001[Music] I'll try. >> All right, let's get this meeting started. Call to order. >> All right, let's do the pledge. 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. So, we're going to start with the agenda. >> Oh, sorry. Roll call. My bad. >> Dr. Cross, Dr. Crawl >> preserv Mrs. Layman >> here >> Mr. Onusa >> here >> Mrs. Purie >> here Mr. Roth >> and Mr. red >> here. >> All right. So, the agenda related to audience presentations. Every board meeting provides two opportunities for public comments. 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.
002Second session of public comments at the end of the meeting is for other communication 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 and topic and turn it in prior to beginning of the first segment of public comments. If you wish to speak and have not yet turned in a card, now is your final opportunity. The board of education will consider all comments and respond if necessary promptly. We ask that your comments address the board of education, not the audience. We will limit your comments to five minutes. Participants are expected to conduct themselves with civility and respect and follow the guidelines outlined in board policy A30. Visitors to and conduct on school property. Further information about public participation
003of board of education meetings can be found in board policy 2230. Do we have anybody? >> We have one for the non-aggenda related topics. >> Okay. Move for that. Okay. All right. So, let's go to reports. Okay. We have a number of reports um on schedule for tonight. And first up, I'd like to have Miss Scrogs come on up to give an update uh to the board on student support services. she's going to break this out. Uh we're doing something different this year. As you know, Student Support Services has a very large umbrella. They cover a plethora of programs and so she's going to hit on uh preschool and rise and and I'm going to turn it on over and let her um take the show. >> Okay. Well, thank you for having me. Um
004I'm honored to kick off our student support um services series for the board. you're going to hear from us four times this year and um this is my third year in this position and I absolutely love it. I feel like I got all the good things under my wheelhouse. Um so one of the things that our teams have we as we've reflected on um Dr. Sander sharing about our mission and vision, right? One thing that came out in conversation is that we don't just have a mission, we're on a mission for the kids that are under our care. So, we're really, really excited to share with you um preschool multilingual rise and life academy. So, we're going to start with preschool. You've heard probably the most about preschool over the past several years, and we'll
005give you a little update on our numbers. So, um under preschool, it's really two programs. We have our PFA program, and then within PFA, we have general education, special education, and multilingual students. And then we also have our intensive early childhood classroom that serves only students with IEPs and is a much more therapeutic environment for students with higher needs. Our pre our PFA teachers wear two hats. They're dual certified general education and special education teachers at the same time. So um we're going to start up at the top um with enrollment and currently we have 79 students enrolled in our program. Um, when you look down to early intervention, there's going to be 27 kids that are coming to us through early intervention. And I start working with them when they're about two and a
006half years old. I start connecting with their parents. We have transition meetings from the therapeutic environment that they're in, transitioning them into school. Our preschool team works with those parents and EI to get them all transitioned, all set up with an IEP if they if they need one to be ready to go by the start date of their third birthday. So when you see that we do not have entirely full enrollment, those are IEP spots that are being held because we are required to serve those kids that are coming in from early intervention. So we have to have a spot for them. So they're coming. They they just keep coming. Um, developmental screening. That's something we do four times a year. And the past couple years since our numbers have skyrocketed since we got PFA.
007We screen about a 100 students a year. We've held two screenings so far and we're at 45. So out of those meetings also comes opportunities to evaluate kids and make sure that we are doing our part in child find to make sure they get the services that they need when they're young. Lastly is our collaboration with Head Start. Um, this is new to me, but we have um an agreement with them where if we have a student in our district who um is a general education student who wants to be in preschool, but also needs an um a free opportunity for preschool, they have buses that come and we can send them there. So, we've done that with four of our kids and are working on another one. So, do you guys have any questions
008on the numbers? We talked about a lot of different things. >> Our max is 180. What's the >> So, we So, we were awarded 107 seats from Isby for preschool. Right now, I have capacity for 80. So, the enrollment that you see also includes our ECE program. So total enrollment for preschool that we have is 100 but of those 100 80 currently right now are funded through the PFA grant. Good question. So as you know um you probably heard about our monitoring visit um our teachers to say that they were a little nervous might be an understatement. They had very high expectations for themselves. Um it's a process that was new to all of us. So, um, we really wanted to have our ducks in a row, and I was really proud of the team.
009Um, but there's an auditor. They come in, they spend two days in the classrooms, um, taking data, walking around, observing, listening, looking at our routines, our procedures, how we have things set up, and then she comes over and she spends a day with me going through all of our files, our systems, our procedures, how we bring kids in, how we screen kids. Um, and our results were, we were very proud of our results. Um, I was very happy with them this year. Um, but to ease a little bit of the tension for our team before the monitoring process started, I wanted them to hear from our community. Um, because that's really our clientele, right? The people in front of us, the kids in front of us. So, at the end of the first year of
010preschool, I sent a survey to our parents. Um, and what we found was that 90% of parents found that their child had exceptional or very good growth for their first year in preschool. We found that 90% of our parents um had a very positive or excellent connection with their case manager, classroom teacher, IEP team. And then when they rated their overall satisfaction with their preschool program, they had 96% had a really excellent or very good response. So I told our preschool staff, this is our clientele. like this is what we're aiming for and if the state says we're doing a great job that's the cherry on top. So I was very proud of them, very proud of how they worked through. Um we all had challenges but um they came through it as a team
011which I'm very proud of them for. So these are some of the goals we've um we've set for our preschool this year. Um in addition to the monitoring process, every year um we are required to write or update a quality improvement plan for preschool. So that's um one of the second goals we have. Um we'll continue with our curriculum, but overall the biggest thing that we want to do. We're the first we're the first door for so many families when they come in and we want to create an incredibly positive experience for them so they know how they have a team of people around them that are going to walk through whatever education looks like for them. Some can be challenging, some can be, you know, uncertain about what preschool looks like. So, um, we
012just want to create some really positive first foundations for them when they come to Morton. >> All right. Do you guys have any questions on the preschool program before I jump to switch gears and go to multilingual? Okay, on to multilingual. Um, I love the progress our multilingual team has made. We've um restructured how we provide services to kids and in the last two years we've exited more students than we had in every year prior, which I'm incredibly proud of. Um, we've got all kinds of different languages here that you can see represented across our district. Um, one of the most unique things about our program is when you look at that grade level content plus linguistic supports equals language acquisition and academic growth at the same time. They have a challenging task, our multilingual
013students. and to observe specifically in the high school when you see kids learning academic content that is on grade level and also going between several languages in the classroom. It is just it's quite a sight and I absolutely love it. Um so we're going to go here. So students start the registration process um is really where our multilingual services begin. This year we screened 24 kids that were new to the district and said yes, someone in my home speaks another language or that the child themselves speaks another language. A yes to either of those questions indicates that we need to have a screening process for them. So we do this before school because as we know if you walk into Letty Brown or Grundy or Lincoln and you meet your you meet the secretaries and
014you meet the principal you're going to say I want to go to that school. Um, however, our attendance center is at Jefferson. So, if we can um get kids to Jefferson, we can provide them more intensive services every day and see their language acquisition grow much faster. So, we screen kids before u before that registration day occurs so that they can get funneled to the correct school. Um overall we have 54 kids between preK all the way up to 22 and then 12 of them um 12 of them right now are on a monitored status. So we monitor kids for two years and they transition to a monitored status after um they've reached a certain proficiency level on the access test. So yearly we will give them an access test and that um rates their
015proficiency level. Once they get to a certain level, they're deemed proficient um and fluent. That does not always translate to very difficult, rigorous academic coursework. So, we make sure to follow for two years to check in with the teachers to collaborate and provide support. Um you can see some program highlights over there. Um we love our family engagement nights. Um if you get an opportunity, come to the bowling alley with us. We usually do that um in November at some point. Um we have a great time. We had several um iPhones going last year with family overseas showing them exactly, you know, meeting teachers and all of that. It was it was wonderful. Um another unique piece of our multilingual team is we provide a lot of translation and interpretation services. So, if any any
016document needs translated, um if IEEP meetings need um support with a translator or if we need interpretation services for a parent meeting, we facilitate that as well. Um and then lastly, uh our team got to go to the statewide multilingual conference last year, which is was a huge highlight to be around other educators who um teach English learners and get PD that is specifically focused on children who are learning another language. So, some of our goals this year include um we've worked a lot with Mr. Edwards on the one Morton mindset and we were invited to um come to our high school class and they created posters. There's a link in there for you guys. You can see it, but they created posters to celebrate um holidays unique to their culture and then to teach
