001Okay. Good evening and welcome to the Oh, I I'm so sorry. Since 6 p.m., the board of education has been in close session to discuss the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees of the district or legal counsel for the district and collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives. I'll entertain a motion to come out of closed. So moved. Second. Motion and second have been heard. Please call the role. Miss Patton. McMillan. I. Gerie. I. Blastic. I Kelly Black I Winski I Kush I Kazinski I The motion passes we are in open session. Good evening and welcome to the June 2nd 2025 uh April 203 Board of Education meeting. Our mission is to empower students to develop a learner's mindset, demonstrate adaptability, communicate effectively, think critically
002and become global citizens. Please call the role. Mrs. Board members present this evening, Charles Kush, Christine Gerky, Amanda McMillan, Melissa Kelly Black, Joe Kazminski, Holly Blastic, and Mark Winski. Please join the board of education in the pledge of allegiance. United States of America stands nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all item four. 01 good news. Okay. Um, our dual language sixth graders were fully engaged in book clubs this spring, sharing deep discussions, sharpening their critical thinking, and enjoying plenty of laughter along the way. Nothing better than watching students connect over stories and grow together as readers and thinkers. On May 8th, Madison Junior High hosted a vibrant community celebration for Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Attendees enjoyed crafts, food, music performances by Miss Katie and Opus Chamber students, and a special appearance by
003author Rich Low. This all ages event highlighted the importance of literacy, the arts, and the diverse cultural contributions of the AAPI community. Thank you to all who made it a success. At this year's Neapville State of the City address, our student interns proudly highlighted how the career internship program has shaped their skills, confidence, and future goals. With enrollment growing from 40 to 90 students, it's clear this program is creating meaningful opportunities and making a real impact. And then finally, what an amazing year it's been for Nepal 203. Thank you to our incredible teachers, staff, and community. Your dedication, creativity, and support have helped make our schools places where students grow, thrive, and reach their full potential. We couldn't have done it without you. Enjoy a well-deserved summer break, and we'll see students back in class
004on August 14th. That's good news this evening. Thank you, Superintendent Bridges. We have 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 by name. Comments by individual shall be limited to three minutes. If the individual is representing multiple individuals or a group, they shall be allowed to speak for five minutes. The board respectfully requests that speakers refrain from commenting about specific individuals. uh as I call an individual for public comment. I will also designate the next speaker so that they have appropriate time to prepare. In accordance with board policy, issues raised in public comment will be taken under adisement by the board of education but will not be discussed this evening.
005Issues raised during public participation may be added to future agendas or addressed by administrative staff. Because the questions raised in public comment address district operational matters, the superintendent is the board's designate to coordinate response to public comment and will apprise the board accordingly. Board policy 2142 encourages understanding and interaction necessary for responsible citizenship. The board of education seeks to create a learning environment in which, among other things, all families, students, teachers, administrators, and staff are welcomed, valued, and respected. Furthermore, as outlined in Board of Education policy 2.230, individuals addressing the board should conduct themselves with respect and civility towards others. Individuals are free to express their criticism regarding decisions or policies, but the board of education expects that they refrain from personal attacks on our superintendent, board of education members, and administrative staff. Uh, at
006this point, I would like to welcome Peter Schulman. And our next speaker will be Beverly Trafton. Good evening. Good evening and welcome. Excuse me. Good evening. I'm a 36-year resident of District 203 and I've invested over $250,000 in educating students in this district. I consider it money well spent. I recognize the current board's efforts to maintain the education performance and value that the school district provides. I'm speaking tonight to express support for the district's continued acceptance of its LGBTQ students and encourage them not to acquies to the threats of a known anti-government hate group that is vilifying a minor child and the transgender community in order to further its ultra-conservative right-wing agenda. This group and its supporters have especially targeted trans students, basing their insulting and discriminatory claims on reports or non-perure and biased peer-reviewed
007studies that have no validation or corroboration from credible medical or scientific sources. Their biological and medical viewpoint is opinion is based on a 2,000-year-old doctrine from a time when there were no endocrinologists, psychiatrists, anthropologists, or books. Edsych, nope. Hormones, gender biology, and biochemistry were unknown. In the US, we've already been around the block repackaging a religious supposition, calling it a hypothesis or even theory and incorporating it into a curriculum. Most recently, that resulted in a costly lawsuit in the landmark Kits Miller versus Dover ruling decided by a judge who was appointed by a Republican president. And why would people think otherwise? The last even the only science class that most people take is in high school and it may not even be biology let alone genetics or endocrinology. Gender is complicated. It is much more
008than XX or XY. How many actually know someone who is trans or have taken the time to converse with someone who is? They've said that being trans is a lifestyle choice. Social influences are converting children to being gay. I grew up in a time and a place like many in this room where no one talked about being LGBT. We barely talked about the birds and the bees. All my role models, all the role models were straight. Yet, there were still lesbians, gay men, transgender, and non-binary individuals. And instead of letting them live the same boring lives that you and I did, they were called queer and picked on. Exactly what a Illinois wants to do. Now, make no mistake. Regardless of what they say, they deny the existence of anyone that doesn't fit their parochial
009view of the world, and they will persecute them. Just consider the executive orders they're flaunting. The situation in the district is not simple. It is not binary. I encourage the district to avoid making an inflexible determination that marginalizes children and appeases the Wake Illinois. The US Constitution and Illinois state law will back you in doing the right thing. And last, I just like to ask, I used to have a boss that would talk about people and what he said was, "If you can't win on the facts, they will go after the person." Our next speaker is Beverly Trafton and Beverly will be followed by Tim Thompson. Good evening and welcome. Hello members of the board. Thank you for letting me speak. Uh I'm a district 203. Uh my name is Beverly Trafton. I'm a District
010203 resident. I'm a proud parent of uh one of my daughters went K through 12 in district 203 and um it was a great experience for her and for uh her parents. I'm also a uh woman of trans experience. Um and I I I support what what has gone on in this district prior. I also support many people in this room. Um, great parents, great allies who are looking to make this place a better place for everybody. They care about all the kids. Um, not just their own. In fact, I would say pro probably I don't know. I don't know for sure. But they're here for to make the, you know, it's for all the kids. And then there's other people here from I'm woke Illinois or something. Um, they they uh are not here
011for all the kids. They they are promoting hatred. They are promoting Everest. They've been named a uh hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. So when we hear that them speaking later, just keep that in mind. I mean they are not here for the good of everyone and let's just keep that in mind. Thank you. Our next speaker is Tim Thompson. Tim will be followed by Allison Wald. Good evening and welcome. Good evening. My name is Tim Thompson and as much as I enjoy seeing you lovely people, I'm frankly I'm frustrated that we have to spend another Monday night reashing the same arguments. So, I thought I'd try another way. I'm a teacher and the job of a teacher is to impart knowledge. Knowledge to drive out ignorance. I'd like everyone to think back
012to their time in junior high. For just about everyone, it was, to say the least, not a great time. Personally, and I'm sure many of you can relate, the goal was to keep your head down and not be noticed for anything, lest anything be taken in a negative light. Yet, some in this room would make you believe that an infantessimally small fraction of the student population have chosen a path that draws more attention to themselves, frequently unwanted attention, simply to smoke a few girls at a junior high track meet. Now, I ask you, does that sound like any junior high student you've ever met? But this is a wakes. They rile up their base and then the more extreme members of their group respond with threats and violence. Don't get me wrong, I'm certain Shannon
013Adcock didn't mail a bullet to the Downers Grove Public Library. She simply came for public comment railing against a teen event. I'm certain it wasn't Shannon who vandalized Uprising Bakery. She just posted endlessly. Um, you'll refrain from providing individual names, please. Awake Illinois's president who vandalized uprising bakery. She just posted endlessly about this event the private business was choosing to hold. It probably wasn't awake Illinois's president who left threatening messages at the St. Charles Public Library or the DuPage Children's Museum, but we're starting to see a common thread. I'm certain Awake Illinois's president won't be directly responsible for whatever threats, vandalism, or violence against this student or district, but just as before, she's here. I'm sure you'll hear plenty of pleas tonight about the injustice of this situation. How one student is taking from others.
014Well, let me ask you, how much are you willing to take from this one student in the name of justice? Go back to your time in junior high. All you wanted was to be accepted. Don't let their fear take that away. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Allison Wald. Before that though, I would like to um remind the prior speaker who's done now um and others that you know we're we're to refrain from personal attacks. So I'll reread that section just to remind everyone um individuals addressing the board should conduct themselves with respect and civility towards others. That means no individual calling out of individual names, please. Um uh individuals are free to express their criticism regarding decisions or policies, but the board of education expects that they refrain from personal attacks on a
015superintendent, board of education members, and administrative staff. And I will add to that just naming individuals, please. Okay, Allison, you're up. And after Allison will be I think that says Derek Miller. Good evening. Welcome. Hi. Uh my name is Allison Wald and I'm actually a resident of Bowling Brook. Uh my freshman now is going to be a freshman at Bowling Brook High School. Um and is a trans male um athlete. He plays soccer. And um I just think wanted to come and thank your school district for being um wonderful um to your students of the LGBTQ RA rainbow. And I'm hoping that um when my child comes to play soccer against uh your soccer team that you guys will be kind um and like follow and that your students athletes follow your lead on acceptance.
016Thank you. [Applause] Next we have Derek Miller. Um Derek will be followed by Diana Pedro. Good evening and welcome. Thank you. And uh I apologize for the handwriting. I'm a computer teacher, so my handwriting is pretty bad. I apologize for the handwriting reading. Uh but um I'm a teacher in the district. I have uh four students uh in the district as well. I really wanted to speak on uh not necessarily anything um about the board, but just the behavior in general of some of the adults in our community. And usually when the school district promotes something my students are doing, I love that. But I had the misfortune of um having a post of mine retweeted by the district of my high school software engineering students um just celebrating the fantastic things they did. Uh
017this happened to be um posted a day after the controversy that's in question tonight. And some of the comments that my students had to see on that post were disgusting. Um, so I'm not really going to speak to the controversy. Um, I truthfully see points on both sides of this issue, but I do want to talk about the immature, vile, and hateful comments. They're being directed at children by adults in our community. The students who I wanted to celebrate had to see these comments. They had nothing to do with this controversy other than being in the same school district um as the student who's at the center of this controversy. There are adults sharing photos, videos, and the name of this student at the center of the controversy. Um and this is a child. This
018is not just affecting this child. It's affecting other children. I want to emphasize this. These are children who are being attacked. And I really in my heart, and this might be naive of me, but I in my heart think that people are speaking out with pure intentions. But I do know there are some people who are doing this to try to go viral, to try to go and speak on cable news, and that is disgusting, and it needs to stop. Our kids should not be treated as political pawns. Thank you. [Applause] Our next speaker is Diana Pedra. Diana will be followed by Charlie Freriedman. Good evening and welcome. Thank you. Um, my intention isn't to call anybody out, but the problem with that is that the leader of Awake Illinois calls herself out constantly speaking
019on Fox News and promoting herself like as if she's getting paid for it. Um, so I am going to reference that person who is more than happy to speak loudly and clearly. And so I'm going to speak loudly and clearly as well because the only way to fight hate is with love. And that's what I'm going to do. So, for some reason coming here today, I felt like part of the scene from Disney's Beauty and the Beast where all the town folks are hiking up the cliff and they have the big torches and they're going to go kill the beast. Kill the beast. Kill the beast. Right. But instead of kill the beast, it's call out a trans juvenile. And coming here today, that just gives me chills to even say. Um, so the leader
020of Awake Illinois, she's a spokeswoman. She has a nonprofit. I don't even know what that means for her. Um, she's really put herself out there. She's strong. She's loud. And I want to address her and all of you today. We learned all of the best parts of what a school district has to offer. Me and my two daughters who the three of us combined have 29 years in Neapville district 203. We went to Scott school, Madison, Highlands, Kennedy, Neapville North. Unfortunately, we went to a girls went and I went to Neighborville Central. Um, I was on the Palm Squad. I was very active. I did get kicked off of the Palm Squad for smoking cigarettes underneath the bleachers, but whatever. You know, I was a rebel. It's fine. Um, anyway, this woman is not even
021from our district. And I think that's really important to talk about is her kids don't go to school here. Like, she's in Indian Prairie 204. She just wants to be controversial or controversial. um she should just slither her way back to Indian Prairie 204 and let us figure out what we're going to do here because my entire childhood growing up here and I really genuinely mean that. I had an awesome childhood in Neighborville. I had an awesome childhood and I really did feel like I was included. Now, of course, I was white and a girl and popular and all those things that I was, but I also genuinely felt like if I was concerned about something, I had support and love. I can't even imagine being that transgender girl right now and I just it's
022shameful. Her video is up on Shannon's website right now. Show I'm sorry. Showing her face though. She's a she's a juvenile. Okay. I'm just saying point of order. Shut up. You're not talking. Miss time. Thank you. [Applause] Our next speaker is Charlie Freriedman um who is speaking on behalf of a group. Hi, my name is Charlie Freriedman. Okay, a second. Our next speaker will be Eric Simon. Okay, good evening and welcome. Hi, thank you so much. My name is Charlie Freriedman and I use they he pronouns. I am the transupfront director of operations and we are here because families in this district have asked us to be here for them and their kids because they are afraid of being targeted and doxed by hate groups like the ones behind me. And rightfully so. As an
023organization and as advocates, we are not afraid. We have been targeted and we are here to speak and protect these children. And as advocates, most often we speak about laws and statistics because that's what get the gets the job done. The Illinois Human Rights Act section 3B as well as the Illinois State Board of Education provide clear guidance and regulation that anyone uncomfortable in a gender specific space like restrooms, locker rooms, etc. has the right to request more private accommodations if they are uncomfortable or themselves. These private accommodations would be again for themselves and for any reason. It could be modesty, religion, etc. Is clearly stated in those laws and guidance that the trans student cannot be excluded based on another students or parents or other adults from outside of the district's discomfort. This is
024court-upheld law in Illinois. It also covers sports. These people behind me, many of them are the same people who would be yelling against racial integration. They were wrong then and they are wrong now. These laws and protections apply to all non-religious schools in the state of Illinois. If anyone would prefer a school that inflicts their religious beliefs on students, there are plenty of religious private schools in the state. Religious doctrine again cannot be enforced in Illinois public schools. Now, statistics. 92% of sexual assaults are committed by cis men. 0% or a stat statistically insignificant amount are committed by trans women. Almost half of trans people experience sexual assault in their lifetime, which is more than four times the rate for cisgender people. Trans students forced into facilities based on their sex assigned at birth, are
025at a much higher risk of assault and violence. And no one is going through the lengthy stigmatizing process of transitioning to gain access to gendered facilities. Nobody voluntarily signs up to be bullied to the level that trans students are by both other children and adults. Trans youth without affirming spaces from their homes, their families, their schools are significantly more likely to experience suicidal ideiation and complete suicide. We are here to protect children, to protect their lives. TransUPFront works with trans youth across the entire state. And let me tell you, meetings like this, people with beliefs like some of those that you're going to hear tonight are doing real harm to our youth. TransUP upfront as an organization knows of 21 trans children in the state who have completed suicide since the beginning of this year.
