001Good evening. Since 7 o'clock PM or excuse me, since 5:00 p.m., the board has been in close session to consider the following: discussion of minutes of meetings lawfully closed under the open meetings act for purposes of approval by the body of the minutes. The appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees of the district or legal council for the district. Litigation when an action against, affecting or on behalf of the particular district has been filed and is pending before a court or administrative tribunal. Collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives and student disciplinary cases. I will entertain a motion to come out of close session. So moved. Second. A motion and a second are heard. Please call the role. Mrs. Patton. Kush. I. McMillan. I. Casey. I.
002Fitzgerald. I. Kazminsky I Gerki I Monkey I Okay, the motion passes. We are in open session. Good evening and welcome to our November 14th business meeting. Our mission is to educate students to be self-directed learners, collaborative workers, complex thinkers, quality producers, and community contributors. Please call the role. Mrs. Patton. Board members present this evening, Kristen Fitzgerald, Christine Gerky, Tony Casey, Charles Kush, Joe Kuzminsky, Amanda McMillan, and Donna Wanke, and student ambassadors present, Sarayu Suresh. Okay. Please join us in welcoming the students. Please join us in welcoming the students from Elmwood Elementary to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Right. Good evening everyone. Thank you so much for coming to our board of education meeting. Uh, I'd like to introduce to you all Elwood, some members of Elwood's boys only book club. This is a
003club that meets bi-weekly and their purpose is to read, play games about reading, share stories, and of course, as you may have heard from the hallway, have a great time. Um, the reason this group was selected is they recently finished a book called I Survived D-Day. And on Friday, we celebrated Veterans Day at Elwood Elementary, um, and honored our soldiers. and I thought it was a perfect time and a perfect fit for them to come here and present the pledge of allegiance uh to our community. So, I'm gonna allow them to introduce themselves. We'll just go right down the line. Nate, Asher, Jamie, Clay, Palmer, Pocket, Jack, Camden, Henry, Colin, Raleigh, Finn, Dylan. All right, so that's our crew here. So, we were talking in the hallway at Elmwood, we have a tradition where not
004only do we do the pledge in English every day, we also do the pledge in Spanish every day because we're a dual language school. Um, so we are going to do it in both languages. Um, here we go. I'm going to put the mic in the middle here. So we got the flag. I aliance 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. All right. And now the pledge in Spanish. [Music] Very nicely done. [Applause] We're gonna take a little picture here. Mr. Mace will take a picture for the district. Okay, if you stay right there, if there are parents, friends, or family who'd like to come a little bit closer to get a picture, you're
005welcome to do so. And since we have so many members of the Elmwood community here, I want to say congratulations to all of you on the blue ribbon certific recognition this year for Elmwood. Well done. It's really a lot of the work of you all. So well done and congratulations to everyone. Are we all set? Paparazzi's done. Awesome. Thank you to our Elmwood friends for being here this evening. [Applause] Okay. Okay. So, yep. So, our next item on our agenda is good news. Okay. We do have some good news to share. uh Neighborville 203 and schools across the district honored our nation's heroes on Veterans Day. Here at the district office, we greatly enjoyed the opportunity to host a group of veterans for a nice breakfast which was followed by a flag raising ceremony. Additionally,
006we are proud to share that Madison assistant principal Richard Bane received the Quilt of Valor during the Rotary Club Neighborville's Rotary Salutes Veterans Program. Quilt of Valor Foundation honors service members and veterans who have been touched by war and by thanking them for their service and sacrifice in serving our nation. So, congratulations and thank you to Mr. Bane. Congratulations to Washington Junior High School counselor, Mrs. Laura Benters for being honored by the Chicago Bears as a classroom legend for her incredible work with students. Classroom Legends program recognizes the work that good quality teachers do by honoring educators who go above and beyond. Congratulations to Mrs. Ventures. And then finally this evening, we're proud to share that nearly 200 community members attended success's latest celebrate, educate, empower event on belonging, which was held last week at
007Neighborville North. Our own Dr. Shayla Holland delivered an excellent keynote keynote address on her own experience with belonging that connected extremely well with our audience. Thank you to everyone involved for hosting this extremely successful evening. Good news. Those were great news. Thank you. All right. So, we'll go in our agenda to item five, public comment. I do not have any slips of paper for public comment. Does anyone in the audience wish to address the board of education? Okay. We do want to acknowledge the public comment that was submitted by email that's in our um board docs and the board has reviewed that that comment. So, we'll go on now to monthly reports. Uh listed in board docs are the Treasury Investments Insurance and Budget Report. Does any member of the board of education have any
008questions about any of any of our monthly reports? Okay, so we'll move on to action by consent. I will entertain a motion to consider the consent agenda. All right. Well, I had bills and claims this month. And so, first I want to thank um our financial department and particularly Melanie Brown for all of her help in answering all of my questions. And um I don't think we need to separate the minutes, do we? Okay. All right. So, um, I move to approve approval of warrant number 1047599 through warrant number 300029829 totaling 25,682,18982 for the period of October 8th through 2020 or October 18th, 2022 through November 14th, 2022, which includes items number 7.01 through 7.05. 05 on the consent agenda. Second. A motion and second are heard. Please call the role. Mrs. Patton Kazminski. I.
009Kush. I. Wkey. I. McMillan. I. Fitzgerald. I. Casey. I. Gerky. I. Okay. The motion passes. So we'll move on in our agenda to item eight, which is communications. We'll start with item 8.01, written communications. Listed in our board docs are our Freedom of Information Act requests for the viewing public and for the board to review. So, we'll move on to item 8.02, student ambassador reports. Welcome, Sarayou. Tell us about what's going on at Neighborville Central. Hi, thank you so much for giving me the time to speak on behalf of the Neighborville Central student body today. Currently, students are in the middle of course selection and as discussed last month, Latin classes are being phased out, which many students are still not happy about. On the flip side, there are also classes being added like algebra
0102 modeling and problem solving falling in line with the immersive learning of geometry and construction which students are excited to take. Other than that, course selections are going on as they have in previous years and students are excited about selecting their classes for next year. Now for some exciting sports news. Our boys soccer team won the state championship after winning semifinals 5 to zero. This is the first time they've won state. Congratulations to all our NCHS athletes who competed in the fall season and good luck to those competing in the winter season. Neighborville Central has hosted a couple of events in last month. They hosted the IEP conference for the first time since 2008 with performances from our step team dynasty and our K-pop dance group Rain. The theater central put on a production of
011the Still Life with Iris for their fall mainstage play on November 3rd to 5th. and we had our first Veterans Day assembly in nearly two years last Thursday with performances from the band and choir and speeches from students and veterans in the community. The assembly was end attended by seniors and broadcasted to the home rooms of underclassmen courtesy of Hawk TV. This brings me to the end of my report. Thank you. Great. Thank you for that report and thank you for always giving us such a window as to what's going on in Neighborville Central. All right, so we'll move on in our agenda to item 8.03, 103 superintendent staff school report report. Okay, we do have a number of reports under this category tonight. We'll begin with 8.04 the audit report. Each year the district
012engages an independent accounting firm to perform an audit of the district's financial records. Otterbach and Amen of Neighborville have performed this year's audit and found our financial records correctly represent the district's financial position. Uh related materials are posted in board docs for public's view. I'll turn it over to our CFO Mike Francis to introduce representative of our auditing firm to present the audit report to the district. Mike. Yeah, thank you. I'm just going to uh uh introduce Mr. Matt Baron. He's a partner at Lbakan Nammen. He was here last year. If you remember, we uh went out to RFP uh for new auditors a little more than a year ago and they were selected. This is year two. So, he's going to give you um an update of this most recently most recent audit report.
013Thank you, Mike. Um, as I did last year with the presentation, I'm going to keep it at a pretty high level for you. If at any point in time anybody has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them along the way. We don't have to wait till the end. I'd be happy to answer as we go. Um, as far as how we got to this point, there was some pretty significant steps along the way to bring us to today. Um, a lot of work was done all year round to get us here. Um we started with an entrance conference with Mike, Tracy, Melanie, the entire team talking about what happened at the district during the year. Um significant events, changes that occurred from a year ago so we were aware before we went out on
014site as well as set the schedule and provided the request materials listing. um came back, did preliminary field work where we do walkthroughs and we walk through your significant cycles, cash receipts, cash dispersements, payroll, student activities, those types of areas where we're able to review those to make sure you have an adequate internal control framework in place. After that, we come back on site at our set time where the team has a complete audit package ready for us from all the items that we requested um where we test those numbers to make sure that the what is going to go into our audit report is materially correctly stated. And last, then we go into our report writing phase where we work back and forth with the team where um we get this document in compliance
015government accounting standards and bring us here to today. So we are well in advance of the true deadline uh with ISBY of December 15th. So again, another successful year as far as the timing and how everything went. So I'm going to go through talk about what the results ended up being um for this year. Um we gave the district an unmodified opinion again this year. It's the highest opinion we provide. Uh that goes within the audit report itself. What we're saying with that is those three basic things that we've talked about. One, there's an adequate internal control framework in place to help prevent fraud. Two, the the numbers within this report basically are what they say they are based on our testing. And three, the audit reports and compliance government accounting standards. Uh it's the
016highest opinion that we're able to provide um during our audit. from there. As far as the financial health and that goes for the district, um we're not opining on that, but just what the results within this report are. Um at the end of the year across all of your funds, you had about 125.5 million of fund balance at the end of the year, of which your education fund, your main operating fund was about 83 million. Um increases this year were about 13.4 million overall. Again, general fund, education fund was 11.4. um in the positive obviously very good numbers. Um the reason for those increases we had more PPRT revenue than has been expected in the budget and expenditures were also held uh about 6 million below the budget in that fund. Um ultimately what we
017look at what do we care about we're comparing how is our financial health compared to our expenditures. So fund balance versus expenditures. Um education fund we were at 34% at the end of the year. So very healthy number um as far as what the financial health is at the end of the uh 22 audit. Um the last thing that we do and what we provide to you is a management letter. Um within that management letter communicating you other significant items that we found within our audit. Um of which we have this year two that were new and last year we reported on the two that we had from the prior year. Last year we had two of which one was an accounting statement Gazsby 87 related to leases that is no longer a thing where
018we have operating and capital leases. It's all just one um one thing now this year. So we'd work with the district to get that implemented in this year. Um the other one from last year that has not been implemented at this point is a capital asset appraisal and we're working talking with the district when that can happen in future years. Um, as far as new ones go, um, both of them I would say are moreformational type items for you. Um, first one being another accounting standard that's coming for next year. Basically, what happened with leases is now happening with your subscriptions for software. So, just think about that. You guys have a lot of them. This is going to be something we're be working with the team uh throughout the year because this is not
019going to be one we can just uh slam in the door at the end next year. We got to get this thing going over the next couple of months. So be working with uh the team to try to get this one implemented early um for next year. Um the second one being if funds over budget um the O andM fund, the operation and maintenance fund was over uh budget by about $2 million. Um basically this is a timing issue with your projects of when they happened versus you know the end of the year um of your school year. You guys get started in projects right away, right? So now it's a timing issue of whether they can get a lot of work done before 6:30 or not. Last year, not so much. We were significantly
020under budget this year. It ended up going over. So, more just informational. It's not I wouldn't call it a problem. It's just something we have to report to you as the board. Um, but the good news of what that is when that management letter doesn't have internal control findings in it. Um, that's the main thing. During our testing, we did not find anything that would be considered an internal control deficiency or weakness. Um, the district has adequate internal controls in place. So fact that there's none in here was another big check mark for another good uh successful audit year for the for the district and for the team. Wonderful. Thank you for that presentation and all the work that has gone into it over the past year. Questions from the board of education. Joe, just
021about the um the uh operations and maintenance uh excess. Uh was part of that due to supply chain issues uh not being able to get materials in by the end of the last fiscal year to make um some of those uh capital improvements. Yeah, I don't know specifically on the project whether it it had an effect on the timing, but as as Matt said, it literally has to do with, you know, because our fiscal year ends on June 30th. How much of a project has has been completed at that point? When are the bills coming in? So, there's a lot of acrruels in this area at the end of the year. Some of them may be supply chain related um in terms of the timing overall pushing the expenses out. But it's also just that
022we do our work in the summer, right? So sometimes they're not going to be able to build towards the end. So that would have to be something we just would have to look for. That's correct. And you'll see a report tonight from Mr. Dolan on the budgets to actuals. And he's reporting on specific projects, not necessarily, even though we try to line them with the fiscal year. Sometimes some of those projects are paid partly in one fiscal year and partly in another fiscal year. We're looking at an overall are we within budget on a project. As Mr. Baron said last year we were significantly under budget in in our 12 month June 30th and O andM fund. This year some of those expenses got pushed over into FY22 creating this note that you see here
023tonight. And with that being said, you know, maybe last year they weren't able to start right away as soon as school ended and it started more closer to July 1st or that first week of July. this year contractors, everybody was able to get in, get started right away in June and more work got done right away, which is obviously a good thing for the district that you're able to start your projects on time and not be stressing out that they're going to uh roll into school time. So, um just a just a timing thing and as Michael said, as long as the overall projects themselves are being monitored, it's it's not a big deal. It's just something we have to communicate. Donna, all right. All right. I think I know the answer to this, but
024it's more for the community. Um, so you said that we decreased our outstanding long-term debt by 28.2% and we have like 9 three roughly four U million outstanding. Those are bonds that we can't purchase repurchase back earlier like we did the others. So, we're just going to have to wait that out and and let that happen as it does over the next five years or so. Right. That's correct. Those are uncallable bonds. Um, if you recall maybe five or six years ago, we repurchased uh a a large portion of bonds that were callable. These bonds that are still outstanding are not are not callable. However, these are the bonds that the board has been abating every year and reducing the taxes overall. So, the reduction of the 28% last year was about 12 some 12
025point something million down to I think you said n I can't remember the exact number but it's 9 something. That's approximately a $2.8 million uh pay down of the bonds which were paid from the operating funds as a result of the board uh abating the bond a bond and interest levy last year. You'll get we'll talk about that later in the levy presentation on how we're recommending that happen again. So you'll see that 9 whatever decreased again next year to under seven million. We're almost debtree. We'll be debtree in a few years. Thank you. I don't see any other questions, so let's go ahead and move on to item 8.05, the five-year financial forecast. Matt, thanks for the report. Appreciate it. Thanks, Matt, for being here again. Thank you. That's good to hear. So, thank
026you. Good. Good news. Okay. So, uh our CFO, Mike Francis, is going to continue and he will present to the board of education, uh the most recent five-year financial forecast. Um, it's Mike. I'll turn it over to you. Okay. Can you flip to the next slide, please? Okay. Making data driven decisions is crucial for all organizations. One of the things we look at each year to help drive recommendations and decisions throughout the year is a five-year financial forecast. We use the forecast for a variety of reasons from budget and tax levy planning to running what if scenarios throughout the year. Tonight is the first look at the updated projection since the fiscal year began. There are a number of elements that make up the forecast. It begins with a current year tenative amended budget that
