DeKalb CUSD 428 Board Meeting 11/18/2025

001Six and we recall meeting to open session. Jackie roll call >> here. >> Buyers >> here. >> Jose >> here. Mr. Boyce >> here. >> Mark Shervat >> here. >> Vino here. Maria Rodriguez. >> All right. And now we'll do the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. And then next portion of the meeting will be public comment. Please note that the comment cards must be placed in the comment box section on the board clerk's table prior to the start of the meeting to be included in participation. All right. So, first one that we have is going to be from Nick Kenner for about vision

002428. Thank you. >> Good evening. My name is Nick and I'm prone to rambling. So, if I start to please play some loud orchestra music like they do at the Oscars, and I'll take the hint. I want to start off by saying that I'm thrilled about the ELDC getting their own building. I actually went through the program or whatever it was called back in 1993. In fact, I grew up in the Decal School District in the 90s and early 2000s. I went to Founders when it was Huntley's seventh and eighth grade. And some of my fondest memories are of Cheese Bro, my elementary school. Decal has grown a lot since those days and is only going to continue growing. What can I say? It's a unique town. Now, I empathize with the growing population in

003our schools, especially the middle schools right now, and agree that fifth and sixth grade need their own building catered to their own specific needs. The same goes for seventh and eighth. However, I implore you, the board, facilities, finance, anyone who will listen to consider all solutions to this complicated problem. I don't want to find ourselves a few years down the road having this conversation yet again. I'm sure you all don't want to be there, too. Envision 428, great name, by the way. The suggestion is to convert founders to fifth and sixth grade, but in doing so eliminates not just one elementary school, but the biggest elementary school. I understand roughly a hundred or so of those students are fifth graders, but considering there are currently about 543 students in Founders, even with all of fourth

004all of fifth grade being moved, Founders would still be the biggest elementary school, assuming Courtland's population would also be K through 4th. I know there's no simple answer, but we're not here to solve it all tonight. This is just the research phase. Vision 428 is pretty convincing though, if not a bit short-sighted because if we do what is written, where will we be in 2031? Yes, that's a real year and it will be here very quickly. I suppose I just want to be heard by whoever is willing to listen and take into consideration before making some very important decisions. I can only hope that whatever happens after the board votes yes tonight, there's transparency with everyone involved as hundreds of lives will be affected. I want what is absolutely best for the students of district

005428. I just don't believe eliminating an entire elementary school is the answer. Thank you. >> The next will be Denise. And I know I mispronounced your name last meeting. So if you'd like to tell me >> yes. >> Uh good evening. My name is Denise Auststerlin and I am a fourth grade two-way dual language teacher at Founders Elementary. First, I want to thank you for your recent decision to separate the grade level center resolution from the ELDC project. I appreciate your willingness to listen and respond to the concerns shared by community members. As discussed at the last board meeting and in the vision 42A presentation, the major issue we face is the current middle school size cap. While I fully agree that reducing class sizes from 35 to 30 is necessary, I believe there are

006alternatives to creating grade level centers and redistricting the entire elementary population again in two years, which could cause elementary class size to return to more than 25. My concern with the current wording of item 6 is that it moves forward on only one solution. It provides administration with time and funding to explore grade level centers exclusively rather than inviting exploration from multiple options. Tonight, I am asking the board to delay approval of item C6 C until there has been meaningful community involvement. Many family, staff, and stakeholders have questions, ideas, and possible solutions for reducing middle school sizes with solutions that may avoid disrupting every elementary school and reducing our total number of elementary schools to eight. Gathering this feedback does not require additional cost. sending a survey, hosting a question and answer session, or inviting

007the community to participate in brainstorming sess sessions are simple, accessible steps that ensure all voices are heard. I respectfully ask the board to pause this resolution until our community has the opportunity to contribute to the conversation. Thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration. >> Thank you. >> [applause] >> Next will be Gloria Diaz, vision 428. Hello everyone. Uh I had no intention of speaking tonight. I just wanted to listen. Um but it did occur to me that um we are still in search of new superintendent leadership. Uh and so I just wanted it to be considered uh that maybe it would be in positive interest to incorporate incoming superintendent leadership with um board members to uh with the intention of improving our current um D42A elementary community. That's all. Thank you. >> Thank you.

008All right. And then we've also got Scott Austerlin to talk about the vision 428. >> You can't pronounce it the same way. Sorry. Okay. [clears throat] >> Hi, my name is Scott Austin also from Founders. I I have a series of questions and I'm sure there are reasonable answers for them and that's just what I they're not apparent and I'd like to bring this to your attent. That's why I'm asking or that's why I'm asking the question. I come from a long background in business and I've been through full phases of it from salesman all the way to vice president and product design. So been involved in a lot of negotiation over the years and some problems with this red flag to me very specifically and the first question comes if you were to proceed

009with a single proposal before you and say here's [clears throat] car blanch with funds that we have for exploratory and that you can for funds for EPA assessments local building codes architectural fees all this money millions of dollars are going to be spent Now, they're spent on one idea. When it comes time to at a later date, as it says in the proposal, you're going to entertain other other ideas. They can't possibly have legs because you've already spent all this money on that. I mean, that's a simple Sorry, that's a simple tactic. It's you're in. It's called the puppy dog. Take the puppy dog home. Take try it for a night. You'll never give it back. And then second question, why the time pressure? This is what I don't understand. Why is this being pressed

010so fast, so hard, without any time to think about, without any time to consider? What's the benefit? What would be the benefit of other alternative proposals? Maybe there are none, but but wouldn't it be? Wouldn't it make sense to see if there are? Good idea is only as good as the next one that comes along that's better. Um, this proposal calls for redistricting. You're asking to redistrict two years after it was or less after it was just redone. And now you want to redraw lines again just to make it fit without considering any parents, any of the taxpayers, anything. That's all my thing. This is coming from one perspective. Upper admin. It's not even local admin because the building administrators weren't even aware of it. They're the ones with the closest ear to the ground

011shy of the teachers. How do you get an on the ground perspective without asking on the ground people? But you're but it's affecting the on the ground people, the kids, the parents, taxpayers, real estate, the real estate market for redistricting for God's sake. It just seems really really irresponsible to look at one proposal and send it so far along the line, commit so much money and not even consider anything else. That's up. >> So that those are my questions. If they can be answered, it' be wonderful. >> Katie Pool, founders. >> Good evening. My name is Katie P and I'm the parent of a fourth grader in the dual language program at Founders Elementary and I have been actively involved in the school since he started kindergarten. I've volunteered in his classrooms. I've been on

012the PTO since 2021 and I currently serve as the PTO president at Founders Elementary. I want to preface this by saying I'm well aware that there is a lot that is still TBD regarding the vision of 428, but I felt like I had to get my thoughts out before things got too far along. So, here I am. This year, we have something really special happening at Founders. Under our new administration, there is positive momentum, trust, and teamwork. The sense of community support and collaboration between our teachers, staff, students, and families is the strongest I have seen. The proposed plan of turning founders into a five to sixth grade building risks breaking apart that progress by disrupting the relationship and stability that our students and staff depend on. [snorts] This would be a major setback, not

013just for founders, but for the district. Stability matters. School culture matters. Keeping strong communities together matters. Let's also not forget the redistricting and disruption our whole district just experienced with Mitchell Elementary. We can't do that again, and you guys all know that. I'm asking you to please consider alternative solutions that do not dismantle or disrupt what is currently working so well at Founders. This year, we finally have the momentum our students deserve. Let's not undo that. Please have this committee come up with other alternatives than what they have proposed. [snorts] Thank you for your consideration and time. I appreciate everybody's voice, right? And so I wanted to make sure I was going to say this at the end, but since you all are here and I'm not guaranteed that you'll be here at the end,

014I'm going to say it now. And that is nothing has been determined about anything other than the ELDC. and that we need to move them outside of Huntley and that still has to be determined by the board because we are in the phasing of the planning phases of that and we are still going to be reaching out to build communities for the purpose of that. Right? The rest of the vision is a vision. It is a proposal we've put out there to say something needs to happen so that we can reduce class sizes at the middle grades. It was a first idea. Again, uh Mr. Wammo, can you raise your hand back there? He's going to be leading the cause for us uh reaching out to the community, having committee conversations, having planning meetings, and

015all of those things. So, all of that is forthcoming. If any of you that spoke or any other individual that's interested in being a part of the committee, I suggest feel free to reach out to me, email me, let me know that you want to be on a committee and we'll get that information over to Mr. Wedo so that he can reach out once those committees are made available. So again, nothing has been set in stone. What we're asking the board is permission to allow us to begin to venture out to see what we can come up with and what a good you know you know another what a [clears throat] sound proposal would be that we can bring back that everybody can agree with. Okay. So again the vote isn't for them to say

016yes this is what we're doing vision. the vote is to say they're allowing us to go out and figure out what it's going to cost, what it might look like and bringing in voices from the community, from families, from from uh the schools, the students from every from every walk that we made available. Now, just that we said we did the same thing when we were doing Mitchell, we didn't get enough voices. We got voices, but we didn't get enough voices. So, if this is something that is important to you all, I highly recommend that you join us in one of the committees and use your voice to build out what the future of this district looks like. Okay. So, thank you. Thank you for your voice. All right. Moving into board correspondence. Um, I

017guess I'll kick us off. So, um, we are chugging along so far on the superintendent search. Applications did close officially as of this last week. So, now the board is going to begin the process of starting to vet through those to kind of determine how we're going to move forward. We've, you know, kind of solidified who we're looking to for our list now of people on the interview committees. So going forward, we're going to be reaching out to those people within the next week to kind of really lock that down to make sure that they want to be a part of the committee because I might we as a board might want them on there. It doesn't mean they want to be on there. So once we've solidified that, we will move forward with that.

