CUSD 428 Board Meeting 10/4/2022

001thank you foreign thank you today sure we do need it um no I don't really use this very much but there will be one of them do you want you want one of these would that be easier to follow well guys oh all right it is seven thank you let's um start our meeting with a roll call please here Anthony David present Sarah Moses here Ariel and president Jeremy Olson here Lucy Ramirez president David Seymour cheers okay sorry um and Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all foreign next we have public comment it is recommended that the Board of Education I'm sorry that is not I have my

002thing on the wrong thing sorry um public comment members of the public who wish to speak to the board should complete a request card prior to the start of the meeting this section of the meeting will be reserved for comments from the public all comments should be limited to three minutes criticism of individuals is not in order are there any public comment cards no no board correspondence share out go ahead um I attended the social justice team meeting so that was great um chance and I our student board member are going to be having a meeting with Donald Larson and talk about a student advisory committee so we can um hear the voices of chance and additional students excited about that and that's happening next week perfect um I also attended the social justice committee

003meeting and I also had the opportunity to go to Courageous Leadership Retreat with the leaders in our district which was a great experience and I'm hopeful that we'll be able to bring back and utilize some of the things that we use that we learned at that retreat utilizer in our buildings and across our districts so excited for that anyone else since our last meeting I think we had ffac and we attended that we're looking forward to kind of looking more at what we can do to address classroom size through that committee and we um I also attended strategic planning committee and they are working on getting some um at a glance School Improvement plans and how they then relate to this strategic District strategic plan so that's going to be cool to see and I

004think that will be up later today in our meeting all right any other board correspondence I had a meeting with whatever today and uh thank you hi and then we have acceptance of gifts and donations um and this is a procedural recommendation that we're accepting with gratitude the donation of 632.20 from NIU Athletics the college football playoff foundation and donors choose for Miss uh I'm not sure if it's wind or wines a teacher at dhs's project be comfortable be cozy and be engaged and that we would also accept with gratitude the donation of water filling station in the amount of four thousand seven hundred dollars from Delta Dental of Illinois foundation and its partnership with Illinois Children's Healthcare Foundation on the H2O on the go program and that was awarded to Lincoln Elementary um we

005are excited to share that through the Delta Dental of Illinois Foundation um and it's partnership oh I just read this I'm sorry with Illinois Children's Healthcare Foundation H2 on the go program uh Lincoln Elementary was selected for the H2O on the Go water bottle Filling Station program so we accept those with gratitude and thank you very much for supporting our district and now we have the consent agenda before we move to approve the consent agenda I just want to note that the Personnel action item was amended and I'm um a position was removed that the board will be discussing at a later time so I just want to make that known is there a motion it is recommended that the Board of Education approved the consent agenda items a through c as attached is there

006a motion roll call please yes can you come back to me yes Sarah Moses sorry my I can't get into my laptop yes and next um under old business is subject a the human X proposal information and action and we do have I believe Mr black with us tonight thank you for coming and joining us um do oh thank you Ben can you hear us okay Mr Black yeah I can hear you well okay perfect yes we can thank you very much um Mr Black do you prefer to start off with a summary or do you want us to jump into questions what is your preference I like you were writing the questions I know I know we spent some time earlier so as you've processed any of that discuss it it would be helpful

007for me to address any questions you have um might I might suggest though for the sake of the folks that are on video tonight and here in the audience you just give a brief description of the service you're talking about probably better coming from you than me I didn't hear a brave description why of the service you're providing that we're looking at just yeah for the sake of everybody here who may not be aware yeah what we included in the proposal was staff engagement so climate culture survey as that's the what we would call the lead indicator that impacts good engagement followed by student engagement is around two so when we're talking about impacting student engagement uh growth and achievement or achievement of growth we always start with the focus on measuring the climate and

008culture so in The Proposal in our process over the last 14 years with many districts in the straggle and areas references and with results we most we focus on 15 dimensions of a culture we focus on every staff member with questions about themselves the administrators the team and the organization so there's four levels of the questions built into the survey with um you know obviously over the years you Decades of research identifying how you build the most engaged cultures so that's kind of a summary of what we reviewed in more detail earlier thank you are there any questions so which which one are we looking at I don't because I haven't done that um it's the Insight X staff engagement climate and culture survey is what Mr Black had proposed we talked about the option

009to add the diversity equity and inclusion and anti-hate anti-racism index for a as a for as an add-on and then I know at our last when we last talked we talked briefly about the student engagement survey as well and I think Mr Black was suggesting we start with the staff one and then scale up to student engagement but that's open for discussion of course if that's something we want to do so I have a question can you and you can hear me okay because sometimes people that are on the on the computer so one of the things that I think you know we've done internal surveys before um and and clearly these surveys are um probably one of the best ways for us to get a feel for how the the health of the district

010culture as a community and one of the issues that we've run into is you know getting more than 30 or 40 percent of the folks to respond so I noticed in your literature it looks like your average responses are higher is that something we should uh look forward to and how exactly do you drive that yes you can you absolutely can count on that being much higher we range from 80 to 100 participation and sometimes that's even first year so that's not typical in first year but it has since has happened in fact it wasn't very long ago in Missouri District larger than you and 100 participation so I would highlight a couple things number one the communication and the purpose so when you make a commitment to this office might address questions that some

011people have um we only work with organizations that are making three or commitments because that shows to the staff we're serious about this we want to build a culture we want your input it's Anonymous confidential and so on the receiving end hey here it is oh they're serious this is not just stick at all the water and we're wondering how it is so that's a big part of why we have high participation I you know it's been many years running studies and practices at Gallup and we'd be happy with 50 uh participation so you know I wasn't but generally people would so we have consistently between 80 and 100 so that's a part of it is how it's designed and how it's communicated the second part is that we commit to feedback and action planning

012that we lead so as people from the outside people of subject matter experts people that are skilled facilitators and the content people that have you know Decades of best practice expertise people realize oh we're going to get a chance to hear the results see the results and develop action plans goals on the high items and action plans on the low items so the way it's designed again I'll just highlight it's it's taken serious it's a serious matter it's not just a survey another survey and we wonder where it's going to go or if it's going to be the last time so that's the key part and then I would follow that up with because because it's done well on the front end in terms of design communication when the feedback sessions happen every year after

013that participation arises it's higher really I liked this it was positive it was constructed we got to see our culture in our building because we the only breakout we have we don't ask for any demographics because that also drives participation down if you you know as a classified certified you know one or two other questions and pretty soon there's the perception not the fact but the perception it's not anonymous because I may be the only one that's part-time in this category only question we ask is what department or building you're in because great cultures are built with the lead focus at the building department level culture of a district is the accumulation of the of the culture in every building so we really focus on it's a building effort it's a department effort so people

014look at that and after they go through the feedback process they're more engaged when they leave that that first meeting than they were when they walked in but we treated it very seriously their communication so long answered your short question but 80 to 100 is consistently what we do I don't remember the last time we had a lesson 80 participation and I have a question so in regards to uh anonymity uh people feeling comfortable answering survey questions what is your process for collecting the data so that our district feels that they are truly answering questions anonymously and their their identity is protected yeah go back to the point I made earlier so we don't ask um you know two three four five demographic questions that pretty soon people feel like well they say it's Anonymous