026These are children who are trans and have chosen to take their own lives instead of living through the bullying that they are experiencing. And that has become so emboldened since the Trump administration. So, thank you to this school board and to Neighborville for doing what is right, for supporting all kids, for providing them access to the facilities that they belong in, the sports that they deserve to participate in, and for helping our kids say stay safe and alive. Thank you. Our next speaker is Eric Simon. Eric will be followed by Kathy Abram. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Eric Simon. I am not a resident of Neapville, but I am a teacher at a private suburban school that graduate students into many area high schools, including District 203. In 20 years of teaching, I
027have taught mostly elementary grades from 1st through 5th. So, I have learned many important lessons about safety. Every year I join teachers AC all across the country in practicing safety drills, fire, weather, and of course lockdown because I am tasked with keeping my students physically safe at all times. What we do not drill, at least in any methodical or public sense, is anything that keeps our students emotionally safe. Yet, as a teacher, I know that this safety is more relevant by far to a child's daily life than any of the physical threats that parents and communities fear. I I see the emotional dangers that can crush a child's spirit more surely than a tornado can crush a school. And one such danger is the one I want to talk about today. I am speaking about
028the danger of rejection. Now there is plenty of data about the importance of acceptance of trans identities when fa within families and schools for mitigating trauma, self harm and suicide. I expect that you have heard those statistics before. What I want to talk about is the rejection that all students face under transphobic and homophobic policies and attitudes. Even students who are themselves cis and straight. For any gender-based exclusionary policy to be enforced, we as adults must presume to know the gender of every child under our charge. The implications of that are frankly nauseating to me. If we cannot trust children to tell us their identity, then we are declaring our intention to subject them to invasive tests based on deeply private information. No matter what unscientific line the ignorant wish to draw between male and
029female, any decision regarding an individual child's identity identity requires medical information that should be private for anyone, let alone a minor. And this is where we come to the real danger to all children, both trans and cis. Because unless we are willing to require testing and public identification for every student, an appalling thought in itself, then any enforcement inevitably assumes that a concerned adult will raise a dispute that must then be investigated. But on what grounds could such a dispute be raised? Will girls who are taller, more muscular, or more flatested fall under greater scrutiny? Time Our next speaker is Kathy Abram. Kathy will be followed by Tim Rhodess. Good evening and welcome. Good evening. My name is Kathy Abram. I'm a mother of five Neapville Central graduates and I currently have one daughter who
030attends Neapville Central and she runs on the girls track team. I request that D3 203 immediately stops allowing biological boys from competing in girls sports. Weekly, I receive emails from the district reminding me of the mission of district 203. Part of that mission is to develop critical thinking skills. There are four points under this goal and I want to draw your attention to one of them. applied, it's quote, applied disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence as opposed to hysteria and emotionalism. Informed by evidence with regards to the fairness of allowing boys to compete in girls sports, the evidence is clear. Boys and girls are different. XX is not XY. It cannot change. It's been suggested that girls just need to get over it and learn how to accept disappointment. That
031biological female athletes in any given sport should just learn to accept boys competing against them graciously. That they should be given up. They should give up their dreams to accommodate a boy. This is misogyny. Males and females are different. To illustrate this point, look at the state rankings for girls track and field. In 2024, in the 100 meter uh dash, my daughter ranked 1,048th in the state, approximately top 15%. With the same timing in the boys ranking, she would rank 6,990th, a difference of over close to 6,000 places. One boy running against girls in one heat does not only displace the five girls he ran against. He literally displaces thousands of girls. So we keep being asked, well, you know, it's just how it is. You're just supposed to take it. No, stop. It's got
032to stop. District 203 offers at least 60 different teams, clubs designated for girls. What is the point of having any separate anything? Why not one football team per school to include boys and girls? Why not one basketball team? Why not one golf team or tennis club? Why why separate boys reading clubs or girls choirs or girls STEM clubs? These are all things that are offered in the district. But you already know why we have separate things. Because boys and girls are different. I ask that district 203 apply disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence and stop allowing boys to compete in girls sports. Thank you. [Music] [Applause] Our next speaker is Tim Rhodess. Tim will be followed by Nicholas Diaz. Good evening and welcome. Good evening. Thank you very much for
033welcoming me. Um, my name is Tim Rhodess. As was stated, I am a Christian pastor. And anybody who tells you that the Bible establishes gender is a person who's informed pre-enlightenment times. I've been a member of the district for 28 years. My children were educated in 203 and I have volunteered in the schools. Thank you for your service to this community. Serving on a school board, as you know all too well, is one of the most difficult ways to engage in public service. So, thank you. I commend you for your well-meaning and considered efforts to foster a culture focused on student learning, well-being, and engagement. The issue of transgender students complicates an already challenging school environment. For 52 years, schools have uh struggled to effectively support Title Nine students around issues of equal opportunity, access,
034facilities, and fairness. The struggle continues, and the rhetoric is hot. Hot. According to the president's sports, fitness and nutrition science board, playing sports helps young people maintain good physical health, build self-confidence and self-esteem, grow leadership skills, and understand the value of teamwork. As a parent and a person who works with youth, I have questions. Tween and teens share these questions. What is fairness in sports? What if another kid is older or bigger or heavier or lighter? Excluding girls who are trans hurts all girls. Exclusion invites gender policing that could uh subject any girl, any girl to invasive tests or accusations of being too masculine or too good at her sport or that to be a real girl. Trans athletes and cisgender athletes all vary in ability, as do we all. One runner could have longer
035legs than another runner or have an advantage of a perfect form. One sprinter could have parents who hire personal trainers for their child while another child might not be able to access such resources. Is that fairness? What makes a girl a girl or a boy a boy? There is no way for a girl's body to be. There is no way for a boy's body to be. Tween and teens are especially varied in their physical composition. My feet grew overnight. A person's sex is comprised of a multip of multiple biological characteristics and these characteristics may not all align as typically male or typically female in any person. Indeed, many people who are not trans have hormone levels outside the range considered typical for a cisgendered person of their assigned sex. Again, in teens, hormones are wild.
036So, what is a girl or what is a boy? If you enact a policy time, one more question. I'm sorry, sir. Sir sir, sir, your time is up. Our next speaker is Nicholas Diaz. Nicholas will be followed by Peter Rivera. Hello everyone. Thank you for your time tonight. Um I'm here to thank the board and my fellow citizens for joining us. Um in response to the actions and statements made by Awake Illinois, I had to come back to this room again to protect the rights of all transameans today. Two weeks ago in this same room, a minority of the attendees spoke out against a trans student competing in middle school track meet. They spoke out about how it flies in the face of Title N. They say boys can't be girls and girls can't be
037boys. This claim is rooted in a willful misunderstanding of trans identity and the trans experience. This group also believes in the rule of law. So, let's talk about law. Under the current Illinois law, as it is written in the Illinois Human Rights Act, which is law and not as previously stated in the last meeting, a suggestion, it reads that citizens have a freedom from unlawful discrimination, which includes freedom from discrimination based on sex, and sex is defined as including gender related identity whether or not traditionally associated with that person's designated sex at birth. I thank you all for supporting that law. And let me say it again, that is law. And looking at states nearby, I worry about what pushing laws that would not support trans people could lead to. In the state of Iowa,
038three years ago, House File 2416 banned transamericans from competing in all state athletics, K through collegiate level. Three years later, the Iowa state legislature signed a law which removed anti-discrimination protections for gender identity from its civil rights code, a first in the history of the United States. I am a lifetime Neapville resident. Me and my three younger brothers were born and raised here. We grew up in a community that supported all people of ethnicities, gender expressions, sexualities, age groups. It did not matter. I need you all to hear me, including those who may disagree with me. No woman, person, trans, or otherwise, has the power to take away who you are or erode your rights simply by existing or competing in a track meet that you likely would have forgotten if this student had not
039competed in the first place. I want to thank you all for your time and God bless America. [Applause] Our next speaker is Peter Rivera. Peter will be followed by Donald R. Zaniger. I apologize if I mispronounced Zaniger's name. Um, Peter, good evening and welcome. Good evening. My name is Peter Rivera. This is the fourth time I've had to now speak publicly about the damage that Awake Illinois and its president, our so-called president are doing to this community. After my last remarks, this president responded not with facts, not with an argument, but with a personal attack. What she hasn't done, what she can't do is refute a single word that I've said. And now Awake has crossed an even darker line. They outed, targeted, and doxed a transgender high school girl in your district. A child.
040One of them just said they brought it on their all because she ran in a track meet and won. Some parents were upset and instead of dealing with it privately like adults, they handed a child over to a hate group. Let's be clear, there are good faith arguments about to be had about integrating trans athletes into sports, but this this wasn't a discussion. This was a smear campaign, a lynching, a coordinated effort to shame and endanger a teenager. And we know where that leads. When ad when the president went after Downer's Grove Public Library over a drag event, the library received death threats. Someone mailed them a bullet. The library cancelled the event and Awake cheered. They called it a win. They never condemned the threats. You're welcome to do so tonight. But now they've
041turned their sights on a teenage girl. And the threats, louder, uglier, more dangerous, are already following. On Awake Illinois's Facebook page, you can see this. Grown adults are calling a child mentally ill, a cheat, a predator, and they are so thin skinned they delete any comments that challenge awake. But these attacks on a child, they leave them up. They see them, they know what they are, they let them stand. That's deliberate. In the end, these people people are cruel and mediocre opportunists. They have nothing to offer the world but outrage and harassment. So they pick on the easiest targets they can find, children, because cruelty is all they have. Without it, they're nothing and they know it. To stand with awake Illinois is to stand with adults who gleefully humiliate and endanger children for sport.
