CUSD 428 Board Meeting 1/17/23

001all um to open session with and start with a roll call here present here first we have public comment um members of the public who wish to speak to the board should complete a request card prior to the start of the meeting this section of the meeting will be reserved for comments from the public all comments should be limited to three minutes criticism of individuals is not in order and we have one public comment from Steve lundeen about HMS Band Room hello hello good evening uh I'm here this evening as a parent of an HMS band student and a member of the important exam staff there is an informational informational proposal before the board tonight that passes the board to consider spending sixty four thousand dollars to replace the floor in the HMS band room

002to create the option for a second lunchroom I do not mean to diminish the space needs of the growing population but this proposal does not include any of the costs associated with moving the ban to another phase in order to take into account any of the dollars send me a music budget within the last two years to enhance I've been informed that there is a future meeting scheduled to discuss if there is any viability for moving the bands at another location between various HMS stakeholders that said the Board needs to be aware that tonight's proposal has many unanswered questions and before considering whether to support the future of these questions have been answered some of these include Van Gogh how much would it cost to build renovate or repurpose the space within that curriculum with

003the band be displacement again another program thank you um and going on to board correspondence um I will say that Mary Beth cannot uh band teacher here also sent me an email this afternoon late this afternoon that I can forward that out and share it as well with very similar sentiments um no I I mean do you want me to read it out loud yeah we don't yeah I can read it thank you um it says hi Samantha it came to our attention today that the facilities department has plans to propose repurposing the band room for eating space we weren't notified about this prior to finding it on the agenda and frustration aside we are concerned that the department does not have a plan for where to relocate the band room we need a space

004that is large acoustically safe secure has a ton of storage space and can facilitate six periods of instruction per day including a small space for intervention during large group instruction independently of the current choir and Orchestra rooms that space does not exist in HMS outside of our room unless they are going to build a new one from scratch if you are able to read this email prior to the meeting tonight we would appreciate your advocacy for clarifying these extremely important missing details your role as a band parent on the board is a greatly is greatly appreciated thanks in advance for your support Mary Beth thank you you're welcome I'll still send it yeah um any other board correspondence or yeah committee reports um back in December I attended a social justice committee meeting um also

005along with chance our student board member at the high school we had our first student advisory council meeting so that was exciting to meet some of the students who are interested getting involved with that um we're looking forward to the semester and just what that group will do um I went to a virtual PTO meeting at Founders last week and that's what I've been up to um Sarah Moses and I um had ffac recently and that advisory committee is um doing their due diligence to make sure that we're making the Right Moves In regards to space and buildings and so hopefully we will have a recommendation from that group pretty soon regarding NIU I I'd just like to add that I appreciate staff coming forward to notify the board of issues like the band department

006has come forward tonight because we don't always know about these issues and the more that you come forward and share what's happening in buildings and what your needs are the more we can advocate for you any other correspondence or committee reports all right student board member correspondence chance is not here so we will hopefully touch base with them next time subject D acceptance of gifts and donations and we are recognizing the Board of Education accepts with gratitude the donation of 500 from State Farm Scott zeimet I'm sorry if I um did not pronounce your name correctly for DHS mtss the Board of Education accepts with gratitude the donation of 500 500 from Carrie Odom Spirit Realty um doing business as Weichert Realtors signature professionals 500 to DHS mtss and the Board of Education accepts with

007gratitude the donation of 500 from Daniel and Teresa Hyatt for the wrestling program thank you so much for those donations thank you next up is the consent agenda and is recommended that the Board of Education approved that consent agenda items a through H as attached is there a motion so moved I'll second roll call please yes under old business we have subject a resolution abating the working cash fund of the district and this is an action item it is recommended that the Board of Education adopt the resolution evading the working cash fund of community Unit School District number 428 DeKalb County Illinois and the amount of 354 261 dollars is there a motion let's remove second roll call please yeah yes subject B is the resolution abating a portion of the taxes heretofore levied for

008the year 2022 to pay debt service on certain outstanding bonds of the district for purposes of including the property tax relief Grant amount in the district's evidence-based funding minimum and this is an action item broadcast by Cindy Carpenter and our mirror doka it is recommended that the Board of Education adapt the resolution abating a portion of the taxes heretofore levied for the year 2022 to pay debt service on certain outstanding bonds of community Unit School District number 428 DeKalb County Illinois for purposes of including the property tax relief Grant amount in the district's evidence-based funding base funding minimum is there a motion so moved second roll call please yes um C uh the 2023 National American choral directors Association conference and this is an action item brought To Us by Donna Larson that the Board

009of Education approved the out-of-state travel for the 11 music students from Clinton rosette middle school and DeKalb High School to participate in the 2023 National American Corral Directors Association conference is there a motion so moved so again roll call please yes subject D is the DeKalb High School New course AP Physics one and this is an action item that was brought to us by Sarah Montgomery that the Board of Education approved the DHS AP Physics one new course is there a motion so second roll call please yes yes yes yes subject e is the Staffing request 1.0 FTE bilingual building substitute action item brought by Billy huermo and ditra salus it is recommended that the Board of Education approved the addition of a 1.0 FTE bilingual building substitute to share between Cortland Founders and Littlejohn

010elementary schools is there a motion second roll call please yes yeah yes and then next is um the Press plus issue 110 policy updates and this is an action item but before we before we approve it right Jackie there are two questions that we have to answer um it was a pretty thick packet of updates the first question is I think is actually from this so it's in the 7.285 anaphylaxis prevention response and management program update yes 7.285 and um our question we have to answer this question has the board adopted the school district supply of undesignated epinephrine injectors subhead and policy 7 dash are colon 270 administering medicine to students and the um we as from what I understand what page is it Sam I'm sorry um sorry she pulled it out and that's

011okay highlighted it or just say 700 or 7. 7.285 it's um it's down a little bit it's page 110. thank you all right so it is our understanding that we have not adopted that right I don't want to get this wrong Kyle please help us so we would we have not adopted the anaphylaxis prevention response Management program no we have that we haven't adopted the school district supply of undesignated epinephrine injectors specifically okay and that is subhead and policy 7270. what page is that on that's on the so on page 110 is the Rewritten of that but we don't have it so um my understanding is that we would say no and then this is will not be included then in our policy okay why wouldn't you include it what does it do specifically like

012we're talking are we talking about like epinephrine supply for kids like so in the policies and cars a few different areas of designated asthma medication that doesn't make opioid field opioid antagonist s and a few others in administration medical treatment it doesn't look like the board in the past has looked specific particular um subsection of that policy I think it's something that we can further explore moving forward but as it occurs I think right now it is not existing in overall policy so to say yes so we would need to come back and adopt this as a policy and then we could have the it would be updated and we're happy to kind of look into that more important to like yeah so is the board interested in hearing more about whether we want to

013adopt or not adopt that policy uh yeah I'm just reading that um so superintendent or designate shall develop and Implement an anaphylaxis prevention response and management program for the prevention and treatment of anaphylaxis that fully implements States Illinois State Board of Education model policy required by the school code that a relates to the care in response to a person who's having an anaphylactic reaction addresses the use of epinephrine in school setting provides full food allergy prevention of allergen exposure plan and aligns with 105 Illinois cs5-2020-30 and 23 Illinois administrative code so this insurers staff members receive appropriate training including and then service training program for staff to work with students that is conducted by a person with expertise and anaphylactic reactions and management and training required by law for those staff members acting as trained

014personnel implements and maintains a supply of undesignated epinephrine in the name of the district in accordance with policy seven a high from 21st sorry 270 administering medications to students follows and references the applicable best practices staff to the district's needs and centers for Center for Disease Control and prevention's voluntary guidelines for managing food allergies in schools and early care and education programs in the National Association of School nurses allergies and influx resources checklist provides annual notice to parents and guardians of all students to make them aware of this policy complies with state and federal law and is an alignment report policies so that's what we want to I don't so we have a lot of those policies under there this one's specific to whether or not we maintain undesignated epinephrine injectors so if I understand

015correctly we have epinephrine injectors for students that already have identified allergies but we don't maintain uh yeah an extra one on designated for students so we do all of the other things that we have to the food well we should probably do that so we're in I think I'm fine I'm interested in hearing more about if this is something we should adopt right and that's what you're you're suggesting yeah I guess I'm just not clear which one like because I just read all that yeah it's just that's very small specific part of the this policy seven it's this of the seven point or seven colon two seven zero where it's pink and green yes the pink is so the Press plus is on page 110. so the document status draft update written for the 7

016colon 285 that's what you're looking at right yeah I'm on one time so we don't currently have this in our policy the whole thing that I just read well specifically to its specific this what we don't have is specific to the District supply of undesignated epinephrine injection projectors so is there anything count to indicated though traveling mode is there any negative for that or I mean foreign so I would have to look into it a little bit more now I do know we do the training like this afternoon part of it is really just to have um making a supply for students that aren't necessarily identified okay so if we had a child going to anaphylactic shock we would have extra epinephrine to save their life because at one time it was the issue with

017the price and the availability of it um but then you said was there any concern is it that they expired so they made it fired so I think we answer no currently but it sounds like we have consensus to explore that right yeah yeah okay um so and then the next one that we have to answer a question for specifically is the okay this is for let me find which one it is before it's for the five colon 250 leaves of absence which will be on page to find it 55 thank you thank you thank you so this is updating leaves of absence specifically around covid-19 this is what we're looking at right now and so we need to answer the question does the board require fully vaccinated employees to participate in a district kobit

01819 testing program and our answer should be no we do not is everyone okay with that answer yes okay so then with that this is the second reading of all of these updates and it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the plus press plus issue 110 policy updates with the answers given about these two specific updates is there a motion oh roll call please yes all right thank you I know that was a huge packet of updates um subject G update to the superintendent goals 2022 2023 amendments of the contract and this is um well I had information in action I guess we had it as information last time I did check the language to be added with our attorney that does con are Amy Delaney and so she has approved the addition