015but you know with these questions after a while kind of deduce that that must be me I'm the only one in that building that's classified certified in this category maybe it's 10-year uh we don't do that would you say what building are we in um and that's how how you know people not only perceive uh but know life act in the district obviously knows that we're not asking for any information we have to know identify information no social security number no names no titles um and then in the proof statement of how it's handled in the feedback sessions people realize there was no finger pointing there was no who said what why um which happens when you have open-ended questions and it's what happens when you don't have a measurable content uh with a process

016attached to it so you know no one could ever guarantee that someone wouldn't perceive that they're maybe you know some ill intent or something may not be anonymous but when you handle it correctly in terms of demographic information on the front end and when you do the feedback sessions and then people experience the constructive process that goes away I mean I can tell you from the many many years of experience pick one up locally to you Schaumburg 54 with 2 000 people in 28 buildings does it twice a year and their participation is high 90s we're 2 000 people in 20 buildings and that's for doing it twice a year for 14 years so we have a lot of examples like that but that would be the closest biggest largest one that I could highlight

017for you that actually leads me to my next question which is you know I think the thought here is to to do it twice a year at least for a while um so that we have a jumping off point you know by which we can then compare at the end of the year are we better or worse the pricing that you've included in this does this include twice a year or is this a once a year engagement price not twice a year we price it the same you do it once you do twice we cap it you know what you're paying once per year I mean if little if you want to do it three times I would never recommend three times but you know at least 80 90 of our districts do twice a

018year and that's an all-in number so one of the other things that I found interesting is you made a comment that um that the climate and culture survey was a was a sort of I think you said a leading indicator of student engagement um I just wondered from your experience what prompted it and if that had anything to do with why you suggested that we wait to do the student engagement survey yes and I don't mean to suggest wait next year I would just say Stage IT stage one stage two one should always leave the feedback process so to do student engagement next spring would be smart with the ideal because people would realize we're now understand what's going on in the classroom with the students so we have metrics that are obviously tied to

019achievement growth so that's a very important piece but sometimes people will start with that and then do staff and that's backwards one is lead and one is last whenever I sent you today a research piece um just recently from our research and Discovery team and it highlights the detail the correlation of Staff engagement to student engagement and it's extremely high so if you want to reach the student it's got to be through the staff not vice versa so then if we were to add the diversity Equity inclusion uh inclusion and anti-racism piece do you see that as being a distraction from the the culture survey or do you think we should do those simultaneously or stage those as well um most of the time you know I don't know you know specific issues that you

020might have dealt with in the community but the sooner you can understand measurably with a baseline you know where you're at many times people fear that things are worse than they are then they measure it and they find out oh well we're not perfect we know what to work on but things are far better than we think and when you're getting high participation in a survey that's around climate culture and you realize that Dei is a part of a bright culture when they're strong in that area um it's it's better to be able to blend that in as soon as you can but there's always the option to do it you know in the second round in Spring after you establish the foundation without it so we can go either way but the longer you

021wait you don't have the information to know what to work on or where you're strong or where you're not strong so again I I'm answering that without context of knowing you know the culture if you have it the pressures or the challenges the riches that you face but as a long time practitioner consultant I will always recommend get the objective measurable data as soon as you can to Baseline because any efforts that you put forward you want to be able to measure the impact of those efforts anyone else you have another question no oh I thought maybe you had the other one any other questions okay are we ready to move on this item then we do have it on for Action tonight I think before we can move on it we would have to

022decide if we're going to do the app yeah what do you mean of the engagement for spring or no just option to add the Dei um um okay so if we're on the same page it's those pieces then yeah and then do we want to talk about the student engagement survey for the spring um we can talk about that now or we can see how this kind of goes and then bring it back before we would need to start implementing that can I ask you when in the spring would you suggest if we were to move on to do the student engagement survey when when would you suggest uh February and what about the second round of the staff engagement culture survey um there's two parts of the answer one will it depend on how

023action plans are executed because you don't want to survey people when you haven't followed through on the action items that were established in the fall so that's really one of the key indicators is have we been working on our action plans if you have to be able to do that you know a March April gives you kind of that what we might call halftime information so you go look we've been working on it look at the numbers they've changed so that builds a lot of momentum then to carry in you know for administrators before next fall so that time one time two can give you in okay turn the dial on the lens of seeing you know re-approvement you're making and then there are other areas where the Improvement may not be as much as

024you can either expect also remember as we talked about at the department of building level you'll see some buildings that will improve faster than others they don't all improve at the same rate and there's a lesson there as well so you can learn from your best buildings how are they doing so well it's almost like there's an a student in the room and you ask how did you do it we had the same teacher so in this context you know the survey is done same way process is the same questions are the same but why did that building improve so much so you will have a building in your District that will lead the rest and that will give you Insight also in terms of time and then this survey will also include like uh

025District level staff like cabinet level and correct okay so everyone will be included the entire District no yeah so however we break it out but you know cabinet you know would be its own Breakout um to be able to say it as a team um we call that a department that you call that a team or central office would be a team yeah so people go both ways what we do caution is don't get the number so small that you stress the perception of anonymity so we don't report information when it's less than five we find work in your group a small group with another small group with a common reporting relationship because you want to be really careful the perception that I am and everything the fact is it is but perception sometimes it's

026more important than the fact because people are like well there was five of us and we did the survey and here's a result so when you get into those smaller groups what we will always recommend if people will learn over time is is the the building with a central office or whether it's Elementary wherever the building is that's where the power of building the culture is in the building when in the building it's just us so another way of saying we don't suggest cutting it into you know disaggregated groups um because you know people are going to feel you know more exposed I have a quick question what is the timeline from when the survey goes out to you receive it back and then the training so is it eight weeks six weeks from the

027beginning to the end when you're training to then know how long we have to implement before we're doing round two of the survey since we're already October now well and yeah before you answer that before you answer yes so it being a long on the long end from the time that it's washed because since launched we typically launched uh middle or the beginning or middle of the week we recommend five days in the field meeting like a Wednesday to a Wednesday we close it we do report in between the participation rights so you can see through the process why is that building have 100 participation in that building has 30. so you know we do that kind of through the process once or twice and then it's wrapped up less than a week for us

028to process it and during all that time even on the front end we could start putting days in the calendar when we're going to be there doing a feedback so you can compress that um I mean there's times we can press it in three weeks um you know it's backing dates that are really key is you know when you have available um you know the staff to be a part of the feedback sessions you know will make any dates work but it's the communication first it's the Roll Lounge the administration the analysis and then the feedback but six weeks would be a long period okay we were no longer than six so so let's just say that we we um approve this tonight which I think we will um what is the timeline between today

029and when and when you could roll this out and implement um I think I hear it for the last part of your question to implement yep like in terms of just when when can that go out because we're obviously we want to condense the timeline between today and when we collect our first round of data so that we have a bigger time span to the next round of data plus our superintendent is currently implementing a whole lot of stuff that we want to know how well it's going to work so it's sooner the better for us yeah easily within two weeks and I would even say by a week from Friday we could have the communication all arranged um that you could be sending out to communicate and then say hey next Wednesday next Tuesday

030whatever that date is the following week the surveys out and launched so we we keep it in a lot flying so to speak any other questions okay are we ready to move on action or take it to action thank you so much Mr Black thank you anything else you need for me um I don't think so we're gonna go ahead and um read the action and if you want to stay and see if it's approved can you let me know if there's anything else I can roll up on all right thank you appreciate it have a great night you too um it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the humanex proposal for the inside X and Dei survey is there a motion second roll call please Sarah Moses yes Ariel Owens yes Gary

