001Right. Since 6 pm, the board of education has been in close session to discuss the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees or legal counsel, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee or legal counsel to determine its validity. I will entertain a motion to come out of closed. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion has been moved and seconded. Please call the MO, Mrs. Patton. >> McMillan, >> I. Gerky >> I >> Blastic >> I >> Kelly Black >> I >> Winsky >> I >> Kush >> I >> Kazinsky >> I. >> The motion passes. We are in open session. Good evening and welcome to the Monday, November 3rd, 2025. Um Neighborville 203 Board of Education meeting. Our mission is to empower students to develop a learner's mindset, demonstrate
002adaptability, communicate effectively, think critically, and become global citizens. Please call the role. Mrs. Ben. Board members present this evening, Charles Kush, Christine Gerky, Amanda McMillan, Melissa Kelly Black, Joe Kosinski, Holly Blastic, and Mark Winski. >> All right, please join the board in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay. Item four, recognition. Item 4.01, good news. On Thursday, October 16th, Kids Matter in the City of Neapville presented the Neapville Youth Service Awards. Eight District 203 students were recognized for making a difference in the community by helping area nonprofits. The recipients from Neighborville Central were Siri Mishra, Shriha Kuna, and Estella Czech. The Nepal North recipients were
003Noah Yun, Lucas Keen, Emerson Hevel, and Taylor Ferto. [applause] We shared a little bit about our fourth annual career motivate last meeting. So much happened that we couldn't help but share a little more. Uh we successfully connected 1,200 eighth graders with the incredible generosity of over 130 local business leaders. The energy was truly palpable. The students were fully immersed in hands-on activities developing the critical thinking skills our graduates need. We want to again share our immense gratitude to our community partners. The success of this day rests entirely on their shoulders. Not only did our volunteer businesses invest their valuable time and expertise, but we've seen so much positive buzz afterward. Thank you for sharing your pride and enthusiasm on social media. Your strong commitment to mentoring our future workforce is what makes Neapville 203 special.
004This event has firmly cemented its place as an indispensable cornerstone of our curriculum. The feedback from both our students and our business community has been overwhelmingly positive with many partners already asking how they can participate next year. A big All right. A big congrats to Kennedy eighth grader Kalp Rupar for solving a tricky math problem presented by Osman Oz Ahmed from Consortium Health Plans at Career Motivate. He took home a check for $100 for his efforts. >> We recently united across the entire district to observe Unity Day and the participation was incredible. Seeing our students and staff wear orange was a powerful visible reminder of our shared commitment. Unity Day is more than just a single date. It's a pledge to foster kindness, acceptance, and inclusion every single day. This year, we reinforc reinforce our
005core message, report, don't repost, to actively combat cyber bullying. April 203 remains dedicated to ensuring every student feels safe, supported, and respected. Thank you for partnering with us in this crucial effort. Together, we ensure our schools are a place where every student can truly thrive. Okay. Select high school students joined district leaders at the NIU Neighborville campus to talk about artificial intelligence. During this event, students share their perspectives on how artificial intelligence has impacted learning, creativity, and engagement with District 203 educators and administrators. We appreciated hearing from them. Want to take a moment and celebrate the incredible innovative work of one of our very own teachers from Kennedy Junior High, uh, Jan Mayor Haer. Jan didn't just teach a science class this past semester. She fundamentally reimagined the entire learning experience by partnering with live
006golf. She developed a unique curriculum that seamlessly fused hands-on specific exploration with social emotional learning. Jan's vision was to prove that skills like collaboration, empathy, and perseverance aren't just soft skills. They're essential tools for real world scientific discovery and success. This was truly dual impact education. And the icing on the cake, the success of this innovative approach earned Jan recognition that led to them being featured in an exciting segment on national television. This is a fantastic example of the innovative teaching and student success happening at Kennedy Junior High. That's our good news. [applause] >> All right, item five, public comment. We we've reached the point in our agenda for public comment. The board of education welcomes comments from the public at its meetings. Citizens who wish to address the board of education should identify themselves
007by name. Comments by individual shall be limited to three minutes. If the individual is representing multiple individuals or a group, they should be allowed to speak for five minutes. The board respectfully requests that speakers refrain from commenting about specific individuals. Um, do I have any We have no slips of paper. Would anyone in the audience like to address the board? Seeing none. Okay. Um so let's see since we don't see any um this uh will conclude our public comment period. Um as a reminder there are also uh ways to public comment. People can also send them in through talk to it. So um as a reminder because the questions raised in public comment whether in person or online. Oh there are none. Okay. Well just as a general reminder um the board has designated our
008superintendent uh as a spokesperson for the district. So um this officially concludes our public comment period. All right. Item six. Um, so we have reached uh the business portion of our meeting. As a reminder to community, the board understands and has affirmed through our board agreements that is each individual member's responsibility to prepare for each meeting and we understand that is our individual responsibility to collectively communicate our concerns either to the superintendent or board president prior to any meeting in a timely manner. Um, uh, board members have also agreed that avoiding no surprises is paramount in displaying respect for all district administration and the community. All right. So, uh, Mr. Bridges, did you receive questions from board members? >> I did from all seven. >> Okay. Very nice. All right. So, with that, um, action
009by consent. Item 6.01. I will entertain a motion. >> I move to approve item 6.01 as presented. >> Second. >> Uh, motion has been moved and seconded. Please call the role, Miss Patton. Oh, wait. Any discussion? >> Okay. Please call the RO, Miss Patton. >> Kazminsky. >> I. Kelly Black >> I >> McMillan >> I >> Winsky >> I >> Girky >> I >> Blastic >> I >> Kush >> I. The motion passes. Item seven, communications. Item 7.01, board of education reports. Does anyone wish to give a brief update on something they have done in their official capacity as a board member as it relates to our committee assignments, unique events at our adoptive schools, or select special district events? Anyone? Amanda? Um, I'd like to share with the board that I'm uh very excited.
010I um, so Illinois Association of School Boards reached out to me as an individual board member and asked if I would be interested in being part of their um, core planning team for the strategic plan. Um, there only selected 16 board members across the state of Illinois. Um and uh five of them are ISB board direct uh board of directors, six are ISB resolution committee members and five members are school districts at large. So really five um people. So I feel very honored to be able to u be asked and represent the district. Um this is going to be taking place over the the year. There'll be some virtual and in person in Springfield and just really feel very honored. So thanks Congratulations. Uh Christine, you said you had something. >> Uh so this past
011Wednesday, we had our fall division dinner with IASB. So we had um some of some of the board members were able to attend as well as Superintendent Bridges. So, um the well, first um before I get into the guest speaker that they had, um although it's the um Association of School Boards, um the superintendent are always invited to this and it occurred to me, I think Dan has been at every one that I've been at. So, um I think it's just important to highlight because it shows the commitment for the board superintendent relationship both from the board members and from our superintendent. So, um, and it's again an opportunity for us all, um, to learn together and just be able to socialize a little bit together because I know we've all said it before, that's
012not something we get to do as board members on a regular basis. Um, the guest speaker was um, the author of The Art of School Boarding, which IASB gave each district in attendance a copy. So, I'll hand that off to Susan and she can keep it if anybody on the board wishes to to go through it. And I believe it's also going to be available at the conference bookstore. So, um it's one of those books. It was a reminder of a lot of the training we receive and the t or the uh title as far as the art of school boarding. Um it made a lot of sense to me in listening to the to the author who was the speaker in that while as board members we have responsibilities we definitely have to oversee
013and that's I guess the checklist how we go about it is definitely more art than science and the one thing um that he kept highlighting or it just kept coming out at me for whatever reason was the the relationship aspect of being on a school board. And so that's part of why I brought up having shared many of these dinners with Dan is the relationships that come from those moments, whether it's an entire board with the superintendent, whether it's board member to board member or board member to superintendent underlying our work. And I think in order for for us to be successful, we have to have those relationships. So, um I just I I that was just my big takeaway is the importance of the human first aspect that we all have and then how
014we work together as humans and then how that impacts the students that we're all ultimately here for. So, I appreciate it and I had a good time with my fellow board members and with Superintendent Bridges >> Mark. Thank you, Charles. Uh yeah, I just want to um uh say to the uh parents at Prairie Elementary, um thank you very much for volunteering at their um uh fall parade that they had on uh Friday. Uh it was great seeing all the kids uh dressed up and uh uh just enjoying the afternoon, but again, I think a lot of it uh goes to the parents who volunteered their time to go to the class parties and make sure the teachers were supported. So, it was just a great showing of the community support for that school. Um,
015and as I said, I mean, the kids had a great, absolutely great time. And I just want to thank uh the principal, uh, Brian Alice uh, and his team for putting it on. And again, uh, a lot of credit goes to the parents. There were a lot of volunteers there. So, uh, just shows the community support for our schools. >> Awesome. Any other board of education reports? Okay. All right. Thank you for those. Um, so president's report. There's only two things I want to talk about uh tonight. One is um I'll just piggyback off of the uh comments around the um uh Depage Division dinner. I was not able to attend um but I I did get the chance to to download with someone who did and they told me about the book and so
016it was interesting the idea that came to me. would love to get input on that as to I've asked if the superintendent could provide us with copies of the book. Um, we can all get one ourselves if we wanted to, but probably a lot easier since we would like most likely expense those anyway. Um, that we would do that. I would love to to be able to um in a spirit of continuing continuous education and learning. Um, I think that'd be a great shared experience for us all to have and kind of read it together as our own little book club kind of situation. Um, and then we can talk about that at a future board self-evaluation where we can discuss the concepts from the book, etc. having all had the chance to review it.
017Sound like a good idea. All right. So, Superintendent Bridges, can you handle it? Thank you very much. >> We already have one. >> Oh, we already have one. Yes, Melissa. >> No, I was just want to say that I think that's a great idea, Charles. I think that's wonderful. I like the idea of a book club and I think it it is good because we talk about how it's an art but it's it's a focal point for us to come together on our understanding and have similar reference points. So I think that's great. >> Oh thank you for that. So um yeah so I'm looking forward to reading the book together be great. Okay. Um the other piece kind of talks about uh so I said we could do that at a future self-evaluation. Um,
018since the last meeting, um, we did have our board self-evaluation. Um, that was on October 23rd. And I just wanted to say thank you to, uh, Arana Bard for being our facilitator. She always does such a wonderful job. Um, and, uh, for those of you who didn't notice, she's actually sitting in the audience this evening. So, thank you, Arana. I'll take this opportunity to thank you for that. Um and a couple of the key high level things that we discussed, we talked about the concept of, you know, the idea of the principle of speaking with one voice to make sure that we're uh on the same page. We also talked about the idea of making sure that we as a border are aligned around KPIs, key performance indicators. Um and I just wanted to thank
019everybody for a very robust session uh where we had a lot of discussion um fair amount of debate on a couple topics but that's the whole point is to um make sure that the ideas are out there and I think we landed in some good pretty good follow-ups and next steps. So looking forward to continuing that dialogue and um continuing to partner with uh our friends at IASB to to do future sessions. So we still have to get a future session on the date, a future date on the calendar rather and um you know potentially well not potentially maybe depending on when that date is work in the the art of school boarding um some of the discussion from there as part of our next agenda for that. Okay, Melissa, >> I was just going
020to add to that that I think it was wonderful and I do appreciate I think all of us thought that it was a productive meeting and um the commitment of moving forward on trying to work on as a board being more cohesive, getting those conversations, discussion skills. Um I I I commend the board for for making that effort to work with an outside party and to try to go about this in a professional way. So thank you. >> Awesome. Again, thanks to everyone and thanks to Arlana for facilitating. Okay, that is my report. Um 7 item 7.03 superintendent staff school reports. Mr. Bridges. >> Yep. We have uh two reports this evening. Uh first report on the academic progress update. I'm joined by Dr. Patrick Nolton and Jane Willard um who will um help kind
021of support the the presentation. Dr. Nolton will take the lead on presenting our academic update. Um you know, I think this is again when we look at these results, we're very proud of the work that's going on in our district and and u the work that's happening in our classrooms across the school district right now. Um, and it really, um, I think the the results really exemplify, uh, the hard work that's being put in, uh, kind of placing us the 99th percentile in ELA, math, and science for grades three through 8th and 11th across all unit districts in Illinois, meeting or exceeding the expectations set by the state in every area. Having six exemplary schools and the rest is commendable, is fantastic. Um I think another key thing within our results is the fact that
022no student group falls under the underperforming state designation category. It doesn't mean we have uh room to grow and areas to improve uh especially in terms of gaps. We do have the ongoing need to support proficiency, growth and success of some of our atrisisk uh student populations and we will continue to work on that. But excited to share with you the results and I'll turn it over to Dr. Nolan. >> Okay. Good evening. My name is Patrick. Um happy to be here to share with you our um annual academic assessment update and accountability. Um first of all, huge kudos and thank you to all the staff that take part in the collection of this data. It's a massive process. It happens in March and April. So in case you're wondering when this was all done,
023it was a while ago, so it was last spring. Um and we're talking about uh a few different assessments, but I want to acknowledge all the effort by building level administrators, test coordinators. It's kind of an all hands-on deck process when we do this data collection. On the next slide, um, this is just our outcomes. We're going to talk a little bit about how we did. We always do this at the district level. Of course, anybody can log into the Illinois report card and take a look at districts, other districts, schools specifically, but we're going to keep this at a high level. Talk about grade level and student group with respect to achievement and growth. Um, we'll talk a bit about some of the metrics that the current Illinois report card includes that are used
024to make decisions about where schools are. Um Dan talked a little bit about exemplary and uh commendable. We'll talk a bit about where that comes from. Um we have I guess we moved on to the next slide. The uh we're going to talk about where can you go back one please? Thank you. I'll do a reverse beep. And then we're going to talk a little bit about future directions for accountability. The state of Illinois has some plans, some ideas for um how to reconfigure, how to uh reimagine the accountability process in the state of Illinois. So I'll talk a little bit about that as well. Okay, next slide please. Um, we are at the This is extra credit work I do. You will not see this in the report card. Um, when we rank from
025low to high, all unit districts, remember those are K12s in the state of Illinois. Our proficiency levels, meaning the percent of students that we have um, meeting or exceeding proficiency consistently fall at the 99th percentile across um, all measures, all core measures. So, I'm talking about English language arts, mathematics, science. That's whether you're looking at I or ACT. When you put that all together, um we're at the 99th percentile rank. That's remarkable. So, if you need evidence that we're exemplary, um that's something you could certainly say. Our high school proficiency continues to be exemplary. Um there was maybe some concern about switching from SAT to ACT. Uh we've overcome that. There's been no issues and our students still they continue to perform at a very high level. Um and as Dan mentioned, six exemplary and
026all the rest commendable. [snorts] Next slide. Um, quick summary for those of you that don't think as much as I do about this. The Illinois Assessment of Readiness is our third through 8th grade accountability measure. Like I said, we give it in March. Uh, we give it to about 7 around 72 7250 students and 3rd through 8th. Um, we just did this last March. In April, uh, we administer the ACT suite to 9th, 10th, and 11th graders. That's about 3,600 students roughly. Um, all of these assessments are aligned with the Illinois learning standards, so we're measuring what we intend to teach. Um, our participation rate is never an issue. It isn't for most districts. I only put that in here because, um, we really try we do every effort we can to test every student.