019of the language it really is just just says just to pinpoint it under the culture and climate aligned goal it says um this is Minerva's voice I commit to the Insight X process survey slash feedback and to show quality improvement at the recommended standard between the fall and spring and sitex implementation of the survey and then Amy suggested adding C attached recommended standards resulting from the completed survey which are Incorporated here in and at the end of this at the end of the document are the um four overall and specific growth metrics that Mr Black recommended that we spoke about and discussed at our last meeting um are there any questions so these are the same this is all the same yep it's the same exact that he went through and we're just we're not

020voting on all of our goals we're I mean right if that's what you're happy right we're just we're just approving yeah we're approving the updated that it's being updated with the actual growth metrics and we're going we're doing five percentages five percent practices three or more dimensions so it's uh you want to read them soon the specific um human X inside over inside X overall and specific growth metrics just the the updated yeah for the public so the first one there's four growth metrics and the first one is to increase the district Dream Box by by five percent points the second is to increase three more Dimensions at the district level to strength level which is above 4.0 the third is increased three targeted Dimensions at the district level by at least 0.1 at overall

021mean level the three that will be most impactful and relevant at this Baseline stage would be relationships talent and fit and career development and number four is to increase three targeted Dimensions at the admin level to at least the target growth level noted below the three that will be most impactful and relevant at this Baseline stage would be relationships talent and fit and Communications there excuse me there are some images that um are part of this document that you can see on the board Docs and for a full explanation of what this really is um Mr Black came to the board and did an overall presentation I want to say in November one of our November meetings you can find it on board docs or on YouTube potentially is there a motion so move second

022roll call please yes thank you next is seven new business administration subject a is the DHS student council NCD overnight Extravaganza and this is brought To Us by Donna Larson so this year they're cool and are asking if it's 12 advisors currently um to spend the night March 3rd to the 4th to participate in you have it on for Action tonight they need to let them know yeah they're the timeline that it means about either um okay any questions for Donna it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the DHS student council to travel to Gurnee Illinois to stay at Great Wolf Lodge to participate in the NCD overnight Extravaganza on March 3rd through the 4th 2023 is there a motion so move I'll second roll call yeah yes yes subject B is the

023leading for Equity Institute February 23rd through the 22nd 2023 and this is informational um by Monica Parker good evening several members of our district social justice leadership committee has been invited to attend the 21st meeting for Equity Institute is being hosted in Pacific Grove California day February 23rd through 26th of this school year um six to seven teachers and administrators will go to this team Institute to engage in learning about personal leadership activities and to bring our own assessment of um how we are trying to adjust challenges and to receive information and guidance from National experts in this area currently we have um allotted um we have a lot of some fun in our grant so we had a certain amount of funds at aside that we were denying another opportunity in this place invited

024us to come and so all costs associated with this will be covered in the grant so we've already Acquired and we would actually lose the grant funds if we don't need different professional value it's specifically tied to our priorities our strategic priorities um four and uh two and as well as the support art our strategy the first strategy and anniversity plan today we would provide targeted professional development for our leadership team that is why we're asking we are asking so late in the game because we were not notified when we were invited until December 22nd and um as you know we did not have the school board meeting before before that any questions um when um I guess when we have something like this if we could have just the um like like an attachment

025and uh agenda whatever like their website or their whatever the program is just so that we can look at it and see what what's all offered to help us understand what what it is even more I mean just because my Equity First Institute and it's in California you said yes just just more information about it so that we get a better sense of what it is um you have it on for information you'll have enough time if we bring in our concern um is that with the price of if anything more money out of the grant than we want to if you wait longer but um this is this is our message so I just put it on time well and then there isn't how what is the price of it and 2300 perfect and

026how many people are there any other questions is anybody willing to entertain moving this to action so that they can secure flights I am I just I guess if we can have all that information like the cost and more you know just more information because I mean this is like just a request that we approve it but and I hear what you're saying you're telling us about it but there's nothing really for us to look at where there's no across I had an opportunity to Google it um before the meeting and I feel comfortable approving it well that's good I still think we need to make sure that stuff's included though on the agenda for everyone for the public and board members to look at wired but they're holding things kind of close because I

027I don't know they're holding something kind of slow to communicate with me but they're not actually allow me to go into the site um do we have so I guess do we have consensus to move it to action to yes for me then when is it it's December 24th I also am comfortable moving it to action and then when a student when's our next board meeting for the sixth yeah foreign [Music] another good question development is happening and we were hoping to get invited for something else to leadership team I get invited to that so available and it's something that will allow us to be able to support our goals listening we're doing you guys want to move with the action that's what we're asking I'm we have two people that are okay with that

028I mean I just I would just say in the future I prefer that we have more information we have all the information in front of us especially if we're going to get asked to move it to action um because then we'll just be transparent the public and then we have all the information we need to make a decision I agree yeah but so I either way we vote on it tonight if they have to get airfare and travel squared away yeah because otherwise we're here they're down yeah then they're the eighth and you're two weeks out and you're paying probably potentially higher rates yeah or not getting on flights or you know so I think um I'm going to move I'm gonna make a motion to move subjects be leading for Equity Institute February 23rd

029to the 26 2023 from information to action is there a motion second oh I guess I moved anyways for that yeah that's fine yes and then we're going to um recommend it's recommended the Board of Education approve the leading for Equity or the out-of-state travel for staff to attend the leading for Equity Institute February 23rd through the 26 2023 is there a motion on that one so moved second I'll second roll call please yes yes yes thank you okay can I ask who's all going um we have one person that is looking for family housing but as we have two teachers going and um you want a specific names no I mean you could give me General that's okay to printable and the rest of District administration who do have representation from elementary middle school

030and high school thank you subjects C is the district request a bid build out projects and this is informational Tammy Carson thank you what I brought forth tonight is a request to good to bid as an informational item last month uh five principals approached me in regards to concerns of space for the next school year and looking at opportunities to split space that we currently have in the district and so I asked our architect to put some preliminary budget numbers together because we are on a crunch in regards to getting things out to bed getting them real numbers and getting them back for consideration for summer 2023 what I brought forth are the areas that have been brought to me by those Administration and in what we'd be looking at with the bid packages we've

031been putting together there would there are some higher priority items that we would break out so we would have the opportunity to approve some and not necessarily all of these at the bid results that we received the bid results would be coming in somewhere in the month of April and then we can consider these for summer 2023. and this is the this is when it includes the band room it does okay and what's going on with that because we're hearing from that department that they are concerned what I can speak of is that the question to bring this forth and get it on to a plan to get the bid out and get numbers was brought to me by Huntley Administration What specifically those plans are in regards to potential scheduling changes or other things

032regarding the program I don't have all of those details I'm just bringing this for so that we can get some preliminary numbers so all of those can be considered in regards to potential changes that could be discussed what I can add to that is that um currently during lunch half the students during the Lunch Period are in the lunchroom the other half are in the auditorium and so the auditorium is being um a little bit abused right and it's taking quite a hit and is in a need of repair and so that we can move them out of the auditorium and move them into a space that's more conducive for lunch is what we're asking um which is what the school administrator is proposing and so that's the space that would fit for that purpose

033I understand from having spoken to the principal this evening that she is meeting again with at the school level to talk about what that might look like but the purpose the reason that we're that the school administration is looking at it is for the purpose of removing half so the students out of the auditorium very much so we're considering moving students into the band space instead of the auditorium then enough how does that compromise band because we heard tonight that they don't have any other place they have six periods that they need to accommodate so and then they also said that this that they there were no Communications with them so I'm I'm curious about how that because so I won't speak for Tammy but that I know is that an email was sent to

034principals asking them to share uh what their request was to double check that the request was appropriate and that they were going to be taking the lead and having conversations with staff in the building um how and who was left up to them to decide what that looked like apparently um there might have been a miscommunication or misunderstanding or you know not sure what happened but as of this evening conversations did happen I know that they are having a conversation tomorrow to further discuss it but the principal did have uh suggestions for where that could happen where they were those that the group of courses could occur that you know from that room okay where a band could happen not where lunch Could Happen well I believe our band would happen so I guess because

035when we heard from the band department or the music department that they were saying that there really is no other space that that could happen how I don't I'm not familiar with what the schedule will be for next year or what that might look like so tomorrow's conversation will be more conducive to what that might look like you know the we might I'm not sure what that space is here because I'm I'm really hesitant to move forward with any type of um approval for you know replacing flooring in a band room to create a second lunchroom um I mean I think probably we need to figure out considerations for lunch spaces versus trying to um you know disrupt our Band program or music program obviously that's I mean of course lunch is important and you

036know all that but I mean our our music program is uh fundamental so I think I'm sorry if I made tonight's presentation is strictly an informational that'll be brought back at the February 7th for actual approval to go to bid not to approve the projects themselves that are listed just at this point for bidding purposes I would assume between now and February 7th conversations will take place and if it's determined that this is not a viable option it can be removed from the agenda item on February 7th this particular one and it also can be removed at the time we collect bids and just reject that particular bit as it relates to that space so there is time to make adjustments to this so that conversations can take place well could we remove it and

037then have the conversation and then put it back on instead of approving something that I guess my my concern is that I want to make sure that um that we know we're talking about improving Communication in our culture I want to make sure that we're communicating with each other and that people are feeling heard and that we're collaborating to come up with the best Solutions because obviously the best place to you know really understand what our students need in terms of a band space would be to talk to the music department before making a decision like this and obviously communicating with you know our principal and other administrators that are running the lunchroom and have that conversation and then try and come up with a plan that possibly works for everyone and then really consider

