DeKalb CUSD 428 Board Meeting 10/21/2025

001An open session. Jackie, roll call. >> Here >> Maria Bella >> here. >> And now for the pledge. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, we'll now move into public comment. Members of the public who wish to speak to the board should complete a request card prior to the start of the meeting. This section of the meeting will be reserved for comments from the public. All comment should be limited to three minutes. We've got one this evening from Jenny Smith, new building for ELDC. >> Good. >> All right. Good evening, Dr. Mayor Garcia Sanchez and members of the school board. My name is Jenny Smith and I am

002speaking tonight as a teacher, a parent, and a proud member of the Decal community. I want to express my strong support for the building for building a dedicated facility for the early learning and development center. The ELDC is a vital part of our district's educational program, but it has outgrown its current space at Huntley Middle School. In just two years, the bubble of students currently in third and fourth grade will be entering Huntley, where I teach at, and those classrooms will be needed to support the growing middle school population. We've seen how smaller class sizes have helped our elementary students thrive. We need to maintain that same commitment at the middle school level. At the same time, our youngest learners are being turned away because there isn't enough space. Every preschool for all slot is

003full with a waiting list of over a hundred kids. Screenings are booked through December and they're already starting to schedule into February. The need is clear. We simply don't have enough classrooms to serve all the children who qualify. We have a practical, reasonable solution. Build a new early learning and development center without raising taxes. The district already has funds available to make this happen. A referendum is not required by the Illinois State Board of Education when a new building increases classroom space for early childhood education. Moving forward with a referendum could actually jeopardize the project. Many community members understandably associate associate the word referendum with a tax increase. Even if this one wouldn't raise taxes, that confusion would lead voters to reject it, leaving us without a plan for our youngest learners or the growing

004middle school population. We have the means, the need, and the opportunity. Let's make a clear decision now to move forward with a dedicated early learning and development center. one that supports our children today and makes rooms for those makes room for those who will walk through Huntley's doors tomorrow. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Oh, all right. The next portion of the meeting will be board correspondence. So, couple fun things to go over. Um, first thing we're just going to do this right now as a board first is go through we have the triple eye conference coming up later this month. You were all given those packets earlier this month and then emailed copies of the packets. We just have some resolutions to go through. So the first one is going to be on school

005bus safety funding the ISB um resolutions committee recommendation is that we do adopt. Do we have consensus to support the adoption of school bus safety funding or are we going to oppose that measure when JJ will be representing us at the conference as our delegate to the assembly? >> Adopt. >> Yes. Support. >> Do we want to support that? And then since they are all constitutional amendments that will be a part of the recommendation from the board of directors on the consent agenda, is there any of these that we're opposed to supporting or can I just kind of take a consensus to support all of the constitutional amendments at once? >> All of them. >> All right, >> let's do that. >> All right, then we've gone through the IAS resolutions. Then JJ, you are

006now empowered to go ahead as our delegate at the assembly to vote yes at the meeting. You got it. >> Going into board correspondence. We are still thick into our superintendent search. We've now completed our union listening session, our administration listening session, and we had our community listening session yesterday. There was a lot of lively conversation. It's unfortunate that the chronicle wasn't able to stay for it. But besides that, we had a lot of great lively discussion and I'm very happy with that. We are looking to do another one. So, make sure that you are paying attention to social media. We're going to try to get some flyers out there to really make sure that we're bringing the community in so that we can make sure we're hearing what you guys are wanting in that

007superintendent search. Besides that, I don't have any other big exciting things for correspondence. Does anyone else have anything for the board? >> I attended the advisory task force. You guys are going to hear everything that was spoken about because it's part of the vision for a 28 umformational presentation today. um couldn't ask for a better group to have gone through with because they were they answered my stupid new guy questions and also gave us gave me a lot of good information that I'm able to bring to the board during the conversations going to happen later today. All right, not hearing anything else before we u move on just so that we can address this now before we get into the new agenda. There was a request that we move future ELDC discussion up to item

008A of new business administration. Is everyone in consensus with that? >> Yes. >> All right. So then Oh, yeah. No, no. I'm moving to her. I was finishing board first. So now, Maria, do you have anything? >> Um, nothing crazy, but I'm very excited for the forensics season to start up. I can't wait to start performing my poetry. Also can't wait for math team to start up. and also can't wait for string band to start up. Yay. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> All right. Hearing nothing else from anyone, we will move into presentations. The first one will be the beginning of your strategic plan and department update presented by all of cabinet. >> Yes. Okay. So, the cabinet members are going to go first. That is okay. Can you all hear me? >>

009All right. Perfect. All right. So, uh the format for this is going to be we're going to share uh some of the things that were accomplished, some of the things that we um goals that we had set and that we made um we met the mark or didn't. um in 2425 and then we're going to um share briefly our goals. So for the improvement and innovation department, thank you. For the improvement innovation department, um some of our goals for 2425 included having real time data discussions with school leaders in order to inform decision-making processes. Um and then it also included us offering concrete examples to enhance student engagement. You all heard a lot about that. For those of you that were on the board, you heard a lot about that last year and um some

010of the anchor text that we use to increase student engagement. And then also the INI department along with all the other departments, we did a SWAT analysis for our department, which for those of you who don't know what a SWAT analysis is, is where you evaluate your strengths, your weaknesses, your opportunities for growth, and then any threats. Um part of that for the INI department specifically um as you know when people leave sometimes they take their institutional knowledge with them and we had found that we had that happen way too often. So as a result we have archived manuals and documents that allows us to um have our resources on file in case someone wins the lottery and they decide not to work anymore. We won't miss a beat. you know, we can have um

011archive um ways that exact ways that they did their job. For this year through the improvement and innovation department, we are focusing on in vertical alignment between our district strategic plan and what the school level improvement plans are. And then we're doing um specific professional learning um development in PLC's or professional learning communities and really enhancing the PLC protocols. And then um we also are developing and implementing a comprehensive data collection plan. So we changed um one of our platforms for how we are collecting data and then we're um the data strategist the uh assessment uh coordinator of assessments and myself will really be working on how we monitor those and how we showcase them. This format that you have now is one of the things we're working on. I'm also going to talk for

012facilities and um safety operations and um Tammy's absence. I just need to make sure she wasn't here before. All right. Uh first, so her update, Dr. Laura A. Mitchell Elementary School opened and um it opened um under budget and ahead of schedule. Um in addition to that, more space was created for students and for flexibility for our staff. Goals for 2526 include I'm working with the district staff and architect to develop a proposal for construction of a new building for ELDC and to renovate Huntley Middle Schools as well as continue to work with the human resources department as a succession plan is put into place because we have SOS supervisor um that will be they I say graduating they will be retiring and um of course we have to have some succession plan again so

013that we won't don't miss a date. Next is technology. >> Good evening. So probably the biggest goal that we had in 2425 was our migration from Skyward to cumulative. Uh that is kind of like a a once every decade plus sort of a migration. So uh we were successful in that and it aligned with all the strategic priorities. uh looking forward to the 2526 school year and kind of continuing on that is looking at the interoperability of the data between uh within cumulative so sort of streamlining data sets be able to get real time uh answers to some of our questions and doing datadriven decision- making um and some of that's already happening with with Jessica and with Andrew Leoo and uh so pretty excited about that um we're kind of continuing our work with

014the business department and grant manager to offset as many costs as possible and to achieve the highest ROI we can. Um, and it's even more important than now, especially with the future of federal and state funding kind of being in limbo. Uh, so that is definitely a core goal. Um, as well as AI integrations. So AI is becoming integral into every platform we have whether we know it or not. Um, so it becomes very important to protect the person identifiable information and the data privacy of all of our students and staff who are involved in those platforms. So those are our core goals for this year. Thanks. >> Good evening. Teaching and learning is next. And to highlight some of our most recent updates for our 2425 goals. As you know, um, this year, this

015past year, excuse me, we have expanded greatly our dual credit and advanced courses. So, we've added dual credit college algebra, physical science, geology, and those directly align with our Kishwalki College early college programs. And um, it's great opportunity for our students because these are taught under our roof. So, it's a great discount to our students and aligns with their post-secary goals. We've also collaborated very strongly with our grant manager, Emma Fiorini, to make sure that our budgeting allocations and the use of grants are appropriately used. This has caused um significant savings within our local budget and has allowed us to provide different opportunities to our students and staff. Um the we've also really worked hard on the foundational documents for curriculum alignment and they're either completed or on target to name a few that would

016be our bilingual unit frameworks in grades four and five. The biiteracy trajectories for um the secondary two-way dual language planning and then also our comprehensive early literacy shifts. middle school social studies curriculum maps, freshman humanities for their common curriculum and assessments, high school algebra, and then of course you've heard a lot about Project Lead the Way throughout this journey as well at fourth and fifth grade at all the elementary schools and in grades three, four, and five in Mitchell, Brooks, um, and Lincoln. And the integration of the project lead the way in the interdisciplinary units in at grades four and five. Looking at the goals for this year, the student we've certainly are going to continue to focus on our student achievement and through rigorous instructional practices, ensuring that our students have access to rigorous

017curriculum and coursework. And we'll continue to expand our advanced coursework. We're already working on courses for next year and the following year. and also looking at our career and technical education offerings and our career pathways offerings, two-way dual language and of course special education as well. We're also going to um continue to look at our focus for data. We will continue to support our PLC's and I've already named through our goals from last year which will continue into this year the assessments and those curriculum frameworks and ditto to what Ben said about the financial stability that is also our goal. We know that the financial forecast is I would use the word scary in our Halloween time and we'll continue to look for resources and fun funnel that excuse me to our targeted priorities and

018working closely with the business office and grant opportunities that we have access to. And then within our human capital provide impactful continuing professional development to teachers and building administrators through the variety of um modalities through small group someone through our mentoring through our PLC's with the principles and a gamut of everything in between. Thank you. >> All right. Good evening. Um I'm here to kind of talk a little bit about the highlights of the student services department last year and the student and family services department's goals for the coming year as we've taken on a um some more responsibilities. So hit some highlights from last year. Um I have to open up with the opening of the beyond one barb transition center. Feels like that was longer than last school year. Um but it was

019the planning the actual grand opening and then um almost a full semester well a full semester of the students actually occupying the space. and we are um extremely happy with how that transition went. Um another kind of uh highlight from last year was we spent a lot of time really looking at how we operate professional learning communities within the department for both our teachers and related service staff. And so we took um some information that was available to us through a program evaluation that was completed the school year before which said this is an area we need to focus on. We um invested a lot of time and energy and resources to that and we feel like we made a lot of great strides. Looking forward to um continuing that this year in collaboration with

020our INI department in TNL as they kind of take over um some of that PLC work. And then last but not least in terms of uh highlights from last year, we were awarded over $300,000 in grants which we were able to do a lot with. Um, so we were awarded it was $36,000 um dollars in the Stronger Connections grant and with that we were able to provide free mental health counseling for all students and families in the district through Daybreak Health. That is still available. Check out our website if you're interested. Uh training materials were needed for the stop thebleleed uh requirements. So we were able to get not only training materials uh but also more um time and resources available to get in front of staff. Um and then last but not least, we