017us all a little bit of their language. Um, so those are going to go up around Wharton High School and we're really excited about that to promote the one M Wharton mindset. Um, our our multilingual teachers also wear several hats. So, yes, they're certified in multilingual, but yes, they're also certified to be an English teacher or a history teacher. Um, and they're wearing dual hats providing um these specific courses um for students who may need more English support but need to meet the content area requirements for graduation. And then lastly, just like general education and special education collaborate, our multilingual teachers are leaning into so many classes. Um was a bit comical with uh we leaned into the driver's ed class last year, supporting an English learner learning to drive. That was a class I'd
018never worked in before, but they um they do a great job leaning in and supporting wherever is needed to make sure our kids are successful. Do you have any questions on multilingual? >> I have a question. Yeah. I mean, I know the answer, but if you could just share maybe a little like at a high level with the language barrier between the teacher and the students, >> like how that bridges how that works. >> Um, our students are very proficient in technology. >> So, like on my phone, I have the translate the Google translate app. We don't have many students right now that are at the junior high or high school level that are brand new speakers. So a lot of times when they come in come in they've got that conversational piece. It's the
019academic piece that gets really challenging. They would be able most of our students would be able to talk to you about a lot of things about what they did during their day. But if we ask them to write an essay or something it's it's incredibly difficult. >> Yeah. Um, but when it does occur, we utilize a lot of technology and we teach them how to use how to leverage technology to communicate and learn content. >> Yeah, thank you. Really good question. >> There's a lot of languages. >> Yeah. >> Not realize that. So, >> yeah, >> kudos to all of you. >> Yeah, it's a it's a it's a really cool it's really cool. We enjoy it. All right, we're going to move on to Rise and Life Academy. So, you can Oh my goodness,
020my space didn't show up. So, there's actually a space there between reaching independence with supported education and living independently for everyone. Those are our program acronyms. Um, we currently serve 48 students, um, from K all the way up to 22. Um the majority of our students are at the high school and all of the students in our RISE program um have cognitive disabilities. Some have behavioral challenges, some have communication differences, some have complex medical needs. Um the self-efficacy of this team is um phenomenal. The collaboration between our teachers, our related service providers, and our pair professionals. Um it's a beautiful thing to watch. Uh we also, if you notice on here, we have three students who are transitioned in from another district. So, um Lindsay and I uh field uh phone calls probably at least
021monthly at least saying, "Hey, can we come? We'd like we'd like to send our child. Hey, we have a kid in this district." Um uh so we're full, but we're really proud of our programs and we absolutely love serving um serving these students. Uh so some of our program highlights. Um we love the community- based instruction. Many of you have seen our students out in the community. That's where we want them to be. We want them to be learning, building connections. Um, we did a video last year on the the businesses that we have going, the Pride House, the Classy Company, and the Morton Rising Company. But the last three up there is really where I want to draw your attention. And that's where our goals are focused this year is the prevocational and vocational
022skills that are going to offer our kids opportunities for volunteer work in the community, customized employment or um oh my goodness, what's the word? Just employment, just general employment in our community. Um, we're al we also get to partner with the University of Illinois with the Illinois Center for Transition and Work this year and they're going to be working with us on every early out to really develop um a scope and sequence for our students to make sure that every student in our program has access to meaningful work opportunities. So, a big part of that is going to be Pay Lab. And I'm so glad you asked, what is the Pays Lab? I want to talk to you about that. Um, yeah, it's showing up a little funny and I don't know why. So, the
023pays lab is a practical assessment exploration system. It takes up an entire classroom in the high school and if you can you can see kind of behind there there's task boxes and each box represents a specific task. There's five different areas that students can work in. business, marketing, computer technology, construction and industrial, processing and production, and consumer services. Within each of those tasks, there's different different within each of those areas, there's different tasks that go across and then the level of um difficulty varies as you go down. So this is um a very cool system that can be adapted to any learner and we can provide hands-on training and skills for our students to then participate in a job opportunity in the community. This is excellent opportunities um for students to really find out what
024they like and what they're good at. Um there's things like there's there's uh data processing in there all the way to like measuring and wood cutting. It's all in this class. So, um I would love to bring any of you to see what this looks like because it's a it's a very cool system. Um we're going to use the data. So, there's an app that comes with this and we are going to use the data that we get from this to identify gaps in our curriculum where we can um hone up what what our teaching looks like in independent living to make sure kids have the prerequisite skills to participate in this. And then we can take the data that we get from the pays lab and say, "Hey, um Mr. employer, they have, you
025know, 99% accuracy when they're filing. Um, and then we can connect them with great job opportunities. So, these are some of the goals and we've um separated them. These are more of our our K6 goals. Um, we really want to focus on the community- based instruction and continue to really lean into the transition between schools. transitioning um can be very challenging for our students to to get to know new teachers, new buildings. So, we use that community- based instruction time to go together places. So, you'll see our elementary and our junior high go together. You'll see our junior high and our high school go together. And then there's some events we do all together as a team. And then these are our goals that are more focused on grade seven all the way through age
02622. Um for every student that comes uh of for 14 years old, we have to write a transition plan for them. And in that transition plan, we're required to have three goals in the areas of education, independent living, and employment. So employment is really the one that we're drilling down on this year to make sure that our students are getting um those experiences that they're going to need when they leave um when they leave us and move into adulthood. Um, lastly, I want to draw your attention to the Rising Company because you're going to see more from them. They are busy, busy planners and they're coming up with some excellent opportunities for our students. Um, so I think you're going to love that. We'll be back with more on that. Um, and then lastly, they're
027also working to further the one Morton mindset um through unified sports. Um, they participated in our unified field day. If you got a chance to watch the video, Andrea White does just a phenomenal job. She took all the pictures that we took that day, random footage, and and made it look like very organized. So, I was incredibly thankful to her for sharing that with you all. Do you have any questions on Rise or Life Academy? >> So, like Skills USA has like a co-op with certain businesses. Does Life Life Academy have a co-op with certain businesses? So, I wouldn't um necessarily call it a co-op, but um most we have a lot of students that are in our um what used to be called the it's it's called the PET program. That's what they're in.
028And it is where we are able to connect them with job opportunities. We've got kids at the Morton movie theater. We've got kids at um say the funeral home. We've got students working at Morton High School um doing janitorial work. We've got students at restaurants in the community. Um, and then we've got other students that are in volunteer opportunities. So, we have a job coach at the high school and she does a great job connecting um, kind of in that bridge between the high school and our businesses. Um, and then we provide transportation to those as well. >> And it's all more community businesses that the kids go to or >> most of them are. Some of them are not. We have some that are outside of our community. Um, but yeah, we we want
029to get them into what their where their interest lies. So yeah, great question. >> And Bethany, what is that is that the new program is that the DHS step? >> Yes. >> Okay. And so the other when the students achieve and am I saying this right outcomes? >> Yes. >> Certain outcomes. >> Then there's additional funding, >> correct? >> That goes back to support the continual growth of the program. So the more success we have, the more that we can also receive to continue to >> buy things like the PAS lab and and make updates there as well. >> And that will really be a big part of what we're doing with the UI with um the Illinois Center for Transition Work, is making sure that we're connecting and PET, which is formerly STEP, is
030a huge part of that. um we have to report monthly on their hours and the wages that students have worked on and um to make sure that we're coaching them effectively in their job places. Any other questions? Okay. Well, this is my last slide. Um I just wanted to extend an invitation to you guys to come tour the programs. I know that you're um that you come to the buildings, but if you ever want to see, you know, programs from three years old to 22 years old, um I'd be happy to walk you through several of our buildings and show you um more specialized um learning environments for our students. Um happy to have a conversation, too. So, thank you. [Applause] >> I do have just a couple of comments. Um, first Bethany and Lindsay
031have to uh they're leaving not because you know that they want to step out of a board uh meeting, but they're going to be driving up to Rosemont tonight for additional what two two additional days of conference. And so so before you head out, safe travels, thank you for what you do because you cover a uh an umbrella that spans from age three to 22. Okay. So when we think about education being, you know, 13 years with kindergarten, you know, we're covering a large span and you're hitting multiple buildings and you've got multiple staff. And with that sign of gratitude, thank you. Um, I also want to thank the board because you've heard the evolution of the multilingual program and how that has grown and the preschool program in the last couple of years. So,
032thank you to the board for supporting the growth of those programs. And with that, safe travels to you. >> Okay, I have the next handful of slides. And so, um, I'm going to work through these. Uh, first off, I like to begin my report with gratitude. And I'm looking at Valerie Smith right there. She is the magic behind the potter post. And so you are my uh moment of gratitude um to you for all of the work. It's not easy putting that thing together. I hope that uh the community enjoys that. She sent me the analytics. We had over a thousand, you know, views going to the to the Potter. Uh and so that that's a great metric that a thousand people are taking the time to click on that and go through that. Um,
