BOE 04/14/26

001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Okay. I think it's time to call the meeting to order. Uh Board of Education has been in closed executive session to conduct an employee discipline hearing, discuss an expelled student matter, discuss the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees of the public body and collective negotiating matters between the board and representatives of its employees. No action was taken during closed executive session. Would everyone please join me in the pledge? 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. >> [clears throat] >> Do we have a recommendation for tonight's agenda? Yes, we do. I recommend a board approve tonight's April 14th, 2026 open session board meeting agenda

002as presented. Can I have a motion? So moved. Second. Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Those opposed? Motion's carried. Okay, we'll move on to uh our district highlights and Dr. Clark. I would like to call uh Tasia Burks, principal at Hope Academy, to join us at the podium to present an update on Hope Academy. >> [laughter] >> Good evening, board. Can you hear me? Okay. Tasia Burks, proud principal at Hope Academy, and I have a couple of a few students here this evening. I want them to introduce themselves and then we'll get started. I'm Cameron Hill. I'm Josiah White. I'm Riley. Thank you. And we're going to be talking about our principal advisory group at Hope Academy. Oh, I got a clicker. Yes. Okay, how do this? Green button. Okay.

003All right. Okay. So, I want to start with our vision and mission at Hope Academy. This was drafted in 2020 with teachers and it is lengthy, but it is the heart of Hope. So, I wanted to make sure that we talked about this first because this guides all of our work. If what we are doing is not centered around this, then it's not probably worth talking about, which essentially is about instructing the whole child, meeting the needs about of the whole child, making sure that they are able to be productive citizens of society, providing them with a variety of learning opportunities supported by adults and our community partners. Our motto is "Excellence [clears throat] is expected." That is where we're going on a daily basis. Principal advisory, um we have a selection process. So, at

004the beginning of the year, I put out something that says I'm looking for students to help enhance Hope Academy to make it better and greater. And anybody who wants to enhance their leadership skills, students can then submit their names to the teacher. They come through like an interview process and then they're able to be on the principal advisory committee. Purpose again is to enhance leadership skills and enhance Hope Academy. Students also have passion projects that are picked out and then we try to carry those things out. For example, a student might say, "I would like to go read to younger kids in second grade." And we make sure that we set that up with the teacher and make sure that they're able to fulfill that um passion project of theirs that is around leadership. So,

005some things for our principal advisory committee, they are doing active mentorship. So, we have some eighth graders who are paired up with fourth and fifth graders to help them throughout their day. Um they give us input for school events, reading to classrooms. We do have some student mediators um that are on our team. We have one representative for the discipline action committee. We do have two students who are on our interview team. So, as we are interviewing people for next year, they sit on the team with their questions as well. They are able to help us connect with community partners. So, you have a picture there where um Angel from um Northeast Community Fund is coming to speak to our students next week and then we have another activity through um DMH, which is which

006is another one of our partners, um to also enhance their leadership outside of Hope, but into the community. They also will recognize teachers on a regular basis. They do morning announcements. They give academic input so that we can make sure the instruction is up to par in their classrooms. And they also do building tours, which I also really want to highlight because I want to make sure that you all are able to come out to Hope and one of our leadership members would give you a tour around Hope Academy so that you can get a feel for what we do there. This is just one of our community partners. Dr. Morris came out and she talked to our leadership team about DCLI opportunities that are happening this this summer. And her whole thing was about

007being confident in in your leadership style. These are just some pictures from our recent health fair that we had at Hope Academy with DMH and our our guides over there in the corner who helped to guide people to their locations and the rooms in which they were cooking in and things like that. I have to sneak these pictures sometimes because they don't really want me to be in the room when they're doing some of their mentorship that they're doing. But perhaps a student is struggling through something and I'll call principal advisory students to kind of help them process through things before I talk to them. Or perhaps we just have some students who want a big brother. And so they work towards different goals throughout the week. Maybe that's half an hour of basketball time

008or half an hour to play Uno as long as they meet their goals throughout the week. This guy right here, Cam Lee. This this one got shared quite a bit on social media where he asked people what they how they felt about Valentine's Day. And so we were getting him out of his shell a little bit and that one was a good one for social media and for Cam Lee behind me even though he's like, "I can't believe you're doing that right now." Uh we had a principal for the day event and some of those people that are behind me you can actually see on the screen. They were our tour guides. So the principals didn't spend a whole lot of time with me but they spent more time with the principal advisory team when

009they came to visit. Okay. Are there any questions about principal advisory before we go on to academic highlights? All right. So as we talk about academics, we have regular highlights on our morning announcements to highlight what students are doing well. Uh we want to make sure that it's not just about reading and math because we have a lot of students who do well in art and PE and music and all of the things. So this is something we do every day on our morning announcements. We take their picture, we get it posted on social media um and we make sure you know that their parents get one as well. Talking a little bit about our testing environment, our goal is to make sure students are set up for success. So our FastBridge testing looks a

010lot like state not a what is this? This is something we always do. And it also looks a lot like what they do at the high school level. We also want to recognize our students as much as possible. So we had students who did extremely well on FastBridge testing and they got some cake. You can see that cake there that says, "Congratulations to all of our Hope stars." So they enjoy cake and celebrate their successes. And then you can see their shirts there. We do have a shirt for each student in the building that says, "We're passing a test." And it has Hope Academy under there. So we just want them to be excited about showing what they know. Some of our middle school highlights I'm focusing on middle school because our our principal advisory

011students are middle school students. Uh sixth grade had 10 students who scored scored at the 30th percentile on STAR reading which is like our FastBridge [music] but that's a new assessment here. And then by the time we took it in winter, we had 18 students who were at our goal already. So we're excited to see what happens with the spring assessment and how many more students were will go up on that 30th percentile. Uh Hope students in the grades 5 through 8 had 45 students score at the 30th or higher percentile. And this number then jumped to 56 students by the winter. So they are taking their testing very seriously. And then as we look at students who are on grade level or above above grade level, we went from 24 to 27. So we're

012hoping to even jump a little higher than that. With me I do have some a document and I'll give this to Melissa. But since 2023, we have been tracking all of our successes as it relates to academics and this is something that our community partners get. So you will see from '23 to '24 all the way to this school year any successes that are here. So make sure you get a copy of that. Thank you for listening to us. I also want to give a little shout-out if I may because those people on the screen make things happen on a daily basis. And so I would be remiss if I didn't say how wonderful the Hope staff is and making things get done on a daily basis. So thank you Hope staff if you are

013paying attention. All right. That's all I have. Any questions for my guys up here? I told them you would have some. What What do y'all want to do when you graduate high school? Well, what I want to do when I graduate high school, I want to go to college. Hopefully get a college a college intuition to football. And um you know, move my family out of poverty and stuff and uh you know, just keep a high reputation of of what I keep as as of right now. And you know, just Yeah, that's pretty much it. That's good. That's really good. Um when I get out of high school, I want to um help my family out. Well, go to college. Um make make do something big in any sport. And and if if like sports

014don't work out, I want to build like a community service. Nice. Excellent. Um after high school, I want to go to like college and hopefully go pro in basketball. And help my family out. Great job. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. >> [applause] >> That will end our district highlight for this evening. Okay. Okay, we'll move on to public participation part of our board meeting tonight and I don't think we have anyone signed up tonight to uh share with us. So we'll move right on from that. And we'll move on to board discussion. I and I think we'll start with um Roadmap 2030. And Uh Jay >> you want to come up just in case they have questions for you? Is Ashley back there? Okay, Jay. Thank you. Uh so uh the last time that

015we met uh was at Stephen Decatur. We had a conversation about our deliverables, uh plan on a page, mission and vision, uh key performance indicators. Had a really great uh set of conversations looking at all of those. Our next meeting is next Wednes- next Thurs- Wednesday, the 22nd. Uh April 22nd and that actually be our last meeting for this phase. Um writing team is reviewing all of the documentation and everything that this committee has help help us generate over the past almost 2 years. Um it feels really good to be in a position where we're coming to see I guess the first major step uh in getting this uh um getting this implemented. Uh after that, we start to look at A facilities and B actually uh administration and everyone else will be working on

016the actual uh tactical plan to be able to implement our strategic plan. So uh it's a huge deal and I'm really glad that this time that we're not looking at uh a pause and we'll actually be delivering something to the board for all of us to review. And as we get into that and get into our main main meetings where we're going to actually ask uh ask to approve what we're going to be doing, I would really like the board to deeply read what we're doing, ask as many questions as you can so we can be sure that um as the community has questions that we can all address uh concerns, questions, and what the next step is to the community. So um we can provide the best information possible. Christine, did you have anything?

