Morton School Board Meeting June 2, 2026

001All right, let's call call the meeting to order. >> Call the roll. >> Dr. Cross, >> yes. >> Dr. Crawl, >> present. >> Mrs. Layman, >> yes. >> Mr. Onus, >> yes. >> Mrs. Pertie, >> here. >> Mr. Roth, >> present. >> And Mr. Red, >> here. >> Way to go. All right, let's do the pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Every board meeting has two opportunities for public comments. The first session of public comments at the beginning of the meeting is strictly for items that appear on this meeting's agenda for discussion or action. The second session of public comments at the end of the meeting is for other

002communication that is not necessarily on the board's agenda. In order to speak at this meeting, members of the public must complete a card with their name, topic, and turn it in prior to the beginning of the first segment of public comments. If you wish to speak and have not turned in a card, now is your final opportunity. The board of education will take all comments under consideration and respond if necessary in a timely manner. We ask that your comments address the board of education and not the audience. We will limit your comments to 5 minutes. Participants are expected to conduct themselves with civility and respect and follow guidelines outlined board policy 8:30. Further information about public participation in board of education meetings can be found in board policy 2230. Do we have uh cards for

003tonight's public comment session? >> None. Okay. >> Okay. Let's see if I can get through this. We need some tech support. Okay, very good. Okay, so with all board meetings, I like to begin with a little bit of gratitude. And so, um, the last week of our school year, we had our Potter awards. And so, I my gratitude and achievement goes to these three individuals. And so we had as our Dana Ashby award recipient is Cassie Little. Christy Becker was our master Potter award recipient and our Potter hand potter's hand was Holly Feifer. And so three outstanding individuals. Um just a plethora of wonderful comments. It was hard to uh reduce all the comments down into a couple of pages, but just three outstanding individuals. So, I'd like to recognize them as our Potter award

004recipients. So, congratulations to them. All right. Uh, next up, um, I'm going to introduce Mr. Herman and Miss Hoskins, uh, who put together this presentation about the gains this year with the MHS, uh, MTSS program. Um just it one more thing. Last year we came to the board um asking to expand a position and that's what Miss Hoskins assumed this year and so we're excited to hear about uh what is going on um with MTSS at MHS. >> All right. Well, thank you for approving the position. Um it's made a big difference at the high school this year. Uh, I brought Miss Hoskins along so that she can also share what her today day-to-day looks like in her new position um and uh what she's doing at the high school. We're going to kind of

005start by going through some of the things that we've changed and different things we're doing this school year. Um and then Miss Hoskins will talk about um her class and then um we did put a survey out last school year when we were looking for the position um and then again this school year. um we brought those results along with us to share with you as well to kind of see how things have shifted um with our staff this school year. So things that we've changed um that are new to NHS this year is Miss Hoskins, our M N M N M N M N M N M N M N M N M N M N M N MTSS coordinator and interventionist. um she teaches a course um at our school and each hour

006that she has it's called what I need class which is when it's an intervention course um that she works with students and she's going to explain a little bit more about that here um coming up um and then we've uh met as an MTSS team before in the past um and and talked about different students and different k uh kids that we should try to target to help um but this year we kind of wanted to make sure that we were focused with uh some collaborative intervention meetings that focused on specific sets of data. Um, so we met at the beginning of the school year and we tried to identify and use some research to figure out what exactly should we be looking at, what kind of things affect students and whether they're successful or

007not. Um, so we could try to identify what students we should be targeting with our MTSS program. Um, so those are behavior, attendance, health, and academics. And for behavior, um, we do a lot of collaborating with our assistant principles, um, our deans at the high school. Uh we look at all the different um referrals that come through their offices, all the different discipline issues that they deal with to help identify students that are frequent flyers to their office. Um what kind of attendance um concerns they have and I've been working with them to try to figure out some attendance incentives as well for students. Uh they provide a lot of insight on um a lot of times students that are struggling in one area or struggling in another. Um and then they attend those collaborative

008intervention meetings as well uh to help give input and then follow up with students that are uh discussed at those meetings to to try to build rapport with them and and make a difference for those students. And uh on the other side of things, um we also address concerns for the students. So, we have our social workers and our school psychologists um and our school counselors attending those meetings and they uh help give kind of a rounded picture of the student and identify maybe some of the things that the deans are seeing in their office are caused because of um some other things going on in that student's life that are causing school to to be difficult for them at this moment. They might need a little additional support. Um when we look at attendance,

009we're tracking how often kids have um them how often they're in class and in their chairs. So uh absences could be that they aren't at school at all. They're uh truent they're not coming to school. Could be they're coming to school but they're skipping classes. Um and we we look at all that data and track that data. On the right you have um something from the Panorama um education group and uh those bullets up there uh the two that we um really tried to focus on this year. One says that students with poor relationships to their students um are 1.8 times more likely to be chronically absent. And that bottom one student um when there's low school culture um students are likely to be um chronically absent. So, we we've been working with our teachers

010this year to help kind of um build stronger relationships and bonds with the students, especially the ones that we identify at those meetings of having attendance concerns. One way we've done that is we've uh tasked our teachers with reaching out to the students when they've been gone for a couple days, send them emails, um building rapport with them, hey, I noticed you were gone. This is what you missed. Make sure you check in with me when you get back. Um we started doing something called Potter postcards where uh the teachers are reaching out um we had the district office print us some postcards that we designed and um sending positive notes or if students haven't been there sending notes like hey I haven't seen you in class as often as I'd like. Um hope hope

011that I can see you come back soon and and those types of things to help build rapport and build those relationship with students make them want to be here um if they feel connected to their students. um also done some attendance contracts and incentives with our deans and our deans have also gone out and done home visits. Um so we've got the attendance data on there for this school year and um you can see the numbers there for each month. That's a percentage of students that we had in our building um each month and then uh eight of those months are improved attendance uh numbers from those same corresponding months from the previous school year. Um so it's nice to see some some improvement there. Uh, one of the other data points to look at

012is health. So, um, like I mentioned earlier with, uh, students concerns, social emotional concerns, um, chronic health issues. There's lots of reasons that students could miss school or not be succeeding in class, and it might not have anything to do with the fact that they just don't want to be in school. Um, they might have some major things going on on in their life, um, whether it be health concerns, um, or other things. And we work with our nurs's office. um they come and and report also at those means to help us identify like um how we should maybe support those students to to help them um if they're missing for health related reasons. Uh kind of helps us see the whole student as a whole um and figure out are those absences um excused

013for valid reasons. And then do we need to support them with maybe um modified school schedules or with homebound tutoring um or some sort of service that we provide that we could offer them to help keep them on track and keep them up on their academics so that they aren't falling behind. Um as far as academics go, uh we break the different levels of support for our students into three different areas. Tier one, tier 2, and tier three. Um some of these are some of the things that we were doing we've done this school year um to kind of address and help um schoolwide with making sure our students are successful. Uh the first thing the MTSS focus staff PD the first semester on the half days uh the high school stayed at the high

014school um and myself and Miss Hoskins, Courtney Edelman, um Stephanie Brown, we uh we ran uh professional development sessions uh working with our high school staff to look at those different data points that we just discussed and um looking at their data for their classrooms and where their students currently are academically um and trying to help our our staff become a lot were involved in looking at data and using that data to to identify students that they might need to reach out to or or provide additional supports to. Um in second semester we did teacher walkthroughs um which Miss Hoskins and um one of our counselors that's involved with NPSS, Miss uh Kenance, um helped set up where our teachers uh all took time one of their two prep periods. Um how many times we

015did it? Three. Three different times throughout the semester. um our staff went out and they went into each other's classrooms looking at very specific things um that each other are doing in their classroom to try to incorporate other um things into their class to to be better for all of our students. Um like I said, we did the postcards and the emails um the department data digs on those half days. Even when we weren't doing those PDs in the morning, we're providing each of our departments with data about their individual department. So like for example the math department, English department, each department can look at their whole department as a whole, where are we seeing students fail in what areas during what um times of year um in which classes, those types of things. So

016they can try to figure out, you know, are there things that we need to change systematically um ways that we teach certain topics or subjects to to help our students be successful. Um this year we got we switched and had home room during the middle of the school year which also allowed teachers um at a time of the day when everyone's in the building to pull pull people in to pull students in to give academic support. And then one thing that we've identified this year that we're going to start next year um is uh helping with the freshman transition from 8th grade to the high school. Um, right now our junior high provides academic planners for for our uh freshmen and we see a lot of our freshmen, especially first semester struggle with executive functioning

017skills. Um, trying to manage their transition to the high school, keep track of all their things um and and figure out exactly uh what's due when and and how to manage all the different courses that they have to take. So, um, next school year, um, we're going to be providing our fresh incoming freshmen with academic planners and incorporating that into, um, their, um, freshman orientation and talking to them about that and also incorporating that in with staff PD and, um, having our staff make it, uh, part of their daily routine that they're reminding students to to get out their planner and fill out what they have coming up and important things that they need to keep track of. So, in addition to that, we also reached out to all of the rest of our students,

