001Drop installed. My Dropbox just uninstalled itself. Yeah, closed everything out and uninstalled. It's not coming back up. here with Mark here. Okay. Board of Education has been in closed executive session to conduct student discipline hearings and employee discipline hearing. discuss the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance of 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. I now ask everyone to join me in the pledgece of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Do we have a recommendation for tonight's agenda? Yes, we do. I recommend the board approve tonight's April 8, 2025 open session meeting board meeting agenda as presented. Can I have
002a motion? So move. Second. Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion's carried. We'll now have our district highlights. And with that, we have our grand entrance. Good evening, everyone. I'm no Maria Robertson, but I am um calling up Miss Michelle Bonere, the head eagle at John's Hill Magnet School. Um and it looks like she has her cheering team with her here on tonight. Thank you. Good evening and thank you um again, Dr. Clark, Miss Bradford, the current board, and the newly elected board members for allowing us to have the time to showcase John's Hill Magnet School. As you know, John's Hill is the one of three magnet schools in DPS. We emphasize multicultural experiences with a focus on arts integration. We have um an incredible amount of pride
003um for our diversity and the students um are the center of everything we do at Johns Hill. For that reason, I've invited one of our students to help us tonight with the presentation. Miss Andrea Vasquez is an eighth grade student and she will share a little bit about what John means to her. Thank you for coming. Um, I'm Andrea and I've been at John's Hill since I was in kindergarten. I'm now an eighth grader. To me, being at Johns Hill means never being alone. I've always had support from all of my teachers and even my peers. And I've always been able to learn very easily. All of my teachers are good teachers who explain subjects in ways that all of the students can understand. I myself am a visual learner and all of my teachers
004provide visual examples of the subjects that we're learning. At John Hill, I've always been able to explore my interests. That includes orchestra, band, and even the rock band. I've been playing the violin in the orchestra since I was in kindergarten. And being a part of the orchestra and the band, I've made many new friends and it's been a great experience. Playing instruments and music is relaxing, fun, and it's been a good hobby. I'm also a part of the school musical which I was also a part of last year. And being part of the school musical, it's helped me get over my fears of public speaking and being on stage. I am also taking advanced math which I have been taking for three years at Johns Hill. Um John Hill has honors algebra 1 and geometry.
005some eighth graders and some seventh graders take the honors algebra 1 class. Last year I was one of the seventh graders, one of the four seventh graders who took the honors algebra 1 class. And this year I'm taking geometry and because I go to John Hill, I'm able to take geometry in person at Eisenhower. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you so much. Thank you, Andrea. I've also asked a staff member to talk about a few ways that we celebrate diver our diversity um this year at our school. Representing our talented and supportive staff is Mr. Holden Boyd. Um he is a fifth grade teacher at John's Hill. Thank you for coming. Yeah, of course. Thank you guys for having me. First of all, I want to thank the board, uh, especially the superintendent for having me
006and giving me a platform to speak. Um, so like like uh Miss Bone just said, my name's Holden Boyd. I teach fifth grade there at John's Hill. Um, I'm going to talk to you guys today a little bit about some of the multicultural learning and different things that we do. Um, this was during the month of September for Hispanic Heritage Month. Um we had an entirely bilingual um school assembly um which we had many students speak at which was an awesome awesome event. We had a guest speaker um officer Salvador Ruiz um who came and spoke to our students. We had a whole school salsa dance which let me tell you was a riot. Um, we also had Miss Ellen O um AOA who was the first Hispanic uh female astronaut reached out to us
007um and also sent us an autographed photo pretty much saying how awesome it was with what we did in our whole school salsa dance and our whole performance that we had in our um auditorium. We also did some things for Black History Month. Um we had a middle school-led um artsbased lesson um in which we had different middle school classes and students come down to talk to our K through5 students um and lead them through several different lessons which was awesome because we had a pretty much 100% um student body involvement which is awesome to see when you see those eighth graders involved with uh working with your first graders. Um these were just some of the comments that some of our staff made. Um all positive. We were overwhelmed with the positive feedback that
008we got from pretty much our whole staff. Um, they acknowledged a lot of the students how they really made an effort to get to know the kids that they were working with. It wasn't like a transactional, hey, I'm here to teach you something really quick. It was, hey, who are you? Why do you like this? Oh, what's your favorite color? Give me a little bit about you. And it was awesome to see that. I even saw some middle school students kind of take some fifth graders under their wing. Hey, I see what you're doing now. I used to do the same thing. And that was something awesome to see. Um just right here are a couple different lessons examples that we had um throughout that day. It pretty much took all morning. So our middle
009school students were going pretty much from the second floor down to the first floor interacting like I said with all K through five students. Um we also have our arts and culture fair which is coming up April 17th. It's coming up before you know it. Um which we will be displaying some different student artworks. Um we have some different foods that you can sample. Live music which is going to be awesome. and some interactive exhibits which we love to get uh and show off the works for our students whenever we get a chance. Um we will also be put putting on um our fourth annual spring musical. Um that'll be happening on April 11th and April 12th. Um Elephant and the M and Miss Piggy. So just kind of a little bit about you know
010why we work why John's Hill works the way it does. um our instructional staff going from our music teachers, art teachers, drama teachers, dance teachers, PE teachers, um all are have collaborative relationships and they all share instructional time, which is awesome to see. Um we also have a very shared vision amongst all staff. Um we're all trying to in integrate the arts in every way we can to enhance the learning ability and the the what the kids are getting out of it. Um the K8 environment that we offer um offers a lot of mentor mentee uh relationships and opening and opportunities which me as a first year teacher I love. I have vertical collaboration all the way up to my eighth grade peer or t teachers all the way down to my kindergarten teachers which
011is awesome and I love having that support as a first year teacher. Um so I will go ahead and turn it back to my principal Michelle Bonre and she's going to talk to you guys a little bit about data. Thank you. [Applause] I am very proud to serve as a principal at Johns Hill Magnet School. Our students are amazing and our staff works extremely hard every day to inspire the students to achieve and I want to share show share just a couple of those examples on how we do this. Uh let me flip to the next slide. Um earlier this year you guys have provided as the board of education provided funding for our staff to be trained in the behavioral interventions and supports commonly known as BIS. We believe that our students are best
012served being in the classroom. We have seen a 32% decrease in referrals this year as well as a 46% decrease in suspensions. Um at this time while many of the schools across the c country are struggling with high rates of chronic absenteeism we are currently at a 92% attendance rate at John's Hill. Super excited about that. I also want to take a few minutes to highlight um the improvements of the academic performances of our students. Our school improvement goal included a growth goal of 5% increase in reading and math. While we won't know for sure if we have met the goal until early May, our trend data is suggesting that we are showing improvement. Um also I wanted to highlight some of the celebrations that we had in our fourth and our fifth grade students.
