001Counts Awards in partnership with the City of Highland Park, the Park District of Highland Park, and Highland Park High School, part of District 113. Alice, Melina, Delmy, Andrew, Shay, Nathaniel, Mayhair, Tatum, Joel, Annie, Cody, Evelyn, Marceline, Raina, Eleanor, Dylan, Jessa, and Harold. exemplify illustrate represent and demonstrate the best of the best of North Shore School District 1 students represented by their schools represented and supported by their peers and honored by the city at its annual recognition big round of applause for our character count students the recognition continues uh may some call it maycember we call it wow it's may um May also had the Lake County Educator of the Year. Dr. Michael Carter, Regional Superintendent, brought this to Lake County. It brings together nearly 1,000 Lake County educators from all over, and it's really a
002special event. And this year, we're proud to offer and extend our congratulations to Kathy Anaya, Holly Colleen. Woo! Yeah! For Kathy and Holly, but Holly's sitting at the table. So those of you at home, so it's kind of cool to do that here. We also want to recognize and acknowledge and celebrate Amy Cornelius King, Eunice Paniagua, Andy Simon, Leslie Tangman, Helen Wyson, Ana Maria Yass. They also represent the best of the best in North Shore School District 112 staff and administrators. But wait, Mr. President, there's more. We don't have Ginsu knives, for those of you of a certain vintage, but we do have additional recognition. the 2026 illinois principal association student leadership award winners please be very proud of eloise and myla and cooper and dylan and quinn and chase and lila and nemo and
003joshua and katie and olivia and winnie and maya and julia and sloan and dylan alexandru and orly from all of our schools All of the principals and associate principals in North Shore School District 112 proudly carry the membership of the Illinois Principals Association and we're even more proud to honor and celebrate our students and our future leaders here in the district and in our community. Ladies and gentlemen, I told you it's a big one today. It's going to get even bigger. We really want to acknowledge Joseph S. and Tamara B., Samuel S., Max B., Connor C., Joseph S., Layla F., Lumen C., Reese H., Elias P., and our coaches Melissa, Emma, Ariel, Josh, Alex, Sarah, and Kimmy for State Track Meet Qualifiers from Edgewood and Northwood Middle Schools. Pretty cool stuff. We excel, our students
004excel in each and every category of area to excel in. Wow. Well, it is May, and June also will mark the close of the academic year and the close of the actual school year. It's been one heck of a year as always. May 22nd, we'll have an early release, no early childhood classes. May 25th, we honor those who have sacrificed so that we may enjoy freedom, the federal holiday of Memorial Day. On June 3rd, we will promote hundreds of eighth graders to the ninth grade at the eighth grade graduation ceremonies. June 4th is an early release, the last day of A.M. kindergarten. June 5th is the last day of K-8, but really K-7, because the eighth graders get promoted a few days earlier. It's an early release. And June 9th will be a regular Board
005of Education meeting. Individual schools will share their building specific schedules for end of year events and celebrations. There is learning going on and our teachers are teaching their hearts out. It's also really disruptive with a lot of fun things too. It's a pretty intense time of year and we say thank you. This is our May celebrations, Jewish American Heritage Month and Asian Pacific Heritage Month. As you know, we're proud members of the Anti-Defamation League, and each of our schools has earned the credential of No Place for Hate, and as part of that, we honor all cultures and ethnicities and religions through our celebrations. Phase two of the board's long-range facility plan is heavy, heavy, heavy. Sherwood School will be constructed by the end of June and opened by August. Our Sherwood Pandas will climb over
006the bamboo shoots from Elm Place School back to Sherwood. I don't know if that makes sense, but again, I'll stop with the metaphors. Sherwood's going to go back home, and Elm Place will be readied for Wayne Thomas. uh construction will start in the fall there and our braeside bobcats we're at a point where we are now constructing and building our beautiful historic braeside and it will be finished around january of 2026 and everyone's expected to move in after spring break in 2027 not 2026 2027 but construction is moving along and our board is real proud of the work and we're proud of our partners at gilbane white train and inspec and all of the various trades Speaking of Ravinia School, Ravinia School was bestowed the Historic Preservation Award from the City of Highland Park in
007a really special historic ceremony. And we thank Vice President Itkin and Member Hirsch and Member Lasko for accompanying Mr. Finfer and Principal Gilkyson to the beautiful historic Willits House. In Highland Park, thank you people for opening your doors to us and other members of the city. We're real proud to be able to say that our 1913 school that's been educating children since the 1800s is now rechristened as a 2025 school, and we're proud that we've celebrated the architectural significance and the neighborhood significance and the community significance of Vervinia School, and our raccoons are quite proud, and we have happy raccoons. registration is still open kindergarten registration is sitting at about 328 students right now so if you see any people that look like they're in kindergarten and you're in the community reach out and welcome
008them to the community say hello don't be creepy but be friendly and tell them that they should register here at the at district 112 we'd love to have them in we still have room for children all of our schools and we have room for children in the early childhood program it's rolling admissions we take children who are qualified with certain criteria at ages three and four throughout the school year give us a shout out if you have any questions Friends, especially as the end of the school year comes and transition happens, some of us are really excited about the end of the school year. Others of us are anxious and scared. Everyone is somewhere on the mental health continuum. And here in District 112, we take great pride in reminding our community that we are
009here for you. If you're struggling, if a friend is struggling, if anyone's in need, reach out. We have services for our students of cartwheel care. We have... Services for every member of the Lake County community from referral GPS We have services for every member of the district 112 community safe to help, Illinois The Moraine Township sister government entity has a community mental health board that our community supports 988 is the suicide crisis and helpline. You're never alone. It's 24 7 smart social has an abundance of really cool contemporary and modern parenting websites about social media and all of that if you're not sure where to go reach out to us we're always here and we'll help you and make sure you help friends neighbors in need and make sure that the end of the school
010year might be scary for your kids so we'll make sure that we temper and moderate our celebrations thank you president kessler thank you does anyone have any questions or comments for dr lufeld All right moving on to one of my favorite agenda items of the year Next up is the Highland Park Community Community Foundation Golden Apple award recipients Dr. Lubenfeld, do you want to introduce this one? Oh, yes. Big round of applause. And then I'm going to turn it over to my friend, Sarah Scher. So, you know, the Highland Park Community Foundation is a superb organization and a friend and partner of North Shore School District 112. Just continues to leave an indelible mark of excellence on the community at each and every level. One of our favorite former teachers is Sarah Scherer, who's not
011only a former teacher, she's legendary, she's also a parent of former students, she's also a grandparent of students, and Sarah gets younger each year, yet her mark gets even deeper. You're amazing. Sarah Scherer, President Kessler and Board, oversees the Highland Park Community Foundation Golden Apple Award Program, and just like every year we've been together, I'm telling you this year it's even more cool and more amazing and more deserving. Ladies and gentlemen, Sarah Sher. Is that okay? Okay. How's that? So, thank you first to the District 112 School Board for giving me this opportunity to introduce our 2026 Highland Park Community Foundation Golden Apple Semi-Finalist and Award Recipient tonight. Thank you to each district school and the print the principals of each school for helping make the process so smooth Your ongoing support has been invaluable
012and has allowed this process to continue for so many years Thank you. Also to the representatives of the Highland Park Community Foundation Who sponsored this award who are here tonight? We have executive director Terry Olian and board member Jean Meadows All people who have been part of the community Thanks also to members of the Golden Apple Selection Committee who spent hours and hours on this process. The representatives who are joining us tonight include Joanne Dimitrio and Heather Palmer, both current and former teachers of our school district. Okay enough with the thank-yous now this year the nominations for this award were from grades pre-k through five We had more nominations than we've ever had from every single school in the district the decision to narrow these fine applications down to just three was challenging agonizing Really
013really hard all three of these exemplary educators provide safe learning environments are innovative and supportive and go above and beyond what teachers are expected to do in the classroom. All of them are loved and respected by their colleagues, administrators, parents, and most of all, their students. I am so honored now to introduce the semifinalists and the final recipients of the award. By the way, the two semifinalists were so gracious when I let them know that, oh my God, you were so fantastic, but you didn't win. They were so gracious and appreciative. about the reflective process this was that it really, it made it easier to tell them that. The first one will be Rachel Milner, Rachel Joseph Milner, who sent me a note two days ago. She was so sorry she couldn't attend, but she
014had to get a baby induced on Monday. And I said, okay. But she still deserves all these kind remarks that I'm going to make about her. For the students at Brayside, semifinalist Rachel Joseph Milner is more than a first grade teacher. She is the person who makes sure her students are proud of themselves every single day. Her commitment to kindness and creation of the Brayside Kindness Club and her always up energy ensure a culture where no child is invisible. Rachel approaches education with a people first philosophy. She is a creative architect of curriculum and passionate about reading and foundational skills. It is impossible to describe the magic Rachel Joseph Milner creates for her students every single day. To be sure, she is a masterful educator, the caliber of which most students would count themselves lucky
015to encounter once in an academic career. But she is so much more. She is an advocate, a cheerleader, a confident, a guide, a captain, an empathetic ear, a model of what we can become when we ask the best of ourselves. And most importantly, she is a loved and steadfast presence in the lives of every one of her students past and present. Rachel is a teacher who shows up fully for her students, her colleagues, her administrator, and for her school community. As one student said, she never lets students leave the classroom without being happy. And we know she's really happy right now, and I don't think she's watching us on streaming, but I'm going to let her principal have the certificate and these remarks. Thank you. Jamie? Jamie, is there a blue post for Richard? Oh,
016sure. Rachel's much cuter than I am. Okay. Now, semi-finalist Erin Likvess, second grade classroom teacher at Indian Trail, is one of organized collaboration, trust, and enthusiasm for learning. She has created an environment in which young scholars learn and grow together. Learners of all backgrounds feel academically supported, emotionally safe, and are encouraged to embrace their individuality while striving for growth. She intentionally builds strong connections with both students and families, sharing positive moments with parents and taking the time to learn about her students' lives. Her approach to goal setting and differentiation reflects this commitment, providing individualized and exceptional learning opportunities for all students while offering varying levels of support and strategic peer partnerships that build confidence and independence. Erin is a teacher who combines deep instructional expertise thoughtful use of data and love for her students her
017willingness to adapt instruction advocate for appropriate expectations collaborate with colleagues and prioritize prioritize relationships demonstrate the kind of dedication and professionalism that makes a lasting impact on students families and the school community as the students stated Miss Lighty wants them to shine and it is my pleasure to give her her certificate. John Bogey, fourth grade teacher extraordinaire, is this year's Highland Park Community Foundation's 2026 Golden Apple recipient. What sets John apart is not just his extensive knowledge of content, but his absolute joy in teaching and subject matter. His understanding of children's physical, cognitive, emotional, and social growth are unmatched. Students respond positively to his teaching style, which allows each of them to achieve growth and confidence regardless of their learning needs. As one parent commented, Mr. Bogie empowers them to understand how they learn best.