018Something very very exciting that just came out on Friday that I really think we need to highlight is that the city has officially you know announced with planning and zoning committee that we are looking for another data center to come in at 560 acres. You guys are well aware of the success and just assistance that Meta coming into our community was. And just to give you guys kind of a sense that was 500 acres. This new data center will be 560. Some really exciting things with this project too is just going over, you know, the white paper that the city kind of released about it. Big things, no usage of water and cooling for this facility. It is going to be a gas operated enclosed system and they're going to be using these new super

019cool turbo cells to run this facility. So you are looking at significantly more just because I know a big thing when we had some discussions earlier is you know people in the city was is this a good use of resources. This one has a huge impact when it comes to making sure that they're carbon neutral with all the systems that they're going to be using which is just a beautiful and wonderful thing. And then they're also going to be utilizing natural gas systems as well for actual electricity purposes. So, one of the other big concerns I know that people have had is this is such a drain on the grid. It's making my bill go up. They're going to be able to offset a lot of those concerns. So, those are just things I want

020to make sure at least as board president I'm addressing with people that know, hey, this is potentially another 19 to30 million in property taxes we're going to be able to recoup by the time all of these are online in 2031. So, that is something that will be huge in assisting us in looking into these endeavors going forward. So I actually since he's here I'll just say thank you Mayor Barnes for all of your work on getting these things here >> team [snorts] for all of us making this happen. >> So that is my correspondence for today. >> I um have a couple things. Um so the first one I wasn't planning to ask um but I'm I'm curious. So I think what I'm hearing from people as they're talking about the vision 428 is the

021concern that and I really appreciate your clarifications Manurva. Um what the the resolution says is that it's exploring this one particular option and what I am wondering is is it possible for us to during this process of gathering information can we simultaneously or before that hold some sort of community input gathering sessions so that we could potentially get information uh construction cost design etc. ideas for other solutions that people are asking about is that I don't know and I also don't know what all has been done and so I'm op operating under the assumption that your team has done a lot of research already and of figuring out what are these various plans and and I'm I'm wondering if we're just not aware of that. So I guess >> the answer is yes. So we

022will be sharing information, initial information that will get us to a certain level, but again until we go through committee and committees provide us with input and we have conversation of what that looks like, we don't have an end number. And then as Tammy will tell you, every year prices change. So it [snorts] would just depend on how long we're talking about opening in August of 2028. So we're a few years down the road. if we take any longer or do it take a little bit longer might cost us a little bit more but definitely this kind of uh income that will be supportive again will will help us there so we don't have to go to the taxpayers so we will make sure as long as I'm here that we're as clear and as

023concise and give you the information that you need >> okay >> yeah and then um the other thing um was I had had a chance to go to Mitchell this week um and read to one of the kindergarten classes and it was delightful and I was so excited um to get to see the school and to see the teachers and to see the kids. These kids are incredible um incredibly vivacious, smart, and also all over the place. [laughter] Um, and so tagging along with that, I just wanted to to mention that um, it was pretty clear that there's some needs uh, for extra hands in the classrooms. And so I just wanted to let you know like I'm going to be following up to find out what is it that we can do to help

024>> Mitchell. No, not Mitchell. But what is it that we can do to try to get more bodies in classrooms because these teachers are managing impossible situations. That's it. But it was I'm really excited for this school and it's incredible that it's right there in the neighborhoods that these [clears throat] kids are going to. I would like to take the opportunity to invite all parents to contact their schools for school for student teacher conference or student parent teacher conferences now um because here's an opportunity for those three people to be in the same room at the same time and that does not happen all that often um and uh I would like to at least start the conversation maybe for a later date to finish it. Um about what we can do to make sure

025that these are all functioning conferences that are being that are successful for student development. [cough] Real quick to kind of follow up on the vision 428. Um, and I don't know if we should wait till the resolution to talk about this, but to begin the process of planning, is there costs involved with just the beginning process of this? Do we know the numbers on the costs? I know we we said we're not expending any money yet, but are there costs involved just to start the process? Just want to be as transparent as possible. >> Uh, we'll be working on that with Tammy and Amir and a few other folks over the course of the next couple of weeks. Tammy has gotten some initial numbers that we'll be looking at, but we want to be able

026to provide a full calendarized uh number so that you have an idea of when expenditure of monies will occur. So for the next board meeting, I believe we will have that we will be able to share that with you all. >> Okay. Um, and another idea with this that since people brought it up, I'm not sure if we should wait till the item to talk about this, but I heard from community members basically echoing a lot of the points that we heard from number of the speakers tonight. Since this is such a huge change in the composition of our schools in the district, some people [snorts] thought, and I'm one of those people who love to hear the voice of the people, would this be something we could possibly put out as an advisory referendum

027for the district to get the community's input after, you know, we would have all these sessions prior to where we discuss these items and put out our visions and plans. I think the next election I think is in March. Put something out to the voters after we've had these discussions. Do you want to go forward with a reconfiguration? It's just an idea. I love getting the public involved and this is just something that was brought up to me. So, >> thank you. I'll take that into ad. I don't have an answer, but >> No, no, that's okay. I'm just bringing that forth so the public knows because I I'm one who believes the public should have a say in these things. So, >> thank you. >> [snorts] >> So, I guess something to kind of

028go off of with [snorts] board member Kristen's kind of comment. I I think that there's been a couple times where we've talked about staffing a lotment so far for how Mitchell is going. I guess is that something that you would be prepared to speak to right now on kind of based on our analysis right now, do we feel we have adequate staffing levels or now that you know things are running are these additional FTEEs as we're discussing tax levy that we're probably going to be looking to add? >> I'm going to be pretty blunt. Um I we are working with administration there and that is a relationship that I have with them and I can't speak to that relationship at this point. I am waiting we are waiting to see how some things pan across

029before we make decisions on that. Uh as of right now we have allotted a restorative dean over to them that we had currently vacant at another school. So we put that there. So we've g we have just recently provided another FTE for restorative dean at that building. Anything addition to that will depend very much on how the plan uh pans out with with administration. >> Are we short there [clears throat] or are all of our >> I'm sorry. Are we short or all or are all all of our um FT slots filled right now? >> We're not short. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay. Does anyone else have any final correspondence? Hearing nothing else. Um I did not get anything from Ria for student board correspondents. So we'll move into the consent agenda. It is recommended

030that the board of education approve the consent agenda items 5B through 5K. Board minutes 11425. Personnel action items. Payroll for October. Purchase order requisitions. Accounts payable for November. financial reports agreement for the summer steam program with niu with niu barb city steam team and then we have two donations one from pipstones holding LLC which is in the amount of $1,000 to Malta elementary school and we've also got a donation of $75,000 from Meta to support our STEM programming and project lead the way throughout the district. [applause] Does anyone have any specific questions or things about agenda items before we vote on the consent agenda? >> Hearing nothing. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> Second. >> Jackie, roll call. >> Nick Atwood, >> yes. >> Steve Buyers, >> yes. >> Jose,

031yes. >> Christopher Boyce, >> yes. >> Mark Sherba, >> yes. >> Binham, >> yes. >> Kristen Bailey, >> yes. >> All right, moving into old business. We have item eight, differential committee recommendations. It is recommended the board of education approve the recommendations from the differential committee meeting held on October 9th, 2025, which will total expense of about $29,750.39. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Jackie, roll call. >> Steve Buyers, >> yes. >> Jose, yes. >> Christopher Boyce, >> yes. >> Mark Shervat, >> yes. >> Vante Binham, >> yes. >> Kristen Bailey, >> yes. >> Nick Atwood, >> yes. Item B, resolution to build a new LDC and renovate Huntley Middle School. It is recommended the board of education approve the resolution to build a new early learning development center to

032increase pre kindergarten classroom space without referendum. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Jackie, roll call. >> Jose, >> yes. >> Christopher Boy, >> yes. >> Mark Sherbet, >> yes. >> Vante Bino, >> yes. >> Kristen Bailey, >> yes. >> Nick Atwood, >> yes. >> Steve Buyers, >> yes. And just as a reminder [applause] for everyone, since item B is done, if you would prefer not to stay for the rest of the meeting, you have every right to leave. Item C, resolution to allow administration to plan and cost analysize grade reconfiguration. It is recommended the board of education approve the resolution to authorize exploration of the project to alter and equip existing buildings for reconfiguration of grade level centers. Do I have a motion? Can I talk on this one real