033and so in the Potter Post, last two uh editions of that, um, you've you've seen this graphic there, make kindness the norm. October is bullying prevention month or bullying awareness month. Um, a and so I I didn't want to use that term bullying. And so the last two weeks I've really tried to just focus on kindness. So AOK's and SOGS, statements of gratitude. Um, I threw out a challenge that uh to everyone in our community that we make uh, you know, try to embody um, promote an act of kindness or make a statement of gratitude each and every day. I know I've had some people reach back to me and say, "Thank you for doing that." They're issuing the challenge in their family. I would love to see this just continue to spread. We have
034a month. October is a great month. It's finally not so hot. So we have a lot to be thankful for. Um and so that would be my challenge to the our entire community. Um it is just so I feel the just even outside of my 9-to-five job when I am you know at a restaurant and I say thank you for being here and serving us I typically get a great response back. And so um I just wanted to take a moment to emphasize that. Keeping with that theme, we've got two outstanding groups of people that I would like to recognize. Um, several of them are in the audience here and this is our group of principles and October is National Principal Month. And then last week, we also recognize all of our custodial staff. And
035so I want to thank them for making a difference each and every day. at our welcome back to school kickoff. I one of the last slides I threw in there was a snapshot of what a day looks like at Morton 709 and it started off with at zero dark30. A lot of those people show up at our buildings and they're here long before 3,300 and I use this term belly buttons arrive. >> Those would be our students. And then you throw another four or 500 staff members and these are our unsung heroes that handle all the things that no one else wants to do. And so my statement of gratitude is to our custodial staff and our building principles in the back that don't work a 9-to-five job ever. They're always on the clock. We
036have, as I mentioned before, we have a lot of new uh people in new positions. Um, and so they are answering the challenges each and every day. It's not an easy job, but between our principles and our custodial staff and then all of our other faculty and staff, I hope we get the opportunity to recognize them and say thank you for what is it that you do each and every day and making a difference with kids. And so that's my moment of gratitude. um for this month. Um uh gosh, I'm trying to keep track of our meetings. The next thing I want to talk about is uh MHS parking. There was there was some concerns that were brought forward um to the administration and to the board about parking at the high school. And so
037I wanted to cover um some of that information with the board and with the community. And so here are some of the numbers that we currently have. Mr. Edwards, if I misspeak on anything, just jump right on in. That's the that's the uh cue to get fired up on this. So, um we ballpark 268 spaces. Now, some of this was prior to our most recent construction, but I've got a note in here. So, uh, typically about 330 kids apply for applications for parking. Um, we reserve six, uh, for construction at the entrance. And then the additional 30 that was reserved for the wait room construction. Well, you'll see a picture in the slide deck that I have, well, those aren't available parking spaces any longer because we have construction fencing around that. Um, Mr. Edwards
038and his team said that the juniors could use those 30 spaces before the construction fence went up, you know, um for free until the construction took place. Uh application and timelines. Uh typically like last spring, that's when the applications go out and um they are processed. For the most part, I'd like to say all seniors get uh a parking space and then they go through the juniors that have applied and they do a lottery on that. Um freshman or sophomores typically don't get a space, but someone from the time I put this together said, "Well, I know someone that's a sophomore. They got a parking space." I didn't verify that, you know, with the high school, but there could have been one or two um over a course of time where a sophomore would get
039a parking space. And so that's what we currently have um available on our property. So then what what are some additional parking options that we have? And so, um, we do have, you know, one of the benefits of being a neighborhood school and being a, you know, school in the center of town is that we have neighborhoods around. Depending on who you are and where you live, that could be a good thing or a not so good thing. Um, but I will say this. I got a I got a great shout out about one of our kids that was parking in one of the neighborhoods actually helped a community member move something and that person took the time to make a post. That's what bright looks like. And I'd love to say all of our
040kids are being resourceful and respectful of areas, but um we just recently met with the mayor and Craig Loudermilk last week, and this was one of the items that we were talking about as far as parking. Um and so we do have all of these streets, East K has approximately 28 spots that line um East K Street. You have East Harrison, East Tyler, East Monroe Street that also offer parking. Here is my good service announcement to all of our students and staff or any community member. Do not park in front of the freshly painted yellow curbs. Okay? The mayor and the the village went out and they painted that. Those are no parking spaces. They're typically on in or around corners. If they park there, they're most likely going to get ticketed. So, please don't
041park there. I'd also ask that you just continue all of our students be resourceful and respectful. Um, if you have a Polar Pop Cup, make sure it finds the acceptable, you know, place. Just don't drop it. Uh, I know someone appreciates that in the back. Garbage belongs in the garbage, not on the streets. Um, one one concept that was brought up was parking on the north end of the junior high parking lot. Junior High has a rather large parking lot. Sometimes we end up parking activity buses over there. Sometimes we park other vehicles in that space as well. Even though that's an option, it's not a preferred option to issue parking passes for that. When you look as the crow flies, that's still a pretty hefty walk. And then um you know, consultation with the
042the junior high staff. There's also other activities uh you know and just with drop off in the morning and pickup in the afternoon. It's not a preferred place to bring more kids in there for parking. Um and so even though that that was an option that was thrown out there, we talked about it and as an admin team, we we would recommend that we don't go that way. So, my last bullet point on this um is our conversation that we had with the mayor and Craig Laddermo. Um and we talked about like K Street as an example. Um you know, we've got tennis court parking that is, you know, kind of set in that space. It really goes from the north or the east end to the west end of the tennis courts. What could
043we do to consider expanding that parking? Where is there uh an opportunity to look at how K Street is structured set up? You know, the we've got parallel parking along K Street. We've got a rather large sidewalk that runs that property. And so I asked uh Craig Laudermoke, you know, what are the options that uh that we could look at as far as expanding parking spaces over there? Um because we really at the high school were landlocked. We don't have a lot of available spaces for parking. Um, the nice thing about having a great partnership with the the village is that's something that Craig is is going to look at and do and and it's in a best interest for them. It's in a best interest for us. It's part of what he does and
044so, you know, there is a little bit of a financial savings in that. He's going to be able to do, you know, get back to us with what, you know, some possible options are on that. So, you know, we're keeping that open. Um, but as far as trying to find additional parking on uh Morton High School, I shared that with the mayor. I said the only other alternative is to acquire property. And so that is another option. We would have to look at acquiring property to put on additional parking spaces. And so I think they understand that. Um, and so that's where we're at with parking. So before I go any further, because that was a kind of a set aside, does any of the board have comments or questions about that part of my
045report? >> I'm just appreciate you answering the questions that we had and I'm thankful to hear that the village will be able to help us brainstorm and maybe meet some of those needs. That's exciting to hear, too. Are there any plans with the new addition um to look at our parking situation with us changing the entrance for visitors who come visiting faculty that kind of thing? >> So are you talking about like where the uh new main entrance is? We do have some visitor spaces there that are allocated is pretty open. And I will say this just because as I've been out and about, um, I can honestly say I don't think I've ever pulled in the high school parking lot and driven around. It always seems like there are available parking spaces. And so,
046um, I don't know if that answered your question, but I I I'm not aware of any any issues with visitors and that. >> So, we have we have 15 minute parking, a couple of spots set up there. Um, right now they're actually we assigned them to a couple of students who lost their spots through the new construction project. Um, but those generally sit open. I think they'll be much better used and that becomes the main entrance. Right now, anybody wants to come drop something off is really coming on Illinois Street. Um, I anticipate us when we're doing the birth of wait room part, we're going to lose a few handicap spots and a couple of maintenance parking spots. And so we'll need to make sure that that's taken into account. so that people when they
047come to Bertha will have available parking um especially if they need a handicap parking. >> Thank you. What other questions? >> This is more for Mr. Edwards. Um is I when I drive by like mid to late morning, there are a lot of spots that seem to be open. Are those from the seniors that are just there for like part of the morning and then >> Yeah, we have over a hundred of our seniors are doing strong start with ICC. Okay. >> Um or they're working doing co-op. Um and so uh they're not in the building the full day, >> right? >> Um and so that's why you see open ones. So es and flows depending on when you go by. >> What happens if like say a visitor were to park in one of
048those spots? is that >> then the student finds a spot and it becomes a chain reaction of problems until somebody comes in and reports to us. >> I see. >> I couldn't find a spot. >> Um it happens on the front on Illinois Street as well and our visitor spots are full. So it becomes a chain reaction. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. >> All right. Moving on. Sticking with the high school. I just want to share a couple pictures. You know the phase one. Just two quick photos. The lower one on the phase one side that is that's looking across the gym. You can see the scoreboard. You can see the bleachers in there. What a transformation that space has been. And I think it's getting ready to be turned over to actual use