018John's mastery of curriculum and lesson structuring ensures that his students acquire the necessary skills to meet their academic goals. John's students move on to fifth grade confident in their abilities to be successful. But John's classroom is more than a place where lessons are taught. It is a place where students feel safe to take risks, where they are encouraged to be themselves, and where they are reminded daily that they matter. Through intentional design, authentic relationships, and a deep commitment to both academic and social emotional growth, he has created an environment that is nothing short of extraordinary. Students thrive here in a classroom where they know they are known, supported, and never walking alone. Success is not just possible, it is inevitable. Additionally, John's impact is felt throughout the school district and the community. He is always
019giving back to his profession and using his extensive participation in the professional community to enrich his students' and colleagues' lives. Whether it is bogey lunch, guitar lunch, musical director, grant receiver, or technology leader, he fosters a culture of collaboration that impacts everyone in his world. By opening his room to kids' rank, a nonprofit supporting military-connected youth, John creates opportunities for students to engage in meaningful projects that build resiliency and empathy. John invites all his students into bogey world not just for one year but forever. The inclusive community developed by John is exceptional. There is a reason why NWA, you'll never walk alone, hangs above his door. His students know that these words are at the core of who he is. His ability to influence his students and help them grow to be the best persons
020they can be is a powerful responsibility but he does it daily. John's influence extends far beyond the classroom, having a lasting imprint on students, families, and colleagues alike. As the students shared, he always makes you feel like you're enough. Students thrive there, in a classroom where they know they are known, supported, and never walking alone. Success is not just possible in his classroom, it is inevitable. It is my pleasure to give him his certificate. Thank you again for this opportunity to honor these educators who represent the absolute supreme quality in our school district We are very lucky and I'm lucky my kids went here my grandkids went here and I got to teach here And thank you very much Thank you so much Thank you, Sarah. We have so many excellent teachers in this district,
021and these three teachers represent the best of the best, and your write-ups of them were just really, really beautiful. What I heard at the through line of all three of these teachers is that kids are shown that they're loved and given the opportunity to excel in these classrooms, and that's just what we're all about. So thank you so much, and thank you to the teachers represented here. President Kessler before we go I want to say to Terry Olean. Terry is a former member of the North Shore School District 112 board so it's always a pleasure to see you around the school board. Terry is also a former city council member and most recently Ben Alaska attended the Rotary Gala where our own Terry Olean was honored for this year's honoree at the Rotary Gala. Congratulations
022Terry and thank you for your years of service. Appreciate you. No, oh my gosh. No, you're okay. We're grateful that you are here. We love seeing Johanna obviously and Heather, of course. Thank you All right. Thank you very much. We'll move on now to Presentations and informative items the next item on the agenda is the presentation for the k5 dual language report phased implementation plan So before Dr. Schroeder gives this incredibly thoughtful, thorough, and detailed and inclusive report, I want to thank the Board of Education for allowing the administration to engage in this particular task force. And I want to illustrate, acknowledge, and thank the board for going through these community processes when decisions are critical. when decisions are far reaching when decisions some are popular some are unpopular when decisions impact the past the
023present and the future this task force like the citizens task forces during the 2022 referendum campaign like the long-range planning committee that bore the phase one phase two and now uh... partial phase three of the long-range plans all of the internal and external audits that the board has allowed over the years all have a through line that together we're better through partnership and collaboration we come forward with more thoughtful integrated and inclusive plans and this report doesn't simply reflect a year and seventy people and dr schrader's superb leadership and stewardship It reflects North Shore School District 112's near 40 year commitment to multilingual learners, bilingual education. Intercultural connectedness and respect for diverse and divergent viewpoints and Outreach and thoughtfulness with research-based evidence-informed instructional practices and the agility and nimbleness to pivot adapt and change and
024transform as the evidence bears new fruit the research shifts and as demographic conditions warrant so thank you Board of Education and Dr. Schroeder I'm proud to introduce you to share this really thoughtful report thank you just a little under a year ago you made a very difficult decision to close a school and that is something that we thought about as we entered into this space of creating this dual language task force and I just want to thank you each one of you for Supporting this work. I know this is not easy and I really appreciate all of you that Participated in the task force and those of you that sat on the sidelines as this happened Today we're going to share this labor of love It was a lot of work and I have to
025tell you it was very emotional work and it was hard work people around this table are going to be sharing different aspects to how they led through this but i also just want to acknowledge there's many people at home that are watching there's many volunteers that we're going to pause and give shout outs to but just know this was a lot of work because we really do love our dual language community we love our schools and our teachers and our students so bear with me as we take a little walk through this journey of the past several months that started in october So before diving into this task force all of our work is tied to our mission our vision Our core values and our strategic change agenda. I do want to just highlight a
026couple words from our mission We talked about being committed to excellence. That's what this task force is about We are committed to the excellence of the continuation to this deal language task force and the dual language work So you're going to hear specifically from the Student Success Committee that we are committed to excellence when it comes to improving student outcomes. And there's a lot of things that are in progress that we're really excited to share with you. We're also very committed to that kind and connected community. You're gonna hear about our family engagement subcommittee that tapped into our kind and connected community and some of the work that's going to continue beyond the task force with engaging the community. And finally, you're also going to hear a lot about What's to come because this work
027isn't over today? This is a report and a lot of things are in progress, but you're also going to be really blown away by the amount of work that we have Gone through the last couple of months together and as someone said earlier today, we definitely are better together because of our work So, not the best at the clicker. Okay. If you recall, last June, Dr. Sonia Soltero came and she shared some recommendations. And I want to just kind of give a brief highlight to remind you what she shared and where we are on this journey. So the first one, first recommendation she shared was to prioritize English learner needs. And specifically, she talked about thinking about... making a shift and thinking about the resources and the language allocation. And we took this very seriously.
028And in fact, one of the things that we embarked on was... to really think about how we are going to explicitly address these recommendations through the task force, through these subcommittees that we laid out. So that really started with the task force of prioritizing the English learner needs. The second one was through the program redesigned to an 80-20 model. We specifically paused and we thought intentionally, our dual language community have been through different models. They've been through 80-20. They've been through 50-50. And before just jumping into that, we decided through the Student Success Committee with Dr. Rodrigo, with Mr. Castro at the helm, and specifically engaging our principals, Principal Schwinn and Principal Maxwell, and our staff to think about what would that look like, and let's have a third party come in to help us
029assess what really that would look like. Her third recommendation was to do a reset of the school climate and culture at Oak Terrace. We've addressed this in so many ways this past year. Principal Schwinn is in her first year at Oak Terrace and has partnered with Early Childhood Director Nikki Rodrigo and Associate Principal Tori Montalbano to strengthen the school's culture with the staff. The team also has partnered with Principal Maxwell and both PTOs, and I will give a special shout out to Lisa Edison, Kathy Curran, Melody Golden, and Katie Merrick, who have worked to co-host several events this year as one community. Through the launch of the task force. We've also worked to foster stronger relationships extracurricular activities Such as a special shout out to our chess club has brought two communities together and so
030many parents have volunteered to make sure that this club is accessible and Specifically I do want to give a shout out to Melissa Madeira who has done an amazing job of organizing and so many parents as well organizing these events But finally, I want to remind you that the cultural reset is ongoing because we did recommend a co-principal and associate principal model at Oak Terrace in the 27-28 school year to support student integration. And the last recommendation that Dr. Soltero shared was the phase consolidation plan to Oak Terrace. This was a tough one because we understood her intention to really let students... go through their entire experience at Red Oak. But one of the things that we noticed is that as students would matriculate through the older grades, it would get harder to run a
031school where students really felt that sense of family because that family would become very, very small. So that final phase will... start this coming year in 26-27 all kindergarten will attend Red Oak and then at the beginning of 27-20 sorry Oak Terrace and then at the beginning of 27-28 everyone will join at at Oak Terrace and so that was something that we planned in the dual language task force this was the genesis of the consolidation plan I just mentioned the timeline but I'll give pause for people to look at that To start the school year we had two wildly important goals following the four disciplines of execution for educators. 20% of our time, although some might argue that more than that felt like at times, that it was 20%, but 20% of our time is
032spent on these WIGs. That's what we've heard to them in our school district. 80% is what we call the whirlwind of what we do on our everyday jobs. Those are the responsibilities. But I want to pause and just share with you where we are with our specific dual-language WIG tonight. Tonight, we're actually higher than 92.8% because we're delivering this report to you. We won't quite reach the 100%, even tomorrow, because in October, you're going to hear from that third-party vendor that Dr. Rodrigo is going to share with you more information, a report from them on the process that they undertook and all the findings of the program audit. But we are close, and we decided that we really wanted to give... Party that which is our third party vendor more time to be able to
033engage our teachers our focus groups being in the classroom to really get it right and we didn't want to rush that but we're close with achieving this wig You're going to hear from several voices of different facilitators to each subcommittee. And also you are going to see Leanne Meyer-Smith make an appearance. She's actually at another board meeting, but she'll be also coming in to share her gap analysis. But at this time, I'm going to turn this over to our student success committee leads, Dr. Colleen and Mr. Finfer, who are going to share their work. You know what? I'm very excited to do Student Success, so I'm going to skip them and go. So I had the honor of facilitating Student Success alongside Mr. Castro, Ms. Maxwell back here, and Ms. Schwinn, alongside 11 really incredible
034teachers. They worked very hard, and they're very proud of their work, and I'm really excited to share some of that with you today. And so when we started this journey with our committee, we really wanted to find something to ground our work in. And we really found ourselves leaning on the three pillars of dual language education, which you see up on the board right here, which are high academic achievement, bilingualism, biliteracy, and social cultural competency. And we thought about what do we want in terms of our end products, whether it was the RFP, our survey, et cetera. We went back to these because this is what we want for our dual language students. So what better document to kind of guide us than these values as we try to create this for every single student
035in dual language? We had four main tasks as part of our subcommittee. The first one, which really was the biggest one throughout this process, was selecting a third party to do our needs assessment. In a moment, I'll kind of show you the scope of our work, and you'll see that really took the majority of our time. In addition, we were asked to really assess our current instructional resources to determine if they were effective if we made a switch from an 80-20 to a 90-10. That is something that Peridot is doing as part of their key deliverables, which I'll share about in a minute. The other two areas we handled via a survey. So most recently, about two weeks ago, our committee designed a K-5 dual language survey, which we gave to our Red Oak and
036Oak Terrace staff at an after-school meeting. And we wanted to know really two things. We wanted to kind of learn a little bit more about their language stamina overall. And then what professional development opportunities were they looking for? Ms. Maxwell, Ms. Schwinn, myself, Mr. Castro, along with our instructional coaches had a lot of conversations this year. And throughout our committee, we had some great conversations about professional development. But we wanted to really kind of capture the whole K-5 dual language staff. So we pulled them as well, and I'll share those results with you as well. And so here's the scope of our work. We had five meetings. We originally had four of them, but we added one. And what you'll see up here is our first two sessions really focused on the development of our
