BOE 01-09-2023 With Audio

001on behalf of the Board of Education I would like to thank the public for attending tonight's meeting we value the feedback we receive from our residents and encourage everyone to take an active interest in their Public School System residents interested in speaking to the board this evening are asked to have completed a comment card and presented it to the secretary to the board when the secretary calls your name I ask that you come to the microphone state your name for the public record and provide your feedback please note that comments are limited to five minutes per person and that no discussion of personnel matters or responses to questions are permitted the board does not participate in discussion during public comment follow up to your questions or concerns will be addressed by Administration do the contact

002information provided on the comment card thank you Michelle Trager okay hi yeah uh I'm Michelle Traeger I have four children in the district elementary junior high high school alternative placement so I am talking to you again about fetal alcohol cycling disorder 2023 is actually the 50th anniversary of widespread acceptance and publication scientifically for fetal alcohol Spectrum um so I know that I've talked to you before about prevalence rates and I I just for my own advocation wanted to break it down given our population on the most recent state report card um so if you work at Brokaw Early Learning Center that population will have 20 students within fasd any given year and I've mentioned before we expect to see that number increase because we know that alcohol consumption increased during the pandemic how much training

003has BEC staff had you're an elementary teacher you're working with one to two students with an fhsd each year over five years that's five to ten students how much training have you had if you're an elementary school principal or School social worker or psychologist in a school of about 522 students you're working with at least 26 students who have an fasd if you're there for five years add four to five new students each year now you're up to 42 to 46 students look at fasd how much training have you had if you're a junior high or high school teacher with five periods of students in your classes class size 20 to 30 you're teaching five to six students within fasd each year if you're teaching six periods then get six to seven students each year

004you're there for five years you're teaching 25 to 35 students with an faic over that time how much training have you had if you're a principal or student services Personnel at a Junior High in this District each year you have at least 40 students with an fasd you stay there for five years and figure 13 to 14 new students each year with an fasc now you're responsible for 92 to 96 students with an fasd how much training have you had if you're a principal or student services Personnel or Dean at High School in this District you are serving 143 students with an faic each year if you remain at that high school for five years and figure 36 new students each such a quick year now you've touched the lives of 287 students with an

005fasd how much training have you had I haven't included the students who attend our therapeutic for alternative schools but I suspect the prevalence of fasd among those students is probably even higher than the general ed schools if you are superintendent or admin or Board of Education member in this District you are affecting the lives of 844 students within fasc at any given year how much training have you back you need to have trainings if you get to know what it is that you don't know what it looks like why these students haven't been diagnosed the truth is we don't need a confirmed diagnosis to recognize when someone's brain functions differently so how do we recognize this as a brain-based disability and then how do we intervene effectively and support families I also wanted to bring

006the attention to diversity equity and inclusion because if we look at the number of Hispanic students in our district and the prevalence of fasd those are 219 students Within fasd for our black student population that would be 84 students with an faisd so to be clear those are students with a neurocognitive diversity on top of being students of color how much training have we had I again asked this District to have training and I know that Miss dalquist has said we have training on Executive functioning and on trauma which is great but we need to have a Common Language and a common philosophy because then we can have consistency and intentionality um I will be doing a training very briefly at Illinois Council for children with behavior disorders in February this year it's online this

007year last year it was in person and last year I didn't see anybody from this District at that conference and there are lots of great presentations besides my some of them are functional Behavior assessments those are outdated and really not best practice for our students with neurodiverse challenges and I asked this District to ask the State Board of Education for support in getting this information and I know I share a lot of stats I'll just briefly share a quick personal story my daughter's in first grade and she was sick the week before Christmas and I didn't know if I'd be able to come in and help with the holiday party like I was supposed to so I let the parents know and my brain said hey remember when your son was in second grade and

008at the last minute because of his behaviors he wasn't allowed to participate and I still went and worked that party because I was obligated to but they said well he was warned that if he did this and this behaviors continued he would not be able to participate I didn't know it was fasd likely at the time as as part of that constellation but do you think that missing that holiday party made him then able to change his behaviors he knew what the consequence was do you think he wanted to miss that holiday party that his father was coming to work and I have lots of personal stories if any of you want to meet with me and hear some more about that this district has been helpful and communicative when none of us really knew

009what was going on so I thanked them for that but I I don't want to give you just stats so if you want to meet with me and hear more of those personal stories that come back flashing through my mind when I think if I'd only known then what I know now I'll be happy to share those with you thank you again for listening to me thank you commissioner thank you foreign [Music] very good all right yes item 5.1 is an update of our progress in regards to work that's been done and will be done regarding facilities and my strategic plan uh Dr pesky has provided a full presentation in Vortex and tonight we'll be providing the board highlights of that presentation and to be able to answer any questions that the board has so

010if they're pressing foreign there you go I think this is uh not as sensitive as it like all right um well I uh I brought uh Bill Queen with me today um to uh take part in the conversation I know uh as the board knows we've transitioned between records of operations and bill has done a phenomenal job stepping into his own role and uh preparing for the many emergencies that we've already encountered this one on top of that we also have the scheduled facility maintenance plan and we've been talking about that um and just as we predicted at the beginning of the year we have several things that we want to do and based on the way our facilities are treating us so maybe the way we treat our facilities they have a different plan

011and we've had to kind of change those priorities a bit so we'll go through this and uh and share with you the primary side we've made today so uh as you recall there's two goals for the facilities um there's two goals for the facilities aspect of our uh Envision 308 plan number one was to review the need for the general maintenance scheduled for the next 10 years of work that should be done and the second one was to um the second one was to develop a five-year plan to address the physical capacity for our building programs and needs of each new Academy transition broker and also looking at our uh own trauma facility as well So based on that ah there we go the handout that we put together for you the summary page that

012we'd like to try to go through with the board today is just looking at um the first column on the left which are what are some of the indicators of success from the past year and then what progress has been made on each indicator since that time so as you see we've uh We've gathered some feedback and from our stakeholders documented their concerns evaluated their project priorities and we ended up taking that information and re-meeting with the building principles building Engineers to make sure that we actually captured all of the building priorities that they had and then we uh we aligned those building needs with our debt service extension dollars for a timeline and a funding source to meet those projects we accomplish those broadly those projects um all of those projects have been identified

013and we took a look at number one is what outside contractors would we need to use for that work and what type of work could we complete in-house so we looked at that uh that as well uh and bill has been meeting with his staff and kind of breaking down that list and going through those priorities on what his staff can do versus the work that we need to uh we need to actually go out to RFP to bring bring outside of it another thing that we've been going over quite a bit is those the first category which was mission critical what were those Mission critical items are we addressing those in the first three to five years with that service extension um and uh we ended up going through that list and looking at

014though that designation uh we also have begun uh the process of putting together rfps completing the ones that were released last year and then also uh submitting those rfps which were in the process of writing and finalizing and getting those ready to release for summer work um let's see and then uh we we are using the plan as a living kind of a living breathing document so in order to document what projects are being completed for instance the OHS roof that we did this summer but we went ahead and we took that off of the list and we put it on back onto the list at the end of the scheduled maintenance so that is another project that is on the list but 20 years from now when that needs to be addressed or keeping

015up with the projects and the work we're doing to make sure we're not losing sight of what we've done and what needs to be on the radar for project consumption uh We've also got a sanding item with the finance and Facilities committee so when we meet we have an opportunity to talk about not only the finances of the district at the time but also to talk about the projects in terms of facilities that we want to discuss um we are meeting with appropriate program directors to discuss current enrollment or their enrollment projections how they're seeing their programs grow to make sure that we have room and capacity we also are reporting on those program enrollment projections and continue to monitor that and then also finally the last bullet point here is review program needs based

016on existing facility space so comparing program needs and enrollment based on what we have existing and where we where we will need to make some changes so that's kind of the update with the facility annual report like I said we're transitioning from uh this was the work that Rob and I did last year at this time and now that we've got bill at the table um we're interested to get any feedback that you might have um and just know that bill has taken ownership of that scheduled maintenance plan um and uh and doing a good job with that so if you want to scroll to the second page the uh the indicators of success reported at this time next year will be how we prioritize the capital projects and uh and actually are completing those

