DeKalb CUSD 428 Board Meeting 10/3/2023

001with that we will open our meeting um and do a recall to order of a regular meeting it is now 7 o'clock uh Jackie can we please start a roll call here Andre po here Steve buers here Ariel Owens Christopher boy here Dy Ramirez present D vam here Jenna Zimmerman here all right okay um so first item uh we will do a public hearing on e-learning and loop of emergency days uh public hearing on it is recomend is an action item it is recommended that the Board of Education move to open the public hearing on e-learning in LOE of emergency days we have any comments no okay it is recommended that the Board of Education move to close the public hearing on e-learning in Lo of emergency days thank you all right the next item

002that we have here it is um public comment Jack we just have two Jackie okay cool public comment public participation recognition public comment um members of the public who wish to speak to the board shall complete a request card prior to the start of the meeting this section of the meeting will be reserved for comments of from the public all comments should be limited to 3 minutes criticism of individuals is not in order and we currently have two comments uh one is from Michelle de barbar uh can you please uh you can go forward please thank you for your time today um I do teach in the district I teach special at the high school um but I'm also a parent as well and I'm speaking on behalf of all the parents um as well

003as myself about the transition program and the future of it um for the 18 to 21 students I as a parent know that um you know life is not self-contained and our students as well as everybody else else needs to understand that they have to be able to function in society and um keeping them in a building that um does that is not what they need um they don't even go to the lunchroom for lunch when they go to the 18 to 21 program and don't know if you guys knew that um so it's basically keeping them in a separate setting which does not teach them anything and um my son who has Down syndrome um he did apply for the project search program and he did get in but I did not know if

004he would or not and um the only reason that I had applied for the project surge program with him was because of the program still being in the building and I did not want him to be in a self-contained program for that um he really needs to be out in society since he was 5 years old in kindergarten I have had him mainstream for half the day maybe even longer depending on the day um so that he could learn to to function with um what people say quote unquote normal people um but he fits right in socially um if anybody has ever met my son he is very very um social like appropriate um and I owe that to all the teachers he's had throughout the years but being in the building for the 18

005to 21 program if he had been self-contained um I I know other students have said this to me and I know he would have as well why after I'm graduating am I coming back to the same building um it just doesn't make sense and um I know that part of the questioning is the financial but we have to also think about the well-being of the children and what they you know what they need so that they can live independently on their own when they you know what if something were to happen to me I want my son to be able to live on his own and he needs to learn those skills if he doesn't learn those skills he will never have that that opportunity he'll be in a home or uh either a group

006home or um some facility because he can't do it on his own and um I'm speaking on behalf of myself as well as other parents that you know maybe don't have a voice or can't make it tonight because it it's just too important you know they they need to have a job in society they need to live on their own they need to know how to do bills on their own um so I just wanted to share that with you because I know sometimes we you know if we don't have that at home we don't see that piece of it um and you know luckily my son did get into project search she's thriving um and I know one of the other concerns was that they don't get social work and services like that my

007son used to get Social Work Services he gets nothing now if he needs Services he gets them outside of his he calls it his job now he doesn't even call it school it's amazing he actually corrected me on that um and so I would have to get services for him outside of you know his program so I just want you to know that thank you Mr Bara thank I appreciate thank you uh next up uh Miss Jessica uh can't I I can't read the is it moreles thank you I just didn't want to mispronounce it I apologize and I didn't understand the hand ready so thank you hi my name is Jessica marceles monan and I have led the 18- 22 transition program for the last 13 years for over a decade I have advocated

008to our District administration the need for our transition team to be relocated into a community- based location I persisted with this Mission because it is considered best practice for this unique group of students I take great pride in being more than just the teacher of our transition students I also am their Advocate I'm an advocate for people who have intellectual and developmental disabilities tonight I want to be more than an advocate for these students though I want to try to be their voice the voice of my current my former and probably my future students and their families as well they have shared with me over the years their hopes their dreams and their goals the goals and dreams of our transition students include to live in their own apartment someday possibly their own home to

009live with friends or roommates to work in the community enjoy community life to get married for some and to go to Community Based classes for others students in our transition program explicitly list these postsecondary goals to me each and every year our program and my teaching position is very unique in that I have the honor of working with our students in our program for three four sometimes even five years in that course of those years I build strong relationships and connections with our students and their families as they work towards transitioning out of our district in being their voice I have heard countless families and students convey the hope for a more appropriate educational setting to better meet the needs of the postsecondary IEP goals our transition students St they want to meet there are

010hopes and dreams become mine too and I do feel confident that if we provide students with the appropriate educational setting we are going to provide them with a level of dignity and respect that we cannot provide in our high school setting our students want to be accepted and included in the community as a whole they want adult lives like many of us have achieved relocating the transition program to a community- based location will better equip our district to help our students meet their post-secondary goals help assist us in providing a seamless transition from school to adulthood and open up opportunities for a wide range of real life skills SK practice instead of practicing in the mock setting of our classroom finally I do believe as an educational institution in our community we must show the

011community what inclusive education looks like and inclusion in general we need to help our community fully understand what it means to be including individuals who have intellectual and developmental disabilities thank you for your time thank you you okay on next up we have for correspondents does anybody what anybody like to share anything that they've been up to for the past uh since we last met well I got to go to Huntley middle school with dacy so that was a lot of fun one thing that we heard there and just something I've heard from the high school as well in Clinton rosette is something that I would like the board to look into going forward is looking at Vape detectors for our buildings because it sounds like this is an issue that a lot of our

012students are dealing with and I know we're looking at it from a perspective sometimes of oh they're breaking the rules but I think it's important we also look at we have a lot of young people sometimes as young as 12 years old that are getting addicted to THC or nicotine at an extremely young age so if that's something that we as a district can work towards preventing that's something I'd like us to look into thank you anybody else I did not visit anywhere for the second time in a row it will not be a third I also uh had the pleasure of visiting uh Huntley middle school and attended a couple of meetings as well so um heard the same con you know information that you um shared right now so thank you for sharing

013that anybody else no something Jenna yeah we're we're we're going there we are um so uh so again thank you for the for the board members that are visiting um just a reminder you know let's just continue to make sure that we keep uh manura in the Dr Garcia Sanchez in the loop of when our visits are happening and that we're taking into consideration our principles and our administrator schedules and our teachers time uh but thank you for everybody that opens the doors to for us to come and visit but you know just you know considering it um but thank you again uh for everyone that continues to invite us to come and visit um with that we are going to move to student cor board correspondence okay so over the past week I was

014able to talk with Dr Larson and we're going to start creating a mini board through our school so emails went out from that based on candidates from the teachers and during this uh I asked questions about good things and some bad things about our school or things we can improve on some positive feedback is that we are very inclusive and and we have lots of things to offer at our school and then like he said one of the things that I saw was controlling The Vaping in the bathrooms that have been happening so yeah thank you for sharing than you thank you all right so um with that we are moving on to uh our consent agenda all right it is commended that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda items a through d

015as attached do we have consensus sove motion i v thank you roll call Jackie yes buyers yes Ariel Owens yes for boys yep sty your mirors yes bam yes Amanda harness yes thank you Jackie all right then we moving forward to presentations item a uh which is uh discussion presentation being brought forth by district 428 administrators good evening school board and um decal Malta and Courtland Community we will all all of the directors will join you tonight this is something that will happen three times a year I'm speaking for those who may not know we will do this three times a year um I it says update but really we're going to start off having a conversation about um the goals that we have and what we uh anti anticipate at our department and those

016that collaborate with our department will accomplish this year in um January and then again at the end of the year you will have another another conversation where we will give you updates so I'll start with the uh the diver uh Department of diversity equity and inclusion um some of our goals include um that we are put positioning decal High School to be ready to offer AP African-American studies um we're trying to get them to a place where they can participate in the inaugural College Board launch of this there has been Pilots done um but the College Board is at a place to fully launch it um 2425 school year and some of the strategies that we're going to employ is to continue to network with um people inside of our district and also people like

017uh people from new T and Eon they have already successfully um done this and also to facilitate um attendance for two teachers to attend an AP summer Institute at Howard University so um you'll be getting more information about that another goal is to elevate student voice and student agency and we are finally at a point where we have identified um we've met with Dr lson and uh she is spearheading conversations with the video lab production education staff we are in the process like of identifying students who will co- facilitate a d428 podcast we're working on names but we're thinking maybe something like you know belonging you know I don't know barbs belong we'll see it's going to be segmented it's going to be pretty amazing another goal will be to establish within the Dei Department