037RFP. We really spent a lot of time learning what a request for proposal is. We studied some different request for proposals from different school districts as well. And we left our first two sessions with a really clear understanding of what our key outcomes were. We added a third session because our RFP was a lengthy process and we wanted to make sure that everyone was able to give feedback in it. So we met with every member of our committee, got feedback from them, and we ended up adjusting our RFP based on that feedback. And you'll see some of that in our key deliverables. We then sent it out to about 50 different vendors across the country and truly coast to coast in terms of who we sent it to, local universities, nonprofits, both local and national
038experts. We got nine proposals back. We did a blind assessment of those proposals. Mr. Castro went ahead and blacked out any names and identifying information for every single proposal. And we had our staff read about 1,000 pages in a day. They were exhausted at the end of it, but what was really exciting about it was at the very end of our work together re-evaluating this, all of our members chose the exact same vendor. So our staff was united in terms of who they wanted. So we took that. We made a board recommendation to you guys on February 17th. But our last session focused on our dual language survey where we looked at four key questions which were based off our outcomes, which I'll share with you in a little bit. So Dr. Schrader said we
039worked with Perry Dodd. Perry Dodd was board approved on February 17th unanimously by you, so thank you. Perry Dodd is made up of four local and national experts. John Hilliard is the co-founder. He's a former bilingual teacher of the year in New York. Christina Sanchez-Lopez was actually in the district today, so I got to spend some time with her, which was really nice. She is a really powerful figure in the state of Illinois when it comes to dual language and EL supports. She was on the Illinois Comprehensive Literacy Task Force, which is about 15 to 20 people, so she was selected for that. She was also on a task force by the state of Illinois to support English language learners. So she has a lot of expertise in this area. Margo Gottlieb, excuse me, is
040the co-founder of WIDA, which is a nonprofit organization based out of Madison, Wisconsin. They provide supports to really just. organizations across the country in terms of how to support English language learners. They also are the developers of the access test, which all of our students and students across the state of Illinois take our ELs to determine their proficiency. So she, what better person than to have a support our process by having someone who is literally the co-founder of the organization. And there's Dr. Fred Genesee, who's a professor emeritus. He's kind of behind the scenes. He's doing a lot of our data analysis work. So it's really a really powerful collection of individuals overall. So we had six key deliverables that we are currently working with Peridot is going to provide an executive summary to the
041Board of Education In September or October of next school year. They're looking at four key areas The first one is an instructional model analysis or recommendation So they're going to recommend to us whether we should move forward with an 80-20 a 90-10 or a 50-50 They're also doing a comprehensive by literacy of assessment framework Which really is a fancy way of saying which assessments are best for our dual language schools Curriculum and pacing and framework was a recommendation that we added. This was an additional outcome that our committee really believed in. I've shared this before in some of our reports, but it is incredibly challenging to pace just monolingual. classrooms and their units and the lessons doing dual languages double as hard and so we saw this as a great opportunity to seek that feedback
042from them as experts and tell us is there a better way to approach how we're approaching our curriculums and last but not least they're gonna be doing a dual language classroom size analysis for us and providing us guidelines in terms of what the ideal dual language classroom size should be all of this will be wrapped up in a final board presentation in October for your review okay so where are we at now I love this graph up here because it gives an understanding of what we've done so far and where we want to go. So phase one started shortly after February 17th. We met the week after. We completed that. It was mostly logistical information, making sure that we had everything lined up. We then quickly moved to quantitative data collection analysis. And so what
043that looked like is Peridot came to us and asked us for really a very long, lengthy list of academic data, enrollment data, demographic data, and we provided to them about three to four weeks early. So it was really exciting. They've really been able to kind of get in there with Mr. Genesee is really working on that. What we did in April is we did qualitative data classroom. observations. So PerryDot was at both Red Oak and Oak Terrace doing classroom observations in all of our classrooms, getting to see ELA, SLA, mathematics, our specials, etc. And then we wrapped up phase four, which is qualitative data today, actually. We were meeting with the admin assistants, the family engagement specialists, but we also met with families, with teachers, administrators, and we were able to include students, which initially
044wasn't part of the plan, but we were able to add our third, fourth, and fifth graders because they have a lot of input as well. So all those phases are now complete. Now what's happening is Peridot is having a retreat next week where they're going to be meeting as a team and they're going to start working at the kind of the lighter blue, what you see up there, which is the four key deliverables I spoke about, the instructional framework, the guidelines, etc. When that's wrapped up, they're going to focus on some social cultural competency assessments to figure out how we're doing in that area. Once again, really sticking to those three pillars of dual language education and then ultimately a final report. So we're in a really good spot. Everything on our end we've completed
045and now we're really just relying on Peridot to do the analysis. So some of our key milestones. I think it's really rare to have people agree upon anything, but to have the Board of Education and our committee unanimously support Peridot is really special. We're halfway through our 50-50 evaluation at this point in time, and we just received our feedback from the K-5 Dual Language Survey, which I'm going to share with you now. So we asked four primary questions from our staff. We got 70 respondents overall. We asked first, do you want to explore an instructional model other than 50-50? We had 38.6% of our staff say, yeah, I'd like to explore 80-20. 34.3% said 50-50. There's a very small little chunk there that Google didn't pick up with their slide, but the 90-10 is 4.3%.
046And there's a chunk of people who just didn't necessarily have an opinion. We then asked our staff... about their linguistic capacity and their pedological capacity as well. So if we made a switch to an 80-20 or 90-10 model, how do you think you would feel at that stamina, which was our fourth task as part of our group? This one's pretty split all around. We had 25.7% feeling very confident, 20% feeling confident, 17.1% somewhat confident. And then we both had 7.1% for both slightly and not at all confident. So this is really powerful information for us if our vendor recommends an 80-20 or 90-10. It gives us some really good insight in terms of how we would need to support our staff. The third question we asked is looking at linguistic responsiveness, what is best for
047our students? Because ultimately our staff has the most input. This one, we had 50% of our staff say 50-50 they believe is the best model, 28.6% 80-20. A small little sliver, it's around 3% said 90-10. And then we had 18.6% of our staff said not applicable. And that could have been for a variety of reasons, whether they were a paraprofessional or they didn't believe that this would change how they would approach their teaching, whether it was a PE teacher, et cetera. Ultimately, why they chose that, we don't have that insight, but they didn't feel like it was relevant to them. Last but not least, we've done a lot of work this school year in trying to increase the professional development we're providing our dual language teachers. I'm really proud of that. But the best way
048to improve upon that for next school year is really to ask them. And so three areas really stood out to us in terms of what teachers want. Number one was differentiation and intervention. And that is pretty typical, whether you're a monolingual school, dual language school, middle school, high school. But we hear them. The next one was oracy building, so that listening and speaking element. And then the other one was literacy, writing, and the partner language. So those are our top three overall in terms of what our staff said. And you can see it's a pretty wide margin in terms of what they feel like they need. And so where we're at right now as a committee, our four main tasks are complete. This is kind of where now we step in as a teaching learning
049department overall. We've shared this survey data. We've shared all of our information with Peridot so they can incorporate into their report. Mr. Castro and I met with partners who provides a lot of our professional development around dual language, and we started looking at the top three choices that our staff feel like they need. So we started to draft a little bit of a plan for next year utilizing what they want. We're hoping to wrap that up sometime this week, and then we'll schedule a meeting with Ms. Schwinn and Ms. Maxwell to kind of go over that and see how that fits their needs overall. And then last but not least, we're waiting for the final report from PerryDot in October 2026, and we're going to support them along the way if they reach out for
050any other needs. That's just a small peek into what's going on in Student Success. all right family engagement um i had the privilege of co-facilitating this with mr finfer and miss montalano and we had a really nice mix of staff and families from red oak and oak terrace families from dominant spanish-speaking homes and families from dominant english-speaking homes and so we had a really nice collective of individuals our tasks and you'll see those first four really tasks are They all kind of go together and I'll show you a little bit more in depth in a minute but we had the our first meeting and we'll go into scope more as well like Michael did but our first meeting really focused on what is what are the things that make your building special so again, we
051had red oak and oak terrace staff and families present and so we really worked that first meeting and just making an extensive list of PTO, BPAC events, internal school events, extracurriculars. It was a really fun thing to do, and I'll talk a little bit in a minute about how we're going to share that out. Then we talked about really another task was onboarding kindergarten and new families. So if you are a new family, what do you expect when you join? Dual language. So right now we're in the registration season and when we offer a spot we often hear like tell us a little bit more Can we see the building and so really looking at a more robust onboarding mechanism? We were tasked with survey and questionnaire. So we did a survey for all k5
052Families in dual language and gathered a lot of great input that will be used for future planning And then I would say the most fun, or at least what I would say was the most fun, was planning our family engagement sessions. We had three sessions that were really fun to engage community members. So here's that events and traditions, and I know it is not exhaustive of all because there are so many, but what we wanted to do was be able to separate what is unique about Oak Terrace, what is unique about Red Oak, what are some shared traditions? So there's a lot of shared traditions, and as Dr. Schrader said, the PTOs have already been working hard to bring both communities together, and so they've had some, they've started to create some shared traditions as
053well, and then future opportunities. So what are things that are maybe missing? I like to call attention to a parent pickleball tournament. So that's something that somebody recommended as a future tradition. So board members Fink and Fishman, as dual language parents, I think you should get ready for a pickleball tournament. So as you can see, there's lots of really great stuff up here. So our family engagement events, what were we trying to do with our family engagement events? And we held three of them, and we really tried to hold them at times so that everyone had an opportunity to attend. So we held one right after school, we held one in the evening, and we held one on a Saturday. And they were all attended, heavily attended. So really it was bringing families to Oak
054Terrace. Whether you're an Oak Terrace family or you're a Red Oak family, come explore the school, see all the wonderful things it has to offer. community input so we had a section set up for if you had not completed the survey we wanted to be able to hear from you we had dr. Schrader there to answer questions from families so what's top of mind what are things you're worried about what are what are considerations you'd like to put into play future planning so students really liked this one it was The playground was there, like a playground design. Lots of feedback. I think you've heard from Margaret at board meetings that the most fun part was getting student feedback and then making some changes and implementing. And so families were able to do that. And then
055just family connections. So both PTOs were there each time. We were so appreciative. The BPAC was represented. And so it was really nice to be able to bring people together and just a sense of community. And then we had games in the gym. That was also very fun for students. Okay, so this I'm gonna just do a really quick shout out before we play it. This is a collection of Our events. I'm just gonna give a shout out to mr. Finfer for putting this wonderful video together I think it really captures the excitement and the joy of those at the event. Thank you to mrs. Montembello. She had student We're do a little dance for a minute She was able to have student leaders come in and do the scavenger hunt, so it was really
