001Everything. She only consent items. Mic check. Nope. Nope. I don't hear it. Oh, there it is. I hear it now. There is mic check. We're doing another one. That good? You good? Okay. Okay. All right. Gravy. Thank you. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Okay, we're ready. Okay, I think we're ready to get started. Board of Education has been in closed executive session to discuss the placement of an individual student pertaining to a student discipline expulsion matter and collective negotiating matters between the board and representatives of its employees. No action was taken during closed executive session. I would now ask everyone to join me in the pledge. To the flag of the stand, indivisible, liberty, justice for all. Do we have a recommendation for tonight's agenda? Yes, we do. I recommend the board approve tonight's May 13, 2025 open
002session board meeting agenda as presented. Can I have a motion? Second. Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. Those opposed. Motion's carried. We'll now move on to our district highlights. Maria. Hello. Good evening, President Clevenger, members of the board, Dr. Melissa, I have the privilege this evening to introduce our district highlights. First up is our school highlight from Dennis Lab School. And presenting this evening is assistant principal Miss Allison Brinkarter and teacher Miss Cassie Man. Good evening board, new board members, and Dr. Clark. We're excited to be here tonight to share a little bit about what's going on at Dennis. Um, I'm Alison, and back with me, first grade teacher, Cassie Man. Uh, first and foremost, thank you to everybody and all of our supports. Um, we couldn't do it without you
003guys. Um, Keith apologizes that he cannot be here. He's had a long-standing appointment for an awards ceremony for his daughter tonight. Very exciting for her senior year. And Cammy is currently recovering today. Um, our journey continues. Um, we are continuing to embrace 24, 25. Um, planting our roots where we are currently at and hopefully growing where we're at as well. Um, we have challenges, but we are understanding that they are not roadblocks. They're stepping stones to becoming stronger and more capable individuals. Just some of our staff members, some of our students. Um, one of our big celebrations was I going from 24 to uh 23 24 to 24 25 and we had a lot of growth. Um, some of the most growth in the district. Um, again, one of those challenges was put in front
004of us and we still managed to conquer it with grace. Um, May on May 21st, we're going to be starting to celebrate attendance. Um, we will celebrate um 259 students who have 92% or greater attendance and six students with 100% attendance. So, one of the priorities this year is we started to take better care of our flag. Um, we have a good amount of boy scouts in our school that have learned a lot about the flag through their troops and they were gracious enough to perform a flag removal and um, we put up a new flag on Veterans Day as a celebration. Uh we all got to learn about that and then they have taken on the responsibility this year of lowering the flag each day and putting it up into the building safely and
005then putting it back up each morning so that way we can show respect for our flag. We had our spring festival in Book Bear with one of our partnerships and one of their big um rooms to support us. Um we had over 400 people show up and they had a great time, earned prizes. We had a lot of donations brought in as well for this um to help support um our school. Our biggest event of the year was our PBL showcase event. Um in the middle there we have our billboard from the fifth grade team. Um they talked about saving the world with um saving a little bit of plastic. Um and you can see that going over the bridge on 51. How to press play on this? Another one for um our school was
006the eighth grade project where they turned in Oh, there we go. They turned all of their math equations into a showcase at the Illinois School or at the Illinois Museum. Um and they all of these are linear equations that they put together for all of their art. Really quickly, just to touch on our PBL, as you know, Dennis Lab School is a project-based learning school. That's kind of our trademark. Um, we have been doing project-based learning for over I think we're at 11 years now. Um, this year was the first time that we have actually done a schoolwide project. In December, we did a schoolwide mini project where everyone was asking the same driving question and the question was, "How can we share our traditions with others in the community to bring them joy?" And
007so, each grade level answered that question in a different way. Um, and then this school year in our spring showcase, we had a lot of different projects going on. Um, everything from learning how to eat healthy to making art out of equations. My class specifically, um, our first grade team asked, "How can we help the animals at Scoville Zoo?" And they learned that animals don't need food and water at the zoo because they're already taken care of. So, we learned how to enrich them. And my students built papier-mâché um, enrichment feeders and we brought them to the lemurs and we got to watch the lemurs eat out of them in person at the zoo thanks to the grant that all first grade classes got to go to the zoo. So, that was a really exciting