018a family and Community engagement structure currently we're researching face Frameworks and plans we're going to continue to develop Frameworks for Parental engagement and of course we're going to get to a place where we have I successfully identified um ways to connect families continue to connect families um one of the goals that we are also working on is that each School building all 12 of our buildings will have facilitated at least three Dei professional learning opportunities by the conclusion of this school year we are going back to preco days where um in previous years um it was it was mandated since on that time period it has has not been mandatory and it has not been happening consistently so we have already uh developed a uh targeted culture responsive Readiness survey which all teachers and Pa

019professionals had access to and I have met with each of the principles with the exception of one just trying to line up our schedules and we are in the process of co-planning and co- facilitating those professional learning opportunities and uh it will be also part of some evaluation Cycles with our school leaders thank you so um regarding uh the business and finance department our strategic priority for um student support is uh to provide any type of Staff capacity to enhance the transportation needs and support services for our students which're we're hearing that uh we need more capacity uh being staff-wise or support and we that is one of the goals for this year to how that will look like and the plan to go along with it um the other uh one of our other

020priorities is going to be regarding Community um we want to help Community understand our tax levy and today will be one of the first days that we're going to talk about how the taxes are uh prepared and how uh the calculation goes along with it and the ramifications uh for it so we want to formulate a communication plan that is open to the community not just uh within the district uh our second uh goal for Community engagement is communicating the district financing about the new elementary school there is a lot of exciting things happening uh just tomorrow for example we have a rating agency presentation where we will try to convince Moody uh to upgrade our uh Bond uh Bond ratings so that we can have lower interest rates and do some savings for the

021the district so that's going to be a big uh it's a big uh presentation that we're uh trying to persuade the moodies uh the next communic uh Community engagement for us is going to be presenting uh what relief uh taxpayers relief we give uh to our community and uh we have not had this information come across uh more effective we would like to have it more effective we are doing a lot for taxpayer savings uh but how we Comm Comm unicate that that is another goal that we're looking for this year and then getting into the financial stability our strategic priority on financial stability with Equity lenss we're looking to enhance our business function of the uh District uh District business office uh a lot of the schools have their own uh business office specialist

022and we we're looking to coordinate enhance that bring that support at a much higher level so that will be one of goals for this year another one is realigning what's going to happen after our federal eser funds are uh we're out and now that we're also part of ebf tier 2 we call this something called a financial cliff so how do we mitigate that that we are uh kind of easily transition to the next stage uh in the next years and the last part is uh working with all academic departments uh School depart uh school buildings and how to coordinate the resource needed how they can be managed and coordinated at a much better support level so that's that's for the business office than you we're going by height so so in regards to student

023achievement from a technology perspective um we're going to be providing professional development resources to further leverage uh AI or artificial intelligence in the district for tools for teaching and learning we are also in the process of migrating from our current version of Skyward to Skyward cumulative and that should be active by July of 2024 and we're continuing the success of our onetoone program and being a Google reference district and then Avo concentrating on our cyber security posture for the district as a whole in terms of community engagement and marketing uh continuing to work collaboratively with our Communications coordinator and enhancing our digital presence um and from a financial stability and Equity lens uh continuing to investigate the grants that are available to us in enhancing our partnership with meta as well as uh advocating on

024behalf of the district through the FCC and E rate and uh hopefully some good news from IBM soon more on that later um and from an HR and Human Resources perspective continuing to attract and retain it professionals and there's a proposal that will be coming forward sooner than later about how to also enhance that for our students so uh board to come thank you thank you we're all looking to see who's talking we're trying [Music] toing this is weird to be up here before other people all right in the world of student service student services um when we look at student achievement one of our goals continues to be this year that we're going to ensure systematic social emotional behavioral and restorative practices are implemented across our all of our schools um using a multi-

025theer system to support behavior model in regards to community engagement and marketing um we're looking to develop more um sustained and long-lasting Partnerships with our community uh particularly with our transition program and how that can open up some doors for our young adults who are as you have heard already tonight bridging their way into um Independent Living um when it comes to human capital recruitment development retainment we're going to work really closely with Dietra and her team in Human Resources um with a specific focus on recruitment retention of our more hardto fill positions uh such as our speech and language Pathologists special education teachers or School psychologists uh some of which you'll hear more about later this evening um and then last but not least Financial stability in Equity lens we're going to look for

026we're going to take a look at our special education programs and we're going to start a process for us to kind of really get an idea of what do we have in place um what are our strengths what are our gaps and then how do we kind of enact a plan over the course of the next couple of years to kind of capitalize on our strengths and fill in our gaps thank you so Human Resources we are all under strategic priority number four human resources goals are continue to improve our onboarding and customer service process as it's related to the hiring and retention of our District staff continue to build Partnerships with colleges universities and recruitment pipeline organizations to fill positions we all know that Recruitment and um retention is difficult during this time continue

027to work towards the creation and finalization of an unaffiliated staff handbook to guide and support our staff members so they know the rules of engagement and then finally create an administrator's handbook to guide them through the HR best practices for supporting staff for safety and facility and safety operations in the student achievement area one of the things that we always continue to focus on is to ensure that we're providing a safe and sanitary environment for our students and staff that includes working closely with our security manager in regards to um fulfilling some of the suggestions that have come through through the safety audit and responding to any concerns that come out from our staff on a regular basis there's the next three actually I have three that tie directly to the new elementary school that

028is um will be under construction and the student achievement site it's working with the stakeholders and the construction Personnel to comply to make sure that we are meeting the timeline for opening the school and that we're doing everything within our means to keep it on schedule for Community engagement one of the things we have been working on over the past year and will continue to work on is uh we are implementing a new facility use software program will make it easier for our community and our staff to reserve space bis throughout our schools and then be able to um make sure they have their needs met when they do come to the school in regards to whether it's setups or staff support or however that may look um that is almost completely uh implemented we

029just will then move on to the training mode for our staff and the roll out the other side of it with our element new elementaries we want to make sure that we're including the community's vision when it comes to the physical grounds of the new school building for example we do plan to include um community members when it comes to choosing playground equipment Landscaping um selection of colors mascot those type of things so more information be coming on that Financial lens uh facility operations you know we do come to you quite often to spend money because we do have a lot of buildings to support and with that we do have a five-year Capital Improvement plan that we are constantly revising and an update will be coming out in regards to that later this year

030we also be overseeing um along with our business office the budget and the expenses related to the elementary school as with all construction projects there will be changes throughout the project and we need to make sure that we are staying on top of them making sure they are appropriate changes and then managing with that within our budget and keeping everyone informed and then the last comes down to our human capital which is huge part of our team we have 82 union members on our team and we have developed a um succession plan and a career path proposal that will be coming to the board shortly in regards to um again providing career path for our staff we have a number of people who are going to be retiring in our team over the next fiveish

031years so we want to make sure that we have the proper uh framework in place so that our current staff had the opportunity to move ahead and see what other positions are like in their District thank you you they save the best for last teaching and learning um we have many exciting things going on this year so we're excited to share our first um area a student achievement and we're going to focus on our low literacy proficiency and performance through instructional approaches we've already identified and started to implement various professional development to support this to make sure that our schedules are aligned and our staffing and resources are aligned we are also focusing instructional conversations around data data disaggregation how do we use data to drive our instruction how do we use data to drive

032our schedules as well and the implementation of various Staffing models we'll continue to develop and articulate our our two-way dual language program to make sure that we fully support our students our second goals involve Community engagement and marketing and teaching and learning will focus on parent engagement within our two-way dual language program and then increase opportunities to share information with parents about our instructional Pro uh programs excuse me in collaboration with our school buildings and for third goal we like to give our miror hard time and asking for money but um we want to be physically responsible make sure that we're out there seeking the grants that that we um might uh apply for and and actually hopefully get right like the teacher vacancy grant that uh we're looking into and then once we re

033um we work on recruiting multilingual um staff we want to make sure we retain them so in retaining them we're going to make sure that we provide them a professional development specifically in multilingual programs and lastly but we're going to provide specific specific role professional development for our uh pay P sorry pay PK through 12 grade teachers thank you exciting thank you for information thank you for all the work that everyone's doing uh it's definitely an exciting moment for the district so thank you for that uh the next uh presentation it's the state of the district begin of school year uh that is going to be presented by District uh 428 administrators good evening again again this state of the district presentation is happens three times for school year as a facilitator of the Strategic

034plan committee I co-present this presentation with Dr Jessica n who is our assessment coordinator and at times we will also have other cabinet members join us when necessary you um have received a slide deck of about 46 slides and um on that slide deag as all as c as is customary we will cover suspension attendance and assessment data so we're not going to go through each slide individually because it's 46 slides and I'm sure you all like to go to bed at a decent hour um take five minutes what you will see I want to make a couple of notes about a few things you will see that there is an increase of the number of students and the number of current when we get to the suspension data I want to remind you all

