001[Music] oh the oh oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] w [Music] [Applause] [Music] close and the chair will entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the February 11th 2025 regular meeting of the Board of Education the minutes of the Clos session of the February 11th 2025 regular meeting of the Board of Education as presented so moved second call uh Voice vote Voice vote all in favor I I opposed wait so you did them all at once yes okay moving on to public comment we've got a couple of uh public comments just a reminder we've got the our cards presented the signin table um please state your name before making your comment limit comments to 5 minutes and that's it I see a piece of paper I didn't see any cards does it like does it
002look like this roughly it's time yeah not interactive we're listening got a you got a couple minutes okay first up Keith okay good evening I'm Keith Nega I'm a taxpayer and a graduate of Westmont high school I'm here to tonight to recap the process I've attended over 12 school board meetings public com committee meetings and countless hours of internet searches the phrase the board has consistently said is trust us we will be transparent and we are financially responsible the fact you keep saying it makes if you believe it to be true from the start with the pool you said we will we will do what the people want to do I believe you knowing the whole time that the hensdale swim club was going to donate $50,000 to repair the pool for standard operations funny
003thing is in the pamphlets you sent out you say you have concerns about possible problems at Manning so if it's a concern would it mean that you had the proper maintenance program in place they would have been addressed in a properly manner the money you spent on the referendum is ridiculous I mean I'm just going to go with one point here we paid somebody $85,000 for a consultant who told us not put it on a November ballot so you paid for professional opinion then you ignored it money well spent people feel there is there is trust with Anthony to Financial Manager of the town to truly explain the money issues as well as the breakdown about the 600,000 of Co money and how all that was spent I'd like to speak to the outside influences
004about this referendum we hired a contractor he donated $110,000 to the yes people yes people were then able to pay a consultant but all the knowledge to push this referendum along to build a new unneeded school on a struggling hardworking bluecollar Community they are not part of our community they are here to make money off of of us Manning is a fixable school look at what they did with South School yes it will cost but a brick building is not going anywhere you can look at hensdale Downers LT any school in the city they're just as old if not [Music] older I'm sure that Manning has yearly inspections by local state police fire to make sure it is up to standards I think the fact we have multiple cusd employees working for outside companies in
005the education field is disheartening also working here is a full-time job do we know that their second job is not taken away from 100% commitment to our to our kids and our students during school hours you speak about the awards that the school wi okay but if you look at the proficiency if I'm wrong correct me the one I'm the numbers I'm seeing are maybe 30 40% proficiency you're given eighth grade kids act tests why then at the one meeting I believe you said you the kids were taking five or six Practice Act tests in high school okay so you're teaching the test they they were adamant about not tested testing teaching the test in closing I think people should know for sure we have secured the property you speak of not just rumors we
006should be able to get a letter of intent along with the cost of the property be done by now since we've been going at this since before November I think the only accomplishments so far of this referendum we were able to divide and anger this whole community and I'm not alone on that and I we trusted you and think it could have been better that that the anger that's out there between the yes and the no it's should have never gotten to that point and it's there I have people at May Lake that are afraid to speak their mind I have mothers and kids that are afraid to say something because they don't want to be you know the whatever either way mainly more with the yes but that's I'm that just say so that's
007all I have to say this evening and thank you thank you thank you okay kab and samuk close enough close enough okay tell us how it's pronounced yeah my name is Sam Sam is thank you K's a good saxophone player yes hi my name is bwan and we are both sophomores at Westmont high school and we are here to talk to you guys about stem night stem night is an annual event in Westmont where students and their families come together to participate in Hands-On activities related to science technology engineering and math stem night started as a way to bring the community together after the pandemic it has grown from a high school event to a districtwide program that encourages students of all ages to come with their family to learn about different aspects of stem
008such as Robotics and virtual reality with Hands-On activities like engineering programs and circuits this program aims to Foster the creativity and curiosity of young students and explore New Horizons in stem this event which started 3 years ago has evolved and had great success over the years from 200 people in its debut to over 500 people in 2024 hosted by the Westmont high school students and the media center the event has over 24 stations including 3D printing cuets stem trivia and building drivable toy cars among other engineering projects many local organizations including our own westbond Public Library College of DuPage and now DuPage Forest Preserve have their own stations as part of this program as a new addition we have a table about stem careers this year to appeal to older students and prepare them for