017Jay? Jay, give us a little update from your perspective. Yeah, uh thanks for the summary, Mr. Wetzel. Uh the committee is excited to bring some closure to phase two. Um and that will be the deliverable documents as Mr. Wetzel suggested. Um we will be coming to the board either the first or second meeting in May but it will be in May. Uh we will have a team from the Roadmap Committee who will jointly present to you. We'll share the process that we used. Um the documents themselves, you'll have an opportunity to interact with our presentation team. Um and then formally approve those three deliverable documents. Now, the words on the paper aren't worth much unless it gets us moving in a direction. And so the real work begins once the board approves that strategic plan

018which again is your vision, mission, values, and goals. A balanced scorecard which are those indicators and measures we're going to hold ourselves accountable to in this journey. And then that SWOT analysis and that's the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. And it's it's not just the SWOT document that's important. It's are we going to capitalize on what people said are the strengths of the district? Are we going to hone in on those weaknesses and actually will you see strategies out of this plan that address these weaknesses as well as those opportunities and threats. So, our our real work ahead is in phases three and four. Um phase three will be led and facilitated by Ashley with my support, and I'll be leading out phase four. So, let's talk quickly about the difference. Phase three is going

019to be taking every department and school and aligning plans on a page within those departments and schools, as well as the action plans, high-leverage strategies, timelines, and so on, as well as those measures. That's phase three, which is going to start in June with our administrative team. At the same time, I'll be leading out phase four, which is completely master facility related. So, we're going to be running two simultaneous tracks. Um what we don't want to do is waste a year without implementing some of those high-leverage strategies. So, you're going to see some new things in the fall as a result of the strategic plan while we're working on that whole master facility component. Um and as you know, with that is probably going to come possible school reconfiguration scenarios. Um we'll be looking and

020evaluating all of our facilities and determining what's the best way for us to effectuate our new mission, vision, values, and goals through the use of our facilities. So, rather than facilities really kind of uh driving the process, it will be our strategic plan driving the use of the facilities. And so, um that's our work ahead. I know we have a couple of um architectural firms here this evening to present some information to you. And our hope is to partner um with with those firms, uh at least one of those firms selected to help us uh really start getting ready for the real work around master facility planning. We anticipate a ramp up in June, July, and August, and then pulling back a full committee probably in September. So, just like we had committee membership in

021phases one and two, um phase three is administrative-driven, while phase four is going to have another stakeholder committee. And we'll be talking about committee representation and all of that work. But, we've got probably 3 months of preparation with our architectural firm in order to um get them up to speed and assessing our facilities in order to help us make the best-informed decisions. So, um that's kind of a snapshot of where we are. We look forward to coming back to you in May with formal recommendations for, again, the plan on the page, the balanced scorecard, and that SWOT analysis. You're also going to get a look at the high-leverage strategies that we asked our stakeholders, if you had the power, what would you do differently in DPS in order to drive changes within those five goal

022areas. So, you're going to see a collection of those as well. Those are going to be forwarded on to our administrative team as they get into the real action planning. So, any uh questions or comments that I can address? Um just a point of clarity. Do you want to go first? Go ahead. Um in terms of the facilities, just being clear that the um COO will be involved in the facilities piece, as well as the superintendent, as well as director of buildings and grounds. Ashley, do you have any input here now as well, comments? I just I brought you up because I wanted you to discuss the writing piece, just to kind of give her overview of how things have been going. Yes, so um after each of the committee forums and um the community

023events, the writing team and myself, we I looked through it all, put it all together, um and we sent it out to the writing team with some different assignments and different things to gather their feedback. Um so, the last point of information that was sent out last week um closes this Friday, and then we will be continue to move forward to present um what we feel like is a final draft um at next Wednesday's meeting. So, we're moving right along, and the writing team has been awesome. And I just have one more question. And I'm I'm putting it out there because um the a lot of the uh conferences and the conversations that we've had with other superintendents, and we spoke about the mental wellness, um and you did make sure that was a component

024in all of that writing, as well. Yes, it's it's it's incorporated into our vision um statement and all that we do. So, I feel like we were able to incorporate that piece. Especially with the the lead that we've taken as a school district, I wanted to make sure that that was um put out there because it's important to us, as well, that we address the whole child. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Any other questions? Okay. Um anything else from board members? Seeing none, uh reports from administration. Uh well, Dr. Curry is already here. Good evening. So, we put out the RFP at uh your request for facilitation assistance from architectural firms that have uh experience in assisting schools not only through the strategic plan, but through the through the facilitation of of what comes out

025of that building-wise, and where where and how kids can fit in certain um structures, etc. We had multiple re uh replies. Uh we went through, and we we're bringing you these two um potential um partners. The first one is going to be Green and Associates. I'm going to just let Todd Hanna come up with his team, and he will take it from there. Thank you. Yeah, go ahead. Um Thank you. [clears throat] Good evening, board members. Uh we appreciate you uh taking the time to listen to our presentation today, and uh we just will go through uh our experiences and some different things that we can offer the district through this facility planning session. So, first off, we'll make some introductions. Uh my name's Todd Hanna. I'm an architect and uh owner of Green Associates,

026and I am out of the Springfield office. I will be your direct contact uh for this project and throughout the different phases. And um you know, just 30 minutes down the road, able to come and and meet with administrators as needed and go through the process. So, I'll turn over to Mr. Josey. Uh my name is Andrew Josey. I'm the I'm an associate principal and director of design of the company. Uh I've been with Green Associates for 25 years, and my focus has been in educational environments the entire time. Good evening, everyone. Uh thank you for having us. My name is Ro Waldo. I'm the uh senior interior designer at Green. Um and I have been blessed enough to work with our wonderful team for nearly a decade now. Um majority of my experience is

027in the education um design region, but I've also got a background in retail and residential design. Um I'd also like to tell you a little bit about Green Associates. Um so, we were founded in 1979. We have been in business for approximately 47 years um with 45 staff members focused on the education market. This means our entire staff is trained on um ADA compliance, they're trained on school codes, building codes, um life safety and security, um and so on. Um we uh I'm sorry, I lost my spot. Um we have about 2,500 projects um primarily focused on K through 12 uh buildings with a $1 billion in school construction projects. Um I'd also like to highlight that we have over 50 master plans that we have done for school districts of different sizes, um and

028zero lawsuits with our entire time um of business. Um I'd also like to highlight one element that we have on here, just very quickly. Um we like to stay up-to-date with our philosophies, methods, and technologies, um and that is a key point that I wanted to highlight as we like to go out to conferences and um educational uh events, primarily to stay on top of what are the new technologies that are out there, what are the new philosophies and things to follow that would um of course benefit the students of today. Thank you, Roa. >> [clears throat] >> Some of the experience that we've had, we actually have had some experience here in the Decatur School District. Um some of you may recognize me, uh myself and one of my other partners uh were helping

029in the Roadmap 2030 in during phase one. So, we were involved in uh the community engagement of those of that piece, where we actually presented uh the different, as you can kind of see on the on the right side of that screen there, we were involved with each school building, analyzing and presenting to the administration the sizes of the buildings, uh the students of that building, uh analyzing the cost of each building and giving that information out to the administrators and putting that together in order to present that out to the community. And what that did was it allowed everybody to kind of see, up in the upper right, for like Franklin Grove, for instance, you know, you can see there on that bar chart that that school is greatly underutilized or overutilized. There's too

030many kids in there for the space that is there. And um what we found throughout all of the buildings that we reviewed and went through that process, other school districts, other school buildings were overutilized. So, there was more space than what was needed for the children. So, those were the different things that we presented out to um the community through the community engagement. And also in the background uh during those as well, we helped the uh different administrators analyze different options and and looking at ways that we the district can, you know, kind of reorganize things if needed or uh provide different options uh for the district in order to, you know, reach the uh strategic planning that you guys have all been working towards uh in these subsequent phases. And so, we've been through

031every building. Uh we've been through some of the the older buildings. You've got buildings that are, you know, over 100 years old, but you've also got some new buildings as well. And so, we've analyzed all of those and uh put all that information together. Um as we work and partner with the district on uh the master facilities plan, um we'll draw from the strategic plan that you prepared that you you mentioned and we'll take our directives from that to look at the facilities uh and um Okay. Um >> [cough] >> As as Raul mentioned, we draw on um 40 years of doing master plans with districts. And so, we've uh worked with districts um on about 50 master plans and that ranges from districts, for example, size of 23 schools to districts with uh maybe

032one school. So, uh we've we've engaged with districts of different sizes and at different levels of the uh uh looking at planning, master planning, and problem-solving. Um and so, we wanted to share a a bit of the process. Um and without going into detail, um the the the range of our engagement uh goes from community engagement, communicating concisely and clearly with the board, engaging with administration on setting goals and solving the problems, uh meeting with and listening to uh the school staff, students, um and so, that that process engages the district at many levels. And so, um we're we're comfortable with working on a a full spectrum um of stakeholders and a full spectrum of tasks in the master planning process. Um In uh reporting [snorts] and communicating, um we pride ourselves in our concision