017for the next level of mission critical projects based on that comprehensive facility plan and then also we are working with cabinet right now on identifying and incorporating the district facility needs utilizing Eva and old Traver and once we meet with the cabinet on that and gather their feedback we're going to meet with the elt team executive leadership team and then uh and the program directors to gather more input on the program and facility needs for their uh their growing programs and the very last thing there then is uh uh the board asked for some highlights or connections to the other areas of our Envision 308 plan and the first is in terms of Finance uh the connection there is really coordinating the facility and grounds needs and building operation and preventative budget in our five-year

018projections as you know for the next three years we've got Debt Service extension dollars that we're using for these projects and when Debt Service extension monies are spent Dr sparlin had us add in uh one and a half million dollars into our operations and maintenance budget for ongoing maintenance plans and then the year after that we're building in an additional one and a half million or a total of three million dollars for ongoing operations and maintenance projects a district our size based on the maintenance plan that we have identified with gluber we're looking at about a six to seven and a half million dollar operational project budget per year so we're about halfway there by the time the finer projections are up as far as student learning the connection there is really just maintaining a

019safe and secure facility grounds necessary programs that we offer support for student learning again maintaining safe and secure facilities and grounds for the program needs and then Community Partnerships we're continuing to coordinate shared services for facilities and ground needs and identify potential Grant funded opportunities to help us meet our goal of completing more of the more of the projects on our schedules so that's the summary and there is a second document in door Dax which is the full presentation if the board has any questions or any feedback um we'd be happy to take any questions yet at this point you know I um I want to talk about um special education programs and you were talking about um space limitations right you know programs that need to move I just want to be very careful

020um in moving our special education programs and I want to make sure that um we figure out and and do it appropriately in the transition from elementary to Junior High they established friends at elementary school and then um their Elementary friends go to one high school and they go or go to one Junior High and they go to another so they're kind of starting over so um and these other kids you know the most vulnerable yeah so uh and that's really I know that it's you know there's there's it's a puzzle but um we can't can't do that and those are decisions that we won't be making is uh as uh building some ground director and chief finance officer that's one where the executive directors um obviously working with teaching and learning and knowing what

021what space needs do you have and is it a matter of moving a special education program or moving other sections out to make or in that school so it's not necessarily moving them out but making sure they've got the space they need for the program there and uh and not making any of those moves without special ed directors and staff being on board with how that move is going to impact their their students oh and that makes sense it's your you know your team is the one that's you know finding out the space and you know the needs um looking into the principles and their feedback so I just wanted to make sure that that's out there and then hyper yeah very high yeah I think Bill would share the same I don't know yeah

022um I'll say this again and uh you know it again I don't think it's a mystery that there are definitely those in the community who don't trust the finance of the district um and and no favors are done for us um when um apples are not always prepared to Apples right just this is an example I'm not picking on any particular taxi body but there are taxing bodies that have access to local revenues that we don't um and um so it's hard to to sit here and say okay well this taxing body holds holds a levy out from the school district does it right as an example well those taxing bodies have access to other revenues the school district does they also don't spend um there are property taxes on hardly anything compared to what

023the school district does uh because because they have access to all the revenues that we don't um but a process that works in many other districts quite frankly it doesn't work here um and I'm proud of the board for the first time that I'm aware of we came with five-year projections that showed us what things would look like will Levy it's without a levy I appreciate that with ebf without evf should have been very eye-opening to everyone um but I'm going to tell you I don't think it went far you've heard me voice this a million times um and for those who paid attention they've heard me voice it a million times in addition I think what you're going to have to do and I said this a long time ago I said this years

024ago you're going to have to actually show people what it means right for some reason eight million dollars in cuts doesn't mean anything to anyone like I don't know why but it doesn't um I'm not sitting up here advocating to hey let's let's cut but I think you're gonna actually have to show people what that translates to um and and I and I do take it serious whenever we have to raise the level yeah I don't take it lightly and I think in order for us to do this process we're going to have to do all of the front work ahead of time and so show people what that translates to because again it's not an honest conversation to sit here and say raise the levy or not that's not the full conversation the full

025conversation is raise the levy or we don't turn the lights on over here right because all of this stuff costs money or we either increase the levy or what's the fun for our preventative maintenance what's the balance of that fund right now right so um and and here's the thing for those who who for those who who who are new on the scene um you know there was there was a time you remember this Dr spiral and the bright lights and the auditorium and and and Men we sat there uh I remember um uh sitting there with many people uh very business uh oriented people who we sat there and made a lot of cuts right and that was one of the things we cut uh and none of it was comfortable so I think

026you're gonna need that you're going to need to show people that I'll say it I'll ask for it again I've asked for it a million times I appreciate what we've been given so far um and uh I'll continue to ask for it I just have one question page are provided previously and this is really into a comment that you made earlier that we've had to what we have here is listed the prioritizing for 10 years or 20 years out based on the allocation but from that we've had surprises obviously since still has come in and so how has that impacted the things that we were supposed to fix this year that did something break that was set for later or was it something brand new and now it's actually going to cost us more than

027what we actually projected yeah you know that's a really great question and fortunately uh kluber and the assistant office maintenance team put together a thorough enough plan that what is breaking was on that list it's just they were on the list for maybe three years down the road so now we're replacing it and one that we thought had to be replaced this year well that one's gonna kind of keep going for two more years and take the place on that original replacement should have been but but what people may not understand with that list is that each year we prioritize I think over this over the Senate over the course of time let's just say that six to seven point five million dollars but it's something that broke three that we were slated to fix

028three years from now breaks in this year does that increase the amount of money that we needed that other things that are mission critical this year that again the balance is zero and so we if that I don't know what the thing was but whatever it was because everything on here is a capitalized project so it's it's significant so I'm just trying to make sure we understand that you know the budgets and the dollars that we have in order to make sure that our facilities are safe as we said in the presentation as one of the priorities you have to make sure how where to get this money from yeah and the nice thing about that is the The Debt Service extension so like I told Jared the money in that budget right now is

029zero but we do have The Debt Service extension the money we borrowed which was 18 million dollars we can spend all of that money now so we can right now if there was a project that was bid out we can spend those dollars on the projects that we wanted to do we would just we would exhaust that 18 million dollars sooner than what we had planned and the issue with that is in our second or third year here if we have another emergency happen well we've exhausted our 18 million and now we're going into contingency funds so just so I want to make sure that everybody understands that it's not approving for us to spend all 18 million first year because if an emergency happens next year then what will we do yeah and not

030only that but the 18 million isn't even enough right yeah can I can I ask how much we keep paying Uber to do all these assessments because in 2020 they did a different plan and they also did a facility maintenance and energy plan what they didn't call it was what they called it in 2010 and two when they charged us together and they called it a scheduling plan we also hadn't done the 2014 we must put them in 2015 you also had a bad mistaken done in 2018. so we keep paying them to have these plans done and while I realized we have new people in place there has to be if you're going to be a good Steward of somebody's money you have to also know where that plan is and the other thing

031that I have not seen on here is we don't have we have what do we call the general maintenance we don't have a preventative maintenance plan and some of that is just going out and changing filter so that these machines last five to ten years longer so that's not in any of this so there's general maintenance on here but I don't see it preventative maintenance for where's that at I don't know if they said you're right I mean I've only been on the worker I don't know nine months or whatever yes I so I have a question because I appreciate the shorter presentation thank you and I appreciate the overview but where do we know like for instance from the July the big caverns and scheduled maintenance plan um 23-24 uh is the 19 570

032that we expected to spend at Boulder Hill has that been completed Grand Park Elementary have all these things been completed no those are those are the projects that we've got on the queue for writing the rfps so we're writing the rfps we've done I think three or four of them and we have to do the rest of those for the roofs and the boilers the bigger work so we're going to release those rfps and we'll get that work done in the summer of 23 and for the 24th school year okay and that like the summer of this year yeah right okay and then my and was it before um inflation and we've seen the cost of Steel and conduit and PVC and all that stuff go up are these numbers reflective of that I mean