018our sophomores, juniors, and seniors for next school year. Um, and we had over a 100 students that um signed up for a planner. We made it optional for them. Um, and they uh they took over 100 of our additional students out of those three grades also asked for a planner so that they can try to be more organized. Um, tier two, we've got Potter Academic Support, which is a smaller study hall. um instead of being in the 100 person study hall, we have a small study hall that students um are in a classroom with a teacher and that teacher is actively checking in with them on a regular basis. Show me your power school. What missing assignments do you have? Um what what should you be working on? What should we prioritize? So um it's

019a supported study hall. We have um home uh home room where students come to Miss Hoskins to get some additional support. And then we uh have math intervention and win intervention courses would be our tier three. So um Miss Hos Oh, got one more actually. Sorry. Um this is kind of give you an idea of how many students we're talking about that we are um currently uh identifying as part of our MTSS pipeline at the high school and who we're helping at the high school. on the right would be kind of I don't know how you would say it the industry standard the the recommended amounts that um you would have in your building for tier one tier two and tier three. Tier one is things that every student um would be involved with that

020would apply to every student. Tier 2 would be that 5 to 10 and tier 3 1 to 5. We've got our fall numbers and our spring numbers up there. Um the fall numbers you can see at the bottom at the total you've got separated out academic and seal. Um and then the Saints of the spring, the academic and totals. So you can kind of compare those kind of give you an idea of numbers. Um it's about 194 students in the fall and 167 students in the spring um that are receiving some sort of additional support through our MTSS efforts. I'm going to turn it over to Miss Hoskins here briefly so that she can kind of tell you about what WIN is and um what she's doing in her new position. So win is offered

021five hours of the day and like he said it's an acronym for what I need. So if someone were to walk into the room they would see several different things happening at the same time because they're really trying to make it be what each student needs. If a student has been added to win for academic focus, then they work with a program called Exact Path, which gives them an individualized education path that shows which skills they have not yet mastered, like up to the grade level they're currently in in either reading or math or both, depending on what we've identified for that student as where they need some support. So then whatever skills they haven't yet mastered, it has lessons that are given to them for them to master those specific skills to get up

022to date and fill in those gaps. There's also additional resources that if that lesson isn't clicking with the student, I can sit down and work with them on it to help them fill in those gaps and get caught up with um their grade level. If they are in win for an executive functioning focus, then they work with a curriculum from the Rush Neurobehavioral Center called EF is greater than IQ. And that gives them a variety of lessons to help with their organization, um, decision making, personal relationship skills um, and communication or task management. Those students also work on a journal over the course of the quarter that they're in the class to kind of continue to develop those skills on a more individual basis where they're getting feedback from me. All students in win set

023a weekly goal that they reflect on at the end of the week and have time to fill in the cleaners because students in win already have cleaners this year as well. And then there's also supportive study hall time where I'm checking in with them regularly to see what homework do you have, what is missing, do you know what you need to do, how do we prioritize this, and actually helping them with it if they have any questions about the expectations of the content itself. And so since MTSS is about supporting students, we wanted to make sure you got to hear from some students as well. So we have a couple quotes that capture some students experiences in win. The first one was shared with um us by the counselor where a student was glad that

024they had joined Wing because they felt like the structure of the class was helping them to avoid procrastination and to get their work done more. Um and then the second quote is from a student's journal where they identified that they had been growing in their organizational skills because of when the student in particular was focused on reestablishing the habit of using their planner. Um, and they even felt like they had a mindset shift about school as a whole because of that. And then we also have a quote from faculty. Like Mr. Herman said, we had a survey go out um, last year and this year and this was a response that we got from a faculty member this year where they feel like MTSS is in a good spot. They know what the path is.

025They recognize that we're continuing to grow and develop it. they feel like their concerns and their feedback is heard and that they know where to go if they have any questions about anything with what's happening with MTSS. >> Um, as far as the the survey goes, um, we sent it out to staff and asked them to kind of self-report how they're feeling about MTSS this year. Um, similar to last year, uh, this question is, um, how often was, excuse me, specific to this school year, um, because we had been, uh, tasking them with the PL postcards and, uh, the student checking emails and some other things. And, uh, we asked them to self-report on on how often are you guys um, honestly doing this? And I appreciate that. Um I feel like they did give

026an honest response um because uh we do have some um down at the end that honestly said that they they haven't started doing it as much. But if you look at the the almost always and the frequently combined um that's you know 45% um and then if you combine the top three areas that's 79% of our staff um are are either sending postcards or sending emails um at least um more than just once in a while. So, um, looking at the data from last year to this year and the impact of, uh, making NPSS a focus at the high school, the impact of having Miss Hoskins because outside of her just being in win every day, um, she's very involved in the PD that we've created that we did with staff in the first semester.

027Um, she did all the planning for the the teacher walkthroughs. Um, does a lot of additional things other than just teach the intervention class five five day or five class periods a day. Um you can see on the the data here. I want to point out when you're looking at this, if you're a mathematician in the audience and you are uh adding things together, um the uh survey did not have it required that they they answered the questions and some uh staff skipped over that those questions. Um and some of the questions we reached out to some of the staff and asked like why didn't you like answer that? And um the responses we got were like I didn't really feel like it pertained to me. Um, so when you're kind of looking through these

028next four or five slides of of survey results, um, I would kind of consider if they didn't even bother to respond, then that really shows like what where the school was as far as thinking of MTSS as a whole and the staff as a whole um trying to address u making um the best environment for our students. So um on this particular side, this is uh how clear um sorry no it's not how involved are you with your school or district's MTSS system. Um, we didn't have anyone say extremely involved uh last school year. This year we're at 20 uh.8%. And as you go down the the row there, you get down to the bottom. It used to be 39% not involved and now it's only 8.3. Um, so it's only been one year, but

029I feel like we're definitely trending in the right direction. And as we go through next couple slides, you see kind of those trends continue. Um, this is how clear is your school's vision for MTSS. We made it one of the school goals for this year. Um, we made it the PD for the high school for this semester. um really put it at the forefront of our staff's minds. And you can see um in the survey results um that we didn't have anyone say that it wasn't clear um and in the other areas uh those numbers went up as well. This is how clear are the expectations for MTSS implementation documented for staff. Um so this question is is really how clearly is the pathway laid out for what you are supposed to do as a

030staff member um to be involved in MTSS. Um so as you look quite clear is now up to it's at 41.7% um from zero uh and then somewhat clear is also up to to 41.7%. This is how bought in are you to the leadership's vision for MTSS. Again, you can see that same trend um continuing that um 30 and 56 is those two middle ranges and an increase of 5% in that extremely bought in area and a decrease in the not bought in. And how often is feedback incorporated to improve your how often is your feedback incorporated to improve your school or district's MPS process? So, I really view this question as how valued do you feel your opinions are? So, if you're a teacher and you're trying to give input on what can we

031do to be better um for our students? Um how do you feel that like your input um is considered when we're making the decisions? What are we going to do with our MTSS program um to try to improve things for students? Um you can see the the difference there. Um and especially the frequently areas up to from zero up to 27.8. Um and then um the other areas that you would want to go up also went up and the areas you'd want to go down went down. So and then how comfortable are you using data? Um this was an area that we really focused on this year. Like I said, we did department data digs. Um there's kind of um at the beginning of the school year a lot of uneasiness amongst our staff when

032we started talking about using data um and then them reviewing data because we were asking them to essentially sit down with their colleagues in a room um and look at here's all the A's BC's DS Fs and absentee data um for your department. Um, so it it kind of paints a picture like if you're a staff member that has the the most um the highest amount of struggling students. Um, and it can become an awkward conversation. Um, and we really wanted to switch it from let's not be awkward about like how everyone's doing and let's talk about why some students are maybe excelling in one math class versus another math class or one science class versus another science class and and what are the differences and what can we change, what can we incorporate. um

033are there any common assessments that everybody is struggling with across the board that we need to um take a look at and maybe make adjustments to? Um so you can see from last year to this year there's some drastic changes um and I think that has to do with the PD we did the first semester and then the focus on having the departments go through their data the second semester. So, and I think that is all. Any questions for myself or Miss Hoskins? >> All right. Thanks for having us tonight. >> Thank you. >> Okay. I I greatly appreciate the presentation and you'll see some common threads in the next segment. Um and so I I'm going to cover a little bit of what has happened uh just briefly um on the running agenda. These

034slides are linked so if you want to go back in greater detail because there's going to be a lot of information in the small space. But I'd like to begin with just uh hitting rewind and going back to September. This was one of the slides that I had put in a presentation about, you know, our direction and where it is that we're going to go. And everything is based off of establishing goals, which we had heard, you know, through the MTSS uh presentation. Um and then adopting a continuous improvement model. And this, you know, what I like to say is the um uh IPA, Illinois Principles Association, um paradigm. And and so you we plan, implement, assess, and reflect. Okay. So our our building level teams all were tasked with establishing building level goals. And

035what were those goals focused on? We asked that all of the building teams uh selected one goal from each one of the pillars. And this was also in our in the presentation back in September. The pillars are preparing students and staff for the future with a purpose and then promoting social and emotional and mental wellness for students and staff and maintaining rigorous standards driven curriculum and instruction. And all of that is founded on the board goals where we have academics and achievement, climate, communication, facilities, and finance. And so working through this process, I'm going to go through school by school. I'm going to briefly hit upon these. Uh feel free to review them uh in more detail later. Um but I'd like to say this bottom line up front. I'll say this. This was a

