001It's now 7 o'clock and with that we will do a recall to order of a regular meeting. Jackie, can we please start with a roll call? Amanda Harnesses here. Fred Davis, Steve Buyers here. Ariel Owens present. Christopher Boy here. Lacy Mirez present. Dante Bum here. Jenna Zimmerman. Okay, thank you. Next item is uh public comment. U members of the public who wish to speak to the board shall complete a request card prior to the start of the meeting. The section of the meeting will be reserved for comments from the public. All comments should be limited to three minutes. Criticism of individuals is not in order. Um and then we do have four public comments. The first one is Mr. Jose Hakees and this subject is consent agenda. Thank you. Okay. Good evening. My name is
002Jose Jquiz. Two weeks ago, I was one of the four C candidates elected to the school board. Since we've not been sworn in yet, I'm speaking as a citizen of the Duel School District. On today's agenda, more specifically, the consent agenda, there are four items that I would like to comment on. Three union contracts and an amendment to the superintendent's contract. The total financial impact of these items is approximately 7,376,750. According to five ILCS, Illinois compiled statutes 120, chapter 120, section 2, the open meetings act, final action, quote, no final action may be taken in closed meeting. Final action shall be shall be proceeded by a public recital of the nature of the matter being considered and other information that would inform the public of the business being conducted. According to the Illinois Municipal League,
003the consent agenda contains routine items which are not controversial in nature and which do not need further discussion. I would think that three of the four collecting bargaining agreements for the district would be celebrated, not hidden in a consent agenda. where routine items are voted on. In the consent agenda, in the the consent agenda, there would be no thanking negotiating team for hard work and willingness to cooperate on contracts that benefit the staff and the students of the district. Also, considering the contracts are normally 3 to 5 years in length, I would hardly consider them routine. The superintendent's contract currently allow allotss for 15 days. Granting her 276 days is a 1,840% increase. What justification for this extreme amendment is there? How is there no financial impact that would be cover over a year's of
004work over a work year of sick time and her salary is over $230,000? Considering a personnel request from last month, will we need to hire an acting superintendent to fill her absences? This week you are approving contracts for the employees of the district that had to be negotiated and battled for. Every benefit was discussed and fought for and now you are gifting a year of sick time to the superintendent who worked for us for only three years. How does this look to the rank and file? What is so urgent in this amendment that the standard information and action information one week one one meeting and action the following meeting is not being followed. Why the detour and protocol? This type of agenda is far from this type of agenda item is far from routine and
005shouldn't be considered to have no need for further discussion. In my experience, this board has used the consent agenda in the past and definitely this week. The use of the consent agenda lacks transparency and something our future boards should try to should try not to continue. Thank you. Um, next item, Mr. uh, Pete Vanderblick. Um, subject superintendent, please. Good evening everyone. I'm Pete Vanderblake. I'm a parent and uh, Decal uh, four students now, one out. Um, I'm concerned about item J. The previous speaker talked a little bit about it. um uh 278 day um addition of sick days is um a 1.6 year uh s years of service credit added to somebody's TRS. Um if if you're in tier one, which I am, so I know a little bit about it. Um and uh in
006the agenda, it says that it has no impact uh and it may have no impact on the district finances, but it has a big impact on TRS because TRS teacher retirement system. every teacher in public school in the state of Illinois pays into that. So when someone's eligible for retirement a year and a half early, this could be it's easily tens of thousands of dollars in value and possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in value this one vote you're making. So I I don't know how the agenda works, but I'm hoping this one can be discussed because I have a lot of questions about it. Uh in there it says the strategic priority is human capital recruitment and development and retainment. Um, I don't know who put this in there, but I'd like to hear
007the explanation of that. I just can't wrap my mind around that. And, um, so if somebody could explain that. Um, and also the question is what is it? What's in it for the students and taxpayers of D428? I think that's the question that this board has been pretty good at going down to the root of. Um, and then, um, it has enormous val value to the recipient. So, why wasn't it part of a contract negotiation? And the previous person mentioned the contract negotiations collective bargaining, but this should have been part of the the contract negotiation because it there should have been some give and take on this um as far as it has a lot of value for the recipient. Um and so I don't understand why it would be added on with no um
008no concessions or if if the contract's being opened up, that's a whole different story or if situations have changed. And what about the other educators and staff who are in TRS IMRF? Um the previous uh speaker also mentioned um the contracts that they have. They negotiate their sick days. Um and so I'm just wondering what that what message that sends in equity. Um, and then, um, it I'm just wondering if every staff member would be eligible for for such a perk. And if you did, I think you're going to have a wait line out that door of people who are wanting days added on to their career so they can retire up to two years early. Um, and uh, some of the people who might be in that line might actually have been sick. So,
009it's most important to think about these sick days are not for sickness. They're for adding on to a career at the end. A lot of districts probably do this. Um, and it's not something that you have to do as a board. It costs the state money. It costs other teachers in the system money. It makes a system that's already in a precarious situation more precarious and it could collapse from these type types of decisions. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next uh next person uh Chuck, I cannot read the last name. I apologize, but the subject is DFSA. Hi. Um I'm vice president DFSA and um from the executive board to all the members and the district negotiating team and to you, Dr. Garcia and the board, we like to appreciate the offer that was
010made on our contract. Thank you. Thank you. And then the next person is uh Mr. Mark Sherbot. Uh subject consent agenda. I'd like to uh thank our two previous or all our speakers for speaking, but I want to point out the comments that both Joe and Pete made just a couple minutes ago. Actually, Joe kind of stole a lot of the what I was going to say, but the consent agenda, for those watching at home, the consent agenda is a portion of the agenda where governing bodies will put items on there so they don't get discussion. They're approved as a single item. A member of the board has the right to pull out a consent agenda item for separate discussion. And I hope that's the case here tonight. I can assure you in a couple
011of weeks when the new board takes over, which I'll be joining Joe on the new board as well, that that will happen more often. The public has a right to know, and this is an item that does not belong on the consent agenda, the approval of the superintendent's employment contract to add 278 additional days. Now, I want to give everybody at home a little bit of math here because sick days, just so you know, are often used to add to one's retirement. Under the TRS, teachers retirement system, employees can bank a couple of years of unused sick days, and they get tacked on as extra service credit when the employee retires. Now, this is a common tactic used to increase the annuity of retiring superintendent. In the case of district 428, this would mean an
012extra 1.5ish years of service credit at 2.2% of the final average salary per year. So here's the math for you. This is school, so let's talk math here. An extra 1.5 years at 2.2% times an average salary of $220,000 would mean $7,260 or so in extra retirement annuity. every year taxpayers, you will be paying for that. And that's great. I'm going to leave it at that. But by the way, this information was not provided on the consent agenda. There was no background material, no PDF attached. The public did not get any sort of information to read about this transparency. I am a huge advocate of transparency and that will be a big issue going forward when I serve on this board. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next up, uh board correspondence. Um any board
013correspondents? Um so I guess a couple things. Um I did get the honor of getting to go to the meta grant ceremony that they had last week and I know Ben, Rita, Emma, right? We were over there getting to enjoy that as well as some other members of the district. And I can just I guess I just want to say a thank you to Meta for some of the amazing programs that they've been able to help fund not just for us, but I mean there's multiple school districts in the county that were there getting grants to be able to do opportunities that we would never be able to do on our own. So I just want to thank Meta for that. I also want to say I did get the opportunity to attend the proprie
014conference last week and one thing that I'm really excited about that I'm definitely going to be pushing for super hard within this next school year is the college board is launching a new AP course that's going to be around cyber security. And what's really cool about these is we all know AP courses offer you the chance to go out there and get college credit. This is the first time in history College College Board is going to be doing AP courses that also offer certificates so that you can go to employers and say, "Hey, I've actually already got a certificate that shows I'm certified to do cyber security." Another one that they're doing is business and personal financial management. So, I think that these are great opportunities that we definitely as a school district should start
015to look into. And we also had a chance to present um with some of our administrators some of the initiatives that are happening uh with the freshman on track. Um we received immediate feedback from districts um some districts from other states about the you know congratulating us on the work that is happening at our district. So, congrats again to everybody that plays part a part in um in making those initiatives happen across our district. Not only obviously with Freshman on track, but with everything that we actively, you know, are approving and and supporting throughout the district and of course to administrators that, you know, um are making it happen as well and that obviously took the time to present the work. Um I presented as a board member and as a parent perspective. Chris also
016presented as a board member from his perspective in regards to how we um advocate in regards to how we support policy and obviously request and all that all those things that come with obviously the initiatives that we support throughout the district or throughout the year. So it was definitely great to see our administrators in action and of course uh showing off the things the cool things that we're doing here. Um so again my hats off to everything that you all are doing across the district. Um, no, you know, no amount of work, you know, no amount of thank yous can can really, you know, um, I cannot say, you know, thank you enough to all of you. Um, and I really genuinely mean that. And I I'm talking about from Ed Center to our janitors.