035that um we started our code of conduct well we adopted a code of conduct you all adopted the code of conduct and then of course we overhauled our uh parent student handbook not once but twice the second time we we are pretty sure we got it because we did have legal um walk us through step by step uh so as a result of implementing the code of conduct we have more uniform reporting practices in in other words we are asking our teachers and Par professionals and administrative uh assistance everybody this is the way you report this and make sure you are reporting it and making make sure that you are documenting it on our um odr process so we expected to see an uptick and we did see an uptick I just wanted to make

036that note um our growth data is promising we'll talk more about that as we present this feel free to ask questions I just ask that you allow us to complete our thoughts um until you ask the question all right check that out all right this fancy nice to see everybody we're gonna start with our suspension data and get that out of the way um so we have here the number and percentages of students who have been suspended during the 23 24 school year one of the members of our strategic planning committee asked for us to add this slide in even though we're at 46 um last last year so you will remember it from last year to keep in mind that if you look at elementary schools for example a very tiny percentage of our

037students are being suspended are are committing infractions that would warrant suspension so keep in mind the vast majority of our students are doing what they're supposed to do to allow themselves the best learning experience and to allow others the same the vast majority of the time um we've tried to condense these slides by comparing the same time frame from last year just right next to it and again as Miss Parker said just South Pacific you have any questions as we go um here we have the type of suspension in 23 and 24 versus the same time frame last school year again we've got elementary schools where we don't really have many options for in school suspension so if you're wondering why that data looks different than it does at our other levels it's it's simply

038not common at elementary schools but remember again there are very few suspensions overall at the elementary level and I have to add also that at at one of our our largest Middle School although the position um exists for a person that would monitor the in school suspension that person has not been hired yet so um it's been out there people have completed interviews and other processes so where it's time they would probably have kept students in school for in school suspension um they haven't had anyone to actually monitor the school suspension program right it's not simply a matter of space in order to make sure that the students have more access to their education when they can't be in the classroom setting if we have an in school suspension that's monitored by an adult who

039can make sure that they're getting the work done so that their learning is moving forward that's great we don't want students to simply be in the building but not be monitored so that would be that it defeats the purpose they won't be doing their work right thank you um this is our student suspension data compared to our district demographics like virtually every school district across the country we are still working hard to make sure that our students from historically marginalized groups do not continue to be over represented in our suspension data it's still something we're working hard on and that we are focused on we have a ways to go um but it is getting incrementally better so you can compare year to year on this slide um our attendance data so this is as

040of September 26th when we pulled this our district average was 92% across all buildings um we've see the same pattern that we're used to with our secondary schools having slightly lower atten attend than our elementary buildings this is grade level attendance rates through the same time period through September 26 of 2023 and then we're into our assessment data here are our map growth numbers um I know that these slides tend to be slightly more confusing than others again the you've seen these in past years if you've been following along um but for anyone who wasn't with us um our orange bar for every grade level are students who met the growth that was expected of them from last year at this time so we gave them the same assessment in the fall of 2022 as

041we did in the fall of 2023 map assigns them an amount that they expect every student to grow in part because we know that one of the things that separates some students from others is that some students have learned how to learn they know what habits are going to help them get that information in their heads they know how to do well on tests so those students would be expected to grow more than students who have demonstrated that they may struggle with learning and need more supports so to combat that map gives them each an individual growth goal and we've got for example in second grade 56% of our students met that growth goal that Matt said was a an expected outcome for them I'm excited to see the second grade data because we gave

042the MTH test to our first grade students for the first time last year so this is the first time we've had that growth measure for second grade um you can see that we for math we are certainly still focused on our middle Elementary grades as a an area where we um want to see we'd love to see more growth and we're looking at our curriculum and um I know Sarah schaer is our elementary math manager and she's working on some very exciting things that will allow more customized learning for students at those grade levels and across the elementary school um keep in mind that the third fourth and fifth grade students are the ones who were in preschool kindergarten and first grade when we had to shut down schools for Co originally so you may

043see we may continue to want to provide more supports for that group of students as time goes on um and then obviously we should be very excited about the numbers in sixth seventh and eth grade that's a lot of growth the black bars that are next to the orange for each CL level that's the national growth percentile this is among the harder statistics to understand so please indulge me for a second as I explain it again um if you took all of the groups of kids at that grade level in every building and you looked at how much they were expected to grow this is how much of that expected growth they hit if you line them up with everybody else so for example for our sixth graders of all the groups of sixth graders

044they were in the 93rd percentile that's really great that's a lot of growth I like those because they give you credit for the amount that you grew not just whether you hit or didn't hit your goal because if you came very close to hitting your growth goal but didn't quite make it you would be in the didn't didn't meet column it's like a light switch on and off whereas with the black bars it shows you how much they grew compared to national peers so that's very exciting for our middle schools to see that those High numbers um this is the same numbers but for ELA so instead of math this is looking at the reading map test and again second grade is on here for the first time and again we can be excited about

045the number of students um in these orange bars that are meeting their growth goals and again look at this eighth grade I mean from Seventh to e8th grade these students were in the 94th percentile for growth so that's that is really something to be excited about um this is the lit literacy assessments for the elementary level um so here's where the breakdown is for our students how they performed against the 2020 Norms this is the longitudinal view so we are making incremental growth here we're seeing this red number go down slightly over time we're going to keep at it you'll see kindergarten on here for the first time so I know that is still a very long presentation and that we like to talk about data more than maybe people are prepared to listen to

046it all in one setting but um this will help us in a number of ways first we'll be able to see growth data for our first grade students next fall because they will have taken it from a very young age um and second we do not have we have the same measure for everybody so now our slides can compare longitudinally for every student in our district K5 which I think is exciting but I get excited about data so you know think that was a great Assa um this is our breakdown for all students K through five by race and ethnicity any group that doesn't appear we have fewer than 10 students so we we try to um not present that data in a broken out way because it might lead to personally identifiable information these

047are our MTH reading groups K5 um broken down disaggregated by the students free or reduced lunch status so obviously we've got some areas where Equity remains a a major concern as we look at our data we also give the map Reading assessment in Spanish to students who are a part of our two-way dual language program which is in grades K one two and three this year and we'll continue rolling up and our oneway dual language program which is still in grades four and five this is our Spanish map Reading percentile groups grades K5 districtwide so keep in mind that K through three half of the students taking this test speak English at home our dual language program means half of the students speak Spanish at home or Spanish and English at home and half of

048the students speak English at home that's what makes it to way dual language um which is why the numbers may look the way they do almost certainly it explains some of it this is our um progress over time and you'll see on here grades one through five these three this last year but starting in kindergarten this fall and then our Spanish reading percentile groups by grade we've got some variability there and by the free or reduced lunch status I get excited about this because there is less variability between those two um our grph then we look at our math assessments for elementary school so you've got grades K5 centile groups over the last four testing periods should be a familiar Cadence by now this is is by individual grade level again with kindergarten For the

049First Time by race or ethnicity free or reduced lunch status and then we can move into our Middle School data and again please stop us at end point if you have questions these are our map Reading percentile groups for grades six through eight so we're moving toward what you might expect to see with a normal curve a reading percentile groups the last four testing periods by grade by race or ethnicity by free or reduced lunch status these are our Spanish literacy assessments for those grade levels these students are only our one-way dual language students so because of the format of our one-way dual language program um students who have exited our program because of their score on access tests would no longer take the Spanish reading percent the Spanish map test because they no longer

050receive English learner services does that make sense okay percentile groups over [Music] time five grade by free or reduced lunch status and then we've got our middle school math um and I often asked this by our eighth grade teachers we have a number of students I think we if I off the top of my head we have 200 students who took the algebra test in eth grade rather than the um six plus math test those scores are included so our our highest performing students take a different test we do include that data here as well but you won't see them in the growth data because they didn't take the algebra test last year does that make sense okay so here's how they did um in grades six through eight this is the performance over the

051last four testing periods relatively stable by grade by race or ethnicity by free or reduced lunch status that's it and that's it because you've got all of the assessments are the same now K8 it is less than it has been in the past are there any questions we can answer about the data at this time information but thank you it definitely looks like you know we still have a lot of work to do but there's definitely strides that we're making so thank you for that and it's always exciting to see growth you know even if it's small it's exciting so great we might we might say we're not exactly where we want to be but we can't get to there without going through here so let's get to it um if there is some other

052disaggregation that you would prefer to see in the winter or going forward please let either one of us know we'll be happy to do that too you thank you thank you thank you for the visuals in the previous presentation as well I know that last year we talked about them and they came back again so thank you for that all right the next uh presentation is the tax levy information presentation which will be presented by Mr our d d actually it's going to be the two the duo right so our um it's this time of year that we have to explain what we're going to be doing in relation to Texas right and if you've read my newsletter and you've seen our past newsletter I've been talking a little bit more and more about it