049possibly next week >> earlier. I think we have our I think they're planning using it Thursday night for volleyball. >> Awesome. >> My hope. So we they've had some practices in there. It's getting used. Um the the picture to the left uh I thought that was an interesting thing that's use using our space a little bit um uh in a convenient way. Those are a full set of wrestling mats that are hoisted up and so uh that is a great use of space um instead of having to drag mats and carrying them down through the school. Um so that's great. Phase two. I took these pictures this afternoon. I figured this would be a nice artifact for a a before and then an after. And you can see the construction fences there. You can see
050where the paint uh flaking wall is uh and that little corridor that will all be inside space. Um and a great new entrance on that side of the building. And so, um, as far as back to phase one, we're really close to just completing all the punch list items. And so, and then demo work on phase two is going to get started as early as next week. So, um, that is exciting uh, with that. So, uh, there was a, uh, an asbestous abatement on some floor tile and in the, uh, what I'd call the canned goods room that is going to get demoed. Um that's kind of like where the kitchen area is in the Bertha of Frank uh entrance area. Um so there's some floor tile that needs to be uh removed and you
051know there's asbestic asbestous um in the mastic and so we have to do an abatement on that. So uh we've got the the price quote on that is rather reasonable. $13,000 was was that cost for that work. So, um, I'm going to move on to school safety, and I've got several items here, so, uh, bear with me as I talk through it. First, I don't know if you know Rob Hin. Uh, Rob Houchin was the regional superintendent for a number of years, and after he retired from that, he stayed on as the uh, inspector that gets around to every school in Woodford, Tazwell, Mason, Woodford County. And so last week we had our health life safety inspection. And so this is his last year. He's going to retire, retire, retire. So he's had three different
052jobs in education. He was a a building principal at DMAC. Just a great great individual and I tip my cap to him for retiring. Uh Tim Fairchild is going to be replacing him um in in that capacity and he went through that. Um, I also have to give recognition to our fire chief uh Justin Hail because uh Chief Hail carries the state fire marshal certification and training to be able to come into schools. We don't have to utilize the state fire marshal for those inspections. That is a huge win for us because he's right here in our backyard. And so getting our drills or our inspections scheduled and he is on site. He walks through the building. he gets to see every square inch of our buildings and so he is just a wonderful asset
053that the village has um doing that. So a quick shout out to them. Um moving on to an initiative that Mrs. Wyman has just taken and just ran with. And this has been uh a crisis committee, our annual crisis committee topic for the last couple of years is utilizing a check-in procedure at all of our schools. Um there was a letter that went out uh introducing the Raptor visitor uh management system. Uh we've had at the high school since 2020. Uh and basically it is a uh platform that you know when a parent comes on in uh or a visitor comes on in they have to have their ID card. They scan the ID card. It prints out a label. It does a re it does a search of several different databases. And so then
054when it passes that test then then we can say okay you're okay to you know go beyond the office. This isn't something that we're going to screen people on if they're just coming in to drop off. you know, my son left his lunchbox at home. Here's his lunchbox. We're not going to do that. But it does keep a record, a digital record of who is in our building. So, let's say we had to go into a different status in their response protocol. Let's say we had to go and do an evacuation. Well, that system maintains who is currently in the building. And so, that is an a wonderful asset to have. So, uh we've got that up and running. I think everything is working as it should be. And then the additional uh system we
055went with is the Raptor emergency management which is it's an app that can sit on our phones and it can initiate and it can alert you to when a status change, you know, so we're in normal operation. Uh the high school the other day had to go into a hold. A hold is just a situation where maybe a student um wasn't feeling well and couldn't make it to the bathroom. Okay. And so that happened outside of class 42. Well, they can get on and initiate a hold and designate a part of the building. Please keep your kids in the classroom and tell and so if that were done once this system is fully operational, everyone would get an alert on their phone. So they'd get an audible tone. they could look on there and it
056would say that we're in a hold with uh directions on there. So, it's it's once again trying to streamline our communication in these types of situations where we have a change in status. In the big, you know, in the grand scheme of things, if we ever had to go into a lockdown, that means everyone would get that. The district office would get it. The measure of success, you've heard me say this, it's a stopwatch game. we start the stopwatch, how fast can the information go from A to B? And and so um so kudos to Miss Wyman for getting that up and operational this year. So thank you for her efforts. Um on that uh in that same we who knows we may even try testing this system out when we do our evacuation drills.
057And so these are the schools that we have lined up. Uh Lincoln is going to do that on the 17th of Octo October. Um they will go into a lockdown and then an evacuation, a controlled evacuation. The police will be on site. They'll go through every room in the in the building. And last year when we did it with Grundy, we realized that a couple of keys didn't work. And so it's a great test of our system. I have to give credit and kudos to Grace Church. They are wonderful partners in this endeavor. um they open up their facility. It is a great resource to have. Uh Grace Church is so close and just so accommodating for us to do that. We will do a small sample size of reunification. So, we're going to test
058out the reunification cards. We've got a full reunification kit that we're going to utilize. Um and so that is on the 17th. Morton Academy will do their reunification on the uh 21st and they're going to be coming here to the district office. They're such a small entity that we can bring them in here. Um and then also uh the high school on um an early release day is going to do theirs on on November 5th and once again that'll be going out to uh Grace Church. So, um, an item that didn't make my slide that I just want to make the board aware of is last November, we made you aware of, um, this Cloudpoint GIS school mapping project. Uh this was a grant that was issued through um the state 911 system and Mike
059McIntyre is the uh uh oh gosh he's the ETSB he's the uh dispatch director for Tazzle County. Um he kind of initiated that. Where we stand right now all the scans have been done. We've seen the scans and we've had to recognize that we had to make some changes in that. Um there were some doors that were mismarked and so we've got that back to Cloud Point and they're going to complete the updates on that. But this will be um a system that sits down at the Tazwell County dispatch that allows our first responders to bring up on their laptops the map of the school in a in in a response and then the person on dispatch will also have those maps so that they can guide the direction to the responders. And so that's
060really really awesome that doing that. Um, the last thing on this is I I I need to make a comment about Jefferson School. Um, last month we had uh a couple parents that came and they presented and I I want to share my appreciation for um the courage of getting up in front and and sharing their concerns. Okay, it's hard to do. It wasn't something that we're proud of, but we need to own that. And I want those parents to know that we have listened. As much as we try to make sure that we get things 100% right all the time, we are in education. We strive for 100% but we very seldom always hit 100%. It's now the followon actions on what it is that we do. And since then we've had other situations
061that have come up and we've improved upon our communication process. So, I want to say from my chair, I will own that. I I respect the individuals that have come forward, we have a common goal to make our systems better and keep all of our kids safe. And so, I thank you for doing that, but I also want to know that we've heard that and we've we are continuing to make things better. So, I appreciate that. Okay, moving on to other items. Um, so every year we have to post on our website the EIS teacher and admin salary and benefits report that was posted back in August. This is just it has to make our board agenda and so I'm just sharing that with the board that that has been posted. Okay. Um, in addition
062to also showing up on our uh board agendas are FOYAS and responses. And so since our last board meeting, we've received a total of five FOYAS. Three have been fulfilled and their responses are located out on our website. Anyone in the public can go out on our website, click on the foyas and they can see the the three that have responses. Two of the foyas um one was didn't need to be fulfilled because their ask was directory information that is already on our website. So they were redirected to our directory to get the information. And then one of the foyers uh was found unduly burdensome, but then that was one of the foyas that was altered. They sent another foyer request and then that was responded to. So from this point forward, when you see
063this on the uh board reports, it'll show all the foyers that we've received from the last board meeting. Okay. Um we also have the policy review which was section two 200 to 2270. And it's ironic as a new superintendent, I've gone through some IASA, Illinois Association of School Administrators, um, professional development, and one of the things that we hit on was this policy 22. And it it was on verbatim recordings. And so I highlighted that because in the next month's board meeting, you'll see a consent agenda item that will show the destruction of verbatim closed session recordings. So, by law, we have to record our closed sessions um on an electronic device, and we have done that for years and years and years. Well, after 18 months, we should be bringing those to the board
064as an action item to destroy the audio recordings. Okay? And so, that was one of the things that I learned. And so, moving forward, we're going to do a look back. I will set that like how far we're going to go back and destroy those audio recordings. and I'm going to work with Valerie on that. Okay. The last thing I want to share is the board site visit uh which is going to be at Jefferson School. Thank you Mrs. Adolfson for volunteering uh to host this event. It's uh at um on the 21st of October. Um it'll start at about 5:30. We're looking at about I don't know 45 minutes. Um I'm sure Mrs. Adoffson's going to cover some of the things like her the goals within the building. Uh hopefully we have a great
065turn on staff there. It's just a site visit. I want to make clear anytime we have you know multiple board members more than three at a location. It's this is not a board meeting. There will be no official action but we will send out a notice that says we are doing a site visit. There will be no official action and we'll get that posted on our website as well. So, wow. That is my report. What questions do you have? Okay, I think I'm going to get the next one queued up because uh we have the president's report after that. >> Yes. And wow, that was a lot. >> It was having all the communication. >> So, I'll just keep with the gratitude theme. Thanks for that. I appreciate what you started. I think it's good.