033and clarity. Um and having mean meaningful outcomes in in our studies. Uh the master plans uh we we look at the districts in a number of lenses. Um a few of them being um educational adequacy, where we look at your facilities in terms of uh how well they're supporting the the students and the staff and the outcomes, uh the goals and the outcomes. So, I've I've heard uh the district talk about the whole child. Um we feel very strongly about looking at the whole child, making ensuring that the student services support the whole child in the in the classroom and in the school and in the community and and the uh family units. So, do certain student services support those processes? Do the facilities support the community engagement? And so, we we look at those

034as well. Um another lens through which we look at the district um facilities through is capacity and utilization. So, looking at enrollment over time, uh current enrollment, projected enrollments, are the facilities going to be able to accommodate those changes over time? And are those facilities using um or is the district using the facilities efficiently? Um for example, we're working with the district right now adjusting grade banding. So, that grade banding uh will help focus uh student services and staff support um specifically targeted for some early education needs they had. And on the other end of the spectrum, they had two middle school buildings that had differentiated in size of spaces. So, we're adjusting some of the grade banding to better accommodate the different grade levels at those two different schools. So, um you know, that

035is one way we're solving problems with that district. Um and then also uh facilities assessment is another lens we look at the facilities through, which is focusing on the physical condition, um maintenance needs of the school districts to make sure that over time those facilities can support um the needs and the goals of the district. Um so, we'll leave a little bit of time for questions. So, just a quick summary, you know, we're uh Green Associates. Uh we're education-focused. Uh we're dedicated to our clients and uh we're here to help you throughout this process, help guide you, uh and help you, you know, meet your strategic planning goals. And uh we could we would be a great partner to work with. Do you guys have any any questions for us at this point? And we'll

036we'll leave you with a a promotional book and our presentation. And there's also business cards for each three of us. So, uh if you have any questions beyond that, you can reach out to us directly or through Mr. Curry as well. Um how many school districts have you worked with that are shrinking at the level that DPS is? Um that's a great question. I mean, I can speak to the ones that are in the Springfield area and most of them are uh either stagnant or shrinking. Um you know, we've uh analyzed a lot of them. A lot of them, like we said, when we go through that capacity and utilization study, we see that they're overutilizing. They've got too many kids or too many too much space for not enough kids. And so, then what

037they're able to do then is rearrange things and bring like we've got one district that we're working with where we're looking at taking their administrative building, shuttering it, and moving them into um the K-12 building. So, what that does is it allows them to alleviate all the maintenance, any any issues that they have at that other building, and then bring them under the same roof as everybody else. So, I mean, that's one good example of that. I don't know if you've got anything to add. While Todd was talking, was doing a little calculation. Um so, of the last probably the last 10 master plans we've done, I would say four or maybe five of them were having a a reduction Any other questions? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. >> it. Have a good night.

038Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, that was firm number one. Um I'm going to let Mike Eichhorn, did I get that right, Mike? Eichhorn? Mike Eichhorn from Wold come up and uh talk to you guys about his firm and introduce his team. Great. Thank you, Mike. All right. Uh Good evening. I'm Mike Eichhorn, Wold Architects. Um thank you to the school board for inviting our team here tonight and kind of starting to learn about what our qualifications are. But also, we want to know a little bit more about you, too. And it was really exciting to see the Hope Academy here tell us about their passion projects and their leadership skills. Well, we certainly value that at Wold, too, in a lot of what we do with our own employees. Um at Wold, I don't

039know if you're familiar with us, but we have over we've been in business for over 57 years and um service over 35 school districts in Illinois. Eight of those are Luda, which you are part of the large unit districts. So, we feel that we have uh some good experience working with large K-12 districts. And Val is going to talk a little bit about that. Um And nationally, we are a national company over 150 districts served. And so, we feel like we bring that national thought leadership to the table here that we want to share with you. Um and all these statistics really are not really to brag, but it's really a testament to our long-term relationships with our clients. That they like working with us, they come back year to year, and we want to

040establish that long-term partnership with Decatur 61. Um we also are ranked number eight in the in the the country. Uh we are will be servicing you out of our Palatine, Illinois, office. So, we're relatively local, I guess, relative to other some of our other offices. Uh but rest assured that that will not um that distance from Decatur, Illinois, uh Palatine will not diminish our service to you. Uh I will be your principal in charge. I will be your point person throughout the whole process. And as principal in charge, I will be uh assuring that our team is delivering the quality and the ex living up to the expectations for your school district. Um I'm Allison Andrews. Uh I'm an educational practice leader with the company. And really what that means my role is about ensuring

041that we are aligning our design solutions, you know, the idea of what your long-term plan is going to look like with the the goals and the educational expectations for Decatur. I really have I've worked on education for the majority of my tenure with Wold. And I really enjoy the process of making sure we have your voice as a part of our process so that those solutions are really a reflection of you and your community. And my name is Valerie Peterson. I will work on the kind of understanding your educational programs as well as your initiatives. Making sure that solutions are flexible and forward-thinking to be adaptable to whatever changes. I think we can all recognize the expectation criteria public schools in years past is a lot different than it is now and it's going to

042continue to evolve. So really making sure we're flexible. I have spent 21 years working solely in educational as an architect and the design and programming of it. So I hope to really bring a lot of exposure of how others may have done it to see what is right for Decatur and where you guys land on the spectrum spectrum of opportunities. So Wold values listening first. We don't want to come in to your district with a preconceived notion of what the solution might be. We're really coming in here unbiased, really fresh set of eyes to look at things, to advise you. And we think that's important to learn first what your priorities are, learn about your history, who you are. Seeing some of your presentations tonight from your your principals and your students, that's really key

043to us to hear that first. And to develop all of our plans are fact-based, data-driven. I think that's important. You asked us to propose how we're going to do a facility master plan. We broke it down to these three parts, capacity and utilization, unbiased, get the facts, agree on needs, solutions and costs, what does it look like and how much is going to cost, and then funding alignment, how are you going to pay for these? Schedule, very important. We lay this out in our proposal, April kickoff. We're going to be bringing together the committee, the steering committee, the individuals you talked about at the from the the administrators, really whoever the board entrusts to be on that steering committee. That'll be established on the kickoff together with what the expectations are. And then we'll move

044into the capacity and utilization. Val's going to talk about that. That's really going school to school and assessing what spaces are being used today. Solutions, test fitting those, costs, and then final document delivered to the board. Throughout this whole process, you'll see some of those gray dots there. Those will be regular updates. We'll come back to the board at the best appropriate time as well as communications with the administrators. So we feel like having transparency, making sure you know where we're at in the process, allowing for feedback is going to be critical to make this a successful process. So Mike described a little bit of that core planning or I'm sorry, the steering committee and that is what we would envision your logo, your the apple in this thing to be. Where things have been

045fed into that. So again, that committee has some oversight and some direction of where things are going. But in understanding again of our goal is to help find the data and then share the data with you guys or with that committee. We do want to recognize as you guys have discussed that you guys are working on creating some core values and vision statements. And these are kind of the draft ones or where they are today. And that those are really good parameters and good guiding principles to actually help feed into your facilities master plan. Some of the core planning group is some of the input might actually help create some additional criteria that are a little bit more facilities focused. But of course anything that we do with your facilities should ensure financial stewardship. We

046should help improve all of your learning environments as well as increasing your family and your community engagement cuz your community will engage with the school. So how can we make that the best experience for them? That green button. Okay. So let's break down a little bit of how we go about capacity and utilization. So one of the things that we'll continue to learn about you to get caught up to speed is you guys have a lot of schools and each school is unique and we want to make sure that that uniqueness is carried through, right? That we're not any of the solutions aren't calling it genericizing things. A little bit different than providing equity though, right? Perhaps some goals will emerge and that'll be prioritized about where things need to be equitable. Again, you have

047an opportunity as a pre-K through 12 district to really influence a child's whole learning career from the beginning to all the way through high school graduation and to understand those transitions and how you might be setting them up [music] for post post high school. Some of the things that we believe that can be identified because you are a large unit district is you guys have some benefit and some opportunity of size and scale even with your enrollment conditions to offer unique things to districts that other smaller districts can't offer. Maybe you want to explore academies or career pathways or other project-based learnings and hands-on learning and how to maybe incorporate that holistically throughout the district or a little bit more focused as you have the opportunity to look at your buildings individually. So what will

048I'll do, one of the things that I'll do is I'll make sure I'm interviewing all of the principals and all of your site-based leadership. Make sure I interviews with teaching and learning, technology, some of those departments that inform or partake in the learning environment. Through all of that, things will start to emerge of where there's barriers, of where how teachers have to instruct or where how students have to learn. Considerations that you still are an employer and that this is still a workplace for individuals. So how can we make sure that our staff are also having a good space where they can team together and feel like they're part of a team as well as being able to professionally develop, not just in the formal meeting but also spontaneously and throughout the day. So it's

049really taking all of this data, collecting it and entrusting that you as a board have the expectation through your community to make sure that you are being efficient with the dollars spent both on operating as well as project expenses to make sure that you are sharing that you are optimizing and maximizing your district facilities with what you need by that is represented by this data. One such way of doing that is this is a little bit of a heat map. This is an example from St. Charles. So in this case, this was just a visual representation of where by comparing against other national standards as well as the district's programming goals, what buildings are meeting those things and where other things need or in what buildings need to be considered for some actual facility change.