053and that's because we want to make sure that you understand what we the process is um making sure that our community understands it the board understands it and everybody out there in the world understands it so that when there's a question about why we do what we're doing it becomes very um it becomes more clear right I still have trouble like I still have trouble trouble reading my property tax paper I don't know about you all but you know that really kind of confuses me and so this helps me and you you'll hear me ask air questions clarifying questions on purpose because I want to make sure that I understand it and I'm hoping that if I CL ask the clarifying question it'll help everybody else too okay so please forgive me I don't want

054to come off as anything other than clarifying questions around that oops you got me there right I know thank you apiz okay so I'm going to go ahead and let you kick it off thank you sure so it's the we're kind of early in the tax levy process but we wanted to bring in uh kind of a overview a kind of an understanding some background and some information to act as a base as we move forward with the calculation so uh so this is U really we start off with sorry so we always start off with uh the the estimated assessment we receive from the county so uh this is the County Assessors uh will will issue uh the assessments and by October 5th we have received many uh estimates so far and even yesterday

055we received a uh a shift we're seeing a big shift but it's trending higher it's trending that our um our market value our Market valuation keeps growing higher which means that our tax base is growing U of the amount of uh tax we can charge from so uh the levy calculation must need that assessment we need to know what the tax bases I Bas what is the uh tax eav or the tax base it's uh the the value of the properties the value of all the properties that are being taxed so uh we're kind of still early but we want to um uh kind of give this background so uh the levy calculations um need three things they need our equalized assess valuation or eev this would be our property value it needs the what's

056the inflation or index uh Consumer Price Index uh and in addition it needs to know what are the new construction that are coming into the tax roles so with these three we can we can use it for our um when we uh look for the calculation for the tax rate so just to be clear okay he's very technical right um just to be clear a levy is the amount of the taxes that we collect that is based on all of this right like so it's my it's our piece of the pie right so the tax collections are you know in a you know in a pie let's say and there's a slice of pie that belongs to the district and that is our Levy is that correct correct so uh this is the share of

057the revenues we receive from the taxes being collected by the county uh we want to make sure either we maximize it or uh we receive the revenue that is with the district need we always have in mind the sensit to being sensitive to taxpayers uh you know uh savings for taxpayers but also not uh kind of not losing resources on our end as well so a very responsible manner we we look for the share now remember we also we're not the only taxing body there is about nine other taxing bodies just in the city of dial and then each Courtland or Malta will have other taxing bodies this will be like Auto Reclamation libraries public parks and so forth so each one of them will be uh taking a piece of from from that taxes

058so um we are the largest taxing body but we're not the only one okay so that's our slice that's what we're supposed to get okay got okay all right I supposed to ask that see my noise Okay cool so I wanted to give some perspective on how uh our e is remember when we talked about eavs that's the market value of all the properties well there is about uh six uh properties types we have residential we have Farm uh we have commercial industrial uh minerals and railroad right uh look at the before you do that so the county assessor does the assessing we the district don't do that right no the yeah correct so the county provides this assessment estimates and it just keeps uh the the estimates are never settled until in Spring however

059they do provide some estimate for us to kind of work on getting that calculation and giving a recommendation to the board but they are not settled until spring so the tax the tax rate that we are going to provide may not be the tax that is eventually settled in spring so I hope that kind of okay good so yes so these are all from the county these are the the the the all assess uh County assessor's office uh taking in the numbers looking at the properties looking if you uh uh added like a chimney or an addition to your building well that kind of adds more to your uh uh tax based or eav uh so we have residential if you look within within the years residential has not grown as much but it is

060about 44% so homeowners are paying about 44% of our taxes uh so it is a big share but uh we we're seeing now that commercial and Industrial are taking a a little bigger uh piece of that pie to pay for us right so we have a commercial we have about it started at 200 million uh and now we were it's about 283 but look at the industrial that is the something that U everybody knows our industrial zones are growing thecal is that unprecedented level of economic growth we we started off at about 54 million we're at about 38 million what does that mean that means uh the tax rols are growing uh and the homeowners piece let's say it's slowing it's getting a little bit smaller but the industrial uh is however I have to

061put a caveat on that uh there is a lot of tax incentives that happens with the industrial Zone uh so I kind of spoted out back in 22 based on actual numbers even though we did group from 80 million to 140 million that is thank you thanks to meta and Ferrara however the district saw about 600,000 from uh meta and about 300K from uh Ferrara which is about a million in Revenue that is because of the abatements a lot of these industrial zones coming in do have some uh 20 to 15 to 20 years tax abatements where they are only paying about 50% taxes to the district so we are very happy to see this coming in the tax rols but um but understand also that there is some abatements in it in in there

062so again we're happy to have them and we have some economic growth so I guess I just want to clarify for my own information so that $8 billion worth of development only equated to $600,000 in net revenue for the district right now with meta I don't know about 8 billion but but they they came they come in phases if that's what you mean so right now I think there was a phase one that opened uh and not you have to think about also the time timing right so we we heard about craft but craft doesn't get into our text rols until the following year we're hearing about many stages of our of Facebook but that doesn't mean it's going to add up to the tax RS right away just because they announced it so you'll

063see that f phased in um so just just to be clear the only time it gets counted is when it's actually built out so if they're building it so it doesn't exist it doesn't get counted yet yeah and and so case in point yesterday we received a new estimates because they keep assessing the value of that uh a meta so when I reached out to the county I said why are the assessments going so H so much higher than previously quoted just like weeks ago quot it well that's because the the the county keeps assessing them and then re-evaluates that actually Facebook is evaluated 50 million more than what we anticipated so it so that kind of explains it uh so but again we've never seen uh it's probably one of the few counties right

064now seeing an industrial growth uh that within five years seeing so very excited time for us but remember there is a few tax incentives in involved with that uh I just wanted to point out just uh the historical perspective of how our tax rates and our e remember there was a recession uh so you can see that our uh tax rates keeps keep going down as our eev keeps going up so there is an inverse relationship there so kind of again kind of shows that economic economic uh conditions uh do affect our tax rates okay I always go to guy for this this is okay uh let's talk a little bit about the Consumer Price Index all of you know about inflation all of you know that the the the gasoline has gone up food

065has gone up uh Goods any type of goods have gone up we felt it the same uh because we we have food supply chain disruptions that have caused you know a more increase in our transportation has increased for us as well so we've seen that in supplies we've seen it in uh also in salaries sometimes so uh this that's what uh this tax calculation allows us that these fixed cost that keeps growing every year with a change in price the the calculation allows us to capture that uh and uh this year it was 6.5% but we do have a law that uh uh does not let the school district take in any more than 5% or CPI whichever is less right so for example we have uh 6.5% CPI but that law does not allow

066us to go anything anything more than 5% um so if you look at the chart there we we have seen inflation like ballooning so high as far back as 2013 we haven't seen inflation like this High uh so this is the first time that we actually been uh this is the second time rather that we've been hit by this law that says you cannot take anything more than 5% that's kind of good news let's say for uh uh property taxpayers and so forth that we can go as far as 5% but the previous years for example uh if it was 2% CPI we could not take five we could only take what is less so we're seeing that right now uh that's part of the calculation so just to be clear this CPA percentage is

067determined by the federal government and is used by school districts and other taxing bodies to ensure we account for funding for essential costs like staff salary increases to and and and our growth so kind of like the cost of doing business right so we have to make sure that we're taking into account what things cost us to be able to do the business that we have to do and we can't can't request more than 5% every year because that is the cap that we are mandating correct that's that that is yeah and we've been we have been the county has enacted that since 1999 so and we've been in under this law since then but that is a good point I did put it in there uh the CPI taken is used for unaffiliated staff

068so whatever we decide uh when we charge this Levy uh the unaffiliated uh staff will will know what that raise will be the following year so we're moving into this you know now this tax levy request right and so that's part of November this that's what's going to happen next for the board so we're going to start talking about what the board has to do next as we move into what we have to do every year at this time so attack ly request is when we start saying about where we're going to what Levy how much from the levy we're taking how much we're leaving behind behind is that what we're doing uh in in November yes uh yeah for the November we uh there is I think that we start talking about it we're

069going to start talking about start talking so yes we start talking I hope the next slide will kind of yes your next slide does y okay I got ahead of myself I just want to make sure we all understand where we yeah but the CPI does play a major role on that because that's the only time we are allowed to kind of catch up with the raise Rising prices so that's kind of important to not slide there you go all right um he's just still clicking yeah it's too too modern too uh okay so yes so the November one so I think that's what we're discussing the administration does bring up uh their recommendation what they see is a very responsible uh you know kind of since we are the stewards of the financial resources