036starting point in this process. We made positive growth in every one of our buildings. Okay? It wasn't perfect. We didn't hit every goal exactly. In some of our goals, we're still getting additional data, like test data, attendance data, and whatnot, but you'll see some common threads as we go through. So, here we go. Here is Letty Brown. Um, so what I'm basically going to do is you can see the three goals. Every one of these slides has a goal listed at the top. I'm just going to briefly touch on this. So, um, underneath their first pillar was teaching leadership, uh, uh, teaching student leadership, uh, in the school throughout this school year. And so, um, I want to give a shout out to Miss Kirk. Uh, she did presentations on the seven habits using the

037leader in me curriculum. The other goal was the second one was targeting chronic absenteeism and developing a multi-tered plan um for attendance. And as you can see from the high school's presentation, you'll see some threads that we recognize that attendance is such a big player in student achievement. The third is was writing instruction and multi-step math problems. And so this is more on the content area. uh what they were able to achieve was integration of instruction using the writing revolution and having our instructional coach utilize daily routines to jumpstart problem solving and that's more of a PD um interaction. If I move on to Grundy, uh their first goal focused on curiosity through play, logical thinking and a resolve to pure conflict and pure relationships. What better way to do that with the installation of

038a gaga ball pit and a volleyball net. So gaga ball is serious. If you haven't been on a playground, it's serious. Um they did team reads uh of the amazing generation and independent problem solving. So that's some of the activities that they worked to accomplish those goals. Their second one was target uh to target effective efficacy through John Hades research on teamwork and stu excuse me students success. This increased collaboration among two groups of teachers. We have our general education teachers and then we have all of our special education or student support services team. you like to say that that integration should just be seamless, but in education, you know, especially um you know, general education may you know, any type of collaboration that we can get will continue to raise the bar. And then

039their third goal was on academic progress on higher than expected growth in math. You'll see this throughout a couple of the others, higher than expected growth growth. Um so the preliminary erist data so if you look at the the graphic on the left hand side lower left hand side I believe that was last year's and so we've moved the bar and that was based off of the spring assessment uh with the effect size. So we've changed some colors. Ideally it'd be great to hit them all blue greater than expected growth but we're making the uh progress in the right direction. Moving on to Jefferson, uh their first goal was uh focused on student recognition programs through the second step lessons and readalouds and you can see that they're reporting that they had 182 students that

040achieved that. Um the next one was on crisis intervention calls and you can see last year's historical data, this year's data overall reduction of 90 or 29% in those types of calls uh throughout the school day. And then the last one is um a map math goal targeting uh students that are uh performing below the 40th percentile. And so this this is a commitment to our goals. It's a commitment to everyone doing the PD looking at data. So in the fall 24 didn't make it. They made good progress in the spring. And so um glad to see that data there as well. Moving on to Lincoln. Um their first goal was targeting staff PD on core NME the core NME model uh by Dr. Bruce Perry and uh that also involves our resident expert. I

041don't know if I see her in the audience, Stephanie Brown. She is our expert uh throughout the district. Um the progress on that enabled 22 staff members to observe, share and reflect on the six Rs and the use in the classroom. On the social emotional side, uh they targeted students uh skills through the second step with a target of completing 80% of the lessons. Well, they're pleased to report that their teachers um accomplished 90% of the lessons um that were covered this year. And then achieving higher than expected growth in math. This one may be one where we set the bar pretty high. um 80% higher than expected. So that's that top category. Um didn't hit that, but when you look at both of the categories, higher than expected and um expected growth, both were

042at 43%. And so um gives us ground to recalibrate and set some goals for next year, but we're making positive um growth in those direction. Moving on to Morton Academy. Um this first one uh was a focus on community- based outings. What a better way uh to target social interactions than having your students go out and integrate in these different uh events and and uh Miss Ericson, you know, talked about, you know, just one of those events may be going to the library, the Morton Public Library. And so as you can see there uh they doubled their community outings from 10 to 21 this last year. The second one was a focus on social emotional skills and regulation. This involved uh work between the social worker and the teachers. In the past the social worker

043would teach the lessons and this year social worker collaborated with them so that the lessons were presented by the teachers. So, it's growing the team and it's keeping the language consistent. Um, whether it's the teachers in the classroom or the social worker. And then the last goal was a collaboration between the teachers and instructional coaches on things like classroom observations, uh, fast bridge and standards driven uh, curriculum. And, um, pleased to report that there were 25 sessions that took place with that. Moving on to the junior high. Uh the junior high wanted to expand student leadership positions and experiences. So uh with education, you got to like a couple of acronyms. Um they were able to implement the JPAC, the Junior Potter Advisory Council and Salt, Student Athlete Leadership Team. Um and they also brought

044back the robotics club to the junior high. So giving the students an opportunity to take some leadership roles. Um their next goal was a focus on panorama um the data that we use uh on the social emotional side uh to develop goals empowering students to monitor and reflect on social emotional growth. Um there uh what was reported is the spring panorama results showed the junior high in the top percentile in all of the nation or in the nation for all of the measures and it was somewhere in the 80 to 99th percentile for that. And then uh lastly is achieve expected growth in reading math. So Mr. Carter and his team used their planning prep uh planning period PD sessions to focus on grading procedures. Um we know that across the district we have some

045growth that needs to happen with math. Um and so this is setting that continuous improvement. You know uh continue to reflect upon what it is that we're doing and then sharpen that uh for the next year. And finally uh you'll see a lot of the same things that uh our MTSS presentation had mentioned. Our first goal was all about MTSS. Um and so what was just presented at the development of the WIN classes staff awareness and targeting and 504 process um MHS attendance they were able to capture through that uh that MTSS process some really good data um and so it looks like we're u moving the needle in the right direction with getting kids uh to be present at school at least in the high school level. And lastly is the one Morton this

046is one that in conversation with Mr. Edwards, this was a good start and he's targeting uh already next year uh for student leaders uh for the 2627 school years. It's kind of buying that ownership and involvement. Um so that is a brief overview of the building level goals. Um I know that we did site visits this year and we had four of them. So, as I envision this process transferring onto the uh 26 27 school year as we get into the other schools that we haven't seen, this would be great questions for from the board. Hey, how are we doing with our goals? You know, where were we at last year? What kind of progress are we making? So, I'm queuing you up uh and queuing the principles up to be ready to answer this.

047So, do you have any questions of me about uh the building level goals? Will these goals um will some of them roll over into the new next year or is your goal for them to be fresh every year? >> I would like to the guidance that have been given to the principles is work with your building level teams identify what is the priority and make it unique to your building. Um, you know, we kicked around trying to have things be somewhat consistent, but we have seven different attendance centers with seven different sets of needs and areas. And so, I really like the direction that the principles went with this. You know, I just I just turned them loose this year and they they put this together. I'm very pleased with where we're at. So, the

048answer to your question is I'd like to see them just continue on with the process they've had this last year. um and if they need to stick with one of the goals um you know on the academic side of the house you know math and you've seen that in a couple presentation that kind of lags um and so any type of growth that we can continue working on that um will be very positive and well received. So >> I remember last month talking about math and the graph they were already real high so >> they were high ELA scores are even higher so You're doing a commendable job with that. So, what other questions? >> I just appreciate the fact that we're having goals and then checking to see if we're meeting the goals. All

049too often, goals are basically just a piece of paper. Okay. All right. Then, moving on. Um, I'm going to give a little bit of an introduction while Mr. Tenno comes on up to the uh the uh uh podium. Um this is just a reminder that last month we had parents and staff members speak uh during audience presentations about cell phone use in school. Um as with every board meeting, I greatly appreciate receiving the comments and the feedback from our community. Um you share your thoughts, your opinions. I think we're all working towards the same thing is to make our to raise the bar, make our students, make our um uh instructional centers even better than what they were now. Um, I think I can speak for everyone on our admin team and uh even with

050parents uh when I say that um our priority uh in all of our buildings is increasing the student engagement between the teachers and the students in class. you know, uh, the Charlotte Danielson rubric on, uh, doing teacher evaluations, one of the things that I would always highlight on, you can tell the best classes is when we're capturing the most amount of minutes in actual engagement, distributed engagement. So, that has been our priority. Um, I I bring that up because, um, maximizing classroom time, especially in today's age, is a challenge. Um as we move forward we have to also recognize that you know cell phones is a major distraction but it's also been um it's also created a major habit and so uh when we uh are looking at ways of maximizing the classroom time I

051just you know I pulled out my cell phone and we we judge by our children how much time this is in their hands as a huge challenge. Okay? And now we're going to shift that. Okay? Which is great. We're up for the challenge. But what I'm trying to say is we also recognize that there is going to be some periods that are going to require additional support from our related services staff, our counseling staff, because we as a society have created such a habit where we can't be disconnected from this. And so with that, I just kind of wanted to lead into that precursor. Um, we're all in. The, uh, high school team heard what was said last month, um, about the cell phone, uh, you know, time and going, you know, full band 8

052to three. Um, and so with that, we're including this portion in the administrative reports because we've made the commitment to shift to that so that we can then approve later on in the board meeting the handbook changes um so that that can uh so that the admin team can roll those out as we roll into registration uh at the start of July. So, I just wanted to make that clear um that uh those changes have been made and with that I think I gave Mr. Tennel enough time to get prepared. So, you're up. >> So, I just wanted to start with reviewing what was proposed at the last board meeting as well as just talking a little bit about what the rationale was for that policy proposal. Um, so our original one that we approved

