001the pledge. >> Over there now. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. John Brotherton Johnson >> here. >> Keith Johnston >> here. >> Diana Mendoza. >> Nikki Pettit >> here. >> Deborah Swat >> here. Robin Bullet >> here. Uh agenda Christians corrections and modification. I got a motion. Make motion to approve the agenda by moving and correcting items as presenters staff presented. >> Second Johnston. >> Ito Johnson. >> Hi >> Deborah Sweat. >> Hi >> Robin Bon. >> Hi >> Nikki. >> Hi. Do we have any public comments? Okay. Do >> you have the sheet? I want to come on up. Miss Roy. Yeah. Here's green. Who has her green
002papers? >> You got the green. >> What's the green? Sign in for >> Okay. I'm sorry. >> All right. Um, as a reminder, individuals wishing to speak during public comment must complete the public comment form, which is the green paper, and submit it to the board secretary prior to start of the meeting. Members of the public may speak during this portion of the meeting. Comments are limited to five minutes. Board members will not respond to public comment or questions during public comment. Um, should total public comments approach or exceed a cumulative of 30 minutes, which it won't tonight, the board may suspend additional public comments until immediately prior to the board and superintendent comments portion of the agenda. So, Miss Miss Ray, sorry. Um, I will have a timer here as you get going, but
003you go ahead. You have five minutes. >> Okay. So, I'm going to re reiterate, but I brought a visual. This is the scores from 2011 to 2023 for math and for reading. Public. Look at this. You can see this. This is your children's scores. Okay. Okay. So now I don't know what happened. I want to I want to find out what happened between 2011 and 2013. Actually 15. Um but I don't know where to find that information and I can dig do some digging and asking questions. But you all are voted into your positions by us, the people. You might only have to have one or two votes, okay? But you guys are responsible. You guys are part of this. You are all part of this. Okay? You're all responsible. Yes. Some of you haven't
004been here that long. And I'd like to have um I would like to ask brother um Brotherton. He's been here since 2007. Has he said has he done anything to speak up for the kids? You all should be 100% for the children or get off the board. Okay. You elect you f you hire a superintendent. He's supposed to guide and do make sure everything the the principles and the vice principles. Why do we have vice principles? You're they're supposed he's supposed to keep them in line. You're supposed to keep him in line. This says you're not. You are all responsible and I'm going to hold you all responsible and I'm going to I'm still gathering information but I would like to know okay last last month you gave a um there was a presentation for
005phonics and discipline and behavior or behavior and discipline. I thought well that was great you know it sounds good but then I was thinking when did phonics get taken out of school? I want I I got to find that out. when was it put back in school? Um what are they what is this new program that they're trying? Are they checking the that um the checking the skills of the children or are they checking that the phonics is being done taught the behavior and discipline is it something that's going to be tried or is it something just hot air making the school admin to look good because I'm hearing issues. One of them is there is and I know it personally because I I was involved not with the situation but a children were being
006bullied. I asked the parent did you go to the teachers? Nothing. Did you go to the principal? Nothing. Did you go to the schoolboard? Nothing. I said okay fine. I went online and I found Illinois um bullying. I got a number. I called it. I told them these what was going on. They gave me a number to get to the person. Wham! It was taken care of. None of y'all did anything. The teachers didn't do anything. So now and I also have parents where are saying why is it um it why are students and staff left to sit and watch as kids destroy classrooms? Students assault assaulting teachers um innocent children they go excited about school eager to learn then they have experienced problems in their own classrooms. School should be safe but they're not.