021were able to um secure a lot of play-based materials to make sure that in kindergarten through 2 grade at the elementary level. Um there are um playbased stations that focus on social emotional learning. I didn't intentionally leave about the LDC. They've been doing this work for a long time. We were just able to bring this up to our elementary levels now with this additional funding. All right. Looking forward to this year. Like I said, a couple of new uh roles and responsibilities for us um in the department. We now are overseeing registration as well as um the job of reducing chronic absenteeism and uh truency supports in the district. So we look forward to um kind of diving into those systems, looking at ways that we can either make them more efficient or more streamlined

022throughout uh this school year. Uh we are also responding to a lack of support that we're going to be facing this year through our regional office of education uh which unfortunately did not receive a grant that historically they have um been awarded that supports our truency efforts um outside of our school buildings and within um and so my team is really working right now to kind of pivot around that and um >> I think it's important to restate that that is the regional office of education who normally would support us for truency purposes is no longer able to do that because they do not have the funding which means that it is now upon us to actually do the work of the six to seven people that did it at the roe. Now the district

023has to do it on its own with its current resources. Please uh note that we may be coming back to request additional support to be able to attend to our truency and attendance issues across the district. Do we know what happened to the ROE funding and why they didn't get it? >> We were just >> they they didn't get the grant. So >> they applied and didn't get it. >> They applied to it and and they just didn't receive the funding for that. >> Thank you. >> Um just to kind of tie it up, we are continuing to work on within those PLC's for this coming year. um implementing high lever practices and specially designed instruction that has been shown through research to be effective with students with disabilities. So, we've had uh quite a

024few of our staff members attend training over the summer and recently this fall. Um and that'll be an area that we continue to work on with not only our staff, but our administrators so they can support the staff as they um embark on those instructional practices. Last but not least, we want to continue to lean in on our community partnerships, especially around um overall wellness and healthcare. Um we're off to a really good start this year. Uh Stephanie Conan, our health services manager, recently partnered with Greater Family Health to have multiple uh health clinics available here in district. Um and I'm happy to share that we had a 100 students that were able to get an appointment recently and that allowed them not to be excluded from school when our exclusion date hit last week.

025So we look to continue to expand those opportunities. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Human resources. We are in the people business. So we're talking about how we have contributed to people. Um with our updates, we all know that we added a new elementary school. So, with our new school needing to be staffed, our regular um turnover from year to year as well as three new contracts um that allowed us to be able to meet the need of filling a lot of the jobs that have gone unfilled, we filled a lot of jobs and in doing that um we use a lot of technology. Uh it used to be you apply for a job, you get a application, you sit down, you fill it out, you write all this stuff in. And then

026over the years it's gotten better and better and better, but now we're at the point where we don't just need our application to be automated, we need our onboarding and our orientation process to be automated for our staff. So we use a product called Frontline. We use three different Frontline products in this district that used to be disjointed. They didn't talk to each other. Now we have front line for our application system. We have front line central for our onboarding process. And then we have front line absence management. How we manage the absence for the majority of the staff in the district. Our frontline central system allows people to log into the system and complete all of their new hire paperwork. and then everything appears in their um their virtual folder on a dashboard where

027we're able to make sure that employees have done what they need to do to be cleared to start working in the district. This in turn um feeds into our regional office technical audit visit where they come in and they review personnel files to make sure that we are compliant by state and federal employment guidelines um for both the federal government and ISBY. So, a lot of automation there which has streamlined the process. We have pe less people coming in the foot traffic um but we're able to meet their needs faster because we're communicating electronically. Um we also added a second human resource specialist because the specialist work is divided amongst our classified staff and our certified staff. It's very different as all of our educators sitting here know you have to have a PEL from

028um ISBY in order to teach, be an administrator, do any of the certified roles in the district or within the state. So that's its own work of management. And then we have our classified staff that have a different set of requirements. So we now break that work into two different people. Um, and then the staffing of a brand new school building from from every facet of employment, uh, student monitors, classroom teachers, our special ed teachers, our related services, our assistants, um, even organic life. I mean, we can go on and on and on. So, a lot of new people got on boarded this year. We do have some goals and our goals for this year, this is just a few of them. Um but they all relate to uh strategic priority 4, human capital recruitment,

029development and and retirement. Um the first is continue streamlining the process to make onboarding and the employment process as userfriendly and seamless as possible. We know hiring for the start of the school year is regular and typical, but we want to make sure that anybody that's hired throughout the school year get the same experience that they get at the start of the school year. Um the second goal is the organization of data and files, some more automation. Um we have many many years of employee files that we are required to keep on hand, but we're at the point where space is of a premium here. So we really need to get that um uh put in an electronic file and stored away in a safe place because those files too are audited. So at any

030point we have to be able to produ to produce them as well. And then our third goal is improving the communication and the marketing information for recruitment um for new employees as well as our current employees. So we want to sell decal. There's a lot of great stuff happening here in the classroom leading up to what happens in the classroom, in our offices. There is a lot of wonderful stuff and we want to make sure that the people that are interested in joining our district know that and that we sell ourselves in the best way possible. Thank you. >> All right. for uh business and finance. Uh year 2025 was a successful year. Uh we had uh we had uh a buy in with our taxing bodies regarding tiff. TIF is uh kind of siphons

031off their increment taxes away from the district. Uh and currently um about 20% of the city is locked into these tip zones uh including the downtown area and the fourth street which is the new one. So we were able to create a shared revenue agreement uh and we spearheaded that and all nine taxing bodies were were in agreement to have a shared revenue. This kind of uh cushioned the impact of having these uh having no increment taxes to a phased approach. Uh so this was a win-win for every site including the city uh and of course um the district uh which would have seen something in the long term but now it also sees it in the near- term um financial um revenues for it. The other uh the second part is uh that we

032were able to open the transition center program funding it uh without needing any uh uh tax levy increases for the construction uh for a transition center which opened up in January and Kyle brought that up as well. Uh and also Mitchell Elementary School. we uh were able to build the school within the debt issued and its guidelines uh with no cost overruns paying on time and also uh as Tammy also mentioned under budget. This also allows us that I will be bring forward the next agenda item to actually even purchase the land and the school uh under the debt issued. uh this will open up operational money for us. And of course the the biggest u win for 2025 was that we were able to uh complete negotiations with three collective bargaining units including the

033office professionals uh the FSS custodians and the instructional assistants. we were able to provide for almost 400 employees uh considerations for their work and salary placement with fiscal responsibility. So that was a big win for that year. Uh moving to the next for this year for 2526 uh again it's we want to in community engagement we want them to understand our district financial goals our district financial plans transparency and uh one of those is to get them a little bit more involved particularly uh FFC having a community facilitator we're still seeking a community facilitator to um not only bring that um uh community perspective uh but also bring the understanding of financial goals as well. In order to be transparent, we are looking to open a um a visual uh and uh visual finances financial

034dashboard uh on our website which will provide uh up to date uh up to one month ahead or one month before uh the finances for the district. This will provide a more uh transparency for the community that seeks to understand our goals and plans. Uh and for the our next uh goals will be uh ELDC that is our long-term and near-term uh plan. Uh we're looking for uh how to um communicate those financial plans uh and also uh be good stewards on any money uh set aside or uh the construction for uh funding of the construction for the future ELC. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you so much. Now, we're going to go into the beginning of year data. I need to go to the eye doctor. Okay, this format for those of

035you that um are new or have not seen this format, this format follows it is an overarching view of um uh beginning of the year data. Um it does not break down by school. I had that question so I wanted to address it in open. It does not break down by school. And this is why if we just aggregated data according to certain subgroups of students, there are some subgroups of students in some of our schools that are so small it would easily identify students. So it is this is overall. Um I do want to thank uh Nick Atwood and Dr. Bailey who attended um the strategic plan committee meeting and everybody else out here that on strategic plan committee um because that is where we um formulate this information and we you can ask

036more pointed questions in that setting. Okay. All right. Afternoon. >> Hi everyone. Please also feel free to ask your questions in this setting. Um we did used to disagregate the data by school and it was several hundred slides. Now we're down to 55 and I promise to go through them as quickly as possible while also giving due deference to the information that's on them. You'll see there are a couple of new ones this time that are a little bit more explanatory than we usually have and I'll just get there when I get there. So hopefully that's cool to everybody. The first one we talk about is our suspension data. This is the number and percentages of students who have been suspended up until September 23rd, which is when we took the beginning of year snapshot.

037As you can see, we um are comparing it to last year at the same time. We're in roughly the same boat we were. This is the one that compares our suspension data to our district demographics. If we were suspending students equitably, you would see that the red and blue bars would be the same height, but they're not the same height. For our African-American student group, you can see that those students are significantly more likely to be suspended. Um the most equitable group you can see is two or more races. And to touch on something something that Dr. Parker said, when we have a student group that has so few students, those students would be easily identifiable. We don't include that information on the charts. So you will see we have certain groups that are excluded

038from the charts because it would um prevent us from protecting our student privacy. And again, just stop me anytime there are questions. Next, we have our attendance data. This is the percentage of our students with over 90% attendance by grade as of late September. And then by building ELC attendance is not compulsory which would be why we see the dip there. This is our assessment data for the fall. Starting with MAP growth. This is the percentage of students that met their growth goal for each um grade level. This is the reading data. Nope. This is the math data. Sorry. The growth goal is based on the average amount of growth for students who are starting at the same point. So 50% would be considered, you know, we're doing pretty well. So the places where we

039are above 50% are cause for celebration. This is the national growth percentile. So the orange one is whether students met their goal or not. That's the one that's like a light switch. They either met it or didn't. So if you were expected to grow 10 points and you grew nine, you do not count in the orange chart. But if you were expected to grow at 10 points and you grew nine, you significantly contributed to the black chart which shows us how much all of our students at that grade level grew if you added them all up compared to how much they expected to grow. This is the same chart for reading. So again, above 50% is cause for celebration and the same chart for reading in terms of the national growth percentile that we hit.