031Wilson yes please yes yes yes thank you um subject B is the DHS overnight National FFA convention field trip this is an action item that was presented bystana Larson and it is recommended that the Board of Education approved the overnight field trip to Indianapolis Indiana to attend the National FFA convention is there a motion second roll call uh Jeremy moved Amanda seconded yes subject C 2023 Insurance renewal rates and plan proposal this is an action item that was presented by Richard Salas and it is recommended the Board of Education approved the recommendations for the 2023 plan year is there a motion we'll call please Mr Nelson yes are you serious yes David Seymour yes yes Samantha David yes Sarah Moses yes yes next is new business administration and administration um subject a subject a which

032is DHS student council winter retreat and this is an overnight trip and it's information tonight and it looks like Sarah's stepping in for Donna yes perfect thank you speaking for the high school so traditionally the student council participates in a winter conference with the North Central District which we are a member of and they canceled that winter retreat with an important process for our students to go it's team building planning for future activities so the high school student council would like to have their own and go in December to Chicago December 3rd and fourth it's a Saturday and Sunday and they will stay at a hotel take a train down the majority of the event will be paid for by the DHS student council chaperone by junk katowsky and Rosa Marquez the advisors will be

033approximately 15 to 20 students going and then students will pay for some costs for their train ticket and breakfast if they cannot pay then the DHS student council will participate but they would appreciate if you would consider them to go on this trip to celebrate their successes do team building activities and then planning for future activities any questions consensus to bring it back for Action yes yes yes thank you um subject B is the after school program National Youth Advocate Program Inc 2022 2023 information and action brought To Us by Sarah Montgomery Billy cuermo and Dietrich Salas we all work collaboratively on this it is a mentorship program and I took care of the legal Parts sure so we met with the program directors and this is something that is absolutely free to our students

034and it's something that's going to benefit them outside of the school day for Kenai and teen beach at the secondary it would have to be a little bit during the school day for elementary just because of Transportation so as you can see here they help provide prevention focused core services including improving academic performance private schools education recreational activities and Service Learning and stumbling Billy just encapsulated most of us so yes that will also support middle school high school will be the Kanai program so referral process for students that need additional support and they can provide services during the school day or after school after the school that we were planning on first using it as a referral process for after school and then if need be they can also come in was fully vetted by

035our legal counsel they reviewed the documents we've gotten all agreements in place and they're ready to get started ASAP any questions just it's information action um not that I mean it sounds great but is there a Thai emergency or is there so we've just spent a lot of time back and forth so yes we've been kind of waiting in the wings between legal insurance and sofa agreements and so we were concerned pushing it off even further than it delays these services to help support our students in the many different areas that they can help so we actually began the process in July yeah it's just sure oh I don't yeah I appreciate your work very much is there are there any other questions is there consensus to go ahead and act on this tonight yes

036yes yes it is recommended that the board approved the mou with National Youth Advocate Program Inc to provide the teen reach program for the 2022 2023 school year is there a motion so moved second roll call please DC Raiders yes do you see one yeah yes Anthony David yes dear Moses yes Ariel Owens yes Jeremy Hilson yes thank you um next up is the Early Childhood Staffing request Early Childhood instructional assistant support this is information in action Kyle burdison ditra Salas um go ahead Kyle is present with us virtually this evening so do you want to jump in or yeah sure thank you can you guys hear me okay yes we can so um eater rise to your enrollment in our Early Childhood Program we've determined that we will need to open one additional class

037during this school year um in doing so not only will we remain compliant with the individuals with disabilities um An Education Act but also maintain appropriate class sizes for our other Early Childhood classrooms um in order to staff that room we're going to need one certified special education teacher in three instructional assistants we looked at raise to reclassify already existing FTE for the certified special education teacher and we're going to be able to do that however we will need to hire or add three instructional assisted FTE in order to appropriately staff the classroom um I don't believe it's in the board doc but the um anticipated cost for one instructional assistant is around forty thousand dollars so multiply that by three and we're looking at about 120 000. and is it oh go ahead Kyle

038all right I think I'm about to answer your question we did put it as information and action um based on our projections we anticipate that we would absolutely have to have the classroom open sometime in November um and we determine that based on the number of students that we know have been referred to us and pop on those evaluations will take um however by making it information and then action tonight what that's going to allow us to do is to get as early start as possible on the Recruitment and hopefully the hiring of those instructional assistants any questions um when did we know we were gonna have to have this extra fast food could you hear that Kyle I'm sorry I didn't quite hear that when do we know when did we know that we

039needed to open this additional classroom um we've been monitoring our numbers throughout the last well really since school started um I would say probably within the last week and a half two weeks we've said yeah we for sure feel like we're gonna have to um but it's something that we we've been kind of keeping an eye on throughout the school year does so for Early Childhood programming which is special education that's kind of a rolling enrollment like we're always as students turn three and are qualified we are supposed to be providing Services is that correct that is correct okay sometimes we have a pretty good idea for students that are in her um um early intervention thank you he has I couldn't of course that are in early intervention we have a way to communicate

040with those agencies to know which students are going to be referred to Early Childhood the number that's been a little bit harder to predict the last couple years and and I do think this is due to the pandemic is there were a lot of younger age zero to three students that didn't go to you know daycare to included kind of those early intervention programs and so what we're finding is there's a lot of students that are being identified a little bit later than maybe they were in normal times and as a result our early childhood members have been a little bit harder to predict but also we've seen an increase in those numbers because the identification process was kind of hindered during the Hitler Kyle got a question for you um given that we have

041a lot of vacancies across the district and this is a very specialized type of opening How likely is it that we'll be able to find these uh individuals with the timeline that we're trying to keep uh the the optimistic part of that is we're going to get a little bit more of a jump start than we have in the past um meaning that sometimes we figure out that you can turn the rest in you know student roles and so the students already started with us and we're trying to fill that need as as you know as quickly as possible this does give us a little bit of a jump start but the reality is that the the market out there for um you know a lot of areas of Staffing but particularly our assistance it

042is hard to um identify potential candidates and then bring them on board so I don't want to be pessimistic about it but I know we've got our work out for us and to chime in just a little bit um the state is B also gave us a little reprieve on hiring um Early Childhood teachers that fall in that preschool age area so they've um relaxed some of the requirements and those that have taught at daycares and preschools can get a pelled to come into a school district so that's for the teacher side as far as the paraprofessional there are some paraprofessionals that only want to work with the younger students so we all absolutely hit the recruitment hard and see what we can do currently the eldc I believe is fully staffed for paraprofessionals so

043worst case scenario if we don't get these individuals what happens we're going to do everything we can to fill it as we've been doing with other positions but again there are some folks out there that want to work with the younger students so we might be able to get those positions filled with those individuals go ahead Jeremy hey Kyle um what is the increase on our percentage basis or a head count sorry uh the increase as far as the percentage Yeah I mean how many additional kids are we trying to accommodate well um the idea is we essentially this is a beautiful thing about special education is we will accommodate as many as our our that are in our community right so the more students we identified we have to find a way to um

044accommodate their needs in our schools so right now it's a little harder for it to be an exact number because students are going through the evaluation process and so it may be determined that they don't qualify for special education but it in talking with staff that are a little bit more familiar with some of the referrals but I can't give you a percentage Germany off top of my head but what I can tell you is it will exceed the cap that we have in our existing classrooms which allows us to go up to um legally school code says we can go up to 13 as long as we adhere to 70 30 rule 70 um of students gen Ed 30 special ed except for those self-contained classes which would be early childhood we are capped