027will be presented later tonight as the main driver and baseline moving forward. We also include five years of actual results for historical perspective and to help see trends. Current and projected CPI, EAV, and new construction drive the largest portion of the district's revenue, while salaries and benefits, as well as staffing levels drive the majority of our projected costs. We also incorporate any known or projected changes to state, federal, or other known funding. While these are the major drivers in the projections, there are hundreds of items that have an effect on the current and projected financial situation of the district. Starting with the assumptions built into the forecast for revenue, the main driver is the consumer price index, which drives the annual changes in property taxes. The light green bars are actual CPI figures. The most
028recent actual is 7%. Tax cap legislation limits this increase to 5%. Which is the figure all tax cap districts are limited to for their 2022 tax levies. The dark green bars are estimates for the projections for the future. 5% estimate for 2023 levy is again the maximum amount allowed under the tax cap as the year-to- date CPI through October of this year is currently at 6.9%. The final value for calendar year 22 will be known in mid January at which time these projections will be updated and that figure will also be the main driver for the 2023 tax levy a year from now for taxes paid and distributed in the summer of 2024. The other driver of property taxes under the tax cap is the amount of new construction added to the assessed value of
029the district annually. This is not the value the district will receive in additional taxes. For every $1 million of new property, the district receives approximately $50,000 of additional tax revenue. This chart This chart shows light and green bars showing actual and projected amounts of new construction. 37 million of additional assessed value is the current estimate for this year's levy from data provided by our township assessor's offices. This number is still an estimate and will not be finalized until March. The remaining projected values have been increased from previous projections where we were recently using 25 million of new growth annually. Some other revenue assumptions of note you'll see in the results later in the presentation the deferral of our early property taxes. We've looked at our taxes informally this way for many years, but two years
030ago, we adopted this new approach in our financial report and will again reflect this change in our financial statements. With the many recent changes to interest rates, we have begun seeing and will continue to see an increase in the amount of income we receive on the district's investments. One piece of good news is our recent estimate for corporate personal property replacement taxes from the Illinois Department of Revenue. Their estimate this year has this line at a potentially being a few million dollars over the current budgeted level. Most state and federal funding are projected flat throughout the projections. Adjustments have been made from this year's last uh from this year's last allocation of budgeted ESSER funds from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. So, they are not projected into the future years as they were
031one-time sources of revenue. On the expenditure side, staff salaries are the largest area of cost now and moving forward. We are projecting the cost of any current contracts as well as other contracts being based on CPI increases and step increases as they have been in the past. There's currently no change to the number of staff in these results. Health insurance is our next largest cost which is projected at 8% for next year to reflect recent cost trends and then 5% uh annually thereafter. Most other expenses are at 5% for next year to account for the current inflation and then 2% annually. The estimated annual technology improvements as well as tonight's annual building and grounds capital plans are also included in the results. We have also kept the annual abatement of the district's debt in the
032projections. Overall, the district has very little debt and is getting close to being debt-free. The annual amount needed to be transferred over the next few years is being reduced and helping the overall results of the projections. To put some of these assumptions into perspective, we look at their sensitivity to change. On the revenue side, again, the largest drivers are CPI and new construction. If actual values differ from the projections, they each have varying effects to the results. For every 1% difference of a CPI assumption, revenue would change plus or minus $2.7 million. For every $1 million worth difference in new construction from the assumptions, revenue fluctuates almost $50,000. If there are future reductions to the district's evidence-based funding from the state of Illinois, we would lose 125,000 for every 1% pration. Thankfully, we have not
033seen any prations of general general state funding for many years now. These three items make up over 90% of the district's revenue. On the expense side, salaries and benefits make up over 77% of all costs. Every 1% change in salary drives an additional 1.9 million in expenses. For health insurance, every 1% change, cost increase by 353,000. This projected fund balance graph is familiar to the board and continues to incorporate a major change the past three years and moving forward. As mentioned earlier, the district's financial reports show fund balances deferring the receipt of due taxes received last fiscal year into the current fiscal year. The red line shows actual and projected fund balances for the years ending 2018 through the projected year 2028. As you can see, for the year ended 2020 20, those amounts are
034now restated. The values for FY22 are listed as unodited at this time since we have not yet fully reconciled our new audit report presented this evening with our financial system. We anticipate having this updated for any future financial documents. A fairly flat projected red line indicates our initial financial projections is stable over the next few years in this initial update. Below the red line are each of the district's funds with 11 colored bars representing that fund's portion of the overall total on a year-by-year basis. This final table shows the current fiscal year 23 budget actually the amended budget and the five projected years out through fiscal year 2028. On this table we compare revenue to expenditures on an annual basis to see if and when and also to what extent we may be spending more
035dollars than we are receiving. The current year has a budgeted deficit mainly due to the increased cost for the addition at steeper run elementary. However, that deficit is projected to reduce substantially over the next three years before potent potentially before projecting to more quickly outpace revenue starting in FY27. While the current fund balance is sufficient to absorb some deficits, we will need to watch this closely and make adjustments to future expenses as necessary. As always, all results are dependent on our current set of assumptions and will be updated throughout the year as the future becomes clear. I'd be happy to take any questions from the board. Thank you for that presentation. Questions from the board of education. Donna, thank you for our presentation. I um asked a question ahead of time because I wanted to
036make sure um as to how we adjust and take into account the surplus from the previous year because we had we just talked about that $9.7 million surplus that we had coming out of last year. And I understand that they go into the fund balance, but I guess my question is is do we adjust um the budget to account for that 9.7 million surplus? Because if we just take the budget and we um increase our expenditures by I think you have uh salary and benefits by 5.3 and others we have reducing down by 9.7 it looks like from uh I'm on expenditures other oh we took that down okay um it looks like you've reduced some expenditures but I I want to understand how we account for because we have surplus year after year after
037year how do we account for that in the budgeting to adjust it so that we don't continue to multiply that surplus. Yeah. The revenue the the way the state um requires us to report, we can only count revenue one time and any any surplus that we we had and we just talked about the audit where we had almost about $9.7 million surplus that gets added to fund balance counted as revenue mostly or less expenditures last year. This the amended the tenative amended budget we have are also presenting this evening includes additional expenditures that are going to happen in this 12-month cycle July 1st to June 30th. So we cannot count we have to use fund balance to fund those. We need we need to understand that the fund balance will fall. The current fund balance
038which was raised last year will come down because the additional expenses that we're adding to this year's again 12-month period for this year's budget that will be reported in the next in the next audit. Why you see reductions in other expenditures for next year is because those are one-time expenditures. We're only going to build an addition. And now some of those expenditures again with timing, we might not spend all of the money at steeple run in FY23. Some of them might carry over in FY24, but the overall budget project uh budget for that project is $10 million. And that will be a one-time expenditure for that that addition. And really, it's the the way we're required to report those uh revenues and expenditures and fund balances for the state board of education annually. continue. Okay.
039I'm I'm not express the math numbers. I am but I'm not expressing myself well in the um in the question. I guess what I want to understand is how we adjust our budget for the following year when we know that we've had surplus year after year after year. Like I know the surplus doesn't go into the budget. It goes into the projected uh or it goes into the fund balance. But are we adjusting the budget so that we're getting closer to a zero is what I'm was looking for. Oh, okay. That's a I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't understand your question the first time. Uh we are continually working to get that number closer to zero. Um remember a budget is always an estimate. So it, you know, if we ever get to exactly zero,
040it it's going to really it would be a miracle. But you know, and we and we don't necessarily spend extra money just to get it to zero. So, we're going to be prudent with our finances on an annual basis. If we don't need to buy something or spend some money, we're not going to do that. Um, but last year's last year's overages were uh caused by a couple different reason. I mean, there was a number of different things. There's there could be hundreds of different things, but there's a couple big things that didn't happen or or we need to account for. Um, if you recall the first couple years I was here, we budgeted contingency and that was about $2.1 million that we typ we never spent. Well, this year in FY23, we don't have
041contingency. So, that will not be an unspent expenditure because it's not an expenditure any longer. The other uh big one was um the we made some you Mr. Brenell made uh gives the technology updates. Every year you see we replace our uh uh uh our iPads or we replace our our Chromebooks through a cycle and last year's last year's replacement and remember we b we adopt a budget in June. So, some of these things happen with a budget before they actually happened in when we bought those uh when we did the technology replacement that charged last uh August got pushed back into the previous year. So, even though we budgeted for it, it was an expenditure in FY21. So, it never we didn't spend additional money because of that. So that caused another underexpenditure and
042in in part of that 9.7 is about $2.2 million worth of with a a timing issue and an audit of this technology. Now we made sure we worked very closely with uh the technology department this year so that wouldn't happen again. And this year's charges got charged to this year. So what we budgeted and you're not going to see that piece again too. So over half of the difference in the surplus to to budget is because is because of those two items. So again, my goal is to get that number as close as possible to budget. It's never going to be perfect, but we've been working it down and getting it closer on an annual basis. Thank you. I don't see any additional questions. I do want to compliment you on your work to try
043to get the salaries and benefits. I know that that was much closer this year to really try to get that so that we're getting that exact estimate. And I know that's challenging with um fitting in all those things. And I I think that that's an area where we're really getting closer. So, thank you for that. It it it is. Thank you for noticing. We we we do try our best to get that and and we were very close in salaries and benefits and there's a very fine line between getting very very it's like walking to the edge of a cliff. You you want to come close but you don't want to go over, right? So you you got to be very careful in your estimates and your your constant monitoring of these types of expenses
044because I don't want to sit here a year from now and we go over a little bit and I'm being criticized. I'm trying to get the numbers close to zero. Well, you get you're getting closer and closer and that that I with that being our biggest driver, that's going to be our closest thing to making it the most correct that we can. Any other comments? Okay. So, we'll go on in our agenda to our next report, which is sorry, uh school report card. Okay. School report cards were released by the state board of education on October 27th uh 2022. This is the first uh meeting we've had um since uh those report cards have been released and there's always an embargo um by the state until the date that is set for the release of
045the report card. Um and so Dr. Patrick Nolton, our assistant superintendent for assessment accountability, provide a report on behalf of staff. All staff will be uh supporting him in terms of responding to questions. Um and so he'll pre he'll share this report to the board of education um and hit some of the highlights and areas where we're pleased, but then obviously opportunities where we have continued growth. So, Dr. Nolton, I'll turn it over to you. All right. Uh, thank you, Superintendent Bridges, Board of Education. It's with pleasure that I, uh, have the ability or capacity to, uh, present to you our, um, slide deck. That's a cue to queue it up. Uh, summarizing our school year 22 accountability assessment. So, everything I show you this evening is reflective of data that was collected near the
046conclusion of the last school year, typically in April. Um, first of all, I just want to recognize all the building level administrative leadership that's involved in collecting all this information as well as staff members. Um, it's a big operation, large district, so it takes a lot of people um and a strong commitment to making this right. We're going to, as we have in the past, um, take a quick look at our historic performance um, on major accountability measures based on um, what's you know considered in terms of recognition at the building level with respect to summit of designation. We'll talk a little bit about some of the report card metrics and then lastly we will talk a bit about summit of designation status for our elementary, middle and high schools. On the next slide, um
047I summarized uh that our overall English language arts and mathematics performance as assessed by the AR um suggests that we are moving in a positive direction with respect to recovering to prepandemic performance. Not saying that what we did before the pandemic was acceptable, but we're definitely moving in the right direction to the degree we can tell based on these tests. Um, it's also important to recognize that this measures one aspect of student performance, right? This isn't an all-encompassing. Everything about students is reflected in achievement. So, keep that context. Um we have 67% of students meeting standards in ELA based on the uh I which is administered to third through 8th grade and um I think I have on the slide 60% for mathematics. Um please recognize if those numbers seem small to you. Illinois has
048a very high bar relative to other states. Um in some states um being approaching proficient would be considered proficient. So there's been analysis that's looked at how high is the bar in Illinois compared to other states relative to NATE performance. Our buy our bar is very high in this state. Um we also have growth percentile data from the IR um that suggests our students are growing at a higher pace um that exceeds that of state averages. On the Illinois science assessment um 84% of our students met or exceeded standards. And then lastly on the College Board assessment we assess um ELA or evidence-based reading and writing and mathematics. that was at 63% meeting standards. The next slide gets into a little more detail about the IR. Um, a real quick review for those of you
049that don't think about this on a daily basis. Um, it is aligned to the Illinois learning standards. We administered this test to over 7,000 students in the spring. Again, 3rd through 8th only. Participation rate was back to where we typically are, which is 99% um compared to 88% during um the prior academic year. So that's a really important point. When you look at prior year data, school year 21 data, we did not meet, we weren't close to the 95% or higher. So very difficult to draw conclusions and compare because a lot of kids that we didn't test last year, not last year, the year before last year. This is the seventh year of online assessment. It's largely taken online and um we have a larger percentage of students, what did I write there? A larger
050percentage of students met or exceeded compared to the prior academic year. So we saw growth in terms of percent proficient um across all sub both subjects. The next slide um is our longitudinal performance um going from lighter to darker. Those are percentages. So those are the percent of students on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness across time. You'll notice that 2020 is missing. We didn't actually give the accountability assessment that year for reasons you remember. Um but you'll notice we concluded um with 67% in ELA and mathematics was at 60. Again, if you look at 58 and 49 for the year prior, that does not include all students. So that happened at the state level too to an even greater degree than uh was the case for our district. We actually had relatively speaking a lot
051more students participate than the state did last the year before last. Next slide. Um this is the next six slides actually are my attempt to summarize I performance by grade level across time. Um and you can see you know a reasonable level of comparison from the past would probably be 2019. When I when it says 2019 up there that's 201819. So um looking at prepandemic performance focus on 2019. Um again 2021 limited subset of students that we tested fourth grade um you'll see recovery and you'll see different levels of recovery the state level actually well if you look at fourth grade and ELA um we were we are at where we were before the pandemic that also did happen at the state level not quite as high um and mathematics ended at 64%. the um
052fifth grade slide similar. I'm not going to read through each one of these, but you kind of get the gist of of how we're trying to climb back up to minimally where we were in 2019. The sixth grade slide um looks similar and seventh and eighth um we noticed and many districts noticed that for seventh and eighth graders um if you looked at state level data um it was generally stable if not diminished relative to the year before. So what looked like very small percent increases for us were actually better than what was exhibited at the state level. Um and then eighth grade in particular, you'll notice 62% relative to 61. You might have heard in the NAPE reporting that came out a couple weeks ago how um significant concerns relative to eighth grade performance.