008thing that we got to do through our project in connection with the district grants. We finally have our library up and running and we have a wonderful librarian. Um, she brings the classes in once a week. She works with middle school students. They can pop in and out as they need to. It's really been awesome seeing the kids have books in their hands and actually reading them instead of on an iPad or on their technology. Um, it really speaks that they are enjoying this. Every year, one of the other traditions that we have is that we have a winter concert. Um, we have been fortunate to have many community partners. This year, um, Central Christian Church on Monroe Street was our partner that helped us host our winter concert. We packed the place for multiple
009different shows all night long and we had um, I would say about 70% of our students attend the evening performance. Every month the teachers nominate a monarch of the month. These are outstanding students who go above and beyond what is expected of them. They go out of their way to help others um kind of keep the peace in the building a little bit as well. Just a few more pictures of some of our recent monarchs. Um we are so close to the end of the school year and with that comes all of our celebrations. We got kindergarten graduation, eighth grade promotion, their dance, playday, field day, they had their eighth grade trip, schoolwide cookout, and then the last day of school. Um, we are continuing. We're not giving up. Um, we are going strong into
01025 26. Um, goals are to be fully staffed. We're working on our school improvement plan. We want to boost student growth in ELA and math. We want to continue best and use that to support our students to be successful in life. Um, we want to have explicit targeted instruction. Um, dedicated planning time for engaging lessons. We want to continue that PBL. It is some of the most enjoyable times of the year when those kids are in the projects working on them, working on something they love to do. Um, we also want to continue our co-op, um, bring that back and have it stronger and go from there. Uh, we're looking forward to the future and another successful school year. Any questions? Where was the eighth grade trip? Um, this year they went to Malibu Jacks
011in Springfield and they actually went today. and our kindergarteners and our first graders were all at Rock Springs today. So, we had half of our school I feel like were gone today. So, on field trips, all the end of the field trips stack it up. I'm also going to say congratulations that um you guys won the the math challenge as well. Yes, we did. We we took we have lots of things. We could be here all night telling you how awesome our kids are, but we figured you probably wanted to get to other business. So, Congratulations. [Applause] All righty, moving on to our second highlight for the evening is an Eisenhower team. Here to talk about the Panther Palooa and here to present is Miss Barb Howler and she will introduce her crew. here. Okay.
012Uh good evening, Dr. Clark and board members. Uh we're excited to be here tonight to share a little bit about Panther Palooa. Um I know Dr. Clark has joined us the last couple years. This is our third year annually putting on this event. Uh this is an event that we decided to put together uh to bring special education students together with general education students uh teachers, community members and businesses. Um and we felt that it was important to you know build that uh community between school and all of those partners. Um our mission statement was uh to promote growth, learning and sensor sensory exploration through creativity and learning. Uh with me tonight, I want to introduce because I've got a large team with me. I've got my co-teer over here, uh Miss Becca Massie. Uh
013she is one of three of us on the team of teachers that put this event on. Um with us, the other teacher that was unable to make it tonight is Miss Stephanie Bowman. I also have one of our teaching assistants, Miss Farah Plato. And then this year, we asked some of our students to join us so that they could share a little bit. Yeah, we Mark Hoffman, Faith Raybrin, and Dear Jackson. So, as we go through here, I'm going to share a little bit of some of the highlights, and then I'll have the student share a little bit with you. Um, this was our group picture this year. So, this picture incorporates all of my teaching team, my teaching assistants and my students. Um, and we do one every year just as the the school
014that hosts it. And we have these t-shirts made and this is in front of the sensory museum and you can see all the foam which is a big hit with all the kids. Palooa attending programs. Uh so the first two years we've always had uh CILA map Bomb MacArthur Steven Decar and Hope join us. But this year we were fortunate enough to be able to expand the event so that we could reach even more students. Uh we were able to have over 500 students enjoy this event this year by including Monaceel students uh Moro Foresight Mount Zion Meridian and some students from Dennis. Um the next few slides I'm just going to kind of highlight some of the uh people we have come out. So this is that kid place sensory museum and foam machine.
