middle school number in

108front of me but that's okay uh the big middle school news is the advisory period which is something mr lapacka has wanted for a long time i know um where the middle school kids will come in and sort of have a a place to sort of unpack their day do some goal setting some skill building some social emotional learning some team building it's like the first 25 minutes of the day so it's a nice um start to their middle school day and the tech report is well the the big conversation was we have i think about 90 staff vaccinated um with probably more coming there were a lot of coveted babies on staff so that that endears your vaccination at times the tech uh report from patrick was good uh he's working feverishly to get

109us sopa certified with the state and we're at about 75 percent you said all kids at fairview have a one-to-one technology these are super cool i like the pen the most um so that's just fantastic and um i really was impressed with the idea or just the conversation about like should we have to flip a class or should kids have to flip remotely fairview has kind of is like a well-oiled machine at this point and that mr healey has like tech packs ready to go if kids have to do that which is just fantastic um the getting ready program had about 85 kids and was a big success and we already talked about the newcomer family connections and i think that's it unless anybody do you remember much else okay it sounds a pretty busy

110meeting thank you um finance personnel aaron yeah thank you uh sargan and i also uh i think we met last week with the administration and we also had a really productive meeting we discussed a little bit um continued our conversation on project funding for the master plan and sort of getting a better understanding of of sort of what are the next steps and how how we move forward in that process and then we also looked over the uh fiscal year 22 tentative budget um which will be then brought to the whole board in the next months in the coming months or tonight later tonight there we go so we we we looked that over um and and had a discussion about that at our last meeting is there anything you covered it that's great thank

111you we're flying through these great um so uh pta liaison diana the pta stephen was here he spoke yeah did i yeah i'd read and tdsc that's okay pta next okay that's okay it doesn't matter okay um so shall i do ed read first if that's what you've got it doesn't matter i think diana was saying that steve gave the report for pta and there hasn't been a meeting this summer so um your world is completely different okay um so i had read yes sorry that's me um obviously in the summer months things are a bit quieter with edward uh because the uh there is no session um but there is included in the packet this month some information from their executive director uh bridget and the highlights of how their year has gone and

112also uh information on the schedule of meetings for this next year their vision mission and goals um so i will do my best to attend those meetings um over the year i think i can do it most of the time um one of the things you'll see is the first meeting september 24th is the annual kickoff luncheon um they do that every year they start with a lunch meeting and it is actually going to be a lunch meeting this year instead of being anything remote um so it's at a cafe la carp which is in des plaines um and that's 1 33 on um september 24th and the speaker at the at the lunch is rahm gullivelan who is our representative so um i will definitely be going along anybody who is interested in coming

113along with me um if you could let drew know then she'll actually sign up and pay the fee for each of us to to attend the luncheon so um as i say i'll definitely be going along to that myself so uh [Music] they just added some information recently that they had some vacancies on their board those have all been filled one of the main action items that they had done this this summer was working with about 350 superintendents up and down the state um was a letter to isbe basically stipulating that they needed more guidance in terms of the whole process of opening schools and so on um so hopefully now more guidance will be coming um and the other main project that they're working on is uh petal reform which obviously has a bearing

114on us because it concerns our funding so uh that's it for ed red so who have you got ntdse uh they well our next meeting is next week so we weren't able to make last month's meeting uh but i will have some ntds e news for you at the next meeting as far as i know things are moving right along great thank you so we're done yes all right um so moving on to freedom of information requests i can report that there were two requests received in this last month and they were handled appropriately um next is information site items and correspondence mr secretary do we have anything to share uh yes we do there were a few items uh so the board um received uh the following correspondence since the last board meeting on

115june 18th a packet of information uh from a fairview parent denise patacek regarding the use of masks vaccines and covered protocols in the fall for school children was received a letter from a fairview parent helen levinson expressing concern over the facility plan and the lack of dedicated classroom space for special education students was received uh we also received a thank you note uh from gloria umsky for her retirement gift uh thank you note from uh carly gross for the acknowledgement of her 15-year anniversary in the district and a thank you note from jeff air for the baby blanket congratulations okay thank you um so now we have public comment um i can report that there were some public comments received um with the either by email or through the google form that is posted to

116the community that they um can submit public comments those have been shared with the board we were going to make it a priority to listen to the members of the public in advance of reading those um comments i would like to just remind the public about our board of education policy to colin 230 regarding public participation at board meetings [Music] we would ask that you address the board and give your name and your time will be strictly restricted to three minutes um [Music] we will give you uh a secretary will be recording the time and he will give you a 20 second warning when you are approaching the end of your three minutes um we would remind you that it seems the fairest thing to do to give priority to the people that are actually

