Fairview District 72 Board of Education Meeting - 9-22-2021

001[Music] is to adjourn the regular meeting to conduct a public hearing on the tentative fy 22 district budget so can i please have a motion and a second to adjourn the regular meeting and conduct a public hearing on the fy 22 budget let the oh sorry so move and um our second can we please have a roll call vote mr secretary uh yes uh miss boosti uh mr akakis yes mr guliana yes um miss downing yes mr noye yes i vote yes miss brown yes okay we are going into our public hearing at 7 02 pm um and i think we have a presentation from mr feyer we do um so over the last month since the board first heard the tentative budget um we have met um and refined that budget and this evening

002uh mr fair is prepared to present the budget and answer any board questions that you might have so mr fair you want to address the board please trying to get the presentation up on the screen here okay as dr whitaker said the last month has essentially been attempting to refine as best as possible those tend to budget numbers uh that tend to vote in august um our usual practice is that we try and have as little changes as possible between tentative and final uh we have that month to refine things but really not change things a whole lot over the course last year you know that's been as things change more rapidly than they had in previous years we've had to be careful and make sure that we have all our ducks in a row

003and we're able to give you guys the most accurate numbers as possible uh this year there was one huge substantial change that happened between the 10th and final this is similar to the graph or the the chart i showed last month but we're seeing now a 14.7 percent jump in revenues this year largely due to the recent numbers that we got from the county about our cpprt so what cpprt is it's a corporate replacement tax years ago uh you used to be able to tax personal property on corporations in the in the district and all over the cook county now you're not able to do that they came up with a replacement tax with just about 2.5 percent on sales for corporations because we have so much corporation industry commercial resident or commercial and industry

004in the district we're seeing about 1.3 to 1.4 million dollars from those from that uh area this year which is about 10 percent of our total budget it's a huge number last year we saw a much larger we had seen for a number of years anywhere between 700 900 last year even though everything was going on with covid we saw a 1.1 million dollar jump now we're seeing a one jump up to 1.3 and the initial projection that i put about 800 000 just to be conservative based on previous years but as we're seeing right now the like data anywhere if you look you know you go back five years and try and make anything out of data from last year it's it's very inaccurate right now so we're doing the best of what we

005can but that was a huge change we finalized insurance enrollment in hiring which again is another fluctuation that we'll see at the start of the year but this was the biggest thing that turned about a i mean we were looking at about a 400 to 500 000 deficit originally now it's at about a 32 000 deficit i made the comments of finance committee and you know both mr juliana and mr shurmur being relatively new to the committee our tradition has been to be extraordinarily conservative in our projections and then to come back and be able to give line item rationale as to why things were changed or were different than we budgeted originally and that's how we intend to intend to do this going forward um two the largest expenditures in the district both salaries

006and insurance continue to outpace revenues as it refers to local revenues but as a whole we're seeing a huge jump in revenues because of both cpprt and also federal dollars we talked about that last month as well in esser funds the good thing for our our taxpayers and i continue to mention this we still have the second lowest tax rate of all 29 north cook elementary districts because of that commercial property in our in our township our district i touched on these in the board packet i went through an extensive narrative about each one of these topics um but again esther funding our eav went up again about seven and a half percent which is the property value in our district which will then bring our tax rate down cpi that is trending upward and

007that's going to help us as far as revenue from local property taxes going forward property tax appeals we continue to get the bad thing about the commercial profit in our district is that we get hit hard with property tax appeals from industry there is legislation going out there right now we're going to be able to recoup that in the future that hasn't been final that hasn't been finalized yet but we're still waiting to hear the details but that'll be something to be brought to the board when we talk about the levy in november december and personnel plan our insurance costs continue to be the largest drivers of our budget we've continued to invest in things like district wellness to try and drive down long-term insurance costs we had a very large investment this year technology

008infrastructure for a couple of reasons there was life cycle replacements that we have as well as we wanted to be prepared in case there was ever a chance for remote learning again to make sure that we reinforced everything that we needed to be in place our facility plan as we've talked about for a number of board meetings that's going to be a huge driver going forward not necessarily in this year currently we we don't have a lot budgeted as far as huge projects goes within the building but that'll be that'll come actually come up in the spring we talk about amending the budget based on what the board decides for construction and moving back to normal you know i mentioned again how much are we going to be able to glean off last year's numbers

009how much is this going to be how normal the year is it's going to be we'll find out what it looks like as far as our operating funds against that's our education o m transportation and working cash we have about 1.7 alone in working cash uh you know the talk again has been to use a large amount of that in whatever construction project we decided to go on to go with the blue bars there are the revenues the red are the expenditures 18 19 20 and 21 are the final numbers 22 is obviously the budget and then that green line is the operating fund balance we're at about 122 right now the board policy is 75 and we're going to use that board policy to dictate how we balance financing of the projects going forward

010uh the next step we'll submit all this with the county clerk and submit the budget uh the approved board budget to the isb october we'll look at financial projections and that may be november and lockstep with the whatever financing we'll talk we'll have the annual about report the audit in october as well and that's we do that every year november 21 will present the levy and we'll talk about construction financing again december 21 will submit the levy and then 23 will or 22 january 22 will begin fy23 budget preparations already and then spring will again look at the amended budget options based on what the board decides for construction so really cpprt is the huge change from last month everything else stands for questions anyone have any questions for jeff um i had one i'm

011just what you were saying about the ccprt you said that there's been some significant rises in the last couple of years do you see that trending is it just going to keep getting better and better or is it going to plateau at some point i believe it has to plateau at some point i don't expect that trend to continue uh we didn't expect to get 1.1 million last year in a year with cobit it was 800 to 900 000 but um things have really changed the last couple years with regards to both assessment of property and property tax with the new assessor so uh you know again i don't believe those numbers are going to change substantially i i still have a hard time believing that we're going to see an even bigger jump from

012that number so you know looking at budging for next year because we didn't get the numbers the cprt numbers we got last week we just got we just got the projections last week i'm probably normal is that normal to be about that time yeah it's end of august middle september somewhere around that time and that's usually but we don't see that big a jump that's the thing is i'll budget 800 000 they'll come back at 8.50 so it's not that huge a difference but i have a hard time believing that we're going to see anything higher than that and it's based on sales tax you said it's based on 2.5 percent of sales of the corporations yeah well it's good news i mean it means it means the economy had a good end of the

013year good does anybody else have any other questions on the board did the finance committee have anything that they wanted to add from our conversations or no not thank you yeah no i don't think so i think you covered it uh just as well here as you did for us so thank you i certainly hope in the board packet the the summary that i put in there with the narrative explaining that the process helps as well for especially for those of you going through for the first time if you have any questions obviously reach out to me anytime thank you and just to clarify this is a public hearing so if there were any members of the audience that wanted to address uh mr feyer regarding the fy 22 budget then they're free to i

014think you're good i think your explanation has has put us all at ease thank you very much for doing all that work and all that research um uh if the discussion is complete um i'd like a motion and a second to close the public hearing second oh okay and uh the minutes will reflect that the hearing was adjourned at 7 12 p.m could the secretary please call the role uh yes uh miss brown yes uh mr giuliana yes miss lenoy yes miss downing yes i vote yes mr akakis yes miss busty yes okay we have closed the public hearing and we are now able to move on with the rest of our agenda so our first item next is uh to approve the regular and special and closed meeting minutes of uh august 18th sorry

015it is just regular and close i have the word special in here but that's just correct regular and closed meeting of um august 18 can i have a motion in a second so move second okay thank you um are there any click changes or corrections to the minutes or any comments no in that case all those in favor say aye any opposed say nay the minutes are approved uh next item is to approve the payment of bills in the amount of 200 i'm sorry even with glasses i can't see 000 and 17. and 10 cents can i have a motion in a second it's all moved second okay are there any questions regarding the bills good in that case uh could the secretary please call the role yeah mr carcass yes uh i vote yes

