001e e welcome now 6 o00 and with that we will call the meeting uh to order uh Jackie can you please start with a roll call a harness right Davis Steve buers here arel Christopher boy hereis pres B Jenna Zimmerman all right next up is Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all next item is the public hearing on the fiscal year 2024 2025 budget um DOA will be coming up yeah pursuant to the new law I have attached in the agenda item our uh cash Reserve balance as of August 31 of 2024 uh our outstanding principal current debt is about 81 million and we have issued set in
002November of three of 33 8 million to fund the construction of the new school mitual and then we open it for com the public Jackie do we have any comments that first how long do we have to wait check do we need to explain do we need to explain why we're waiting Amir do you want to explain why we wait I just want to make sure everybody understands the process yeah this is procedural um we allow time for the public uh we put out the tentative budget for 30 days as required by the law where it's open to the public to review it come up with the questions and bring it to the board so we're going to wait 60 seconds thank you so are you guys asking like we can make a comment now
003come she's doing she's doing a separate safety I that have anything to do with the budget all right because it's just what is feel like Jeopardy music should be playing right now I think no one's going to make a com you can close it all right well with that uh we will move on to closing of public hearing on fiscal year 2024 2025 budget thank you the next item is public participation and recognition uh public comments members of the public who wish to speak to the board shall complete a request card prior to the start of the meetings this section of the meeting will be reserved for comments from the public all comments should be limited to three three minutes criticism of individuals is not in order and we do have one comment from Miss
004Ina Harris and it's on safety um so if you could want to come up please by the microphone and I will start the clock when you're ready so I guess I have more of a concern uh with the safety obviously there's been a lot of school shootings um obviously we had a threat already I think last week which I have four children in the C school dress District which all feel felt very unsafe to even attend school are very anxious I have middle schoolers who can't even focus on work at this point and my kids are honorable students good students no problems but now with this extra fear I guess I'm looking to the district of what safety measures are you guys putting in place prior to the kids even coming to school I haven't
005I kind of went through and looked like through the budget from last year this year um I do see a hefty like fire and safety budget of like I think last year was like over $600,000 this year I think it says 900 I know there's a new school being built but like for the current schools what are we putting in place I know our I think officer bird says that he thinks that everything is okay but obviously I don't think the parents Across the Nation feel like everything is okay nor do the students um I feel like a good safety measure would be possibly putting in metal detectors in the entrances and having I know we do have police officers at schools and even at elementary schools and maybe they should be outside watching people
006come in as well as obviously monitoring the metal detectors and I I don't I I kind of looked at pricing of metal detectors I don't know how many entrances I don't know all that that's something I think the school board would figure out but I do think even if it's $10,000 for one out of a $900,000 budget I think that's a very small ask for parents and children to feel safe walking into a building knowing that someone's not going to be able to carry in something yes I know that it's not 100% guarantee but I think it would put a lot of parents and children at of use so is that anything I don't see anything like specifics in the budget as far as safety measures for stuff like that do you I guess what
007is the plan because it just to me the plan is just a shooter drill that's all I kind of see when I was looking through is that just what it is normally just so you know like normal practices during public comments we normally don't um um don't answer questions but we do take notes of what you are sharing with us so we are taking notes and then um towards the end we can definitely address some of your questions that we have the answers to your questions if um either our superintendent or one of our administrators will when they come up they can share some of the things that we are doing some of the initiatives so if you do want to stick around hopefully you know one of the administrators that is um here today
008can help answer with you know some of the the questions that you had today um and please know that safety is also a concern for for us and it's actively something that is on the administrator's mind as we are you know putting um our processes to practice um so we are actively working on things so we appreciate outside of this where do we get the answers for that I think the best thing that you could probably do is uh email me what your concerns are and then I can respond to you um either by having you come in and talk to me or I can respond via email uh I I will say this there I probably won't tell you as much as you think you want to hear only because if I share what
009our security measures are then they're no longer security measures right then everybody would know what they are for sure but but we do have um a number of things in place that that U help us to mitigate some of the things that have been an issue and we will continue to do that and we're actually uh implementing even more to ensure security and safety uh here's I'm going to say this uh the last few things that have you been hearing sometimes like the whole thing that happened to Julet and other places kids always say oh you know I was just joking I didn't mean it you know it's unfortunate and I'm going to ask parents talk to your kids about this for sure you know because I'm not saying that that always happens and for
010sure that you know all it takes is one for it not to be the case but like Georgia he did a year eight months prior to that so we can't we can't always say that but we want to make sure the parents are having good relationships and discussions with their children and if something really comes out of that that you are really concerned about then please bring it to our attention and use safe to help that is an an anonymous place that you can just drop information and it comes to us and we'll be able to take that up immediately and our Police Department our great friends of ours and we work really well together um they worked with us tirelessly over the week again when we were hearing all these other things so again
011we we mitigate a lot of things before it actually gets out to social media but then social media exasperates it so we just have to be very careful about that but I I urge you and anyone else who's interested if you want to know something put it out there for us to be able to answer just know that if it's a security prevention or something that we are using to mitigate different things the likelihood is that I probably will not be able to answer the way that you want us to answer and again there it's due to the details and to the safety right and we give out our safety plan for what we will how we would address the situation and there's no longer then we we it's no longer safe right because we
012gave up our plan but um but there are measures and we do have a security manager also that was hired strictly that works collectively you know as well to make sure that all of our Securities are being trained and that we are mitigating all that stuff as well um including even our games how we are doing you know how we are um EMP uh enforcing policies through through games as well but a lot of the things also we know that there's still work that can be done right there no but no I don't believe that any district is perfect even when you think that you have all the appropriate measures in place but nonetheless you know we appreciate the commentary that is brought to us because it can definitely spark other conversations that maybe we
013have not talked about so we do want to thank you for doing that um and we will take like I said we take notes of this and normally like I said this is not normal practice but I didn't want to just look at you and then for people to assume oh they're not paying attention or they don't care because we do care um and we take all these things that everybody brings forward seriously um and but we just want to be intentional about how we answer the things that we answer without you know giving too much but also making sure that you as parents also are aware that things are actively being taken care of okay so thank you for taking the time today an email there's no email here but you do you have
014my you have my email address if not um anybody back there can get it to you and then you just send me something and I will we will follow up for sure okay thank you thank you all right the next item is board correspondence do we have any Bo correspondence I guess I'm going to have kind of a question so looking at the foyer request compliance tracker I'm noticing that we do have the request involving you know that busing issue from a couple weeks ago and the status is no responsive records exist so are we I guess saying that we have no records of anything that happened on that bus that day then or I guess did first student just lose this footage or what happened are you're talking about the first bus uh where
015Mom came in correct uh 7 yeah so you I there was a meeting held with the there was a meeting held with the bus company a number of cabinet members were on there as well as Jackie and a few others um to talk about what actually occurred and what our expectations were around there so uh Amir can you just talk to us about what happened with the video footage from BS 70 sure uh so that that is something that it's proprietary of the for student so um so we we wouldn't have uh the that property so that falls under first student so we directed them to First Student uh so at that time I believe the there was no footage the video the camera weren't working uh so it was actually only bus out of
016all of the buses that we were using whose camera was not working and and when asked the bus company should have had those taken care of over the summer and neglected to inform us that that one did not so the push back was why would you put a bus on my route on any of my routes without the video camera so there was conversation around it but you know hindsight and all of that we do not have bus we do not have video footage of that particular on that particular day okay thank you any other questions or board correspondence okay all right next item is student board correspondence okay so we had our first mini board meeting of the school year um that was exciting so we got uh lots more members I think we're