117resident and part of this district um that's just a polite request um the other matter is uh item four in our policy uh the president shall have the authority to determine i'm sorry i'm i'm reading wrong one no this is the oh sorry yes it's hard to read this the president may also deny an individual the opportunity if the individual has previously addressed the board on the same subject within the last two months uh over the last two months we've had comments regarding uh the hiring of the equity director equity officer that was requested we've also had comments regarding masking in the school so i would remind those people that have actually made those comments that our policy indicates that you cannot speak about those same subjects again okay so with that instruction uh [Music]

118secretary is ready to go uh please go ahead hello my name is roxanne salgado i am a parent i have a 10 year old and a 6 year old here at fairview i just want to thank you for being proactive with the tests i think it's a great option to provide families um i also want to thank sargon for bringing up bullying and how we as parents don't know what's happening in a playground because just like bullying there's also racism and for that reason i feel that it is important that the school board as well as the administration to create and implement a race protocol policy so that staff knows how to handle those situations as well as students know who to go to and how to handle those situations and parents are notified when

119those situations happen because in this community um in fairview specifically community there's been a lot of graffiti a lot of vandalism all um having to do with homophobia and racism so it's important that this administration and fairview as a whole also has a strong stand against white supremacy and should foster an anti-racist culture in our school so that all of our students leave fairview prepared to be global citizens because our world is diverse and everyone who moves into skokie feels that our community is diverse and we should celebrate it so why not start here in fairview thank you thank you okay i'm angela gadsden and i have two children that attend here at fairview um i was actually going to thank the board for in the school of the district administration for the mask mandate

120but i heard the language of recommendations so now i'm kind of it's required okay all right thank you thank you for clarifying um and i just so are you asking that we do not talk about mass uh did you address the board on masks in the past i don't think i have um so i was just gonna say that actually 6077 is the least vaccinate fully vaccinated zip code of skokie and so so to have mandatory mass i think is really important um also just ladies excuse me let's hold the conversation and be respectful excuse me please could we just calm down please thank you i i think we're going to have plenty of time for everyone we are going to have plenty of time i think you should be in order that you actually

121stood up to the microphone please you're fine angela i just want you to be able to speak without being interested yeah and i want to make sure that the order is also we're good i think we're good now okay great continue so thank you for that also um under the fairview website when it says to contact the board i'm just wondering if it could be the board's secretary's email address um right now it has gloria muskie's um also just i want to thank mr lopeco for accommodating our family we were not able to make the 12-3 time for touring the school and so i just wanted to thank like and just proactively you know have more times that are available for like after work hours so parents can attend more things um in terms of

122the culturally responsive and equity policies i was really thankful to hear about the equity committee formed by teachers by the pta and the diversity inclusion clubs and i'm just hoping and asking that the district creates its own equity statement i think everything else will fall under that um having that equity statement be shared as part of the student code of conduct that's also an ask that it's really clear that racist anti-black homophobic anti-semitic islamophobic xenophobic statements will not be tolerated in the sort of conduct and then also what can our children do in classrooms when those things may happen what's the staff protocol so that i can review those with my children um and then also just just a strong stance against the racism i think from the district just not waiting to have and

123publish that i think would really go a long way i also believe that um we can't be this does not something to be neutral on just like protection just like i really thank you dr whitaker for having the tasks available for staff i think that's really important to not take away from work time and things like that um what was that okay um and then just what i'm asking for is really simple create and publish and share a readily accessible district equity statement share student code of conduct and publish and share the staff protocol so that we can um share those with our children and then also just continue for the hiring practices of black and brown and by poc administrators and staff because i think more diverse voices will help bring our community together

124thank you my name is elizabeth palmer i have two daughters who attend fairview i also want to thank you for requiring masks for the students um as angela said the percentage of people who are fully vaccinated in this skokie zip code is about 15 percentage points lower than in some other parts of skokie so especially in this neighborhood in fairview i think it's important to sorry i lost my train of thought um yes thank you for the masks i guess is what i was saying um i know you've dealt with bullying in recent years and some of that came up with some of your concerns about kids maybe being bullied if they weren't taking the kobe test or weren't wearing that didn't weren't vaccinated and i just wanted to name i i just asked my

125daughter about a a few months ago what kinds of um bullying or hate speech she had heard at fairview she had already told me some of these incidences but i wanted to get it sort of fresh in my mind and see what she remembered and what she told me when i asked her recently was somewhat similar to what she had told me before i'm not going to name all of them because we have black children in this room and i was going to actually tell you some of the things that my fourth grader heard last year i'm not actually comfortable saying it in this context but it there were there was hate speech that she heard in one case she reported it immediately it happened in gym so she told the gym teacher in another

126case it happened during lunch so she told the lunch monitor she doesn't know the person's name but she said it's the lady who's always there during lunch and in either case was my daughter ever like there was no follow-up from any of the adults she told there was no follow-up from the school and so my daughter came home and she the lesson she took from that is that when she hears this kind of language she knows that it's hate speech she knows that the n word like does violence to people that's one of the things she has heard in the school the n-word but she um she has learned from her teachers and her administrators that when that happens you cover it up you don't talk about it in the community and i think by