033quick? I just wanted to wait till we actual >> do motion second and then we can discuss the motion on the floor. >> You can. >> So, do I have a motion? >> So, moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All right. Discussion. >> Um, so I just wanted to, you know, answer some of the things that people have been coming and talking about. I really appreciate that we're we're really starting to fill this room, every single meeting with people that are engaged. And I think that's great. I mean, we wanted to involve people in all these decisions that we're making. Um, you know, this board when we had our first public uh superintendent committee search meeting had a couple of people show up. So, we decided to hold another one and

034then we had around 30 people show up to that and we actually got good feedback. So, I can speak for myself only, but we're going to keep making sure that people's voices get heard and we're going to take those things into consideration when we vote on this. you know, we're voting to finance what I think is multiple options that are going to be available because I don't know how this is going to shake out. I don't know what the best evidence is going to be. I don't know what the student populations will be, but I know we're not going to be breaking ground on this in a year or two years because ideally, we're going to try to be responsible when we pay for whatever changes we're going to be making. Hopefully using some of

035that new meta money when that comes on the tax roles so that we're not taking out, you know, more debt and things like that. So, I know personally I want to see a lot of different options. One of those options would be like status quo and you know maybe minor ones. Other ones might be okay what does it look like to move to these fifth [clears throat] six great buildings? What modifications are going to have to be made and then what are the costs of all these things? I hope we see five or six. I'm hopeful that we'll see a lot of reports from administrators and building administrators on the benefits to the five six grade center option. You know what does that say for students uh improvement in their academic growth over the years.

036I think all these are things we're going to be taking into consideration in addition to the resolution which specifically requests us to seek community input. So, you know, I want everyone to keep coming. I want you to come with all your questions so that we can answer them and we can think about them because we don't know everything on this board obviously. So, we need to hear what's what's the temperature in the room. So, keep coming. Bring those things to us. you know, make us understand what the issues are facing the parents and we'll work through this thing and and try to make a decision that's best for the district. That's my two cents. >> I don't know if this is appropriate or not to ask this as a question. uh in the resolution, the

037third paragraph, >> are we can we is it a problem to generalize that a little bit more and just like take out the specifics about to be located at Founders Elementary School and Clinton Rosette Middle School and like say where they're located and just say we're just exploring this knowing that that's going to be one of the things we're exploring. Everything's being explored at this point just to see >> the the point is we need to reduce class size at the middle school. So we need to take into account anything and everything we have whether I mean maybe you guys decide that you want to build another building. I don't know. Right. [snorts] But I'm just saying >> would that help though? I'm wondering if just making that language a little less like this is

038the option we're pursuing if that would palatable or or is it >> so these things are it's not that this is the option we're pursuing. This is this is our best thinking right now, right? And our best thinking will get pushed by any additional push that will come from the committees that will come up. So, we're not looking we're looking to do this in an efficient way that makes sense for the district without it hurting, >> you know, children, without it hurting uh our financials, without it hurting anything. So, there's no I'm right now we're not in a place to say this is what we're doing or not. I I I think to to make the communication here simpler, I think Kristen is just asking, can we just get rid of the part that's in

039parentheses in this resolution? So then it just says we're exploring K through 4, we're exploring 56. So like just for example, it just it says to be created at founders. So she's just asking, can we just get rid of the verbiage that pigeonholes us into that? Who's this? Who's this? >> Um, >> that's what I'm wondering cuz yeah, it's regardless we're looking at these grade reconfigurations, whatever that may look like. >> You make that motion. >> I'm sorry I didn't bring this up. >> I'll I'll second your motion on that so the board can make that adjustment. >> Not that that's not like I think we should definitely explore this option. Okay. >> Right. >> I think it's just getting rid of the parenthesis which doesn't change anything about what we're going to look into.

040So, do I have a motion for item C? >> Chris, read the motion and then just say with the amendment of what you guys did it and then have to do another >> is that the parenthesis though I want to be clear about that. It's the part that needs >> Well, that'll be discussion will be technically it's supposed to occur after the >> So, Christian just wanted to make sure it's the part where the schools are made. >> Yes. >> The second paragraph, right? >> Yeah. The third under. Can we just eliminate that paragraph in its entirety details I think about >> on the whereas okay >> yes on the actual resolution. >> Okay. >> All right. It is recommended the board of education approve the resolution to authorize exploration of a project to alter

041and group existing building reconfigurations of grade level centers. Do I have a motion with the exclusion of the parts in the proposal that are in the parentheses within paragraph 2? >> Is that correct, Kristen? >> No, they're not in parenthesis. >> How about every >> It's literally the words to be located at Founders Elementary School and Clinton Rosette Middle School and located at Hunley Middle School. >> Everything after reconstruction project reconfiguration. If we didn't look at everything after that. >> Sure. >> That gets rid of all that. >> Oh, you guys are looking at >> I mean I'm even fine with saying like the number of different kinds of schools just >> the whereas document >> but that's fine. Yeah, I'm cool with getting rid of all that. >> Yeah. >> So sorry. >> So

042reconfiguration of schools re reconfiguration project. >> Period. The rest of that paragraph's gone. >> Okay. Do we have a motion to do that? >> Yes. >> All right. Is there any further discussion? >> Yes. Um [clears throat] I you mentioned that that there was a lot of work put into vision 428. Um is there a way that we could see some of the the calculations where they came up with the the plan for the grade centers >> calculations of student numbers or what are you talking >> well that that how how did that plan come together? I I I and for the people in the background, I have faith that you did the work, >> but I think it would make the public a lot feel a lot better that it wasn't just somebody saying,

043"Hey, this is a cool idea." That you actually did look at to see how it would reduce the class sizes across the the middle school ages as well as maintain the same class sizes in elementary schools. >> And what >> that work was done, but we didn't see it. >> How the sausage was made. >> Yeah. So there are people in the back, but there's also people here in the front that were a part of that. So it wasn't just the district administration, but it was also staff across the district. >> Uh, >> and if I'm if what you're asking is like what are the what is the data that we use to be able to get to that point? Is that what you're asking? >> Could they put something together over the next couple

044meetings? >> So and and or Jessica, if you guys want to step up and just talk about the numbers that we used and what that data is. Can I can I add to [clears throat] that really quickly? Like I'm just I I think like backing up a little bit to I would love just to know the general process like what options were considered and why did you go with this in particular with this recommendation beyond just the data. But >> so I'm historically I wasn't here but historically there are some folks that are in the audience and and in other places that >> when they were in school here we had 56 and 78 and so that that's where it really comes from. The idea is generated from the from our historical context. Okay. Yeah.

045[clears throat] >> Thanks. >> So yeah. Okay. So, um, on that note, history, uh, we would have to note that a little while ago, prior to a lot of us in this room being here or in the roles that we're currently in, I was in the district, but not in this current role, um, Tammy would have probably the most um, historical knowledge, but when we switched to doing, and that's because I had to come to schoolboard meetings, and I love to come to them, by the way. Um, um, We had we made a decision to switch to um what is now sixth, seventh, and eighth grade at both Clinton Rose and Huntley Middle School because of facility um usage. We did not have space. And so we made decisions that impacted us academically simply because

046of lack of money and um because of lack of space which at the time we knew that it was not best practices because adolescence at 11 years old and adolescence of little babies at 5 years old really should not be in the same area. Right? We did it simply because we did not have the money. So if you go way back when, you you can look at some of those archive notes and understand that was part of the conversation when we started having a discussion about is DLC going to happen. I believe back in May, we started having conversations um with DCTA leadership and some other people about hm if and it was a big if you know at the time if EA ELDC cut does come online and then we have this extra space

047what else should we do which we recognize as best practices as far as being impactful to our academics. Now as far as numbers are concerned we did start looking at numbers. And remember these are preliminary because these numbers are anticipated based on what we have currently. Do you want to >> Sure. [snorts] We have anticipated enrollments for the fall of 28. We can also look around and say for ex for for me a big one of the big issues is the question of the inequity that currently exists between Clinton Rosette and Huntley and the inequity that would become exacerbated if we did something like move 100 students from Clinton Rosette to Huntley and keep the two buildings as six seven eight buildings that is not equitable for a variety of reasons for example if you

048want to be and um Peter's in was here not that sports have to drive everything but if you want to be on the soccer team or if you want to have a solo in the choir and you have twice as many students in your building, it is half as likely that you're going to be able to play on the soccer team as if you were at the smaller building. Conversely, we run into a denominator problem. If you have just a couple of kids who want to be added to a special advanced math class at Clinton Rosette and there are only two sections of it, now you're dividing the number of kids you have to add by two. Whereas at Huntley, you might be dividing by five or six. We absolutely run into these problems already

049where until the middle school schedule was changed. If a student that was in seventh grade was prepared to take algebra, there would not be a seat for them without increasing the class sizes even more above the already very crowded 35. So having a very a much smaller middle school and a much larger middle school will cause equity problems across the board that we would really like to avoid. We also have equity issues between our elementary schools. As everyone here knows, we've always I believe as a as someone who was born and raised here, I think we've always done the best we could with the resources that we had, including space, money, personnel, and everything else. We've always done our best to make the best decisions we could at the time. And when we had more

