001question good evening since 5:30 p.m the board has been in closed session to discuss the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees or legal counsel including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee or legal counsel to determine its validity Collective negotiating matters between the school board and its employees or their representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees and for student disciplinary cases I will take a motion to come out of close session no moved second a motion a second have been heard please call the role Mrs Patton McMillan I Fitzgerald I wan key I giry I Kush I kinsky I the motion passes we are in Open Session Welcome to our March 10th 2025 board meeting our mission is to empower students to develop
002a learner's mindset demonstrate adaptability communicate effectively think critically and become Global Citizens please call the role Mrs Patton board members present this evening Christine giry Kristen Fitzgerald Charles Kush Joe cossky Amanda McMillan and Donna wanky please now join the board in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all we have now reached the point in the agenda for good news okay we have a lot of good news um and some good news not highlighted in my notes but I just want to say it's always great to have an opportunity to have our students with us tonight and pretty soon we're going to have eight of them who are
003going help share uh some recommendations to the board uh okay Illinois State Board of Education announced the recipients of the those who Excel Warden we're thrilled to share the Amanda ye kindergarten teacher at Ellsworth Elementary received an award of special recognition in the classroom teacher category this honor highlights her dedication passion and impact on students colleagues in the school community so congratulations to Amanda in February Miss comr uh honors math and Pi students at Mill Street organized a vibrant Lunar New Year celebration exploring its meaning Origins customs and traditions through research and creative presentations students gained cultural awareness while developing public speaking and research skills they shared their findings in class and through all School morning announcements culminating the annual Dragon parade same Mr rmsky and I had an opportunity to preview some of the
004things that would be in their parade so congratulations and well done to our students at Mill Street on March 2 Neighborville Central's Wind Ensemble performed alongside the neille Municipal Band at once Concert Hall in music for Life read by DJ alot and Brandon ases students showcased their talents in Neighborville Premier venue and enjoyed guest solist Dr Joseph and Bell on euphonium and Jennifer marota on trumpet the event also featured the presentation of five music scholarships from the Neighborville Municipal Band to uh Daniel Rosario from Jefferson Jr High School Gavin doar from Washington junor High School Ashley Chung from Kennedy Junior High School Annabelle store from Madison Junior High and Ian silder from Lincoln Junior High School congratulations to all involved in this incredible music collaboration the partnership for assessment and Readiness for college and careers
005Park intern ship showcase celebrated the impact of our District's Workforce Development initiatives and the dedication of our internship coordinators the event featured a program overview a tour of Neighborville Central showcasing Pathways and action and a student panel offering firsthand insights this showcase underscore our commitment to Student Success and career Readiness congratulations and then earlier in February Neighborville 203 students gathered at the alive center for the lead student conference focusing on belonging and amplifying student voices to create inclusive learning environments through discussions and activities students explored ways to foster equity and inclusion in their schools reinforcing Neighborville 203's commitment to student leadership and belonging so congratulations and that's our good news for tonight thank you for that okay we are now at the point for public [Music] comment the Board of Education welcomes comments from the
006public at its meetings CI cens who wish to address the Board of Education should identify themselves by name comments by individual shall be limited to 3 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 at this point I would like to welcome Dan Alo who will be followed by anarie Tomac hi there I'm Dan I'm a parent of current and future d23 students uh given the negative reaction to the ISC proposal I was surprised by the administration's February 18th update claiming just 65% of the 302 responses they received Express concern or disagreement the implication being 35% or over 100 submissions did not I filed an open records request for those submissions and
007received 107 documents um here's some feedback the administration classified as not not expressing concern or disagreement the subject line on this one is opposing the school start time adjustment as parents we are deeply concerned about why the youngest children are being signed the earliest start time children would have to be at the bus stop by 7:10 a.m. or even earlier this is completely unreasonable and unacceptable we strongly oppose this proposal 7:45 is pretty early and it's hard on our family and I know we're not the only ones 7:45 seems like a bit of an early start and I live six houses down from the school the previous start time was ideal ear is early are better for younger children don't they also need adequate sleep to grow and be able to learn regarding Middle School
008my husband and I leave for work by 7:20 our daughter will be starting sixth grade she's not old enough to be home alone 340 is an awfully late time for dismissal how does that leave time for after school doctor's appointments and activities it's hard enough with the 250 dismissal this is going to make it even harder as a student I feel student input was not thoroughly evaluated the students are also important stakeholders not just District administrators other submissions Express concern about parts of the proposal including the lack of supporting data or uh evidence for these changes the rush to implement it the poring unclear communication around it the reduced instruction time given the block schedule a lack of clarity on where the bus issues are that we're supposedly facing and these go on and on
009and on uh the vast majority of these submissions Express significant concerns which is the exact opposite of what the administration claims they show from where I stand that looks terrible where's the transparency where's the honesty at best the administration just had no idea how to read this data at worst they are deliberately misleading the community to further their own agenda either way raises major concerns and should be enough to stop this proposal from moving forward until What's Happening Here can be investigated to the administration uh the disdain shown to parents in this process is quite shocking we expect better of you that is a direct quote from a submission you marked as not expressing concern or disagreement and I share that sentiment when I voice concerns about the proposed es to the elementary start time
010I received a dismissive reply from the administration basically saying younger children can wake up earlier uh to the Board of Education how in the world can you consider putting this up for a vote when you clearly cannot trust the information coming from the administration uh there are major changes needed to this proposal it must be overhauled the administration needs to honestly engage with parents and teachers and get their support before attempting to implement anything our student our students excuse me deserve better than this and so do time on behalf of the board thank you for your comments next is next we have anarie Tomac who will be followed by Kathy Clarkin hey my name's Amry Tomac represent myself uh first and foremost I want to thank the board um I think the uh you have
011been listening it has been apparent um your concern your questions it has been incredible the sport uh the interest um in digging deeper in issues and so a huge uh shout out to you and thank you to you for doing that um much appreciated I did want to address again that teachers are not afraid of change I mean the community needs to know that board need to know that change is not the issue um teachers do it on the daily I already thought we discussed this in early February just to see it up again in another email recently I just want to make sure that um that's corrected the training um you're offering does not matter the proposals you're offering do not matter because you're pushing an idea that doesn't cut uh make the cut
012and answering what you're uh dreaming up that you think the problems are in this District um provide the necessary supports right now and you know you're going to see change the what leadership is saying is that the only solution to the issues that they feel exist um is to fundamentally change the structure of our school day and that there is no solution um to this that involves giving us the supports within our current and existing structure um to me that is absolutely unacceptable there was never a choice to make decisions and come up with new plans and new Solutions during our current school day you were given options of block period I did that with my kids for vegetables I wanted I did a forced forced outcome I'm giving you two choices you're picking a
013vegetable so they're thinking yay but I'm thinking I got what I wanted and that's exactly what the teachers um what happened to teachers I I don't like the solution um that teachers are just going to do moreal stuff and that's it I mean that's the Innovation being offered um to handle the influx of the mental health issues that we're seeing in our district across our country but in our district as well and it's on the rise and that's why not get Innovative with that why not attack that be the district that says we take care of our students we handle our business and we have better Solutions than making teachers docl stuff um next struggling students academically has the leadership ever looked into any of this surrounding higher ed institutions to create solutions for our
014struggling students academically like how can we partner with them what innovation has occurred with our struggling students that is the same type of energy that's given to our PI kids our above average students Pi they get a ton of support they get a ton of attention why isn't the leadership sinking that same intensified attention for our struggling Learners why aren't they creating specialized classes for them where is that if you do that you're going to see change the change that um our students deserve and the change um that you are looking for next change occurs time on behalf of the board thank you for your comments next I would like to welcome Kathy Clarkin hi I'm Kathy Clarkin and I'm co-chair of Nest the neille environment and sustainability task force and I'm also executive director
015of accelerate climate Solutions a local nonprofit I'm also the parent of a graduate of 203 at accelerate climate Solutions we have two missions to deploy climate Solutions locally and to build the next generation of climate leaders through our youth programs that's why we were thrilled to learn that about the district's carbon action plan or cap and the process by which it was drafted by including student voices ideas and research in developing the cap you gave students agency in the face of coming of age on an overheating Planet I work with a couple of students who were actually involved with the process and I can attest that they felt empowered and that they felt that they were making a material difference research supports that authentic action oriented learning is both effective and impactful when it comes
016to educating about the climate crisis the district deserves immense credit for taking the this approach I'd also like to applaud the district for taking the step to create a climate action plan to begin with the scientific Community has set targets for greenhouse gas emission reduction that will mitigate some of the worst impacts of climate change and every organization every institution every agency business and individual has a role in reaching those goals climate change is a threat multiplier causing stronger storms heat waves drought and flooding even right here in naville affecting your students and staff so thank you for committing to do your part finally you are to be commended for your Comm communication strategy and plan the dashboard on the district website and the opportunity for Community input are good examples of good stakeholder engagement
017I'm looking forward to hearing in from the students tonight as well we urge the school district um to put the necessary resources in place to ensure that the many important recommendations in the carbon action plan are put to bear in the district that they're implemented because the students are watching we don't want this just to be a report that sits on a shelf both nest and accelerate climate Solutions are Community Partners that are happy to help help work with you on these things so thank you once again for taking this important step and doing so with a process that benefits the students and the community on behalf of the board thank you for your comments I do not have any more public comment requests does anyone else in the audience wish to address the Board
018of Education go ahead come on up hi my name is Laura tamasco I'm a parent of two high school students in the district I'm here tonight not to resist change but to advocate for informed students Center decisions while I appreciate the district's effort I have concerned about the decision-making process that we have and the committee selection felt limited based on being hand selected as was told to me by administrators along with the survey questions that didn't fully capture key impacts before moving forward I hope more comprehensive data is collected with that being said first starting off with attendance does a BL schedule truly improve attendance curriculum Integrity will content be reduced to fit longer periods teacher student interactions does this model decrease consistent engagement student well-being are structured breaks including support Focus the district suggests
019increase student teacher time and reduce transition but also acknowledges that need for break breaks will um will be needed for longer periods I'd like to see data from surrounding districts supporting these claims add additionally is a district considering an open campus during these study halls um usually a student might take seven classes for that eight period block how will this schedule impact students who rely on the flexibility will it unintentionally create more unsupervised time for students already struggling with attendance and academic support rather than focusing solely on block schedule I believe we should address to the fundamental issues affecting Student Success as you mentioned um from a previous um in person up here a major concern has been student needing more sleep but let's be honest later start times won't fix impact of phone use
020that we all know is a problem nowadays instead let's prior prioritize consistent curriculum and assessments I personally have met with administrators in the fall and learned about the black schedule because I brought up other concerns which included uh standard-based grading which currently creates unnecessary stress and inconsistently when it's not implemented on all levels in a class robust student we have some nodding here teacher support we need better resources attendance intervention and training right now support is a reactive versus proactive for example conferences that we just had discuss um the importance of using sore and Home Room where a focus onal as part of their sore time and only one class time to meet with a teacher to utilize during that sore to get additional assistance let's measure our student outcome College acceptance is one metric
021but what are students getting in into with direct admission programs are they getting into those direct admission programs are they completing their college class we need to prepare students for Success Beyond High School not just entry into getting into a college our goal should be to create an environment where every student has a fighting chance instead of focusing on a schedule shift necessarily as you even mentioned let's prioritize engagement equity and high quality instructions let's work together on solution that truly benefit our students and I do personally have impacted by the is of standard-based grading for one kid and not and in a higher level class and how that can negatively impact time on behalf of the board thank you for your comments as a reminder because the questions raised in public comment address District
022operational matters the board has designated our superintendent as a spokesperson for the district as our designate to respond to public comment and he will apprise the Board of Education accordingly this will conclude our public comment period 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 it is each individual member's responsibility to prepare for each meeting additionally we understand that it is our individual responsibility to effectively communicate our concerns either to 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
023has 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 do ask a question please state if you sent that question ahead of time Mrs Patton what time was the email sent to board members alerting us that the board dock was loaded and ready for our review emails with a link to the board agenda were sent and delivery confirmed at 4:03 p.m. Thursday March 6th 2025 and no emails bounce back thank you Mr Bridges did the did you receive questions from board members in advance of tonight's
024meeting I did I received questions from all seven board members okay item six action by consent do I have a motion for the consent agenda motion to approve um item 6.01 adoption of personnel report and item 6.02 Life Safety reports second a motion a second and been heard please call the role Mrs Patton giry I cossky I McMillan I Wy hi Fitzgerald hi Kush hi the motion passes okay in action by the Board of Education this evening uh gives me a pleasure to make a couple of introductions to the Community First I'd like to ask uh eron Rodriguez to stand if she's able we going to stay right there if you say hello you'll say it from there okay uh please uh join me in welcoming Aon Rodriguez who's just has been approved by the
025Board of Education to be the next principal at nebor elementary school okay so Aaron comes to us uh most recently from Indian Prairie 204 where she currently serves as principal at Nancy Young Elementary School prior to that she's had experiences as a student services coordinator interventionist and general education teacher and we are thrilled to have Aon join our family and our team so Aaron welcome thank you welcome and I'd invite Alex marrow to please stand with the board's action on the consent agenda this evening we are pleased to introduce Alexandra marrow as the next principal at metal Glenn's Elementary School okay so Alex uh has been in neighborh 203 since August of 2009 serving as a classroom teacher uh she has served as a learning support coach and a district new educator lead most recently
026she has served as the learning support support coach at neighbor Elementary School and we are pleased to welcome Alex to her new role Alex welcome [Applause] thank you congratulations and welcome a huge uh thank you to our friends from both nebor and met Glen we here to welcome their our principal so congratulations that's it next we have communications Board of Education reports does anyone wish to give a brief update on something they've done in their official capacity as a board member Donna uh just a reminder I gave a pretty lengthy report on any building a passion breakfast that's coming up and so reminder and a challenge to my uh colleagues to make sure that they attend our breakfast Amanda um I had a couple things uh that I uh got a chance to participate in