027We're we're asked to get to at least 95%. Most demographically similar districts to ours um are at the at the 99th percentile. So, I just want to make sure you know that we do test all kids and this is the 11th year of online testing using student Chromebooks. Next slide. Um, the state went through a process in the middle of July. Um, doesn't sound like a vacation activity to me, but they found people that were interested in helping them unify performance levels. Meaning, let's call at least across ISA and ACT. Let's come up with four categories. They look familiar above, proficient, approaching, and below. So, that's more unified. They also took a look at whether or not the thresholds for proficiency needed to be adjusted. I think there was consensus in the state of Illinois
028because of the fact that we had such challenging accountability tests and such high bars um we were probably not truly identifying students that were actually ready to go on to postsecary. And so I don't know if you remember if you look at back at previous presentations or spend some uh sleepless nights in the Illinois report card, you'll notice that we had lower proficiency percentages for ELA and math. Um that didn't really align with what we knew was actually happening in terms of students graduating and then doing well in post-secary settings. When I talk about post-secary, it's trade, it's two-year, it's four-year universities and colleges. So that's been aligned. So there's a little more consistency. Um the standards haven't changed, but the performance level. associated with proficiency has. On the next slide, [snorts] this is the
029Illinois Assessment of Readiness. Those numbers are percentages, not percentiles. So, you can look at the 82 and say to yourself, "Wow, almost a little over eight out of 10 students in our district demonstrate proficiency on last spring's um ELA, English language arts assessment, as administered to third through 8th graders. Um that's compared to 53% at the state level. I show you the state ch the state level because you know we always like to compare ourselves to something. This is the first year with these new cut scores. So if it gives you some reference that 82 might not sound like perfection. Um we always have room for growth but numbers like 82 and 71 are at the 99th percentile if you look at other unit districts in the state of Illinois. Um on the next slide
030I'm going to just talk briefly. This is ACT proficiency. This is 11th grade only. We give the preac to 9th and tth graders, but these are the percentages of students that met proficiency or exceeded proficiency compared to the state of Illinois. You'll notice they're higher than they were on the SAT. Um, we change tests, but we also change thresholds. So, it makes like apples to apples really difficult. [snorts] Next slide. Um, this is ELA proficiency by grade. I underlaid or overlaid, however you want to explain that, the state performance level. Um, you can see how we kind of go up third, fourth, fifth, and then we sort of make a little bowl down to what is that? Sixth, seventh, and then back up to eighth and 9th and 10th. You can see a similar trend
031at the state level. So, I don't want people to wrongly assume that we're getting things right until fifth grade and then all of a sudden things are dropping off in sixth. That's not true. That's a phenomena that occurs across the state of Illinois. That's an artifact of the test, the construction of the test, maybe the methodology. So, that's not an US problem. That's a statewide problem um as well. So, I gave that a little context. The next should be uh something. Next slide, please. Should be uh it's the uh [snorts] excuse me, I have a little bit of cold. The I um specifically ELA looking at um race ethnicity categories. Again, um those are percentages. So, let's just interpret that first bar. You can say that 90% of students identified as Asian in this district
032are meeting standards in ELA as assessed by the A last year across grades three through eight. compared to 78 at the state level and so on and so forth. You can see gaps, you can see differences. I show you how students as a state perform relative to us. We definitely have areas of lesser performance. Um, also keep in mind when you interpret these students, there's different proportions of students that fall into those categories in this in this district. So, for example, like whites around 57% for example, Asians around 19%. Um, disability is around 12%. So there's different percentages. They're not equal numbers or quantities or percentages of students, if that makes sense. Um across the district. The next slide, I think we're moving into ACTLA performance. Similar profile, high achieving Asian uh followed by white
033followed by Hispanic followed by African-American. That's a trend that is noted um on assessments across nationally. That Asian highest followed by white followed by Hispanic followed by black. Um that's not a unique phenomena that occurs in this district. Um you can see that we're well above state averages in all other categories. [snorts] On the next slide we have uh math proficiency by grade. This is all this is IR and ACT and preACT. You can see the state trend downward through sixth grade and then back up for 7th and then a little variation from 8th to 9th to 10th through 11th. That's also paralleled in the state data as well. like we talked about with ELA, that's probably a function of the test, not necessarily a local issue. And then we get into student group performance.
034Um, specifically on the third through eighth grade assessment, you can see gaps. You can see gaps relative to the state performance. You can see gaps between groups that we've talked about in the past. These are issues that we address when we create school improvement plans. Next [snorts] slide is ACT math proficiency. So again, same format. Those are percentages of students that meet standards based on ACT administration to 11th graders in April. You can see our performance for English learners. 7% at the state level meet math standards. In our case, it's 27% of students. So, it's a pretty dramatic difference. Um, low income, our students in low income do quite well as well. 50% are meeting standards, whereas at the state level, it's about uh two out of 10. On [snorts] the next slide, I did
035a uh breakdown [clears throat] of growth. I'll talk about this a little bit because it gets complicated sometimes. It's probably the way I explain it. But 50 would be the way growth is calculated in a nutshell. And this is across the last three years. And this is specifically ELA. And we only have growth with the IR. We don't have growth yet with ACT. So when we look at growth, we're really just looking at third through 8th grade. Um average growth would be 50. So if you saw 50s up there, um you'd you'd be saying, well, students are typically moving forward at a rate that's commensurate with their peers given similar starting points relative to the year prior. Um so every student is analy the state does this. We don't do this, but the state looks
036at every student's prior year performance and they look at how much they grew into the subsequent year. So imagine a third grader. We know where every third grader is when they take it in third and then we take a look at their fourth grade. Is that difference? Is that growth expected? Is it below expected or above expected? That gets translated into a growth percentile. The way you'd interpret the uh 2025 data for ELA would be you could say at the district level 58 um our students grew an average of better than or equal to 58% of the state population in the area of ELA as measured by the I. So, um we like 50 plus or minus three is average. So, up to 53 would be okay. 54 to 60 is is above average. Above
03760 would be um exemplary. None of those numbers are concerning to me. Um on the next slide, I did a breakdown of growth and I did it again by student group. We look at student group differences in growth. We want to know if there's a particular group in this district that's not growing as much as others. I can tell you just looking at this, eyeballing it, we don't have concerns about particular groups. There's some variation, but everybody's well above 50. We've got a group two or more is at 62. Um you can see how groups compare to the state. The lighter shade is the state um average. So uh we do well in group we do well in terms of ELA growth um as measured by the A and we have historically. On the next
038slide [snorts] [clears throat] um we're in mathematics growth. These numbers look lower. Um they are at the state level as well. There's not as much growth demonstrated in math. That might be part of why the early numeracy um initiative is in place to help districts understand how best to teach mathematics, especially at earlier grades. Um but we're doing well in that area. Not as significant growth um as ELA, but comparable to the state level. Another slide um is the breakdown of uh growth relative to student group. So you see some variation there compared to the state. Um we're minimally at 50. Um which means we're commensurate with uh um at least average growth in every single group. Um contrary to some popular opinion, depending on who you listen to, it is possible for high achieving
039students and districts to show growth. Some people believe that the test ceilings out. We've got too many kids that are at the top of the curve or at the top of the uh scale. Um it is it's mathematically possible to still measure growth. We have some schools that are high achieving in this district that also had high growth. In fact, that's how the exemplary schools got to exemplary, mainly through growth. Next slide. A little bit about the Illinois science assessment. This is administered to students only in fifth, 8th, and 11th. Not because we choose to be uh I don't know lazy or something. That's what's required based on the department of education. Um the 11th graders take it in the context of the ACT science subtest. Fifth and eighth take a separate test. We usually
040do this in April. Uh give kids a little bit of a break. They've been through spring break. Um we're at 99 plus percent of uh participation as well. And these are aligned to the nextgen science standards which are the standards that uh Illinois has aligned with for science instruction. Um on the next slide, this is science proficiency. I broke out fifth, 8th, and 11th. You can see those are percentages. Threearters roughly of our students are proficient in science. Um if I did an average of those three it would be about 75. Um that's at the 99th percentile at the state level as well by the way. So 75 might not sound like a lot of proficiency but if you again rank us from highest to lowest for unit districts um that's near the top of
041the pack. Next slide is science proficiency broke breakdown by student group and you can see differences there relative to state performance as well just like I did for the ELA and for the math. Next slide. Percentile rank by subject. This is extra extra credit. So, um this is not in the report card. And this is looking at by group for unit districts. What's the typical what's our where do we rank in terms of percentile rank relative to other unit districts in the state for each of these groups? I'll take low income as an example in ELA, which should be a 91 if I'm reading that correctly. So far right bar 91. That means that relative to all other unit districts in the state of Illinois, we're at the 91st percentile in terms of proficiency achievement
042for students that identify as low income, right? And so we're looking there for there's certainly always areas of improvement. Look at disability, students with disabilities. We're we're at the 99th percentile for math and science. ELA is the 98th. That means that proficiency levels for all other unit districts are pretty much lower than ours. So when you see low percentages of proficiency, I provide this in the context of looking at, well, how's everybody else doing? In this case, it's every other unit district in the state of Illinois. Um, next slide. Dynamic learning maps. I don't want to neglect this. This is a small subset of students. Um, 97 roughly. I don't it might be plus or minus one. Um, this is a test that's given to students gazintite that are um developmentally unable to participate in
043a traditional accountability test. These are students that are typically multiply disabled. They may be non-ambulatory, non-verbal, um s severe cognitive delays, severe adaptive behavior delays, that type of thing. Um we don't over identify students for that. We're only allowed to do up to 1%. Um and our results on the next slide. Um although they look um low, if you pulled up the state data, they're in range with where the state of Illinois is. That's not um significantly discrepant. And those are percentages for less than 100 students. [snorts] Um the next slide and uh I made the I made the competition drab, right? Because they probably are. But um this is percent proficient by subject ELA math and science. You can only rank one subject. So I ranked ELA, but you can see I made us
044a nice green. Um those are percent that proficient for everything. So I dumped in um ELA, math, science as measured by IR and ACT. Um those are our traditional benchmarks. They're sociodemographically comparable to us. Um we're doing quite well. You can see some slight um we've always been at the top. I I didn't look back at every year, but as long as I've worked here for the last nine, um we've definitely been at the head of the pack as far as uh looking at this type of data. We always compare ourselves to peers. Um [snorts] next slide is uh some of the highlights. These are also in the report card. There's a lot more information every year in the report card. You know, we have a tremendous high school graduation rate. Our English lang our
045English learner progress to proficiency is 22%. That means that we're releasing 22% or one in five students from needing EL support annually compared to seven out of 100 for the state of Illinois. We're doing quite well, three times the state level. Um, our nth graders are on track. That's a metric that looks at whether or not nth graders are failing a core class. We have very few students that do. Our post-secary enrollment is about 86 87 depending on the year you look at. That's how many kids leave and then go on to start a trade tech uh two-year or four-year program. Our attendance is 94. Absenteeism is still in the teens. Used to be precoid in the single digits. Um that varies by school, but it's better than the state at 25. That number reflects
046the percent of students that miss at least um 10% of school days um excused and unexcused included. Um so that's about a day every other week if you think about taking every every other Friday off. Um that's a lot. There could be more than it could be that's the minimum to be considered chronically absent. Uh chronic truency is defined as 5% of 5% of the school year without valid cause or reason. We only have 2% of students that fall into that category compared to 20% for all of Illinois. These are just high points from or celebrations actually from the report card. The next slide, this is the current summit of designation uh process I guess for lack of a better word. You can see elementary and middle schools have a different pie than high school.