017Everybody plays a role in everything that we do. This fun this this district wouldn't be what it is today if it wasn't for everybody and the work that everybody does. and to the families of course and the students because they come right and the families that trust us with doing the work that we do. So, thank you for the collective effort um and making um sure that that dec for showing off all the all the great things that we're doing here. So, thank you. It was a pleasure being a part of that. Um anything else? Um I was proud to see y'all's picture on Facebook. You look very nice at the conference. But um I had a chance to meet with Jenna along with Chris and Jackie actually our current student board member. We met
018with Maria our incoming student member. So that was nice. And u me and Maria and Chris are going to be meeting again this week. So that is exciting. And that's all for me. Thank you. Any anything else? No. All right. And then next item is student board correspondence. As you can see, Jenna is not here. She's she's doing something. You know, she's very involved. We're proud of her. or night track. That's Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So then next thing that we have is public hearing on limitations of administrative cost waiver fiscal year 2024 2025. Item eight public hearing on limitation of administrative cost waiver fiscal year 24 2024 2025. So now uh we're opening of the public hearing on limitations of administrative cost waiver fiscal year 2024 2025. Okay. All right. Moving on to
019uh item B, closing of public hearing of on limitations of administrator cost waiver for fiscal year 2024 2025. Thank you. All right. Um then we're moving on to consent agenda. Before moving on to consent agenda, I would like to make a motion to remove for consent agenda. Although this is standard protocol to keep this item or for this item to be included in consent agenda, I would like to make a motion to remove cons uh item. Is it J J J from consent agenda and move it to its own line item. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Roll call. Steve, yes. Ariel Owens, yes. Christopher Boyce, yes. Yes. Vante Binham. Yes, Amanda Heares. Yes. Thank you. Okay. And with that, uh, we will move on to, uh, item A of approved consent agenda items.
020It is recommended that the board of education approve the consent agenda agenda items 5B. Let me just name them now, Jack. You're right. So that you or 5B through five and with the exception of J or 5J. Um, or six is the consent. I apologize. Six. I'm just reading off the the paragraphs. So, six, I apologize. Item 6B through 6 and with the exception of 6J for minutes uh 412025 and um 43 2025 personal action items p purchase order requisition payroll for March accounts payable for April. financial reports HMS registration CRM registration approval. Well, that's the item that we are um excluding for right now. negotiated uh negotiated agreement between the Decal Community Unit School District 428 Board of Education and the Decal Federal of School Assistance IF um AFT local 4328 F DFS negotiated
021I apologize negotiated agreement between the Decal Community Unit School District 428 um and thank Um, okay. Let me see where I'm at. Say the FSS, the FSS and FDASP. Okay. Okay. And local. Okay. Where am I at? 2024 2025. Negotiate an agreement between the Decal Community School District 428 Board of Education. Oh my gosh, I'm reading it over. Chris, how hard we're done. You're good. Okay.Uou article clarification. and salary and rates of pay as attached. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Roll call. Steve Buyers, abstain. Owens, yes. Christopher Boyce, yes. Stacy, yes. Bum, yes. Amanda Heares, yes. Thank you. Old business fiscal year 2024 2025 limitation of admin. You got through J. Also, we had to go through that one first. I apologize. Never mind. Okay. So, next one is the approval of amendment
022of superintendent employment employment contract is sick days. It is recommended that the board of education will approve the amendment of the 2024 2026 superintendent employment contract to add the allocation of additional sick days. Is there a motion? So move. Second. Sorry. Roll call. Steve buyers. Do we have Discussion. We can have discussion if you all want. I think someone needs to give a little bit of background where this came from, why we're doing it, and an understanding of why this is coming now and not when the contract was negotiated a year ago because that's what the community is asking for. So, can somebody give a little bit of background to it? Yes. Anybody anything else that you any other questions before we add on to that? Go to the background. Um the actual dates that
023were actually requested, they were actually presented to us during the original negotiation of Dr. Mira San Garcia Sanchez's contract when she first brought uh that to our attention sometime last year. um when we discussed it at that point um we agreed to give her a two-year contract. We didn't um agree to the actual sick days at that moment. Um after cons or after some conversations throughout u but we proceeded with the contract with the two-year contract at that moment. Um throughout this year um we have had several conversations. Chris and I as president, vice president have had several conversations, you know, in regards to some of the improvements we wanted to see throughout the throughout the year uh within the district in regards to just several whether it was meeting goals from the strategic plan.
024uh personal goals that we had um approved of first um goals that we had approved within the district um as well as um uh just oh and seeing how the evaluation was going to happen at the end of the school year. Uh, one of the things that we had also agreed on was that um, last year when we or the year before that when the the last board came in, one of the things that happens when when school boards transition sometimes when they're in the middle of transition, what happens is uh, board members are obviously we have to evaluate, right? We have to assess uh, the the superintendent. That's our responsibility in that process. When that happens, usually um sometimes we're in transition of of switching boards or new superintendents are coming in or whatnot.
025And when that happens, usually some board members are not comfortable with actually doing an assessment or full evaluation of a superintendent because they haven't been here and worked enough long enough to evaluate somebody that they haven't been working with, which is fair um to expect that from board members. So when that first happened um when we were negotiating also a contract there was a lot of debate even with the actual evaluation of it right of where we were at and where people stood with with the evaluation. Fast forward when we approved the contract we approved the two-year contract again because there was some debate of of where we were at with contracts of whether to give a three-year contract or a two-year contract. Um and then again based on on where we are at this
026year we had agreed that we will evaluate uh Dr. Garcia Sanchez before we as a board would exit just to make it easier for the new board when they came in to not have to deal with obviously the the whether or not what their thoughts were were based on you know none of the work that they had basically actually had done with her. We actually have been the one we're the board that is exiting. So we're the ones that actually have to have been working actually directly with her and have been assessing the actual um strategic plan and making sure that the metrics are being met right based on what we had set the goals that are being met the contracts or the negotiation that we had set forth for us to happen or to
027get completed by by this year before this board you know was exiting and so forth. Um and then upon that we have completed and done her evaluation. Um based on her evaluation um and successfully the successful evaluation of that um you know some of us felt that that you know what she had requested you know last year her contract that um that it was fair for us to you know to re have that conversation again um based on how her evaluation actually went or successfully happened this year. Um, so that's that's where that came from. Could you go back to where you said you and Chris had conversations about this this year? Cuz when the contract was done last year, it was never a discussion that pending on this year's review, would we even go
028back to having the conversation about these credit days? So when you said at the beginning, you and Chris being president and vice president had numerous conversations. What were those conversations in regards to how the strategic plan and the things the goals of the of the district and what hap what's happening? It's not necessarily in regards to her actual contract. It was in regards to just uh how things how successfully we were implementing whatever we had set for her. Can you agree that this is something that has been brought up within the past couple of months? It was never something that was agreed upon when the contract was finalized last year that depending on the annual review. And so basically this is pulling a fast one trying to slip something in there before the new board
029changes. I wouldn't say that this is a fast one but okay if that's what you want to call it then that's what you want to call it. In my eyes that's all I'm saying in my eyes is an understand that her evaluation speaks for her for her work. But when and and you know I've said this numerous times in the times that it's been discussed and I'm happy to say it right now. When you negotiate a contract, you don't go and change it. And that and for something like a credit days and it should have been negotiated a year and a half ago and you know why it wasn't. And so doing this right now is basically exactly what has been said by a few people that did public comment. Well, we've negotiated other contracts,
030Amanda, and we've also made amendments to them. I mean, one of them starts using the days. It has financial actually. We we talked about that and it's actually stated in our in the contract that she can't use them if she Yes, we had we have to we have had that discussion there. There's no stipulation, just to be clear, that she cannot use them. Like the sick days, if they're being used for the purpose of banking, have to be given with no limitations or stipulations per state law. So, I mean, just to clarify just real quick, Dr. Garcia Sanchez, you have no intent to take 278 days off. Absolutely not. Okay. But if but if she falls ill if she were Yes, it would be an impact to the district. Yes, she can use these days
031as soon as they're given if something was to come forward. So I I I generally hope nothing happens that she would have to because that would mean you know health-wise or someone's healthwise or whatever. But the fact is as soon as they are given it is open to become a financial impact if she needed to use those days. And then also just to clarify, you know, some people, you know, are under the misconception that this is going to lead or this was a reason why we were asking for assistant superintendent. This is because the superintendent is trying to leave. That is not the case. One of the things that we had asked, you know, four years ago when she just first came on board was to create a pipeline to create a pipeline so that,