070of the district uh we bring in recommendation that kind of Cs out analyzes looks at all the ramifications for this and you know we're very sensitive to the taxpayer savings as well but also that our resources are there for student learning for staff uh for also parents that want their their students to have all the resources available uh so uh when the administration brings in there um we we bring that recommendation to the bo uh based on a lot of factors which uh is for the next um in the next slide Okay cool so okay right cool this is the fun part okay so yeah so we have provided many taxpayer savings almost uh every year uh and uh and I will show that in a tax bill uh and and in the past six

071years we provided some form of abatement uh that is very responsible financially that kind of keeps the resources that we need but also not having a long lasting impact which will affect teachers will affect staff will affect students and of course parents so uh when we we Pro when we provide this recommendation there's a few considerations we have right so remember there is a high inflation coming in that was caused by labor shortages labor cost uh Union agreements and other expenses within the budget additionally we have to remember that uh we are facing that kind of that I always call it a financial cliff because of a lot of emergency relief from coid is kind of expiring um the new uh funding formula has helped us but now we're back to tier two and uh

072let's see I think I covered all one yes so we keep talking about higher inflation obviously Yes means higher cost however higher inflation I work at a bank also means we're paying you a lot more money to have that money in the bank with us so where is all the additional money that we are making as an institution by having money invested at the banks coming into this conversation because I know the county plays all the banks in town and they'll get five 5.3 5.5 uh yeah and and we take advant we take advantage of that we we're part of a school district investment pool uh and we are at about 5 3 5% right now so we do take advantage of it the problem the thing is that um the tax the revenue that

073we get we have only three sources of revenue because we're not a company we are a local government body uh that has to provide services uh the local taxpayers are more than half of that so the tax revenue that we collect uh is something that we R so heavily on so yes we do have an interest income but it's it wouldn't cover uh not even payroll at this time so cool so one thing that comes always in our analysis is to create that short-term impact remember we are stewards of Financial Resources so we when we bring recommendations and uh understand that the recommendations are very sensitive to taxpayers savings but also doesn't have a longlasting impact right so we try to take uh uh to take money out from Bond and interest Levy what does

074that mean uh back when you uh we paid uh for the new High School Portland remodeling of Huntley and Founders well that was a lot of that was referendum money and construction that we are going to be paying for the next 20 years so we try to take that money and relieve the burden of the taxpayers from that so that's one way that uh we do it uh we also allow um uh we also try to have every year a new Savings Plan so that kind of gives us a little bit more knee way what strategy we want to use but it doesn't have a permanent uh if effect let me go to the next slide and this there is I just want to make sure that we're understanding I think what's important is for

075folks understand what the abatements are and what the and that what that means right so when we get to the next slide let's just go there okay uh let's look at that tax bill let's look at that tax bill okay cool let's uh I hope everyone has looked at their tax bills and kind of figured out what's going on with year between years with the school district remember you have about nine tax in bodies if you live in the P how uh but for uh let's take a uh one market value home that's in 2016 that's kind of important especially for homeowners you must have seen that your market value of your home has grown right well that means that your tax base is growing so unless you're selling right now you will probably see

076a a a valuation growing higher right so um can I also add for those of us that rent not I don't rent I own but so I'm very curious about that but for those that rent sure they they still have to pay into that right because the landowner is paying the property taxes so they have to make up the difference in the property so that means they probably raise rent too right correct correct so yes uh as I mentioned in there there's many type of properties a rental unit would be another property that is affected by this market value increase so you will probably see uh rent going up uh as the eav grows um so that's everybody is affected in a sense like all rent uh units home owners even uh I think I

077had also a question what happens to those that paid off the home they also are effective because they also pay taxes okay uh so let's take a look uh somebody who bought a um home at 150,000 back in 2016 right so that's kind of important not what it is right now uh so you will see that their market value kept growing Higher and Higher and in 22 that should be no surprise to everyone those home prices were going very high you probably heard your neighbor kind of selling their homes at astronomical prices and you're like no way that cost that much and he probably didn't but it's the inflation that was kind of picking up there uh and and the district please take a look at this back if you see the first uh or

078the third uh row down the the first one with the in the table that's our tax rate so our tax rates have gone down uh from about 7.7 to 6.08 we are very mindful of that we want to continue to lower it uh this in a various in a responsible way but uh continue that trajection so I provided an example let's say an example in 2023 where we do go down the tax rate how will it affect it a lot of shock will happen is because of the inflation keep growing so high uh between the two years you will probably see even if the tax rate goes down you might see an increase in taxes tax our properties are going our propert at higher rates good news if you're selling bad news if you're staying

079and and then youit yes all right just because this is the part where I'll be honest I get very confused by these numbers sure so if we are collecting more money from eav we take the full 5% CPI how are we then still taking less percent taxwise uh the way we're calculating it uh we are we are leaving money on the table and that's but the the one thing that I have to point out is is when we do leave money on the table there's other taxing bodies that say that build it a new building build it a new library build it a new infastructure that will Peg it to the taxes so just because let's say one taxing body like us lower it doesn't mean that others will follow because we lower we can't

080I want to say we can't help what a home value is but we're trying to compensate for the difference so by us lowering the taxes we're trying to help we are lowering what we take from the tax right correctly I mean we can't help that home prices keep Rising correct you know the valuable home it's based on economic conditions correct and but one thing that I want to point just because it's uh it's going higher by $200 it could have gone Higher by if we took the maximum it could have gone Higher by 400 or 600 so again we're trying to be responsible lowering and continue this trend so so for instance we could have taken up to 7.7 but in this example we're dropping it down to 5.9 so even with leaving all of

081that amount on the table it still would mean that this person in this example would still have to pay $243 more in taxes but had we taken what was 7.7 you'd have to pay a lot more right so we're doing something it's just because the eav is so high it's you know we we can't keep up you know without it deterring something from bless so yeah that's very important to understand um okay cool uh the next I feel better it's it's it's difficult like calculating the property tax levies and charging uh charging the right amount is important we need to have the right estimates or we risk uh over taxing or under taxing uh and you know kind of depriving the actual district with resources of that they are allowed to so uh and that's

082why uh it's until November that I bring recommendations the numbers are a little bit much more settle the estimates are getting a little bit more stable and then in December uh we will hold a public hearing uh I will issue it to the newspaper that the tax race that we're going for and then there is public Hearing in December and that's when approval happens and then in February what happens in February something still happens in February sure just because we submit a text rate to the county doesn't mean that uh um uh doesn't mean that we're getting that tax rate there is a board of review and appeals that happens there is new assessments that might happen and it's at that time sometime in the spring Mar between you it's the Cal County is very

083good they do bring it by end of March but uh normally they can't have up until April and uh that's when the numbers are settled and they they come in and they say sign this this is your tax rate so again what we submit doesn't necessarily mean what we get thank you so I just in general what I'd like for everybody to understand is that as much as we'd like to leave as much on the table that also means that the other taxing bodies can't go and collect right so that's number one number two is that it's really hard for us to really try to get to a number right away in such a quick and a hurry because there's all of these changes that are still happening right and even in February we it

084still might change again so it's difficult but we're trying to be very mindful of that and keep it a trend on ensuring that we leave something on the table at least what we left last year hopefully leaving more this year right uh to try to help mitigate some of those taxes and in this case U you know we're we're going to try to do our best in doing that but just keep in mind and I'm going to remind everybody we did just you know guarantee a new DCT contract and we have three other unions that will be negotiating we want to make sure that we're also being are doing our due diligence so thumb plus our programming and everything else and cost of doing business we have to make sure that we're taking care of

085all of those pieces and that we're not leaving something behind right to keep to continue to keep the best at the best for our children right so that could be the transition program building that we're looking at including it could be you know additional services that we might need more teachers that what might need to hire whatever that case might be but I just again want to reiterate and be clear that the abatements that we're giving when we say abatement I didn't say this but I need to say this because I have to keep a mind to myself an abatement is giving somebody a discount on paying taxes right so like the big guys like MAA and Ferrara and these guys get a discount for coming to do business here so we give them 50%

086off over the over 20 years right so if we were supposed to get 1.4 million we're only going to get 700,000 from them every year so to get 700,000 but we're leaving on the table millions of dollars right for taxes so we're I feel like we're doing a better diligence than than they are making sure that we're leaving the right amount on the table for you all okay so I just want us to be really clear on that we're not trying to do anything else other than making sure that that makes sense to all of you because if this doesn't make sense to you then you know when we're doing things and the qu then we're questioned as to why I I want I want you to say well she explained it and if we