013Um these students were recognized by I Ready representatives for not only the district but also from the state for showing extraordinary growth. They made a year's worth of growth in just one semester. It's also really important to mention that 44% of our student body in fourth grade and 31% of our student body in fifth grade improved on their diagnostic pl uh placement test for the first semester. We're pretty proud of that data as well. Absolutely. Um, our EXL data shows that our students have answered 1,00 actually it's been it's upped since that slide was made. It's actually 1,148,718 questions as of today. Um, that slide was made just a few days ago. So, you can see how it increases each day. Um the kids really enjoy um doing that program along with 20,53 skills mastered
014and 22,973 skills at the proficient level. Um with this support of the LL program, we are expecting some great outcomes on our fastbridge scores as well as our AR testing. Last but not least, um, at Johns Hill, we have been working really hard to bridge the gap between school and community. I wanted to recognize the Jasper Street Community Coalition for providing financial support for the creation of our neighborhood mural and providing the materials for painting our brightly colored crosswalks, which um, the students actually painted. You can kind of see um on the slides there where the students were actually creating the crosswalk um you know blocks. The Decatur Art Council helped our students during the creative process and with painting the street murals as well. So we'd like to thank them um as well as
015the Decatur Foundation and the City of Decar's Community Economic Development Department. We also would like to celebrate um would like to talk about this that we celebrated a full year of partnership with the Southside Improvement Association who established the Southside Community Garden with the help from ADM and Decater Blackfor volunteers. The garden looks great and offers produce consisting of vegetables and fruit to the community and uh to the surrounding neighborhood. The U ofi extension office has also helped students um understand the process of how plants grow and they did this by a hands-on activity um where they were planting um flower seeds and we will be planting those seeds um which now will be growing into plants um very soon um in the garden as well as students will paint rocks that will also be
016placed in the garden for decorations. Now, as you can see, I will not have enough time to highlight everybody that we have um partnered with throughout the year, but I did want to give an opportunity so that we could see all of the um community volunteers and the partnerships that we've created this year. Again, it was one of our goals that we were really um priding oursel on with trying to build that um or bridge that gap between community and and school. We would like to take the time now to at least send a big thank you to all of those community partners for helping um John Hill become the uh the destination location that that we uh we are expecting to continue with. Now I know that you guys are running a little behind
017on time. Um I did put a few links here that I would really like to have a little time to show. The one is a social studies um performing arts um assembly that we had done. Um it takes three minutes. If you feel like we have that time, I'd really like to show it because I feel like it is really powerful. Get your tissues ready because it is a really really powerful presentation from our students. I have a dream that one day The time is always right to do what is [Music] right. Right. Temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. [Music] Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do [Music] that. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. [Music] In the end, we
018will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our [Music] friends. We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. I was a drum major for justice, peace, and righteousness. There comes a time when silence is [Music] betrayed. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will always have the final say. Forgiveness is not occasional acted as a constant [Applause] [Music] [Applause] attitude. Don't let no man pull you so low as to hate you. Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase. [Music] I have decided to stick with love. Faith is too great a burden to bear. We must accept final disappointment but never lose infinite hope. [Music] No one has the right to reer in your dreams. We have a dream
019that one day [Music] [Applause] Again, I'd like to uh thank Steve Nichols for um for helping us put that slide together or that uh presentation together as well as um Mr. Hail, Kevin Hail and Miss Susie Nissman, they were um they were big instruments in trying to create that for us. So once again, I leave you in the thought that with all that was said in that video, my hope is for us to all unite as an entire district and always always put students first in the decisions that we make. So, thank you again for allowing us to showcase John's Hill and uh and thank you again for doing what you're doing to help support John's Hill. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we'll now move on to public participation. Miss Bradford, you gonna read her?