053I did a little um analysis on the side just for recreational purposes and I ranked the state of Illinois's proficiency levels, not growth levels, but proficiency levels. And our proficiency levels in reading and mathematics and science are minimally at the 95th percentile rank. That's using state data. So if you ranked the most proficient to the least proficient, only 5% of the states higher than us. So that tries to put a little context on the 60% where I was saying, well, that seems a little low. Um, relative to our peers in the entire state of Illinois, right? 850 plus districts. Um, that's where we stand. That's not represented in that slide. Uh the next slide should be uh I always break this down by student groups. So you can take a look at degrees of recovery
054um across time. Again we don't have 2020 data and 19 data in particular for some student groups really under reppresented some student populations. The next slide should focus on additional student groups English learners children with disabilities. Um I always try to remind on at the 18year hang is that right the 19 school year is the first year that children with disabilities included students with 504 plans and so generally those are higher achieving students that's why there's a a larger than typical increase you'll see the 41 on the um on the 2019 data 41%. The next slide shows you I A mathematics again by student group focusing on race and ethnicity and the slide that follows um should focus on English learners, children with disabilities and economic disadvantage just to give you a sense of where
055we are and um in some areas we're actually doing better than we were in 2019 if you look closely. It just depends. Um the next slide is about growth and um we did very well on growth. In fact, we did very well on proficiency. our proficiency meaning the percent of students and this applies to third through eighth graders and juniors. We have among benchmark comparison districts which are seven other unit districts generally in the western suburbs. Um we have the highest percent of students that achieve proficiency in all subjects both at you looking at the IR as well as the SAT the exact same uh reality exists relative to growth. Like if you're looking at 60 and 59, that's a student growth percentile. That tells us that a typical student grew as well or better
056than 60% of students at the same starting point in a year or two prior. So more typical would be 50. If we were hovering around 50, you know, we would say the rate of growth given different levels of starting point was comparable to the state. We're showing higher levels of growth relative to prior performance. The next slide uh is really kind of an overview of the ISA, the Illinois Science Assessment. I'll be honest, this thing is in flux. It's moving around. There's a lot going on. It's really hard to compare year-to-year. There's we're still trying to land on a stable, consistent measure. It's not even reasonable to compare it to even the last time we gave it, but I put it on a slide anyway. We gave this to 3,500 students. We only do this
057to fifth, 8th, and 11th graders. Fully online, three sessions. If you talk to friends, it's untimed, not not something people enjoy, but we did 98% or more of the student population compared to 84% during the last academic year. The next slide should summarize the 21 to 22. So again, the format and what's considered proficient has changed on this, but we have very high levels of proficiency in science. The next slide is our dynamic learning maps alternate assessment. This is typically administered to students that for which administering a a traditional um academic achievement test is developmentally inappropriate. Um this is entirely online. We typically give this to roughly roughly 100 students in the district. We're capped at 1%. Um we do it in we do it for students in third through 8th um plus 9th 10th
058and 11th as well. It assesses the same areas ELA, math, science um and it is aligned to the essential elements. I didn't want to leave that out because we have a student population that takes this test. And on the next slide, you'll see our percentages. Um, you know, to most people's eyes, they look at that and think, well, those are very low percentages. These are not um dissimilar. If you took a look at state data and the variability in state data, um the teens is not is is not uncommon. So, um if you pull that up on the report card, you can do that comparison yourself. The next slide is a little bit about the College Board SAT. As you know, we transitioned over to the SAT, away from the ACT a number of years
059ago. We administered this to a little more than 1300 students, generally 11th graders. It's our sixth year in this state of administration. Um, we're going to be transitioning to digital in the spring of 24, so not not quite next spring, but the spring after that. Um, by the way, as a side note, the PSAT and MSQT next fall will be digital. Um, this is aligned to our learning standards. It does include an essay which isn't part of a standard Saturday take. It's required for graduation. It assesses ELA and mathematics just like the IR and DLM. Um and then of course I do the report the reporting relative to the percent of students um that are meeting standards. Um our typical student in this district and this doesn't matter if you're looking at like an accountability
060test or just when students happen to take the SAT because they're you know trying to get a better or higher score. um we're typically somewhere like in the mid70s with respect to like an average or typical students national percentile rank level of performance almost a kind of a quartile shift higher. Um next slide should summarize our uh percent proficient. You'll notice a downward trend. Um actually last year we went up a little bit. Um if you looked at this data nationally at the state level, you'd see a continuous downward trend in the percent of students meeting standards in ELA, ELA and mathematics. So um we are either stable or going up a little bit, especially with respect to mathematics. The next slide summarizes um our ELA performance by student group and you can get a
061general sense of where we are with percent of students that meet or exceed standards on English language arts literacy. and the f the subsequent slide um should look specifically at mathematics. One more slide. This is just acknowledge that although it's not part of like the accountability formula, we're required to give the PSAT 9 and PSAT 10 to 9th and 10th graders. I summarized how many we assessed, our typical level of performance is in the mid70s with respect to 9th grade and 10th grade. It was closer to the 71st national percentile overall. Um, there's not a substantive difference between math and reading performance or math and ELA performance when you take a look at the SAT and how our juniors do. On the next slide, we should have uh kind of some report card highlights. Our
062graduation rates are stable at in the upper 90s. That really hasn't changed across time. Nor has 9th grade on track. Um nearly 85% of our student population enroll in a post-secary setting within a year to uh 16 months after graduation. Um our attendance this year, sorry, last year it's typically in the upper 90s. It was closer to 93%. That's largely attributed to um absence patterns relative to the pandemic, quarantine requirements, isolation requirements. Um our chronic absenteeism rate was at 20%. That's at 30% for the state. Most districts had higher absenteeism rates. Um ours was about 10% lower. Chronic absent is a student that misses um 10% or more of school days either for excused or unexcused reasons. And then our chronic teruency has always been roughly around 2% or even less um compared to 22%
063for Illinois. One more slide I think. No, there's a couple more slides. Here's a quick summary visually of the summit of designation indicators and weights. There's a lot of information here, but I think probably the most one thing to notice if there's anything you remember is it's determined differently between elementary, middle schools and high schools. At the elementary and middle school level, um growth is king. Remember how during NCLB it used to be all about proficiency. In fact, there was really nothing else. So this reflects the importance of growth, proficiency, absenteeism, um progress with respect to students that receive or choose not to receive EL e services, science, um completion even of the climate survey, which is the five essentials. Um at the high school level, it's really largely at this point about graduation rate,
064which we have no issue with respect to like I just said, I think we're around 97%. And you can see the waiting of the rest of those. Those aren't targets. That's how much do those pieces count when making a determination of whether or not a school falls into any of the four levels of um of accountability. So I think the next slide will show um it's kind of hard to read but we had 12 schools. First of all we every school either fell into exemplary or commendable. And just to summarize very briefly exemplary is the top 10% of schools in the state of Illinois. Um there's no district level designation for this. So we had 12 schools that fell in the top 10% and nine schools um identified as commendable. Many of our commendable schools
065were very very close to reaching that threshold for exemplary. I mean sometimes less than one one point away. Um we didn't have any schools that fell into the targeted support or comprehensive support. Another slide. This is a quick visual summary of the equity journey continuum. This is a new report on the report card. It's not a school level report. It's a district level report. And the dimensions are student learning, learning conditions, educating, sorry, elevating educators. And this is the state's uh first pass at using 2018 2019 data to kind of give us a sense with respect to equity where our gaps fall. Um I could follow up if you wanted more information about the specifics of those. I can tell you that if you look at the um if you look at the visual um
066it's better to be further to the right closer to step four um every one of our ranges is above the state average. Um student learning is largely about student proficiency uh relative to peers. Uh learning conditions has a lot to do with, believe it or not, completion of the um learning u the five essentials and elevating educators has a lot to do with um degrees that educators have as well as demographic representation relative to the student population. And I think is that the last slide? Here's my summary. Overall strong performance results. I shared with you our relative standing expressed as percentile ranks and compared to benchmark districts. We're doing well. We're making recovery. We're getting back to minimally where we used to be. Um 12 exemplary and uh nine commendable. Um and we talk a
067little bit my third bullet has to do with college and career readiness. Um and really showing evidence that we're preparing students for the next step. And then lastly, of course, I want to acknowledge that I know we glanced over this and we're talking about district level performance, but there's clearly there's clearly students in this district that fall into different categories of or student groups um that continue to um need support to address achievement gaps. So, I don't want to I don't want to gloss over that at all. And I've listed off some of the atrisisk student groups and you can see um hopefully some recovery in those areas, but gaps still persist. I think that is it. Thank you so much for that report and I know it represents your work but you're also reporting
068all the work of all of our whole entire district top to bottom and so thank you for that. Um questions from the board of education Joe. Yeah, thank you for that um very comprehensive report. Um I want to um dig in a little bit on the IR uh seventh and eighth grade um results. Um, I think you mentioned uh with the eighth grade specifically um statewide there wasn't much uh movement from last year to this year and and we saw that here um where a lot of the other grades we were seeing um that we were making good progress in getting back to kind of 2019. Um, were you able to identify uh any specific um uh reasons why the eighth grade didn't see much movement either in the district or or in the state?