016miss downing yes miss boosie yes miss lenoy yes mr guliana yes and miss brown yes the girls will be paid thank you um next item is the pta report do we have any representative from the pta oh great thank you i'm good evening i'm cajol shaw one of the co-presidents for the pdf we started off this year with the first general meeting on september 8th where we got to meet jordan kilpatrick which was really nice and underwater in person meeting and the remaining meetings for the year will be on zoo the first event which we had was connect for respect 5k run or walk which was very successful and we had 25 raffles and the kids and parents and the fairview faculty was very happy about it and we would like to thank mrs larkin

017mr lopetka mrs whitaker the nurse and casio's team for helping us through the event the first pta newsletter went out this week and we continued to do that every week and we updated our fairview uh pda website and we also uh posted our first 5k video with all the pictures so people can have a look at it and attend the next future events tonight is a pda benefit night at colwers and the next upcoming event is the pta halloween party which will be hosted on october 30th which will be a trunk or treat with the different time slots and contests for pumpkin carving pumpkin crafts and the fundraisers which are coming up is october 19th the pta benefit night of room already october 29th will be doing the classroom parties november 4th will be the

018pta benefit night at william downtown skokie from 11 a.m to 10 p.m and november 10th will be the next pda general meeting at 6 30 p.m on zoom thank you any questions just sounds like you're back in the swing and busy as ever yeah we are very excited to be the co-president and looking forward to new and innovative stuff thank you i would just say thank you for the 5k it was a great community event it was so special that you remembered september 11th and took the opportunity to remember that with everybody who was present that was appreciated by me and i think many others and i also want to thank you for being so willing and flexible to adjust the events considering the situation we're in we are really excited about the trunk or

019treat um which if you're not familiar with the trunk or treat it will be in our parking lot and people will have their trunks or the back of their car open so that kids can pick up you know pencils or candy or whatever it might be in a safe way since trick-or-treating might not be what it normally is um so we just appreciate your creativity and and willing to really work with us um we're trying to keep the school open for as long as possible and as safely as possible and so with your help you know that's definitely a goal we'll be able to obtain so thank you for your hard work thank you so much thank you okay yes well done so we're on a roll of good news now so school activity report

020is there any members of the board or administration wish to share good news from the district um okay great thank you he he's a great guy mr bob mccartney he really is a great guy um i have some good news um and it's actually an honor for the entire board that he didn't even know that we had um our school board has been recognized by the illinois association of school boards as a we've been given the school board governance recognition honor so this is um something that we have applied to in the past dr whittaker and myself put forward the application this summer um and we were required to uh speak of of the wonderful things that our board is doing so we talked about the fact that we had the board training with iasb

021this spring that we have a strategic plan that we're monitoring which is obviously monitoring the progress of that and progress of improving our school we have a consistent superintendent review process we have an orientation of new board members that we obviously implemented in particular this year um we have our code of contact we do our policy reviews um we're doing our best to connect with the community um and extending that connection so all of those things combined means that our board has been recognized with um this award the bad news is we're supposed to be collecting it this evening at the isb um full meeting but we're here instead but that's that's a shame but uh we would have been going to the um awards evening this evening and being presented with it so um

022but never mind we will be sending them a photograph of us and we will actually get a physical award sometime soon so well done everybody we're doing a good job yeah um you know usually research and she's going to now be able to so great that's great news completely unexpected [Music] thank you anyone else while we're on a roll i got some stuff i wanted to acknowledge um mr lepaka who has accommodated a bunch of middle schoolers um like a sixth grader who was remote all year was entering middle school and he let them sort of walk their schedule before school started and i know it was a fifth grade thing but like to open the door for sixth graders who hadn't been here i think made that transition so much easier for them um

023the word on the street you know i ask kids a lot of stuff when they're walking home and i try to get a beat on things advisory sounds like cool things are happening the biggest plus seems to be that they don't have to go to gym right away that's the big message but that they're enjoying having that time to sort of connect and get to know different adults and um there was something else on our list i was looking at the 5k was amazing you always have the most beautiful weather and great music and i thought of something else and now i can't remember it um sorry oh the virtual curriculum night um so i'm bummed that we didn't get to like all convene but i'm so grateful we didn't all convene right it's that

024mixed bag feeling but the presentations that i experienced were unbelievable knowing the time and hours it takes to make it feel like the teacher sitting there talking to me was so impressive not only was it fun to watch my kid knew what they were talking about which was great and the email like i emailed the teachers and was like this was great here's a couple questions 24 hours later here's my answer that uh i just need the staff to know that that is super acknowledged super grateful as parents i wish we could come together but i was also grateful to be able to like watch and cook dinner at the same time so there was this weird um you know flexibility so i just wanted to acknowledge the teachers they and i went to teachers

025that my kid doesn't even have i was like ooh what did so-and-so do oh who's bitmoji is this like it was super fun to experience that and my kid really like was a little bit engaged which is big for a sixth grader thanks for bringing that up i also had a good look through and i obviously don't have the connection of having a student here but but i clicked through all of them i was reading everything i was looking and the the bitmojis yeah you're right i mean they were spot on some of them they were really it was like i didn't need the name i knew who it was so thanks good excellent so if there's nothing else to add uh we'll move on to administrative reports and the first one on my list

026here is the superintendent's report yes thank you um hopefully board members had an opportunity to read through the report in the packet um as usual i will uh hit the highlights um but one of the very first highlights is i have the pleasure of introducing all of you to miss jordan kilpatrick our new director of community and student engagement and i asked jordan if she wouldn't mind putting together just a little uh presentation for all of you so you could get a sense of what she's been doing in the first what let's see is this four weeks jordan four weeks um so it's gone by fast but um jordan why don't you come up to the mic and uh have an opportunity to fill the board in on what you've been up to sure so

027greetings and good evening to the board and to um everyone else that is present for the last couple of weeks i've spent my efforts towards really just engaging with our faculty and staff here getting to know students meeting with our grade level teams and sitting with them and just allowing them to ask questions and kind of going over what this role really looks like how i can be of benefit to them and the students and families that we serve i've also spent a lot of time just out in the community building rapport with community leaders and partners trying to kind of connect those dots and build partnerships there and also just taking time to really learn about all that skokie has to offer i will personally say that i think this community is amazing and

028there that there is so much out there to offer um to our families and students here at fairview and so it's my pleasure to um act as the liaison between our district our families and students that we service and our community going forward i will be working diligently on continuing building those partnerships and just building that rapport i've met with the skokie library and had a very detailed tour is beautiful and top-notch and i've been very impressed just with that experience being able to come back and bring that knowledge and information back to the school and kind of disseminate that and take the opportunity to encourage our families and students to go and take part in what the library has to offer i've reached out to the vietnamese association of illinois and created partnerships and

029engaged with them as well also i'm sat and had some conversation with some folks over at district 68 so i'm really just kind of spreading my roots and learning what's out there building those partnerships and making sure that we stay connected um moving forward i will continue that effort we've got some new things coming down the pipeline hopefully in october we will be launching a new um fairview family engagement group so be on the lookout for material about that that's to come soon i've been working with the pta and the dei pta committee and trying to figure out where we can collectively collaborate to build initiatives there as well so thank you for being very warm welcoming i am excited to be here and i look forward to all that is to come any questions

030no we're just very happy to have you thank you so much thank you jordan that was excellent so that was probably the highlight no um thank you so much for doing that um uh just a couple of things from the superintendent's report we held a buildings and grounds and transportation committee meeting this month which you'll hear about more later in the meeting we also held an education committee meeting and that team will provide a summary of those meetings wanted to provide an update on the equity audit we are still in the draft phase of the audit but i'm happy to report we are on target to receive the audit in november as we have been told all along um and in november dr dubiel is planning to attend this meeting and we'll be presenting that