032you know, leaders that we have within our district that we already have that whole superintendent uh you know, certifications that can provide us with, you know, um with just options, right, in the future, whether it's a support or just again um ab again a lot of our leaders that it's one of the things that we take pride in is building our own and and We I feel like we do a great job at that, you know, whether it's through supporting, you know, uh leadership opportunities for them to go to conferences and bring that information back. And that's not just our administrators, that's also our, you know, our super our what is it called? Our teachers, our, you know, security people. I mean, we we that's what we're trying to do to try to support everyone
033so that they could bring that information back and so that we could better our district. It is not about, you know, pulling a fast one on people or trying to, you know, oh, we're selecting certain people and not selecting others. Really, the people that are doing the work, whether it's through committee work, whether it's through, you know, um, you know, just additional uh, things that they're doing in within their rows or just again things that they're choosing to do outside of their roles. This this is these are the people that we're sending to conferences. The people that are bringing that information back and trying to be bring that that information back so that it could serve the greater cost to the greater district. It's not just for the specific individual or you know those type
034of things. So I think a lot of the times there's a lot of misconception about what is or what isn't you know. So we appreciate the questions you know that that have been sent to us. Um, and that's one of the reasons why put we decided to pull the the the item out of that. But normally this the cont the superintendent contract does fall under consent agenda just like the other contracts fall under the the consent agenda as well with negotiating with u with uh what is it called with the unions and all that and all those things. They do fall under that. If the new board chooses to do something different, they could choose to do whatever they they choose to to do. That is their that is their um their right, you know,
035if collectively that's what they want to do, then they can do that. But normally this is a standard protocol and that's what we're following per our legal counsel. So, you know, we do go through these consent agenda items all I mean through these items all the time and when in doubt we reach out to our legal counsel and when we make a mistake we fix it. But this is not a mistake of we were put we put it in the wrong place. So that's why we chose to pull it. Okay. So any other comments? I just want to add I don't want the context that you provided about um an incoming board voting on someone they don't have experience with. I think that's really important and I think it's a a good change. I can
036remember this is my second to last meeting and I can remember being asked to evaluate and I didn't even feel like I had the knowledge and while you know many of you who spoke are very involved in the community um everyone is not privy to the information we are privy to unless you're on this board and so um I think it's a good thing for the incoming board um and based on the evaluation the effective evaluation that she was given that we are making a change and I think it's good things when we can look at a process and say, you know, this doesn't make a lot of sense. We can do something about it. And Daisy, as you said, if folks want to come and change it later, that's fine, but I don't want
037that context to get lost because I don't view it as a fast one either. I view it as you and Chris entertain conversations and the decision was made. So, thank you. And I don't want it to be said that we're doing this based on her annual review because we're not. It is a decision that you guys have been discussing prior to doing her review. So, it has nothing to do with not the only factor. Right. Correct. Right. And I don't want it to be that this was something that has been discussed for a year or was a conditionary on performance because it wasn't. This is something you guys brought up before we even brought up her review because I brought it up to Chris saying maybe we should do a review prior to the board
038changing. that that was actually in the email uh stated in the email that I had sent to everybody in regards to the evaluation that that that's what the there was those were some of the parameters that we were going to do where we're going to consider doing in regards to doing the evaluation before we exited just because again it was it's not a good place to put a board in especially when they haven't worked directly with the superintendent for a whole year and then expect her to expect them to evaluate. It's not fair to them and it's not fair to superend. These are two different situations though. The review was great. It got completed. I think it was great that we did it prior to the new board. This is a totally different separate situation,
039not connected. So, I don't think we need to keep talking about her review in conjunction with the days that are being given. That's fair. Thank you. All right. Any other questions, comments, or concerns? Venty. No. All right. All right. Um Okay. With that, it is recommended that the board of education will approve the amendment to the 2024 2026 superintendent employment contract to add the allocation of additional sick days. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Roll call. Steve, no. Ariel Owens, yes. Christopher Boyce, yes. Stacy Ramirez, yes. Dante Binham, yes. Amanda Heares, no. Thank you. Next up is uh fiscal year old business um fiscal year 2024 2025 limitation of administrative cost waiver process. This is an action item. It is recommended that the board of education consider approval of the limitation of administrative cost
040waiver as presented. Is there a motion? So move. Second. Roll call. Myers. Yes. Ariel Owens. Yes. Christopher Boyce. Yes. Stacy Ramirez. Yes. Dante Binham. Yes. Harness. Yes. Thank you. Item B, 2024 2025 2026 unaffiliated benefits summary. This is an action item. It is recommended that the board of education approve the unaffiliated salary and benefits recommendation for the 2025 2026 fiscal year as attached. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Roll call. Ariel Owens. Yes. Christopher Boy. Yes. Dy Ramirez. Yes. Bum. Yes. Amanda Hearnes. No C buyers. No. Thank you. Item C,ou Network for college success Chicago freshman on track PD. This is an action item. It is recommended that the board of education Oh, let me see. I apologize. This just Okay. It is recommended that the board of education approve this request to renew
041ourou for the continued partnership with the network for college success university of Chicago. Is there a motion? So move. Second. Roll call. Christopher Boyce, yes. Dyier Ramirez, yes. Dante Binham, yes. Amanda Heares, yes. Steve Buyers, I just have a question. When did this come up for information? I don't have it from our last meeting or the meeting before that. And it's action here. Sorry. Yeah. Did we? Maybe I messed up. Yeah. Let me just check really quick. Two weeks. Two weeks ago. Two meetings ago. Two meetings ago. Oh, yeah. Because we had the special on the first. Yes. Two meetings ago. Oh, that was the one I wasn't here for. Yeah. I said, uh, yes. Yes. Okay. Is that it, Jackie? Just double checking. Yep. Okay. I'm sorry. Um, okay. Item D, DHS, FFA, FFA,
042National Convention, request for overnight travel. This is an action item. It is recommended that the board of education approve the DH DHS FFA to attend the Illinois FFA convention to June on June 10 through the 12th, 2025 in Springfield, Illinois. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Roll call. Daisy, yes. Bino, yes. Yes. Steve Buyers, yes. Ariel, yes. Christopher Boyce, yes. Thank you. Item E, courageous principal leadership development program. This is an action item. It is recommended that the board of education approve the administr administration to attend the courageous principal professional development at the Deote campus from June 6th through June 9th, 2025. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Roll call. Vante Bum. Yes. Vanda Harness. Yes. Steve Buyers. Yes. Ariel Owens. Yes. Christopher Rose. Yes. Jac, yes. Thank you. Item F, bid results.
043Education center parking lot replacement. This is an action item. It is recommended that the board of education approve the alternate bid for the replacement of the education center parking lot um contracting company Decal Illinois in the amount of 443,973 with 91 cents. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Roll call. He harnesses. No. Steve Myers, yes. Ariel Owens, yes. Christopher Boyce, yes. Daisy Ramirez, yes. Dante Linham, yes. Thank you. New business. Item A, student discipline, student number 041525A. This is an action item. It is recommended that the that the board of education uphold a suspension for student number 041525A as presented. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Roll call. Steve Buyers. Yes. Ariel Owens. Yes. Christopher Boyce. Yes. Acires? Yes. By Amanda Heares? Yes. Thank you. Item B, student discipline. Student number 041525B. This
044is an action item. It is recommended that the board of education approve the recommendation for expulsion and advance as presented. Is there a motion? So move. Second. Ro calloff. C. Buyers. Yes. Ariel Owens. Yes. Christopher Boy. Yes. Stacy Maris. Yes. By Yes. Amanda Harnesses. Yes. Thank you. Item C. DHS girls volleyball request for overnight out ofstate travel. Presented by Dr. Larson. Good evening. So, we have a few dates for our volleyball team and then the next one we have uh boys soccer. So, girls volleyball is requesting to go on an overnight trip. One of the trips is going to be July 16th that uh and July 17th. Um they will be attending Leaport Indiana Dunes Operation Center. So, this gives the girls a chance to go play some teams, get some pre-season um preseason play
045and bond and spend the night. Um, the other one is in Oh, sorry. It's the same. Uh, oh, now you're you're I'm talking about volleyball. Okay. Sorry. Trying to jump to soccer. Nope. Not jumping into soccer yet. The next date would be Cedar Point Sports Center. So, that is the next weekend for Sanduski, Ohio. I apologize. Okay. And the fiscal impact, I'm going to get to that piece as well. Um, obviously these things come with a cost. We try to cover with the activity fees. However, since it is um during the summertime, uh each athlete that will be attending is $120 per athlete. However, they'll be responsible for $75 of that cost and then volleyball will be covering the rest of that piece. Okay. Any questions? Any questions? Okay. Consensus to bring this back. Yes.