050So this was just a matrix representation of a heat map. Alternatively, here's an example where we can do it in plan, too. So point is is some of these things are really we try to really simplify the visual so that it can be communicated not only here in board presentations but as well as when you guys have to communicate it out to your community so they can understand what the district is up to and help understand your your 10-year plan. An example where this was implemented is in a Eastern Carver County schools. They were also a large K-12 district. Um they were facing the need to close a school that was aging as well. So the district undertook a facility much like your facility condition and master plan assessment like you guys are looking at

051to analyze the entire district. Also by predicting the future expenses of managing and operating that building at a low underutilized capacity, it was found that there would be cost savings by closing that building and absorbing that student population into two other elementary schools, one that needed a couple of classroom addition. However, long-term, that was still a more affordable from that operational standpoint both building operationally as well as administratively. Closing buildings has a lot of emotional heartache. It's their their community attachments and that should not be undermined, right? But what I want to share is thoughtful planning allowed the community to prepare for that. In Eastern Carver's case, they actually needed to ask for a referendum. They asked had to ask for voter input to essentially say we need to close this school, add on here

052and throughout that we're going to then touch through some equity things of equalizing some special ed opportunities throughout the rest of our elementary schools Um, we need you to vote yes on it. And they had the yes votes. So, they were able to show the um community that they had the data, they had the backing of it, and yes, it's sad, and yes, this will mean change, but long-term this is going to provide better things for our students and our staff and our community. All right. So, I'm going to kind of go through the kind of big step uh number two, which is really about how do we then develop options, and and how do we provide cost so that we can make a recommendation as a part of this um facility process. This green

053one here? Okay, perfect. Um so, starting off with sort of that needs agreement. Um one of the most critical things that we will help facilitate in this process is ensuring that we're coming to consensus on what those needs are. As Val was just describing, we're going to be doing a lot of data collection to ensure that this is a data-driven process so that you are informed and you are able to make an informed decision going forward. Um but, as we like to say, it the needs are going to be what unite us in this process. Those solutions can often be what divide us. So, coming to consensus with that steering committee, those that you're entrusting to collaborate with us, but also as a board is really this critical step that we want to ensure a

054milestone that we hit in the process. Um a large district like Decatur, it is not uncommon that we're going to have a lot of different needs and wants that are going to come out of that data collection process. And so, part of our facilitation is to help you and the steering committee to prioritize. Um and as we're coming to that consensus on those needs, and develop some criteria. Um we use the term criteria, really what that is, it's strategies for how we might address those needs in this planning process. Um and that will kind of serve as our our our guidepost as we go through option development then. Um so, this is just a couple of examples that we put up here, but it's it's really going to be tied uniquely to to what we're

055is coming out of your um your district. Once we have that consensus, we've identified the needs, that's when we can really then go into this option development, and really it's it's an analysis, right? There's no single um way to kind of skin this cat, right? There's there's a lot of different ways, and that's why I said the needs are going to be what unite us. So, what does that look like? Um we're going to work with and develop multiple options, but the goal of that process is to be able to bring a single best um recommendation to the board by going through analysis of many different options. Um we do this be by, you know, running that test fit, um and we're always going to constantly be checking those options back against the needs, that

056prioritization, the consensus building that we did earlier on. Um if we find that an option is not in alignment with those needs or that criteria, that might be an indicator that it's not the right option for you, or it might be drawing attention to something else that we hadn't yet explored, and that becomes a discussion point um as a part of that analysis. Couple different um images on these slides that just show different ways that we approach this. Um so, this is really talking about how we do this in looking at the district comprehensively. Um so, an example I wanted to give is when we were working with Harlem School District. They were kind of in a right-sizing um planning process and were considering closing a building. And so, what we did is we looked

057at the whole district, and one of the options was, okay, what happens if we close that building? How does that impact our other facilities? How are we going to be moving students to other facilities? What will that What will happen with our specialized programs? And how do we shift and recreate balance? Um in another situation um in St. Charles that Val hit on, they had another aging building as well, but they determined that because of the community um impact, they didn't want to close that building, but they saw an opportunity to utilize it for a different purpose. And so, it became more of an administrative center. Um it be it How was it a specific district-wide um program, but this sort of graphic of how we look at the district as a whole is how

058we go through some of those different options and determine what might be right for you based on um what we're exploring. Um on the right there, another part of this piece and we as we look at the whole district is, how might things be tiered or phased? Um obviously, we know as we, you know, when you're thinking about the cost impacts of a lot of this, you might not be able to do everything at once, so we're constantly going to be thinking about what is a phased approach for that that long-term plan. As we zero in on individual sites, we're always want to be looking at the impacts. If it's a an addition at a building, what is that doing to the available site area? Um how are we also thinking about the needs related

059to traffic circulation, site safety, and and, you know, security on site. Um so, our deliverables and our process will also look at kind of as we start to zoom in on the building. And then finally, we're going to look at within each individual, you know, building itself, what are the impacts? Those strategies that we've identified, what is that going to look like in in in each individual facility, and how we are um transforming those spaces to achieve equity or address um the needs that we've identified. So, always looking at it all those different scales. One of the other things that we're going to bring to the table as as a resource is the ability to help you visualize. You know, sometimes when we're talking to building administrators or or, you know, the board, you're thinking

060of, okay, well, I don't know what that looks like because I I don't have that today. Um that is something we'll we can bring examples of what other districts have done, bring just some imagery that helps get the the juices flowing, it helps you envision how could this become something that's in our buildings. Um and then the final piece of that puzzle as we're analyzing these options and going through that development is going to be related to the cost. With over 50 years of experience in the educational market, we've got a lot of different strategies for how we do that from high-level, you know, cost per square foot down to more detailed budgeting around specialized spaces. Um but we also work with a third-party estimator that um has an even larger portfolio of projects that

061they've been budgeting, that they've seen through um that [music] are going to be relevant to to your region, to what's appropriate for Decatur, not just kind of, you know, something that we pulled out of the sky, right? They have a very um long list and can focus in on appropriate budgeting for our area here. Uh from the point of view, okay, now we have cost estimating, these are the options, this is what we think it's going to cost. Well, you have to fund it. And so, we will work with your uh financial advisor, we will talk about fund 20, 60, 90, life safety funds, look at what kind of bonding capacity you have, and start to think about how we can align those projects with the type of uh monies that are available to you.

062So, we think that's critical because it sets the stage for, you know, how are we going to Are we going to phase these projects? Are we going to do some smaller now, larger later if there's a referendum? Um and strategize long-term so we can actually implement these. And if we need to make some adjustments, we will do [music] that. We'll also look for grants and incentives along the way as well. Um at the end of the day, comprehensive plan, everything you've seen here will be a package that's given to you, easy to read. We will be giving you regular updates, but it'll bring together the educational needs, the space needs. We understand you need to the facility assessment, any cost associated with the life safety, that'll be folded into a long-range plan. Um and then

063like I said before, aligning that year by year, how much money you have available, and making sure you can implement this over the next 5 years. Uh the proposal that we put in your in your packet there that is a fixed-fee proposal that covers all of this. Um we will be traveling uh as needed to your district on a regular basis. Uh we will be working with district administration. If you feel like we need to come here more or less, um and really make it a process that gets you to that end game. Okay? Um any questions before I kind of go into my wrap-up? You covered everything. That That three-part proposal that you talked about, I don't know if it was at St. Charles to get voter approval. Did you do that separately, or

064was it all one proposal? I want to make sure I'm understanding the question a little bit. So, um You had three parts that had to be approved by the constituents. When you proposed it to them, was it one package that they approved, the whole thing at one time, or did you stagger it? Yep. So, um it was their 10-year master plan had many things, and I'll just say a hundred million dollars worth of hopes and dreams, right? Um what was voted on was a short-term, the first three to five years. Um so, what that 10-year plan did did was it allowed the community to get get ready for the um the district's vision for the next 10 years with the already expectation of um we're being asked to vote for some money, here's the things