050resources, we attempted to do better for our kids in our community. That's how we ended up with a building where people actually live. But in the past, we had situations like having a building like Cheeseboro, which we could no longer use. Having a very large facility, which we were no longer using as a high school, that we needed to put kids in. So we said, what's the best fit for that time? This gives us the opportunity to look at the buildings and say, are we really using all of them for their intended purposes and in the best way possible? We still have far more students that live in our northwest corridor of town than we do on the south side of town. Yet we have three elementary buildings that are south of Taylor. While we

051have numbers and we have looked at all the numbers of how that would fit and while we have run the calculation for how our students can be in our elementary classrooms still below that cap of 25, some of the answers are simply common sense. Given the population on the south side of town where I grew up as a kid where we used to have lots of families with kids, we have far fewer families with school age children at this time. Somebody made a comment about what would happen in 2031. None of us has a crystal ball. It is possible that when my grandchildren are hopefully attending schools in decel, I hope my girls are listening because that would be wonderful. It is absolutely possible that we would have to reconfigure something again. But given the

052projections that we have for the immediate, medium, and relatively long term, it does not look like our population is going to boom on the south side of town as much as it already has in the northwest corridor. So repurposing Founders, which was originally built to hold older children, will absolutely allow us to shift those sections from the south side of town to the northwest corridor, as that is where we would have classroom space for additional kids. Right now we if you look at our our map that we made when Mitchell came online there is a tiny section that looks very small on the map where we have approximately 65 students who live in the northwest corridor who are bus every day to founders because we don't have the population on the south side of town

053to support the three elementary schools that are located here. >> Do you guys have any questions at this time or should I keep saying? Can I just add one thing and and not to anyone's fault again based on what we had we bandated some things and this whatever there are many many conversations happening um we were trying to think of not not when I say we I don't mean district administration [clears throat] or upper level administration multiple voices have been part of this conversations the thought has been what can we do as we look as she has said Um, and I have actually invited my grandbaby to move. Um, she hasn't yet, but hey, she's only five. We got time. [clears throat] Um, we we were looking to what will be the most impactful and

054that we can actually do as a long term. So, we started thinking, okay, 30 years from now, which we don't know what's going to happen in two years, but 30 years from now, would this reconfiguration make sense in 30 years? The truth is, if we do anything to band-aid the situation, you're right. in two, three, four, five years, we probably will be back annually to say we need to do something else versus saying what can we do? [snorts] Um, and I don't want to use this term, but what can we do to do things differently on a grander scale? Okay, that's where it came from. But as far as numbers are concerned, what we're currently looking at just in and what we have in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, we're looking at um I'm adding

055up real quick 1,00 15 we probably have about 1,550 students just in sixth and seven sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. And that's just based on who are currently butts in seats right now. That's going to be a situation. We're not trying to divide 1550 between [snorts] two buildings which one we know cannot handle that many students. >> you mentioned that your calculations figured out that this adjustment would not break the cap at the elementary schools. >> That's correct. >> Okay. >> And I'm happy to to put that together or send it to you. Um, of course, we will always have situations because we are not dividing our students evenly based on their grade. So, um, in one neighborhood, for example, you might have a baby boom one year and you've got a whole bunch of

056kids in third grade and very few fourth graders. There is no perfect system in which we can guarantee that we wouldn't say, "I'm sorry, this class is full." But there is a but if you look at the district as a whole and we we use the boundary lines to the best of our ability to make sure that kids fit where they are. We are still not at 90% even moving to founders being up uh 56 building. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Hearing other questions. >> Jackie roll call. >> Yes. Mark Shvat, >> yes. >> Binham, >> yes. >> Kristen Bailey, >> yes. >> Nick Gwin, >> yes. >> Steve Buyers, >> no. >> Yes. >> Item D, ISBE maintenance grant application. Is recommended the board of education approve the application for the school

057maintenance grant program for the toilet room renovations at Founders Elementary School. >> Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Jackie, roll call. >> Mark Shervat, >> yes. Dante Binham, >> yes. >> Christ Bailey, yes. >> Nick Atwood, >> yes. >> Steve Buyers, yes. >> Jose, yes. >> Christopher Boyce, >> yes. >> Moving into new business. Item eight, travel request, professional development, secondary glad training. This is presented to us by AJ Crook. >> Good evening, everyone. I'm AJ Crook. I'm the multilingual programs coordinator for the school district. Um, I also have one of our trainers with us if you have questions as I go. Uh this evening I am here to request approval for outofstate professional development for our two tier three glad trainers to attend a specialized secondary training module in

058California. Our district is deeply committed to the success of our multilingual learners, particularly those enrolled in our current dual language and content ESL programs at the secondary level. The challenge for us is our trainers are currently trained for uh working with elementary educators and as our program rolls up to secondary next year who needs more training. So our folks have an opportunity to go to California for a uh training to teach them how to work with secondary content specific educators. Uh this is a 4-day training. It includes a day of research and theory, a day of classroom demonstration, two dedicated days focused on facilitation strategies, coaching moves, and planning for sitebased implementation. Um, back here in Decal, uh, by completing this program, our trainers will be able to work specifically within the secondary context as

059we write curriculum and meet the needs of our multilingual learners. I want to talk a little bit about the cost effectiveness of this. Um, typically the cost for registration to attend GLAD training is $1,35 per participant. Uh, six years ago, I think six years ago, >> certified in 2018, >> 2018, we trained our own trainers so that we no longer had to pay that per participant. So, right now we train about 40 educators every year. Um, and that's a cost savings of like 41,000 and some change. By training a secondary person, they'll be able to train our secondary people, avoiding that whole registration fee cost and travel expenses, subs, things like that. We can also welcome other district participants and they have to pay us the $1,35. So that's my favorite part. Uh besides building

060our own. Uh so we're requesting uh the travel the total cost is $5,000. We're going to split it between title three funds and teacher vacancy grants. So 2500 out of each of those grants. Uh this will occur in February. >> All right. Does anyone have any questions? Do we have consensus to bring this back? >> Yes. >> All right. Item B, the Cal High School acappella choir field trip request to Port Washington, Wisconsin, presented to us by Dr. J. >> All right. Good evening everybody. We are hoping to um send 40 of our amazingly talented choir students. Thanks, Ben. >> Start over. >> Good evening, everybody. We are so excited to for the potential to send 40 of our amazingly talented choir students to Port Washington, Wisconsin, April 10th through 11th for an a capella

061festival. This is something they also attended last year. The goals include learning musical arranging, choreography, and beatboxing. This will help prepare them for future competitions. And then at the end of this conference, they'll be able to perform in a concert while they're there. We um there's a fee of $45 per student, which will be paid for out of district music funds, and then we're requesting students pay $75 a piece to help pay for hotels and some of the meals. Do you have any questions about that? >> Nope. Not hearing any questions. Do we have Oh, >> what would be the roughly the impact to the like direct payment from the district outside of the music funds because that's their budget. I don't care. I don't I don't think that there would be any, if I'm

062understanding your corre your question correctly, I think it would just be the $45 times 40 students because then the students would be on the hook for the $75 a piece. >> So nothing's coming from operating funds. >> You're not asking anything extra permission to do it? >> Just permission to do it because it's an overnight field trip. >> Yeah. >> All right. No other questions. >> Do you have consensus to bring this back? >> Yes. >> Item C, agreement, scope and for DHS and NIU P20 engagement Illinois MTSS network. Also presented to us by Dr. Jennings. >> Thank you. Um, we're hoping to enter into a partnership with NIU's Center for P20 Engagement and the Illinois MTSS network. For the past few years at Decalp High School, we've been implementing and refining various systems and

063structures to improve the overall experience of our students. Last year, we spent significant time and effort restructuring our PLC process to ensure that all of our instructional practices and our social emotional supports are data informed. As we've led PLC's the last year and a half, it's become really clear to us that we that the next step [snorts] in strengthening the PLC process is by providing professional development in evidence-based tier one instructional strategies and social emotional learning that are context specific. So this means that the Illinois MTSS network will work with admin and specific PLC's at the high school to identify specific areas for improvement, whether that be in instruction or in SEALB. This partnership involves using the SAM I assessment to evaluate our fidelity and implementation of MTSS and then develop a professional learning calendar

064um based on those results, the results of that SAMI assessment. This is the next step in improving teaching, learning, and social emotional supports at DHS. This partnership would not exceed $24,174 and that would be paid out of our 103A title one funds. >> Does anyone have any questions? >> Three. The the agreement showed $355 to $474 an hour. Yep. >> I'm totally ignorant on this. What are we getting for three or 7 or $474 an hour? >> And the difference I believe between those two figures, the three the 300 and some that you mentioned is for virtual training whereas the 400 and some figure is for that in-person training. So when they have people come from the Illinois MTSS network, they are they're implementing the assessment that SAMI assessment which is going to happen over