046Yes. Thank you. Thank you. All right. item now item soccer DHS boys soccer overnight out of state travel request. This is an information item brought to us by Dr. Larson. All right. Thank you again. So this is soccer. So our soccer program for boys. Two out of state tournaments uh and games during this during the summer. So obviously same same intentions for the for the ladies with volleyball. Um this one's in the Quad Cities for in Iowa. The first one is uh June 27th and the 28th. The cost is going to be $115 per player. Uh the players cover the cost. That includes the tournament fee, food and hotel. Um and so that's Bentonorf, Iowa. The other one is the Indiana friendly and that's June 16th or the alternate date for June 23rd. That cost
047is $50 per team and our program and activity account will cover the cost. I'm just going to preface with all of the sports, we do make sure that if anybody needs anything covered that it is open to come to our offices and talk about the financial fiscal impact. So, I just want to make that clear. Okay. Any questions about that? Okay. Sorry about that. You were you adding something? Any questions on that? [Laughter] Thank you. All right. Consensus to bring it back. Yes. Thank you. All right. Item E, intergovernmental agreement with the city of Decal for school resource officers. Um, this is an information item by Mr. Matthew. Oh. Oh, just you. Okay. Miss, Miss Sha, let's all welcome. Good evening. I'm bringing forth the information item for the intergovern intergovernmental agreement with the city
048of Dalb for school resource officers uh for a 5-year term. The IG is for the most part the same with the exception of a few changes. Um one of the changes being the addition of uh elementary school with the opening of Mitchell. So it's going from six elementary schools to seven. The second change um be an addition of language adding that if there was an officer assignment change, any district property would be returned to the district. And the third, the elimination of the district's contribution to two additional vehicles which was part of the prior contract. That that's about it. Um any questions? Um so this is probably less of a question for you, probably more on the administrative side. Um so I attended a city council meeting last night. Um Dr. Garcia Sanchez and some
049of the city council members in their ending comments had brought up some of their issues what they feel is a code of conduct that we are not living up to that was set in place when we started this contract. Now obviously that was just last night at the city council meeting. So, I don't know if that's kind of worked its way, but do we know I guess what those potential what what they're meaning by that? And I guess could you explain if you know what this code of conduct is that we have in place with them. I I wouldn't I'm I'm not quite sure what that alludes to. I will say that if it's um the in the contract what it said it was the in the initial implementation of it. So because that is
050no longer it's no longer in the initial implementation phase that was removed other than that um there is no other changes to it right so we're still implementing it but it's not no it is no longer an initial implementation so is it an issue or an initial no I just know that some of them were raising the question pretty much I guess kind of what it sounded like was if they're not using the SRO's for what they were intended for. Do we really need to? And then essentially the city said that will be addressed at the next council meeting or something. So I don't So uh well we have one actually in the room uh and I'm sure that I'm I'm not sure if you want to stand up and say anything but uh so
051our school resource officers have been placed in our buildings for the purposes of making connections with students maintaining safety and security and then also just ensuring the calm and safe uh culture that we want to maintain. Their job is not code of conduct, right? That's our job. The rest of us, that's what we do. What they do is that they enforce the connectedness and and sense of belonging that the uh that the police department does need to bring to ensure that there's a sense of calmness and a sa and a sense of safety in the building. And then I guess my final question onto another kind of topic. So, we've got two at the high school, one at both middle schools, and then one for all of the elementary schools in the district. Now, no
052rocket scientists here, but one person when we've got buildings from Malta to Courtland to the north side of town, I guess only having one officer for every elementary school in the district concerns me. So, I do need that schools. I can speak to um the SRO's are not actually you do not have jurisdiction over Malta and Courtland. So the seven schools that are referenced are within the city limits. um they do help with drills and and safety and security measures in those schools and I'm sure would I can't speak for the city but respond if there was an emergency in conjunction with this the departments that do have jurisdiction but um it is for purposes of the elementary schools within the city limits so I guess they do I'm sorry I'm just going to add
053so there are programs that our SRO's do you know like off kind of officer friendly kind of thing that SRO still do that in Courtland and Malta But the only thing they don't have is jurisdiction over anything that may be illegal or a crime or whatever. So our county folks actually do that work. Uh the other thing is that we don't really have those kind of numbers at the elementary school when it comes to children. Like there might be an instance that we might need to bring somebody in and that can pretty much handle it. If the SRO that handles the elementary school isn't there, then one of the others will step in to support. But um you know sometimes usually it's the adults that cause the problem for us to have a need at
054the elementary school and in that case they'll pull in each other as needed. Right. So if the question is why don't we have is it fair for one SRO to handle that? Um I think that for me it's not it's not it's not to me it's not fairness. To me, it's more of a I'm maybe not looking at it the right way, but like to me, I also view an SRO not just as a relationship builder, but I also view that as a shield. Like I know if something goes wrong in our building, there is a person who I know is in that building ready to die before anything happens to our students. And if they're in Brooks and something happens at Founders, I mean, that's if it were personally up to me, I'll be
055honest with you, I'd put an SRO in every building in the district. I'd have no quarrel with it. Now, obviously, the city and the district do not agree with that because we don't do that. But to me, our first job is to keep our students safe. Sure. And with the current climate world we live in and our employees. Yes. Like that is and to me an SRO is a way to keep our students and our staff safe. I totally understand that that is one of the ways that we can do that. But we have we have security assistants. We also have assistants. We have administrators and we have a number of other individuals within our building that although may not have the title of that but all of us as adults that is part of
056our that is part of the work that we do. Uh granted I may not be a a carrier of things but there are other things that all of us can actually do to maintain safety and security in the building and it is our the expectation for these folks to actually maintain code of conduct right and the level of respect that needs to happen. Of course, there's always instances where that not may not be the case. And again, that's why we have SRO's and up until this moment, knock on wood, uh we haven't really needed an abundance of additional folks and uh you know, they've been very supportive of each other and our staff in general has been. So, I appreciate the the where you're coming, the intent of that. Uh but again, I feel like
057that we have the folks that we need to do that. Um, you know, could we always use a few more? Sure. But I don't know if that would be an SRO, right? So, I I respectfully understand, but may not agree wholeheartedly. And who knows, right? Again, maybe that discussion may come up at a later time once, you know, depending on what the needs are at a later time based on where the district is at and, you know, with the new opening of more the school and all those needs. But, thank you for that information. Um, and thank you for everybody, the work that everybody does. Thank you for obviously bringing back that to light, especially with our securities and all the support that they offer our SRO as well and all of our staff members
058that also help everybody else. Um, any other questions? Okay, consensus to bring this back. Yes. Thank you. All right. Item S, school violence protection program SVP grant through US DOG, Department of Justice. This is an information item brought to us by Mr. Ben fail and like this a lot of people. Oh, and Emma. Okay. I'm like looking and I'm like, okay, there's a lot of people in this title. Okay. Titles. Okay. So, I'm going to say that before you actually start, I want to make sure that everybody knows that Emma is our grant writer. Fabulous grant writer who's the lady that finds us the money to be able to do the perfect and the conferences. So, we are using we are using grant money to attend to those things. So shout out to Emma. I
059So thank you Emma. Okay, now you can talk about this grant that also Emma is a big part in writing. Well, thank you Emma. We finally put a face to to a lot of the person that brings a lot of money to us. So we can provide a lot of these opportunities. So thank you. Okay. So um this is a grant we've actually gone after multiple years and have not been successful. Uh this is our third attempt at trying to get the grant. It comes from the Department of Justice. It's the community oriented policing services grant, cops grant. Um, and again, it allows local and state governments to apply for these grants to offset costs of putting in additional safety and security measures within the buildings. uh been working quite a while now with Matt
060McIntyre in order to sort of outline whatever the best sort of next steps are for the district in order to secure uh our buildings and also make sure that our students and staff feel safe. All this again aligns with the IGA with the city also the IGA with the SRO's. So all these things kind of interconnect intertwine along with safety task force, district threat uh assessment committee um and the command team. So there's there's multiple groups that all work together on this. Um but ultimately what you guys need to know is that it is a matching grant. So that's why it's coming forth to you is that there is a certain amount of money that needs to come from the district if indeed we're awarded the funds that we would also need to match. And
061I'll let Emma talk. Yeah. And I should add that um it is dependent on it's a 25% of what we are granted. So let's say 100,000. We would have to match 25,000. It's not guaranteed that we're going to be awarded our full ask, but we are asking for the total amount. Um this is a very competitive grant. Um, so that's another reason why we're asking it was we've been working with a consultant and he has worked with a lot of districts on this grant. Um, he also comes from an SRO background, so he has a lot of knowledge in that regard. Um, and he recommended that we ask for the full amount. So the long and the short of it is even if it comes out of the local funds, these are funds we are
062going to have to utilize anyways to offset costs of some of the the rotation cycles of like security cameras, door entry systems, servers, storage, all those sort of things. So it was going to be spent either way. Our hopes is that we can just use it for matching and then be able to actually do what we need to do to make things whole. Question. Sure. Contract with the city with the SRO spending that money. Would that be considered in kind contribution towards this grant? So, it would have to be actual items. Okay. So, things like cameras and radios and that kind of thing. Yep. That would match. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, that's awesome. Any questions? I think I mean I think it's great. I mean, and if it allows hopefully, I mean, hopefully one we're
063granted the grant. And if we're granted the grant, you know, 500,000 versus the 170, I mean, that we were already, like you stated, we were pro more than likely already going to spend to up whether it's update our systems or add additional things to the things that we already have a need for. I think it's great adding to what you were just talking about. I have a question. Can you say a little bit more about the violence protection piece? like do you know anything about the framework that this grant would implement? Yeah, so almost everything we're putting into place is in order to mitigate something from occurring. So it's it's in order to reduce the chances and so there's kind of like multi-tered systems like kind of an approach to it. So again it's like