009the future we'd like to thank the organizers who make this event possible Mr Ritz Mr Bautista M Schillinger Mr Chamberlain Mr Johnson Miss Johnston miss chinsky and miss deck we'd also like to thank Mr balderman and Mr wck for always supporting and continuing to support Westmont high school students like us with these great events and activities in the previous years we've had inspiring keynote speakers Molly Johnson a Westmont High School alum NASA intern and MIT graduate student and PR of aswanth another Westmont High School alum and Jord Tech student which coincidentally is our brother and found this year's keynote speaker is rapael Rosa who is Michelle inger's brother and the executive director of the Lincoln Park Conservancy stem night 2025 will be on March 12th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. so please save the date
010and we can't wait to see you there thanks again for your time thank you thank you thank you does that stem trivia is there some Big Bang Theory uh trivia in there oh big you you know you got to you got to add some Big Bang Theory in there for for some of that trivia Rich question is there somewhere on 201 website that you ascertain the cost of financing the $ 68.8 million bond issue that would an issue that would that's that's what the referendum is about you know the cost of Interest the cost of Finance so is it somewhere on the website during public comment we're not allowed to respond um because it's not something that is on the agenda as of tonight so unfortunately we're held to that piece during public comment um
011so I'd recommend that you email Mr balderman and he can he can send you a link or a specific okay location all right and is Jack is your email on a website somewhere yeah okay it's j balderman cusd 2011.org okay if you don't remember that you can find the website or give us a call and we'll get you the link apologies sorry okay into our consent agenda the chair will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented Personnel recommendations uh Dana hack long term sub second grade Richard bab Westmont High School volunteer track um and leave of absence approval of February 2025 expenditure report and ratification of the January 2025 regular payroll so moved second roll call Mr Marin yes Miss Dey yes Miss Conover yes M Rogers yes Mr AIA yes motion
012passes okay um into information and discussion the ISB proposal for the csbo search so um you want to take us through this real quick Jack everyone has the copy of that proposal it is to Aid to find as many and recruit as many people as possible for uh csbo position uh we contract with the Illinois Association of school boards pretty standard practice their fee would be $6,700 they would help recruit um throughout the state and actually outside of the state to get the best candidate pool possible for the uh csbo position and they do the recruiting they also will narrow it down so they can present a slay the candidates as part of it yes so just kind of as a as a reminder we utilized IB for our superintendent search in the past um
013and and we utilize some of their extra pieces of this search for the community engagement part um we had 60 candidates I believe with the superintendent search somewhere along those lines and IB did all of the screening and making sure that and all of those checks making sure they've got all of the required ler all of those pieces prior to to any of those applicants coming to us and then presented us with a slate of seven candidates I think yeah very high quality candidates very high quality candidates that we all knew that we knew were going to made our decision hard yeah it did make our decision very challenging um so that the cost of that I think was about $133,000 because of the additional um pieces that we had added to it those Community
014meetings we had a bunch of um they had the brochure built and print BR was was built out yeah they did the interviewing pre yeah so this is a little bit different than that because we wouldn't be doing the community stuff but they would kind of help us build out a csbo profile and advertisement something to think about questions no questions so this is not over $25,000 this is not something that we need to approve it will not be a board it's not it's not a it will never be an action item um so all that you know we're kind of discussing here is what direction we'd like the administration to take in this instance yeah I mean I I think if we need to do this quickly and I I think that that working
015through ISB is probably the quickest single route we can have so I would I would be fine with it yeah yeah no issues you know if they bring forth high quality candidates it could save money in the long run actually absolutely and what did you say Jack there's 14 open csbo positions in our just in our Shannon did research so she could speak to that yes the 14 open like those type positions like assistant superintendent Finance in this area and that was just on one um like listing that I found just going through and that 14 includes us um I'm sure there's other places jobs are posted I didn't look at those I just looked at this one and that's for that level of like degrees and stuff yeah there's 14 open right now yeah