040So again, above 50% is we should be feeling really good. This is the information about our literacy assessments. Both MAP reading and the Illinois Assessment of Readiness MAP was reormed over the summer. And this is really important and here's why. What we talk about when we talk about percentiles is how our students compare to other students at the same grade level across the country. So everyone understands that. So it it matters who you are comparing yourself to. Will Frell is a tall guy all of the time, but when he was in the movie Elf and with very small children, he looks completely ridiculous. My favorite scene is when he's trying to take a shower. Um, on the right hand side, I may be dating myself a little bit, but that's Mugsy Bogues playing against Shawn

041Bradley. Mugsy Bogues looks very silly here because he was 5 foot three. But in real life, people who are 5 foot3 look totally normal in all situations, which I can tell you as someone who is 5 foot3 who never looks silly. So, it matters. The reference group is very important. Um, our students until this summer were being compared to the scores of students across the country before the co pandemic which obviously was disruptive to education across the board. So the scores the norms changed and this is how this is stolen directly they told us we could from the map website. So, in terms of achievement, students who were already in the bottom in terms of their reading achievement did worse after COVID. Students in the middle did worse, but not quite as much worse. And

042students who were already in the top pretty much stayed the same. For math, that's different. Students who were in the bottom did go down. Students who were in the middle did go down, but they were mixed results for the students in the top. Meaning, at some grade levels, they went up and some grade levels they went down. It was a little bit more all over the all over the place. Um, for growth, students who were in the bottom grew less post pandemic than students in the same group pre- pandemic. So, their growth was even slowed even more by the pandemic. Students who were in the middle, their growth was slowed, but not as much. And students who were in the top continued to grow at roughly the same rate. In math, you see your first

043green arrows, right? So, the students in the bottom grew about the same amount. The students in the middle started to grow more, and the students on top grew even more. that I don't know why that is, but I can report that that's what Matt said happened. So have that context in mind, please, when you look at our scores. I also realize we have not done this previously and I think it's really important. What do the student assessment slides mean? All of the rest of the slides or many of the rest of the slides look like this with our four different colors. If you took every student across the country and you you showed how they had performed, it would be the the graph on the left. We are essentially just dividing our students into four

044groups. Where's the group? the quarter of students that did the best, where's the quarter of students that did the worst, and then where are the ones in the middle? So, when you're looking at our charts and they look like the one on the right, what you're seeing is we have fewer students in the blue. So, we have fewer students who are doing the very best in the country and we want to increase that number and then the same follows all the way down. Does that make some sense? Hopefully, that's a little bit helpful. And again, I'm I am trying not to belabor these points, but I feel like that helps with the rest of the slides. So, this is our reading percentile for students in grades K5 districtwide. And here is the slide that compares

045how they've done over time. And just so you know, we went back and we redid these with our new norms because we wanted to compare apples to apples so that we weren't confusing everything all of the time. Um, and I made sure to reflect that on there because if you went back and compared last year's data, you would say, "Why did you change the numbers?" This is why. So, we're in roughly the same spot we were last fall. we expect to see growth over the course of the year and that the spring numbers will look better than the fall. This is the percentile groups broken down by grade, broken down by um race and ethnicity. Very important slides because we need to make sure that we are addressing our opportunity gaps so that all of

046our students have the same opportunity to leave with a high quality education so they can build whatever life they want for themselves. and our um percentile groups broken down by um low-inccome status using their free and reduced lunch data. So N would mean students do not qualify for free and reduced lunch and Y would mean the students do qualify for free and reduced lunch. And here again is an opportunity for us to close that gap for our students. Now we're shifting to our reading percentile groups for grades six through eight. So this is our data. This is our data over the last four testing periods. Again, revised with the new norms. As you can see, we're seeing better numbers this fall than we did last fall. That's encouraging. This is by grade. >> Excuse me.

047>> Yeah. >> Going back to last the um the new norms on slide 24. >> Yes, >> that one. Not that one. I whatever you said redid the norms like across the board. So even before so from the 24 and 25 they were readjusted using >> by me. >> Yes. Yeah. So because we had the fall winter spring from last year um on a previous presentation I wanted to make sure to write that at the bottom because the numbers will not be exactly the same because we wanted you to see the growth over time but we are using a different yard stick right the lines are in a different place because of COVID. So, we wanted to use the same yard stick to go back and measure so that you can truly see and compare

048fall to fall. >> Okay, >> does that make sense? >> Yes. >> And you'll see that on all of the slides over time. We went we went back and did that. >> Um I think I was here >> I was here, right? Hurry, eighth grade. That's that slide. Um this is again another slide demonstrating our opportunity gap that we are working to close. This is our by income status. And now we're going to talk about AR. And so I've got another visual for you. Hopefully this one makes sense too. Um we're going to talk about the Illinois Assessment of Readiness, I AR. That is a test that happens once a year for students who are in grades three through eight. That is what our um summit of designations are based on. That's a test of

049proficiency. MAP is our tool that we use to figure out how close our kids are to meeting that mark. So when you see the charts every when you see these and it gives you a percentile like in eighth grade of students who are reading well and it may not match up with what is reported because of the state test. Please know they're two different measures. The goal of public education and certainly the goal of this district is not to have the highest possible MAP scores. It's for students to have proficiency especially as measure measured by our state tests. MAP is how we figure out what we need to adjust so that all of our kids can get as close to that target as possible. Does that make sense? Excellent. Okay. Um, if you're not a

050if you're not familiar with curling, my apologies. I happen to be a sports analogy type of guy. So, um, another thing that's really important to know is the percentiles reflect where all of our kids are across the country, but the proficiency benchmarks are based on what the state of Illinois is saying students should know in third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, etc. They don't line up. So we overlaid those two pieces of information so that you can see how high the benchmark actually is in Illinois and where that falls in terms of proficiency. So in order to be considered proficient in reading you have to be in third grade actually in both grades third and eighth that I included on this chart. You have to be in the top quartile the top the top group

051of the four groups. That's pretty high considering where kids are across the country and where they are in decal. I know that is a lot to digest in one slide. So, please again stop me if you don't if that didn't make sense. So, this is where the third and eighth graders are in our district based on where those bars are. And then when you see things like this is what the level of proficiency is across the district. That's why. So, here's our IR performance level distribution from spring in ELA, which is the reading test, English language arts. Those black bars are what the state of Illinois considers proficient and those are our percentiles of kids that fall above that proficient line for each of these grades. Is there sorry a way for us and I

052don't know this is necessarily data obviously because of identifiable stuff that you would want to put out there but is there a way for us to segregate this data based on I guess what you would call legacy students which are ones that we have had for multiple years versus students who just transferred in from other districts because I noticed when I've been out one of the things that I've heard from a lot of people is we get students that they just registered two days ago they're you know in fifth grade, they don't even know how to read or sound out the word cat. And I just don't know that it's necessarily when we're assessing, you know, the district and its goals to put that on the administration and the teachers when it's not a problem

053that our educators or our administrators were overseeing until two days ago. So is there I guess a way for us to segregate that so we know kind of where the benchmark is for our students that we've and they're all our students but the students that we have had a personal hand in educating for multiple years to get them where they're at. >> We can disagregate the data as many times as you like do get to a point where um you're slicing up the pie so much that it loses meaning. It's sort of like a magic eye picture. Sometimes you have to take a step back, especially because the state of Illinois will judge our district and we'll publish their reports for the students that showed up the day before the test and we are required

054to test them. Number one. Number two, if they're in Decal, >> to your point, which you already mentioned, I want them to have a high quality education for the 15 minutes that they're with us. So, you're here, get an orange shirt on and learn the fight song because you are a bar and we want you all to be, you know, included under our roof. We do have a relatively high rate of mobility not just between other districts but within our district. Right? So it is it is important to look at that but given that we all are going to share the space I want everyone to be able to to you know to build a life for themselves that they love um whether they're here for a little bit or forever. >> Yeah. >> Does

055that make sense? And when we look at that each of the grade levels are about 500ish give or take students. When you actually think about how many students actually come in, we may have a bubble um historically of like max 21 students. With 21 students, when I say bubble, I mean like a transfer in like last minute 21 students. we still have 480ish of our students that are ours and would contribute more to this um data than than I know that's like that's an anecdotal conversation that I've heard for years in this district but that actually happens less than I've heard it happen when I actually look at the numbers >> but that's a good question. Okay. So, moving out of um English literacy and toward our MAP reading Spanish scores, they're slides are going

056to be set up the same way. Um they were not reormed. So, this is the same as it was last year. This is our Spanish reading percentile groups K5 districtwide, keeping in mind that now our K5 program, our I'm sorry, our two-way dual language program um exists for all of those grades. So half of the students roughly that took this test in the fall have had no prior exposure to Spanish at home because they speak English at home. This is Spanish reading percentile groups over the course of time. This is by grade. We do not disagregate by race or ethnicity um because of the different demographics of this group of students that takes this test. But here is the most equitable data that we have in the district every time. And that is the way

057that our students are reading Spanish uh when you disagregate by their lowincome status. This is the same data but for grades six through eight um across time by grade and then disagregated for students who are and are not low income. This is math assessments. So same. Yes. >> Going back to that you you distinctly said that it's people that don't speak >> Spanish at home. >> Half of them roughly half. Right. So for not actually no this is grades six through eight. So these are students who are English learners predominantly like okay >> these are English learners. These students that are in grades K through five um partake in our two-way dual language program. So because we are teaching both all three groups of students, our simultaneous bilingual and our English dominant students and our

058Spanish dominant students are learning to read in English and in Spanish, we need to assess them in their reading in English and in Spanish. Because no matter who they are, if we're instructing them in Spanish reading, we want to know how they're doing so that we can make programmatic decisions based on where we need to make changes so that everyone improves. >> Does that make sense? >> Yes. Okay. My mom was a um bilingual teacher back when that was the the way it was said. And quite often she would have students that came from Spanish speaking um uh families, but she was teaching them just as much Spanish just like we teach our our our kids English in in language arts, but then they would go home and still speak it. >> Yes. Yes. >>

059So they would advance faster than our our our non non- Spanish speaking >> Yeah. immersion, right? They get immersed in it. >> Is that data somehow? And I'm not asking you to do it. I'm for me to understand the data. Is that segregated in here somehow? >> It is not disagregated in this presentation. We do have biliteracy trajectories that look at those three groups of students differently. our students who are Spanish dominant, those are simultaneous, bilingual, and English dominant to make sure that we are providing appropriate interventions and supports for students so that we're not expecting a student who goes home and speaks Spanish to grow in Spanish at the same rate as a student who goes home and speaks English. So, that is being carefully looked at, but in the interest of keeping it

060to 55 slides, that part's not included. But, I'm happy to walk anyone through that at any time. I love it. Um, it's super. And AJ is here. We have uh what we lovingly refer to as pantyhost charts, but they are charts that that look at their English literacy and their Spanish literacy and um kind of graph where the students fall according to their local norms based on their learner profile. So, it's somewhat complicated but super great. Okay, so are we good? Okay, awesome. Let's talk about math, baby. Okay, so we've got math percentile groups K5 districtwide and over time reflecting our 2025 norms having revise the numbers based on where the norms are. This is by grade. This is by race and ethnicity. Again, we've got an opportunity gap that we need to work to

061close. Same thing here for lowincome status. Now we're into middle school. I'm racing through this. So please do stop me if you want to look at them more carefully. Otherwise, they're on board docs. This is over time at our middle school level. Pretty flat. This is by grade. And this is really exciting. And I am going to take my time to talk about this. Last spring, we talked about the fact that 100% of our students taking algebra that were seventh graders were in the blue. So all of the kids taking algebra in seventh grade were in that top quartile. And we said we have to get more kids into these classes because somewhere not sitting in algebra is a kid who could be in the green or yellow that could take algebra right now and

062be doing well, but they're not there. And now we've got kids in the green and yellow in seventh grade taking algebra. That is exactly where we want to be. Not because we don't want all of our kids to be in the blue. We do. That's a little bit of a pipe dream, though. But we want to be reaching all of the kids for whom this level of rigor is appropriate. And we're doing a better job now than we were in the spring. So that's really exciting. And we've got two sixth graders that are taking algebra this year, too. And they're also doing awesome. So, that is that's a huge win. And this is how the students that are currently taking seventh grade advanced math are doing. We have a full classroom of kids at each

063of the middle school buildings that are taking seventh grade advanced math in sixth grade. And they're doing great. So, kudos to our math teachers and to the middle school administrators that made all that work happen. Great job. There's a lot of work that went into adjusting schedules so that these kids could be in a place so that the charts could look like this. So, we've got some work to do, but that's a hu that's a big win in my mind and in the mind of all reasonable people. Right. So, this is how our students are doing when we disagregate by race and ethnicity in math in our middle schools and by when we disagregate by um income status. This is when we layer our national percentiles versus I proficiency benchmarks. This is a new slide.