033July was still probably appropriate for that but where where did you get the nineteen thousand dollars that the RFP hasn't already gone out yeah you know that was estimates through the Architects on the work that they have done so the Architects provided those to us with some inflationary figures built into those but you're right the one thing that we monitor very closely and be able to be sure to share that with you when we do a memo for the board on hey we had the bid closing and here's what we got back this is what we estimated it to be at right this is what actually came in at and we've been surprised by a few some of them have been uh two-thirds higher than what they were supposed to be and some of them

034come in a third lower so it depends on the project and uh um and uh the workload of the those people providing us the bids as well so and I'm kind of asking these questions to make a point one of the goals that we gave the administration was to build a reserve and I know that our five-year projections and our goal was 20 and our five-year projections we're looking at about 10 and a half percent and one of the things that's really important for the community to know is that when we don't have a reserve these things he cannot leave a combination critical but we don't have to make Cuts because we don't have an option we do not have a little uh you know purse to go back to so when we're talking about

035potentially not levying not getting evf not doing certain things if there is a compound nature of of this of this entire process and um and George has said it multiple times we've tried to reiterate it multiple times throughout the two years that I've been on the board in his election season and I hope that all of our constituents in the community are asking the candidates these questions about what would you do how would you cut eight million dollars what would you do about the fact we don't have a preventative maintenance fund if you aren't for levying you know and so forth so I strongly encourage everyone to ask the candidates that are doing that because this is something that these decisions have compounded from years ago and we just continue to kind of Kick the

036key in down the road so not not you not neither one of you thank you um I just want to make that clear but for the first time we have this um in-depth comprehensive program and it makes it real which is what Jared you know had said he is asking for from the cups perspective but it also makes it real and I encourage everybody to go back to this that if we don't have someone what we're not going to be able to do on this plan and it is pretty um I don't know we lose air conditioning typically wants to suffer from a school and get emails from parents and grandparents you know make sure you get the air conditioning working we're talking Beyond air conditioning you know so we just need to keep bringing

037that to the Forefront and talking about that so thank you both so where are we with regard to our grant um opportunities yeah so we we did submit a grant for the um the capital maintenance project Grant which was a fifty thousand dollar match and luckily we had a project that had not gone out yet was bid out but had not been um officially out in any spending begun so we used that um it ended up being uh I believe it was like a 1.2 million dollar roofing project um and uh that we'll get fifty thousand dollars for that and that's coming out of that service extension and there's two other grants right now that Bill and I are taking a look at unfortunately some of the grant opportunities our district doesn't qualify for we

038are not low enough in our financial State compared to other Illinois districts so we are we don't qualify for those but we'll continue to monitor those and submit for those that we can and the one thing that we're keeping in our eye and is something that Dr sparlum worked very hard on the past few years and that is the 40 million dollars in Appropriations that we we should be hearing more about in the near future and would really put us in a good spot if we got those dollars back so for those on the board who might not call or those in the community who might not recall in 2004 we spent money on buildings knowing that the state was going to reimburse us for those costs and in 2004 they ended up not reimbursing

039us those dollars so the districts spent all of their funds not being reimbursed to the tune of about I think it was 38 million almost 40 million dollars and the state is now looking at funding those those outservice staff so we hope to see that in their future it was a roofing project at oh it was the back uh cafeteria the backside of oh we did the front side yeah this summer I think um we don't need our financial reserve as as a goal as well as the recommended um percentage as the state requires how does that impact us you know that's a really interesting question I think something that the community might not be so familiar with is our District's Financial profile that's awarded to us from the State Board of Education they basically

040give us a score of one to five and put us in states of financial positive Financial standing or it could go into Financial warning Financial Risk and on the five elements on the blue brick that they use to judge us on three of the elements are related directly to our fund balance that being number one do you have a 20 to 25 fund balance we don't we get a low score on that number two the fund balance is directly related to how much cash on hand do you have on a daily basis well since we don't have a fund balance we only have 55 days of cash on hand and after after spending down that fund balance we need to borrow money for our cash flow so that's how the fund balance affects us there

041and then oh the third one is escaping there's a that's another one but that's not related to The Reserve oh okay there was one directly related to reserve and it's escaping my mind right now I apologize but to Dominick's point of view yeah uh three of the areas we are negatively hit because of our fund balance one of them were negatively hit because we have a larger level than what we should have legally we we only should have about 310 million dollars worth of powering capacity but in 2004 we went to the state we had that that uh level raised and we currently have about 315 million dollars we have more money long-term debt than what typically we should have so we're hitting there as well oh and the the third item was short term

042that that was the third item is uh the level of short-term borrowing well we have tax anticipation warrants every year which is short-term borrowing so because of our cash flow we don't have cash on hand we don't have the reserve and we have the short-term borrow so we have a uh negative we have a negative profile from the state of Illinois that we are aware of we are maintaining and communicating and making sure that we don't fall any less than we are in the in terms of the state standing so these are all reasons why we should increase our fund balance correct welcome back to Carl I can safely in 30 seconds I think you mentioned last time that it was five million dollars every year from the time that we did lend which is

043compound correct like 35 million dollars as of now and every year going forward and that keeps us from increasing our fund balance because of that's just one reason why yeah right I mean and who wants to have to borrow money to pay their bills right that's like a payday loan will in a really big way and the thing is with that if you're gonna do that like so let's let's let's talk about that if you're gonna not raise the levy then you need to do your due diligence which is what ends up being outcome from that which is you got to go and figure out what you're going to buy so this is why you have the auditorium full of people and the bright lights and and everything else which somehow that I forgot about

044I don't know how but yeah but nonetheless um like then you have to do that like you like this I don't know there's no way to avoid that like you worry up you know if that's the whole story that's the whole narrative you can't avoid one without you I think Bill and I would just like to thank the lord we were just looking at each other here I don't think you've seen the board members having this level of conversation so we appreciate how much you know about our finances about our disabilities and we really appreciate uh the feedback that you've given us and are helping to educate the community okay can I just clarify because I just went back and looked at the global Community Edition um I'm not talking to what I talk about

045provided to me because I'm not talking about periodic I'm not talking about cursive I'm talking about what are we doing with our boilers and Killers to keep them last in five pointers which is not on here that's it's not as part of their plan you know what I'll put that down uh bill and I can talk about that but we do do for instance uh I was with AJ one of our central office grounds gentlemen he uh or a central maintenance gentleman and he ends up doing what he calls punching tubes so making sure that all of the all of the cooling Waters filtering through the way it should through our air conditioning we replace filters in the classroom so we can get you a list of things that we do on a preventative maintenance

046from Canada because we can't get in the US right now and it's still like that and a lot of our machines are out of date and they're gonna have to replace at some point so at some point you had to build up some sort of Reserve so because they're going to go out so we don't have you know for example that was 100 degrees out so it's funny you just write that up alley I currently have a service of career that I can pull over with a shot with boilers alone next every boiler in the district is your black is our service signals we should have people in the house that can do that we shouldn't be I do and but I just don't have enough folks so as a district owner babe I have

04723 locations to take care of I had two preventative maintenance that are Central and I have one at each high school so that's a total of four we're done pretty good as we get bigger we need to people of that food so we've always kind of need that help from outside services very much thank you all right 6.1 superintendent report all right well thank you this afternoon good evening no she's on her way in oh she oh maybe she wants to listen to me I can't watch YouTube okay hold up let's see if we can get it back just so while she's driving their heart so let me know I have some kind of yeah foreign back to the second semester the 22-23 school year and uh just before break I was informed by the

048national board Resource Center at Illinois State University at Illinois National Board of Professional Teaching Standards as the following teachers in our school district where we do for the national board certification we're having serious Christina Hernandez Brett and Alice Pam Phelps Elizabeth brigadish Angela sharper Amy saberinsky Joyce chumate and Kelly Waldron so congratulations to each of those teachers thank you and uh congratulations for not only burning the national board certification but for also maintaining that certification because it is a prestigious certification so congratulations to each of them uh the following is update in regards to uh what's been going on over the past couple months in regards to our transportation so as we all know due to a Nationwide bus shortage uh busing has been a significant challenge this year resulting in Sometimes some substantial delays

049I'd like to thank our parents for their and their and our students for their patients understanding and cooperation as we've received as we've worked through this to provide the best transportation service that we can under the current circumstances for our kids so over the past couple months the rod Studies have been conducted to find Opportunities to combine steps and to shorten the routes income to combined roads over winter break our transportation staff work hard to address routing in order to create more efficient transportation for our students and Route updates were posted in Tyler last week and parents were notified additionally we're working to recruit our recruitment efforts are continuing to increase the number of drivers that we have on staff we're also monitoring during the changes that we've made to ensure that those those addressed