031report and copies of the full report will be provided at that time um so you know we're very pleased that everything has stayed on track in terms of the audit um we have been working to get the shield testing up and running we were hopeful that we'd be able to begin testing students on next tuesday we did have a walk-through of the process today and i'm not 100 confident it's going to start next tuesday there are issues with just rostering and for them to obtain staff to do the testing staffing issues continue to pop up all over the place um for for everyone um so you know i would assume it could be pushed back one week i would expect it wouldn't be any longer than that um but you know we are you know

032continuing to work through that process um part of the issue is that once the state of illinois announced that it would be free for all public school districts every public school district seemed to want to get on board right at the same time um so they've been sort of deluged with a lot of interest and they're trying to get a lot of things up and running in a lot of schools across the state so um you know but we're we're definitely on the right path and on track as far as that goes um i have met with hilla torra our neighbors next door to inform them about the possibility of construction and our building projects we've had surveyors out and whatnot and you know we're very collegial with them they too are looking to do

033some building um in the near future so you know we like to work together and and support one another if we need to use a parking lot or a field from time to time we kind of do those types of things for each other um i have also met with the skokie police department um and the village because there is some talk about the crossing guard program changing in all of skokie um they too are struggling with staffing crossing guards um but they are also struggling financially um and would prefer to um not continue to support that program financially so the superintendents are in discussion with the village about that because we believe um crossing guards are community safety issue and you know we'll try to work that out fairview only has one crossing guard

034so it's not a real significant budget impact for us if we were to have to pick up that role in our district but some of the schools have five six ten different crossings where they have guards so it's a little bit of a larger issue issue elsewhere in skokie so i'm not overly concerned about that um just carrying on to curriculum and instruction we have you know staff in new roles we have new instructional coaches we have interventionists so we're working with those folks to to bring them on board quickly we have finished our state board of education consolidated district plan which is usually a fairly heavy lift but that has been approved which opens the door for us to be able to apply for all of our title grant funding um so that's the

035next step um and you know a variety of you know other things are going on in the district but we'll be talking about those as we get into the strategic planning report and whatnot so if i can answer any questions from my report i'm happy to do so i have a question i have a crossing question um i know it's it seems like it's been a little sporadic from what i can hear but i also am wondering if we're revamping or if we're looking at hiring or something um i've become aware that kids are crossing at estes rather than fairview and i think this is kind of always a thing um i don't know if there's teachers or staff i mean i realize they're doing it of their own free will and it's a huge

036problem and you are i'm sure constantly telling them to go down to fairview but i just wanted you guys to be aware that i think there are kids crossing yeah we see parents and kids crossing there um and we encourage them to use the crosswalk um you know it's something that i've spoken to the village about as well as maybe the potential of adding a crosswalk just so it's more visual um so we can continue that conversation um it would be helpful to heal altora as well because they have people parking in the neighborhood and crossing there as well um so we we can continue that conversation um you know i we have a great relationship with the police department and so this crossing guard thing you know they're having trouble staffing it and they

037can't just always send a police officer because they have other things going on in the village and they have to be doing their responsibilities so in that event we will always cover it ourselves um you know colleen's been crossing mike's been crossing kids i'll cross kids you know as long as we know that there's not someone there so if you roll up to pick up your children and you don't see you know we're trying to stay on top of it too um you know we'll go out and we'll put on the vest and get the sign and we'll cross the kids so um you know we're working through it but i think it's just a larger um it's just a larger issue um with employment can we as parents or community help i wouldn't encourage

038that i think it's a liability okay to have volunteers do it okay um you really should be trained and you should be wearing yeah um so probably we shouldn't be out in the crosswalks probably not the best idea but it's better us than no one and it's only happened a couple of times so it'll it'll get itself straightened out any other questions about the report okay so moving on the next item i have on my list is the 2021 strategic plan update yeah and i'm sorry to turn my back but we're gonna have the presentation is up on the board and i don't have it memorized so um so we are in year three of the district's strategic plan while we might have hoped to have you know further progress in the plan a lot

039of our activities were put on hold um due to the pandemic and needing to kind of reshift our focus towards um remote learning at one point but then you know bringing students back in person and doing some split teaching and whatnot but on this very first slide i just wanted to remind everyone of our mission statement and our vision statement these were developed by the strategic planning committee which came together on one long saturday i think many of you were involved we invited community members we invited students and alumni and we had about 60 members of the community the teaching staff and we all came together on that saturday and developed both the mission and vision together um so we're really proud of that work because it came you know from the the fruits of

040the labor of so many people um on that day that dedicated their time to the district so just a reminder i think it's important that we remember our mission and vision we reflect on it often that group two came together and developed these belief statements um which really are at the core of the decision making both by our administrative team and our teaching staff each and every day as we work through programs and initiatives for our students the strategic plan ended up having six major goals the first being community connections and relations the second having to do with curriculum and instruction the third diversity and inclusivity the fourth fiscal stewardship goal five social emotional learning and finally goal six student support services in the board packet i provided you the full strategic plan with all

041of the progress and all the initiatives that have worked out been worked on today i'm not going to go through it in that level of detail tonight um but what i do want to go through um and our team is going to join in to kind of walk you through those items that are in progress for this year and the things that are going to be addressed this year through the strategic plan so when you see 1b that is tying this particular responsibility or task tying it right back to the strategic plan goal number one component b so you can kind of cross check it to the strategic plan if you want more information um so i'm going to ask my team to kind of pop up and the first one up is technology director

042healy is going to talk about the revamp of the district website good evening board um so currently we are in the process of revamping our district website uh we're in the phase where we are looking at mock designs we believe that we have trimmed it down during this process we did go through many different district websites looked at what they had to sort of piecemeal what we wanted to sort of have a very nice customized website for us part of that was that we wanted to upgrade our communication tools that we sent out to the community so you may have noticed this year the newsletters or the district emails look a little bit different a little bit hopefully a little bit cleaner uh easier to read on a mobile device or on a computer so

043it's device agnostic which is great um but what's nice is that once we start combining the two once our website is launched our communications our posts everything will be integrated into the website as well so things will cross communicate which is a wonderful thing for us um one part of the communications tool that we are still launching is the translation tool so if you noticed this year during your registration process you were asked about your primary language code or a primary language that you would like communication in most of our families did select english there is a handful that selected other languages and what's going to be able to be nice is that when we uh create a newsletter or anything that we send out via this tool it can be translated for them and

044they will receive it in that language uh so another way to increase our communication and our um networking with our families and then another uh great part of this is that you also receive this year a secure document um delivery so we're actually going to be able to start sending things home to you guys via email whether that's report cards map scores you know all these different type of sensitive data pieces but they're password protected so when you had to type in your student's birthday it unlocks the document so this is another great communication tool that we're going to be able to expand on in the future good evening everyone i'm going to talk about the parent mentor program so this is a program that's been going on for a long time in skokie it's

045run through the el parent center in skokie and what this program does is it is open to families and adults who are wanting to know what it's like to be in an american school they're not familiar with what it's like to be here in a school in skokie it helps there's a pretty intensive training that the el parent center puts on for them and then we uh reach out to staff here um typically over the past couple of years it's been kindergarten through fourth grade but this year we're opening up to middle school teachers as well and we ask teachers to host a parent mentor um this is an opportunity for the parents um through the el parent center to come into our building work two to three days a week for about two hours

046each day directly with a small group of students or one-on-one with students it's an opportunity for them to work on their english language an opportunity for them to see what it's like um and what their children are experiencing here in skokie it's been really successful program we've actually hired many parent mentors that have come through this program here as instructional assistants and it's just a great opportunity for them to feel more comfortable with where their children are going to school they work on their language and um in a way and a way for them to make a connection with their child's teachers so we're continuing that this year last year was put on hold due to covet and we did it the year prior this year we are going to be hosting four parent mentors