038um you know if we have to sacrifice certain things what would those things be versus just kind of you know coming in with this um you know doing a bid without any of those considerations because I mean how much is it to just get bits it's nothing right well between now and February 7th there is no additional cost so leaving it as an informational item today and then making decision whether to remove it on February 7th I think is a is a an option we can consider at that time we're so sorry tonight is just informational so I would come back February 7th typically in a normal situation and ask for approval to go to bid and between now and February 7th if it's determined it's not an option that could work for Huntley middle

039school and the Band program then it can be not included in the approval for the request to bid on February 7th because at this between now and February 7th there's nothing that would happen from my end it's strictly conversations that would happen at a building level yeah then definitely if this is you know this list will be coming back I think that that's important and if there's anything else on this list that you know that we're not having communication about or that people are feeling like this is not a good idea and you know there's not communication between admin and staff and programs and admin you know I think that's really critical that we're doing that so I appreciate the music department coming and bringing the crystal up and you know it's how we solve

040problems in a way that's beneficial so any other questions so consensus to bring this back on February 7th yes yes with more information yeah yeah thank you thank you subject D is the discipline reduction plan this is information and action Kyle Gardens all right good evening um the school district every year uploads student data to the State Board of Education that gives the State Board of Education opportunity to compare um districts in a number of ways either with each other on progress towards their own internal goals or plans one of these such plans would be a look at how many districts in the state of Illinois um fall within the top 20 percent in their exclusionary discipline and so what that exclusionary discipline would mean expulsions or out of school suspensions it does not count

041in school suspensions as part of that and so over the last um number of years our district has been identified in the top 20 percent in the use of exclusionary disciplines as it relates to suspensions for all students and disproportionality when it comes to suspending students who are African-American we have not been identified in the top 20 percent in um the use of uh expulsions as exclusionary discipline so as a result of that with the State Board of Education ask districts to do is to kind of go through a process to try and identify the why behind this why this is happening and to put some things in place in order to address that to idea ideally reduce the amount of exclusionary discipline that the district is applied so what um is attached to the

042board document is actually the State Board of education's template that they give districts to work through it's not necessarily required that we use this but it's a pretty sound yet simple document to help guide teams so what we did um myself and several other administrators either at the building level or in the district level got together because when we were having discussions around this it's a lot of work that's been ongoing for the last couple of years is this isn't necessarily new to new news to us and so over the last couple of years we've done quite a bit to kind of start laying the foundation or address addressing some of these things specifically so what we did is we got together and we compiled um kind of a 30 000 foot overview of what

043are the things that we've done over the last two school years to kind of address the the need that we're seeing part of that has to do with work in the in regards to equity and inclusion um so there's a section in the plan that talks a lot of the work that uh Miss Parker and her team and many other individuals have done since she came on board as our director of Dei I'm a big piece of that includes professional learning and a PLC amongst Administration which is ongoing in addition Ms Parker has kind of LED our review of the parent student handbook which resulted in some substantial changes um in addition to that we looked at um what are what's our potential action plan in other areas to address the exclusionary discipline um we

044looked at not only the um social justice committee and kind of their review of our diversity plan and the recommendations that they brought to the board um one of which was to hire somebody to oversee to be our director of Dei um some of the other work that has been ongoing as you know as our student code of conduct which was developed throughout the year last year and is now in its implementation this year um part of the student code of conduct it not only provides some expectations of what potential consequences could be for student misconduct but it really also kind of involves a lot of restorative practices and a commitment to that as well as building out supports for students that need them through our multi-tiered systems as supports and then kind of the

045the last piece there is as you all remember we came to you last spring and asked for some additional staff to address the needs that we are seeing in our buildings part of which was the administrative positions that were added specifically in student services but also a lot of kind of directly impacting um staff that directly impact students so your school-based mental health clinicians and so part of our plan to address exclusionary discipline was to provide more access to um school-based mental health clinicians that can help support students and so that is kind of the high level overview of our discipline Improvement plan that we plan on submitting to the state this month it's not necessarily a finished product it's just kind of reporting to the to the state what we're currently doing but we

046also need to provide a progress update or progress monitoring update to the state sometime during the next calendar year hopefully our district is out of the 20 top 20 percent in the state at that point in time and no further action will be needed but if not then we go back to the drawing board and we look at what things we're doing you know either things that we're continuing to do or kind of new things that can be incorporated into our plan um in terms of goals we we really looked at our strategic plan so we already have a couple of goals in there one is to reduce the number of students receiving office discipline referrals by 10 the other goal is to reduce the disproportionality of out of school suspensions among black students and

047so we feel like those goals would be good measures for just our overall reduction in exclusionary discipline and something that we're already monitoring and tracking so with that we do have to submit this plan to the State Board of Education by February 1st another requirement is that it's posted on our district website and therefore the request for tonight is to have this as an information and action item since we don't have another school board meeting prior to February 1st and with that I'll answer any questions so the the where is the plan it's not because I don't get attached uh there should be a cover sheet and then a another document that is attached to the agenda item right yeah the second one has the Illinois State Board of Education on it at the first

048page post for the template yeah it just says here to link to the district's website where plan is posted yeah that is that's the entire to be determined once the plan is approved by the board then I'll work with um Miss Elliott to kind of identify a place that it's accessible for the community and we're not using this rubric um there's actually not a rubric there's a kind of a flow chart that is to guide teams to kind of work through the problems the kind of analysis process what I can say is that these are things that have we've been doing as a district over the last couple of years so it's not like we had to sit down and start from scratch it really is kind of taking the work that we've already done

049and just providing a little bit of more of a narrative in a more formalized plan um and I apologize um there there is another rubric that um was mentioned that diversity equity and inclusion provider evaluation tool yeah sorry I forgot that no I just wanted to be clear because we are not currently using that tool um as Parker and I sat down and we looked at it together and we think it's something that might be beneficial for us to consider moving forward but as of this point in time we have not utilized it so what evaluation tool are we using the evaluation tool for exclusionary discipline well like I mean diversity Equity inclusion like we have this about are we use like what are we how are we evaluating that aspect s oh wow so

050okay so you're you're essentially developing this in the social justice league committee the leadership team okay and you're using this this existing tool is like a framework so we're using Equity framework from several organizations so we are using um Kyle they look at this by calendar years and not school years yeah um so it is looked at by a calendar year which is interesting because most everything is like a 21 to 22 um so I don't honestly know the reason for that except it could be of how we report information to the state as my only guess but I really don't know so your goals will run through the end of this year and then with the the numbers that are uploaded you'll see where we'll see that decrease and be under 20. hopefully that

051that is the Hope um the goals that we actually have are three-year goals for our strategic plan so if we achieve 10 this year that'd be great but we also know that you know this is something in general we're working at over the next couple of years any other questions so it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the discipline Improvement plan to be submitted to the Illinois State Board of Education by February 1st 2023 is there a motion second roll call please yes yes yes enough thank you um subject e is DeKalb High School New course materials proposal for the advanced placement human geography and this is informational Sarah Montgomery thank you for welcome I guess back to talk about this time about AP materials we started the journey last year to look

052at new materials ours are eight years old they're aging so I'd like to welcome Betsy Zimmerman and Cody Billick who will lead the presentation for the new materials for AP Human Geography and is it in a tab the Cody and I got started on this over the summer um it started in July and one of the things that was waiting for me was the consideration of the new textbook The Textbook was last adapted in 2015 and it the AP college board recommends that every 10 years it is renewed and refreshed we're a little ahead of that scheduled events because it's getting hard to to replace the books as they have wear and tear on them and we're finding that the tests are not really aligned to the learning the way the students are learning now

053so Cody pulled three textbooks that he was interested in three curriculums we reviewed them and made sure there was one that was not aligned to the AP college board recommendations so then we took the other two and Cody looked at those in depths and he will present him you know all right good evening thanks for uh listening to this proposal um as Betsy said our rationale here our current text is very outdated um AP practice questions uh plus practice tests are uh also outdated for what uh the current test is asking students for there's new maps and Graphics within the new text that we've selected and we were looking for a quality book with up-to-date information and essential skills um as Betsy also said our selection process came with two other texts other than the

054one we did select which was Wily text and an Amscot text I'm familiar with the amscotex because um I did an aspi uh curriculum course over uh two summers ago in which I was given this text and I used it as a supplemental material last year and that book was um I would say more aligned for the college level not so much considering that our AP Human Geography course is for freshmen the uh reading level I believe is just a little too high for them in that text same goes with the Wiley um the Wiley does not outline vocabulary as well as the Human Geography the AP course does as we selected so our final Choice uh was sorry our final Choice was the Hildebrandt Human Geography for the AP course the vocabulary is integrated

055into the content which when I mean that is that it's not just bolded in the text there are also vocabulary boxes that explain to students what this word is and also on the page how to apply it to a concept or a theory a geographical theory if you will there are real world comparisons as to the theories that we're learning a lot of the theories in the previous book like I said are outdated because obviously our world's constantly changing this book is up to date with contemporary information um there's included materials at no cost no additional cost with this text um so it's complete coverage of the AP content it is aligned with ap curriculum for Human Geography easy to use modules presenting Concepts and AP practice in one to do day lessons and by

056that I mean they give um three to five AP exam practice questions at the end of every module by module I mean it's a chapter for a lack of a better term but module is what the book uses there's AP exam instruction and most importantly an AP exam practice test that is um added at the end of the book that we do utilize every year uh one day before the actual AP exam at the high school is taking a morning for our students to get a practice exam in and this book provides one of those opportunities for our students the other thing that is very nice for me being selfish here are the teacher resources so um this text does come with an online and physical teacher copy which provides additional supplemental information for students

057as well as other links to materials outside of the textbook that have to do with the AP geography curriculum uh what I'm proposing is 40 textbooks um with online add-ons I'm proposing 40 as a in class text considering I am the only AP Human Geography teacher with only one to two sections um last year I had two sections this year I have one section hoping that grows a little bit however these books are not going to be used for individual distribution uh to students these will be uh particularly placed in my classroom for students to use during the day if we are using them throughout the course I do use other supplemental materials it's not textbook all the time but that's the reasoning for the 40 textbooks if we look at a cost here those