064It's the same one you saw above, but I wanted to remind you of it. When you look at this one, the black line is where the state says our students are proficient. And above the black line are the percentiles of our students who were determined to be proficient. It starts on this chart in fourth grade, but that's because it's the scores from last spring. And you start taking it in third grade. So, the youngest students for whom we have a score are now fourth graders because they were third graders last year. And that was the 55th slide. Yeah, I'm taking you want to add >> I do want to add to the point that we are taking multiple points of data. So we look um school leaders that are here they get a um monthly

065snapshot and in between the monthly snapshot that that gives them many points of data points of data that we again could not include on this slide. It it it looks at everything from like what are our attendance rates on Fridays? What are our attendance rates on days before we have a Monday off? You know, what are our what are our attendance rates in the afternoons? We can drill down to to literally the minutia and in cases we do uh report was just shared with Dr. Zimmerman and u Mrs. Springer specifically about literacy and we were able to drill down to actual classrooms and interrogate some instructional practices. That is why we have data. We don't have more data than we know what to do with it. We have tons of data and we know exactly

066what to do with it. And I am proud to say that it has only been within the last five years that we have had this type of access to data at our hands. So um kudos to our data strategist who was down here Andrew and Andrew Langlo and everyone who takes the data and then asks for more things like hey can you look at this or have you thought about looking at this? So that is what we do. If I could take a second to ask the act, excuse me, to thank the two doctors, congratulations. Um, because the session you gave me at the beginning or at the end of last year, I understand these slides now. So, thank you very much. >> That's we're closing the opportunity gap, JJ. You just didn't have exposure

067to it. You >> just need that that instruction and scaffolding. I think we're set on that one. We're cool. >> I think that's it. All right, >> next agenda item and presentations is B vision for 28. This will be presented by Dr. Parker as well. >> So I'm going to I'm going to kick us off. Uh first and foremost, I want to thank a number of individuals that have been a part of a committee that have uh um shared their passion, their views, uh data, research from past um folks that would work with us from community members, current staff, administrators, family, loved ones, everybody had a part in actually putting this presentation together. Now granted, Dr. and I'll handle the beautifification of the whole thing and and naming uh and naming of the project. But

068uh all of us feel very impassioned about what is about to be spoken and we have a number of individuals that are going to be sharing this information with you that has already been shared with at FFC and we will be sharing this uh eventually on our website. So ensure that all of our community and everybody else is also informed about what we envision or our vision for 28. Get it? >> 428. >> That's Dr. N. That was a >> clever. >> Wonderful. She has that mind. >> All right. I am very excited to talk about this and I would love for everybody who's presenting um this evening to join me up here. I know it'll be snug, but we will make it work. So, what is vision 428? It is our long-term plan to

069best meet the facility, curricular, and developmental needs of all of the students in our district, preK through 21. So, in the next few minutes, we're going to define our immediate pressing issues. We're going to outline a plan for addressing those immediate issues, identify additional benefits to the plan we've put together. We're going to talk about the cost considerations of this plan and then we have a roadmap and general timeline for how all of this work can be accomplished by the fall of 28. So that's why it's our vision for 28. >> So Zach um shared some immediate pressing issues you all have heard over the last couple months people coming in community members staff talking about our class sizes at home school. So we're looking to reduce those class sizes from 35 to 30. And

070with that, we need to make sure we have space at Holy Middle School to be able to do that. So, we need a new ELDC. And as Jennifer Smith stated earlier in public comment, the current ELDC just physically is not what we it's it's not meeting the needs of our students um in early childhood. So, um those are the pressing issues. Um the third and fourth bullet are really what we've already come to you and talked about quite quite frequently. So, vision 428 has a number of steps. The first has to be to build a new ELC facility on the district- owned land donated by the Catz family. After that is done, we can reunify and renovate Huntley Middle School to use all of that classroom space to serve grades seven and eight districtwide. Then,

071we can restore Founders Elementary School to a middle school building that will serve grades five and six for the south side of town. We can reestablish Clinton Rosette Middle School as a building that will serve grades five. And this may not sound like a new idea if you lived in Decal um prior to 2010. That's why all of the verbs start with the word re. >> And I'm just going to jump in there where Dr. N was at we were asked at FFC to come up with a longterm plan, not just something where we're putting patches on stuff. Um but really looking at what the growth is is going to be in the future. So that's why Founders Elementary came into this and Clint Rosette being fifth sixth grade. Um I'm trying not to call

072them centers. Um fifth sixth grade >> schools, let's just call them. Um but um because centers people think it's just K1 2 3 4 5. Um, but I just wanted to make that very clear that at FFC we were asked to make a long-term plan, a very clear, precise of how we are meeting the needs and not just coming back every two years and asking for additional classrooms or whatever it may be. >> Bandaid. >> The band-aids. Yep. >> All right. Just to provide a visual for that, I'm gonna try to lower No, I'm not. There's no typing. Um so this is um just a visual of what that would look like in case you are a more visual learner. Um not every student in Decal but many more students would be able to start

073at the top at that early learning and development center. We would have eight elementary schools spread throughout our district especially in the areas where people live. We would have two five six buildings. One serving the northern side of town that's Clinton Rosette and one serving the the southern area that's founders. Then everyone would go to Huntley and everyone would go to Decalp High School. And then of course our um students that required transition services would continue on to beyond one bar. >> Hi. Um so when we we're going to talk a little bit about the capacity um I know that you all have heard uh that we have come to our max capacity um at the ALGC and when we think about that we want to um you know you've heard some of those numbers

074with our um weight listed children and um thinking about that we the construction of the ELDC will help to enhance that and we'll be able to service all of the children in the community um and one of those areas as especially we are getting turned away by some organizations within the community um because we don't have the space for our littles um and we really want to be able to work with them in the community and be a part of that and it's for our community and uh Isby has um dedicated us not dedicated but u mitigated us as a desert in early childhood. So by building a new ELDC ELDC center that would be able to um service twice as many students as we have now. So we would able be able to provide

075those opportunities to more students in our center as well. Um according to the health department wick we have heard from them that they are not even recommending our program anymore to their clients because we just don't have the room or the space. So again, having a dedicated new building, ELDC would be able to serve more kids, um more families that would need that program. We are able to provide our program at no cost also, which helps um a lot of our students be able to uh get our services uh in the community. >> Absolutely. And I think too when we look into this, being able to meet the needs of our entire community and preparing them for kindergarten and beyond um is one of the most important things for us. >> And we know decades

076and decades of research has shown the importance of quality early childhood programs and how beneficial they are in the long run. They um help with a variety of things including academic, social, emotional, um cognitive along with truency and just um help the families understand the importance of being in school um and being a part of the community. >> So, as far as one of the next critical steps, it's trying to build a a new home for the ALC and all of our children in the community. All right. So, the second aspect of this is what happens at Huntley Middle School. We'll have uh 10 additional classrooms that we would be able to dedicate to our middle school students. Bringing seventh and eighth grade together brings Huntley's population up about 100. So, we'll be at about

077a thousand students at that point. Uh and that would also lead to Clinton Rosette decreasing and that relieves the pressure. I know Mr. Boyer has shared with you guys that they're full at two grade levels or almost three grade levels. So, taking those 80 students away from Clinton Rosette would alleviate some of that. Um, some of the renovations would be giving more access to science classrooms for our teachers. Um, we don't have a lot of rooms that are truly science, especially chemistry labs anymore. Um, so converting a couple of the old rooms back into science rooms would be wonderful for our teachers. We're also looking at um reducing class sizes and the smaller those class sizes get, the more time I have to work with each one of those students and especially our students that

078are struggling and we see our math and and reading numbers. We have a number of students that are so the more time that I can spend with each one of those students, the better. Uh and overall, um we're going to be able to meet the social emotional needs of our students better. we're going to be able to respond to students and hopefully head off the crisis and see a a overall positive growth in our district um for our students well and their well-being. And yeah, so then I'm talking more about the sort of grade center approach. This is something that's not really new. This is something we're hoping to go back to in that um current fifth grade classrooms can then be used utilized for other items. I know especially I used to teach at

079Lincoln. Um using those two classrooms would help then facilitate um having music back in the building itself. Um art would be off of a cart which is a huge thing. And I think for the art programs that when you get to the middle school and high school you see these beautiful things. So much more could be done with an art room. Um I was able to visit >> uh Mitchell Elementary and saw the art room there. And as I work, I'm from Courtland for those of you that don't know. And to be able to see that all happening there was just such an advantage. Um, and I just wanted to thank you all for Mitchell because when you come into our class sizes right now at the current elementary school to see classes of 15

080to 20 students, >> students are finally getting the true education that they deserve. there. I was in a kindergarten classroom today with 15 students and to see the interaction between the teacher and the assistant and those children, they were getting such individualized attention that it really was amazing. And the thing about Founders, we talked about at FFC a point that I really want to make again is that when you go to Founders and Courtland, they're both our biggest two elementary schools. Both buildings are designed completely different. And when you come to Portland, we are able to meet the social emotional needs of our students so much differently because of the pure setup. We have pods. We have more private office spaces. Founders wasn't designed to have kindergarten students running the hall, you know. So really

081just seeing that difference and the support that a building makes. And I can only imagine with the ELDC having its own building, the support that that would then provide for those students as well in the same way. And piggybacking off of that is just educating our seventh and eighth grade students in one location really provides more opportunities for them as a core group. Um it eliminates that the equity issues between right now Rosette and Huntley and just the the sheer size of Huntley versus Rosette. Um and just focusing on our high school readiness for both of those grade levels. I'll let you do this one because since I stole your thunder on the last >> You're fine. You're fine. We're We're teaming here, everybody. We're teaming. And really speaking of teaming, you know, um in