047um we'll have three in primary and one in middle school great thank you um the next item one d um you know we are so thrilled to have the new role this year thanks to the board the director of community and student engagement and we really believe that's gonna in that role and when with jordan in that position that that's gonna really help further our work to engage the community um and um just keep us moving forward in a really focused way so moving on and since jordan spoke already i won't belabor that point but um it is you know an important piece of this puzzle moving forward um and i think mike is up next yeah sure the next on the list actually started pre-pandemic when we had a group of teachers in the

048committee looking at homework policies across kindergarten through eighth grade so what that group did in the summer pre-covid we started just to look at where our staff was in regards to homework philosophies of homework looked at a lot of articles and research we were starting to get to a point where we were examining different recommendations when it comes to the amount of minutes per night per week and just doing some really great work and it was supposed to carry on during that school year so that did stop uh you know in that in the spring so we're going to revisit that conversation and hopefully have at least guidelines or recommendations that stay consistent with some common language on what parents and students can expect kind of by grade level in regards to homework so that

049will be some work that we're doing we also uh started um having conversations uh at the staff level with 2d in regards to our social sciences district learning team so our social sciences dlt which we're really excited about um so some of the things that that group will be doing and we'll be uh you know looking to connect with some of our other stakeholders in the community is to examine standards to take a look at vertical alignment across all grade levels and start really digging into what social sciences are being taught and then uh in the future uh in the spring probably start looking at different types of programs things that would be really great for uh our students across uh all grade levels so that is the update in the social sciences dlt thank

050you next was in terms of staff development supporting student populations and over the past couple of years we have taken an approach to staff development in sort of a more thematic way last year we really dove deeply into gender through lurie's children's hospital and a presentation couple of presentations um about um students and children who are struggling with gender identity issues um and so we wanted to provide a a base of knowledge for all of our staff so everybody attended those sessions and then the second session was really more of an opportunity for staff members to break out into smaller groups and have deeper conversations about potentially students that are actually in their classes at their grade level to dig even deeper on those topics and this year we have brought an ability awareness program

051um which was presented by ntdse um our partner in special education and again all of our staff attended that um it was geared towards k through four and fifth through eighth so a little bit of a different a little bit of a different twist based upon the grade levels todd um but that will really continue to be some of our thematic staff development planning in this school year um so that's uh 3c and mr fair is going to jump in on the fours sure the obviously by now everyone's well aware of the facility planning going on which will take up a ton of our time in the next year and that's not just the potential construction projects coming down the pipeline but potent the the yearly maintenance and the long-range facility plan which will incorporate

052the next five to ten years and that will be a fluid document that we revisit with the board yearly uh the board approved fund balance policy of course we discussed that during the budget presentation and that we the first time we've had a fund balance policy and we're going to be using that fund fund balance policy in conjunction with the financing for the construction to try and meet a good medium between what we're going to finance and what we're going to actually use district funds for enhancing the wellness program through new yearly offerings so this has been a lot of fun over the last six or seven years and that the insurance committee it was originally formed three contract negotiations ago around just insurance has evolved into a more of a wellness committee we've presented

053the board a couple times uh and every year we try and develop new things that we can do for teachers and staff to promote wellness in the building for long-range benefits when it relates to insurance it's nice to go to our cooperative meetings of 120 school districts and see us talked about in the top fifth of those districts as far as participation from staff as well as continually having great examples of things that we do in the building uh and programs that we put on that other districts think can then copy because they're having troubles of their own in developing a wellness program you know last year we incorporated the we started we start this out this year again as the random acts of coffee with our staff we're going to have workout classes and

054yoga classes and essentially we fund all that through the premium payback which we get for participating in wellness so it's a cost neutral thing to the district the fourth item there in 4d is the isb threat assessment team so this kind of got sidetracked as we were going through kobe we started the discussion we have a group together uh we've been to a couple of professional developments on this topic and the isb policy is that we need to have a team in place and also a plan in place and we plan on presenting that to the board in january or february cindy correct me if i'm wrong but that's the plan uh right now to present it to the board in some form or fashion in january february [Music] all right and then 5b that's

055on here is implement advisory and thank you to miss downing for a shout out to advisory i really appreciate it um and just to uh circle back to our advisory program and it started again when the strategic plan took place it was on our plan to implement an advisory at fairview and what we did is really took a look at different advisory programs that are around the township the neighboring middle school programs have a full advisory at different different schools and then kind of looked at ways that we can implement at fairview to make it work for what our students experience in middle school day to day everything in advisory is rooted in our second step program which we adopted through the strategic plan as well so our teachers are using the the second step

056program in advisory but also it's an opportunity for students to get academic supports to be able to have conversations after the weekend or during the week just highs lows and hahas is one of the things a lot of our teachers do is just speak to what's a high of a week what's a low of the week and what's something funny that happens so our staff is doing an amazing job it's it's new to a lot of them so i have to applaud all of them for taking the time and effort to really you know make it their own and give kids different experiences and i just think every year will continue to get uh better and better um it's tuesday through friday for middle school students for 27 minutes and we felt like 25 minutes

057once the kids get settled and they're in their seats it's a really good time to be able to see a lesson through at least a portion of a lesson through to be able to have meaningful conversations uh and then and then carry on the next day so uh many different places you know do do less time we felt it was really important to give students that that chunk of time a consistent basis tuesday through friday every week so that's up and running and we'll continue to give some feedbacks and if you ever have any questions i think i'd be the guy to ask so thank you yeah and finally 6a review math and reading intervention programs this is something as a team we're really passionate about and our teachers have done a really a lot

058of work with us this summer so with the support of the board as you know we were able to add an additional math reading interventionist an additional reading interventionist and an instructional coach this has grown our team significantly it's more than doubled what we had pre-copied and so this summer in connection with the street strategic plan a couple of our faculty members rachel ronan who's our middle school reading interventionist we have shannon mcclone alyssa goodnight and martha gail our school psychologist came together to research reading intervention programs and their goal this summer was not to add a huge program more onto our teacher's plates or to replace our core reading instruction which is journeys many of you may know as your students travel through our programs their goal was to find something that was going

059to complement our tier one instruction which is what the majority of our students here at fairview receive in the general education classroom on top of that they were also looking to find a program that would also work during their intervention time at the primary level during the win block time which is what i need so the program that they propose to our admin team is called really great reading and what's fabulous about this program is it's going to work in the general ed core instruction during the reading block then it also has programs within really great reading that have a tier 2 which is a more intense program and a tier 3 which is another intense program we feel like in each of these areas our intervention team and our team of homeroom teachers will

060be able to meet our kids needs in a much different way than they've been able to in the past after looking at our data through map and our fast bridge many of our fall assessments we found that our k2 students are the ones that have really taken the greatest hit due to covid and so this program targets our kindergarten through second grade students and with the support of rebecca hoffman and our reading interventionist rebecca is our new instructional coach we're really looking forward to getting that program up up and running as we speak they're working on it right now so we're really excited about it and we really appreciate your support as a board to be able to make that happen thank you does the board have any questions about any of those projects that

061are sort of in progress and then our final slide is a host of other things that we're also working on um that you know aren't directly connected to the strategic plan but you know the strategic plan is a great um guideline for us um but there are things that happen over the course of many years that we are forced to you know really have to take take a second look and take a pause and sometimes re-prioritize and so i know this isn't new to any of you but the covid mitigations and the contact tracing has just been a very significant part of what we've been doing getting the shield testing up and running and off the ground this beginning of the school year as well the equity audit although it wasn't included in the strategic

062plan it's a very important part of what we've been doing going forward i mean it will continue to be i think it's important that the board understand that for the first time this year the kindergarten team is implementing the kids assessment with which is a in-depth look at our kindergarten students at various times throughout the school year to understand how they're coming to us and how they're leaving our kindergarten year in terms of their social emotional well-being but also their school skills and their academic skills um the architectural rfp and selection process was not something we had necessarily planned on but it was necessary um it was another project that you know we feel was you know really needed um and you know the successful completion of that process has then led us to the