027first I wanted to say uh thank you so much to uh the success group and they had their um Black History Month celebration at the end of February where where we had dinner and got a chance to watch uh a movie Cool Runnings um it was a real flashback to my childhood so thank you for that it's it's it ages well so thank you for that um also this morning I got to go with um uh superintendent Bridges to Ann Reed uh which is my adopt school and uh principal marker there is just doing amazing things um she was sharing that they have 116 staff there they just got uh gold level status and anybody in the east e world that's hard to do okay it's a like there's really high standards to to get
028to that um so doing some really good things around strengthening structures but one of the conversations we really had was about parent engagement and how well Early Childhood does that they have a structure where they have parent Educators and then within their school alone they have about 30 different languages spoken um within their home within all the homes of the kids that are coming um in the early childhood and so we talked a lot about how do we engage uh families meaning y make sure that they can understand the use of translators um they have a multilingual uh specialist um that supports to make sure that we're meeting all the needs of the students in the schools and uh just really talking about how intentionally they're trying to build a a bridge between what our
029students are learning early childhood and help them successfully transition to kindergarten and making sure that that transition is as smooth as possible and they're um you know learning some of the core standards that helps them just hit the ground running once they hit our kindergarten so a lot of great work there it's not easy because they're feeding into 14 elementary schools right um so that was uh really great I wanted just give um you know kudos to them um last and this may be a further conversation later but um I was uh reached out to and then Charles uh joined me for a phone call this Saturday with uh representative uh Laura favor Diaz um she's up in uh the north side um but anyway she's trying to push through HB 2381 which would require
030Schoolboard members in the state to have lgbtq training and um this is something that is really important I I believe in because um you know statistics say that 20% of students in Illinois are identified as lgbtq um but they are um at higher risk for um suicide um 41% of lgbtq Youth um report seriously considering suicide um every year um additionally only 50% of students in the lgbtq community actually feel like they uh their school is a welcoming place um and about 40% of students don't feel safe at home um they're higher risk of being homeless and in the foster care system so it's something that um I think is really important just to help raise awareness for all Schoolboard members there uh the challenge she's having is that um ISB is not really buying
031into it um they feel like if we require this training for all Schoolboard members is actually going to deter uh Schoolboard members from running um in different parts of the state and so um Charles and I spoke and I don't want to put words in your mouth Charles please feel free to jump in but one of the thoughts we thought about she was trying to get our ideas about how do we get more Buy in so we can push this through was possibly in the upcoming um triaa conference or triple um ISB conference uh to put forward resolution um supporting this at that level as well and then at least people would have to have a conversation about why they do or do not support this um so just wanted to put that out there
032and Charles if you have anything to add no I think you covered it okay um I thought it was a great call um I agree with you these are um you know providing additional training especially given some of the Staggering statistic that you just quoted um it's really important and I think it's an issue that need needs to get more visibility okay thanks Amanda Charles did you have another report yes my report is different Donna's got her hand up though oh okay go ahead Donna I I just have a follow up to that I think um it would not uh it would it would be advantageous for us to Advocate directly with uh iasb like we can send emails from our from our own board and encourage other boards to do the same thing um
033because they have legislative uh you know Liaisons that that work for them that that tell you know that kind of represent whether or not they take a what stand they take on those bills and so I think it' be good for us to Advocate directly before because this is going to move before we get any res resolutions until November so that's true I I hope it gets out of committee because I know that there's a lot of bills out there right you know so but I am definitely down for sending an email I think if the representative is hosting a commit uh a meeting with you it's a priority that she's going to move it so Charles okay thank you um two two quick updates one uh my adopted school is Jefferson and I had
034the chance recently to um take a visit out to Jefferson with superintendent Bridges um one of the things I wanted to highlight from Jefferson is Jefferson if my understanding is correct is it's the only Junior High that has a community resource center um there are two there's one at each of the high school levels I think Jefferson's the only Junior High where we have the community resource center and had the opportunity to spend some time with Jennifer I'm going to really mess up her last name so I apologize uh rousa tii pretty close Okay um she knows who she is uh and just the work that uh we're doing I mean we talk a lot about creating spaces where where kids can feel welcome and where they can feel that sense of belonging and at
035the two High School levels I've had the chance to visit both of those as well uh when they were my adopted schools but it's really nice to see that we're starting to bring that down to the junior high level um and some of the the things she was able to share with me I won't go into a lot of detail but just the the ability for the kids to kind of drop in when they just need a space to just be for a minute um I think back to my high school and Junior High School years if I can think back that far but and how that really sometimes you just you just need a minute and um that we're being Forward Thinking and making sure that we're creating a space where where kids can
036have that space where they can have them in it but then also have someone to just talk to just about what might be happening in their day not necessarily academically although she could speak to that but also just the space to just to be able to to to breathe and be and just kind of okay now I can go tackle the rest of my day uh and I just think that that's something that the community should be aware of that as part of our belonging efforts we're really trying to create those spaces so that was Jefferson um the other thing I had the opportunity to do today was um through my work on the workforce innovational Council I sit on that council with with Joe um had the opportunity to visit uh Lincoln Junior High
037School today um with uh uh Jill havk um and she and Jackie uh and the work that they're doing to create those different different spaces um so they've recently renovated two different spaces one um for uh for Project Lead the Way and then the other one for our fax area and got the chance to talk to two uh folks so Khloe Doo who is a fax teacher over there and then Eric kurzak who is our project leadway teacher over there and to see some of the incredible things that they're exposing our kids to in terms of um just different experiences uh I got the chance to sit with a couple of students and they were going through thinking about you know different career paths and Pathways and what they might want to do and so
038one of their assignments was to kind of put together a kind of a proposal as to what you might want to do in the future based on what they were able to learn about some of the different tracks and it was really great to see their minds already thinking about what they want to do in the future and then being able to um try to find ways to bring that to life through uh mix Inc which is our junior high school version of the incubator I would put and then over at the project lead to lead the way uh to see all of the the work that's being done in stem and Robotics and the different kits that they have I sat with a student for a few moments and um he was telling me
039that this was his first experience with coding and he was really exced excited to show me how he could you know um program a so a DOT would appear on the screen and it would draw a square on the on the screen linking from his Chromebook over and so he was able to quickly write the code to do that and then show me how it was able to be done so he told me what he was going to do in advance wrote the code and then and showed me just in a matter of a few minutes so just the advantages that we are giving our students as they are continuing to progress as the world continues to evolve um and those types of skills and experiences whether he chooses to be an engineer in his
040life or not but those types of experiences and that exposure really opens up folks mind so I was just excited and wanted to share that with everyone so um thanks to uh Jill and Jackie and the work that they do uh in giving our Workforce Innovation Council the chance to see those things in action thank you for the report okay for the president's report tonight um well my report is going to um center around uh our ongoing annual process for the evaluation of our superintendent and so as a board or for the board I would like to share that uh information with the community annually Boards of Education evaluate their superintendence these evaluations are a review of the past Year's performance and in this case for the school year 2425 based on the goals that
041were set by the board in January this board collectively agreed to the timeline for this evaluation which began in in Earnest at the beginning of February the superintendent's contract goals the Strate and the Strategic blueprint which further qual quantifies the goals can be found on the district's website and are accessible to all in the community these goals along with the aggressive time bound metrics included in each building School Improvement plan presented to the board in September of 24 represent a large portion of the goals and metrics considered in evaluating the superintendent's performance in compliance with iasb's guidelines our superintendent evaluation is an ongoing assessment that does not just consider our superintendent's Performance Based on documents provided immediately prior to the performance evaluation or on the isolated date of any one document but it is a
042comprehensive and complete look at our superintendent's performance throughout the school year as a board including this one or I'm sorry a board including this one considers a multitude of information including periodic updates presented to us by Mr Bridges along with presentations at board meetings State accountability documents Financial ratings ISB ratings State local and National recognitions Etc to ensure the district is being well managed under the superintendent's leadership and is upholding the mission and vision set forth by the board therefore each board member must evaluate the entirety of the year which which includes all of the information provided to the board before at and after board meetings including but not limited to all of the information I just listed each board member has a duty to continuously monitor performance and complete an evaluation based on their
043ongoing assessment of our superintendent's performance throughout the year using all of the information provided to us in meetings via email in the reports and updates throughout the school year each board member completes an evaluation form based on their own individual perspective subsequently the board members collectively meet and close session in compliance with the open meetings act and consistent with our practice for every other District employee to discuss their perspective on our superintendent's Performance Based on the board's Collective discussions our superintendent evaluation is completed based on the board's consensus and the and the evaluation is then delivered and comes from one voice item 7.03 superintendent staff school report I'll deferm my comments to some of the discussion without action items okay item eight discussion without action as a reminder to all board members I will recognize
044each individual to ask questions or comments as per our board agreements we share time with other members after each person has had a turn we'll go back around if necessary if you ask a question please state if you sent it ahead of time and please remember it is not in order to interject unless you have been recognized item 8.01 the carbon action plan okay as I referenced in uh some of my good news comments earlier I'm very excited about this next presentation it's always a pleasure to have uh some of our students can be a part of uh recommendations for um change in our district and things that we can do to be better uh the recommendations and the presentation that you're here tonight are aligned to our Focus 203 strategic blueprint specifically uh blueprint
045commitment 3.1 to identify and create a long-term plan uh to improve the district's carbon footprint so thank you uh to the team which again as they'll talk about goes beyond to just the eight students Melanie and Chuck who you're hear from tonight but included a large group of was uh mentioned earlier so looking forward to it I'll turn it over to Mr fr to get us started yes thank you Mr Bridges um as Mr Bridges shared we are um excited to to share our carbon action plan with you this evening Mrs Brown and I will do a little bit of the talking tonight but we're going to try to stay out of the way because our students are here to to really give the the heart of the presentation uh the work that's gone into
046this plan has taken taken uh many months and we've developed our plan uh for the school district community in collaboration with the students that are before you this evening uh some additional students that are on our advisory team some staff uh some of which are here this evening and our community this plan will be presented again uh two weeks from tonight uh for Action a little later in our presentation as we've mentioned we will share the process we use to develop our plan however none of this would have been possible without the expertise of many an advisory team uh made up of student and staff Representatives met several times to develop the plan we're sharing tonight their work sets the pathway for important decisions our schools our district and our community will make for years
047to come we'd also like to thank Emily O'Neal uh who is our consultant uh from caram She's partnered with us throughout this entire project and is here in the audience this evening Emily give a little wa [Applause] her experience uh was instrumental in leading our advisory team and providing guidance throughout this entire process tonight you will hear from several student members of our advisory team first riita and Annabelle will share with you why a carbon action plan is needed they will also explain the process The Advisory team utilized to develop our plan then you will hear from Jenna Mary Kate and Versa who will provide an overview of the greenhouse gas inventory located on our district website as well as the long-term goals that we have set within the plan finally you will hear from
048Ethan Michael and Izzy who will take you through the components of the plan during the presentation we invite the board and the community to reference the plan itself that has been loaded into bardocks when uh while we will not walk through this document directly this evening our presentation tonight intends to summarize the process we went through in developing the plan and some key components knowing the plan will be a road map for our school district over the next 25 years we recognize changes to the plan will be necessary in the years ahead as new research technology and funding sources become available we're first going to explain the purpose of having a carbon action plan in neille 203 one major aspect of the carbon action plan is to decrease greenhouse gas emissions within the district carbon
049dioxide methane and nitrous oxide are all examples of greenhouse gases that trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere causing the planet to warm at an accelerated rate these emissions fall into two Scopes direct emissions from District vehicles and fac facilities and emissions from purchased electricity used for heating and cooling currently Illinois is already experiencing significant climate impacts including severe weather more frequent polar vortex events extreme summer heat and flooding in fact projections indicate that by 2050 the state's winter lowest temperature will be 4.2 degrees higher these R these Rising temperatures and shifting environmental conditions not only threaten ecosystems but also disrupt the learning environment directly impacting the health safety and well-being of our students and staff for instance poor air quality can worsen respiratory conditions leading to health concerns and increased student absences climate change is
050not a distant issue it affects us right here in Neighborville that's why addressing these challenges proactively is essential to safeguarding the future of our students staff and community the carbon action plan aims to fulfill the first commitment under our third strategic Focus goal to identify and create long-term plan to reduce the district's carbon footprint by implementing cap we can achieve a major part of this goal to Steward resources effectively to promote student learning this plan will allow the district to not only reduce greenhouse gas emission but also save money use materials more effectively enhance learning for our students and reduce waste through our actions such as composting these are just some of the co- benefits that come along with reducing the district's carbon footprint and essential steps into making the district better for student learning
051next we will dive into the process we use to develop our carbon Action Plan before discussing the steps of our process let's talk about The Advisory Group itself the advisor group was a very was very important in gathering the expertise of teachers and students within the district to create a plan that meets all expectations being a part of The Advisory Group opened up an opportunity for each of us to be a part of something that could make a significant change in our community sustainability this is very important to me personally and I'm sure it was important to my peers that participated as well it is not often we get to voice our opinions to the district and make a direct impact our team started by conducting a feasibility study of potential reduction measures that research
052shows make a positive impact on the climate once we prioritize reduction measures for our community we set targets and identified actions to reach those targets we also spent time considering external funding sources and who within our school district would be accountable for each one of the action steps we identified once the carbon action plan was drafted we spent multiple meetings reviewing and revising it into the plan that we're presenting to you this evening the carbon action plan kicked off in May 2024 our first step was creating a greenhouse gas inventory to identify sources of emissions which Ser served as a baseline for me measuring progress then with the help of our consultant and advisory team we came up with some reduction measures that became are focused during the pl roll out some examples of reduction
053meas measures are bus electrification and waste management engaging students in the community is an ongoing effort and we know that educating everyone will be really important as we move forward with the cap plus we want to keep students involved because they play key role in making sure these reduction practices stick as our students mentioned Community Education and input are critical within our process as the advisory team began its work we sought Community input in the development of our action steps we launched an online community input event to gather ideas to support the reduction measures that were prioritized four Focus areas were available to the community to provide comment they were Transportation infrastructure and sustainable systems student ownership and in all-encompassing all ideas are great ideas this on online event gathered 76 unique ideas that our