082my educational career, I spent 15 years at the middle school level. And really the need to support students in fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade with that social emotional development that a middle school model provides is a huge, huge part of their education. And to take fifth graders out of the elementary and put them back into that environment is really what they need. As an administrator at an elementary school, it is really hard to plan incentives to work with reading specialists and all the people and all the resources that are trying to provide for a 10-year-old and a 5-year-old that turned five in August that's fresh to us. You so um really there's just some challenges and to be able to give fifth graders independence >> and start to really build that independence. They don't

083necessarily need to be walking through the halls in a line anymore. They're ready when you talk to them for more. And to really be able to give them more of that leadership opportunity and that independence before taking them to the next step of preparing them for high school and junior high would be an amazing aspect for all of our students. >> All right. So, um, this shift will allow us to also kind of reimagine or revision what our special education programming can look like, especially at the elementary level. Um, so what this um will allow us to do is to kind of look at um a continuum of services that we can provide within a particular elementary school or schools that would reduce the opportunity needed for a student to transfer from one elementary to

084another in order to access a specialized program. So, for example, when I say continuum of services, what I mean is in special education, we can meet needs in a least restrictive environment, which really is the gened setting with some modifications and accommodations, all the way down to the most restrictive setting, uh, which in our elementary schools would be a self-contained program where you're um not necessarily exposed to non-disabled peers for majority of your day. It's all individualized, but what this would allow us to do is have a variety of programming within a building. So, as students show growth or they show um opportunity to maybe go to a less restrictive environment because they're ready for that, we're able to do that movement within a school as opposed to having a conversation around we now have

085to transfer the student to another school in order to access that programming. Um, so it's really exciting to kind of reinvision what it could look like at our elementary level. Um, it'll also help us spread out our programming a little bit more across the district, which will reduce the overall percentages of special education or or kind of balance those out a little bit better at our elementarymentaries. >> All right. So um ELDC expansion and the great reconfiguration plan is not only transformative for educational experience but also is a financially strategic move for our district's future. We always look at what what is the cause behind um the the LDSC expansion and the renovations and this is it. Uh constructing a 20 classroom a separate building uh at uh between normal and dresser uh corner uh

086with the land we have is estimated to cost about 32.3 million. And if we looking to renovate just the ELDC classroom is about 850,000. But again there might be other additional costs incurred uh to do the grade configuration. Now uh we can give you those exact numbers at a later time. Uh but and there's uh also the additional consideration of that we do have the fund balance for this. Uh we can do the 20 classroom and the renovations at this point. But we don't what we we look at these numbers but we don't think about what the deferred cost of uh uh what the the plan was if we don't do a great configuration. So remember ELDC is just not an investment in early education. Uh it's also a strategy for a future capital cost.

087Uh not running this uh reconfiguration. uh it it will uh defer uh long-term capital plans that we had in place including deferral of uh eliminate uh eliminating the need for a costly renovation for Lincoln Elementary. Uh so for example uh we were looking uh the long-term plan was for a wing at Lincoln for music, art, media, and gym spaces. uh even including and adding a new section to it, which would be about six classrooms of a brand new uh building. So, right there, we're looking at about uh $9 million capital cost. In addition, if we uh if we do uh if this is not running, uh Huntley uh long-term plan was to build a brand new wing for Huntley uh for their science labs, lockers, classrooms, uh cafeterias, and this was a recommendation back from

088in 2022 from Cardinan Clark's uh uh architectural company who did a full facilities utilization study for the district. So, this is part of their recommendations. So these are savings for us uh and it allows us to preserve capital for other priorities by expanding the LDC um and reconfiguration. Uh there is staffing increase, right? Because we're moving from a 10 classroom to a 20 classroom. Uh so that uh cost is about 2 million plus. But this expansion of position also taps into state and uh state grants and federal grants and other uh other forms of grants to offset this burden. For example, currently we are getting about $3,900 per slot uh from the early childhood block grant. So, uh, by adding 200 new, uh, preK slots, that would be an additional 780,000 annually based on current,

089uh, um, funding levels. However, if we opt out even, let's say we decide to do a full day program, that uh, funding moves up to $8,500 per slot. So, let's say if we do move a full pre uh, full day prek, that's about 1.7 million. So again opens up so many potential including um other forms of funding uh that is with a conservative estimate suggesting about $600 to $900,000 coming forward. So investing ELC now will save millions not only on the deferred projects but also securing new revenue streams. So financially this is a win-win situation. trying to get behind Ben. I'm not as skinny as Tammy as um this is the timeline that we're looking at for ELDC construction. So, as you can see, these are just it's the timeline that Tammy's come up with.

090The big thing that I would like you to to see here is the start of construction is April of 27. So, we really have till April 27 to get continued feedback from our community, from the stakeholders that that really um we want to hear from. So, we have till then and complete construction by June 28th. And as you can see down here, when we talk about HMS renovations, um we get started right away with um HMS renovations starting June 28th and ending a couple months later to be able to do all of this in school year 2028, vision 428. >> Thank you, Billy. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, um, as Billy said, I think there's a couple of very important dates on here, including that we would start the design process for, um, this vision

091for the middle school returning to a 56 and a 78, um, in April of 27. So, we have time then to think through what are all of the different stakeholders that need to have a voice in what a 5-6 building looks like in the year 2028. What does a 78 building look like? I know Sarah Jennings is here who could speak to, you know, our high school kids are coming in right now and they love every kid that they get, but wouldn't it be nice to have kids where they're able to focus a little bit more in grades seven and eight and really prepare them to hit the ground running where they're they've met all of their their classmates because they've been together for two years so you don't have that growing pain and where

092they're really focused on getting ready to start that transcript that's going to matter a whole bunch over the next four years. So, um, over that time frame, since we would have 18 months from now to finalize what should those buildings look like, we can make sure we're making the best possible plan for ELDC programming and that that building design, we can revisit the a lotment of instructional minutes and scheduling for grades five and six. Do they look exactly the same as each other? Does five look slightly different than six? We can work through all of the things like extracurricular activities and personnel in those buildings. We have time to do that, but only if we get started on an ELDC right away will we meet the goal. So, we do have plans in place for

093overseeing um establishing committees and and gathering feedback on all of this work and we would have time to talk through all of those things, but we really do need to get started on ELDC. And I will just conclude with, you know, all of us working together. We've got a ton of people presenting, which is somewhat unusual, but this is how we can make this a reality for all of our kids is if we are all in the moving in the same direction and all on board together. Thank you for um letting us talk to you tonight. And I'm just going to finish finish it off with um a lot of what we do is human connection. And I've learned in my 19 years of being an educator that relationships is is a huge thing in

094education, right? Creating those relationships, building that trust with people. Um, and I we were sitting down when we were planning this and Kyle was in in the room and in when we think about early childhood, we think about early intervention and he told a story that just hit home and made me want to like first it made me emotional because that's the type of person I am. Um, but it made me very emotional because I felt for that student when he talked about that student. So, I just want everybody to be a able to make a connection with where we can go with this. And I'm going to call Kyle up. Um, he didn't expect this, but I really I think it would it would top it off. >> All right. So, obviously I'm going

095to change a little bit of this detail here, but um the importance and the urgency around being able to intervene early um for a person, right? And we'll talk about littles right now, but that could be an adult, it could be an adolescent, right? When something happens in someone's life, the ability to get there and to support them and to help them grow or a child who might not be able to talk or might have um you know multiple disabilities that really prohibits their ability to do um really a whole lot of functional things within a school setting. What I know for a fact is if we can intervene early, if we can provide that student and that those that family and that social network what they need to support that child and the family

096early, all of the things that we spend so much time talking about in terms of struggles for kids in school, I'm not promising you those go away, right? But what I'm going to tell you is our kids are going to have a much better shot at succeeding. And we're going to have far fewer kids by the time they hit first, second, and third grade decide that school is not for them because they struggle. uh as a school district, you know, we have a huge responsibility to our community and to our our next generation, right? Um this is not the story I told Billy, so I'm going the whole road. Um right now is a scary time when it comes to access to things, access to services that people and families have relied on for a

097long time. Here we stand as a school district and we have the ability with the resources we have here in our district to be able to do a lot of good things for our young families and our young students to give them access to things that they're struggling to maybe find these days that um that we can help them with. And it's not just helping them, it's helping us. It's helping our future educators, our secondary I see Mr. Boyer nodding his head over there, but it's helping the economic impact of our entire community of DAB and and frankly Sycamore in the county. Um, education is the driver to opportunity for all of us. We have to intervene earlier than we are right now and that's huge credit to our ELC staff, but our kids' lives

098need it. Um, and so I appreciate you letting me kind of get on a soap box for a second. Um really the the heart of the story that I I was trying to share um with the team was you you you work with a student. I was a school psychologist before and you work with a student and sometimes you don't know what's going on in that student's world for a long time because he or she won't let you in but you know they're struggling. You don't know why. Um but you're there for them, right? Um I had a student at one point in time um I worked with them um for a number of years. I was lucky enough to have kind of a multi-year um process. And it was the third year that I

099worked with that student that I was sitting in my office. All of a sudden, there was a knock on the door. Student never sought me out once in three years, right? Um students at my door. So, come on in. Student sat down. student decided that that was that day that that student was going to tell me something that was going to change the trajectory of that student's life moving forward, which was the hardest thing that that students probably ever had to do or at least at that point in the student's life, but it opened the door for support and for intervention. And from that moment on, I'm not saying that that student's life was perfect and easy, right? But they were no longer walking that process alone and we were able to do something. And

100I'm really proud to be a DAW employee and a Decal president because we have the tools and the resources to help. Feels really good when we can do that. So, um, with that, I'm going to step away because I'm sure, uh, it's 8:30 and we're running out of time, but I appreciate it. >> Thank you. What questions do you have? >> So, um, heartstrings have been played, you guys. I think at least in in my case, I can't speak for anybody else. every time you guys get up there, they start you guys start playing like a guitar. Um, but we also have to look down at the brass tax of things. And one of the questions I I have is $840,000 for Huntley. Does that include the tens of thousands of dollars that would be

101necessary to turn Founders into a 56 building. We have four kindergarten classrooms. We have bathrooms that like you said the re we have to bring them back up to where we dropped them down for first graders. So I don't need to know the numbers of it. But is that in there or is that not in there? >> Uh it's not. It's just the ELDC renovation wing. >> Okay. >> We do have a team looking into those numbers. Um we're working with Tammy to get an estimation of those numbers. right now our big priority is homey middle school in ELDC. This is the long term of what we would like to do and >> and just to speak to that very briefly that's not um that's not serving the purpose of obuscation. The point is if