127covering it up it just kind of allows racism to sort of like you know to be an undercurrent that hovers under the surface and then people push it down when it pops up but it's still there so i really um just echo what angela and roxanne asked for have a policy have like a clear protocol that all of the staff is aware of and that's so that students know what to do when they hear the n-word or when they hear a gay student being called a word that starts with f which i won't say or you know there are plenty of of hate there's lots of hate speech happening and apparently it's like it's not getting up to the administrative level so please implement a protocol thank you thank you [Music] hi everyone first of

128all i want to welcome you all back to school notice a lot going on now at the beginning of the school year could you give us your name oh i'm sorry i always forget that donna i'm jasmine sabagala and i am a skokie resident although i'm not a parent here the kids that leave this school will join my kids over at the high school and i'm here to help to lead the process of having a response to race hatred bigotry a protocol because it's very necessary in our community for all the kids that we serve that belong in our village to know how to interact and to treat each other with respect okay so i wanted to start with that but before i go into my i have something really short to share um i

129just want to put out there that with the kova testing that there are parents that work two and three jobs and so before and after school may be hard for those parents that do have to work two jobs and that are single parents um also um kids get hearing and vision tests on a regular basis in school so cova testing in school should not be stigmatized at all um and i wonder about the correlation between the kids who are not meeting grade level and the parents that have to work all the time and i just want to make sure that we're not missing kids who need the opportunity to get tested and to make sure that they're not sick and they don't pass a sickness onto other children um okay so what i have to

130say here is um first of all dear superintendent and board of education my name is jasmine savagala and i'm a community member thanks so much for requiring the students and staff members to wear masks the delta variant is spreading through our community it is the best it is in the best interest of our children to limit the spread of cobia discriminatory and hateful language and acts i urge you i urge you to collaborate with the staff students and parents to create a response to racism discriminatory language and hateful acts protocol it is best to create the protocol before incidents take place you will have a response prepared if hateful incidents take place the student and staff and parents will know what to expect when incidents occur and you send a clear message to the community

131that every leader in the fairview district stands against hateful acts language and bigotry thanks for your time and i hope you all have a great night now an amazing school year thank you i'm a little shorter i got to move this down thank you thank you all right hi my name is nicole reynolds um i am a community member um i'm also a teacher at niles west high school and i have children that go to district 69. um it sounds like you all are doing a great job with what you're doing with with cobit protocols and things of that sort so i urge you to just continue that and listen to your community um and kind of have the parents those that are telling you those that are coming here uh telling you what they

132need just to kind of listen in that regard um i've been the last two uh board meetings and um i'm glad that you all have been talking about having a equity director or something of the sort i know that isn't totally in the name um but i'm just going to urge you to keep on working on that i was actually surprised to see that it wasn't on the agenda tonight um and maybe you know it's just because she hasn't finished her equity august which is fine but i do think there should be an update of some sort and i think that it's important to keep that communication going at district 219 we have an equity officer she's one of my bosses i teach seed and we have an equity statement so i urge you to

133also do those things at district 69 we have an equity person we i believe we have a statement most schools that have an equity officer um have an equity statement and that's kind of what's been happening you all are doing a great job of getting that ball rolling but it needs to continue um and just like jasmine talked about because jasmine and my daughter will go to school together as well as many people here at niles west while i'm a teacher there and i think it's an important thing for you all too even though i'm not a community member here in this district it's important to talk about skokie as a whole not just this little you know 77 student first grade class um that we're talking about my daughter had nine or ten uh

134first grade classes so we're all going to go together in about eight or nine years to niles west together so this is important to build a foundation now get that equity statement done now so that you're not waiting the protocols that you've heard the parents that are living in your district asking for need to happen now right it's something that needs to happen you cannot wait anymore i listen i've sat back and i haven't said anything for the last few board meetings but it is absolutely important and you you all need to make sure that equity person that it's in their job description and there is an update to this community i am very disappointed that it wasn't an update tonight i'm not gonna lie i don't even live in this community okay so it's

135upon you all to make sure that that happens for this community thank you for your time thank you good evening i uh i hope everyone had a great summer um i'd like to welcome oh i'm sorry helen levinson with district 72. um i'd like to welcome back the teachers staff and administration i hope everyone had a great summer most of the parents that i speak with are asking for mask optionals we understand that there's some mandates that are coming down from pritzker so we get it um as far as the testing of kids uh we do need to reach out to the community ask the kids or ask the parents if this is something they want to do kids are already under a lot of peer pressure regarding vaccinations whether they're being vaccinated or not