054advisory team considered as the plan was being developed this slide shows a couple of examples that were generated from Community input in the area of infrastructure and sustainable systems we have included the reports of the community input in board docs for the Board of Education and Community to access this input was critical to the development of our carbon action plan next we will explain the parts of our school district's car carbon action plan the greenhouse gas inventory that provided us with the Baseline and our recommended reduction targets the essential components of an actionable plan include an inventory targets reduction measures and actions and a list of implementation elements such as costs timelines and funding opportunities our plan incorporates all of these elements to support its success in a moment we will walk you through some
055screenshots demonstrating how our community can view the greenhouse gas inventory on our district website and an overview of our reduction targets after that Michael Ethan and Izzy will explain the sections on reduction measures implementation costs timeline and funding sources the first phase of the carbon action plan be began months before the advisory team started our consultant Mrs O'Neal worked with our buildings and grounds Department to conduct an inventory of the emissions from the 2018 2022 and 2023 school years that we produced as a district since October when it was first launched on our District web website our community has had access to view this as public information on a greenhouse gas emissions inventory dashboard this slide shows a few different views total emissions by facility in graphic form and as a table as well as
056a graphic displaying the sources of emissions the dashboard also has a total of five different views that vary from Transportation specific to overall emissions over time and will be continuously updated to allow the community to track our progress our inventory dashboard can also show total emissions by facility with a little more detail the top graphic shows emissions by building while the bottom graphic reorders total emissions by building based on square footage the inventory dashboard also has a page dedicated specifically to Transportation as you can see on this Slide the community can toggle between types of vehicles we utilize to see emissions and compare them to electric vehicles before a transition to reduction measures and actions our advisory team worked through each of the reduction measures separately and then as a whole to identify ambitious targets
057for our plan as you can see here our plan sets out to reduce emissions by emissions by 30 5% by 2035 as we move to the to net zero emissions by the year 2050 as we make another transition with our student leaders we will take this opportunity to EXP explain how the implementation of the plan will be managed as you review the reduction measures and action steps within the plan itself it is apparent that several departments will need to take the lead for various parts of the plan in a school district our size with the plan that spans the spans the next 25 years we want to ensure that our intended actions do not get missed along the way therefore we will be establishing a steering committee that will oversee the implementation of the carbon
058action plan this steering committee would have both staff and student representation staff Representatives would come from the various departments that have direct responsibility for for the implementing actions within the plan student representation would ensure voice and accountability to those we serve now and in the future meeting periodically throughout the school year this committee would have several key functions as listed here on this slide fundamentally this committee will be charged with keeping the plan going documenting a adjustments that will be necessary as new research and Technologies emerge identifying financial needs and sources to reach intended goals and communicating progress through the inventory dashboard and to the Board of Education a recurrent Concept in the plan is a reduction measure reduction measures are the shifts from a high emission activity to a low emission activity reduction measures
059will continue to fulfill the original activity while decreasing emissions this slide shows an example of the reduction measure on the left we have a diesel bus with high emissions transitioning to an electric bus reduces the emissions while continuing to fulfill the same need transporting students to and from school to address our carbon footprint we had to decide which reduction measure could address our biggest source of emissions while also considering what would be feasible for the district to implement we reviewed we reviewed the feasibility of over 30 scientifically proven reduction measures and considered Financial operations cultural and temporal feasibility and led on these nine as our best options however these reductions can't be all done immediately this is where action comes into play these nine reduction measures landed in three buckets building and energy transportation and
060waste we determine that these reduction measures are the most actual in making the long-term impact for our school district and Community another definition that we would like to highlight is actions specifically how they differ from reduction measures actions are the policies projects incentives and programs that help us achieve the shift of reduction measure in our carbon action plan you will notice each of the nine reduction measures have a list of actions that will be necessary to reach the targets we have set let's continue to use the example of electric buses to illustrate the difference between a reduction measure and Associated action the move from diesel to electric buses is the reduction measure but one of the actions that allow for this reduction measure to be completed would be purchasing the charging systems necessary for each
061electric bus as you can imagine there are many actions needed to fully Implement one reduction measure defining these action steps was a large part of our work as an advisory team knowing these action steps May evolve in future years when writing the carbon action plan we used a couple of indicators to provide the readers additional detail timeline cost breakdown time timeline type and cost type are all critical pieces of information for the district to understand because each influences our ability to realistically implement the cap so first the timeline we put the timeline breakdown into three categories the S category the M category and the L category s stands for short ter shortterm or component that we plan to accomplish in the next two years M is for medium term around 3 to 10 years and
062L is for long term around 11 to 25 years we also have different two different types of timelines for ongoing and one-time actions an ongoing action means it will be carried out on a regular basis like partner partnering with a renewable energy vendor while a one-time action means it will only occur once like having an energy audit to create a road map for retrofit projects we put the cost breakdown into three categories a single dollar sign $2 signs and $ three signs the number of dollar signs do not indicate how much money is necessary for the project but instead how we are funding the project $1 sign means we already have the funding two indicates that we will require a budget initiative and three will likely require an external funding resource lastly is the type
063of cost we put it into two different categories upfront cost and recurrent cost upfront cost goes hand inand with onetime action which means we will pay it once and be done with that section of the project conversely a reoccurring cost means the expense will be ongoing for either maintenance or continuous operation this is the basic structure and will help clearly identify how long each action and the plan will take finally there are many different possible funding sources for actions outlined in the carbon action plan funding could be available from the Illinois EPA or the Environmental Protection Agency ComEd sedac or the Smart Energy Design Assistance Center and other public and private sources these organizations will provide the M the money necessary to fund these projects in addition to existing money from the 203 budget nonetheless
064it's important to consider that funding will up and Flow as federal and state programs change in our surroundings evolve these all present promising funding opportunities but they will naturally need to be re-evaluated on a periodic basis we are thrilled to have had the opportunity to share our carbon action plan developed by our advisory team and presented by our student members of that team this evening on a personal note this was absolutely the highlight of our year to work with these students developing this plan has been an important important first step in doing our part in building a sustainable future in aprille 203 we know this plan is a road map that will likely take turns that we can't foresee at present time however having a plan is a significant step in taking deliberate action to
065improve our community and Steward resources effectively to support student learning we welcome any questions that the Board of Education may have this evening thank you all so much for being here and for the report report okay questions from the board Donna I before we ask questions could we applaud for the students I think okay Donna go ahead well that was going to be my first point was to say thank you um so much for our students and all of the work and the thoroughness and um my gosh you I think we need to think about hiring some of them because they presented as if St you know equivalent to how um adults would present so thank you so much um I did send some questions ahead but uh they answered actually all of those so
066I have a different question now that I'm um uh processing it and was able to hear all of their comments um I want to know if the district sees any obstacles to implementation to the plan not including um the funding because they've already talked about sources of funding that were presented but instead for example example um can we place solar on top of all our buildings within the regulations of the city Neighborville and their power supplier as it as it stands now like do we see obstacles like that that particular is one of my questions but are there other obstacles similar to that that we need to be advocating for or working towards to remove yes of course over the next 25 years we anticipate lots of obstacles um but certainly I think that the
067grid moving um to renewable energy is probably one of our largest um so we are dependent on this community on on coal at this time and and so that has some um you know some some obstacles in terms of just the energy move but also I anticipate potentially some political um elements to it as well uh beyond that our our advisory team has talked a lot about education and so simply educating not just our students and our staff but our entire community on um our our reduction measures the actions associated with them sort of the why why we might change something whether that's you know moving from diesel buses to electrified buses or solar or what have you um we think that that educational piece is going to be not necessarily the obstacle itself um
068but the but part of the solution to um to move to change for some of these because there will be costs maybe not just Financial to some of them but there will be costs in terms of tradeoffs with other things that we might also prioritize along the way um we are doing an assessment right now um in terms of structural needs for for example solar energy on rooftops uh so we would have um that report for the board in the fall um we anticipated this and we kind of timed it uh with the development of our carbon action plan so um at this time we know that there are some some of our school roofs that uh would need structural changes if we were if we were considering putting uh solar energy on on on
069those rooftops um but we haven't completed that full assessment yet so that's still ongoing okay so I have a couple of follow-up questions from that thank you Chuck um I guess my question was more poignant to have we had a discussion with the city of naille and if we were able to get past our obstacles of structure and funding are we able to put solar on top of our buildings at this point um we've not had a formal discussion with the city at this time uh in fact I do have a placeholder on the calendar um um U someone from the sustainability Department did reach out to me and said hey you're doing this let's chat so we have it on the calendar um pending your approval of the plan thank you and then um
070my next uh more comment than question would be um I remember sitting at a a meeting maybe six years ago um at Neighborville Central and having my own little um moment about electric buses and uh you know kind of standing alone and uh you know voting no against uh purchasing new buses because we didn't have um a plan and so I'm super thrilled that we can sit here 6 years later and we have electric buses and we have a plan and we're you know thinking about all the things that we should be thinking about and um I'm just I'm I'm thrilled that we've come so far in that short time um I know that seems like a long time but it is a short time and so I want to thank the staff and the
071students our community members who worked with our students our consultant who worked with our students our administration because um it takes a lot of wheels turning to get from that point where you know we're having discussions about one electric bus and you know some dis you know dissension about that to the point where we have this huge plan so thank you so much Joe yeah I I all want to Echo uh what Donna said and uh I just applaud this uh this work um it is it was great to hear uh from all the students uh who are involved in this and uh also great to hear that there will be ongoing uh student engagement uh with this plan throughout um so I guess one of the the first uh questions that I have is
072uh yeah we have a a great road map here um and I'm I'm curious how often we can uh continue to hear updates and um I hope that the students will continue to be uh involved uh in those updates I think I think the question I heard was about um updates on an ongoing basis so our our plan at this point is um and part of our presentation was that we need uh to pull together a steering committee um just having and I think we heard that in public comment tonight um that it's important that this plan is not just something that sits on a shelf that it's actually alive um and so there are actually several departments as you look across the the reduction measures and the actions in our plan there 's a
073lot of departments and a lot of a lot of layers uh including our students and our staff and our community that that are important stakeholders in this process and so in order for that plan to come to life we need Representatives sort of at the table to make sure that the accountability is there but also the support is there um and so uh one of our one of our first actions will be pending approval uh putting a committee together so that that committee can meet throughout the year and of their responsibilities will be also to update the community Through the dashboard and then make sure that the board of education has an update we're thinking at least annually uh but some of those updates will come through some of those other reports that are received
074at times like buses for example when transportation is procuring new buses you'll have an update about that which is part of the carbon action plan now but has traditionally been transportation's responsibility and would continue to to be thank you and and then you had also mentioned uh in your previous response uh to one of Donna's questions about um education around uh the plan for the community for the students um do you have an idea of what kinds of um you know education resources will be available um things like as as um elements get rolled out for example the the recycling or the posting um how will the the students in the schools be educated in terms of responsibly using uh those resources and um you know the the kind of um rationale uh behind uh
075making these steps yes we we don't actually have all the that level of detail this evening or as part of the plan but but as elements of the plan are are begin to be pulled together those accountable for those steps would that would be part of that part of the responsibility of that team so if for example it was about recycling uh we certainly would include some of our student experts we've talked quite a bit as an advisory team about for example the the shortcomings we have current in current state with our recycling programs in the district um so those things that are tangible are visible um are are very much an important part of our student experience experience would involve them in helping us identify key steps for not just education but communication um
076they'll help us with you know how do we actually Market this to our students um they're they they we talked about ideas such as high school students working at the elementary schools and helping educate our younger students because as we develop that um awareness in our younger students they'll have that as they as they matriculate up through the grades as well so long-winded way of saying we don't have all of that really firmed up at this point as part of the the sort of Master road map um but that will be detailed as we as we start to unfold the different reduction steps in the associated measures thanks now it's it's great that you're uh thinking about that and and planning to integrate that uh in um I think that there are also and this
077is just more of a comment I think there are also great opportunities to embeds some of this uh even into the curriculum uh some of the data that you're able to gather some of the you know um you how many uh you know single east water bottles are we uh you not using now uh what kind of solar uh electricity um are we able to generate right um so I think there are opportunities to to put this uh right in there and kind of make it part of the not not just an add-on but part of the uh school day Charles so uh I'll start where with where Joe's last comment picked up actually before that phenomenal job students it it was wonderful and I'm really glad that um we had uh that we got
078this feedback and this and uh it's very impactful when you have kind of tomorrow's leaders actually today's leaders and tomorrow's leaders um presenting the information uh and really showing the energy and enthusiasm for this and you all did a phenomenal job um my question or actually the comment was going to be similar where Joe was going with the uh embedding this into the curriculum so I'm glad to hear that that is um part of the plan and how you're thinking through that because what tremendous learning opportunities as we're transforming this District to be um you know Net Zero carbon by 2050 great learning opportunities for Science and other other areas to to help get our students some exposure there um the other question I had was um in the report itself there were three different
079areas that were highlighted so uh buildings in energy was one and you had a reduction for I think 33% and then Transportation was 47% um the waste area didn't have a a number identified you know just the math in me is kind of like okay is there a mathematical number that could would that it needs to be in order to get us to the given the numbers St for the other two for 47% 33 is there another number that we are anticipating trying to get that waste number to in order to meet our 35% reduction by 35 goal yeah so um the reason that there's not a statistic tied to the 2035 for Waste is that we currently don't actually have um the data gathered we don't currently track waste production and and such within
080our system um so as we bring uh new contracts on board as we start to work with uh other vendors in this area that will likely be a component that we'll want to require and or work with them on uh to make sure that that we can get to that over the next hopefully short amount of time um and so depending on where we go with that that will also of course impact our ability to accelerate towards that Net Zero in 2050 right so the more we can accomplish between now a year from now now in 2035 in any of these three buckets will help us reach that that ultimate area of of Net Zero by 2050 so we don't have a magic number right now we don't we've we've talked a little bit about