045at 13. um past practice in our district has been they try and keep those class sizes lower just because a lot of our Littles um who are this is their first experience in school it's their first experience for their families tend to have a lot of high needs as they come in and therefore it needs for a better programmatic support if we can do those class sizes lower than 13. um we have explored that option um prior to deciding if we needed to open another classroom after getting back from the eldc staff um anonymously talking through it as an administrative team um we will be required to open another classroom even if we push our limits up to 13 but we can provide better programming if we open a platform and try and maintain those

046other classrooms closer to the 10th so I didn't hear a whole lot of numbers right there that made sense to me I guess what I'm looking at is how many kids that are special ed right now do we have in each classroom so that's one question how many kids are going to be adding to that was my second question your best guess because it felt like you were saying you have a pretty good idea and then my third question is does every single one of those classrooms have a teacher and three pairs in it currently so I can give you so I'm going to pull up our exact enrollment numbers for the eldc um I cannot give you the firm number on how many students are going to qualify because they haven't called yet but

047what we do is our best projection in looking at what our class size would be should all of the students who are hiding over the students qualified so I don't we don't necessarily look at it through a percentage we look at it through will we have to will we exceed our capital 13. um currently we are fully staffed when it comes to um certified multiplication teachers um and then as Mitra mentioned we were carefully staff among St with our support staffs as well so there's three pairs in each room it depends on the program and it depends a little bit on the student need but what we have decided as a as a department is that in order to add all of these staff we would need three errors that did that room but we

048don't really know how many are going to be in I'm sorry can you say it again for the particular need because students are still being evaluated and qualifying and based on what their needs are they may be at a certain level that will require additional support in just that we identified students that had lesser need and we didn't need three we wouldn't filter okay I guess that's what I guess I'm driving at right which is I'm all about having the appropriate amount of staff I feel like we're kind of jumping out in front of it before we actually know what the date looks like and so what if half those kids end up not going through the whole program and they don't necessarily need as many people right we were just alluding to so I

049mean is it a good idea to start recruiting people who we may not need and then we have to let go we don't have enough kids to support it and maybe we move them else place in the district I guess whatever I guess I'm just looking for maybe a little bit more of a structured cohesive approach is all um this sounds a little nebulous I don't know you know in fact we need the teacher and we already have an allocation where we're just changing from from one to another so that's taken care of the the paraprofessionals are what we're coming forward and requesting Kyle how many do we need based on just enrollment along not based on any how they qualify to open another class ceremony three instructional assistants that's a programmatic compliance issue so

050we need to have those in order to make sure that the classroom has the resources for the students in class okay my question I guess will be on that if we knew two weeks ago that we were going to open the classroom and it's a programmatic compliance issue we had we've had a board meeting last week in the board meeting the week before that where this could have been an information item and then we could have taken action on it tonight that way we're being very transparent with the district the community um so I guess that I just getting uncomfortable when we've got information action um because typically we like to do it information and then vote action so that we're being transparent and then also just again I I have no problem Staffing the

051required one is Staff either um and that we don't we don't have the the dollar amount in the data that we're provided we just find that out now so um those things are you know the dollar amount should be root be in the information that we're getting to make the decision and then you know could this have been on the agenda last week or the week before since we knew two weeks ago so we knew that we had to have students evaluated children evaluated until they're fully evaluated and asserted that they need the service and that they qualify we don't have that information until that complete is completed and it and that happens on a rolling basis so if a child turns through today then and they qualify we will be needing to add that

052so it's it's more fluid than it is concrete like we would normally have registration when somebody moves in that we could have we knew that it could be happening a couple of weeks ago but we didn't have certainty that we would need to open it once Kyle knew for a fact that we needed to open a classroom he shared that with us and we began to pull what we needed to together for tonight I just thought I thought he said that you know two weeks ago we knew that there was a problem but I guess my point is just that like the concern already surely you understand the concern around information action when we're doing 120 000 nfte and we're only we're just getting that information about the dollar amount and then we'll just and

053then it's all we're also being asked to do information action so we're talking the dollar amount that's missing is the physician title the position amount oh Kyle just okay for the three for the three assistants okay and and Kyle I I don't you know I know this is it feels has the feel of something you're trying to move very quickly and you know to basically Sarah's Point as well as my own constantly we have five agenda items out of seven that are information action and that is not really in the spirit of what we should be doing right we should be group sending information giving us two weeks to mold it over and then coming back and voting on that information right and this is I have I have no no amount of money but

054we were removing removing a teacher position from one place to another we don't have real Clarity on the number of students that are even going to be in the classroom and so you know I I guess you know from an information standpoint this sounds a little kind of knee-jer so I just you know in the future whatever that you can do to avoid that give us the information so that I can ask you all these questions ahead of time so that we don't have to sit and do it and then vote on it five minutes later it would be really nice so um that's that's my two cents on that as far as the teacher position goes this was somebody that we're already trying to hire for a different position because I still don't quite

055understand that part it was an allocated position um Kyle you want to chime in on how why we had not filled it yeah um the position was actually filled and then the um person who was um on the docket to be hired uh actually withdrew their um uh acceptance of the position that created the vacancy kind of at the 11th hour right before the school year we've tried to hire that position since then we've since been covering it with a long-term sum however um there we've come to the reality that that's probably not a position we're going to fill and so we've made some adjustments to that particular program to make sure the students that are in there have their needs being met um in other ways except for that particular program um that allows

056us to create the FTE that we can then reclassify for the Early Childhood teacher um and how soon are you anticipating these people are little people are going to be infiltrating our district that was a smile on my face when I said that um do we do we know how long before there I know you alluded to it but I don't remember um I anticipated that we would absolutely need the classroom by November however there are students as um as was mentioned that when they turned three years of age that is when they roll into our program and So that obviously is individualized um so we have students that start all the time um at different points throughout the school year when they hit that certain age so even if there's only five kids that

057end up in this program we still need another classroom correct yep any other questions is there a consensus to act on this tonight yes yes um it is recommended that the Board of Education approved the allocation of three FTE instructional assistants to support the addition of a new Early Childhood classroom at the Early Learning and Development Center is there a motion second roll call please do it teamwork yes name the harness yes Samantha David yes Sarah Moses yes Ariana yes Jeremy Olson yes please yes thank you thank you Kyle thank you um subject D is request to bid Food Service management company and this is information and it's brought To Us by Cindy Carpenter good evening good morning so we are in the sixth year with with our contract with Aramark of food service at

058this time and we if you remember last time this um about this time last year we got an emergency extension for another year every five years we're required to go out to bid for a food service Banner it's just because we're in the National School Meal program and that's a requirement for all school districts so now we have to go through the formal process to go through the the bid process which is a pretty arduous process honestly Luke there's a lot that we have to do we have to invite various vendors to bid here they come and they view our district so it does take a while to do that so we kind of want to get on the front end of it and get the approval to start that process so for tonight it's

059just for information and then I'll bring it back October 18th for action and then our food service department as well as me and we had some interns that are going to be part of the process too to get the process going to fit the food service contract out are there any questions I do have a question um I know some of our schools have kitchens not all of our schools have kitchens um with with the the building that we're doing in terms of you know discussions around classroom size and additions and things like that um I'm just thinking out about maybe for the board to discuss a bit um the quality of food that we feed our kids and the possibility of like what what would it mean to potentially put kitchens in our schools