056nice, and set up the scavenger hunt and the fun games. And you can see Mr. Castrahon was quite popular facilitating the games. So thank you. No, it's me. All right, I'll click. Here's just a recap of our scope of work. So our first meeting was November 6th. That's really when we looked at what are the traditions, what are the events that are important to both buildings. December 11th, our committee reviewed the survey and started just some pre-planning for the family engagement sessions. January 15th, we finalized those family engagement sessions. And then you'll see up there February 7th. 19th and 23rd were the family engagement sessions we did We had intentions of holding a virtual meeting and then we had I think another Another I think it was actually the joint PTO meeting which was a
057really wonderful event And so we did a an electronic meeting together feedback from the survey results from our committee So the spotlight here, key milestones, really looking those three family engagement events for the milestones and then gathering feedback from our families. The subcommittee really helped shape opportunities for families to share input. So those are things that we focused on. And really our next big action items would be. We've shared the lists with our PTOs and our co-principals so that they can start working on some joint traditions. Like we said, PTOs are already doing that and working on the onboarding. And Mr. Castro is co-facilitating that with our two principals, and they will definitely be getting support through the PTOs as well. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Finford. Do you want me just
058to click for you while you do it? I'll come and get it. We want to walk you through some of the key themes from the survey. First, I want to point out that the raw data from the survey is available in the full report. Thank you. that you could find in the appendix and it has all the responses. So we're just gonna go through some of the themes, a few examples of comments, but the actual appendix has every bit of data that was received in the survey. So we sent this survey actually to pre-K through five fifth grade families. You could see up there that it's 557 total students who were represented in the respondents so we have 103 total responses 81 from english-speaking families 22 from spanish-speaking families we heard from families connected to
059both oak terrace and red oak and we also heard from families across all grade levels so while this is very clearly not the entire population of dual language k5 i feel like the feedback showed some very clear repeated themes that we'll walk you through right now So one of the big questions was why did you choose dual language? And families, as you can see across both groups, are aligned on the importance of bilingualism. The English survey families often talked about brain development, diversity and culture, long-term academic and career benefits, and also global citizenship. Spanish survey families often talked about preserving Spanish, cultural identity, connection to family. and heritage access and opportunity. So families may describe it differently, but they are all very deeply invested in the program for very meaningful reasons. One of the other
060questions we asked about was the types of support and barriers that families face in the dual language program Families want to support learning at home. That was a big takeaway, but they need better tools That's what they're asking for English survey families asked for vocabulary lists and pronunciation help Optional print materials guidance for parents who do not speak Spanish and more frequent classroom updates Spanish survey families asked for help supporting English literacy at home, more clarity about how the program works, bilingual materials, and more Spanish books for home reading. So families want help, that's very clear, and they're telling us specifically what would help them do that. Alright the next question we asked about was some of the needs as we go through this transition this year next year going into 2728 this slide shows
061the areas where families want more detail the main topics as you can see up there were timeline and milestones transportation staffing continuity facilities and space student supports school day routines community building and how feedback is being used Again, asking for very clear and specific supports, not just general reassurance, which we hear you loud and clear on that. We also wanted to ask about future intent, of course, just for planning for purposes of when both schools come together. And we were not surprised by this, but we still wanted to ask the question. Many families remain fully committed to the dual language program, which was great to see. At the same time, confidence in the transition process was a little bit more mixed. Family said confidence would be strengthened by transparent communication staffing continuity manageable class sizes
062and enough space and visible facility improvements many of these obviously being addressed via the dual language task force One of the strongest themes here was trust. This is less about whether families value dual language We know that they do and more about whether they feel confident in how this transition will unfold over the next year A big issue that came up a lot in many responses were transportation concerns. It came up as a major concern for a lot of respondents. Families raised questions about bus ride length, especially for younger students, kindergarten through second grade, drop-off and pickup congestion, parking and access for school events, sibling schedule alignment if you have a child at middle school and at Oak Terrace. Families see transportation as more than just logistics. They see it as a safety issue, an
063access issue, and a family engagement issue. So again, we hear that loud and clear. Key themes from the feedback here. I'll just read through them real quick again You can read through them in the report which is available on the website as well as the entire raw data from the survey When we looked across all responses these were really the key themes that came up repeatedly class size and ratios staff retention space and crowding traffic safety equitable support unified culture program program clarity trust and listening. These themes cut across many individual comments and we'll show you a couple examples coming up in the next slide and give us a pretty strong picture of what matters most to families. So here you can see some of the specific responses from respondents in the survey. It puts
064some of the actual family language behind the themes that we've talked about. You can see the quotes reflect concerns about unity, transportation, staffing, trust, academic quality, community building, safety, and home support. And again, these are just a few of the sampling of some of the responses. You can see all of them in the raw data, but those are really the topic areas where a lot of them came through. These can't these show that families are being thoughtful they're being specific and consistent in what they're asking for which we obviously really appreciate and is very helpful as we move forward. So this last piece here was about that family ambassador program and onboarding new families that Dr. Colleen was talking about. This was a really encouraging part of the survey. There are a lot of encouraging
065parts but this was one of the most encouraging parts. Many families expressed deep interest in wanting to help welcome and support others again not surprising but still encouraging to see they said they could help by answering questions connecting with new families supporting events and tours sharing advice and resources they also identified what they believe as parents who have gone through the program themselves some of the what new families would need the most routines, curriculum, information, language, expectations, transportation, details and key contacts. So families not only are sharing concerns, but also many are saying we're ready to help and are just looking for the way to do that to build a stronger, more connected community. So this really just made a few things clear. Families care about this program. Again, not shocking, but still great to
066see. They want more clarity and trust specifically in the transition process. process over the next year and many are also ready to help with supporting whatever comes next. So we appreciate everyone who took part in the survey and we feel like it gave us a pretty comprehensive look at how families are feeling. Dr. Colleen, I pass it over to you. Please turn on your microphone. Sorry, Mr. Finfer, I thought the show was yours. Findings and recommendations, and we've talked about a lot of these already, actually all of them, but making sure that we're building community across both schools. That work has already started within the school and our PTOs. Carrying forward traditions, so that extensive list of traditions we talked about, making sure that we are continuing to honor traditions from both schools and bringing
067them together. Clear and welcoming transition for families again, mr. Castro and our principals will be leading that In strengthening family resources for learning at home All right. Thank you, Dr. Colleen. So I had the distinct honor and pleasure of helping to facilitate the Facilities and Operations Subcommittee. I had the opportunity to lead alongside Dr. Schrader, Mr. Davis, Mr. Bach, Ms. Rodrigo. I wanted to take a second to just say thank you to all the folks who participated in the subcommittee, all those members of the committee, like our parents, our staff. Special thank you to Ms. Hickman and Mr. Fishman for their time and dedication in this process. So the first thing that I wanted to kind of point out here is in addition to those folks who were actually on the committee, these are some
068of our key partners throughout this process. So these are the consultants that helped us really do the bulk of the work. And I wanted to take a second to point out who these folks are and emphasize for the community. These are the same consultants and architects who worked on our other schools, right? Who worked on our elementary schools, who worked on our middle schools, who are continuing to work with us as we plan for, you know, as we work on Brayside, as we continue our work. for Wayne Thomas. So LeAnn Meyer-Smith, who will be here shortly, as Dr. Schrader mentioned, she's at another board meeting at 1-13, so she's on her way over here, was the principal architect. She had a huge role in designing the building that we're in right now, which obviously is
069a fantastic facility in designing Edgewood Middle School. She left a little bit and then came back. We're super excited to have her here. Annette Piha is another one of the architects who had a huge role in our work at Indian Trail and at Ravinia. Patty King is one of the... landscape architects who did a lot of work on the exteriors. Daniel Wilson has also done work on our schools. He's a little newer to the team, but he's done fantastic work, which we'll take a look at here tonight. And then finally, if you've been watching the board meetings or attending them, you definitely know Margaret. She's been here a number of times as we're working to design our ADA playgrounds throughout the school district. So these were the folks that really kind of helped us with
070this work. So in terms of our tasks, This is our list here. So we wanted to make sure we were identifying the needs for the redesign of the outdoor play space for renovation. That was a huge one that we heard from the community. We also wanted to get input for the redesign of the front area of Oak Terrace or the old office as we refer to it and potentially the lounge slash workroom. Another one of our long stated tasks was to review the furniture needs at Oak Terrace to make sure that it's in line with the renovated K-5 schools like the ones I mentioned. And then finally to conduct a gap analysis between those renovated K-5 schools and Oak Terrace. So first a little bit of historical context so oak terrace was originally built in
0711916 specifically to serve immigrant families I believe it opened with six teachers six classrooms 187 students and it was serving primarily students from Italy and Eastern Europe So it's been a long-standing tradition as a school That's you know really serving those families who are newer to the country that like the bilingual program dates all the way back to 1978 like Dr. Lubelfeld mentioned a little bit earlier. You know, we're very proud of the Spanish-English dual language program, like we know it today. Started at that site in 1996. And then the other piece that's really important is that that current 85,000 square foot facility that we see was built in 2000. There was a renovation by Perkins and Will, and it was built very purposefully with a capacity for 600 students. Just wanted to take a
072second to point those things out. So in terms of the scope of our work we ended up having seven meetings we had six planned So the first one was back in November and we did a tour of Oak Terrace and that was to see the facility Inside and out so the members of the committee had an opportunity to actually see what the school looked like many of them had never been there before Our second bonus meeting we actually did as a result of suggestions from the committee members. They said, that was great. We got to see Oak Terrace. We would really like to also have an opportunity to go to Red Oak and do a tour, right, to see what that facility looks like, you know, for our OT families and to make sure that
073we are, you know, seeing what's going on in this school and that we're honoring those traditions as we, you know, thought about the design process. Our next meeting was December 11th. And that was held at Ravinia. And the idea there was we wanted to, we were primarily going to talk about the outdoor play space and the possible designs for that. And then we also wanted to take a look at the brand new servery that was added as part of the renovation as a possible opportunity for something to add at Oak Terrace. We were also going to just do a general site. tour of it but because we spent so much of our time having fantastic conversations about playgrounds and outdoor spaces we ended up not doing that if we skip ahead one to january dr
074schrader was kind enough to also add another optional tour to go for those around rovinia for those folks who didn't get a chance to see it that night Going back one, we did our third regularly scheduled session at Indian Trail in January. And the idea there was we wanted to specifically look at Indian Trail because it was an elementary site where there was no major addition happening to the school. It was sort of like the bones were going to stay the same. We were doing a renovation of that site. So we wanted to see that comp. All right, and we had our tour of Ravinia that we mentioned. Then the next one, these were kind of like our phase two, if you will, of the scope of our work. So before, we were doing tours.