020It's up to you. As we move into public participation, I was trying to move a little too fast here this evening, I think. Um, identify oneself and be brief. Comment should be limited to three minutes. Any public comments submitted to the board secretary will be included in the record. Uh, please note that during any board of education meeting and public participation, board members do not respond and or comment to public comments. All comments are referred to administration. Furthermore, the board refrains from referring to specific students or staff members by name and requests that public public commenters refrain from doing so as well. The request that you omit names is made to protect you from allegations of liel or slander or from violations of the Illinois School Student Records Act. It is not intended to shield
021an employee from criticism. Miss Bradford. Yes. Abby Steel. Good evening. I am here once again to address all board members. In addition to union leadership, our building administrator, as well as district leadership, my daughter has now started her fourth quarter without a teacher, which also means her fourth quarter of having minimal instruction. Since I was here last, I've been able to connect with multiple other families, and it comes as no surprise my family has not been the only one concerned. Several families were catching on and started reaching out as far back as first semester. Between just four of these 19 families in this class, there have been nine in-person meetings. There have been 15 emails sent and nine phone calls made. A total of 15 people, including all of you, have been contacted. All of
022the 15 people have been contacted more than once and by more than one family. I'm not strong at math, but my best estimate at minimum 75 contacts have been made in an attempt to come up with a solution to this problem. And this is just the attempts made by four families. We aren't privy to what the other 15 families have done. This also doesn't include the one family that made multiple attempts and ended up removing their child from the school for this very problem. I've been told it's not easy to split up a class. Somehow DPS was able to gather 54 roadmap committee members to come up with various ideas and attempt to address the needs and aspirations of an entire district of kids. Are you telling me we can't even get two people, one
023from district leadership and one from union leadership to discuss a plan to address the academic needs of a class of 19? I've been told it's never been done that way. will tell that to the students in their in the first prep academy coho co cohort graduating next month with their high school diploma as well as their associates from Richland Community College somehow. Actually, I know exactly how because she's amazing. But DPS can provide amazing opportunities for students to graduate with an additional degree but can't work to get 19 students the consistent instruction that should be provided for even a se single quarter. I've been told by our building administrator that this is what we were told to do. And I've reached out to building administrators who are doing things differently and are splitting classes in
024ways that are in the best interest of the children while still seemingly following the contract. I've been told it's a union problem and I've talked to the union who has said they are willing to sit down and have conversations about the situation with district leadership. I've reached out to my building administrator's direct supervisor asking them to talk to district to union leadership and got no response regarding my specific request. That person's direct supervisor was also included and chose to not respond. I've reached out to you all who say it's out of your hands. Well, whose hands is it supposed to be in? And why isn't that person or people being held accountable? We continue to talk about our district's low to failing test scores and low graduation rates. However, we and we have a solution.
025A situation which we know students are not being in instruction for the better part of the year and we know that grades are suffering. The people in charge are not doing anything about it. The district claims they want involved parents. Well, here we are. This is what an involved parent looks like. It's not just having parents that fund raise for playgrounds and put together lunchons for teacher appreciation, but they also are involved in their kids education and hold people accountable. Thank you, Angelra or Sprag. Hello, my name is Angel Sprag. My nine-year-old son in fourth grade goes to Monasari Academy for Peace. His school year this year has been a rough one. He doesn't have an assigned teacher his entire eight months so far. Has been substitutes or he's been floated to other classrooms. Most
026of the time when he's floated to other classrooms, it is either rooms below his grade level, band class, or PE. Sadly, most of the time he's at school, it feels like he's being babysat versus getting an education. Sorry, I'm very nervous. I'm very aware there's a nationwide teacher shortage, but I'm coming to you with not just a problem, but also a solution. The parents of this teacherless class have come together and talked to the other E2 teachers at MAP. These other E2 teachers are willing to divide up my son's class and merge them into their own classes. We are told the only holdup to this is admin needing to discuss it with the teachers union. The union is telling us no one has even tried to reach out to them about this problem. I have
027made countless phone calls and wrote countless emails, very few with responses. I am a successful graduate of DPS and I was hoping for my kids to get to be the same. If no solutions come to this issue though, I'm going to have to move out of district, which devastates me. My son is incredibly bright, but this year his testing scores have gone from at level to high risk. He is struggling with no consistency and no real guidance. He isn't learning the monastery way anymore. he is being shown TV or he's being told to work on his iPad all day. I'm very distraught and I'm begging for your help right now to give our kids a education they deserve. Thank you, Kylishia Mkins. Good evening. My name is Kaisha Mackkins and I'm a parent of a
028of a student at the Monasuri Academy as well. Like the other parents who've spoken before me, I'm here to express my deep concern about the lack of consensation in my child's education this year. Uh my daughter has not had a permanent classroom teacher all year. Instead, she's often placed in other classrooms, including lower grade levels or with teachers outside of her core se subjects. for example, black orchestra um for the entire school day. The inconsistency is not acceptable for her academic growth or emotional well-being. I reached out to the school leadership in January to request a meeting. I only received a response um after a incident involving my my daughter. No meeting was ever scheduled. I also sent emails earlier in the year again in March, well sorry, January 1st and in March the second