053at the uh district handbook meeting was no cell phones during uh class time, which is currently in place. Um, home room uh study hall would be new, as well as hallways during uh class time. Okay. The only times uh phones would be able to be used would be during lunch as well as passing period. Um, and then also there's a a layer of um enforcement in the classroom, a layer of structure where phones would be stored in a designated location. And uh probably for most traditional classrooms that would look like something like a calculator caddy on the wall where students would put their phone in in the beginning of class or before class started and get before they uh they left. Um there's also that also goes with a tiered uh discipline system for uh

054infractions. Um one of which we have in place which is um referral numbers and there being consequences based on the number of referrals students are getting for cell phone violations. Uh students always start with there's always start with the teacher warning the teacher warning them to put it away and then one to two cell phone referrals after that would uh result in a detention. Three to four would be two detentions. Five to six would be a Saturday detention and then if they got to seven or more referrals that would be a cap. Um so we were keeping that in place but adding a layer on top of that which would be um their first offense. uh the phone going to student services and then being able to get it at the end of um the

055the day. Um and that would be after a warning. Second offense would be the same thing except it would be followed with a call home. Um and that call home would include a conversation with a parent or guardian saying that this happens again a third time a parent or guardian will have to come in and get the phone. Um so uh adding that tiered discipline. Um, our rationale for this one was in in proving classroom supervision and management. An example I used with this um was if you know you have the calculator caddies on the wall and you have a class of 20 kids and let's say 18 of them put their phone in there and then two say they don't have a phone. As a teacher, I know 18 phones are right there. I

056don't have to worry about anybody trying to sneak it. um except for maybe those two and I might keep a little closer eye on those two and make sure they really don't have their phone on them. And so it kind of improves that supervision and that management within the classroom which there's been a lot of feedback with our current policy that that there's been a little bit of a struggle with um that getting enforced. So I uh we felt like that would improve that. Um creating clear accountability for staff that some other feedback we had as well. Some people believe in that some staff enforce it more than others. um from you know an admin side if we were to walk by a classroom um with our current policy we have in place now and

057see a student on a phone um sometimes it's challenging to know whether that teachers involved in teaching their lesson it doesn't see that but if we were to walk by and they there there weren't phones in the in the designated area um you know we would know that that policy was being followed so it kind of creates a little bit more accountability there um it also teaches appropriate uh phone use and expectations during a a time in which somebody's talking. When you're in a a setting where um you should be focused on, you know, learning or doing something, you should have your phone away, but in that downtime, lunch and, you know, and passing periods like that, um you know, checking your phone, those would be appropriate times. So, there's kind of that naturally built

058into it as well. Um, also we sent out a a staff survey and a lot of their feedback went into developing um this as well about how they felt about the policy as well as um improving it. So that was the rationale. I just want to talk a little bit about the rationale of why we proposed that policy. Now, um, we listened to, um, what what the board thought as well as the community members and staff and we revised this to what we're going to be currently proposing tonight. Um, which that is no uh, phone use during the school hours. So, 8:00 a.m. to 3, no phone use. Those phones are expected to remain off in a way. Um, that tier discipline system that I referred to previously, we're going to keep that in place.

059Um, I feel like that, um, is going to provide that layer of accountability that we're really wanting to, um, reduce, uh, students trying to, you know, um, violate this policy. Um, the rationale here is it reduces distractions throughout the the entire school day. Um whether that is even during that passive period or lunchtime student seeing something on social media um or getting a you know text from a parent or guardian or friend or something like that that could result in a distraction that detracts from their their learning the rest of the day. So that's going to be reducing that which will be great. Um limits the online bullying and harassment during school. um students, you know, taking pictures of other students and doing things along that line with their their phone, even if they're utilizing

060it during those approved times. Um it's going to be limiting that because they shouldn't even have their phone out. um also adds additional accountability measures for um for students as well keeping them accountable with that tier discipline system for the so um before I move to the next slide um I just want to know if anybody had any questions over over this policy what we have where do um like watches that have self- service fall into the policy like you have a Apple Watch has cellular You can call stuff with it. Like where does that fall into? I mean, it's still different. Like you're not going to get on >> so >> take photos and stuff with it, but you still text with them. You can still stream music with them. You can >> Yeah.

061>> Does that fall? Do you have that outlined in the policy? >> Yeah, we put as well smartwatches as well. >> Yeah. >> And properly using them in in class. I I it's not going to be enforced where they can't have it, but it would be more so improperly using in class. >> Do you have a um an idea of where you're going to ask the students to put them? >> Yeah. So, um the way we have it is um and we kind of changed the the handbook language um to where there was in the handbook it said elementary junior high. We're going to turn that to to districtwide where it says that it should be um off and away and where that's going to be, you know, uh based on the building and for

062our building. What that's going to look like is we don't want to see it out. The the um trouble with the high school is that students don't have not all students have lockers. So um the expectation is it shouldn't be be seen essentially. So, could be in the locker if they have a locker. Could be in backpack. Could be in a um band locker if they have their band locker. >> Any other questions? >> Okay. Um so, one thing going through this, we we obviously observed just some challenges. This is going to be a change. The changes come with challenges, but um we also um thought through you know what would some solutions to those those challenges be. Um so one thing was unstructured times like passing periods, lunch um and restroom usage are are

063tough to monitor. Um naturally you have a lot of times in those situations a high higher especially in in times like lunch you have a higher um student to uh staff ratio um obviously in the restroom. those aren't getting monitored over all the time. Um and then in passing period as well. Um but the expectation will be that teachers will need to be more more visible during passing periods and vigilant with uh students who frequently use the restroom and holding them um accountable um and and having you know those tough conversations and utilizing our tiered discipline to hold them accountable during those times. Um, one change will definitely be that change in parent and student communication. Um, and that's just looking at um that parent and student communication that's used appropriately where a you know

064parent might I mean appropriately now, right? where a parent might send a student a text and say, "Hey, can you pick up your sibling after school?" or something like that and they look at it during passing period. There's a level of communication there that's not going to be um the same, but it's um kind of redirecting parents in terms of, you know, using email to email a student or calling the office to communicate with the student during the school day. um and you know advising those options um where they might be used to that option of of texting a student and knowing that they'll see it during lunch or passing period. Um and then also the teaching appropriate phone use strategy. So, um, while this isn't kind of modeled in the policy, um, it'll be

065encouraged for teachers to talk about this as well and about, um, you know, things where there's going to be situations where, um, they're going to be, you know, have that free will of being able to look at their phone, but what is, um, going to be one socially acceptable and two, you know, professional in various settings. um encouraging staff to have those conversations as well. So, these are just a few challenges that we we notice, but we're prepared to address them in our implementation the policy. >> Okay. Board questions or comments? >> Um I just I'm smiling because the bottom one that says teaching appropriate phone use strategies is kind of the whole point of what we're doing here. And I had a comment from a recent college grad um the other day that they

066were really struggling now because they weren't supposed to use their personal cell phone during the workday. They'd been provided one from their job um but it was only for professional use and how difficult that transition was for them and their girlfriend and their family. So I think that um you know we are actually trying to achieve that third one and I like that teachers can discuss that like it's just now much more socially accepted that when your cell phone's out you're really not present and we want people present in our high school. So hopefully it will help them someday in the real world but um and then actually I do have a question. Yeah. >> Regarding the second one, um just how can how can we as a district um help parents make this adjustment?

067Um because only one phone is in the high school office or you know like how are we going to manage that volume that may occur or you know things going to voicemail you know that kind of thing. Do we have the staffing for that? Yeah, I think um I think one good place would be um you know using our our newsletters that we send out and make sure it's clear of of where to what to call like what numbers to call for what you know our our attendance line our main office depending on what the parent is calling for what would be the appropriate um you know number to call to to make sure that it's more efficient those calls are received more efficiently and make sure that that's that's clearly communicated um through a

068newsletter ahead of this while we are also sharing what this change is going to look like. I am a little um I guess concerned with uh students being able to have them in their backpack. Um just because again I I see this more as um because it is an addiction and it is a problem for a lot of people you know checking phones unnecessarily. Um and you know it's like well I I think the urge to to check them or have them because it's right here would be strong for a lot of children. So, um I guess it'd be nice if if it doesn't like if you see it not working um like to just you know maybe we'll have to pivot a little bit and what you you know just as you go kind

069of go along it would be >> and we explored some different ideas of like what would it look like getting blockers designated for cell phones or like the bags that that some some schools use. Um, and I think like exactly what you're saying, um, instead of making a big investment that could be really changing our our school or potentially not be effective, see how effective it is. >> Yeah. >> In its current and potentially pivoting in the future if necessary. >> Okay. >> Thanks for that because this is going to be a big change first quarter, especially at the high school juniors and seniors specifically. It's it's going to be difficult and it's going to be difficult for you guys to hold the kids accountable. So, you're going to have to adjust and pivot like