05840 textbooks we have the numbers there below that is the SafeLink Plus for Human Geography that would be the online um the online textbook in which I think is important because it also has features like um text-to-speech which is very good for diverse Learners and it gives you those options highlight options copy options it's very user friendly to say the least in which students that may not prefer to write in pencil or pen can also take notes and add to let's say a Google doc or a Microsoft Word document right from the text there in note taking skills is that as I said earlier that free product below is the exam view test bank for Human Geography for the AP course that is also a test Bank of questions that would be similar to those

059seen on AP exams so again pre-exposing AP Human Geography students to what they will be seeing when they do take the AP exam in May and the teacher edition with the online teacher is also included in that package any questions exciting time if you saw the books you'd be excited it looks like you've gone through a war zone and they're hard to find like yeah no question thank you so much consensus thank you very much consensus to bring it back for Action yes yes thank you okay subject f is the dcta Loa correction Middle School overload and this is um information and action at the December 13th board meeting we brought forward a um It's actually an a letter of agreement an alloy between uh dcta and the District administration regarding Middle School overloads the

060current contract only speaks to high school overload so this is um in us trying to address Staffing shortages and the ability to be flexible in what we're able to provide to our students in the Loa there was an error the differential calculation or multiplier that's used for a full school year um for the overload is 0.14 there's a reference in 0.9 section B about a semester the one that you approved in December said 0.14 but because it's a semester which is half of the year should be 0.07 so we're just bringing it back so that we can have the correct language and have the the right um document memorialized any questions it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the correct letter of agreement between DeKalb cusd and dcta regarding Middle School overloads effective

061September 21st 2022 is there a motion second roll call please yes yes yes and next subject oh no I just said thank you oh you're welcome thank you subject G policy revision cell phone stipend policy 5 colon six two and this is on as information and act so in January of 2022 we brought forward the cell phone stipend policy after we brought that um after that after the board approved that policy and it was shared with District staff there were many questions about getting a district device versus using their personal device specifically how IT addresses potential foia requests so we went back to the drawing board and determined what we could do for staff so that they felt supported and we have not we are now bringing it back and providing options to employees so

062employees have the option to request a device through the district the district has an account set up with our vendor where there's a specific number of or specific types of phones that are available and plans that we have negotiated prices for so staff members that are eligible for a cell phone can request a device or they can continue to use their personal device someone who wants to use their personal device would on a monthly basis get a reimbursement of fifty dollars so this is an update to that policy given employees options questions um and it has been vetted by uh legal counsel VES how come that's information action it's an update to the policy um providing the options and we're looking to make sure that staff are able to get their devices and or start

063their reimbursements and I'm sorry any other question it is recommended that the Board of Education approved the revised policy as presented is there a motion so we'll move second roll call please yes yes yes thank you subject H Staffing request part time for our floater cook and this is informational Cindy Carpenter our miradoka and Mike gym so we're looking at increasing the Staffing for our cook position um currently I have the totals here in terms of how many cooks we do have in the district we have five head cooks that work eight hours per day and various Cooks 10 in total positions that work various hours during the day and we're looking to increase the four hour per day Cooks from three positions we currently have to four positions um well the reason for this

064is a couple of things our meals have increased quite substantially since we've been on the community eligibility provision program where we provide feed me free meals to all students so it really is just to have that extra Manpower or woman power to take care of um our students and to provide those meals and also to have somebody that floats a little more right now when we have Staffing shortages if somebody is out in the past pre-covered I always hate to say that but it is the case we used to have some a list of subcooks we could call and they would come and they would take care of business for us now that's very difficult to get in the um if you feel it might be better to get a permanent position that's a four

065hour position each day and that person can float between the various buildings to see where that need is so basically having a permanent sub cooked to some extent um so we're really looking to increase that capacity within our within our cooking within our kitchens as well so and this is a newly created position somewhat because right now that our cooks are in the um the dfss which is the Dekalb Federation of support staff bargaining unit and cooks are usually in a labor grade one we would be putting this in a labor grade two so something that's a little bit higher because we need the skill set of some to somebody to just float around and take care of various different buildings which is similar to what happens at the custodial level as well so being

066consistent with the with that in that particular contract so the estimated annual cost of the change in the labor grade as well as adding additional position because right now we have one person that would be potentially floating as well so there would be two in total the new person and then another person is about 14 300 a year based on an annual basis for an entire fiscal year and right now we're just bringing this as informational and if there's questions or if you need more information we provide that at the next meeting question consensus to bring this back for Action yes thank you yes thank you subject I Staffing request 1.0 instructional assistant for DHS and this is information and action Kyle Gardens and teacher cells good evening again um due to an increased need

067for a student who receives special education services the high school has identified that additional 1.0 FTE is needed in order to provide the right supports for a student um as a result of adding the additional FTE we'll be able to continue to provide the services that are outlined in the IEP the cost for this position ranges between 35 246 200 depending on the benefit package that the employee selects are there any questions no questions it is recommended that the Board of Education approves the addition of a 1.0 instructional assistant for DeKalb High School due to the urgency to fill this position oh it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the additional ft's is there a motion so we'll move second roll call please yes and subject J Staffing request 1.0 instructional assistant for

068crms also information in action with teacher Salas and Kyle Gardens you can hear a very similar request um I will say though there there was a typo on the agenda item it's actually a 2.0 request for Clinton rosette um so the difference there when we look at the cost would range from 70 400 to 92 400 depending on the benefit package and again this is to support um a couple of students at the school that require services that need that additional adult Within oh okay any questions it is recommended that the Board of Education oh I I and it is in the action just I see it is recommended that the Board of Education approved two instructional assistant FTE for Clinton rosette Middle School is there a motion so moved I'll second roll calls please

069yes thank you thank you thank you subject K is dcta program course approved salary schedule Credit Professional Relations Committee minutes and this is informational teacher sellers attached are the minutes from our last PRC meeting this is for uh DCT dcta members that are pursuing additional coursework be it a program or individual courses attached is the um the minutes that includes the individuals and the courses that they're taking bringing this forward for information and then coming back for approvalification we meet two times a year and this is one of our amazing any questions consensus to bring this back for Action yes yes thank you thank you all right um number eight superintendent update and we have the middle of the Year state of the district thank you good evening everyone as we're getting ready to do

070the middle of the Year state of the district I'd like to do a couple of call outs first I'd like to congratulate Dr trevita Redman and Dr Donna Larson to the congratulations ladies [Music] um the next thing I'd like to make sure that uh I make a comment on is as you may recall that our last board meeting we had um a paraprofessional come to us in regards to some issues that were occurring in her building and she had information to share she had sent us an email previously to that and there has been conversations with various groups in relation to the requests and to the issues that were brought up during that time I believe Cairo and Lisa have or will have very shortly another meeting specifically with her and a group of other

071individuals to discuss this even further we are looking to Garner some recommendations and get more information from what they're seeing what they're hearing how we're able to assist in in making improvements so I just wanted to make sure that we put we informed everyone of what the status of that is if you want to add anything else is there anything else that we need to add to that we did thank you thank you corrected thank you thank you very much uh and now I'm going to turn it over to the the ladies to the to my left so uh back to Jessica now and there's some Monica Parker to get us going on the middle of the Year state of the district thank you ladies thank you um good evening again on behalf of the

072strategic planning committee I'd like to start by first thanking the school board for your continued support of our strategic plan and all of the strategies that we are implementing tonight the directors and the assistant assessment coordinator will present our evaluation of our progress towards our four priorities noted in our strategic plans we will also present a middle of the Year data update before we get into the data update as you know district 428 adopted and we are in the infancy stage of implementation the fifth month to be exact to be exact of implementing our code of conduct and um attempting to use more restorative practices so we're going to start off the winter 22 data presentation with addressing the suspension data I want to preface that the suspension data include all suspension in school and

073out of school on suspension data and then we're going to go to the attendance data into the assessment data when you do look at the uh suspension data I want you to be aware of that we are in the process of calibrating our repercussions and addressing the gaps of implementation that inherently exist when you have different people deciding what discipline should modify students behavior so um what happens often and I do have a copy of from page of a study to share with you all that you can look at it was 100 pages so I didn't want to flood you with it but there are several studies going all the way back to 2015 that shows that you oftentimes will see an uptick in um in incidences and that's because um things are being addressed

074because you have a code of conduct and the code of conduct says if this happens you know these are the stages that you can take to address this Behavior so um we are you will also see that we are using more in school remediation techniques to modify behavior that will be evident in the slides as well okay so nice to be with you again thank you for having us here to talk about our data um as always please feel free to stop me at any point if you have questions so that I can clarify I know that because I live in the world of data sometimes things that may not be readily obvious to people who don't um I can gloss over them so please feel free to stop and ask me for any questions

075you have also it's nice to be in this room because there's lots of space to spread out and a Podium so I don't have to figure out what to do with my hands the whole time I'm standing up here which I gotta tell you I really appreciate so um we are going to start with our suspension data and Andy Langley helped pull all of this which was super helpful because we kept going back and forth on the best way to present it and this format was suggested by the strategic planning committee so I really appreciate that input essentially this shows you the number of students who have been suspended at least one time because there are 840 in school and out of school suspensions and only 448 students you can figure out from that data

076that some of our students have been suspended more than once but really what this shows is the the vast majority of our students who have not been suspended at all across all of our levels so the blue numbers those larger blue bars represent students who have not been suspended at any point this year and the smaller red bars are students who have been suspended at some point this year yeah exactly right so I do think it's helpful um to keep in mind without adding too much conjecture on my part that most of our students are doing what they're supposed to do almost all the time um Andy Langley very helpfully thought to change these slides so that they're a bit more muted so you can when you bounce back and forth between this year and