069Um different topics, different uh groups. Um yeah, what's what is that attributed to? Well, first of all, that's an average for the whole district. So, there's variation across the five middle schools. If you look specifically at 8th grade, um they don't always necessarily match what you're seeing as an average across the district. And so, um there's not really I mean, you know, NAPE's had the same NAPE's been presented with the same concern. The state actually went down. We went, you know, we went up slightly. So, I guess relatively speaking, we did better than the state. Um but I think you know we're seeing that on on measures nationally and at the state level where for whatever reason as you get closer to the end of middle school um there's just less I don't know if
070it's willingness to demonstrate or you know some people have said you know those are kids that have largely grown up with you know using iPhones and social media and may and maybe there's just less of an emphasis on on um you know fully engaging but I don't know that there's like one reason that you know that would apply necessarily Like ultimately, you know, this information combined with like map data and other information, you know, we want to take a look and see if it's aligned with how a student did on this particular test. Um to see if, you know, underperforming on a on on this test is related to underperforming with respect to grades and and um benchmark assessment and things like that. But I I couldn't tell you that there's like one, you know,
071one reason why. It could be, you know, just screen fatigue getting close to the end of middle school. Um, we also didn't I mean, we didn't test we didn't test all students the year before. So, it's hard to say, for example, if in 8th grade that 49% of mathematics is really reflective um, you know, of what we're capable of, but you I'd like to see us get back to the at least up to the mid60s. Um, so I know you've only had this data for a little while. Have you had a chance to look at the comparisons to the map data or grades or anything? Um, we have we've looked at we have and it's actually it's um the map data actually turns out to be better. The grades grade the map data from last
072spring is stronger than the data that we're looking at. So um and the growth the growth looks better as well. So, um, as far as grades go, I know this year we've looked at like the numbers of the proportions of like D's and Fs and things like that. We've seen a decrease this year. Um, but it's, uh, I think I mean, I put more stock in the MAP assessment, you know, because it's local and I think it's more relevant for, um, it's more relevant for students and, um, I think it's more reflective of of reality. Thank you. Donna, thank you so much for your report. Um, two things that um are takeaways for me that I would like for you to maybe remind us like you share as we go along. Uh, because I I
073didn't take that away from when I was reading the report. Um, the reminder that the dip in 2021 is not necessarily an academic dip as much as it could be attributed to lack of or the number of of students testing. Correct. Right. And so, correct. It's partially that. It's also, if you remember, that was the year in which we had to compress all that testing into one really tight window at the end. I mean, we even had to spill gifted assessment and accelerated assessment into the summertime, right? And so, coupled with the fact that it felt like kids were kind of exhausted, you know, from the screen fatigue and and in in remote and things like that. Yeah. We don't have a good sense because we didn't do everybody, right? We didn't even get we
074don't have to do every single kid, but we at least need to get to like 95%. We're typically at, you know, in the 99 range. So, I just think that's a good reminder because I think when when you look at this, you you attribute that dip to loss of learning and that was not necessarily the case. So, I think that that's important for us to remember. And then, yeah, some districts aren't even showing that year. Yeah. For that reason. And so, I guess I you know, I just thought I' No, I'm glad you're showing it. I just think that was a good reminder that to attribute you know that the lack of um students that or you know the the significance difference in in our in our student population for that. The other takeaway that
075um I love that I'd love to see us continue to look at is you mentioned on one of these I can't remember which one it was that um you did a little bit of analysis where you looked at where we fell in regard to other states other all all other districts in the state. I think it was for I but I don't remember what grade or what what it was for. But you said we were at 95% in the state when we're looking at that. I I think that's use super useful information because I can't tell you how many times I've had conversations with people and you know they look at the 60 70% and and they they look at it as a failure like well well gosh Neighborville we should be doing so much
076better than that. And I don't think that they realize where everybody else is in the state. So that would be really helpful if we can continue to have that reminder or um and I don't know how difficult that was to do for that one slide that you mentioned it on but um I think it would be helpful even if we just do it for like SAT or something you know so something that can can help give us that reminder each year. Yeah that so just for clarity sake moving forward that included all three I grade levels and SAT so it was a combination combination. Yeah, I was so I was looking at ELA math and science for all three for everything we do accountabilitywise, right? Um but yeah, it's but I I think the visual
077maybe of how you know we're at the 95th percentile on that like without laboring districts because I don't want to throw any districts under the bus, but like without labeling labeling districts, having that bar graph showing kind of where we're at might be super helpful for the community to understand how how wonderful these really and the celebration that these numbers are. So, thank you. You're welcome, Tony. So, I just to follow up to make sure I understand that. So, that the 95 is where we're at now. Do you know how that compares to where we were pre- pandemic? Is that we were 95, we're 95? We were at 97, we're like, So, do we Yeah, we I Great question. I actually did that. Um I did I looked at 19 data as well and um
078we slipped one percentile rank. So we're before we were where before we were at 97 we went down to 96. So our rank position relative to other districts I'm not comparing schools to schools I'm just doing all 850 whatever districts. Our rank position really largely didn't change. So when you look at the eighth grade data you know I'm not saying that's acceptable. Of course we want to see growth. We want to see improvement. But, you know, comparatively speaking, knowing that this test has a very high bar compared to many other states that, you know, include, for example, approaching as proficient, we don't do that. Um, you know, I'm not making excuses for numbers in the 60s, but if you give it some context, um, we're doing very well, Charles. Uh so thank you for your
079report and thank you for the analysis you do in your spare time. I it's very uh very helpful. Uh and it speaks to the inquisitive nature that you have which is awesome. Um I want to talk a little bit about just what you're seeing in the data in terms of where we are relative to the gaps. Um, so there's ups, downs, there's dips, and we're starting to see some recovery, which is a good thing. But I wanted to get a sense of um just taking a look at um where we were from a gap perspective uh in terms of uh some of our um lower performing cohorts relative to now. So has the pattern kind of have the gaps between those again kind of moved together? Are we seeing widening of gaps, narrowing of gaps,
080gaps staying about the same? How would you characterize that as you look at the generally, you know, we're seeing different degrees of recovery, but um the gap the the net distance between certain groups hasn't changed substantially. Um you know, we're looking for you also have to take a look at, for example, when we look at SAT at the um high school level, which is a single grade level, you have to be cognizant of how many students that is. Obviously, when you're assessing, you know, all students in a certain group across third through eight, that's a larger quantity. So, for students for which we have smaller just numbers in general, especially when we only assess at one grade, we see a lot of variability. But, um, you know, it's safe to say that the gap, the
081difference, I mean, this has affected all students. You know, if you look, again, it's hard to say with 19 because I know that certain groups came to school more than other groups, right, during the pandemic. And so um especially when there was an option to participate but um the gap distance hasn't changed. You know if you average this out and you took a look at the net difference we still have we still have ways to go Donna. Okay. So that just created a new question in my mind. Thank you Charles. um we've really focused on early childhood and trying to decrease class sizes, you know, at that earlier um level. And I'm hoping that as we look at that, as that starts to come through over the years, that we would see some changes in
082those gaps, like some some kind of reinforcement that those are things that are actually working for us. So, I know when you look at the um uh our ethnic groups and our um English learners and children with disabilities, we do it we clump it all together. So, I'd be interested in at some point because I know you didn't do this. Well, maybe you did this, but like you don't have a slide on it, what those look like, what those gaps look like at grade levels. Are we are we seeing that by the time the students come out of the early education that we've put investment into, are we starting to see a narrow in those groups and the gaps? Um, that's a great question. My hope has been since we adopted MAP as a benchmark
083assessment system, as you know, we give that to kindergarteners, right? So, we don't wait until third and we do it regularly three times a year. Um, take a look at how that starts and then how that how those differences progress through time. um not just waiting until third to see, you know, giving a test once a year. Um it's a pretty blunt measure. There's really um you know, we've got our benchmark assessment system. Last year was the first year we gave it actually fall, winter, and spring. We had in our third year of implementation. So, you know, our hope is as we gain traction and kids obviously remain in school, you know, we'll be able to see are there differences in cohorts and how cohorts grow across time and we could, you know, take that
084down to whatever group level you wanted to. Well, and even I mean I've been here too long to remember that that even in the IR we should be seeing it because we've we've made those investments years ago, right? So I'd like to see like if we had a comparison of where those gaps were at before we implemented that and and then some kind of look at where they're at now to to see if the investment that we're putting into that is is having an effect on our gaps. Okay. Okay, I have a couple questions. Um, first of all, you're so low-key when you say it. I'm just wondering if you could repeat it. What you said about the benchmark districts. I I think you mentioned that we were at 95% in the state and then
085you also looked at all where we are with all the districts around and did did you could you just repeat what you found there? Sure. You're talking about the percentile ranking relative to benchmark districts or proficiency percent proficiency proficiency. We have the highest percentage. This is district. This is district level view. We have the highest percentage of students that meet or exceed in English language arts, mathematics or science. Whether you're using the IR as the measurement tool or using the SAT, we also has have the highest growth. Remember that little slide where I showed you 60 and 59, we have the highest growth compared to our benchmark districts as well in both subjects. So that's a huge achievement. So just when you said it like you it it just I feel like we should all
086clap because that's not and it's really but but really that's a huge achievement for everyone at every level for every teacher for every administrator for that is a huge accomplishment. So I I just didn't want it to just go by so quickly because that's a statement. It is because I mean you could think about the pandemic as affecting different places in different ways. Right. Right. And so we're showing that largely in in in our context we continue to be you know very we're at the top of the pile relative to the seven unit districts we compare to. So, yeah, and again, relative to the whole state, we're remarkable. So, right. Um, that being said, um, looking at our, um, achievement gap populations particularly, I dug in a little bit on 8th grade. Um, can you
087talk a little bit, I mean, going school by school, um, there's variances when you look at our students that we've been working to close gaps. Um and in some schools um they are that you don't see as high gaps in other um I felt like the gaps did grow um in based on individual students looking particularly at eighth grade. So can you talk a little bit about um how those eighth grade students because now they're in ninth grade um you know obviously they're heading into high school. How are we supporting um students who failed to achieve proficiency in eighth grade as they enter into high school? We're going to have uh Jane. Yeah, we'll address that. Yeah. So, a couple of things um that are a little bit different this year than last year. Um
088both high schools now have implemented uh support period twice a week. Um Neighborville Central continues with their sore period and Neighborville North with their win period. And so that's one way and we absolutely follow math very closely. Um I meet with the assistant principles for curriculum instruction, Dr. Dr. Holland and myself meet monthly with all leadership. We're always asking the question about who is in those periods. How are we targeting students so that they know to attend um those support periods, looking at those D's and F lists? Like Dr. Nolton said, both schools are showing a decrease in algebra, algebra 2 um in pre-calculus as well. Um so we don't just want to look at algebra 1 and 9th grade. Um but also we have our lunch supports that are still in place and we
089also have our supported study halls. So this year with the addition of um both of that win and soar we're hoping that we're going to see gains. We're getting the real-time feedback from our buildings. The also another thing we're doing are both math specialists. We have two now at each building. They are pushing in lots of um push in and uh co-eing in the areas of algebra 1. And they're also doing um professional learning um once a quarter I'm going to say with our math teams as they look and analyze data really target student by standard thinking about what we do instructionally in tier one because we don't always want to have um all the supports outside of our tier one instruction. We want to make sure that our in-class instruction is also strong. So
090we feel good. We know and identify their gaps. We know that we have student populations that we need to support even stronger than we have in the past, but I think both teams have a good plan. Um, and we're we monitor it regularly. And I know looking I I looked specifically at our achievement gap schools in on the elementary level as well. Um, just to kind of see how they fared with those achievement gap populations. definitely um where we had made more progress before the pandemic, we have, you know, there's been some setbacks. So, I I and I know you've got plans for the elementary schools, you know, that are similar to what you're doing. Um and the math specialists, etc. supporting in those areas. So, I'm glad of that work. Um but clearly, you
091know, there's room for improvement in some of those areas as well. Just to get back to where we were in terms of, you know, what we were seeing with regard to achievement gaps at our gap schools. Um I wondered if you can talk a tiny bit more about SAT. Um so just seeing at that I I I felt like that was one where you we didn't quite see the rebound um as looking at AR. So I I know that there are some national trends with that. There is there's been a declining trend that predated the pandemic as well. So this isn't like a phenomena that we're experiencing locally. Yeah. That's a national trend that that can be attributed to um a lot of different things. Again, some people have attributed to the fact that there's
092some sentiment or belief on the part of high school students that the tests matter less because submitting one is optional, which in reality isn't true. If you have a 1500 SAT, for example, you darn well should submit that. I mean, even if it says optional, um, that would be reason, you know what I mean? And so yeah, there's no test required, but um so there may be kind of a general belief that ACT SAT aren't as critical or valuable. Um and there's other, you know, there's other people, you know, policy people that have hypothesized that it has to do with just a general decline in um in students and education as a you know, as as a in the United States and um you know that students aren't performing as well as they used to
093and um particularly sometimes in the area of mathematics. So I mean I know that's something the college board has acknowledged and uh you know trying to understand but I mean we have a much higher percentage we have almost double the percentage the state has in terms of percent proficient um and thankfully you know we we at least went up a little bit and we weren't declining. If you look at the state or national you'll see continued you know stairst step down. So thank you for that. Any other questions from the board of education? and I know that we're continue to work to support students at all levels. Um, but it was great to see the, you know, the progress that we've been able to make. Okay, I don't see any other questions, so we'll go
094on to our next part in the agenda. So, the next thing is the president's report. Um, just a brief president's report. We already covered it in in good news, but it was a pleasure to be able to attend the success event, and I know many board members were there. Um, that was an outstanding event. Dr. Holland was fantastic and I know that it was really well received by families and by um all who attended. All right, moving on to board of education reports. Do we have any board of education reports this evening? Donna, thanks. Um I have two things I wanted to share. One was uh coinciding with the success event the city of Neapville did and Embrace Neighborville, which was a diversity, equity, and inclusion event at the city level um that I was
095able to attend. And so, um, just really excited to see that. Um, um, I know we had our success event. We had a couple of administrators there as well, which was great. But, um, it's just great to see, uh, district 204's, uh, DEI person was involved in that and, and I know that, you know, the city works closely with with our team as well. And it's just wonderful to see the collaboration and the fact that we're addressing it in different avenues and moving forward. So, that's wonderful. And it was very well attended and nicely run, I thought. So the speakers were very engaging. Uh the other thing I wanted to share which a number of us did was that we u and this will come down when we do unless you want to talk about