015He's out of the Bloomington Normal area. This gentleman builds these sensory museums. Um he started it for his son, but he kind of goes around now and does events. But the the foam is one of the biggest hits. The kids, all the kids love the foam, no matter the age or disability or anything. They love it. Um here you can see some of the kids um inside the Century Museum and then just foam pictures. Another uh businesses. Another big community business that joins us every year and participates. We have Kona Ice Out and Mimi Frosty. And our students, each every student that comes to attend gets to enjoy a treat from one of these places. Oh, I was just going to highlight here. You can see like some of um our students down there. And
016then the girl in the white there, that's a gened student helping with one of the volunteers. We have a lot of this year, I think we had uh 80 GenEd volunteers from Eisenhower come out and join us to help the kids. Uh the Decatur Art Council comes out every year, which we're grateful. We like to partner with them. Um we usually go out once a year and do a little art project with them, but they come out and put do a art project with the kids. uh Lambda State Foundation put out their own station where they did tattoos. Um I just want to also shout out that this teacher sority is also one of our biggest uh donors. We write a grant to them each year and they're a big support that and u one
017of our biggest donors that helped us put this whole event on. Uh Fun on the Run inflatables, they're out of Poria. Uh we had a photo booth and we had this big slide this year which was a hit. Um the kids, even though we had a little rain this year, it didn't stop them. They were still out there having a great time. On this page, we also have the mobile zoo that comes out every year. They bring some animals and our FFA. Uh both MacArthur and Eisenhower come out with the FFA and they bring some animals and uh the kids are able to get to enjoy that. Um we partner with Starbucks also for our vocational programming with our coffee shop, but they're also a big support with this pro with this event. She comes
018out every year and gives out free bags of things, you know, cake pops, little things for the kids. Um, our students put together popcorn and run their own little popcorn station that they give everybody some of as they come through. Uh, making Resources joins us every year. Well, I guess this is their second year. Um, and they bring uh the music. They do music at karaoke and that's always a big hit with the kids. Uh we have a face painting station and this is headed up by Mr. Barista, our art teacher at Eisenhower High School, along with his art students. So they do all the face painting for the event. Um here I just made a special slide. I just kind of want to shout out all town because they are a huge help for
019us and making sure that we get all the students um to and from the event safely. Uh especially Sonora, she works she worked directly with us. Um she also worked with the county schools and their transportation so that we could successfully get everybody there safely. So, um, and then this event is only put on through the support of so many sponsors and donate donors. And, um, I want to shout out also another big donor for us is, uh, Zach Shields and the Decatur School Foundation. Um, they're a huge support to us. also making piatt special education, our admin there and our admin at Eisenhower along with everyone listed on here um contributed or donated. I know we're not I don't have time to read this whole list to you, but as you can see, we
020have lots of people that come out and volunteer to make this day successful for our kids. And then I just have a little picture. GRS teachers take a little team picture um because they're the ones that thought it up and brought the idea together. But I wanted to have the kids kind of come over and join us and have them just share what they love about this day. Um because what you know as adults and teachers, we love putting this on. It brings us a lot of joy. I know for me and my coach like co-workers that we're able to do this for the district and the community and see the kids learning and just enjoying their day. But I thought it'd be great for you guys just to hear a little bit about what
021the kids thought. So this is Faith. Faith, do you want to step up and tell them what your favorite thing was? Yeah, she liked the animals. Very good, Faith. All right. And then I have Mark. Mark, can you step over and tell the board what was your favorite thing at Panther Palooa? The cupcakes. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. All right. And this is uh Dear and Deari is going to share what his favorite stuff was. The bubbles and the slide. Okay. Thank you guys. Thank you. [Applause] Oh, do you have any questions? Because I know some of you are new and you may not have been aware of our event. So, I will just echo that. It was a lot of fun, even in the rain. It was. Yes, it it was a little
022stressful for us teachers when the weather was a little not what we expected, but the kids, it didn't phase the kids at all. They loved it. So, and that's the main reason we do it. So, I just want to say teachers like you make the world go around and it's so amazing to see you not only get other kids in the district involved, but also all around the community. And well done. So proud of you. Thank you. I totally agree with my co-board member. Excellent job. You guys, you're such a gift to Decatur. I just a salute to you, Miss Howler, and your team and what you guys do. Thanks for everything. Yeah. Thank you. And I like to say we try to do this annually towards the end of April. So next year we
023invite you all to come out and just get to come out and enjoy the day with the kids because it's just it's an awesome event for the kids. So thank you [Applause] Wonderful. Beautiful. [Applause] Okay, we'll now move on to our public participation. Uh, seeing that we have no one wishing to address the board this evening, we'll move right on to uh board discussion. Is there anything at this point in time that my fellow board members would like to bring up? Seeing none, we'll move on to reports from administration. And for the listening audience, under reports from administration, a first read code of conduct and parent handbook for 2526 school year has been pulled from the May 13, 2025 board meeting agenda and will be taken up uh at the next board meeting. I now