065that's going to improve, but that's not all. They have more things that they're going to be working on. Um and I think what that I believe what that does in school districts is it really allows the community to get behind your initiatives and know that you're never stopping, right? Just because you did undertake some initiatives and they've launched, you don't take a deep breath and say, well, I think we're done for a couple years. That you're always looking forward to so that that community can be prepared for that. Thank you. Yeah, we would follow you if there was a referendum process, we would follow you and support all the all the documentations and guide you through that, right? We're here to guide and advise you through all these processes. Um and we are, like I

066said, here, we're committed to a long-term partnership. I mean, we're not going to go away in September and just kind of thunk something on your desk and walk away. We're really here to help implement and dovetail it into what you've done previously. We don't want to just put all that aside, but we will come in with the fresh set of eyes and we here we do have deep deep resources across the country. I'm really get getting that thought leadership. And I think we pride ourselves on our clients. You know, talk to any one of them and they will say they had a great experience with my We had a great experience with Val. >> [laughter] >> We had a great experience with Allison and her team. And so I think that, you know, we will

067have that personal commitment to Decatur School District. So thank you. If there's any other questions, I'd like to say a word or two. Other questions? Okay. Thanks so much. Thank you. Um if there's no other questions, I would like to ask Monica Wilks, uh director of human resources, and others to present a schedule B middle school co-op coaching update. And after their presentation, I will ask the Board of Education for a consensus to move forward with the committee's recommendation. Good evening, board. Dr. Clark and Ms. Bradford, um just have a quick proposal from the schedule B committee of the DEA. Um this recommendation is in relation to middle school co-op sports. Wait for the handouts to go around before I go too far in, but um currently there are six schools where baseball and softball

068are co-opt. Those six schools are Dennis Lab, Ellsworth Dansby, Hope Academy, Johns Hill Middle School, Montessori Academy, and Stephen Decatur Middle School. Um what the schedule B committee is recommending um is to combine the coaching positions for middle school baseball and softball. There would be one head coach and one assistant coach for each team. That would be a total of four teams. All would be housed at Stephen Decatur Middle School um for hiring and administrative purposes. So for baseball, there would be two teams, the A team and the B team. Each team would have a head coach and two assistant coaches. A head coach and an assistant coach, sorry. Um and they would be home based at Stephen Decatur and the same for softball. So administration um and the schedule B committee would like a

069consensus from the board to implement those implement these updates. Any questions? This is a point of context. We created this co-op 3 years ago to um both in increase um the ability to coach all the kids under one umbrella and it's been working at both levels. If there's no questions, may I have a consensus from the Board of Education to move forward with changes to the middle school schedule B coaching positions, combined coaching positions for middle school baseball and softball that were recommended by the schedule B committee and the Decatur Education Association DEA as presented? So moved. Second. Is a consensus? Oh, never mind. I consent. Yeah, I'm Okay. Yeah, I Yes. Everybody okay? All right. I think you have it. >> Thank you. Next, I would like to ask Mary Brady, director of P-12

070teaching and learning, to present the English Language Arts ELA grades K-12 curriculum adoption. Please note this item will also be recommended for approval under the roll call action items. My assistant, Dr. Gray, is >> [laughter] >> passing out Wow. some Wow. materials as well um for you to peruse through while I go through this presentation. Thank you so much, Dr. Gray. I appreciate it. Um good evening, everybody. So I am here tonight to talk about the adoption of our English Language Arts curriculum that we're uh making a recommendation for for the next 6 years as part of our adoption process. So this process began a year ago at this time when we had Oh, can you not hear me? Oh, sorry. I can't believe nobody can hear me. Okay, there I am. So uh a

071year ago we reached out to teachers and we had 39 pilot teach teachers participate in this, so we were able to have a wide variety of teachers from um across the district and we piloted two programs, HMH, which is actually our current curriculum provider, as well as um McGraw Hill. And we want to um again give a big thank you to those teachers who participated. Um So McGraw Hill had open courts reading for K-5 and Study Sync for our high school option, whereas HMH for K-5 was Into Reading and then Into Literature for our 6-12. Both um of these options do follow a science of reading approach, so that structured literacy approach that we have talked about um in the past here, which is a much more structured approach to teaching reading so that the

072students understand the components, especially at those younger um years. And um this is kind of the timeline that we followed. We had a vendor fair, so there were several vendors that were presented to teachers. However, the two we chose um were the ones that provided a unified K-12 option. We wanted to make sure that we weren't having to piecemeal together our tier one curriculum. We wanted it to come from a single provider so that it was consistent um through all years. And so in July, those teachers participated in some initial training and then through August through February, we had a lot of varied support um and check-ins from the vendors as well as professional develop- professional development provided to those teachers. In January and February, the teachers the pilot teachers worked together in order to

073create presentations in order to share with other teachers. They were um all the teachers were presented with those um two presentations in February and then they had um the opportunity to vote. And so this was the outcome and the recommendation tonight is actually coming from the voice of the teachers. It was a little bit closer at that K-5 level, but HMH did win out as well and it was overwhelming at the at that 6-12 level um for HMH. So overall, overwhelmingly HMH was um the chosen um curriculum. And so what do we have? We have digital access, but we also have class sets and that is what Dr. Gray um wanted me to bring you to show you that they will have physical books in order to look at. They will have um in that

074K-5 space the know it, show it practice books, which is one of the books that you had where they're actually able to take the material that they're taught, do those activities, and have that there. So it's not just all online virtual. They do have access to digital components, the teachers have access to digital components, but it is pen to paper. Uh they have a teaching pal set uh which provides additional um books for their libraries um at the at those levels as well as mini lessons and decodable readers. At the 6-12, they have digital access, but we also wanted to make sure and it says class set on here. Actually, when I put the order together, I asked to not have class sets. 6 through grade 10, grade 6 through grade 10, they will have

075actual physical books for every child because we heard what you were asking for and so we wanted to make sure that everybody had a physical book. Um and then they will have um sixth grade every child will have a grammar book. They will have um access online for the grammar worksheets that can be printed out and all of that. Kind of the concern there was with the older kids possibly losing all of our grammar books and so having to print anyway, they have that um access. And then they will also at the 6-12 level have access to novel sets that the teachers can choose and order full novel sets for um novel studies. Anyway, so that is what we have. The other point I want to let you know and when we get there later

076on is this is a 6-year adoption. We have we got permission from HMH in order to pay over three fiscal years. And so it we're not having to take the whole chunk out of the current budget. It'll be broken up over three fiscal years [music] evenly. So it kind of so that was a nice thing that they were able to do for us just so that we could be aware of what the financial conditions were. Are there any questions? Do you think this survey is a confirmation that the teachers really like books versus computers? I don't know if it's about liking books versus computers. I think they like, especially at the elementary level, they do like having those tangible materials for the students. As they get older, I think having those every child having that

077tangible material, it just looks different. And so, we wanted to make sure that every child though is able to have those tangible items in there. And without kind of getting too far off on that, part of what we're also asking for a little bit later is to have some take-home kits. And actually, I told you not to So, summer take-home kits for our for our students, which we'll have sent home physical books, physical activities for our students to have in their possession for the summer. And so, that and those are to prepare them for the next grade. And so, those will go home before the end of the year. I'm a big fan of them. I know. So, there. So, Yes. So, just understand. Uh let's say a student moves from South Shores to Franklin

078Grove, they're going to have the same >> books. Everybody will have the same books. They should all be in theory, they're all pacing at the same place. So, they should So, if I leave Franklin Grove tomorrow, the teacher should be generally in the same location as they would be at South Shores. Okay. Durability and um replacement. How to how to how does that look? So, we do order a few extras um for them. Uh and then every year, these are consumable. So, every year they get new materials. We order it every year for So, for the duration of the contract. And you said I'm sorry. Go ahead. I was going to What does the professional development look like? >> So, the professional development for this is we will have uh a getting started activity to

079familiarize our new teachers to this program as well as our existing teachers will also have a getting started uh professional development for it. We have um coaching There's called coachly licenses, and there will be one for every administrator so that they can work with their teachers alongside and they can get on on demand and get to a coach. And so, like in a grade level meeting, they can have um that kind of on-demand coaching. So, it can be they can receive that professional development through it. This curriculum is slightly different than what we had before because the past 6 years we've had that balanced literacy. This is science of reading. It does look slightly different than what they're used to, but there will be opportunities over the summer. Um we have those dates set for

080our teachers to be able to attend, and then we'll follow up throughout the year. But the big part of it will come through those coachly license and that on-demand um professional development. And did you say there would be a classroom set also because we know students will never leave their textbooks at home? >> They will never ever leave their textbooks. They promised me when I went out and asked them. Um they all told me it was going to they would be perfectly fine. So, there will be classroom sets, yes. >> So, the teacher >> Well, I mean at the So, the teacher will have them for a student >> Yes, at the secondary level, I mean. At the elementary level, we don't find that we misplace quite as many materials. Any other questions? Okay. Okay.