077last it looks older because it's a faded number so relatively similar across the board these are last year's numbers again this is in school and out of school combined this is the type of suspension that you see I find this sort of interesting we've got the number of students and the percentage of students that if they were suspended at least once were suspended out of school or were only suspended in school and you'll note that there's I think what jumps out right away is that for elementary school students it is actually more difficult or more less likely to be suspended only in school and I I would argue that's because of the setup we have we're for our elementary schools there just aren't people to supervise an in-school suspension so those students generally have an

078out of school suspension if they're going to be suspended again please stop me if there's any questions these are the same numbers for last year also relatively similar although bouncing back and forth you'll note that the high school appears from these slides to be making a concerted effort to keep students in the building and I know Donna would argue would tell us that that's because they're delivering services for those students or they can take tests and receive academic intervention even if they're being suspended in school um this is the student suspension data as related to our district demographics I know this I believe is what a Monica nut was referencing that we still have a long way to go to make sure that our students are receiving Equitable consequences for actions something where we're presenting

079not because we're proud of it but because we want to make sure everyone's aware that we are keeping a close eye on it and working hard to correct that also we took the time to disaggregate the data for not just race but ethnicity because we have to report this information to the state We Gather the data based on the U.S census codes for race and ethnicity which are outdated and need to be corrected yep I can probably attest to that as well because Hispanic and Latino is not um is not looked at at all in the U.S census and people who would otherwise identify as Hispanic realized you know have to instead choose a skin tone so this is the way we prefer to look at our data as a district so that we make

080sure that to the extent that we can we're disaggregating for all of our larger racial and ethnic groups and this is last year which you can tell because the colors are more muted um so relatively similar situation and something that we're working hard to address here's our attendance data the red bar is the district average which is right about 88 percent this is through January 1st so this school year um so by school and then by grade again just tell me slow down if you need me to we've started our assessment data with map growth and I'd like to slow down here and just take a minute to thoroughly explain this and also to celebrate it a little bit so the orange bars for all of those grades are for this representing the students who

081met the growth that map determined they would likely make from last winter to this winter and those are not just selective endpoints chosen because we like them but because map is designed to be a test that measures growth over the course of time over a year right so it's you can look at it fall to winter but the best and most accurate way to look at your map data is from one time period to the previous year to the same time period this year so we did what uh winter to Winter so the orange bars are the percentage of students in those grades that met the growth map said someone at their level was likely to make and all of those numbers are above 50. and please excuse the clumsiness of this analogy but we're

082having a baby boom in my extended family and I like the black numbers better because meeting your growth is sort of like being pregnant you either are or aren't so you either met your growth or you didn't but you can't be close to pregnant or very pregnant right you either are or aren't just like a light switch I guess that's a less clumsy analogy so the black bars actually demonstrate the extent to which our students grew and it measures all of the growth right so students who came very close to meeting their growth goals are still included in that black bar and our students who made a tremendous amount of growth it gives us credit for that instead of just saying they did or didn't and this number is the national growth percentile so when

083we look at the 2020 norms and the amount that students in grade 3 were expected to grow we are at the 82nd percentile which is awesome so if you lined up all of the the classrooms across the country or of students who took math in 2020 we would be the 82nd that's that's really good that's awesome like 50 would be about halfway so the fact that all of these numbers are as high as they are I think speaks very highly to the amount of hard work that our staff members and our students are putting in every day and you may not see that in when we look at our map data broken down into those four groups and you don't necessarily see all that captured by those orange numbers but those black numbers really are

084something that we should be excited about so this these are the math numbers for a map and these are the reading ones but again you'll see that every orange bar is above 50 and that we really have some great growth going on in our reading scores as well 110. the national growth percentile so the for eighth grade is 77 yes tell me one more time sure I know it's confusing so then the conditional growth percentile is uh map looked at the 2020 norms and they said how much growth is normal like if you took the person that grew the least and the person that grew the most like your height chart at the doctor um where would the 77 percent of you that would be a relatively tall person right so if you took the

085growth expected for a number of classrooms or districts or that number of students we're in the 77th percentile so we're growing a whole bunch so that's wonderful yeah so 50 would be average the average expected growth okay and this is across our district for that grade level yeah we are I mean relatively speaking keep in mind keep that in mind when you look at the actual the breakdown of how people performed that the math growth is really good because we still have a long way to go to be where we want to be but I do think that this is very important that it's not just where we are right now it's how fast we're getting to where it is we want to be so hopefully that makes sense and again yeah happy to go

086into greater detail but I promise not to talk about pregnancy anymore okay so um here is our map reading our English reading data all of the slides will be set up in relatively the same way so you'll have your um overall grades one through five and then later on the middle school grades and then the next slide will be um over time so the last several map testing periods it may be a little bit confusing in that subheading we only started testing in um first grade this year so for fall and winter of 22 that data includes first through fifth grade but previous to this fall we did not test first graders does that make sense and to go back just a little bit that's why you only this starts with third grade because we

087don't have a growth score from Winter over winter for last year's first graders who became second graders because the first graders didn't take it last year okay so um this is longitudinal data this is by grade level and I'm sure you could probably figure this out on your own but the younger the students were when we went to remote schooling the more the impact seems to eventually on the reading scores this is by race or ethnicity and this is low income versus not low-income the indicator for how students pay for lunch is what we used to make that determination I'll keep moving unless there are questions this is our map Reading assessment for Spanish so just our one and two-way dual language students would take this test this is grades one through five district wide

088grades two through five or one through five over the last five testing periods for the same reasons I just mentioned this is the low income versus not low income relatively close together and this is you so this is Spanish reading this includes dual language it's actually one and two ways one anti-aging language it's only students who would be considered dual language so students who are in monolingual classrooms wouldn't take the Spanish reading tests and and are these are these native Spanish speakers as well for grades three through five it would be only students who have a background in Spanish at home we also gave the test to our first and second grade students and they are in two-way dual language so some of the students that took this test speak English at home and some

089of the students who took this test speak Spanish at home but only for grades one and two next year it'll be grades one two and three and we'll keep that will keep going up so we're making sure to measure the Proficiency in Spanish for all students who are in our two-way dual language program because we want to make sure that what we're doing is helping them build better suitable languages sure well I guess I'm just thinking of like our Spanish-speaking students are primarily um experiences our first language they're they're represented they are keep in mind though that for some of our even for our one-way dual language students they may be true bilinguals already they may be Spanish dominant but their literacy instruction has been mostly in English um I guess if they've been with

090us the entire time that wouldn't be true they would have been receiving instruction literacy in both languages the entire time but if they've moved in um or if they're newcomers so it's difficult to make generalizations too much about art and AJ please jump in if you feel like I'm saying something that isn't accurate but for our our one-way dual language students in particular but for all dual language students because they aren't a monolith so it's difficult to say you know this is this profile if it's every kid but what we can say about this data is fall of 22 is when we for the first time tested two-way dual language students because of the age of students we test and the rolling up of the two-way program so students who were tested from Spring of

09122 and back would have only been one way dual language students who for whom Spanish is spoken in the home okay and so it looks like if there there's like less proficiency as we go further along it is possible right and I would hesitate to draw a direct line right because we didn't we don't have experimental groups so I don't want to I would interpret that in some ways to say perhaps it's because we're testing our younger students because again we didn't we wouldn't have tested first grade until fall of 22 and the idea of putting the first graders on the the computer um you know you gotta take everything with grain of salt but it's also when we would have started testing two-way dual language students because we didn't test any two-way dual language

092students last year because first graders didn't take math at all now they do so now we've got students who speak English at home who are a part of the two-way language program who are taking the math reading test what we expect to see is as the students continue to progress we've got a multiplicative kind of exponential growth in literacy in both languages and we know that when you're learning two languages and building literacy in both at the same time sometimes it starts off a little slower and then we see the benefit a little bit around sure I guess my concern is just making sure that works supporting students you know or advocating for students if they're like you know particularly like our you know our students that are not you know I don't want to

093say it right away but don't speak English as the main event but but whatever they're not getting lost in there yeah or not necessarily that they're getting not that they're getting lost in there or that like you know I don't know she's right there look at that here I'm gonna miss you beautiful um but no just that we're we're certain you know that we're you're receiving the support that you need to make sure the students are receiving the support you know I'm actually really pleased with this data I thought the red would be a lot higher since we had the English background page testing in Spanish and they're doing really well that's great um yeah that's not what the study says cool well good good and I will say AJ um does a particularly awesome

094job keeping track of the data not just on map but also using iStation and some of the other pieces that we have in place so that we are tracking the data for literacy in both languages that's a very heavy Focus so yeah it's I get it and thank you for your concern I I think that's one of our strengths is that we're trying to make sure that all of the students in that program are receiving whatever they need to be proficient in both languages so they can that's such a great skill to have going forward thank you yeah um so low income in that low income pretty pretty close on this one um the fast Bridge early reading assessments are the assessments that our kindergarten students take so this is kindergarten only kindergarten District wide

095for letter names letter sounds do you know okay so that's percentile so 50 of our students ideally should be green or blue I mean ideally would be 100 of our students in blue right but yeah a normal distribution would be relatively you know 20 seconds okay potentially kindergartners okay I think I understand so beginning of the year kindergarten yeah which is when they're just starting to learn how to do right so yeah so this is it's not too it doesn't necessarily reflect the how well yeah okay I think I understand I don't know if I can reform what I'm trying to say sure it reflects more how they're kind of coming to us it doesn't show you growth this isn't this is the winter score it is the winter score okay um it is do