042And the parents who opened the door to this, whether knowingly or unknowingly, owe this girl an apology because they don't want to be remembered as the kind of people who cared more about the outcome of a foot race than whether a child got death threats. Come on, there's no middle ground here. You're either protecting children or you're hurting them. Time Our next speaker is Donald Xaninger. Donald will be followed by Michael Abram. Good evening and welcome. Thank you. I'm Donald R. Zeninger. I'm a lifelong resident of not only District 203, but the districts that preceded it. I was a junior high school math teacher and spent my career in these districts. I don't have to restate the issue. You all know what it is. This shouldn't be a zero someum game. One child wins, the
043other loses. It's far more nuanced than that. But one group wants to expand the opportunity of the children and the other wants to limit the opportunity of some of the children. Right now you're been threatened with a lawsuit to take away federal funding for programs, many of which have nothing to do with this issue. They are willing to tack these children and deny them opportunities just to get their their position their way. And that tells you all you need to know about them. You have an extraordinary administrative staff, teaching staff, and support staff who are working diligently to deal the best they can with this situation. I would encourage you to rely on them and give you the advice that you can use to navigate this. At the end of the day, you have only
044one real set of constituents. It's not the taxpayers. It's not the voters. It's not even the parents. It's the children. They are your only real constituents and they rely upon you to provide opportunity for them and to protect them. So if I can give you one north star to keep in mind, it's all about the children. Always, always, always. No exception. Thank you. [Applause] Our next speaker is Michael Abram. Michael will be followed by Shannon Adcock. Good evening. My name is Good evening and welcome. Good evening. My name is Mike Abram. I'm a resident of Neapville 203. I'm a home homeowner for the past 18 years and a taxpayer. And I'm putting my sixth child through Neapville Central High School. And I want to commend the outstanding faculty and staff at at Neighborville Central. They're
045just the best. They're fantastic. My youngest daughter is an athlete on the girls track team. And to that point, I've heard a lot of issues being conflated at these board meetings. And for the school board, I think there's really only one issue that matters, and that's this. Who should be allowed to participate on a girls athletic team? That's it. That's the only one despite everything we've heard here tonight. And I I just can't say that. I really can't say this more nicely because just because a child wants to play a sport doesn't mean they can. Two of my boys, two of my boys wanted to play football. They loved pee-wee league. They loved it. Uh once they got to middle school though, they were too small. They just weren't big enough. And after several games,
046I asked the coach if he would be playing my son. And the coach was very kind but direct. He said, "Your son is too small. It was a matter of safety for him and it was a matter of fairness to the other players who should not have to worry about hurting much smaller boys. The coach made the right decision about my sons. Now we're looking at athletes, some of who've been through male puberty and are bigger, stronger, faster than girls. And yet they still want to compete against girls. They cannot compete. It's a matter of fairness to all the girls. It's about the children. It's about the girls. And in some sports, it's a matter of physical safety to the girls. And when someone gets seriously hurt, it'll be a massive legal liability to this
047school district. And it would happen also in direct violation of the federal law, Title 9. So again, just because a child wants to play a sport, it doesn't mean they can't. And that's okay. It's okay to tell a child that. And just because a parent says their child is a girl, it may not mean they are. They have to prove it. Prove it in a medical. Every athlete Every athlete has a medical exam and it can be easily done. But nothing can escape its nature. My daughter's a sprinter in sixth grade, seventh grade, and eighth grade. She was undefeated in her league. It gave her awesome confidence going into high school. Never lost a race. A lot were photo finishes. Any boy on that track would have beaten her soundly in every race. So, let's
048keep girls sports for girls. Let's keep the boys out. That's the purpose of Title N. That's the law. That's what's fair. That's what's safe. Thank you to the board for your attention to this. Our next speaker is Shannon Medcock. Shannon is speaking on behalf of a group. So, it's five minutes. Uh after Shannon, we have Laura Hois or Heis. Good evening and welcome. Good evening. Thank you. It's great to be here. Uh I wanted to uh yes introduce myself first. Shannon Adcock, founder and president of Awake Illinois. For the record, I am not slithering anywhere. I am going to be firmly planted in my role to advocate for all children. It's that simple. It doesn't matter how many lies are spewed, how many terrible, cruel, horrible, hateful things are said. We're going to win this
049for all of these children. Debating the trans cult. Not worth my time. Superintendent Bridges. Not worth my time. Uh, we are going to protect these children and Title 9 will reign supreme. Federal supremacy exists. It doesn't matter how many times people hope and wish a certain state statute can overrule federal law. It cannot. So my shirt says XXXY Athletics. This is a very popular brand right now because most of America agrees that girls sports should be protected. So misinformation. So people can be very frustrated. This is a very passionate subject. But I am not going to stop speaking. So you know keep name calling all you want. But the federal administration is paying attention and today they actually announced that in celebration of 53 years of Title 9, they are declaring June to be Title
0509 month. So this is going to be a big story. People are going to continue talking about this and I think that it's important to keep the topic alive with the facts. Federal law reigns supreme. President Clinton was for Title N. Obama was for Title N. This has been going on for 53 years. Only recently have trans cultists tried to contest it. So, boy sports, girl sports, it is that simple. We're not going to come up here and spew random facts to try and sound smart and make it seem like we're super hyper educated. It is basic biology. It is basic sports. June is Title N month. Get used to it, you guys. The last speaker at the last meeting, he said Title N is coming, folks. He's absolutely right. Blue states are going to
051get relief. You think that somehow you're going to be some type of haven for mental illness or fetish? Not true. Title N will reign supreme. No disrespect. On behalf Oh, disrespect. Are we going to debate disrespect tonight? Audience, please stop. The only time I encounter disrespect is when I come into rooms to speak for children. This is the trans cult in action. And it's fascinating to think that any of these remarks and the slithering comments, all these things are going to stop me. No. No. On behalf of Awake Illinois, I'm Shannon Adcock and we cannot be cancelled. Thank you. [Music] Our next speaker is Laura Heis. Hoist. Heist. It's Hoist. Thank you. Sorry. Uh uh Laura will be followed by Jason Copeland. Uh Laura, good evening and welcome. Yes. Thank you. I'm a Neapville Central
052graduate from 1976. At that time, my name was Laura Gardner and I competed in girls sports. I have two adult now adult daughters who had the pleasure and joy of excelling in women's sports at Downer's Grove South High School. Uh one in tennis and one in bad mitten and it did uh create great confidence for them. It united our family around what then was a fair playing field. I think it's terribly sad and tragic that today this district 203 is allowing boys to intrude in girls sports. I firmly believe and I am I should say the coach the co-chair of the Downers Grove chapter of Awake Illinois that there are two sexes male and female and it is wrong to allow biological males to compete in girls sports. boys are boys and pretending that they
053are girls is is a lie. It's a delusion. It is not what is real because their sex is immutable. And very few cases that's that's the ca in very limited cases that is that is what is true. And boys should not be permitted to intrude upon girls private spaces including bathrooms and locker rooms. Yet that's happening all over the state. It has been codified into law and the Illinois Humans Rights Act has an exemption under section 5103 that exempts private spaces from the anti-discrimination against sexual orientation and gender. So I call that to your attention and yes we do need to follow the law but what's happening in this district it to the extent this continues to be permitted district 203 is subjecting itself to liability for violation of girls constitutional rights for violation of
054civil rights laws for violation of title 9 and violation of common sense. It's even worse when people in authority, whether they are family members or parents, abide by the trans individual's claim that they are a person of the opposite sex when they truly are not. It's bad for the girls when we talk about sports whose only chance to win in many cases is just destroyed. And for what? To take that away from her. What about her rights? she has rights too that and trans people's person's rights should not supersede the rights of the individual female athlete. It's also bad for the trans person who is acting under this false pretense and not telling the truth and seeking to gain an advantage in a sport that belongs to girls. So if you allow that that you
055are you what you're actually doing is you're subordinating girls right Our next speaker is Jason Copeland. Jason will be followed by Patty Dugan. Good evening and welcome. Good evening. Thank you. My name is Jason Copeland. I have two kids in District 203. And I'm here today to ask the board and Superintendent Bridges to follow federal law and to take action to ensure participation in female sports divisions is exclusive to females. Female sports divisions in Title 9 don't exist to accommodate how anybody feels or to give males more opportunities in sports. They exist to provide equal opportunity based on biological differences between males and females. Differences which start becoming more apparent starting with puberty, something district 203 students learn in fourth grade. So, a new twist on an old game show. I ask you, are you
056smarter smarter than a fourth grader? Gender dysphoria is a challenge kids of both sexes uh experience and understandably the kids want to participate in sports which they still can. Nothing prevents a male with gender dysphoria from participating in male sports divisions or female with gender dysphoria from participating in female sports divisions. But by allowing males in female divisions, the only people denied participation or proper placement in any way are the females who lose opportunities and earned recognition. This is an undeniable fact. It's also unacceptable to an overwhelming majority of the population. This is not an issue split along political ideological lines. A New York Times poll in February found 79% of people surveyed object to males participating in female sports. Yes, 79% know that 2 plus two does not equal five, no matter how much
057you try to tell us that. Have you noticed how when these discussions pop up, it's always about a male's performance in a female sports division? Why aren't we hearing about females with gender dysphoria beating out their male counterparts, taking their spots on teams, breaking their records? Is it because there's a lower propensity of females with gender dysphoria to participate in sports? They're not as athletic, or is it because they're built differently from birth and not able to compete at the same level? Why is there a WNBA, LPGA, women's professional, soccer, boxing, softball, hockey, and why aren't males participating in these sports? The answer is always the same, and it has nothing to do with how someone identifies. It has to do with how humans are made as a male or a female and how to
058create fair competition for people to account for the inherent biological differences. You all need to ask a lot more parents. You need to talk to the young females impacted by this. Thank you. [Music] [Applause] Our next speaker is Patty Dugan. Patty will be followed by Jane Bugamman. Good evening and welcome. Hi. Thank you so much. Um I really do appreciate you guys. as a former 10-year Neapville resident and both of my children going through the um 203 system, uh primary school, junior high, and high school. Um while we were here back then, this was several years ago, um how proud we were and are of the school district for not allowing the stuff that is happening to this child. I'm going to speak to this child and what some of these folks have done because
059it's not all of them. It is some of them. Um I was listening in the back um while people were saying, "Well, why is it that they want to commit suicide?" People making comments, what's the reason for them wanting to commit suicide? I'm going to be very honest with you. you need to take a look at Awake Illinois's website and those are the reasons why these children are committing suicide and with parents that are teaching their children and this is not the first time this has happened. This has gone on in our country for multiple years. Similar groups of people that and I am a Christian. I am a very proud Christian that loves all of my brothers and sisters, no matter who they are, where they come from, what they look like, and what
060gender they aspouse to be. We know that there are plenty of folks that were born with X and Y chromosomes. That's a fact. the fact that we have done what we have done to this child and I'm speaking to awake Illinois. The shame is on all of you because for those of you who didn't disrespect that child, for those of you that didn't stand up for that child, the shame is all on you. At the end of the day, I'm gonna say a prayer for that junior high student that was so completely and utterly disrespected by the folks that call themselves adults. If we want respect, we must first give respect. And that is to everyone. Like my brother Peter said, there is a nuance to all of this. and we should be having adult
061conversations in a roundt discussion and figure out in the ways that we should go. But the fact of the matter is is that what you did, Miss President, and what you are allowing to be put on your website is 100% disrespectful and it is despicable and that young child should never have had to have seen any of that. Thank you so much for your time and we appreciate you guys being the best school district out here. Continue to keep protecting all of your students. Our next speaker is Jane Bugerman. Jane will be followed by Colleen Meerscow. Hi, good evening and welcome. Thank you for your service to our district. I see some new faces out there. um and for the opportunity to speak. I'm a 38-year District 203 homeowner, taxpayer, and well-informed voter. I also
062taught young people for 36 years, and I've seen how earnest they are in their efforts to find themselves and be themselves. The board, administration, and staff has steadfastly supported the decision to support the track event decision for good reason. A student's well-being and dignity are involved. Have those threatening the loss of federal funding thought this through? I'm going to take it in a slightly different direction for just a second because we've heard some wonderful speakers so far. I wonder if funding cuts that are being threatened, if people think about the cuts and services for students that would have to be made, such as fewer teachers assistance, library assistance, music and arts programs, afterchool enrichment activities, extracurricular sports, along with compromised improvements in facilities, and what would even be more badly needed, social and counseling. ling
063help. Ask any realtor. Families buy homes in Neapville because of our quality schools. Real estate values stay strong for that reason. And I doubt that any potential home buyers will avoid Neapville because transgender youth are safe here. The throughout history though, big changes have taken time. It's taken centuries for our country to recover from the travesties of slavery and the near genocide of indigenous people. And we're still not there. Women have only been allowed to vote since 1920. That was after a 60 plus year suffrage movement. Same-sex marriage has only been legal for 10 years. And already that fight is in jeopardy in some states. So I have this to say to everyone here. Be kind. Be empathetic and be patient. This will take time. It's a huge change. But all most of all, let
064no more harm be done. Thank you. [Applause] Our next speaker is Colleen Myerskow. Colleen will be followed by James Kazmik Kachame. Good evening and welcome. Thank you. Um I'm Colleen Myers, parent of a 203 student for one more year. Proud to say I myself went to Maple Brook all the way up to Central. Um go Central. I am an ally and I wanted to add my voice to support the students, especially the marginalized ones. And thank you to the school board for supporting all of our students, including the transgender kids, and allowing us to speak in support of them as well. Most of us care about all the kids. I see so many of these kids accepted by their fellow students and involved in a lot of activities at our schools, all of our schools.
065This is a tough topic. There are no easy answers. No matter what some people might think, hormones and chromosomes are not so cut and dry. Being open to all the free information out there on the subject is really helpful. As many people have already said, the biggest issue is grown adults having no problem attacking children and sharing their picture and videos and personal information. This is not okay. Why would they do that? This isn't a game. This is kids lives we're talking about. You don't get to tell someone who they are. They have rights, at least in this state. If you don't like it, maybe move to another one. Also, just FYI to asleep Illinois public schools are not going anywhere. Neither is diversity, equity, and inclusion. No matter how much you might hope to
066change that. [Applause] Our next speaker is James Katchmarik. James will be followed by Shannon Lane. Good evening and welcome. Hi, thank you for your time. I was sleeping in the other room. Uh there were there have been a lot of great speakers so far and then there's been some speakers that have baffled me. When I was very young, I listened to the Beatles a lot and then the flip side of Lady Madonna is a song called The Inner Light where some of the lyrics is the farther one travels the less one knows. And so every single morning I wake up and I realize how dumb I really am. And that was a very very worthwhile lesson to learn. Bob Dylan of course said it. I was so much older than I'm younger than that now.
067And as a life I was an educator for 30 years in Chicago Boa schools. I uh have not taught in Neighborville. Uh but I have uh I think I clinked a band here in Neighborville. I was a music teacher and I'm still a musician. Uh, but what I've heard here tonight are people that are sure that they know things that they learned in eighth grade, XXXY is just simply not true. Most of the time it is, but the thousands of kids I taught, all you have to do is open your eyes to see that there's diversity. And all you have to do is feel with your heart that there are different people that see things differently and feel things differently and know it's not a cult because a cult is taught like hate is taught.
068Children are the children I taught did not hate from themselves. They they repeated things that they heard from their parents. And so the hate that I see directed at this young child makes me want to cry because so I hear a lot of I me mine I me mine I me mine about one student somehow destroying the district's athletics. I don't get it. I don't get it about being 6,127 as a part of 6,128. I don't care. I care that we love each other. I care that my parents taught me that we're supposed to be on this earth to help one another, to lift one another up. And I believe that the school board here has been doing that up until this time. Now, in World War II, I was interested in making model airplanes.