087need to will we rewind tape and show it to you again right but but that's really why we're doing this okay sorry that we took so long to get here but I wanted to make sure that everybody I think having a a a great District obviously adds you know also value to the community right people want to go and people follow education people want to go where their kids are going to receive all the best services and then in that obviously um increasing also property that an interest of people wanting to come here so well you pay taxes to get the services right right so you get the library you get all those resources that's what the money is for right so if you start reducing the money you give them that means the services

088are then lessen so you know those are your services so you got to think about what what it is you want what you need thank you thank you thank you thank you all right so moving on to Old business uh prior to us moving on to Old business uh I would like to motion to pull uh I would like to p a motion to pull from the agenda item a uh is there a motion yes Christopher boy yes acis yes V bam yes Amanda herness yes Andre F awesome thank you Item B um is an action item it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the out ofate travel for AMI sad Benjamin Erikson Thomas uh schan and dandon Mason to atonment Lutheran School in Milwaukee Wisconsin motion second I arens yes Christopher boys

089yes Stacy yes B yes Manda harness yes Andre pow yes Steve buers yes thank you item C out of state travel to NAB conference uh miss this was item that was brought to us by Miss S Montgomery and AJ crook uh is an action item it is recommended that the C Board of Education approve the aate request for the multilingual programs coordinators and secondary multilingual leader to attend the navi conference in New orans in March 20 say 28 to 20 okay through the 30th okay I apologize uh 2024 is there a motion Mo second ROV Christopher boys yes sty irez yes Dante bam yes Amanda harness yes Andre pal yes Steve buers yes Ariel Owens yes thank you the next item is item uh D which is the relocation of 18-22 transition program that was

090presented to us by Kyle gtis and Tammy Carson before we actually move on to a vote I would like to um ask if there is a possibility for the to the members of the cabinet if they could provide us with clarification on the funding of where this uh how we will fund this uh project I can answer but I'd like a hi thank you and I and I apologize I I actually had it in my list of questions last time to ask and I totally slit my mind so I apologize for that okay uh so yeah their the ask is about 1.5 million uh Max at maximum so uh this was allowed uh it was a fund set aside because of reimbursements we're getting for architectural designs of the the design committees civil engineering for

091the new school so we started that process back in April and we're going to get financing in November uh and once that financing comes in we'll get reversed for all the way up till April um and I believe there was there's this cost and I think people were asking it's about 800,000 uh and the the came in from projects that are are either shelved or that were not approved in the in the September so those were some T projects such as um the the ad Center uh the ad Center parking lot and so forth so just to be clear it's money we used we got it back and now we get to spend it again correct allocating funds okay I guess I'd like to push back on the money we got back this is I

092think for a way to put it in way most most people can understand we are going to college we got a student loan we bought our books everything ahead of time let's say it cost $2,000 for easy math now the College gave us a $22,000 check because they said you already prepaid these expenses so it's not just free money it's $22,000 that we owe interest on every year for the next 20 years and we're now saying well instead of paying my loan down to 8,000 I'm going to go buy a Macbook now the MacBook is absolutely going to help our educational career there's no doubt about it it is a good investment but to just say it's a windfall of money that we just got out of the sky I think is dishonest to the

093public like it's still money we are paying an interest rate on for the next years oh I you you're talking about the financing yes okay uh so uh yeah those are reimbursements that that uh came out of the uh the fund 20 uh we were going to pay that money anyway so this is money that were allocated for it so I mean there's so we reallocating the the money money should have come out of financing building yeah so I mean that's that's something uh and uh we and that is one thing that we're doing is getting an investment manager to uh kind of mitigate some of that interest that we're losing uh by investing the money as Construction goes on and pays off we we're kind of mitigating that any questions about that positional questions

094before move on thank you and I apologize again for not asking this question last time oh no that's fine thank you thanks M all right so with that uh we are uh going to move uh this obviously item to action this is an action item it is recommended that the Board of Education give approval to acquire a location residential home for use by the 18 to 22 transition program um is there a motion sove move second oh actually I apologize this up for a vote I apologize so this is actual just we're asking for the actual request of the vote right yes motion second Steve got Steve who second somebody over here said he secondly right Chris second roll call all right d yes bam yes Amanda harness no Andre Paul yes Steve buyers yes

095Ariel Owens yes Christopher boy yes thank you all right moving on to the next one is item e increase of FTV request uh increase of uh this was an action item it was uh it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the increase of the DHS cook from six hours to per day to eight hours per day is there a motion move I got it I got it okay BR call please uh V bam yes Amanda harness yes Andre PA yes buers yes Ariel Owens yes Christopher boys yes D yes all right uh future Elementary uh School business we currently have no updates for that is that correct correct thank you okay so before moving on to uh new business I would like to also motion to pull item m is there a motion

096so moved second R call Manda harness yes yes Andre PA yes sters yes Chris boy St yes and B yes if I can interject real quick for all the staff members here that are here for the transition program you do not need to feel required to stay for the rest of the board and also for you Jenna I know that you have food tomorrow have to [Music] do she's up she's by guys thank you for coming [Music] okay all right so all go arrest them now they're being a all right uh moving on to new business uh the first item on our here item eight is to officially appoint our student uh board member um it is recommended that the Board of Education approved the appointment of Miss Jenna simmerman as the student board member

097for the school year 2022 or 2023 to through 2025 is there a motion R Amanda harness yes Andre po yes Steve buers yes Ariel Owens yes Christopher boy yes Stacy your mirers yes vant B yes thank you again and welcome this is a a very exciting time and I as I actually mentioned to Jenna this was actually an idea that was brought forth by Dr Garcia Sanchez when she first started at the district to include a student board member as a voice for the students uh in the district so um you know we had a previous board member that uh did uh you know did a great work and we are excited to have here as well uh to continue some of that work um this definitely is a new initiative not a lot of

098districts actually have a student board members so this is something that we are almost like creating and you know working together uh with the student uh board members to create um and establish the foundation of what this position would look like so thank you Jenna for taking the time and the extra initiative right to to uh a responsibility to add to your play we really really are grateful for that and we look forward to working with you thank you thank you thank before we move on just so that you know we'll always ask JN on between 8 and 8:30 if she needs to leave to go do homework we excuse her as well so she'll let us know that she's leaving whenever she's ready to go thank you John thank you again and welcome all

099right um Item B uh request of out ofate travel uh National athletic director's conference this is a information item part brought To Us by Mr Peter G Le a couple things today one don't ever trust Jackie when she says you'll go right away two I know what a text love is now I think I felt like I was back in math class uh before I ask you for money good news uh Cal beat sick more today en boy soccer 4 two I thought I was going to run late but I guess I plent plenty of time yes um yes what um I am the president-elect for the Illinois athletic Directors Association and next year I will be the president of all the athletic directors in the state of Illinois I'll be the P president [Applause]

100for but what we were able to do is to go to I get to go to I'm asking to go to Orlando to the National Conference I've been at Denver I think two years ago and it's just a great time for us to connect with all of the other different presidents throughout the United States we meet monthly in a zoom call right now but it's good to go down there do a lot of PD uh some great speakers uh John Gordon's going to be there so we have a lot of good things to see when we go down to Orlando so and next I I find out next month when I meet with the board whether or not that my portion will be paid by the iada so right now some of that and then

101some of my my travel money but uh with the help of Jackie finding me finding some good cheap flights uh direct flights which are good so but that's that's really nice but that's that's what we'd like to do um when I came back from Denver saw a lot of great things got to do a lot of neat things so that's what we're asking to do now awesome thank you thank you consensus to bring this back yes thank you thank you for everything you do all right the next item is item d uh is it is that how you would say w oh the first one I apologize see look at me jumping to Item B item C out ofate travel cosn National Conference is an is an information item brought was by Mr Ben Ben

102Bale yeah so I sit on the board of I Illinois educational technology leaders this is my first year on the board it was a professional and personal goal to get on the board and uh they make a always to the annual conference the board as a whole um I board so I'm hoping to be able to attend the co National Conference um it should be a good event full of discussions about artificial intelligence cyber security all the topical things and also the goals that align with the district awesome thank you consesus to bring this back yeah M thank you all right now the other one which is W West Master facility conference Miss Tammy Carson is an information item the Wisconsin version of iasbo hosts a master facility conference every year around this time and

103we have been in attendance one or more of us have attended it there's some great breakout sessions in this conference in addition gives us continuing add credits that are required for our certifications and the roles that we hold so I'm just asking asking for permission to attend approval to attend the conference at the end of October can thank you consensus to bring this back thank you all right our next item is item E staffing request 1.0 unaffiliated paral position brought To Us by Miss Dietra Salis is an information item correct good evening um so we are requesting the addition of a position of par illegal I have listed in the document the cost that we've spent the last few years on legal costs and they have uh increased significantly 2122 school year we spent approximately