047You can see some of the weightings of some of the indicators that go in there. Probably the most salient change that's occurred over time is the shift from proficiency to growth. You'll see at least at the elementary and middle school, growth is half of it, right? Growth in ELA is important. Growth in math is important. Um, proficiency still matters. It's just not everything like it used to be during the years of No Child Left Behind. We're also um held accountable for chronic absenteeism rates and that climate survey is a reflection of percent of students that completed the Illinois 5 essentials. We we generally speaking get above 95% for that as well. The high school has a different pie. The majority of that is uh you can see number four there that's uh graduation rate which
048we do quite well. We're always in the high 90s and the rest is a breakdown. Proficiency matters but there is no growth. I think that's going to be on the horizon if not next year possibly. Uh one more slide maybe. Here's I've included this before the definitions. Thankfully we have nobody that falls below commendable. We'd have to go through a formal SIP process as guided by ISBY if we were targeted comprehensive or intensive. Um, exemplary is basically the top 10%. It's kind of a moving target as it's defined right now. It depends the 10% defend depends on how well other schools do on all the metrics. So, it shifts the cut shifts over time. Um, and commendable is uh not in the top 10% but not like Dan mentioned, no underperforming student groups um as
049well. So, absolutely nothing wrong with commendable or exemplary. Um, on the next slide, this is future directions. The state's been talking a little bit. There's a deck out there if you know how to Google it um that talks about the revised accountability system that they're thinking about. They're shifting from norm reference to criterion reference. That just means instead of it being a moving target relative to how everybody else did, there's just going to be some established cuts for this is what it takes to get to exemplary and it doesn't change every year depending on how peers do. Um that might that's likely to be deployed during the next school year, school year 27. Um, and then my suspicion is that they'll somehow include high school growth in there, too. Um, somehow that'll be part of
050the process. [snorts] Um, here's my summary. Exemplary overall district proficiency relative to all other um can make a t-shirt out of this. 99th percentile for um, ELA, math, and science. Uh, relative to unit districts, six exemplary, 15 commendable. Um, we do quite well preparing students as they transition out of 12th grade and move on into their future. Um we've got lots of evidence of that. Um in ter also we collect information about where students go and how many students proportionately move on to post-secary opportunity. Um and then of course the last bullet really has to do with our ongoing need to support the growth and proficiency of our atrisisk student groups. That of course remains to be a challenge and that's actually a bullet that a lot of our SIPs focus on to be honest
051with you. We have we have groups of teams at schools that look at IR performance relative to other data sources like map and make decisions about which groups are not growing at a rate expected or which are not proficient at a level expected. So um the last slide I think is a thank you and uh you can ask any questions if you want. Sip of water. >> Okay. Thank you uh Patrick. Appreciate that. Um, so just as a reminder to board members, I'll recognize each individual to ask questions or comments. As per our board agreements, we share time with other board members. After each person has had a turn, uh, we will go back around if necessary. I know there's a lot of questions that folks have based on the numbers that came through. Um,
052in terms of, uh, what was sent to superintendent ahead, if you ask a question, please state if you sent that question ahead of time. Of course, we know that doesn't mean that you can't ask the question just because you asked it ahead of time. And obviously there's room to ask additional questions that popped up. I know there were a few that came into my head as Patrick was speaking. Um uh please also remember it is not in order to interject unless you've been recognized. I will do my best to keep my head on a swivel and make sure that I am um appropriately acknowledging hands as they go up. Uh so with that I will solicit questions from the board. Joe. >> Yeah, thank you for the uh report. Um always love the data that
053you provide uh for the board. Um great to see the uh exemplary performance uh of the district uh again. Um and I I just have a a few um [snorts] uh kind of clarification uh things that I I want to get out of the way first. Um, so, uh, I I'd asked a couple questions about comparisons to last year. Um, with these kind of reormed or or, um, modified ways of looking at, uh, the scores, we can't really do an applesto apples comparison anymore, can we? >> Um, it's not as easy as it would be if we hadn't changed the, uh, the thresholds for proficiency, but um, the changes affected everybody roughly equally. So if there was a shift, you know, the gap the gap really didn't change dramatically. Everybody the levels of proficiency all
054shifted up similarly. So that difference didn't really change that much. You know what I mean? It's very difficult with um ACT the shift from SAT to ACT because not only different tests but also different cut scores as well. So, so when the change, I guess to summarize, when the um you know, when the cut scores when the new cut scores go into place, they just shift proficiency levels. Maybe some groups proficiencies went up, but others did too. And so, that gap shifted up similarly. >> Got it. >> Does that make sense? >> Yeah. So, the absolute numbers may have similar the relative gaps are are roughly similar. >> You got it. >> Got it. Um >> and that bears itself out on the report card. If you go back and look, you can see that
055what we're talking about visually. >> Thank you. Um, and then the uh uh NGSS I got to throw my science question in there. Um, so uh, uh, I know the state makes up the elementary, middle school. Uh, the state used to do the high school, but now we're doing ACT. Um, how well aligned is the ACT science to the NGSS? >> Um, we don't That's a great question. Um we I've not seen a crosswalk of that yet. I mean we've been reassured at least in writing or you know that the that they're aligned you know that the process there was a process that the state went through to ensure that this really reflects what's being tested or what's being intentional what the intention is of being instructed. But um so you know we're we're going
056with what the state has told us in terms of this is a measure that adequately addresses NGSS. >> All right. I hope that's true. [laughter] Um and then uh the you had some data on the ninth and tth graders with the PACT uh data. Um does the state look at that or do they just look at the 11th grade uh ACT and can we use the PS PAC as as a good predictor of kind of what's coming? >> We can. Yeah, there's growth tables that connect pre-ACT 9 and 10 to 11 just like there was with PSAT and SAT. Um, the state does use it. The state collects the data. We know that we know the proficiency levels for 9th and 10th grade. I showed them up there when when you saw 9th and 10th,
057you could see them. Um, they're not actually formally part of the accountability process yet. So, >> okay. So, the state's not looking at those necessarily for the high school performance. >> Correct. proficiency as defined in that little pie for summit of designation is purely 11th grade. >> Got it. Thank you. >> Yeah, that was the case with SAT as well. So before >> I'll let others okay ask question. Thank you Joe. >> Any other other questions from other board members? Mark >> Patrick, [clears throat] thank you for the presentation and and congratulations to the district on such a strong performance this year. I have a a question. Um, I didn't really ask it in advance, but it's kind of geeky as we as you were going through the presentation. Um, when you showed the slides
058with the different student groups on it, >> right? >> Um, it struck me as you were talking about the number of students in the different groupings, >> right? >> Does uh does that does certain student groups have a wider range in terms of their results because they're a smaller population and how do we kind of capture that? >> Um, that's true. So sometimes we've examined like year-to-year differences in small percent populations. I'll take African-American black. We're at about 4% 4.7%. As you know, mathematically, you know, smaller groups of students more influence the results, you know, to a greater degree. And so we you expect more variability in proficiency and maybe even growth too because you've got such a small group of students you know compared to you know a population of students that's almost 60%
059of the district. So um sometimes same thing we see variation in uh performance for like um you know other smaller proportion groups like EL for example especially at the high school level like sometimes we've taken apart EL data and we've looked specifically at high school EL which is I think this year it was around 40 students total across both high schools you can imagine that a group of 40's performance on this can it can vary and shift that proportion of proficient greatly. So yeah, um, you know, we we're less confident, I guess. You know, you're probably seeing more a specific cohort effect when you're looking at a small group like that than being able to say the population as a whole in this district, you know, need something. We just see more variation when there's
060less. Does that make sense? >> Yep. Yep. Thank you, Patrick. Holly. >> Um, >> I sort of sent this ahead and you spent a long time talking about and explaining growth and that's a big emphasis here, but I know for parents getting these in our backpacks that came home on Friday. >> Growth is kind of a hard thing to understand. So looking at and comparing, you know, where the student was last year and how that growth is calculated. Could you kind of do a deep dive into that? Not deep dive, but clarify. Yeah, >> explain. So let's just imagine there's a let's just say we have a third grader just for simplicity sake. So we have a third grader that takes this test in April of their third grade year. So near the end of
061the school year and let's say they score like a scale score of 500. Um the state then looks at all those students that scored that 500 and then takes a look at how well they did when they took it as a fourth grader. So the state's able to sort of say, well, this is what's typical, like this is what your 50th percentile, your middle of the road kid maybe grew, went from 500 to 550, you know, and so the state looks at every possible improvement or scale score increase or decrease and then sort of assigns a percentile rank to it. So we know like completely typical growth would be 50th percentile. You know, if you get to 60, which we like, you know, that's saying that you grew as well or better than 60%. So
062the state can predict given starting point in third how far are students likely to go in fourth and what's typical what's above average and what's below average to what degree. Does that make sense? So if I were a parent just from a practical standpoint I'd look at that information. Um I'd also take a look I'd be interested in the NWA map growth which we do. It's more real time because we get the results quickly. You're looking at fall to winter, fall to spring, winter to spring, that kind of thing. Um there's a bit more precision with that assessment. Um I mean I wouldn't dismiss the I but I think I'd keep it in the context of understanding you know how's my student doing as a whole. You know what are what's the what are teachers
063seeing that are interacting dayto-day you know in the classroom. I wouldn't you know if everything generally is going quite well and growth in this particular test didn't show you know it is based on you know one test one day in some cases you know what I mean and not all of us uh have you know some days are Mondays right and so not of not all of us have you know high performance days every day and there's you try to look at the totality of student achievement not just that you know focus on one test in one moment in time does that make sense >> yeah because I I just wanted to develop because I've heard that you address that rumor of you know someone's already proficient or doing really well that you're not going
064to see growth. But that is what we saw with our schools that have moved to exemplary. So >> it doesn't matter where you are in the continuum of achievement. So I mean that's the intention of growth. Growth really is all about all kids. So put aside proficiency just think about where's the starting point whether they're proficient or not the year before and how much did they grow to the second year. So, I mean this it's a good metric because it really reflects movement among all kids, not just getting kids above, you know, a bar that the state of Illinois sets. >> Okay. Um, so let me see anyone anyone. Okay. So, go ahead Christine then. >> So, I just I sent this one ahead. I just want to um understand more about what's being done
065with the chronic absenteeism because when I looked at last year's presentation, our number is almost identical. So, I know it's a tough one, but what are we employing to kind of help bring that number down? >> In my response, in my response, I tried to um highlight the fact that it's very individualized. Um the it's while it's not um It's not a very high bar that you have to cross for some of our students to to be considered chronically absent, especially if they have medical concerns. As uh Dr. Nolton pointed out, these are both excused and unexcused absences. If a parent takes a vacation during the middle of the year because of the timing of a parent's job uh with their students, and that puts them dangerously close to that threshold. Um so, so our
066response is very individualized. It is uh you know, why is the student qualifying? Is it is it due to illness? Is it an school refusal? Is it anxiety? Is it u and so our response is tailored to that? Um our student advocacy specialists do some of that work. Um but they have a series of criteria, entry and exit criteria for monitoring attendance. Uh sometimes a student may not qualif you know they may hit the mark for like so we we might look at them and say okay this student's dangerously close to being chronically absent but a very quick review of their medical records would show that that's not something that they would intervene in or perhaps it's already being addressed by if they have an IEP maybe being addressed by their case manager sometimes their
067attendance contracts etc. So we have a variety of tools at our disposal and that how we address it is unique to the individual B and it's done by their team. So their their counselor, social worker etc. >> And then looking at the some of the younger levels a lot of the focus is on first of all building the sense of belonging but then early identification and early communication uh kind of building the awareness for for families of understanding um the importance of being in school and being present. If I can just add one more thing about the metric. In the last few years, the states also allowed us up to three mental health days for students as well as one civic engagement day. So those actually not that we don't want kids to take days
068for mental health or be or go to you know some a civic engagement event but um that also is that's also part of absence. So that has been a lot of conversation superintendent level with the state and with other advocacy groups about if that's going to be a metric on the school report card. Um then we've got to we've got to measure it a little bit differently if we're going to be providing these other opportunities for student absences being supported and endorsed at the state level. >> One thing I'm going to add to that too is our schools know our kids student by absentee. So, it's they're not just numbers, especially at um and Mark talked about the high school, but like Dan said for our elementary and middle school, they know the kids. Our
069social workers are on the kids. Our teams are on the kids. They are communicating constantly with those families. So, they are doing MTSS with them. They're doing their IST meetings. They really have a pulse on who those ex kids are. >> Thanks for that. And I appreciate the comment too, Mark, about watching if kids are getting close. And so, um, I know we watch the kids, but it just reassures me that we're trying to make sure we don't get to that point with any individual student. Also, thank you, [clears throat] >> thank you. Uh, I did send this kind of ahead, but it's changed a little bit. I want to make sure I'm clarifying. So back on the beginning of the slides when you talked about the proficiency or the performance levels changing and becoming
070more unified. So this is something that happened this year. Is that why when we're looking at the comparison of the different groups that you're comparing against our district versus the state versus yeartoyear because it's not really apples to apples because of the um performance levels >> right because if you remember traditionally I've always had like every prior year almost to the point where you can't even read it anymore. [laughter] Um, yes, it's kind of been a reset in terms of and so in general for ELA and mathematics, we have a higher percentage of students that are proficient. So if you'd for example taken the cut score, let's just say we never changed the cut scores that identified proficiency, our performance would have been in line with where it has been in the past. Do you
071know what I mean? So if we imposed we took the we took a look at student performance last spring on I can't say this about ACT because we didn't give it before but if you use the old cuts we'd be at roughly the same level we were last year the year before. >> Does that make sense? Yeah. No, I I this was really important especially coming out of COVID, right? You know, when we were like really looking at, okay, where were we before CO, where are we after, and kind of seeing I think it was around 22 or 23 when we finally got back up to precoid levels, right? >> Um, and so that's kind of what I was expecting to see just to be able to compare year to year, but I understand why
072we're not. And this might be a good time for a reset. I like the idea of the performance levels being more aligned in all the various testing that we have. Um, so that's just kind of like a a comment or observation uh that I have. I don't really have any other questions beyond that. So, question. >> Melissa, >> hi. I sent my questions ahead of time. I might have a couple new ones, but I don't think so. First, um, my question was I had noticed when looking at the report cards, you were mentioning are the numbers that we're looking at that were reported in the report card. I saw that it said ACT suite uh, versus SAT, >> right? Sorry, what's your question? >> So, we were referencing the ACTs and that we switched to
073that continuity, but the numbers we're using now are still >> ACT. Well, this last spring was the first year we gave the ACT suite. And by suite, I mean the ACT for 11th graders and then the preACT for 9th and 10th. So, this spring was the first year we gave the ACT. Prior to that, Melissa, we gave the SAT suite. >> Oh, yeah. Because I'm remembering I've had kids that we went from ACT to SAT. So, Okay. Yes. >> Um, I've already switched over. Thank you for clarifying that. You're welcome. >> So, I I want to thank everyone first of all for all this work. Um, and there's a lot to celebrate and just by my nature, I do a lot I don't want to be critical, but I guess I look at it like
074a football coach that [clears throat] like I know that all of us want to be the best. I know we take great pride. I think that's been shown by how we feel about being in the top percentages. So, one of the things I get constantly from parents is that when we have these discussions, we always reference unit school districts, but if you look at like the scatter charts on the report card, >> um why don't we compare ourselves to all districts in the relevant areas? Um we could I mean we could look at every you know we could look at it for every you know what we could compare ourselves to elementary districts, high school districts as well as unit districts. I think traditionally typically we've tried to compare ourselves to similar districts you know
075that that are K12 and also um the eight that we or the seven that we compare ourselves to are sort of the traditional ones that are you know demographically similar to us. They're the ones that those districts use to compare themselves to. So that's, you know, we try to find a place that's like comparable to us in terms of, you know, the population, maybe the economic situation in those communities, level of education of parents, things like that. >> So if I could just add to that though, um, because we use them as comparables, benchmark comparables, we use them for multiple things. When we look at our finances, we look at tax rates, we look at a lot of different things. So we have a a steady group to be comparing ourselves to. They're much like
076us. But that doesn't limit who we either collaborate with or learn from. Um so you know our principles will um you know and we as a district team also you know if there's an elementary district that's showing some great work in in certain areas we'll seek to learn from them or high schools that have are introducing unique programs or things for their kids. You know I can think of a high school district uh in northern Cook County that has done a lot of work around for example career pathway work that we've learned from and things like that. So just because we don't put them as a comparison district doesn't mean we do not try to learn from them or try to steal and modify programs or things uh that are better suited for us. >>
077Okay. And just to clarify this I just get from parents I think a lot of parents will sometimes and I know we've talked about this in the past the community unit that we use. One of the things to sidestep from this is I want to thank the report card. there's been updates and one of the things they do do is they do do the scattergrams charts and they compare resources with expenditure so you know so you're comparing you get a better feel of like with resources um how well because obviously more resources for the students usually means they have more opportunities but on along those lines I know we hear a lot that we are a school district that's a tier um four and are highly dependent. Most of our funding comes from the taxpayers.