060so that we could cook for our kids yeah I know our food service manager would love that didn't have more kitchens because we did have actually a couple years ago we Ulta because that when we did satellite too and you know it's difficult to obviously remote is at and then to try and get a good food quality out there so we did open that kitchen I think about two years ago and it is um something too it would be nice to look at Founders and other areas that have kitchen some of our smaller Elementary's just do not have the facilities to do it unless we you know look at it and if we're going to see like the first thing is to definitely put as many kids so we don't have to stay but I

061guess what so is that something that potentially we could consider is that our schools that do have kitchens would have a different program than our schools that don't or I mean um it would we would have to take a look at it right and that's not part of this no it's no it is but I know that's a good question but it's something that um I know we've looked at to see as it makes sense to do that at the schools that could accommodate a kitchen and there's some kind of certain requirements you know Health Department and then to get that going so yeah I mean we he would love to have a kitchen at Liberty right and airmark is pretty much the only vendor right but we've been uh not necessarily and Aramark really

062although what we do in our district we're a little of a hybrid we have to cook so the cooks are our employees for air air mark really handles the purchasing of the food and the serving of the food and that type that's what they provide to us so we have a little bit of a hybrid a little different than some school districts where it's like all the food service Founders so we kind of work in Partnership together which actually has worked out pretty well and there's many other vendors out there it just depends on who wants to fit on the entire School District the last time we went out to bid we were um we had Chartwells previously and then when we did go out to bid six years ago we only had one vendor

063that bid on us which was so so we're hoping that we'll get more vendors to bid and just from a competitive standpoint because we are in the cep the community eligibility provision program now so our participation meal participation and breakfast and lunch has really gone up a lot because of that because all the kids are getting free meals now and we have breakfast in the classroom at our elementaries and breakfast um before school so that really has increased our participation as well does that reflect our quality of food in terms of just being a part of that program is that no okay no I mean it benefits it provides more well sir yeah we certainly want to do that yeah just also to have a high quality right exactly and there are a lot of

064constraints in terms of the flavor of the food I mean it's just because of the national school launch program there's we have it's very very specific in terms of how much salt and sugar and Grains and those types of things so it's it's not um they do that what they can in order to bolster it and so it can taste better but it's not going to be what you get out in a restaurant because of the nutritional requirements that we have to eat does the community eligibility provision make us any more less attractive to vendors or not I would think I mean just from my own perspective that it would make us more attractive only because the participation because really it's about how many meals you can serve right I want you to hit that

065break even point then the cost per meal is uh you know they can recoup their costs their raise costs and then a little above that one hit their I guess is that is that something that the board would be interested in exploring potentially like the quality of food that we're providing children in terms of like our ability to cook food in schools that do have kitchens and I think that we hear a lot of feedback from students I mean the feedback we hear from students a lot of it is around food quality so I mean I think yes I would be has I know like the high school has a much different setup than the middle schools and then the elementary schools I'd be hesitant to say that some of our schools I don't I

066would want it to be you know like I guess well we right we don't have all of our schools don't have kitchens but perhaps like that's potentially something that we could start to explore um you know and right now we do have schools that have kitchens and it wouldn't be necessarily Equitable but could we begin to you know Target schools that don't have kitchens and is that I mean I don't know I don't like is that not like the size of a project that is that would go like through ffac even possibly or I feel like when we're talking about all the different questions and then that would naturally be part of that conversation as well because I think if we're going to do any renovations to building or even expand a building you have

067to look at the core space and can it you know can handle feeding the children and that type of thing so I think that would just be natural and is that if we're going to do anything like that we would definitely want to take a look at the kitchens to see if there's something we can come downstairs yeah just kind of organically as we're going through that did you have a question Jeremy or a comment um so but I forgot what was that so I'll come back to you um yeah I guess I don't know what do pornhubers think about that is that something yeah how many of the schools have a kitchen um let's see we've got we've got probably the High School Portland and Malta and Founders has a quasi kitchen it's cut

068it's not ready for for cooking so because that's one of our food but those are the ones that have full kitchens and then they the clinch rosette and County Middle School do the satelliting out to the elementary Grant programs for like putting kitchens in schools you know there's a a small brand that we received but it was more for equipment and it's like fourteen fifty thousand dollars so I mean it's something we can definitely look into so I mean personally I mean I imagine if I most of you agree I just think that the quality of food that we're giving our kids is like you know it's it's it's fundamental to their health and overall you know just when you have a healthy breakfast that's not you know like a sugary cereal but maybe like

069you know some oatmeal and fruit or you know lunch that's I mean there's just so much possibility that we could I mean if we got creative and I don't see why we couldn't make it happen is there a time when we did have kitchens in all of our schools and did all of our own internally not in mind but I mean I mean prep may be back in the day but most of these kitchens and you know they're really not um prepared to do to basically cook Ed like like we do with the other like last question did you do you recall why we outsourced the first place I when I first started here we were um we had just started with um a new food service down here prior to that we were South

070meaning that we did it all our stuff I don't know what the rationale at that time was to switch over yeah I'd be interested to know what that was if we're going to talk about it further but as like part of a further discussion well just because there had to be a reason right I always looked in the past whenever I see my decision was made it helps me understand why we would make them moving forward maybe but it would be good to know if it was a cost saving measure or a food quality perspective or you know some other issue I mean it's probably a well stabbing is probably one of them for sure the cost saving measure I mean it depends on what you want to do in terms of you know where

071do we want to focus our although part of feeding the student you know educating the students is the meal program as well so so it's just probably I'm just you know better to have a food service vendor that that's what they do that's their you know 100 that's what their um their business is and providing that service kind of like transportation any other questions consensus to bring this back for Action yes yes thanks Cindy um let's subject e disposal of surplus equipment this is on here as information and action by Tammy Carson as you probably noticed we're in the middle of packing and getting ready to move out of the education center as of Thursday that's why our hallways and areas look not in addition right now but for that we do are identifying equipment

072and furniture and that that is be out of repair Beyond life behind life expectancy and so we're just coming forward on two requests for the disposal that Surplus equipment I don't mean a stressiality the kitchen question oh do you know I get those questions all the time finally and you have this on for Action because you're in the middle of doing this right now and don't want to store it longer than necessary or we can wait to the next board meeting small request we just put it on for information action but it can be delayed to the next meeting for afternoon and it won't cause an issue in our end shut the Facebook Marketplace yeah we are unable to do it through that and sell out right any other questions all right um it is

073is there consensus to go ahead and act on this yes I just said this makes sense as an information actually it is recommended that the Board of Education approve Administration to dispose of the Surplus equipment and Furniture located at the education center is there a motion so moved second roll call please yes the isb-i-s-u-n-i-u-m-o-u for tutoring it is information and action she has updated us on this a couple times and it looks like it's finally ready exactly um this is another group effort um so I'm tutoring opportunities for our students it has been on the agenda a couple times but we continue to work through language with our legal counsel as well as the legal counsels and insurance companies of the other entities that are working on the same project with us and we finally

074come to an agreement on language so that's why it's coming forward tonight a huge celebration so it provides opportunities for our elementary students and our high school students we have of course internal tutoring here within the district the model for the high school will be after school and weekend tutoring virtual that's how the model is set up for the high school students and they're in Cycles so it's not like Bona friend phone a tutor helped with linear equations it said up through six week Cycles where they will continue to see the same tutor build a relationship with that person and then help them Foster a better nap and deeper understanding of math and they found that the best model for that would be the virtual live through either Google meet or Zoom because high school