070you said accordingly. And it is what it is. But as Diane said that this is in the best interest of of our children for learning, uh there's a lot of stuff that says it's this bad. >> So, thank you. Thanks for thanks for this. I appreciate it. I do think though there could be the potential of almost like a detox period that first, you know, the first couple weeks coming off of summer where it's like just a a lot some families have maybe a free-for-all all day, maybe hours and hours on it. So, um I think that'll be a good thing and I know you guys are working through that, talking through what that's going to look like, but it's going to be heavier likely the first two weeks than it will be maybe the

071remainder of the year. Um but I hope too that the students begin to see like, wow, this is kind of fun to have social interactions again. And like I think back to my years of high school, we didn't I think I got to flip-flop my senior year. Um but we didn't use it in school. We interacted with each other and it was awesome. We you know we loved it. Um and and each group finds their own um kind of group that they'll join as maybe they don't have that distraction. So I'm excited to see but I also understand that it comes with a lot of hard work initially especially. So appreciate that. Um, I would just I think it would be interesting to see maybe midy year or end of the year a survey of

072the students and the staff of the teachers of just feedback on maybe how it's impacted them and hopefully we would see good results. I think we would. Um, but I feel like that feedback might be just kind of beneficial. See if you need to pivot at all or >> anything. But I'd be interested in that. >> It's a great idea. >> And you can use the feedback to adjust what the handbook says. >> Yeah. because you know this is great but it might need to be adjusted a little bit. >> Yeah, >> I think that's great. >> Okay, >> thank you for listening for our to our concerns and that was awesome. Thanks. >> I have just a couple other slides to go through. Um so, uh facilities I'm not hitting the high school today.

073>> Um so I'll talk about the junior high. So, here's a couple recent pictures. The one on the left is uh was the chemistry lab or lab. Um and so they're doing they're busy doing the demo work on that. Uh we will you know at the end of uh this project we'll have two uh fully functioning STEM labs uh for both 8th grade. So this is this is a project that goes back many years that it was started and we're getting to that point. That's exciting. And so the perspective of the picture on the right is the library. That's with all the everything torn out. The place really looks large. And so um so they've made great progress and I got to give uh you know kudos to Mr. Carter and his team. Um they

074had this all prepped. uh they put in a lot of work outside of uh the instructional day between his custodial and maintenance staff and his library staff getting prepped uh so that when the last day of school was done that uh the contractors could get on in there uh regarding Grundy um nothing has changed. We're still uh hopeful that uh bids uh can go out mid June and uh then hopefully by our July 14th board meeting um we can bring back to the board approval for that project. Okay. Um so lastly is uh just FOYA and responses. Uh we had one FOYA that was Rhonda Howard with communications. Um moving on to the ROE compliance audit. It was a great thing this week uh with our internal team. There's a lot of work that went

075into that. I don't know how many questions were in that compliance audit, but you know, they do the site visit and then there's a there's an audit process that sits behind where we have to upload artifacts over all of these questions and there's five areas and there may be 300 questions in that area that we have to provide that. So Valerie and Kate and Todd uh did a commendable job getting those things loaded up. So we informed the ROE that our part is complete and we're just waiting to get the results uh back from that their response. Um going to throw the board a curveball here. Uh election day that was no it's coming up November 3rd. the last three years that has been by um statute that schools could not be in session on

076election day in 2020 2022 and 2024. We had every reason to believe that that was going to make the cut in this legislative cycle and we were informed on June 1st that it didn't. And so we approved a calendar that had that day as a day off. And so Dr. Teter has been busy uh working with the calendar committee and the folks with the MEA and our principles at coming up with an amended calendar proposal. So here it is. Um what we'd like to do can't take action. It's not an action item, but it would be an action item next month. uh to amend the calendar to be in school on November 3rd. So that gives us an extra day. So what are we going to do with that extra day? Uh what we had

077propose uh that we'd like to do is push our start date back one day. So instead of starting on the Monday of August, that would our inservice day would be on Tuesday, then a half day on Wednesday, and then full day Thursday, full day Friday. Um there's a couple of benefits with that. Gives us an extra day at the start uh in August. Um the uh there is a provision in our in our bargaining agreement where our teachers can come in and work prior to the start of school year one day. Um and that that allows them to work in their classrooms. And then on the two half days at the end of the first and third quarter, uh, they can swap out that time. And so, uh, if we don't make any changes to

078the start of the school year, then that would day would be on a Friday. Really be nice to just sink that on in there. So, um, we can have discussion about it. We can't take any action on it, but what we would like to do is I'd like to get just a general consensus from the board because July one's coming up. We've got our principles that would like to send out correspondence to their staff members and and their communities about the start of school. I know it's crazy. We just finished and we're already starting to queue it up. So, is that something that we think that the board would have an appetite to be okay with >> discussion? If not, thumbs up, thumbs down. >> There you go. >> Okay. Okay. So, we appreciate that.

079Okay. >> Action. >> It's not action item. >> Okay. He seems action. >> Just don't vote it down next month, okay? Because that would be bad. >> Throw me a curveball. You wait till next month. >> All right. Uh before I get to last item, I just do want to make a couple of comments about the May board meeting and we had parents and staff members talk about cell phones. Uh we also received comments regarding the district's involvement in a response to visitors and conduct on district property. While we appreciate the agreement or the engagement of all of the members, I will say this, several of the comments did not align with what was true and factual. Okay, that being said, I always I you're going to hear me say this. I our priorities remain

080clear, ensuring safe, respectful, respectable and a respectful environment for all of our students and staff and community members. And I do welcome the opportunity to meet with anyone um who is committed to those principles and helping us attain our mission on a daily basis. So um leading into the last thing was the policy uh review section six. Uh here's a precursor to the next section is we will be having we did have a policy committee so there'll be more talk but any questions for me about any of the things on the administrative report. Okay, that's all we agenda. >> Did you want to speak about foyer? >> I did. That was uh Rhonda Howard communications. >> Got um all right. So, first off, president's report may I don't know how this school does it cuz

081it flies by. I know it's 31 days, but holy. >> Anyway, it flies by. So you guys out there, teachers, principals, good job. I know it it flies by. So thanks thanks go to first off Mr. Edwards. Is he out here? >> Yes. Uh thanks for the call to whomever to to get the graduation in. I wasn't sure if it was going to happen. Maybe you can call next time to kind of calm the winds down just a little bit, but but good job for your call and uh excellent graduation as usual. So good job for that. Thanks to the handbook committee um and the tech task force. I know there was a lot of time that that put into that. Um yes, there's going to be some challenges with the 83, but I'm sure

082you guys are going to get through it and in the long run. I'm sure you guys are going to be stronger for that. Uh thanks to Jordan Spikmire. Um she sent out some updated links um well right before our meeting tonight even. And then last month I said over 50 links. Um she did correct me even though I was somewhat accurate. there's been well over 200 links. So, and for the record, I have not read through all of them, but the ones that I have read through, they're they're very interesting. So, um anyway, if you guys need to see some links, I'll be more than happy to to send what she sent. Um and then the other thing that I need to say that I haven't said is there's so much work that goes behind

083the scenes in the district. Um teachers, principals, district, uh the everybody that that puts in all the extra work. It's just it's it's amazing. Um there's a I know Don Sterm's going to present later this month at a at a mentor conference. People probably don't know that, but there's uh presentations frequently. There's a lot of work going on at the high school, the junior high. So, the the the staff that puts in all that extra work that just doesn't get noticed, it's noticed. So, I want you guys to to to be aware that we do notice these briefings that we get every month here at the board um meetings. They're phenomenal. So, the people that brief tonight and the people that brief all year long, just know that thank you for for everything that you

084do. Um there's audits that happen at at the compliance audit. There's more than just the compliance audits. So, there's all kinds of stuff. And then uh I really like the fact that the win when you said what I need to spell out win. I love that. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um congratulations again for our award uh recipients Christy Becker, Cassie Little, and and Holly Feifer. So um excellent, excellent job. I know that those were the three award winners, but I know that we have a lot of people that work hard and and probably everybody deserves an award, but those guys stood out. those gals and actually this it's g specifically. So those are the thanks uh committee updates. Let's go to extracurricular. Okay. Um so we had uh two committees that met.