078And what I hear is um sometimes they feel like if we compare ourselves, they used they're used to us being compared to say the top district. So if you look at the scatter chart, your 99 percentile unfortunately really drops if you include other districts. Um, so I guess part of my concern is I want to make sure I don't want to say we don't celebrate. >> Can I just push back on what you just said? >> Yeah. I mean, I think >> we we have we it doesn't really drop. We did that in the past. I think we did that like two or three years ago. Really drop took us like into the lower 90s. Do you know what I mean? When we did the entire state of Illinois, um, it didn't really drop. If
079really drop means, you know what I mean? Like I I I'd have to pull the numbers back up, but it was like it placed this like 91st 93rd percentile. >> Okay. Yeah. No, I some like Yeah, there's a lot more districts. It does significantly we could but but that would be a good point to instead of saying that I'm a data person. So to have that data and I know in the past I've asked that we be compared to those other districts so that what we're saying because I don't think most of I'm here as an advocate of the taxpayers that a lot of them understand what community unit means and they think when they look at Illinois they compare us. I think we have been fortunate to have a community that has always supported
080our educational system. I would take pride in saying I believe Neighborville is built on our educational system that the house values are based on that and people are willing to pay that. But when they compare what they when we compare it to community unit and not maybe the top percentage if you're saying let's say 90th percentile there's 10% above us or whatever they want to be compared with that. And then I look at like the football coach or as a business owner put it this way like so hospitality business if I'm a seafood restaurant and one of the things that you would do is you would say I want to compare myself to other restaurants. I wouldn't just say only seafood restaurants. Some of that data I would compare myself apples to apples to other
081seafood. But I just want to and I don't mean this as a criticism as much as I if we were to when we do this compare ourselves to those top districts I think and or include all districts I think it might give a it might lower our percentage but I don't think I hope that that number is not the pride it's the performance and so that our our taxpayers and the people watching know that we're not just limiting it to one group of people. It's the whole group. Um, so that might be helpful in the future. We might give up our 99 percentile, but what we would get is that there wouldn't be that confusion. There' be clarification. And then it also gives us room to stretch and to say and to identify those districts
082that are doing really well in areas so that we go check out what are they doing because I noticed in the report card we do a lot of the state and the state I'm not sure is the best reflection to compare ourselves to since we are we have a lot more resources than other districts. Our students come from usually uh households with better resources. I know that we have great community groups. So, um maybe we want to look about how we compare ourselves. So, then don't want to beat a dead horse. Um all right. So, I have going through here. I wrote the notes on here. Um so, we could go to the slides. I liked that you you brought up for the uh ELL profession proficiency by grade that there was a statewide dip
083due to the testing. Um, I think that was very insightful because I again I view myself as I'm the advocate for the community and I'm trying to help them understand all this. Um, so I think when you give that information it it it really helps. One thing that I brought up previously um and I still have yet to see on the reports is [clears throat] the category of students with IEPs. And the reason I bring this up is it has traditionally always been our group that has scored the lowest. So >> right, that's when you look at the charts, that's the students with disabilities category. >> Um, actually with the report card, those are two different groups, >> right? I can clarify that group. So the state of Illinois now defines students with disabilities to
084include students with IEPs and students with 504 plans. >> Yeah. So, so I think though because we're a district that we do so well in a lot of things, one of the areas that we do have that we can improve is those achievement gaps which are quite large. I know that some of them reach almost 60 60 point differences. And I know that looking at other districts that's uncommon, especially looking [clears throat] at comparable high performing districts. Um, so I guess the IEP again I don't think anyone would not include a group because it's less flattering. But I think that is a group we're particularly interested in. And I know that that's one of the groups I hear a lot back from are the IEP parents because I know as I went through and looked
085at the report cards on almost every single category, the IEP students were significantly lower. So again, it would be nice if we included those students and didn't miss that group, especially since they appear to be the best because and I say this again, I don't want to be critical, but I want to respond to what I'm hearing from parents and then I think it's important for us as a team as we talk about those achievement gaps and [clears throat] wanting to improve them that we know where the greatest needs are. The other reason that I say that and I like about this report card is one of the decisions as a board member I have to make are where are resources going to go. You know, and one of the things that we've talked about
086and I I've brought up on previous meetings is the concept of that we've had since I've been on the board each year a significant amount of leftover money at the end of the year and then as the board has done has transferred that money to a one-time like capital project. And one of the things I've mentioned previously and I would like for my board members maybe to comment or reflect upon is the idea of using that money of of figuring out which of these groups really needs the biggest lift, who are our most needy, and that maybe before the end of the year we could have a check-in, maybe pick out some goals and key performance indicators. and maybe halfway through the year go back and look and maybe the district is doing great. But
087if they're not, they can come to us and say we could use additional resources on these students because those achievement gaps were not making the progress. They are quite large. So, this gives the the staff the opportunity to have access to more resources to be able to address those. And I think that myself and what I hear from constituents is that their focus is on their on the students and the student learning and the capital projects are nice. It's nice. The four $40 million bus terminal is is nice. Um but that's where maybe get feedback about to how the public would like to spend that money. >> The the bus >> it wasn't you didn't approve 40 million. >> How much did we approve? >> 17. >> Oh, sorry. Yeah, that I'm way off. Thank
088you for catching that, Dan. That Dan must >> Okay, he's like 40 million. What did you do? Although the transportation department right now thought okay >> yeah they [laughter] >> forunately we don't have it >> so thank you thank you for that correction but I mean in general we've had some some projects and I'm just saying and then maybe too as a board one of the things we've talked about wanting to do is get more input from the community um find a way to maybe have more engagement with the community and find out what those priorities should be um because and the other thing here, let's see. Um, the other thing I I thought was somewhat alarming is a lot of times I I heard that that we were doing well if our students were
089at the 50th percentile. Is did I misread that? I wrote down some notes that you made some comments. >> I think it's when you were talking about growth. You want to reexplain them? >> Sure. Um, so if students at the 50th student growth percentile that means that they are growing as expected. >> Yeah. No, I get that and I did look and see and compared to the state and a lot of other districts that growth is pretty consistent, >> right? >> So we are and that brought me back to the other thing that I like and you mentioned yourself the need to have different data points to get a collective picture. And I thought back to our conversation at our last board meeting about the school improvement plans. One of the things um we had
090some lively debate on was about that most of the plans included just a growth marker and I had asked for there to for maybe a more balance to have a performance proficiency and I think Amanda you and I got in a discussion of why I was referencing the I AR and all that and I said that I don't select these but I like the idea of maybe are we going to use any of this information to go back and look at our SIP plans because I know we talked last meeting about these SIP plans were made before this information was released so that's why we didn't include um proficiency markers >> right so when we go through the revision process and adjust SIP we talked about this as we've gotten to the last two years
091we're going to take into consideration these changes >> but can we is that something we could modify now. And my concern is this. As a parent, I think um Holly, you brought this up and I thought it was really good and I think I love how you say you brought home and what parents are seeing and when our parents see that growth, it does stay pretty consistent and 50% or around 50% I would agree with your characterization that's pretty good. However, what I see from parents is the misunderstanding of you can have a 50% growth, but what the piece that's missing is that proficiency piece that's tied to the standards that tells them how your child is doing and how your school is doing, how the district is doing as far as our kids being
092a performing at grade level and catching up in a timely manner by the time they graduate because that's what those standards for parents that don't know at home. Those standards and proficiency are tied to we've decided these are the skills you need to perform in fifth grade, sixth grade, whatever grade, and then you exit. Um, so I was wondering if we as a board, I guess this is addressed more to my fellow board members of the idea of going back and looking at and making sure that we have growth and proficiency on the SIP. And the reason I say that is I think that's an accountability piece that we would want to know and that the parents would want to know to make sure that we're looking at multiple components, not just growth proficiency. Is
093that I'll let my other board members speak. >> Yeah. Our teams look at the school improvement make modifications annually and as Dr. Nolen said you know having this new data now also will help inform them on their priorities and their action steps and things that they're trying to do to improve performance. >> Amanda, were you about to say something? >> There was just so much to unpack there. I mean that was a long >> I know >> long a long not one of my better traits >> and I had a comment back to when you were mentioning about um providing resources especially for closing the gap for special education um >> and other groups right um and I do and I do feel like uh there have been especially when it comes to around springish,
094right, is when we start looking at personnel for the upcoming year and thinking about what kinds of resources do we need based off of research that we've had, right? So, especially coming out of COVID, which is basically since I've been on the board, >> um you know, there was things like adding mass specialists to rooms, adding more aids into classrooms to have more support adding more administrators at the building level to support with discipline issues so it wasn't being handled at the uh in the classrooms. >> Um adding specifically more special education teachers and resources to all the schools. I think we added almost 20 different throughout the district right over a couple of years. >> Um so that is something I'm I'm proud that we have done. I know that it's hard to not
095see the changes so drastically yeartoyear. To me, I feel like this is more of like a systemic issue across the nation that um like these uh more uh groups that aren't representative of the general quote unquote norm are left behind in almost every statistic group, right? you know, so it's something that our district is dealing with, but also it's just like a nationwide problem. Like, how do we close that as a as an educ education system? So, it's not saying that we can't address it as a district. I do think that we are one of the best innovators and like really looking at how to, but it's just so complex, I think. I don't I mean, so that's just kind of like um an observation that I'm having. And so that that's come came up
096to me when you made that statement. I was like, I kind of feel like we are in some ways, but it is hard to know like, you know, is it enough? Will it be enough? And you know that that I'll just stop there. [snorts] >> No, but that was perfect because can I just want to that's perfect because I see what you're saying about like that's complex, but the fun part of this is that's not our job. [laughter] That's his job. So we what I'm kind of asking for is that we get the data and that we do indicators so we can track it and and that's where I also have brought up the concept of I know each sit plan and we've talked about oh each school's individual but we don't really have any
097mechanisms in place to overall judge as a district like we don't have like a district goals with indicators, which is hard for us. I know as a board member, I feel like that's my accountability piece to the public. I think it I need it for my job to make sure because yes, it's very complicated and but I do need indicators and then those indicators can be compared to other districts or other I mean, we use that data as schoolboard members. That's what we're taught to use. So if we have those general overall, we can track it and ask questions. It I I not qualified to to give the direction on how it's used. I'm saying that we get the data and that way we can then use that to make decisions with allocating resources. And
098also we need that because I know if each SIP plan kind of has their own goals. One of the problems to that I hear parents say is we do have differences in performance between schools where it would be nice to have a dis maybe district standards if you'd call it that where we say this is this is a aspiration of where we would like to see so that the community and us can have a clear understanding are we going there it could be incremental but yet we know that it helps us eval evaluate the district because right now how do we evaluate the whole district? >> We do some with this but we don't have to the public to say we've decided these are the ways we can say that it helps us then if
099we have it standardized it we're comparing schools to schools in the same level. It also helps us with one of the biggest things we do is employ the superintendent. How do we uh how do we decide that we're reading reaching district goals or or fulfilling the desire of the people in the community if we don't have set goals and key indicators because otherwise what I've seen us do which is unfortunate is when things are unclear you have a lot of arguing unnecessary arguing like for example you know one person might say if we don't have clear indicators that that we've all agreed upon. Somebody else can say, "Well, I think our district's doing great because, you know, absenteeism's real low or something." You know what I mean? Like each each one of us is different.
100When you talk about the or the art of a board members, um I haven't read the book. I hope I will be reading it. But part of that is it can be too much of an art where you there's a part for that but you also as a board need that cohesive we talk about one voice this way the superintendent the schools the district the parents all know what our set standards are. >> So I'm going to ask the superintendent to weigh in and then I know Mark had a comment and then Joe had a comment as well. So, >> now obviously there there is a a relationship between the state report card uh and school improvement planning. So, our agenda item was the the state report card. However, a couple of things. You know,
101obviously I serve at the direction of the board of education and it was about was it three years ago input from the board of education was really to shift from proficiency targets in our school improvement plans to focus on growth and focus on the unique individual populations at each of our schools. Um, you know, 23 schools are are very different communities um within our our larger grander community and that's a wonderful celebration. So the the charge from the board was really focus on look at where our students are and let's move them right and so that's how we did that. So if it's some point during as we prepare for school improvement planning if that's a conversation we want to have uh we can do that. Uh in regard to like performance indicators or things
102like that there are indicators established by the state and as we've reported we've met or exceeded all of them across the state. Now, I don't want to quote unquote compare ourselves to the state, but when we look at our performance in regard to the statewide metrics, we exceed them. Um, and then it's not an agenda item, but it's been brought up. It'll be an agenda item at the next board meeting. Um, we need to kind of shift some of our thinking about resources, right? Because when Mr. Francis presents the five-year financial forecast at our next board meeting, we're not going to have the luxury of the the resources, so to speak, that we've had. And so just as we kind of go through that um a little caution about kind of thinking that there's a
103a purchase solution that we can be looking at or just adding more people and things. So that's just not something that we're going to have the ability to do. So overall just knowing that you know kind of where our our performance fell uh this time in comparison to goals our schools had set targets established by the state direction from the board. feel very good about uh the state report card this year and what has come back. I feel even better about the professionalism and commitment of our teams and our schools to really focus in on knowing their kids as we were talking about with attendance. Our folks know their kids and and pretty much know every absence and why they're absent. Um whether it be a choice or or some other unfortunate reason they can't
104be in. So, I appreciate all of the dialogue and the input. Um and obviously something my team and I will will explore as we look at um this school improvement planning process because that's something for us also that continues to evolve. Um there is not one magic process right that um that we that that that solves every challenge and gap and issue. But, you know, one of the things that I'm very proud of is that we acknowledge and we recognize and we call out the gaps that exist and we listen to our schools about the help that they need and the support that they need in order to meet their goals. So, we'll continue to do that. So, thanks >> Mark. >> Yeah. Thanks, Charles. Uh Patrick, uh I did not ask this question in
105advance, but as I was listening to your response to Holly's question about growth. Um and then I thought back and maybe I misunderstood this on the accountability uh future direction. uh you talked about moving from a norm reference to a criterion reference, but given that how we calculate growth is looking at, you know, how we're doing on average as a as a state, what is the logic and how do you look at the data differently if it was criterion referenced? >> Um criterion reference just means there's like established standards for what results in an exemplary level of performance. So norm referenced you know is comparing us to everybody else and everybody else's performance sort of defines the top 10%. So criterion means this is the level of maybe proficiency you need to be at. This
106is the level of growth you need to demonstrate on average. This is the level of abs chronic absenteeism you need to be below and things like that. So it's only a guess but we may be looking at similar metrics some of the things we're talking about the slices of the pie but there may be sort of established thresholds there that determine by school you know are they functioning at an exemplary level so it won't be you know it's like grading on a curve in a classroom you know grade on a curve you know whether or not you get an A depends on how well everybody else did right in this case and that's what we've been doing for the last few um this is really going to be about here's what you need to be
107with proficiency and growth both to be considered exemplary. >> Yeah. And and I I like the example you gave about grading on a curve. So I I'm I'm I'm just uncomfortable, I guess, with if if we don't have that curve anymore. How can someone come in and say this is what I'm considering proficient when you're you're not comparing against others and and and and coming up with what that number should be? Well, I think the process I don't I can't speak for the state process, but they'll probably certainly look at like how schools have done under the current model historically for the last few years and make some decisions about how high does proficiency have to be to be considered exemplary. You know, at some point, I don't want to say it's an arbitrary decision,
108but somebody has to come up with a number, right? You know, how like what percent is an A in a class? You know, is it 90 92? And so there there has to be a decision made like how much growth like there's a line somewhere right and so if you exceed it then you know you're but in you know then you're exemplary or you're commendable or less than commendable so I mean you're right it it's we can always improve we'll always know the metrics like let's just say for example we fall into exemplary we've hit some threshold of proficiency we can always target higher right just because we met some I don't want to say arbitrary But some state defined threshold doesn't mean we can't set that bar even higher. We know exactly where every
109school is with respect to percent of kids that met standards. And let's say we have a lot of schools under the new model that fall into exemplary. We can still set targets higher than that. Do you know what I mean? So >> sure. >> Um we don't just find out they're exemplary or commendable. We know every bit and piece of that pie and how that sort of worked out. We spend time with schools understanding what you know where were where did we succeed? Where did we fall short? Did we do very well on growth or did we do very well on proficiency or both? Do we do very well on, you know, the EL um transitioning kids out of EL services? Did we do better in terms of chronic absenteeism? So, when we look at
110the pie and we see the summit of word, we know exactly where that word came from um through a state process that identifies numerically, you know, how we did. >> Okay. I mean, we we'll see what happens next year. Um, but it just sounds like it's going to become more complicated to figure out how we're doing. >> Yeah, it might be. We'll figure it out though. Don't worry. We'll figure we'll get a handle on it. Whatever it is, we can figure it out. >> Thanks, Patrick. >> Yeah. >> Uh, Joe and then back to Melissa. >> Yeah, I had um one more question about something in the presentation and then uh a couple of other uh comments. Um so with the post-secary um rate of 86% of graduates you said that that includes uh trades
111and uh things like that along with uh community college and uh four-year colleges. Is that >> right? That includes uh trades. It includes it does not what it you what it doesn't include is uh military. Like that's the one thing people always ask us questions about. Do we know how many of our kids go into military? But yeah, it's it's any tech or trade program, you know, could be cosmetology school, for example, or barbering school. >> So, any sort of training that might lead to >> that leads to some certification or some credential or some degree um you know, all the way up to four years and uh or four-year degree. And so, we know that we've talked about this metric before that 50% of our kids hit a four hit a complete a four-year
112degree program in four years. About 70% then finish it up after six years. that kind of thing. So, um, a very small percentage of our students, some students delay starting, right? You might have heard about a gap year, maybe you did one yourself, someplace exciting possibly. Um, but we, uh, we have a few kids that do that. It's kind of ebbed and float over time, but yeah, 87 close to 90% is where we are with respect to kids that decide to move on and enroll somewhere and some some lag a little bit. So, >> thank you for that clarification. >> No problem. Um and then I wanted to make a uh just a couple of uh comments on um you know the the um I do agree that uh performance is a a good indicator.