063development of the long-range facility plan which again was not a part of the original strategic plan the esser funds we never thought that we would be planning for having sort of that influx of dollars to be able to do some of the things that we feel are necessary whether it be coveted mitigations or adding staff to support students with any learning gaps that they may have we have focused on professional development specifically in the area of mathematics because prior to that's okay oops ted lasso love him love that show um the mathematics you know at prior to covid we were looking at our math test scores and and really seeing you know a slight decrease of scores over a course of many years and so we wanted to address that um and so that has

064continued um our technology infrastructure again um you know due to the influx of funding we've been able to forward some projects to update our infrastructure and really to protect us in the event that we have to do some continued remote platforms um you know going forward not knowing um you know where the pandemic will take us we deployed ipads to kindergarten and first graders because we found out that the chromebooks were not a great tool for kindergarten and first grade students it didn't work well for them and we didn't really understand that until we were in that remote environment where they were really relying on on their technology devices every single day so we were able to do that project we've added new positions and finally addressing our bus driver shortage it's a national problem

065we are so thrilled that we've been able to recruit and retain an excellent crew of bus drivers but it's one of those things that again it's not really accounted for through a strategic planning process but it's critical and that's how our students many of them get to school each and every day and get home every day and it allows parents to be able to do what they need to do um uh each day so we're very grateful for the work that was been done through mr fair and in his work with the transportation department um in keeping our drivers on board with us and finding those new drivers to bring bring to us so that's a overview um i know that it's a lot uh we love having the strategic plan because it helps us

066maintain focus because it's very easy to go off in a lot of different directions as you can see the other major projects um but that's the beauty of the board being flexible with us because you allow us to take extra time if we need it on certain projects you understand that things come on to our plate that we weren't expecting that may take us off point um on some of the strategic initiatives so you know we're continuing to try to you know really work through the plan aggressively but we're also trying to be very sensitive to the fact that our staff have worked really hard and in a small building everyone has to do a lot of things and so when we have committees running there's probably every member of the staff is probably involved

067in something so we just need to be cognizant of helping them balance their responsibilities to their own families and friends but also their professional responsibilities here to their students along with all these other things that we're trying to get done so i'm happy and i think any member of the team is happy to take any questions that the board might have i wanted to start off by saying thank you to um you cindy your your staff and actually all the teachers for putting in the amount of work that goes into every bullet on that slide it's easy to put a bullet down just a few words but the amount of effort behind every bullet is tremendous and um given all that you've had to deal with covid and teaching remotely and still trying to engage

068with your students um thank you so much for all that you do thank you anyone else i i i would echo exactly uh what sharing said um that list you showed at the end which is basically the over and above everything on the strategic plan which is obviously entirely necessary much of it has come out of covid and so on um it's almost like an extra plan in itself i mean it's a huge long list so to be tackling all of that um i i i love that the the entire team of administration and staff have come together so well on this and that uh you're getting the job done which is great i i think it's just fabulous thank you thank you okay next on to the next one which is uh facility planning

069and financial financing next steps okay so um i will tackle the facility planning report um there are a couple of updates for the board uh we um since the last board meeting our architects have been working with different um different engineers to really take a deeper look at our site and what we're proposing and meeting with the village and we have um we have now learned that there are some fairly significant water retention issues that we are facing um for those of you who are really familiar with our property um we have the the soccer field which we call the south field and then there's the north field which really isn't a field it's really intended to be a water retention um area um but we use it as a field because a lot of

070times it's dry enough for kids to play on and it gives us extra space that water retention is not sufficient to continue to support any addition to this facility and so what that will require is a fairly significant look at underground water retention opportunities whether it be under the current soccer field under again that current retention area as it is now or looking at the parking lot and how we might store water we are also understanding that the way in which water exits this property out into the village sewer system is that it almost all entirely moves from that south field to the south perimeter of the site and then out east to laramie where it finds the larger sewer system what happens is that because of the way that was designed it is not

071a very effective way to move water and the water backs up and backs up and backs up to the point where that south field becomes flooded which it was designed for but we have experienced water issues in our courtyards here in between the building we've also experienced some significant water issues at the base of the bus driveway it floods and part of going forward is that we will be required to correct those water issues um there are many ways to solve these problems but what it requires is that anything that we add to the building whether it be classrooms on the south side whether it be a learning center none of that can be done until we address the water issues and that will require us to first redevelop the current parking lot and the

072north field and so in the drawings you all saw how they're kind of suggesting we re-angle the parking lot and there's a different traffic flow that will allow um the water to be piped down this driveway so we have sort of two ways of water leaving the property etc so the whole point of the matter is that the first project that we have to address is the parking lot and the water retention if the board were to move forward with any of the projects we have to do that first and so that potentially sets back any time frame for being able to do construction if the board were to approve the south uh kindergarten preschool construction of classrooms or the library or both this coming summer we would propose that in june once the teachers

073and students are out the parking lot gets pulled up the water retention is done between june and august parking lot is finished fields are finished so that when the children return and the staff return we have a place for children to play we have a place for teachers to park and then the next step would be to break ground on whatever construction the district wants to do the district could break ground in september even though students are here because those construction projects are really apart from the school so the south wing project could be worked on while students are in session it will require some detouring of students leaving the building to the playground it will require you know some safeguards to be put into place so that's you know construction fences etc um but

074it's certainly something that's possible if we were to go that route um construction would take place during the school year through the summer of 23 with an opening in the fall of 23. at one point i was hopeful we might be opening something in the fall of 22. um we are desperately needing classroom space and so i feel an urgency to get some classrooms built but that's not going to happen and so that's the major update for the board today is that um there's really no possibility of starting the construction of building uh prior to that water retention work being done so i'm happy to answer any questions certainly no expert in any of this but i hope i've explained it in a manner that makes sense questions well i was just going to say

075anybody that lives as we do down this end of skokie knows everything about water retention and sewer backup and flooded yards and stuff like that it's um in a way it's really not a surprise i don't know if it's apocryphal but isn't skokie means swamp or something in algonquin well actually mrs larkin was at the skokie heritage museum today and it's not true the definition of spooky skokie means swamp yeah that's where we live yeah actually third graders on their field trip heritage museum and i just learned that smokey means swamp i wasn't sure if it was apocryphal but i've heard it many many times over the years i've lived here and it's like my basement has proved it and i bet most of us around the table have had that same experience of some

076time or other so it's unfortunate but it has to be done it has to be done properly that's my view right my only thoughts questions are is there any interest or in terms of crisis for space in classrooms there any thought about like mobile units no i don't that i care for mobile units because they present their own issues um i'm not saying i would rule that out at this moment but um our architects have promised to work with us to re-look at all of our spaces if we need those classrooms we will hopefully be able to be creative um and come up with some solutions you know at this moment we don't need the class a classroom um but we continue to have new students you know the population kinds of kind of ebbs

077and flows a little bit so it's very hard to predict that um but it makes me uncomfortable to know that we don't have any spaces if needed and we're using a lot of spaces in unconventional ways um you know the board meeting room is being shared with ms kilpatrick you know i mean there are spaces teachers you know doubled up into office spaces um you know that's not how we prefer things to be but you know that's the adults will do what we have to do to make sure the children have the spaces and yeah i get that um just a word of advice or whatever having worked in buildings having taught in buildings where there's construction happening noise is a definite issue um the i would just encourage your staff to get to have

078a way to communicate with workmen like i was able to ask workmen on specific days like can you drill afternoon and they were like no we can't we have to drill this morning okay but if there's a way to make the noisier part of the day later in the day they would do it but it did not often work right and i know it's just something we're gonna have to deal with yeah when this district went through the major project in 299 2000 um we found that as well you know they a lot of the staff would would start really early um so they could get a couple of hours in prior to students even arriving but then there were some things that we could do into the evening and there's some things we just