085Uh we had extracurriculars. So let's let's go from the bottom up. So the extracurricular we looked at our spring sports survey data. Um, and so at the junior high we had we also Junior high is kind of a unique thing because their seasons don't always line up. So, uh, we had, uh, track. Um, we had volleyball who kind of crosses over in wrestling. Mr. Hammond, am I missing anything else with that? uh the J or the high school sports um you know we had uh boys and girls lacrosse uh track tennis uh softball and soccer and so um Mr. Edwards. I I know we're an extracurricular, so it's Do you have an update on our girls soccer team? >> Go up to Neapville on Friday. We won a 52 tonight. >> So that is great

086to hear. >> Going to be playing on Friday afternoon up at North Central College in Neapville. And then >> regardless, they'll play on Saturday whether it's for, you know, first place or third place game. So huge congratulations to them. >> Yep. Awesome. >> All right. And then we uh did senior exit surveys. And so uh Miss Layman, Mr. Onus, or our committee members, would you like to I'll turn the floor on over to you. >> I'd say just one thing real quick. Um in regards to the spring sports survey, we did something different this year. Our 80s sent those out in midmay instead of waiting for seasons to be over with, which we heard like some are still going on. So I thought that was great. I I don't know what percentage our numbers were

087at for responses, but I felt like at a glance it was a pretty large increase. So, appreciate that. >> One of the other things that uh we did discuss is the district kind of shifted on how we do uh summer camps for athletics this year. Uh just kind of the backstory on that. Uh we engaged with the park district. Uh there are other districts that also follow that same model. Um we're testing that out uh to see how that process works. Um one of the reasons why we did that is um you know we operate underneath a collective bargaining agreement and one of the things that's not in the collective bargaining agreement is how we handle summer camps. And so here we had a process that was wide open. So uh Dr. Dr. Teter and

088I and and the NEA exec board put a lot of time and Dr. Teter really put in a lot of time coming up with the options and so uh trying to hit the sweet spot of uh what um checked as many of the boxes and still delivered a good product uh for our community members or possibly outside the community that wanted to attend our camps. Running it through the park district was the recommendation. And so once we get through that process like the continuous improvement model, you know, there probably going to be some bumps in the road, but we'll circle back and see uh how that how that process works. And so at least um you know, as I've heard, you know, there's there's been some positives and then there's been some negatives. One of

089the positives was uh you know, uh Coach King and the uh girls basketball camp, he had greater numbers that signed up for it this year. Um, you know, some of the some of the takeaways is, uh, we may not have the freedoms that we had to, you know, running that just in house. Uh, but it did free up our staff and with some of the logistics and trying to get the information out. So, uh, so that was, uh, I guess you got to take it and we'll we'll come back and circle back on that. Um, anything else on extracurriculars? Okay. Then uh press policy or the policy press plus issue 121 is really a pretty good issue. There wasn't I mean there was a lot of policies that were listed in there but most of

090the updates were involved legal reference changes or continuous improvement changes and continuous improvement is just simply a language change. They're cleaning up the language in the policy. It really doesn't affect how the policy is written or how it is applied. And so most of those I think I counted about five or six policies that will be in discussion in a few moments um that we're bringing back to the board and I have discussion then we'll bring back to July uh for action on on that. But um there is quite a few policies that Valerie put together uh that will be an action item but those are pretty much the legal reference or the um continuous improvement. So Dr. call. Miss Birdie, do you have anything else to add on that? >> No, I'm I'm just

091uh I mean, you kind of touched on everything. It was actually a somewhat short meeting for policy, which was a nice a nice surprise um because it was mostly legal and just little annotation things. So, um that was good. Did are we're going to go over the ones that we need to discuss. Then >> in in discussion, there were I I've got six uh different policies that uh we're going to bring to the board because we're we're going to need your input. There are sometimes in uh the press plus where uh the board has to answer a question. And so that's why we're bringing it back to the board for clarification on those uh instead of just having, you know, two members and myself making the decisions on those. >> And we always try if

092we're changing a concept or adding to a policy for that to be a discussion item and then action. Um, and then everything else that's just updates goes just to action. So, you can read it if you want, but I always some of the questions this time seem kind of self-evident. >> And then there's um it was a great moment. we had an option and we were just all in agreement that this recommendation did not fit Morton 709. And so it was nice that we were all unanimous in it didn't reflect what we want to do. So sometimes um we do disagree with the lawyer's suggestions, but of course they only allow us to do what's legal. So it's all still above board. That was actually I think the first time in my policy experience that

093we dis I think we disagreed like with the with the lawyer's uh recommendation. So that was interesting. But um and then the other one we just added on it wasn't a press issue but we wanted to make sure it was um consistent with the handbook changes because if it if we didn't do it it wouldn't be and with the cell phone stuff. And so it was it would allow basically cell phones for like lunch and teachers to there was some verbiage in there that we'll go over, but we just wanted to be consistent um because if one's not if our policy is different than our handbook, it would maybe cause some issues. So um so yeah, >> That's it. All right. Well, thank you for the policy committee. That's one committee that I'm Go ahead.

094>> I say that every time we meet. >> I never say that about facilities. I might think it. >> That's why we're where we're at. >> You know, I love being on the palace. I think it's great. So, I'm I'm right where I need to be. >> Exactly. That's exactly. So, anyway, thanks. Thank you very much. Um, agenda building. Anything for agenda building going once, twice. All right, discussion items. >> Okay, we have three discussion items and the first one is Miss Folski is uh going to be coming up and talking about uh our FY27 budget. As a reminder, back in April, the board of uh authorized Lisa to develop a tenative budget. As as a reminder, we don't approve the budget. the formal budget until September, but the fiscal or the fiscal year starts

095in July. So, we operate underneath a tenative budget at which um Lisa is going to present. So, we operate underneath that for basically two months. And so, uh we've checked that. So, I'm going to turn the floor on over to Lisa. >> Um so, the the first page um that I'm going to talk about is just what does the end of the year this year look like? Keep in mind this is June 2nd and I still have 28 wonderful days to get through. Um so these numbers are my best guess at this point. That's all I can do. Um you know sometimes things can come in like for example if a project payment comes in that could be a few hundred,000. I have no idea if that's going to come through or not. We are

096expecting it to. So I'm kind of basing it off what we think, right? I might guess it's 200. It could be 400. So obviously the numbers could be a little bit different when I give you the final numbers in August, but for right now this is my best guess. Um, as you can see under the O andM fund, um, we had budgeted 9.3 million that we were going to use of reserves. We didn't even come close to that. As you can see on the bottom, so the top is our actual budget and the it should say it shouldn't say tentative. I'm sorry. That should just say budget there at the top. The bottom are our preliminary actuals. Okay. So again, my best guess is at the bottom. So big difference in our O andM fund.

097Um but of course those funds, as you know, I always say this almost every year carry over, right? I thought we were going to make more payments this year, projects get delayed, going out for bid, timing of when it started, payments, all of that plays a role. Um so we will just be that into the next fis fiscal year. Um, I still anticipate some additional revenue from some grants, evidence-based funding, that kind of thing. Again, it's 28 more days of this year. Um, and then one thing to note, um, the ED fund. So, you can see I had anticipated 317,000 um, but we're ending up with closer to 900,000. Um, lots of things play a role in that. More interest income. You always hear me say that, but I can never guess that. I don't

098know. Um, a year ago when I was doing my budget, I do my best. I think I know, but as you know, a lot of things were trending one way for a while and then they're going back the other way. So, um, when I did the budget, that's kind of what I was basing it off of. And so, we've gotten more interest income than I anticipated, which then results in more money, which is great, right? Um, in transportation. So, this is uh one thing I wanted to make sure that I run by you and if you had any objections. So, this year I did not budget for one additional bus payment. However, our buses are getting older and older and we're needing more buses. So, I went out and I looked at what are our

099options and as you know a few months ago you approved the bus lease, right? Well, instead of having three payments next year, I want to do the last payment of the old lease in this fiscal year because, as you can see, even with doing that, we're only going to be at a deficit of $32,000. So, I'm going to make that payment this year as long as nobody objects here. Um, and uh that just allows for the lease of the five new buses plus our other lease because we usually have two leases going at all times. That's all we can afford. can't afford anything more than that in the transportation fund because of funding, you know, restraints. Um, but that's kind of just to keep us consistent with those two payments. So, as long as everybody's

100okay with that, that's what I'd like to do. Um, so other than that, no big surprises. Um, you know, the working cash fund, um, pretty much what we thought it was going to be. As you knew, I took the two and a half million, um, and put it to the on&m, well, no, I'm sorry, the capital projects fund this year. Um, and so that is also another reason why their O andM numbers did not uh get utilized as much because I you I used our bond money first, our bond proceeds that we we sold a couple years ago as well as um our transfer of working cash to the capital projects fund. I use those funds first because that's the only purpose for those funds and we knew that going into it. Um and then

101we go to the O andM funds. So we didn't need as much as I was anticipating. Like I said, timing. Um, this next one is just our what does this year look like as the year end of year fund balances. Um, as you know, we have the 180day um minimum that we look at. So again, our on&m fund, it looks huge, but that is because we have those reserves that are um set aside for the projects that we're working on. that number is not going to be that large. Um, when you look at the transportation, you see it says 171, but that is because of that payment I just mentioned to you would drop it temporarily with that extra payment. And without that extra payment, we'd be at 182 days. We're we're fine in that

102fund. And then you'll see in the next pages that I show when I'm doing next year's, we're up above that 180 days. So, you know, there's there's no issue there. So this is what I am proposing for our very tentative budget as Dr. Sander mentioned. Um my my best uh thoughts guesses based on lots of different things. I mean there are just some things I don't know yet. You know I don't know what our CBPRT is going to look like. Guessing it's going to look like last year's or something similar, but wouldn't it be wonderful if it was a lot higher like it was a few years ago? Um I always I'm hopeful. I'm always hopeful. Um, but I won't know those numbers till July or August. So, I'm using my best guess. I won't

103know my transportation claim um or reimbursement from that because I don't do that claim until the end of the year. June 30th isn't here yet. So, um I also don't exactly know where we stand with the Grundy project, right? Because we haven't gone out for bid. I'm doing my best guesses. Um, health insurance, that one is a little bit trickier and we won't actually know those numbers probably till more like August. We'll have a better guess, I would guess. Um, so that might play a role in some numbers changing between now and then. And then evidence-based funding, I won't know those numbers till July as well. So, but what we do know is the projects that we're looking at, that is a big big number. Um and our total on&m um expenditure budget I apologize