007This is August of this year. Okay. So nothing's being done. I think also there's some other points that I want to bring up. I don't have that much time. Um I would like to see anything that you vote on presented to people so we know what you're voting on details, not just the a title. We need to know what you're voting on. It should be there should be open communication, collaboration, public transparency, public trust in the school board whom we voted for. Nothing should be con um confidential except for the disciplinary a um disciplinary action. We don't need to know that. But we should have every right we should h we have every right to know what you guys are voting on and the detail that is >> and then then I was told by
008a friend that a small girl and this happened in had her backpack caught in the door of a bus and this was um told to the school and her legs was dangling and this person that told me saw saw her daughter run after the bus to get the bus driver to stop. Don't know how that happened because when you're opening the door and closing the door, you should be watching that child clearing that door. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Your five minutes, sir. >> Okay. I'll I'll continue this next next month. >> Thank you very much. >> Because I'm not going to stop. >> Thank you. >> We appreciate your comments. There any more public comments? consent agenda items. Would anybody like to discuss anything on the consent agenda? >> I'll just go through real
009quick. Um, and do some highlights if you have any questions. Um uh within the personnel report uh there are in addition to the regular personnel report is the a dean job description and that's related to the administrator change at Easton. Um and so that will allow us to hire someone uh to work in a role as an administrator without having full administrator qualifications. Um the main thing that that that person won't be able to do is they cannot officially suspend a child from school and they cannot evaluate a teacher. Um and that would only be for the remainder of this year and as we've discussed um previously we plan to post um for the principal first and then we would post for the assistant principal once the principal positions been determined at. Okay. Um, we
010did have the press policy changes that we discussed last week and there were a couple items I had underlined where the board specifically gave me direction uh on which way to go with the language. Um, so that's highlighted. There's a memo of understanding with the teachers association. Um and this is related to a position that was created last year called inclusion facilitators. Um and it's a stipended position. Um in in contract negotiations um what happened is people who were already doing the inclusion facilitator the way it was written was um they were actually going to have a lower stipen based on the way the language cell and that was not the intent uh in the contract negotiations. So, we're just clarifying that uh for those people and intergovernmental agreement with RTHS. Um I anticipate we
011will have more of these in the future. Um but as it says, we if spouses both work for our district right now, they are able to pull their combine their board contributions, the board pays 91% of an individual's health insurance. So, um, I don't want to try to do the math, but basically right now, if both spouses are working in our district, they can take that 91% and combine it and buy family coverage. Okay? And what this is doing is extending it that if a spouse of one of our employees works in another district that's on the in same exact insurance plan that we're on, they can do the same. So, we have one for this month and it's a spouse works at RTHS. Uh, I I do we will have one for next month
012for a spouse who works in Paxton. Um, so anyways, we think that's a positive benefit for our employees. It does not cost any additional money. So, that's the consent agenda summary. >> Any questions? >> Anybody have any questions talk about? Okay. If not, you want to get it. Anybody want to get a motion? >> That's the long motion. >> I make a motion to approve the consent agenda items, including personnel report as submitted with the stipulation that each individual is prepared to comply with all requirements for new hires as indicated in Illinois statutes and RCS board policy and procedures, including ratification of bills prepaid by the finance manager under board policy or appointment. I'll >> second. Okay. Um, Nikki Pettit, >> hi. >> Phoebe Johnston, >> hi. >> Robin Bond, >> hi. >> Deborah Sweat.
013>> Hi, >> Johnson. >> Hi. >> Okay. We didn't have anything pulled from the agenda, so we'll skip on down to six. >> And with the approval of the change in board policy last month, this will now be a regular section on the agenda. we assuming we have a contract greater than 25,000. So it will just be listed and then in the description I plan to list out the individual contracts. Um, the other part in the information items is where I will list the contracts that are less than $25,000 because uh what we defined, if I recall correctly, is that those I can enter into those agreements um as long as they're under $25,000. I don't know what we're going to do if we have a contract that's exactly 25,000. I don't think we accounted
014for that, but I'll probably put it in the in number six. So, we do have one this time, and it's a contract with Baragy um for HBAC controls and upgrades. We were we're at the end of a three-year contract with Very um and it's was about the same rate. It's about $100,000 a year. Um and then we are going on to a one-year contract at this point. Um and so what do they do? I did try to summarize it a little bit. Um that they provide um support for our HBAC system which is um it's very much not like your home. Hopefully everybody knows that these are very very complicated. Uh especially with the geothermal. Um, so they do a lot of monitoring of that and then but they're also included in the contract to
015do upgrades to the systems each year and those specific upgrades that they plan to do are listed out in the contract. >> Does anybody have any questions? Okay, nobody does. Do you want to want to make a motion? I'll make a motion to approve the item as presented. >> I got a second. >> Second. >> Phoin Johnson. >> Hi. >> Deborah Swat. >> Hi. >> Robin Walton. >> Hi. >> Okay. Uh number seven, approval of resolution in support of an I do safe routes to school 2025 grant for JWer junior high on Wash Avenue. >> All right. Uh I recall correctly. This is our third safe routes to school project. We've had one at North View. The one at around Pleasant Acres neighborhood is finishing up. Maybe done at this point. Um so this is
016a resolution. It's already been approved at the village. Um but uh it what it is essentially doing is it's memorializing that we're going to work with the village to pursue this grant. Um I think the total on the grant that uh could be awarded is 250,000. It might have been 300,000. Um but there's essentially matching costs that municipality has to and that us we have to provide. So um our total cost would be 60,000 for um this goal year 2626. So it's not this year. There's no and that would my understanding is if we get the grant then there has to be another board action to spend that to authorize that. Okay. So right now it's just here's the resolution where the board is authorizing that we move forward with applying for the grant and