069And I loved World War II airplanes. But then when I learned what happened in World War II, I found that the trans people were the ones who were attacked first. So this is Nazi stuff. That famous book burning picture is of a clinic that researched gender and they said there were about 60 genders. When the people landed in America, many Native American tribes had no concept of gender. People lived the way the way they were. It was the Thank you very Our next speaker is Shannon Lane. Shannon will be followed by John Higgins. Good evening and welcome. Good evening. My name is Shannon Lane. I'm a resident of Neapville and of District 203. I am also a licensed clinical social worker and a therapist at Partners and Pride Wellness Center that specifically sees LGBTQ individuals
070and their family. I am also transgender. I am thankful to District 203, the board as well as the teachers, administrators, and staff. I am proud of the way that you've made school this school safe for all students, including transgender students. I am appalled that people from awake Illinois have taken it have taken to attacking the school system and advocating that the school lose funding if they don't comply with their wishes. I don't understand this thinking as it will harm all students in the school district. I am also disgusted that these adults would post pictures of a minor especially one that is not their personal relative or has anything to do with them. This move has put this child and their family at risk for violence. It is shameful that people in this community have been
071bullying this teenage girl and saying such hateful things. Transgender students just want to play sports and be affirmed for who they are and in the body that they know themselves to be. Sports participate. Sports participation is related to higher levels of self-esteem, lower rates of depression, and greater school belonging. When students cannot be comfortable to be themselves at school or anywhere for that fact, they cannot develop and learn like other students. If you don't feel accepted or have to hide something fundamental about yourself or are scared at every step you take, you obviously won't be fully present and immersed in learning. We are then putting these students at a disadvantage. Not allowing transgender kids some agency to be themselves and participate fully as they are is damaging to their mental health. a speaker earlier brought
072up gender dysphoria and I want to clarify that gender dysphoria is is actually a distress that one experiences due to a mismatch between one's gender identity and their sex assigned at birth. This distress could be avoided in the schools by allowing kids just to be able to be themselves. And transgender students are more at risk for depression, anxiety, and suicide. Our schools are rich with opportunities for all students to explore and develop themselves on and off the field. Let's continue to provide safety in school so that our children who are are most vulnerable can blossom and grow with all the opportunities including in sports that the other kids have. Thank you. [Applause] Our next speaker is John Higgins. John will be followed by Bobcia Scrazina. Sorry. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you everybody. Uh you
073know a lot of people have said a lot of things I'm going to say. I'm going to try and skip ahead as much as I can. You know the important thing tonight I want to talk about is why is Awake here? Awake is not here to protect your kids. No matter what you think, that's not why they're here. And you don't have to believe me because they showed their great blatant profitizing by showing all their wonderful t-shirts, you know, and their marketing. That's how they make money because they want to basically get on Fox News and make money that way. But when you're not employed photographer, you got to make money somewhere. So, you know, that's okay. Uh, you know, they basically say they want they want to protect kids. Now, these are the same
074people that had a familyfriendly gun giveaway. Because you know, guns only the biggest killer of our children in this nation. I find that ironic. Like these are the same people that they say that guns don't kill kids, but books and rainbows will make them gay. Really, what they do is they're attacking. What I really don't like is they attack our teachers and our LGBTQ supporters. And they say, "This is a national cabal of teachers and unions, and it's a na neo-Marxist trans cult." And they're there creating a national play to go find all the unique and susceptible kids. And they're going to find them and they're going to take them in the back room and they're going to make them apply queer theory and make them gay and transump. And they're going to say it's
075parental rights. You're attacking parental rights. Ladies and gentlemen, I can't get my school nurse to give my kid a cough drop without three signed forms. and they say we're taking our kids back in somewhere doing sex changes on them in the back room. Give me a break. No, but why do they do it? Why do they blow this issue up? Look, there's legitimate fairness issues that I understand people have. I have a daughter. I have two kids in this school system and I understand what people may think about, you know, uh having the physical differences in the fear that can cause. And there are better ways for us to discuss it and deal with that. And I'm happy to do that, right? But no cares about this. In their view of Christianity, everything is created
076by God. The kids are created by God. All your rights are from God. And so therefore, there must be an enemy for LGBTQ creation. You, teacher, somebody else, they are the cause of this because otherwise the alternative is unfathomable that God made them this way. And that is just simply unfathomable. So that can't be. And so who would choose this life? Somebody said, who would choose to be doxed, attacked, granted? Look at what happened in Carpentersville a few weeks ago. A couple weeks ago, kid had short hair, walked into a bathroom, got beaten senseless because somebody thought they were trans. This is the atmosphere that they create. They don't care about protecting your kids. They don't. They I can show you one thing from her website just this past week, and I quote, "The ultimate
077goal is lowering the age of consent to normalize pedophilia." To which the president of Wake said, "I agree. They don't care about your kids. They care about their own grift time. Our next speaker will be Bob Scrazinia and Bob will be followed by Lily Favven. Good evening and welcome. Good evening. Thank you. I was going to speak on behalf of an organization tonight, but I feel this is something I want to say as a single parent of a trans daughter. Uh my child is not mentally ill. To begin gender affirming care, she had to speak to more health care professionals than probably anyone in this room ever has. Anyways, like like I said last time, I think this bears repeating. Awake Illinois has become quite emboldened by the election of a 34time convicted felon and
078adjudicated rapist and the fact that the head of the US Department of Education is Linda McMahon who herself is married to a rapist and who amongst many other things is credibly accused of human trafficking, sex trafficking, and the cover up of steroid use which led to at least one murder suicide. The fact that they saw these people take over and thought, "Finally, our voices will be heard should tell you all you need to know about them. The only way they could possibly make a strike against others was to wait for literal criminals to come to power." We've heard a lot of facts tonight, and facts are important. That's what schools are for. If only the classrooms across the way there weren't locked right now. The opposition and I could seek out a math room where
079they could learn facts about numbers and how none since November 5th, 2024 have resulted in anyone having anything close to a mandate. Then we could venture to an English classroom and get a crash course on pronouns just for fun. Next, a history classroom to learn about what the founding fathers actually said regarding a country was still in its infancy. and then flip forward a few hundred years and learn about Stonewall. If we have time, we can look up what it actually means in a historical sense to be woke. Lastly, we can visit a science classroom. And this would be the most important and most fun for me. Stop on a field trip. There we'll see that gender is at its base a social construct and that sex is not a binary. With any luck, perhaps
080it'll finally click with some folks that we didn't learn everything we needed to know about one another in sixth grade science and that just because you graduate from school doesn't mean you have to stop learning. One last personal fact, uh, most trans kids know that they're trans between the ages of two uh, three and seven. Uh, my daughter knew around two and a half. She knew, I didn't. I often tell my kids that I'm not smarter than you. I just know different things. and the things that our kids know that we don't, those are the things that make all the difference and the ones we should really listen to. Thank you for your time. Our next speaker is Lily Favven. Uh Lily will be followed by Jenny George. Good evening. Welcome. Hello. Last September, I
081was struck in the head with a field hockey ball. I was rushed to the hospital downtown Chicago and received 77 stitches in my head. Luckily, I had no brain damage, just a minor concussion and lots of pain. However, as this issue starts becoming more of a reality, the question wonders into my head. What if it was a male who hit me in the head? Would I still be here today? Good morning, everyone. My name is Lily Flavin and I'm a sophomore here at Neapville North. I recently had a speech for my final in my honors journalism class about And it was a speech about a social ill that impacts people around us. And I chose something important to me. That's the impact of today's gender policies on the rights and safety of biological women. As
082conversations get louder, an important question is emerging. Are the rights and protections of biological women being unintentionally affected? Women have fought for generations to gain equal footing in society, and some women like me feel totally sidelined. Why we are all here today is because of the incident at my school at North that took place a couple weeks ago. As we all expected and know, this male who identifies as a female won by a significant margin. This outcome though is supported in policies from the IHSA and the Illinois Humans Right Act. This has reigns concerned among parents, athletes, and student athletes like me. While transgender individuals deserve respect and inclusion 100%, the reality is that the simple XXXY chromosomes can affect fairness and athletic ability. And it's just genetics. Genetics 101. The science is clear. While
083home therapy and transition related treatments reduce certain physical advantages, they don't fully eliminate the physiological differences between female and male bodies, particularly in areas like strength, endurance, and muscle mass. This is why many female athletes, including former University Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, have been brave enough to speak out. She says, and I quote, "Recognizing the biological differences between men and women is crucial to protecting women's sports." And what she says has gone completely down the drain. Hearing what people are arguing today, this isn't bullying. This isn't harassment. This isn't transphobic. What this is is undermining every effort by women and saying it's okay and saying it's fair. Yes, transgender people deserve rights. 100%. Every human life deserve rights. But where is the line drawn? Do you ever see a transgender person win or participate in
084male sports? No. Because they know what will happen. We know what will happen. And it proves my point that it's discriminatory towards women and women only. And it's completely unnoticed. Supporting transgender rights and protecting women's rights should not be seen as mutually exclusive. So I ask you board members, where will you draw the line to protect women's rights? Thank you. Our next speaker will be Jenny George. Jenny will be followed by Rachel Simner. Good evening and welcome. Thank you. Um, I was here two weeks ago and I mostly spoke about protecting female sports in this district, but tonight I want to focus on a potentially even more important issue and that's the issue of protecting the females in this district in locker rooms. I'm not sure if parents understand the district policy allows actually any
085male to enter any female locker room or bathroom at any time. There's no requirement that a student declare their gender identity to the school before they can use the facilities of the opposite sex. This applies to girls using male locker rooms as well. A male can enter a female locker room and all he has to do is say that he identifies as a female. The next day he can identify as a boy and use the male locker rooms. There are no guardrails to protect the privacy of students. I think most people understand that this is wrong and has the potential for significant harm. I also realize that it's possible that all of you sitting before me, board members, administrators, might truly believe in your heart that it is kind and just to put girls in
086this humiliating and dangerous situation. I have no way to know what lives in your hearts. But the good news is is there's actually a very easy way for you to prove that you believe girls and boys in this district should be forced to change undress in front of the opposite sex. I propose that after this meeting all of you walk next door to Neighborville Central, you go into the locker rooms together and you all undress in front of each other. What the hell's wrong with you? And maybe even take a shower together. Not together. Sorry, not together. in the locker room. The key is that you do it in front of each other since that's what you're requiring of our students. I'm sure you would never force our students to do something that you would
087not do yourselves. I realize that none of you are actually going to do this and I know it sounds ridiculous, but you have to understand that that is what you are doing to the girls and boys in this district. who are forcing them to undress in front of the opposite sex. And you can imagine how that must make some of these children feel. So I'm asking you, please fix this situation before school starts in August. There is a solution here that will protect all students and provide dignity to all students, including our transgender students. I know that some of you have daughters. I know you can put yourselves in the situation of how your daughters would feel in this situation. I'm just asking you to find a solution that will work for everyone and will
088protect the females and honestly the males in this district. No one should be forced to do this. Thank you. Our next speaker is Rachel Simner. Rachel will be followed by Laura Bibb. Reeb Reeb, I think. Bib Reeb. Good evening and welcome. Thank you. My name is Rachel Simner. I use she her pronouns. I've lived in Neapville for 20 years and have kids who attend District 203 schools. I have a simple comment. I'm here to thank the school board for following the law and for doing the right thing. I appreciate all that you do. Thank [Applause] you. Our next speaker, Laura Reeb. Okay. Good evening and welcome. Hi. Thank you. I was in the other room and didn't know what it was going to look like in here. Okay. Um, hi. My name is Laura Reeb.
089I use she her pronouns. I'm a proud alumni of District 203. I was in the first class that went through Scott Elementary School. I attended Madison Junior High and graduated from Neighborville Central, class of 91. Yay. Uh, my last name then was Stone, in case there's any former classmates in the house. Um, first I'd like to thank the school board for your long-standing commitment to uh creating a supportive environment for all children. And I'm here to ask you to hold strong. Uh, I know it's not going to be easy. I know this is scary. Um, they're threatening funding, property, your safety. Um, I just I'm asking that you not willfully give up your rights. Um, this lawsuit um has nothing to do with protecting girls. Uh, children grow and develop at different rates. Often junior
090high children whose sex assigned at birth was female are bigger and stronger than those assigned as male. Uh I think a lot of other speakers tonight have broughten up brought up all the differences in the way children grow and develop. Um to be clear, the lawsuit is about exclusion and erasing transgender people from our society. So I just want to ask you again to to stand strong and I'd like to thank Neapville as public schools and the school board for listening to us all. Uh I'm sure it's been a very long day for you. Uh I am thankful to have grown up in a wonderful community that supports all children uh growing them into thoughtful loving adults. Thanks for your time. [Applause] Okay. Uh this will conclude our public comment period. Um, I also want
091to acknowledge the public comments submitted by email. So, I want to ensure each public commenter, regardless of the format in which you've commented, your concerns have been heard by the board of education. Uh, as a reminder, because the questions raised in public comment address district operational matters. The board has designated our superintendent as a spokesperson for the district as our design to respond to public comment and he will apprise the board accordingly. Again, this will conclude our public comment period. No worries. Okay, we have reached the business portion of our meeting. As a reminder to the community, the board understands and has affirmed through our board agreements that is each individual's me individual member's responsibility to prepare for each meeting. Additionally, we understand that it is our individual responsibility to collectively communicate our concerns either
092to the superintendent or board president prior to any meeting in a timely manner. Board members have also agreed that avoiding no surprises is paramount in displaying respect for all district administration and the community. In the spirit of no surprises and in accordance with IASB best practices, the board has tasked itself to send questions in advance of each meeting to the superintendent. This practice allows the superintendent to provide the best possible answer for the community. Additionally, it allows for maximum efficiency during the community's meeting. Those same submitted questions may also be asked in open session along with new ones that may arise during discussions. If you ask a question, please state that if you sent that question ahead of time. Miss Patton, what time was the email sent to board members alerting us that board docs
093was loaded and ready for our review? An email with the link for the board agenda was sent and delivery confirmed at 3:31 p.m. on Thursday, May 29th, 2025 and no emails bounced back. Thank you. Mr. Bridges, did you receive questions from the board members in advance of tonight's meeting? Yes, from all seven board members. Okay, thank you very much. All right. Uh, next on our agenda is action by consent. I understand that I'm supposed to pull items 6.02, 6.03, 6.05, and 6.06. Is there anything else that anyone would like to pull from the agenda? I said six. Two, three, five, and six are being pulled. Okay. All right. All right. Well, I will take a motion for the remainder of the consent agenda. A motion to approve items 6.01, 6.04, 6.05, 6.07, 6.08. Did I
094get it? Not as presented. As presented, sorry. Thank you. Motion. Second. Motion and a second have been heard. Please call the role. Mrs. Patton. McMillan. I. Kazminski I Blastic I Kush I Girky I Kelly Black I Winski I Okay, the motion passes. Um item 6.02, treasur's bond. Oh, Alyssa, go ahead. Um I did send my questions ahead of time. Um, I was wondering, uh, do we bid out this to get the best rate and terms? Uh, the district uses an insurance broker who gets quotes on, uh, particular items for us. This would be one of them. It's not required to be bid uh, by Illinois public law. Do we and this may be also a question to my fellow board members. Um do we typically bid something like this like I I'm not aware of
095any school district bidding out through treasures bond. No no not on obviously it's law. I'm saying that I know that I guess I went down a rabbit hole of fiduciary duty as a board member and um one of the things the first thing listed legally is care and they you use the criteria that you would do what you would do as a normal citizen for your own well-being and I know when I get insurance I will bid it out and look at you know the different return rates because it because I believe to see what the term rates are and to see you know it varies obviously what the insurance rates you get. So that was why I was asking I wasn't questioning getting the treasury. Um and then along with I guess that's something
096we could discuss is whether we should bid these out um or even just have the reference. I would assume that the insurance broker is obviously that's you hire a broker so they get the best but they would have to collect information and it would just be helpful to have that passed along. Um again to fulfill that fiduciary duty. The other question I had about um and you're and I've said this and I keep requesting this so this now goes back probably to my other board members. Um, one of the things I've repeatedly asked for is if we have anything like this where we have to sign a contract and my understanding is that there are certain things that have to be agreed on. Contracts have to be approved by the board. So I've asked in