104that should say FY27 not FY26 there at the bottom that is my my air um is a little over 15 million. So the projects at the top are just lining out where is that money coming from. For the most part um 11.45 million is all in those projects. So you've got either projects or professional services that are related to it, that kind of thing. Um, Brown Windows, Brandy expansion, um, the STEM labs, as Dr. Sander talked about, we still have a lot of that remaining carryover the weight room. We've done some big payments and as I explained, I used mostly the bond proceeds and the um, working cash that we transferred to date, but I will be using O andM funds here going forward. Um, some of these numbers though aren't the total amounts because

105I don't know where we're going to stand on the office uh or the old wait room to office renovation. So, I'm putting a number in there because if we do get far enough along with that, I want to have money available in order to do that. Um, same thing with the tennis reservicing. I know that's a very top of the list thing that we want to get done. um 200,000 isn't going to cover it, >> but it's a starting point for us in case we are able to get some work done. Um and same thing with Martin Academy. It's a placeholder right now if if we have some so we have some choices and we're not limited in FY27 to move forward. And then the rest of it is of course salaries and benefits. It's

106always a big number um of 2.2 million and then routine bills and equipment 1.6 So based on that budget, this is our preliminary fund balances for FY27. So as you can see on the far right, all of the numbers are well above that 180. We're doing just fine, but as you can see, our on and m dropped quite a bit. We're using our reserves as long as we use our reserves. Um, as far as the ed fund and and actually this really goes for all the funds. So, every year I send the budgets out to the different principles or administrators that have budgets. Um, I typically try to give a little bit of an increase because things are more expensive. This is not a year I did that. Um, I I explained to them I

107can't risk that. We're not in that kind of situation. As you can see with our um ED fund right now, if it's as I think it could end up, we're at a negative 514,000. That's not the place we want to see be. Obviously, that might not come to fruition. I hope it doesn't. I hope I get more revenue. I hope maybe our health insurance doesn't increase as much as I'm budgeting it, you know, that's going to increase. There are lots of things that could play, you know, make that a different number. But I can't see the future and I don't know what that's going to end up like. So, I did not give any increases to anyone. So, um, it's hard to do that. I don't you know we are a great district and we're

108good financial standing but we have to be smart and look to the future and I don't know what the following year or two years out is going to look like. So that's kind of the reason behind that. Okay. Um in the capital projects fund um you can see we're balancing out to zero because like I said we're going to utilize the rest of that. That again is the combination of that bond money along with the working cash money that I transferred. Um, and I think I think that was all I wanted to say on that one. And then you just reiterating, I always have this on here just so you guys keep this fresh in your mind. Um, we've mentioned this in other uh areas, but our first payment for the working cash bonds was

109in um 25 and our last payment would be in 34. Um, assuming that you know we go that route. So, okay. Any questions? >> Yes, I'm slow. So, can you back up to 25 26? >> I see the 180 above uh to keep going back. >> Yes. >> Uhhuh. >> So, right here where 3.7 over spent. >> Yes. But that's intentional because the biggest portion of it as you can see is in the on&m fund. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> Um you know the bond and interest we're a little over but but that's okay. We always have interest in there and we're utilizing that. Um that is something that is not set by us. It's what this the county is able to collect is what our revenue is in that fund. That's not a I

110can't project that. Um, but we do have reserves because we have interest income on an annual basis. >> That's really all I need to know. I'm a black white person in this case, red black person. And >> no, you're right. >> That's a little scary. >> Um, same thing in capital projects. We we utilized more than we brought in, right? Because we had the reserves in there. We had money already in there. We don't we didn't bring in more than what we were spending. So therefore, it's going to be a negative number there. Yeah, >> makes sense. Thank you. Thanks for the >> and the tort fund. I will I will I'm glad you brought that up because I did have that note and I did mention this earlier for the tort fund. We had

111two SR it's SRO, right? SRO two SRO payments this year because if you remember um we started making the payments, but we didn't do that last year. They didn't give us the bills this year. So on so forth. And we also had a crossing light. So we intentionally used because we did have a good amount of reserves in there. We intentionally use the funds this year and next year it won't work like that. >> Okay. >> No. Thank you. >> Makes sense. Okay. Anything else? >> Thanks, Lisa. >> Great. Thank you. >> Okay. Uh moving on to discussion item number two is the press plus 121 issue. as as I mentioned earlier or what was mentioned earlier uh these are the five uh six uh policies that uh we need to bring to the board.

112The first one is the types of school board meetings. Um this there wasn't a lot of things that were changed but there is a question that needs to be you know answered by the board. Um, this policy, let's see. Does the board post notices and agendas for special meetings at the location where the meeting is to be held in addition to posting them here at the district office? For example, we've had special meetings at Morton High School. Our past practice has been that we also post the agendas at Morton High School. And so that's one of the questions. Um, our recommendation is that that would be yes to answer that. So we just be consistent. It's good in transparency. Um and so any questions on that one or discussion on that? Um then moving on

113to uh school board meeting procedures. The question, this one also asks the question, does the board take a roll call vote on all action items? Well, we don't take a roll call vote on all action items like when we adjourn. Um that is just a all in favor say I. And so uh which is perfectly permissible. There is uh regulations that anything that involves the expenses and help me out here team. Uh there was one other thing that we do roll call votes on and so we're in compliance with that. So, any questions or discussion on that item? Okay. The next one, uh, leaves of absence. Uh, there was new language that was put into this policy on the family neonatal intensive care leave, uh, which I believe it's 20 days and that went into

114effect um, yesterday. uh it's 20 days of leave for an employee that would qualify underneath this that uh is outside of FMLA. So it's it's unpaid leave. Um and so that language is pretty straightforward. I mean it's it's legislation. It's uh so we have to offer it. Um but the vote is this is one that Dr. Cross said we really don't have a choice in this. Um the question is is that do we employ more than um I think it's 51 >> uh full or part-time employees and so we're naturally going to mark yes we do. Any questions on that or discussion? >> Okay. 4165 was the awareness uh and prevention of child sex abuse and grooming behaviors. This is the one where we pivoted from the recommendation. Um so in the policy uh the

115recommendation was to strike the language in paragraph 4 that reads uh provide parents guardians of students in any grades K through eight with not less than 5 days written notice before uh commencing any class or course providing instruction in recognizing and avoiding sexual abuse as well as the opportunity to object in writing. So, um the recommendation was to strike that. Um we were all in agreement that you know uh parents rights in this district is is a major priority and so we're recommending that we keep that language. Any discussion on that? It's perfectly legal for parents to know what their children are being taught and when they will be taught that. And so we are perfectly legal in saying we want to leave that in our policies. Is this specific? And then the schoolboard meeting

116procedure, we have to call role if we're going to go into a closed to the public session. So those are the two things. If we spend money, we have to do it by name. And then if we're going to exclude people from our meetings. So those were the two. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Then uh the next two were not in the press 121 issue, but uh we brought them uh we're bringing them to the board. Uh the first one is we have a policy on recognition for service that had language in there for the master master potter award. Um and so what we'd like to do is add the additional language for the Dana Ashb and the potter's hand award to the policy. So we literally just grabbed those and added it to it. And

117then the last one um Miss Birdie kind of mentioned uh earlier about student behavior. uh this is a long policy and there is a section there's a paragraph that talks about cell phone use and so um one of the things that to be compliant with what we're doing uh there is a subsection in that paragraph that allows the supervising teacher to grant permission for use of cell phones. So we're striking our recommendation is to strike that. uh there is uh in the existing policy and and this is a good point um use of a device that is provided uh in a student's IEP or 504 plan. So that that was there. I know that that had been a question about you know the cell phone policies. Well, we got to we got to you know

118if it's part of the IEP plan or the 504 um that we need to allow it. uh item an item that we're striking is in our policy it had a provision that says it is used during the students lunch period. Well, we're striking that uh can't use policy are the cell phones during the lunch period. And then uh item C which will become C is it is need an emergency that threatens the safety of students, staff and other individuals. So that was a discussion point and then we also included um one that was not part of a recommendation or anything but we just talking through it or as authorized by the building administration and that is just on a case-byase basis in the event that something were to happen. I, you know, who knows in

119our in our crazy existence that we live in where um it would give the building administrator authorization to um allow um cell phone use by a student in a certain set of circumstances. So discussion on this one. Our goal really was not to um recommend taking away a teacher's ability to grant permission for something to happen in their classroom. It really is to um support staff unity and help everything to be as consistent as possible and then to move those extenduating circumstances decisions to the administration so that it's a smaller more consistent group of decision makers. Um, one example, and I'm sorry to take your thunder, but Cristiana brought up in our discussion. You know, there are so many times where we can't put everything into the policy and we really do trust our high

120school administrators. For instance, if a parents in the hospital or, you know, things like that, we want to be compassionate and um, flexible. So, um, that's the explanation there. Um, I'm we'll see how it plays out. I would like feedback as well, um, to us from the administration. How did this verbiage work? We we definitely don't want to be too restrictive in any way or micromanage how this plays out. So >> I think that goes into the exception to every rule >> that way. There is that in policy in the handbook. There is ex there are exceptions and the administration can accept those exceptions. Any other discussion? So then the plan would be um later in the board meeting, these are not part of the action item. Uh it's all the ones that were included