096that with our expenses but um we also attended um the Illinois Association of School Boards holds a division dinner for us twice a year and um it's a learning uh professional development for schoolboard members. Um it was the the again the speakers were super engaging and it's an opportunity to collaborate with other school districts and and meet with other board members and then also to you know have that learning piece as well. Um so and that leading into what we have we we'll have a recap but we have another our state um uh conference coming up this week. So yeah I know there were many board members who attended that and it was a fantastic seminar on leadership. Um but yes absolutely this weekend will be a great opportunity for continued professional learning for the
097board and for the district administrators who attend. All right. Any other board of education reports? Okay. So we'll move on to item to discussion without action and we'll begin with item 9.01 capital improvement plan. Okay. Annually the administration uh presents to the board of education an updated 5-year capital improvement plan uh to identify steps it will take in the next 5 years to achieve goals in the master facility plan. Uh so this evening uh Mr. uh sorry Pat will give us a a review of what we've done the last year preview of the next five years at the December 5th meeting. Um he will give uh will ask for uh action by the board of education on only the 2023 2024 uh capital improvement actions. The rest are just kind of a preview of what
098we expect and those circumstances could change. So Mr. Dolan, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you board for inviting myself and Mr. Francis to present our current five-year capital improvement plan or CIP. Next slide, please. As uh we've discussed in previous presentations to the board, the CIP is a description of potential projects we would like to present to uh afford the board consideration for the next five years. Tonight we respectfully are requesting uh considering approval of our 2023 24 budget and currently identified projects um as we list at the next board meeting as Mr. Bridges mentioned as well as the mix of projects and budgets uh for going forward. Given our schedule, uh if the 20232 24 uh capital improvement uh plan and budget is approved next month, my team and I will be
099meeting with administrators and consultants starting in January to put together details to determine the final scope of the projects and refine their budgets. Uh the list of items under um how we choose um describe the criteria we employ which uh generally um includes uh a balance of upgrades identified in the 2013 comprehensive facility assessment as well as issues or opportunities that arise during the school year. Every winter, we meet with the assistant superintendent as well as school administrators to consider changes in curriculum, programs, regulations, and demographics that will influence the projects that we try to accomplish this following year. As we discussed last year in 2026, um we would like to ask for permission to begin a new 10-year comprehensive facility assessment uh document to guide uh capital and maintenance programs in the future. We
100anticipate uh that we will continue to request approximately $6 million in funding for the foreseeable future future for these plans. At first, I'd like to quickly recap a couple of the large capital projects uh we accomplished this past summer and school year as well as projects we are currently working on. If I may, I will quickly summarize the uh major projects uh including upgrading the conditioning system for uh Neapville Central's pool. We rented it we renovated a couple of high school places spaces, excuse me, including the health tech office and the horicultural classroom at Central. Just a quick uh picture, the the these are photos from the uh crane lifts of the equipment for uh Central's pool dehumidification system. Uh we also had two learning center projects, one at Washington Junior High and uh one
101at Kingsley Elementary. Principles at both schools asked for additional glass walls and some interior renovation to accommodate new programs that they had developed and reduce the impact of passing period noise on both LC's. Just a note, the photo on the right, that wall behind the desks, maybe hard to see, um, used to be open to the girls and boys bathrooms behind it, um, which was very disruptive to the teacher and the teaching process. Just a quick shot, the next slide of the renovated uh, Hort Egg Science classroom at Neighborville Central. The photo on the left is the original um, very outdated um, casework and workstations. The photo on the right is the new uh model for uh this type of curriculum at the high school level. Um we also installed new playgrounds at Highlands and
102Ele and Scott elementaryaries. We replaced the electric boilers at uh Kennedy with two small gas fired uh boilers to give us more flexibility and resiliency and of energy efficiency. We also built a classroom in the Eagle's Nest at Elmwood to accommodate enrollment concerns. The next slide I show the two uh major uh playground upgrades. The photo in the center is a new piece of equipment that we've introduced to the district. It's um referred to as a WGO round which allows students of all abilities to play together. Been a very very successful um implementation and we look forward to doing that at more schools. The photo on the left is the elementary or Elmwood Elementary uh classroom space that we carved out of the Eagle's Nest. And the right are the two new boilers at uh
103Kennedy. These are additional projects that we accomplished over the past year. new chillers for metal glands and riverwoods, switch gear upgrades, flooring upgrades, door lock upgrades, work that's uh been um that was begun in the summer and in some cases trailed into um the fall uh semester. Just as an example of the typical flooring projects that we do, this is the uh complete flooring uh renovation in the learning center at Central. We also did repave. We're able to repave seven different asphalt projects across the district. Um the summer line line uh summer mod line line item um is more or less a catchall that we include um that really is developed um in that period between January and uh May um in working with the assistant superintendents and the school administrators to um to develop
104u the list of projects that we want to accomplish. Um, these two projects are the major roofing renovations that we did at Neapville North. And the one on the right is the uh almost a complete replacement of the roof at Highlands Elementary. Uh, the new stadium scoreboard at North was just recently installed. Um, that was a fun project to be involved with and uh very proud of um how it worked. Unfortunately, we missed a good part of the football and uh soccer season. Uh, but it's there and it's working now. great uh video scoreboard. Uh the windows for Washington Junior High had been significantly delayed by more or less supply chain issues. We just recently this week uh received uh um uh documentation that they actually are have been delivered to our manufacturer. We expect
105to do that work in this upcoming summer. Um so it was delayed from last summer including other projects like the fascia panel project at uh north the final remaining uh components of that as well as the irrigation project. Mostly those setbacks were due to shortages in materials and available labor. So I could go through some projects that we've already discussed with the superintendent's office for 2324. Our request tonight is for another $6 million in funding for various projects across the district. Here's a list of our proposed projects for this year. Um most of them are HVAC related and roofing related um which we anticipate to be able to accomplish um starting in January and working all the way through uh the end of August. Um the major projects include at major or large chiller replacements
106at Neighborville North, Mil Street and Neaparies. The two largest architectural projects we're proposing are the replacement of windows at Madison Junior High and Kingsley as well as the roof, a portion of the roof at um Madison Junior High. Um as we mentioned, we had talking a little bit about the replacement of uh the uh windows um boilers uh across the district uh different uh uh uh buildings that have where they've reached the end or extended beyond their um service life. We're proposing also to do more uh playground upgrades. Uh a couple large projects as well as a few small ones. Um, door upgrades will continue, door and door lock upgrades, as well as the summer mod requests and flooring and parking lot projects. Just quickly, I'll go through looking forward to 2028 tentatively, and these
107projects are uh very tentative at this point. Um, knowing that uh uh you know, we are always looking at uh shifting priorities across the district. Um, we continue to do various upgrades in HBAC and plumbing systems based on our evaluations as well as that assessment report. We're hoping to accomplish a major renovation of the tennis courts at Napleville North in the year 2024. 2025 26 will bring uh domestic water replacements, elevator controls uh and continuous improvement projects across the district. 2026 uh was when we were originally anticipating uh starting a new 10-year comprehensive facility assessment. Uh but both both Mr. Francis and I discussed um that we can accelerate or change the schedule of that particularly if it meant that we were going to be able to make um uh better uh more uh uh
108decisions, capital improvement decisions related to uh the goals of the board and the superintendent's office. And then finally in this term, the 2027-28 uh highlights include projects that will probably come up in the comprehensive facility uh replacement report as well as domestic more domestic water replacements as well as a mix of continuous improvement and maintenance uh summer mods. Can we answer any of your questions? Thank you for that summary. I know you've been working really hard and dealing with all kinds of supply chain and labor issues. So, thank you for all that you were able to accomplish. Questions from the board of education. I see Charles and then Joe. Hello. Uh, thanks for your report. Um, I noted that in uh 2022, well, first of all, congratulations. It looks like um you had $6 million
109budgeted in. Everything seems to be coming in and saved some some money there. Are there other things that we could pull forward because the money's already allocated. So is there are there things that we could kind of get done to utilize that? Yes, in fact, we are right now. There are projects that have been ongoing. We're working u with a number of uh different schools uh to range uh uh for example flooring projects. We we were actually able to install four different uh flooring projects over on the on the uh uh uh uh voting holiday. Um coming up over the winter break, we'll do a number of different projects including lighting upgrades um as much as we can. So we we actually, you know, the summer mod project summer mod idea um is a little
110bit of a misnomer. We do work throughout the entire year with consultants um with our uh uh you know selected um uh contractors uh to continue work. So uh the work for us never really stops. It's not a May or June to August uh effort anymore. We're continually working to upgrade um especially when it comes to things like um building security. Um uh we work very closely and uh great have great partnership with our IT department. Um that's something that's continuously working on as well. Okay. Um so you you you mentioned building security. So as I look at the number of uh different mentions of door upgrades and replacement, can you speak a little bit to how far along in the process we are of kind of being fully upgraded and all? Yeah, Mr. K,
111if we can come back to you with a report on that at a future meeting. Sure thing. Yep. No worries. Okay. Thank you. I think I had Joe next. Yeah, thank you uh for your report. Um can you uh talk a little bit about um things like the um energy efficiency savings that uh we're getting from the HVAC upgrades, from the window upgrades, and um are there any uh financial measures? Um you know, what kind of cost savings are we uh projected to get from those? Yeah, we work uh closely with our uh HVAC or mechanical engineering consultants to develop um uh you know they we asked them to do proposals that basically present a range of uh efficiencies um with the eye on I think two or three different criteria. One would be efficiency.
112I think that's probably one of the more important ones. but also we're looking at durability and resiliency and um uh the lack of um or reduction in the maintenance costs associated with them. So we try to balance all of those together. Uh the good news is I think in almost every case and and the projects that we're proposing for next year um you know we're meeting or exceeding the federal um uh energy codes in terms of the actual device or equipment um energy efficiency. Um the one good part about the way we've been trying to develop these projects are to to basically um uh you know uh uh purchase the equipment outright um using our uh uh purchasing co-op uh partners um which allows us to really nail specifically what our goals are in terms
113of energy efficiency. Um that actually I think is a pretty successful model and that's something that I really appreciate uh the support from Mr. Francis and his department on um so it's always something that is a consideration in the overall mix of of of projects, equipment and the installation. Um and that goes all the way through the entire uh gamut of uh projects that we do including selecting flooring because of its um you know durability uh lack of need for high intensive uh uh maintenance. Um all of those considerations are always on the table when we select the project product or the range of products that we include in these projects. Yeah, if I can I think we can provide a report at a future board meeting on some of the initiatives that have been
114in place. We recently met with the Neighborville educa uh Neighborville Environmental Sustainability Task Force. Uh and even I was impressed with the list of they were and I was impressed with the list of things that Mr. Dolan went through regarding some of our work. Um and so I think the board will be really pleased with the things that we have been doing. You look at a number of projects that are in here regarding building controls, be able to control um temperature and things like that. Um but as u you're aware, we've identified that as one of our blueprint initiatives and we'll be in the process very shortly of seeking requests for qualifications for consultant in ter of outlining the more comprehensive not just around our our buildings and grounds and environmental efficiency but overall sustainability.
115That actually leads in well to my other question um about the new comprehensive plan uh that's coming up. Um I assume that there will be uh that that that sustainability um efficiency reduction in carbon footprint will be a part of that um that new initiative as well. Right. We've identified that actually as one of our blueprint commitments. So that's something that absolutely will occur. Right. Thank you, Donna and then Christine. Okay. Well, Joe asked both of my questions, which was great, but then I just want to understand when we get that comprehensive plan that um with our movement towards more renewable energy, is this going to um change and effect? Like, you know, right now we have a $6 million projection for each year. I'm assuming that that will change and start to incorporate some
116of those other pieces or is it going to be entirely separate? It could potentially. Yes. And it could be something that we would look forward into the future in terms of how aggressive the board of education wants to be on whether we adjust request for an adjustment. Now, this was a number that was actually set back, I'm going to guess seven or eight years ago, right? And we think about inflationary costs, supply chain issues, and whatnot. what we're able to get done with that amount of money uh actually is pretty remarkable. So, I would anticipate as we look to take on more uh initiatives aligned with our blueprint that we would be looking at some sort of um modification or request in the future for the budget. Okay. Thank you. Can I just clarify? However,
117what's included in the five-year forecast is the six million, right? So if we would have any additional investment that we would put forward only a thought just to say we may want to um you know as you come forward with the plan adjust the timeline of the the overall capital um plan you know sooner. Correct. And as as Mr. Dolan mentioned that is something that he and Mr. Francis have talked about. Uh, additionally, you'll recall uh in the spring we talked about board policy 4440 440, sorry, uh, regarding our fund balance and that may some projects may go along with that if they're onetime costs as well. Christine, do we looking through the list, do we have some of these expenses like that we would share, the city would share with us like storm water
118repairs or like the playground in the park district or are these solely only our dollars that we use for some of this stuff? No, we do have partners um in both the park district and uh the city uh with the park district um if we have an uh intergovernmental agreement with them uh for use of their playgrounds. Um we typically share 50/50 in the costs of the upgrades. Not every playground that we have uh is subject to an IGA. Um and with the city, um we actually have a considerably, you know, extensive amount of renovation that we're doing in the storm water system at Jefferson Junior High. Um uh I think quite we've worked out an arrangement with the city uh for them to do a substantial and probably actually the the most difficult part
119of the work, which is a lot of the subsurface drainage um at their cost using their their group. Um and our share will be more related to um ensuring that the um the system the the detention basin um is maintained as well as uh repaired or uh renovated after that work is completed. So we do at every opportunity and we have a great relationship with the department of um public utilities as well as uh the public works department um and working with them uh across the board in a number of different projects. Amanda. Um, speaking of shared cost, this just brought up uh a question that I had about um home and school involvement as well because um last year I was um with the steeple run as their u board liaison and I believe
120that they did a fundraiser for that we go round that you were talking about that they invested. They raised the money to get that installed. How does that kind of um play into this? like the money they raise for these special types of playground equipment or whatever else they might want to do that might does that feed into any of these capital improvements? Yeah, it does. I think every year there is uh projects that we uh try to uh uh uh work with the u school administration as well as the home and school um uh group uh to in some cases just facilitate um work that they want whether we put it out to bid or we uh we select contractors do it. In many cases, we also and the I can use for example
121uh the new interior courtyard or exterior classroom at uh BB as somewhere where we partnered with their home and school. Uh they funded a substantial amount of the work that we did there. Um we did some work surrounding the week around at um at steeple run. So every year um you know we try as much as possible to facilitate um the goals and the uh projects of the home and school. I think that's a wonderful thing that we were able to do for directly to deal to work with the uh different school communities. I don't see any additional questions. So, thank you so much for that report. If you do have additional questions, please send them to to our superintendent because we'll have action on this at our next board meeting. Okay. So, next we'll