10426,1 12179 on legal fees and then for the school year 2223 costs were approximately $452,500 63 um if we have this pargal position we believe it will decrease some of our attorney costs um with the various firms that we use because we would be able to do more internal review of documents handle foyer requests investigate investigation matters and other things related to compliance over the last few years we've seen a significant increase in the amount of work as related to Title One paperwork processing grievance complaint and and other paperwork processing foas in general from our community um student discipline and real estate matters all of those are taking time away from a variety of Staff members to do day-to-day operation work as we have to do significant work as related to investigations or legal documents

105and things of that nature this position would fall in the salary range of 55,000 to 90,000 and then after the cost of benefits we do average on the high side because we don't know what the candidate um selected candidate May accept so we're looking at a cost of potentially 63,000 about the actual you know difference and then move forward from there y we will definitely evaluate that um the the work itself as well as the cost um as related to our legal firm cost compared to Bringing on this additional position um our me our money guy um he actually suggested that we go with a a full-time attorney in the district but we do want to take the time to assess what how we'll really be able to use that position and be able to

106um deal with some of the costs one caution with taking on an attorney in the district we currently have various law firms that we use because we have a variety of needs uh personally for myself I use somebody for um uh employment human relations uh matters but then Kyle uses a different firm for student related matters uh as related to discipline and um special education then we have real estate attorneys and then we have tax attorneys so finding that unicorn that can meet all of our needs would be very expensive but also very hard to find would the hope then be that the peral can provide you know just obviously some legal advice based on you know general information than at that since we do tap into different maybe not advice but support support so

107definitely support So as investigations happen as paperwork needs to be done um even some of the things that come to you on a regular basis us and things of that nature working with the legal firms and making sure that they're done timely and done accurately so we're looking to pay someone potentially $103,000 with Benefits when this is an admin role we're going to be using law firms anyways and paying those fees so we need to get someone because you're saying that these tasks are being projects are being done today and it's just timec consuming and taking away people from their current roles so do we really need a pargal or do we need someone to fill a role to handle these projects that may not cost us $103,000 so 103 again with Benefits right but

108your salary range is up to 90 but with the whole compensation package you're saying it could be about 103,000 right so I mean let's let's shoot for the highend because you've got a paralal that's going to come to a dist they're going to ask for a higher salary just just because of the dynamic of what everything is going on they're dealing with a lot of different things so anyone would be smart to ask for a higher wage but you're saying these tasks are being done today by people in the district so is it really a paralal job or is it do we need someone that has great skills multitask able to handle different things to fill a role like this that may not cost us that much because in ter we are then going and

109using the law firms so we're double dipping going back to air saying it might be wiser to bring in a lawyer that we may have to pay a little bit more but then we may not be turning back and using all these law firms being charged those High rates because we're double dipping if you have a paralal they're not able to give you a final answer legal wise they're just a paralal so I'm just throwing it out there and challenging you is it truly a paralal role or is it a role that may just be some sort of of support staff coordinator some new role I mean the reason that we are suggesting a par illegal is the skill set that they come with that they have that they know how to do legal research

110and they could actually make recommendations to the attorney decrease some of that time that's spent in the conversations that we have with our attorneys and decrease some of those costs but we're looking for a skill set if you will on some of these things the amount of time that's done on eisc Discovery on the attorney side so the data gets collected but then when it gets turned over to the attorney the amount of time and B span is you know it's very high so if we can have somebody do that inhouse and then reduce that it's really the skill set they probably have their own paral putting that we do work with some par illegals with our Law Firm but they charge higher rate they charge a higher rate right okay consensus to bring this

111back y okay thank you okay um the next item is item F uh request to bid Food Service management company mrir DOA so um for the Food Service Company uh we have to go out for a multi-year company now because we already exhausted two um non-competitive emergency uh competitive bibs as they called it uh we did get uh for the past two years due to supply chain disruption a lot of uh uh food services such as our Market that we have now uh allowed us to go to ISB and request that extension however that is no longer offered so we have to go out for a m companyes to thank you all right um item okay item G Staffing request instructional assistance 2.0 FTE increase this is an AC information action item hey good evening

112um we are in need of two instructional assistants at multi-element school to help support students um to help to support the increase in student need over there um typically when I come to the board and I ask for an instructional assistant it's usually because there's a need in an IEP that's already been written that we have to fulfill in this situation we haven't quite gotten to the point of an IEP yet we're still in that process however the need is there in order to protect the safety of of those students who were going through the process to identify um so by adding these two additional instructional assistance it'll give Malta increased capacity to be able to support students um the cost will range again from 74,400 to 92400 depending on um you know salary and

113benefit package and is this a Time sensitivity item uh Kyle I know obviously it's difficult for us to hire in a lot of these positions so I just wanted it obviously be clear as to why uh it was brought to us as an information action item good question um it it is time sensitive because we have students now that that are in need of it um yeah and then of course the hiring challenges okay all right um it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the hire of two instructional FTE for Malta Elementary is there motion yes yes Ariel Owens yes Cher boys y Stacy yes V bam yes and Amanda harness yes thank you um item H which is Sun Belt Staffing SLP contract uh Miss Donna Morgan and Mr Kyle gtis right

114so um as I've spoken to the board about it's been very difficult to find speech and language Pathologists um we've continued our search and it's kind of led us towards the direction of teele theapy um so we have been able to identify a t therapist um that is able to work n and a half hours a week for the remainder of the school year um that would come at the rate of $116 an hour U with an estimated total cost of $3 34,1 162 this will help address the current shortage that exists at theal high school and I know that we had approved uh some funding uh previous Kyo in regards to for obviously some of these positions are we reallocating funds or are we asking this in addition until we hire someone um so

115if we're able to hire like if we're able to find a speech path and they they apply we do still have those FTE there okay in that situation we would revisit the contract with the agencies um consensus to bring this back yes oh actually no it's an item information action item and for clarity um it is because we have an opening currently right now and um this will allow us to start the onboarding process with the SLP to get them started as soon as possible okay I it's only nine and a half hours a week availability of the speech path so um that's all we can get it's kind well stay tuned I got another attend you know the reality of I think tell Health in general or t therapy is that it does provide

116flexibility for clinicians and so um you know I'm not saying this but like some with a family maybe you're not able to work a 40 hour a week but hey I can do half part-time so we are seeing a little bit more of that in this case it does fit a need for us um we would for the most part like to fire uh hire somebody full-time but this will help us address our Gap right now I I guess some of my concern is we're doing a lot of these I feel lately and I feel like the message we're sending to our staff that are there in the buildings every day getting kicked getting hit is this person that's sitting on a computer screen is going to make your entire annual salary by sitting on

117a computer for N9 and a half hours a week while you're there 40 hours honestly most of them more because they're working football games they're working basketball and we're paying this person for nine and a half hours of work a week the same we would pay an instructional assistant if they're lucky for an entire year so I guess just what message are we sending by continue continuing to bring in these contractors at exorbitant rights well I don't know if it's a message but I I think we need to look at the law and what we're required to provide students and so the reality of this is we are required to provide speech and language services to kids that qualify and we have an obligation under the law to identify students that potentially need Services um

118and so this really is a necessity by law that we have to have these individuals available I'm going to ask the really wild question here what is the cost to the district if we don't hire this person and the state shows up and says o we're going to find you what what is the cost I don't know if it's the cost to the district that we worry about it's the cost of the the student not getting the support that they want and theice to the student and the lawsuit yeah right that too so and we're paying a a staffing agency too that's why the but we need this support staff I know and there is a significant shortage of speech and language Pathologists out there in general but discuss illo and we did discuss this

119actually at the dcda meeting that we had that there were some conversations regarding some of the initiatives that the administration is doing on because dcta had those questions in regards to you know what is it that we're actively doing to engage in recruitment of a speech pathologist language pathologist um and Kyle mentioned a ton of the things that are actually actively happening and it looks like a lot of uh the speech language pathologist are going into the medical field rather than the educational field creating a greater shortage for the needs that we have for the students I mean this is a good example of why we really have to be thoughtful in how we spend because this is is a necessity so I mean even if it was a double amount to say no to

120this would be directly impacting a student that needs this support staff where some other things we have to be be thoughtful of the parking lot that you didn't want that you know we're looking at different things so this is a child that needs the support staff or children that need the nine and a half hours a week in addition to that um St I hear your concern um but staff also feel like I'm doing the job of more than one person so when we are able to bring more people in and be creative in that we're not putting more on staff members when they just don't have the capacity in their day the school day is the length of the school day so we can say here's a bigger case load here's more students but