113Um and I I I'm open to uh uh thinking about that as as something uh moving forward in addition to growth. I think both of them are are important. Um I don't I'm not really looking to go back. We had a three-year plan and uh you know just let's finish this one off. Maybe it's not perfect, but uh we we let this one go and then we think about what the next um you know set of goals uh might look like. Um the other thing I I wanted to uh just kind of contextualize um is uh the gap closing. And I I'm all about closing gaps. I'm I'm 100% on board with that. Um but I think we have to contextualize the gaps um themselves. So I was looking at the report card data um
114[snorts] and for example in uh overall math um the uh our gap uh for IEPs um uh which was an example uh brought up earlier um we have uh the the IEP group is at 27.6 six uh nonIP is at 75.4 [snorts] um uh [clears throat] percent. Uh for the state uh the IEP group is at 12.3% the nonIEP is at 43.3%. So there's a smaller gap at the state but I don't want that gap right uh the both proficiencies are are very low. Um, so you know that the the gap uh is is narrower, right? I want to see all of our proficiencies moving upward, right? And I would rather have that larger gap with all of our proficiencies moving upward. And it'd be great if that bottom number could, you know, move a
115little faster. Um, but uh, you know, I I don't want to look just at a gap and and trying to to squeeze it because the other way we can close it is to bring that top number down and that's not what we want to do at all. So, um, you know, I think it's important to think about some [clears throat] of those nuances, not not just the the width of the gap, but what those gaps actually mean and what those relative numbers mean, right? um [clears throat] both of our uh um non or IEP and nonIP are significantly higher than the state averages. So um I I just wanted to throw that out there um and uh um you know put some context around how I think about gap closing. >> [clears throat] >> Great
116questions or great comments. I really appreciated the idea of maybe, you know, I think it's important to Dan and for all of us. Maybe in the past he was given directions to just have growth in individual population schools, but I'm excited that we're open to talking about that. Um uh one of the ideas would be maybe this is something that we could talk about with our IASB representative or or have that conversation in that that we could maybe that's part of that one voice conversation of what we want to do and to just with those with the achievement act. So going back to what you did Joe none of us want to see us to go down to state. So what I did do, I did go through and compare our scores with other high
117performing districts because part of what I want to know is, you know, like we said, 50% for growth might not look good on paper, but you do have to compare it to others and say, hey, wait, if if the people that are doing the best and all of those are at that, that's a realistic like number. And so I did notice that going back to some other high performing districts, um, our gaps were much smaller and their students in the different groups did perform much better individually on the scores. I have those numbers. I'm not going to board everyone else, but that's why I say maybe this is a conversation to have as you know that we could address these issues. Another thing I like about maybe using the SB representative is because we need
118to know the context. Maybe the conversation is like are there how do other districts do it? What are are there some type of standards like within the IASB community within the school district uh community and within you know ISBY maybe we need to be starting from what is a realistic number and so we can know and then we can focus our energies on the areas that we could see the most growth. Um, so again, I I appreciate that you're willing to look at the performance and the growth. Um, and besides having, let's see, what else did I put in my notes? Um, I did like I didn't mention this, but it was in my notes. I just noticed it here. I really have to say one of the things that I commented before in the
119past about was about my concerns with like policies that have so many days you miss you get penalized academically or the concept of I know at one of the past meetings bringing up like our parents I told you I heard from parents and I heard from actually my son who came and was upset because a friend of his um you know was sick but they had to get a note but they're not in a situation financially where going to the doctor is a hardship. So I have to really commend that was one thing I was so happy to hear and I want to say my individual opinion as a board member. I know I think I agree with Dan that we need to reook at how we rank the schools with absenteeism especially you know
120how do we factor that in because parents do look at these report cards. It is our accountability piece, but I have to say I prefer that we do the stance that we look at the individual student and we meet them where they are and that we're not focused on just getting those students in the schools when because it might look better for scores, you know, where we rank and that we actually do care about the students. Um, let's see what else do I have in my notes. Um, okay. So going back to one of the things I did look at too about those achievement caps is in looking at this another way I looked at it and this might be why it might be helpful to have a conversation too is one of the things
121I did was we get this great overview summary of like the general and then we we get kind of a general for each group. But one of the things I looked at besides that general I guess I looked at my job as a board member like one of the big things and I think our our people in our community our kids that go through our whole system when they exit where are they because those numbers matter. And I guess one of the things that I was concerned about is I do see and this might be normal, but I do see that some of our levels, and again, we talk about the IEP students that at our um high school level when they when they leave us, the performance piece is very important because it says,
122do our students have the the skills that we've determined they need to succeed in life? And obviously that's what we all want for our kids and students. So, but we have like English learners for the science piece. I know Joe, you care about science. We have only 33% of those students are leaving Hill here with that skill. Students with MAP, with IEPs, and we only have 20% of our students leaving our schools, our high schools with those skills. for the a uh the ACT ELA for IEP kids only 30% leave. So in our achievement gap say for the ELA for for students with IEPs we're almost at 60 points. So that to me means that I'm not sure I'm I'm willing to wait. One thing I do want to just remind you from last time
123our board uh meeting for multilingual our multilingual numbers they take that there might not be their first language. So they're taking those assessments in English. I just want you to remember that for multilingual and that is why too that I did not when I look at this and and maybe somebody can correct me if I'm wrong. I didn't focus as much on the English learners scores. No. Yeah. No. Um and then um yeah, we have 33% math with the IEP 20% of our students and we have some areas where we have some uh students in the black category are Hispanic that are quite low. I don't that's where I go back to maybe we need to have an expectation of when our kids leave this district that there should be a certain level that all
124our kids have the opportunity to leave because I'm not comfortable and with students leaving 20% of kids leaving our our high schools that have IEPs um being able to do math. So, just so you know where I'm coming from on the urgency on this and and my desire to maybe have more timely conversations and maybe timely updates would be with that. The last thing I noticed was not anywhere in the report. Um, and I find useful as a board member to look at that the five essentials survey because I know that we talk again about the need to have a variety of things and Amanda, you spoke about this because I know that we required on our school improvement plans that we have a climate type we have that and that belonging piece and but
125I was surprised we didn't at all go over or look at any information with the five essentials. Um because I know that yes, we get the overall for the school, the five areas, but you can click on that and you can find out like what areas, what has gone down the most, what has gone up the most, and I think that gives us a lot of individual information. So, um I don't know if in the future we can ask for that to be included so we get a more well-rounded overview of our students not just growth performance we also see you know more specifics of where our and and this is important to me too because you know one of the things I hear a lot and I think we've all taken flak for is
126you know where's the input piece from the community or the students or the teachers we've had low morale which has has been a difficult situation where this survey is the voice of our students and it's the voice of our teachers. So I guess I feel like if we're going to give them the survey that we should look at the numbers. >> Okay. Um thank you for your comments all and uh unless there's anything else. Okay. Um Patrick I will thank you for your report. Um, uh, Superintendent Bridges, what I kind of heard consensus wise was looking at a balance between growth and proficiency. And I know that as we come through the SIP process, we'll utilize this data and figure that out. And we'll expect that you guys will come back with a recommendation as
127you usually do with um, how we'll make adjustments going forward in the future now that we have this information. So um, I think that's kind of what you heard. >> Sound good? Okay. >> I just want a clarification. When would they come when would he come back with these recommendations? Are we talking a year from now when we do the SIP plans or or before that? >> Prior to beginning the process for the next set of school improvement plans. So sometime probably in the spring before we start the process fee. Yeah. Februaryish. >> Okay. All right. Okay. So that's item 7.04. Moving to item 7.05. Thank you, Patrick. >> Okay. We come to the board this evening with an update on the uh previously mentioned $40 million uh transportation facility. Um yeah, it back in
128August the board approved moving forward uh with the transportation facility due to the state of its the current facility that is used and it no longer being a viable solution. Our team has we board approved I think up to 17.4 4 million. Um, some changes in concept. We're still kind of in that ballpark range at about just a little bit o over 174. Uh, but we're actually coming to you with an option uh that incorporates a greater amount of our carbon action plan into the design and construction of it that would eventually yield uh energy savings of over $4 million through the time of our carbon action plan. So really what we're looking for this evening, I'll let Chuck and Melanie speak here in a minute, is really kind of some guidance from the board
129moving forward so we can continue the the design process and moving forward without losing any any time with that. Uh any formal action would come on the the November 17th meeting. Um but you have two options that where basically before you continue with what you previously approved uh or a second option that incorporates more sustainability features in there. So, Chuck and Melanie, if there's things that you want to share a report and then we'll ask for some board input. >> Yeah, thank you, Mr. Bridges. Um, just a couple things of note. Um, first, this is our uh really our first major capital project since the carbon action plan was approved last March. Uh so it's given us u a really good opportunity to to learn through our design process to uh consider that plan and
130I think this is kind of an indication of that uh before you tonight. Um and I think it's a good opportunity for for you as a board to to see kind of before you um how that design process begins to incorporate um the carbon action plan itself as um along the way. So um you know as we've designed uh of course as things move from concept to specific design uh we get a better idea of cost a better idea of possibilities and opportunities and so this memo sort of outlines those those pathways for you. Uh I also want to acknowledge that with us tonight u they've been here since uh the beginning of the meeting so we appreciate them uh sticking it out. We have um from our construction management group um a couple individuals
131that have been really key um in this project uh and one of them who's been key in a couple uh previous or ongoing projects as well. Uh so we have um in the back here uh Joe Deco who is the senior project manager. He worked he's been working on the um uh Neighborville North project as well, the the site work and the um the actual addition that's going to be going on to onto that building. Um and Susan um Heining, I hope I said that right, Susan. Um who is actually new to us in terms of design process um but she is part of their energy department and so she's brought some expertise and looking at um really what's before you in front of in terms of option and that is sort of what the
132impact of geothermal would have on this project as well as how solar uh would um provide some uh energy savings as well. So this is an opportunity for certainly um kind of ROI in terms of financial investment uh but also ROE and that's the uh return on environment. Um so we're happy to Melanie and I are happy to answer any questions about the memo that's before you and if needed uh Joe and Susan are here to help with any kind of technical expertise uh if there are any questions in in that lane. >> Questions from the board. Mark, >> thank you, Charles. Uh, Chuck and Melanie, I just want to commend you uh on on looking at this through the carbon action plan lens. Uh, I think it shows what kind of um leadership uh
133we have in our organization and really working very hard to support the carbon action plan. So, thank you both very much for that. Um, I asked a couple of questions in advance and I just want to kind of reiterate them just because I think um they they they help I think um uh provide some more context to what's in the memo. Uh one is that we we are getting uh money uh from incentives in order to do this. Um is there a uh do we have to get that done in a particular period of time in order to earn that incentive? Yeah, some of these are time bound and we're looking at other opportunities as well. So, um you know, we are in a good place right now with this project for the incentives that
134are probably going to be somewhere in the area of about 350 to $400,000 should we move forward with both geothermal and solar on the rooftop. Um but things are changing constantly. So, we're trying to keep tabs on that and while other opportunities might come online, some may fall off, too. So, this is uh we're just at an interesting time right now where things are shifting quickly. >> Yes. Yes. And and I think from a financial perspective, I mean what you are saying in the memo is we we pay the extra $2 million. We'll recover that in six years and then after the six years till 2050 uh we'll we'll basically have $4.3 million in energy savings over that remaining period. >> And and and again that's just for this facility and that's in today's dollars.