122go to item 9.02, the 2024 2025 calendar. Actually, actually, I think I'm going to ask uh the board uh to modify the agenda uh so that we can move items 10.01 and 10.02 up uh in the agenda and then we'll come back to 9.02. So, I need a motion from somebody to modify the agenda and then we'll need a twothirds vote to allow that change to occur. So, moved. Second. Motion a second. I heard. Please call the role. Mrs. Patton Ksminsky I. Kush. I Wanke McMillan. Hi, Fitzgerald. Hi, Casey. Hi, Gerky. Hi. Okay, the motion passes. Okay, really quickly then, item 10.01, a date uh for public hearing uh in uh and to direct the FY23 amended budget be put on public display. Uh we'll have a recommendation uh for the we have a recommendation
123this evening for the board to attach a resolution that's presented uh or a modification of the budget. Uh Mike, do you have some comments you'd like to make on the rationale for the change uh that's being requested? Yeah. No, the changes are listed there. There's really just two simple changes. This steeple run addition was approved after we adopted the budget in June. So, we need to account uh account for that and uh put that into our state budget form so that we can have have it properly audited uh for next year. Uh and we need to fund that with a with a transfer to this capital projects fund. And the last thing is uh as you remember in the late summer we had to buy some emergency uh driver's ed cars. So we needed to
124we we did not budget for that. Obviously the budget had already been passed. So we needed to add that to uh we've included that in this uh in this amendment. Okay, great. Thank you for that summary. Do I have any questions from the board of education? Okay, I'll take a motion. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see I I didn't raise my hand. Are those already in the fi five-year financial forecast? Because I thought that when we looked at the five-year financial forecast, we were told that on that one um on the 2020 Yeah, that's the amended budget. It's already amended. Correct. That's correct. In the forecast, we've already assumed I've assumed that the amendment would take place and those those costs are included in the results. Great. Thank you. That's helpful. I'll move to approve
125item 10.01. Second. Motion is second or heard. Please call the role. Mrs. Patton. Wanke. I. Gerky. I. Fitzgerald. I. McMillan. Hi. Kush. I. Kosminsky. I. Casey. I. Okay. The motion passes. So we'll move to item 10.02 2022 tax levy determination. Okay. So annually the district sets a tax levy which provides the district with over 85% of its total revenue. uh setting the annual tax levy is governed by the truth and taxation law, school code, property tax code, property tax extension limit laws. Uh each of those laws have specific requirements must be filed. This is in discussion without action uh in order to uh uh for the board of education to act on a resolution uh to provide notice of a public hearing in regard to the truth of taxation requirement. Board is not acting on
126the levy this evening, just the resolution setting the date for a public hearing. Turn it over to our chief financial officer, Mike Francis, to walk through the levy recommendation. Thank you. So, we have a a number of attachments and we have a presentation for uh this evening that I'd like to um go through. Uh tonight is the board's first look at the tenative tax levy for 2022. For tonight's presentation, I'm going to review the laws and requirements that drive the levy process, the variables that are used in the calculation, the recommended levy and estimated tax rates, as well as the impact on an average homeowner, the timeline we need to follow, and the recommendations to move forward. Property taxes are the largest piece of revenue for most school districts throughout the state of Illinois, and
127even a larger share of revenue for districts in our area. Over 85% of our district's budget comes from local property taxes. The tax levy we are presenting tonight is the district's formal request for taxes that is required in the first step in the process. County clerks will calculate tax rates around mid-March for bills to be distributed by the county treasurers typically at the beginning of May. Tax bills are due in two installments. We anticipate those being again in June and September of next year. There are a number of laws and regulations that govern the tax levy process. All taxing agencies must comply with the truth and taxation law, which requires a public hearing if the levy request is greater than a 5% increase over last year's tax extension. Our request tonight will require us to
128hold a hearing at the December 19th board of education meeting. District and tax cap counties also must comply with the property tax extension limitation law. Both DuPage and Will counties and therefore district 203 have been under this law since its inception in 1991 which limits the overall growth in taxes to existing taxpayers in total to the lesser of the calendar year of the calendar year consumer price index of 5%. There are also a number of variables that are used to determine the amount of the annual tax levy. The three main variables used in the calculation are listed. Of the three, only the consumer price index is known at this time. For the 2022 levy, all tax cap districts are limited to the CPI for the 2021 calendar year capped at 5%. Even though the actual
129CPI for 2021 was 7%, tax cap law limits the increase to five. The other two variables, new construction and EAV, are not finalized at this time. So, we must make estimates on those numbers. We work with our local tax assessors who have been very helpful in providing estimates for our calculations. Those numbers will not become finalized and released until March. Not knowing what those final unknown variables will be, we typically increase the levy slightly in order to capture any unanticipated increase in new construction. The board has the ability to reduce the levy after adoption but cannot add to it. Finally, as far as a timeline, all taxing bodies must adopt and file their annual tax levy by the last Tuesday in December, which is December 27th this year. The consumer price index is the major
130driver for changes in annual tax revenue. This chart shows the 30-year history of the CPI. The average over that time is 2.3% as represented by the black line. The actual CPI for calendar year 2021 used for the 2022 levy was 7% but again the tax cap law limits that increase to a max of five. As you can see in the chart, even with the 5% this year, the average CPI over the past 10 years has been about a half a percent lower than either of the first two 10-year average spans under tax caps. Most of us are aware that the current year CPI is again at a high level. The final calendar year 2022 CPI won't be known until January and will be and will not be used in any levy calculation until this time
131next year. There's an important point to understand about what the tax cap law does and does not do. While the district's overall maximum increase from existing taxpayers is limited to the CPI on an annual basis, individual property tax bills may differ, different assessment changes and whether an individual property assessment change is less than or greater than the average change districtwide can cause a single tax bill to be less than or greater than the average increase. There are three main factors that determine changes to individual tax bills. First, the tax cap law limits what a taxing body can collect in total. Secondly, the part that is controlled by the taxing bodies is the amount that they certify to be levied. However, this amount is still subject to the overall tax cap. The last piece is the
132potential differences of changes of assessments of individual properties. Property values do not rise uniformly across all parcels. The burden of taxes may shift from taxpayers with lower increases to those with higher increases. This slides in the next couple and the next show a couple of simple examples of how the levy and the assessment changes may affect individual tax bills. For these examples, let's start with the graphic on the left that assumes the following. There are just two pieces of property in the school district. They each had an assessed value of $100,000. They each paid $5,000 to the district in taxes for a total collection of $10,000 in taxes for last year. The graphic on the right demonstrates how the levy and tax caps can change the bill moving forward. The graph I can on the
133right uses a the current CPI of a 5% increase. Each property is also reassessed at the same 10% increase. Even with a 10% assessed value change, annual total taxes can only increase by the 5% CPI cap. For the next two examples, we'll show how taxes may be affected by differing assessment changes with and without the CPI change. Graphic on the left has no levy increase, but simply a difference in assessment change. The blue house does not change in value. However, the greenhouse increases by 10%. In this example, the taxing body would receive no additional taxes in total. However, the burden is slightly shifted to the greenhouse due to its overall higher valuation. The last graphic on the right brings both of those changes together. First, an overall CPI increase of 5%. This brings the overall
134taxes up 5% to 10,500. Secondly, the greenhouse being reassessed with a 10% increase, while the blue homes assessment again remains flat. These two factors together keep the blue houses's taxes at 5,000 while the greenhouse sees an increase up to 5,500. Again, different assessment changes equate potentially equate to a shift in the b tax burden per property. The next couple charts show the history of estimated values of the still unknown key variables used in the calculation of the levy. The first is the total EAV or equalized assessed value. This is the total assessed value of all taxable property in the school district. Over the last 5 years, the district district's EAV has grown from 4.7 billion to an estimated amount for 2022 of over 5.6 billion. This value will be finalized in the spring. The overall
135EAV has changed by two factors. The first is the existing EAV percent change. This change is what we are estimating an average assessment of a property to change by. Based on preliminary numbers from our township assessors, this year's estimate at 4 and a.5% is higher than in most previous years and most similar to 2020. The second overall change to EAV is the amount of new EAV or what we typically call new construction. We saw a few years of a dip after 2018, but that amount is estimated to be at a similar level this year. The final value of new construction will not be known until the spring. Since we don't know yet that final number, we typically increase the levy slightly to cover potential higher values in this area. Tonight's levy request would cover up
136to approximately 50 million $50 million of new EAV growth. This graph shows the overall tax rate of the district back to 2016. The tax rate has been very stable between 4.88 and 5.05% with an estimate this year of 4.93%. This spreadsheet we use to determine the levy on an annual basis. There are a lot of numbers on this page, but I'd like to highlight and focus on a few. Uh so I'm going to ask you to click each time I uh Okay. So each time I'm going to click an arrow is going to uh show up there. This is just summarizing some of our assumptions. The first one is the 5% CPI. The second assumption is the change of existing EAV at 4 a.5%. Next assumption is the estimated new property at 37%. Those three
137factors will result in a tax rate of 4.93 if those numbers are correct and an overall taxes collected by the school district of 276 uh just under 276.7 million. That's what we think we are going to get based on the levy based on the tax cap law and all those things. So with that, as I mentioned before, we typically levy a little bit higher. So, what the truth and tax truth and taxation law requires us is to look at what we received last year. So, go ahead and click again. And that's that box in the lower left. We actually received million. And we compare that number to the levy that we're requesting tonight. One more click, which is in the far right in the lower right. And that's 277,460,000. And as you can see, that's
138a 5.99% increase over what we received last year. And because that number is more than 5%, the box in the lower right says yes, we were required to hold a hearing and publish a truth and taxation notice. Looking ahead, a few months to the early spring is when county clerks calculate tax rates and begin the process of extending taxes, which will notify us of the actual amount the district will receive. If our adopted levy request in December is higher than the clerk's tax cap calculation, then the levy will be adjusted downward. This is what we anticipate happening if adopted as presented. However, if our request is lower than what we are allowed to receive under the cap, we will only receive the levy request. In summary, there are a few key points. Uh if the
139debt service levy is again abated, the average tax bill would increase by 5% which is the CPI. If the debt service levy is not abated and it's added back to the taxes, the average tax bill would increase by approximately 6.1%. And finally, the board may consider additional payments, lowering expected increases. Here's the timeline we are following for the adoption of the levy. Today marks the date for the tenative levy determination. Later this month, we will be reviewing the levy and assumptions with the citizen finance advisors. There will be an additional opportunity opportunity for the board to review and discuss the levy at the next meeting scheduled on December 5th. The board will be asked to adopt a final levy on December 19th so that we can fill file the required documents by the last Tuesday
140in December. And finally, the board will consider adopting our annual debt service abatement at an upcoming meeting in March. So, the administrative recommendation is to support the 2022 tax levy as presented and attentively recommend abating the debt service levy again in March of 2023. I'd be happy to take any questions. Thank you for that presentation, Mike. Okay, questions from the board of education. Donna, um, is there I I I I think I've asked this before, but I want to make sure I understand because it becomes really important now. Is there new legislation that allows us to decrease the levy and then recover if we see that there's concerns in the following years? There there is. There's a a most recent uh the most recent uh legislation that affects the levy. There's been a number of
141things that affect the levy recently which has made this levy um more complicated than ever especially with the CBI never hitting 5% before u the legislation allows us to u unlike in years past if you underlevied you could never recapture the amount. The new legislation allows you to recapture but that remember recap number one it still limits you to 5%. So if and you can do it for up to three years. So if the CPI for whatever for say let's assume that the CPI was 5% for three years and you underleved in year one you really you could never recapture because you can't capture more than the 5% of the CPI anyway. But that's that's making an assumption the CPI will stay high. We know it's going to be high again this year. So there
142would be no ability to recapture anything next year because of the we're going to most likely hit the 5% cap. But there is the ability to potentially recover. But I would also caution the board if if you if you that also requires you to levy for more than the CPI in a future year. So, it might sound like a a good idea today, but it might not sound like a good idea in two or three years from now, depending on what the CPI is. And you know, there's the ability to add more back if you but you do have the ability to do that. The new law allows more flexibility to local school districts and school boards to allow them to take that as a consideration. So, um, well, thank you. I just wanted to
143make sure because I think I I had heard a couple different things on that. So, um, but we wouldn't necessarily have to recover it. Like, I mean, the whole idea behind it is to allow you to levy less, see if that works out, and then m and not necessarily have to make the adjustment. So we wouldn't have to necessarily go above 5% to recover if we ended up with say a $9.7 million surplus again. Correct. That's correct. You you the board does not have to recover the the the dollars. I have a question that relates to um the projection. So one of the things I'm most concerned about looking at the five-year projection is that we're going in a deficit, you know, every year. um particularly in those farther out years um where it gets
144more significant. What are your assumptions based on staffing for those outy years? If I if I recall, we don't increase. There is no change in staff in this in this projection. And as you know, we typically bring changes to the staff. So that those are, you know, this is what we know today and I don't want to make any assumptions on what we're going to be doing in the future. We don't even have those discussions yet. We don't have our enrollment projection update. We don't have the hard numbers to to assume those types of things. Uh but that is true. We don't have any additional employees in in these projections. And as long as we're talking about employees and and cost of employees, salary and benefits continues to be and has been always one of
145our largest expenses. Uh and in many cases, we have tied uh annual increases with our collective bargaining groups to something related to the CPI. And as a result of the higher CPI um we should expect or we will expect and we are planning for uh for some of our employee groups over 5% increases in salary next year. What salary what CPI did you assume for next year with the did you did you put it at five? I did for next year we put next year's CPI of five also before coming down. I mean the federal government still has a longer term goal in the low twos. Um, and hopefully we'll get back to that, you know, where inflation will get under control. But it's still uh it seems like to be moving in that direction,
146but we're still, you know, I don't want to make any predictions at what three, four, five years ago will look out. Can you remind us I'm sorry I I should have asked this before, but can you remind us about how many staff we increased last year? Just just when we brought the staffing increases, how how did that look last year? I I would have to I would have to look that number up. I don't does I would have to ask uh Chuck or Shayla or do you recall what the staffing memo numbers were? I I don't I know the number was fairly low for last year, but I don't recall the exact number. Okay. And I know in the budget we added two additional staffers. So Joe, yeah. So if I uh remember correctly about
147uh timing um is probably better to adopt kind of the full levy now and then if we decide, you know, and see where the EAVs and everything come in um toward March um and then we're able to to abate and lower things if we want. Um but we're not able to, you know, if we if we adopted a lower levy now, we're not able to go back up in March. Correct. Well, I normally that would be the case, but I would caution that the new legislation requires a school district to file a resolution and and inform the county clerk. I I I don't know the exact I think it's within 60 days of the levy of their intent to under levy. So we can't wait until if we wait until March and we don't tell