136i think it's really important that you reach out to the community and get their feedback on it the other thing i want to talk about is um you know sitting here watching the board meetings the past few board meetings uh getting overrun uh by individuals that are not in this district uh it's really important that you as board members listen to the families of district 72 you were voted in by the families of district 72 and it's really important that you listen to our voices first children are not inherently racist schools are to focus on academia while conversations of ethics morals sexual topics and religion should stay at home these are your conversations that parents should have with their kids not schools when we tell children to focus on color and not character it's the

137beginning of creating a bias that didn't exist and i'm not talking about you know somebody was here a couple uh meetings ago and they said that their daughter said um that she was another kid said to her that her skin color looks like poo i i felt horrible when i heard that story but this is not racism this is behavioral problems with kids this is kids that don't know what they're saying sometimes because they treat kids that they see that are different differently but they're not inherently racist and so what i'd like to say that you know this bias that is being created through these conversations um are coming up because these conversations are being injected into the classroom and it's a new type of racism caterpilling caterpillaring us back into the 1960s so please

138do not confuse behavioral issues with racism they are completely different the adults here are fighting for their own cause not for the best interest of the children i can tell you many of the members here are from the abolition coalition skokie equity collaborative and these are the same members [Applause] i'm glad you're clapping these are the same members who are fighting these are the same members who are fighting i'm sorry but your time is up these are the same members who are fighting against racism excuse me you two called a black conservative on district 219 and they called him an uncle so i'd like to say that you need to stay focused okay that's enough thank you we take one more comment please if you continue to make this noise you will be asked to

139leave [Music] i'm asking you to sit down excuse me if you want to make the comment to the board you can address the board if you want to have your own conversation please take it outside are there any more comments to the board please go ahead [Music] hi my name is cynthia johnson i am the parent of an incoming seventh grader who's attended fairview since kindergarten we actually my husband and i moved to skokie specifically so my child could attend this school um first i'd like to thank the board to for continuing to require the masks the science is shown again and again and again vaccines plus masks save lives especially with all these little kids who cannot get vaccinated yet keeping the masks really is keeping children safe and that is a very important

140goal for a school to have um am also as a fairview parent asking the board to focus on writing a policy and protocol to handle hate speech at fairview my son has heard the n-word at fairview twice now since kindergarten this is not something he's learning at home he's learning hate at school i do believe that children are not born racist clearly it's something that they learn at home um as a preschool teacher one of the things that i teach the earliest children on their educational journey are democratic life skills the skills that people need to be adults in a democracy and anti-racism is a democratic life skill these children who are not learning that it is not okay to hate not okay choose hate speech they're not prepared for life they're not prepared to

141attend high school they're not prepared to hold jobs if you use hate speech at your job you are going to get fired this is something that fairview has really fallen down on and i know you have a lot on your plates with the pandemic and with everything that's going on but waiting is doing these children a disservice i ask that the board devote time to create an equity statement to take a strong stance against white supremacy and racism and just understand and take this to heart that if you are not anti-racist you are on this side of racism you cannot play the middle on this it is not a gray area thank you we have now had about 33 minutes of comments so we will allow one more and then comment so close for the

142evening excellent thank you my name is kerry swann and um i'm happy to be the last word i wasn't planning on speaking this evening but um showing support for my friends um and family um but i wanted to just thank helen because he gave me the courage to actually get up and say something because i'm not a fairview parent i'm not but it doesn't matter like dr king said in his letter from the birmingham jail injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere and i'm here to just say that skokie is one place thank you for your comment you're concluding the comment for this evening okay so finally this evening we're moving on to our action items uh the first slight item is to approve the master facility plan uh proposed earlier this evening so

143we've had our discussion we've had our conversation uh all that remains is that we have a motion and a second to preview to approve the master facility plan so moved second go ahead uh could the secretary please call the roll yes miss brown uh mr carcass yes uh mr guliana yes miss lenoy yes astounding yes i vote yes uh miss boosti yes okay the master facility plan is approved next item for approval is the uh to adopt the attentive fiscal year 2022 district budget and to adopt a resolution to place the tentative budget on public to display and set the date for a public hearing on the budget mr defeat your budget well our budget but your budget your presentation man sorry so thank you everyone for allowing me to present the tenant budget tonight

144it's going to be a brief presentation typically and this is for either new people that have not heard the budget before or to the new board members that have not been through this process before the time to budget is a kind of preview of our final budget for the year it's a more conservative estimate of what we anticipate seeing in september uh every year the budget does need to be approved by the end of september for the fiscal year july 1 to june 30th typically uh we have done it in this district where we've um done the final bar the attended budget in august final budget in september that allows us to get final numbers for fiscal year 21 as allowing getting better revenue estimates for fiscal year in a small district like ours any