121those students are all leaving at 2:30 or 3:30 at the end of the day and and and the day is over so don't we're cognizant of that and we're thinking about that the positions do continue to stay posted so if we do get those midyear graduates or someone who relocates to the area or is not happy where they're currently at those positions continue to stay posted and we hope that we will be able to fill them and bring them in under our contracts thank you um okay uh moving on uh to the to read the recommendation it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the service agreement with someu Staffing LLC who will contract uh with vocal vision for the provisions for telepractice services is there a motion so moved second roll sters yes

122Ariel Owens yes Christopher boy yes faer mirors yes vanta bam yes Amanda harness yes Andre pul yes all right item I which is an action and information item as well it is uh sunb Staffing SLP contract um yeah another very similar description of the need um this um position would help us fill an upcoming leave that we again have at our deal High School um in addition to that um we'd be looking to utilize this person to help with and and as I said before there's a bit a gap in services so we're we're obligated we'll do right by kids by making up that time and this will allow us to have increased capacity even once the staff member returns from leave so it's coverage well that person's gone and then helps us kind of

123make up our um our Our Miss minutes so far this year at this particular building we will also have the ability then to take a look and maybe reassign this person to another building to help out with another case load so um this one's a little different because we do have a um uh SLP that is able to work fulltime which would be about 37 and a half hours a week uh for the rest of the school year at a rate of $102 an hour in total the contract would be 8,575 um any other questions okay it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the service agreement with sunbel Staffing LLC who will contract the local vision for the provisions of telepractice services is there a motion second roll call Ariel Owens yes Christopher

124blaz yes stz yes V bam yes Manda harness yes Andre po yes Steve buers yes um item J which is dcta program uh course approval salary student uh schedule credit and CWC course approvals Miss house so we are in PRC season that means professional Relations Committee that is a dcta district committee where we work collectively with staff members that um apply for salary credit advancement they move on the salary Scale based upon approval of coursework whether programs or single courses to move on our salary scale uh by contract those um payments or adjustments and increases in salary are due on their October 15th paycheck in doing this work we discovered that there were two that were missed um because we had to get additional information um to verify that coursework is of a master's level

125and or uh just clarification information so those two are coming to you tonight we are bringing it for information and action so that we do meet the deadline for the contract for the October 15th P thank you any questions no all right it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the college programs courses and or CW CWC courses as recommended by the professional Relations Committee is there a motion so moved roll call Just For Boys yes D yes V bam yes Amanda harness yes Andre po yes Steve buers yes Ariel yes thank you thank you item K approval ofou with NIU Barb City steam uh Team renewal M Montgomery and this is an information item good evening this is just our annual renewal of our agreement mou with Northern Illinois University to provide after

126school programming for our Barb City steam team which are middle school students awesome any questions comments concerns no consensus to bring this back yes thank you all right item L which is um e-learning Plan Renewal for 2023 2024 2024 2025 and 2025 2026 school years um this is an act Information Act item um just information oh actually I apologize this this information it say information action up here is it says both yes it says both mine does is it just it just says information on well it says information but then on the type it says action information Jackie it's action it's action cool the is the recommendation on there you got this there's still a lot of let's make it action okay okay so this is our annual not annual it's our three-year renewal of

127our e-learning plan so it expired this year this is a possibility what we can use if School were closed due to an emergency that we can implement or not we Dr Garcia Sanchez could call an e-learning day where we would have asynchronous work prepared with office hours for our children if we had to close the schools and then we would not need to make up that day at the end any questions no awesome okay so we will move uh it is recommend that the Board of Education approve the proposal presented for the e-learning plan for the 23 2023 2024 2024 2025 and 2025 2026 school years is there a motion second roll Andre Paul yes Steve buers yes Ariel yes for boys yes your mirors yes Dante vam yes Amanda harness yes all right and

128then the next item is superintendent update ready yes and no and we pull oh yeah you p cut me off car I was like so uh good evening everyone you know what this means right we're at the end here so first up I want to uh let everybody know oh thank you uh that uh the cal high school marching band is going to be hosting the championship on Saturday October 7th at our football stadium the gates open at 7 uh at 2 p.m. I'm sorry students must have IDs uh they'll be charged $5 adults have $10 anyone under 18 18 must be accompanied by an adult and so I urge everyone to go out to the football stadium on Saturday and share our marching band and always a great uh way to see um great

129performance and a good competition which I I know we're going to win anyway but we should go to so um second thing and the last thing on mind is to uh have Tammy come up and give us an update on the maintenance buildings and the the whole Insurance shebang the whole Insurance yes so we had some more meetings since our last board meeting and this morning had a meeting with our representative Galler Basset as well as our account executive that oversees the uh risk program administration of the insurance and also included both uh Structural Engineers as well as myself and our mayor DOA uh at this meeting we were trying to come to some conclusion because we have two structural engineer reports that one says condemned and safe demo get rid of replace and then

130there's that say oh go ahead and fix it so uh now a third structural engineer on bias from either side will be hired to B basically come up with another report to make a decision how we're moving forward with this um in this meeting we did talk about concerns in regards to the the insurance company acknowledged the delays that have been caused through this whole project because they have been extensive I have five pages of um contacts that have made through phone calls that have been ignored or not followed up on over the uh last six months and just to the inconsistent Communications um in June the board approved us to bid out these projects based on the um email from Basset that said that she agreed with us with the with the structural engineer

131report that said it needed to come down and be replaced at that time we knew we had a risk of potentially about one one to$ 1.1 million of additional costs above the insurance of 1.5 million uh but still move forward with bidding she she also at that time confirmed yep go ahead with the bids yes design it and this way agreed with all everything during that time um in I want to say was July you approved the first FID which was demo of all the buildings and the salt building because we need to get the salt structure up because winter unfortunately is coming and um when I reached out and said here's all the bid packets you asked for here's the information we aren't out to bid yet on the grounds replacement building but um

132this is where we're at we're ready to demo that's our next step and she said whoa wait put on the brakes we are waiting for our structural engineer report first I'd heard of it and that was at the end of July they had apparently come out early in June to unbeknown to me did not know we were waiting on a report that was not shared with us until I asked about actually the demo and then um the report didn't come to us until middle of August after they had been out June now our structure engine year took two days to give us report their structure engineer took over two months to get it so with that they're saying repair it I have one quote from that says they're only willing to put in about 1225

133,000 to repairs instead of 1.5 million I am very concerned and will not support a project that is under a structural engineer report that says we have an unsafe building to put a roof on it because of too much risk in my opinion to our staff that used that building but at this point I'm waiting for the third structural engineer report uh we are Expediting that with assistance from the account representative to see where we move on this obviously we've had a significant out of- pocket costs already with the architect and engineer already discussed that with our account executive because um we do have communication from them to go ahead with all of this and now the braks are put on fortunately we start to have to come up with Plan B for assaultman I'm

134not sure what that will be I'm in conversations with Jeff Potter maintenance at gr supervisor so that we can be ready because even if we give the go-ahead in the next week or two there's a good possibility we will not have our structure up and TI so that's where we're at with and this we also have talked to another an attorney to make sure they are ready to step in should we need to um dispute anything to date because third delay is costing us more because we moved off I mean we rented that you know for The Other Board were the other board members here when we approved that [Music] everyone it was like yeah right about that time we we did we have a lease for 18 months on the temporary location on 7th

135street that was based on the timeline of bidding on these timelines as you guys approved tonight we tabled the grounds building bid results because I'm just not saying are you guys ready to approve this project when I still don't even know what the 1.5 or what is the board or excuse me the insurance going to approv or not I'm glad to hear that you guys have counted the legal yes it's it's very challenging right now but I feel like at least with this new person Tyler involved as our account set exact we're starting to get some agreement from the insurance side of things that there is a problem that has been caused by their delays and their miscommunications and they're going to be working with us to improve on the situation so I will keep

136you guys posted and hope to have information to officially bring forth at the next board meeting in regards to where it all stands and potentially request uh to approve the good results thank you right thank you for your thank you Tammy uh one last thing uh yesterday was the first Monday of the month so that me that that means that my SE my monthly message has gone out I hope everybody had a chance to read it there was quite a um um a message around taxes so again we're reiterating this is tax season so just making sure that everybody gets a chance to read that message thank you you'll also see that the e-learning plan is there um and attached so that you can take a look at that when you have a chance and

137so is the message around celebrating um holidays and other types of celebrations in school okay it's the same message we've we put out the last couple of years so nothing different but just reiterating so that no one forgets okay all right thanks it that's it for me thank you everybody all right it is now 8:53 um it is recommended that the Board of Education will adjourn uh all is there motion so move all in favor say I thank you everyone