081what what it could be we've deliberately left it out instead of trying to throw a dart at a dart board and come up with a number because we want it to be actual based on our data which is what the other two areas have right now so not sure I got to that other than to say say um that'll be something we work on in that area in the first couple years it you're thinking about it and you're working on it sounds good to me thank you Amanda um thank you so much for this I what I really love about this not only that we're really making um intentional efforts to reduce our carbon footprint which is obviously important but I just um the ien on top is the student engagement and way to really
082intentionally use students to learn as an active project that's really making a difference um in our community um I just have a couple logistical questions so um why is 2018 the base year and what happened in 2018 that makes it that when we wrote the RFP um that was the based year that was selected um we wanted to make sure it was before or clearly after covid um since there were some operational impacts to what our um energy production was during that time um so that's why we chose to not do the 1920 and the 2021 year um so that's how 2018 was selected and then we did the 22 and 23 because we knew those were good full years yeah great and so we have data from 2018 that that we're using as Baseline
083and then when you say um commits to reducing greenhouse gas emissions so in the slides am I looking at like specifically are we targeting the total emissions is that where we're looking at or we looking at more individual components so like 20 35 you want to reduce by 35% so in in this thing here it says our total emissions is 15. 93k right is that what we're looking at or is there something else like what specifically are we trying to reduce it is it's it's our total emissions so that would be generally speaking our you know the major components would be of course electricity and natural gas that makes up most of our emissions um so those are our biggest levers in terms of how we reduce um and so that's what we're that's what
084we're targeting in terms of our actions what um and then just if I can go back back quickly to your previous question the other reason that we selected 2018 in addition to what Mrs Brown was sharing is that that happens to be a year prior to some things that the board has had decided to do such as electric buses so we we kind of rewound a little bit before even though we didn't have a plan we had started down this path with some things in those out years after 2018 so it also shows um you know you actually see a little bit of a reduction in some of those years since 2018 despite not having a formalized plan like this okay so um so in this this slide here and I know this is just
085a snapshot then it's showing the total admissions in 2018 for each of the different centers is that right and then we have a comparison of 2022 and 2023 so that gives us the actual numbers to show that we're making progress correct okay that's great okay thank you um and then the last question I had was um in the presentation as well they talked about the community impacts of Glo global warming and why this is important you know uh including you know temperature changes um you know health conditions Etc is there any consideration of um also using students or the community to assess um some of the community conditions and if there's any impact to the larger Community by these changes as well I I think that would certainly be a co- benefit right we're a
086we're a large part of the community right um however what we've identified in our in our plan are primarily things we can control sure um so there may be things that we do add to our plan that maybe we have influence over or we have Partnerships so I'm thinking about for example with the city um as things come aboard and as we start to develop those relationships further um our plan may call out some of those things and May in fact we may be able to include some of those on our dashboard um but without having that formalized yet we certainly didn't want to um preset that sure so they're more like correlations potential hypothetical correlations versus um something corre factual okay thank you Donna oh go ahead Kristen hi so um when we when
087this came before the board we noted that the students were going to be a part of it and it was I think one of the first times that we've ever seen a contract like that like I I don't know that we've ever had a situation like that where we where the contract itself from the vendor has said we are going to engage as a part of this we will engage our students and so we all loved it but it's better than we thought I'm really proud of you guys it's it's better than we thought and I would encourage us to be looking for contracts like this because this is a really wonderful part of kind of what we do we educate and so in all that we do we educate so I'm I'm thrilled about
088that and um I compliment our our contractor as well as our staff in just top to bottom well done um I love how you put one of my favorite slides is the implementation slide where you guys are looking at the timelines and the costs such a great slide talking about the way that we all evaluate all these different kinds of things looking at you know is it can it be fast is it one time I mean these are the things that we're still considering and I'm so glad that you guys are here because in 25 years none of us will be I I think without an exception probably not 25 years so we're going to need you guys to continue to step forward and oversee some of this as we go into the future um
089I have a question it's related to your this Patrick's page that I love so much so you you talked about one situation like that you're going to work with the city to see what's possible and I think busing wise we have similar kinds of things with that too you know for example when we've when we've purchased buses it's challenging for them to reduce them and get them to us in time those kinds of factors and we know they are expensive and so like for example I noticed requires exploration and identification of funding sources yes so those kinds of things what happens when you encounter things that are not ideal not what you hope for how does how how will you and the steering committee adjust the overall goals will you look at trying to make
090it up in a different way or or or what how how will we proceed when we encounter bumps in the row yeah I a couple things first I want to take the opportunity to mention that in our plan we could not resist having a picture at on the final page of the steering committee and we sorry guys we joked with our with our students a little bit that that will be fun for them in 2050 when they're about 43 years old to show their kids that they were part of this plan and one of them I can't remember who said something like I think my child will say something like Mom that was you um so anyway we just thought that was cute they were so fun to work with um but in terms of
091adjustments I I guess you know it's hard to it's hard to predict right where we're going to run into those snacks but we know that we will and so I suppose what we're what we're hoping for is that we may run into some snags that um are challenges that we might have to you know we might have to actually change our our outcomes our short-term goals and such but we're also hoping that we'll find some accelerate accelerating parts to it as well that will potentially offset or maybe even better our our path Way Forward too so with new research with new technology that comes aboard with new opportunities you know we we've set a plan for 25 years and anything these days that tries to look out 25 years is is very very challenging right
092so so we know both we we anticipate both of those things will happen we we'll have unforeseen challenges that will maybe in the moment feel disappointing and maybe you know we'll have to relook at what our what our short-term goals are um but we also anticipate we're going to have some celebrations things that we didn't expect that will turn out more positive and and May in fact enhance our ability to get to our 2035 Benchmark and our 2050 overall goal as well if I can really quick so it's fair to say probably then as we encounter potential barriers which I'm sure we will it's not going to be oh that's a barrier we have to move on it's going to be oh we have a barrier how can we eliminate that barrier how can we
093change our approach or how can we think differently for example electric buses right now our preferred manufacture is no longer manufacturing electric buses so rather than saying we can't get them we have to say who are some other manufacturers okay we have some infrastructure issue right now about charging stations for additional buses right now so we're addressing that there some space renovation on on campus around the bus depot so I I think it's I appreciate the the comment about highlighting the acceleration and celebrating those taking advantage of those but it's also then not finding a barrier in deciding that we just have to stop that's correct absolutely I agree and I'm I'm glad to hear that it's sort of a living document that you'll you will work it's we continue to we're approving it as
094goals but and we hope to reach them by all different kinds of mechanisms but that it's living and that we'll be able to adjust as we go forward so thank you Donna well I just have so many exciting things that I want to share but I I will kind of try to try to limit my comments here so I noticed there's five seniors on your um on your uh Advisory Group and I also know that we're uh and I and I at one time taught at naville North so super excited to see that but we're a little heavy on neille north um I would encourage us to look at um students in our Illinois Global Scholars Program because those students I don't know if any of them oh see some of them are that's wonderful
095see I knew it I knew that they were because I've worked with students in my in my work Arena uh that are literally writing legislation and bills for the state of Illinois um to be proactive in this area so those are the students and teachers that we need to kind of tap into as well so I I commend this group please don't take any um you know any uh you know disregard to that but as we replace the seniors that are moving that would that would be my suggestion that we looked there um I noticed on the website that this is beh under um a strategic blueprint 3 I'm wondering if we can have it there but also have it in a more prominent place where our community after it's uh uh you know approved
096if we can have it somewhere where it's not so buried so that their work can all be um seen and the community can see it that would be great um I would encourage us um I heard what uh Melanie said about meeting with Advocates and you have that on your calendar but the city of neille is in a process of looking at their electric uh right now and so I would encourage us to be very proactive in meeting with city of naville as soon as possible I think that that's important if they if they know that we're wanting to put solar possibly at some point on top of our buildings that could uh be very impactful to some of the decisions they make and lastly I would encourage I noticed all of our funding opportunities
097that we have I would encourage us to look at uh advocating with our Illinois legislators for funding because there's funding available there as well so thank you more comments than questions but super excited want to help push this um along and and give you some more suggestions so thanks Charles yes one more and uh the the questions I asked before I actually had s had this one I didn't but um uh Christian's comment sparked something I I also love the the the grid you know I probably shouldn't hold it up because you guys are gonna be like why did you print it out sorry I'm sorry that's probably bad to do during a carbon footprint presentation wow okay anyway so I have it on my iPad um but um what one of the things I
098was going to ask about was um in addition to the looking at the different dimensions so timeline you know timeline type cost breakdown things like that um do you have any measures about about what each of the individual actions would contribute to the reduction so you can have something to weigh that again so something might be you know all the high ones like it might cost a lot it might take a long time but it could reduce something by 10% it could get us 10% of our 35% right so then you'd weigh those two things out so it's not just if it's difficult but you know doing difficult things is okay as long as you're getting a big return for the level of difficulty you're putting in like so is there is there some way
099to assess kind of the impact that the individual actions will have in contribution to the whole yeah I'm I'm going to kind of peek at Mrs o as I say this just to get maybe a you know sort of affirmation um but our our uh goals that we have set for 2035 and then eventually for 2050 are indeed built on the individual action steps and their impact in the plan so for example when you look at buildings and energy and transportation those specific numbers for those categories were not just um goals that we sat around and came up with kind of in isolation it was sort of the additive um ability of those action steps to build within with on top of each other so we can in fact I think to answer your question
100pull an action step out and say this H this one has this kind of impact and therefore manipulate in terms of the timeline if we wish to do so got it I got I got got thumbs up you got the nod good no and that that's exciting because that will then give as decisions have to be made as you're coming forward with okay it's time to do step 3.2 or 3.3 or what have you to say yes it's and here's why and you'll come and you'll say it's really expensive and then we'll say okay what is it going to contribute and you'll say oh yeah it's so critical because it that by itself will get us that much further towards our goal so that's I'm glad I'm glad thank you to the consultant and thank
101you guys for for having the forethought to think about that that's great so that was my question thank you Donna sorry one last thing I don't know if you'll all be here next time when we vote but um I I just want to let you know that I'm a huge yes so thank you um I just actually have a couple comments um that have stemmed from my colleagues questions and comments Donna mentioned early on about six years ago and I was somewhat newer at that time and I remember thinking the idea of electric buses may have been a little far out there um electric vehicles were emerging at that time and they weren't uncommon but I thought oh that's a really big step and I bring that up to say as Donna mentioned you know
102it six years ago is not a long time but sometimes it feels like a long time and so as we move forward with this um while it took us a couple more years to get those buses we held firm to our why as a as a board why did we feel those buses were important why was that step important so I want to encourage you to hold on to your why because this topic is going to have a lot of naysayers and detractors it is the right thing to do the way you have educated the board and the community and I will even say the administration um don't lose sight of the impact that you've had just with this one presentation and take that forward every time somebody says this is not important it's a
103bunch of nonsense whatever it is hold firm to the why and I would encourage our broader Community whether it's other government agencies entities or uh neighbors whoever our broader Community to come forward and offer to work with our students on this to be supporters and cheerleaders of it um this is a big this is very very important to our community [Music] we're we need to take this seriously so that we can continue to uh survive okay and that's not meant to sound all doomsday and whatnot but it is important the health of our community as individuals just as our Earth alone all of this depends on the work that you guys have put in front of us and to see this plan now after thinking electric buses was such a big deal this plan is
104an even bigger deal now I'm sure Kristen did not mean that in 25 years we won't be here like physically we just won't be at this table just want to clarify I plan to be around for a good 50 maybe more um but what's that 80 yeah I'll stay around as as long as I can aggravate my kids I'm I'm in for the Long Haul but what I'm saying is we might not be sitting at this table but we're still going to be supporting you and we still want to be working I would still want to be partnering in whatever way able in those 25 30 50 years so thank you again for all this and we hope that you're here next meeting when we do take a vote on it great job you are
105always invited and welcome to stay but you're also free to go if you need to item 8.02 the career 203 update although it may be fun to sit here in Snicker at Miss Nelson who I feel like we set up for failure by needing to follow you with her presentation uh but um she will do extremely well um Shel is our director of Human Resources in career 203 and in collaboration with Nua um our quer 203 model and program is one that's been replicated across the state in terms of support for our professional growth um and compensation and support for our Educators so as part of our agreement annually uh members of the Nua and administration review career 203 and make recommendations to the board for improvements and updates and sh's going to present that
106today thank you Mr Bridges thank you for the invitation to present an update about career 203 as Mr Bridges mentioned I'm Shelley Nelson I'm the director of HR in career 203 I'm here tonight to present for your discussion without action five proposals recommended by the career 203 assessment committee for inclusion in next year's professional growth guide to frame those proposals we'll review the cornerstones of the career 203 model and share successes of the program so what is career 203 during negotiations in 2010 the district and the Nua agreed to redevelop a professional growth model for educator compensation that would replace the far more common graduate credit-based salary schedule model a committee was charged with creating a plan that focuses on the Improvement of student learning allows staff members to direct their learning plan based on
107future career goals and considers the impact on the lifetime earnings of licensed staff the result of that collaboration is very unique to our district career 203 the program guide describes career 203 as a professional growth model created to reward Educators for participation in relevant and rigorous educational opportunities that fulfill the evolving needs of the district students think of career 203 as a learnto earn Compensation Plan that impacts the lifetime earnings of our licensed staff the district sees career 203 as a key strategy in Recruitment and Retention and as a significant benefit available to licensed staff it stands out among local districts for providing access to internal learning opportunities for advancement on the salary schedule we recently pulled 23 local districts to determine how many of them offer salary increases for completing in-house learning experiences 72%
108of the respondents indicated that they currently have no equivalent program and 28% indicated that they have at least some form of internal professional learning that results in raises or salary advancement our model also provides many more opportunities to earn credit on the salary schedule beyond the free internal professional learning according to linkedin's workplace learning report in 2023 93 % of employees say they would stay at an employer longer if it invested in their Career Development when our Educators Benefit from advancements on the salary schedule for their professional growth it becomes an incentive to stay within our district because other local districts do not offer something as robust as career 203 career 203 got its name because at its core it is a Compensation Plan tied directly to career path planning to start educator collaborate with