075students are busy they're caring for perhaps siblings working doing other things and then for the elementary starting off at Lincoln Elementary and using data to increase their literacy and math skills and that will be provided by NIU students and the program will be facilitated by a district employee that will be through title 1. is the elementary during the day or after school during the day during the day hope so first transportation any other questions is there there's no cost to the district to participate in this program correct is there did you have a question Jeremy no oh I thought I thought I heard you say something um rattled them all off because their consensus to go ahead and act on this tonight yes it is recommended that the Board of Education approved the mou between

076Illinois State Board of Education Northern Illinois University and Illinois State University for tutoring services for the 2022-2023 school year is there a motion second roll call please David yes Sam Moses yes Aria Owens yes Jeremy Olson yes yes and subject G dcta program course approval salary schedule credit and of course with a course course approvals yes thank you um information and action and I believe this is also been shared with us previously so we are in the season of the dcta contract provision for PRC the professional Relations Committee and that's where dcta members get prior approvals for coursework or programs in order to um work towards movement on the salary schedule on the minutes that came forward previous April there were two that were omitted because the committee was working on verifying the courses that

077verification happened but did not get put on the agenda to bring those courses back for approval now that we are in the process of reviewing those transcripts and getting credits allocated for movement on the salary schedule we recognize that these need to come forward for approval by the board so we're bringing those forward this evening are there any questions and we asked for information and action because the deadline for the um the dcta contract is October 15th is there a consensus to go to move on this recommended action tonight yes okay it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the programs courses and course within a course courses as recommended by the professional Relations Committee is there a motion so moved the second roll cult is Sarah Moses yes Ariel Owens yes Jim Wilson

078yes David Seymour yes yes yes thank you thank you and next under superintendent update is the Strategic Plan update uh thank you and good evening before we get to the Strategic plan I think that I know the cabinet is so excited to do I'm ready to jump up I just wanted to make a few notes here first and foremost I wanted to say that we appreciate the custodial staff of DeKalb 428 as they do a fabulous job of making sure that we have a clean environment and that it's a safe environment for our children and our staff to come into custodian appreciation week was last week and I wanted to take a moment now to reiterate the gratefulness that we have for that October is principal and assistant principal appreciation month so we wanted to

079kick that off and make sure that we are all appreciative of the work that our school leaders do we had principals in the building today for their professional development and share a little ice cream treat thank you to Miss Parker and to get them started on the appreciation that we have for them um I want to also introduce some Miss Rita Elliott our new communication coordinator sitting here in front Megan is right behind you and so she is a she's a reporter for the newspaper so we'll make sure we get those connections uh Rita has started off with um she hit the ground running she's we have two quick wins one is that she's really improved our LinkedIn uh presence which means that our professional corporate identification is of a high caliber we had two

080LinkedIn accounts that she has now moved into one and to make sure that we are being seen as one for those that are looking for employment within the district and now can recognize this very clearly she has also connected the rest of us appropriately to that LinkedIn account so um she will also urge you on on her own behalf but to have the board members also include the Cal on their LinkedIn account for professional acceleration I noticed more posts on LinkedIn actually excellent so kudos thank you Rita for that and then our just our digital presence has now moved to a different level she's taking on all of our Twitter Facebook and other accounts on to ensure that they are more consistent and of the of the caliber that we would like to expect just

081forewarning that our website with in collaboration with our tech department band and David farm and everyone else will also be changing and so that uh so consider this the first conversation of a few that will be coming in regards to the website uh now I'd like to turn it over to the decal 428 Cabot who is going to give us a status of our current strategic plan so Miss Parker thank you thank you Ben School Board we appreciate um this this is informational as you know cabinet members will be joining me as well feel free to come on up now foreign [Music] we're looking forward to um speaking more to our community we're very excited about the transparency that this process has allowed us to um really uh push to our community so um we

082still have a strategic plan committee because it is still necessary I've been asked by several people why do you still have a strategic plan committee the Strategic plan is done instead and we're going to go to 2025 right we have a vision it is because with any organization that really wants to have a sustained change you need to make sure that you're monitoring that change and ensuring that um the things that you said you're going to do you actually do these aren't the new strategic plan committee members as you can see that list has gotten longer and that is because we have had wonderful people like Rita Elliott join us and if we're going to Rebrand um decal she needs to be a person at that table and then we've also um added uh our

083parents because and as a parent who has been around for a long time and had several students in our district Community we're excited about her joining and we've also joined more principals and directors as well so when do we meet every two weeks we're meeting bi-weekly because we've had to ensure that the strategies that we have in place are really being worked on and it's not just a saying that we're doing it but we're actually asking for directors and cabinet members to provide us with evidence and um um assessment of how well their strategies are working so um we use that also to provide development for school leaders we have um as late as today like this afternoon provided uh directions so that we're all sharing the same message so um our school leaders will

084be using things like Google slides that were prepared by the committee because it is a working committee not talking is they are going to push out the very same message to all the schools and then they will be sharing their message with their ptas their pto's and in some cases at the high school level even with their students again it's all about advancing our brand or Rebrand some of the Milestones so far yeah I can't say it enough if you have seen some of the beautiful posters if you haven't go into some of our schools in the very front you have the um a front-facing document um of what we're doing in that school and it should be in Spanish and it's also being Arabic for all of our families we have um updated some

085things on our website social media and then we have school steps at a glance you can click on that and you can actually see how every school has also aligned their school Improvement plan and um you should be able in about a year a year from now you should be able to pull a random pairing or random junior in high school and say hey what is happening at the house DeKalb High School what are three of the goals that you all are working on to improve and they should be able to tell you all right and of course we have PD for school leaders we're going to get right into this please remember that we are going to come to you three times a year and we're going to have this little Spiel and um

086we actually want to we're doing this also to increase our transparency within our community and the first one is uh Mario thing and just real quickly I know the board requested an additional form as well that would show the trajectory over time of the progress since this is the first presentation with updates you won't see that form but it is in the hopper and ready to roll out for the middle of your presentation once there is actual longitudinal information to share thank you all right thank you the department of diversity equity and inclusion are proud that we have extended our support base multiple perspectives have been added as we contribute to the parents to gamble the implementation of the diversity plan and monitoring the priorities of the Strategic plan we have already had two monthly

087communicate Community conversation events at those events we receive feedback critique um some suggestions some observations and I'll most importantly who's actually garnered some Community Partnerships and support from our community there are a few strategies that we have yet to employ but we are working diligently on implementing such as creating parent universities for several more of our marginalized communities and also um we are recommitting to centralizing the Dei resources in the digital form this was quite an undertaking and we didn't realize how much of an undertaking so with the help of the social justice uh committee we are going to positive to positively impact student achievement and Student Success by making sure that we are archiving our Dei resources and digital in a centralized digital form FDI and the Department of Human Resources we're excited about

088our Partnerships we have started to grow Partnerships with NIU our local College partner also Kishwaukee College and with other school districts as well and trying to build those pipeline programs also our program with golden apple Golden Apple we're anxiously awaiting for them to release December graduate resume booklets so we can see those that are graduated in December and hopefully be able to get them to fill some of our vacant positions we are also working to with pipeline development taking our paraprofessionals that are looking to work towards getting teacher certification and down the road have a pipeline of employ of new teachers to fill positions that we have um we're also excited about the improvements with our electronic onboarding system that system is fully electronic when a new person accepts a position with us we have