017around 30 as of now so working on getting meing board members in the high school um I've reached out to the Middle School principles about getting a middle school mini board and I have yet to get a response from that um in the High School uh we have been talking about the lunchroom and all the lunchroom feedback so I should be able to present that soon um still sit conference um and that's about it can I just jump in real quick two things number one thiss everything this young lady does everything uh I've seen her at all parts of the district in all kinds of games and all kinds of situations I really appreciate everything that you do to support and cheer and and play and everything that you do so thank you and thank
018you to everybody else who does that alongside of her I just have her sitting here right now so I wanted to make sure I said that and the other piece is the sit conference students involved in technology this is a conference that had happened previously in many years previous to my being superintendent and we are looking to forward to having that brought back to the district it is a student L student facilitated informational presentation conference on technology uh where we invite other school district students to come and participate so I'm really excited about what that looks like and hopefully we will be able to put that on for March I only have February March dates February March so so look for that in the near future thank you Saturday yes that's exciting thank you for
019all the updates Jenna and for all the work that you're doing all right uh any questions for Jenna all right thanks again and then the next up us presentations uh item a summer projects 20 2024 uh presented to us by Miss Tammy Carson so these are summer projects for 2025 no these are updates from these are updates from this past summer and some things I put summer in in quotes because um some are still continuing so they they've gone into the school year so each year I just like to provide an update and some pictures just so you can see what has been accomplished around the schools in case you haven't had a chance to get up and see some of these this I should understand is not at all encompassing of all the work
020that's put in put on put in throughout our buildings whether it's from our custodians our maintenance our grounds our delivery people our tech department um even some of the staff at the high school I'm going to show a picture from there of some things that they contributed to that we're able to get done just last week so just wanted to go over this with you and show you a few things of where the money was spent over the past year so um Brooks Elementary did get some new concrete and asphalt put into the building there's still some more work that needs to be done but the high need areas were addressed um throughout the the parking lot and the sidewalks offices we did a split of work room up that was near the main office
021suite to create an office for the assistant principal there because that was not in that office suite and then the other side just shows that we still have a work room for that building and that's what the other side is it was actually twice as wide but they didn't need as that much space the office was more important to have up by there and then the toilet room Renovations this was at Jefferson Elementary we were able to renovate two sets of toilet rooms on the main floor or main section of the building so those have been completed we just finished this uh actually the last piece was finished today Tuesday today I believe um but the Jefferson playground this is the primary playground for the younger ages and the other playground had been done two
022summers ago I believe it was but this was able to be upgraded by use of Esser funds and the kids just love it I recommend if you haven't been there during lunchtime please do it is if you want to make your day brighter go and listen to those kids playing what's great about the new equipment is it does allow for more than one student to be able to play on a piece of equipment and as you can see in this the one to the left side um that those there's it's like three or four kids in a swing playing together many of the pieces are so that you can play with more than one student at or one friend at a time Tyler Elementary if you've ever been to Tyler their gymnasium was straight access
023there was no doors to it on the side by the restrooms and for safety reasons we did take a look at this and decide that it would be best to have a door so that it could be secured so this this entire doorway used to be wide open no doors just an entryway that was closed off and we were able to put put a door that's secure there courland Elementary we did not ever have a large freezer cooler space so we transported food every day out there because they are their own production kitchen but they didn't have the space to store everything so it required staff from our our food service or food truck drivers to be able to take that out so now they do have a freezer cooler we did have to relocate
024the office space for the Food Service staff and that's what you're seeing right there this is Little John Little John um this is their secondary playground not their primary U but it is the first one to be redone uh one of the things we requested going into next year is that we get um quotes for bidding out their primary playground but we'll be able to look to do that next year this was also the final piece was just put in today a couple pictures some projects that were handled internally by our staff uh we were able to add some Cabinetry to some classrooms that this is at Malta Elementary that did not have cabinets Malta has some of the smallest classrooms in the district and spaces in issue just as it is everywhere but I
025believe this was with uh pbl money PB money I believe is what was used for this funding on these projects and that's just another set of cabinets at mult we also through some other funding were able to support um replacing some of our library shelving that was at Malta that had been there for many many years so that was actually upgraded now this isn't really what the project was initially but the Clinton rosette gymnasiums the hbac units on those are were at the end of life and so we replaced them and when we replace units on gymnasiums if they don't have air conditioning then air conditioning is put into those package units air conditioning is now in the Clinton rosette gymnasiums and locker rooms and that was not part of the building before and because
026there's new duct work coming in and some things that have to be done to the the ceiling and the walls we actually then did a full paint job of that entire gym so that gym has been completely refreshed to look very different than it did prior to this some more asphalt concrete repairs this these were at Clinton rosette and seal coating and then at the high school if you haven't been out to our new at to the high school we added a security desk that we specifically built it in a way that looks like it was part of the building when it was opened it matches everything around the building it provides an opportunity for security staff to be stationed right at that door so they can see who's coming in before they are buzzed
027in they don't get into the school any further until they are actually checked through the Raptor system and verified and then they can be either buzzed into the main office or into the building so that that station that that security desk is manned by security staff all day and then this is this was just finished over the weekend these are in the um first floor West and East Locker bays at the high school the orange walls were painted over the summer but um the high school administration did put time into designing these and it was installed I believe on Saturday so this is all brand new and looks amazing in those two Locker Bays copy room small thing but we took some cabinets out and made this a conference room and a copy room space
028because it was had some wasted space Vape detectors across the high school Vape detectors were put into the bathrooms and the I think there's still some to be done and some that are in the higher ceilings that we had to get some special type of installation but those are installed and if you remember Huntley already has Vape detectors the majority of their large bathrooms and Clinton's rosette is the next one on the list now that the high school's finished up and we already have the detectors purchased now we just need to get them installed and that's handled by our maintenance staff and then Renovations this is what the Beyond one Barb Center the transition Building looks like as of last week the interior has been demoed the walls are going up and it is on
029schedule and going along very well I'll have more updates on that as we go along we are scheduled to occupy or to take possession of that December 4 and occupy January 1 and the outside these are just showing a couple of the ramps that are being poured for the front and back the salt bin that's been a long project salt bin and grounds Building Salt bin is going up so that's what that looks like and the grounds building is mostly up we just have some tweaks inside to do there and then we plan to occupy this in October we'll be able to vacate our lease and move into that so I do want to thank as I put here all the facility operation staff as well as many other people around the district that have
030supported us and getting the things done a lot of work's been done I don't didn't even include the bright shiny floors when the students came back at the start of the school year many of the things that are hard to see unless you're there on that first day of school so any questions on that on the projects okay about a month ago at the board meeting I was asked about when I was talking about summer 2025 projects going to bid I was asked about where's where's the funding sources been on our past projects so I did some quick calculations on these to show since uh 2020 through 2024 because that's when semester money the eser money started to come in was after the pandemic started um we have done projects out of the operations and
031maintenance budget $4 million Life Safety budget of $3 million the Esser Grant was able to fund $12 million worth of projects the Food Service budget did fund 600,000 and then there were maintenance grants available for $160,000 total over the years thank you for so just wanted to show that if there's ever any specific questions on anything I'm always happy to answer them thank you all right thanks thank you for sharing and thank you to everybody that's uh come together to make this possible it's always nice to see the updates thank all right any questions about that no okay all right next item is Item B Department uh strategic plan 20124 2025 goals and then this is uh submitted and going to be presented by cevin it's red there you go third time is the charm