097the past that if we're have to vote on a contract that we actually get a copy of the agreement we're voting on. Can someone help me understand again using that fiduciary duty and reasonable care? I would not and I've been taught and I hope we're teaching our students to read contracts before I okay them. Can somebody explain to me why I don't think this is I think it's a reasonable request why and I'm not talking to the administration. And I would like to know from my fellow board members since this is a decision that's within our hands of because I've asked Mr. Bridges and Mr. Bridg's response has always been that there's been a practice that he will answer questions or provide information if a majority of the board members vote on it. So due
098to that, I'm asking my fellow board members if this is a reasonable request and can we have the contracts before we vote on them? Is there is there a contract that comes So all the paperwork that comes with this is actually loaded into board ducks. Okay. Contract is not in there under board docs and it just says in what was provided on board docs this and for you'll also notice for the other contracts we'll be voting on this evening that it says that we just are agreeing to allow the administration to fill out um pop paperwork. But again, I just think it's good practice, best practice as an individual to to model for our students how to be responsible to read the contract before we vote on it. Can we make an agreement to have
099contracts presented when we're voting on them? Superintendent Bridges, correct me if I'm wrong, all what I just asked you, uh, all of the forms that are associated with this are loaded into board. That's correct. So, so wait. So, every board member has the opportunity to review those. Is that accurate? That's correct. So, are you just to clarify because sometimes I feel like are you saying that the agreement we sign with the insurance company is in board docks? Because it most definitely is not. We have the paperwork to prevent to the regional office of education verifying we have it, but we do not have a contract of agreement. all of the necessary forms. I didn't ask if the necessary forms. Do we have the actual contract? I'm telling you, you have what we have. Period. I
100can't create something that does not exist. And I want to clarify something that you said a minute ago, too, because I'm not going to let it go. I want to make sure that it's clear to the board and the community. I will answer any board member's questions. Where I require a majority of the board is when an individual board member wants to task or change practice or procedure. That can't be done as every one individual board member wants it. That has to come as a part of the board agreements from a majority of the board. I am telling the board the treasur's shity bond resolution, the treasur's shity bond renewal and the treasur's bond calculation form all required forms all necessary forms for the uh treasur's shity bond are loaded in board ducks have been
101publicly loaded in bordocks and available for review. I have no other information to share with the board this evening. I want to clarify a couple of things. I think we've spoken about this before and we've even spoken with IASB about this. Um it is the superintendent responsibility to provide information and what I've asked for is so that this is applied evenly and what was recommended by the IASB representative is that we as a a board decide set criteria the certain amount of time it would take to gather the information. Now this is so I have that that's one that we need to have a written I don't want to keep arguing the same thing that we have a written criteria that this isn't applied arbitrarily but going back to there not being a contract how
102are we engaging in work being done for a set price and we don't have is it that there okay maybe this is a better way to ask it is it that there's no contract that exists Or is it are you just simply saying you don't know where this contract is like? No, I have answered your question. There is no contract that exists. Mr. Francis, would you explain what a treasured shy bond is and what the purpose of it is? I understand that Mr. No, I I find that very condescending and not very appropriate for the culture. Can Can we ask Mr. Francis, who's our who's our expert on this, to answer the question that Mr. Bridges is asking, please? Thank you. Thank you. The treasury bond is required for all uh Illinois school districts to
103adopt on an annual basis to ensure the treasurer I'm the treasur has to be bonded. Uh there's a specific amount that the treasure has to be bonded for that's stated in statute. This is one of the things that our district along with Indian Prairie. If you recall for the board members that have been here a few years ago, we had specifically we had legislation changed to have this amount um more codified into law at at this 10% level. Um and this is I think this is the third year in a row that we've uh we've executed under that new new language of the of the of the shity bond. Uh this is a common thing that happens. We have to get the paperwork to the roe by I believe it's uh June 10th that we
104are bonded by for the start of the for the start of the fiscal year that protects the district against any treasurer malfeasants or misre you know misrepresentation of district funds. Um I understand that I actually have the statutes in the legislation right here and I understand because of class one I understand the formula and you did provide that. So, thank you very much. Um, and I understand this is the paper paperwork that we have to legally submit to the ROE. Um, I guess my question is I don't know any agreement with an insurance company that you would engage in an exchange money and not have an actual contract. So, are you saying that we do not sign anything else with the insurance company? This is all the paperwork that's needed. This is all the paperwork
105that's needed for this event. There's no no other contract that I signed or was was given to enter into on behalf of the school board that you're not seeing. Okay. Um if there is some written documentation or whatever that you'd like to provide, we can receive that and take a look at it. But it doesn't sound like it sounds like the question that you asked was that is everything loaded in as far as what u Mr. Francis and Mr. Bridges are telling us it's in there. So I will entertain a motion. Motion to approve item 6.02 charters bond as presented. Second. Motion second have been heard. Please call the role. Mrs. Patton Kush I. Kelly Black I. Blastic I. Winski I Cosminski. McMillan. Hi. Gerky I. The motion passes. Item 6.03 beverage contract. Questions from
106the board. Mark. Thank you, Charles. Um, I just want to say uh thank you uh to uh Melanie Brown and Chuck Freint. I I don't think they're they're here right now. uh but in the response uh to one of the questions concerning the contract was is this going to uh enable us to uh continue with the progress that we we want to make on the carbon action plan and the response was yes. Uh so I'm very happy to hear that and I think for the benefit of uh some of the folks in the community uh Melanie and Chuck as well as two students did participate in a meeting two weeks ago uh with the Neapville Environmental Sustainability Task Force uh where they presented the carbon action plan. And I'm sorry I I missed the fact
107that they did have two students with them as well. Um, but it was a uh really great opportunity for our community to hear uh from Melanie and Chuck and the two students about the tremendous work that was done on the carbon action plan. And I think it uh the folks that attended were very excited to hear that. So, I just wanted to take a second and and thank both of them uh for making sure that one, the community is hearing about what the school district is doing with the carbon action plan and and secondly, it's good to hear that as we are continuing forward with contracts and other initiatives, we are con including the uh lens of how is this going to impact the carbon action plan. So, I just wanted to call that out.
108Thank you. Other questions from the board? Oh, Melissa. Hi. Um, thank you for the information you provided with the three different I want to thank the people that did do the work on this and we did get a review of three different bids. Um there were differences here and there, but um one of the things that I saw that might have led us to choose the uh PepsiCo one uh agreement was the SP the sponsorship fee of two 20,000 annually, the vending commission product donations in athletic sideline kits, which I looked up are just Gatorade kits. My question with this is how as a district that we get these these perks, how are they distributed? How do we find out? Like for example, if you get a kit of Gatorade, how how do we know
109who that goes to? Those kits actually are used by our athletic department. So the Gatorade kits include things like coolers and water bottles and things of that nature. So our athletic trainers have those on hand for our student athletes when they're using them during competition. So, so it would be available to all athletes or all people participating in all sports. It wouldn't go to like one team over No, it goes to the high school athletic department. Okay. Thank you. Other questions from the board? I actually had a question and I did send this one ahead. Um, just trying to understand a little bit because since this was u an RFP as opposed to a bid. My question was, how did the different factors weigh in? Because there was the there's the vending price, then there's
110the case price, and then there's the and so and as you look at the three different biders, they were a little bit all not all over the place, but in some instances, the case price was higher, but yeah. And then then the vending cost was lower. Can you help me understand how all the puts and takes factored into this? Um Mike, myself, Tracy conferred with the high school administration and really this was the recommendation of the of the building administration from both North and Central high schools based on what they see in terms of vending, what they see going out through organic life in the cafeterias. Um they felt that the lower price point would be attractive and they also were very interested in Gatorade products as well. So they I think they were more
111in favor of the product line that PepsiCo offered uh to our students. Okay. Thank you, Melissa. I have another Is there a contract associated with this renewal? The agreement is in board docs. So, you have the the Pepsi uh package is 50some pages. I have I think we have their proposal, not their actual contract. Uh, we will get something to sign with Pepsi. Can we again renew my request that we have the contracts available to us to review before we vote? We do not have that contract yet. Um, doesn't it start starts July 1st and we still don't have the contract? Is that would Why would that be? Um, we just let I I believe it's because we just recently let Pepsi know that they were the one we were recommending and they would begin
112working on a contract that met the terms of what they proposed that's in Bordox. We will make sure that the contract that we sign that the board, if the board so approves that tonight, will match the terms of the proposal that they proposed in the RFP. I'd just like to again say that I'm not comfortable signing for contracts before there's a contract. Um I would like I think again defer to my fellow board members as far as I think that's a reasonable request. I would say it would f fall under that fiduciary dairy care part of that would be if I can just really quickly in terms of making sure it's clear with the board on what the recommendation is as it indicates in board it is the authorization of the administration to uh execute
113the required documents. So essentially through this um the request for proposal process it is they present their presentation to us what their deal will be. The board then would authorize that administrative task to execute that contract. Your action then holds us to the accountability of ensuring that it meets the contract of what we said would happen. So that's how this process works. And so your action tonight will basically direct us to execute a contract with the um the awarded bid or proposal uh in alignment with what was proposed and presented to you this evening. Amanda, if I may answer Melissa's question, I've been thinking about my response to that and as a person who deals with contracts in a different capacity, but quite a bit. I my opinion is that most contracts are kind of
114legally shells. What's most important are the scopes of service, right? where we outline specifically what would be delivered and um what which would be outlined in the proposal, right? And then also the breakdown of the budget and the cost and the timeline. Um so that's what's most important to me for fiduciary duties and that's why I'm not making the same request as Melissa and why I feel like comfortable continuing to support the recommendation. But I just wanted to share from my perspective why um I trust the administration to be able to look at like the exit clauses and things like that that legally is um so I'm comfortable with this uh process myself. Thank you. Uh Joe. Yeah. In the uh proposal document, it looks like pages 6 through 18 give a signed in many
115places and notorized in in several places uh proposal um that the contract would be based on. Uh with this level of uh detail um you know I'm comfortable uh going ahead with a vote on this proposal. Christine, in in looking at any of these um different proposals, I I think it's worth a reminder to the community that it almost always states that we're we're looking at the recommendation and part of our vote is authorizing administration to take care of the ne necessary paperwork. The the board of education, at least in my time here, we don't fill out the forms. We make sure that the forms not even we don't even make sure the forms I would say we look at the proposals um and we um we evaluate it from that viewpoint. Um that's administration's
116job is to again it it's in my mind a basic governance issue is we're looking at how well the district is being run and I think with a lot of these contracts they're meeting the legal requirements. We have at least in my experience no reason to believe that administration is not filling out proper forms and reading through contracts and making sure that what the board approved is exactly what's going to be spelled out. So, I'm comfortable with how we've been working um at least in my eight years here. So, just give me a second. Um so, I um in keeping with a lot of what my colleagues have just said, um also understanding and Amanda, thank you for your comments. My comments probably echo yours the most in that in that um for me from
117a contract perspective it's what is it that you're getting? What is it you're asking for? You know what are the the terms and the specific actual documentation that forms the contract? As long as the terms that are already have already been agreed upon are met, I'm uh comfortable as well um moving forward and trusting administration to execute what it is that um we said that we're going to get based on the um the terms outlined by the the bidder. Melissa. Yeah. Again, I would go back to uh Illinois 1051 LCS 5/2-3.25 25 F-5 talks about the authority of the school board or the governing board and it talks about that ultimately and you'll notice even when you read our audit it's addressed to the school board members because we are ultimately responsible for the operations
118for for the financial management. We're on the hook. were the last ones. So this, if you read this clause, it talks about the procedures and provide powers, imposes restrictions to ensure the education integrity of public school districts. What it does is our job is to vote on contracts. That's our duty. Our duty is not to vote on the concept of a contract or what we think it will be. It's to vote on a contract. Just sign off on it. So, another thing we go back to is that it's our job to make sure what the terms and conditions actually are. So, I know that I don't know what our school board has traditionally done. I'm talking about the laws and requirements. And again, I go back to if it's my fiduciary duty to okay contracts,
119I want to see the contract. I don't want to know what might what supposed to be in it because I'm on the hook for it. We're supposed to be the last stop. Okay. Other comments? Oh, Mark, please. Yeah, I just I just kind of want to share my point of view on this. Um I I think with the information that we have on board docs, we know the dollars that are involved. We know what the key terms are. We know the duration of this contract. Um, I I think we we have the gist of of what is expected for the district to now contract with with Pepsi. Um, I don't think I need to see the contract. I am relying on the administration um and and their experts to now work out all the details.
120Uh but the question for me is do do I am I comfortable enough with the information that has been provided to feel comfortable that this is a good decision for the district which which I do. So I I think there there may be some differences here in terms of what we need to be comfortable. Uh but I also know as a practical matter that you know contracts take on a life of their own and and they don't necessarily get ready for every uh for the second and uh I'm sorry the first and third Tuesday Monday of every month. Um, but I again I think if I know what the district is has agreed to with Pepsi and I'm comfortable with that and now they're going to execute that contract, I'm I'm very comfortable with that
121approach. Holly. Yeah, I didn't send anything ahead on this, but I I wanted to to chime in and um discuss how we have a very clear um signed, notorized, as Joe mentioned, um proposal here. And our task is to approve as a board, our administration, who we delegate this authority to um to go ahead and create that contract. this has been discussed and it's really if we're getting into the specifics of a contracting contracting that's for our legal counsel who we have faith and confidence in um and we have 70ome pages in detail of what is the the recommended proposal I am confident with the information that we have here and that we will have a contract that will match what we here are voting to authorize tonight. So, I'm very comfortable um with this
122practice and leaving the legal ease to our attorneys as a district um that we have all of the information um in this proposal to approve the recommendation and the work that's been done. Melissa, I think there may be two issues at hand here. Number one is whose legal responsibility is it to approve like to approve the contract? I think that I'm not sure that we as a school board can go over the Illinois school code and delegate that to administration because the school code's there. So we know there's no confusion just like we don't go into operations and there are some contracts we don't look at but when the law says that contracts over x amount or in certain circumstances have to be approved by the board I think that while we all want to
123be nice to one another this is business and we don't just as an attorney I'm sure you could see that contracts when it comes down to the word of law, it's what's in the contract, not what somebody said. So number one, if it's can we pass off this duty to administration, are we legally because we might think that are we legally entitled to do that? And number two, is it best practices to just have faith or is it trust and verify and say that's fine. I just want to see the contract. Maybe everyone doesn't want to read it. Maybe we have different people. But if I'm to approve, I'm my legal duty, my school board. People like to say that I skirt my schoolboard duty, but I am saying I want this has been delegated
124to us, not to administration. It's been delegated to us because we're ultimately responsible to the citizens. So I don't think we're entitled to delegate it to someone else. And all of this would really be a mute point. I think again just providing a contract that you're voting on would be a reasonable request. Even if others don't, I don't think we have the right to avoid our legal responsibilities and duties. Thank you, Superintendent Bridges. Yeah. I'd like to call the the board's attention and the community's attention to board of education policy 460 regarding purchases and contracts which is um a model policy from the Illinois Association of School Board's press policy service of which you just recently approved a resubmission of our membership in that which specifically calls out and is aligned to Illinois school code
125as well as several um you know financial acts like the prevailing wage act, grant accountability transport transparency act and several parts of the statute and some of what's in this the policy approved by the board of education uh are that the superintendent shall manage the district's purchases and contracts. It goes on to say all contracts shall be either approved or authorized by the board of education authorizing the superintendent or his staff then to execute such documents. We present to the board of education a notorized documented proposal that will serve as the basis of the contract. It will be in accordance with state law and board of education policy as established by the board. So we are following because a question was asked. We are following state law. We are following school board policy on this.