109an administrator to discuss career aspirations from there Educators discover which available brick types will help them Reach their career goal they then plan the learning experiences for their chosen brick types completed bricks pave the Educator's career path bricks are either predefined by the program guide developed by the district or curated by an educator for their unique career path implementing the learning experiences has a positive impact on both Student Success and the Educator's goals and earnings and both in return benefit the district as a whole upon completion of a brick an educator reflects on what they've learned to earn either a payment or points used for advancement on the salary schedule the type of compensation for each brick is established before the educator engages in the learning activities with that framework in mind we'll review a
110few performance indicators we start with emerging Educators those who have not yet earned an advanced degree when we look at the whole of the Nua bargaining unit approximately 15% are emerging Educators for these Educators career to3 consists of completing the Master's Degree brick type in calendar year 2024 our emerging Educators earned 8,532 points in this graph you will see the number of educators working toward their first master's degree represented by the blue bars and the number of Educators earning their degree represented by the red line participation has been steady for a third straight year career educators are those who have successfully earned an advanced degree and again if we look at all the Educators in the Nua bargaining unit approximately 85% of them are career Educators they have full access to every prick type in
111the program guide during calendar year 2024 which includes spring and fall 2024 advancement periods our career Educators earned 4,686 points a 47% increase over the previous school year which had been the highest to date this chart represents the number of points awarded to Career Educators over the past 11 years I can't help but think that learning services work in expanding opportunities for free excuse me in District professional learning and the incredible dedication of our career 203 facilitators over the past couple of years has led at least in part to this increase in participation in this graph we look at the composition of bricks the types of learning providers being used by Educators in particular we're looking at bricks that learning experiences from only universities versus those from non-university learning Partners many of the points received
112from a university would have qualified for credit under the former plan while points awarded by non-university providers would not have been eligible for points before career 203 non-university providers include District 203 a wide variety of nationally recognized organizations and various certification boards for the first time we analyzed the number of bricks that contained solely District 203 professional learning experiences and found that just under 50% of the bricks containing no university courses meet that definition District 203 learning experiences are offered at no cost to the educator and are applied to advancement on the salary schedule which impacts their lifetime earnings the Educators who create and facilitate District 203 courses also earn compensation initially as points on the salary schedule and then as payment each time a course is retaught most District Two most career 203 compensation
113is awarded in points which are used toward advancement on the salary schedule in these graphs we look at the participation among emerging and career Educators the dollar spent over the last 10 plus school years plus a preview of the current school year based on the fall 202 for advancement period the graph to the left shows the number of Educators who have earned a lane advancement each school year and to the right of that you see the cost of salary advancements for that same time period we work closely with the business office to track the cost of salary advancements for budgeting purposes annual salary advancement increases have exceeded $1 million in three of the previous four years and for the second consecutive year salary advancement increased inrees exceeded $1 million in the fall advancement period alone
114one of the homeworks of career 203 is that there are many opportunities for educators to earn compensation that supports the district's strategic goals this slide focuses on learning experiences that directly support strategic focuses one and two of the focus 203 strategic blueprint for strategic Focus one to design and implement effec Ive practices that enhance academic social emotional and college career and post ready postsecondary Readiness for all students we're highlighting three learning experiences a brick was created to help dual credit teachers be successful in their role as both a high school and college level educator several High School career and teched teachers completed an extensive curriculum training for implementing Project Lead the Way at the high school level and current middle school project Project Lead the Way teachers completed a brick related to the new elective
115computer science course that debuted this year for strategic Focus two to Foster an equitable and high performance culture focused on student learning well-being and engagement we're also highlighting three impactful learning experiences the first supports our District's uh efforts related to diversity Equity inclusion and belonging and focuses on creating Equitable learning environments for all students to support the El expansion at every Middle School the second provided training to dozens of Middle School teachers in scop sheltered instruction observation protocol scop is a model that helps elel students access the same curriculum as their peers and the third is an educator created District 203 course on Universal Design for Learning udl aims to develop successful and inclusive learning experiences for learners of all levels and all abilities from the onset career 203 was strategically designed to be dynamic
116it is meant to evolve with the needs of our students support the Strategic goals of the district and adapt based on an Educator's career goals the career 203 assessment committee plays an important role in making sure the program remains collaborative relevant and rigorous one of their responsibilities is to review proposals for updating existing bricks and for adding new ones the career tool3 assessment committee consists of 12 members appointed in equal numbers by the Association and administration and I serve as the non- voting facilitator their annual meeting was held on February 6th 2025 and 11 members were present the committee unanimously approved five proposals for the board's consider consideration with action at their next meeting the proposals would address inconsistent and ambiguous language increase opportunities for emerging Educators and align compensation to current practice for educators
117creating and facilitating year-long courses The Proposal number on each slide of the next five slides will give you the full proposed language of each proposal proposal one brings consistency to the El eligibility requirements for educators interested in earning their principal endorsement now both emerging Educators and career Educators would be able to join a principal prep program after two years of experience in the district and evaluation scores of proficient or hired proposal two aligns with current practice for compensating Educators who create and facilitate more intensive year-long courses another area of growth in learning Sur professional learning catalog proposal three is directly related to the year-long courses described in proposal to and expands opportunities for emerging Educators Educators who have maximized their salary scheduled placement are allowed to earn cash compensation for both participating in and creating
118District 203 learning experiences with the introduction of year-long courses this new language increases the number of points that career Educators can convert from points to payment the second part of this proposal would allow emerging Educators who had not previously been allowed to participate in and earn compensation for District 20 203 learning experiences to earn cash compensation in lie of points proposal four clarifies existing language regarding Educators who complete the District 203 national board certified teacher cohort but do not go on to earn certification the existing language is ambiguous and does not reflect the original intent of that change approved 5 years ago proposal five simply provides Clarity and transparency to The Brick descriptions for the series of PL experience and series of graduate courses bricks bricks designed exclusively by Educators for their own career plan
119have always required a minimum of three cohesive learning experiences and this proposal Al adds that language to The Brick descriptions of the five proposals only proposal three is projected to have any financial implications we expect that those potential costs will be absorbed into the current career 203 payment budget we appreciate your consideration of these proposals that offer our Educators increased access and options to career and salary advancement if adopted these collaborative modifications to the career tool 3 Program Guide will be introduced for the upcoming 25 26 school year the updated program guide will be presented for your approval at the next board meeting I'm happy to answer any questions you have thanks for your presentation questions from the board Joe yeah thank you for your presentation I'm I'm always very impressed with the uh amount
120of professional development opportunities that um uh educators have here in the district um and uh I send this ahead I was um curious if there are ways that um the career 203 program uh could support professional development if um you know we go to different schedules uh such as block schedules uh in the district since there will be large professional development needs uh in making that that kind of a transition uh yes I don't have all the details Jane could probably help us but um learning services will be putting together um learning experiences to help with those I think two there's twofold answer there right there's professional learning that you put in place for the district as a whole when there's a new initiative right and then there's additional support that could be offered through
121the career 203 model so I think there's two ways that we can look at that Donna this is not um um necessarily a question for you but but just a general uh comment for my colleagues um rarely do we have links on slides that are live that we have to click and so I just want my colleagues to all be aware because I asked the question normally we see the exact language changes and it was brought to my attention if you look at the proposals that they their hot links that go to the actual language so I wasn't sure if everyone saw that I recognized that I did not so I was a little confused so I'll have to review the actual language and the proposals that you know and I'm glad we're not voting
122on it because I didn't have an opportunity to do that but um just want to make sure you're all aware thanks thanks for that feedback other questions from the board okay thank you thank you item 8.03 EC through 12 certified and District sped Staffing projection okay uh annually the administration reviews uh current Staffing and then looking at the next year's projected Staffing to bring to the Board of Education uh to seek approval um on this projection uh this is obviously an important factor in terms of the work that we do toward the budget uh doing this now ahead of the actual budget work allows us to get out early into um recruiting and eventually selecting additional new teachers for our district um so our our team of Administrators Katie Matthews Alison M Mark hn and
123Melissa McKenry have led the work by level in collaboration with others of of the cabinet uh turn it over to Allison to get us started with the recommendations this evening we are presenting the Staffing projections for the 2025 2026 school year and recommending approval of the Staffing allocations as outlined in the memo each year we carefully evaluate our staffing needs based on future enrollment projections programmatic priorities and the evolving needs of our students to ensure that we are providing the highest level of support uh while maintaining fiscal responsibility as outlined in the projections the overall Staffing level remains stable with a modest increase of 05 FTE across the district while Elementary Staffing reflects a slight reduction due to projected enrollment Trends Middle School Staffing reflects an increase to accommodate growing enrollment and expanded service for
124multilingual Learners High School Staffing remains steady supported by efficiencies in course offerings and programmatic adjustments District level student services Staffing will also remain consistent maintaining critical supports and specialized programs these Staffing adjustments align with our District's commitment to ensuring that all students receive the resources instruction and support they need to thrive next year we appreciate the board's thoughtful consideration of this recommendation and welcome any questions you may have questions from the board okay thank you for that oh wait Donna go ahead sorry I was trying to let someone else go ahead of me um so uh one of the questions that I sent ah had was um if there'd be any additional need for staff with the proposals of the implementation of the Innovative school day um currently that's go ahead also ly the FTE
125is flat um for the recommendations we do know that there are uh could be shifts if there are additional budget initiatives um enrollment Trends as well as we are bargaining so we will not be able to finalize that but we did go into Innovative school day knowing that we would need to make some shifts and uh remain flat thank you other questions Charles I had a question about the um and I sent this one ahead um what is driving the increase in middle in Middle School enrollment so I just found it was interesting is is this a bubble that's kind of floating through or there is a bubble yes coming up uh 110 is a pretty significant increase for a level for a year um and so and they are grouped so Jefferson is going
126to accumulate around 60 or 66 students Lincoln's going to have 27 Madison's going to have 18 so when they move in a big section like like that that's a lot different than if it's like five or 10 per building um and so it is something that we've been watching typically for enrollment based trends like this I look three years out at least because we need to look at classroom space as well so we did anticipate this was going to occur uh in addition to this we are welcoming back our multilingual learners for seventh and eighth grade next year so that is why the increase is to specifically support our El programming so you mentioned that it's going to imp a couple of different schools differently uh are we are there any space concerns that we're
127think we're anticipating at this point the space concerns primarily exist at our larger schools so Kennedy is projected to be around 938 students next year as previously discussed with our renovation work we are looking at other solutions to adjust the space uh Jefferson will probably be the tightest to be honest out of all five uh because they are increasing they'll have an incoming class of around 336 students and they have an eighth grade class next year which is also in the 300s so it is large we have had largest larger enrollments though um I have a a document where we've tracked enrollment trends at all five schools for the last 20 years we have had moments where we have been tighter with the Innovative School Day recommendation it does help us incredibly with space when
128I say that that is because it is recommended that an entire grade level goes to exploratory at lunch at the the same time so at our larger schools like Jefferson or Kennedy that's 10 to 13 classrooms that are available every single class period um and so that is something that I know the principles were really helpful um as it be can become a pretty uh serious puzzle in terms of where we're going to offer classes and there is a lot of shared classrooms at our at our larger schools thank you Kristen so I just want to clarify even with 110 additional students we're not adding additional staff for that correct it's we are for the welcoming our El students back at our schools but like just like for example at Jefferson where you said there's
129going to be a big bump we're not adding additional staff members just for that uh we are watching our class sizes uh with that program um most likely we'll be uh especially watching our exploratory classes to be honest to maintain them in the class range we have over the last couple of years put a buffer in there especially for Jefferson Jefferson is our Middle School that tends to have the most students move in throughout the school year out of the five so with the El Staffing and the Dual specialized programming um they will get an increase in an El lbs allocation is what we're asking for so a multilingual teacher who can also support students with special education in the memo I mentioned how we have a growing number of students uh who need multilingual
130Services as well as special education services so we'll be allocating a position for that and one more allocation to address the enrollment okay okay thank you other questions okay thank you item 8.04 The Debt Service Levy okay uh Mr Francis is um out of the district at a learning opportunity related to our direct Primary Care Facility here in the district that the board previously approved um however I have the information necessary to have the conversation tonight uh there is no action requested this evening provide an update and a review of process to where we are now um back in November on November 18th at the Board of Education meeting uh Administration uh updated the board of education on financial status following uh the completion of our audit and we also uh estimated with the board
131our tax levy determination uh considerable discussion was had at that meeting regarding um that and administration's recommendation at the time to uh not Abate The Debt Service Levy uh board had considerable conversation again decisions didn't need to be made then uh following that meeting we met the citizen Finance advisor committee uh who advised uh and provided input that we do Abate The Debt Service Levy as as has been done previously um and so we do have the opportunity to come back um and visit that um um decision by the board uh action would be needed by the March 24th 2025 meeting if there is to be um an abatement of The Debt Service Levy uh the board has adopted similar abatement resolutions uh for the 2009 bond issue in each of the past eight Lev
132years going back to the spring of 2017 uh the Ann in addition to those abatements the board also redeemed early the 2008 bond issue in the spring of 2018 for an additional 9.5 million in savings saving over for additional $9.5 million saving over $3 million in interest and since 2017 the annual abatements for Debt Service are approximately $21 million with adoption of the current resolution as proposed uh future Debt Service Levy for fiscal years 25 and 26 would be $98,000 uh and that's interest only the final U balloon payment for fiscal year 2017 in 3.1 and that would be the last debt payment uh in the district would be out of would would have no longer carried debt um and so the initial recommendation from the administration was notate based on the feedback at the
133November 18th and then December 16th board meetings and the input from the citizen Finance advisory committee and weighing the U smaller impact of the abatement at only 998,199 questions from the board Kristen and I didn't send this one ahead because I didn't think of it but um I am very conscious of the fact that we have quite a bit of um factors ongoing um with regard to funding whether it be you know Federal uncertainty or the fact that we are currently negotiating with our employees we don't really truly know um the obligations that that will meet and I know that we are already in deficit um for the looking at our five-year Outlook and that we have um traditionally seen fewer expenses in our health spending but we've committed to the the the new health