032apparently well thank you so much and we're here to present about the Strategic plan and updates that we've made for this school year you'll see that we have a lot of exciting changes I'll do the first two um Billy will do the second two for teaching and learning under student achievement which is the first priority under the Strategic plan um teaching and learning has three main focuses addressing low academic performance through instructional approaches while ensuring rigor focusing instructional conversations around data and continuing to develop articulation for a two-way dual language program to ensure the best possible multilingual programming for our students we've already within the one month of being in school had a lot um already started for this so we're excited at secondary I know we've been leading specific math professional development through our
033building leaders and then also with our teachers and teacher leaders um also programming at the high school you'll see coming through the pipeline some additional courses to support our Advanced Learners and the conversations around data we're already starting specific supports for our building leaders again our teacher leaders and then our plc's to make sure especially as we just closed our map NWA testing window that our elementary in secondary through the middle school have that data and are ready to use it to differentiate our instruction or programming based on what comes out of that so we're already starting some of that work for our PLC day which is next Friday and then the second strategic priority to teaching and learning is focusing on increasing our two-way dual excuse me our two-way communication with families and capitalizing
034on successful strategies and habits and then leveraging Community Partnerships so to expand a little bit on the two-way communication one of the things that we're looking at through our data disaggregation is our students that are in I believe it was the 75th percentile and higher what are the practices that are happening at school and home and sending out some surveys to see how we can capitalize on the great growth and gains within that demographic and then using it to apply to our community outreach and Partnerships and then also our parent engagement nights so that demographic is free and reducing Lunch close well can you speak into the microphone please Mr that demographic is free and reduced lunch um and I'm actually going to invite AJ crook here um our managers and our coordinators they do
035a lot in our tnl department so she's going to do the third one after were you done sorry I was thank you all right so I have strategic priority three for financial stability with an equity lens we work diligently together um and collaboratively to make sure the funding goes to our priorities such as school Improvement plans uh our title funds go to a variety of areas that we're focused on play based learning project lead the way all of our little initiatives that we have yeah and our last um goal under human capital recruitment development we really want to create a seamless interview process with our opening of our new Elementary so we've been working with Mr McDavid um who's here tonight in doing that we're actually having on Tuesday a info for all internal staff
036that might be interested in coming over to Mitchell from their current building and wanting to be part of the fund that we're going to create over at Mitchel so um that's our fourth goal for teaching and learning any questions for us thank you thank you all right so for student services when we look at Priority One student achievement we're going to um continue to revamp or to tweak our professional learning communities and really focus in on high leverage practices for our special Educators um so our goal is to have uh more consistent High leverage practices happening in our um self-contained programs but also in our resource settings um we're also going to continue to um develop but also roll out and now we're kind of in a maintenance stage of our mtssb um tiered systems
037of support so we really want to make sure that every student across the district is getting the support they need whether it's tier one two and three when it comes to behavior or social emotional support when we look at priority to community engagement and marketing um we want to develop uh supportive culturally inclusive learning opportunities for our families that have students with disabilities uh for the last several years kind of once we got through covid we're able to kind of have events again really started up our family engagement nights and we've had some good success with most of those we want to take a little bit of a different spin on it and try to uh make it a little bit more informative for our famili so they can better understand and better access resources
038to help their uh child who has a disability in our district and we will continue to do the fun stuff too um we want to continue to partner with Community agencies um one of which I'm going to talk about a little bit later today um to make sure that we we are capitalizing on those supplemental supports that we can provide our students staff and families and priority Three Financial stability uh with an equity lens we really want to uh work with our grants manager Emma and um identify grant opportunities that are out there that can continue to help us fund uh initiatives that are going to overall impact in a positive way student well-being last but not least um we want to continue this this priority for human capital Recruitment and retainment development partner with
039HR to help fill all of our hard to fill positions um that seem to impact student services quite a bit um so we want to continue to kind of work on that in addition to developing the pipelines for internal and potentially external staff moving forward any questions thank you all right so from the technology department for strategic Priority One student achievement uh we're looking to continue our one: one uh program success and find ways to enhance it and increase our Roi uh a good example of this is we found gaps where not all of our staff were being able to function off of the same platform with the same device as the students were so all student teachers now have the ability to then also get a Chromebook device from the district so they are
040now also functioning in the same platform removing hurdles for them to be able to deliver education to our students when they're in the classroom also enhancing our cyber security posture since that uh could lead to a big Interruption uh strategic priority to um we are looking to work collaboratively with the communications coordinator to enhance our outside facing website so some of that has happened but there's more to come um and then successfully migrate from our current mass communication system to parents sare which has started and there is a lot more to come strategic priority three Financial stability um we're working creatively uh and collaboratively to ensure um various ways for us to be able to take advantage of the grants that are coming out and to also work with our grant manager and to appropriately
041size the technology budget there's also the announcement of the cyber security pilot Grant which just came out from the FCC and usack and we are looking to take advantage of that and fingers crossed uh get some funds in order to offset our costs for strategic priority for human capital uh to attract and retain it professionals this is a consistent struggle um especially as larger Siz data centers uh are in our community who pay differently than us um and then to assist the HR department with uh the Frontline migration that they're involved in and find some enhancements and some workflows those are our goals any questions thank you um for the business department our Focus will be of communicating to the to the community and to all stakeholders informing them uh what's our short shortterm and
042long-term impact for a lot of these initiatives not just from the district but also from the city and so one of our goal is uh kind of explaining the initiatives that impacting the district right this includes the Tiff 4 the County sales uh sales taxs and any new developments that are happening in the Enterprise Zone uh another strategic goal for us is uh kind of informing again what's are the district financial goals so kind of helping the community uh see uh what our goals are regarding our process for budgeting our debt payments tax levying and any any other information that affects them directly or indirectly uh another goal is for um you know we're going we're getting into to the tax season so kind of having a a communication planned uh and consistently inform the
043public uh on how our financial decisions a affect the taxpayers so we want to explain the initiatives we are undertaking for um savings to taxpayers uh moving into strategic goal uh three uh we want to establish what our financial needs are with all with the uh the new building with the Beyond Barb so developing communication plan for our financial needs with this uh uh moving into a new school and a new transition Center so uh another goal is also helping support our buildings so our uh School administrators uh giving an enhanced support and that takes into a that takes many uh different uh kind of implementing efficient resource coordination of Grants and so forth so uh so we're looking an external and as well an internal enhancement of support any questions any questions thank you
044when it comes to facility operations Department uh our first thing is that we are always working on trying to identify and create more space for our staff and students that sounds like it should be an easy task but we all know it isn't it involves much research and planning as it relates to whether it's the new Elementary we're working on or an addition on a building or whatever is necessary mobile classrooms so we're always looking at opportunities some of those can be small such as like summer projects to split rooms but we're running out of rooms to split uh for the second priority uh it relates to the community use of our buildings we are wanting to enhance and increase the amount of time that our community may be using our buildings we have some
045excellent opportunities with the opening of Mitchell that it is designed in a way that it can be utilized without for example opening the entire building and being able to utilize this larger spaces and still have access to restrooms and things and because the location being in close proximity that the families are able to walk we're hoping to put together some plans with um help of Mr McDavid in regards to what that could look like the third is uh my The Five-Year Capital Improvement plan project plan uh it's been put out to everyone for many many years and updated every year we'll continue to review and revise that we are going to be having our 10-year Life Safety survey that does need to be conducted every 10 years at our schools by an architect to identify