016that is a that's a lot a lot of competition and Whitney thoughts I I'm no problem if we have to move forward with this I mean ISB hasn't done us wrong before and this is why we're membership with them um to use them for their knowledge and their expertise uh so I'm I'm okay with it to essentially um go with every everybody else said um I think it's more so um time you know that I think is definitely of the essence um you know that just alone you know in finding a qualified candidate you know um can be something you know that could be detrimental you know if not done correctly so um you know if it presents itself you know that there aren't candidates you know that need those qualifications prior to us taking
017that step you know then I'm okay with us making that investment because it's definitely a sound um investment that's going to produce uh a quality candidate yep I think I I I think I I'm in agreement um it's money well spent let's give our let's give our um current posting a couple of days see if we get any significant uptick in our current posting and and Jack you can send us a uh a connection some update on that but $6,700 for for them to uncover all the Rocks I mean I was nothing they did a phenomenal job with the superintendent search um and the support that it that it gave the district in tools that we have to use you know for years to come was especially money very well spent so um does that
018give you what you need from us yes thank you okay um can we add that proposal into the board dos the proposal from Al yeah I believe we posted all of it publicly last time okay on the board docks okay uh discussion number two referendum informational mailing so um there's a cost to letting people know about the referendum and we really haven't done any we haven't spent any money to advertise or to let our public know about this so we have our own website that we've created with detailed information about the expenditures and frequently asked questions in the tax calculator and a bunch of other items but not everybody goes to our website not everybody's on the internet so this would be a one time I think frankly the first and the last mailing uh
019an informational piece to let our public know that we're going to referendum if there's any Community member who doesn't go to our website they would not know that we are going to referendum if you will we haven't notified so this is a one-time mailing uh there's different components to it I think you've seen the proposal the maximum would be the $9,700 um for all parts of that and that would give a mailer the cost of the creation of the mailer and the cost of sending it out the postage and everything to all citizens households in our community I do not anticipate um another mailer going out or any other expenditures if you will of the district's funds for notification about the referendum this is a onetime thing and frankly I would never say never but
020I anticipate this would be the last and only expenditure to let the public know we have an obligation to let them know that we're going to referendum so I highly encourage that we send this out to the entire community and the cost total cost $9,700 uh it could be reduced slightly by about $2,000 but I'd like the authorization if we need to do the full mailing and everything at that the cost is it every house in it's supposed to be every house in our in 2011 and 2011 would get the information that says that on April 1st the referendum will be uh on the ballot so I I remember in past conversations about mailers that we have um because of the shape of our district and and the way mailers work we we have to
021we have to mail we over send is what happening because there's no way not to um the way not to is is fiscally like irresponsible yeah yeah yeah yeah well it would be more expensive significantly be more expensive um so that's right right that's that still holds that's still a reality we have to send the zip codes and and and so if we if we want to hit every household that is a taxpaying household in the district we have to send to a certain number of zip codes and and there's no way there's not really any way around that other than to spend even more money and and send to the right households or to the exact number of households but it would cost more money in the end anyway um so I mean to
022me Jack I I for you don't really need our authorization here I mean this is not something that falls either under the 25,000 but um I think when I think about um when I think about The Balancing Act between um you know on the one hand we'll hear that we spend too much money on this referendum on the other hand we'll hear that we're not forthcoming with information about the referendum if you ask me which side I would rather be airing on or be accused of I would rather us be accused of being overly communicative um and spending money to make sure that the community knows that this referendum is on the ballot that we've done our part I would I would I would rather be accused of of spending too much money than of
023not being transparent about this so that's my take I I couldn't have said it better I totally agree I'd rather be more you know get that more information out than than not well especially for those that as it has been said in previous board meetings that some for whatever the reason is that they haven't been made aware you know of the referendum um and it may be just because of that like what was spoken upon you know that we do have you know out of our community those that may not be um computer savvy you know familiar with the internet you know navigating it um to obtain the information they need so um there's a disconnect with the communication in regards to that and whether we want to or not everybody checks mail um whether