065multiple sessions because they're going to be doing this assessment with multiple PLC's and administrators as well. Then they're going to be meeting with us to share those results and say, "Hey, we need to prioritize um the math PLC, the specifically the algebra 1 PLC." And so we're going to talk, we're going to build a calendar based on the results of that assessment and how we're going to be delivering uh that PD to them. >> I But I'm still I'm still trying to wrap my head my head around 420. What's whatever that number is. Hundreds of dollars an hour. >> Yeah. [snorts] >> That's a lot of stuff they're doing for us. But they're also charging for every hour they're with us. Mhm. >> So, how my head can't justify that kind of of hourly rate

066for something that that may be of great value, but I don't know if it's >> if it's the bang for the buck that we're looking for. Okay, that is a fair point for sure. Um I don't know that I can speak to comparable PD and like what that if is this more is it less is it more online. What I can say is that in using these 103A title one funds were limited to power uh empower do you know empower Illinois empowerment. So we're we can't just partner with certain people. >> We can't just pick anybody. we're limited to a certain pool of um organizations that can support us. Um and this is the one we felt like really aligned with our school improvement goals because we're really trying to improve our instructional practices and

067the social emotional supports. This seemed to be the best fit for us at the high school. >> All very valuable points, but that's brain surgeons don't charge that much. >> I I don't Well, I'm sure if you look at an itemized bill, brain surgeons would charge that much. I can speak from experience on that. But um I would say that when we compare this professional development to say example our professional development at the University of Chicago or um we've used some different regional office services, our own regional office, other regional offices. This is very comparable if not even less. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Everyone charges by the hour. >> Thank you. I know you know more about what [clears throat] that funding look like what those costs look like. And just to clarify,

068can you explain why Illinois Power only has a certain amount of groups and what that aligns to so that it's clear for the board? >> I feel like Dr. Garcia Sanchez is baiting me. [laughter] Um, it's a it's an >> You want me to do it? >> No. No. Just give me a second. It is um an effort to have a cohort or a group of professional development that is approved. been trying to find a very um polite way to say this that they have partnered with Isby to have these agreements. If that's not making any sense, I'll help also explain this. In a couple of years, they are lifting the veil of you have to be an Illinois approved provider partner. Right now, they say if you do not have the stamp of approval

069from Isby through a very long and lengthy process, if you miss the boat on getting on that list, good luck ever getting on that list. And so there is a very small group of organizations that we can work with that has that stamp. This is one of them. >> Has the district engaged in a program like this before? >> Yes. >> Is the co was the cost similar to this in the past? >> Yes. Well, it was less now that some time has gone. It's been two years. I don't know, Mark. I can't give you the exact um numbers, but we have partnered with NIOU through the Illinois MTSS network. That's who this is under. [snorts] and we have used them as we looked at our MTS systems and structures across the district. So the

070high school seeing the work that they put in through the University of SH Chicago, excuse me, is now saying, "Okay, what do we need to do else to continue to elevate our work and our progress. So they looked at the Illinois um network through NAU and is also eliciting their services for this professional development for their targeted needs. Thank you sir. >> Do we have any other questions? >> Hearing no other questions. Do we have consensus to bring this back? >> Yes. >> All right. Next item will be item D. Shape America the Society of Health and Physical Educators Convention and Expo which will be presented to us by director of teaching and learning for primary Billy Wmo. And Kelly, will you be presenting? >> Yes. >> Okay. Hey, Kelly. >> Kelly is actually going

071to be the one um presenting. I just like to introduce her as the shape teacher of the year and 22 >> Midwest teacher [applause] of the year as well. So, come on up, Kelly. >> Bring it with me everywhere. I [clears throat] really think >> I walk like Billy just be in front of me welcoming me. So, hi everybody. Uh for those of you that haven't met, my name is Kelly Zerby. I've been teaching physical education at the elementary level in Deal now for 27 years. And I've been uh Thank [applause] you. It's a long time. My body is broken in many, many ways, but I've had a wonderful ride. I've also been the district's um PE coordinator for K12 for the last 10 years. So, um in addition to being a leader here in

072Decal and a lot of other different ways and positions, I'm also a leader for PE and health at the state and national level in a lot of different ways. As Billy mentioned, I was awarded the 2022 Midwest Elementary PE teacher of the year. I was up for the national award which I didn't win but we're all winners. So um and still I'm on I get asked to go to all of these places and I've keynoted a few times and it's a very powerful journey for me. So in winning these awards I've been part of a great network of passionate educators who um have a goal to forward our profession of physical education and health and we know that's more important than ever before. [clears throat] I'm here today to ask for the time to attend

073the national convention this year which is in Kansas City, Missouri from March 17th through the 21st. It is a week-long event where physical education teachers and health and adapted specialists and researchers from all over the world gather together to share their passions of what I'm passionate about PE and health. Um, as the district's PE leader, if I'm able to attend, I'm able to bring back all the current research best practices and the innovative ideas that are very exciting that come to be at all of these conventions and to help educate our district 428 [clears throat] PE teachers. Um, this year I have been asked and been accepted to present three sessions on the national stage and a coffee talk, which is less stressful. I've also been asked to run for the Shape America board of

074directors, which is a great honor. I have to um see if I make this late, but then I would be kind of in a very official national capacity um which is really great because it's a wonderful honor and it affirms all the work that I've been doing for many many years um for this stage. So, I'm just asking for the days to attend. I don't need any other financial support. [snorts] Um and that's my spiel about the national convention. Any questions for me? Any questions? [snorts] Hearing no questions. We have a consensus to bring this back. >> Yes. >> Thank you. [applause] >> Item E, courageous principles leadership development program presented to us by Dr. Mr. Manurva Garcia Sanchez. >> What it says? >> So, good evening. Uh once again we're been asked and invited

075to attend courageous principles uh where we will be inviting um our principles and assistant principles and deans into uh courageous principles 2 and one and two uh and then for like for instance Liz is here Ricard Richardy it'll be her first time going and so she'll be invited to go there uh along with the others uh we have [snorts] estimated 17 spots >> 15 spots Um and we just need to be able to uh go out and it would be Mar the end of February um Friday, Saturday, Sunday and returning Sunday. So we're asking to go out of town for that and we are receiving a very large um scholarship to be able to contribute to that. I know we've had a few people here that have attended and we'll continue uh to support them

076as well uh as additional professional development happens. Just keep in mind that we're using courageous principles as a foundation of learning and support for all of our school leaders as they um are u become stronger and more embedded instructional leaders in their building. >> What time does it start on Friday? >> Pardon? >> What time would it start on Friday? Uh it's uh noon. It's a noon start time. >> So >> we our arrivals at noon and the first session starts at either 1:30 or 2:00. >> So is going to be who's running the district? >> And who's running the district? >> Everyone of our administrators >> is going to be gone out of the buildings for that afternoon. >> Not everyone is going. It's it's only the new principles and um new principles and

077anyone who hasn't completed uh the second the second one. So not everybody. >> Thank you. Yeah. >> And recap for a minute. >> It's only 15 of us. >> Great directors who are all licensed as administrators. >> All of us, everybody pitches in. >> Okay. [clears throat] Any other questions? >> All right. Does anyone else have any other questions? >> Do we have consensus to bring this back? >> Thank you. >> All right. And now it's showtime, guys. Item F, approval of estimated tax levy for the 2025 tax year presented to us by our CSBO, Armieroka. >> Thank you. Okay. Uh so we're here uh back a few minute meetings ago, we provided some information, some background information on the calculations of the tax levy. Uh we're coming back uh and we're here today to

078continue the next step of the process. Uh we're going to go over a little bit of a presentation, go through a few scenarios, and we want to basically go uh have a schedule on our calendar where we need to set a public hearing uh and to publish the truth in taxation. Uh so that would be the next step for us. We are these are all scheduled to be for this the next board meeting which would be December 16. Uh so we Okay. Uh so we always we wanted to talk uh last time we talked a little bit of what is what are the ingredients for the tax levy and um sorry [snorts] this is let me try it again. [snorts] All right. So, uh we talked about what are the ingredients of little levy calculations

079and that is the EAB which is uh it is something that the county assessor's office provides. Those are the market value uh at a third of it uh to to provide the base for the taxes as the CPI and what the new construction um amounts are for this year. So uh what we get from the county assessor's office is something that looks like this where uh we we provide what the EAV is including a new constructions to the right side. So I cannot u I cannot zoom in but uh it would be the right size of so that's okay. We got you export maybe So that's okay. >> It won't work. >> It's not a TDF. >> Yeah. All right. That's okay. So uh the reason why uh that's kind of important is that uh

080the numbers change and I want to stress this especially for this tax levy year. uh the uh the abatements for meta building five and six are are hitting this year's and uh if you look under uh the totals uh there is a tiff uh take away a tiff in uh tiff increment and e zone uh in there it's about 200 million however we're anticipating about 300 million that is not really shown in this report so back so in March these numbers might change so I always want to bring that forward and as we think about what these uh tax amounts. It did happen in 2023 where uh the the the March numbers and December numbers kind of change. So uh we want to make sure that uh we do have some cushion because we can

081always go a little bit lower uh to to reach the tax rate we want but uh we can go higher and again the county sets the tax rate because of the EAV numbers. uh during Mar uh from January to March uh there is appeals process finalization of numbers and in March we actually get what that tax rate would look like. So um [snorts] let's see that again uh the role of consumer uh price index is very important. understand that we cannot just uh we cannot go under we are very limited the school district is limited under this law. It allows only for an inflationary increase and a uh a new construction that are rolling into the taxes to be uh increased over the over the year from the previous year. So as you can see