066Um I'm going to thank um first off, I'm going to do the one to many. There's communication from pretty much all of 709 that goes out to many people. I think there was a thousand for the Potter Post. There's weekly updates that come from principles. Um finance updates frequently such as a levy tonight. We got timesensitive information such as power outages, weather related information. Um again, this are one to many. There's information to the parents and kids from coaches or leaders of whatever. There's Morton Potter TV that's got pretty much everything. And not only is that communication, it's visual. Uh the Potter Post like I said before, information presented at meetings like uh Bethany Scruggs presented tonight, which again is one to many. So, and that's just to name a few. That's not everything. the
067public need needs to be aware of how much time the the district, the principles, the everybody puts into all this um uh communication. So, thank you to all and that doesn't even include the onetoone communication which are your teachers to your students or or district to to principles, principles to teachers. There's so much communication that happens and um and you said it very wisely that the communication that is um given is heard and responded to. Sometimes you like might like the uh the response, sometimes you don't, but we at least respond. So, good job to all. I just want to make sure that everybody's aware of how much goes into it. Uh the next part of the the report would be smart goals for the board. We've been talking about this for about a year
068now and guess what? It's still not done. So, um, Dr. Cross isn't here, but I am. I'm going to give us a December deadline. So, you have each one of us have until December to get in there and get that knocked out. Right. So, I would like to discuss the smart goals by December 4th, I think, is our December meeting. So, put that in your notes. We'll go through that and we'll get that knocked out and we'll we'll get those changed. Um, on that same note, we had a board self-evaluation October 15th of 2024. It's been a year already. Can you believe that? It's been a year. So, um, what the highlight that I took from that, I went back and reread. Uh, the what I have written down here is consider a team goal
069setting session in 2025 to establish priorities for the coming year. determine how the priorities will be monitored and align with priorities with your superintendent's goals. So that is the board self evaluation just one item. I think we'll need to talk about that with the goals as well. Um and then I need to ask just give me a thumbs up, thumbs down, whatever. I think maybe we need another board self evaluation because we got a couple new board members and I thought it was really really well presented last year. You guys good with that? If so, we'll try to get with the district and see if we can get one going. Yay. Nay. >> Yeah. I mean, if you think obviously Wes and I weren't a part of that. So, if you think it's beneficial. >>
070Yes, I do think it's beneficial. And um I can show you where the uh the minutes are from that meeting. So, I think it's uh something good to look at, but nobody um including us uh we we can all improve and that that's what the self-evaluations for. Um the five essentials survey was discussed last month. We were trying to get some feedback on that. I know um the data is not back yet. So, when that gets processed and um I think you'll give us that probably in December as well. All right. So that is the main portion of the president's report and then we're going to go to committee updates. What I'm going to do now is uh turn it over back over to Dr. Tim. So I thought this would help moving forward as
071we do committee updates. I created a slide um for each of the committees that we have. And so we'll start off by TLC teaching and learning council met um about midepptember if I recall that date right. And so there were three items that were on there. There was the start, stop, and continue. Stephanie Brown has facilitated that. That is a feedback. We'll just call it just uh um interview feedback uh with with her and she sits down with uh staff members. What what should we start? What should we stop? And what should we continue? I tell you that has been very helpful for our admin team. I know one of my personal goals is getting out into the buildings more and that is one of the things that I've written into my professional development and
072the things that I'll be evaluated on. And those were comments that came straight from the start, stop, and continue. And it's just recognizing that. So, we want to let people know that we're listening to them. As much as I'd love to say we can hit all of the things that people say start, stop, and continue, it's probably not realistic. We can't hit them all but uh there is a lot of good feedback. Then there was a session on teacher leaders and uh Kate had a really nice article. Um it got me excited going through that article about just what teacher leaders do and some of the characteristics categories of that. And then the last part was a survey that Mrs. Wyman had put out. I want to say it was in May time frame to
073our caregivers. It was about the use of technology. And so we had some really good data. Um and since that uh there is a technology task force that Mrs. Wyman has assembled. I think she has all the members selected for that. They're going to be doing a deeper dive into the technology um data that uh information and one of the task is to look at some of the things that were brought forward and then bring that back both to our administrators and to the board of education. So, um, Cristiana was in attendance. Do you have anything else that you'd like to comment? >> No, I mean, you hit on everything pretty well. I just enjoyed, um, uh, once I figured out what it was. I I enjoyed sitting in there because it was my first
074time being in there. So, um, it was just kind of feeling it out. And then, um, just sat with a group of, um, staff members and it was really, uh, neat to be able to just sit there and talk openly with them. and um just also just hear and listen to what they had to say, especially cuz I'm a newcomer. So, you know, just just hearing their conversation was just really beneficial, I thought. And um I think the the start, stop, and continue. I uh also have the same sentiments that I love that. I think that's great. Um and I thought it was just really interesting um to read all of those different responses. is there was definitely some overwhelming ones that were very popular. Um, and just to be able to see that I
075think is really useful um for the board and not necessarily for everybody to go to the meeting, but at least to get that feedback because I think it tells us and shows us where where all of our staff are at the time and what they're thinking. So, I appreciated it and uh look forward to the next one. Okay, then moving on, we had an extracurricular committee meeting. And so, um, the two words, feedback opportunities. That's the big takeaway from that. Uh, and so what we did is we looked at, um, the the high school athletic surveys that were done for 2024 25 school year. Um, to kind of break this down, the junior high does parent surveys at the end of the seasons. And so they're, you know, the junior high is wrapping up the
076fall seasons. Um, that's going to cross country is going to be done in a couple weeks and so Mr. Hammond's going to be sending out that parent survey. Uh, and then the high school doesn't focus on parent surveys. They focus on student athlete surveys. And so we went through the committee went through that. Um, and there's a lot of good information that comes from it. I want to highlight the parent survey and the athlete surveys are anonymous. Okay. And they're structured in a way, I mean, you know, if there's only two people that complete a survey um in a certain area, let's say it's track, and there's only two people that complete a survey, you might be able to discern, you know, who said what comment, especially if they have comments in there that are
077about a particular situation. But generally, we're not looking, you know, for those moments. We're looking to just get a pulse of the program and what you know how we're doing on that. And so I want to emphasize that we encourage the parents and our students to complete those surveys. And then there's also an athletic feedback form that is out there and can be filled out at any time. And then that one gets filtered depending on who completes it. If it's a if it's a junior high parent, it'll it asks a question about what sport what school and then what sport activity and then that gets filtered to the administrative offices and then also the district office and that can be for good or or or bad information on concerns. And so we have three opportunities
078to provide feedback um with those programs. And so um Amanda and Wes, you I gave you a little bit of time to you know get your uh thoughts ready, but there were other items. Do you want to share? >> Sure. Yeah, I can. Um, I think we started this committee maybe three years ago with the goal of just kind of refining and fine-tuning and I think that we're getting there. Um, one of the I just have a few bullet points that I wrote down um just kind of high level, but um we did review the questions just on the high school one. Um and we adjusted some of the question framing just for more relevance. Um, one of them, just for an example, would be instead of submitting what your grade level is, we ask
079that you put your program participation level because you may have a freshman playing on a varsity team and we want to make sure we're capturing the correct program, the correct coach that they're in with during that time. Um, another thought came out that um, mid-season feedback. Um, it would be good to capture things that are happening like in a timely fashion rather than like, oh, the season's done and now I'm going to provide this feedback and the coach is kind of at a loss of, well, had I known. So, um, and and so I I don't know if that'll happen quite this year, but it was something that we talked with Scott about that thought would be good. Um, the other thing would be to increase our survey response rates. They're pretty low. I think
080it does have to do with this uncertainty that are they really anonymous. So we need to do a good job of from top down just talking about like we want to encourage you to fill this out. It is anonymous. Yes, you do have to. It gets sent to your email. So some people think well my email is being shown. It is not. Um so just clearly communicating that. And then another thought that Scott had um presented was our spring sports, we have a really low feedback response rate, but a lot of times it's being pushed out after school is out of session. So we felt like it was a better opportunity to push it out May 1st. We're through the majority of the season, but we're not um into postseason yet, but that way we're