024we like it whether we have bills or um you know a nice set of coupons from from maybe the grocery store um so I think you know essentially that investment being made you know um definitely increases you know our communication um to as Carlos point you know um it's one of those things that you know it just can't be said that we did not you know communicate that you know if nothing else so I'm in agreement you know with that investment being made exactly I I'd follow up right there like let them know because there's some people that don't care what the local government is doing as long until they hear oh your taxes are going up oh wait what like they don't dig into the school they don't look into that if they don't
025have kids here um so yeah let every household know yeah so it does uh call out here messaging Community Education and the actual Printing and um postage postage cost which essentially is 4850 messaging is 2500 what is Community Education uh messaging seems rather clear they need to develop the right they need to update and develop the message but so that's part of their delivery of and creation of the materials and any kind of other advising in the last uh 6 weeks before the referendum or I guess it's five weeks now anything else that they would if they got any feedback from the mailers or if there was anything else that the board wanted to be consulted about for that so we don't have to expend that piece okay but I don't know how we cannot
026send out one mailer right that's what I was referring to I mean in terms of in terms of all the other pieces if we can if we can save those let's save them honestly let's not do them yeah you know we're five weeks out to that point right yes we should absolutely send out a mailer 100% I don't know that we need this the education piece Community Education additional cost right so that's not something we have to do but as I said I think you have to send out one piece of information for people who do not go to our website M and it goes to every home so then at least everybody in the community will know that this is happening MH okay so again this is under the $25,000 mark so we don't
027have an action item connected to this we're not approving up to a certain spend or anything like that we're just giving the administration Direction um can we get this in board Ducks also well this is that's from to the board that's your statement on the proposal yes we've posted their after the fact but I thought yeah yeah the one thing we can do is amend the proposal if the board doesn't want it we could reduce it from 97 to uh 74 if that's the board's Direction yeah if that cuts out that would say absolutely yes okay so then it'll be 7,400 we'll have to amend that I'll talk to them about that okay but that's the bare minimum to get the mailer every from A to Z to have the mailer in everybody's house perfect
028and as I said I want to be clear there is no other I don't think there will be any other expenditures as we go for in the next 5 weeks related to the referendum in the district okay all right cool moving along we don't have any action items tonight so into the superintendent's report well once again very proud of our students and our team throughout the district doing amazing work in a most positive way I just marvel at the commitment of our teaching staff and of our students all their hard work um we it's coming into testing season and I know we're well prepared for that and that is how we get a measure of our students uh performance it's not the only measure but it's an important measure so uh we're excited the students
029and teamers that work very hard attendance in schools is outstanding uh some of the best chronic absenteeism rates in the state um and everybody's been working very hard our early indicators as you heard from the quality review meeting was on pass to on track to be at the same level of performance that we were last year which I challenge anybody to show me a district and a state that academically is performing better than we did last year that's just incredible and the early indicators that were on Pace for the same kind of performance just outstanding I'm so proud of the team and kids are showing up to school even though we had a lot of sickness in the community and the everywhere people persevered and uh we saw a little dip there but still attendance
030has been fantastic and our teachers are working so hard to continuously improve instruction and curriculum and very proud of that um on the extracurricular side a lot of things I'm very excited about stem night uh coming up um our students also uh from the Kapow Club did an amazing job and we talked about that the state superintendent was there Maria was there helping in supporting really a true leadership from our students I'm very proud of that uh some great assemblies for Black History Month really a lot of Pride there and performance and information something to be very proud of um from an athletic standpoint our cheerleaders our Junior High cheerleaders almost got wiped out by the uh horrible weather but they went down state and they performed and I think they were in the top
03111 in the state is that 14 out of 21 but they had zero deductions yeah so we're proud of that we cheer squad worked so hard uh in their preparation and they went down state and did a great job our wrestlers at the high school will have them here at one of our board meetings but went down state Christian Rosa Rosa and Sean Patterson went down states of champagne that was great our Junior High wrestling team won the Regionals and they're going to sectionals this uh upcoming Saturday I believe is in Deerfield uh last Friday was very much fun uh the girls basketball team won the Regional Championship uh that was fantastic the girls played great our boys basketball team last night won their last game of the on the home court and beat our