046additional concerns that we may or may not be aware of based on code changes so that'll be happening next year and more information will be coming on that next month actually to the board meeting but that will also feed into the fiveyear project plan in addition um with the uh renovation or excuse me the construction of the new Elementary overseeing that budget and making sure we're continuing to to manage it properly as we're getting ready to open that building and finish the construction on that and then lastly um we have two facility operation supervisors that are retiring in the next year in a few months so plans are underway in regards to um their replacing posting their position hiring training and what it takes to replace those that those positions before the actual person actually
047vacates so there's going to be efforts put to that to to make sure that we are still a solid team and that we're making sure we're moving forward in the right way with new new people coming on board any questions questions about that thank you thank you good evening everyone good evening school for and Community um the Dei department has quite a few goals I'm not going to say them all but I will highlight a few um one extremely important is for us um meaning uh myself and school leaders and District leaders ship to enhance our data literacy skills specifically in the area of identifying critical data points um so that we can monitor whether or not we are closing our Equity gaps the Illinois state board of education does have 25 uh data points
048and as you can imagine trying to track all that is quite cumbersome but working with school leaders over the past year the school leaders have identified where where they had some gaps wrote change plans but um there's old saying that if you don't monitor it it might not be getting done and if you don't have data to say that it's getting done it probably is not getting done so that's why we're being very intentional in that area part of that is that each um school will be I will have mandatory professional development as it was last year but the professional development area focus is increasing to include uh including student voice as part of the culture and practices of their school business buildings um one very thing one thing I'm extremely proud of that we
049were able to add to our strategic goals is uh the cultural coach that you all have graciously allowed us to have um she was selected out of 1,400 applicants only three people in the state of Illinois were SE were selected and she was one of the people selected to participate in the fellowship with the ill Illinois State Board of Education affinity group facilitator and it is free awesome they pay for a lot of training for her and it is free it is sponsored by teach plus but that is also one of our goals and then one very important goal as you all know sometimes people transition because maybe they win a lottery um and when they leave a lot of times historical knowledge is gone and so um we are working diligently to create a
050comprehensive process manual and recorded guidelines for all departmental procedures in theart Department are some pretty heavy uh registration State reporting Student Records those are things that if it is not done well we will find out about it rather quickly and so we're trying to ensure that incoming staff are have the ability to perform their responsibilities effectively and consistently are there any questions all right thank you any questions at all thank you thank you for all the work that is being done it's a lot of work but it's awesome to see the the growth and the progress that we are actively doing and the opportunities that we are finding um to you know continue to develop uh not only or obviously focus on our strategic priorities but also continue to add on to them and assess
051them and Implement continue to implement things as we are finding things obviously that we need more um work on so thank you thank you thank you to everybody that that has a part in in doing that work we really truly appreciate it um it's been a long time coming and just to see the progress in a lot of these things is pretty awesome to see it so um thank you for all the work that is invested into this every day and I guess one quick question did drra assign anyone since she's off for her birthday this week to present on HR or I will present oh okay okay um my apologies so for human resources uh the goals are to continue to do some things that were already starting one very important one is to
052continue to build relationships and partnership with colleges universities and recruitment pipeline organizations to fill positions part of that also as you know um the teacher vacancy Grant allowed uh hiring so those interviews have started and they are going through the process to ensure that the correct candidate is hired for that someone who can really sell us very well um in in addition to that it will be to continue to work towards the creation and finalization of a unaffiliated staff handbook again you know we have all a whole bunch of resources but sometimes just that knowledge is necessary and to create an administrator's handbook um to guide them through HR best practices part of that which actually began with an intern in 2022 and we're continuing it with the new Deans is we also created Crea
053specific uh guide books for instance there is a guide book or a uh howto book for Deans because some things you just don't know until you need to know it and then we are going to continue to improve our or boarding and our customer service process as it relates to the hiring and retention of District's sta are there any questions thank you again thank you thank you for all the work we appreciate it all right next item is consent agend agenda um all right it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda items 5 Fe through 5H Port minutes uh Personnel action items purchase order requisitions payroll for August accounts payable for September Financial reports and Tyler Elementary employment um contract as aach is there motion so move second R call Steve
054buers yes Ariel ens yes chrisopher boys yes yes thank you all right old business um item eight fiscal year 20124 2025 budget adaptation um this is an action item thank you it's again the agenda oh that's okay okay so um we are so today we're going to do the adoption of we're uh doing the adoption for the budget uh for FY so back in uh August 6 I presented the information of the budget and that is something we call a tentative budget it was adopted on the 20th and we submitted it to for a publication 30 days uh before the adoption as required by law so this is a little bit of a process of the timeline so what is a budget again a budget is a financial plan and plans can change right so
055it's not meant to be a dollar uh to the penny for the until June 30 of 25 this is meant to be a plan and it's used for projection and it is used to provide some form of parameters for our buildings and our administrators and uh to uh monitor their spending so it is the revenues are estimated and the expenditures are are projected as well a little bit about our budget we uh we go through a modified acral basis basically um it is a kind of a mix between uh a cash basis where we record revenues when received and expenses we record them when they are paid so we mix in a little bit of a modified approval basis because we want to establish where when the expense when the expenses were recorded and when
056they happened and when the revenues were deposited when they happened so what does that mean well let's take an example of if an activity was us happened in June but our invoices came in July and we issued the check in August we would count that for June because that's when it happens so that that is a required by for the uh for the schools uh another uh example would be deferring our property taxes so our property taxes are collected from May to October uh so the May and June one even though they belong to the next fiscal year we will uh we will ACR them to July 1 so that way the revenues that are meant for them the following year are recorded at that time so that's a little bit about what our budget
057um think but so from the previous standard budget I mentioned that any type of adjustments we are going to uh bring it to you uh to share what's changed from that August 6 meeting so in terms of Revenue we got this new Grant and I I want to give a shout out to Sarah Bates and Emma furini so we got a stronger connections Grant it's about $36,000 that was something that we didn't know we're going to do in the uh in our budget so we we hadn't posted it at that time but since it came after the August 6 we are including it in this budget same thing with title 3 title 3 we get it uh we do receive every year but at that time we didn't have the exact amount so we have
058included it in our Revenue so those are what's been added from AUST 6 and then the expenses so for the expenses I just put a budget parameter for uh our the the removal and replacement of the Jeffers Little John sorry Little John mobile classrooms and the purchase of the new Elementary building so if the construction finishes it by end of May I'm giving I'm opening up the budget that we can purchase that building so that when we enter it it is our property and we can uh freely uh you know educate our students at that time so again this is just the budget has been opened for it we always share um why we have to do acral as well because a lot of times the state uh they all they they are meant to
059voucher the money for us in fiscal year 24 so for example we're still waiting to get some funding from the state regarding um the state and breakfast lunch program so since this is kind of taking a little bit longer we always take that into account and I'll tell you uh in the previous year it was way much way more than just a $90,000 it was in 100,000 or a million but that actually shows that the state has been paying their bill and has been paying their vouchers so we're in much better position because the state has also followed through with their obligations okay so as we did these adjustments um I always want to bring up that uh the new funding formula because that's the one that kind of gave us an influx of uh
060new money that came in to for us to reach the adequacy level for our expenses so back in 2017 and I'm not showing as far as 2017 but back then we were at about a 56% adequacy level meaning that we were running services with a adequacy financially of about 56% that give a signal to the state to influx money to us and as as the years progressed we kept getting this tier funding that we C it so in the tier funding is this U for reference in 2023 we had about 1.4 million this is the kind of the three rows down but in the in the following year we see that money keeps shrinking by 60% so you that's where that little arrow is and then this year it shrink for another another 49% right
061so we were used to getting an additional funding about 1.4 then last year about 500k and this year is 294k so that is concerning for us because that means we're kind of reaching a little bit that Financial adequacy level but and that's where our tier assignment changes so you may have heard us talk about well we used to be tier one well now we're in a different category so yes that's what that means so we're right now at tier two and our adequacy level is 86% so we moved from 50 to 86 that's a signal to the state that you know we are funding this school district and the money will go to another school that is on still on that tier one so uh that's a concern for us because we are kind of