081getting all the students are still in the building having access to their iPads. they're not seniors that are, you know, once it's done >> already graduated. >> Yeah. So, um I think those were my main things. Um another last one was is maybe doing some senior exit surveys. Those are good times to like take a senior aside and hey, you've had four years like give us some good feedback just trying to improve. So, you know, Wes, do you have anything else? Oh, and I think we, you know, with the same goal of um helping the coaches to know what they can continue and improve on, but also giving the the parents or the students, the athletes an opportunity to to share some concerns or some also positive things that are happening because it's not all
082negative feedback. We're looking for we're looking for all feedback, positive concerns. And so we want to encourage people even if you have no negative concerns, give positive feedback because that's helpful for those coaches as well. >> So in the programs and then as we go, we just want to continue to build that trust, you know, amongst them that that this information is um looked at, it is valued, it is anonymous, and we're doing the best we can to care for each student in the district. So >> So yeah. So, my last plug is we live in a society right now where it's feedback driven. You can't go anywhere without putting a rating on something. Um, and so we we're listening. We want to hear that information. Um, we want to hear your your thoughts and
083opinions. For the high school uh students, it's a great it's a great uh step across the bridge to adulthood. And, you know, it's a big difference between a freshman and a senior. But when you read through the comments, you know, you're impressed with, you know, kids at the JV level level or freshman level that are taking the time to put in their thoughts and and considerations. So, um, naturally, we want to see as many kids involved in our programs as we can. So, um, so thank you for sharing out on that. The other two are going to be a quicker uh items. facilities. We have a meeting, the facilities committee meeting is set for October 23rd and uh the big thing on that is summer 2026 projects. Uh so this is part of a series,
084you know, so in October, November, we're starting to plan for the construction projects and the the maintenance projects that we'll we'll start tackling uh for the summer of 2026. And so with that, uh that's exciting. You know, hopefully we'll be all ready to wrap up phase two at the high school and then, you know, as as we've talked, phase three and phase four are natural followons for that. And that is the reallocation of the old weight room space as a new main entrance principal's office suite and then the reallocation of the principal's office on Illinois Street as additional classrooms. And so, um, that could be part of our discussions as well as looking at STEM labs at the junior high and some, um, tile work and ceiling work at Grundy and some of the other
085things that we have going on. Which leads me to, um, the tennis courts and athletic complex. Also, last month, uh, we had Mr. Miller that addressed the board, uh, sharing concerns about our tennis courts. Um, and I, so I I do want to follow up on that. I I don't think he's here, but um we are aware we have a long-term facility plan and the tennis courts are on that. And so that's for more the structural items, you know, the cracks in the tennis courts, uh working with Rodney, um we've got an idea of what could be causing that. Uh they've done some remediation on what we think is causing the cracks. So we'll see how that is this spring to see if if that is productive. Um you know the post heaving that is
086going to require a lot of construction. I mean that has taken everything down, but it is on our long-term facility plan and it matches up with the stadium upgrades as the turf is ending it's approaching its end of life cycle and the track is in need of uh its end of life cycle like getting it striped and then when will we consider resurfacing that. So all of those projects kind of fall into line. May not happen next year, most likely not going to happen next year, but it is on our long-term facility plan that we utilize and it is making we're we're trending to getting to those projects in the near future. Um some of the other cosmetic items we need on that, you know, the the windcreens, that's on us. a gate that's not,
087you know, and so we need to do a better job maintaining the the facilities that we have. Those are um what I would say are easy fixes on that and we need to own that. So, want to take a moment to address that. Uh lastly is on the finance side and we're going to have a financial that Miss Kowalsski is going to do the 2025 levy. I know she's been waiting uh to get up and have the uh microphone with that. But um on a last note, the uh financial audit is wrapped up. I had an interview with the auditor that's part of the management interview. Um so we're looking at having a report on that at the November meeting unless I miss something. >> Okay. So we ready to move to discussion items? almost
088the uh the committees are what keeps us going. If we had to each sit and do every last one of this stuff, we would never get through a meeting. So, appreciate you all for doing uh the committee taking time out of your u your precious time to go sit on on committees and take care of whatever. So, appreciate that. also appreciate the um information that gets sent out for the minutes so then we can read it and understand what's happening. Without the minutes, then it's it's worthless to to the rest of us. So, thanks for that. And then the policy, what you didn't speak about, um we talked about policy last month. So, there are five specific uh committees and then we might have a oneoff every now and again. So that is it for
089the board agenda or sorry the board report with the exception of the board agenda. Does anybody have anything for the agenda building? Yes. No. Going once, going twice. Let's roll forward to the discussion. >> Okay. Miss Kowalsski, the floor is yours. We are blessed to have uh Lisa as our CFO. She does a fantastic job. Uh we met this last week uh the finance committee to go through the uh 2025 levy. So it is all yours. >> Thank you. Okay. Uh let's see. So I always pres present to you the timeline and it feels like I was just here in front of you talking about a budget because I was for this year. Um now I'm talking to you about next year's budget. Uh it's always very preliminary but this is kind of the timeline
090line we're looking at. I'm presenting it to tonight and hopefully you will be approving it in November and then I will be publishing the truth and taxation notice um 7 to 14 days before the hearing. That is not something that is required unless you have are at the 5% or over. We are not at that um but we always do it just for transparency purposes anyway. So that's the reason you'll always see that on here. Um then at the December meeting hopefully we will approve the final levy and then of course as always that the last Tuesday in December is the deadline and it's a very tight deadline. Um can't miss that one. So and then this is just a general overall explanation. Um basically whenever I'm doing the the uh computations I'm looking at
091last year's levy um using our CPI adding in the new property and then that kind of gives us the amount. So, it's it's a lot more to it than that, but essentially that's that's what we're looking at when we're looking at what we're able to do. Um, the next one is just some highlights. So, the total increase in the levy, we're looking at 1375154. And then if you look on the right hand side, you see the total increase in the salaries is 14358740. That doesn't look very good, does it? Obviously, our total increase in the levy is not as much as just our salaries increase alone. Now, we knew that that was a risk back when we were doing our negotiations because in the year that we did the negoti negotiations, I knew what that
092year was going to be. I had a fairly good idea what the second year would be. I had no idea what next year would look like. Um, so we we kind of anticipated this. It doesn't mean um that we're going to uh completely be in a horrible position next year. That's not what I'm saying. Um, but one for one, when you look at the levy increase versus the salaries, obviously we're we're not the direction we want to be. And then you throw in our healthcare increases. Um, and then, you know, it it kind of I don't like to be in that position, but at the same time, there are lots of factors, a lot of things that can happen between now and next fall. And as you know, I'll do everything I can to put
093us in the best position that is possible. But it is something to keep in mind especially next year when we will be doing negotiations. Um we will have to work uh through that to kind of figure out what what is a good spot for the district so we don't continue in a direction like that. Um that bottom portion just talks about the different possible things that could go on as far as um capital projects. Um as uh Dr. Sander explained, we still have a lot of planning to do for next year. We have a good idea of what we're doing in the summer of 2026, but we don't know what the stages look like, how fast we're getting phase two done, um timing, and then you've got we can't put too much on Rodney's shoulders
094either because there is a lot going on with construction. So, you know, we're doing our best at that point. This next page talks about um just the different lovey assumptions. You know, I'm assuming that the evidence-based funding level will be at 2.9 million. Um, right now our 2 or FY26 amount is 2.81. So, I'm allowing a little bit of an increase. Conservative, but also probably fairly realistic, especially with the way things are right now. Um, consumer price index is 2.9%. I got all of the EAV numbers from um, Tasle County Supervisor Assessments. a property this year is it's a little over six million compared to 14.6 million last year. Um so obviously that's a a big big difference and then that total amount of the EAB including new property there at the bottom. More assumptions
095combined CPPRT 2.1 million. Again this is that number that I'm it's a best guess. um you know two years ago it was 4.3 and five six years ago it was 1.4 that we're doing the best we can on this. So um I'm using this year's number with a slight increase thinking that that's the direction we will go but again until we get closer to that I won't know for sure. Of course salary increases of 5% as I mentioned um and then the healthcare um costs are budgeted increase by 15%. hopefully it's less than that but uh the amount of projected increase for the ED fund alone is just over a million and the overall tax rate is 4.7185 and that is with the bonds new property history. So you can see back in 2015 2016
096we were close to that 10 million. Um then we had quite a number of years of dips. 2022 we were up at 11.4, dropped a little bit, went back up last year at 14.6, and now we're back down to that $6 million mark. Um, so what I I can't tell you what it's going to look like next year. I have no idea, but you know, it there's no real trend. It doesn't seem like at this point. Guess it depends on what's going on in the world. That's a big piece of it. Then the historical EAV does tend to go in one direction obviously which is good. Um hopefully that will continue. Um that always plays a role in in what we're looking at as far as our revenue to the district for taxpayers. I always