126So no more information to share on Mr. Bridges. So I understand. Okay. Go ahead. Having heard from all board members at least once, I would suggest that we either move forward with a vote or not. And you're more than welcome to vote whichever direction you please. It sounds like you've you're signaling that you're not comfortable. So fully understand that you've conveyed that. So I will entertain a motion if there is one. Motion to approve item 6.03 beverage contract as presented. Please call the role. Miss Patton. Gerie. I. Blastic. I Kazminski. I Kush. I Winsky. I McMillan. Hi. Kelly Black. Nay. The motion passes. Item on I lost my piece of paper. 6.05 I believe is the one we're on now. Yeah. Thank you, Charles. Um I had asked the question in advance, but um I
127just want to get a little clarification. This concerns the interests that we keep in the fund balances. that uh enables us to determine if needed in the future that we can reallocate that that interest. Can can you uh uh Mike just give a give me an idea of how much interest is in the fund balances as of the end of 2024 or whatever year you Yeah. The the interest is posted on an annual basis. We don't keep a running total of the of the fund balance. How much is interest? This is specifically uh again we've we passed this resolution on an annual basis to just because of the a law change back in 2009 that said uh any interest earned during the school year would then become part of that fund's principal. And this would
128allow the board of this board of education or a future board of education to designate any interest that's um earned this year to be able to transfer into another fund uh that's in need. For instance, a year ago at this time, we transferred uh dollars from the education fund, the operation maintenance fund, and the working cash fund into the capital projects fund for a variety of projects had to do with connections uh addition at ranch view and uh the work in neighborville north. Now, was that all interest? No. Um do we keep track of it that way? No. But a large portion of that could be attributable to interest and it's a way to um our auditors also need it. So when they look at the transfer they can verify that any transfers we do
129in the now or in the future if we designated and said this part of this is interest that we had this resolution on file to be able to do that. And can you can you move the principal balance from one fund to a different fund if necessary? So that I'm just I want to make sure I understand this right. There are there are very um there are restrictions as to what funds you can transfer between and for what purposes and sometimes you need a public hearing and and such but yes you can. Okay. So there from a accounting perspective there's basically no difference then between the principal and the interest and we should look at it as that balance if we needed to in the future and if we choose to do so we can
130go through the right process to move the balance which would be inclusive of principle and interest. That's correct. then there would be no uh there would be no u objection or someone would say you can't do that because it's this here this resolution is saying that their their interest is subject to be transferred to the fund based on the board's another something would have to be brought to the board to do that to transfer it in the future but it would it would allow that process to happen. Got it. Thank you, Melissa. Yes. I had a question. I uh as far as you were talking about the transfer we did last year, but I was wondering okay if we approve this does that money do we have to do we have a time frame in
131which we have to designate or move it? Uh we do not but we do pass this if you look back in board docs on an annual basis we typically pass this resolution on an annual basis for that year's interest designated in the same capacity that we're doing it now and we've had to do this since the law was changed in 2008 2009 again this is something that's common that most school districts adopt this sort of resolution for the same purpose that I'm stating And I know that I'm repeating myself. I just want confirmation is so this would not be something that we have to resolve because we have the approval coming up at the next board meeting of the budget. So this would not again we don't have to there's no time limit on when
132we have to allocate this these funds. We're not allocating anything. Oh well, I'm sorry. I might be using the wrong terms. Um that we have to move it. Where does it does it where does it sit? Maybe explain that to me a little. The interest is allocated on a monthly basis to a variety of funds mostly based on the percentage of the tax levy that goes into each of those funds. That's the typical way we we allocate interest on a monthly basis. Uh then the the constru uh the site and construction or the capital projects fund also has earns its own interest because it doesn't get any tax money but it has a balance. So we have a process in the business office to monthly allocate interest. Thank you for sharing that because I was
133going over um how we talked about that that we have to report to the state and what you asked your question in that format. I went through the computer the format that we have to turn in for the budget to the state. Um I noticed that it has that in there. So this interest is tied to tax levy money. So it's allocated to certain areas. It again it's mainly tied to tax levy money except for the capital projects fund and then it said in there that you had to have whatever it was levied for. So I'm I'm not sure what you're referring to. Okay. Then maybe I just So if this money is from interest from a tax levy does it have to stay within that fund it was it's it's not necessarily interest from
134the tax levy. It's the it's the allocation method that's approved that this school this school district has always um followed that is also um have been reviewed by our auditors and how we allocate monthly interest. We base it on the tax levy. It's not just tax levy um dollars because a lot of it is fund balance that has been uh built up and invested in over a multi-year period. So what's the process for deciding how much goes to each fund? That's it's it's based on the percentage of the the tax levy. So the education fund would get the majority of the interest because they the m the education fund is the majority of the tax levy. Okay. All right. Thank you for taking your time to explain that to me. Other questions? I'll entertain a
135motion. I move approval of item uh 6.05 resolution designating interest earnings. Second. Motion and a second have been heard. Please call the role. Mrs. Patton. McMillan. I. Blastic. I. Gerie. I. Winsky. I. Kelly Black. I. Kush. I. Kusminsky. I. The motion passes. Item 6.06 out of country field trips. Yeah. Unfortunately, we didn't catch some uh incorrect information that was in here. So, we're going to ask you uh vote to table uh 6.06. Work with the staff at the high schools to get the correct information and bring it back to you at the next meeting. Okay. Motion to table item 6.06. Second. Motion and a second have been heard. Please call the role. Mrs. Mattton. Kelly Black. I. Kush. I. Blastic. I. McMillan. Hi. Kazminsky. I. Winsky. I. Gerie. I. The motion passes. All right. Item
136seven, uh, communications, board of education reports. Does anyone wish to give a brief update on something you've done in your official capacity as a board member as it relates to our committee assignments, unique events at our adopted schools, or select special district events? Amanda. All right. So, I wanted to provide an update uh for LEND, which is our um advocacy group around education in DuPage County. And uh as most people know, May is a really busy time for the legislature and they're legally required to pass a budget by the end of the month. And they did. And so, there's a highlight here of kind of how that the budget that was passed, how it affects K to2 education. Um, and just quickly over here, um, they did provide an additional $37 million to evidence-based funding,
137uh, but there was a reduction to the property tax relief fund. Um, early childhood was held flat, MCATs was held flat, um, special education transportation was held flat, um, vocational um, transportation was held flat. Illinois free lunch and breakfast was held flat. Um teacher vacancy grant program was a decrease of $15 million. Um career and technical education was an increase of 1.3 million. Um and after school programs an increase of 10 million. So there's uh more details there, but for the most part it's pretty level it seems like. Some good news is that uh we were able to move the dual credit uh program uh through both house and senate and I believe that's still waiting for the governor to sign to put that into law. But that's uh great progress. That's a big thing
138that we're advocating for. Thank you, Amanda. Anyone else have a board of education report? Okay. Item 7.02, president's report. Uh, I do not have a report this evening. Item 7.03, superintendent staff school report. Okay. I'm going to invite our presentation team to come up and thank Heather and Kelly for enduring um this meeting up to this point to give your update with Lisa. Um, but um, and acknowledge several of our NESPA friends who are sitting with us still to hear their colleagues. and one who surprised me who said she couldn't make it but all there she is. Look at that. Good to see you Inditi. Okay. U our collaboration with NASPA has been uh really uh this is a great example of work that has come out of our initiative around morale and really trying
139to you know listen to our our staff about areas that we could really work to support them better. Uh and one of the recommendations that came from our morale work was a system of support for our our NESPA employees and our educational support uh team. So, um, Lisa, Kelly, and Heather will share with you an update on what we've been doing. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Yikes. All right. Good evening. I'm Lisa. I'm the assistant superintendent for strategy and engagement. And I am thrilled to share that I am joined by Kelly Scotty, instructional assistant at BB and Heather Klespits, behavior support pair professional at Steeple Run Elementary. We are here tonight to share an exciting and crucial innovative project, the new educational support professionals systems of support launching in the fall of 2025. This project began with
140a suggestion from our staff morale collaborative design committee last school year. Our goal tonight is to provide you with information regarding the key components of this comprehensive program. Thank you. Uh which focuses on orientation, onboarding and ongoing learning for our new and returning educational support professionals. While orientation provides initial information and welcoming for new hires, onboarding focuses on deeper integration into the district's culture and specific role, while ongoing professional learning ensures continuous growth and adaptation to evolving needs for existing employees. Educational support professionals or ESPs play vital roles across Neighborville 203. This slide highlights the diverse array of positions that fall under the ESP umbrella. As you can see, this includes positions such as academic support pair professionals, accounts payable clerks, attendance specialists, classroom nurses, special education pair professionals, technology support associates, and many more.
141All absolutely essential to our district's functioning. Good evening. I'm Heather and according to the work institute, the average cost to replace an employee can be up to 33% of their annual salary, encompassing recruiting, hiring, training, and loss productivity during the transition period. The rationale behind implementing this robust system of support is deeply rooted in our commitment to being responsive to feedback and grounding our work in best practices for recruitment, retention, increased productivity, and staff morale. We recognize that investing in our educational support professionals directly impacts our district's success. We anticipate increased retention and productivity, improved recruitment of talented individuals, and ultimately an enhanced student experience. Highly trained and supported staff provide improved services to students. We also firmly believe this will lead to an improved staff experience as employees with positive onboarding experiences are 30
142times more likely to have a strong connection to their workplace. Additionally, this initiative directly addresses findings from our ESP morale survey data which identified that the absence of professional development and promotion pathways was a threat to overall staff morale. This aligns with the NES leadership's advocacy for the need for structured onboarding, mentorship, and professional learning for all ESPs. By addressing these identified areas, we aim to foster a more connected and supported workforce. A dedicated ESP onboarding committee comprised of 27 members listed on this slide has been instrumental in developing the system. Several of the committee members are in the audience tonight and we would like to ask them to please stand to be recognized. [Applause] This slide outlines the comprehension comprehensive process undertaken by the ESP committee. Their work has been a collaborative effort beginning
143in the 2324 school year with the identification of a need for orientation, onboarding, and professional learning. Since that time, over 400 collective hours have been spent building these systems of support. Last summer, the committee began identifying deficiencies in current practices and developing jobspecific learning needs. By fall of 2024, they developed job specific orientation plans to be delivered in a hybrid format and launched the ESP orientation website. This winter, the work expanded to include an onboarding and mentorship program to support newly hired ESPs along with identifying needs for ongoing professional learning for existing employees. The committee will continue its work on ongoing professional learning for implementation during the 2627 school year. Additionally, in collaboration with NESA leadership and human resources team, all ESP job descriptions are being updated to accurately reflect the current work in our
144schools. Hi, I'm Kelly Scotty. Thank you for listening to us this evening. The educational support professional systems of support is comprised of three components and is aligned with Napville 203's professional learning framework. The systems of support include orientation, onboarding, and ongoing professional learning. It is designed to build the skill sets of new and returning educational support professionals to generate effective employees who positively impact the district's environment. It involves job embedded authentic learning opportunities and emphasizes collaboration with experienced ESP mentors. The first component of the ESP systems of support includes an orientation process for new ESP employees. Each new hire will receive immediate access to virtual training and district information through a website designed by our committee. The newest ESP staff onboarding website is organized into key areas. Human resources, district procedures, technology training, and job
145specific training. Additionally, new hires will attend uh sorry, device deployment to receive critical training on the device and systems they will utilize in their roles. New ESPs hired before August 1st will also attend an in-person district orientation with human resources. Staff hired after August 1st will access the district's orientation in a virtual format. All new hires will receive an in-person building orientation when they begin their roles. The second component of our ESP systems of support includes a robust onboarding program for each new employee within an ESP role. A key element of the onboarding experience is the implementation of a mentorship program. Mentors will collaborate using guiding mentor handbook and a comprehensive training will be provided to all mentors. Mentors will make introductions with assigned mentees before the first day of employment and both mentors and
146mentees will engage in observations within with reflection during the course of their part partnership. The membership pro sorry the mentorship program will be differentiated for those new to the role and new to the district and those either new to their role or new to the district. There will also be ongoing job embed job embedded support. The piloting of the ESP mentorship program is slated for the 2526 school year with an initial goal of one mentor mentee team per site. Mentor pairings will be completed by the site supervisor at the hire date and begin in August or actual start date of the new employee. Pending the board of education vote on the fiscal year 26 budget, collaboration with NESPA leadership will determine the compensation rate for mentors. Mentors will receive a set rate for mentees new
147to their role and the district. A slightly different rate will be allocated for those new to the role or new to the district. Feedback from the pilot will be collected upon conclusion in order to guide the expansion of the membership program for the 2627 school year. The final component of the ESP systems of support is ongoing professional learning. Our current practice includes attending countywide institute day and a half-day on-site training the day before the school year begins. New this year is a required byianual training on student behavior expectations. We also want to be transparent about current ongoing professional learning challenges and the resounding desire to bridge existing gaps. Examples include training content not always matching all the unique roles ESPs perform, some roles having more access to training, and inconsistencies across sites. To that end,
148our future goals include annual jobspecific ongoing professional learning for each unique ESP role in our system with consistent implementation and expectations. Training on new instructional resources, updates on safety protocols, and technology tools and programs necessary for ESPs to effectively perform their duties are just a sample of ongoing learning support opportunities. A committee will develop a professional learning framework and implementation plan to commence in school year 2026-27. The initial budget for the pilot program is $15,000 which includes compensation for mentors to be determined in collaboration with NESPA leadership and hourly wages for mentees. Other first year expenses expenses such as Neighborville 203 swag and lunch at the orientation will be observed by other budgets after the pilot year. Total costs will also be determined in collaboration with NESPA leadership and will be impacted by the annual
149number of new hires. Additional costs beyond year one may be met by reallocating other funding. Thank you so much for your time this evening. We are confident this new educational support professional systems of support will significantly benefit our ESPs, our students, and the entire Neighborville 203 community. We also believe it is the first internal comprehensive support system of its kind in the area, and we are excited to learn from the mentorship pilot this school year. We are happy to answer any questions you have at this time. Questions from the board? Joe? Yeah, thank you for your presentation and I just want to commend you for your work uh on this. Um I think staff morale is one thing that we've looked at uh and have been concerned with uh for a long time on the
150board and um yeah having a program like this especially hearing that it's a very innovative program um is really exciting. um having you know that that expanded orientation the um the the mentoring aspect uh and uh going to job specific training I think will really uh help things. Uh I didn't send any uh uh questions ahead but a number uh one number really stood out uh that uh roughly a third of somebody's salary is what it takes to kind of replace uh someone who leaves. Um, so I mean if we're and I'm sure retention uh improved significantly in studies that that talk about um you know things like mentoring and and um uh expanded training. Um so you know being able to do this with $15,000 and you you retain a couple people and you've