050the those changes have been addressed to the best of our abilities it's important to note that the changes that we've made to the best of our ability uh are been done without probably the most needed variable in this equation and that is having in the proper number of drivers that we need so I'd like to send a word of thanks to our transportation staff for their hours of dedication and commitment towards improving the transportation and for our drivers and our monitors who are covering extra routes and providing the extra time to benefit our students they should know that everyone up here appreciates other work um my final comment for this evening is to share that on tonight's Personnel report uh the board will be approving my retirement from the position of Superintendent at the end

051of the 22-23 school year I would like to thank this board and previous boards for the opportunity to serve the students staff and community of Oswego for the past 11 years of my career it's been my greatest honor to have served as your superintendent for the past seven years and I thank the board for that opportunity I look forward to continuing our good work together through between now and June 30th and to support the board in any way that I can in regards to as we search for my successor so that is my update for this evening and thank you you Dr Sparling so we'll have many opportunities many opportunities to say our final goodbyes and to express our gratitude for the many years of service that Dr sparlin has provided to our district and

052so we look forward to several more months with him and then we will we will have some opportunities to express our gratitude one of the things as a board we hire one person technically for the most part and that's the superintendent so in doing that in order to help us find his successor there are ways in which we go about doing that and one of those ways which is the traditional but yet most effective and efficient is a search firm and so I want to open it up to the board to kind of share their thoughts about why this might be an appropriate way to go or not but I'd like I'd like to hear from you all regarding your thoughts amen on the side of the review which which side you want to start

053whichever one you want well I'll go first a couple things and um we're gonna come back to it we can come back and talk about busting right because I do want to talk about busting sorry but at some point I always like put the kids first then so we'll talk about buses yeah it's an agenda item later the agenda okay because I I do want to talk about the bus not listen to Dr Spartan on my I'm sorry I'm very grateful grateful it was the word I was looking for grateful for for everything and and so forth but um well first of all um before I get to your thought um Latonya I remember um running in 2015 and I remember the situation with the superintendent in 2015 and um I remember very well thinking

054that um where the community was and thinking to myself that the community should have as much of a voice in this process as possible and one of the ways that the community could have a voice in that process at the time was by going to the polls and so while I believe in having the process that works uh one of the things that I think has plagued our district is um that we have not at times looked at what works elsewhere we've Cherry Picked at times we've said hey let's do what this District does and then it's been well okay but they also do this well I don't want to look at that part you gotta look at the whole package right you can't just Cherry big things you have to look at the whole

055package if you're going to look at things and uh one thing I'm adamant about is uh I do not think that uh superintendent should be picked before this election is over superintendent whoever comes in should have support of whoever the seven people are who sit up here and they should have that person should have that support however I think we have we have many districts that are unified districts that are large districts in our area that have done a phenomenal job at this and the pool is small it is decreasing the amount of people who want to take on this position so I think if we think we are the smartest people in the room no offense but I don't I don't think we are so going through this process and doing our due diligence

056to to find out and passing on that knowledge I think is is the route we should take um we want to get it right so and you know the community and uh not just through the polls but through their input direct input um definitely utilize that in the process and it sounds as though these outside firms look to that as well so um yeah search firm makes the most sense to me I don't I don't have a problem with the new board again this superintendent but I think you need an outside superintendent because I don't think right now we have an internal candidate who is going to be the needs that we have right now could you so yeah I think I think the uh an outside firm is most definitely the best way just

057to brought myself um I don't know if I would say I don't think that we have an internal candidate because I don't I don't know who I don't know all 200 2500 members within the district but I believe that I absolutely believe that a search firm will give us the opportunity to make that the process objective and to cast our next why so that we can get the best possible candidate for the district that the students and the staff deserve so I didn't prepare anything and I typically get in a lot of trouble when I don't do that so I look forward to uh going Bible again tomorrow so here we go number one thank you for 11 YouTube service through one of the darkest times in education we often do happy with each other

058and um you have proven something to me that still exists but is fleeting in this in this in this world which is we can have really um crucial conversations we can highly disagree um even maybe not be so happy when we walk out of the room but we continue to treat each other with respect and kindness and um I I pray and hope that that um that really what seems like a really simple thing starts to make a return to um to our community and To The World At Large so for that I thank you I thank you for allowing me to have the space to completely disagree with you to not understand your point of view to maybe be closed-minded sometimes but to continually um address me and treat me with kindness and respect

059and um I thank you for that it is it is not always easy to be in your position and to remain calm and you have done it many times when I may not have been able to do that so um this morning my boss said to our leadership team everything you do is a choice being happy is a choice being disagreeable is a choice being disgruntled is a choice and so we all have those choices to make and I have seen you consistently make the choice to show up and make the best of a situation so thank you for that I I just want to to say that struck me um right now when I was sharing that a lot I haven't always made the right choices and I'm trying to do better so thank

060you for that and and the service that you have provided to this District um also I just want to say um I don't know how to let tonight go and not talk about the fact that a six-year-old brought a gun and shot his teacher um obviously it made the news headlines and I do believe there is some sort of Fame connected dot to what I just was sharing with you which is we have lost the ability to disagree with each other without there being some sort of massive other reaction and so um I I have thought about that story over and over in my head today and it's disheartening and um my heart is broken for that little that little person who doesn't understand what they did and for um his or her family for

061the teacher who was recovering in the hospital tonight and the fact that once again and she proved to be a hero by getting all of her students out safe our teachers should not have to do that our teachers should we our kids shouldn't have to have um all of the training they have to if teachers shouldn't have to go through all the training they have to and we shouldn't have to worry about that but we do so I'll keep moving forward so I just uh I don't know if I connected the dots tonight sometimes I don't do that very well if I don't think things out beforehand but um I just wanted to share those thoughts with everyone tonight and um and uh that's it so in life of you know our discussion about a

062search firm without just thinking ahead and providing you all with lots of information that will help you as we go forward in terms of looking at search firms and doing our process and our due diligence through all of that I mean there are some highlights which are one which Jared mentioned we want to search firm who understands the importance of our community's voice in this process entertainments that the community students staff parents everyone and their importance and their voice in this process and making sure that they understand what our needs are as a district and making sure that we get the leader that can take our district forward in a transformational way and then also obviously you know nothing is free so just looking at the information that has been provided so far we're going

063to have to invest anywhere from 25 to 40 000 in order to engage a search firm that will bring us the best candidate so those are just some things that we're going to have to start calling over there are lots of things that the board has to do even though alien mentioned it too there's a lot of work that goes into this process over and above all the things that a search firm is going to do so we support are going to have to um Buckle in because there's a lot there's a lot that's going to be required of us so I just want to read a statement and the statement will go out in many different um on many different platforms and um to restart directive Communications it's going to help push this out

064tonight but from our board we say dear District 308 community in response to Dr sparlin's announcement to retire at the end of the 22-23 school year the board of education is beginning the process of selecting the new superintendent the first step is to identify and evaluate search firms who might assist us in this process students staff parents and our extended Community will have opportunities to provide input and be involved in the search for our next superintendent after January 23rd board meeting we will share details of the Avenues of communication available specifically for feedback and input on this very important matter we will continue to provide you with updates as this process evolves okay now we will have our 6.3 student ambassador report um hi everyone so our new members have officially been selected for the

065ssac and we're hopefully meeting on the 18th for an introductory information review on our roles and responsibilities regarding our goals for this year which include mental health Dr Paula Miss Dolphins will also be attending this meeting as we continue to make plans for this upcoming year um and I know that you briefly mentioned this but we're going to continue exploring the facets of mental health the sub issues that we want to look into and we do want to look into the possibility of creating another student survey that'll evaluate how students view mental health the specific sub-issues that they want us to look into regarding relationship with teachers or relationships between students homework things like that and I know that last year when we were targeting sexual harassment we built the second student survey to better