062used to those Property Tax Grants uh we are used to getting this tier money so those things might start kind of slowing down and shrinking so that is really uh something that we always have to monitor so on the next so on the next slide we talked about um we talked about the property tax grant that is something that has allowed us to give direct savings to our property tax payers through the grants that coming from the state so if you notice we for from 2020 to this year we have we have granted about 46 Mill 46.7 abatements 46.7 million dollar in abatements giving savings to taxpayers so we're kind of used to that uh providing this and even this year we would be able to uh provide about 6.4 million in savings uh for
063taxpayers through this grants abatement um we will know if we are eligible in November for the next round of Property Tax Grants so kind of crossing our fingers but again as we move away from that here uh it will affect these type of funding so this is that summary that we always like to share uh during the adoption this is where we're at and it kind of gives you a nice snap snapshot that Bird's eyee view where we were and where we uh where we are right now so if you notice that blue column well a lot of it was that influx of uh ebf money or the state money but now uh as as that funding is uh kind of leveling off uh we're seeing that also our blue column is also leveling um
064so right now we're looking at about 500k in Surplus and our fund balance is still healthy at 75 million but it is 49% of our expenditures so we always measure our cash Reserves uh our savings towards what our expenditures are so we have to understand what that cash Reserve means what does that fund balance mean so that is our savings account that is if there is any disruption in um if there is any disruption in our revenues in our streams of funds we are able to dip into our savings kind of like you do with your own personal uh personal finances so so um so what is our fund balance this will give us a chance to run our schools if there is any disruption in the revenues be it from the state from the
065federal or from a local taxpayers so just say kind of a uh quick um kind of reference back when Co happened uh the decal County allowed the property homeowners a a six month Grace to pay uh the to pay their property taxes right well that would be a disruption let's say for schools which are which will will require this distribution to pay for their payroll right so where so in that sense they would be dipping into the savings to make up for those uh that disruption that happened but guess what theal county taxpayers not a lot of them actually followed with their grace period they paid things on time so that is kind of uh something that the Cal County is known for that they will pay their bill on time and a lot of
066them are actually homeowners that they've paid off their uh their their homes so they were able to uh pay that uh that tax bill so we were able to get that Distribution on time but you can see a little bit of a glimpse between us and other school districts in the area which are kind of comparable to us Sycamore we're looking at about 32% then it's us about 49 and bavia Geneva West Aurora and St Charles they are in the mid-50s the board has allowed us to be 20 to 30% of fund reserves for any type of of these disruptions which means the schools can run even with disruption at about 4 months out of the year so with us having kind a healthier fund balance of about 50% we're looking at having six months
067of this with disruption uh of funding but we are looking to use that funding for other uh projects uh any B initiatives that we want to make for paper so um so what are considerations who what did what did what did this budget really share with us so we talked about having that new elementary school so if construction finishes by end of May we are able to to budget for the uh for the new building uh out of this uh budget that we are presenting the transition program that's starting in January 1 so this budget has in in its parameters uh the opening the Staffing and the running of this uh transition program considerations in the future uh as we think about this budget we're also getting into our uh tax season uh we we
068have to think about the projections for the following years so the fiveyear plan or more years plan and we have to look at some initiatives that are happening in the city so tip four this is a proposal from the city uh for the South Fourth Street Corridor we're looking uh how is that affecting our budget for the coming upcoming year really the the bigger concern is as new uh families are coming into into the that zone as the zone is getting redeveloped and that's the intended target uh we might get more students enrolled so we have to think about projecting that student cost and also uh how does that affect our revenue streams uh the other one is County facilities sales tax so that is a new initiative that is getting into the ballot on
069November 5th uh and it is allowing the decal uh voters to look to approve or reject the County sales tax what we intend as a district is to pay debt pay our our referendum bonds earlier so that we can save on interest we can save future taxpayers from paying a uh a building that happened uh 10 years ago so so we are looking to use this country sales tax not only to directly affect home uh property taxpayers but also Future Property taxpayers and of course all our budgets will have facility and FTE uh needs so stuffing Staffing the new school and also any additional classrooms uh we do worry about State funds like uh considerations such as uh what will happen to our state funding formula what will happen if there is any property tax
070frees so or any p uh pension obligations if they're shifted to a school so we have all of these kind of worked into our budget uh to consider so just as a reminder for our taxpayers um we do we have provided relief uh in form of abatements uh as early as in April we did an additional 3.7 million to what the 12 uh5 million we did back in December so that puts us into a total of about 16.2 million of abatement for our property tax payers uh additionally uh we have we are part of Tiff and Enterprise zones and we use these abatements uh we use that revenue generated to fund our bold initiatives just as again as just a reminder of the impact that the school district is having on property tax our property
071tax rate has declined in the past 5 years and you can see compared to the aggregate of other taxing districts uh we are we are uh lowering our tax rates at a higher amount than all of them combined so uh at the bottom the third to the third row to uh at the from bottom up there we share how other taxing bodies combine decline versus ours and you can see that uh we keep lowering our tax rate at a much higher um percentage in conclusion the budget is just a tool for planning for the upcoming school year it's not a dollar for dollar we're not we cannot uh expend to a dollar to what the budget is showing but it is gives us those parameters gives us those little lines of where we can spend
072and monitor and um and we are in a good financial position and we we're just committed to ensure all our resources are uh placed at the right and also we're living within our means any questions and we're looking for approval for yes okay thank you for the presentation of that and for providing Clarity to not only us but also to the public um okay with that it is recommended to that the Board of Education adopt the fiscal year 2024 2025 budget as presented is there a motion some second roll call Steve buers yes Ariel yes Christopher Bo yes yes thank you all right next item is B Item B press plus 116 uh final reading and approval this is an action item um but before I read that this is where I read this right
073Jackie all right so before I read this I do have to read one of the questions from the the Press plus 116 um and um get consensus from the board to default it to what the recommendation is from the the district for us to um answer so this is just standard protocol so required question number one for districts that have a practice of providing instruction and life saving techniques and first aid in their staff development programs insert the following option optional paragraph that uh okay U optional paragraph that restates um 105 Illinois CS 5311 105 5 Illinois CS 1103 um and 77 ill admin admin code 527 800 um an opportunity shall be provided for all staff members to acquire develop and maintain Knowledge and Skills necessary to properly administer life saving techniques in uh
074first aid including the H maneuver cardiopulmonary resuscitation and the use of an automated uh external defil oh my gosh theator in accordance with the national recognized uh certifying organization physical fitness facilities staff must be trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and use of any automated external defi lators um persons performing CPR are generally exempt from civil liability if they are trained in CPR persons performing automated external uh are generally ex exem from civil liability and so forth right and then for this uh it is recommended that we answer no for this question um so with that it is recommended that the Board of Education uh approve the Press plus 116 releaseed as attached with a a proper uh recommendation from the district is there a qu any questions about that can we get a why the district's
075recommending that yes Kyle will be letting us know [Music] so basically we provide that training in house so that is what um our health services manager with our um various levels of nurses do within each other building but then we also provide that level of training CPR height defibrillator uh to all of those people that are required to have an unders school code like coaches um you know kind of those positions that are going to need to use it um predictably maybe does that make sense okay any other questions oh okay thank you C it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the Press plus 116 release as attached is there a motion soov second roll call are you yes for voice yes yes seers yes thank you item C it's the na 54th
076annual International bilingual education conference this is an action item um budgeted out of the title to Grant um it is recommended that the Board of Education approved for two Educators to attend and present at the at na 54th uh annual International bilingual education conference February 20th 2025 to February 22nd 2025 is there a motion so moved second roll call Christopher Bo yes AC yes Steve Myers yes yes thank you item D laa conference this is an action item budgeted Source uh title two title three um L grants it is recommended that the Board of Education approve for two twdl teachers and two twdl teacher leaders to attend laosa conference November 13th through the 16th 2024 is there a motion so second roll call D yes buers yes Ariel yes yes thank you item eou with