064you don't put in security cameras to then potentially just view whatever an incident was. We're trying to put in security cameras have enhanced mitigation so that way we can actually try to mitigate something before it happens. Um some of our other systems also tie into this as well. Um we've talked about some of the cyber security things like cloud access security brokers which is actually something like that helps mitigate students when they're on their Chromebooks and they're talking about self harm that people get alerts like and things like that. So all these sort of systems sort of interconnect and intertwine so that way we're mitigating issues before they become much larger. And since you brought it up, can you kind of explain what you just said about emails that may come through if something like
065self harm is indicated within the email that might be forwarded to someone else? Yeah. So um absolutely all all of our onetoone devices all of our students devices um have the ability to basically uh track what is said and what is done on those devices and specifically their key words or situations that get flagged. So depending upon the severity of the situation or the conversation it then leads to multi-ter uh contacts. So if a student is talking very specifically or substantively about self harm, there are people who are notified real time about that situation. So that way it can be mitigated. If it's severe enough, then there's call chains and things like that even on the weekend, even at 2 in the morning. So um and I don't know if Donna is still here, but
066uh DHS, you know, has get some of these. So the building admin and obviously at 2 am there isn't a whole lot of people answering. It will trickle down. So that way the uh the police get notified so there can be welfare checks. I also appreciate the reminder that was uh that comes with the registration whenever you register a child that comes with um giving you or providing you up they're allowing the families to sign up to receive like updates on what your child is searching. I think that that's also a great feature. I've had it with my daughter or I signed up to receive updates since she was in elementary school. Um, and now she's in high school and I still get them, right? Um, and it's just brief summaries, but I think it's
067great that we're able to do that and track those things, especially for the safety of the children. Giving parents agency to make decisions over their household and what's happening on the Chromebook is important. Mhm. So parents, if you have not signed up for it, when the registration portion of of your registration happens, it will prompt you to do that. Um, and I highly encourage you to, you know, consider it if you have not because it's definitely an added feature that that is great to have access to. But any questions to it? No consensus to bring this back? Yes. Thank you. And thanks again for the work that's done with applying for grants. All right. Item G, PD request. Uh, W is it WIDA? WEDA. WEDA confided annual conference October 27th through the 30th, 2025. This
068is an information item brought to us by Miss uh Sarah Montgomery. Hello. It's that time of year getting ready to wind down for the end of this year and planning for next. Um, this PD will take place next year. So the cost that you see there is for the registration fee. So we come asking permission that we can pay for the registration fee in advance out of the teacher vacancy grant. Okay. Any questions about that? All right. Consensus to bring this back. Yes. Thank you. Item H, request for proposal solar energy project. This is an information item brought to us by Miss Tammy Carson and Mr. Beno and team. before she gets started. I'm very excited about this potential opportunity for the district as as are we. Uh thank you for the opportunity to bring
069this forth. We have been considering solar energy and solar panels for many many years now. Ben and I have met with numerous vendors over the years or companies that have presented many different ways and in this past year we kind of took a look at it from a fresh set of eyes and talk to a few vendors to say okay what what are the opportunities out there. There's um two different options specifically to look at as well as various costs to look at for that. But there's some tremendous benefits that we could take forth in our district from a cost savings as well as being uh more environmentally friendly than our current current system. Um we uh have chosen Nania Group to assist us with the process of the collecting RFPs as well as the
070bid results and reviewing contracts and negotiations. Nania has been with us since 2021. We partnered with them at that point to bid out our energy product products being electricity and our gas and they have been extremely helpful in that process and helping us manage not just the bid process but the ongoing management of our our energy. Since that time we have had a total cost avoidance between natural gas and electricity of over $900,000 with their assistance. So it seemed like a logical relationship to partner with them on this project. um and move forward. So, at that, I'm gonna answer Chris's question. So, since we did enter into like a, if I'm not mistaken, I think I remember it was last year, we entered into like a long-term electric contract essentially, like, hey, we're going to
071buy it at this rate. Now, I'm assuming when a business signs a contract like that, they're expecting you to buy their electricity at a certain price for the next out amount of years. So if we come in and switch to solar and quit buying from them, is there something in that contract where they're like, "Guess what? You still have to buy this electricity from us for the next x amount of years at this price?" Great questions. And with that, I'm going to introduce our two representatives from Nania. I have Aaron Raptory and Becky Thompson that I'm going to introduce. They'll be able to answer that question and then they're going to quickly go through the presentation and answer any questions you might have. Yes. Thank you. Is it do I use it or you can
072use your trick? That's right. Oh wow. Okay. Do this so that we can see. Hello everyone. Hello. It's great to see you. Uh I may be a familiar face for some of you. I'm Becky Thompson. Been around for a few years as Sammy mentioned. And yeah, I'm usually here to talk about gas and electricity contracts. And I remember you guys all staying awake during my presentation. So thank you for that. Uh so tonight we're going to talk solar. To answer your question right up front, uh that's an excellent point. So yes, when you enter into a supply agreement, they are going to look at your previous usage and they are going to estimate that yes, you're probably going to use the same amount over the course of the contract, right? So you do have a
073commitment to that. With solar, this is not something that even if you decided to move forward with this that this would be installed immediately. This would take time and over the course of time. Um, additionally, solar is typically not 100% offset. So you would still have supply that you need to purchase from the grid. Uh, thank you. Yep. Uh and so for the obligation and for what we're going to be discussing here, I wouldn't anticipate that there would be a material change where you would be subject to early uh termination penalties. And that would be something in our experience. A lot of people are doing solar even if they're in the middle of a contract. As long as you are letting the supplier know so they can offset uh and make accommodations for that supply
074that you have already committed to, we have yet to see where someone's actually been penalized and and received a fee as a result. With these being large construction projects, you typically have a year or 18 months advanced notice that you can notify them of. It's an excellent consideration, certainly something that should be part of the discussion. So, with that, I'll kick off. We have a lot of slides here. You'll see that's two of 28, but a lot of them are pictures and we will go quickly and then leave time for questions. Uh, but this just kind of wanted to show you the cycle of what we do at NIA Energy as being your third party consultant. Um, we focus and primarily our relationship has been on driving down costs through your supply contracts, how you
075fix those costs and how you pay your your monthly utilities, but it really is cohesive of of a lot of things. It's not just the rate that you pay, but it's how much energy you actually consume at your facilities. So, we're always thinking and strategizing of ways that we can combine um multiple avenues of reducing your energy cost long term, not just over the next three-year contract that you sign. Uh, so with that, we do have the good news. Tammy stole my thunder a little bit, but it's really really great. So I I mean, you all pay your bills at home, right? You pay, you pay Nyore, and so you've seen where there's been a lot of variance over the last few years. Um, but in the strategic thinking and the long-term contracts that you
076have negotiated, it is close to almost a million dollars of cost avoided versus if you had done nothing and just been with the utility. Uh, why is this important? Well, energy costs are continuing to remain volatile and change a lot. And so I threw this in here because this actually impacts everyone in this room who has a Cometed account, even at their home or their small business. There is a portion of your energy cost that is going up by 800% in June. Uh this is going to impact everyone. Uh no one is sub uh is really um subject to exemption from this even if you are in a fixed supply contract. Uh so this is not your entire bill going up 800%. This is a portion of your bill going up 800%. It's roughly about
077a 35% increase that you could probably expect over the next 12 months effective June 1. So what does this indicate to us? That even if you are strategic in how you purchase your energy, there are going to be outside factors that are going to impact your total operating budget cost from energy cost perspective that are outside of your control that are impacting everyone. And the factors that are driving these costs up are here to stay. Think of econ 101. We have a demand that is outpacing the available supply. And these are not things that are changing uh quickly, right? We have data centers that are being built. We have electric vehicles coming online. We have manufacturing becoming more automated. So we have more and more electrical demand that is being needed of our infrastructure. At
078the same time, we have coal plants that are retiring and renewable energy, even though it's coming online, it is not keeping pace currently. So all of this to say that there are expected cost increases that are going to impact your district and even you per uh personally. And so when we think about energy cost management, these are some of the factors we take into account. Yes, you have great supply contracts in place. What else? And so with that, we want to dive into some of those other pieces that we can affect. And tonight, that will namely be in the uh view of on-site solar. So behind the meter solar for your districts. So how do we play a role in this? We are not solar developers. We do not push solar panels. We are here
079uh for a financial metric to show you some examples of what could be achieved and what could that financial impact be for for DAL school district. So our process is very similar to what we do on the supply side. We are a third party. We are unbiased, right? We are here to represent the district through a procurement process. Uh act as a liaison uh between you and the solar community. um oversee the competitive RFP process and help you determine if it even makes sense for solar for your facilities if it does and if it doesn't. We I can speak to us that we disqualify more people than we qualify for because solar is a long-term electrical investment 20 to 25 year commitment. So, we take it seriously that you are good stewards of your taxpayers
080dollars. And if it makes sense, we will tell you and if it doesn't, we will also tell you. Uh so tonight what we are here to share and I'm going to introduce Aaron who is our solar guru. Uh he has actually conducted a feasibility study of what a solar array could look like at your at each facility, the size of that and then the potential dollar impact. With that, Aaron, I will introduce you. All right. Thank you, Becky. Um so I'm going to move pretty quickly through the solar studies. I just want to uh make sure we're all on the same pace. The studies are very like preliminary analyses just to give you an idea of what a solar project might look like. This is not like a final, you know, engineered solution. We're not
081asking the board to make a decision on a particular product. Decisions about like actual product design, project designs and things like that come much later in the process. So, this is just to give you an idea of what a project could potentially achieve from a conservative uh standpoint. Oh, there we go. So at the high school as we have a you can see the uh the aerial view for all of our pictures. There's some blue uh noted those are solar panels. So the high school we have a rooftop solar array. Uh this is our largest solar array of all the sites we looked at. This is over two megawws. It's 2,000 kilowatts. This would offset about three4s of the school's annual electricity needs. Um which is this is a really large energy user. So three4s