075Our consultants were listening and hearing a lot about what folks thought was important, what they wanted to see in the new site. And then these last two meetings were the synthesis of that. So at our meeting on February 12th, Margaret came, Patty and Daniel came to talk about the exterior. We went over the proposals for what we might do to refresh the playground, refresh some of the other outdoor areas. And then finally, our last regularly scheduled meeting was March 12th, where we did that same thing, but we did it for the interior. So Leanne Meyer Smith. Our other friends from white came and kind of presented the gap analysis Which we'll go over here in a second and talked about you know Here's what I we heard from you the committee members, and here's what
076we are proposing for the site so I want to take a second just like the other groups did and kind of highlight some of the work that we did. And like Mr. Finfer mentioned, there's a lot in the actual report, which is available for everyone. We're just kind of highlighting a couple things we think are really, really cool. So one of those is the work that we did with the outdoor play space and the progress we've already made on that. So the playground design was presented to the Board of Education way back on March 16th and was approved by the Board of Education April 21st, 2026. Thank you, Board. Appreciate that. outdoor recreation study for the blacktop area was also presented to the board in March and approved in April. And as we'll see, we're
077actually going to be installing the first phase of the new playground this summer. So it's going to be available and ready for our families to use when we come back for school in August. All right. In terms of the long term plan, the blacktop area and swings are recommended for installation the following year. So if you take a peek up there and if you Many of us have seen this already. If you go back and watch some of our older board meetings, which are available online, you'll be able to see a nice presentation on this with a flyover of what that space looks like. But this is what the board just approved. And this piece here, what we see, that's what we expect to have at opening day in August. In terms of the second
078piece that we mentioned, that summer. 2027, that's when we're going to be looking at up there if you take a look that refresh of the blacktop area. So we're doing a couple of things there including resurfacing, adding you know some updates in terms of some play elements, moving the Gaga pit over there. And if you take a look here you get a little zoomed in view of what we saw. This is the other piece that'll be part of that 2027 work which is that we're going to be expanding the playground. So if you look over there, you can kind of see on the bottom right, that's where like the swings and the slides and like the climbing elements are. And above that, that's where those swing sets are going to go, which is really cool
079because Oak Terrace has not had swing sets historically. So that was something that members of the committee were really adamant about when we did our community engagement and we got a chance for the kiddos to see it. They also said loud and clear, we want to make sure there are swings here. So we are going to deliver just that. Very excited about it. All right, the other thing that I wanted to highlight was, and it just came up through our committee work naturally, was there were questions about safety and security, which I think we also saw in the data that Mr. Finfer was going on, you know, in terms of, like, community survey. So our director of safety and security, Solveig Jermou, took that opportunity to go through and do a really comprehensive... overview of
080the safety and security for the site so I'm gonna go ahead and hand it over to Solveig at this point she's gonna share what what she went over good evening So I was brought in to address task force concerns regarding traffic capacity safety operational readiness during the transition so one of my responsibilities as the director of safety security here in 112 is I conduct what's called school site assessments at all of our school buildings and I conducted one for Oak Terrace and I want to highlight some of the things that are in place we have really a strong over security infrastructure so that has everything to do with access control cameras alarms panic buttons we have backup power and then also we have a very secure and well-maintained campus meaning Oak Terrace, very clearly defined
081perimeter. I love fencing. It gives us a very defined perimeter, allows people to stay where they need to stay, our students, our staff, and also prevents from unauthorized access onto our property. Effective lighting. whether it's inside the school outside the school we are doing well there we have controlled access and hardened entry points meaning that all of our perimeter doors are electronically monitored and alarmed they're locked visitor very strong visitor access procedures i work with the admin assistants at all of our school buildings to include oak terrace to train them ensure and keep them up to date on what is happening across schools across the country making sure that they are ready for anybody that may come to the door that is not authorized one thing that i you know coming from a law enforcement
082field background i believe in very strong positive relationship with our first responders that serve our communities highwood pd highland park pd as well as the fire department i interact with them almost on a weekly basis and i do see that at oak terrace officers from highwood pd are routinely on site during our arrival and our dismissal and periodically through the day one thing that i also do is i want to make sure that we are ready for any emergency and prepared i we have an emergency operation plan always evolving document that is up to date providing training for staff and students on emergency response as well as training for our district leadership team our leadership team as well We are up to date at all of our schools to include Oak Terrace on all of
083our required drills to include lockdown, evacuation, and shelter. One of the concerns that came up was traffic, and so I conducted a traffic assessment. This is something that I do with all the buildings. I work with the building leaders They turn over to me at the beginning of the school year arrival and dismissal plans And I share this with our police departments so that they know where cars are coming And oak Terrace is no different being in Highwood. I do share that information with Highwood PD What I was able to assess is that there are designated arrival and dismissal areas um we do have a pedestrian for our walkers where they are going and we have easy access for our first responders if they needed to respond in an emergency one thing that i continually
084do is just because a traffic management plan is turned over to me at the beginning of the school year doesn't mean that it's a one and done i am currently i always am always at each of these schools to include oak terrace to constantly do an assessment to determine is this the best that we could do for arrival and dismissal. We are embedded in an urban area. How we have it set up right now is the best of what we have in options. And so when we transition over, there will be a continued assessment to determine if we need to make any changes to where our buses are dropping off as well as arrival and dismissal plans. Thank you director of Chermou so the committee asked questions She looked into different options in terms of
085traffic flow and that report is also part of our general task force report Now joining us is Leanne Meyers Smith principal architect from white and company She had impeccable timing because I said, oh my gosh, your slide is coming up so Part of what Leanne did for the school district was she conducted the gap analysis. She presented that to the task force She presented it to you on May 5th as well. So Leanne is going to do a high-level gap analysis report just In case anyone had any further questions at the end of this, we wanted to give her the time to go through this. So Leanne, I'm going to give you this clicker. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It's so good to be back in this room, too,
086and see how great it looks. I must say, I know. It's so amazing. All right. So I pressed the green, I guess, to go over it. All right, so first of all, what we considered a gap analysis was looking at Oak Terrace Elementary School and really comparing it to the newly renovated North Shore Elementary Schools, the ones that are already renovated as well as the ones that are in progress, because we wanted to identify what kind of gaps, what shortcomings, or what strategies we could do to... Update oak terrace to make sure it had parity with the other elementary schools. So that was the lens we were looking for The good news is Oak Terrace was your, or is your newest school, and it's actually really a wonderful school. It was built by a renowned
087architect, Perkins and Will, known for their educational designs, and so it really has stood the test of time. It's a beautiful facility. It was built with great materials and a great floor plan. So we looked at that first from the outside in. The size of the school, I'll share in a minute about the square foot per student. It has adequate space. Again, well designed, well planned. The exterior envelope is in good condition. There's been updates to the roof. The brick is in good condition, the windows and the doors. So we're well ahead of where we were with some of the schools that we have renovated. The infrastructure, again, mechanical, electrical, plumbing systems are in good condition. They've been well maintained. the building is built from like 2000 to 2002 so in our world that's not
088too old for a school technology has already been updated the classrooms have two monitors in them the wireless access points have been updated so again well ahead of where we started most of the time in these other schools the site in the playground many opportunities there on the site we have the soccer fields we have ample playground equipment you're gonna I think you've heard about that already the black asphalt area and then the front area where you have between the wings of the school are some learning opportunities and outdoor classrooms there so again for the land there very well developed and we were excited to work with this finally sustainability you know in many of the elementary schools we are taking on sustainability in a couple different ways here at oak terrace i've heard they
089are getting the solar panel installation so So I mentioned earlier that we looked at the square footage per student in all of your elementary buildings. And we just have a summary chart. I don't know if anybody can read it from where you're at, but you have it in front of you. And Oak Terrace was designed for 600 students. It's your largest building. It can hold four classrooms per grade level. if you'd like to, like approximately 86,000 square feet. So that means 144 square feet per student, which is well above the old school, the old design parameters of 120 to 125. And it's also above how we design schools today, 130 to 140 square foot per student. So be assured there is ample and really quality space inside Oak Terrace. The site we did want to
090fairly look at the site as well and here we are a little slightly under if we were starting in a perfect world with abundant land that we could build on. It's a little bit smaller than we'd like to see. However, it makes use of every inch efficiently, again, with the extra soccer field and the way the playgrounds and everything has been designed. We really have good opportunities, so we're really making the best of what we have there, and it's really great for the students. And it's actually pretty similar to Wayne Thomas, so it's not out of the ordinary for the district. So moving inside the building. These are the main areas that we looked at for the gap analysis and again they come from the work we've already done at the elementary schools with many
091of you participated in getting us there. We're going to talk a little bit about school branding, the main office with the secure entry vestibule, I know you've heard about that before, having that parent drop-off station up at the front, small group rooms, staff wellness areas, things like break areas. wellness mother rooms Student resources we're going to look at special ed resources the library of course the media centers the heart of the school We've all seen how those have been improved corridor collaboration getting using that space outside the classroom to benefit teaching and learning the classroom itself we're going to talk a little bit about that in the furniture in the classrooms and The storage in the classrooms very important to have adequate storage of course food service We're going to talk a little bit about
092a servery and then student artwork, which will be really fun to take on in this building. So moving into some of the areas of focus in plan. The first one is the main office, actually the new main office. The original main office at this school was closer to the end of the building on the south side in the corner. But you have since moved it. rightly so to be closer to the drop-off area and the parking area so the main office where it sits today we need some minor improvements they're very minor a couple walls we've outlined them with the red dashed lines first of all will be a secure window between your reception staff that's there in the main office and people coming in scanning their credentials it allows the credentials to go on
093under the bullet resistant glazing into the office, be checked out and get a badge before even entering that office area. So just another level of security and another layer. But inside that vestibule also will be the student and parent drop off area. for items. If someone forgets the needs to deliver something to a student, they don't need to go into the main office or the school. There's a drop-off position there like we have at all the other schools. And then finally to the right on your screen is, it was a space that was a small resource room that we've located somewhere else and we're... We're putting in a dividing wall to create two properly sized conference rooms at the front of the building. Again, we want to make sure we have space for IEPs, student
094or parent meetings or any kind of group meetings where you need outside visitors to come in that we can take care of that up front without wandering through the school. And then it can also be used, of course, for staff meetings, et cetera. It was a very easy modification to make at the front office. An exciting addition that we've looked at proposing is a servery addition on the east side of the existing multipurpose cafeteria space. Right now, serving takes place in that room. Everything is mobile, but there's nowhere to put it, so it stays along the north wall and takes up a fourth of the space, and it's not really all that safe. You might run into it if kids are in there doing something else, and it just... you know kind of cramps the
095room a little bit. Plus the serving of the food is not really adequate getting the kids through an ample time. So we are looking at doing a servery addition very similar to Ravinia. Where there'll be double doors at the end of the space kids can file in one side Properly select their food get all of their condiments accessories go out the other side and then at the end of the day when food service is over they can be closed off cleaned prepped and ready for the next day and there's no equipment then sitting out in the multi-purpose space This one is a small but very important improvement. It didn't require moving any walls, but adjacent to the existing staff lounge, there's a small copy room that we've... relocated into another work area and a small
096group room which we also have space for elsewhere and the small workroom will become the staff wellness room that can be used for any staff that needs a break a nursing mother really a great benefit to this building having this space it has windows it'll be really great for that use adjacent to it will be building storage Right now there's building storage in a storeroom next to the multi-purpose room It was obviously designed to be multi-purpose room storage But when necessity was there the paper and all the supplies are stored in there thus we have storage up on the stage So this will kind of move that all around we can clear the stage Put materials in the proper storage room and then have all of the paper storage and office supply storage in this
097room. So We've kind of just done a move around. No walls were needed, but it's going to really enhance efficiency in the building. This is the area which used to be the main office when the building was built. On the left is the existing plan. On the right with the color is the new or proposed plan. On the left, you'll see at the lower side, I'm not sure if I can press this, but... there is a lot of little rooms, you know, divided up for a main office. We are taking a lot of those walls out and creating two usable spaces. for special education student resource and kind of a flex area. It gives all of those programs as well as the ESL program a space to do testing, extra class overload, whatever they need.