096I have longitudinal I don't think I do we are open to exploring other options that are not passwords because this is purely a test where for one minute students look at a list of letters that are out of order and the teacher points to them and they have to say what letter it is okay if you've tried to sit with a kindergarten student and get them to On Demand give you information um it is difficult um it's one of the reasons our kindergarten teachers prefer their kindergarten quarterly assessments because it's not timed it is that's what we have right as a data person I have to say like we sort of have to use something normed that we have in place and we're continuing to work through whether this is the best fit for our

097program but for right now this is what we have and this is how the numbers shake out okay but yeah it's there's there's a lot of confounding factors for all that again I don't want to hand wave any of the data and I think all that's important to look at but I do I I you know you I think how I feel about qualitative data as well as quantitative so that's what I'll say about that but just to be clear this is from the beginning of the year to now so this is this is just the winter information over the instruction and learning they've received over the course of the personals okay yeah um so letter sounds is one another thing that we look at and then Spanish letter sounds only for our two-way dual

098language students who are in kindergarten classes so this would be Spanish letter sounds for students who speak English at home as well so half of the students who speak English at home half the students who speak Spanish at home we ask them what letter sounds the Spanish what letters what sounds the letters make when you're speaking Spanish um oh there's a lot of overlap vowels not so much so the numbers look the way they do for that one math assessments so back to something that is easier to interpret I think than fast bridge this is grades one through five district wide keep in mind as we're looking at these numbers that this is where we're seeing tremendous growth that we're very proud of um math percentile groups over time math percentile groups by grade math

099percentile groups by race or ethnicity low income versus not low income and these are the kindergarten assessments so again same group of kids same type of assessment this is number sequence the numbers are a bit closer to what we would want to see number identification similar to letter identification you point to the number and ask them to say what it is here's our Middle School data our literacy assessments to start over time by grade by rates or ethnicity by free or reduced by not free or reduced and then so these percentiles I guess what um what would we compose like a national percent like like sure so these are all um when the students get a national percentile based on their writ score right and then we take a look at how many of our

100students in Dekalb fell in the top quartile so 76 to 99 so 29 let's go to one that's not this um so I guess this does convertible 18 of our eighth graders are in the top 25 so what's Amanda was saying I think is if you had a distribution that reflected the entire country it would be 25 25 25. does that make sense yeah so for everyone that looks like this if it was the country as a whole it would be broken up into four even chunks because that's actually how the numbers are determined and in Dekalb we would love to move that direction and then do even better right okay um or right now this is where we also want to thank you yeah but by eighth grade it's actually almost close to that

101somewhat I think there's a lot to be excited about yeah um so we've been through these before here's the map Reading Spanish this is only our one-way dual language because we do not yet have two-way dual language at the middle school level so the students taking this Spanish reading assessment speak Spanish at home but as I know we talked about in previous data presentations students who have already passed the access test and have demonstrated that they have a level of proficiency in English are then no longer in this program so it wouldn't take this test exactly so when you think about the self-selecting group of students who may still be in our one-way dual language program who may have been in our one-way dual language program from the time they were young the students who

102had met a higher level of literacy aren't included in this data because they no longer take this test so how many students are this represent them how many students remain in our Middle School one-way dual language program across all three grapes right yeah yeah this is the longitudinal data and again you've got your four chunks by grade level and but we don't do by race or ethnicity because it would be one bar um mostly and this is for your reduced and not free reduced this is middle school math data longitudinal by grade I raise your ethnicity and by lunch status are there any questions about the map Data before I move on to high school data I know it's a bit of a fast shuffle through all of this but I feel like it may

103be better to take the time and look through it since it's publicly available if anyone who's watching at home and also for you it's been presented in board doc rather than to go through it number by number obviously some themes are that we have some work that we want to continue to do to make sure that students are accessing the curriculum and finding success equitably both with regards to race and ethnicity and also um socioeconomic status um our SAT Suite of Assessments remember that we took the PSAT 89 as well as the PSAT nmsqt in the fall for the first time for our freshman and sophomores as an attempt to have more benchmarking data at the high school level so we don't have longitudinal data for those grades because they historically haven't taken a fall

104test so the performance of 9th grade students on the psat-89 in Fall of 2022 the furthest left column is their total PSAT 8.9 percentages similar to the map scores where if you took every student in the country you'd have four equally divided groups and this is where DeKalb students kind of shake out ebrw's evidence-based reading and writing so that's like an Ela score in the middle and then math on the far right and that was the first time we've taken this one they take the they take a test from the College Board Suite of Assessments in the spring as the state of Illinois mandated tests they've never had to take one in the fall so in the fall we've previously just done the PSAT nmspc for juniors so that our Juniors can then qualify for

105the National Merit Scholarship qualifying test which is why it's such a long acronym and we've added in the fall benchmarking assessments because we feel like there has been a little bit of a lack of this benchmarking data at the high school level so we're trying to yeah that's right so performance of ninth grade students by race or ethnicity by lunch status you'll see it I don't find any of it particularly surprising because these students came from our eighth grade where you would have seen similar um comparisons so we continue to work on these same uh things that we've we noticed with map scores this is for 10th grade students on the PSAT nmsqt so that's labeled incorrectly I can change that their total score their evidence-based reading and writing score and their math scores by

106raise your ethnicity and by lunch status and then our 11th grade students who took the PSAT nmspt this fall total score evidence-based reading and writing score math score by race or ethnicity foreign happy to go backward if there are any specific questions on any of the data so I think this I mean this data is helpful in terms of I mean really targeting goals you know and obviously those are the goals that we want to be addressing um one of those are and so then a lot of this data has at least has been used at least last year in creating building sets School Improvement plans that's a great Point yep most of our elementary and middle school buildings have map data included as part of their plan I'm excited because a lot of them

107have growth as their goals it's digest attainment because again to return to the very beginning we've got you know we aren't where we want to be but we're not going to get there without going through here right so unless we continue growing we won't see our scores look the way we want them to and the those High black numbers and the high orange numbers demonstrates that while we still have a ways to go we are doing things that are helping us get where we want to be and that are working for kids we wouldn't you know if we only had students who did not probably pay for free introduce lunch meeting their growth goals you wouldn't see numbers this high so the can I ask the orange bars having them over the 50 percent does

108that in some way indicate that we are accelerating learning for students I think for more of our students than not does that make sense it does not that we we obviously we want more meeting their growth goals and then the black shows that even if it's not accelerated they are grow they're making growth right so I think that that's why I included both because the orange ones are the numbers that we hear more often that teachers are very familiar with that buildings may be familiar with what percentage of students grew as much as we expected them to and obviously the higher the number the better but over 50 is you know usually go okay we're making good progress here um but those the black numbers really do reflect more the student who grew Five Points

109when they're expected to grow six wouldn't count in the orange and the student who grew 20 points when they're expected to grow six would only count as one student making their growth goal whereas that's something we really should be celebrating so hopefully that makes some sense right I feel like the black bars are much not just because they're real nice to look at but I do think it's a much more reflective metric that when you if you took the 2020 Norms so not the students who took the test in real time but the way it was normed in 2020 so pre-pandemic and how much students were expected to grow I'm sorry the national growth percentile so how much we grew compared to everyone else was growing at that point right those numbers are really good

110there's something to be excited about did you and you have do you have um the math bowl or the math math one two three sure this one so this is reading these numbers this is 15 and then there's a separate one for six through eight I'm just looking at the Circle but I'm just looking at your goals like how we aligned it because it was 50 of the students in grade Super Eight not their map Pro mouthful from Fall to enter and then this would be the goal will be 55 percent of students in grades two period we'll make their math book math bowl from fall to winter that is the orange number you want me to go back this so this is for math oh and 51 of students in grades two three and

111make their natural would you want me to go back to that orange black yeah yeah so the students meeting their growth goal will be the orange okay so for math from grades three through eight because again we don't have second grader data because they didn't take it as first graders in the winter but going forward we will because we've moved it down to first grade so you're at 59 58 51 63 60 58 . so for all except for fifth grade it's already above 55. so then we probably need to adjust this foreign I believe that's phrased as fall to winter so there's a okay this is winter to Winter okay so which we can certainly look at the fall to winter winter to Winter is the most accurate because that's how math is designed

112to go year and year those are written fall to winter I'm sure so that within the course of the year we can say what so like for Pera and other things related to growth we have to look at within one school year so our hands are tied a little bit on that um the numbers are also good for fall to winter I just don't want to conflate the two that's not that's not this line okay so I just want to make sure this makes sense it does that's the orange one okay these okay so 50 of students in grades too great another amount from fall to winter so they're gonna be similar numbers but not these exact numbers so this is winter to Winter well I guess that I just want to make sure that

113this is right do you know what I'm talking about yeah yeah okay I understand what you're saying I don't know that we would change it in the middle of the year no I'm not saying change it I'm just saying if I'm just want to make sure these percentages are all right so so this one is from last year to this year in comparison right when you're 21 where's the second one the second one was from the beginning of the year to now from the fall to the winter so that's why they're not compared to the same right right I just want to make sure that we have the the percentages are right so that we're basing it sure so on the last winter to this winter this is so our children in third grade 59

114of them grew in comparison to their colleagues right or Nationwide we were at 82 right like no I understand all that okay my question is about your goals specifically for the whole District making sure that our percentages are right in the goals that's all yeah are they that's what we approved I know that's I just want to make sure yeah yes sir I don't know how to answer I guess or the numbers that you have in front of you are different would have yeah would have reflected I believe the goal from the fall so they aren't reflective of performance that actually took place the numbers on the screen I performed such a place from Winter to Winter the amount of growth that students need so I believe that yours are what you're looking at is

115accurate but I don't think that you can compare it to it on the screen because it that's what I'm trying to okay I want to make sure that these I just want to make sure our percentages are right you know right yeah we're right out in a moment so we're focused on other things yeah the right number I think so I think that makes more sense to focus on how much are we helping our students to grow keeping in mind we're not moving the goal posts we want all of them to you know absolutely have leave here with all the skills that they need to go do whatever they want to as they choose right but in order to get their measuring that growth I think is a much better way to look at it