066understand what students understood about sexual harassment if they had any insight on how we could work to make sure it wasn't happening in our schools and that was very helpful and I think having that additional Insight will be crucial in our understanding of how we'll be able to amplify student voice in the future and ensure that these mental health problems that aren't limited to our district they expand far beyond that but within our district at the very least how we can begin targeting that here we're again going to thank everyone who applied um for the ssac position we're so excited to work with the people that are on our executive board but we want to encourage students to continue coming forward and bringing their Insight from the future how many how many members are there

067now I think I think it's between it's a little bit bigger now so between 13 and 14 if I'm remembering correctly um yeah okay but yeah so we definitely got some more voices this year having like a small group is really nice um for like that period of time but as we're addressing these bigger issues and we want to make sure that we're actually getting you know that wide diverse set of you know perspectives that our student body has like I'm really excited to work with a bigger group and to see like where our conversations will go now that we have more insight and I encourage you to continue to bring it proactively to the board you don't have to wait for a board comment or or what have you continue to use your voices

068and and have a seat at the table and you don't need to ask permission thank you we had a significant number of students who applied and the student ambassadors along with the rest of the committee conducted interviews created the questions you know Dr wow and I were in the background you know just watching and listening and it was phenomenal and the diversity that this group is so well-rounded now and really excited to you get together again on the 18th and they were almost like so amazing I think I learned something from all of them you know so it wasn't just about who we selected but I think just having the interviews was so insightful so I guess that kind of like helped me realize that this year maybe I want to help starting expand like

069our student ambassador to the rest of our student body to make sure that they understand like what it is and maybe help them communicate more directly with us because everyone has such great perspectives and a lot of our students care even though you know maybe they don't really know how to show it yet because they don't feel like they have the resources and I think that's a big part of what the ssac is supposed to do it's important to get a resource all right 7.1 consent agenda are there any questions okay if not can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda you sure can but I would be looking around America oh I make a motion to approve all items under consent including 7.1 minutes from the December 5th 2022 Board of Education

070meeting open and closed session said Miss Doyle I Miss Swanson aye Mr Cerrone aye Ms simultan aye Mr Gatewood aye Miss Johnson aye Mr cloger aye um 8.1 is information and financial statements does the board have any questions on what's been presented this evening 8.2 resolution authorizing the issuance of tax anticipation warrants so this is an informational item in regards to the taws and Dr passkey is going to uh present yeah thank you Dr sparlin so uh as we were just talking about in our early agenda item it's that time to look at our cash flow and issuing tax anticipation warrants uh for those who are unfamiliar with those tax anticipation warrants are exactly that we're anticipating the revenue from taxes our next payment will be in June but until June our cash but we

071haven't what we have in the bank for our uh our ongoing expenditures will not be enough to cover our expenses so looking at our cash flow or what I'm presenting with you here is very similar to what we had last year it's a parameters resolution and those parameters are we could issue up to 20 million dollars we will probably not based on our cash flow analysis now we will not need to borrow 20 million we're probably looking at 10 million at this point uh and uh the other parameters the interest rate that you're allowing us last year was it three percent this year with inflation we've been advised that uh there could it could possibly be a six percent interest rate on the money that we borrowed so um and then the other thing is

072when we sell them uh we in here it says that we would have until May 31st but looking at our cash flow of April is the first month where we're looking at a negative cash flow and we won't get our revenues until June so we'll meet those tax anticipation warrants for April May and June and then we'll pay them back in July so we're looking at about a four month uh four-month borrowing of 10 to 10 to 15 million dollars you know something that I just thought about as permanent to the conversation is what we were just talking about with the importance of having a fun balance you know if we had the fund balance of 20 that equals no more Daws which equals no more interest on money than we have to borrow so

073that's another reason again pointing out here for the reason for the thumbnails if you don't mind it that equals a few FD right yeah we're in the business of educating kids and so yeah uh spending money conditioning necessarily putting it hurts but CT a couple things like to your point I mean I I don't disagree with you that's a great point right but but see that's that's my point right when you bring up okay well that's a couple ftes that's exactly what I'm saying like we need we need to we need to start doing this with a budget like we need to start saying hey I don't know what it is hey you don't want to raise levies I don't know 50 ft's whatever it is right I mean but that's what we need to

074start having that we need to start having that conversation um one quick thing on the Daws um can we either follow at some point or future board game you see who buys to get what it costs us yes we can thank you wouldn't it also be a very interesting number of all the interests that we've paid like just pick a time here last 10 years now I'm very proud if you did pay it off early last year and save seventeen thousand dollars so I don't want to discredit that but the amount of Interest we've paid for all these what I call payday loans sharp loans has got to be crazy that's a great point because it has a lot of context to the conversation because um you know we may be 100 150 000 years

075like you just said over 10 years it's 1.5 million dollars too right so yeah and what what is interesting is when I think about three years ago we were we were we were at 25 million dollars 20. now we're down to 10 . yeah well but keep in mind the reason we're there right now is because of our debt service extension the money that we borrowed as soon as we spend that money on capital projects that's an additional 18 million we will not have towards our cash flow so obviously the grocery service correct and that's we'll still be building the reserve so we will be coming down but not not a not a 20 million dollar landfall so we have we have literally had neighboring school districts have have locked them so I mean we're

076we're literally indirectly plunging Avery school districts so that was Plainfield most recently yeah last year was Plainfield was one of them I forget who the second one was but you're exactly right yeah yeah and that's why I really you know help them to keep the board focused on that 20 fund balance is so critical that's why it's part of The Envision 308 plan is it's a very important part of what we need to finance be financially responsible because that 25 million will be paid 120 000 in interest for that you know what I'd have to look and confirm but that doesn't sound off especially for six months and 75 million for six months that could be very close to it so uh today is Dr firewood said this is just information if there's any questions

077about tax anticipation warrants I'll make myself available be happy to answer any questions and this will come back to actions of the born on January 23rd and what you're taking action on is just the parameters giving me the ability to between now and may sell up to 20 million dollars at six percent uh for tax anticipation purposes very good any other questions we're going to say all right here and then uh item 8.3 is a continued discussion regarding vendors and Hendricks uh since this is a new process we wanted to put this uh on for information via feedback from the board and tonight Dr capacity has brought this forward so we're the business offices in regards to addressing any vendors who have a TV with a dollar amount that exceeds twenty thousand is where we're

078at so great um and I I added um and I apologize about the delay but I just got this to Ursula today to post for the board but based on our last conversation where Eugene and I had done kind of sub categories and totals so you could monitor the spending in that area I added to it that all of this holes we've been talking about so far have been what we've provided to the Auditors for last year's FY 22 budget so that's uh all the all the numbers the board has seen is the contracts and vendors that we spent last year and what I've added to this now is our current spending as of December this year what have we spent up to with the same vendors or of additional vendors made it to that

079list and I've added to that as well what the board has asked me to do or the direction that I was given through cabinet was to either if we reach if a vendor reaches that twenty thousand dollar Mark or it starts getting close to that twenty thousand dollar Mark do we pay enter into a contract with that vendor to make sure that we have the best pricing and uh and a relationship with that vendor that is uh meets the board policy about twenty thousand dollars in spending number two in addition to the possibility of entering a contract is the idea of perhaps going out to RFP for um uh for uh getting the best prices to make sure we're getting the best prices on the the uh things that we're buying and the third option

080that the board directed was to look at preferred vendors so we can gain some efficiencies in our spending perhaps we're buying paper at 45 dollars for one vendor and that that vendor were up to twenty thousand dollars where we we could get it from Office Depot for half the price so we no longer go for the one higher price vendor and we gain some efficiencies and who our budget managers can use to purchase from when I looked at that list in cabinet and I had been going through this so Dr sparlin Faith Heather Teresa myself have been really looking at this and and uh taking a look at the process and monitoring some of our spending and the other option that popped up was status quo maybe on here there is a vendor for instance

081one of our attorneys that we spent a hundred thousand dollars with well we don't necessarily have a contract but we know what they're doing for us and we are okay with that spending as our district attorney at that number so we're not gonna we're not necessarily going to revisit going into a contract we could uh we we wouldn't necessarily consider going into an RFP we wouldn't look at going to another attorney for doing that work because there are designated attorneys so for that one we would just mark it down as status quo we know that spending what it isn't going down the list when you look at these there's some software programs that are over the twenty thousand dollars we don't have a contract with them but they are a vendor and they're just a