029time regarding herademics and parent teacher conference. Neither message received a response and as of today I still have not had a single parent teacher conference for this whole entire school year. To make matters worse, my daughter shared that uh one of the substitute teachers of the class I quote told her, "I'm just a sub. I don't technically need to be here." End quote. Um, that kind of comment sends a terrible message to the students who are already lacking stability in their learning environment. If this is a reflection of how academics are being handled, it's no wonder the school is struggling. I understand that teacher shortages are real. But if we can even get a cons if we can't even get a consistent staff in a specialized program as as in monastery um it reflects poorly
030on the reputation of the entire district. I may not have the per perfect solution but I know that our children deserve a daily curriculum with dedicated educators and parents deserve basic communication from those responsible for our kids learning. Uh this issue has been raised before. So once again, I'm asking what steps are technically being taken to address this problem and ensure our children get the education they deserve. Thank you. I think that's it, Bill. Okay, we'll move on to our junior board members. Nice to see you all here this evening. Do we have two reports or no report? No report tonight. No report tonight, but we're glad you're here. Glad to see those smiling faces. Uh we'll move on to board discussion. I'll ask Dr. Curry uh to join us to give us an update
031on the ESRE funds. Thank you. Um first of all, it's nice to have you back, boss. Appreciate that. And I had a great conversation with our junior board members uh about TV shows that now I need to check into. So uh we we had some time to visit while you guys were upstairs. Um, but the reason I'm here is I believe it's important to bring the recent SNAP decision by the United States Department of Education to light. Um, on March 28th of 2025, the state superintendent received the following letter. I'm not going to read it all. I'm going to I'm going to just hit some highlights here. Um, this letter came from the Linda McMahon, the Secretary of Education, US Department of Ed. I write to inform you of a modification to the time period
032to liquidate obligations under the education stabilization fund including all programs funded by the American Rescue Plan. So that would be our ESER esser expenses. Uh in response to a liquidation extension request, the Department of Education previously granted um discretionary extension. Discretionary was never part of our original waiver um or the extension. uh the period of liquidation, but the department has reconsidered your request and the letter is not just addressed to DPS. It's 26 other districts in the state of Illinois and in other states. After careful review, the department is modifying the liquidation period to end March 28th, 2025. The letter came on March 28th, 2025. The department has concluded that the further uh extension of the liquidation period for the aforementioned grants uh has well passed the period of performance. You and your subreients have
033had ample time to liquidate obligations by failing to meet the clear deadline in the regulation. You ran the risk of the that the department would deny your extension request. Extending deadlines for COVID related grants years after the COVID pandemic ended is not consistent with the department's priorities and thus not a worthwhile exercise of its discretion. The department's initial approval of your extension request does not change anything. Any reliance developed um any reliance interest developed are minimal. $1.9 million for us is not minimal. Um, an agency may reconsider its prior decisions. And there's a footnote. So, you could not rely on the Department of Education adhering to its original decision. You were entitled to the full award only if you liquidated all of your funds within 120 days of the period of performance. You failed to
034do so. Again, not just DPS, 26 other state, 26 other districts. Any reliance on a discretionary extension subject to reconsideration by the agency was unreasonable. Nowhere in the waiver did it say it could be revoked. The department amends the period of liquidation to end on March 28th, 2025 at 5:00 p. p.m. Eastern. So 4:00 here on the 28th, the same day the letter came. Dr. Clark didn't receive the letter until Monday, April 1st. Um, so due to the logistics and weather delays, the completion of four major projects were delayed. And instead of rushing completion, we had a conversation, we worked hard, we filled out the waiver, we believed in the concept of the waiver, we were granted the liquidation waiver. Um, and I just wanted to make sure everybody understood that the revocation of this
035waiver could result and likely will result in the district having to shift $1.9 million into the general fund. Once the liquidation waiver was approved, the district and 26 others acted in good faith uh that it would be honored. So, just so you guys are all aware, there's a good chance that 1.9 million will now have to come out of your coffers at this point in time. So, just wanted to express that. Any questions? If that happens, where does it come from? Uh, most likely, depending on um where we're at fund balance-wise, it'll most likely come out of fund 60. Could also come out of fund 10. We'll also probably most likely have to bring you an amended budget in May. will include the expenditures that were uh if we take it out of anything other
036than fund 10, we'll have to amend a budget. So that's a 30-day process like the the regular budget process. So the last paragraph in this letter talks about extensions. Can the state of Illinois is going to try to do an extension on behalf of all of us? What do you think the chances of that? Zero. Yeah. I mean, I hope not. I mean, that's the glass half empty, but the this process was never discretionary. the fact that the sentence would say that you uh any reliance uh you should not rely on the department adhering to its original decision doesn't forebo well I don't think but uh obviously ourselves and the other I'm sure the other 26 districts and we are not the ones with the largest amount out there um because of projects winter those
037sort of things but you say the state of Illinois is f going through through a judicial process potentially. I mean, they they said right now, hold off on getting your paperwork ready. So, so we shouldn't do anything. We're already prepared. We did it, but we're not submitting it yet. The extension you're talking about? The extension was done and denied or was approved and then it was revoked. The individual process we have not. We've done I've done the paperwork. I'm ready to go. When the time comes, we'll submit it to the state. Have we reached out to our entire legislative delegation at the federal level? We have not. No, we have not. The state of Illinois, I believe, is going to the ISBY is going to do that. I don't think it hurts to advocate for
038oursel. Correct. I don't want to step out in front of them just yet. Um Okay. But yeah, I would keep that. I have all their contact information. Yes. All right. Just wanted to bring it to light. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks. Is there anything else the board would like to discuss at this point in time? Um, as I'm nearing the end of my term, there are some things I want to talk about. Um, I'll talk most about next the final meeting, but there are a couple things that I encourage the district to move on as soon as possible that we kind of talked about last time. One is the resolution of what to do with the students in the southwestern section of the city where there's three buildings that are unclear what's going to