082our uh taxes are or at least sorry the CPI has been uh a moving target uh from uh stretching from 7% to 2.95% this year. All right. Uh I always like to bring this forward because it it shows uh who where the EAV by property has been uh our the footprint of the market value of the taxes uh has been uh the has been from residential areas uh at about 56% to uh moving from back in 2020 and right now it's the footprint is about 35%. So uh homeowners uh tax sprint uh has been uh uh uh kind of shrinking while we're seeing the industrial size. So if you go back to the row four there under industrial back in 2020 it was about 8% but right now we're increasing 41% and uh as our

083board president mentioned uh in the future also seems that uh that industry footprint will continue to grow and we would like to see that infusion of cash uh coming in or at least infusion of tax revenue coming in uh and and that has helped as we're going to show u moving forward. We have used those new construction or the new industry to kind of provide some tax uh taxpayers relief. So, this is a home that started at 293,000 back in 2019 and that value has appreciated. And some of you who have a property or a home uh in the cow townships or uh the district townships uh we have seen appreciation levels uh from 2019 to 2024. A home value that has uh started at 293,000 is is about 375,000 in appreciated value. And uh

084on the third column we have seen the changes year-over-year from the taxes paid to the district and there is a net value of about -250. So uh appreciation of a of a house about 100,000 with a net reduction of their taxes 250 over the course of uh six years. So that's quite a feat uh that uh has been uh afforded to us uh through many uh streams. Um so how local do how local tax dollars are spent per district account. So um that uh property tax uh the the tax that is paid to the school covers education. Uh as you see there education, general and special education is makes up more than 76%. So most of that money goes straight into our teachers and uh into our learning. the residential tax bill. Uh we do

085have uh this kind of gives a a kind of a big overview of what other tax embodies. Yes, we are the largest uh footprint as a school tax. This is very comparable with every other uh school districts in the in the state of Illinois. Uh we are also the third largest employer and uh we fund public education and we'll chances are that we will be the largest taxing body just by nature. Um, as I said, it's very common for other uh of other school districts in the state of Illinois. Um, the good news is the local home homeowner has seen their tax percentage from the overall budget of the district shrink from 31% to 20%. Where where we're seeing other uh commercial industry picking up from uh 24 to 29% of that uh budget uh

086footprint. So, for example, if our um expenses are about 158 million to run our school district, only 31 million or 20% comes from residential or homeowners taxes. Uh moving forward um our we our goal has always been to shift tax burden away from the residential tax base and to move into the industry and commercial uh uh tax uh taxes to be paid. So back in 2021 for example homeowners were paying up to 56% of their of the share. Um but well now it's moving towards the industry particularly and commercial side. So right now in 2025 that tax share has dropped from 56% to 40 and while residential and commercial in particular has moved from 43 to 60%. Our tax rate has declined uh overall D428 and other taxing bodies uh rate has declined but ours

087has been more very dramatic. We started back in 2019 at about 7.18%. We're currently at 4.8. So that is a um almost a uh 2.2 um rate adjustment decrease between those uh five years. Uh that is uh the most dramatic uh as you see here compared to other uh taxing bodies and and in the township of decal particularly we have 10 taxing bodies. So that makes it uh more challenging when it comes to taxes. But how do we compare with other school districts? So our uh tax rate is about 4.8. Uh if you look at other taxing districts uh that are marked in the red arrows there uh they are higher higher than us. And and I'm talking about comparable districts like Keeland, Burlington who are four 5.8 compared to our 4.8. um Geneva 5.3,

088Batavia 5.2 and uh St. Charles with a little bit more affluent EAB or home ownership. Uh they're at 4.8. That's has been always our goal. We want to provide taxpayer savings and uh we have tried with every uh with many methods uh from including uh taking uh abatements from our own funds uh which started kind of small uh this is row C there uh we we provided uh tax discounts from 2.3 back in 2021 and to up to 12.6 million in 2024. Uh so continuing this uh it it creates some unsustainable long-term losses for us. Uh but the good news has been that we have also had state property tax uh relief grants uh that have been taken advantage of. And if you see here under row F uh they that range from 5.7 million

089to 12.5 to last year's 6.4. Unfortunately, the state is not funding the this grant uh this year which poses a challenge for districts like ours who has been continuously provided this discount and um this kind of pushes the burden back to the district uh to pro offer larger abatements or uh to have uh to go back to the taxpayers for that fund. But we do have operational cost. our transportation. The state uh is showing some symptoms where uh they are uh limiting our uh funding including our transportation reimbursements. Uh we're we're expected to lose between a shortfall of a 1.2 to 1.9 million just on transportation reimbursement. Our insurance renewal came out at a high sticker shock and also uh payroll salary which is our largest uh expense and also Medicaid funds have been um

090have been limited this year. So for tax levy request, so that's why we're here. We need uh by procedural uh we need to post a truth and taxation notice in newspaper and then we are setting the public hearing for December 16. Come December, we will hold a public hearing. We'll adopt the levy and we'll certify that tax levy to the county and the late the latest which would be December 30th. Uh but we'll definitely do it a little bit earlier than that. um the county sets the tax rates. So once all the appeals happen between January and March, uh those numbers, these EV numbers might change and the tax rates that uh we're we're probably we're kind of sharing right now might change as well. Um and uh once we establish the tax rates the

091county provides uh the taxes uh are collected in May through November and we will post that not for this year's budget for the following year's budget. I did want to go through a few scenarios that we have u available. This one I need to this. [clears throat] Um, so >> there are maybe that or just zoom from here maybe. All right. >> Good. Thank you. Thank you. So, um, by comparison, I provided the 2024 numbers. Now, that the first row there, it will show the legally maximum amount that the school district can take. That's the tax cap that we call it. Uh and then we have an under levy which is a permanent loss for us that is irreversible. Uh a district abatement which is temporary and a state property tax reduction grant which again

092unfortunately this year is not available to us. We use that to provide discounts for our taxpayers. >> Can you can you explain to the folks why we're not getting that grant this year? Uh so we are not getting this grant because the state did not fund it. They were um uh they're saying that they are going to recalculate that um the funding model and we don't know if that will take one year or two years. So it will be available next year but we're it's always a risk for this grant because it's appropriated by uh by Springfield. So it's not always uh sustainable. Um we did have a we did have uh back in 2018 and 2020 because of because of COVID that was stopped at that time too. So depending how Springfield appropriates funds

093for it. Uh that's uh that's how we um so that's why we didn't get the relief grant this year. Uh we haven't heard any news if it's going to be available next year. But you can see that those are the uh the levels of uh discounts that we can offer uh to provide uh taxpayer savings. So, so what's going to happen this in 2025? So, I shared the the first column there which we not recommending but just more of a reference. It's a maximum allowed levy. It's shown asformational and um it jumps from 90 from 96 year to 97. And the reason why the jump is a little bit much smaller is because of that under levy effect. So again I my recommendation is to have as little under levy as possible. Uh and um

094our first scenario would be uh was something that was consensus from the board last time was to bring an increase of CPI by 2.9. So if our levy uh the year before was 77, you're looking at about 79 million. Now in order to reach that amount we have to take discounts. We don't have grants so we have to provide some temporary discounts uh which are max is at 7.4. So the remaining has to be an under levy that hits our um permanent loss. So a 9.8 million under levy which would be your third row number here. Uh that provides uh that really hits us permanently and it is a very high number. When you do that, you have this 87 million start off base the following year. So this here uh so that starts off

095much less. So if we started 97 this year, the following year would be 87 uh as a uh as a uh base for it. Under scenario two, uh this scenario is kind of a middle between option or scenario one and three. It is below our funding level. It has a under levy of about 6.5 million. It doesn't reach our obligations, but it does allow some and it doesn't allow cushion for March. So, if the tax if the the rates change for the county in March, there's not much cushion there because we're already under the funding floor. Um, what we recommend is scenario three. This is where we hold the line to last year's rate. Uh this is uh what the other taxing bodies are uh following. We recommend providing this relief because it provides the

096rate stability while ensures we have sustainable funding. In there we will have a very small under levy uh very manageable. We will have the temporary abatements and at the same time we will have that rate that was uh this year. in that rate uh 4.83 uh provides a um a relief as a rate stability for our taxpayers. Uh but it does provide also operational needs for us. It includes every cost increases to run our school. In addition, it helps us in the future uh to provide taxpayer relief again the following uh uh the following years. Under option four, uh this one it's it's having the same [clears throat] tax levy of 77.6 just like previous years. However, the home uh has appreciated and uh they have appreciated um from as high as 12.48 48 for

097Milan and Malta townships to u uh to the cow township which is the largest which is 9.51. Now if you notice here in 2025 the appreciation is is kind of cooling off a little bit because last year we're at [cough] about 14.6% appreciation except now we're at 9.51. So as scenario four uh while the homes are appreciating at um on average 9 3. Uh, this one will just provide a tax bill to be um flat. This however won't need our funding applications. We don't get any new home uh value appreciation uh funding. We don't get the inflationary increase. And this will also stop us from providing uh uh tax levy uh savings in future years out of our district funds because it's already uh cutting us at about 12.1 million in under levy. All right.