0774C agency this is an action item it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the memorandum of understanding with or C is there a motion so move second roll call Steve buers yes Ariel Owens yes for boys yes yes item F memorandum of understanding mou with kwaki United Way this is an action item it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the memorandum of understanding with Kaki United Way is there a motion soov second roll call Steve buyers yes yes just for voice yes yes item G DHS overnight out of state field trip request FFA national uh convention this is an action item it is recommended that the Board of Education approved this request for students and staff to attend the National FFA convention from 10:23 to 10:26 2024 in Indianapolis is there
078a motion so move second roll call Se fires yes Ariel ens yes CHR for Bo yes yes item H NCT PD conference for secondary staff this is an action item um budor title two it is recommended that the Board of Education uh bring brings approve this proposal for the NCT PD in Boston from November 20 to through November 24 uh 2024 oh my gosh yes November 20 to 20 through the 24th 2024 uh is there a motion so second roll call Se buyers yes Ariel Owens yes for boys yes yes thank you item I Little John replacement of the mobile classroom um it is recommended the Board of Education approve the replacement of the mobile classroom at Little John Elementary in the summer of 2025 by purchasing a new mobile classroom which includes two classroom
079spaces toilet rooms storage and an entryway inside the building is there a motion so move second BR call Mar ens yes Mr Boy Yes DC yes Steve buers yes thank you all right items okay moving on to um Mitchell Elementary School business future Elementary School update mascot choice and this is an item that is being brought To Us by Mr Maurice McDavid good evening everybody good evening uh I want to just Begin by saying how excited I am to be able to stand before you all as the principal of Dr LeRoy a Mitchell Elementary School and uh I want to just share a couple of things with you here um so I noticed over here on this beautiful uh wall the core values want to just quickly point out really important in this process of
080selecting a mascot for Mitchell was definitely centering students and getting that student voice uh as well as engaging families and so we'll talk a little bit about how that happened the mascot selection process um I won't read every bullet point but basically we came up with an opportunity uh to have the students of our elementary schools select a mascot we were asking for alliteration so we got to do a little vocabulary with them as well uh but select a mascot draw the mascot and then explain why they thought that that would be a good mascot for Mitchell Elementary School we ran this this activity from August 19th through August 30th uh I'm a person who likes to give a little Grace so I let him do it a couple days longer cuz I was out
081of time on the 30th anyway so it worked out came back we collected those and we basically went through we got over uh 200 uh entries from across the district um lots and lots of different uh cute cute pictures I if you want to see them I still have them over at Tyler you can stop by but we were able to narrow it down to some finalists from each building and then I did as a good teacher does use a rubric right so we wanted to make sure that we were uh being fair and just so you can check that out again I know that that's in your presentation we brought it down to just four finalists the Mitchell malards the Mitchell manay the Mitchell Mad Dogs and the Mitchell monarchs uh and so we
082brought these four to our first Community conversation of the school year which was hosted this past Wednesday uh on September 11 and you can see the green stickers on there because we let them vote so everybody that came that night put a green sticker on the one that they thought that would be the best and by Far and Away I I I did it to armir sorry I'm messing it up by Far and Away our winner was the mon and so we uh are going to be the Mitchell monarchs uh we're really excited about that um this uh entry was by uh annah hilgen she's a fifth grader at Little John Elementary School and so I got a chance to go over take a picture with her and uh we were super excited uh she
083was kind of nervous as you can tell in the picture she's like I don't know who this guy is not sure what's happening but uh we um the principal called let Mom know uh that that was going to the case so we will be the Mitchell monarchs you can begin referring to us as such we wanted to share it with the board before we shared it out publicly um but you again can see we are going to share this out on our Facebook page for Dr LeRoy a Mitchell by the way follow us okay I uh um go ahead and check that out but we'll be sharing uh more information there next steps uh just so you're aware October 17th we are going to have our next uh Community conversation it's going to be focused
084on uh Mitchell we're going to talk about kind of these things here we've drafted uh at the uh September 11th one we did collect values from the community again engaging that Community voice what values they thought were going to be really important uh for Mitchell and we have used those values to draft uh a vision uh still in the revision process working uh with uh Dr Garcia Sanchez uh as well as the rest of our team uh Billy and uh and am pette um and uh but we're going to be going through that as well as getting a chance to talk a little bit about the physical plant uh actually by that point uh it's possible that that they'll have everything shut up uh is what uh the superintendent uh the site superintendent said there
085that windows and door uh it's anyways it's uh really exciting and then also thinking about uh Mitchell as as a community Hub thank you all uh for your support thank you for allowing this building uh to to come into existence uh it is going to be uh incredible uh and so I appreciate your future support as well thank you before you step away um would you mind giving us an update for next week's event please absolutely uh so um I have had the opportunity to work with um again our Department of Human Resources as well as Department of teaching and learning and Department of diversity equity and inclusion uh to come up with an internal hiring plan um so next Tuesday is going to be well I apologize actually a couple weeks a or about
086a week ago uh on a Friday shared out just an introductory video of who I am and my leadership Journey uh of course announcing that I'll be the Principal there at Mitchell but also inviting our internal staff who are possibly interested in coming to work at Mitchell for the 25 26 school year uh to come to an informational session it's actually going to be hosted right here in this room next Tuesday the 24th uh and so I'm going to just take another opportunity it'll be at 4:15 uh we're scheduling it from 4:15 to 5:15 um I can talk so ask why we got to put an end time on it um so I'll definitely have an opportunity to answer some questions there uh but really get an opportunity to share a little bit of of
087what we are uh hoping as a district that this building uh will do how it will impact again our district as a whole um I will say we are planning on uh particularly looking at dcta hiring first uh and then moving on to some of the other Union representation and there are some reasoning for that and we'll talk a little bit about that on on Tuesday questions than thank you thank you for all the work as well all right um uh new business item eight DHS overnight out of state fil Tri requests marching band uh Regional competition this is an information an action item and this is due to timing sensitivity as well um information you sure this was me you're yes I was so enthralled with this presentation sorry star um so yes this
088one's me I'm helping out the high school so I can provide an overview this is as it says an over overnight field trip to for marching band excuse me thank you for moving it to information and action it could have flowed through the two meetings but it would have been cutting it pretty short it is $220 per student that will be funded by um individual students or their fundraising accounts Jenna's gold oh perfect what a surprise right thank you so much all right any questions about that can I go g we'll give a full report and how it all right um it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the DHS marching bent to attend the music all super uh Regional compet competition from October 18th through the 19th 2024 in Indiana penis Indiana
089um is there a motion so move second roll call Chris Boy Yes sty rire yes Steve buers yes Ariel yes thank you ADM be day break uh School based mental health service agreement this is an information item brought To Us by Mr Kyler good evening uh so back in the 2013 24 school year uh sometime in like late winter uh spring we learned about an opportunity to apply for the stronger connections Grant uh which is a Federal grant that actually flows from federal government down to the States so the state of Illinois was awarded uh over $40 million for this grant program um all the credit in the world goes to to our SEO coordinator Sarah Bates our health services manager Stephanie Conan uh grants manager from last year Mike travillian who kind of got
090this started and then Emma ferini uh who is currently helping us get things off the cross Finish Line and then obviously helping us manage the grant we were really excited and armir shared this earlier we were awarded in total $365 se1 that was actually our second award um so initially I think they gave us ballpark 260,000 and then they came back and say hey we're re we're allocating more money your way so um there are some different things that we want to do this grant funds with this grant funding but one of the things that um we're committed to is to provide access to services for all of our kids and we've talked about that over the last couple years in different ways one of the things that you you probably heard people in our
091community um maybe people who you know say I'm trying to get counseling and there's a six-month waiting list or I'm trying to get counseling and my insurance doesn't cover it and that's a real barrier and that has a real impact on our kids both in school at home in the community but also their families we intend to use the funds or a portion of these funds so about $136,800 to partner with Daybreak Health which is a national um kind of company but has uh staff dedicated to each state to provide um free access to our families and their students for counseling sessions um this would be a partnership that would span about two years so we would start it obviously now with the award of the Grant and continue through um not next September but
092the September after that sorry the years are gonna um so I put some more detail on there it's about a two-year partnership um in that uh youth age 10 to 19 would get up to 12 uh individual sessions for free or family therapy if you're Age 5 to 12 um in addition to this this is also going to help and I talked earlier about one of our strategic priorities was that family engagement we're also going to be able to do some different classes and tailor those lessons to what we are seeing our families are asking for needing um so I you know I'm not going to tie in everything today I kind of am but you know one of those things might be uh how can we help parents talk to their kids about safety