079can't do when students are here period so um luckily we're small um so and we're all on one site and you know i think that you know just like the project and you know previously in 99 2000 i mean that we we were expected to be watching and observing the construction and monitoring what was going on and making sure things were safe and it was pretty much a full-time responsibility yeah i totally trust it'll be handled but yes no it's not ideal um but not you know in order to do if if the board chooses to do the full gamut of project um there's going to be some of that i want to highlight something just came to mind it's probably a little preliminary but i just want to we were talking about starting construction

080if it's something on the south end and um during the school year and which is something to keep in mind um if how with covet and how it's changed and just entrances in the school and outdoor space for the students with the pandemic um something to keep in mind right when we get there yeah absolutely um we think that the parking lot and the field upgrades may lead to more spaces um at least you know in the beginning um and about potentially a different traffic flow pattern i'm not going to say a better but a different traffic flow pattern um that will have more queuing um but you know that will be those details will be things that you know my team has to work and communicate well to the community you know if if

081that time comes so any other board questions we talked about this at the buildings and grounds committee meeting i don't know if there's anything else from that meeting that i'm leaving out um i think i think that was the pretty much the gist of it um you know we're trying to work on parallel traps so that we have the designs and the plans in place and the communication with the village because there's a process there that takes many months um for permits and at the same time you know looking at financing options and moving that along all at the same time you know the board hasn't technically approved any project so we're trying to do a lot of legwork to be in a good position to be able to to run um with the project

082if it's approved um but there's also some gray areas in all of this because we don't know you know really how the board is going to fall on on you know the approval of this project so um the next piece of this that we wanted to talk about a bit tonight um is you know some of the financing options and you um had in your packets a presentation about financing options and mr fair has bravely offered to walk us through the presentation we had planned on having elizabeth hennessey here this evening but she's running late and i hate to ask uh the board to wait um so jeff is going to walk us through the presentation and we'll try to answer any questions that you might have as best i can i feel like when

083employees ask me about tax information i have to have a disclaimer i'm not a tax professional and i can't have any recommendations here but yeah liz had to see who was very familiar with our district he used to work for william h william blair and now works for raymond james uh she's worked on financing with the district before and we've engaged with her to talk about it again she's very familiar with not only skokie but she's one of the preeminent voices in public financing as a whole um she put together a presentation for your board packet and you know we've gone through different options right now i mean ideally in a perfect world we'd be able to fund this totally out of pocket uh we're looking at a 21 million dollar 22 million construction project

084with a total budget every year of about 13 to 14 million and we have to look at cash flow we have to look at current market conditions and right now the market is in such a condition where the interest rates are still very low and there's a ton of school districts going out to borrow couple that with a large amount of federal funding as i mentioned we have funds on hand both from retired debt and from working cash that we'd be able to use for whatever projects so we're trying to use that in conjunction with our fund balance policy to create the perfect kind of borrowing scenario i i know i continue to harp on the fact our tax rate is very low i mean taxes are never going to be as low as people

085want them to be it's just a fact of the matter i mean it's but our taxes right now because the eav in our district has gone up so much in the last few years borrowing right now our tax rate would be borrowing for this project if it is i think in the packet the proposal on the pack was about 13 to 14 million borrowing at that level right now extended over a period of time would keep our tax rate at the second lowest in niles township it's the second lowest right now it would stay at the second lowest in niles township even with that borrowing level obviously there's a number of other factors that would have to remain like our eav would have to remain the same and a number of other things we have

086to do as far as balancing goes uh the next steps in this process would be for elizabeth to come out and give a presentation as like a town hall as we've done with the architects uh to the community coming up in the next uh three or four weeks prior to our next board meeting and we'll send notice out about that and what she'll do is she'll walk you through in great detail what is involved in the what's in the packet there as i said there's nothing that's been finalized there we've talked at a finance committee level uh basically in on what's in the packet we've talked about maneuvering with the different numbers and looking at our cash flow looking at our projections and trying to see where the sweet spot is the tough thing is

087right now and i brought this up during the budget is that the the trends are a little off because of everything that's transpired the we used to go we're predicated the budgeting process and the projection process is predicated on trends and right now because the last few years the trends are a little off so we're trying to engage as many people as possible gather as much information as possible so that when we make that decision about how we want to balance both funding from funds on hand and then borrowing we not only set the school district up for the sustainability that we're looking for from a financial perspective but also not burdening our community um and not putting our taxpayers in a undue position um again the great thing about living here in district 72

088is the commercial property it's the it's the businesses that are here they really help keep that tax rate low uh i mentioned to a couple of board members beforehand you look at districts across skokie and their tax rates are double what ours are simply because it's largely residential and there's not as much business there so businesses are taxed at a higher rate we gather those taxes in and we're going to try and balance all of these different factors to come up with the best financing scenario for the projects and hopefully that will be and what we're going to have again like i said the next few weeks we'll have a town hall where uh elizabeth hennessy will be here to present this information answer any questions the community may have and then we'll be able

089to make a decision here in the next few months about what we're going to do i can speak very generally to any questions that you may have but i think so so the time frame for decision making we're really looking at that november board meeting you know we're hoping to have all these pieces in place so that we can present a sound financial plan and so that the board can make some decisions about what your comfort level is you know what our needs are as a district for their students and to maintain our programs in the manner that we want to maintain them and then we will be moved from there so october there probably won't be too much discussion just some updates um and then uh november will really be the meeting where we're

090gonna have to make some decisions about all this okay is that going to be the plan as well as the funding and yeah in november we need the board to vote on what if any of the project you want to do um i'm hoping that you understand our need for space and that a part of the project minimally will be approved and then there will be a dollar amount attached to that and then we need to decide how to fund it and so like jeff said that it will probably be through a combination of using some of our accumulated fund balance but it will also be um with some borrowing okay we'll also at that time approve a construction manager which we'll talk about report but construction manager will be tasked with managing the project

091and helping keep costs and managing costs of the project as well thank you josh does anybody have any questions for jeff good okay well thank you very much for filling in um and uh doing the best we have a lot of information here which we can continue to plow through but um i think if we could perhaps be part of that town hall and hear it from um no offense the expert um then then we'll just have a an even better picture ready for those decisions in november okay so uh the final administrative report is board policies and for the benefit of our newer board members i just wanted to uh just run through what what this exactly is um you saw in your packet um that there was this lengthy document from the organization

092called press we subscribed to press as a district uh which means that they uh assess our our policy and they review our policy according to what needs to change due mainly to new legislation they also are in the habit of reviewing all our policies every five years so even if there is no change in legislation they actually pull it every five years take a good look at it and make sure that there are no other changes that need to happen or no better language that could be used so we rely on them a lot for guiding us on our policy there is usually a big packet like this around this time of year because much of the legislation was passed towards the end of the june time at the end of session that may and

093acts are coming in uh new laws are coming in in june and july um and sometimes that spills over into needing new changes to policy the good news is this time around when i went through this entire packet was that there was very very little changes which is a lot easier for us so um i won't go through absolutely everything but basically the only ones that really need to have made any kind of changes is 2 column 10 which is adding new language because of the new um [Music] new law around the meeting of public bodies in the case of a public health and emergency obviously that came out of i've covered uh that we have the option of meeting remotely um on two column 130 there is some additional texts relating after the five-year

094review relating to and the board was direction to the superintendent of policy um to colon 240 has expanded the use of all pronouns all policy should include all pronouns um most of them are unchanged most of them are five-year reviews um that's that's pretty much it there is six column 160 has some text about sort of parent involvement in a transitional bilingual education program um actually one of the main significant ones was um six colon two 235 which is uh additional language clarifying exactly what an electronic network is um obviously that's something that's a moving target and i understand that the the policy actually involves language such as sort of you know including but not limited to which means that as new technology comes along those will also be covered by this policy so it