082of a very large number is is a really large number. It's pretty good. Yeah. It's really good. Um for Clinton Rosette, another rooftop solar array. This would offset uh twothirds of the school's annual uh electricity needs. Uh Huntley Middle School. This is I think this is the second largest if I remember right. U this would offset a little under half. May seem like not much compared to the last couple, but this is still in our experience. You know, again, this is this is still very much worth considering. Um Courtland Elementary. This one is one of the more rural schools and so we did look at a ground mount solar array. You can see it there on the southeast portion of the property. Again, not ask not not um looking for final decisions about that or
083anything like that, but that's just kind of again showing you what's possible. One of the advantages of going to the ground is we're not constrained to the only available roof space. And so you can see you can offset 100% of the school's annual electricity needs uh through what we show there. Uh, Founders Elementary, another roof mount array and almost twothirds of the school's annual electricity needs. Uh, Gwindelyn Brooks, the rooftop array, you had three4s of the school's annual electricity needs. Um, Jefferson Elementary had 100% of the school's annual electricity needs through rooftop. Um, a lot of times for rooftop and schools, a lot of times we're looking at, you know, maybe 20%, maybe 30%. So this is this is quite a this is a pretty large portfolio of of large annual offsets that that would
084be possible. Lincoln Elementary another 100% offset through uh through a rooftop array. Uh Little John about 34s. You see we did take into account some tree shading. If you wanted to cut down those trees you probably would be closer to 100% or so. Um again not not looking you know for any final decisions on that or anything but uh oh what did I do? Um not too much. Um but so so we did take into account shading assuming you left the trees as is. Malta is another more rural. Um when I say you know rural what I'm really referring to is like are there adjoining residences that would be that would you know have the solar array in their in their view of their property. Um usually community members don't don't really like that. So
085um that would not be the case here. So again, you can offset 100% of the school's annual electricity needs. And academy, we're at less than half now. Again, that might seem like not much, but it's still in our experience certainly worth worth looking at. Uh Tyler Elementary, you're at about half of the uh of the school's electricity needs. And then just a couple notes on some additional sites. We didn't do an analysis for Mitchell just because there's not historical energy use available for that. If we were to oversee an RFP process on your behalf, we probably would recommend including Mitchell. you know, a newly constructed building with a brand new roof can be kind of prime um considerations for solar. So, we we would likely recommend putting that in the RFP. And then the administration
086and transition buildings because of their small size, we didn't include in the study because they have relatively small impact on the overall project financials. If there's an appetite there, we'd recommend including as an add alternate option. So, you can get the kind of, you know, see what your options are before you make any final decisions there. Um the interesting part uh I think is the next well actually I think it's all interesting but maybe most interesting is the financial summary. Right before we we do that I want to outline um we're recommending that the district consider the project through what's called a power purchase agreement. This is where you partner with uh a third party solar company. It would be the company would win the whoever wins the RFP process. They would offer a power
087purchase agreement. This is where they would install these solar arrays at no upfront cost to the district. There'd be no debt obligation, nothing like that. What the district would be agreeing to do is buy the power from the solar arrays over a predetermined contract length. And usually these are pretty lengthy contracts of 20 or 25 years. Uh what's key is we'd want that energy rate that they sell you for the solar power to be lower than what you're currently paying for grid power. Um that energy rate that you're paying for that solar power would be your only fee for the program. So there'd be no other, you know, all the all the all the all the fees for the program be wrapped up in that in that energy rate, including operations and maintenance. So that
088solar provider be responsible for doing operations and maintenance as well. Um they'd also be responsible for securing all the incentives for the program. And that's important because the federal incentives um we I don't know if we want to go too into that, but like the federal incentives um are available in the form of a tax credit that otherwise wouldn't be available to the district. Um there are some direct payment provisions of that but we think those are likely to go away in the near term. So that's why we're not recommending that. So we are recommending pursuing it through this method where you can capture that tax credit by partnering with this third party. The energy production is fully the responsible of that provider. Just think if they don't if they don't the systems don't produce
089the energy that they expected that they can't sell you that power, right? And so there's an alignment of interest here that we'd like to see in in these types of programs. So, kind of last bullet here is more of a takeaway that you have some long-term cost savings without having to put up any initial capital. And as far as our expectations on financials, um that uh that left column is kind of redundant or unnecessary. Just reminding you that there's no no upfront cost for this power purchase agreement. We have an indic what we call an indicative rate of 6.44 cents per kilowatt hour that you pay for solar power. What you're currently paying now for grid power is about 9 cents per kilowatt hour. And like Becky mentioned earlier, we're just expecting that number to
090go up, right? Um this would be fixed for 25 years. The other thing I say is again our as kind of your sort of like we're supposed to be we're advocates for you, right? We sit on your side of the table and so our attempt here is to be conservative in this number. We've just recently, for example, ran an RFP for a similar size program and we were able to secure a two cent fixed rate for 20 years. And so we don't want to overstate expectations and get you, you know, we we'd rather be conservative in our estimates at this point, have the RFP process improve those numbers and not not move the other way. So just to clarify, um that rate is fixed with nothing else because I know at least residential when you
091get solar panels, they're like it's this fixed rate plus 2.9% every year. Yeah, that's correct. This um correct in this scenario. Yep. it to be fixed and the and the recent example that I cited also was fixed and we had a we also ran another power purchase agreement procurement recently for a much smaller program we're able to get less than 4 cents fixed for 20 years as well so we feel very confident that we can do better than what we're currently indicating here through a competitive process um so year one savings we're estimating at about $200,000 or so and then over the 25-year program assuming a 2% inflationary adjustment for grid power um which again should be conservative just inflationary pressure alone right we think it'd go up at least 2% on average per year
092be looking at around $8 million or so in total program savings and so if we were able to secure 2 cents right 4 cents whatever that's just additional savings beyond what we've listed here um and we just have a couple of of last slides here uh as far as like some additional kind of non-financial considerations related to the program as in terms of educational opportunity for students in my experience a lot of times Sometimes you'll get some students that are really excited about these solar programs. Um, some schools potentially you can bring it into the curriculum if there's if there's interest there. Otherwise, just if there's very motivated science clubs or something like this, there's opportunities to bring bring that into their um, you know, into their programs. And then there's opportunities for like dashboards
093and things you can put on your public website. Again, you can do kids can kind of play around some things there. So, if I just may add, um I think that one of the one of the biggest pieces, although I love the savings and all of that, uh is the connection that we're intentionally making with our students in our curriculum around steam, right? And so, because we are moving towards a steam district, being a steam district, this makes a definite connection. Our students can see reality happening at the same time. So, I appreciate that. That is a component of this uh partnership. Yep. And this and you know solar energy is one of the one of it's a fast growing industry. There's a lot of jobs and things like this right so there's something something
094to be said there too. Um the uh the other as far as the envir the positive environmental attributes of the project associated with generating clean energy on site. We have some kind of annual project equivalency cited here. So, um, the one I like to hone in on is one at the bottom in terms of the over 4,000 acres of forest carbon sequestration, right? So, if we have to cut down those two trees, uh, we mentioned earlier, you're still sequestering a lot of carbon, but again, I'm not cutting down those trees. Get the eggs. Um, so just this is the same slide that Becky showed earlier. This is just the next step. If you do decide that you'd like to pursue a program and you'd like to work with us on it, what we would then
095do is oversee a competitive RFP process um and um and solicit proposals. Again, we feel pretty good about the numbers we presented tonight based on similar RFPs that we've ran recently. And so um we then come back in front of you after that process and let you know exactly what to expect through a through a program. Um and then it's just this is my last slide as far as timing. If we were to get the go-ahad from the board to issue the RFP, assuming we did so in May, we'd leave the RFP open for a couple months to make sure we get some good uh qualified proposals. Give us a month or so for proposal evaluations and do some contract negotiations, which is something we also help with, not as a replacement for your legal
096council, which is as a way to supplement it with some solar specific technical expertise. Looking at an award potentially in September, and then assuming a six to seven month lead time or so, you'd be looking at breaking ground maybe in the spring. That'd be a discussion with with administration if you wanted to do some work while school's in session or not. Otherwise, you could delay it all until the summer and looking to likely get the project done next summer. Any questions and Chris Vante? Oh, okay. All right. All right. Thank you for the information presented today. Um consensus to bring this back. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Item I um additional pay for student I mean for student listen to me. Additional pay for school level administrators um school improvement. Um this
097is an information item brought to us by Mr. Wormo and Miss Sarah Montgomery. Good evening. Yep. Good evening everyone. Um really we've been also working with with them on this. Um last year we brought forth to uh the board the proposal to pay our building administrators for additional time that they put into school improvement planning. uh the IQF RS TUV whatever it's like it's a big survey um gathering of it documents it's gathering a lot of information leading book studies leading their school improvement team planning there's just a whole lot to a designation and as they're trying to build up their teams and and get out of designation there's a lot of time that goes into it currently we pay all of our other staff so like our teachers or if if there's an assistant
098on school improvement, instructional assistant or somebody on um the team, we currently pay them as well the hourly rate. So, they're getting paid for the additional work. We recognize it's a lot of work for our administrators. We can actually we could actually split 5%. It's within the guidelines of our grants for district staff and building administrator staff, but we recognize that our building administrator staff, they're the ones in the trenches leading this work. So that money we wanted to allocate to them and not to us. So any questions? Any questions? No consensus to bring this back. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Item J, letter of agreement. Um LO8 IC Tulsa summer hours is an information item brought by Mr. Mahomery and Mr. Billy Wormo. We're tag teaming each one of these. So, I'll