039happen to them. The whole question of whether you're going to continue to have neighborhood schools for K5. Um something needs to be done fairly soon um to address whether or not how you're going to handle the buildings and everything. So I I urge something to be moving on that. Uh it cannot wait until there's a full facilities plan. Um, and the other thing is, um, something I kind of mentioned or alluded to last time, and I strongly urge the administration, uh, and the roadmap committee to work together to do a survey of all of our teachers and teacher assistants um, before the end of the school year on their thoughts about a lot of priority issues in this district. I don't feel we're getting a broad input from them. Um, and I think that's very
040important. Thank you. Thank you. Um, I know that it's been brought up before, but I just want to remind my fellow board members if you've not seen your email, uh, there's a question that I had asked about, um, sometimes constituent emails are ending up in spam box. So, I would encourage my fellow board members to check that and ensure that if you can to reply to the emails that uh the community sends in. I've talked to probably in the past six weeks I've probably talked to via email, phone calls, and social media and in person probably 130 people about the road mapap committee. And one of the things I consistently hear is I'm the only one responding to emails and I'm the only one that's meeting people, which I know is not the fact. Uh
041which I know is not the case because everybody up here is out in the community talking to talking to people. So I I just want you to be aware that there could be technical issues uh that you should check your spam box and uh there's no good solution for it right now is what has been explained to me. So, um, but yes, please, please do that. Okay, thank you. Anything else? Okay, let's move on to uh reports from administration, Dr. Robinson. Good evening, board, um, superintendent, your excellency, and, um, our board secretary. Um, I'm here tonight to talk to you about our career and technical education and secondary data updates. I think you'll find uh the work that we've been doing um shows that we have higher expectations uh for our school district from the
042middle and secondary levels. Uh we'll be speaking about the data from the secondary standpoint and career and technical education data. Next slide. You have Yeah, I got Yeah, green button. Green. There you go. Green. Green button. Got it. That working. Right. Right. That was right. Got it. All right. So, these are some high lever strategies and uh tactics for improvement that we've been putting forward. Uh the two strategies that we have to increase student achievement for middle and secondary are reducing chronic absenteeism. We know that it's a huge deal for us. It's one of the um most glaring uh metrics that you see when you look at our state report card along with increasing the graduation rate. Uh we currently have a 45.3% uh chronic absenteeism rate. Uh that is quite a bit below the
043Illinois state average. And that shows that we have an achievement gap in this regard of 19 percentage points. So we have a lot of work to do in this regard. In terms of graduation rate, we know there's much work to do here as well. We currently stand at 74% and we know that that is unacceptable. So we want to close this achievement gap of 13.7 percentage points uh by using the following tactics on the right side of the table. So what we've ushered in in the middle school is deliberate career exploration for our middle school students. So every eighth grade student will have a career exploration class or at least have it integrated into one of their magnet school thematic classes uh to ensure they're exposed to careers. uh the earlier that we do it
044uh the more focus and sense of direction those students have and that helps them to cross the finish line. Uh we're offering engaging interestbased courses. Now I don't know if you've seen this data. I know we showed it to uh President uh Clevenger. Um the 6th through 12th grade uh students through major clarity we've been able to draw out what their interests are. All right. Many of them and the majority of them are interested in human services, business, they want to be entrepreneurs. Um, STEM. Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry for those people listening that don't know what Major Clarity is. Okay. Yeah. So, so Major Clarity is uh an online platform that we use to create profiles for our students. We use it to gauge where students are in their progression from grades 6 through 12.
045we identify um what things they're interested in. We can keep up with their resumes and just track a a number of things that uh students would engage in while they're in middle through high school. All right. So, um we've we've looked at the interest inventories and we see that our students are interested in some courses that we don't even offer. So, we'll talk a little bit about some of those things that we've expanded to as we go down this list, but we have to know what students want and we have to know what industry is requiring to be able to provide that which will make the most sense for students to cross the finish line because we do have one goal for every single student that traverses our hallways and that is to receive a
046college diploma. So, what happens along the way is what we're speaking to right here. expanding and promoting CTE pathways uh through Hartland Tech. Um in the updated slide, we also have our CCP, which is the college and career pathways endorsement. And we offer 15 different programs at Heartland Heartland Tech. But we also have what would be considered certifications or an endorsement, which is a seal that's on a student's diploma that demonstrates that they have in-depth knowledge in a certain program of study. Now, we have some exciting news. We started the year with one um career um uh pathway endorsement and that was certified nursing assistant. We now have four. So, that's outstanding for our districts. District a lot of districts don't even have a single one. We've recently added agriculture, welding, and just yesterday digital
047business. So that that's outstanding work from our CTE department comprised of uh uh Britney Bergman and Ronda Cox and myself. Um industry student industry certifications for students. We uh thought that this is one of the catalysts for moving the needle for all students. We get them excited about learning. They show that they have in-depth knowledge of a certain area. And you'll see on the next slide uh what that industry certification attainment is looking like. Uh we're expanding in school and early post-secondary learning opportunities and maximizing and expanding partnerships with industry. This could not be done without the work of innovative programs. Um alone we can do ordinary things but with innovative programs which is headed by uh Miss Ashley Grey and Leslie Risby we can do extraordinary things uh for our kids. Uh this also