082little bit over that twenty thousand dollar Mark and we don't no one else would offer that same software that same model of service so our budget manager for that software program purchased that software so that would be another one that status quo although that is something we could look at why don't we have a contract with them and do we need to pursue that so if there's kind of that gray area between status quo and actually having a formal contract with them or lenders being a vendor So based on that information I've provided for the board a comparison of what we spent total last year with these vendors and then currently what we spent from July 1st until December 31st this year when we're halfway through the year so you can take a look at

083uh take a look at some of those costs and what I'm looking at doing today in terms of providing this for information from the board is to make sure that the cabinet myself are on the mark with what the board would like to do and based on your feedback I'm going to be revisiting this with my finance team to continue to Monitor and start adding check marks into these columns for instance status quo we just continue what we're doing we present that to the board and it gets to check mark it's done immediately if we need to enter into a contractual relationship believe it or not that is the same length of time as it would take to go to RFP so to do that would take about three weeks or one board meeting cycle

084to go through um okay so about a three week time frame and if we do the preferred vendors and look at reducing the the vendors and the efficiencies that we can gain and using select vendors that's something that can happen within a week just communicating to our budget managers so nothing on this nothing that the board is asking us to do would take a long time but I do want to start with my team communicating that monitoring that and making sure that we're all on the same page as to how we got here I think that it's really important to understand that many of the board members I won't say all we were we were somewhat surprised to learn that certain vendors may not have had a contract may have had a contract that we

085were not fully aware of the processed procedures or how money was spent and also that in the business World there is an opportunity when you have vendors to either go to RFP even if you've worked with them for multiple years because typically what happens is is people feel a little bit more inclined to continue to give you certain levels of service and so um I want to make sure we provide that contest to everyone we also were really searching for some transparency other than a bill pay list where a lot of us were doing our own housing leading and creating our own spreadsheets let's do it as a group and understand okay for a legal perspective I don't even know what some law firms might mean let's see how much we're spending up on the

086law firm let's see how much we're spending on curriculum let's see how much we're spending on um I don't even know what we call some of these things but ed services and so forth because when you look at it as a block of money it tells a different story and it paints different picture and one of the things that I shared multiple times with the board number is that a financial mentor of mine told me you don't need to tell me your priorities I can look at your checkbook and it will tell you our priorities so we needed to see it in a different way I do want to share openly that I still strongly urge this board to put in a factor review policy and to or a very strong vendor review procedure if

087you will I've paid that when we don't hold our vendor girl vendors accountable whether it be the food service or what have you uh Ingenuity or whatever it's very easy to become complacent and um I would like to see us make sure that everyone is aware of our District goals or goals and to make sure they're meeting the the parameters that we step forward and I think one of them should be um Dei as well like do you have a diverse staff and so forth so I think that we're getting there but I still think we have a ways to go and I would like to see us to put in a vendor of under review policy it doesn't mean that we're going to pick another Factor it just means that they're going to after

088so many years that are going to come to the table and put an RFP just in like everybody else it's no different if we have employees who want to be promoted and they have to interview just like everybody else so um I think we still you know I think there's we have we need to look for money and um see where we're spending and where we should be spending I know I talk about people a lot I know I talk about my work spending money on putting business cards in the digital world and then I constantly look at that Amazon number and there's got to be a better way so um all right so if we were to go to Patrick Ross I think terms of service sort of expectations we need to be part

089of it um depending on the budget manager and their input I think that that has to be taking consideration each time that's right if we were to go the contract route um sometimes you can structure a contract where you don't necessarily guarantee any value um depending on you know what the services so I've been looking at the flexibility but I mean as a service um trying to think to some of the other things that thank you know stay away from all renewals you know but obviously all that that's supposed to go so it would be a process out um and negotiating with all of these companies I think in general it's probably worthwhile I mean there's there's probably even Amazon in this project you know there's there's other retail vendors on here that you're not

090going to get there is just going to go get to buy stuff supplies but um and I lean towards knowing contraction but I'd like to you know what what you mean you're saying I really would like to know if they see opportunities and that's where bringing them this information will help them see that because I don't think individually they necessarily they see what their mind they don't see what all the other budget managers are doing so I don't see the volume so this is a good tool to bring to them to say well yeah it's only three boxes of paper for you but district-wide is you know 300 boxes of paper so and that was my question and that's exactly what I wrote down to me go back to the context of water yesterday it

091may not be less on paper but in my courses that I wrote down can the budget man who is easily search and find with a preferred hinders that we keep missing but Canada did not do the budget managers across the district know what other people are doing because to me I think that's where we can realize the efficiencies and we may if we all can get on one Accord and start to order from that same place that may dictate that vendor or I shouldn't say dictate or well necessitate that Vivid to to treat us differently because right now it may be two or three different uh people calling them and they may treat us as three or four individual customers as opposed to a one uh the Community School District 308 so I think that

092the main thing that we have to look at as we're doing this across the board are what are the best practices for the budget managers that will help us to be more efficient so that we can now maximize the reason why we're doing all this because if we if we don't do that then we will still um I don't think we'll still realize the benefits and cost savings from a centralized ordering process and again I I know that's probably a lot more easier said than done but I think now presenting this to all of the budget managers of having to have that conversation I think that's a place yeah just to kind of speak fast off of that um purchasing department that we brought in in like 2013 or something like that in order to

093kind of handle all this do you can someone refreshment numbers when we had kind of agree with that section purchasing department yeah do you still have that department you know we uh I think what Lori might be hinting at is it the central warehouse staff because we did have like we had some folks in uh buildings and grounds that were trying to maintain a central warehouse and then we had some people in the finance department and it just kind of devolved uh into uh budget managers buying what they need when they needed through our partners or offender relationships so that's something I can look into more and whatever definitely refreshabilities okay um we have we've had uh at one point and I think that this has been one of the first year of events committee

094meetings um we had hired uh somebody to kind of manage all purchases of men have changed how they used key cards yeah yeah I I just remember the executor yeah yeah it was supposed to the position was supposed to be paid by a d card um reimbursements but um yeah it potentially that wasn't materializing um but yeah that means it's a good question um I I do know a lot you know a lot of vendors um you know this I've worked for a large book you know workers well they don't necessarily mind taking care of it and they got to pay that I'm interested in The Interchange fees but do you just do you remember this is everything about what I'll do this yeah like no no we're here so I mean I couldn't talk

095to I know there's some people in the finance department have been here for quite a while I can ask them about that initiative who that person was and what happened a minute can we look at it and see what makes sense now yeah um and because all it is is the purchasing department is centralizing and purchasing to make sure that we're realizing the efficiency so I would say based on the spirit of what glory is saying does that make sense and because again I'm not telling you all to do that I'm just saying uh it's a consideration because I don't know the amount of work that it would go into or if that would even be worth or because it would it cost us more in time than not but I think that it's a

096worthy but I do know this for sure that if we don't consider it the all of the efforts that we're putting in to realize the efficiencies I believe will be lost now there's there's um markets there's markets there's um.com markets where you can put out your invoices to the vendors and your pain and you say hey give me a seven percent uh to give you um we'll pay you early if you give us seven percent reduction eight um that annualized about pretty good I don't know if we have a big enough it might not even be worth the uh infrastructure spending you know on the I.T side but uh you know there's the other side there's opportunities out there for things out there and I don't even since we don't have Reserve you might not

097be able to it's just I'm picking up out here and I probably shouldn't be you're in uh the students to go along without all the ideas that you guys are talking about you know when we talk about going to RFP the other thing that will eventually come to the board with and that's one thing I need to work with my team on is we are members of purchasing cooperatives so instead of going to RFP we can leverage a Cooperative what does that mean legally how does that meet the RFP so there's some information I can share with the board but I'd like to get through this first and then uh and start going through this and then eventually looking at okay how many rfps what type of what type of materials are we looking at

098purchasing and can we go the through uh Source well or buy board or some of these other there's a a group out there called compare co-ops which you can say hey I'm looking for paper since we're talking about that we're looking for paper you can put it in there and it'll tell you the four different co-ops that are selling paper at this cost and and you can lock into that cost it's as if you as a district vote the RFP so there's some uh purchasing cooperatives that have really become big in the last three four years that I think we could leverage a little bit better as well so that'll be a part of this evolving conversation this is where in this session the budget managers probably and with the holistic Viewpoint as well you