116than simply did you leap over tall buildings and get into the blue the other thing I think uh Jessica that we might need to be cognizant of is a question of the growth that has occurred from the beginning of the year to middle of the year which is yeah okay so yeah I just want to make sure that that our numbers are right so that we're moving the needle like we want to right so so that those at the end of the year that data and you'll see that a little bit more comparatively at the end of the year later right now we're just saying yeah no I mean you didn't do this yet because it hasn't yet I haven't had a chance to do it but I'm just going to make sure we're Baseline

117and turn from the right place yeah okay are there any other questions I can help you into if you think of any then we'll come up with a way to get the answer key thank you very much I'm fair weather thank you so much Dr now thank you so we're going to turn our attention oh yeah absolutely so we're gonna turn our attention now to the department middle of the Year updates I'm going to ask the school board and any community members that want to access it to review the combined priority loan to the new debt um track tracker sheet that's linked into the board Docs it makes from some really good reading if you you know are bored it's amazing actually we're not going to go into it um but you can review that

118um I want us to remember that our strategic goals are based on a three-year plan so it is uh we are going to accomplish those goals by the conclusion of 2025. okay it is customary for our progress to fluctuate I want you to keep that in mind um as we look at the at the dung check marks the thumbs up the thumbs down again thank you to Dr Nall and all of the directors who make sure that those illustrations are there it's a simple way for us to see what's happening okay I'm gonna kick off the director's updates because I'm here um and I'm trying to use so it's in your it's in your board doc okay so School leaders meaning all principals assistant principals and Deans have participated in anywhere between six to eight

119clock hours of professional learning communities that will that have been focused on courageously identifying and addressing biases we are going to continue that feed those pocs by leveraging our courage to attain Excellence through equity um in addition to that learning opportunity Deans and assistive principals are also participating in culturally responsive discipline series um because we do things Based on data and the data that was just shared which is Trend data we've seen that at least since 2014 so it was not a surprise to us that's why we have a plan that Carl spoke of as well and that is also why we are um we know that we have a lot of new assistant principles of new Deans and it's imperative for us to make sure that we are um facilitating that we have increased

120our collaboration with Community agencies which directly supports our strategic priority number two and our goals number one and three of our diversity plan it has actually increased tremendously this year I think everyone is really itching to help us out because you know for a few years we weren't able to really have Community agencies as part of our decision making process um so we also had five successful Community conversation events the feedback from the events were shared in a previous board update there were a lot of positive outcomes noted and our Focus going forward will be to establish Affinity groups are there any questions about Dei director update perfect I would like to say that um Donna Larson will be speaking for the athletic director's um updates when it's time for Peter Paul all right I'm

121next because I made eye contact with uh that that'll teach you no I was ready I was ready um just you want to hit a couple of high-level things within the world of student services I think one of the the biggest celebrations that we we've had and something that we were really happy to get back to was um kind of in the spirit of community engagement and and getting our families into our buildings for an event so in December uh student services hosted um a family night and unfortunately we weren't able to be there because we had a board meeting but over a hundred families attended that night he was at the high school and it really was a mix of you know we wanted to feed the community have a have a dinner but

122then there was some informational um we had ramp there we had uh project search came and spoke and then we just had a ksra come and so it was really just giving families some information uh one of our hopes was there was a lot of networking that happened amongst families that was something that actually came out of a community conversation is um families lean on each other for support um and then we had a Santa Claus and um a sensory Santa and then we also had a like an Olaf character ish um I don't know if I can say that but I did um but it was tailored for students that um might struggle with um you know going to see Santa for various reason related to their disability we really tried to make it

123as accessible as possible for them in their family so it was something that we hope to continue with obviously not necessarily around the holidays all the time but um ultimately we'd like to get to one a quarter where we bring families in for different activities uh the other thing that I want to highlight is work that it I'll say it's going on behind the scenes um there's a lot of focus on SEL and one of the things that we're doing to try while trying to address the immediate needs that we see on a day-to-day basis is taking um time to go slow to review and revise our SEO plan and so uh Sarah Bates our social emotional learning coordinators leading that work it's a it's a committee of people some have been on a part

124of our SEO plan for a number of years and we're going back to the basics we're looking at what is our vision what is our mission and then from there really driving what our priorities are I think a lot of the work that we're doing right now kind of in parallel is going to line up with where our ultimate SEO plan will be which will be finished at the conclusion of this year in in anticipation of rolling it out for next year so right now that's happening behind the scenes and a lot of committee work but what you're probably going to see as we get into the second part of second semester and then in the summer is that's going to be front and center so remember like what we did with the code of

125conduct where we'll be getting feedback and input from a broader audience any questions about anything but I just tried to hit a couple high level things thank you thank you all right technology update so for strategic uh Priority One our focus is on leveraging technology uh to increase student achievement we've done that in a number of ways first and foremost is our one-to-one implementation and again we're heading into our 10th year next year being one to one and our seventh of being a Google reference District um so as we continue down that uh priority in achieving that we are seeing our students uh being able to reach um their potential through our Equitable process of delivering Chromebooks and Technology to them uh we continue to fund and solve the digital divide slash homework Gap so

126that is for our families that do not have internet access at home which many of them are identified during uh registration at the beginning of the school year and all of our families have been contacted for this school year that uh had indicated that they did not have access and we have provided set access so again if we have families that are still in need of access they email one two two one at du428.org and that is the quickest way for us to go about assisting them um also continuing uh our cyber security initiatives we have made many changes in the department and following nist uh standards as well as the ncsr Nationwide cyber security review um to expand our abilities to mitigate issues as they come up for a strategic priority two providing support

127based on the communications plan we are making many steps forward with the assistance of Rita in making changes to both the social media as well as the front-facing District website so there will be a lot more information coming on that but everything is moving as it should um and from a fiscal standpoint with strategic priority three tying in many of these initiatives from one to one to the digital divide to Cloud access security Brokers cyber security but being fiscally minded behind all of it to assure that we're trying to take advantage of any sort of Grants or funding opportunities to offset our costs as we can and then for strategic priority four um so providing support through the onboarding process again the technology department and the HR departments are working cohesively to try to streamline

128and automate the onboarding process for new hires and and just make the employee process just that much faster and that is the technology update thank you yeah it's like where's Billy going teaching and learning is next as you can see on our first slide um of course we would start with rigorous instruction and developmentally appropriate practices and culturally responsive teaching and learning so that's an area that we continue to work with our teacher leaders our content managers area coordinators to clarify expectation make sure that there are commonality across different plc's provide professional development that will increase our Fidelity to our best practices that we've identified also of course making sure that our instruction is standards aligned secondary team has been identifying gaps in curriculum curriculum excuse me supplementing existing materials making sure that all those

129essential standards are covered in the elementary teams are revisiting Curriculum maps and tying course materials to the standard more exclusively also of course keeping a keen focus on standardized not standardized common summative assessments and then common formative assessments to drive our data which leads to the next one which is data-driven decision making using benchmarking data to drive our discussions about placement and interventions making sure that we have a small group instruction making sure that our core is being enacted with Fidelity and still working to build a culture where instructional decisions are consistently Based on data and looking at multiple data points we're not just looking at one and saying here's the decision what other factors do we need to take into consideration as we look at our school students who wants us to support them

130and then uh with our professional professional learning communities there have been some struggles with those as we list the PLC times been compromised due to the fact that some of the time has been taken out for additional GCM training human X survey feedback session and then other professional development as necessary that we've needed to support either different grade levels or content areas and we have targeted specific role-specific professional development we've done a variety of different ways to collect what are the needs of our staff administering surveys conducting walk-throughs to determine what those specific needs are and then those needs are addressed by address by professional development opportunities through our content manager the instructional coaches or Partnerships with other vendors and outside organizations that's a high view so any questions for Sarah before I go no

131so for number two we obviously want to increase our parental involvement and um make sure that our families have voice and advocacy so we continue to use our Title One monies actually we are expected to use as part of our Title One monies for Parental involving nights so all our elementaries have been planting those along with our Middle School um have been doing those we also have our ptos ptas I believe a little John is PPC um next week Little John will actually have a parental involvement I believe it's next Thursday we continue to develop educational opportunities for our students after school so it's actually six out of our eight elementaries now it says five out of eight elementaries are offering after school tutoring um through Assa now Lincoln Elementary School joined us not through

132Essa but through something we had talked about in the Summer where we were waiting for that mou with NIU and ISU we finally got that going so that can actually before being given that designation was offering this after school tutoring or had a plan to offer after school tutoring and then last um the national sex education standards that were working with State passage at the elementary level um for K2 three through five we are going to work with them and how to present the national sex education standards that we have to follow and working with State passage on the right way to do that then our two are to use the district finances effectively to meet the needs of all of our students and staff and providing resources that are Equitable educational aligned with our

133goals while also of course being fiscally responsible when we take inventory of our current programming like you saw tonight what are the needs what do we need to provide Rich curriculum resources for students to provide them their next chapter of the support as they leave us and spread their wings and fly and we see that you know through kindergarten through all the way through secondary establishing a variety of methods gathering information that allows us to provide that targeted professional development oh sorry skipped one and don't try reading and speaking at the same time um but when there's a need for having support outside we We Gather that and also using our content managers and our instructional coaches to provide support and also looking at what are our resources what do we need to bring in

134what are the gaps and identify making sure that our teachers have support and resources if they need sure so for number four um one huge thing that we've done within the tml department is we 've given our building principles the autonomy to be the leaders during plcs they know what the buildings need with so much interrupted time within plcs we felt that they would be the most effective driving force within their buildings so we wanted to make sure we gave them that autonomy and also as Sarah mentioned Dei mentioned student services mentioned um we are just find a one-size-fits all so we are providing different professional development um that Jill actually back over there our humanities manager was able to provide some of our staff on Saturday so um not just don't I mean you