151paid for this already. So, it's really uh I think a great thing um for the staff, but it's also really beneficial to the district financially. So, thank you. Thanks, Holly. Yeah, I just wanted to add to that because being new to the board, I heard feedback on this before I even joined the board and knowing our educational support professionals and the dedication and the energy and the passion you have coming to the job and people come in enthusiastic. um being able to start off with the tools for success. We talk about that for kids all the time, but giving our crucial staff those tools right from the start so they can jump right in and serve. It's a benefit for them, for us financially and to keep them, but also for our students. So, this
152is a wonderful thing to see and I was really excited to see it in board docs tonight. Thank you, Christine. Just more so a comment and I I sent this ahead to some degree. Um, I was really excited on the rationale slide to see number three and four, the third and fourth bullet points. Um, I think it's a testament to the collaboration between labor and management. Um, and especially mentioning the morale survey. Um I know it's often said that people get surveyed out but there per there there's purpose for them and sometimes we don't see the outcome as fast as we would like but this is an example of taking the survey taking that data having those conver ongoing conversations not just a one conversation but ongoing conversations and I think about um when we
153were uh board members participate in the district leadership um meetings every couple months like it's the listening and it's also like it says here NESPA leadership's advocacy so it's that two-way how do we work together and I was so excited to see this presentation in board docs the other day so I'm I'm cheering for this all the way and I can't wait to see how it's going because um uh as a as a former parent um I did see a very direct positive impact with support um professionals in my own students lives. So um I'm just I'm super excited about this and I'm so appreciative of the work. Thank you, Melissa. I want to thank you. I have to say I agree with comments by all the three uh previous board speakers. Um yeah, it's
154really good to see that we're working together and supporting one another. Um, I agree with what I heard from the community is they realize how important our support staff is and how much they do and how valuable they are. So, I think this is great that it's an all win as far as when we support each other, work together, um, the kids really win. Um, the other thing going back to something else that Joe said, it's a great investment retraining and reting. So, it's a wise investment money-wise. Um, I was going to ask um so this is going to lead to the greater recruitment and retention. So, you had mentioned that there was going to be feedback and I want people to know when I ask for feedback or our specific goals and we measure
155them. I'm not saying that because I don't think a program is going to be worthwhile or successful. I want to make sure that we're doing all we can because I think this is a cause we all support. So what type how will we know a year from now if are we going to divide this out? How will this work as far as knowing are we going to divide out like recruitment certain goals and then measure it and how or how will this work? Yeah, great question. I want to you know echo what everyone said. it. The rationale behind this was very much a partnership with NESPA leadership and started from um their their advocacy for something like this for years and then also the morale committee uh coming up with this idea to have a
156subcommittee. This subcommittee it was an honor and a privilege to work with this team because they came in and they said these are the real problems and here are the solutions for them. And so that I just want to want to say that to start. We also did talk a lot about what would the success indicators be. Um and it we I heard real experiences and and all of us did in the committee meetings of I just had a colleague I trained for three months and then they left because they didn't feel like they knew how to do the work or um they weren't prepared for what what they might actually be doing. Um and so absolutely retention is a big one. Um and recruitment is a big one. We do think this could be
157a recruitment tool as well if people hear that they have a mentor and they would have this onboarding and orientation process that might help them to stay. Um we also obviously will be getting feedback from our mentors and mentees. For the pilot year we are only doing one partnership per site just so we can get our hands around it and see how it goes. We'll be getting feedback from the mentors themselves about the handbook. Was it helpful? The training, was it helpful? Um and and what worked or didn't work the compensation. etc. From the mentees, the same thing. We'll be asking them how prepared did you feel for day one? How prepared were you month two after you've had a mentor? Um, and so we'll gather all that feedback. Additionally, we'll also get feedback from
158site supervisors to say, did you see uh higher quality work from the people that were participating in this program because they were just better prepared for the role. Uh, we also have gotten feedback just even from our committee about the orientation website. They helped design all the job specific training plans. We still are building some of those out because we didn't have representatives from all of the roles on the committee. Um, but we'll continue to get feedback from from everyone who's an existing employee as well. I want to commend along with what you said was one of the questions I sent ahead of time was, you know, who was who was invited to be on this committee and I was very happy to hear that everyone had the opportunity to participate. So I I really
159appreciate that because sometimes I feel like, you know, maybe we're hearing from the same people where the diversity is is nice to hear. So thank you on that. So another I know some of my colleagues had put in board ducks and I had asked too. I talked about um so you're going to do a pilot year and I suppose when everything does go wonderful, you'll want to expand this. So we'll probably be looking would that be next year that possibly we would be thinking of expanding this? Absolutely. Yes. Okay. Great. Is there a way one of the things from a board member's perspective is a lot of times we don't start to have this conversation till right before you do the ask where um somebody else mentioned here is there a way to have during
160the school year like a brief update um rather than just hearing right before we have to vote. Yeah. Uh we're happy to provide updates. who may not have all the data on the success indicators because we want to know who's returning for year two of employment. Um, but certainly we can provide updates as we go. Thank you and thank you again for all of you for I just am really excited. Mark, thank you, Charles. You guys did a great job with the presentation and it's it's it I I think things like what you proposed tonight and what you're going to be piloting are just going to be so helpful for the uh for for all the folks that are involved in it. It's really going to keep retention very high. It's going to help with
161recruiting, all of those great things. Just out of curiosity, um, one of the challenging pieces of having something like this is the updating of it for new policies that may come up, changes in jobs, best practices. Do you have you guys thought about how you're going to continue to update the documentation that's out there and how to keep it fresh and um uh representing the best practices that the uh the employees are going to be coming to you with? I I think that's a concern we have about almost everything we put out there. That's actually why we're moving more to a virtual website as opposed to a printed handbook. uh because the website that we built actually links out to other areas that we know are updated regularly. So it links out to our IT
162um site that has updates on the training to the technology tools for example. Um we'll probably revise Meredith I know has spent a lot of time building out this website. She's participating in this committee as well and their HR is going to be doing the orientation. So she already created slides and did a voiceover. So it's already virtually available to people now. Um, so that probably will be updated annually. I think we'll have to just build it into our system that every June or July that's something that we check is let's make sure everything is up to date as best as it can be. Um, but using the the a website and live documents is helpful because then when they're updated, it updates automatically. I can just add I think continued partnership um with the
163ESPs and Lisa and her team to actually you know at some point say okay what did you not feel ready for or what was a pain point for you as a new employee or what's something you wish you would have had and then continue to build that up. Thank you so much Amanda. I'll just jump on the bandwagon um here in regards to thanking you for doing this. This is something that I know in the past few years we've been really concerned about the national teacher shortage and uh retention and making sure that we're uh being mindful to all the stresses and strains of all of our staff and uh focusing on retention. And you know, we read every resignation letter and um you know, especially amongst our NESPA team that saying that they didn't
164feel trained or supported. Um this feels very responsive to that. And then also the morale survey. So I just I'm really glad that you listen to the staff, listen to us about trying to come up with um ways to systemically support that. Um, one of the things that uh I was curious about one was a question I said in advance. So part of this and maybe I read it or heard it somewhere or made it up maybe um but in regards to thinking about you know wanting to gain professional skills and kind of move up in a ladder like for NESPA type of team members. How do you think this program will support that? Yeah, well, Heather's already a great example of some training uh because she moved from a special education pair professional to
165a behavior support pair professional in our district, which was one way that we were trying to create pathways and additional learning opportunities, etc. Career growth. Our committee talked a lot about the idea that becoming a mentor is a career pathway to more leadership opportunities. Uh, additionally, we have several positions in the ESP category um where there is potential for growth. So, you could move from a clerical assistant to an executive secretary, for example. You could um move from, you know, register assistant to registar or or things like that. So, we do believe this is a step forward. Do we think it's the best and final step forward? No. Um, but our committee spent a lot of time talking about, okay, let's what's what's the most comprehensive first step we can take and then learn from
166that and continue to build. Yeah, that's great. I think that's really important just in this day and age to feel like you're growing and learning in some capacity. Um, the other question that I didn't send in advance was around the mentoring program, which I also think is a very innovative idea and updating the job descriptions. I love that too because I mean, even since I've been here the past few years, there's been so many new jobs and you can't just keep things still. You have to update to what is the real work, right? So, applause on that. But with the mentoring and mentorship program, especially for the pilot, I'm kind of curious when you say that there's one mentee mentor per site. So that's site being a school or like the PASC. Correct. Okay. And
167then so are there requirements that you've identified yet about who gets to be a mentor? Do you have to have been here a certain number of years or have certain amount of experience or just you're cool with people like you're good communicator? like that's a great question and all of the details of that are not yet ironed out. We'll continue to collaborate with NESPA leadership on some of those pieces. Um, one of the things I will say is we also have talked a lot about we do provide mentors for our certified staff and the way in which we do that is the site supervisor essentially helps to make that match. Okay. Um, and so we probably will use a similar process to that. um they you know when when people are coming in sometimes we
168we might be hiring a pair professional who has a teaching degree or one who worked in a bank. So if I'm the hiring manager I might say well the person who has never worked in a school before maybe is the person who would benefit more from a mentor during the pilot right um and so we'll we'll talk about all of those details as we continue to kind of finalize things in the next few weeks. Okay. you kind of answered my last question which was similar in regards to how do you choose a mentee? Like so is there are is the math enough or there's few enough positions that there's only an average of maybe like one mentee per site that would need this or what if there's like you know three like I'm sorry Joe
169sorry Holly I get the mentor okay like I'm just curious how that goes. Yeah, we we've had a lot of conversation about this um because the need is far greater than one per site. Uh the reason that we selected that for the pilot is we want proof of concept. We we had a lot of conversations in our committee about there was over 130 I think new hires in the ESP group this year. Um and so that would be a significant number of mentors and we don't have proof of concept yet. We want to iron out some of those issues before we roll it out on a large scale. So, uh, we also went round and round on depending on the size of the site. Maybe someone doesn't have anyone who, you know, is a new
170hireer that year. Um, and some other site maybe has seven, right? So, would how would what would we do if one wasn't allocated that should have been allocated? And we we've talked a little bit about some options for that. Um, but we thought we would start with one per site and then go from there. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm gonna add one that I didn't ask in advance, but it's kind of a um segue from that, but is one of the considerations in that balancing different types of roles. So, you can test out the mentee mentor relationship in different um staff positions. Yeah. So, we actually um we did talk about that and then we also talked about focusing on special education pair professionals and BSPs because they are the highest rate of turnover.
171Hi, great presentation. Thank you all for being here. Um, and and importantly, thank you for all the work that you've put into this. Um, I I you had me at hello on this one. I think it's a very uh uh excellent program. Um, as one of my colleagues mentioned, it's very responsive to the feedback that we received. And so, I just think it's it's phenomenal. Um, and I was very excited when you started talking about how the mentor, being a mentor in and of itself can be a pathway to other leadership opportunities and things like that. I think that's a phenomenal way to think about it. Um, and one of the other things I thought was interesting is when you talked about the metrics, um, I didn't know if I don't remember if I heard
172you mention this, but is there a thought around like measuring the level of belonging beyond just retention, but like for for staff members in terms of you're new? A lot of times when you're new to a place, it's just about building that kind of just a connection. Not necessarily if the person gives you great advice, that might be helpful, too, but it might just be around just having a person you can just connect with. Yeah, we we are going to ask about that piece, the the relationship, mentor, mentee. We also know that a barrier or a challenge that we're going to have to work to overcome a little bit is that some of our roles only exist in isolation in a building like we only have one financial secretary at at a high school, right?
173So, their mentor might actually not be within their school. Um, and so we've talked a little bit about how we would address that and work to still build belonging then within the school, etc. Right. Okay. No, but excellent. um very phen phenomenal program. Really excited to see um as one of my other colleagues mentioned uh the report outs on how this is going. Um the other thing I will just make it's it's more of a it's a a comment more than a question. Um and that is we should be thinking about how we can make this bigger faster. Just recognizing that there going to be some bumps along the road. But I think that the concept in and of itself is one that's there's nothing flawed with the concept. This concept will work. The question
174is what are the things that we might do to try to figure out how how best to make it work. So if we start with the premise that this will work, this will help with all the things we think it'll help with. How we then build from there and and move this further faster because if it sounds like the need is way greater than the capacity right now, but how do we how do we accelerate this? So that's just my thought I'd leave you with because I think all you've heard from all of us who are pretty excited about it. I'll do one plug for that. I also think we have some other working groups in the district as well who are interested in seeing how this pilot goes. Awesome. Very good. Oh, one more
175comment. Mark, go. Yeah. Thank you, Charles. I you you just you mentioned something as you were talking with Charles. I just want to follow up on. Um, you were talking about you have a finance secretary in a building and they may have to have a mentor that is from another building and I'm assuming that your thinking is is that that would also be someone who's a finance secretary with more experience. Have have we thought about from a career development that that would not necessarily be the case that it could be someone who is in the school and in that particular building who's not in finance but can provide them with the support that they need um and develop within the building. You know, we haven't actually had a lot of conversation about that. It's very
176interesting. Um, and I think because we want the site supervisor to make the mentor match, that absolutely could be the case. They could say, "This person has a whole history of finance. They're actually new to the district, but not new to their position. They had the same position in another district. Maybe their mentor would be someone who would be in their building who is acclimating them more to 203 systems and things like that." Yeah. I I think that's just something to to think about is is that person may aspire to doing more within that building. So, as long as we're keeping those avenues open for how we consider people to be mentors, I think that would be great. Great. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] All right. Item eight, discussion without action. 8.01
1771 2025 2026 budget workshop. Yeah. So, just a reminder, as the board knows, the uh work toward developing a budget for the coming fiscal year is really a year- round process. Uh but May and June become really crunch time for us with our goal to have a budget approved by uh the end of this fiscal year, which is June 30th, even though code requires that it be done by September 30th. It's a reminder for the community, this has been a board agenda item since May 5th. Um, I'm sorry, not since May 5th, since May 9th. Uh, when the tenative No, it was May 5th. Sorry. When the budget, the tenative draft budget was presented to the board of education for his first review. It was put on display on March on May 9th. May 14th,
178citizens finance advisors reviewed it. May 19th, we had another workshop. June 2nd. Uh, tonight we have a workshop and we still have one more workshop set for June 16th, our next board of education meeting where there also will be a public hearing on the budget. Uh, also questions have continued to come in from board members. Um, it's up to date from the last meeting. Questions received today will be added and all questions will be answered for the June 16th meeting. Um, so with that, we have no new information. Mike, do you have any new information yet? Yeah, we did um we did include the uh state budget form uh in the tenative uh draft form because the state did release it earlier than they typically do. So, we were able to complete most of it.