024ask Dr. Curry uh to come up and make a first read on schoolboard policies and exhibits. Thank you for the opportunity. Um to the folks that are new, you'll see way too much of me up here all the time. I apologize for that. Uh so um for the first read, I just want to go through the process for policies u for our newest members. Typically, there's a first read where we give you the policies. We check a box that that they've been given to you. There's no presentation. You have until the next board meeting. Sometimes we take it a full month uh for the board to read those policies. You'll also be receiving kind of a reader digest version or I think they were back in the day spark notes. Um that really just gives
025you the the changes to the policy so that you don't have to try to figure out each one for you. Uh that is not my PowerPoint. I didn't make you one. Uh and so then you have some time to reach back to my office. Uh if you have questions about any particular policies, um only a few of them are actually updated policies. You'll get that in the uh memo that I'll send to everybody tomorrow. I'll send to Melissa and she will send it to everybody tomorrow. Uh and if you have any questions, just reach out. Uh but you have all of them and I know you probably saw your board packet. There was a lot. Uh, and we are members of Press Plus, which is driven by the Illinois Association of School Boards, which you
026guys are members of. And so they make recommendations. You, as a board, have the decision to accept those recommendations or sometimes say no or make changes. Any questions on the first read? It's now in your hands. I will be back with a little bit more information when it's time to approve them. And if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to me. uh my office. Dr. Clark, uh just one more thing. Um in terms of press, press is made up of whom? I'm sorry. Press is made up of whom? Oh, sorry. Press is a uh attorney firm that Well, they're the attorneys in policy uh development for the Illinois Association of School Boards. By being a member of Press, they make our changes for us once we decide to approve the U changes
027each time there is a new memo. So, you're going to see another one right away in July as well. We're we're we're we're stacking a 117 and a 118. Thank you. Yep. You're welcome. If there's no other questions, that will end our report from administration. Okay. We'll now move on to our consent items. Does anyone have any item on the consent agenda that they'd like to pull? Do you have a recommendation for the consent items? Yes. I recommend the board of education approve the consent items as presented which includes a minutes open close meetings April 22nd 2025 and special openlo meetings May 7th 2025. B freedom of information report C. Bills. Do I have a motion? A second. Second. Any discussion? M. Bradford. Mr. Reynolds. Hi. Mr. Hail. Hi. Dr. Laorenson. Hi. Mr. Wetszel. Hi.
028And Mr. Clevenger. Hi. Five. I zero nay. Two absent. Motion carried. Okay. We'll move on to our roll call action items. Do we have a recommendation for the board of education two-year calendar dates and location? Yes. I recommend the board of education approve the I'm sorry. I recommend the board of education approve the board of education 2-year calendar dates and locations as presented. Please note dates, times, and locations are subject to change. Do I have a motion? Move. Second. Discussion. Miss Bradford. Mr. Hail. Hi. Mr. Cleger. Hi. Mr. Wetzel. I Dr. Loren. Hi. And Mr. Reynolds. Hi. Five. zero nay, two absent. Motion carried. Thank you. 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 Wils,
029director of human resources and the human resources department as presented. Do have a motion? A second. Second. Any discussion? Miss Bradford. Dr. Loren. I Mr. Wetzel. Hi, Mr. Reynolds. Hi, Mr. Hail. Hi. And M I'm sorry, Mr. Hail. Abstain. And Mr. Cleger. Hi. I have four I zero nay, two absent, one abstain. Motion carried. Thank you. We have a recommendation to increase existing FY25 blanket PO for Menards. Yes. I recommend the board of education approve to increase existing FY25 blank and PO for minorities for the buildings and grounds department as presented. Do a motion. Second. Second. Discussion. Miss Bradford. Mr. Clevener. Hi. Mr. Reynolds. Hi. Dr. Laorenson. Hi. Mr. Wetszel. Hi. And Mr. Hail. Hi. Five. I zero nay. Two absent. Motion carried. Uh, beginning with the announcements. I think you'll see those on the
030screen as well, but the board of education and administration sends condolences to the family of Pette M. Pritz High who passed away Sunday, May 4th, 2025. Mrs. High was a former, now retired kindergarten teacher at Bomb Elementary School. Uh, some important dates to remember. Uh May 14th, which is tomorrow, I believe, uh there will be a public tour of the Ellsworth Dansby Junior Magnet School. Uh public tour time frame will be 6:00 p.m. to 700 p.m. Uh May 16th will be Prep Academy cohort one Richland Community College graduation. Uh that's at the Civic Center at 700 p.m. Tickets are not required. Uh May 17, MacArthur High School class of 2025 graduation ceremony at 11:00 a.m. in the MacArthur High School gymnasium. The 17th also, Eisenhower High School 2025 graduation ceremony will be at 2:30 p.m.
031in the Eisenhower gymnasium. Uh the 22nd of May will be the last day of student attendance for 2425 school year and the 26th will be the our Memorial Day holiday will be observed. Um June reminder June 19th will be the Junth holiday and district offices will be closed. Uh the public portion of the next regular meeting of the board of education will be at 4:30m Tuesday, May 27th at the Kyle administration building. Uh please note we'll begin the open session with a training module three re regarding school improvement with the board of education and the superintendent and then we'll continue on to open session immediately following that training. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? Move. Second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Those opposed. Motion's carried. We stand adjourned.