099know obviously um some things might be best for um depending on whatever correct and the purpose the other thing that I was hoping we could and I don't know if this is the appropriate place but it there's a reason that I'm suggesting it and I've been thinking about it for a long time when we experienced a lot of growth we started just kind of putting people in random places throughout the community and one of the reasons that um sometimes I feel like we have some inefficiencies because we don't have our Administration Under One Roof um and I was very shocked to hear how much we spend in other buildings specifically Mason square but I can we just see like a portfolio of the District of all the buildings that we're paying for um and you

100know my my dreams someday I've shared this with Dr sparlin is um you know to have him put it under one roof obviously we have a lot more priorities but I do think there are efficiencies gained I think from a cultural perspective and from a financial perspective but I think we should also see what our um our our portfolio of real estate looks like and um the money that's going out for that as well and I don't know if we can um just append that to the end of this uh document it would just be really helpful for us to see and the part of real estate that we own that are kind of not doing anything for us like the land we own for the third High School um the land that has um

101I think it's really important to understand that and we also have to still maintain you know that we have to pay taxes on and maintain buildings so um can we have like an overview of that real good taxes so generally an asset for uh for governmental unit is pretty much a liability well but I mean on the buildings that we are we don't own we don't I mean the leases that we have the I mean it all has it all extrapolates out to whatever we want to call it whatever uh wherever we want to put it on our our spreadsheet but it all has a financial impact on our bottom line just one of the plans that uh referred to earlier you know in regards to it will address a lot of what you're what

102you're what you're talking about you know um because you know I totally agree with you and the of the administration under one group uh is is great in many respects in many respects at one time uh a few years ago I had was that and it brought him out all into one room and then we have a three-phase plan that we started a few years ago that we just weren't able to continue it so that's part of the plan that we're working on now because it brings them all back it brings the whole Administration back under one room IT addresses the growth for the pathways program IT addresses growth for the Early Childhood Program at Roca and as well as the uh some some other areas of the school district and consolidate some of those

103areas like we have been property in 71. see what you do with that so what's that property worth what can we do with that where can we reinvest that into the school district the basic Square you know that you mentioned there what's that property worth if we took the you know the people that are out there yeah 100 watt roof it's another building facility that we don't have to maintain and then we can reallocate those resources to the client as well so we're getting closer to bringing that back and uh it's a good plan and we look forward to having more conversation on it how can I feel like another reason we got into this was because we were Outsourcing money and spending double to Outsource what we could be paying our people so that

104was another reason we got into this and it's the same thing it's like I talked to you one day about this turf field and all these other places and Warrenville just announced it we spend so much money to have our fields we can't use them but if we were to save we want to put Turf in you know there would be an uproar and I understand it but we have to start having and putting a narrative around how expensive we are functioning by not looking to the Future and so we need to see these things they need to be in plain sight even if it's just putting it in board docs every week and somebody asks a question about it it's what I would say our efficiencies that end up costing us way more yeah

105yeah um there's one thing too it's not a side note I would love sometimes to see very end of this list it's a very very very bottom it's a village of Oswego water I would I would love to see sometime the projections on that and how that's going to affect us in the future with our budget because I got a bad bad feeling about where that's going I was gonna say anything you started that conversation already had you yeah yeah so so that's right it's a Friday update I just got the information the day before great so I do have the information for you about the cost so I'm like [Music] all right so he said we're going to help each other with the deliverables for the administration so we got them off somebody yes

106okay this is this is to get the information out there all right the next item is 3.4 it's an informational item regarding uh bus lease agreements for activity buses at the high school so this uh this goes back to a conversation that we had at the beginning of the year with the transportation challenges that we've had we've had After School athletics um be a real challenge we've had this since uh uh rent out the coach buses to take teams and whatnot because we didn't have the the ability with just two activity buses at each High School to get a full team where they needed to go and so then the conversation turned into well can we get more activity buses and we have been nosed to the grindstone trying to dig up activity buses and

107uh the bus companies shared with me in a normal year the car manufacturer Chevy and Ford usually give about 3 000 chassis for their Vans to be able to convert to activity buses but with the procurement issues and things due to covet they reduce that number from three thousand dollars or three thousand units per year to like 150 units it was way low so activity buses have been hard to find we uh back in in the fall we asked two of our bus companies local bus companies to get us on a waiting list for when the next buses would become available and we're happy to say that those activity buses will be available beginning of next year so we can we can take possession of these this is just an information item but things have

108changed a little bit since this went to the board what happened is uh our other second company came to us with the same buses and very similar buses and uh they are less so we went back to this company to say that you don't need to sharpen your pencil and are we getting the best deals so we got a little bitty war going and so today for information we're telling the board we have the opportunity to get four buses four activity buses but we are going to when we bring it to action it could either be this company that you see tonight or it could be a second company who has the same buses but less money for this company for less money so that's a good thing uh the way Mike is orchestrated this

109we have four buses two at each High School currently on a lease this would be four additional buses so each High School would have four buses but if we do get our transportation staff up to par and we're able to go back to Athletics through large buses and through uh more drivers then we'll have two leases and one of them we can just let it run out and not renew and go back to the four buses to each high school so this gives us some options um and I I was happy with the way that Mike orchestrated this one rather than waiting and adding this onto our existing lease so any questions on that two questions so if that's the case does that double the number of drivers needed yeah each each of us uh

110each of us can take up to 14 uh students so uh some of the sports they can just take one bus or two buses uh some of the larger Sports they need to take all four and I know the high schools have talked to us about using off-season coaches to be the drivers for the on-season coaches so they've got some ideas about getting them and I've asked Mike to share with me the number of miles that the activity buses are driving to make sure that the buses we do have out there in the field aren't getting used and they are yeah well I think it fits together yeah and those buses are due uh next year to be renewed so we'll get four new buses in place of these older buses and the other is

111what is one of the implications of us not doing this not doing this um it we would be uh we would be utilizing the coach buses the kind of luxury buses which are costing us about twenty four hundred dollars round trip as opposed to a regular school bus which costs us about 600 round trip and these activity buses would uh they're about twenty thousand dollars per year for five years so it's uh it's it's not a bad deal and uh right now on this it you'll see the proposals here are twenty thousand dollars per year per bus and uh the new proposals that we're looking at are about fifteen to sixteen thousand dollars we save about four or five thousand dollars per year per bus for us and have we attempted to go after any

112grants regarding green buses yeah we have taken a look at that and that's going to stay on our radar we're watching some surrounding districts especially since the companies that does the battery-powered buses just built the shop down and is it like Peoria or something or fairly close so they're looking to get into surrounding districts the problem is tooling for those new buses there's an expense to that and then the cost benefit right now it costs us more money than with the rebates to change to the electric or the Propane fuel buses but we'll keep an eye on those costs and when we reach a break-even point we will look at growing our inventory to more of a green uh green level bus we did have one District that used them uh south of us at

113Joliet I can come wintertime none of their amount of their electric buses would start it was too cold for the batteries to kick them over so we had problems with gelling diesel but we just added some additives to our gas got fired up and they were sitting there with dead buses so tonight as a part of that conversation when we had it personally we talked about returning buses that are just sitting in the fleet where are we yeah that'll come up on the next agenda item with the buses but real quick I did ask Mike about that one and we're using GPS to track all of our buses and we're at the kind of industry Norm of we have about eight to ten percent of our buses that are are not used um uh and

114uh but that's those buses are an unusual we have a bus breakdown we have that eight to ten percent inventory to put out there and to use in place of the buses that are breaking down if we have a bus that gets stuck we need to send another bus to go relieve so we're we are utilizing all the buses that we have so and and we expect to after this contract negotiation we expect to get back up to our staffing levels so we can uncondense the routes spread them out a little bit more and then have those extra buses um have those buses the eight to ten percent um be uh be used for drivers on those new routes to ask me what most questions that I already asked you because I didn't know we