098Uh so our recommendation is scenario three and u can probably >> I want to just kind of start off if if I can. Um, this is the one decision that the board makes that affects every single resident who lives in the city of Decal, city of Courtland, and Malta. Whether you have children in school, whether you have folks that work for the school, if you live, whether you rent or own a home, this decision affects you financially. Um, and I want to be transparent and I appreciate what you put together here because it does have a lot of information, Armier. Um, the numbers are important. We've had I've heard conversations from other taxing bodies. We're we're the big dogs here. Uh, 60% of your tax bill is from what this board is going to decide

099here uh over between this meeting and the next meeting. Um, the amount that the residents pay, how much more they're going to pay, I think is a critical part of the conversation. When the city was talking about this, when other taxing bodies were talking about this, nobody is bothering to mention what the resident is going to pay more in taxes. We've heard the conversation about keeping the tax rate the same. When people open up their tax bills, they don't look at the tax rate. They look and see what dollar amount they're paying to each entity. So my goal here and for this board I hope is to be as transparent as possible and let people know that the scenarios presented including the one that's recommended is going to increase your tax [snorts] bill if we

100approve scenario what is it scenario three by about 10.7%. the number at the bottom which really wasn't mentioned on the lower part of the screen uh as far as the uh taxes to district 428 is a critical component in the recommended scenario. $350 would be the additional cost on top of $3,387. That's about roughly between 10 and 11%. So, I want to make sure that folks know that not only us, every taxing body is going to be raising your taxes and probably one of the highest increases we have seen in years. I don't know about you, but I don't know too many people who've gotten raises of 10.7% over the last year. It I don't I don't believe most have. So my personal feeling and that's why I'm the one who asked that we have

101the CPI option and also the hold the taxpayer harmless option and whether we should be deciding on these options right now is also something I'm questioning because our public hearing isn't until the next meeting. Is that correct? So, I know we have to pass something to get the the blackbox ad out in the paper, which I understand, but I think it's probably presumptuous to come up with a scenario chosen without hearing from the public. The public hearing is not until the next meeting. Now, I know what this board normally does is with most agenda items, you have an information item and an action item. Now, with a tax levy, we're not doing that. We have the adoption at the next meeting and this meeting we're having merely the approval to get the ad in the

102paper which we are legally bound to do. So I personally don't feel that this board at this time should I mean we can discuss the scenarios but I don't think we should move forward with an initial consensus on a scenario without hearing from the public. I've raised this question before, even before I was on the board, that the board's already making this decision and then having the public hearing after the fact. It's putting the cart before the horse. The public should be able to weigh in on this before the board reaches consensus after hearing from the public. So, those are my thoughts initially. I'll have more. >> So, I guess I'm going to jump in to start. The first thing I want to start with is Armir. Just thank you for being here tonight. the

103board truly appreciates that and I hope you know that. >> Um, but to kind of dive into this, I am totally all for let's get public input, but public input is not going to change that we have bills to pay. [clears throat] And public input doesn't change that every option pretty much besides option three leads us into a deficit. And the way I'm looking at it, we as taxing bodies have worked so hard to get to a point where we've brought in this industry and we already tonight just talked about we have another big company coming into town that's going to add to that tax base. And what I don't want to do, not to throw shade at other districts is, but I don't want to end up in a situation where we're like Sycamore

104and we have to grab every dollar that's available on the table because we put ourselves into such a financial situation that that is our only option. So, I would rather have a slow climb this year and then when we get another 19 to $25 million on the book in 5 years, we can say, "Guys, we just got another big lump sum of cash. We can drop your bill now by $500, $600 or whatever it is in conjunction with our other government bodies." Now talking about other government bodies, I do want to when you look at the presentation, us in the city are the only two with these new industries that have upheld our bargain to the taxpayers to efficiently lower those rates still over time. When you want to look at other taxing bodies, it's

105KISH, it's the park district, it's the library, it's those other government bodies that guess what? Most of you probably didn't see a lot of relief the last few years. And it's because those taxing bodies who people don't pay attention as much to undercut ours in the city's effort when they went into their levies. So I do just want to say yes, we're the biggest portion of the bill and we are the part where it looks scary because realistically we have the biggest impact on the future of our community, but don't forget that those other taxing bodies are eating up the savings that we and the city have worked so hard to give you guys. I just wanted to jump in because one of the things we talked about last meeting was, you know, rate versus

106dollars that are coming out of people's pocket. And I think Ar, I really appreciate the way you illustrated on the different scenarios. Like here is a number for you. You know, $350 if we end up going this way if your house is valued at $250,000. But I think there's more to it than just this year's increase because obviously we're dealing with an increase this year. But I went back and looked at my tax bills over the last five years. And in 2021, the school portion of my tax bill was $3,862. In 2025, it was $3,700. In that same five years, what cost a dollar in 2020 cost a$125 now because, as the slide showed, we had inflation up every single year, 7% in one year. So, the district has still managed to increase this bill

1075% in the same time period that in their own costs went up 25%. So I I think that's meaningful to remember. You know, you're getting an individual year increase, but in five years, you're you're barely seeing an increase. And just like Chris said and and what we talked about in the campaign when we talked about taxing because it is, you know, I'm very sensitive to what it costs the average Decal citizen out of pocket or any of our citizens in in the district. We have to be responsible and reasonable about the long-term planning because if we severely underlevy and we're starting at that lower levy the next year, by the time new taxes can come online, we've had to increase annually just to be able to recapture where we were 5 years earlier. So, it's

108like two steps forward, one step back, but more deliberate and and that's not in my view a safe way to do. I don't know that we could even guarantee significant relief if we take $8 million out of the budget and then for the next four years we're trying to incrementally get that 8 million back just to get to where we started, you know, this year. So that's, you know, it I'm very sensitive to what it costs people, but you know, we've I think we've done well and I think the district's done very well in actually lowering that overall rate by 30% in 5 years. And we have given real relief and and some years taxpayers were held harmless in the sense that they paid less in that individual year. I just think it's not sustainable

109for us to look at what's what's everyone else, you know, paying and how can we somehow subsidize every other taxing body so that the taxpayer honestly saves a few dollars, like not even that much off what they're currently paying. We would we would surrender, you know, $10 million so someone could save 15 bucks on their overall tax bill. You know, I just don't think we can do that as a taxing body >> with the subject of rate. And I'm kind of sick of all taxing bodies bring this up. People look at the dollars. We you have something called a multiplier. We have a 9.51% multiplier. Rate multiplier. It's think of a sea salt. You know, if if your multiplier if your multiplier is pushing you further down, you know, your rate goes on the other

110side. So dollars I I the conversation about rates is lovely. That's something the city loves to do. I want people to know about the actual dollars they're going to see on their taxes that they >> I agree and I think our scenario shows that we put a dollar number on it. I think >> and again like I said I appreciate the fact that this district does provide scenarios and I it's a positive thing. City doesn't do it. Park district doesn't do it. We do it here at the district so we can see all the options available. So I just want to make that clear. I I wanted to um first sing your praises. Um this is a phenomenal presentation. The way that you have distilled this data for people who [laughter] do not completely do

111not have degrees in finance is incredibly helpful and on every single slide I was just so grateful. So I just want you to know you and everybody who was involved in putting this together, thank you. Um, and I just wanted to say while to Mark's point, um, I do think like you do in terms of dollars and I'm sitting here if my house is valued at $250,000 that means a gym membership for me every month is how much that's going to cost me. $30. So maybe a low gym membership, right? But this is how I think about things. And I think my response to having the community coming and listening to the community is that the knowing the amount of labor that at least I have had to put in to understanding all of this

112as a homeowner in Dalb and as someone on this school board and as a trustee of everyone who voted for me to be here. I I think that on one hand we were voted in order to do that labor and to ex see what we could do to come up with what we think is the fairest and most representative situation for all and deliberate which we do by the way a lot. Um and also um sorry I just lost my train. Um, I I just I think that it you're going to get a lot of people who come not really understanding and say, "I don't want to pay $30 more dollars a month." Which is totally valid, but there are so many other considerations to be made about the district itself, about where these increases

113are coming from, and that they're not just coming from us. They're coming from top down in a lot of ways. and and just the ways that economics I guess circulates. Um so anyway, that's my concern is that I don't know what purpose that serves productively other than people feeling like they're heard, but then are we able to educate everybody who would show up on this? I mean, it is it is a lot to digest. And yeah, >> and it's also I know I pointed out the residential homeowner, but I'm also thinking about the small business owner that owns their building. They're going to see even higher higher higher dollar amounts that they are paying. So, if you own a particular small store where you're selling items downtown, you own the building, you're going to have