032arch rival uh Lyall uh for the last game on that court for the seniors so overall the winter sports season there were a lot of accolades a lot of positivity there um so I'm excited uh we will announce this widely to everybody on March 5th 12th and 19th we'll be working with the Architects to do some early schematic drawings uh at South School from 6:00 to 8: but we'll publicize that um so I'm very excited about the progress of this district and what people are accomplishing and uh it's through a lot of hard work and dedication and uh the other thing I keep coming back to is the culture in our buildings we're always improving we can always grow but there you hard pressed to find um better citizenship than what we have in 2011
033so it's awesome thank you to our parents and Community for all your support okay board reports I just I I have just one thing I wanted to say it's about the junior high wrestling team um I uh I want to give a shout out to the coaches of that team because what they've built Mike hatchel Dave webr and and Coach vido what they've done there they've taken what was about I don't know two years ago maybe they had six kids I think wrestling um and I don't know the exact number so if I got that wrong I I'm not sure but um the Westman junior high school team didn't just dominate that that they they classified kids for the next stage in in like 11 out of 15 weight classes um so much so that
034I was I happened to be in the crowd there because my son who did not qualify for the next stage uh but was a part of the team um there was a couple uh behind me from a different school that towards the end of the of the day of the tournament they had no idea I was with Westmont by the way tapped me on the shoulder and said do you know what's going on in Westmont white how did this happen and I I'll tell you how it happened it happened because of those coaches um and what they and what they've achieved there so I just I want I wanted to give them a special shout out because it's pretty amazing the culture they've created on that team uh I wanted to talk about uh outdoor
035education I want to thank yes the sixth grade team that took the kids to org Illinois White Pines Ranch uh Dr Burk Miss Walsh miss hillard's Mr Troyer Miss Lopez um students I talked to had a wonderful time really enjoyed it so thank you very much and then um for me the second thing um I am looking forward to Westmont High School uh the play here A Good Man Charlie Brown um I love going to the place they're there we have such talented students performing in these plays um so it's Friday the 28th of February at 7:00 p.m. March 1st at 700 p.m. March 2nd at 2 p.m. um very familyfriendly show coming up so come on out uh see our talented students perform it's it's a really good time yeah outdoor education was so
036much fun I actually actually heard about it amazing yeah glad they were able to find another telling me about the day go so yeah now we just got to wait the junior high is going back to DC come April we got about 40 50 kids out of the 8th grade class that are going to DC so okay any other board reports open it back up to public comment okay okay moving along to Future meetings and events so as mentioned the spring musical you're a good man Charlie Brown uh Fe 28th 700 p.m. March 1st 7 p.m. March 2nd 2: p.m. at Westmont High School um stem night March 12th at 6 p.m. at Westmont High School our next meeting of the board of education is March 18th 6:30 p.m. here at Village Hall we've got
037pizza wars coming up March 19th at 5:30 p.m. at Westmont junor High School our Rising Stars talent show is March 21st at 600 p.m. at Westmont High School remind me Rising Stars the elementary or the junior junior high Junior High okay is it wait no no that's the elementary MH it is the elementary it's Elementary the junior high is in April sorry uh The District 2011 Fine Arts Festival on March 26th at 700 p.m. at Westmont high school and parent teacher conferences March 27th and 28th um be on the lookout on your calendar for more information about that and information from your administrators and as you already mentioned we've got our um pre-referendum planning meetings coming up here they've just been um finalized which is why they didn't make it on to the Future meetings
038and events but um they're going to get onto the district calendar and we'll get some we'll get more information out on those but that is March 5th March 12th and March 19th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. open to the public and that's that's talking about the architecture of the school the menu so not so much the architecture of the school but what is what it's going to look like we need in the school so the first meeting um the outcome of that will be um multiple concept conceptual building plans uh created potential uh the second one will be focused on building a consensus towards one um preferred conceptual building plan so like the menu of what are the rooms what are the spaces in that building and then the uh the last meeting's outcome the
039goal is one consensus kind kind of conceptual building plan that's established so again it's not this is not necessarily designing a building is not NE it's designing what spaces we would need in the building and what could potentially go on the location provided the referendum passes um and all things go to plan and once again thank you to Legette for taking the risk on that Don their time they're donating their time uh to so that we can uh stay all goes goes to plan um can have a 2027 stay on our 2027 timeline opening timeline instead of pushing back here so okay uh we will not have closed session uh no current information so the chair will entertain a motion to adjourn the February 25th 2025 regular meeting of the board of education so moved
040second all in favor I opposed e