099lead this one. Um, every year around this time of year, actually, this is coming a little bit late. Normally, we do it earlier. We look at what are our summer hour needs from our instructional coaches, our TOSAs, our teachers on special assignments. As you know, throughout the year, we've been doing a lot of work with curriculum adoption and laying the foundations and groundwork for professional development. Our instructional coaches and our TOSAs are instrumental in that work. uh much of these hours will be used at the elementary level of the curriculum work as you're well aware they're doing a lot of work with literacy and then also at the secondary level we will be using some of the hours for um the writing of units and lesson plans for our new amplify as an example also
100with the shift to the new social study standards we've led a lot of work throughout the school year through the PLC model there so really looking to get a leg up through those summer hours and then also facilitating professional development through the summer and to get ready for the gear up of next school year. Okay, any questions about that? No consensus to bring us back? Yes. Thank you. All right. Item L, extended school year staffing request. This is an information item information action item brought to us by Mr. Algurtis. L I think K. Oh my goodness. I totally I just saw Tulsa and I just saw Tulsa to I apologize Kyle. It's been a long day of meeting. All right. Item K, letter of agreement teacher on special assignment summer hours MTSS seal specialist and
101special education facilitators. This is an information item brought by Mr. Kyle Gertis. Thank you. Uh similar to my colleagues over in TNL, we've also um have identified some teachers on special assignment. They would be our and our uh special ed facilitators um that would require um additional work over the summer to help support kind of the ongoing initiatives of the district. Um a little overlap with some of the TNL uh things. So, professional development, our people will be meeting with building teams and administrators to plan out their uh MTSS plans for the upcoming school year. Um, a big lift for our facilitators this summer. Um, both kind of at the end of this school year and then heading into next year. Um, we are going to be cyclally monitored by ISBY next year, which is
102we're going to be on cycle for that. Um, so there's a quite a big lift of prep for us. Um, we would like to kind of go through our own um, kind of processes to kind of prepare for that. So that way when the school year starts next year, we're not trying to do it amid amongst the day-to-day kind of um things that go on during a school day. Um so for those reasons, we're requesting the up to 120 se uh 120 summer hours. Um and the estimated cost for that if all of our uh people use the maximum number of hours would be $86,8749. Uh we're going to pay for this in a combination of um grant funding through idea grant when we write the grant for this coming school year um in addition
103to local funds. And do we know how much is uh would come from the idea grant versus the local funding? So um I'm pretty confident I can get at least half of the cost into the grant. I say pretty confident meaning that we don't have our allocation for next year yet. And that's always kind of like until you get it, you don't get it, right? Um, but what we've kind of been led to believe is that we can expect a similar aotment compared to this year. So, looking at what's in this year's grant, looking at some things that might not live in the grant next year that are no longer needed, um, I was able to kind of calculate at least half of the cost. And in regards to local funding, is it usually like
104out of things that we have the money that we've already allocated like for the upcoming year like in regards to or the estimates that we've got already allocated? Yeah, it would be in speak to that, but yeah, it would be planned for in our budget. Yeah, this uh this is allocated every year because it is a recurring thing. And I just figured I just wanted to put it out there for clarity because, you know, it says it's a combination of both. So, usually people are like, well, what how much is it going to be from this and how much is going to be from that? So I just wanted to you know make it clear that even though the the money that is from local funding or the yeah the local funding sources that that's
105actually money that we've already allocated that's you know for us to use already you know allocated to be used for these purposes it is okay thank you for clarifying that. All right any other questions? He's watching. I know I'm sure he is. But I just wanted I guess to say it openly you know again um any questions about that now. All right consensus to bring this back. Yes. Thank you. Item L, extended school year. Now we're in item L, right? Okay. Item L, extended school year staffing request. This is an item information and action item brought by uh brought to us by Mr. Kyle Gertis. All right. So, this is a request for our upcoming extended school year program which will start in June. Um, as we've kind of navigated from the the kickoff of
106registration, so determining which students qualify, notifying the families, getting the information back whether they're signed up or not, we typically have a lot of flux in terms of like what we know our needs are going to be as we we kind of get final numbers. Um, in working with uh Miss Coleman, our this year's ESY principal, we've kind of identified two more positions that we'd like to add for the coming year. uh one is a uh increase in adaptive PE teacher to kind of provide more of the adaptive PE services to our students and another one would be an office assistant that could help support the multiple locations that we'll be doing our ESY program out of this year. Um knowing that we have a we're going to have an administrator and we're going to
107have some other support, but to have somebody who kind of knows the processes and in ins and outs of how things should be working um would be needed. So, um, in total, the cost would be $6,26,547. This is paid out of local funds. Okay. Any questions about that? All right. Consensus. Oh, no. Action item. Yeah. Sorry. All right. It is recommended that the board of education approved the additional uh staff for the 2024 2025 school year summer program. Is there a motion? Second. Roa, Ariel Owens, yes. Christopher Boyce, yes. Stacy Ramirez, yes. Yes. He harnesses. Yes. Steve Buyers, yes. Thank you. Item M, staffing request 2.0 special education teacher FTE information action item brought to us by Mr. Kyle Gertis. All right. So, um, as we kind of navigated again the end of a school
108year, uh, which in the world of special education, there's a lot of moving pieces with either, um, students qualifying initially or potentially students not no longer qualifying. Um, but probably more impactful is the movement of students amongst their placements. Um, and so within special education, there's a continuum of placements all the way from the least restrictive placement, meaning that you're full 100% in gen ed with some minimal sports to most restricted would be a totally um, self-contained setting away from non-disabled peers and everything that lives in between. What we've noticed um, is we've been monitoring our middle schools with the number of students that require academic intensive programming versus a resource program. And what we've identified is that the numbers this year have grown as they typically do from year uh from the beginning of
109the year to end of the year. Um and we project that we're going to need two more sections of our academic intensive program for our middle schools for next year based on those projections. So the ask is for uh 2.0 special education teachers um that would be able to provide two more sections of our academic intensive program at the middle school level for next year. Um total cost would be um $187,510.94. That's salary benefits and insurance if elected. And we're seeking to do a information action obviously because it's the time for obviously due to time sensitivity with recruitment of teachers for 100%. Yeah, we um you know it's April, but I feel like we're late in the game already, right? We're always feeling a little late. So yeah, information action so we can get the
110positions posted and start the process. Okay. Any questions about that? No. Okay. So, um Okay. It is recommended that the board of education approve the additional addition of 2.0 special education teacher FTE in preparation for the 2025 2026 school year. Is there a motion? Some move. Second. Roll call. Yes. Dy Ramirez. Yes. Binham. Yes. Yes. Steve Buyers? Yes. Ariel Owens? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Item N. Staffing request 1.0 0 FT support specialist and 1.0 FTE RN for Mitchell Elementary. This is an information item brought to us by Mitra Sales. Good evening. So coming before you are two unaffiliated positions for Mitchell Elementary School. These are uh positions that were part of our projections for opening the new school but had yet to come to you for approval. One being an unaffiliated registered nurse. um
111that is someone who will provide health services to the students and then the other is the IT support specialist. This individual individual will be part of Ben's team but will be used um to service Mitchell Elementary. Okay. I have like a long-term question that's kind of relevant to this. Okay. as I'm just thinking with the long-term AP cyber security within within the DCTA contract. Is there anything that I guess would forbid someone like an IT specialist who's an unaffiliated staff member hypothetically from say 95% of the day their district but then hey you have credentials to teach cyber security where they could then go to a building and teach a course since it's easier to hire an IT specialist than it would be to hire a single teacher who has a cyber security background. I
112guess just for clarity. So he's speaking towards the CTE component of AI technology and those kinds of things. So it's a possibility. Um CTE does take um professionals in various industries and bring them into the classroom to be able to teach. If that were the case, I mean that that would be something we'd have to look at. we'd have to find somebody that had the um skill set in order to get licensed or get a PEL through Isby unless that person came to us like that and then at that time we would look at what our allocations are and determine if we needed to how we could do that. It may or may not work because of the needs of both positions. Um but it's it's a possibility. CTE um allows creativity like that. Um
113so it would not be an IT support specialist. We actually have people on the network security team that would probably do portions of that or there would be different individuals doing a portions of that. Um because we do have members of our team who are involved in MSI sack and infregard. So between department of homeland security and the FBI. So we already have people on staff who could definitely address that. But the flip of this is is that the the uh curricular platform that we use at the high school for CT is called code HS. It already has AP computer or AP computer science course as well as has AP cyber security already in that platform. We already have a CTE teacher who is a DCTA member who is already involved in that platform. So,
114it's actually more of a conversation I'll have with Sarah and members of DHS admin to see if we can align it and how it goes about in terms of um uh putting that on the roster of course selection and seeing if there's enough students who have an active interest. We have had students in the past who have had an active interest in cyber security. it is kind of a self-paced course and they kind of did it as a um on their own and then had the DCTA member kind of overseeing making sure they were making adequate progress. That person actually works for the NSA now. So we have had students who have gone through the same coursework. Um but that's not to say that there can't be somebody from the technology department who also assists
115and also remember that KEC also provides a certain level of that at KEC. So our juniors and seniors also have that opportunity to go there as well. Okay, awesome. Any questions about that? Additional or additional questions about it? Okay. Consensus to bring this back. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Item Oh, staffing request additional addition of 1.0 FTE restorative deemed for Mitchell Elementary. This is an item brought to us. This is my Miss Teacher Salis, but no, Mr. Kyle Gertis. Never mind. Refreshing. I apologize. Refreshing. Yes, Mr. Kyle Gers. All right. Good evening again. Um I'm actually really really excited to talk about this request for an additional restorative dean for Mitchell Elementary School. Um before I get into that, just to kind of give a little backstory. Um it was a few school years ago where