093concerns whether that be big safety concerns or little ones um so I think there's some things that um we can use some of these funds to kind of address some of the needs that aren't new but are new or in our face right now I think a little more than may they have been um over time so this is an information item um next meeting we'll bring it back for Action um and with that is there any questions it's awesome to see that you know that that that opportunity is coming about and it definitely can um close some gaps for our families and supporting providing that support you know beyond um what they're able to possibly for you know even with insurance it's still pricey so people that are even eligible to qualify for counseling
094it is still very expensive for people so to be able to provide that is awesome to see you know there's always going to be scheduling Logistics you got to work out but it's a lot easier to get in front of the screen than it is to you know get a ride to go somewhere physical not there's nothing wrong with that right but it's not but accessibility is not always yeah so an opportunity for people but it's also awesome to hear that there's a possibility for us or the potential to to connect the uh some of the needs of the families to some of the things that we are the initiatives that we are um implementing across the district so thank you thank you that's well thank you any other questions does this program I is
095it kind of have like a natural offramp with it or are we going to start a two-year program get families used to something that we offer and then not have the stronger communities Grant and not have the funding in the budget for this kind of program in two years yeah it's a great point so we're going to do this right it's going to be successful and then we want to continue it so one of the things that we could look to do is continue to apply for the grant and but we don't know if those two years from now are going to be available um I'm going to go back to something we talked about earlier which is the data and I think if we have the data that shows that this is something that's
096effective for our kids and our families then we need to prioritize that within our funding whether it's Grant or another way right um or maybe we have to scale it back a little bit so I think there's ways that we could look at it but we're going to let the effectiveness of our Data Drive whether or not we want to reinvest in that down the road too thank you the other thing I did sorry to ramble but um I do want to just say I we appreciate the support of the Cal County Mental Health Board and all of those agencies that we already partner with in no way was this an attempt to kind of like supplant what they do it's really to add to it and we approached um diada while back with this
097idea and she was very much in favor of it and feels like it not only is going to help our district but also help some of our agencies that are also struggling with Staffing and and resources too so hopefully it's a win-win for everybody awesome any other questions consensus to bring this back yes thank you all right item C American um R of association annual conference how you say how do you say or uh I don't know sure our sir so pretty excited about um this presentation for information we've asked um quite a bit to go to to conferences um for our teachers but we haven't focused much on our Fine Arts so kyanne Crouch music teacher from Malta and Lincoln yep um split between the two she took the initiative to reach out and
098say hey this is this this is like a National Conference that like it's a rare opportunity and it's pretty close can we consider this so she gave me her rationale of of why it was very sound um so I worked with the coordinator of um our music coordinator and we got it rolling and we've been working together to to make it happen so now I'm going to because I can't pronounce that either I'm going to go ahead and let Kelly and jump in as well thank you Billy makes me feel better thank you Billy and thank you all for having me good evening to everyone I have an exceedingly unique opportunity to attend the American old work educators conference which this year is in De Moine from November 13th to 16th in previous years it's
099as a National Conference held in Albuquerque and Providence and while that's lovely that's slightly less accessible this is a play based methodology for music and so it aligns really well for our goals especially in the lower Elementary classroom what makes it especially unique is with that play based it's engaging the higher level thinking skills that something like music site reading and engaging in the creation of Music doesn't always happen for our youngest Learners having this opportunity for the conference has 150 different sessions that are all directly applicable to the elementary music classroom so for comparison to the Illinois music educators conference also a great one for our Elementary classroom they might have 20 sessions over the conference including things like introduction to orph work because it is a little bit out there to see but
100having this conference in De Moine has that specificity to meet the learning targets that are actually associated with our strategic goals such as trauma based approaches in this creation classroom using music with our Urban Learners and incorporating seal strategies that may not be seen in traditional music curriculums once I have this information this is something that I can bring back to our professional learning communities as we are collaborating with our Group of Seven Elementary music teachers and further through our whole music staff and this is one that aligns with our Visions through building the musicianship in every learner which is the foundation that we need to get our really excellent overnight field trips for our dcel high school Ensemble the fiscal impact of this is $1,597 and collaborating with Billy that would be paid out
101of the teacher vacancy Grant and aligning with our strategic priority number four of human capital recruitment development and retainment sounds like a great opportunity but even though I canot pronounce the name right but it sounds like an awesome opportunity thank you any questions about would it just be you going as far as I know I am the only elementary teacher who has expressed the interest at this point a five-day conference is a lot to ask for some people so that's a great question be fun to bring a friend yeah it would i' love to it most definitely would as I said Kelly and she's split between two buildings right so that's having to find a sub for two different buildings most likely unless that person can travel if we had another person we'd have to
102do the same and I think everybody knows the sub situation right now so we wanted to get this for now um we definitely were on the same page of how do we bring this back to everybody else if it comes up near our area again and kellyan feels that it's something that is very powerful then we'll most definitely think about sending more people um it's just for right now we you know have to be financially responsible and I think our meor would appreciate that it's awesome and you know what I again it's awesome to see that the conferences are really tailored to focus on the the the priorities that we have and you know and to see that there's opportunities being granted to teachers because that you know throughout the years when I first started
103as a board member I often heard you know a lot a lot a lot of us have these opportunities so to see them come up so frequently now it's pretty awesome so thank you for everything that's being known for that all right any other questions can bring us back yes thank you all right item uh d uh benefit rate proposals for 2025 um this is an information item brought To Us by Mr our mayor DOA yeah uh I wanted to give a shout out to our benefits coordinator Stacy Smith uh she works with new hires want to learn the benefits and she also works with our current employees so uh she is here today uh with our DLR Consultants Adam and Doug and we're going to talk they're going to talk about present what the
104new benefit rates that starts January 2025 is they go out for bids so they're going to talk about what the bids and the results were and what they recommend for us for this fol year so I'll just let them present uh Adam and Doug I'm just going to run all the technical stuff because you guys have see me in the past do a very good job with any of this so I'm hoping this year good evening by the way I'm hoping this is the last year that we have to talk about the impact of Co but uh we do um we saw a drop in claims several years ago because everybody every body was on hold the doctors weren't seeing everybody but subsequently what we found is that there's a lot of providers that have
105retired and they've not backfilled so there is a shortage of providers in all areas for all employers it doesn't matter what health plan you're on it's just something that we're everybody's trying to deal with now I know they've expanded the nursing programs the Pas uh programs to try to get more providers for all of us to see um we met with the insurance committee two weeks ago and so our recommendations are are going to come through that committee as well with their approval this um this year has this past 12 months has been um pretty amazing for the health plan we have seen a significant rise in the number of high dollar claimants um we don't typically run as many high dollar claimants as as we have this year um in fact we had 43
106high dollar claimants that accounted for 47% of our total claims for a total of $5.1 million six of those were in excess of 250,000 with the highest being approximately 600,000 so what are we doing to try to help with that and through the insurance committee through the unions through states in the HR department we're going to really promote the programs the disease management programs that Blue Cross Blue Shield has to offer diabetes Hearts all the things that there are very few things that we can actually manage within the health plan we've gone back to the providers and asked for the biggest discounts insurance companies their profit margin through the affordable Care Act is already set they can only make a certain amount of profit the rest has to go to claims so we have to
107manage the large dollar claimants before they have large dollar claims and that that's the whole goal of us moving forward and we need everybody's help and so it's going to be a concerted effort this year the renewal with with h Blue Cross Blue Shield started off at 18.3% this year it's the highest that they tried to pass through to us at the end of the day we wound up with a 7.3% rate increase we got bids um we went out to bid and in fact we got no competitive bids from any of the other carriers the etas the uhc's of the world and the reason being is um they believed that 7.3 was the was better than they could offer so across Blue Shield it is um the far y claims were up 14.8% our