017I will say what the planning is and hopefully at some point they would come in and present what they're going to do. Uh anybody who's been around ader at dismissal knows that it's uh complicated. So it is really to address the from the school's perspective address the traffic flow in front of aer online. Okay. >> Does anybody have any questions or discussion? >> Hannah, do you need to note that Mr. Brad? >> I did. Thank you. >> I actually >> on on this question >> on this new um proposal or whatever you're talking about. Do you guys already have that in the works? Do you have plans? I mean, what's it going to look like and how it's going to change? >> And that's what I would um ask that if the grant is awarded
018that they would come in and present it before we would commit any funds. >> So, so there's no there is um I'm not prepared to talk about it tonight because it when I met with the village, it was well over a year ago when we talked about more mapping out kind of goals and what we wanted. So if did you ever drop off in front of a when we had no when we had that from >> Yeah. No we had when we had all the cones out front. >> So I I think part of what we're looking at doing is >> uh creating like a drop off lane that would be protected so that >> parents would pull into the drop off lane for kids to get in the car instead of just running across
019Wobbash like happens right now. Well, that's what I was >> that's my question is because we did this change. We used the cones. We tried this and it didn't work. >> um and kids are still >> Well, the cones aren't there anymore. >> The kids even be even with or without the cones. >> Kids still >> Yeah. >> Parents are still stopping right on W Bash and letting their kids out and people are still trying to pass. >> Yeah. This would actually be physical changes to the road. >> Yeah, that's what that's my question. But I don't have that to >> w the road so they got a lane to drive keep going. >> No, I again I don't want to without remembering the specifics. My recollection is it's actually possibly narrowing the road in
020that stretch. So because right now it can accommodate greater than four lanes of traffic which is part of the issue. Um and so uh it's really wide. So will they eliminate parking um on the side road? I don't know. or is it just going to be in that portion of the of Wall Batch or are they talking about taking it all the way down to Lincoln? I would need to have the village come and talk about the full scope of the project because this this often what the village will do is include more road improvements than this just in grant. That makes sense. So, I didn't know if you were just putting the band-aid back on it again. No, the plan is well if you think it's pretty significant the change that happened at North
021terms of improving the safety of drop off. We still have traffic backed up on Sheldon. Um but you know that rerouted reconfigured the whole parking lot so that there was parents pulled in from one way pulled up dropped off and had to go out. >> Yeah. Illinois which is residential and is very dangerous because people are parking there and >> Okay. And I see people uh so to me if I guess it's working for now. I'm just I was just wondering how how much better or safer or what we were talking about for wall batch because that's definitely a bad bad area. >> Yes. >> Can I ask a question? >> Sure. Is this the same presentation you gave to us like in 20 like right when I came on board in 2020 where um
022the regional planning commission came and gave us the presentation on this say brought to school >> I was it about anger or was that about it was about >> that would be the same project yeah >> so yeah there was planning work done previously is it there's a big wind up for this grant that has to be done. So, what I'm hearing though is I can I will definitely reach out to the village and the regional planning commission to get that initial information. I can reshare that with the whole board. I apologize for not having it prepared for tonight. Um but again, this is not committing the board to spending the funds at this point. >> I was going to say I watching we're just approving applying for the right. >> Yes. Yes, >> but
023I will reach out and get that. It might be in some packets from the member. >> I'll make >> Okay. Um, >> wait, I have one more question. Is it possible that we may not even get this grant or this all this talk is >> Okay, we get a motion voting to move forward with the application or circus. Second >> Johnston. >> Hi. >> Diana Mendoza. >> Hi. >> Deborah Sweat. >> Hi. >> Roto Johnson. >> Hi. >> John Brotherton. >> Hi >> Robin Bond. Bye. >> Thank you, Pat. I >> information items. We're going to skip the budget over for a minute because we can't start that meeting till 6 PM. We still have eight minutes or seven minutes now. Information items. >> Well, my friend Owen Wang is back foying us, which I
024keep telling him we don't have a high school, but he keeps foying us for high school information. That's what he did this month. uh in the media we had um some highlights of Mr. Henderson. Um he had it's in the paper twice in the last week. Um and there was a nice write up uh in the news cassette in the beyond the boardroom section and I did link that into the board packet for you. Um your August discip student discipline report is provided and again that only shows suspensions. Um, and then there was one contract for less than $25,000 that um is shared with you in your packet. Another item is the procedures for use of physical restraint and timeout, isolated timeout. There aren't any actual changes to that document from last year does not
025require board approval. Uh, but it is something we post on our website. Any questions on that? All right. Um, we have six minutes until the budget hearing. Um, if we can do board superintendent comments in that time, you can go ahead and get started on that. >> I don't have anything. >> You don't want to have you don't have any boards. Anybody else? I feel about some >> what's going on. >> Hannah, are we talking about triple I? Thank you. >> Well, not necessarily triple I just um I on the agenda is the budget. And just a reminder to everyone that everyone has to sign the paper tonight and there aren't copies of it. So, everybody will need to sign copies of the budget before you leave. That didn't take six minutes. I'm sorry. Any
026else got anything? [Music] >> Well, we got five minutes. >> Which is good because I need to print out the budget hearing script. >> Yes. >> We can take a mild recess if anybody wants to use the restroom. I'll just please be back by 6 p.m. >> We'll pause and I'm gonna find the budget hearing script because I did not. >> So, we're recessing. >> Yes. >> Taking a break. >> You don't need to vote on that. >> You do not. >> Um, we just can't have to do it at six o'clock. like 5:15. Yeah, it was an email because it's supposed to storm this weekend. >> Really? Yeah, I think it's closest to >> Well, I used to like when I was younger this weekend and It seems like it's going to stay hot.