134facility um I'm wondering if you can tell me what would how would this impact an an average taxpayer like if you know I I'm just because we have a lot of financial uncertainty here as a as a district um weighing that against you know the small impact that I know it would mean for temp what is that I actually had that number back in November and I don't have it with me right nowor the I didn't think we do have that number I will make sure the board has up before action thank you questions any other questions okay item 8.05 uh resolution transfer funds for debt abatement and that's just the uh related action the Board of Education would need to take because uh in the event that the board does uh Abate it um
135then um there need to be a transfer from the education fund to The Debt Service uh fund uh and that would need to be done by resolution so ultimately if the board decides not to Abate there would be no action necessarily resolution okay any questions from the board on that okay item 8.06 the innovated Innovative school oh sorry Amanda I'm sorry go ahead I know I'm in the corner um no I just wanted to no so the the resolution then to transfer from the education fund to the debt of ab batment do we anticipate that we're going to have a surplus in that area we had actually budgeted for a deficit for this year so I'll have to review the updated financials and answer that at the next meeting okay yeah CU I just was
136wondering why we would select that if you know if we're on track to spend it or if what sorry my words are a little hard it's you know time change so sorry about that if it didn't make sense okay uh Adam it item 8.06 the Innovative School update okay I want to bring to uh the board's attention a considerable amount of information that is loaded in bardocks um everything that you have seen previously up to this point in regard to um the Innovative school experient has been reloaded just so that's for ease it's all in one place um and so there's some additional information that is in their newer information uh there are some uh references um to research and resources that were used as a part of uh committee work and design teamwork uh
137there are board questions that have been asked over time up to this meeting and we'll update that as we move forward so that all of those are are in one place you have a memo um from me on behalf of administration uh on um next steps and where we're at with a recommendation on a Time line and then you have an updated copy of our Innovative School experience professional learning outcomes and metrics uh and then newly loaded in board docs and partially in response to questions that we've received from board and others are a series of slides that would be new to you um and again we're not having no action this evening we're going to use the slides here as kind of the basis um of our report to the board uh we will
138be updating you on our ongoing work regarding uh the district's instructional schedule and related proposals our the goal uh is to share key information including the change process uh research-based insights and how these proposals align with our District's long-term growth and strategic goals to guide our discussion we will focus on five key areas tonight examining the change process analyzing growth opportunities and proposal impact present research clarify the start end time order and update our proposal timeline and implementation it's important to acknowledge that we're not innovating for the sake of just Innovation but rather these proposals reflect the identified and shared goals outlined in our strategic blueprint deep thought and consideration has gone into the recommendations brought forward for both the experienc are in classrooms and for the operational improvements needed to fully optimize how our
139time is spent and very much like the reports you heard earlier tonight on things like the carbon action plan and our the educator professional learning that is embedded within career 203 the work of the Innovative School experience is and has been a part of our longtime strategic plan the Innovative School experience proposal was designed to address strategic Focus one which is design and Implement effective practices that enhance academic social emotional and college career and postsecondary Readiness for all students the proposals within support the following commitments 1.1 design and embed College in career skill building across all disciplines to enhance academic and workplace writing this for all students 1 point2 conduct an analysis and update the junior high exploratory programs and experiences to ensure relevance rigor and Alignment to current student interest in Industry Trends 1.3
140conducting an analysis of innovative school day models that support effective mtss and flexible use of time and space that responds to the student of the future one point four condu an analysis of student services support systems to ensure students exceptional needs are me through an efficient and effective resource model 1.5 conducting an analysis of Early Childhood experiences facilities and resources staffing and outcomes to make recommendations for future programmingsoftware also embeds all ongoing commitments and the commitments 2.1 2.2 3.2 3 3.4 4.1 and 4.3 our profile of a learner is also an important part of the work it was developed through collaboration with a diverse group of stakeholders from across our community this profile identifies the most critical skills our students need to thrive in an Ever Changing World it needs to be viewed as a
141key part of the Innovative School experience work to date these essential skills include communication critical thinking learner mindset global citizenship one skill that is especially important in today's educational landscape is adaptability students must develop the ability to be flexible and work effectively in a climate of ambiguity as the world continues to evolve our educational experiences must equip them with the resilience and problem solving skills needed to navigate uncertainty with confidence our approach to change is grounded in Carter's model of change ensuring a structured and strategic process for implementation as a reminder these proposals are not about Innovation for its own sake rather they serve as a catalyst for Action by removing the barriers to change and creating conditions to test and refine schedules based on real world application by following a systematic change process we
142are ensuring that shifts in scheduling and instructional models are both purposeful and sustainable aligning with our long-term goals for Student Success the timeline of this work was shared at the January 21st Board of Education meeting but as a reminder our commitment to innovating the school experience has been in progress since 2018 over the past six years we've engaged staff administrators parents Community Partners and students in analyzing learning and designing solutions to meet the evolving needs of our students we value stakeholder input and feedback as it plays a critical role in shaping our work throughout this process we've provided multiple opportunities for engagement ensuring that voices from staff students families and the community are heard we continue to gather feedback to ensure that themes are analyzed and considered for possible revisions by gathering diverse perspectives we
143have been able to refine our proposals to best meet the needs of our students and Community as a district we demonstrate exemplary levels of overall student achievement this slide summarizes anticipated areas of benefit including increased mathematics growth decreased achievement gaps lesser rates of exclusionary discipline in attendance and tardies additionally we strive to improve student sense of belonging and improve student preparation for postsecondary education and future career opportunities our work is grounded in school Improvement mtss seal equity and research-based best practices all of which guide every decision we make these foundational elements ments ensure that our proposals support Student Success well-being and access to high quality learning experiences the board of education has challenged us to think differently about decreasing achievement and opportunity gaps reducing Behavior incidents and disproportionality enhancing mtss by providing guaranteed dedicated time
144for targeted support and personalized learning strengthening seal by addressing chronic absenteeism and increasing students sense of belonging advancing Equity by ensuring access to meaningful participation reducing barriers like transportation and unstructured time benefits all students however closely aligning drop offs and start time at the high school level will provide more Equitable opportunities for students who rely on District transportation that disproportion that disproportionately impacts many of our most vulnerable student populations additionally every decision and recommendation is firmly rooted in best practices research and student first Approach at the core of this work is educational Equity as a reminder this slide highlights several key areas that represent the structural barriers we face in creating the Innovative School experience our students and staff deserve these are the challenges we are working to address with our proposed Solutions one of
145the key barriers we must address is the growing number of State mandated instructional requirements the state mandates act defines a mandate as any state level action that requires local school districts to incur additional cost to implement since 1982 699 educational mandates have been enacted an average of 17 per year and the trend continues to rise each legislative session new unfunded mandates add pressure on school districts imp impacting curriculum decisions instructional minutes Staffing and finances examples of these mandates include increase required recess time for elementary schools requirement of a comprehensive threat assessment model and increased mandated units of study such as an Marie and eron's Law changes instituted in 2024 include instructional requirements for the 2024 2025 on Native American history the dangers of allergies and the dangers of fentanyl use and instruction on climate change
146to be implemented in the 2026 2027 school year while many mandates are well- intended they often come with no additional resources making it increasingly difficult to balance compliance with the flexibility needed to support Student Learning Without removing existing requirements implementing all of this makes flexible scheduling even more critical Dr John hatti developed a method for analyzing the impact of various educational in fluences using an effect size his Landmark study visible learning synthesized findings from hundreds of metaanalysis to determine which factors have the greatest impact on student achievement through his research Hattie identified and ranked 256 influences on student achievement categorizing them from highly effective to ineffective the hinge Point of0 40 represents the average effective size of all interventions and influences studied this serves as a benchmark anything with an effect size above 04 are
147very likely to have a meaningful impact on student learning by using this evidence-based approach we can focus on strategies and structures that have the greatest impact on Student Success ensuring that our decisions are grounded in proven best practice our recommend ation are firmly grounded in best practice and research-based strategies that have Pro proven impactful on student growth and achievement according to Hattie's research John Hattie's visible learning research provides effect sizes that indicate how much various instructional strategies influence student learning as stated before a higher effect size means a greater impact on achievement this chart highlights key components of our proposal in their correspond ing effect sizes demonstrating how our recommendations align with evidence-based practices this is something also our school Improvement teams leverage as we plan professional learning and Implement in our buildings the first
1481.57 Collective efficacy teacher efficacy that which is increased teacher collaboration time 1.29 response to intervention which is our what I need intervention model that we are proposing 88 micro teing is our win as you can see and go further on with this slide it very much implements and discusses different effect sizes and strategies that are all included in our Innovative school day model proposal This research underscores why these recommendations are included because they are backed by strong evidence showing their effectiveness in enhancing student learning and success we we recognize that any change to school start and end times impacts families and we appreciate the feedback we've received we understand that these adjustments may feel disruptive District 203 operates a three tier bus system this means that most buses run three routes each day one at
149each level in changing the start or length of day at any one level you impact both of the others this impact could mean changing other levels start and end times or creating unstructured time in the day like we currently have our recommendation is based in no small way on this constraint every combination of start and end times was considered by the steering committee in making our recommendation the committee has prioritized limiting unstructured time in several aspects of the recommendations including this one in our recommendation buses will arrive at each School shortly before the school day begins begins additionally buses will be available at each School immediately following the end of the school day the district acknowledges that these changes may require us to adapt but they put the needs of our students first we cannot
150continue to prioritize schedules that disproportionately impact our students who rely on Neighborville 203 transportation this visual illustrates why A change is necessary if we maintain our current start times while implementing the design 19 proposals it would significantly increase the length of the school day for middle and elementary students without structured supervision by adjusting start and end times we ensure that all students receive Equitable access to instructional time and support younger students are not left without supervision for extended periods and the learning day is structured to optimize engagement and student well-being the shifts are critical to improving the school experience as we evaluated different start and end time configurations we carefully considered the impact on students families transportation and Logistics each alternative presents significant challenges shifting Elementary to the last start time that would cause it
151Greater disruption for families requiring child care and delay bus availability from middle and high school extracurriculars until after 4:30 p.m. daily shifting Elementary to the middle slot that would require earlier or later adjustments for other levels due to the shorter elementary school day without addressing adolescent sleep cycle research shifting High School to the last start time that would limit student participation in conference events impact internships and paid employment already with a 310 p.m. High School dismissal there are times when students in athletics or other school activities need to be dismissed early to allow them to get to their competitions on time adding buses to reduce route times is not feasible due to infrastructure Staffing Financial constraints and partnership constraints and minimizing the time gap between levels would create new and and significant supervision challenges for
152students on our campuses ultimately the pro proposed start and end times balance these complex factors while prioritizing student needs and operational feasibility as we evaluate our proposed scheduled changes it is important to recognize that we are not alone in this work districts across the region are making similar adjustments to address instructional time supervision transportation and student needs recent examples include glenberg District 87 they implemented a black schedule at the high school level after proposing the changes in 2022 St Charles district 303 they announced start and end time changes in January 2024 to address supervision and transportation concerns similar to ours Elden District u46 they are starting next school year with Elementary students receiving 20 additional minutes of instruction and they're shifting to new start and end times from 7:50 to 2:10 or 8:20 to 240
153West Aurora District 129 has recommended adding 15 minutes to the elementary school day and shifting to a 7:50 a.m. to 2:25 p.m. schedule additionally St Peter and Paul School in naville currently starts the elementary school day at 7:45 a.m. and planfield District 202 2 has adjusted their high school schedule to expand access to Career pathway courses House Bill 2951 was recently sent to the education policy committee this bill would prohibit public high schools from starting before 8:45 a.m. should House Bill 2951 pass we would need to consider modifications to the pro proposed start and end times these examples reinforce the districts across Illinois are adapting to meet changing student and operational needs just as we are doing here we received feedback that August 2025 would be too soon to implement these changes and that staff
154would benefit from additional time to prepare since the last Board of Education meeting we discussed this possibility with leaders from each of our staff unions who agreed that a later implementation would be beneficial therefore we are recommending full implementation in the 2026 2027 school year with clear implementation expectations and a structured three-year professional learning plan aligned with the leveled ISC recommendations these can be found in board decks our plan includes measurable success indicators tied to professional learning outcomes and key components of the ISC plan for the 2025 2026 school year our primary focus will be on preparing ing staff for the proposed changes through institut dat learnings building and department-based professional learning and possible course or career 203 courses and brick opportunities by providing providing ongoing targeted professional development we will ensure that staff have
155the resources training and support needed for a smooth and effective transition in 2026 27 as we've previously shared we've modified our current proposal to recommend that the transition occur at the start of the 2026 2027 school year believe this shift will address many student staff and Community concerns related to professional learning obtaining child care and overall Readiness for all stakeholders we have posted a full reference document this presentation previous board questions are implementation expectations professional learning outcomes in board dos this time we're happy to answer any questions that the board has thank you for that update questions from the board Amanda um I don't quite understand slide number 14 which is the the schedules where it has current proposed and maintained times why um do the times maintain times change from the current right like
156what's the difference between current and maintain maintained I can speak to that um so in that slide I don't know if you guys can pull that slide up I think it's slide 14 the green proposal is what our current schedule is so our current school days the yellow bar shows if we implement the proposals and the change in start and end times we have received questions about could you just implement the proposals and not change certain times oh okay and so the red bar is if we implemented the proposals which shortens the high school day and lengthens the elementary day what would it look like and so in the red bar we maintain the start times but some of the end times have changed because of the proposals and then it extends the amount of
157unstructured time while students are waiting for transportation okay thank you for explaining that um I also um notice like I appreciate you know um you know when we had the meeting where the uh unions came up and shared their survey about the concerns from the staff the majority of things came into uh like a summary of um majority of what I heard at the time was about um needing more time to really understand what this would look like how they would transform their curriculum and needing uh also to make sure that we are aligned with the um negotiating with the unions Etc so I really appreciate it seems like this um suggestion of um delaying till 26 is it 26 27 thank you um school year uh helps with that and then there's a a