135>> Right. Right. So, I I think financially it looks like a very attractive um deal for us. Um and that's $4.3 million that will not go to uh energy consumption. We can divert that money to other sources to help our students. So, yep, that's correct. >> Great. Thank you, >> Joe. Then Melissa. [clears throat] >> Yeah, I echo uh Mark's comments. Uh I I really appreciate uh the work you've put in uh uh you know putting this level two design uh on the table uh for us. Um yeah, I see it as a nice uh return on investment uh as well. a little little more upfront, but uh you know the uh projected savings um uh 4.3 million's uh very nice um and the six-year payback period is really quick on uh a project like
136this. So um you know I think there's a lot of uh benefit for this um environmentally and uh financially. Um I I I sent a question ahead about uh whether uh we have the opportunity to uh sell back especially in the summer uh electricity that's generated that um we don't use uh kind of that net metering. Um and uh could you comment on on that uh potential? >> Sure. That that's certainly our hope. Uh we're engaged with the city to kind of follow up on what their programs look like and what our capability is. As a reminder, this facility fit uh sits in uh the city of Neighborville. So we would be connected with their electricity and so uh we don't have a firm answer as of tonight in terms of how that will work,
137but that's certainly our hope that the net metering would also pay us back um for times where we might be producing energy that we're not consuming. Yeah. So that that's uh exciting as well that uh the the payback period could actually be shorter uh and uh we could be uh generating additional savings. >> Correct. And then that cost savings uh through 2050 would be greater as well. >> And putting some electricity in Napville's grid is also exciting. >> Oh Melissa and then Olly. >> Okay. I had this down. I've requested this before, but do we have plans now that the board can see for the project? >> We were given like just a kind of general like lot building type of thing, but are there actual plans we could see? >> There are. >> Can
138is that something the board members can see? >> Certainly any no reason. >> Yeah, I always request them. I can't ever get them. So now I'm happy if I can get them. My other question with that, because I think this is especially relevant to me since I thought our bus, this project was going to be 40 million, but I do get questions about it. Um, a a lot of times I know architects in construction, they use this per square footage amount. Do we have a per square footage of amount that we're expecting this project to cost? >> Yeah, we we do have have that. I don't have that in front of me, but we can also get you that number. That'd be great because and then if you have the actual contract that'd be even
139better. So if you could do that, >> which contract are you referencing? >> One of the things is I've mentioned that we don't actually get the contracts as to the specifics that list the money, the amounts, the criteria. So if we have a contract that says anything about costs or anything, we don't >> I just I just want to remind uh the board this evening that at this time all costs that we've been providing are are estimates. uh the board does see the bids as those are awarded and you approve those bids along the way as well. So I think those might be the contracts you're referencing. >> No, I meant the overall like for example and I've said this before of like to get the square footage might just be helpful to understand you
140know one of the things we realize is how much money is give going into square footage and I know that construction architectural real estate uses this because we can compare it to other projects. So we actually have a comparison and it gives us that information as to is this because my job is as board members represent the community and the fiduciary component of it is very important. So they want to make sure that the money is being spent wisely. So to actually know you know the specifics to see the plan of what are we getting and how much it's costing. I understand that we get the bids after the fact, but part of the parting planning process should not after the fact. Let me clarify that it is not. We vote on those. But what
141I'm saying is in the planning process to know the estimated amount that gives me a feel of the cost of the project overall and it helps me compare it to other related projects of that type. >> Sure. Yes, we have that and we can get that to you. >> I do want to remind the board. So essentially your level one design that's on this page has already been approved by the board. And so what we're looking for tonight is kind of your guidance on continuing to move forward with level two which would then come back from that kind of you know again conceptual range approval at the next meeting. >> I I'm still going but yes I understand that. that I still think part of my fiduciary duty to the public is to ask those
142information and it seems relevant and it seems like you're willing to give it to me. >> Yeah. >> And also if I could add just one more point and that is that one of the other reasons we're before the board this evening is for that fiduciary piece as well and that is that we don't wish to engage our architects and our construction management group in two different designs because that incurs additional costs. So, so having some direction on whether we prefer level one design pathway or level two design pathway actually will save us money. >> Great. Like that. So with the plans though, does that give us an idea of how much solar space we'll have? like >> so so we will level two design that's before you actually will put um our solar on
143the rooftops um and that will provide uh some level of energy for this facility. >> Do you know how much um >> or estimate based on how many panels? >> We can get that for you. I don't have the exact the exact square footage at this point. That would be helpful to know how much energy because we could also compare of how much do we expect do we expect to have extra runover that we can sell back. That's a huge incentive. >> So the me the memo that the the as the memo states the geothermal and the solar together will produce about 70% of the facilities need for energy. >> Oh. So we will not be having enough to sell back. Well, there may be times that we would, but overall this our geothermal and
144our solar will produce about 70% of the annual need for for this >> won't cover it all. Okay. for clarifying. And then I know that Mark and Joe, you you two are very active in in the community and very knowledgeable about when we talked about selling back, you know, if that's something that we're talking about because personally, I think that solar should be looked at for all our facilities with covering costs if it pays off it itself. But one of the questions I had is um you mentioned my understanding and I know there's been a lot of change with the city as far as selling back I know previously the contract the the city has now you cannot sell back solar I believe is that not accurate or did they sign that new I haven't
145kept up to date have they signed a new contract that allows it because I know that that was part of the discussion is that the previous contract did not let people sell back their solar. Do you know any update on that? >> So Chuck, if you if you have a high level answer, but I would kind of ask that that be a question that we could probably beyond the scope of what you planned and prepared tonight. >> Yeah. >> So if I understand, I think it's a it's a question that Mr. Kuzinsky asked earlier and that is right now we're engaged with the city to understand what our opportunity is to do net metering and sell back energy. So, it doesn't sound like there's a definitive answer on that yet, but something that's an ongoing
146discussion. Is that correct? Okay, we can characterize it that way. Okay, >> Holly. >> Um, so thank you. I was very excited to see this plan and one of I did send this ahead. Um, one of the things I wanted to hear more about is the geothermal because it sounded like we actually get more much of our benefit here from the geothermal. So, if you could break out and separate um the ex the cost and then the value that we'll recoup back for the geothermal separate from the solar. >> Lots of numbers there. I'm going to see if I can find this. And I'm sure that Joe and Susan behind me are are are probably ready to maybe jump in here if if needed. Um so, if I if I have this right, um I
147we believe that the the geothermal will actually provide about 86% of the overall savings. So the solar is about 14% of that of that 70% if you will. Okay. So geothermal is actually getting the biggest sort of bang for our buck in that in that regard. Um so um keep in mind that the the geothermal is really going to be producing the energy for our HVAC, right? Whereas solar is going to be more for lighting and those kinds of things, right? Um, so in terms of how they're tied in, that's really where we get the savings. I'm looking for the costs here. Thought I'd have this all organized and right in front of me. But, um, the geothermal is is also about 70 70% of the overall cost. So, the solar is actually a little
148bit higher in terms of ratio uh, in terms of what we get back versus the geothermal. But of that, and it's not quite $2 million, um, but it's estimated to be about 1.8 million, 1.84 million total for the cost of the geothermal and the solars together. And whatever 70% of that is. I can't do that math in my head right now. Um, is really what the cost for the geothermal will would be to put the wells in, the heat pumps, those kinds of things. >> Thank you. That was really helpful. I was really interested in that part. And I think kind of related to that, one of my questions was I had a false assumption that you corrected in your response that I thought, oh, this is the transportation building. Is it used year round?
149Is it used all day? And you know, I [clears throat] had the impression maybe this is a great project for the wrong building, but it sounds like, and you can clarify how this building is used throughout the day and throughout the year. >> Sure. Um, so the building actually is used quite a bit. I think that's probably a misnomer in our community. Um, keep in mind we do have summer school throughout the summer and other camps and things like that. Um, and you know, everything from um, you know, planning for an upcoming school year in terms of the office work. Um, our buses are maintained by our own staff. So, the garage, which is part of this facility, is used year round to make sure those buses are are operating and and are up and
150running. um with electric buses. We also have some additional, you know, maintenance that's different from our diesel buses and such, too. So, our this this facility is used year round. Um even on weekends, we have staff in and out of the the facility and and certainly even over breaks where we have trips for some of our athletics and other other teams at the high school level in particular. So, it's a it's a year-round facility for sure. >> Thank you. That was really helpful to for me to rethink this because um especially knowing at the next board meeting, I guess this is more of a comment that we might be thinking about where we have to tighten our belt um and seeing what our students wanted in our carbon action plan that this is a way
151we can do it and we can recoup these benefits. Um and also personally I've invested in these kind of things in my home and one of the benefits I've seen is that it insulates me from expenses that other people are incurring when energy rates go up and down. And if we can pro provide all but 30% of this building in house and insulate us from those fluctuations, I think that's a wonderful long-term plan separate from these savings. Um, so thank you for bringing this forward and I'm really excited to to see it go forward and um if the board agrees, but thank you, >> Joe. Yeah, just uh uh one more uh thought on this uh coming from kind of a different angle. Um I say this also is providing a lot of educational opportunities
152uh for the students. Um you know I I know uh solar panel systems are uh monitored very closely and and there's a lot of data that comes from that. I'm sure the geothermal has similar uh you know monitoring and and um data that that could be uh generated and if that can be used by you know our high school students and their science classes and math classes I I think that's a really exciting uh real life application as well. >> We already have a list of people waiting to get this information and wonder when they can start. So that is a very exciting piece of to this >> and Mrs. Brown and I had an opportunity to meet with the Forest Preserve of DuPage County recently. Um they you may know, you may not, that
153they have a new facility that also is utilizing geothermal. Um and so we talked to them specifically about education opportunities, how they're providing that to the community, what that looks like. So, um there's kind of a neat network out there that we can leverage to to really understand how to how to best, you know, utilize the information that will come from the energy as well. Christine, >> I was excited uh to to see this proposal. Um I relied mostly on my fellow board members for some of their questions, knowing some of them were a little bit more um knowledgeable about it, but the idea of being able to incorporate education into it um was uh pretty much where you had me once I was like, "Okay, I don't I don't see um a financial downside
154to this." I mean, um, sometimes you have to spend a little money to to get the money back, and that's true in so many walks of life. So, um, I'm I'm excited. I hope, um, I hope as a board we settle on the the level two design. Um, and I hope that even in the process of this all happening, if the kids, you know, classes can come watch or learn or whatever, incorporating all of our students, listening to them is important. So, thanks for thanks for bringing this to us. >> You're welcome. And I and I want to add although the the the education for our students is is certainly kind of where our our heads are, um, but also the education for our staff. And while this is new construction, there's an opportunity here
155for particularly Melanie and her team to learn about these types of energy sources and how that application might also work in some of our pre-existing buildings going forward in terms of replacing systems and such as well. So, we see this as really an entry point for us um as a board, as a district, and also as a department um that I think aligns really well with our carbon action plan. Amanda, we haven't heard from you yet. Thoughts? >> I love it. >> Okay. Um All right. So, sounds like this will be coming back. >> So, yeah, here's what we'll continue to pursue the um the level two design based on input from the board. Formal action will be then taken at the November 17th meeting. And so, um, if there's other, you know, again, this
156is a big topic, so other questions that are that are that are coming in, please be sure to feed those to, uh, directly to the superintendent, so we can make sure that before this comes back next time around, we have, uh, everyone's questions uh, on the table so we can have them answered. >> Yes. Thank I have a question. So, typically we do the discussion without action and then discussion with action. So, is this going to immediately go to discussion with action? >> Yeah, I believe that's the >> Yeah, that's that's what we discussed. Yes. >> Yes. Okay. >> Yes. So, um again, get all get questions that you have in because we will be taking action on this at the next meeting. So, [snorts] let's make sure we get all the questions answered and
157uh at that point we'll um be ready to give them final direction as to which direction we want to go. Right. Okay. Okay. Item eight, discussion without action. Item 8.01, summer school 2025 review and summer school 2026 recommendations. >> To welcome our director of summer learning chemical couch here. Uh he's going to present just an overview of the past year. Um and then recommendations for the coming year. I'll just serve as as a reminder to the board and especially for um our new board members as part of the last strategic plan. Um the board committed to investing in uh summer learning and so this is not something that we look at uh as a previous mindset had been that we just had to break even so to speak. The board shifted to provide more opportunities
158and making an investment in summer learning. Uh and so Kevin has been our director uh and has continued to really work with learning services and our district to really build opportunities and programs for kids during the summer. So when you look at kind of that that financial cost that is a anticipated and planned for cost as part of our annual budget. Kevin, >> good evening and thank you for the opportunity to present the results of the 2025 summer learning experiences. First, I'd like to take a moment to thank all the summer directors as well as the district and building staff who helped make summer learning a success. Our outcomes for tonight are to share an overview of the 2025 experiences for students as well as our plans for summer learning in 2026. We continue to
159implement all of our changes outlined in our previous blueprint commitment. We revised our summer learning program to increase access for all students while updating the curriculum and instruction to offer both enrichment and essential skill-based classes. We also partnered with community agencies to ensure all students were receiving highquality summer programming. This past summer, students engaged in a variety of hands-on activities that allowed them to demonstrate their curiosity and creativity. From learning about different careers in aviation to creating their own board games, students brought classroom content to life. Additional summer learning highlights for 2025 include a continued positive trend in enrollments at both the junior high and high school levels, demonstrating that students continue to show interest in the variety of summer offerings at these levels. Our summer music and science camp continued the tr their trend
160of increasing enrollment, providing enriching experiences for our students during the summer months. Summer learning started a new partnership with one of our 203 programs. Students who finished their first year of the intro to teaching experience at our high schools were able to apply and interview for student worker positions at our K8 locations. And our summer learning initiatives continue to serve a significant number of students with disabilities and English learners within our general education programs. This ensures that we are meeting the diverse learning needs and promoting an inclusive environment. This year, summer learning came in 5.6% over the budgeted amount. Transportation remains the largest expense outside of payroll on the summer learning budget. We continue to provide wave fees for our free and reduced families, averaging $500,000 per year over the past four years. The board's
161investment in summer learning continues to highlight our commitment to providing quality academic and social emotional support for our students. Our operational recommendations for 2026 reflect our commitment to continuing to support our students needs and promoting their well-being. We propose maintaining a similar calendar and schedule for each of our summer learning programs based on previous feedback with the exception of summer music. Summer music would like to move their program dates to the second half of the summer and use their time as a warm-up to the school year as opposed to a continuation after a busy spring of final concerts. For the remainder of the programs, the first day of summer learning will be Tuesday, June 2nd, after the five district emergency days have ended. Based on the calendar and the Junth holiday, K8 students will have
16223 days of instruction over the six-week period, while high school students will have 28 days of instruction. New courses at summer music and science camp reflect what was successfully piloted in 2025. The junior high continues to add additional exploratory classes to deepen student understanding and connect their learning to the real world. Exploring Chicago and the suburbs will have students explore the rich science, history, culture, and natural landscapes of Chicago and its suburbs, helping them to develop critical thinking, observation, and communication skills while discovering the vibrant stories of places close to home. This slide shows the timeline of our work through the end of summer learning 2026. If approved, our curriculum teams will engage in the continuous process of curriculum review and revision where needed. Our summer school staff will begin to develop communication and finalize
163registration de details to be ready for the registration launch on March 3rd, 2026. Our team will communicate with building leadership so they can identify and communicate to students and families in need of targeted summer school support. We will actively recruit summer school staff with the goal of fully staffing within district. Finally, summer school will begin June 2nd and conclude on July 10th. We're looking forward to continuing to provide summer courses and experiences that are engaging, reflect best practice and student interest, provide flexibility for students and staff, and ensure support for all. When developing the 2026 summer budget, we've taken into consideration factors such as additional days of instruction at the elementary and junior high levels compared to 2025, increased staff pay, and the increased costs for transportation, materials, and supplies. As a result, we recommend
164a 20% increase in tuition across the board, increasing transportation fees from $30 per semester to $50 per semester, and adding a $50 fee for any classes that involve field trips. It's important to note that the that this increase in fees does not offset the amount the board will incur due to the cost of summer learning. While we anticipate the projected budget to slightly increase, it's dependent on enrollment and other economic factors not under our control. Projected costs will be covered by the school year 27 grant funding and the school year 27 summer learning budget that will be proposed to the board in the spring of 2026. This slide represents the proposed summer learning fees in each of our programs subject to board approval. We continue to be grateful for the board's ongoing support of summer
165learning and I'm now glad to take your questions. >> Thank you. Questions from the board. Melissa, >> I'm so do we have a list of what those classes will be offered >> all the classes for next summer. >> Yes, >> that was in the um uh the 2026 report. >> Okay. So, we had quite a conversation last year. What I'm surprised is missing is um obviously I think everyone knows that I focus on those kids that it's essential that they need that continued education. We talk about those achievement gaps that it's essential for the kids with IEPs, disabilities, and other needs that they go through the summer. They have that continuous education. So, we don't see regression. Last year, we saw a lot of those classes did not show growth. Kids actually regressed after taking
166them. So I would like to see before we move forward the the kids that were specifically in the classes for continuing education what was their growth and performance when they entered what were their test results and at the end what were their test results because I think if I am approving I was disappointed last year because I had to approve plans for the same classes that showed regression. >> Can you real quick just can you show us where are you getting the regression just so we know? >> We discussed it last year. I'd have to go back and look at our we had quite a lengthy conversation about it last year. You know what I think that's I think that what you're asking for is exactly what I'm asking for. Can we see those numbers
167and that way we don't have to debate what was said in the past. we can just move forward and we could talk about those classes this summer and what was the growth for our students because I think that's important in selecting those classes and knowing if they need to be revamped. It also is a value. Not that we would cut that out. We're legally required in some cases to provide that. But that would be a key piece of information I would like to see because I think that's important. >> I guess I'm we're I'm just confused. Are we talking about ESY or are you talking about some of our summer I I don't know which ones you're talking about. That's what would help. >> The ESY the the students are that are specifically enrolled in
168summer school for for needs with disabilities with IEPs that they actually need the class. They're enrolled so they don't don't regress. and I can reach out Jane and I can I can look back at my notes and say what we're referring but really moving forward and maybe clarify that but I would like to see those students if those classes that they received actually showed those improvements. Um my next question is because we are talking about >> actually Melissa before you move on and okay you you can continue to have the the mic can when you send those questions can you send them to your fellow board members too just so we know what's being asked. happy you guys because I figure it's definitely um my next question is because we are talking about um Mr.