116we um requested and added a few restorative deans. Um it really supported the district's kind of strategic um goal, which is to implement restorative practices across all 12 of our schools. Um, I'm really I'm excited of the the the return on that investment that we've seen in in a lot of ways in our district and how it's helped the schools that our restorative deans have supported. Um, with that said, we know there's a lot of work to do uh because addressing student um conduct through a restorative process is something that isn't going to be accomplished in a couple years. Um, every year what we do is we look to try and identify our school's needs based on some some data sets. Um, we try to look at common data pieces or assessment pieces across schools
117that we can then compare not to say this school is better than this school or anything like that. But really in student services, what we're trying to do is project the best we can the amount of risk that students could have negative outcomes. And that could mean a lot of different things because that tells us where we need to maybe funnel some different supports or allocate supports differently based on that. Um and so what we've done again this year is we've kind of looked at across our elementary schools with the addition of Mitchell. Uh we kind of looked at all of the um data that's going to pull into those schools for next year. So we look at where are the kids now, where are they projected to go next year and then all those
118data pieces that are tied with those students that paint a picture of need. We have been able to project on that ne the school for next year. So for example, we can say Jefferson Elementary has a need of this this year. Next year we can say we project they're going to have this need based on students that should go there based on their attendance boundaries. And we know a lot can change between now and then. Students register, they move, things like that. But it's um the best way that we've been able to use data to project and we found that it's been a pretty um valid measure for us on the face meaning that at the end of a school year we sit back and be like hey do we feel like these schools needed
119more than these schools and we found that it's been a pretty accurate predictor for us. So with that said what we've done is we kind of looked at our schools for next year and included Mitchell in that calculation. And we also kind of looked at of the schools that we've had restorative deans in place for more than a year. What have we seen as kind of the impact of that? And then is it something that we feel should be reallocated to Mitchell with our current FTE or do we have does it make sense for us to add another one because the needs based on our data suggest that it's probably needed. Um, let me hit some highlights. And I do want to point out we have um Sur here with us today. Um, who's one
120of the OG uh um restorative deans and um you know, not to minimize um any of the other restorative deans, but I think Sur's had a pretty strong impact on her school community um in the work that she's been able to do over the last couple years. So, for example, for that, by the way, at Founders Elementary School, um there was a decrease dramatically of 643 referrals in 2223 compared to 206 in 2324, the first year of our dean. Now, you might be like, whoa, what happened? Did you guys shred referrals? Like, no, we didn't. But what Sur and her team were able to do, and I'm going to not give you justice here, but basically was to really look in depth at why. What is going on here? Where are our pressure points? where
121do we need to provide the support? So part of that layer of support was actually working with our teachers to understand what is what is the behavior that should be managed in the classroom versus what what is a behavior that that student needs to be removed down to the office. When a student gets removed to the office, it takes away that educational opportunity. It takes away time from the person that you know processes with the student and then has to get the student back in. So I think a lot of the work that Sur and her team did was to identify the need there then support those teachers in the classroom with training with different pieces so they can grow in their craft. And there's the other part of it too is there are still
122students that need that restorative conversation that restorative consequence that takes time that takes expertise it takes the ability to pull different people together to have those conversations. Our restorative deans have really allowed uh all three schools Malta being the newest uh school with a dean. first year was this year. It's allowed them the capacity and the time to slow down as needed and address those things when they need to address them. Doesn't mean that hey all of a sudden we don't have any, you know, office referrals and our tier one screener says that there's no issues, right? But what we've been able to do is proactively address some issu some of the things that we knew were issues based on data and then reactively have a little bit better of a process to reintegrate students
123back into the community which is their school. Um, Brooks Elementary School has also seen some some great success by um, significantly decreasing the amount of out of school suspensions that students were receiving. Um, that said, we know as a district we still have work to do when it comes to disproportionality of students that are receiving out of school suspensions. Um, we still need to provide support, but one of the best ways over the last few years that we've been able to move the needle, at least in the schools that we've had our restorative deans, is by the expertise of a restorative dean. when we looked at our schools across the board, and I'm going to get to the point here pretty quick, but um because the team at Founders has done so well, when you
124look at a lot of their data pieces, you see that they're not necessarily at the highest risk like they might have been a couple years ago. So, we took that into consideration. We thought, great, well, maybe there's an opportunity here to just reallocate some. But, as we kind of dug into it, we realized that the sustained success of a system in a school, we don't want to lose that momentum. We don't want to lose the things that have worked the last couple years. When we looked at our other schools, it made sense that there were four schools based on data that popped out to us that probably could use the restorative dean support versus our other elementary schools that don't have that level of risk as our data projects. So, at the end of the
125day, when um we sat down, our recommendation is to add a restorative dean because we feel strongly that the current schools that have them, Brooks, Malta um and Founders are going to continue to need that support next year. But we also know that with Mitchell coming on, our data says that they're going to have need a high level of support as well in that area. And by adding another DIN allows us to more adequately provide that support for those four schools. We'll monitor our data as we go throughout the year next year. And I think our these data sets are going to guide where these resources should go in the future as well. Um cost um in total of salary, benefits, health insurance, it would be about $102,22.50 50 cents. And with that, I'll open
126it up for questions for me or not to put Sur on the spot, but if there are questions for an expert, um maybe she'll pop up here. I mean, it's no secret then from year one when I started as a board member to where we are at now, like it has significant, we have seen a significant decrease, right, in reports um that we've received, you know, from, you know, issues or concerns. Um, of course, like you said, there's opportunities for us to continue to improve on, but you know, the the work is is noticeable. So, thank you again for the work that's being done there. Any other questions? Okay. No consensus to bring this back. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Go home so you can rest because tomorrow is another day. Thank you. All right.
127Item P, staffing request instructional assistance. This is an information item brought by Mr. Kyle Gertis. All right. Um, so again, this time of year, we really look to project out what our needs are for next year, and that includes our instructional assistance. Um, so again, we looked at where kids are going to be going to school next year and try to look at, okay, what needs to move from this school to this school, and then where's our gaps, where do we need to head? So, what we found is that our our staffing levels we project to be relatively consistent for our instructional assistance next year, but we do have a couple of programs that are going to um open up. We have a new section of Soul over at Founders Elementary School that we will
128have to staff with four uh pair of professionals. And then uh earlier tonight I asked for uh two additional um academic intensive um special ed teachers. In order to go up to the cap of 13 students in those classrooms, which is what we intend to not at 13, but to go past the eight that the minimum is, we have to add an instructional assistant to that. So uh four instructional assistance for soul, two for the academic intensive programs at the middle school brings us up to a six FTE request. Um the salary benefits, health insurance if elected uh for those positions is $267,2263. Okay. Um any questions? Any questions about it? Okay. Consensus to bring that back. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And then the last item is a superintendent report. Right. Okay.
129So we're at the end of the year. First of first and foremost, um I want to take a moment to thank the board in all due humbleness for my evaluation and for the consideration around my uh contract amendment. I really do appreciate uh what you've done for me and um it I I really do appreciate it. Um, but most importantly, I think that uh I enjoy this year because it's I'm looking at these smiling faces in front of me that I've watched come to every meeting and I really appreciate it. Uh, but I hope that we have done you justice. Um, the board has done something amazing for all of our unions to make sure that you are now you feel the value and the consideration that we think of you and that having gone
130through this process and having them allow us to be able to offer what we have offered led by obviously Dieter and Amir and everyone that was on our team and all of the teams that were on the other side of the table and we hope that uh it shows that we are wanting to work together for the improvement and hopefully this removes some of the barriers so that we can get on to the work that needs to be done. So, I really appreciate you all for being here and for continuing the support. We heard Chuck say the thank you. I appreciate that. And we know again I'm thanking the board on behalf of everyone as well because without their support and their leadership in this we wouldn't be able to do what we were what
131what our team was able to accomplish with all of you. Okay. So that's really the the big part of what I wanted to say. But there's other celebratory things that we want to share too. Right. So um I wanted to share that uh tonight was senior night for the girls track team over at the high school. uh we want to congratulate them because they took second place at the uh the Keaneland invite. So that's great job for our young ladies who are out there running. Um we wanted to also do a shout out to our elementary schools who are currently in full swing of spring sing. So if you're a part of that, go out and check them out. We want to see uh happy faces and the kids always, you know, love to have
132a big audience. So feel free to join us there. Matt isn't here today because that's what he is supporting. So, thanks Matt for going out there and supporting our kiddos and our schools. And then, um, in the spirit of saying thank you, although Chris did already thank Meta, I'm going to thank him again. Um, thank them the last time as well. Tara has been an an excellent liaison on behalf of Meta to get some of the things that we're doing. Lines up completely with our steam programming that we want to do with our steam con with everything. And like if I made a list of everything, I mean, it's a long list. we probably should do something more formal, but thank you to Meta and Tara for all of the work that they've done with
133us. And then finally, if you'd like to go to the theater, we have our own Broadway here in Decal. So, the the theater group of DHS is actually going to be presenting Chicago the teen version. So, you know, check it out. Tickets are on sale now. They will be held at the auditorium over at the high school. And with that, I'm done. So, I'll turn it back over to you. Okay. Any last uh comments? No. All right. It is now 8:44. And with that, I would like to make a motion to uh adjourn the uh meeting. It is recommended the board of education will adjourn. All in favor? Next board meeting is at the high school. Just a reminder. Oh, next board meeting is at the high school. So, May 5th, May sixth. I'm with
134you, Amanda. May 5th. So, yes. May 6th at the high school. May 6th second. Um Oh, yes. Who's who's Yes. All in favor say I. Thank you everyone for coming. Have a great night.