145changes in the budget tends to shift things a lot more than they do in bigger districts and we're a lot also a lot to get thankfully we're allowed to get a lot more exact numbers too so i'm just give a brief presentation of what we're looking at right now uh the summary and this the math doesn't work out but 10.8 percent increase in revenues uh that is largely due to the error last year from the county on the tiff refund that we received we talked about the number of times where there was eight hundred thousand dollars actually came off our books last year that's why you're going to see a huge skew jump on our revenue this year expenditures are increasing six point six percent and that's for a couple of reasons uh one is

146we're having a lot of things that we actually didn't spend last year because we weren't in school where you're in school but there's a lot of things that we didn't pay for necessarily like a normal year this year there's also some opportunity through grant monies to improve our technology infrastructure improve learning loss we're adopting two a reading intervention curriculum a math intervention curriculum that'll increase expenditures quick our hiring insurance enrollment is still continuing as we speak we're trying to finalize that for being the school year and then as we talked about in finance committee this past week our two largest expenditures salaries and insurance the increases year to year for those two items are outpacing our revenue we rely so heavily on local revenue and we're limited from local revenue with cpi cpi in the

147most recent year being 2.3 and that's the very limited amount that we can increase revenues by uh s for funds is a huge thing for us this year so the federal grant money that we're going to be getting we're going to be getting about 1.5 million dollars over the three different rounds of federal money we actually just saw our 440 thousand dollars in esther 2 money deposited uh this month so let it be on fiscal year 22 books uh dr whittaker mentioned earlier that we're continuing to plan for the essar 3 money which is about nine hundred thousand dollars uh we're hoping to there's a certain amount of that that needs to be addressed directly learning loss but twenty percent needs to address learning loss so we're going to submit that grant during this fiscal

148year uh the big thing for our taxpayers is the reason that we have a fund balance is because we're able to ensure sustainability so even in a year where we're projecting a 448 000 million that's not an accurate number that's not a real number people that's math is bad there it's 448 000 deficit not millions sorry about that uh three percent what's that four to forty eight thousand million is not a number so i apologize it's a very big solution that raise the note erase the million because that's make believe all right that's accurate in our actual budget not the presentation uh the reason i have a fund balance ensures our sustainability so in years and we've had the same discussion year over year we're able to do large capital projects in the building with

149our funds that we have on hand a number of roofing projects classroom reconstruction now the construction we talked about tonight we're not going to be able to do that with funds on hand but we'll talk about the financing for that project later the big thing for our taxpayers is that our tax rate continues to be very low thanks to our heavy commercial property base uh we have the second lowest the 29 north cook elementary districts the same as it was last year and we are continuing to see uh through the assessment process our assessed value of the community continues to increase this year went up another eight percent which is fantastic because that eight percent increase in eav outpaces that whatever the cpi is which means the tax rate will again drop a little bit

150a number of factors in influence in this year this year's budget which i've already touched on uh cpprt which is a personal property replacement tax what that does is it replaces the tax that went away in the 70s and because we have so much commercial property in the district it's a large number for our district last year we projected about 700 000 we actually got 1.1 million we're waiting for that final number for this year um we are again like i mentioned federal funding is a huge component this year it's a very conservative revenue estimate in this budget i'm going to hopefully as we know more as we apply because it's a grant where we have to expend that money before getting the money we don't want to budget too much revenue in this fiscal

151year you'll see the salary and benefit increases on the on the right salary is largely tied to you know we're hiring more instructional aides we have the um community engagement coordinator position director that we've hired um there's certain stipends that we didn't pay last year that they're actually coming back on the books this year so they'll increase the salary number uh 4.3 increase in benefits uh that's directly tied to the number of employees we have enrolled in our insurance plans as well as the increases through our cooperative uh capital projects and this is a big thing i talked about with finance committee it's not traditionally something we've done as a district but i didn't feel comfortable i didn't feel it was the right thing to do to project some kind of estimate for the construction

152projects without going through the process of getting more hard budget numbers on what that looks like so i'm asking the board after we approve this final budget probably in the spring we know more numbers about the project we'll be coming back to do an amended budget because it is such a large number i talked about the intervention curriculum adoption and reading and math which is exciting because it's something we've talked about for a while and it's a great time to do that as we've increased the intervention staff uh patrick has we've seen an opportunity to address the infrastructure for our technology programs especially with so much remote learning last year we want to be sure that if that ever happens again we're able to actually be ready for that that we weren't but we're talking

153about server upgrades firewall upgrades um so about 20 increase there which then will then drop next year uh special ed is such a big part of our budget with ntdst and other programs we have with east prairie and that's about eight percent of our total costs uh our current vendor contracts you know with our salaries and benefits locked in we continue to be very diligent about contracts with vendors and trying to limit the increases that we have we have a siemens contract that was about 81 000 for building automation systems that we brought down to 70 000 this year just by looking at the contract and trying to scale back some operations that we might not need this is we're replacing the bus fleet this year so we'll have brand new buses going out the