169Bridges brought up that a conversation might need to be had about um you know where we might cut. One of my questions is I we are lucky to live in a community that has a lot of opportunities for our students. Um so I don't know if anyone knows this or if you know this. Um I I again look at our kids that are in the most need. So those kids that we provide classes and opportunities for them that are in the school lunch program. Um without us they might not get these opportunities which I think we all think is important. I don't know enough to know does our park district do our community members I know that there's a lot of groups that work with us. Are there other places these students can get those
170classes or is it strictly we we know that their families are on this program so we can provide it. Did that make sense? >> Is are you talking just about the like the regular academic classes or or more >> like for any opportunity? So >> there certainly are um private places in Neighborville that offer summer camps. But I guess what I maybe what I'll need to reach out and learn more about is does say the park district or we have some great community groups and charity groups that we work with um that provide programmings for kids. What I kind of would like to know as we move forward with these is I want to make sure that those kids that might need these classes have those opportunities. Does that make sense? and and maybe part
171of the discussion is seeing are they covered anywhere else or are they not because I guess my personal belief is a lot of the summer classes there are a lot of other private programs. So I guess as an indivivividual board member um I feel like that's nice but if we're losing money as a district I'm not sure that's the best investment but I do look at those kids that are in need. So I guess I'll do a little research and maybe I can also Charles get that to the other board members to find out what other resources are available to >> At this point we've not made a recommendation to cut reduce or eliminate summer school though. So just so that we're clear. >> But isn't that going to be part of the discussion because
172we're talking about whether to continue those classes. you haven't even seen the five-year financial forecast yet, which we will present next time, and then we're going to take direction from the board on really how aggressive you'd like us to be to to balance the budget. So, >> well, but if I'm going to vote on providing these and the costs, I would like to know what's available. That's part of my decision- making and making that decision. Um, is to know what other resources are in the community. Yeah. So, [clears throat] so Melissa, I just want to make sure that I'm understanding what you're asking. So, when you're saying other classes in the community, I'm assuming that you're talking about things like the music classes and things or STEM classes, things like that, not the actual academic
173classes like world history or civics or algebra. that only can be done at the school district, but like the more artsy or STEM kind of stuff. Is that what you're referring to? >> Um, that's a good question. I think that was a great question to ask me to help clarify my own thoughts. Um, maybe I'll do this. Maybe I'll ask my fellow board members what their thoughts are and and how you frame that and think about that comment. So, um, would love to hear from everyone. So, let's, um, uh, if if you want to frame it in the way that member Kelly Black mentioned, feel free, but just want to get some perspective from others and other questions that may folks may have. >> Yes, Joe. [clears throat] >> Yeah. So, uh, just to, uh,
174clarify, uh, even though the the fees and everything, uh, are, uh, going to be, uh, raised or proposed to be raised, um, that there will still be the waiverss for those students who, uh, are on, you know, who get free reduced lunch. Correct. Okay. Yeah. Just want to make sure uh, that's still, uh, going to be supported. Um, and then I guess uh kind of going off what Amanda said, um, things like the, uh, the science camp and the music and and those things. You I had kids who participated in those and and those don't have transportation provided and and they're kind of you you drop them off, they they do their thing, and then you you pick them up. Um so are those uh typically revenue generators or at least kind of break even
175uh opportunities for the students or for the district? >> Yes, they are. >> Okay. So it's it's more the academic uh uh courses that uh are the ones that um are the ones that that uh we're not meeting the budget on uh because of transportation and other costs and and what have you. >> Correct. Thank you. Uh Chris Jojo and Christine. Oh, Holly. Okay. Holly then Mark then Christine. >> Okay. Thank you. I think mine might be a comment now more after Joe because he was zeroing in on kind of what I was thinking about that I do kind of separate these out that science and music are more of like an enrichment and continuation of other activities. They are considered camps. Um whereas the summer learning that are those six week courses, you know,
176especially at the high school level, you may be replacing a course because you can't fit it in your schedule and getting credit for that. And those are core academic courses and so there is a difference between each of those programs. Is that right? >> Correct. That's that is correct. Our academic so the courses the camp courses we have are just our science and music. Um but even so when we think about EC to 8, we do have some core academic as well. The only difference is they're not getting credit like you would at the high school level. So, it definitely is more of an I I don't want to say enrichment because everyone is included. So, I don't want anyone to think that they're made for a certain type of student. They're open to all
177students. Um, but it's run a little bit different. It is more of an interest level than I would say an academic level. How about that? >> Thank you. That was really helpful. And then I kind of have a comment following up on that. Looking at it, I am very concerned about a 20% increase especially for the academic courses, less so for the camps. Um, and one of our metrics that we had on the board was barriers. And I know we Joe confirmed that we do do waiverss for free and reduced lunch, but I think there are a lot of families that this is a huge expense, but they don't qualify or maybe they're not filling out the paperwork or they're uncomfortable filling out the paperwork to get that waiver. Um, so that gives me a
178lot of pause where I feel more comfortable doing it with the science camp or with the music camp. Um, but I this this is also responsive to Melissa. I feel like we are the public school and our job is academics and so providing those core courses with the fewest barriers possible to me is a priority. Um, so I do have concerns about passing on that 20% cost to our families, I think it'd be a real burden. So, I'd love to to address as a board ways we can not pass that on. I'm open to it with the camps. Um, but I think that's an essential part of our role as a public school. >> Mark and then Christine. >> Thank you, Charles. Uh, thank you Kevin for the presentation. Um, just a couple of things.
179Uh, one, uh, going back to Dan's comment at the beginning, I mean, we we are making an investment in this program and I think the 2026 estimate is about 1.2 2 million. So, it's not a huge number at the end of the day. It is an investment, but it's it's not a huge number. And I I think also to Holly's point, I'm I'm very concerned about the 20% increase. Um I I think there's u there's there's core programs that I think we should be delivering and then there's enrichment that maybe is u not as necessary and and I think the pricing model that we come up with should reflect that. Uh so I I really want us to give some thought to rather than what was the model that we have today that seems like
180across the board, you know, this is what you get charged that maybe we make it based on the relevancy of of that class to achieving academic success. Um and uh you know also considering that you know there are going to be students that are probably not uh getting the waiverss that they need is there and and and maybe this is we we doing more of a subsidy so there's more of an investment in this but I do think it's important for the community to have access to these types of programs. So I I think we we need to kind of look at maybe the pricing model a little bit and and how much are we willing to invest in this program. >> We'll take that direction from the board. We our recommendation what I would
181ask is the only thing for clarification for us that would just be helpful is we do have in some of our summer pro like our summer academic some are core and then some are enrichment. We think about some of the courses at the junior high, our numbers have gone up because they're in they're high interest, right? We have an aviation course, we have the um UN course which have been fabulous. So I would just we would just need direction to say are those considered enrichment and then what is considered um that you would want to do for so we would just need that direction and we could definitely do that. >> Yeah. And just I think an important reminder I you could look at really I'm not arguing with the the presumption around the cost
182in that model, but other than some students um with IEPs who require extended school year, none of this is required. And in some ways, we could look at all of it's a little bit of enrichment, right? And so we hear what you're saying and we I mean definitely take under consideration So I I'm I hear what my colleagues are saying as far as maybe if we can separate out some of the costs, you know, this maybe different levels or different programs might incur different costs for our family families. But I'm also um I'm a little torn because I don't want to see Let me think how I'm trying to say this. I don't want to see um programs suffer um because they're targeted like so we're going to see it potentially see a decrease because
183that group of programs are going to see the increase in prices. And um I'll just be honest, music I see as one of those programs suffering. you know, um, for some reason music always falls off, it always appears to fall off the radar first. Um, even kids who are serious musicians, you know, it's just always seems to be the first thing that can go. Um, so I I don't know if if there's a way that we can increase everything a little bit, but maybe not to the 20% level, so that there's a little bit of evenness to what we're asking our families to do. Um, and I say that because I am comfortable not having seen the five-year forecast, but I'm comfortable with supporting more board investment in summer school. I mean, if I just
184look at the slide where it says percent of students earning a C or better in core courses for high school, the kids are doing well in summer school. I mean, they're they're they're putting in the work. And these are all the the these are all serious classes. Not that any of them are not serious, but you're talking about kids taking a full year of US history in the summer. That's demanding. Okay. I mean, any of these I'm not I'm just pulling out the ones that are just standing out to me. they're they're taking math courses to either, you know, if they're leaving eighth grade, maybe get ahead or in general just to get ahead period to have that open period for something else in the school year. So, I'm comfortable with a little bit more
185board investment. So maybe we do we meet in the middle. Families might pay a little bit more and the board might pay a little bit more because I can't see even thinking about like a summer camp enrichment, you know, those oneweek deals here and there that might just break up the summer for some families. Um I can't see any one of them being less important because if the kids want to explore something, I don't want to be the barrier to them exploring something. And if it means petting whatever that snake was in the slides, [laughter] then so be it that we offer that opportunity because um we are ultimately the public education of our community. And so I don't want to have any kid feel or any family feel like, well, we're just not going
186to have that opportunity. So, I'm kind of in that like maybe we we both put in a little bit more financial commitment, >> Melissa. And then I'll I'll say something. >> Oh, okay. I want to thank Holly and and some of you I think were able Amanda I did give a garbled explanation and you asked for clarification and I want to thank the board members that I think you did hit on what I was trying to say is I agree with the the I understand we want those kids to have all those opportunities in a perfect world but we also do have to prioritize and we do look at those numbers and we see the kids in the most need. I go back to and we do live in a wonderful community where the there
187are other places you can touch snakes and and I'm not saying that to diminish. I'm sorry if that sounded that way. Um, I guess I go back to the concept of of that there maybe we do need to have a conversation what's academic and what the goal of summer school is because I guess when I look at resources um for summer school it's really important the bang for the buck that you get for students that can have these academic opportunities is really important And we have a wonderful park district, forest preserve, a lot of community. I know a lot of the um charities in town even offer, you know, classes and opportunities for students. So, I guess I fall more on focusing on the academics and then if we want to offer the other that's
188great, but that those will they'd have to cover the costs that I wouldn't want to lose money on those. So, um, thank you for your report. Um, I always look forward to your report every year because I I'm I'm a I will just say upfront, I'm a big fan of the concept of summer school. I think it's it's important. I do think that if there is a place for this to be done, I think as Holly mentioned a couple others as well, that we are offering public education and so we need to make sure that if there's a need that we're doing everything we can to fill it. Um, so that said, I'm curious as to input we've and I and I did send one of these questions ahead. Um, well, actually I sent two
189of these questions ahead. Um, one was around getting feedback from the parents as to why they're sending their kids to summer school, what value they're getting out of it. Getting a sense also would be nice maybe of how responsive they would be or how much the demand might drop if these cost increases go into place like you know because I like Holly was saying the there's the free and reduced lunch but then there's folks who may not qualify for free and reduced lunch for whom and then there's a wide group group of people that line there is a line you qualify for free and reduced lunch or you do not if you do this is free for Great. If you don't, if you're literally just over that line, you know, a 10% 25% I think
19020% increase can be a significant financial burden. And I don't know, unless you guys have data on that, I don't I'm not sure how much how many people fall right in that point. And if we have some information around that, it'd be great to get a sense of how many people would for for whom this increase would would create a a go no-go decision for them. And I don't think we want that to be a high number. So would love to get some understanding of that. And if you don't have that right now off top of your head, that's fine. But I do think it's important for us to try to understand that the the So I'll pause there. >> You do know just from some of the other camps, we are the best deal
191in town. That's >> I mean we have for the amount of hours we get for the transportation we are a very very even with the increase um we are a very good deal >> and I think just not to interrupt you but to to to build on what you're saying and to >> that's great to know. Yeah, I think it'd be helpful for us as a board to understand that. I think a question came up earlier, maybe either Melissa or Joe, somebody on this side of the room, um I think it was Melissa actually was asking, are there other places where these things could happen? I think it'd be great to get some sense of, yeah, if somebody were to do some of these types of activities, it would cost them $400 a year or
192or class or what have you, just so we can get a sense of, yeah, it sounds like we are already to some degree subsidizing this with transportation, everything that goes into it. I think that would be helpful to understand the whole idea of where the best deal in town. So, I think that's great that we know that. I think it'd be helpful for us as board members to kind of get a sense of of where that falls. >> Yeah. >> I'm a little confused just some clarity of because of what Melissa was asking and maybe what you're asking. Are you asking for us and we'll get whatever you need, but are you asking for us to get other programs our kids can go to? That's what I thought I was hearing Melissa say with like
193the forest preserve and >> so maybe not exactly but to your point about whatever information you have about being the best deal in town. I just think that'd be helpful to know and understand. >> Okay, great. >> So, however you define that. >> I just also want to just um the recommendation for the cost is again we know the board has prioritized this and invests in it. Um but as you mentioned th there are costs that we have and those those costs have in been increasing >> uh between the amount of compensation that uh our staff get the costs for transportation fuel for the transportation and all of those things. So, uh, this is an attempt also to recognize that we're investing a lot of money >> into, I guess what I would say, and
194maybe another board member said kind of a nice to have thing. It's a great to have, right? And so, we will do that, but I think, uh, again, as we talk about the bigger picture, um, unfortunately there there may have to be some costs that do go up. >> And so, my second question, sorry, and then Holly, I'll come back to you. Um, was If I were to ask you what the how you would describe to a parent the value proposition of sending your kid to summer school. I know I have my own personal belief in that, but my question is how do we encourage more folks to go because it sounds like there is capacity that for the cost we're delivering this on, we could have a lot more people be able to participate
195in some of these classes. Like that's that's my understanding from one of the questions I asked ahead in the answer that came back was that there's capacity. So, how do we get our cost per participating student to potentially be down, right? uh by getting a higher increase and how do we do a better job of for lack of a better term selling this to the community as hey's a great opportunity send your kids to our summer school and hear the benefits they're going to get out of it you know testimonials whatever how are we currently doing that and are there ways we can improve the utilization rate of our programs >> well I'm going to just add one I mean one thing it is that um we saw this especially uh coming out of the
196pandemic, families wanting quote unquote a break and not just the whatever um we do compete with a lot of things and you know and I think between travel, sports, um jobs, um summer um and [laughter] other things, right? And so, um, I I think there our schools do a very good job of I don't want to say targeting, but having conversations with families who they think would really truly benefit from this or they've heard from the parents of kids that boy, I I wish there was something my child could be doing during the summer or, you know, things like that. So, I don't know if there's >> No, I I would just, you know, agree with everything that that you said. There's a intersection somewhere, right, between uh kids who need it and whose parents