115were combining the board comments with very much concerned about bus routes so I'm sorry it doesn't necessarily have to do with your presentation but I don't know I'll even hear without talking about the bus routes today um how do we know the changes we're making are actually working what's our feedback on all those the changes that we've made I know do a trial run uh yes yes yes and yes so we'll be following up with the uh you know with with the drivers we're monitoring the radios we'll be filing up the principles to gain feedback from them in regards to if they will then be a number of parent phone calls and it's being said to that and uh monitoring the buses uh drop off the pickups in the morning I'm sure there'll be some

116so we said it'll need to be made to the plan and went forward today but from all the occasions it moves better and hopefully over the next few days as those drivers become more familiar with those jobs because as well as the staff still become better again you know we're trying to fix an issue without like I said earlier and he very well is the right number driver to do what we're trying to do the one concern listen again I do laundry array which is that I'm very appreciative I don't want to sound not appreciative in all of those things but concerns concerns yeah concerns that I fielded again Junior High and I I just it it gets at me right that like that seems to be where um I don't know how we end

117up doing this through our junior high students and and they're a very diverse group um and I'm talking about size right um so if you're you you fit three junior high students uh seat and give it away with it fabulously in Monroe and in the next row good luck to you right and um and so I I feel did a lot of concerns today about Junior High um and so I I don't know if you could attest to that if that was okay thank you all right item uh 8.5 is the information in regards to uh bus lease agreements very close yeah so these are 29 regular size but or actually not regular size these are 27 passenger 30 passenger there are smaller special ed buses uh last year at this time we had the

11871 passenger buses that we renewed with the board and this is now uh 29 uh smaller buses that we use for special education uh that we are renewing the leases for so these buses go back the end of the five year lease is up and we get new buses to replace those yep any questions regarding this I think some of the questions that dialogue we just had to answer some of this most of them my question I have is uh well we have drivers for these I don't wanna I don't want to spend money if we don't have drivers for the buses yeah we do we currently these would be taking the place of buses that drivers are currently driving the buses those old buses go back and they get the new buses so say

119that again those are the little ones that have the lip in our total Fleet and we only have five bucks yeah that's the the three uh 24 plus three means you could do 24 students um or you could add three uh three more to the number that bus can carry but we take out the seats and they they take the wheelchairs so those those last five buses have wheelchair lifts [Music] five rotations yeah I don't know this thing this makes sense but do we have to do all of them right now uh yeah because they're on a they're on a lease uh after a five-year term so we we lose them for those five years uh we could have gotten a little bit cheaper price for going more than five years the problem is and

120we're also responsible for maintenance on this so we give the buses up before we need to start paying for the maintenance and upgrades on those buses and uh we we trade them in so these buses will be on the market for other districts to lease or buy and we'll have buses that we won't have to worry about breaking down I think that's a change of question like it's again you know is it half a dozen of ones six of another I guess is this smart is this a smart way to do it I mean you might not take out the maintenance but then one of those buses don't have maintenance and then you just keep being our Perpetual Leasing Yeah in our experience this is the most efficient way to do our bus food so

121yeah so how many um how many buses in a fleet is it about 30 average about 30 in a week when he uses the word fuity he means all the buses together okay so so 29 in this rotation 27 last year so yeah 27 29 and then uh um I'll have to find out from Mike with the match three locations okay thanks very good okay item 8.6 is the uh 23 24 school calendar which is annual information item around this time uh the calendar committee which is a standing committee outlined in the uh oea collector party agreement and a couple different engages to use today's information um is very similar to this year's calendar uh first day of students is Wednesday August 16th the last day is Friday May 24th which is prior to Memorial

122Day and uh one change that was made was to move up here into your conferences from the second week of November to the fourth week in October so that formal communication with parents had happened earlier um for information this evening and if you have any questions foreign to discuss start times uh so uh yes but they're Uma they're working on that right now but we do have a date uh in January that we're working on that thank you guys tomorrow I will have the final assist tonight thank you and you'll let us know where where yes where it is what the status of that is because it has been one of the things that I've heard the most about the emergency this year the same as King County I don't know ideas okay that is

123uh that's our last informational item we can move on to uh 9.1 bills for dinner okay 9.1 bills for payment and I have a motion please I make a motion to authorize the game of bills in the amount of 3 million 943 498.70 ask questions Mr Cerrone yes yes Mr Gatewood aye Miss Johnson aye Mr pluger um Miss Swanson Mrs Doyle hi Miss Simonton hi um action item 9.2 approval of updated intergovernmental agreement on resource officers you can have emotions and make a motion to approve the updated a high school student resource officers thank you uh second piece is I wanted to thank you for getting back to me um but as far as what sros um what sros uh SRO pay looks like as far as uh costs from districts around us what we're

124paying as far as the price it's pretty comparable to other districts however percentage-wise there are districts that are not necessarily paying 100 and of course there are some outliers too uh and then there's some I know that are difficult to find right and you know I know like for instance here's Joliet is saying maybe they're not paying but there's but they're paying something we just don't know what because there's some kind of um special assignment rate and and then there's Yorkville who apparently they're they're not paying um so thank you for that example um and then Naperville is only in naperville's 203 is only paying it looks like 50 however if you were to take 50 of that salary it's pretty comparable to what we're paying so uh you'd have to figure that piece as

125well um it is also interesting that somebody's only paid salary only some of them pay a little bit more so there are some uh West Aurora looks like this 50 but then there's some pieces about um a nine month benefits and some pieces about clothing and so forth there's a lot of stipulations on the West Aurora ones so um it is not necessarily uh and also the um suspicion of the Joliet police department in the Plainfield one is not a special assignment so that's interesting so it's not necessarily um hey you just you just paid whatever but I appreciate your new delicious Thomas and I just wanted to pass that along so thank you very much for the investigative work on that um easily accessible right and you know and one of the pieces I

126want to say that you know first of all I want to first of all fake um I mean it provides a service that is uh imaginable um but one of the reasons right is because um one of one of the places that um you know when you talk about holding a lot of your property taxes one of those places that we go um is to benefit um this is the benefit their their passion is so forth when you're talking about um The Village level and so uh I'm happy to help them I'm happy to be a part of helping people that we honor and that we want to serve our community and so forth um one thing I ask in return though is an honest conversation as as a whole um that's why I wanted

127to grow to bring us up and part of that conversation also by the way is there are there are officers in other communities that are that are getting paid more as well so keep that in mind as well so thank you I appreciate your your hard work I had one time and I appreciated exhibit a and how it went into the goals of objective of the SRO program uh in the in the national standards and practices from the National Association of school resource offices I just wanted to I know when we had this discussion prior to now voting we had quite a bit of discussion in regards to the role of the sros and how they are engaged by staff and I think you know based on all of the goals and objectives that are

128listed here in regards to you know making sure there's positive engagement and healthy attitudes for students toward the snap of loss toward law enforcement et cetera et cetera I think that's very important or we did talk about the standards of when we should engage them versus just having School staff engage with the students and so I just again as well as the training the cross promotional training from the sros based on the standards that we have within the district and so I think that you know our sros are could be great inside of the schools but I just want to make sure that they're great and used properly so I just wanted to stress the exhibits to a b and c that are listed and and to understand how we're using them in our schools

129to promote the objectives of the sros in the district so nothing to necessarily be said just to make sure that we're utilizing thank you Miss Doyle hi Miss Swanson Mr Cerrone aye Ms simultan aye Mr Gatewood aye Ms Johnson aye Mr Plover hi of intergovernmental agreement of sharing Services can I have a motion please sorry another question is what yeah this one was written um law and which is why we gave it to Whitlock review and look for any consistencies thank you Miss simulton aye Miss Swanson Mr Clover Miss Doyle Miss Johnson aye Mr Cerrone aye Mr Gatewood action item 9.1 approval of personnel report please okay Miss simulton aye Mr pluger aye Mr Gatewood aye Miss Johnson aye Mr Cerrone aye Miss Doyle Miss Swanson capacity can I have a motion 2.1 can I

130have a motion to go into closed session to return the closed session under statute five ilcs 120 2c1 the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of certain employees and individuals seconds Mr Cerrone aye Miss Doyle hi Miss Johnson aye Mr Gatewood aye Ms simultan aye Mr cloger aye Miss Swanson motion passes 7.0 we're allow closed session and we will take a budget