154first day of school uh we actually got a couple today there's a shortage of bus drivers everywhere so even our bus company is having trouble delivering the buses to us and then the end this is the first year of the ntdse building payment so as bill as you know ntdc is doing construction project we agreed to pay for the portion of our project over the course of 10 years that payment amounts to about 81 thousand dollars there's a look at our five-year operating funds operating funds again is just education o m transportation working cash that green line at the top is our current fund balance a big part of the construction project we talked tonight is committing district dollars toward that project we want to be sure that we're right around as the board adopted

155the fund balance policy we're above the 75 percent that the board adopted so through the next few months when we talk about financing we talk about projections we want to make sure that we're doing our due diligence and that we can if we can actually put enough money toward the project to offset any more borrowing that we need to do this is a look at our budget to actual history again i the big thing i mentioned i talked to the finances to be about this is we try to be uber conservative with our revenue estimates and our expenditure estimates uh that right column over there is the budgeted net every year and mainly we've come out ahead of last year was that was we didn't know what to expect with regards to revenue we got

156a lot more revenue than we anticipated um it was just it was a really off year for everything and a couple of those years the expenditures went over because of the timing construction payments over the summer [Music] again the next steps will present the tenant budget will be in display for 30 days the final budget will be presented september we'll also have our audit report and our projections in october uh i'm hoping along with that we'll have and we talked briefly about the said finance committee and it's from our our financing group that's working on us borrowing for the project uh we'll hopefully incorporate that somehow into those october october reports attend levy in november and final levy in december again those are very important because that's the huge source of revenue and then january

1571st will begin the budget process for next year i know it was really quick and i was talking way too fast so i apologize but any questions on what presented tonight any questions the only clarification question i have is you said the ntds the building payment is 81 000 correct that's not one payment that's what we owe that's one year that's once a year for 10 years got it yes and that money is to support the new malloy facilities that some of our students attend um so that was our part of supporting their renovation work and their updating and whatnot okay so it's one payment a year got it and ncdc gave people the option if they want to lump sum they'd be payment over the course of time okay and what all that does

158is it's folded into our ntdc payment every year okay and i'll get an update on building and stuff when i go to their meeting and then yeah bring it back great thank you i would wonder if the finance committee had anything they wanted to add since they did hear a more detailed presentation at their meeting anything you'd like to add to the conversation not for me i think that was a great summary thank you excellent recap thank you thank you it's just a question so i i feel like this is an easy answer but last year went over budget because of covet and all of the unusual is that something that we're really taking into consideration this current next year the additional expenditures so we were when we looked at last year's budget we had

159a huge deficit you know i broke it down in last year's budget summary which i can also give to you as well uh but when you actually break it down pretty simply we had a 900 000 deficit 800 000 of that was simply because of the county payment that we received early so we're being extraordinarily we're saying okay this is a normal year let's we don't know what to expect let's plan that we're going to spend everything we do in a normal year plus any preventative measures that we need to undertake which is i mean we're talking about the ionization units in the building we're talking about the any people see uh any ppe we had in the building all that stuff thankfully due to federal monies were able to write all that off stuff

160off the federal monies so that projected 1.9 million dollar deficit it was close to breakeven because of that the large portion of that was simply the timing of those tax receipts that were mistaken by the county for that terrific rebate we received so it was i mean last year for those of you that were here i basically stood up here and it was time to budget i'm like i don't know it was anyone's guess but we tried to plan extraordinarily conservatively and making sure that we accounted not just for our regular expenditures and given year planning like we were but also those preventative measures that we try to take and just to be clear nine hundred thousand dollars was deposited into our accounts by the county in error they did not take that money back

161until the next fiscal year and so it kind of skews our budget numbers it was such a large number so it's it's confusing but we want to keep explaining that so people understand it was it was a tif that went off the books in culver it was right on the border they thought it was our money we would have been happy to keep it we knew it i told it i told the timeshare treasurer i'm like that is not our money and they kept saying well the county says it's yours i said okay but you know let's and then a month later they were calling me hey jeff um i'm like oh great that's fantastic so we'll it'll skew our numbers for another two years that's great but you know we dealt with it and

162we're able to address it and um you know that's it's that okay thank you well those that factor skewing numbers plus the fact that our income and expenditure last year was just so out of the ordinary because of covered um it's it's hard to think what our normal year is right now in the time last year we didn't know what the federal monies were going to be that we're going to receive like that's another component so construction going on there won't be a normal year for the next couple years okay thank you very much um if there's no more questions uh we will put it to a vote with the secretary please call the role oh i'm sorry yes you're absolutely right uh can i have emotional second place i didn't do that so moved