095expands the explanation of exactly what electronic network means um that's literally about it um i'm sure you had a good look through yourself if there is any questions um we can raise them at this time but i think we got off extremely lightly this time there's literally hardly anything that's changed most of the time i'm reading here policy is unchanged five-year review policy is unchanged so um really not much to prove but if there are any questions about them then please go ahead and we only have to do this about two maybe three times a year depending on changes in the law everybody good with that excellent oh and i should have explained it rather bigger we always look at them one month and then they are actually approved the following month so you have

096a whole month to look and read and learn and whatever else okay so moving on to board committees and representatives the first one on my list here is buildings grounds and transportation committee miss lanois do you have so um thank you um we met with jeff and cassio and uh cindy to discuss the plan for the building and jeff shared with us that there's going to be an rfq out for construction management firms they've solicited bids from 11 companies and i think they're going to be getting bids back from i think is in april right now um um so that's that's going well i think and so the other thing that i was really excited about is we toured the new buses um they're really cool they've cameras all around so the bus driver can

097see the students in the back they have a spot where you can bring wheelchairs in and out very easily um yeah i thought it was really great and it has air conditioning yeah things that i didn't grow up with on buses and seat belts also didn't grow up with those well they've been around for a while but the air conditioning definitely is in your innovation that has that new vinyl smell in it as well well and i just a little tiny correction for the good of the public and everyone who's here the bus that you toured yeah was air-conditioned okay so we have um so we have a fleet of six um air conditioning is is a fairly high price take on buses um oh that's right so i just don't want anyone to think

098that their children are on air-conditioned buses when they are not the bus six is typically deployed for some of our our younger students but also for some of our special education students that have really specific needs in terms of temperature control um it's also the handicapped lift bus so that any students that are wheelchair-bound can be transported to and from school by the district so just a small point of clarification small but important yeah the bus drivers would like air conditioning yeah like that cool anything else no that's all thank you thank you very much um so next on my list is the education technology committee miss downing yeah so um dede and i met with administrators and um two of the [Music] sort of support personnel um the psychologist and the case manager or

099especially special director coordinator yeah um and we basically what i loved is that our admin can at this meeting um the way that they share with us in a smaller group so you're hearing all of the reports that we hear so that transparency is super evident it's a place for us to ask questions um all of which are always answered and basically it's just a highlight of what you guys already shared the website we hope is going to be out in october um the k-4 kids showed kind of the greatest need for the interventions which we had already approved so those are in place groups are made kids will be getting their services by the end of september which is outstanding the ntdse presentation on ability equity i think is fantastic also that um i

100don't have much else that you guys didn't already cover the reading program that we hired i asked a lot about that um it just sounds like educationally things are running and that is what i find amazing is that that whole list of the extras that are going on i feel like our students don't really know that's going on it's truly behind the scenes like there's a sense of like calm and normalcy and i'm going here and i'm learning this and i'm reading that and i think that's huge um so it was a really successful meeting and we'll have one again next six weeks or so i'm good okay great thanks for that um ed red is me um i just wanted to let you know that the this coming friday is the edward kickoff lunch

101and they've actually introduced a remote option now so if you did want to tune into the meeting uh just let me know and i can connect you with arabed ed red and she can connect you with the link um i'm on the fence a little bit myself about whether i'll attend in person because i've heard that they're actually gonna be in quite a small room and there's like 90 plus people going so i may just join remotely myself as well but um but that's this coming friday if anybody's free between about 12 and two and wants to tune in they're welcome to just let me know um there was a survey sent out by ed redd in september uh to all the school districts the members uh asking for their sort of uh key uh

102legislative interests you know what what is uh most important to them and obviously from that edward will be formulating exactly what they work on this year um [Music] the initiatives that they will be working on will be really announced at this kickoff meeting on friday the speaker on friday is ram billabalam who is our representative so i'm looking forward to hearing from him um and that's about it i mean i think we're really at the kickoff stage with ed red once we have the meeting on friday they'll have a clearer direction of as to what they're really going to concentrate on and i hope to bring you more information about what's coming up in the um the the september with the fall session so um that's it for me mtdse back to you nora good

103lord it's busy um i ha i just have to say that i'm super distracted by any like side conversations there's some sort of like acoustic going on so just know that sometimes i can't hear what's going on if you guys are chatting out there um i just have to say that because i'm trying to concentrate all right so it's like echoing to me the ntdse representative is me we have 20 no we have 18 kids being serviced at fairview through ntdse supports um so we have kids in different satellite programs around and we're constantly talking about ways to make more space and keep our kids in-house and ntdse is providing um lots and lots of services with all of their different ot we have some deaf hard of hearing assistants we have behavior management assistants

104and they're an amazing partnership to have on their opening day they had a discussion about um you could do a book a podcast or a movie club over the summer that they put with an equity focus and then their staff everybody from the lunchroom all the way through bus drivers teachers got together and had kind of like talking sessions about it which i thought was a great idea for us to talk about um they are offering vaccination clinics once the under 12 are being offered so to get their families in it's so much easier for the kids and the families to just go to ncbse and get their vaccinations so i think that's awesome they're watching as soon as approval happens they're gonna offer that um there are only five staff members there that are

105on vaccinate they work with a very sensitive population so those five staff members getting weakly tested so she said covet protocols they feel are going great they love having the kids back in the building and um there is a cohort of seed the seed program through ntdse um which is just the niles township that the director taran kendrick started i will be participating in that for a second time um i didn't completely graduate the first time because my schedule got busy so i start tomorrow looking forward to um to that and and having it being tailored to our population in our area i think is going to be fantastic so um many of you know i am a special education teacher so being part of the ntdse board is very close to my heart and

106passion so i'm excited to see all the great things going on there great thank you and last but not least is diana do you have a report from actually um i covered right um so um and and really cajole covered all of the pta meeting there really was not much more to add but on behalf of the board i did share updates from the august board meeting since diana was unable to make it great thank you okay so we're done with our committee reports uh next item is a freedom of information request i can report that there were two freedom of information requests received in this last month and they were both handled information items and correspondence um [Music] mr secretary please go ahead yes uh there there was uh one item of correspondence the

107board received uh a message following our last board meeting on august 18th it was from fairview parent peter cetera express who expressed concern about fairview's plan for the shield testing thank you i had a conversation with dr whitaker over the last few weeks about the um the fact that we are receiving emails as a board um and it really was just for the benefit of the audience to clarify the procedure in which we're handling that now because uh we are subject to the open meetings act which means that uh three or more board members cannot communicate outside of a meeting about board business so for a board member to reply all to an inquiry from the public would contravene the open meetings act so um obviously if there was a uh an issue raised by

108uh an email that was sent to the board and um the board member had a particular opinion that they wanted to express they're free to contact either myself or the superintendent to voice that opinion and then that will be incorporated into the reply that goes back to that member of the public um if the issue raised in the sender's email merits action to be taken by the staff or administration at the school the superintendent will coordinate that um if the sender's email requires a response the superintendent and board president will liaise on a response and it will include any and all input from the other board members that has been expressed to them and the reply will come from the superintendent and bcc to all board members because that is a legitimate communication is not

109a communication between board members it's from the superintendent so just to clarify the public could be reminded that when they send an email to the entire board it will be forwarded to the entire board from the assistant uh the superintendent's assistant um and they will receive a response it will come from the superintendent um but that response will include any opinions expressed by other board members and obviously the process for this the fact that we're collating responses and opinions are being made means that it may take more than a day for a member of the public to receive an actual response to their email inquiry so um and lastly uh the public should be aware that all letters and emails to the board are summarized and made public at the next board meeting as you

110just heard from our board secretary so um i'm really saying this for the benefit of the public but also the benefit of the board members because we have new board members so if you see an email that comes from a member of the public you know not to do reply all if you have thoughts about it by all means express it to dr wisher or myself and we will work on a response and for the point of view of the public please understand you may not get a response within hours it may take a day or more to collect that response but the effort of that is that it will be a reasonable response and it will include any opinions from many board members okay so that's just a point of clarification so uh moving