158training plan for that um my uh biggest concern continues to be around um the uh starting entire times uh differenti differentiation for the elementary and the middle school and you said that you know we won't have unstructured time in the schools but it's just going to move it to the homes right you know what I mean like so if you have most parents don't have Elementary and high school kids they have Elementary then middle than high school and if you have kids you know getting on the bus around 7 and then not again till like you know 8:15 what it and for working parents have to go like middle schoolers uh you know this is my job you know they need supervised time right you know and so I think it's just pushing that burden
159onto the parents um and then there would be some sort of cost right for them right maybe not taxes but maybe being like to school adjust of work times a uh before care uh costs which are really expensive you know so those are things that I'm just really concerned about and I want to make sure that if we're going to delay this out that we also have very very intentional parent communication and engagement about what does this really mean for them to help them also be prepared to adjust their family life around what this might mean you know so that's that's the biggest concern is just like that Family Impact for me so thanks Charles so U I'm going to piggyback a little bit off of what Amanda said but um before that I just
160wanted to to say I I appreciate the the recommendation to moving the implementation timeline and pushing that back I think that um is listening to some of the feedback at least that we got from the community that we just weren't ready for this just yet so I appreciate that um that said I think that's just one of the big concerns that's been raised um it's I see the chart here that's on the screen right now about the changes in start times Etc but um um I think I noted this the first time that we had this we started talking about this I got getting these presentations um and you know I noted that you know the entire Administration is was presenting on part of it so which is helpful because it shows that you know
161there's it's been looked at from a number of different angles but similar to the presentation we had earlier today one of the great things about that was that we had a critical stakeholder and we had students sitting there talking about you know their engagement in this and their alignment to this and their input to this and how you know they were really excited about this I would love to see that same kind of part of this where we have parents representative parents talking about hey we've we've gone through all of this and we're really excited about this I know that we got feedback early on the challenge that I've heard from many people in the community is that um we talked about the benefits and we talked about the desires and that that folks wanted
162for changes to the school day but what we didn't tell people before the proposal came out was what that would cost them not just in dollars in terms of daycare but in terms of family disruption and so part of that issue was the level of disruption we're creating and then we were looking at doing that in a relatively short time frame many people talk to me about um you know the availability of daycare or lack of availability of daycare in the Neighborville area and the ability for the infrastructure that's needed in the community to be able to support this even if even setting aside the fact that you're now talking about an additional financial burden for those parents who'd have to adjust um in addition to work schedules and things like that so implementation timeline
163was a piece of it but then there's what we're asking folks to actually do that's the other part of it and um I think that if we're talking about pushing this out the implementation us out for a year it would be smart for us to have another conversation now that everybody knows all the details of the plan here's all the things we're trying to do get a patient Co not a patient a parent cohort together a committee steering commit or something to talk about um you know what some of the logistical challenges they're facing and how we can potentially help work through some of those and then also the same thing um for our our staff to say okay what are the things that you need making sure that everything that's necessary is lined up
164I guess the simplest way for me to say this would be you know we've all seen like movies where they have like the space launch or whatever and then they go around the room and all the key stakeholders you know they go flight plan check they go fuel check they go and then everybody gives a thumbs up I would love to see something like that where it's the administration our our staff Representatives as well as parents everybody giv a thumbs up like yep we've looked at all this and here we go having completely torture tested all of the different scenarios and things and saying that whatever we come up with at that point that is the thing that everyone can get behind but I just don't think that we have that right now I think
165there are still several concerns out there um and while the changing of the implementation timeline addresses one of them it only addresses that one of them Donna so I had a similar concern to Charles um I know that we've changed the implementation dat by year and some of my questions were like how we were going to utilize that year so that was all like laid out but um I guess I want to understand I heard that uh we have refined The Proposal you know with the feedback from our staff and community and I guess I don't see that I'm not sure I understand other other than the moving it out one year I want to understand how we've refined the proposal to accommodate the feedback from our staff and our community because I don't understand
166or see that um okay I'm gonna ask I'm gonna ask Miss Willard me to talk a little bit about the professional learning outcomes and how that has been tweaked now we had we had a draft of that that had not come forward yet based on the discussion and the delay it has been modified to accommodate that delay and so I think that has been a significant part and I'll just add to I respect the comments that have been made by the previous two board members about okay now kind of should we go to these um additional feedback and input regarding some of the logistical things but Jane if you could speak to how that plan was set up sure that plan was developed um by when we brought in our is uh ec12 Team um
167we specifically asked for what they would need in order to implement so this professional learning plan that we created that you'll find in board Dax is a direct result of what they told us that they would want for their professional learning to implement the plan that we do believe is the plan that we want to implement that's that's best based on our feedback from our teams so that was since the feedback that we've received from staff and Community the professional learning is from when we were in November and and then December again the the professional learning that really hasn't if we Implement let's say the black schedule or we Implement things that we want to do in disciplinary those are the instructional pieces that they gave us feedback on of what they would need in
168order to implement that so what has changed then on the refinement on that then is the professional learning front loaded in advance of implementation as opposed to a parallel timeline right also in addition uh some levels did meet again so the middle school team did meet again in January where it was Department chairs and Innovative school day uh members and administration um where we talked about specific PL needed by content as well as all the aspects of the plan so that was rolled into a level specific plan if that's helpful okay and I appreciate all this feedback and I appreciate all the work I still am a little at a loss as to how we've changed anything since the feedback that we've received through the presentations in February yeah so some some of the things
169and I'm I am going to go back to thinking about probably one of the things that is most challenging for people right now in the plan and that is the start and end times and was outlined the the presentation that we gave tonight and has been in other presentations that is the most significant thing um that that we have had limitations based on um you know some of the things that were outlined regarding um our tier system with the bu is the unstructured time and so we have that has been the biggest thing I think that where you don't see change uh where we've had the most negative feedback because really honestly I think we've run about every option that we can um and some of it was from a high end explained to the
170board and shared with the board one of the things that we need to need to address and and I would say we need to address regardless of any of the Innovative School experience changes that were Rec recommending from uh an instructional or a classroom perspective we have way too much unstructured time in terms of when we have students at the high school level who being dropped off at around 6:45 um not to mention getting on the bus at 6:05 to go sit and sometimes sleep or sometimes you know just be unstructured which our discipline data has shown um that has to change um and so you know I think where it feels like and I'm sorry we hear we hear the feedback that we've received on especially the start times um without considerable additions of
171resources like things like buses drivers uh all those additional related costs which one buses are expensive two we barely have our Drive our our team filled now um th those are difficult to do paying for additional supervision uh before after school addresses kind of the unstructured or unsupervised time but it still doesn't address the fact that we have students who are being dropped off at school at close to an hour before their start time or students who at the end of the day have to stand around for an extended period of time to wait for a bus and so you know I we we have looked at a couple of things that we have seen we we have heard some feedback from various people on different parts of this plan two of the most I
172I I think impact act ful things have been how quickly we're looking to do this we're not ready we'll need a little bit more time and then the start and end times now those aren't the only two things right but when I've listened and and felt the most emotion from what we've we felt those are the things uh if there's another solution on start and end times that allows us to do all of the things that we need to do for kids um you know our adolescent kids to get more time to sleep um or to be prepared and ready to go to after school events and a highly competitive ihsa type events I you know I'm happy to take that recommendation Allison you have more to yeah I thought I would just kind of
173expand with some of the specific so we're a large unit district multiple level needs and interests to take into consideration from a specific number of resources that we currently have if we were to make a level recommendation and you ask Mark Katie myself Miss see we may have different times than what we're currently recommending but we have have to look at this from EC through connections and some numbers that stood out to me that are reality or to us are these are real students families and struggles the earliest pickup time for high school is 6:10 a.m. for a 7:45 a.m. start the earliest pickup time for middle school students 6:29 for our first dual language student for an 8:00 a.m. start 6:38 for those in the gifted program and 7:00 a.m. for our regular education
174students going to their neighborhood schools for an :00 start time the earliest pickup time for elementary school 7:00 a.m. for dual language for an 8:15 St start time 7:30 for regular ed students uh going to their neighborhood School the length of the longest route for high school students is 19.4 Miles the length of the longest student route for Middle School is 22.35 Miles for dual language routes and 23.12 miles for regular education neighborhood school routes the length of the longest student route for elementary 25.5 miles for those in our gifted program and 15.74 miles for regular EDS so it's beyond just a level recommendation we have to look at these students it's reinforcing like our ethical responsibility for everyone that we need to advocate for so that's some specific data and numbers that it's hard
175to argue with that we don't have to do something different I would just simply also go back to 2018 when we first did this work um our early recommend recommendations really hinged on the purchase of additional buses and hiring of drivers and that was before um kind of where we've seen the shortage of employees in in various groups across not only our district but in the country and and the board was pretty definitive and they not that we're not pay that's not what we want to spend our money on and so we have really looked to try to incorporate the things that we need to do in the experience that are a Ed to the commitments and goals that have been identified in our strategic blueprint in a way that is responsive to all of
176that feedback I recognize I appreciate I understand that the the change as Mr Kush said is impactful I I I recognize that and and it was good feedback from the board and others that maybe we need to slow it a little bit in terms of its implementation but you know I know as a leadership team I want to speak I can't speak on behalf of every person on the design teams they're committed to the recommendations that came forward from our groups of Educators who are looking to make recommendations to the board on Innovative experiences for kids so okay and I and I really appreciate that because that's not uh clearly what came through before with the start and end times like just all the like and that was actually one of my questions that um
177I sort of crossed out here I said um um I want to understand because it's coming through in this presentation but I want to understand the options that were considered the start and end times to get us to the current recommendation and help walk us through the process to better understand the rationale for this as opposed to something else and I cross that off because I feel like yes you are definitely um um answering that question for me and well maybe I can't speak for my colleagues but you're answering that question for me but I'm going to Echo what Charles said because I don't think you've answered that question for our staff or our community and they need to get on board as well I mean I know you need our vote but I for
178me to get to my vote I need you to get to the community and the staff and get them to understand and collaborate on the start and end times to make sure that I I I get that what you've done but I feel like you know just like with the calendar sometime there was one year I remember the calendar you know we um you know we post that ahead of time and I and I begged and pleaded that we send it out to staff and lo and behold we found something in the C calendar that we didn't um expect or see because more eyes on it more people understanding it um yes makes it more difficult to come to agreement but also makes it better and stronger and so I feel like that's uh you
179don't need to convince me I think you need to convince the um the the larger community and the staff I want to I want to see some understanding from them on that um I had a couple of other uh I had a question I went through all the questions that were given or were answered and I know you answered all the questions that we submitted in writing but I had one that I submitted verbally um at a meeting that I I have not seen an answer to yet um and I've heard this uh concern from staff in particular um I'd like to understand what our current wind sore attendance is because I'm hearing that there's a lot of triny and call out for those things and then if we're going to increase the time here
180double the time or whatever or more than double the time in wind and sort not that I don't agree with the need for it but how are we gu and I don't expect you to answer this now but how do we best um Implement that additional time if we are seeing a TR and CN call out and that right now I want to understand the what we're going to do to make that effective and then my other two quick comments are um with the 699 mandates from the state I challenge you to give us uh you know Advocate at the state level as to what can be removed I know they've started a working group um at the state level to look at that but um any of your legislators can carry a bill that
181will undo a mandate so like give it to us let us know what it is that you want to get rid of and and that can be worked on so I'm I'm I understand that that your frustration with that but I'm also a little frustrated hearing that without any suggestions as to what to ever get rid of um and then my next challenge to you is as you point out House Bill uh if we approve this how how are we how are we even going to implement that like I mean I think it's a concern that we pointed out as a oh we're watching this but yet we want you to approve this so maybe we should wait to see how the legislation goes and if uh 2951 passes what are your thoughts on that
182actually I can briefly address that uh now one of our concerns in terms of pushing the high school start time uh later which makes it then a later dismissal is being dismiss so late compared to other districts and the availability of our kids in uh co-curricular activities whether they be athletic or other activities or things uh as you know at the high school level is a very important part of the student experience to be involved in those a mandated at start time not to be before would make that shift for others and then we would have to look at another shift and so I hear you about you know getting too far ahead um but we have started to have that talk of you know because a question has come up before why can't you
183just flip the middle school and high school now right and part of that limitation or rationale is because if we do that we're pushing High School back another 30 minutes at least um which impacts again now I granted our middle school kids also have the co-curricular participation much on a smaller Geographic scale though so would we be I'm I'm I'm getting I'm sorry a mixed message so would we be a proponent of House Bill 2951 so that everyone has a similar start time um as I understand it now I would not be okay um because I think there needs to be local decision-making inol and there are as as we see through this there are so many local factors and contextual factors by our local situation that impact things um we need to be able
184to play with that and I think that's sometimes our concern U on on mandates and things like that is the unintended consequence for um what it does to other things unrelated to the specific thing that the bill was trying to address right and I absolutely agree with you on the star time I think there's too many factors and I just was curious because you it would be helpful if everybody was on the same star time is what I is what I a little bit of what I heard it doesn't mean we'll be on the same end time though too because as you look across the state we have different lengths of day right by level okay those are my uh questions and comments thank you Don I can jump in and answer one question about
185home room and sore win attendance uh the majority of our absences from Home Room win and sore correspond with full day absences we do have about um on average uh maybe about um 3 to four% of students that would miss a win or sore Home Room time in any given one of those days and not miss the entire day but sometimes those will be morning absences for whatever reason so we don't have any large scale data to show that students are Trent from Winter sore or Home Room on any consistent basis well that's interesting because I've heard from a number of staff on that so that that pushed me to that question so I don't know if it's just happening specifically for for those staff but this is something that is a staff concern that