121in the press packet. Uh but at the July board meeting, there will be an action item u with discussion on the items that were presented here as recommended by the policy. So, okay, our last discussion item and we give Lindsay and Courtney an opportunity to come on up and I'll give them time. Um, this is a concept that we kind of talked about for some time about changing the dismissal time at Morton Academy from 2:45 to 2:00. And so, here are some of the highlights there. uh they're going to, you know, touch upon teaching planning or teacher planning time. They'll get into more detail. Um uh trying to cover a teacher's planning period. You know, if we shift it to the end of the day, then um then we don't have any schedule conflicts with

122trying to give teachers their um you know, according to our CBA or in accordance with our CBA, all of our teachers are allotted uh planning periods throughout the day. Um I know it's going to be crazy. you're going to be scratching your head. How can we reduce the day but maximize instructional time? They'll hit that. But uh the the requirement that we are uh that we need to make sure happens is that there's five o'clock hours instructional time. With that, I'm going to turn it over to our duo. All righty. Thank you. So, this is something that we have thought about for a long time. Um and we have surveyed other public day programs and when we did shift over to Morton Academy uh officially being a public day, we really started considering um you

123know looking at how do we align to other public days in the area. Also, uh between 11:00 and 1 is our most challenging time of the day for our students at Morton Academy. It's our lunch and recess uh and then it's our specials time like PE and music. And that's uh when we historically have always seen a high level of behaviors and then it's been very difficult to get our students back and Courtney can attest to that, you know, and it's pulling our um certified staff member from their planning time or from their um duty-free lunch to come and support students during that time and then allowing them to get back to that ready to learn uh stage after that 1:00 time is really challenging. Uh so this proposal aligns with other public days in

124the area. We surveyed five and Courtney has that data for us. Uh but this would also guarantee that teachers would get their plan time at the end of the day which really they don't get very often. Uh and then additionally it would um use our certified staff to help during those unstructured times like recess and lunch as well as they'd still get their duty-free lunch but they'd be helping during the student recess and lunch. Uh and then during that specials time they would also be present when we see a lot of those behaviors. So if you want to talk about some of that between Lindsay and myself we've talked to five of the therapeutic day schools in the area and several of their school hours range from 8:15 to 2:30. Um, and then looking at

125their plan periods, a lot of them when looking at everything, most of them were taking a half hour, 45 minutes either in the morning and then they have an additional period of time after the kids leave. So I have all of that information for you guys. And then with lunch and recess, teachers and pairs were with the kids and in their classrooms um and with the team collaboration time. And that's really important at Morton Academy. We need to have an opportunity to debrief and to meet those students needs. And with that looking at team collaboration, some of these meetings were done in the morning and in the afternoon. Um, some annual reviews were throughout the day, but when it came to problem solving, it was done after school. Looking at the behavior tracking system and

126level system at Mort Academy, we have a behavior tracking system where we track student behavior every 15 minutes so that every student gets an opportunity if it's not going well that 15 minutes later they get a fresh start. Um, so we have been working with those other schools to gather their tracker information and how they collect that data. And then we are looking with Allison Baker, Rachel, Gordon, and myself. We are going to implement a level system in the upcoming school year. >> So in the end, the ultimate goal is to increase that learning time that we've been losing at the end of the day because they've been unregulated and we can't give them back to Ray to learn. And so with this uh we feel like it's going to provide more students uh more

127support to our students but it's also supporting our staff to ensure they get that planning time. Questions? >> What's the downside? >> I'm not seeing a downside right now. Um well, okay, I could say this that um this does it no longer align their school day to our other elementary schools. There is that. And so when we're going to if we are looking at transitioning a student back, uh this would be similar if we were any other public day or private day program, those schedules don't align either. So, you do have to work out those logistics, but we'll work alongside our families and um then also whatever building we're integrating into to discuss what does that look like for the student uh and how can we maximize uh their success for that transition. That would

128be one. >> I was wondering because being out early in terms of family like well transportation picking them up, what what's happens quote after school like after school care? Has it changed that? Like have you talked to families at all about it or >> we haven't. We wanted to start here and then we were going out to that >> because the fear is that you go and talk to families but then you guys had not heard about it. So it's that balance. >> The teachers will be there till 2:45. The kids are going to leave at 2. >> Yeah, I get that. I see all >> 3:40. >> So they'll have that 7:50 to 3:40. So between 2:00 and 3:40, that gives them an opportunity to have their prep, like their planning and everything. And

129then that gives me an opportunity to connect with each staff member, making sure that they have everything they need. And if we need to problem solve or debrief about a situation that occurred throughout the school day, we can do so during that time. >> Yeah, I thought it looked good when I looked over it earlier. I was impressed just with the the thought process that went into it. Um I'm sure I know you looked at five other schools. I'm sure you've tossed the idea out to staff and I'm they're probably thrilled, aren't they? >> Yes. >> Okay. Cuz I would being I was a teacher for 3 years, you know, and and knowing how important that prep time is and also remembering how interrupted it is during the day. um that's going to be key

130for their success and um sanity as well, you know, just to be able to continue on and be prepared for that next day when everything comes in at you. So, I like that a lot. >> To your point, uh Courtney mentioned in those goals that Dr. Sandra reviewed earlier about instructional time with you know the coaches. This would be a wonderful time for them to meet with the instructional coaches to really dedicate and focus on it versus having to run out be like hold on let me go to do this or hold on or we're going to have to come back another day. >> The other thing we were there we were there during lunchtime and I didn't see a single teacher having planning time. They were all with kids. >> Yeah. No lunch, no

131nothing. Just with kids. Yeah. So, this would make sure ensure they're getting what they need. >> Well, thank you for doing that. As uh Lindsay mentioned, our next step would be to continue the conversations with our CYFS staff, our parents, transportation. Um never really been through this process where we've changed the school day. I think you know administratively we can do that but I'll I'll keep the board informed like as to the next step on this if we need to have an action item we can do that we like to keep it somewhat flexible because if we get down the road and recognize that we need to pivot make some changes that we have the ability to do that. We'll continue to evaluate just like you know we discussed with everything today you know how

132how it's working you know have this been a positive change. >> Okay. Thank you very much. >> Okay. All righty. >> On to action items. All right. So action item A. Okay. So, I have a motion for the board of education to approve the revised 2627 district handbook as presented. >> So, move >> and discussion. We discussed a whole bunch last month. >> Well, I think it looked really good. I think um I was pleased with I mean the admin listened to our concerns and our conversation and I think it it looked it turned out really well. >> Yeah, agreed. And it wasn't just us. I mean there's >> Well, yes, but just that whole just that Yes. >> And again, I said it earlier, but um this is anytime that you make a change,

133you might have to adjust the change. So just be prepared for that and the administration I know is going to be prepared for that as well. So all right call the role. >> Yes sir. Mrs. Layman. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perie. >> Yes. >> Mr. Roth. >> Yes. >> Mr. Red. >> Yes. >> Mr. Onus. >> Yes. >> Dr. Cross. >> Yes. >> And Dr. Crawl. >> Yes. >> You did Valerie? >> Yeah. We're good. >> Okay. Do I have a motion for the board of education to approve the press issue number 121 updates as presented? >> So moved. >> Support. >> Any more discussion? >> Valerie call. >> Mr. Roth. >> Yes. >> Dr. Cross. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perie. >> Yes. >> Mr. Red. >> Yes. >> Mr. Onus. >> Yes. >> Dr.

134Crawl. >> Yes. >> And Mrs. Layman. >> Yes. Okay. Um, do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? >> So moved. >> Support. >> Any discussion? Anything that needed mention? >> Um, just, you know, here are some of the highlights that are kind of different, but every year we do the treasures uh for the school district, uh, designated depositories and signitories. um the interfund loan transfers liability insurance renewal. Um so that's included. Every year we have to the board has to approve the hazardous bus routes. And then um lastly, we do have a donation. Um I believe it was a $1,000 anonymous donation to uh Letty Brown special education if I got that right. Um and it was through the Morton Community Foundation. So, any chance I get to plug the

135Morton Community Foundation, I'm going to take that opportunity. So, thank you uh for those that continue to support our schools in in uh special ways. >> And uh thanks to the the coaches, extracurriculars for getting it out and plenty of time. I know last year, the year before, we had a little bit of time. Now that we're down to once a month, it even becomes meeting that is it comes more crucial to get that stuff in. So, good job. All right. >> Mr. Onus, >> yes. >> Mrs. Pertie, >> yes. >> Mrs. Layman, >> yes. >> Mr. Roth, >> yes. >> Mr. Red, >> yes. >> Dr. Cross, >> yes. >> Dr. Crawl, >> yes. >> And we have no non-aggenda related audience presentations. >> All right. With that, do I have a motion for

136the board to enter into close session >> for the litigation >> purpose of personnel lease of property personnel and litigation? >> So moved. >> Supported. >> Dr. Cross. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Layman. >> Yes. >> Dr. Crawl. >> Yes. >> Mr. Onus, >> yes. >> Mr. Red, >> yes. >> Mr. Rock, >> yes. and Mrs. Birdie. >> Yes. >> Les, did that go fast enough for you this time?