081>> Thank you. That will end our reports from administration. Okay, we'll move on to our consent items. Anyone want any item pulled from the consent agenda? Seeing none, Dr. Clark. I recommend the Board of Education approve the consent items as presented, which includes A, minutes open closed meetings March 24th, 2026. B, freedom of information report. C, bills. D, Illinois Elementary School Association IESA membership 2026 through 2027. E, Illinois High School Association IHSA memberships 2026 through 2027 for both Eisenhower and MacArthur. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Ms. Bradford. Dr. Laurenson. Aye. Mr. Hale. Aye. Mr. Reynolds. >> Aye. Mr. Joiner. Aye. Mr. Wetzel. Aye. Mrs. Tyes. Aye. And Mr. Clevenger. >> Aye. Seven aye, zero nay. Motion carried. Okay, we'll move on to our roll call items. Uh do we have

082a recommendation for a possible suspension of a school security officer? Yes, I recommend the Board of Education approve the suspension without pay for Aisha O'Neal, school security officer, beginning April 15th, 2026 through April 28th, 2026, Wednesday through Tuesday. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Discussion? Ms. Bradford. Mr. Clevenger. Aye. Dr. Laurenson. Aye. Mr. Wetzel. Aye. Mr. Joiner. Aye. Mr. Hale. Aye. Mr. Reynolds. Aye. And Mrs. Tyes. Aye. Seven aye, zero nay. Motion carried. Do we have a recommendation for the personnel action items? Yes, I recommend the Board of Education approve the personnel action items listed in the memo from Monica Wilks, director of human resources and the human resources department as presented. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Ms. Bradford. >> Mr. Reynolds. Aye. Mr. Hale. Aye. Mrs. Tyes.

083Aye. Mr. Wetzel. Aye. Mr. Clevenger. Aye. Mr. Joiner. Aye. And Dr. Laurenson. Aye. Seven aye, zero nay. Motion carried. Do we have a recommendation for the final calendar for Decatur Public School District 61 for 2025-2026 school year, the current school year? Yes, I recommend the Board of Education approve the final calendar for Decatur Public School District 61 2025-2026 school year, the current school year as presented. So moved. Second. Discussion? Ms. Bradford. Mrs. Tyes. Aye. Mr. Wetzel. Aye. Mr. Joiner. Aye. Mr. Clevenger. Aye. Dr. Laurenson. Aye. Mr. Reynolds. Aye. And Mr. Hale. Aye. Seven aye, zero nay. Motion carried. Do we have a recommendation for the Forvis Mazars LLP contract renewal for auditing service? Yes, I recommend the Board of Education approve the Forvis Mazars LLP contract renewal for auditing services as presented. So moved. Second.

084Discussion? Ms. Bradford. Mr. Wetzel. [music] Aye. Mr. Hale. Aye. Mr. Reynolds. Aye. Dr. Laurenson. Aye. Mr. Clevenger. Aye. Mrs. Tyes. Aye. And Mr. Joiner. Aye. Seven aye, zero nay. Motion carried. Do we have a recommendation for the permanent increase to Menards blanket purchase order limit for buildings and grounds? Yes, I recommend the Board of Education approve the permanent increase to Menards blanket purchase order limit for buildings and grounds as presented. Motion? So moved. Second. Discussion? I got one brief question. Won't take very long. How How did you come up with the number you did for the increase? Can I ask you that? You don't have to bid purchases over um for 40 35,000 if it's one project. We came up with that number because that's what we're we're coming to spending on these small Excuse

085me, small purchases. These small purchases add up and add up and add up. And to to quote Mr. Clevenger in the past, things cost more today than they do yesterday. And so, when we brought this last time, the goal was for it to be permanent, but the wording I I stood up here and talked about it being permanent, but the wording didn't match and we didn't want to go on what I said. We want to go on what was written. So, this is stuff our maintenance guys would use fix a door frame, stuff like that. And they would go out to Menards and get Okay. >> Or we can order it, but yes. Okay. Thank you. Dr. Curry, before you take off, do we I know this is Menards. Do we have similar arrangements with

086like RP Lumber uh Lowe's? Do we shop prices regularly with other vendors? I will leave that to the man who would be shopping those prices. Yes, we have blanket um purchase permits at um RP and Lowe's and Menards. Um we're constantly any kind of big project where we have a lot of lumber or drywall or any of that, I will price from any of the three. And then >> [music] >> I won't buy it on a blanket permit. I'll actually get a a purchase order on a large purchases. These are just for small things like um trim or you had to run out and get a hardware. You had to go, you know, that. And it's We can buy from any of the three, is what I'm getting at. A lot of it is convenience

087and availability. >> to be sure we were price checking on a regular basis. Absolutely, especially on any kind of large tickets. Okay. Thanks. I I have to say I I don't like doing something permanent. I don't mind the dollar figure, but I think the board needs to be aware that these kind of things staying in front of us give us information and help us to stay on top of things. And I So, I'm really going to say I'm fine with 30,000 for 1 year and that we renew it yearly. That's just more work for you. Well, I mean, that's how you guys want to do it. We can, but we recommend >> It's my opinion. >> Yep. We We used to come back and come back and come back, and I believe prior boards got

088tired of us coming back um because that number didn't change for years. That 24 didn't change for years. So, that's why we brought a more permanent solution. Any other thoughts on that? Ms. Bradford. Mr. [music] Hale. I. Mr. Clevenger. I. Mr. Wetzel. I. Dr. Lorenzen. >> I. Mrs. Tyes. I. >> Mr. Reynolds. No. And Mr. Joiner. I. Seven six I one nay. Motion carried. Do we have a recommendation for the award of roofing improvements for buildings and grounds? Yes, I recommend the Board of Education approve the award of roofing improvements for buildings and grounds partial as presented. Motion? So moved. Second. Any discussion? What kind of improvements are we talking about? Well, first you have two options. You have building You have base bid A or with the alternate bid to So, either just A

089or A and B or A and A1. But, this is the roof at buildings and grounds. So, in all the shuffling that's going to happen in 2030, we've decided through the finance committee to B&G is going to stay where B&G is. Right now, we're doing some cold storage work. We're going to redo the the inside of the garage, and we need to put a roof on really the whole thing. Um but, this is a partial replacement of the roof, and this will all be sales tax money. I guess my question would be is this not part of the road map facility discussion? >> We've pulled it out of the There's really nowhere to put them. These situations were all approved at the finance committee level to move forward with the new garage um and the

090update of the cold storage in the back um fencing eventually around um improved fencing around the fleet, etc. So, no, it's not something that was looked at to be moved. Other thoughts? Okay, Ms. Bradford. >> Mr. Joiner. I. Mr. Clevenger. No. Mrs. Tyes. I. Dr. Lorenzen. I. Mr. Hale. I. Mr. Reynolds. >> I. And Mr. Wetzel. No. Five I two nay. Motion carried. For bid A and A1 or for bid A? For all the members. I'm sorry. Um I would bid one A and A, which is $342,000. Didn't select a So, you made a motion to do it, but Right. You didn't select, which is what I tried to get to happen when I came up here. Luke, what do we need to do from a parliamentary place? There's probably half a dozen ways Thanks,

091Luke. You essentially adopted a motion with two options on the table without clarifying which one it is. I think I just argue that what you did is moot and just start it over uh specifying which of the options you want to move forward with. So, can you say the difference between A and A1? You mean the locations and the size? I'll leave that to uh Mr. Bolt. He can give you a better description of the roofing. >> properties? >> Yeah, same property. This is the same building. This is the warehouse and all of the buildings and grounds shop area that. It's all one building, but there's three different sections of roof. Um one A, excuse me, is the main section, which is in dire need, and the other two are they'll need it soon. We

092just was going to go ahead and put the option out there to complete the whole thing at once. Okay. So, if we voted against this, when is this going to get fixed? What are we going to do? You mean table or Yeah, actual vote down. Table? Yes. Is I mean, it's eventually going to have to be fixed, correct? >> Eventually, it will need to be fixed. Right. So, And right now, you're sitting on excess sales tax funds, which you may not have in the future. So, now is the time to do the things that can't be covered by health life safety. So, it's A A1 or A and A1? Yep, it's either A or the combo of both. >> Or the combo of both. Have we looked at other options for buildings to relocate? There