048is uh is butressed by people such as Dr. for Wanita Morris uh with her Dawson Civic Leadership Institute. We've been partnering with her. Rocky Wilkerson with CWA. This helps us uh put our hands around more of our kids and more of them cross the finish line because we can't keep losing 26% of our students or them not graduating on time. And then lastly, um with the gentle nudge of uh Dr. Larry Gray, we've been meeting quarterly at a quart on a quarterly basis with each of our cohorts with an emphasis on freshmen. Uh freshmen are where we lose many of our students. Uh so we've been monitoring their progress toward at least five credit hours and not failing any classes. So freshman on track is a huge metric. So if if I come back to
049this podium, I'm going to be talking about freshman on track. This is a key metric for us. But we not only meet with the students, right? We meet with our counselors. And this is where the rubber meets the road. Our counselors are the guides. So we've been meeting with our counselors on a quarterly basis and they have to speak to the progress of every student in every cohort with an emphasis on freshmen. So that we've been tracking that data. So you see our strategies to move chronic absenteeism and increase graduation rate and our tactics on the right side. And uh let's take a look at some of the recent results. All right. CTE industry certifications from 2019 through 2020 to this year. This is our longitudinal data. If you look closely, you'll see in 1920
050we had six total industry certifications for our students. Now, industry certifications are the equivalent of a diploma for someone who doesn't go to college. That's making sense to everybody. So, an industry certification is the equivalent of a diploma or even a degree for someone who does not attend college. So, in 2019 2020, we had six. We know that was a pandemic year. 2021 full pandemic, we still had 23. So, congratulations to uh Ed Walton and uh his team for their work. 23 OSHA 10 certifications. This is a safety certification. Anyone who works in construction and manufacturing will have a safety certification of some sort or have awareness training. 22 23 seven again. Last year we had 41 certifications. We had two serve safe food handler. You can't work in someone's kitchen with ready to eat
051food without some sort of food handler certification. Otherwise, you'll um be the reason for a food born illness, right? And then 3,900 safety certifications. So, 41 last year, right? This year with an even greater emphasis. And I told you that we have higher expectations for our students. We have 40 serve safe food handler, 60 plus hunter safety, 105 OSHA 10 certifications, and we're still not done yet. Um, we have uh that's actually supposed to be two OSHA 30 certifications. That's a big certification. It's 30 hours. That's why it says OSHA 30. And then CPR 86. Uh, congratulations to Eisenhower High School. They've been able to uh make that happen. and that's been fantastic um at that school. And then 28 barberside for a total of 326 [Applause] certifications and that's not all. So by the
052end of the year we are projecting about 360. So that'll be about a 900% increase. So, uh, outstanding work from our CTE department, our students, uh, um, our our principles at both of our high schools. Um, Mr. Ingram and Miss Rodriguez have been absolutely phenomenal. But big props go to our egg department because they're the reason for so many of our OSHA teens. All right, that's not all. All right, freshman on track. So, if you read the little uh blurb at the bottom, it says a student on track at the end of ninth grade is four times more likely to than a student that is four times more likely to graduate than students that are off track. All right, remember we said five credits, not felling a class, right? So, Eisenhower, they're currently at 76%.
053Now, so we have 63 students that are deficient credits. That means that they don't have the five credits. They might have be fell in the class but we are tracking those students. That's why we uh we have major clarity that's why we have the meetings with the counselors right that's why we have the meetings with the individual students and then McAuthor they have 43 students out of a population of 20 uh 281 and u that's only 15%. And the number of students that are on track is 85%. Now, if those numbers hold true, look what that does to our graduation rate. If those students stay on track for the next three years, then Eisenhower will have a 76% graduation rate, which is 8 percentage points higher than they have right now, right? and Mac Author,
054they will have a six point uh six percentage point uh increase at their school and that will be a huge boom to our student outcomes in our district. So, I'm proud of the work that our two principles at our high schools are doing uh to produce these numbers. Now, so what does that mean? What do what are the anticipated outcomes uh with us on this trajectory? One, we will reduce our chronic absenteeism. Students are in class, they have a greater opportunity to learn more material, and more of them cross the finish line. They get a diploma. Increased graduation rates, they get a diploma. Enhanced college and job prospects. You don't you don't go to college without a diploma, right? And they have opportunities for excellent jobs, expanded opportunities to explore careers and develop interests. So
055they get started early. So maybe I maybe I can be uh an auto mechanic with multiple automotive service excellence certifications. All right. Provide more industry specific skills and credentials. And when our industry partners see that our students have uh these credentials, they're more apt to hire them. also they can put the credentials alongside the resume and um be more employable. Uh it sets our students apart from their peers and it helps to jumpstart careers. So that's what's happening uh from a middle and secondary standpoint. That is our data and um that's the work we're doing in the department of teaching and learning. Any questions? Thank you. Go ahead. Th this seems to be mostly geared towards high school. If you're thinking about getting it down in the sixth, seventh, and eth somehow. Absolutely. That's the
056next frontier. So the we're looking at the end users, the students receiving a diplomas. How to make sure that every student is able to cross the finish line. But to to make it easier for them to apply their reading and their their math skills, we have to bring career exploration all the way down to the early grades. And we're doing some of that already with our STEM programs at multiple schools. Okay. And just clarifications on clarification on the certificates. Uh when you say hunter safety, that's actually like hunting class, correct? Okay. Yes. Okay. Absolutely. And then secondly, when you say barbberide, does that include the 1500 hours? No. So it's part of it. So they start the class with the sanitation component and that's what the barberide is all about to ensure that they're not
057um allowing um someone's ailment to be transmitted to another person. Excellent. Thanks. Any other questions? One comment. Yes, sir. I want to get to digress for just a minute and get back to my uh platform that I usually harp on and that's we can't get here if our children can't read and do basic math by the third grade. I agree. So I every opportunity I have, I'm going to keep harping on that. I think I think it's absolutely critical that we address that. Address it quickly and just keep pushing that envelope as quickly as we possibly can. Yes. So every time you come up, just expect that comment. Absolutely. Okay. I will. And Mary Brady, when you come up next, maybe you can expect the same comment. Um, one more thing I want to add,