027So I can enjoy. I had to have a whole HVAC system put in my house. >> It's like the time you like want to feel like I used to not like I was like of Of course, it doesn't have to do that. like a summer cleaning situation Monday and I think sorry that I think I'm buying something that's why it's not Oh, that's pretty. >> Yeah, that's the >> Okay, it's 6 p.m. 6 p.m. >> It's just a summary, >> so I have to read a very long summary for you. The next agenda item for the board of education is meeting concerning the intent of the recreation of Rancho House 2037 Chantel County Illinois to approve the fiscal year 2026 budget. At this time I will open discussion. The purpose of the hearing will be
028to receive public comments on proposal to approve the fiscal year 2026 budget. The fiscal year 2026 budget was posted for public review with notice in the news vizette on August 15, 2025. Fund balances are available publicly as part of the the packet. Are there any comments from the members of the board of education regarding the budget? >> And once we do the hearing part, Chris is going to present some information discussion. Okay. We will now move on to written testimony. Is there any written testimony regarding the budgets? We will move on to oral testimonies or public comments concerning the budget. Is there anyone present who wishes to provide oral testimony or public comment regarding the budget? >> I think you guys need to make cuts. It's already you have a $345,000 deficit revenues versus expenditures
029and there's a deficit of 96,000 in the education. That's where the curriculum is. Doesn't sound good. Okay. At this time, all persons desiring to be heard have been given an opportunity to present oral and written testimony with respect to the budget. Is there a motion to adjourn the budget amendment? >> No, just budget hearing amendment. I should have cut that out. Sorry. >> Budget hearing. >> I'll make the motion. I second it. Hold on one second. >> John Brotherton. >> Hi >> brother Johnson. >> Hi >> Petey Johnston. >> Hi >> Diana Mendoza. >> Hi >> Nikki Pett. >> Hi >> Deborah Sweat. >> Hi >> Robin Bond. >> Hi. >> Okay. Next action is to approve the budget. Um Chris is here to give us a nice presentation and explain of some of the
030fund balances um and why they look the way they do. >> So I gave copies of the budget summary to all of you this one. >> Yep. There's one at the top right it says page two. So the very the second line is our fund balances at the end of FY25. So that's how we ended. So here is displayed all of our revenue, all of our expenses. So as you can see, we are running at a deficit in the ED fund, $96,39. However, I put money in contingency plans for emergencies that I don't have any expense to tie it to yet. So there's money in contingency that's more than $96,000. I also am anticipating carryover from our title one grant in excess of $200,000 which then we will be able to reallocate the curriculum out
031of local funds to go to our grant funds which is also a reimburseable model which will get money back from the state. So that $96,000 deficit I don't anticipate ending the fiscal year in a deficit. So that gap should close. This is an educated calculated guess on how this year is going to go with the expenses that we know and the revenue that we know. So as long as as we follow and we we we follow the expenses and the revenues as it's written, I think that gap will close. In fund 20, our operating fund, we are running a balanced budget. So, we are if we follow this budget throughout the year, we'll add to the fund balance $5,292. Same with the debt service. Um, that's our bond and interest. We will add $1,273 to
032our fund balance. Transportation, this is a big fund. Transportation is expensive. The state is um going to reimburse maybe categorical less. So, we anticipate modestly expenses um and even more modest revenue. So, if it it falls how it should, we'll add $10,788 to our fund balance. IMRF fund. This is solely IMRF social security for our our um salaries and benefits. This is not a working fund or we spend money out of it other than our our benefits for the employees. uh capital project is another fund that I want to bring your attention to. This is the largest deficit that we're working. So I'll bring your attention to our beginning balance in line two. It's $2,247,937. So that's a fairly big uh fund balance for this fund that we don't spend out of. This is for