098We're creating that two really nice usable rooms up there, a lot of good daylight. But then also you see the small green room. That's going to be a PE office because those personnel, that staff right now, they are housed in a store. inside the PE, inside the gym, and that prevents all of the PE supplies and athletic. Supplies to be put into that storage room because we're using it as an office so again we're just gonna kind of correct that and get everybody in proper spaces like we have in the new designs in the other schools and then above that was a room which used to be the nurse's office but the nurse has been moved up to the front new area for the main office so that room too doesn't take any wall moving
099we're just gonna freshen it up and that will be Student resource room as well for special ed So not a lot has to be done to this building. Like I'm saying, it's really great space. We're just doing some minor tweaks. But the classrooms themselves, this is a classroom on the second floor. All the classrooms on one side of the building look like this. This is kind of a standard shape. There's a couple other shapes, but pretty much all the items are the same. On the left, again, is the existing plan. On the right is the proposed. There are some photos along the side of some of the classrooms just to kind of illustrate. what we have. They're great classrooms. Wonderful size, wonderful daylight. Again, great design. I love the daylight. Many of the rooms have
100two, if not three, walls of windows. So in the classrooms, we're looking at a couple of items. First of all some new flexible furniture This will be the same tables and chairs and rolling carts for storage that we have in all of the schools that have been renovated It's become the district standard of furniture appropriate for the grade levels We've also looked at the teaching wall, which is represented by the dashed red line kind of on the left middle of your screen. That will be with a flat panel screen, the white boards, everything again that you see modernizing this space. The square that's, or the rectangle that's drawn on the floor represents the area that's available for sitting on the floor or flexible space. The whole room is really open. It's not really a rug
101or anything. It's just really to show that we have that space available at one side. one teaching area of the room up at the top what is in the rectangle that is our storage area and that too has become a district standard ever since we did this building it represents taking any storage that was around the perimeter of the wall and stacking it vertically with adjustable shelving, whatever's in there, the controls for the flat panel monitors, but it can all be closed off to students with white movable marker board doors that are very usable as another teaching surface in the classroom and another flat panel monitor. So two monitors in the room, adequate storage, which frees up the perimeter of the classroom. for a lot of teaching and learning flexibility. We have rolling carts that
102are shown docked up against the wall under the windows, but they can be moved out to the student tables, and that has their totes and personal learning items in them that every student has a tote, and that can be moved around the room and next to the tables for teaching and learning. We're also going to be changing the ceilings and lighting in the classrooms with quality acoustic tile as well as LED lighting and the LED lighting will of course promote energy savings but also will be dimmable and provide the right light balance for the students and you know the right light level that you need so that's been shown many times I know you've heard about it to be a really great improvement in the classrooms Additionally, new carpet tiles like these will be proposed
103as well. And again, that too has a lot to do with the room acoustics. It quiets the general overall noise and moving of things so that the teaching and learning voices can be heard easily and promotes a lot of hearing of words better than when we have that louder ambient noise. Also very comfortable and warm in the rooms too. And as you know, this is commercial grade antimicrobial carpet tiles. spray it off like your car mat. So that again will be the same type of products that we put in the other schools. Another improvement that we talked a little bit about earlier is extending teaching and learning into the corridors, making sure we take advantage of collaboration. It doesn't just stop at the door to the classroom. On the top is the existing piece of
104the hallway with a small group room. And on the bottom is the proposed plan. Not a lot of difference. But on the left, you can see in the photos, the upper left-hand photo shows the floor pattern that's in the school right now. It was very kind of Frank Lloyd Wright style, but very colorful and still relevant today. But adjacent to that, where you see that in the hallways, are three wooden benches that have been built in with the windows. Great daylight in these corridors. Again, really... was a great amenity when they designed this that the corridors have natural light and so we're looking at taking advantage of those collaboration spots in the corridors we do see teachers and students there using them the building users actually are very favorable about these benches so they're a
105great asset So one of the small group rooms that you're seeing there in the larger kind of red rectangle, that's representing a fifth grade collaboration corner, if you will. We're going to open up one of the small group rooms in the building on the second floor where the fifth grade classrooms, the group of four classrooms are, opening that one up, removing two walls, and making a collaboration corner for them because, as we know, when they move to this building, we have a lot of... open collaboration rooms here for teaching and learning outside the classroom. We want to give the students a little autonomy to kind of monitor themselves, but we know this is their first time in the fifth grade. We want to kind of get them used to it and ease into how that
106could be used working with that team. Finally, the media center. As you've seen everywhere, the media center, certainly here, it's the heart of the school. All the students use it, so it's very important that this space be renovated and modernized with the same detail and level of quality that we've done at the other ones. It's a great space. Probably you've seen it. It's big but it also you can kind of lose yourself in it It needs a little bit of organization. So, you know where the zones are Again, not a heavy lift in here mostly finishes lighting to make sure that we can Direct students to areas with appropriate zones and activities that are going on the pictures on the left You can kind of see how it's been we've been trying they've been trying
107to zone areas off with furniture, but they also have the preschool in there now too. So there's a little bit of age use in the library that they've tried to create. So on the right hand side is the proposed. The pink colored rooms are rooms that were kind of giving a light and bright to the upper one. We did have to put in a couple new walls. Those will all be dedicated to small groups, learning, special ed, ESL, all of those types of of functions that we can take care of around the media center. And then the media center, we've relocated the circulation desk. You can see that angle. Movable shelving the shelving is all movable so we can reconfigure it and then the square that's drawn that represents the classroom the teaching and learning
108space within the media center we have a teach wall there it's a again showing that that zone is for an activity and along the window zones will be all of the movable kind of soft furnishing so you kind of layer into the space and then all the way to the right is is something that we've developed at most of the media centers and i think a good example would be indian prairie where we have kind of a wood platform as you come in up against the wall this one's going to take it even a step further i'll show you a picture in a minute where there'll be a word actually in spanish that you can have students sit in you can display projects in but it draws you all the way down and into that
109media center over to the stair that's at the bottom which is again a feature we're going to be highlighting this stair right now is almost unused because it has a dark door it looks like you're not supposed to go there but it limits student access at that end of the building so we're going to open that up brighten it up put a window in it some wall murals and make sure students feel welcome to use that space and they'll be drawn down that wall to use that all the time to kind of give that feel of an open media center that we have everywhere else. Now branding, I'll talk a little bit about that. As you've seen, especially recently at Ravinia, we want to make sure that each school is celebrated with its own culture,
110its own identity, colors. And one way that we like to do that is with wall murals and student artwork. This is a program with an artist that we use. where we come in and do workshops. We like to do it in the fall, having the Red Oak and Oaktara students together to create artwork. There's a theme. We'll talk about butterflies. We'll talk about acorns. We'll talk about tree leaves. We'll talk about squirrels, foxes. We'll tell them a story, and they will choose what to draw. The artist then uses pieces of that and kind of abstracts them a little bit and puts them into wall murals. that we put on vinyl wall fabric and we'll put inside Oak Terrace. We're recommending they be in the stairwells. Again, connecting vertically with the mural as well, leading kids
111up and down in the stairs. They'll also be in corridors at spots. We can wrap a corner. So we're looking at, you know, I think it's about six or eight locations we'd like to propose. And then we would like to put a larger one in the multipurpose room, too. So, again, we really want this to reflect. the new program that will be there, bringing all the students together and really give this building its own identity. So here's some pictures and some inspiration. We always like to do a mood board. So we're looking at for this building this kind of mood celebrating the butterfly, the monarch, which is the logo, but also has such great meanings. The development of a butterfly, growing up, maturing, and flying off to the next step. We've got lots of symbolism
112that we can use with the butterfly, but also the colors, bringing in the culture of the building, the students, a lot of bright colors. Celebration happy and you can see at the top where it says I don't know what that is create our heart But you can see that we've done this a couple times where we'll put the letters together And it becomes a place for students to sit where we have shelving we have display and also presentation that could happen So we're looking at that kind of example for the media center. To the right, you can see again that floor pattern, how those colors will be incorporated and brought into the rest of the building, even some new tile if we need some new tile and some new rubber flooring where appropriate. So this
113is kind of the theme that you'll see to kind of brighten up the building a little bit. these are some of our vision some renderings of how that could be applied in the classroom similar to the rooms you've seen in this building or all of our other schools we like to use paint paint is your inexpensive way to change the mood freshen up the room so we're you're seeing that you're seeing the new ceiling lighting very clear clean that those are the LED light fixtures that we've used in all of the schools The furniture, again, the district standard furniture that we're using, a teaching podium at the top that can be moved around with storage, some of the cubby storage on the right. But you'll see those white doors at the back. Those are the
114sliding marker boards that allow the instructor access to have all that storage tucked away in there and yet very usable opens up the space. The carpet, I want to point out the carpet tile. We're proposing a colorful band of carpet tile at the front. Again, kind of signaling that this is a space that could be used to sit on the floor or an activity. But that carpet, we'd like that color to run outside. the door and connect the two fifth grade classrooms that are on one side with the other two fifth grade classrooms and that would happen at each of the pods each of the four classroom pods we just think it would be a great way to unite the house of a grade level like the designer intended when they set that up This
115is an image of what we think that fifth grade Collaboration space could look like again the two doors that you see together Those are two classrooms fifth grade classrooms and then the other two across the way and this is kind of incorporating what you've seen at the other schools flexible soft furniture a Display monitor so that they can watch something or they can display and share their work Up above, we have LED lighting, but the horizontal, the strips that are there are actually a felt acoustic board in the colors that we're proposing. Because again, we know this is their first time collaborating. We want to make sure they're not too loud for all the other students. So that serves as an acoustical barrier kind of to keep it low. But again, and then student artwork.
116This is just our rendition of putting some artwork on the wall. We intend for that to be designed. other students as well these are those collaboration benches again the bones great bones they're there we just want to freshen them up with some cushions a little some accent lights at the top and then some floating wood shelves along the side because if you go in the corridors now and see these. There's often boxes of Kleenex, little things of pens. We like to kind of clean that up, make it purposeful and be respectful of the area. Again, incorporate the colors that are already in the floor. I think this will be a really easy way to use the corridors. This is the media center that I was talking about and you can see on the left is
117the soft seating, the movable flexible seating along the window walls. You can see the stacks and the movable bookcases in the middle and in the foreground is that teaching and learning area not shown off the screen is the actual flat panel monitor and Whiteboards that you would see but you can see the word that's coming down from the entrance that'll extend all the way down to the stair that I talked about with the platforms and the students will really love sitting in this space we we tried to choose a word that had a lot of o's and c's and places for students seating and there'll be places for shelving and artwork up above that that path kind of leading you in and down the side of the media center are those same acoustic fiber wrap
118or fiber felt wrapped acoustic panels that'll be up there. Again, bringing that color in. You can see in the flooring we're using that same colorful pattern that we had at the front of the classrooms. Just tying the whole building in purposefully with this new image and branding. So that's what we looked at. Yeah, thank you. It was very fun, exciting. So the first one is to renovate the playground and blacktop area at Oak Terrace. Again, thank you so much for your support on that. To review the safety and security report that Director Jermu put together. And then finally to refresh Oak Terrace School, which goes into what the primary topic was at our May 5th Board of Ed Facilities meeting. So our partners from White, Gilbane, Play Illinois presented pretty much a version of what
119Leanne just did, right? It was... uh... in eleven point nine five million dollar renovation plan based off of the findings of the gap analysis uh... mister davis will talk in a second a little bit about how we propose funding that but again the aim was really just a modernize the school which as we have pointed out is an extremely good condition uh... to align it with the district's newly renovated k five sites so in terms of not gonna go over all these because she just did but When it came time for us to decide where we wanted to spend our time and our resources, it was really focusing on those areas that directly impact learning, right? So that's our classrooms, our shared spaces like the library media center, those corridors, art, music, band, orchestra, places
120like that. And then also making sure that our staff spaces like the wellness room and the break room were taken care of. So those are what we decided we really wanted to focus the proposed improvements on. On the other side of that, I wanted to just take a second because there were a lot of areas that were identified in the gap analysis, but we are choosing to exclude from the current scope of the project with the possibility of addressing them in the future. So there are some areas, for example, we're not proposing any bathroom remodels or updates to the corridor, flooring and lighting, right? Those things are going to remain the way that they are now. The multi-purpose room and the gym will remain largely intact. We're excluding this obviously excluding the survey addition the
121new PE offices outdoor learning spaces that we previously looked at for example in those front spaces on the south side of the building we're looking we're not going to be moving on that currently so that's again something we might address in the future. In terms of the project timeline that we shared at the facilities meeting so That's the first one up there. We had the meeting in May. In summer, that's when we're going to be doing the new playground installation, summer of 26. Fall of 26 is going to be the design work and the actual bid preparation for the construction, which would then take place in summer of 2027. That would be the primary time to do that interior renovation work. We'd be looking at substantial completion. and August of 2027 and then in fall
122of that same year that's when that servery edition and site work would start with the final project completion projected for December of 2027 and then we would have full operations for that 27 the rest of that 27 28 school year I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Mr. Davis then who's going to talk a little bit about the funding for this project thank you Jeremy So we have a little less than 12 million total project cost. We're gonna fund it from our reserves We're gonna use our cash reserves that we've been setting aside annually to cover the facility needs It's part of our phase 3 planning and the main reason we're doing this as you've heard tonight is we're ensuring that We have facility equity across the district. So that's our main
123aim This is our five-year capital plan. I'm about to show you a line graph in a minute that shows our fund balances projected at the end of each fiscal year moving out five fiscal years. But I want you to know that this five-year capital plan that you probably can't see very much of is all in the fiscal projections. So the main thing in the middle of the page there, do I have a pointer on this thing? No? Okay. In the middle of the page, there's an $8 million reserves. Yeah, there it is, down a little bit, right there. $8 million from reserves for Oak Terrace renovation, and then we've got another $4 million, so $12 million total in FY27-28 and FY26-27. We've got it there for Oak Terrace so we can go ahead and afford
124those renovations. And then the fund balance, if you look at this, this is our base model with all of our funds shown, so it shows the capital projects fund. When you take out the capital projects, the line gets a lot smoother because it doesn't show our bond issuances and us spending them down. That's what these peaks and troughs are in the beginning of the line graph, the blue line graph. The blue line graph shows our fund balance at the end of each particular fiscal year with all of our funds. So we were spending... The first $86 million we were spending down our alternate revenue bonds. Then we sold a tranche of the first tranche of our referendum bonds to get to $109 million. And then we sold our second tranche to get to $101 million.