089a system that deploys out all the new hire paperwork they complete that paperwork they hit send it comes back to us at a nice package and then we're able to be in constant contact with that employee to make sure that they are following all the steps to get um board approved to start work we had a meeting today with it HR and IT together and we talked about how that software as well as just building workflows and our systems that we are putting in place to make that flow even better is we're not there yet it's a a work in progress but we are excited for the efficiencies that it's going to create between the two departments as well as making sure that employees are ready to hit the ground running as soon as they

090are award approved and in the classroom in front of students thank you so in business and finance what I'm really excited about is that burrito's here um in Finance is trying to digest School finances at an easy process and I'll be honest I'm a business person and I'm not really you know we're really good at the numbers and stuff but trying to explain it in a more cohesive and simple fashion is always difficult so I'm really looking forward to working with Rita on doing like the school Finance 101 type of thing whether it be a workshop that we do out in the community or we have something on our website with some dashboards that makes it a little bit easier to understand School Finance where we're getting our money how we're spending our money um

091you know from my perspective it just seems um you know it's pretty it's what we do on a day-to-day basis so we just have to make sure that we can communicate that out to to our community so I'm totally looking forward to working with read.net because that was one of our two um things that we had goals for last year that we really weren't able to accomplish so really excited to get that going another thing I'm very excited about is that we did hire my replacement our mirror which I actually saw him today at work very excited to get started again and so we have a little check mark there saying yep he's on his way and he's going to start at the end of the month and we're going to start that transition plan

092through the rest of the school year so he is ready to rock and roll for for next school year to take my place so I'm excited about that a little I don't know a little mixed emotions but um it's a good thing it is a very good thing to have that continuity he was here before and now he's back and it's going to be and also been working with our grants manager on the Esser Branch we spend a lot of time I think we've spent like basically probably close to 12 15 hours together as basically looking at me but just really going through our Esther grants line by line making sure that we're maximizing those dollars and um he just submitted sr2 which we had about two and a half million dollars left on that

093ranch and then we're going to look at sr3 and probably doing some amendments to that as well so looking forward to working with him and have him working with him it's really been a great collaboration to have somebody that just completely is focused on that couple of things that are going on in the business office thank you thank you thank you as you know teaching and learning has been very busy with our restructuring and we're very appreciative of the new managers and continuation of our very important instructional coaches that we have to support the buildings the teachers and the principals we've had a lot of great work some of the celebrations that we would have is as you've seen in the agenda today and some of the more recent meetings collaboration with Community Partners today

094you would learn about Teen reach and canai we also the Barb City steam team continue that mou and it's really been fantastic after the pandemic to see those relationships come back and some Anew come in that was a very hard disruption so we're very fortunate to have those Community Resources and continue to utilize them and expand them also the continued work with standards alignment instruction through the PLC process looking at what do our students need to know working within those different PLC groups to make sure that their lessons are aligned the managers the both the Steam and the humanities managers and our instructional coaches are assisting with those processes our managers are also doing the continued work of our mandated units audit so every several years the regional office on behalf of the state audits

095are mandated units it's a very large process we have started that at the beginning of the year to make sure that it's done this winter so that's a celebration that we're making movement on that making sure that if there is instruction that needs to be further honed or developed that we're doing that and also expanding our work and course offerings we're also making sure that we're keeping a Keen Eye on the inclusion of diverse tax across the elementary middle school and high school make sure we're bringing in voice and choice for students to select different texts that meet their needs and their interests so Sarah gets his cheer all celebrations and I get to share my still is a working progress so my work in progress really looking at our data to help Drive our

096instruction right at our courageous principle one thing that I really got from it is you don't move forward effectively if you're just giving people documents without giving them the knowledge on how to do it so we really took a step back so that we could Implement plc's at the elementary level the way that we need to and we are actually taking essential questions started a math cycle because once we actually do plc's the correct way we'll be doing Cycles um literacy Cycles along with math Cycles at the same time but right now we're only doing one at a time essential standards are not an essential stages or essential questions at math and eventually we will get to the Central State so take a step back there but it is a work in progress and for

097secondary they're continuing to work with the steam Humanities managers in conjunction with Jessica naul our assessment coordinator and our data strategist as well as our instructional coaches and that is at both levels as well and then also we're just still looking you all just to proved the mousse for the different organizations that we're going to be working with after school we're looking to expand that for all of our students so that's a work in progress as well you're welcome sir all right thank you um a couple of celebrations or things that are are kind of headed in the right direction that student services is leading would be the implementation of our court of conduct which as you know is new this school year um what some of the successes are in there is that we

098have really dedicated a lot of time and energy to training of our building Administration So within the last few weeks we've had training from our districts attorney related to Senator 100 um discipline processing relates to students with disabilities legal requirements or even suspension and expulsion but most recently in probably more exciting is the work that we're doing with our principals around implementation of restorative practices while we provide consequences to students we're really focusing in on how are we preventing and how are we responding and providing supports the students as we identify the need student services in addition to a kind of a cross-collaboration of multiple departments has been reviewing and fine-tuning our threat assessment procedures so we've been able to provide very targeted support across all buildings as well as an internal um kind of

099a check anytime we have a threat assessment completed in one of our schools we're able to kind of dig into that data and determine you know was the correct procedure followed What was the overall outcome of that um and then that allows us to have some really good conversations with buildings about their processes um so work that we continue to move forward in are is updating our comprehensive and strategically aligned social emotional and mental health plan our SEL coordinator Sarah Bates is leading our committee right now in identifying kind of those core beliefs that we have as a district which is going to build out our new plan that's going to move us into the future and then we continue to work on the development of our professional development plan that again is aligned to

100our strategic priorities that would Encompass um certified staff administrators teachers clinicians but also our assistants um in the district and then being able to provide opportunities through paired academies or parent nights to reach our families in the community oh here we go everybody's favorite department so technology we're very happy about the success we had in implementing over 1500 one-to-one devices throughout the district so there were some delays mainly due to shortages and Staffing but we did overcome those who got those out in a timely fashion uh the department also continues to work with the FCC coast and aidle and meta to fund and close the gap on the digital divide we're currently working on rolling out additional hot spots to families who are identified during registration that they did not have Broadband access so we

101are still moving forward on those goals but there are some laggard things and those are caused by supply chain issues that we are still seeing we're also seeing issues with managed services and a lot of turnover and managed Services is causing some of the implementations to not go as quickly as we would like and those are laggard laggering some of our results but we're working through the issues that we can control the best we can so is where we are with technology sure do we know how many families so the most recent results we saw had about 200 families that were identified um when this happened last year when we went through and then double checked with some of those families about quarter of them were like no we have broadband so maybe a mistake

102in the answering process within online registration but so my guess is we have probably approximate okay and how is is that like uh supply chain issue to get them Services no so or do we know about how long it will take it's mainly a Time energy effort to issue on our department and just having Staffing involved in that so what we do is we basically go through the list we break it down where the primary student is in England and then the board specialist who supports that building is kind of in charge of them reaching out to the family and double checking that they still do require additional access they do come back and do required then yeah we roll out a hot spot we deliver it to the building and it's less than 24

103hours to do that but it's getting the list checking it twice and then deliver in it so I mean I guess like how long do you think I'm guessing I'll take us to full off all right last but not least facilities and safety operations I'm excited that we were able to get the security manager position in place before school started and because of that we've been able to tackle the security audit recommendations that we received from last year there are a lot of things and have different priority levels so we are focusing on those that have a more direct impact and can have an immediate impact on the Safety and Security of our staff and students I did add in a significant amount of work orders to our list because it's now it seems that