179There are a few pages that still need to be completed for that form that will be available uh next time on the 16th. as a reminder. So, we were lucky that it was there this year. Uh I think as Mike shared to the board uh last time because the school code doesn't require it be adopted until September 30th. We're usually ahead of the state and have to ask them for the form. So, it's nice that it was actually there. Maybe they've listened enough. So, questions from the board. Melissa, thank you. I know that I had asked for that form. Um, one of the things that we spoke about um during the last meeting was my request of information um for budgeting information. So what I asked for is that we had it in the accounting
180codes that are listed for the requirements for accounting, budgeting, financial reporting, and auditing by the Illinois Administration code 100. And I was told and specifically I'd asked for this prior to with the bills and claims um I wanted to reiterate what the law says again versus what's practices and um let me see which one. So the general requirements listed under the administration code um is a each school board shall use the appropriate set of journals and ledgers for the recording summarization and control of transactions and use the double entry bookkeeping method and funding accounting system. And it says each school board shall establish and maintain the number types of funds by nature and scope of its oper operations. And it goes down to list in C the charts that in order to for the school
181board is supposed to each chart of accounts shall incorporate at least the following dimensions. One the fund the fund group and they have charts. Two the balance sheet accounts. Three revenue sources. Four expenditure purposes or functions and the expenditure objects. So that goes down to using we're required and part of our job that we are tasked with doing is making sure that's why again the audit comes out it's addressed to us. Our job and fiduciary duty and we could actually lose our position as a school board is if we don't follow we're we're tasked with making sure the district follows these laws. And so and it says that um okay purposes the payment. So to go more on sorry I have lots of different ones and I don't want to waste you with the ones
182that don't have to do with the bills and claims. It does say no under [Music] again for under the Illinois administration code 100. It says no check shall be issued without presentation of pre-approved documentation for the extend expenditure such as a signed voucher. A completed and approved travel request an approved purchase requisite an order or invoice. The record for each check written shall include the expense account code or sufficient descriptive information to allow the assignment of the correct code. The written check for reimbursement shall be included on the school board's monthly list of bills charging the appropriate expenditure accounts and indicating the receipt and explanation for each revolving check that is issued. So what I have requested and what Mr. Francis you fill this out using the codes you do a report with those bills
183and claims you put them in this form. Correct? I I'm not sure what you're referring to. The codes. The accounting codes that we're supposed to use. Yeah, we have over 4,000 account numbers in the school district. No, I'm not talking about the accounting codes. I'm talking the the accounting codes make the account number is made up of the accounting codes that you're referring to. The fund, function, object, subject, source, and level. Yes, we are supposed to have that. We do have that. Then why can't I receive that with bills and claims if I'm tasked I think uh Mr. President, are we talking about the budget or are we talking about bills and claims? This is specifically saying the agenda item is budget. Actually, it it's part of the budgeting and accounting the forms that we
184included in the in the this um this agenda item include the ISB form FY26 form that we included because as Mr. Bridges said it came out earlier this year. So, we included that. That is the only form that the state board of education requires all school districts in the state of Illinois to um to submit their budget on in this level of detail. But no, I I understand that we do not submit the budget to that level. But within the accounting and budget laws, you don't have to submit this, but we're tasked with reviewing those codes and expenditures to make sure that the money is being spent according and that those codes are being used properly. If the if the board would like to entertain that, we certainly could. But can I'll remind the department
185does and I'll remind the board that our our fiscal and business management policy 410 loaded available on the website is aligned to Illinois school code as well as all applicable state laws and lays out the process for which the budget is planned. So I think the question being asked by the board member is not a question for staff. It's a question for the board. If you would like to change your your policy essentially you'd have to change the policy and you'd have to go through a policy review. This policy, as I said, is aligned with the school code, is aligned with law, and is based off of the model press policy adopted by IASB, our processes and practices, as actually supported by annual audits are in complete compliance with the law. According to the statements
186in the actual statement in the laws, one of the things that I get frustrated with is I do my due diligence. I look up these laws. I read all of this. I don't come here making this up and I feel like what's the term they use today? Gaslighting. Like if I can point to the statute and show you from the IASB, how can we act as if that doesn't say that we have to have those on each bills and claims? So, could I ask what is it you're suggesting? I I'm not And let me finish my question. When I say what are you suggesting not what is your suggestion I guess what is it that you're saying are you saying that what's happening in the district is not aligned with what's supposed to happen is
187that the assertion that you're making does not appear to be in compliance yes so you're saying that we're not in compliance I'm saying it appears as if we are not in compliance what does appear okay so you're suggesting that we are not in compliance I read you it I can give it to you no I'm just I'm just ask him a simple I mean I know I know you read it I was here the reason I bring it up now number one bills and claims is part of the budgeting process that budgeting as we said earlier is not just a one time it's not actually part of No it is because that's how we spend it but it's not no it is and that's part of my frustration is I read all this it very
188much is budgeting just like how much I spend each month out of my checking account has to do with my overall budget so to say those two things aren't connected is against everything that the law school code IASB the ISB says. So that's my frustration to me is it is listed in here as part of the rules to be compliant and we are tasked legally with following these rules. So again, are you suggesting that the administration is not in compliance with the law? No, I'm I'm saying we're not in compliance with it because we're to be doing the job of looking at and making sure those codes are applied properly. So you're So not administration, but that the entire who who exactly are you saying is not in compliance? All I know is what it
189says our job is. I'm not looking to point fingers. I simply have asked for this information and it seems reasonable that we would want to know where the money was going. For example, to break it down easier, one of the things in the finance committee and we've been talking about is there's a concern about our district not having enough money moving forward. So, there's been discussions of talking cutting positions, teacher positions. Are we talking about are we first of all are we talking about are we talking about budget are we talking about now what are we talking about yes we are talking about budget because obviously these are budgetary concerns that we've discussed and I believe you were at the finance committee meeting where we talked about this there was even a discussion of a
190possible doing a referendum that did not happen okay I have the the meeting recorded so you do maybe did did you get yes I did and I had it right in front of us. Did you get permission from everybody who attended or did you just violate the easedropping act in Illinois? Well, I don't think it's the easedropping act. Okay, here's a couple here's a couple other things that I think are extremely important for me to say right now. I'll actually ask Mike. Mike, what's our financial rating according to the Illinois State Board of Education? Uh, it's a financial recognition. We have a score of 4.0, which is the highest score you get. Oh, yeah. The highest you can get. What are our what are our bond ratings at right now? We are AAA rated. One
191of maybe a dozen school districts in the state that's AAA. Okay, so we highest there um AAA bond rating. I had another one too. Oh, I guess I'll answer this one because I did it. I led it with support of Mrs. Patton. Thank you, Mrs. Patton. We recently completed last year it was I think we did our DuPage County Regional Office of Education audit. Was that last year or the year before? no findings. Everything all in alignment with statute and school code. Always has been extremely transparent and in alignment with board policy. So if the board majority of the board would like to change our processes, we'll have to one first rewrite the policy because I can't part of my job is to ensure that we're in alignment with board policy. So I'm following the
192policy that you've adopted and you adopted this on March 4th, 2024 and it is aligned with press. So what's being discussed here? one, the accusation that we are out of compliance with um the the law or state board is false. Um that we have evidence of being financial recognition, AAA bond rating, ROE audit, we are in alignment with the law. And so any any other accusation that we are not is just wholly incorrect. And I will be, it's important that the board know I will be following up on the statement about recordings. Okay. I will like to hold. Okay. Go ahead, Christine. I'm going to try to keep my thoughts organized on this one. Um, and try to keep it related to the budget. You can stop me if I stray. We have said over
193the course of not just the this being the third meeting concerning the budget itself, but we have said throughout the course of this past year, I'll just use it for this past year because that's the time frame that we're looking at um or the time frame I'm going to keep it to that the budget when we get this budget, the first meeting in May, which always in my time has been the first meeting in Okay. It is a culmination of everything we've done over the past year. We see the budget in so many ways before it actually can may we see this handy little book that has taken up space on my ottoman for the last month with a highlighter and a pen next to it. We see this throughout the course of a year.
194and administration is kind enough to put it into a nice book for us. We see it in presentations from our auditors who correct me if I'm wrong. I don't have it open. My computer battery died. Um has told us there's been no findings. Is that correct? Is my memory right? Okay. I'm not an accounting person, but if there's no findings, that basically says we're doing it right. Is that correct? Okay. We see this in IT presentations on what we're going to do as far as our IT uh infrastructure and devices. We see this in capital um improvement plans which we've talked quite about a lot about this year because we have several projects as you had mentioned earlier Mike in a discussion that we have additions and renovations going on. We actually see this budget
195when we do bills and claims. When I do bills and claims and I see something I'm curious about, I ask, "Hey, what was that check written for?" or "Why was there a charge made for, I don't know, Southwest Airlines?" And Michelle Swope will pull the receipt and show me Southwest Airlines was because Mr. Bridges was going to a conference that he was presenting some work that we're doing in District 203, and they wanted to hear about it. Oh, that receipt was for a staff development uh lunchon that they were having. This receipt was for such and such. All of those receipts are, correct me if I'm wrong, somewhat coded that were in that those receipts were spent that money was spent in in accordance with board policy. Am I following this correctly? So again, in
196my eight years, I have I I can't recall that we've been told we're out of compliance with the ROE. I remember specifically asking that question regarding our e-learning plan that it's it was sufficient. ROE said we were good. I don't recall ever hearing that we've been out of compliance with ISBY or IASB or anybody else in the state. So, I'm just really trying to underscore here and I'm really really trying to keep my cool on this one because the people in this district work incredibly hard and are incredibly transparent at every single turn with all of us. Nothing has been hidden. Nothing is purposely kept from somebody or some people. It is all there if we choose to do what we're supposed to do. Now, I understand we all have a different approach to our
197jobs. I understand we all have a different level that this is a little bit more interesting and I love the rabbit holes here and this is a little bit more difficult for me and I have to ask a colleague to help me. But at the core of it all, the information is there should we choose to do our jobs. And I am very frustrated that at another board meeting, we are having the same conversation about mysterious information about mysterious non-compliance. It is not serving our students to be going around in circles about something that does not exist. Our job at this table is to make sure that our students are being served to the fullest. And this does not lend these types of conversations and these types of inquisitions do not lend itself to serving
198our students well. Mike, I know the business office, you guys work tirelessly throughout the year. Not saying anybody else in this room does not. And this is a very stressful time of year for you. I appreciate all the questions that you answer. You answer questions from brand new board members to veteran board members and you answer them all quite well and we all learn from each other. Every year on the budget I learn something new and I appreciate all the work that goes on throughout the school year because you're helping us serve our students to the fullest. Not to say that nobody else in this room does that, but since we're on the budget, I just want to make sure that that's stated, and I appreciate that our board policies are fulfilled and followed faithfully
199at every turn. And I appreciate every single presentation from every single meeting on every single topic because that is the stuff that helps us serve our students. Melissa, I actually have a copy of the audit. So, first of all, my comment was not that we are not compliance with the audit. I'm not saying that. I am saying that we are tasked with certain duties. I am not saying it's the audit. As a matter of fact, if you go to page four of the last audit, it has a report on internal controls over financial reporting. According order, we're not talking about the audit right now. We're talking about the budget. Uh this audit is part of the budget. That is part of that is part of last year's budget. That is not part of the budget
200we are going to approve. She just brought it back. That is not part of the budget. We are going to approve in the next meeting. You Let me get this because you disagree with me. You won't let me speak and quote what it says. No, it's it's not about it's not about He called a point of order. I believe that as chair I get to rule on the board of order. Is that how that works? Yes. So point of voter affirmed. Yes. We're not talking about the audit. We're talking about the budget. Laws. Okay. Well, actually laws aren't actually on the agenda. And I would just suggest to you I would suggest I would suggest to you that if you believe that something is then there are productive means for you to be able to
201this should be productive means my fellow board members should be willing to listen even if they disagree. We we we we we have we have we have heard we have heard we have heard you've you've brought up laws. I'm more than willing to we are more then we are more than willing to to to receive that distribute it however you choose to and then you would have said that you have done what you need to do. Okay. Is the rest of the board ready to move on? Okay. Just as a reminder public hearing at the next meeting. Budget questions come in. Continue to update the document. And a reminder for the community, in the spirit of transparency, questions that the board does have are all posted in board document. Okay. Item nine, discussion with action.
202Item 9.01, consideration of board of education expenses. Yes, we do have some expenses that uh required by policy 2125. any ex board expenses for travel, meals or lodge be approved by roll call vote at an open meeting. We have some here for uh a board of education dinner during one of the meetings and uh required training uh in events for new board members. Any questions? I'll accept a motion. Motion to approve item 9.01 as presented. Second. Motion and a second have been heard. Please call the role, Mrs. McMillan. Hi Blastic. Hi Winski. Hi Gerky. Hi Kush. Hi Ksminsky. I Kelly Black I. Motion passes. 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. Next board of education
203meeting is on Monday, June 16th. And you'll note that we've also added the BR board at self-evaluation to the calendar for uh June 25th, 2025. Okay. Uh item 13, adjournment. Item 13.01. Motion to adjurnn. Move to adjourn. Second. Motion and a second have been heard. Please call the role. Mr. Patton. Gerky. I. Husbinsky. I. McMillan. I. Winsky. I. Kelly Black. I blastic I Kush I motion passes we are adjourned.