163second uh in that case can we call the role yes um miss brown yes miss bourgeody yes mr juliana yes mr akakis yes miss illinois yes um wait well i i vote yes i'm sorry i lost my track there uh ms downing yes okay the tentative budget is approved and will be on display for the next 30 days uh the next item is uh approve employment of personnel in closed session earlier this evening the board discussed two appointments one is a life schools teacher the other is the director of community and student engagement those are the two positions we'll be voting on this evening can i have a motion and a second to approve those appointments please on auction uh second uh could the secretary please call the role yes i vote yes mr lenoy

164yes miss downing yes mr giuliana yes mr carcass yes uh miss bruce d yes and miss brown yes whose appointments are made um next item is to approve the release of certain closed session minutes after the discussion in closed session it was agreed that we would open the minutes of may 4th 2021 april 27 2021 february 16 2021 january 19th 2021 and december 15 2021. can i have a motion and a second to release those minutes so moved i'll second all those in flavor say aye any opposed say nay minutes are released next item is to approve the destruction of the close second recordings from february 19th 2019 through to july 16th 2019. can i have a motion in a second so moved second all those in favor say aye all right any opposed saying

165the uh recordings will be destroyed um and last item is to change the board meeting uh currently scheduled for september 15th through to over to september 22nd and i understand this is in order to allow that full 30 days for the budget to be displayed before the board approves it at the next meeting 15th would be too short we need to go to 22nd so um is there any issue with that does anybody have any just make sure that it's updated on the documents that have been going out because it still says it will be updated on the website and and posted there as you know as required um so can i have a motion and a second to change the board meeting the next september board meeting from wednesday the 15th to wednesday the

166september 22nd second okay all those in favor say aye aye aye aye any opposed say nay okay and that concludes our action items for this evening so are there any items for future consideration i have one if i may i think that it's time to have ntdse visit this board and provide a report on the programs that they provide for students in the township i feel that there are misunderstandings out in the community and i think it's important that the board understand our partnership with ntvsc and what is offered to our students both at satellite schools at the malloy center or their staff coming into our building to provide services to students so if that's something that the board would be interested in i would like to arrange that in the next month or two

167depending upon their schedule and if they might be able to attend i think that's a great idea if you could also give us um well you're talking about ntdsc and what the services they provide for malloy and if you can talk about the middle school students and the primary school students that the partnership that we have with the east prairie sure we could do an all-encompassing report on special education both within the district and our community partners and ntdse yeah a fully inclusive report of everything thank you that sounds like a really good idea i think um it's definitely important to bring our newer board members up to speed and and i love to hear about the wonderful things that nddc is doing myself so um yes that sounds like a great idea please go

168ahead okay thank you the only item i have i don't know if it's an item or not but i feel like uh the policy on sharing public comment is confusing between what are the parameters and what are suggestions right in terms of um larger district community people versus district people the parameters are in the policy there is no specific parameter about allowing people within the district to speak as a priority over people outside of the district uh the law is that anybody can come to the meeting you could go off to la and speak at their meetings if you wanted to or up to alaska it doesn't doesn't matter okay you can speak whenever you want however it was a polite suggestion that if we actually have numerous people that wish to address abroad a

169polite suggestion was okay that district 72 should be given priority that's the way it was put out there thank you anything else um there was one other thing so we've talked we've heard several times from several community members about their children hearing hate speech um and i know that this might be addressed through findings in the equity audit but i am curious to understand what is our teachers or what is our policy around handling that how what you know what are see teachers supposed to do something are the uh what does that look like the management or the handling of such reports made to teachers it's very straightforward uh when a child reports an incident of that nature or whether it be something you know of a physical nature they should report it to a

170school adult they should report it immediately the school adult could be any school adult it could be a principal it could be a teacher it could be a counselor it could be a kitchen staff member if there's someone that they feel comfortable with and that is our goal that every child has at least one adult that they feel comfortable sharing sensitive information with uh it's our goal i'm not stating that it's you know necessarily a hundred percent the case because i don't know that right right now reporting it in a timely fashion the staff are well equipped to manage student disciplinary issues but things that rise to a level of the nature of what these parents have reported to us should be reported directly to a principal there should be an incident report written up

171about the matter the principal will then conduct an investigation which our principles do that investigation should conclude in either a restorative circle for children to come together and have conversations and work through their issues it could result in disciplinary action it could result in a finding that maybe there was a misunderstanding but that's the responsibility of the principles and that's what our principles have been directed to do i have asked that going forth that items of a nature of race or bullying or harassment intimidation any of any of the above be brought to my attention so that i'm made aware of it typically school superintendents are not intimately involved in those types of matters but i want to be and i think one important loop of this whole process is going back to the child