148the clerk that we're under levying, then we cannot recapture. So there is a process part of this new legislation that requires us to inform the clerk that we've intentionally lowered our levy prior to this period to be able to have the ability as Mrs. Waki in indicated with her question earlier about potentially recapturing at some point in the future. In the past, we would wait until March to make those decisions, but if we made that decision, we were never able to recapture it. But if we made it until March again, we would never be able to recapture it again either. Okay. Thank you. Can you talk about, you know, why you've made your recommendation to capture the full levy? Um, specifically with regard to those outears for staff, well, I think uh I think the
149superintendent summarized our we we we work really hard and the board does too in tying our labor agreements to these types of increases with limits. Sometimes there's caps um and and so and the vast majority of our costs are salaries. You know, even with the CPI, the CPI was actually at 7%. The tax cap, the general assembly has already for the last 30 years put limits on what a taxing body can increase taxes by an annual basis, which is the CPI. It just has never been over, it's only been over four once, and now we're at five or in a 30-year period. You saw that 30-year chart. We're we're averaging over the last 10 years of 1.95. But those in those years, it was tied our labor increases were also tied to CPI. So, we've
150been able to try we're trying to live within our means. And so, and and as the superintendent pointed out, next year's salary increases are going to be the highest salary increases we've seen in a long time, mainly because of the 5% CPI and we need to be able to fund it. So, the re reason for the request is is really our labor agreements more than anything. And all of our other costs are increasing also. You saw our food service, our transportation costs, we get infected by inflation just like everybody else does, right, Mike? And I I know uh we expect to have out for bid this year, a food service contract, and again, like you said, we'll expect increases. Um or do we have any other major uh service contracts that are up uh this
151year, new new one for next year? When's trans, do you know do we know in transportation? Well, we did a we did an an um an extension to transportation just uh recently for two more years, but food service is going out to bid this year and we expect those costs to be increased. Oh yeah, they definitely will be increased Donna. So, I just want to say thank you to Mike and um our team for all of the effort that they put into the budget and the tax levy. Um I I understand completely where you're coming from uh with the recommendation that you have. I think as a board our responsibility too is to look at um the taxpayer and to try to find that that really fine line between balancing what the district needs and
152uh and the impact on our tax on taxpayers because that's what we hear time and time and time again is that the the biggest issue um that people have is is with their property taxes and some people just can't afford to even stay in Nepville as they get older and they're on a fixed income and So, as we look at this, I I I respect all of the um the work that's put been put into it, but I can't help but look at over the last years the um the surpluses that we've had, including the one that we just had of 9.7 million, and feel that we uh I I I feel a need to say that I I'm not comfortable with the recommendation because I feel like we need to find that fine line
153to find a balance between what the school district needs. and so that we continue to be successful and to look out for our taxpayers. And when we have surplus after surplus after surplus, even if they're not projected out, we didn't have a projected surplus for this year either. We had a I think a $200,000, if I'm not mistaken, deficit projected and we ended up with a 10 million over, which gave us a $9.7 million surplus. So, I feel because we have the legislation has put this tool in place for us and because we've had surplus after surplus, I'd like to see us uh levy less. Mike, can you talk a little bit about what the difference would be for the taxpayers in terms of um if we were to not incorporate the EAV growth? What
154what would the difference be in terms of your average taxpayer if it if we didn't spread that over? Like are we talking a large I know it's about $2 million that you're talking about I think in terms of tax revenue for the district if we go with the recommendation. If we didn't do the uh EAV growth, what would what would the difference be? Mean you mean the new construction growth? Yeah. Well, we would any any new piece of property would still pay taxes to the school district. Yeah. A red a reduction in the levy would reduce the overall tax rate that every single piece of property, commercial, industrial, residential, new construction, everybody pays the same rate. So, it would just be a lower a lower rate and it would depend on on how much below
155uh the request that the board would consider for me to make an estimate as to what that would be. But for you know uh you if it's reduced by 1% that would you could if you have a tax bill it would be 1% of your tax bill would you know if you pay $6,000 to the school district it would be a $60 difference for that one percentage point. I guess for me looking at this my biggest concern is our staff. you know, just in terms of we we just saw the report with regard to our um our student results and I know that we're really working to support our students and we're proposing even without any change, we would still have a deficit. So like if we we we couldn't look at adding additional staff
156to make additional supports as we have each year. I know this year we added the two directors of outreach and student belonging. We would be that would be my concern is that limiting. The other thing I would be worried about is I know that for example in early childhood we we do have grant-based salaries that are funded by grants. You know we're going to be in big trouble if we don't get those grants in those out years for the early childhood since that right now is grant funded and this assumes continued grant funding does it not Mike for early childhood? It does. Yes. So like those are the kinds of things that I would be concerned about which are those ongoing costs. I totally hear what you're saying with regard to the deficits and those
157are those one-time you know you know I mean not deficit surplus those are those one-time surplus. I'm more worried about those ongoing costs for salaries that are continuing to grow based on as you have said the highest rates you know and tied to that CPI. Amanda, um your question kind of sparked um a recall too because I think that like with some of the didn't we receive some ARPA funding uh for the district um through COVID recovery to add like mass specialists and stuff like that. That money is anticipated to go away soon, isn't it? Yeah, that that money is gone now. It's gone. And so, but we're retaining the mass specialist and so that is now something that we as a district are covering. We have to absorb those costs. Yes. Mike's projection maintains
158the staffing. So that would make the assumption that we've absorbed those costs. And and then last year too, we struggled to fill all of our positions, right? Especially in transportation, sport um costs. So this is some assuming that we'd actually get to fully full staffing and be able to maintain that. Is the surplus we had this year due to that uh like a a a big part due to that understaffing? Because I know that's our biggest cost. A part of it is yes, we we typically try to we budget for and anticipate uh full staffing, but there are positions that don't get filled and that that that turns into money that's not spent in some level whether it's for part of the year or for the whole year and that turns into surplus and and
159adding fund balance. But we are anticipating that those positions will eventually be filled and those costs will be with the school district. Yeah, I I mean that's my um concern if we weren't to pass it is that you know I feel very passionate about the extra support services we put in place to help us close equity gaps and to support with the additional social emotional and mental health services we have and I wouldn't want those to go away um if we didn't support that. So that's my concern. Donna. Okay. Just to be clear, I'm not um I'm not, you know, suggesting that we cut any staff or or do anything. I'm saying that what I'm looking at is that we've had a surplus every year. Um and we fought really hard to get this legislation
160to be able to recover as a district as as district 203. This is a initiative that we had that we put forward through ISBY through a resolution to have the tools to be able to utilize this. We have the tools now. I'm frustrated that we're not utilizing them. So, I think it's wonderful that we have the tools and I think it was a really important initiative. Um, it's not suggesting that we wouldn't ever use them. I think that what Mike is suggesting is that this increased salary of 5% that we have tied our employee contracts to is unprecedented. And so that 5% salary growth, I know it won't be 5% but actually it may be more because I think we tie 67% of CPI and then we add our um step and lane changes etc.
161I don't know what that projection would be but that would be my concern is that we're still able to um continue our contracts for employees without having to reduce any employees. but also that we're still able to, as we have done this year, look at student needs and say, "Boy, we really could increase here for student belonging or boy, we really could in increase here for gap closing or math specialists or additional things." Um, so that that would be my concern as well is looking forward just provide a little information based on what you just asked. So, um, NUA employees are our our largest employee group and our average salary increase for 2324 is expected to increase 5.38%. Um, and I think uh another thing you mentioned the unprecedented um CPI for the year that
162we're dealing with, but as Mike indicated, it's projecting at the same level for next year. And so um it's going to be it would be difficult then to rec we wouldn't be able to really necessarily recapture next year. Uh and we'd have to count on the two and three years the second year, the third year out in order to potentially recapture any I'm sorry, Tony. Yeah, just to build on that, I guess my couple concerns would be as you just mentioned, the list of things that we've we've said we kind of need and would like to fund. Um, you know, we had a meeting a few months ago about replacing our whole bus fleet with an electric fleet, which would cost tens of millions of dollars. Uh, we we we have these things we want
163to do. So, I would be worried about saying, "Oh, we run a surplus one year. Let's like get ourselves into a hole. And to to what the superintendent just suggested, if it's continually at a 7%, we're continually capped at 5%, we're going to go further and further into a hole. Not putting aside staff contracts, just as Mike suggested, the the cost of everything else we are affected by. And I I get that we have the tools to correct that, but I would not want to be in a world where we're at 5% because that's the cap and we're recovering the 2% from last year and we still can't fund the things we want, right? That that's not a world you want to be in. And that would be much harder on our taxpayers. I think
164coming in at five when CPI is a C 7.1 rather than coming in at five plus recouping the back that you didn't get even if we're still at if CPI I mean CPI runs at seven for three or four years that red number gets huge for us I would think and you know optimistically I want to say that doesn't happen but you know we don't know that. Let me go ahead and get Charles because I've had you a couple times and I'll get you after. If I understand correctly though, if CPI is at five and it's capped at five, we wouldn't be able to recover anything if we under levy because you're capped at five even with you recaptured. Is that correct? That's correct. Right. So that's the that's that's the issue that we're facing
165now. My understanding is with the rule. So yes, we got this there's this legislation that's passed so we can recapture. The problem is it didn't anticipate CPI being as high as it was. So that we're in this window now where if CPI stays at or close to five, it limits our ability to recapture because that would push us over the PEL limit or something like that. Right. That's right. We wouldn't be able to recapture anything more than 5% in total. I'm going to stop talking now that I understand it. Yeah. And my correct can I ask a clarifying question on that because I I'm confused. Uh, so I understand that we so we we can't recapture more than five. Does that mean if we did four this year, we can't recapture more than 1%. Even
166if we were at five next year, but that would be 6%, right? That's that's the way I understood it. Yeah. If we went to four, you're right. We what we'd be able to recapture is 1%. But we can only add 1% up to a maximum of five. So if the CPI is again at five, we can't recapture it that year because we can't go to six. Okay. I got So So we So the tool is can't be used at all. Okay. Well, it couldn't be used that year. You could follow it up like we would be looking at a whole Yeah. Right. And again, I know the 5.99, you know, which is your as we're recommending on the levy, that's not what the average tax current taxpayers rate will increase. Correct. it will increase only
167by five as a result of the property or or the tax cap and the 5.99 is it to ensure that we can tax the new property. That's that's correct. We receive additional taxes from new construction or new properties that are added to the tax rules, but we have to ask for that money. So that's our the 5.99 is is getting the estimated amount we're going to receive in additional taxes from those new from new construction. So, we look at um No, go ahead. That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. I was just going to donate her hand. So, um again, just to clarify myself, I'm not just looking at the surplus from last year, but every surplus that we've had up to this point, um because we have had one, you know, multiple years coming in.
168And then also knowing that our um our uh our reserves are as high as they are. And and I know that there's lots of things we can do with that and I'm not just suggesting that we don't do those. But what I'm saying is is that whatever we do with one year can be recovered and maybe not the next year. Maybe though we have no idea and and it could be the probably the following year. But in the meantime, we have a a fairly large reserve after multiple years of of surplus because again I mean so much so that we returned 10 million to the to the taxpayers because we were had you know in in effect overt taxed our our community. So, I'd like to see us be proactive on that because that return
169is such a difficult thing that instead looking at the levy and being a little bit more um uh decisive or I don't know a little more uh thoughtful in in some of the tools that we have. Again, I I'm most concerned about the wage growth because the wage growth continues to go over time as opposed to those one-time surpluses. That's my biggest concern is the wage growth going forward. Just that we're able to continue to keep up with that. Well, right if we under levy, but it could be, but perhaps not for a year or two, Charles. So, the the point you just made is actually what gives me comfort is that we figured out how if we and we've demonstrated a willingness that if we have too much money, we we'll give the money
170back. We have a vehicle to be able to do that and we're unique in that way. I think I don't think anybody else has ever done that before. Um, and so to me, I think this board has demonstrated a willingness to kind of say, "Hey, we're not looking to hoard people's cash here." But at the same time, I have a concern with relying on governing bodies to figure out how to recapture and recoup and with these rules. I'd rather make sure that we have what we need. And then if we need to give some back, do what we've done before, which is to your point, we gave back what, 10 million the last time. So, but but there's a cost involved in that giving back. understand. I get that. But there'd also be a cost
171involved in not having what we needed. So I just Well, I'd be willing to go to the 5.99 if we have discussion about returning the 9.7 surplus that we have right now, then I'd be good. Okay. I want to remind the board action this evening is on the notice of a public hearing in regard to the truth and taxation. This has been excellent conversation. Have an opportunity on December 5th and 19th um to do that. So if there's additional information you need regarding the recommendation um please send them to me administration will work to address those at the December 5th meeting. Um but um yeah I just want to make sure that we remember that when your your action here is on the not the publishing of a notice of a public hearing in regard
172to the uh requirements and uh to um advertise such public hearing. That's a very good reminder. Um, do we want to postpone the rest of I mean, are there additional comments that we need to make tonight or do we want to go ahead and go continue our conversation at our next board meeting? You ready? Okay. Oh. Um, motion to approve um 10.02 uh 2022 tax levy determination. Second. Can I clarifying question? I'm sorry. I want to make sure I understand what we're what we're actually approving. It's that's because it's named a little bit challengingly. So, it's okay. It'll be all right. You'll need a motion to approve the resolution providing notice of a public hearing in regard to the truth and taxation requirement and to direct the administration to uh publish uh information regarding the
173public hearing. But that only happens when we're over 5%. Correct. Correct. Okay. Correct. So in an effort we're saying that we're going to public no we have time limits in terms of when this has to be published. If through conversation administration gets direction to be lower then we'll make that a part of the conversation. It doesn't automatically mean that we're levying that amount. It means that the estimate right now that's recommended by the administration is above that number. It doesn't commit the district or the board to approving a levy at that number. Correct. Motion to approve what Dan said. Second. A motion. A second or heard. Please call the role. Mrs. Patton. Kush. I. Casey. I. Fitzgerald. I. Wanke. No. Kazminsky. Hi. McMillan. Hi. Gerky I. Okay, the motion passes. All right. Thank you, Mike.
174Thanks, Mike. All right, so we will go back to our discussion without action. We're going to go to item 9.02, 2024 2025 calendar. Always one of our favorite conversations uh trying to get ahead of the curve in order for there to be planning uh uh in our community. Uh but Dr. Nolton has been working with an advisory committee, a calendar committee on preparation of the 2024 2025 academic year calendar uh board uh priorities have been balanced semester uh with a difference uh not to exceed uh eight days between the two semesters. Final exams for high school students before winter break and a start date as late as possible in August. So Dr. Dr. Nolton, if you would please, a little overview on the calendar, uh, but also include your process and next steps regarding that.