186I've heard so this came out of naville Central's work is they're right now working on you on leveraging their home REM more effectively and so uh Mrs thoron and the staff at naville Central actually have a committee looking at home right now and they pulled that data from January and February of this year okay and so maybe we need to look at it at both high schools too so okay thank you other questions Kristen okay I want to thank you guys for this presentation because I think that um a lot of the besides answering the questions that the board had asked I just feel like your um intent is clear um your intent as well as your um the research base we had gotten you had already provided numerous studies which I was really interested
187by the studies that even without limiting the unstructured time there was a change to discipline so thank you for providing those additional studies but I think um looking at all of this data here particularly the effect size I just thank you for providing those kinds of things to kind of um help the board and the community understand the research basis that you're looking at and the goals that you're trying to solve which I know you had been clear but I think this is just a tiny bit clearer I agree that the board has charged the district to look at achievement gaps Behavior incidents all these kinds of things and I know that's what you're working to try to do um this this shares a little bit more about how what you think will occur I
188I do I had already felt like in addition to the math minutes with the win and the sore that that was you know looking at research based for students who behind that's a really key time I'm I am I think you could give us more information about how that will be utilized for students who don't think that that's who who aren't at the period where they're experiencing something of difficulty so you know when everybody exper experiences time of difficulty and during that time period when and sore is really helpful but when you're not um I think that my only you know sort of the the reaction that might not be as expected is we don't want to create any additional um time for students that's less structured I know it would still have some structure
189to it but that's less structured while we're working to have this be effective for lots of other students so I'm interested to hear I know right now students can to do a study hall that kind of thing I'm interested to know kind of how you're envisioning it in terms of you know that in particular that area in particular because definitely for a student that's behind this is going to help them if they're in attendance and they're able to do that clearly you've got these this this set out here but um those additional students and giving us a little bit more understanding of that would help um again I think this also helped us understand a little bit more of the scenarios that you've run in terms of the time so looking at like the busing
190sorry I always look this way I'm sorry I'll try to go both um but looking at all the different kinds of things that you've considered that's helpful for the community I do think that um there is still um maybe taking the school day itself of course there's some concerns answered a little bit by making it go more slowly but and there's still some concerns that's others do have concerns hopefully answering these questions will help a little but um the start time does seem to have more of the you know the concerns um and so I agree that better engaging with our community about this exact thing the kinds of things that we've looked at um I agree that the that just buying a lot more buses that hasn't been successful in the past if we
191can't drive them and fit them anywhere it's going to be challenging however the one thing in the proposal that I was noticing that you didn't give us a whole lot more about was that last bullet point on page this I don't know the page number oh here 15 the page number of 15 the last bullet point you said minimizing the gaps between proposed start and end times would create new and significant supervision issues however when I see us go to where we are looking at the you know the the outlines you only gave us the today's the projected and if we Tred to do this in today's well with today's start times I would like to understand what would be the change there if we did try to compress it a little bit I understand
192it's not optimal and I understand it would do a little bit it would be more time um that is unstructured but I'm wondering is that more time than we currently have unstructured or is it just more time than we have in the proposal you know what I'm saying and might we think about if there would be a possibility of managing that structure you know whatever the proposals would be about that those were the things that like based on your presentation I don't I I see that that possibility referenced I'm just wondering what that looks like how much does that that HIIT on some of those concerns we've heard from the community and what is the cost of it in terms of like our proposals to try to address it so that last bullet the minimizing
193the gaps between proposed start and end times um the the consultant from Transportation actually had us ex had had wider gaps between our start end times than what the proposal that we came to you with um and so we tried to minimize them as much we can to try to minimize the disruption we did have conversation about if we could minimize them more so for example Elementary with a 745 start what would happen if we made an 8:00 start they are still dropped off at school at the same time because of Transportation constraints so that creates not only a supervision issue I just want to be clear about the fact that it's not just a staffing or supervision issue or or a burden on the school it is a burden on the students who utilize
194our transportation system it is an equity issue and so to say you guys have to wake up earlier and get at school and you're going to be unsupervised for X number of time because you utilize transportation we didn't think was really an ethical recommendation for us to make I totally understand that and I'm wondering if there's I mean I I know you said he won your initial Transportation consultant won in longer gaps you already shrank them you you talked about like basically if you were talking about doubling it for the elementary where you're like right now they would have 15 this would give them 30 is there any time is there any space in between that you know what I mean I agree with you 30 minutes is a long time but what about 20
195minutes or 25 you know I'm just trying to figure out if there's areas because it seems as if one of the biggest concerns that we've heard from the community parents is the times so like just trying to understand all the various options there while still acknowledging the importance of the kinds of things that you're looking looking at in terms of adding the time at the elementary looking at the structuring in the in the Middle School looking at the structuring in the high school yeah so I mean that's something the board could consider because there would be a financial cost a new Financial cost potentially to that so when we were looking at the proposals our one of our goals was no new costs we know that be some cost obviously related to this um but
196no new Financial costs and so that that would create new Financial costs to the board to be able to pay staff to yeah so yeah or Outsource I mean it's not it's also about finding people who will do it so potentially finding internal staff if we can't then Outsourcing that to to an external company that and those would be new ongoing costs correct not just onetime cost ongoing cost I think it's also important um just so you know we put pushed the Consultants like we said go to half hour they didn't even want they didn't recommend we went there when we came back and said okay can you do 20 minutes they said we can't stand by that because you will have kids late to their stops so he said you could you could do
197whatever you want but you will have buses that will be missed kids that will be missed kids will be late and he said I can't as a consultant recommend those short windows so that's something I know Mike because we kept pushing Mike like Mike can you because we of course so when we say we exhausted we exhausted we said we we want them closer um but our consultant came and said we cannot do that with the routes the um amount of buses all of the you know our Dem our mileage everything within the Matrix that they have to consider um it just it just was not feasible to go but we did we very much pushed for lots of different scenarios I appreciate knowing that I still think understanding the data would would be helpful
198to understand that the ongoing and recurring costs um and to look at you know obviously we don't want our kids to be late and again I applaud your your reasoning you're looking at not wanting to have students get up early and waste their time I get it that's absolutely I understand that I'm trying to see if there's ways in which we can accomplish a lot of our goals while still potentially easing a tiny bit of those Transportation timing types of concerns that parents are kind of raising and that kind of thing and you know having facts are friendly finding the facts can sometimes say okay yeah you're right this just however it's helpful to know it's helpful to understand it helps all of us whether it's the board or the community to understand all the
199kinds of variables that we're trying to juggle here to do really important work I mean well-intended work um for our students and and make the improvements we want to see questions other questions um okay so oh go Ahad Charles you go okay okay okay um so this this endeavor for me um has and I've said it to some of my colleagues in conversation excuse me has been meeting to meeting every meeting since the first presentation I've learned a little bit more um my opinions have changed of course the questions and conversation at the board table is uh never never a waste of time and the questions um now coming to tonight questions and perspectives from my colleagues of course I want to hear the answers um that that you'll come back to us with those
200that being said the information that you provided Allison about the bus pickup times and the amount of time our students are wasting I understand students will go and they'll find help and they'll do what they need to do I have a lot of faith in our students to advocate for themselves and do what they need to do they know what they have to do and understanding the absentee uh rates with winds Sor versus you know like say a half day out or a full day out that there's nothing um additional like we're we're not missing more of wind sore time just because we're missing it having those facts helps me understand and again I still want to hear the answers to what has been um asked here helps me understand that this is the right
201proposal and it is never going to be perfect no proposal is going to be perfect not every single person is going to like any proposal in any aspect of life but the word ethical has come up a couple times and I don't believe some of the current things as they stand are doing right by our students and are ethical and what we're asking them to do sometimes we have to push forward I said it at the first presentation we have done extra resources we've done extra staff we have done everything in my time on the board to improve how we're serving our students but the one thing we haven't done yet is give it more time and I mean time in the sense of if we have to lengthen the day for a little bit
202to get in what we're supposed to be giving our students if it means adjusting times so that the time our students are with us is the most productive time they can have I know for one I am not a fan of sitting somewhere and doing nothing because I was told to get there I can't stand sitting at a doctor's office and being told to wait 15 or 20 minutes past my appointment time I feel it's disrespectful and I feel what we're doing to our students right now does have a level of disrespect that we can ask you to get up early to go sit that's ridiculous and I'm sorry if it offends people but is just how I feel I told our students during the carbon action plan to always hold on to your why
203and right now I'm holding on to the why for me the why is the students and it is educating them in the best environment possible and if I sound combative if I sound aggressive that is not my intent right now now I'm protecting and holding on to the why and the why I sit here is for our students Charles that was powerful okay um the only the only question that came into my head and it's just one question I have and that is we we've just had a conversation around costs and you know um the additional things we we've also talked about um if we were to make this transition there would be you know need for additional daycare again I've heard from many parents that there's not a lot they're not a lot of
204options out there infrastructure wise and even if there were there would be an additional cost have we looked at what we think this could potentially create as an incremental financial burden to individual families who now have to find additional uh daycare that they weren't planning on having to find I just I'm know expect you to have a quick calculation on that but I just I'm just curious to try to understand have we asked that question as to what that could potentially cost people out of pocket um because I think that needs to be factored in to if you're asking people to make all these different changes we ought to understand what we're asking people to do cost-wise I think one thing we could look at and have for the board is for as an point
205of comparison is the cost for uh enrollment now in one of our before after school uh care groups and have that for the board pleas serve as an example on the child care portion of it are you talking about a specific level Charles or because there's different variables like you can pay for before school care after school care you can pay for one day a week three days a week five days a week you can do uh elementary students or EC students need half days I or all what are you I just want to make sure we bring you what you're asking I'm just trying to get a s of we've gotten a number of communications I've spoken to a lot and I can ask them this question myself the next time I reach back
206out to them but um just to understand that was one of the concerns that was raised is like you know I have to find dayare and then if I could find aare I have to pay for that and so do we know or have we do we have a sense of again what level of financial burden we're asking folks to bear in terms of the the changes as they're currently constituted that's it so I I don't know exactly what number to look for or is it before care after care cuz I guess different people's situations would be different but just trying to to understand that a little bit better yeah because because again I don't I don't I don't have an answer that question because I don't know but I think it's important that if
207we're asking folks to make these types of Lifetime Lifestyle Changes um I was asked a me a question by a Community member around tax implications is this going to cost more in terms of whatever head count Etc and I know that one of the um questions that was asked even tonight that was that um we expect that this would be neutral headcount headcount neutral might have to move some people around but in terms of number so that would technically kind of answer the tax question sort of um because that would be an immediate cost in terms of the district but the question is though there's The Not So hidden cost of if you have to you know provide different uh additional daycare options or different care options after care before care whatever that looks like
208I just wanted to get a sense of you know what level of understanding we have of what we're asking people to do from that standpoint that's all so whatever that looks like whatever you can come up with would be great just one more sorry one more clarification oh I was a scan qu to follow up off of Alison's question with the elementary day moving forward a half hour I think Alison asked by level um are the start of the day goes from 8:15 to 7:45 so are you anticipating additional child care in the front end of the day I would think that probably wouldn't be the case since we'd be picking students up sooner so we would be we would be moving the end of the day up 15 minutes and so is the concern
209that moving the end of the day up 15 minutes is going to create that additional U that addition think there's a couple of things actually that we'll need to look at because we have heard from some parents regarding the um sixth grade especially at the beginning and now I'm not having options so we can put together some things that we can at least give a perspective were there other questions from the board okay I'm sorry no go ahead Amanda um when you're looking at the cost could you also look at the availability because I've heard that some of our before and after care that there's waiting lists so is there even accessibility for before care or after care for families if they needed it okay item nine discussion with action 9.01 the decision on appeal
210under board policy 2260 okay I recommend that there be a motion to table this action item um and then U we're not prepared to move forward with this and then bring it back into the future agenda I move to table item 9.01 as presented second a motion in a second have been heard please call the role Mrs pattent wkey I giry I Kush I McMillan I kusminsky I Fitzgerald I motion passes item 9.02 press policy 117 updates okay naville 203 subscribes to the association of school board's press service which is a policy review review uh uh process helps us keep our policy manual uh most current and up to date with changes in law um 117 was the latest update was presented to the board on February 3rd remained on the agenda without action for
211February 18th recommend this evening you approve press policy 117 updates as presented questions from the board okay I will take a motion for item 9.02 I move approve of item 9.02 press policy 117 updates as presented second a motion in a second have been heard please call a roll Mrs Patton Fitzgerald I wanky I giry I McMillan I kosminsky I Kush I the motion passes item 9.03 consideration of Board of Education expenses Board of Education policy 2125 and Illinois school code requires all board member expenses for travel meals andot be approved by roll call vote at an open meeting of the board uh and Clos here for board action this evening are expenses related to the iasb dup page division dinner recommend the board approve it as presented any questions from the board I move
212approval of item 9.03 as presented second not question it's not a question it's a quick comment I just wanted to comment because um really appreciate the board attending the those and I just um there was numerous of our board members that were honored because of their longtime commitment to continuing education for themselves and I just think that's very positive that our board and I hope that we continue that that habit so it's it's worth it to pay these expenses because it just continues with the continuing education thank you a motion in a second we're heard please call the role Mrs Patton Kush hi Fitzgerald hi Wy hi ksky hi McMillan I giry I the motion passes item 10 old business we do not have any old business item 11 new business we do not have
213any new business item 12 upcoming event events the schedule of events next Board of Education meeting scheduled for Monday March 24th here again at Kennedy reminder that spring vacation is scheduled for Monday March 31st through April 4th and we will meet on the Monday immediately after their uh spring vacation on April 7th okay at oh sorry it was mentioned earlier during board reports but again once again uh invite the board uh members of the cabinet and members of the community to join any further building and passion breakfast scheduled to be held on Wednesday April 16th 2025 I believe you can get information at their website at this point I will entertain a motion to return to close session for the purpose of the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees or legal
214counsel including hearing testimony and a complaint lodged against an employee or legal counsel to determine its validity I want to assure the community that the board will take no action in Clos session but will simply adjourn at the conclusion of our closed session discussion I will take that motion now so moved second okay a motion a second have been heard please call the role Mrs Fitzgerald i kinsky i giry i Kush I McMillan hi wanky hi the motion passes we are now enclosed good night everyone