102you decide for if it is decided that all seventh and eighth graders will be at Huntley then and we decide that newer science labs are important for seventh and eighth grade then they would need to be at Huntley. If we still had sixth, seventh, and eighth grade at both of our buildings now you're talking about science labs across the board. So, it's really the economy of scale. Moving this direction allows us to provide the most appropriate supports curricularly and developmentally for our students in more centralized locations for grades 5 through 8. Does that make sense? So, it's Tammy's got a long list, but we have to first establish what are the priorities. What should the curriculum look like? What should those things look like? And take our time to do that correctly and really think

103it through so that we have a better sense of what the actual price tag is because I don't think anyone has an appetite for telling you it's going to cost one thing and then it turns out it's something else. >> Absolutely. >> Any other questions? >> All right, hearing no other questions, I'll just make the quick aside. Maria, if you do need to go home, you are okay to leave. >> Thank you. Okay, we'll now move into the consent agenda. It >> is recommended the board of education approve the consent agenda items 5B through 5H October 7th, 2025 board meeting minutes, personnel action items, payroll for September, purchase order requisitions, accounts payable for October, financial reports, and kids hope USAU as presented. Do we have any questions on anything before we vote? I'll entertain a

104motion to approve. >> Second, >> Jackie. Roll call. >> Gatwood. >> Yes. >> Steve Buyers. Yes. Jose, >> yes. >> Mr. Boyce, yes. >> Mark Sherbet, >> yes. >> Dante Bum, >> yes. >> All right. Moving into old business. DHS student council NCD winter retreat overnight trip. It is recommended the board of education approve this request for approval for the DHS student council to attend the NCD winter retreat at Great Wolf Lodge in Gertie, Illinois on December 4th through the 5th, 2025. Do I have a motion? >> So move. >> Second. Jackie, roll call. >> Steve Buyers, >> yes. >> Jose, yes. >> Just for boys, >> yes. >> Bam, >> yes. >> Bailey, yes. Atwood, >> yes. >> Item B, DHS student council, IASC state convention overnight trip request. It is recommended the board

105of education approve this request for DHS student council to attend the IASC convention in Springfield, Illinois on the March 26th to the 28th, 2026. Do I have a motion? >> So move. >> Second. >> Jackie, roll call. >> Jose, yes. >> Christopher Boyce, >> yes. Yes. Mark Shervat, >> yes. >> Vina, yes. >> Susan Bailey, >> yes. Nick Gwood, >> yes. >> Buyers, >> yes. >> Item C, DHSAP Euro Italy field trip out of country travel request June 1st through the 10th, 2026. Is recommended the board of education approve this request for the DHSAP Euro Italy field trip out of country travel request from June 1st through the 10th, 2026. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Jackie, roll call. >> Mr. Boy, >> yes. >> Bailey, yes. Nickwood, >> yes.

106Buyers, >> yes. Joseph. >> Yes. >> Item D, DHS ac capella trip request. Is recommended the board of education approve the request for DHS ac capella travel request for the AC capella festival Port Washington April 10th through the 11th of 2026. Do I have a motion? >> So move. >> Second. >> Jackie. Roll call. >> Yes. >> Tinum. >> Yes. >> Kristen Bailey. >> Yes. Nick Catwood. >> Yes. >> Steve Buyers. >> Yes. >> Jose. >> Yes. >> Christopher. >> Yes. Item E, tenure life safety reports. It is recommended the board of education approve the 10-year life safety inspection results for 2025 submitted by Richard Johnson and Associates. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Jackie, roll call. >> Yes. >> Chris Bailey, >> yes. >> Gwood, yes. >> Steve Buyers,

107>> yes. Quiz, yes. Mr. Boyce, >> yes. >> Item F. Northern Illinois University Space Language Hearing Clinic service agreement. It is recommended that the board of education approve the service agreement as attached. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Jackie, roll call. >> Kristen Bailey, >> yes. Nickwood, >> yes. >> Steve Buyers, >> yes. >> Jose, yes. >> Christopher Boyce, >> yes. Mark, >> yes. >> Antib, >> yes. >> All right, moving into new business. We did move item F up to A. So, first item will be item A, future ELD discussion. This is just a discussion item. There is no action being taken at this point in time. This was submitted by me, so I will kind of kick things off. as you guys have been hearing from the public

108for probably the last two months now we need an ELDC. The question that I would like to broach with the board now at this point I don't think there's a doubt at this point that we're doing an ELDC. The question is how are we going to do an ELDC? So really we have three options on the table right now. We can do a referendum. we can just bankroll it and as a board per state law and school code approve it on our own without a referendum or really the third option is not do any LDC but that's not really an option so we have two options on the table that we're discussing tonight so you all received the white paper from the cabinet last week going over the different you know financials impact that it

109will have on classroom sizes compliance with state law just really everything that we could possibly want to know so I guess The first thing I'll dive into is based on that white paper, do any of us have questions of Dr. Garcia Sanchez or members of the cabinet based on that white paper that we want to go into first. >> Can I ask one question um about that's not working um what our mayor presented tonight? I think in the white paper there were two things presented right 20 and 24 classroom and so our mirror is recommending the 20 it sounded like classroom in in the vision for 28 um and I was just I I was curious I just wanted to confirm that and I also was wondering and I don't know if now is the

110time to do that but could we build it in a way that there would be the potential for adding on those additional >> wonderful questions uh first is that we had considered a 16 classroom to begin with, which was an additional six classrooms from what we currently have. Uh we upped it to 20 because it makes sense and it gives us an opportunity uh 16 allows us to meet what we currently have. 20 allows us to add additional programming such as preschool for all that would allow more u students to to attend school early on. And um we have also discussed uh the possibility with an architect of leaving a side of the building available in case we needed to add on to that so that that possibility would be made available and it would

111be less costly to us for the future. So yes, thank you. >> I guess thing that I would throw out there before we kind of get into it is I I know right now we also on the white page had the the 24 classrooms. I my personal feeling is if we we might as well get ahead while we're ahead. >> If if we know we're going to build the building and we're going to spend $30 million to me, spending another three or4 million today >> makes a lot more sense than than spending another $15 million in 5 years when we needed it. >> We'll also, you know, I am a revenue But I'm I'm I'm a revenue-minded person. If we have a bigger building and say we don't immediately fill it all the way up,

112there are multiple other school districts in this county without a doubt that would be interested in paying to put students within those rooms at a tuition cost which could benefit us as a district. So, the way I look at it, at the end of the day, for me, the 24 rooms makes the most sense because we're we already know we're going to need them anyway. We might as well get them now. >> So, I just want to make sure that I clarify that the additional four classrooms that we were talking about is to ensure that we have an opportunity for children to step into an different experience as they get closer to getting into kindergarten, right? so that our children in kindergarten don't struggle. Right? We all seen our kindergarteners that never been in school

113before. This is that opportunity, right? So, we went from 16 to 20 to ensure we had enough staff to give more opportunity to 24 for the purposes of readying our students. Now, that doesn't mean that we don't have room for other folks, but I have a feeling we'll be able to fill up the space right quick. So, just saying >> I'm just always looking for >> We can always do a daycare center, too. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. >> I'm also in favor of the 24 classroom model just because I think it would be nice if we could offer, you know, half day options but also potentially a full day option. Um because transportation might be an issue for some people and it can be difficult for people to get to a morning session or an

114afternoon session and then turn right back around and come back and get kids. And I think if we, you know, we look at some of the data that we were shown like the MAP data, um, if you, if you look at the graphs, you know, my understanding is the ELDC students like kids with IEPs and and other uh, issues like that will get priority, but then also like lowincome kids can also get priority to attend there for free. And most of the preschools here, if your child doesn't qualify with an IEP, you have to pay, you know, $3 $400 a month or more. And if you look at our statistics, our our students who are low-income students, they're struggling a lot more than our students who aren't low-income. Our non-l low-income students kind of fall

115in line with the national averages for each one of the benchmarks. And so I would like to see room in this facility for every kid that can go into Cal that wants to have a public education even if you know there there are low-income kids who qualify first for seats and then there are kids who may be you know excluded because they're you know four times above the poverty level but they'll have an opportunity to have an academic experience that may you know suit their family and and have you know all day or half day options for them as well. So I think if we build it they'll come so to speak. Um, and I think there's enough kids, if you look at our demographics now, there's probably 800 kids out there that are, you

116know, under five years old in this district who would be able to attend. So, that's why I'm in favor of that. >> Okay. So, I'm getting very emotional here. Really, very emotional. Um I well I think that the thinking from this board right now it's imperative of what we're thinking about the future for every child in this in this town and we have uh you we haven't even broached our dual you know a dual language program even at that age to be able to begin that early on. Um, but more importantly, as I was walking through Mitchell today and thinking about the the kindergarten classrooms that I was watching, just how wonderful it would have been had those children had that additional time prior to coming to kindergarten and how much better off they could

117have been. We have no idea right now. I think what this opportunity is going to give every family and every child and what graduation rates have risen now the last four years, what they're going to exponentially rise to when these children begin to metriculate year after year. So, it's awesome. Keep talking. We'll keep building. Amir will find more money. >> Okay. So, just doing some quick what used to be called back of the napkin math. Um, it's $ 38.7 million according to the white paper to do 24 classrooms. A quarter of the 16 classrooms is roughly um doing seven $7 million and there's a $6 million cost difference between 20 and 24. We go ahead, ladies. You can help me out on this. Probably about six or seven years before we realize that what we

118built at 20 is too small. >> And then you guys are going to be drilling the board again week after week after week. Um that we need more space. I'm in agreement. There's no it doesn't make sense to go with 20 if we can pull off 24. I think don't don't forget we still have to um fix Huntley so that it could take the thousand students that it's expected to to be able to handle for seventh and eighth grade. Right. >> But that doesn't change whether we have 20 or 25. >> Oh no no no it doesn't it doesn't and I I'm going to jump in a little bit ahead because our is going to be talking about our next steps on wanting to be able to set aside funding for this. I think that

119uh we all know that as we're looking at the Ezone and the South End and the kind of money that we can get from there that allows us not to have to go to the taxpayer for money to build. I think because of the benefit of the privilege that we have of that money, we can do things like this right without hurting anyone or asking them to to pony up any kind of funds. So, I just think that the creativity on how we use those funds moving forward is going to be imperative. Although it might look like, and I'm going to say this right now, you're going to look and say the fund balance is going to drop because we're going to pay all cash. That's true initially. However, at the end of every year,

120money that isn't used gets rolled over into that fund, right? So, even though when I got here, I think we were at 24%. uh for 55 56 now and uh you that's in four years that doesn't mean that it can't happen again. We just have to be very mindful on how we do expend our funds and that we're using them very uh carefully. But I don't want to steal air thunder, you know, because he's been working hard on on projecting that. But uh I do believe that we can afford to do that and making doing 24 classrooms is definitely something that will be helpful. Just keep in mind 2,000 kids at the high school and that is already very tight space for those of you that have been at the high school. That's very tight