108ER visits were up 51% of that 24% was what they classify as non-emergency so through the health insurance committee um it was recommended that maybe we raise the co- payment for ER visits but when we got the pricing back from Blue Cross Blue Shield it was literally pennies per month and savings and it didn't justify going from you know $150 to $250 on that the other thing um that came out of the committee is in this particular area it's difficult to get into an urgent care facility they have limited hours where it's actually true walk-in the rest of the time they want you to make an appointment so that kind of hinders a lot so what we did after the meeting is we reached out to the Urgent Care Facilities in the area and said
109hey can we get some extended hours is there something that we can do different um to to help not only you guys but to help all of us at the same time so and we haven't heard back yet on the um HMO enrollment increased 6% um some of the driving factors that you'll you will see is anytime anytime a medication is advertised on TV they're expensive drugs number one and number two too A lot of people want to take those drugs right wrong or different um and right now we're all dealing with the high cost of the the glp1 drugs that um are typically long-term drugs for diabetes but you'll see the advertisements you can lose a lot of weight if you're on those types of drugs they're very expensive roughly $14,000 to $25,000 per
110year so um and it's caused a shortage for those that truly need those drugs when they're being prescribed off label that hurts and we have had a couple instances in the district where we've had to fight hard to try to find those drugs um Dental the dental increased 5.5% um the claims were up 88.6% but we did get them to to hold the renewal to 5.5 the vision rates are um still within a uh guarantee period we've got another year left in the rate guarantee with that the life insurance we moved from Blue Cross Blue Shield to Voya uh which saved approximately $26,000 want to go through the presentation now the vo benefits there's no change yeah the vo benefits volun benefits there are no change anybody have any questions about the health plan or
111rates we wish they were lower believe me I know like uh I didn't attend the last meeting but I have been attending a lot of the meetings and you all have been great uh with working with each other to try to figure out how do we educate our staff the choices that they have in regards to like instead of going to an emercy room you know order other options like totle health and all those things um even just out of that conversation I even went to tap into my own benefits for Blue Cross and Blue Shield right and I work at the University here in town um that I wasn't even aware of right so sometimes it's about educating just you know our staff members about what the options are so that when they can
112hopefully lower the cost not only for just the network but also for themselves right in in emergency visits or anything like that so it's just really being intentional about how we are um you know passing out that information or educating our staff members about the options that they have available even just through the apps um and again just messing with it after some of the conversations that we' had um I I I definitely did come across a lot of things that I didn't know I have I had access to right right um and some of them are even just um keeping Taps on you you know mental healthwise right somebody like a coach checking in and those things that are actively sometimes causing you know excessive stress to people that sometimes end up you know
113in in requiring medical attention that hopefully can be reduced to appri preventative uh methods so hopefully you know we we do a better job with just you know like we mentioned at the committee uh with educating our staff me our staff members and our employees all across the district and just letting them know what is available to them so that we can hopefully again not only reduce cost for for them for ourselves but for them as well and that's a good point um the biggest the biggest obstacle that we have is uh there's a newsletter that's going to be going out from from d and Stacy and it's to get the members to open it and to to read their their emails and their communication pieces because you're right there's going to be a lot
114of information that's going to be coming through and it's not going to be a onetime deal we're going to talk about disease manage management throughout the entire year and all of these programs like using T do because they are effective and they do save money and time right so dou just to make sure I understand and everybody understands what does that mean for our for our medical versus our Dental how much are we going up what are the concerns what are the things that we need to think about right now in front of the board as we begin to start making decisions about our um budget okay you got the rates in yeah just want to make sure that it's clear right okay so the go to the medical let's go to the medical please
115so here are the current rates and here are the renewal rates for the PO plans so you can see that a single employee is going from 1,81 to 78 fam is going uh is at 28989 is going to 31957 um that's on the 750 deductible on the 17 00 9798 98 to, 15750 families 26 8799 to 161 so this is generally speaking you're saying that's a 7.3% increase in between this and this yes yes this is for po that's for the two po plans correct so the HMO plan is going 82329 to 888 42 the family is 233 3579 to 25255 the 7.3 um they gave us a percent decrease on the medical if we renewed with the dental bundle products same thing they've done in the past so that's what drove that rate down
116from 8.3 to to 7.3 so I'm sorry so for renewal on a family in HMO is 2520 what's the PO again more 29 expensive to go in HMO but you have to stay within Network that's correct I just want to make sure yeah you bet and then our Dental the dental rates um single is $50.14 going to 52.90 and family is 15444 16293 is this our only plan yes okay so we're talking about a 5.2 increase yeah across all of it I just again 5.5 not 5 5 I read 5.2 increas oh it's 52 I'm sorry okay read I'm looking up there I'm bringing this up because as we're negotiating three contracts right so I just want to make sure that we're thinking overall what that means as well as part the contract okay yes
117thank you well thank you any other questions for them no all right consensus to bring this back yes all right thank you thank you thank you all right item e dcta program course approval salary schedule credit and CWC course approvals this is an information item brought To Us by Billy l so it's not this up here um so the professional Relations Committee met and this is an addendum to what was already asked um to be approved for uh cours workk and there was a couple things missing so um they got those documents now and they are asking for additional people to be approved you'll see there there's three on there and um the professional Relations Committee already met approved it and now they're looking for your approval any question questions about that all right consensus
118to bring this back yes yes thank you thank you all right item F administrator and teacher salary benefit report 2023 2024 this is an information action item brought to us miss teer Sal but presented by mrir do yeah uh this is a report that is be requires to be posted on the website as October one so it's a a report of the salaries it is in AAR so it is the 2020 3 2024 report uh and uh we need the approval for the board to post it on the website for is any questions yeah it is information informational action sove second roll well I apologize it's been a long day I apologize okay this is an information action item and um so it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the administrator and teacher
119salary and benefit report report for 2024 um wait let me see I read the wrong one I apologize is that what it is it's F right I apologize okay it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the administrator and teacher salary and benefit uh report for 2022 2023 for website publication it's 23 24 okay CU in here says3 okay weix that so it's 20 2023 2024 okay all right so let me read it one more time it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the administrator and teacher salary and benefit report for 2023 2024 for website publication is there a motion so move second roll call Steve buyers yes Ariel Owens yes chrisopher boys yes your Mayers yes thank you all right and then the last item and the next item is the
120superintendent update it's going to be one item it's but it's a tough item right so we're going to go back to what our public participation was a little bit about um I think that the last couple of weeks have been very heavy on everybody's mind about things that are being posted on the we on Facebook on social media how students may be having conversations with adults at home at school and um next week it's some point we will be sending out information generally speaking to the whole District around our thoughts behind and some next steps that we'd like to see all of us take in unison it really uh it takes all of us to figure these things out to help each other and to mitigate the issues that have come forth I think more
121than anything we have to keep in mind our safe to help that our students can use from their Chromebook to a parent using a phone call to you know whatever it is that we need to do to get uh information to us it is always best to use safe to help instead of emailing me or sending me a text message only because we're safe to help everybody who needs to be informed will be informed at the same time and we can get to things a lot easier um B Ben could probably explain a lot better and so can Kyle uh but I just think that what's really more important is that you know that we will be putting out something uh uniformly across the district for everyone to better understand how we are moving forward
122Uh current our security manager is um Matt McIntyre who is also out on professional development to get better at his role in instances as we have just you know gone through and hopefully he I know he will have innovative ways to get us um also feeling more safe and working together to make sure that we mitigate all these things so is it ever going to be over no is it scary absolutely do we like it I hate it um but the thing is is that this is the world we currently live in and we again I have to say all of us have to work together to make sure that we keep everybody safe um so you know without perpetuating fear without making people think that you know something more than somebody else the most
123important thing is if you hear something you see something say something and I'm going to leave it at that and turn it back over to our president any last comments from board members all right with that said it is now 7:46 and with that it is recommended that the board education will adjourn is there a motion all in favor say I thank you everyone have a safe Tri home thank you good night good night