111on uh public comment [Music] so at this point the members of the public have an opportunity to uh share comments with the board um on matters that are in the purview of the board i prepared something to read at this time um the public is reminded of full policy two column two two column thirty which is public participation at the board of education meetings and the summary of the policy is that we will allow a minimum of 30 minutes for comment if needed and there will be a 20 minute minimum on any one subject if needed members of the public are required to identify themselves and speak for a maximum of three minutes the board secretary will keep time when the speaker has 30 seconds of their time remaining the board secretary will inform the

112speaker that they have 30 seconds to close their comment speakers that have addressed the board on the same subject in the past two months can be denied the opportunity to speak on the same subject both speakers and other audience members are reminded that they're required to conduct themselves with respect and stability uh towards others in line with the board policy 8 column 30 which pertains to conduct of persons while on school property so with that said are there any members of the public that wish to address the board hello my name is elizabeth palmer and i'm a member i'm a resident of district 72 i have two kids who go to school here um i have one thank you and a few suggestions thank you for getting the the shield testing up and running so

113quickly i imagine that was a lot of work on your part i did want to suggest that for those who didn't initially opt out we then got an email asking us to officially opt in within 20 about a little more than 24 hours and that doing so required like printing out a permission sheet and signing it and either scanning it and emailing it back or turning it in so that seems like kind of a like a high barrier for some fairview families like maybe they don't have a printer so i just want to encourage you if if there are families who like who didn't opt out at the beginning who you think might want to do the shield testing but they didn't turn in their form maybe that's why does that make sense um okay

114two comments about board meetings um i would like to suggest that like district 219 that you maybe move the public comments earlier in the meeting i think i know that by having them later in the meeting you have a captive audience for all of the business i promise that we will watch the board meetings online you'll have us as an audience anyway but it's um it's hard for those of us like who want to put our kids to bed to stay so late at night and not know when the comments are starting so friendly suggestion there if you i think also if you move the comments earlier you would actually get a wider span of people who speak you wouldn't see me speaking at every meeting because other people would come and speak you you'd

115have more people participating and then the last thing i wanted to say is i just started the seed training for the coming year it's really super and i would commend it to all of you on the board if you haven't done it i also would like to recommend that all the administrators do seed training and what i find valuable in it is the way that it's helping me sort of live with discomfort and i think in questions of equity it's really important that people learn to to to feel discomfort and instead of shutting down to sort of move through it so i just want to commend that training to all of you thank you thank you for your comment hi my name is cynthia johnson i'm a parent of a fairview 7th grader first of

116all i'd also like to thank the board and dr whitaker for proceeding with the shield testing at fairview vaccines and masks are proven ways to end this pandemic in shield testing is going to help protect the children who can't get the vaccine yet and it's going to help get all these kids to stay in school if they are unfortunately exposed um i'd also like to request that the board consider moving the public comments section to the board meetings um at the board means the beginning of the meeting really i only started attending these meetings and becoming more involved once my child no longer needed me to put him to bed um and this would really benefit parents of younger children to become more involved at fairview when their children are still small my son will

117be graduating in two years and you know you want the kindergarten parents here and lastly i'd also really encourage the board to implement anti-racist training for all the admin and school board members and really you know within the next two years is vital this this is so important in education right now this issue of equity of making sure that all of the children's needs are being met and you know beyond diversity is a great option also the illinois holocaust museum offers courageous conversation workshops specifically for educators your eighth graders take a trip here maybe it's time that you guys too okay thank you thank you for your comments good evening uh my name is helen levinson i'm a resident of district 72 i have a daughter in seventh grade so just wanted to congratulate the

118board on the recognition of the as iasb i think that's wonderful and i want to give a shout out to the advisory program i don't know if if it's mike lepaka that put that together but uh layla loves it i think it's great i think it's wonderful that the kids are starting off their day talking about goals so kudos to mike and everyone else that put that together and i also want to congratulate and welcome our new director of community relations jordan i think it's great you've done some amazing things already and i'm excited to see what else you have to bring to the community um and as far as public comments i actually like them at the end of the meeting only because i get to hear what the topics are on the agenda

119and it gives me some insight as to what's going on thank you is there anyone else that wishes to address the board okay so uh moving on to our action items this evening we just have two action items uh the first one is can i have a motion and a second to adopt the fiscal year 2022 district budget so moved i'll second um we've already had the presentation from mr feyer but if there's any other final questions or comments from anyone nope you did a great job thank you uh in that case could the secretary please call the role uh miss brown yes mr akakis yes mr guliana yes miss lenoy yes miss downing yes i vote yes and miss boozdi yes the budget is approved and uh we have another action item to approve

120the resignation of a certified staff member can i have a motion and a second so moved second okay this was already discussed in closed session so if the secretary could please call the roll call uh yes miss diakakas yes uh mr guliana yes miss lenoy yes miss downing uh i vote yes uh miss bouzdy yes and uh miss brown yes okay that's also approved so uh getting through it um items for future consideration is there anybody that wishes to mention anything for future consideration i just wanted to remind everybody about the isp conference in november um [Music] it is friday saturday sunday but like i said before no one ever goes on the sunday but i will be going on the friday saturday friday i'm actually doing a a training um uh it's about equity

121in schools and training um and then saturday there are the main sessions um the keynote speakers on friday afternoon and then also saturday morning um i highly recommend it i've been to every single conference in my time on the board um and i honestly can say that um the experience i've gained the experience to do what i'm doing right now of running a meeting and the understanding of how our board should be run how old meetings should be run the board business how it should be conducted what you can do what you can't do what's in your purview what's not in your purview i learned all that from the isb and um i won't be around forever so somebody needs to do it i really would uh recommend it if you want to um join

122me i will definitely be going down on friday and saturday so shameless plug that friday i'll be presenting with some colleagues on financial transparency there you go so it would be nice to have a board member two there to hear nice things about i'll be aware with my flag it'll be myself and four other districts just talking about how financials are communicated to get to communities so it's same same thing we did a couple years ago we were there i do remember that yeah thank you yeah um it marianne what's the date it's oh i'm sorry it's friday the 19th and saturday the 20th of november it's always the weekend before thanksgiving and the cool thing is email drew or sorry should we email drew yes please okay yeah yeah she can enroll you no

123so the cool thing is it's always when there's the christmas parade downtown you know when disney and santa and that will come through on the friday on the saturday afternoon and we usually get invited to a reception either with our lawyers or our architect maybe or someone usually invites us to a reception on the friday evening or the saturday evening it depends um but that's always fun to go to too it's it's kind of the one perk that we get to be on a board will it be in person this year or it is planned to be in person and i think the good thing is that um one reason i'm hesitating about friday's ed red lunch is because it's like a lunch everybody's eating and masks off but this will be in a huge

124it's at the hyatt downtown and it's absolutely massive and there's much more scope for social distancing and um obviously everybody's going to be masked for sure um i think i just feel safer about it all together but um so yeah if you want to know anything about it like i say i've been every single year that i've been on the board um and uh i can let you know more about it and i can forward you the brochure with all of the sessions and kind of how the lineup looks so you can kind of see what's offered and what just go to the iasb website there's tons of information on that i went um like my probably my first or second year and it was really helpful to just meet other board members and realize

125like what this entails is not easy and and how to do it and and just to talk to other districts across the whole state you hear what they're battling and what they're dealing with and you realize um what a little slight job yeah but it's just it's a great networking space to get other ideas on what other districts are doing too yeah it's great so anyway that was the only thing i wanted to close with today so is there anybody else got anything to add we're good in that case uh can i have a motion and a second to adjourn the meeting at 8 51. uh motion second and could the secretary please call the roll uh yes miss lanois yes mr juliana yes miss brown yes mr akakis yes i vote yes uh miss

126downing and miss boogie yes thank you very much everybody thank you all for coming [Music] you