093are There are a lot of buildings around here. >> We've looked. We've I remember the the location um in Fairview. There was space underneath. That got shot down. We looked at the car dealership. That got sold. Um The the building has everything that we need. It just needs to be updated. And you're not going to get a new building for $342,575. And then, you're only one roof left to go. And we we spent a lot of time Help me here a little bit having these conversations in finance about the need for the new garage as we have our own fleet, and our guys do their own work. That's just the nature of the contract at Decatur Public Schools. And so, we need to make sure they have stuff that works, stuff that's dry. We had

094a lot of pictures that really showed the deterioration of these buildings. You know, I think we've seen those before. My concern is that we've got one planning process going with all of our buildings. And we've We're going to start pulling things out that we see as separate over here. And are we going to comprehensively look at the district or we going to start pulling pieces out? We've already started to do work on this building. Prior to the roofs. If you want to fix the roofs, you don't have to. We've already started, and you've already You've already approved as a group um renovations in the building. This the whole body voted yes for those renovations. This is just a part of that renovation. So, we're bringing the bids to you by by law. So, you've approved

095the renovations. We'll be bringing them to you as we bid them out along the way. Well, I'm not going to stall the process. So, we can either take a table or we go back to making the bid. So, do we We need to move backward through the process? Just redo it. So, redo it or is somebody going to have to So, you passed a motion that that didn't Essentially, you passed a motion that didn't clarify what you were passing. So, you can you can I move we rescind that action, and everybody votes. That wipes it off. You can treat it as moot. Uh Okay. I move to rescind the process. >> Okay. Second. Second. But, the motion's got to include the bid. Wait. I'm rescinding. You're just You're just undoing the vote uh that you

096previously took. >> I'm I'm talking about the new one, the new motion. What So, once you clear the old motion, then a new motion can be made with the the proper bid. >> either of the two iterations that Dr. Curry put forward. Thank you. Okay, we can just go to uh a vote of I and nay. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Those opposed? Okay, we've rescinded that. I would recommend that we do the buildings and grounds bid A plus alternative bid A minus for the $342,575. A1? A A plus A1 combined. Which gives us $342,575. Second. Further discussion? Ms. Bradford. Mr. Wetzel. No. Mr. Reynolds. >> I. Doc Mr. Hale. No. Dr. Lorenzen. I. Mrs. Tyes. I. Mr. Clevenger. No. And Mr. Joiner. I. I have four I and three nay. Motion

097carried. Okay, do we have a recommendation for the award of roofing improvements for Eisenhower and MacArthur High Schools? Yes, I recommend the Board of Education approve the award of roofing improvements for Eisenhower and MacArthur High Schools partial as presented. So moved. I'll second. There's only one. Second. Discussion? Ms. Bradford. Mr. Reynolds. >> I. Mr. Hale. I. Mrs. Tyes. >> I. Mr. Wetzel. No. Mr. Clevenger. I. Mr. Joiner. I. And Dr. Lorenzen. I. Six I one nay. Motion carried. Do we have a recommendation for the English Language Arts ELA grades K-12 curriculum adoption? Yes, I recommend the Board of Education approve and adopt the English Language Arts ELA grades K-12 curriculum adoption as presented. The motion? So moved. Second. Discussion? Ms. Bradford. Dr. Lorenzen. I. Mr. Hale? Aye. Mr. Reynolds? Aye. Mr. Joiner? Aye. Mr. Wetzel?

098Aye. Mrs. Tyus? Aye. And Mr. Clevenger? >> Aye. Seven aye, zero nay. Motion carried. We have a recommendation for the Edmentum Courseware {slash} Apex renewal. Yes, I recommend the Board of Education approve the Edmentum Courseware {slash} Apex renewal as presented. So moved. Second. Discussion? Is this an online curriculum? Yes, so just wanted to say so we switched Go ahead. This is what we use for um credit recovery. So for the students it's all online, but yes, it is online. Is it working well? Yes. Used by kids that Kids who >> in summer school for summer school, high school summer school for students who have not, let's say were um at risk of failing, um and so they might take a couple of chapters on it in order to pass the classes. And then there's some

099other components to it as well for career career surfing and some other things like that. That's all part of the package. Any other questions? Ms. Bradford. Mr. Clevenger? Aye. Dr. Laurenson? Aye. Mr. Wetzel? Aye. Mr. Joiner? >> Aye. Mr. Hale? Aye. Mr. Reynolds? >> Aye. And Mrs. Tyus? Aye. Seven aye, zero nay. Motion carried. We have a recommendation for the IMSE Orton-Gillingham professional development. Yes, I recommend the Board of Education approve the IMSE Orton-Gillingham professional development as presented. Got a motion? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Ms. Bradford. Mr. Joiner? Aye. Mr. Clevenger? >> Aye. Mrs. Tyus? Aye. Dr. Laurenson? Aye. Mr. Hale? Aye. Mr. Reynolds? Aye. And Mr. Wetzel? >> Aye. Seven aye, zero nay. Motion carried. We have a recommendation for the IXL Learning subscription renewal. Yes, I recommend the Board of Education approve

100the IXL Learning subscription renewal as presented. Got a motion? So moved. Second. Any discussion? I got a question. So this is something they use on their iPads? This is something that they use on their iPads. We have limited um this a little bit. It was K-12 in all buildings. We really went back and looked at usage and it's really utilized in that 3-8 [music] space and so that is the recommendation, but it's also utilized at Eisenhower specifically in that Spanish area, but we gave them access to the English and um math as well at Eisenhower. So that's what is being presented. What's the benefits? So they're able to get um individualized um reinforcement of skills um through there and it's tiered and it is aligned with our assessments and so then as part of their

101um interventions, they can utilize this and they're getting extra practice help. Okay, Ms. Bradford. Mr. Hale? Aye. Mr. Clevenger? Aye. Mr. Wetzel? Aye. Dr. Laurenson? Aye. Mrs. Tyus? Aye. Mr. Reynolds? Aye. And Mr. Joiner? Aye. Seven aye, zero nay. Motion carried. We have a recommendation for the Renaissance renewal. Yes, I recommend the Board of Education approve the Renaissance renewal as presented. Got a motion? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Um a question that I have about um transferring the assessment of students over to kind of an all online format is what So but in the classroom, like what assessments do teachers actually do when it comes to reading with kids one-on-one? So I mean that we used to do like running records, sight words. >> they're still doing those assessments. This is for um Oh my

102goodness. Benchmark assessments. So those three times a year, those have always been [music] on not always. At least in the eight years since I've been with the district, those have been online and even before that they were too when we switched to FastBridge. What we're doing is 6-12 started to utilize STAR last year. Well, it was a high school and then we brought in 6-8 last year. We're making everybody use the same um assessment tool this year um starting in the fall so K-12. So they're all getting measured off of the same tool with the same standard well with the same metrics about that. So but they're doing running record. They're listening to the students read in those um other um in the lower grades and they're also testing their sight words. They're doing all

103that one-on-one. It's not just solely based online. They have components that are actually um one-to-one correspondence um on these tests and so they enter the scores online, but [music] especially with the littles, the K-2ers, they do do those one-on-one. It's not all completely online. >> Is there a place that they have to report those to the district? Mhm. Other questions? Ms. Bradford. Mr. Wetzel? Aye. Mr. Hale? Aye. Mr. Reynolds? Aye. Dr. Laurenson? Aye. Mr. Clevenger? Aye. Mrs. Tyus? Aye. And Mr. Joiner? Aye. Seven aye, zero nay. Motion carried. We have a recommendation for the school supply boxes. Yes, I recommend the Board of Education approve the school supply boxes as presented. Got a motion? Second. Discussion? I have some questions about this. So um I'm going to kind of roll them both if I can

104into that and the take-home kits. Um I'm noticing that these are used with Title I funds. Am I right? So with these and the take-home kits, we're spending about $416,000. That's a significant amount of money on things that are being not utilized, I would say like for actual instruction. So the school supply kits, the students will get those at the beginning of the school year so that they have all the necessary school supplies that they need in their classrooms for use for >> So we So here in Decatur, we don't have school supply lists. We do sometimes, but what was it? Two years ago we did this and the community the teachers, the students, everybody really appreciated us being able to do this and we had we got the carryover funds very, very late this

105year and so if we don't utilize these funds, we're going to lose these funds and so we had to think about different ways that we could maximize kind of that spending and sending like the take-home kits we felt that those would be resources to connect our students with our families with our schools. And so they have those materials at home as well as continuing instead of So all the education, all the reading isn't happening just in the schools. They're also happening at home. So but the school supply kits, the students will use at school. And just to kind of piggyback, we always provided supplies anyway for our students because not all families were able to do so. So this is really just a good way to spend those funds. And then going back to what