135can't just thank Jill but all our staff that came out came in on Saturday um to be part of that so that's a huge undertaking and then I know Sarah Schaefer our steam manager she's been having math Mondays to specifically work on strategies that teachers need help with within our new enVision Math so those are just a couple ways that we're differentiating or professional development because we know one side is not at all are you um or is there problem solving or collaborative problem solving being done to address how PLC times are being compromised for so we're working forward and it's been a process getting that's part of the problem yeah so we're working with our building principles and um we got some Global PD from solution trees to be able to figure out where

136their staff is at uh with implementation of plcs and to be able to provide them the PD that they need to be able to be implemented them the way we should with Fidelity however the tough thing has been all these interruptions during our PLC time um so moving forward I think I talked about it maybe the last board meeting we asked the principals to come up with their ideal schedule based around student need and not our traveling Specialists so when Sarah said what can we do to as a school board to help that new FTE that we may be requesting for additional Specialists like music teachers our teachers PE teachers to be able to map focus our schedules on um where they are at on maybe on Monday Wednesday Friday but what our students really

137need on a daily basis um that's the support that that we'll need moving forward to be able to do that because really Elementary has no team time like like middle school has um lawyers high school I guess but it would be very beneficial if our grade level teachers could get together on a daily basis and be able to look at their student data and you know respond to that student data some of the challenges the secondary are it's not uncommon for people to do split between several PLC girls different grade levels so we have helped I know the Middle School development schedules are in this grade level on this content area meet at this time but at the end of the day you can only divide the pie so many different ways and there are

138only so many minutes when you know we have some other things going on so we're making progress just not as much as we'd all like to see and we hear the frustrations understand the frustration of our teachers because they're Eco they want to get in there they want to talk about the data they want to make sure that they're aligned any other questions okay thank you thank you all right Human Resources we live in strategic priority four which is human capital recruitment development and retainment um so it's that time of year it's time for recruiting so spring recruitment fairs are starting to ramp up we're getting registered we're getting them on the calendar and we're looking for opportunities to go out and Recruit new staff to join our district we are also continuing to build

139our relationships with our higher education Partners the colleges and universities but also other organizations such as Golden Apple that does recruiting that works to help help us identify staff to join our team we're doing continuous work on documenting our recruitment plan that includes scheduling the fares but also what other opportunities exist we are now having regular meetings with our HR recruitment team that's represented throughout the district we have a variety of people that attend those meetings and they want to share their ideas and suggestions on how we can potentially recruit staff into the district we have ongoing PD opportunities from various Partners as we supports our mentoring programs for our new building principals we are also in the process we are scheduling PD for our for that Office Professional members to support them in the

140registration process and many other processes that affect our all of our buildings continuing to support staff through the evaluation process that's both Administration and on the side of our employees that are receiving feedback currently we have ongoing leadership opportunities to support development and decision making in the administrative roles that our staff play we have on-site monthly professional development opportunities and external opportunities such as courageous principles at our second half of our administrators will be attending in February and then we just have ongoing professional development opportunities happening district-wide and in the process of developing a handy dandy staff handbook where it will answer whatever questions staff have about their employment here with the district any questions I can answer thank you hello just a quick update from facilities and safety in our first initiative a lot

141of time for myself has been spent working with various departments and committees in regards to looking for opportunities for adding space to our district and we have some proposals that will be coming forward in the near future but a lot of time has been spent on putting all that together in addition the next thing we were focused on is more in the safety World Jose declares of the audience as our safety manager with hiring of him he has been very busy meeting with staff and dealing with improvements throughout our safety security world we have been reviewing our audit reports and making changes throughout the district in regards to recommendations from the safety audit from last spring those include a variety of things from facility improvements whether it's door hardware swipe systems various things that we're

142considering and still moving forward with that would take quite a bit of time and capital to be able to get get all of those completed to improve the safety measures we had in place radio improvements have been Improvement to our Radio Systems training has been a huge part that we started out the year with with our safety Institute days as well as some additional Alice training that's taking place and we're going to be looking forward to additional trainings and incorporating that into an onboarding process that JJ's been working on or will be working on in regards to making sure that as staff are coming on board they're provided that same level of training and support in the safety security world as it relates to facility use another arm of our department we hired in an

143auditorium facility youth manager Philips and he has jumped right in under to understand what our auditoriums need as well as looking to improve our facility use that being an initiative so that we can expand on our community use of our buildings we are looking at a different software program to be able to manage all of the facilities throughout the district so as you can imagine if it is at their size we have a lot of requests internally and externally that have many steps to that so if he's working on that as well as verifying that any fees that we do charge um that that we are within the market and they are acceptable those will be reviewed and any changes to the process and those fees will be considered and implemented over the summer months

144because it's always better to bring the staff back in the fall the links are something new that's the best time to really do that across all of our districts or all of our buildings I've already spoken about the safety Institute days but again we'll be looking to expand on those throughout the upcoming year and into the next year any questions thank you thank you oh there is okay so Vladimir go first strategic priority number two we're really looking out to better communicate to our to a community and understanding the school Finance so we do have a lot of financial information on our website but how do we make it better understanding of the Republic for either little people understand it we're looking at some virtual workshops to do and kind of people's School Finance 101.

145additionally we're looking at how our business office internet website can have a dashboard that is interactive and provides kind of a better key financial data and the for the community to easily read it and to understand it so we're looking for some user-friendly format we have been working with our communication manager Rita to actively look for you know how others are doing it or how to better show this for the community for the school Finance work are you done uh and then one more uh so and then to communicate how a district is providing release of taxpayers uh so even though we have done a lot to mitigate um the product property tax burden over the next over the last few years uh how do we communicate that better to a taxpayers and again being

146proactive and informing consistency to the public so I don't know if you have something for that no I agree I mean we do a really good job I think in the business office but the numbers and providing a lot of data but then it's okay how do you really digest a lot of that information for those that aren't um numbers happy which we live it every day and it's um to make it you know a little easier for people to look at and understand what made more of a higher level rather than the level of detail that we're so used to so that's one of our goals in working with free to help us do that as well so thank you Rita for being here that's probably a good thing yeah we need a yin

147and yang you know you've done a good job of Cindy um in terms of uh strategic priority number three um the focus of that priority is really related to the Esser funds the emergency secondary emergency relief fund and kind of wanted to focus there on some of the celebrations with those sellers we were able to use a big chunk of those funds about half a million of those to assist teachers and support staff directly in the classroom with the one thousand dollar allocation for each of those tcca members and they've been using those they've been we have a I think a pretty good process in place to track those Downs appropriately if we ever did get it audited in terms of how we use those dollars and there's been some great supports that have been

148used by the teachers and so we're really excited that they were able to do that and be involved in that process and to purchase what they feel is needed in order to help their students so um another celebration is I'm glad that he's here right next to me as we turn into the smooth transition as um I walk out to the sunset hopefully one of these days and um but now it's great to have a mirror here and you know we're going to be tag teaming quite a bit you'll see us um over the next few months as we go through that transition and then I always like to talk this up too because this is kind of related to our Communications piece as well and something that we've done consistently is receiving our certificate

149of excellence in financial reporting from the government Finance Officers Association as well as the association of school business officials International for the 12th team package of year where you've receive those from both of his organizations so um I know a lot of times you don't like the daddy drive on the back but like it's a collective effort of you know the board the business office everybody in the room because everybody's looking at finances really closely and it's great to have that document because there's a lot of good information there but now that now we need to figure out how to put it in a way so people don't want to read it and it's not a hundred I mean plus page document which it is but trying to make it a little more readable and

150digestive thank you and now Peter go all right good evening again on behalf of Peter goth I have some exciting uh fall Sports Recaps that we can um discuss tonight one of the major themes that you'll find in his presentation that's really exciting to share as a celebration um most of the pro mostly all of the program highlights was that our numbers are growing so we find that we're finding that our students are feeling more connected to school our teams are filling um there's that growth with with our with our younger students just excited to become a bar so that was really exciting to see um so girls tennis team one of the major season highlights was that the girls were able to pull off their first match of the season and this is provided

151by our head coach Rachel lifehite who she is a first year head coach as well so both we had full JV and varsity teams for our tennis program this season our girls swim team they had 20 girls on the team this year and again the numbers keep going five new swimmers joined the team this year in this season article golf team a season highlight uh Andrew Smith qualified for the sectional tournament as an individual again numbers continue to rise through that program as well and his mom is in the audience today too uh Northern article football team we went six and four with again uh another new talented coach that we have second season um First Team all BBC members we had plenty of students there as well as BBC honorable mention members as well

152um we also had all state Award winners we had Nathan Howard who was an All-State honorable mention DeKalb soccer another growing program and we were the barbed Cup champions this year as well as we reached our regional championship match so that's another great growing program that has been really working hard with their their feeding programs as well boys boys and girls cross country teams um we were we had a great turnout and a great opportunity that two of our students Riley Newport um placed seventh and Jacob Barraza it was 27th in the in the 3A state meet and it was a very exciting meet I actually got to attend that one I've never been to one before and you have to hustle it was super exciting um it was a great turnout and and they

153did a really great job this season again we're growing numbers in that in that team as well and our volleyball team um biggest yet 55 athletes even after we had to provide some Cuts so we did have another great incredible turnout first and second place um tournament tournament uh finishers so that was really exciting to see but as you can tell even through all of our throughout all the presentations tonight they're growing numbers and just the excitement vertically from you know from all of our programs it's just been great to see our kids more connected to our program's been wanting to be there after school any questions okay that's it that's it do we want more that's okay are there any overall questions about the middle of the Year state of the district okay with

154that we will adjourn our meeting is there a motion is there a second oh you second all right Sarah seconds all in favor aye [Music]