175Thank you. Um, the process this year has involved including, um, several parents from the community as well as NUA membership, NESPA membership, and um, district level administration from elementary, middle school, and high school. We made sure we had parents that represented students from all levels. We had good attendance. um we constructed a series of calendars and um landed on a uh and of course you probably remember some of the things about how we have to adhere to a certain number of attendance days. Um there's language in the contract about how many work days there are. This has to be approved by the ROE as well as by Isby. Um but the difference one of the questions we come into is um what's the difference between the two semesters 85 and 89 um are the days.
176So we're within that 8 day limitation. Great. Thank you so much for your work and for explaining the process. Uh questions from the board of education with regard to the 2025 calendar. I'll simply remind you once again, this is one of those that there's always going to be various stakeholder individuals or groups uh that have individual preferences regarding calendars. We try to fit the criteria and make a calendar that works best for our kids. Okay. Uh the one thing I noticed the two election days the uh I think it's November and April. It's X does no school but also has the e-learning um designation. What is that? Why the um that's an error. Thank you. Um so that specifically November 5th um November 5th should not have a little e on it. November 5th should
177just be simply xed out because that's a holiday. So, all state entities will be closed that day. And we're not in a position where we can be open for any version of school, whether it's e-learning or in person. Um, unless I cross my wires, which has happened, it looks I think the other the February one, the 25th looks like it has a lowercase E, and then the April one um should have an E on the 1 of April. The February one is the one that's kind of debatable. It depends on whether or not the uh DUP page well whether or not the county determines if we have to conduct an election based on the number of candidates and I think I've mentioned before that that's that announcement is made in early December. So that could
178be an inerson it could be an E day but it is a school day. I know sometimes we get the feedback from home and school. Were we able to present this to them and get their feedback or will we be doing that in the future? Um we'll be doing that in the very near future. So that's typically the next step. Donna, I appreciate the process that we go through for this and I don't want to change that at all, but since it's public, um I think it would be important to communicate it to the staff and they don't necessarily follow our board minutes or or when things are published. Um is if we're going to share this with home and school, is it possible that we can send this out to staff as a tenative
179calendar? not asking for feedback or anything, just so that they have eyes on it and they know um that it's that it's there. I believe Mr. Mer has been working on a publication that goes out um and we can include that in there. Thank you. I'll just remind also the board, I think Patrick said it, we've had representatives of both NUA and NESPA uh that were a part of the calendar committee. I'm sure probably the least popular thing is that Tuesday after Memorial Day, but I I can tell you just didn't have any additional choices there. How did that how was that received? Um, well, there's very limited options, right? They always use the squeezing of a balloon analogy. Squeeze one end, the other side, the other side expands. But, you know, I don't know
180that we want to do the Wednesday before. We'd have to make it up on Sunday. And so that would either mean starting the year a little bit one day earlier, not doing the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, that's not a crowd-pleaser. Um coming back, uh we'd have to absorb it somehow. So there's, you know, there were a couple of things that, uh, when we, you know, had to avoid, we avoided that in the last calendar, then had some curveballs thrown to us, you know, um, working hard not to split the beginning of the start of the school year um for our staff. Like if we if we if we pushed it a day earlier, staff would be coming back um on the 9th uh, a weekend and then the 12th 13th and start on the 14th. That
181that was not favorable. uh adding a you know taking a shorter winter break which is not favorable. Um and so again there's the number of limitations in addition to the board criteria. We look at the required number of days guidelines provided by the depage county regional office of education to try to help communities near each other have similar calendars. It's very difficult. Thank you. Additional questions from the board. Charles and this might be in the same category as the E on October 16th there's a L is it's it's normally a late arrival day. Is there a particular reason in that particular Wednesday or is that just a Okay, that's a very special Wednesday because that is when we do the PSAT NMSQT. Okay. So, so it is not a late Yeah, we need the full
182day. Well, we need to start at a regular time to do that. Okay. Thank you. Okay, I don't see any other questions. So, if you have any questions, please send them to the superintendent. Otherwise, we'll look for action at our next board meeting. Okay. Does that give us time? Actually, when is our December one? Does that give us time to go to home and school? No. Yeah. So, actually, we will I think we're coming back on December 19th for action. Is that correct? Great. Yeah. Because with the December home and schools Yep. Correct. Okay. This is the same kind of rough timeline that we have followed in previous years. So, okay. Got it. Okay. So, we'll then move on to item 9.03, policy update press 108 update. Okay. Nepil 203 subscribes to the Illinois State
183Board of Education's Press Plus service. Uh that is a customized full maintenance policy update service for school boards uh that have completed uh an IASB policy manual customization. As you will recall, we recently completed that policy manual customization. Um, Press Plus uh is based on Press IASB sample policy and procedures information and update service. Uh, Press Plus provides full access to Press, plus additional assistance to help keep the board keep its policy manual current. Earlier this fall, you approved several updates to policies contained within IASB's most recent updates. Those policies brought before you at that time were policies that only contain citation and reference updates. This evening for a first review are several additional policies that include updates of language within the policy. These updates are primarily based on school code updates, new legislation, and
184new mandates for schools. These policies have been reviewed by administration prior to presentation to you this evening. As you can see, there is a lot to review. We have three meetings for discussion on these policies. Tonight is your first review. And our primary goal for this evening would be to identify specific policies for which the board would like have questions. I would like additional information to be sure that we discuss in depth at a at a next meeting. Administration will review those specific policies with your questions in addition to consult with our legal counsel on some specific policies that require that and to provide you with requested information for further discussion at the December 5th, 2022 meeting where the policies will remain as discussion without action items. We'll then bring final draft for your review
185and we'll recommend board's approval at the December 19th, 2022 meeting. Uh, and due to the volume being considered, uh, we realize that you might need additional time to review. Uh, so if you're still working through these policies, you can send me your questions in the coming days so we can prepare for the December 5 meeting based on the number and the changes uh, in terms of our approach with this. Uh, I'd recommend I that I will prepare a document very similar to what we do in the budget. If there are questions that come in in the interim, prepare a document that bid in full transparency then gets posted uh in board docs to help expedite the process due to the volume. We already know another press update is coming very soon. Um and some of
186the policies even here are being updated again. So um however, as we get more and more done and these updates will be more on track for a lot of uh to make this process uh easier. with that uh answer any questions or recommendations for information from the board. Thank you for that presentation and I am very glad that we have that press service because it does make this easier keeping these up to date but it's hard to keep them up to date because they keep changing. Um questions from the board of education with regard to any of the policies and I think that your idea is a great one that we can include even the questions that that the board has already submitted so that the community can see all the various review of the
187Yeah. So I have received some uh questions in the last couple of days from board members specifically about those policies and we administration's already begun to try to address those questions and as indicated in order to promote transparency we will post that document at the next uh at the next board meeting and then the future one based on additional questions but a lot there was a lot of requests for clarification some backup information recommendations for some tweaks. Again, my reminder to you will be part of the the value of this uh is being consistent with legislation, new new laws and mandates. The more we customize uh the more difficult it will remain for us in the future uh to keep our policies current. Now, there are some important policies uh for our community that we've
188said we're going to own these policies because it's important to us to customize it based on our local um governing procedures. um and and that's great, but the more we do that, the more difficult it is going to be for us to maintain policies moving forward, which had been a previous challenge. So, um as much as possible, that that's going to be my recommendation as long as they don't contradict our values or policies that we've already put in place. Questions from the board of education on the policies? So, I guess I'd ask for Yeah, I think primarily any additional policies that weren't pre previously noted by an individual board member. Does anyone have any additional policies that they would like to see a question answered other than what they've already submitted? So are you then
189is what you're saying that you for any question that's already been submitted you're going to give the administration's perspective. Correct. But just not we've already begun that. Correct. Okay. Got it. Yeah. just due to the volume and the number there were a number of questions and preparing that we received today. So definitely. Okay. So then we'll plan on discussing these at our next board meeting and not even acting on them until the following. So anybody who's submitted a question, they've got the question. Are there additional questions besides the questions that have already been submitted? I I don't have additional questions, but um I guess I'm just thinking this is going to be a lot to discuss, so I I was hoping we'd get started, but I I'm fine. We uh I've submitted my questions. Is
190there any reason why we have to finish it? Like we could split it and do half of it. I mean, is there any reason why we have to finish it? Oh, there's a deadline with press. Yeah. So, okay. I mean, I'm not saying we can't discuss if there are some specific ones, but I just again, I don't know that I've received a number of questions from just a couple of board members. I'm not sure again due to the volume how much others have seen and been through it. I'm fine to wait. Is there anything that you wanted to discuss tonight? Okay. Right. So, we'll go ahead and have the answer. Will you just put the answers in board doc so the Yeah. So, that way then we'll review all the answers to all the questions
191and then at our next board meeting ask additional and we do have a um three weeks until our next board meeting. So questions that have come in uh we'll get out to you by middle of next week so you'll have that and you can prepare so it's not all one thing uh leading up to the day before day or two before the board meeting. Thank you. And if you if you wouldn't mind to just go ahead and give the district's perspective even if it's just a perspective rather than a question that would be great. Thank you. And I know you're looking with the attorney for some so I know that'll take time too. So we'll look for that in early next week you said. Okay great. Okay. So then we'll go on then to discussion
192with action. We've already done item 10.01 and 10.02. So we'll go on to item 10.03, consideration of board of education expenses. Okay. Board of Education policy 2125 requires all board member expenses for travel, meals, and or lodging be approved by roll call vote and open meeting of the board uh contained within board docs are expenses related to uh board of education dinner uh in accordance with the school board meeting and DUP page division dinner meeting. Okay. Wonderful. As we have already discussed, that was a wonderful meeting with a lot of good discussion about leadership in particular. I thought it was really helpful. Um, are there any questions from the board of education with regard to the board of education expenses? I'll take a motion then. I move approval item 10.03, consideration of board of education
193expenses as presented. Second. Motion is second heard. Please call the role. Mrs. Patton Fitzgerald I. Ksminsky. I Gerky I Casey I Kush I McMillan I J one key I sorry okay the motion passes so we'll go on in our agenda to item 10.04 4 summer school 2022 review and 2023 plans. The October 17th board of education meeting director of summer learning Kevin Kev presented a re summary of the 2022 um summer school program and our recommendations for the 2023 summer learning program. Additional information request of the board has been provided in board docs which shows multi-year program estimates and actuals um on one page. Uh be happy to answer any questions from the board. um our assistant superintendent for learning service, Jane Willard, will assist with that. Um but I recommend you approve 2023's summer
194learning proposal as presented. Okay. So, we had that wonderful presentation last board meeting and very exciting to see all the work that we're doing in our summer school and how popular it is. um questions from the board of education with regard to the review from last time or the um presentation for the expenses for 2023. Questions or comments from the board? Donna. Um so the tuition from the last two years I thought that our we were offering classes to students at no cost. So, um, is this because I understand that maybe this last year, 2022, people may have taken their free course the summer before, but 2021, I'm looking at now, and I I'm a little confused as to why we had tuition collected in the actual totals. So, they could decide over the two
195years when they wanted to use that free class. So, not everyone or a lot of our students actually take more than one class. Okay? Okay. So, it was one free class during that. They had two years to decide when they wanted and we also like so driver's ed we did not say the free class could be used for driver's ed as well. So, okay, that helps me. Thank you. The only thing I want us to continue to keep our eye on is that transportation cost where we have that we're collecting 20,000 or 27,000 in revenue and we we're spending 320,000 just because I'm comfortable with our investment in in summer school, but I I would really rather see us investing in, you know, getting more kids in those seats and having that great summer school
196experience as opposed to the additional transportation dollars. I know that they were expecting the costs to go down this last year because of the the projection, but even this is even assuming that the costs go down. Just wanted to make sure that we're able to continue to expand the summer school program as opposed to the transportation cost. Yeah, let me let me ask for clarification on that. So, when you say you projected him to go down, we have more kids sometimes we project to go up. We have waivers for our students for sure that don't have to pay transportation. So maybe I'm not understanding your comment. Kevin included a decrease in transportation costs this year. It was 434 last time. He's got it already going down to 320. So he it's definitely going down, right?
197But what I'm saying is the difference between the 20,000 and the 300 or 27,000 and the 320 that I want us to continue to be able to expand services as opposed to, you know, covering that. Got it. I follow you now. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. I'm comfortable for this year because I know we're looking at, you know, changes in terms of transportation, but I it's just something I want us to keep an eye on um as we work to expand services for students. I understand. I didn't get what you were saying at first. Any other comments or questions? Okay. I will entertain a motion then. I move to approve item 10.04, summer school 2022 re uh review and the 2023 plan. Second. A motion and a second or heard. Please call the role. Mrs. Patton.
198Wanke. McMillan. I. Fitzgerald. I. Cuzinsky. I. Gerky. I. Kush. I. Casey. I. Okay. The motion passes. So we'll move on in our agenda to item 11, old business. We do not have old business this evening. So we'll move on to item 12, new business. We do not have new business this evening. So we'll move on to item 13, upcoming events. And we'll start with item 1301, schedule of events. Coming up, November 23 through 25th is the is the Thanksgiving holiday. The board of education's next meeting is scheduled for December 5th. Those are the major items coming up. Okay, great. All right. If we do not have any additional business with the the calendar, we'll go on with the adjournment item 14 and we'll start with item 1401. Motion to to adjurnn. I will entertain a
199motion to adjurnn. Move we adjourn. Second. A motion is second or heard. Please call the role. Mrs. Patton. Kush. I. McMillan. Hi. Casey. Hi. Fitzgerald. Hi. Husbinsky. Hi. Gerky. I Wanke. Okay. The motion passes. We are adjourned. Good night everyone.