121space. We could have probably built something larger to ensure that that doesn't grow. Think about what we may have to do at the high school eventually to make up for that space. But we do have a lot of space out there, right, to do that. Here's the thing is that our town is growing and it's wonderful that it's growing, but we need to make sure that we're supporting the folks that are here right now and all of those children that are there will take advantage of that. >> I guess um one other question I have just looking at the alternate bids to me the science rooms I mean that's got to happen. I I understand the cafeteria situation. I mean it's tight in there at Huntley. I guess I'm I'm just confused what we would

122do. I mean, there's not a lot of space for that cafeteria to go into. I mean, you've got a gym here, an auditorium here, and then hallways. I mean, where what are we going to renovate to alleviate that? >> There is some space, and I'm I I'm so excited. I can't even think about it right now. there's some space between the storage facility where things get dropped off, you know, where the trucks come in and that other space that we can enclose and reimagine for that, right? So that uh there are spaces within that and an extension uh can be added on to another space. So, we're not looking we're looking at increasing the footprint at Huntley a little bit more, but also reimagining some bigger spaces that are there that aren't used to full

123capacity. >> Okay. So, I will I guess kick off the board and kind of starting our consensus run. Um, and I'll probably knock a lot of people's socks in here right now. I was, as you guys know, the most firm there will be a referendum till the day I die member of this board. And I do believe a person should stick to their word, but I do also believe that a person needs to go with what they know is right. And I will say that a conversation today at work is really what made sure that my mind was set. When I was talking to someone about referendum versus not from a referendum, their exact words to me were, "Why are you asking us to raise taxes if you don't have to raise taxes to do

124it?" Which told me to the public, "No matter how we do this, a referendum means a tax raise to them. Yes. >> And >> I think that this is just too valuable of work that we need to do to get our district where it needs to be >> for us to leave it to people misinterpreting something that the state forces us to word vaguely. >> So I will just say that my vote for consensus is that we do this without a referendum. [Music] [Applause] We just kind of go in random order. >> Um I'm probably not folks in the room probably not going to like this so much. I first off I do support ELDC, but I I want to remind the board of when we all were sworn in, we all took an oath

125and part of the oath that we said is I shall foster with the board extensive participation of the community. I fully believe that the community is behind this project and the community has paid into this paid into the reserve fund for years and years and years with their tax levies. I believe for transparency purposes the community should be involved. I fully think the community would support it. And with the community support behind this at the ballot box, it provides even more support for ELDC years in the future. You could say we all voted for this. The community supported this. So I am fully in favor of letting the community, our stakeholders partake in this. Again, extensive participation in the community was in the oath each one of the board members made. I said that. Each

126one of you said that as well. That's my opinion. But I, like I said, I'm fully in favor of this. I think the community would be behind this. I think communicating that and I love saying that it's not going to raise taxes. I'm the guy who probably even more than Chris will say, you know, I'm I'm very firm as far as I do not like to raise taxes and we'll talk about that when we come to taxes every time. But, uh, I'm fully in favor of this with the cash option and with the community support. That's my take with regard to that. When we were first talking about how is this going to be done? Are we going to pay cash? Are we going to finance this? What are we going to do? And one

127of the things that concerned me initially was and why I was initially in favor of a referendum if we were going to finance it is because, you know, we could be servicing $12.5 million worth of debt every year if we decided to finance that. But we have the money available. And so if we were going to raise taxes to build this building, because we would have to if we were going to cover that level of debt service in addition to all the other, you know, the high school and Mitchell and things like that, we should give the community a choice. But here, the community wants us to use this money. They say it all the time like you've got this money, you know, spend it wisely. And they elected us to make decisions on their

128behalf. And they we also swore a duty that we would do what we could for the school and and our duty is to the students. And so my fear is that many people would vote for in favor of this referendum because they know what's at stake. But the people who aren't aware of it, they're not going to see a ballot referendum that tells you this is going to be paid for in cash. It's not going to increase your taxes. there'll be a knee-jerk reaction to vote against it. And and the ELTC is so important because as you saw during the the 428 presentation, it's the first domino in a series of dominoes that's really going to transform the identity of the district. And and we hear from these same people all the time like our

129test scores are so bad, right? Well, how are we going to help improve that? And I said it during the campaign when I ran. We have to focus our investment on the youngest kids in our district. We have to give them structure and we have to give them support at an early age so that we can raise their ceiling and they can perform better. It's a multi-year investment. It's going to take a decade to see the results of how that actually plays out and and building the ELDC is the first step. If the referendum fails and it would be binding, what then? The need does not go away. The students still need to be served. So, if we roll this this dice to to basically tell them to just sanction a decision we can make

130with existing funds that's not going to raise their taxes, we we risk hurting these students. We risk increasing the cost because in two years or however long we have to wait, we're still going to have to do it. Now, it's just going to cost more. And so, you know, I wrestled with it and I thought, if we're going to if we're going to pay for this thing outright, then we should do what the people elected us to do and trusted us to do. and and I've gone with Mark to the finance committee meetings like we've, you know, agonized over a lot of this stuff and we've crunched numbers after numbers and our mayor has been fantastic about giving us numerous options to consider. It makes sense. And I also wonder, you know, when we talk

131about the high school referendum that was 100% financed, $108 million. We're still paying the debt on that. It'll cost us closer to $200 million when it's all said and done. And that referendum failed three times. So given that and and the the community knew we needed the high school at that time, it's there's too much at stake, I think, to to just ask the community to sanction a decision that's an obvious choice, you know, for so many people. And that's my so I'm not in favor of a referendum if we're paying for it out of pocket, which I think is the right thing to do. >> So, um, a very intelligent person I know asked me yesterday, if we go to referendum and it fails, what's your plan B? and I looked her square in

132the face and said, "I don't have one." Because we need to do it. I don't I don't think there's any question that that you know the the third option isn't one. Um so we had this discussion and the delicate line between permission and buyin is where where we're laying right now. We don't need permission. We do need buyin and I think that's on all of us sitting at this table. Everybody in this room, everybody who who wants this ELC that's not in this room needs to help us get the buy in from the community. And yeah, referendum failed three times for a high school that we needed. So Mark, I I totally agree with you. We we said we were going to have community input, but I think most of us have lived in the

133community long enough to know that sometimes we don't get the input we want. And it's not because they're doing what they what they know. They do what they feel. And a referendum means I'm going to pay more money. >> No matter how many times we tell them, >> we could show them the paper. We can give them the white paper. can like air could spend the next three years sitting down with every single one of them and they're still going to vote with their heart and say no I don't believe them it's going to cost us money so I also was on the referendum or die side and have gone through the only thing I'm requesting is that we work very hard to get buy in we need to get the community behind us and

134say yeah this was the right thing to do >> so that's no referendum just >> no referendum okay >> so can I yeah say something So, no referendum. Um, but I just wanted to respond to Mark's comment really quickly just as a kind of like I don't know little moment. I think that what you're speaking about though points I really value what you're saying and and the desire to have community input and I think as many of us who have been educators know that it points to a much larger issue where we have a lot of work to do which is the people that do get to vote or that are able to you know do whatever they need to do to have their votes counted or the information literacy to understand what it is

135that they're voting for. Um there's a lot of data, a lot of research out there to indicate that that is very disproportionately skewed. And that's the problem that I have with seeking or going to a referendum when you don't have to. as much as I value what you're saying um and I want that I we I based on what I know having studied these sorts of things I just I I don't think we would get that sense without a huge effort to educate like Nick had talked about the referendum in 2008 and I looked at the past like two or three referendums before that and then that referendum and what are all the strategies that they took into account what are all the things that they did to engage the community and to really get

136the word out there and I just we don't have the bandwidth to do that the capacity building like it was huge the number of ways that the outreach was conducted and the money that it took. So that's that's my reasoning, but I just I wanted to >> Yeah, I know you mentioned input, but it also said community participation. It's not just input. So it's an active effort on a member member of the community to partake in in the election. So but like I said, when I when someone asked me about this, I said, "Well, what do you think about this?" I saw someone at Shnooks the other day and they're like, "Yeah, I don't know about referendums." I said, "Wait a second. What if I were to tell you we have all this money? We've

137been building up this money for many years. would you support it? They're like, "Yeah, I see the need for that now that you explain it that way." I don't think it's that hard though to get the word out to people. And the people who participate in elections tend to be, you know, more informed, especially, you know, especially in the election in I looked at past elections and when we passed the school for the high school, it was the spring election. And you tend to get more involved people who are really focused and know what's going on. At least that's my observation. And they supported the school the third time around for the high school. So people still just kind of have a bad taste with how Mitchell School came about with the previous school board.

138They wanted a say in the whole thing and the way the school board went about uh getting the school without, you know, without having to purchase a new school or a new or get land donated or what I know there was land that was possibly known. The cat's property I believe. Am I correct on that Manurva? the cat's property was talked about as a possibility for the high high school back in the day. I'm not sure if that was the case or not, but >> is it it was a different property? >> Was it a different property? There was supposed to be a different property for for I'm sorry for Mitchell School. I said high school. So, I apologize on that. So, >> but people want to get involved and have a say in things

139is what I've discovered, but they would support it. People seem to believe the idea of the ELDC, which I do, is a great idea. Awesome. >> There's a there's a thing I just thought about while we're talking about all this is that Kristen, if I remember right, when we ran, you were fully on board with a new ELC, right? I sat next to him, two of the three of them, and I know he is, too. And I I stated in my campaign that I was. So, we by the three of us sitting here right now, we kind of had a referendum. you know, we were elected with a promise that we were going to put in a a new ELC. We wanted one. Now, it's just the three of us, so we couldn't say what

140the other four were going to do. But, you know, and we'll have another referendum in three and a half years for the three of us and a year and a half for the other four. If they didn't like our decision, I guess that's the referendum we're going to get is we'll all be replaced. >> Um, but I I Mark, I 100% agree with where you're coming from. I just And I know this is going to come over like a a lead balloon. I don't trust the voters as much as you do to not vote with their heart to vote with their head. Um because I see it every election cycle that there's a lot of people out there that vote with their heart. >> And their heart's going to say, "I don't want to spend

141any more tax money." No matter how many times we tell them, they won't abs. >> So I'm going to do my chairing of the meeting to take back over. We only have two more board members we need to seek consensus from. We do actually already have consensus at this point in time. So I am going to ask Steve. >> Yes. I'd like to move forward with the 24 classroom ELDC with no referendum. >> And Vante ask, >> can we just vote tonight? >> All right. Now, do we have any final comments before we move on to the next agenda item? And I am assuming that the majority of the people in this room probably want to go home now because they've gotten what they came for. So, if you guys would like to leave, you