172who reported it and having a conversation so they know that they've been heard that they did the right thing by speaking to an adult that their parents be contacted to let them know that their child reported something that we're looking into it whatever we can share with them we can't share the outcome of every disciplinary matter with parents it's private it's student privacy information that we can't share but part of this is making sure that all of the parties are communicated with so they understand that it's being addressed i think that that's probably where we can improve is to make sure that the child who reports the incident is spoken to they understand that they've been heard that their feelings are validated that they're supported whether you know their accusation or what they heard was

173exactly what happened or not doesn't matter we want to encourage those discussions with adults so there is a protocol in place we have been reminded that we need to reiterate our process make sure that everybody's on the same page which we absolutely will do to start the school year um and i have full confidence that if things are reported to us in timely matter uh that our staff and our principals will address it so a couple maybe a year ago or a year and a half ago we went through the board went through extensive discussion around bullying and which led to some really good work by the staff and you know administration around the bullying prevention um documents and policies and procedures that we have now put in place all really great work does any

174of that need to be amended to include hate speech or is that all-encompassing i i think that that is absolutely something that could be re-looked at um you know again i'm talking off the cuff tonight so i haven't reviewed those policies today and they're not fresh in my mind but certainly there is a zero tolerance of language of physical aggression of weapons there are very there's a long list of things that are not tolerated at this school and i think our students and our staff need to be reminded and the opening of school is a great time for that we're going to have all of our students back in person and so we have a wonderful opportunity to rebuild community bring students together but also reinforce our standards and that's what we're going to expect

175our staff to do yeah so i think that's a wonderful way to approach that i love the idea if you could also maybe when you're looking at that to refresh it maybe also making sure that it includes anything that's um you know anti-homophobic language of course used in the school of course it's it's all-inclusive sharing it's inclusive of of all people all genders uh sexual orientation i mean that's what they're talking about with an equity statement it's all-inclusive it includes um you know students who are coming from low-income houses and don't have lunches it it's a very um it needs to be broad and it needs to be inclusive of all and i'm glad you raised the point about what we did with our work with bullying we do have an anonymous tip line that

176students need to be reminded of so they can put a tip in we also need to let them know that if they provide a tip they need to give us enough information so we can investigate something properly sometimes we get tips and it's so vague there's nothing we can do about it because it's anonymous and we don't know who to go back to um but you know we can remind the students of where to find that on our website we can remind them of how detailed they need to you know make their description of what's going on and that's the way they can report something if they're into school adult that they want to go to um one thing we struggle with is when we get reports of things that have happened but it's months

177later um that is very hard to track down um but you know we would still rather know about it than not know about it but it's just very hard to investigate when something is you know several weeks several months old so um if children aren't willing to talk with us then their parents have to contact us immediately niles west has a lovely sign outside that says hate has no home here i think those are the words and and is it possible for fairview to do something like that for the first day i mean i know it's short notice of course but uh given all the um you know hate stuff that we've been experiencing over the last uh year and a half or so um i wonder if the board would consider putting something that's

178inclusive that really emphasizes the one fairview um by really denouncing hatred and racism and i don't think anybody here would say that they are racist and they want they you know align with it nobody would ever say that nobody believes that here so if we sign like that to really take a stand and say this is who we are as a community we stand up against hate we it has no place here um along with our welcome sign to me that sounds like a nice way to start the school year and results like was there a sticker here in the back at the entrance to i saw there's like multiple stickers or something that's already been out and posted on the door in the entryway uh so that um i think what you're speaking of

179is the skokie welcomes everyone signs that was sort of a village-wide um through skokie i think through skokie cares um and so we posted those signs because they were you know part of a village-wide effort and people had the yard signs in their front yards and schools posted them um the library etc etc um so that was sort of a village-wide uh effort to come together as a community and indicate our welcoming of everyone uh if that's all then i have just a couple of housekeeping items if you like um the isp conference is in november it will be from november 19th to the 21st that's actually in person this year downtown um i will definitely be going i'll be contacting drew about going to the conference again if anybody wants to come along um

180this is a friday saturday sunday nobody ever goes on the sunday but it's just a friday saturday um and i will also be representing the board in terms of the uh what do they call it the legislation delegation yeah so um if anyone wants to come along that'd be great and before that on wednesday september 22nd which i just realized is our board meeting darn it uh well it was going to be the isb north cook dinner but obviously we previously engaged so no one's going to that then okay so that was all i was going to mention i i'd like to add one more item for future consideration um if cindy can just kind of go over the plan in either september october after you know joining with the teachers um what the plan

181is for the educational loss at fairview is you know off of last year and academics is still the you know the focus of the school and what we're doing to help students what fear of you is doing and i know there's a plan we've talked about it but just to kind of overview it what the plan is to help these students okay thank you okay is there anything else to bring before the broad okay in that case can i have a motion and a second to adjourn the meeting at 9 33 our motion second could the secretary please call the role yes miss boozy yes i didn't yes miss lenoy yes mr guliana yes chris brown yes mr akakis yes i vote yes i'm astounding yes [Music]