197will support it. Um kids who want to do it. There's kids who, you know, will resist going to summer school. They've had it by the time May rolls around. Um and kids that are involved in a lot of other activities in the summer, not to mention family vacations and etc., you know, etc. So, I I think um you know, we we we do our best to get the word out there in a variety of ways, you know, by school. Um you know, sending um information to teachers around spring parent teacher conference time to talk to uh you know, targeted, you know, again, targeted families, right, that could benefit from uh some extra instruction over the summer or just for kids who are looking for something to do. Again, I think the great thing about summer
198learning has been, you know, our ability to meet all different types of needs. Some kids are there for academic, some kids are there for somewhere to go. Some kids are there for social connections with peers or um adults. And so, you know, it it meets a lot of different needs and it it doesn't have to be academic. >> So, Holly, Melissa, and then Joe, you have another Okay, Holly, go ahead. Yeah, I think it mine is more a comment to follow up to help maybe clarify the direction and I want to thank Christine for her comment. Um, for me where I'm at with this is even though this is a nice to have, to me this is something that is an important board and I support the board being further in so that parents don't
199need to and especially that point about kids having a safe place to go with trusted educators with their friends in our buildings having transportation. To me, that's invaluable and it's worth us pitching in. And the slide that showed the participation rates for free and reduced lunch students versus the school population total um was really telling to me that when this is affordable and accessible, our community wants it. Our students want it, our families want it, and I, you know, if we could find a way to be allin for science camp, which I think I could make a quilt of science camp t-shirts. Love it. Um and music as well, I would love that. So for >> volunteer >> so for you know to give direction of where I am I am fully in this is
200not just a nice to have it's a critical important piece and I would this is a place as a board member that I would invest um and want to invest to not pass this on um to our families definitely for the core but I don't want to have to pass it on at this rate for science camp or um music camp either. So, which way did I say? I said Melissa and then Joe. Okay, Melissa. >> All right. I did just volunteer. People might not know my master's is in education is in science. So, love that. Would volunteer or substitute, but um I thought Charles, I really appreciated something that you said. you had talked about getting that feedback from people and I thought oh that's we're not necessarily this board is not the typical
201maybe people participating in this we we and I thought that feedback piece so I have an idea because I know that to take the time to create a survey ask our parents to fill out another survey then they can plan you know why what about the idea of the best resource I think We have to know what's going on in our schools and the pulse of our um our families is our home and school. Maybe this is something that we could give a brief like questionnaire for our home and schools to fill up to fill out to get that information. Some of this we're kind of asking that we're not sure where to get the information. Ask how many of them would still participate, how maybe the reason why they participate in these programs. That
202might be an idea. But I really liked how you said to go about that of asking the actual people that would be using it and how the pricing would impact them and maybe even what the community wants out of their summer school, but however we would construct something as a questionnaire. >> Okay. Uh Joe and then Amanda and then Mark. >> So uh something Charles said uh made me realize that there's something I completely don't understand about summer school. Um and uh he was talking about kind of capacity building uh and uh bringing more students in. Um is summer school open to all kids in the district or just uh the the students who attend two or three schools? It's all schools in the district or all kids in the district >> any any resident
203of the district. Um, so I guess the the question is how you talked about how how you uh kind of advertise in schools and and uh reach out to parents. Is there a way to more broadly uh distribute the summer school information to the community with, you know, throughout the whole district? [snorts] Sorry, that's something um we can work with our communications team on. Where did I go? I said Amanda and then Mark. [clears throat] >> Um I also am a big proponent of summer school. I think it's really important to have um productive things for youth to do in the uh summers. Um and then also I've been kind of quiet because I do feel like you know I'm a professional in this community but you know when you have four kids too I'm
204like can we were just talking about summer school and I'm just sitting here like literally thinking wow could I even afford it you know type of thing um and that's really difficult uh and it's vulnerable for me to say that out loud but that's why it's just really disheartening to see that um because not only is summer school going up but everything in our lives is going up except for our income right you know so um that's where it's it's if there's a way that we can find I I firmly believe that there's a way that we can find um the money to be able to keep the funding level and be able to provide more support from the board level so that we don't put that burden onto families then I would feel more
205comfortable moving forward with this and you know I don't want it to be like a conflict of interest but just in general I'm just kind of using myself as a gauge as just kind of like a average family in in Neighborville right um because it just it it's just so hard to see that as one more thing that's going up and you know having to make difficult choices. Um, so that's all. >> Mark, >> thank you, Charles. Um, I I I feel the same way I think Holly and Amanda feel about the importance of of of summer school and and I certainly would want us to look at what we can do to make it available to as many students as possible at a reasonable cost. What one question I I do have, I just
206want to follow up. I I did ask this in advance and Holly Holly mentioned it. So I just want to get clarification on it. When we look at the free and reduced meals and compare it for the population that goes to summer school versus the districtwide number. I think I I asked the question if that's really an applesto apples comparison. Um, so right now it does look like, wow, we have a lot of people that are on free and reduced meals compared to the population in general. But is is that a fair comparison or should we be looking at the population in summer school versus that population more broadly? because it seems to me like we're we're saying, well, we have a whole population of 16,000 students, of which X is free and reduced meals.
207Um, so are are we really comparing apples to apples there? >> Yeah, probably not. I mean, again, that's um and I think I responded that's um more of a historical piece of data that we've we've always reported it that way. I don't know what the origin of it was because it [laughter] was even before um I started in this position but I think it shows um you know just from the summer learning perspective that we do get a higher number or a higher percentage of students in that summer school population who do qualify for free and reduced. So I I think it it shows that there's a need with that with that population in our district that they really want that pro those programs. >> Yeah, that was a priority actually of the board when
208we way back when we did start this is that really making sure that for all the reasons a lot of you mentioned we were providing programming and services and support for students who may not typically afford it because we found that to be a barrier. The old summer school model focused primarily on high school and with [snorts] some enrichment type things and predominantly kids taking the high school courses or kids who could afford it and were really just looking to clear time in their schedule in the upcoming year for another AP course or something, right? And so we really took a comprehensive approach to really try to um I wouldn't say close achievement gaps during the summer, but try to really limit the drop off the summer slide, right? Um and and so that when
209you know we in a sense that kids had more opportunities during the summer to really not lose what they had gained during the year, we could start off fresh in the beginning. So I that's why we kind of report it this way because that was the one of the targeted groups of students that the board really asked us to prioritize. >> Got it. Got it. And and one last question. I know we we get some grant money. Um have we looked at how we can expand access to getting more grants to help us with the cost. >> Yeah. Grant funding unfortunately especially from the state is not as plentiful for summer programs as it has been in the past. So what we did last year was we allocated a large portion of some of our
210IDEIDA money to summer to uh for ESY and then we have taken some of our PFA grant as well and some of our title funding. Not a whole lot though. It used to be we got we just received more um grant money than we have than we're getting right now. So, we've kind of offset um taken some things and kind of rearranged so we can use more of it in the summer um for our programs. But that's a great thing for us to advocate at the state for more summer uh funding because we don't get very much. >> Got it. Thank you, Jean. >> Okay. So, we'll work as a team to kind of Sorry, >> I got I got one more thing. Um and I and I did ask this ahead as well. Sorry,
211Dan. Um, so in looking at the impact that summer school makes, again, as I said earlier, I'm a big fan of summer school, so that's not um I I think that you it's not it's not always possible to get a measure around something, but I know that we have this the the panorama system that allows us to kind of go longitudinally a little bit. question is have we and and the answer I got back was that sometimes the data is inconclusive just curious as to are there different things that we look at or can look at to figure out the impact the positive impact I believe there's one what I'm asking for you to help me figure out what exactly the key measure we could point to would be so for example whether that's social
212social emotional learning that students who participate in summer school because of the communication skills or the socialization skills or something especially coming out of the pandemic I that that was kids were apart and getting back together there was some challenges. So, have we looked at some of those types of things or looked at um increases in academic performance for kids who are frequent summer school attenders relative to counterparts um that may line up in all other ways except that they didn't attend summer school. >> I'm just throwing a bunch of different things out there, but the question is is there a way for us to >> Sure. So, that's a question that I um proposed to Dr. Nolton today and he said, "Well, Jane, you know, there's very many variables when it comes to summer
213school and there's only so many days." >> And I'm sure he said it just like that, too. >> Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so he's like, "Well, actually, um, there's lots." Right. When we look at ESY, we look at goals, right? We So, when we look at our ESY, students that have IEPs, we look at their IEP goals. We look at them beginning of summer school to the end of summer school. Multilingual, for example, we have lots of our multilingual students. we look at their um proficiency in in language and just sense of belonging. So um sometimes when you think about elementary, they're only there four days for six weeks. Some of them only do three weeks, right? So that's the other piece. Some only go three weeks. What we are hoping because research will show
214summer programs decrease a summer slide. They don't they're it's really not a gap closing measure. So what we do is that we look at all of them. One thing from the high school gives us a lot of um our students. So we look at their grades. We always look at their grades, but have they opened up for more courses, right? Um and so we know a lot of our music kids actually take summer programs so that they can do a bandon orchestra throughout the year. So yes, there's just lots of variables for us to look at and we want to look at all those variables because kids just like um Kevin said, kids enter summer school for so many different reasons. Um, one thing this year is why we're looking at the music. We're they
215our music uh staff really wants to push it because they think if we push it then they'll make a better seamless transition into the music programs in the fall, especially our third graders who've never hauled an instrument. So, that's something we're going to look at. So, yes to all of that. Um, it's just different for each student in each course. >> Well, thank you for that. And I know that it continues to evolve. Um, again, as many of the colleagues said, and I'm I'm I'm I'm in on summer school. That's not the I just would love to find a way to get more people to participate in it because I just have this core belief that it's a great thing and if more people participated, I think that we'd see more people get more benefit
216from it. So, that's just my thought. Dan, you were going to say >> I was just Yeah, but there's more conversation. I thought we were >> Oh, sorry. No, I just I out the corner of my eye. Going to what you said, the good thing about key indicators, I like that. You know, I had asked about for the the kids the the performance um of the kids with that go for the extended school year that have IEPs or disabilities, any of those that do the pre-esting before and after. Um, but what that made me think of is that many of those kids have also like social emotional IEP goals. That might be a small group that we could use that. It would be a small sample size, but it might get to like you're saying,
217it might give us an idea if we were actually to look at, you know, did they show improvement in their goal that were related to social emotional. Um, so that would be nice to include too >> if their goal was written that way. So it would be so that's exactly what our teams do. They look at their goals from the beginning and then they look at their goals from the end and they're all individualized as you know because each you know goal is based on the student. So that absolutely is something that our um student services team does um every summer they do that. >> That that'd be great. >> Yeah. The only thing I would add to that is that um and Missy's not here to to jump in on this, but similar to
218summer learning where we're trying to prevent summer slide, the goals of ESY are are for maintenance of goals, not to increase the acquisition of them. >> No, I know, but like having Okay, you did your disclosure. I'll do mine. I had students that I had children that were qualified for the extended school year and they had skills, social skills or social, you know, communication, social emotional. So by looking at that whether they progressed or regressed by because over the summer hopefully you're measuring their progress. We could then just like you would say there would be a measurement to say that did they grow or regress just like you can look at that information and do performance we could look at it for kids that have things and I know the IEPs break it up into
219like areas like communication so we could look at that we don't have to look at the individual skill but what area what domain it was under. All right, Superintendent Bridges. >> Yeah, I just um I think that the just message that I think the team heard, the board supports summer school, wants to invest in summer school, we need to really look at pricing. We'll bring it back at the November 17th uh meeting uh with the recommendation for action and then obviously the board if it's not prepared to take action at that time will not have to. We can table that. Um the reason we're asking for action at this time of year, we have to get in the curriculum development process for the new summer courses. So, okay. There just might be one thing to
220add to is I I think I also heard several board members talk about kind of what is the uh data impact that we want to collect from the summer schools um to demonstrate whether it's just reducing the slide or maintaining IEPs or you know just a little bit more construct about what should we be looking at to see that this is worth the investment. >> Okay. Thanks. Okay, thank you. >> All right, that's item eight. Item nine, discussion with action. So 9.01, high school course recommendations. >> Okay, at the last uh board meeting, um Jane Willard and our assistant principles curriculum both high schools presented recommendations to the board for uh high school course, new high school courses as well as removals. We have no new information to present. We recommend you approve it as
221presented. >> So I'll entertain a motion. >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> Okay. Motion and second have been heard. Discussion. >> Seeing no hands for discussion. Mrs. Patton, please call the role. >> McMillan. >> Hi. >> Cuz I >> Blastic. >> Hi. >> Kush. >> Hi. >> Gerky. >> I. >> Kelly Black. >> I. >> Winsky. >> I. >> The motion passes. Item 9.02. Consideration of board of education expenses. Board of Education policy 2125 requires all board member expenses for travel, meals or lodging be approved by roll call vote on open meeting of the board. Um if expenses various expenses in there from professional learning related activities recommend your approvement is presented. >> Okay. Uh any questions or sorry I'll entertain a motion. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion and second have been
222heard. Any discussion or questions? Okay. Seeing none, please call the role. Mrs. Patton. >> Kush. >> I. >> Kelly Black. >> I. >> Plastic. >> I. >> Winsky. >> I. >> Kazminsky. >> I. >> McMillan. >> I. >> Gerky. >> I. >> The motion passes. [clears throat] Item 10, old business. We have no old business. Item 11, new business. We have no new business. Item 12, upcoming events. Item 12.01, schedule of events. Just want to make sure that I confirm with the board that uh you received an email to me today in regard to a ribbon cutting activity at Neighborville North for the new facility. Um that it had to be moved as a result of good reasons. Uh North soccer team advancing to the super sectional championship on Tuesday. So that'll be held Wednesday
223at 3:30. I will not be there. Dr. Cohen will be there. Um so that's that. Next board meeting is on November 17th right here at PSAC. >> Okay. All right. Item 13, adjournment. Item 13.01. Motion to adjurnn. >> Move to adjourn. >> Second. >> Motion and a second have been heard. Any discussion? I'm kidding. [laughter] >> Seeing none, Mrs. Matt, please call the role. >> Gerky, >> I. >> Blastic. >> I. >> Kazinsky. >> I. >> Kush. >> I. >> Winsky. >> I. >> McMillan. >> I. >> Kelly Black. I >> the motion passes. We are adjourned. Thank you. Get home safe. Have a great evening.