142are free to leave. >> Thank you. >> Uh remember, this isn't over. The vote happens next time. So, pack the place. >> Next meeting. All right, we will now move into item B, which is staffing request one FTE, building annually employed sub. This comes to us as info and action as this is a position that the administration would like to get filled sooner rather than later. This is presented to us by director of teaching and learning, Billy Wmo, and principal of Mitchell Elementary, Maurice McDavids. >> All right, so I've run out of coffee props, so I'm going to make it quick. Um, but it's been a long night as well. I provided here the supporting data of why we need it. First and foremost, I do want to apologize to Mr. McDavid because as we

143were um staffing Mitchell Elementary, we have our two section buildings with two annually employed subs. We have a three-section building with three annually employed subs. We have our four section buildings with four annually employed subs. and we gave him two annual employee subs and should have from the very beginning given him three. So I will take that hit. That's on me. Um that we should have gotten three annual employee subs for three section building. Um I provided here some data for you all of why we need it. But at the end of the day we need building subs um to be able to have more consistency for our students in the classrooms. >> All right. What questions do you have? question was uh is this item in the budget? I mean, was this something we

144already factored in in terms of our financials? I don't know if our mayor can answer that. >> Uh yeah, this would be part of the building budget. It is kind of a small footprint, so they will be able to absorb it. >> Okay, very good. >> Any other questions? As this is information and action, it is recommended the board of education approve the addition of an annually employed substitute for Mitchell Elementary. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. Second, >> Jackie. Roll call. >> At Gatwood, >> yes. >> Steve Buyers, >> yes. >> Jose, yes. >> Christopher Boyce, >> yes. >> Mark Shervat, >> yes. >> Vante Bino, >> yes. >> Chrisa Bailey, >> yes. >> All right, >> moving to item C. Resolution committing funds for ELC facilities, constructions, and renovations. Presented to

145us by director of business and finance, Armier Dogga. All right. Uh well uh we're bringing forward a resolution uh to solidify our commitment for the construction of ELDC. It is committing fund. This is also an accounting term but uh it it is also a statement. We're committing funds for the construction of ELDC uh so that it doesn't mix in with the operational. The way that it will happen, it will be part of the O andM fund uh and we will be able to secure uh investment rating as as uh the construction goes on and it's not mixed in with the operations. Um >> can you just give us clarity on how much funding we're actually thinking about setting aside as of right now and uh what pending with what we're expecting this year? >> Sure.

146Uh so our our our plan is to use taxes from uh the Ezone particularly the meta Facebook because that is the biggest uh tax distributor for the district at this time. Uh so far we've collected uh from 2023 levy about 7.1 million uh distributed this year uh from 24 levy but actually distributed one year after it's about 19.1. uh and then we're expecting uh with uh inflationary increases of about 19.8 the following year and so forth. So this will be uh should be able to cover the >> and just to clarify then by next year this time next year we'll be expected to collect another what >> uh 19.8 million. >> So that would then be able to pay off everything that we owe for renovations at Huntley as well as the new building. and

147if we need to make any adjustments at this at the other two schools. >> Correct. Yes. Thank you. >> That's correct. Uh and um so and really with a with a cost, it's also a little bit because we have that cat's uh family donation on uh the southwest corner of normal and uh dresser. Uh that's about 12.225 acres available land. So it does make construction a little bit less costly that way. Um uh again this is a commitment of m of not mixing it with the operational funds. Um, I guess just a quick question. Um, when it comes to the facilities part, and maybe this is more of a question for Tammy, but within the last two weeks now, the city has also gotten approval for their transportation depot, which will be in that same

148area, which we already know is going to cause a change in infrastructure there. Do we know is their timeline going to be in line with our timeline where we can almost you know especially on the because you know busing all that stuff's going to be key where they're already doing infrastructure improvements. Are we going to be able to kind of piggyback with them to work that into where it's together? >> We've actually already had conversations with the city. Uh so Bill Nicholas has shared with Tammy, myself and air and Billy on what that's going to look like. Um so uh the impact will actually support it so that the kind of uh reduces some of the costs as the the sewer system on the outside but uh there we won't we will incur some cost

149but not exactly the same cost if we would do it on our own. So uh it seems like we're pretty much on key with that. Some it actually may end up happening almost simultaneously >> as we can tell right. >> Yeah. and we are working collaboratively so that that doesn't affect our timeline and like uh Dr. Manurva said that uh if we had called for that sewage line we would have been 100% uh responsible for it. So this has actually worked to our favor. So we're setting aside 30 million and I was looking at our fund balance from the statement of fund balances. We're at 127 right now. So when we set aside that 30 million, we're going to have a fund balance of about 98 97 million somewhere in there. Is that correct? >>

150So uh we we talk about operational side. So it's actually 103 million uh take away from because O andM is part of the operations. Um the nonoperational funds we really do not mix in because those are com kind of committed like for workers comp, pensions, uh debt service, uh and um the life safety funds. So those we really do not take into account but yes it would be about um 103 take away 30 to 40 million. >> I'm I just want to make sure I I'm clarifying I am misunderstood. Are you talking about just the fund balance that we currently have or are you talking about the expenditures? >> So I was talking about the fund balance itself. So in our fund balance we have 30 million >> 130 million is operational which is only

151the four funds that we have control over >> which would be the working cash on&m ad fund and u uh the I think there's and transportation >> okay >> so but yes so there would be enough uh for uh you know about 30 to 40% sav uh our savings fund by 2031. >> Okay, >> any other questions? >> Hearing no other questions. Do we have consensus to bring this back? >> Yes. Yes. >> All right. Item D, resolution to amend the 23 debt certificate resolution to allow purchase of the Mitchell Elementary School real estate. This is information brought to us by our Midoka, director of business and finance. Uh back in 2023 when we asked uh to borrow money for the construction of the school uh the board uh allowed us to go out uh

152to borrow the money and pay for the construction. Well, good news. two year uh two years after uh we were able to come under budget uh have some investment grades uh uh investment returns from that uh borrow debt and we can afford actually to pay the land and the real estate of the Mitchell out of these funds. uh and um we should we can open that up so that the operational money that we would have used for the purchase we can actually get it out of what we borrowed. So this resolution kind of changes that wording from back in 2023 to allow the purchase of land and the building. >> Does anyone have any questions? >> Hearing no questions. We have consensus to bring this back. >> Yes. >> All right. Item E, approval of

153SVP COP's grant contract with Department of Justice. This is presented to us by our >> security manager, Matthew McIntyre, and our director of technology, Ben Bale, >> and our surprise. >> So, uh, Emma Fini, grants manager under my department. She couldn't be in today, but I will be happily uh filling in. So back in May of 6 board meeting, we brought forward an application opportunity we couldn't pass to approve the grant uh called cops uh C SVP cops. Uh basically it matches funds of purchases that at uh it is part of our long-term expenditures but we can actually uh dip into federal funding for it. Uh it is um a grant that is about uh 670,000 with 500 coming from the federal and 170 is uh earmarked for us to match. Uh anything on that

154then? So this is basically um the uh the request for approval again a second approval to number one accept the grant and number two uh allow us to match those grants 1707 thank you thousands so that we can in fact receive that half million dollars to spend. >> Yeah. Which would otherwise would have come out of operations in the the next few years. Do we know >> for like how reliable that grant money is? >> Well, >> okay. >> So, I mean, you want me to? I guess we do. So, we we would like to as soon as this is approved, we already have basically the items that we're looking to acquire. That's already been kind of ironed out. So, we're looking to basically get that as quickly as possible. And not only that, but

155also to mitigate price hikes, tariff hikes, and inflation. So, um, so the sooner we can get this approved, the better for everybody. Um, yeah, we want to do it within the first year. We have three years in order to accomplish what we had placed into the grant, but we'd like to be able to accomplish it basically within a single year. >> And I think if you're referring to uh what's happening in DC, uh this work it was earmarked uh in the budget. That's why even though uh there is in DC there is a um a shutdown u they still provided this award which even for us was a little surprising but because these funds were earmarked they they did were able to push it through and like Ben said maybe we do go forward quick

156before they pass something different. Any other questions? >> Okay. Hearing no other questions, we have consensus to bring this back. >> Yes. >> All right. And our final item, item F, kissing college agreement for making the connection Illinois cooperative work study program. And this is presented to us by DJ Salis, our director of human resources. So, Kishwalki College reached out to us about this opportunity. Um, this is a grant-f funded opportunity where they would advertise our vacant positions to their students. Students that come to us and want to work for us and our extended offers and are hired, Kishwalki would pay half of their um hourly rate of pay back to us. Uh again, it's grant funded. So as long as the the the grant lasts and is fully funded, they will pay back to

157us half the cost of the hourly rate of any of their students that are hired under this program. If the grant were to end or um uh they were no longer a student at Kishwwaukee, but that person continued to be employed with us, they would be at the cost the full cost of the district. but it's an opportunity for us to help train and build up some of their students and get them ready to enter the workforce, return to the workforce, or continue in the workforce. >> So, just just so I am clearly reading this, it's like a work study program. They come work for us. We're essentially getting students at our employees at half the cost. >> Yes. >> Amazing. >> Do we have any other questions or comments? Do we have consensus to

158bring this back? >> Yes. >> All right. Dr. Garcia Sanchez, it's time for your report. >> I just want to note that everything that was under new business was all good news about money. I just want to note that. Okay. All right. So, having said that, I have more good news. So, I want to congratulate Rita and Kevin for bringing more notice to our wonderful district. Um they have just won three awards from the Illinois chapter of the National School of Public Relation Association which is a part of the national chapter uh that was that judged us. We received three awards. One uh all on the Mitchell Elementary School opening, one was on the mural wall, the second on the Dr. Mitchell video, the school tribute, and then the third on the social media campaign

159around the school opening. What this does for us is that it elevates the district profile across the state. It acts as an entry to the national level because last year we won for the annual report, right? First time ever. And then it also validates our strategies and work as relevant and effective at the district. So think about everything we've done encompassing and being shared statewide and nationally and people recognizing that and congratulating us and saying that what we've done is really changing and innovating what we are doing in this district. So I congrats to the two of you, but definitely congrats to all of us. Thank you for putting it together. All right, we're going to keep on moving because this lady over here just got her letters at the back of her last name.

160Dr. Sarah Jennings, we're just getting all kinds of letters. Dr. Dr. Donna Larson, who's not with us today and usually is, was actually a finalist for the Athena Awards. She didn't win that award, but she definitely wins an award with us. So, congratulations to Dr. Larson for having been a finalist and for being a part of our family. So, thank you to her. And then one final thing, I know that um u Mr. McDavid just left, but I was at Mitchell this morning where the ladies of the Episcopal Church where we have done some of three community conversations actually were able to uh gather, they fundraised for us uh for Mitchell so that uh they can donate about $660. I think it'll be coming up later on uh for uh supplies for the classroom for

161teachers. So, we're really excited about that. And thank you to the ladies of the Episcopal Church. We took some pictures and we'll send those over there. >> I So full of good news today, but I'm going to be done today so that we can go to bed cuz it's almost 9:15. >> All right, we've hit the end of the agenda. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All right, the meeting is over. Yay. Look at you. Yeah.