097like to give you all the past years or a grouping of past years so that you can kind of compare. Um if I just give you this year's numbers, it's not really going to mean anything to you. But here you can note that the FY26 budget salaries and benefits are different from my 27 projected budget. However, when it comes to services, supplies, capital, um, non-c capitalized equipment, all of that, I did not show an increase. And why do you think that is? Well, if our revenue or our expenditures are increasing more than our our revenue is, I need to find a way to not have that continue and be larger of a discrepancy than it already is. So, at this point in time, I'm saying we're going to level out for that next year. Hopefully,
098we can do some cost savings, you know, do some different things. But right now, this is kind of what I'm looking at just to be on the conservative side. building fund expenditures. Um, here again, and I always tell you this, when you look at that capital number, I can't tell you exactly what that's going to be because, as you can see, the FY26 budget, as I proposed to you last month or two months ago, um, is fairly large for this year, but that number might not all come and happen in FY26. So, when I say 3.6 6 million in FY27, that might be it. Or it could be 8 million or whatever that carryover might look like. So, always keep that in mind when it comes to building. It's my best guess at that given
099point in time. And I'm I'm hoping that it'll look like this and we'll get a lot of that phase 2 project done this year and we'll be able to make those payments and it will look like this, but I can't guarantee that. So, this is the page that always has so much information on it, but I like to provide it all so that you can always look through it. And as always, if you ever have any questions, you can always give me a call and I can talk through any of the numbers with you. But the things I like to point out, um, if you look at the bottom left where it says EAV current year new growth increase, it says 735%. Do you see that? So, last year that number was 1.883%. 883%. Okay,
100for our new growth over the over the previous year. Then if you look at the EAV current year over previous year increase 6.78%. Last year it was 10.86%. So that gives you a little idea of how we have slowed that growth which then impacts the amount that we're we're receiving to the district. Okay, the bottom sections and again always present the whole picture to you because the one on the left which is the truth and taxation is the actual dollars if the EAV from the county and their their numbers are all correct. That's what I will actually get for the district. But what if they miss something and then they add it in? What if something changes between now and the end of the year? What if there's new growth that they didn't know about
101and it finishes by the end of the year? I have to capture that somehow. So, what the answer is, and this is what all the districts do. This isn't just our district, we have to inflate our numbers a little bit to capture that. It doesn't mean we're going to get more um more money than we should. It just means we're going to capture what we are entitled to. It does not raise anybody's taxes anymore or anything like that, but make sure that we get what we are entitled to. If I don't ask for that number and something shows up on the books and it's not captured in my numbers, I just wouldn't get that money. It would just be gone and that person wouldn't be contributing those taxes as a taxpayer here in the in
102the community. So, just to help you understand that. And then um this is the proposed tenative budget showing our f fund balances at the end of FY27 and what that would look like. And as always I always show you what our days and reserves in those main funds would look like. And so here you can see even though if things stand as it is today and if we go with this budget and this is exactly what it ends up to be, we will be utilizing almost 500,000 of our reserves. But even doing so, we're still at 217 days. So, we are definitely well above that 180. Okay. Now, if we continue to do that every year, that's that's when we'll have a problem. But for FY27, if it is actually what I am presenting it
103as today, and that's what it ends up as, we still would have 217 days in reserves. In the ON&M fund, we'd still have 230, transportation, 182. Um, and then the IMRF 274. And you might say, well, in the IMRF, why why is that a little higher? Well, that's something that can change and we have no control over it. So, we always have to have the funds available. So, when the time comes and the increases come to us, um, which were which are not dictated by us, but dictated by the state, um, then we have to be prepared for that. So, that number can be a little little, um, I don't know, not Yes, it can. Yep. Um, you'll also note the working cash fund down there. Um, we have 2.4 million is our ending balance
104there for FY27. But if you remember here in FY26, I am transferring or I will I'll be bringing it to the board. I think I have it for November if I'm remembering right. Um, or maybe it's December. I will be asking you for that resolution in order to move that money from the working cash to the capital projects fund to help continue with the phase two and other projects that we have going on. And that was planned. That's, you know, but that makes our balance look a little bit lower, but we are not violating anything. We definitely still have more than enough than we are required to have in that fund. Okay. And then looking at just the fund balance projections. Um, no surprises here. They're exactly what um, I've been talking about. The further
105you go out, the worse it's going to look. It doesn't mean that we'll end up there. As I've said over the last several years, sometimes, for example, in the ED fund right now, I'm saying 490,000, but maybe we not might not spend all of that, right? Um, I'm very very big into not spending down and I tell all the principles that on a regular basis. Um, reason is is because in situations like this, we now have those reserves in order to help out the district, right? And it's also a situation where something is really needed, we can usually tend to come up with it in order to make it work. And that's the point. Like if you're at home and you're with your own personal accounts, you don't just spend down because you know you're
106going to get your next check. you're gonna keep a little bit in there, right? Because then that next time, two weeks later, you might need a new air conditioner or furnace or whatever, right? Same concept. And I like to carry that over here. Um, so it looks worse, but it could end up a little bit better. So, I always like to remind you of that. And then this is that big picture of lots of things. Um, but I think it is a really good picture for me to to present to you. Um, I think it was Dr. Hill that suggested that we put it all on one page years ago. And at first I thought it was a little too much. But when you look at it, you can see the trends. Like for example,
107um, if you see the salary or the um, look at the the revenue, okay, you see the revenue trending up, trending up, right? Well, then you would think in theory then our expenditures should kind of go along that same thing. Now, you have to take into consideration that we also have the building budget or the onm budget. That kind of throws it off a little bit because this is all of the funds combined that we're looking at here. Um, but then it on the other hand, if you look at um the reserves, which is the blue right in the middle, and see how as the expenditures go up in FY26 budgeted, what's going to happen? Oh, our reserves are going to go down, right? So, it's it's it it all makes sense as you look
108at it and you really study it. The big things to look at too are the trends, the salaries. The purple one obviously it's going to go up a little by little by little, but what also goes up? Our levy goes up right now. As we said, this year not quite as much as the salaries, but for the most part, they tend to follow on that same line. So, I just like this as a overall picture of all the things that we have going on. But again, keep in mind it's all of the funds thrown in there. Okay. And I think that is it. Any questions? >> As always, thank you. Okay. >> Thank you, Lisa. Great job on that. >> Thanks, [Music] conference. >> Okay. So, uh this is a discussion item uh at the
109November IASB or the school board conference. uh they have the delegate assembly and so later on there's going to be an action item to approve the delegate um that's going to represent our district at that uh delegate assembly. And so each year ISB provides um a pamphlet of things that you know the board has to determine how they're going to vote. So this year is kind of unique. Uh there's 10 constitutional amendments and I put this little note in here. The con there was a constitution review committee um made up by 14 Illinois school board members and ISB leaders that proposed these changes. So this is to the IASB constitution. And so there's 10 of those items. And then there's one just one this year resolution committee um recommendation that's being brought forward. I don't
110remember exactly how many last year, but I know it was quite a few. And we sat around. We talked item by item. So, I've got it queued up. We can jump in on this and um address it. So, here are the 10 constitutional amendments. S you want to So, typically it's not constitutional amendments. It's usually anywhere from I think 8 to I think I had on the the consent. There's like 24. So we're down to one on that. They've already had a committee from 14 different school districts that says to do what they're trying to do here. I read through the majority of them. Didn't see anything that was jumped out at me. I don't think I'm going to like if they do allow and they're not going to allow it yet, but um distance
111voting and I had to reread that. So, I would have to reread that again. I when I was doing it, Andy did it last year. Um they wanted only the delegate in that area to vote. And how it works is you have a little computer and then you would hit the yes or the no or adopt or do not adopt and then that's how they would do it. So if they do some distance voting that they would have to get into that a little bit deeper. So they're looking at that that's in one of those and that's the only weirdness that I that I saw of that. So, of these 10, there's already a committee that went through it and and said do adopt on all these. I I don't know if you guys have
112looked at it, but what I looked at I the committee members as far as I'm concerned can can run that. You guys want to talk about it? We can talk one through 10. We can talk any one of them and we can talk in generic. Yep. I'm okay with that. You let me know how you want to proceed. you. I don't hear anything. We'll just go forward and we'll go to the bus. >> I trust you. >> All right. >> And typically this is just this isn't a voting item. It's just a consensus item that we mark and so that the delegate when they're at the assembly can vote that way, >> right? So, um depending on who the primary is going to be, he'll say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. if unless we