058Mark. Um, major clarity also helps us with the younger grades to prepare for this outcome. And our community partners have already started going into our middle schools and um, helping to introduce them. And now we're also looking at getting them in front of someone so they can actually see the job unfold. Okay. Go going back to to Bill's thing about reading and stuff. We've heard for the past four or five meetings uh a very impassion speech from from parents who don't have a teacher in their in their classroom and and it just breaks my heart. We we've got to be able to do something to to to broaden the access to people who will come in and teach. I I know that there's all sorts of regulations that people have to have, but We have
059people who will sub but are told they can't because it's a it's a conflict with what they're doing. We need to break those those stereotypes and those things and and save that mom's kid. I mean, it's it's we we as a board when when we have someone come for four or five meetings and say the same problem over and over again and we don't do anything about it ju just specifically for that mom. It makes us look weak. It makes us look like we don't care. And I know that's not true. We we all care. Every one of us here care about that. But I I just I just feel like there's got to be something we can do about that. Thanks for the Mary Brady. Hello everyone. So to start with President Clevenger's uh
060kind of question about what are we doing about reading and um academics, we're going to talk a little I'm going to talk a little bit to you about summer school and what we have um in store for summer school this year. So we're going to have summer school for the month of June. It'll be Monday through Thursday. We have several programs that are be going on. We have our K5 as Along with our English as a second language learners at John's Hill, we will have our special education K8 program at Hope that is a make and piatt. So I'm really not going to talk too much about that. And then we have our high school programs for drivers ed apex which is credit recovery as well as liveetaught English and live taught math at um
061both high schools. What students and staffing is going to look like for our K5 students is there's going to be about 89 90 students in that group. These were candidates for retention as well as students who fell in the first percentile nationally in reading and math who did not already have special education services provided to them. There will be one teacher per grade level along with at least one teaching assistant per grade level. In a couple of the grade levels, there's going to be an additional teaching assistant in order to provide that support. All of the teachers are certified and teaching at the grade level that they have been assigned. Academics wise, we are really going to focus on phonics, literacy, and and mathematics. We're really going to get down to those foundational and fundamental
062skills so that we can address that need to get them caught up if they aren't reading at grade level. We recognize that these students are significantly below level and we're going to focus on instruction that is based around the science of reading. We're going to do a lot of small groupoup instruction. We have the numbers of staff to order to support that. However, part of academics and learning how to read are having some of those experiences that aren't from the book because if I don't know what a camel is, for example, and I don't know why I came up with that. That's just my example because I've never seen it when I read about it, it doesn't make any sense. So, we're going to be doing some inschool field trips. We have partnered with 4,
063with Rock Springs, as well as physics on the road from Illinois State University, and they're going to come in multiple times during the four-week session in order to do some inschool field trips to have some of those experiences. We were talking to um some of the staff today and for example they'll bring in like the reptiles into the kids so they can touch them and feel them and have all those fun nasty experiences. And then the very last day of uh summer school, we are going to take all the students to the Decatur Zoo for a field trip. And so we're really excited about the opportunity to be able to do this. And this will not be limited just to our K5 students. Our ESL students will also participate in these field trips as well
064as um those experiences. For our high school staffing, we have our students. We have about a 175 students at each high school who will participate. And we have um at least one math teacher, I'm sorry, one English teacher teaching live English, one math teacher who will teach live math. And this is for at each high school. We'll have four teachers doing credit recovery through Apex, a person who is coordinating that Apex, that credit recovery process. We still have a guidance counselor at each high school, as well as one um driver's education teacher. And then at um Eisenhower, they will also have inequity and change. And what is not on here is there's two or three dual credit classes that are also going to be offered during the summer as well. Communications 101 is the fir
065is one that comes to mind as well as one of the egg classes and there is another one that has just gone completely out of my mind at this point. Um and then for our ESL we have about 25 students who will be participating in grades um K through seven. There will be two teachers, a teaching assistant and a coordinator to provide that structure. And again, they're going to focus on that English language development, literacy, and mathematics. And oh, and so that is what I have regarding that. But there's also some other fun things going on um because I am not Maria Robertson and I completely blanked. We have um a little video Scott, we have a little video um about our community summer signup. Good evening, members of the board, Dr. Clark and Miss
066Bradford along with our viewing audience. I'm sorry I'm unable to be at tonight's meeting in person. However, you're not getting away with not hearing my voice. I'm Maria Robertson, the director of communications and PR for the school district. And I'm very excited to present tonight an update on the community summer signup events and resource fair that we held last Thursday at MacArthur High School for families. This event was our fourth year and our families were very appreciative of the event one and two for the financial assistance. The event allows community organizations to fill their summer programs with our students and for our families. It's a single event to learn about the many summer activities available for their kiddos right here in our community. The event was open for two hours to the public and we
067had over 20 community partner and local health service organizations at the event. We wanted to make this year's experience for our families better than last year. So, we offered something new. We allowed parents to have their student pre-verified in advance of the event to ensure that vouchers were given to eligible students. parents who did not pre-verify in advance, we did verify them on site at the event. However, the the line was much shorter this year. The feedback I've heard from many parents and our workers was that the pre-verified steps doing that in advance was a huge success. Also new this year, we offer two increments of vouchers, $10 and $25 totaling the $350 to allow parents to break up the vouchers across multiple programs if they wanted to do so. Summer vouchers are good for