106we've been asking families to do every summer is to piggyback what we've done throughout the year and being able to utilize this to kind of keep them up on their reading, up on their math, and then engage them in their studies even when they're not at school. So we figured this was a a good way to utilize the funds cuz it will still assist us in moving that needle academically. So it's kind of a good faith and an outreach effort. Yeah. But you could also use Title I funds for family engagement events at schools. I mean that's something you could do. You could use them for professional development. Um one of the things that I think that we could probably utilize them for is I know a lot of teachers have said that there's software

107that they could use in classrooms that we no longer pay for like Flocabulary, Reading A-Z, Freckle, and things like that where I can see that we could utilize funds for stuff like that and then they would be utilized in the classroom. I believe exactly what you're saying. I just think that there's [music] even like when we're talking about buildings and maintenance, there's a lot of disconnect. So you know, I think we need to figure out a way to start connecting more with what's happening within the buildings, within the schools to see how we're to readdress those funds before we vote on them. >> To me, like $400,000 is a lot Well, I believe I hear you, but this is like a bad moment for us. And this is not against you, Dr. Laurenson. I just

108trust what I'm saying. It's just I one more question for you before you sit down and I know you got so close. Um but we still do professional development um out with Title I as well. And then when it comes to the technology pieces that teachers are requesting, all they have to do is talk with their building administrators. They still have to go through a process um with IT and also to make sure that it is aligning with T&L um and the the curriculum that we are utilizing. But it has to be something that all kids would be able to benefit from, not just a particular teacher in the classroom. Right. And then there are some of those programs that we no longer utilize because of our SOFA regulations. I that is controlled by the

109state. And so we can't get agreements from some of those vendors in order to continue some of those programs. And that's why some of those programs um we're not utilizing. So how do we pass out these supplies? So the supplies that they will all go to the schools and then on the first day schools will pass them out. But we're saying we want to build community. Passing them out at the schools isn't really building community. I mean we there is one other thing that we're talking about doing that I'm working through trying to get some quotes on about having parents coming in at open house and then they're going to receive some of those um some additional materials in order to help their students at home such as flashcards, um sight words, some manipulatives so

110that they can work with their students at home as well as some additional books. So we're kind of working through that. So I'm hoping that we can kind of tie that in there with um school supplies some even some additional school supplies so that they can go home so the students have what they need at home in order to practice those skills. Is there something we can use the money for besides school supplies? I'm just asking. I I could I would I would have to go back and look and see. I mean there are some other choices but we just have to make sure that we have the time in order to get it implemented. And this was well received the last few times. Yeah. Yes. It's huge. I handed them out and it was

111massive. It was it it was an exciting um I like your idea of using them at open house though and involving the parents together. >> going to do community stuff we need to pass out the supplies a different way not just first day of school you get your supplies. That's not building community. >> we can look at some of those different options about how we're doing it. I was kind of thinking about like this is what we kind of looked at like last the last time we did [music] this and so we didn't do school supplies this fall and people Yeah. wanted to know where they Mhm. were. So they're very they're very much so appreciated. And keep in mind our principals do a lot to try to build that community environment by bringing parents

112in. You can see them um they post on social media all the time. But they have to come. Right? >> Yeah. Um so we were trying to think outside the box to to do more parent engagement and that's what they've all been charged with in their buildings but the parents have to come. We can do it. They have [music] to come. Other thoughts? I just think that if we're going to buy supplies for every kid in schools we could just buy them in bulk. Like that just makes more sense to me. It'd be more cost effective. Anything else? Ms. Bradford. Mrs. Tyes. Aye. Mr. Wetzel. >> Aye. Mr. Joiner. Aye. Mr. Clevenger. >> Aye. Dr. Laurenson. >> Nay. Mr. Reynolds. >> Aye. Mr. Hale. Aye. 6 aye, 1 nay. Motion carried. Do we have a

113recommendation for the take-home kits? Yes, I recommend the Board of Education approve the take-home kits as presented. I have a motion. I'll make a motion. Second. Discussion. I'm going to say again I I have looked through these and I I I don't see that with parents not getting any like information about how to utilize these with kids and especially since most of our kids are not reading at grade level um unless the kids are getting a kit that's at their reading level um I don't know how useful they are um especially at the cost that they are. Well they these are at grade level. Well if the kid's reading at that level. Right. Right. If a kid is reading at that grade level. Go ahead. Um so the question just kind of piggyback off the

114question she actually >> Right. So letters will go home with this about how to utilize it. It's not going to be just sending the kit home. There will be communication that go home that goes home um along with this. And I understand the concern about not all kids reading at the grade level but we also need to have our children exposed to that grade level and this is an opportunity for parents to read alongside their children and be exposed to that material. And that's what we're trying to do. We have to get materials in front of of students and if they I we they want to see materials at their grade level so that they can be exposed to it so that they can work on achieving that. >> [clears throat] >> When do these

115go home? Did I miss >> Those school supply those take-home kits I'm hoping to have them here um the first or second week in May so that they can go home before the end of school. >> a incentive that goes with it? I'm just thinking about the population you're sending this home to. Yeah. Is there like a incentive or if you read if you turn in if >> can it would be activities that they do over summer so then we can have an incentive for when they come back to school. We can we can think about that. I know it's not this one but I've got a quick question for you too on the school supplies. Can I back up there just 1 minute? >> Yeah. Is there a way that we could coordinate? There

116are so many school supply distributions >> That's why today. Is there a way that we could kind of maybe get our arms around a coordinated effort to >> to Maria about that. >> Cuz look how many organizations are passing out backpacks. Are Are you talking about like churches, community groups? >> We have YMCA. We have the park district. We have so many different pass outs. Um is there a way we could I think to Karen's point um we're spending a ton of money there in addition to the money that we're spending and could all that be coordinated And I so that I'll work with Maria. >> we're doing a better job of distributing them. >> and we can make sure that we have that coordinated community event. Yes. >> the supplies. Yep. We can They

117bring in the community. Yeah. We can we can I've done that before too. Yep. That's a good idea. >> sizes. That's a good idea. That's a good idea. We we do that too. Yeah. I maybe Okay. we can also come back and take a look at what you're saying is exactly right. Exposure. But then after exposure I think we talked about it at another board meeting on the summer program. What is the impact at the end of the of the day? And I think that's on us that's our burden to help figure out what we're actually doing in the community and what's the impact at the end of it >> [music] >> not just to say this sounds like a good idea. Every idea should have some fruit and we're not looking at that. So

118that's I think we need to really pay attention because this is what I'm talking about this being a long term this this year correct? This would be for this year but we could find a way to measure the impact and then we can consider Yes, ma'am. Right cuz a lot of parents can't read. I know that for a fact. You know, but I I think exposure is everything so yeah. >> I think it's the exposure and getting having children having the opportunity to have books in their own home and be able to see it and at least have print and exposure to that. At least you know, even looking at the pictures and being able to discuss that cuz you know, maybe they don't know what a panda looks like. I think that was what

119one of the books had in it. But just having that exposure to understand what else is out there um in the world so that when they are in their classrooms and it is they're being taught at grade level they do have a they have a comprehension. They've seen the material even before they have a concept of what that looks like. Other questions? Ms. Bradford. Mr. Reynolds. >> Aye. Mr. Hale. >> Aye. Mrs. Tyes. >> Aye. Mr. Wetzel. Aye. Mr. Clevenger. >> Aye. Mr. Joiner. >> Aye. And Dr. Laurenson. >> Nay. 6 aye, 1 nay. Motion carried. Okay, announcements. We've reached that point in time. Board of Education and and and our administration sends condolences to the family of Jeffrey Lee Manuel passed away Monday, March 23rd, 2026. [music] Mr. Manuel is the father of Jessica

120Manuel, a behavioral consultant for Macon Piatt Special Education District. Our condolences to that entire family. Uh some important dates. April 15th is a district-wide half day for all students. Um April 22nd, Roadmap 2030 committee meeting at Dansby Magnet School at 5:30 p.m. Um the 25th to MacArthur High School 2025-2026 [music] school year prom Hickory Point Banquet Center from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. May 2nd Hickory the Eisenhower 2025 school year prom Hickory Point Banquet Center 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. Uh and then we have on May 8th Decatur Public Schools retirement celebration and that's at Richland Community College Shilling Education Center. Uh check-in's at 4:30, dinner and program at 5:00 p.m. The next public portion of next regular Board of Education meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 28th, 2026 at the Cal Administration Building.

121Do I have a motion to adjourn? >> Can I Can I add one comment to the calendar? I just want to let Dr. Clark know and let the city know on April 20th, the city will be honoring both MacArthur uh boys and girls basketball teams for their run. They're going to They're going to honor them at the city meeting, so city council meeting. And I just wanted to let everybody know that and please attend. It would be great. >> April 20th at what time? April 20th, uh whenever 5:30, I think. Whenever the whatever whenever the city council meeting. 5:30. Okay, now back to motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion. Second. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? What?