125And now we're spending that down. Now so but when you pull out the capital projects fund it gets a lot smoother there And you can see the reason that the line goes down from the 68 million to the 35 million Next year is that we're taking our reserves and we're using it to fund our renovations now We're just about out of bond money. And so most of the money is coming from our reserves and we've planned for this day So as you can see, it gets a little close in 27, 28, but we're still above our 25% minimum for funds there. So this is a project that we can afford. Okay, so what's next? First. I just again want to thank the members of the task force. We had over 60 people participate. We have
126administrators here in the audience. I want to also give a huge shout out to Principal Maxwell, Associate Principal Montablano, and also... principal schwind and Director Nikki Rodrigo who are part of this process and many people at home and as well again to board member Fink and Iken and Fishman you went above and beyond to serve on this committee. Thank you Tonight, there's no action rather just I'm going to ask for general consensus to move forward with the facility project Which will need to go through more schematic design and a bid process in the fall So that will be kind of paused. That's what's next. But also, looking ahead to 26-27, just a reminder, this work continues. So all kindergartners will be at Oak Terrace next school year. Our recommendations that are pertinent to next school
127year will continue. next school year as dr rodrigo mentioned baridad will come in october 2026 to share with you their findings and any recommendations after they've concluded the needs assessment and audit and then thinking about next school year so the spring of 27 Miss Filippi will be creating the staffing plan with the support of the building principals for the 27-28 school year. And then at the end of next school year, the 26-27 school year, Red Oak will close. So at this time, I ask the board if they have any questions that we can answer. You want to turn? Who's got questions? Well, I'll just start by saying thank you so much to the leadership of all three of these committees for a fantastic and thorough report. You can tell by the discussion and the length
128that it was really, there was a lot of effort that went into this, and I appreciate how clear it was about what each of the task forces. work was and how they completed it, what the goals were. I appreciate the clarity of this report. It was really, really helpful and I know it's been a long process for everyone. I was very fortunate to be part of the Facilities Task Force, which I enjoyed. I find it so interesting. And thank you, Leanne, for coming. And I just want to... yes continue to to thank everyone on that group too a couple of things um we noted uh the the safety and security and the traffic piece which i think addresses one of the concerns that was raised in the other areas um leanne also addressed the building
129capacity um which speaks to one of the other concerns about crowding that's really not something that we are worried about um and uh And then I also wanted just to remind everyone that the preschool will not be there. So then when we're talking about traffic and we're talking about congestion in the parking lot that was raised as a concern, the preschool will not be there. And they currently have a transition midday that does create additional traffic that won't be there. So I think that's important to clarify. And then... One other clarification, let me just see where it went. Sorry, I made notes and then now they're all like mixed up. I'll get back to that because I did have one other thing there. Oh, I know, that the main mechanicals were updated as part of
130Phase 1. When we talk about the condition of the building, it's been maintained all along and even recently as part of Phase 1. I appreciate all the survey results. That was also incredibly interesting to see how our parents feel, how our staff feels. Again, it just gives us more information. And for me, it helps me feel confident about this project. I was able to circle back and do another walkthrough at Oak Terrace. And again, it just reinforced my... interest in moving forward, that taking a look at the existing furniture and the cabinetry and seeing it kind of up close again through a different lens, I realize that it is time to update that so that the building does feel and look more similar to our new buildings. And I don't think there is really much
131of a benefit in... pushing that down the road in some way or saying, you know, we're going to consolidate, but we're not going to do that. I think it's important to do it as part of the same concept, the same sort of fresh start, if you will, for the dual language program consolidated at Oak Terrace. I look forward to the October presentation of the Peridot's work. And again, just thank you, everyone. Thanks, Melissa. Laureate or Chair, do either of you want to comment? I do. I just want to express my gratitude to staff, to teachers, and to the community. They gifted us with their talents and their time. This task force is an embodiment of our strategic change agenda and the ethos of this district. We as a community are at our best when we
132come together and tackle... our toughest, biggest challenges. And it was an honor to work alongside so many of you to be in the thoughtful, engaged stakeholders to shepherd the district into phase three of our long range facilities plan and the future of our dual language program at Oak Terrace. And to the facilities and operations subcommittee, I wanna thank you for your consistent and critical feedback. This investment in Oak Terrace and our Highwood Elementary School is in pursuit of academic excellence for all of our students attending Oak Terrace. And I'm really proud to sit at this table and be acting in furtherance of our values in pursuit of this plan. So thank you. Thank you Chair. I have very similar sentiments as my fellow board members I just want to give a big thank you to
133all the parents all the staff the kids everybody who contributed a lot of a lot of their time and energy and and really their hearts into this into this process I think it's thank you to the administration I think it's incredible how how the community was engaged I think this is just such a strong example of how we can create change with the people that are being affected by the change so thank you I'm excited about party dad I researched and studied a lot of these people my I have a master in education and teaching and ESL and bilingual endorsements and these people are the real deal and so Geeking out a little bit, but it's exciting that they're they're here advising us I'm super excited about the murals and involving the kids, having a
134child who is part of this process, a second grader at Red Oak, will be transitioning to Oak Terrace when she heard that she can contribute to a mural in a hallway the way that her eyes lit up and Margaret's not here, but, you know, and I've said this before, the way that she saw her drawings actually come to life and what the playgrounds are going to look like is just, it's everything. And I think our kids are going to be... better off in the long run. And yeah, I'm feeling really good about us. So thank you everyone. Anyone else on the board wanna? I just echo what everyone said and really just thanking everyone who worked on this. I'm reflecting on. difficult this conversation was a year ago I don't want to say it's not
135necessarily this hasn't been easy but but you all have worked through a really long process with a lot of commitment and to get us here and I feel like there's a really solid plan for going forward and that's you know it's what we knew a year ago we needed to get here and you all got us here and thank you for that Hi, I joined late, I'll catch up. But I do want to thank my fellow board members for your efforts on this work. And having come from school consolidation myself, I'm really grateful that the district has taken on this opportunity to plan for this change for the families, for the staff, for the community. So thank you to everyone who presented, and I will catch up. And if I have further questions, I will
136let you guys know. Thank you. Lisa. Well, I don't want to be too repetitive, but thank you to Melissa and to Lori and to Gerrit for serving on the committees and our amazing administration for everything that you do on a daily basis, but then adding this as well, and to our families and our students and our parents and for everybody who contributed. I echo Bennett's thoughts. It was something that was extremely difficult and very divisive and that really shook our dual language community. It was really hard and difficult, but this process has been transformative and inclusive and purposeful to reunify the community. And I think that that's the spirit that comes out of this report, and I'm really proud to be a part of it. Well, I think it's it's been said but I'm gonna
137repeat little pieces of this first of all I want to thank dr. Schrader for leading this effort really was a lot of work and You can tell that it was really an all hands on deck Moment for the district and I really appreciate all the work that one of this supposed to Jarrett and Laurie and Melissa for participating in the task force the thoroughness of this report is obvious in the amount of detail and really thought is is deliberate and I think it's gonna yield us great results. So thank you to everyone on the administration on the board The parents who participated our vendors who are deeply engaged in this It's it's it's just emblematic of the type of work that's done in the district and everything that we do So thank you and I
138applaud your efforts Any other comments to trigger did you something say okay? Thank you everybody So we'll move along here. Then the next up is the first reading of board policy updates Do I need to read this? Yes So next up is the first reading of board policy updates to colon for zero board member qualifications to call in two zero zero types of school board meetings to call in two two zero school board meeting procedures to call in two five zero access to district public records to call in two six zero uniform grievance procedure for calling one six five awareness and prevention of child sexual abuse and grooming behaviors five calling three zero hiring process and criteria. 5.50 drug and alcohol free workplace e-cigarette tobacco and cannabis prohibition 5.250 leaves of absence 5.330 sick days
139vacation holidays and leaves 6.50 school wellness 6.65 student social and emotional development 6.100 using animals in the education program 6 colon 145 migrant studies 6 colon 170 title one programs seven colon two zero harassment of students prohibited seven colon five zero school admissions and student transfers to and from non-district schools seven colon one zero zero health eye and dental examinations immunizations and exclusion of students seven colon one eight five teen dating violence prohibited seven colon two two zero bus conduct, 7,230 misconduct by students with disabilities, 7,260 exemption from physical education, 7,280 communicable and chronic infectious diseases, 7,300 extracurricular athletics, and 8,90 parent organizations and booster clubs. All right, next is Freedom of Information request. Dr. Lubafel. Hold on. sorry I just want to thank dr. Schrader and again our administrators our cabinet for participating in
140the policy committee it's a little bit different now and I really the arrangement is that our administrators who Kind of oversee those areas of the district present our policies to us and it's a unique An unique way of presenting and kind of brings to life the policy. So I appreciate that and just wanted to Recognize it. So sorry interrupted you No, bum. Thank you Thank You. Miss Hirsch. Thank you president Kessler on April 13th Carlos from Employee Research Data submitted a request for employee directory information. On April 14th, Michael Henry submitted a request for legal service documents. On April 20th, Joe States from the Chicago Tribune submitted a request for staff email communications. On April 22nd, Saeed Abid from Organic Life submitted a request for documents related to the food service RFP. On April 22nd
141and April 27th, Brendan Hostie submitted a request for bid documents pertaining to the food service RFP. pertaining to Wayne Thomas renovations. On April 24th, Sarah Thornton from Data Breach submitted a request for specific vendor agreements and purchase orders. On April 27th, callahan from the data branch submitted a request for specific vendor agreements and purchase orders on may 4th o'shea smith from sunlight access submitted a request for vendor payments on may 6th isaac delton from the data branch submitted a request for specific vendor agreements and purchase orders the district responded to all of the freedom of information act requests all right thank you next up is public comments um do we have any public comments over here Okay, we will move right along then that next is the action items and we will Approve the consent