033projects for the district that that increase the value. They're not expenses that we typically incur that this is a one and done type of thing like a roof or the prek that we just um finished building. So, with that being said, this $370,000 deficit is intentional on my part to recode some of those expenses from our operation and maintenance fund to alleviate some of the pressure from that fund and bring down this fund balance and capital projects. So again, that that large deficit is is intentional just to bring that down. So if so once we bring that down, we're still working with just under $2 million. Okay. So our working cash fund, we have five almost $550,000. We should increase that fund balance by $39,552 because that again, that's a fund that we don't we
034don't use. We don't really add to it or take away expenses. The tort fund is also in a deficit. This is due to our catastrophic insurance, our commercial insurance. We had an increase on our insurance fund. What I can do to rectify this gap is just levy higher in that that fund, which our levy for next year is due in December. So yes, we're running at a deficit, but again, I'm very modest with the revenue and I overestimate expenses. So I'm hoping that these gaps will close. >> Is there any questions? >> Another Can I ask you to clarify too because um you know on a $35 million budget, we're overbudget on paper by less than 1%. Okay. And then how much money do we have in the bank? I look at buying two I
035come up with about just rough numbers about $16 million in the bank. >> Correct? >> So in a way when we say there's a deficit what we're really we are spending more than we're receiving but we also have a lot of money in the bank and that's what it's for. Um and um so >> so if you think about it as $16 million in this pool of money, if this falls how it's written here, we will just take 345 some,000 out of that savings pot, which will still leave us around $16 million, which is more than six months um operating funds, which our um auditor would like us to keep in the bank. But yeah, just to clarify, we're all when you the auditor presents, they want us to keep at least six months cash
036on hand in case something were to happen basically catastrophic. >> Basically, all the federal funds, all state funds, everything stops that we can keep this school going for six months. >> Anybody else have questions? >> I just want to make sure that I'm understanding correctly. You're saying that you are modest with the revenue and then you overinflate some stuff so that >> I overinflate the expenses. I if I think that we're going to get $500,000 for let's say state and federal lunch then I'll budget maybe 480 or 450. Right. Because anything over that is plus. Yeah. Right. Yeah. >> Thank you. Mhm. >> Can you just briefly explain in comparison to this year's budget, are we staying in better situation or are we about >> or about? >> We saw uh a lot of er
037and care money from COVID and almost an abundance of funds and now those are gone. So, we're just trying to basically get our bearings again and learn how to function without all those funds. >> Anybody else? >> Thank you. >> And we get a motion to approve the 2025 2026 budgets. Motion to just keep my name. I'll second that. Johnson. >> Hi. >> Nikki Pett. >> Hi. >> He Johnston. >> Hi. >> Diana Mendoza. >> Hi. >> Deborah Sweat. >> Hi. >> Don. >> Hi. >> Robin Bond. >> Hi. >> The next step is to go to we're going to I'll explain for the public. We're going to move to close session for a self-evaluation meeting with the Illinois Association of School Boards. So that's the main part of the motion. But what we need
038to add into the motion is to note that we are also going to discuss personnel items in close session. That was not originally posted. Um we are able to do that. We just have to make sure it's part of the motion at this point. There will be and for the public there will be no action after close session. We anticipate being in close session until August 9:4. >> Any want to make a >> I make a motion to move to close session for the purpose of 2C16 self-evaluation practices and procedures or professional ethics when meeting with a representative of a statewide association of which the public body is a member. Yeah. and also to discuss personal. >> You're a rock star. >> Can we get a second? >> Sure. >> N pet it. >> Hi.
039>> Deborah Sweat. >> Hi. >> Diana Mendoza. >> Hi. >> A Johnston. >> Hi. >> Moto Johnson. >> Hi. >> John Brothers. >> Hi. >> Robin Bond. >> Hi. >> Um, okay. Before we make the motion, I just want to let you know when we go into close session, we'll take a brief recess before we go into close session. You guys can use the restroom if you need to and then we'll >> we're going to be in the corner room right back here. You've probably never been in. So, >> um I make a motion to adjurnn the meeting. >> No, you don't. >> No, wait. >> We're going into section. We're going >> to turn the meeting. >> I was on fire for a minute. They're just all went along. >> Thank you everybody. I
040think if I think if that I'm the only one speaking, I I should get 10 minutes instead of five because I got lots of stuff.