113say no, which I think that only happened once that that I've been around. >> Um anyway, so so if you're good, I'm good. Let's go to the uh the next one. And then you got the school bus safety funding. Um, basically the district Sycamore CUSD427 put this in here says, "Hey, um, let's have the state give us some money so we can pay for this threepoint seat belt system per bus because this it's getting mandated, I think, um, 2031 that it's going to have to be in." So they're saying, "Hey, the state should give us a grant to help because I think it's$9 to $17,000 or something like that per bus." That's crazy. I got in front of me. Give me just a second. It is 7 to $18,000 per bus to get all these
114um buses with the three-point harness system. Um I'm sure there's a reason why it needs to to happen. I don't know. I remember jumping around in a bus when I was little, but that's a whole different conversation. Anyway, that's what this is about. It looks to me like they're trying to help the school districts by saying, "Hey, state, if this is getting mandated, send us some money um to help it." And then if you have less than, don't quote me, but 2,000 uh students in your district, then then you could get a a waiver to go to 2034 to get all this stuff done. So, in my opinion, again, this is just my opinion, this do adopt is probably the best way forward since we're getting mandated by law to have a three-point uh system
115in your in your school buses. >> Do you know who came up with the money, like how much it would cost? >> No. No, that's just I just read that right there. No idea. >> I didn't know if it was like the state that said that and then it was like well you have to pay you know I didn't know. >> Don't have a clue on >> where that came from. Now if you read the uh the black comes from the statement of resolution comes the black writing comes from um the district and then the blue writing comes from ISB. So you can infer that ISB came up with that number. But again, that's an inference and I I could not substantiate that. >> It says current vendor quotes show the belts add 7 to
116$18,000 cost per bus. So I guess that's also the reason for the wide range would be depending on the vendor. >> Yeah. Or the bus. I was assuming that you got, you know, smaller buses, bigger buses, um different styles of buses, so on and so forth. That was an assumption. again what's you can it's so vague I I don't know but anyway the this is going to be brought up and um the Dell is just going to have to say Dela is going to have to say yes or no and then that person will end up hitting the yes or no button whenever it it comes to it but this looks to me like it's this I've never seen one I don't know it's ever been >> god usually we have one >> I'm all
117for this is our school board association and are basically our main way to push back against unfunded mandates that are really difficult for smaller districts. >> Agreed. >> Any other >> since it isn't are we for school belts or seat belts, >> it's just are we for saying hey >> this isn't this should be funded. >> Yes. Yeah. It's going to be mandated. >> Um discussion. Amanda, >> no, I would agree. >> Cristiana, >> it's fine. >> Wes Diane, >> all right. So then it looks like um it'll be confirmed that we're just going to hit the the yes >> for everything. So that would be our last discussion item unless you have anything else that you'd like to bring up. We've been on a good roll. No, no. I I don't have anything more
118to say. So, I think Diane, your your point was very well taken. We got to rely on our professional organizations just as I put in about the IASA. You know, you you got your big four. It used to be the big three, ISA, ISB, IASBO, and then the IPA. And so, those are the four big entities that that drive help support our schools. And so, um, it's great when you can, uh, have this kind of dialogue and and push it forward to try to get some additional funding. All right, so let's go to action items. Um, we got we got a action item A, action on board policy press 119 updates. Do I have a motion for the board of education to approve the reviewed board policies as recommended? >> So moved. support >> and
119discussion. Do you want to say anything? Uh these were uh presented to the board last month as a discussion item. Um these are the ones that uh we made some modifications that were some substantial changes. Uh one is on the payment procedures and the other one is on non-school non-public school students participating in our extracurricular activities. And and again, I would like to say thanks to Valerie for the green, the red, and the stripes, and made it so much easier. >> Thanks. >> All right, >> Mrs. Layman. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Kurtie, >> yes. >> Mr. Onus, >> yes. >> Dr. Crawl, >> yes. >> Mr. Red, >> yes. >> All right. Right. Action item B is action on the IASB delegate and alternate. Um, first off, let's discuss who the does anybody have uh
120any opinion on who the primary should be and the alternate. >> I think since Andy's not here, we should vote him in. >> It's tradition. Yeah. >> Yes. >> Okay. I like that. All right. So, um, alternate. >> I mean, I've always been a, so there you go. >> All right. So, do I have a motion for the board of education to approve member Andy Roth to represent the board of education as the ISB delegate to the assembly and Jerry Rudd as the alternate? >> So, move support. >> I don't think we need to discuss. Let's go. Go for it. >> Mr. Onus. >> Yes. Mrs. Layman, >> yes. >> Mr. Rud, >> yes. >> Dr. Crawl, >> yes. >> And Mrs. Pury, >> yes. >> All right, let's go on to consent agenda. Now,
121we are going to um vote on the consent agenda, but when we vote, we are not going to approve the personnel report at this time. We'll wait till we come back from close back into open because we have some discussion. So, do I have a motion for the board of education to approve the consent agenda as presented without the personnel report? >> So, move support. >> Any discussion? >> All right, let's go for it. >> Dr. Crawl, >> yes. >> Mrs. Perie, >> yes. >> Mr. Red, >> yes. >> Mr. Onus, >> yes. >> And Mrs. Layman, >> yes. All right. So, let's go to the non-aggenda audience presentation. We have one. >> We do have uh one person, Mrs. Mullen. Um if you would come to the podium and I will uh once you
122get started, I'll reset this timer so you can see how much of your five minutes you have. >> Start running. >> No, I'll restart it when you get >> Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Jessica Moone. I am the parent of a Jefferson Elementary student. I'm here tonight as a parent who trusted this district to keep my child safe. Uh that trust was broken. In the first three weeks of school this year, Jefferson Elementary faced multiple gun threats. In mid August, a student threatened another child on the bus saying he would shoot him. About a week later, a gun threat was reported directly to the principal. Police and parents were not notified. Then at the end of August, the same student threatened to return after Labor Day with a firearm and named specific
123students as threats as targets. Where was I? This is my worst case scenario. Let's go to yet parents were still not told about Oh, here we are. Then at the end of August, the same student threatened to return after Labor Day with a firearm to name specific children as targets. Yet parents were not told until after dismissal on September 2nd, the very day the threat was supposed to be carried out. And when the message line came in, it looked like this. A subject line that read Jefferson update, a body line that said, "See attached file." And in the attachment that never even used the word gun threat. As a parent, I had to read between the lines to realize a gun threat had been made against um children in my daughter's school, and that is
124unacceptable. Parents should not have to piece together danger from vague emails. We should not be left guessing whether our children are safe. When a threat names specific children students, that is not a moment for delay or minimization. That is the moment for leadership, for transparency, and for direct outreach to families. Your own policy 7 col 180 requires parents to be notified as soon as possible after the port is received. 3 days later after dismissal is not as soon as possible. And nothing in Illinois law says parents must wait until a firearm is verified before being told when children are named as targets. Families deserve a phone call, a gun safety plan, an immediate honest communication. We also can't na be naive and say that that doesn't happen here. It does. Within the la within the
125last year and a 40 mile radius of Morton. These are facts. A 16-year-old was arrested for bringing a loaded gun to Bloomington High School. A 13-year-old in Dunlap Valley Middle School had a loaded gun in his locker. At Limestone, a student was arrested for having a weapon at school. In East Poria, even a fake alarm triggered a full security response. These aren't hypotheticals. They are our region. They are our kids age group. So, here's what the parents are asking for, plain and simple. Plain language notification within 60 minutes of any gun threat. Direct phone calls to the families of named or targeted students. We don't want to find out from kids out of school. Threat assessment teams that meet within 24 hours of a report. and clear pre-approved comm communication template so that parents never
126have to receive a vague update when a gun threat has been made. What I am asking for is not radical. These are common sense measures already in place in many other Illinois districts. Morton has chosen to implement new systems like the Raptor visitor management system to keep track of visitors and that's good progress, but it shows that you can act quickly when you decide to. Families are simply asking that you apply the same urgency to threats inside the school walls as you do the people at the front door. Even adults make mistakes and what matters is whether you own them and correct them. Tonight, you have the opportunity to show parents that you value transparency and safety as much as we do. These are common sense requests. Thank you in advance for understanding them and
127doing what any responsible leader would do, and that's protect our children first and our pride second. Thank you. I also have handouts of policy um about each. Do I hand those out now? Can I come to the to the circle >> to you? >> So um in the previous there's uh seven policy gaps and I have um corrective actions, examples of best practices and supporting sources for all of that. Um I have handouts for parents as well and um the actual appeal letter that was sent out to everyone as well just to see what the initial um was. Thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you. >> All right. So we um that concludes the uh audience participation. So let's uh let's go to close. Where did my note go? There it is.
128All right. So, do I have a motion to enter close session for the purpose of personnel security and safety procedures complaint appeal property litigations and student discipline? So >> support. >> Yeah. >> Mrs. Layman. >> Yes. >> Mr. Onus. >> Yes. >> Mr. Red. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perie. >> Yes. >> Dr. Crawl. >> Yes. >> Short recess. >> Yeah. Let's take a let's take a fivem minute recess and then we'll come back. [Music]