142agenda We have on the consent agenda approval of regular meeting minutes from April 19th 2026 personnel recommendations bill lists treasurer's report of April 2026 and destruction of closed session recordings from 11 12 24 and 11 19 24 do any members have it would wish to remove any items from from the consent agenda Now may I have a motion to prove the consent agenda as presented? All right any comments or questions can we get a roll call vote? Yes, Miss Butler. Yes, Miss Fink. Yes, Mr. Fishman. Yes, Miss Hirsch. Yes, Miss Sicken. She's out of the room. Oh, I'm sorry. And Mr. Lasko. Yes. And President Kessler. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Next is approval of the 2026 2027 renewal agreement for heart of the city Dr. Colleen do something say on this. Yes, we I
143presented this last time the last board meeting in April and We are just seeking your for approval from the board. So unless there's any questions, it's the same as us Thank you. May I have a motion so moved second. All right any comments or questions on this? No, okay. Can we get a roll call vote, please? Ms. Fink? Yes. Mr. Fishman? Yes. Ms. Hirsch? Yes. Ms. Akin? Yes. Mr. Lasko? Yes. Ms. Butler? Yes. And President Kessler? Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Next is approval of the 26-27 consolidated district plan. Again, Dr. Colleen, do you have anything to add? I don't have anything to add. This was presented in April. Unless there's any questions, it remains the same. Can I have a motion? So moved. Second. Any comments or questions. All right can we get a
144roll call vote please. Mr. Fishman. Yes. Ms. Hirsch. Yes. Ms. Sicken. Yes. Mr. Lasko. Yes. Ms. Butler. Yes. Ms. Fink. Yes. And President Kessler. Yes. Motion carries. All right next is approval of the final 2025 2026 school calendar. Ms. Phillippe anything to add here. Nothing to add due to the emergency day we had to extend the school year to June 5th. So it has been submitted. All right. Thanks. Can I get a motion motion to approve? Second. Thank you. Any comments or questions from the board? All right. Can we get a roll call vote please? Ms. Hirsch. Yes. Ms. Aiken. Yes. Mr. Lasko. Yes. Ms. Butler. Yes. Ms. Fink. Yes. Mr. Fishman. Yes. President Kessler. Yes. Motion carried. Next is approval of the 2728 school calendar. Ms. Filippi again. Yes. So this was presented at
145our last board meeting. No changes have been made. All right, can you get a motion so moved second all right any comments questions from the board Can we get a roll call vote? Ms. Sicken? Yes. Mr. Lasko? Yes. Ms. Butler? Yes. Ms. Fink? Yes. Mr. Fishman? Yes. Ms. Hirsch? Yes. President Kessler? Yes. Motion carries. Next is approval of the agreement for student photography services, VIP. Yes, I presented this last month, but basically nine vendors submitted proposals. We identified VIP. as the winner they'll provide a four thousand five hundred dollar signing bonus payable over three years and reimburse schools 20 percent of the sales to be deposited into their student activity accounts so we like the deal we like the vendor and we hope you approve it excellent any comments or questions can we get a
146roll call vote please motion so moved oh sorry yes can we have a motion please so moved second oh i'm sorry Mr. Lasko. Yes. Ms. Butler. Yes. Ms. Fink. Aye. Mr. Fishman. Yes. Ms. Hirsch. Yes. Ms. Sicken. Yes. President Kessler. Yes. Motion carries. Okay, next is approval of 26-27 lease renewal for Ravina Nursery School. Yeah, same as last month. They gave us the intent to renew, and I recommend the board approve it for $400 plus the price of two students. Great can I have a motion to approve the lease for all so moved second All right any comments questions? Can I get a roll call vote? Yes, yes Yes Okay, next is approval of the 2036 Summer Breakfast Program. Mr. Davis? Yeah, we do this every year. The district plans to continue participating in the
147SSO program. It provides free breakfast to students and others 18 years of age or older, or less, sorry, during the 2026 summer school held at Northwood Middle School. and Ravinia School. From Northwood, it's gonna go from June 22nd through July 16th, from eight to noon is the dates. And then Ravinia School from June 15th through July 16th from 8.30 to 12.15. So it's a federal program that's cost neutral for the district, and we believe that the breakfast program is essential and beneficial for our students who are in our classes in the summertime. Excellent. Can I have a motion? So moved. Second. All right. Any comments or questions? hearing none can we get a roll call vote yes Ms. Fink yes Mr. Fishman yes Ms. Hirsch yes Ms. Zicken yes Mr. Lasko yes Ms. Butler yes
148President Kessel yes motion carries next is approval of the 26-27 transportation hazard areas Mr. Davis yeah every year I submit to the board a list of hazardous areas that have been previously declared hazardous and approved by the state and they remain on the list this year so nothing's changed We have everything same as of now and those are the hazardous areas. Can we get a motion? So moved. Second. All right. Any comments or questions? Can we get a roll call vote, please? Mr. Fishman. Yes. Ms. Hirsch. Yes. Ms. Zicken. Yes. Mr. Lasko. Yes. Ms. Butler. Yes. Ms. Fink. Yes. And President Kessler. Yes. Motion carries. Next is approval of Resolution 26051, Designated Interest Earnings in Fiscal Year 26 as Interest. Yes, we do this every year to Any of the interests that we make in
149our funds we declare it interest so we can use it more freely to transfer among the funds I think you can get a motion Second any comments or questions on this? No, can we get a roll call vote, please? Yes Yes All right now is a second opportunity for public comments. I don't see anyone else who showed up All right Then we will move on to committee reports We started over here with Bennett. We'll just go down the row Thank you. Yeah, I have a BPAC update the bilingual parents Advisory Committee from the BPAC co-presidents Diana Grand and Rosa A little bit long, bear with us here. District Representatives Mr. Castro, who's here tonight, and Mr. Custer-Hohn, along with the two, I'm sorry, BPAC Co-President Gran and several of the BPAC families recently attended the
1502026 BPAC Statewide Summit organized by the Illinois Research Center and the State Board of Education to empower families of English learners. This year was the 20th anniversary of the statewide summit. The district organized, sponsored, and provided transportation, allowed the team and the families to spend a full day learning, connecting, and bringing back ideas to strengthen support for multilingual learners and their families here at District 112. The summit focused on several areas, including parent leadership and advocacy, reducing barriers, and increasing belonging for multilingual families. K-12 bilingual program structures and education resources, college and career transitions, financial aid and scholarship opportunities, and the state and global seals of bi-literacy. The experience reinforced the importance of strong family school partnerships, empowered parents to continue serving as advocates and collaborators within their school communities. As their current three-year terms
151of the BPAC co-presidents come to a close, they have begun discussing future leadership and planning for the 2026-27 BPAC public meeting calendar. There are many topics, wonderful topics, speakers, and ideas identified during the summit that will be shared with the families through a survey so that the future programming continues to reflect the interests and needs of the multilingual learner community. Rosa and Diane are incredibly proud of the productive year that BPAC has had with the full support of the district. Look forward to continuing to support the organization as executive board members moving forward, meaning there will be an announcement, I suppose, about new president of BPAC, which is exciting. I'm sure exciting for them too. They especially wish to thank Dr. Rodrigo, Mr. Castro, Dr. Schrader, Ms. Garcia, the family engagement team, the principals and
152school leadership teams, and of most of all, and of course, our teachers for all their support of VPAC's efforts throughout the year. and they want most importantly want to thank the incredible BPAC families for their engagement trust and partnership this year and extend an open invitation to all the families in the dual language and ESL programs to get involved and help shape the future of BPAC and the programs that serve our multilingual learners so the human relations and advisory group we met last week And there was discussions on continuing to plan Martin Luther King Day. And I'm excited to involve the students next year in creating some meaningful service projects. And they also presented the City of Highland Park's value statement and statement against hate. And there was discussion around that. The city took feedback
153from the group and they will refine the statement. The Highwood Library continues to offer some incredible programming. Their summer reading kickoff takes place on Friday, June 5th at 1.30, and that's at the Library and Community Center. They are celebrating, just like us, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and also Jewish American Heritage Month, and Mental Health Awareness Month. There is tomorrow on the 20th at 5.30, if there's anyone interested in learning how to obtain their GED, there is a presentation in Spanish. And there's also English classes that are beginning May 27th. That's on Mondays and Wednesdays during the day and also Mondays and Thursdays at night. And if you're looking to improve your Spanish, on Fridays at 10.45 to 11.30, there is a Spanish conversation circle. So check it out. They have good stuff.
154I'll start with the task force. As was mentioned, we had a meeting on May 5th that was, again, a very thorough presentation of the recommendations from White. And then I'll go into the foundation. Here are some notes from the Education Foundation. If you're looking for a meaningful way to say thank you to your child's teacher at the end of the year, consider giving a 112 Education Foundation high five. Make a tax-deductible donation to the foundation in the teacher's honor, and the teacher receives a personalized high five note card. It's a terrific way to say thank you and pay it forward in our community. You can purchase a high five at 112foundation.org. Join the 112 Education Foundation team for some summer fun. June 11, 2026, of course, is the Highland Park Food Trucks. July 15, Highwood
155Food Trucks. August 2, Kids Go Classic Annual Classic Concert. Tickets are available at no cost to District 112 families thanks to the generosity of Ravinia Festival's Reach, Teach, Play education program. Registration is required. Information will be sent in late June. August 4, National Night Out event. at Hidden Creek and August 13th the uh again the Highland Park food trucks and don't miss everyone's favorite 5k and one mile family walk the 2026 fund run is scheduled for September 26th registration will open in August mark your calendars And I will just also add, we did have our last meeting of the school year the other night and said goodbye to our junior trustees who are seniors and graduating. And we are currently looking forward to welcoming new trustees in the fall. So thank you to them for
156their work. And that's what I've got for the foundation. Thank you. Jenny. Tomorrow is our last PTO President's Council meeting of this school year, so I just want to give a shout out to all of our PTO presidents for all of the work that they do and all of the volunteers behind them who do so many things at all of our schools. I also want to acknowledge Allie Davidson, who's been the PTO. President of the President's Council. That's always a hard one to figure out what the name is it's a great title and This time of year so busy for our PTO s with teacher appreciation yearbooks Spring celebrations and all of the wonderful things that they do. So thank you to everyone who's involved in the PTO's at our schools No report from Ed
157Red No report for me Okay, thank you next is board superintendent other Illinois Association of School Boards is the statewide professional development provider for boards of education throughout the great state of Illinois. There's about 860 publicly elected school boards in the state of Illinois, so it's a pretty large organization. Our own Bennett Lasko, veteran board member, has been honored by the Lake County Division of the Illinois Association of School Boards. for school board member leadership. He will be anointed with a lapel pin next meeting and a little postcard next meeting in honor, acknowledgement, and recognition of his board professional development and general excellence. So congratulations, Mr. Lasko. Thank you for representing. Well, that's very exciting. Do we have any other? General excellence. All right, anything else? No. No, okay. Then I will ask for a
158motion to adjourn to close session to discuss collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees of their respective or deliberations of their representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees. The placement of individual students in special education programs and other matters relating to individual students. And that's it so moved second Yes, mr. Lascoe Yes, mr. Fishman. Yes. Yes