104staff now have this more in their Forefront of their mind and they're letting us know when there's issues in their building whether it involves doors and locks or other kind of safety concerns so we're working through those and I'm starting to get our recorder numbers a little lower but it is we're trying to focus on those that are much more safety security focused rather than maybe more cosmetic or you know hanging a bulletin board versus fixing a door when you only have so many staff hours to spread across the district we also with that hire were able to conduct the Safety and Security Training during safety school safety days security days Institute days the first few days of school which was amazing to have that much time devoted to it and we keep kind of

105going back to that when we're talking to staff we will continue to identify what training we can look for throughout the school year to staff so we continue to focus on that and the one thing in there that I would like we're going to be focusing more on is how we can communicate back to all of you from the board to the community to our families and our our community and students in regards to how we're progressing with that audit so that's something we haven't put together exactly how that will look but that is something that we are working on together we also just yesterday our Auditorium slash facility use manager started in the district Joe will be joining us in regards to working on improving our protocols and community outreach when it comes to

106community use using our buildings that's something we have to put a lot of focus on in past years and we want to improve on that to ensure that our communities are out and using our buildings Whenever there is a need identified so with him just starting yesterday we haven't made a lot of progress on that but that is one thing that we've already spoke about in regards to how we can make that better typically something like that we will actually research and look at potentially some new software and some different things to make the process easier but then look to implement usually in the summer months because then when we start a school year we kick it off because it does involve and we did have training already with our building staff and our custodial

107staff our front office staff in regards to how it currently flows and a change like that is significant enough we're going to make changes we'll be at the start of the school year so we'll be working on that throughout the year other than that the other thing that we are have started but I did kind of Mark it as an in progress is that in regards to reducing class size this is a huge undertaking by our district and we are starting to look at options with that but we're just scratching the surface in regards to what those options could be met with ffac a couple of weeks ago a week ago just last week and we'll be putting some information to start presenting And discussing at a deeper level so that we can put those

108plans in place and we also our grant manager might also put in a grant for a 10 million dollar Early Childhood grant that we're waiting to hear on hopefully in November and that will also will also timeline when it comes to some of our class size reductions so a lot will be going on with that over this next school year but we want to make sure we're betting all of the options and making sure we're involving the right parties so that we are moving forward on the right Road Miss Parker is that it is yes thank you so thank you thank you thank you to the directors and thank you to Miss Parker for ensuring that we facilitated this for you all tonight are there any questions in regards to any of what was matured

109with you it's a lot to take in they've done a phenomenal job they've done a lot of work all the team has we can't get any of that done if it's not implemented appropriately at the school so definitely it's it's uh it's a matter of everyone working together to make this happen um I have a question have you had any staff feedback about any of the kind of promotional materials that you've started putting out has there been any like yes any comments or yes so at the principal's meeting today some of the feedback was that um there's School Improvement teams specifically um commented that they some of them have been on the team for a decade or more I had never had a centralized document and that um sometimes you know we have staff transferred

110from one building to another it was really encouraging for them as teachers to know that you know the elementary school in the next neighborhood was doing the same thing and that um we had the consensus about how we wanted to communicate to our parents as well so the feedback has been really positive any other questions are coming great job thank you for everything that you all do can I asked the board was there anything that you wanted to see that you didn't see bar for me I'd like to see a little bit more detail around security and safety another so that's probably the number one issue facing that has been able to learn so some statistical analysis on occurrences and what's happening from a safety perspective in our school via their some data nothing's getting

111better are the things that we're doing making an impact I mean all those things are nice but I think we've been clear that probably the most important thing we need to do is keep kids in the classroom keep on learning and from from wanting to do extracurricular things that scare people so maybe at the mid-year we might have some more data around that or by at least by the end of it definitely definitely we will have data that is not just about the audit and what's come from that but as much as what suspension out of school suspension Crows Landing and any other types of data that we would get will be able to be able to share that prop at the mid-year during the weekly updates you'll see that we get give some but

112I think that the bigger numbers that you'll see will come from comparison from week to week and then from last year to this year as well and I don't know who's going to put his butt whoever does so Kyle would probably it would come probably come from Kyle and Andrew and a few others on the team that would be able to work um what would be nice is is to see increase or reduction right what's uh what you've done obviously but also what seems to be working would be nice for us to hear you know we want to make sure that we're investing in the right things that are making things better so as you're looking at at the different things that I know you're trying I'm not looking at the camera because I'm talking

113to you over here sorry but um I would love to see you know here are the things that we've tried here are things we felt were most you know impactful tonight sets of work but made the most impact this is where we should be investing more of our resources that that sort of thing is good for us to hear just from an update perspective because we want to know what's working and and just as importantly what is it yeah if something's not working I agree um thank you thank you but what you said Billy about plc's even taking a step back and then focusing on you know doing them the right way and then getting to the point where we're covering both topics and you know just curious how that continues to move forward and

114you know if it's really um impactful and helpful in the way that we hope it will be um you know and suggestions I mean the last thing we want to do is change something else yeah and um I know teachers are very overwhelmed right now yeah so every two plc's of the cycle that we're doing so we're doing a mass cycle and we're going to do the literacy there's a breakdown of how we can do the um moving forward and we're creating videos for them to walk into the template that we've created some data they can reach out to me to Steve managers Majors so that we can help them out instructional coaches they've been helping out benefits that's cool I I appreciate your work on that and look forward to hearing how it's going

115to um and there was one other um any other comments questions thank you very much thank you thank you to everyone um just a reminder to everybody out in public you'll notice that on Friday October 7th we have an insta due day we are hosting the county-wide Institute day at DeKalb High School so if you're going to be in that area and you'll notice a lot of traffic that's what we're dealing with okay everybody that is a DeKalb and every every staff member that goes over to the high school highly highly recommend that as always you wear your ID because that'll make it easier for you to get in and out and access without having to go through all the process of signing in right Miss Tammy thank you got it thank you other than

116that that's it for us today great that's right oh yeah do we know where our next meeting is it's still here yeah the October one is here November one will we're going to confirm we're gonna get back to you foreign that's awesome um and I would I think it'd be great so you know to have feedback from them you know just to know what what are people bringing up what are their concerns what are they happy with what are they not happy with what are their needs what are so that um you know if we can get that data then we can advocate perfect you know we do feel like feedback um actual handwritten feedback short because we finally get more information that way and so I can compile that for sure awesome thank you

117and just as an FYI coming up Monica will also be starting off some podcasts so uh she's you can tell she's very excited about that as well that's cool um all right with before we adjourn I wanted to motion to go into closed session so we could talk about the amendment to the Personnel document so is there I guess I am recommending the board do you have that little thing again I'm sorry I had my maybe I took yours I have it um I'd like to recommend the Board of Education um a journal clothes session for the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park recreational or educational setting or specific volunteers of the public body or legal counsel for the public body

118including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee a specific individual who serves as an as an independent contractor and a park recreational or educational setting or a volunteer of the public body or against legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity however a meeting to consider an increase in compensation to a specific employee of a public body that is subject to the local government wage increase transparency act may not be just may not be closed and shall be open to the public and posted and held in accordance with this app is there a motion so second roll call please yes yes Jeremy Olsen yes yes thank you