114to raise prices to pay because you're paying greater property taxes. A 10% increase is large. If it was just a few dollars, not a big deal, but I think 10% when the average income has not gone up by that amount is significant. And I don't know how many of you have also reapplied for your health insurance around this time of the year. Boy, some of those have gone up ridiculously. So, uh, we're two or three times what you were paying before. So, we're just mounting on top of it. The other thing I did ask for, um, was to look at the possibility of things maybe we could put off in the budget. You know, just because we pass a budget doesn't mean we have to spend what's in the budget. So to to to try

115to to get those expenses down to maybe cover some of this so we can perhaps do the CPI option number one of the 2.9%. So but we we didn't get any options. I know I asked for that, but >> one of the one of the things we have to consider when we look at whether it's the the the actual money in the bill, the cost of the bill, the rate, the the budget that we're spending, all of that is that we want to spread this money that that air has been very good in describing how it goes across as [snorts] many different agencies as possible. I mean by the cost of it. You gave us the the pie chart that residency residents pay this much. We get this much from the state, this much from

116the business. We want to increase that business as much as possible. But you do that by making the businesses feel that they're their employees are not going to pay as much taxes. And that's by rate that they're not going to see the last the last tax bill. You understand where I'm coming from? >> See, I I disagree with that. Everybody looks at the tax bill. >> They don't they they're looking at the house that they can afford based on the rate that they have. So, we have to do a very careful balancing of this. And we can't just look at, okay, they paid I paid $6700 for my tax bill, I'm pretty sure, last year. And if I came out 68 knowing that my my house went up x number of dollars, like cool. When

117I sell it, I'm going to get more money. >> I understand that. That more money. Yeah. But that more money I'm going to get when I sell it comes with the responsibility that it's going to be a higher tax. I'm paying more in taxes. >> That's just the way I that's the way I think about it. Every time my val my house goes up in value, I expect to pay more in taxes. And I I think to kind of add on to what JJ's saying is what especially when he's talking about tax rate. I'll just use, you know, Meta is a prime example. Let's just say they're going to build an $8 billion data center. They're going to build an $8 billion data center whether it's here, whether it's in Yorkville, whether it's going to

118be in California. So their concern really is what's that tax rate? Because they're going to multiply that number against wherever they're building that $8 billion facility. And for us to continue to, you know, kind of attract them, we do have to be cognizant of the tax rate. But I will tell you right now, because, you know, I serve on our economic development counties board as well, one of the things that they also look at is there stable government institutions in the areas they're coming into. and whether we're all running deficit budgets and going into the ground is absolutely something that their people are going to calculate in what they look at. And if they see, hey, there's not stability in these government bodies. They're all in the red, that to them is a sign of

119a community that could be dangerous for them to move into. So, it's absolutely something that we have to consider that we have to show that we can properly run our finances and not have deficit spending to attract these bigger conglomerates to continue to invest here. much better. [laughter] So I guess we have all does anyone have any other kind of comments or if we kind of I guess since we have multiple options I guess does everyone want to go down the line and say which option they would like to support [snorts] so that we can make sure that what we're deciding upon right is this appropriate now based on my comments from earlier where we haven't had the public hearing yet. So that I guess is a question for the board to decide. Personally, I

120am comfortable with us moving forward with having option three on our taxation notice that we would have in the black box >> on the taxation notice. I'm okay with that. Correct. >> This is four though. >> Correct. >> So we can go below that amount if we wanted to after publishing the taxation notice. Correct. >> Yeah. So the the truth in taxation does not show abatements. It is very procedural. Um a so that one is setting we're just setting the public hearing and we're setting a publishing for the newspaper but the procedure is that you know you do want what the tax levy request is so I can bring in the resolution bring in the certification uh on the December 16 board meeting >> right >> so we just can't go above that amount on

121the truth and taxation notice correct >> the truth and taxation notice will only provide the first row there the legally maximum minimum amount. It will not show what the what the board is uh uh is adopting on December 16. >> Okay. So, we just need authorization to go forward with that. That's what we're doing here tonight. Correct. >> That's [snorts] what we have to do bylaw for the timeline, right? >> But, uh procedurally, we I would like to see what uh which scenario the the board is providing so that I can bring in the resolution. Otherwise, we'll have to do another meeting or something because I I think that's how it's always been. Uh where come December 16, I I'll provide the the the resolution and so forth. Yeah. >> But by by some crazy

122like moon earth collaboration thing, enough of the public comes out, we decide to change our mind. There's nothing prohibiting us from doing that. Right. >> No, we have >> we can make an adjustment at that meeting, right? And then I guess one final point of clarification because I know it this last year EAV actually came in more favorably than we thought it would and we ended up with more. If we have that situation again in March where it's like whoa we're getting more money than we thought we would get. We can still go back to the drawing board and say hey we can reduce the tax rate some more to add that extra relief. >> You can yeah come March uh seeing where we're set uh we're setting the the county sets the rate uh

123we can come back. We cannot go higher, but we can go lower in March. >> But also, the board of review does a lot of they get a lot of appeals and they lower. And I think Amazon appealed and they got theirs dropped quite a bit last year as I recall because I know the district was present at that meeting. So, we tend to lose some money off the table as well in that March. It's after March after all the board of >> Amazon has people in that building now. >> We are. >> It should be better now. Yeah. I I'm hoping it's better this time, but uh I wasn't >> just to be clear, we had not collected from Amazon the last two years. [snorts] This is the first year that we are collecting

124from Amazon. Is that correct? >> Correct. And I think that was >> so just I guess clarify, we were collecting some money, but we were not collecting at an occupied >> occupied. Right. Correct. Correct. We were providing some form of relief for them and once that stopped, we feel like that was the push that brought in actually jobs here. So, >> so I guess we're just going to go down the line. Does anyone feel that we need to put off on deciding which option we're going with? So, I'll start with you, Kristen. >> Vante, >> no. >> Nick, >> no. >> JJ, [clears throat] >> we need to put up what option we're going with. >> Yes. >> Mark would like us to decide our option. Okay. So, I'm No. >> No. >> Steve, no.

125Mark, >> yes. >> All right. So since the consensus is to make a decision tonight, I would like us to go down the line and pick the option that we are most comfortable with and then whatever the majority is is what the board will go with. So I will go first so that no one else has to be the first one out of the hole. I am for option three which is keeping our tax rate at its current level. And now we'll start from the other side. Mark, >> option number one with a CPI of 2.9% which raises your taxes. All these options are going to raise your tax, but this one will raise it just a little. >> All right, Steve. >> Uh, option three, I think, is best for our district. >> All

126right, JJ. [snorts] >> I honestly don't know. >> All right, Nick. >> Option three, >> Zante >> to increase it. Wow. >> You want option one? >> Yeah. >> All right, Kristen. >> One. deal to increase it because no matter [snorts] what, we still got to pay the taxes. >> You're saying that's a decrease? >> No. No. Uhuh. I'm looking at it wrong. >> Yeah, I think she's I think she's not saying what she >> No. Uhuh. I'm looking at this wrong. So, I will go with three. >> All right. >> I think you were talking about the one that's not recommended. >> No. And >> Kristen, >> the recommendation three. The recommendation from the board currently stands at five for option three, one for option one. JJ, would you like to >> I want

127two and a half. >> Okay. Option two and a half has won. The consensus of the board is to go with option three, which is to hold our tax rate at 4.83192%. Is there any further? >> Make sure people know. Also, increasing your taxes by 10.7%. So, >> all right. I don't feel that. Do we have anything to discuss last second about that? Not hearing any last second discussion. We'll move into superintendent report by Dr. Garcia Sanchez. >> Okay, we're down at the line. You know what this means, right? So, we're going to get out. First and foremost, I want to say November 24th and 25th. What are happening? parent teacher conferences. Please make sure that you get out to your schools. Our teachers have been working really hard with students and with everyone else

128to make to be able to give you a good reporting parents. So, please make sure that you get out to your child's school. Thank you for that. Um, I just wanted to give everybody a heads up. We're actually going to be moving from boards to community. Same company. It's just going to look a little differently. It's going to be make us a little bit more efficient. Jackie is getting us all up and ready to be able to use it. You can see it on her face. She's so excited. And we will do a soft launch in January. And then hopefully everything will go well. And then we'll be converted from board docs over to community at that time. The way that you access it will still be the same as you've been accessing uh board

129docs. Okay? So click that link and it'll get you there. All right. Um the uh I don't know which you want to do first. Okay. So, Saturday, November 15th was actually school board appreciation day and um Jackie uh we wanted to present something to the board of education >> now or just afterwards. >> Well, there is a little token of appreciation that you can collect on your way out from Jackie. Uh just a little token of every of gratitude for the work that you do for us. And then finally and very importantly, Thanksgiving break. Don't overeat. I know. I'm looking forward to it. I got 42 pounds of turkey waiting for me to bake. So, I'm excited to roast. So, I'm really excited about that. I hope everybody has a wonderful uh Thanksgiving break and

130is ready to come back and finish the the semester off strong and then get ready to go to uh winter break right after that. So, it's going to be bam bam bam right away, real quick. So, we're looking forward to that break. I know I am. All right. And with that, I'm going to turn it back over to the president. >> All right. It's recommended the board of education adjourn. Do I have a motion? >> So, move. All those in favor say >> I.