068program dates June 2nd through August 1st. And at the request of the board, it has been emphasized many times with our partner organizations in my email communications, in my Zoom planning meetings that we've held to provide programs for our students that promote reading and math activities. So, let's go over the numbers. I mentioned parents pre-verified students for two weeks prior to spring break. And in those two weeks, we verified 142 students. Last year, we distributed a total of 1,363 vouchers. At the event, we issued and verified on site 214 students. And then add that to the 405 vouchers that were picked up because they were pre-verified. We hosted over 600 students at MacArthur's gym last Thursday. It was a huge success. The gym was packed. At the end of the day yesterday, we had issued
069a total of 1,291 vouchers. So, we are almost over that 1300 mark. I want to make sure that I thank the many partner organizations that are hosting our students this summer so they can keep them busy making sure that our students never stop learning. Our community partners have been amazing to work with over the years and they absolutely love having our students. It was enlightening to see some of our organizations at the event last Thursday recognized many of the kiddos that were there um from last year that were in their program. So, it is so cool to see that our students are making connections in our community at such a young age. Anyone that missed last week's event can pick up vouchers now through Thursday, April the 17th at the Kyle Administration Building. If you
070pre-verified or you didn't pre-verify, vouchers can be picked up. And they're only available at the Kyle building from 8:30 to 4:00 through Thursday, April 17th. No exceptions. 4:00 Thursday, April 17th is the last date parents can pick up vouchers. We have the end of this week and most of next week to pick up those vouchers. 4 o'clock Thursday, April 17th, cuto off time and date. Next is a short video highlight so you can see for yourself just how successful the event turned out. [Music] Um I have two kids that go to Monasuri and first in preschool. So we're just looking for activities for them to get more involved in the community for this summer. So, I am here with my son, Davis, and he's getting enrolled in two of the music camps with Milikin University.
071I love this event because I didn't even know half of these programs even existed. Like, they have a whole conservation camp I know my son's going to love that I hadn't even heard about. So, I think it's just very educational and a good opportunity for all the kids to be involved. The best benefit that has been for him is that it keeps him engaged, keeps him socializing with individuals of his age group in a constructive manner. These are super these vouchers are so helpful because I'm a single mom. So, paying for this has been, you know, very hard and these vouchers are super helpful and just having this event with all these people here has just made it so much easier for me to help my kids have a fun summer. So that's a wrap.
072That is all the things community summer programs. Thank you for allowing me to virtually share my presentation with you and I hope everyone has a wonderful evening. All right. I think just wanted to I'm sorry. Just wanted to kind of add um she is right the everything went a lot faster this uh goround because we had two separate lines. people that had to come in and ver verify and people that had already verified so it wasn't the line wrapped around the building and it it just went off flawlessly. So I thought she did a great job. Okay, so that is an update on where we are with summer school. We will come back after summer school and present data about what student growth looked like over the summer with the students who participated. Questions, comments,
073questions. Just the staffing for summer school. You think the staffing? The staffing with summer school. We have been very very successful with staffing. We actually had a few more people. We have I think four positions at the high school and I meant to look before I came over here tonight and I got into some other emails and so I didn't get that checked, but I have been assured by both my high school principles that they have the people there ready to go. So by the end of the week we'll have it fully staffed which I am super excited about cons considering sometimes that's one of the biggest challenges that we have. Yeah. Good. Great. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. That ends our reports from administration. Okay. We'll move on to our consent items.
074Does anybody want uh any of the items on the consent calendar pulled? Do we 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 March 18th 20125 B freedom of information report C bill bills D Illinois elementary school association membership 2025206 Eino High School Association IHSA membership 2025 5, 2026 both for Eisenhower High School and MacArthur High School. Do I have a motion? So move second. Any discussion? Miss Bradford. Mr. Shider. Hi. Mr. Reynolds. Hi. Mr. Wzel. Hi. Miss Banks. Hi. And Mr. Cleger. I five I zero Nate two absent. Motion carried. Okay. We'll move on to our roll call action items. Uh, do we have a recommendation on student 2425-000020 expulsion case? Yes. I recommend the board
075of education authorize the issuance of a deci of a decision in the expulsion case for student number 2425-000020 consistent with the findings from the hearing officer's report and that student number 24250020 be expelled from the Decar public school district all events, property and activities of the district for the remainder of the 2024 2025 school year. All of the 2526 school year through the first semester of the 2627 school year uh for a stay offer for stay for alternative education. Student number 2425-000020 can return to their home school on the first student attendance day after winter break of the 2627 school year. Do I have a motion? So move. Second. Any discussion? I will abstain from this one. I wasn't present during the hearing. Okay. Miss Bradford. Mr. Clevenger. I Mr. Mr. Reynolds I Mr. Wetszel
076I Mr. Shider I and Miss Banks abstain four I zero nay two absent one abstain motion carried thank you do we have a recommendation on student 2425-000021 expulsion case yes I recommend the board of education authorize the issuance of a decision in the expulsion case for student number 2425-000021 consistent with the findings from the hearing officer's report and that student number 2425 5- Z0021 be expelled from the Decatur Public School District all events, property, and activities of the district for the remainder of the 2425 school year, all of the 2526 school year through the first semester of the 2627 school year with the stay for alternative education. Student number 2425- Z0021 can return to their home school on the first student attendance day after winter break of the 2627 school year. Do I have a
077motion? I'll move. Second discussion. I'll be abstaining from this one as well. Miss Bradford. Mr. Shider. Hi. Mr. Reynolds. Hi. Mr. Wetzel. Hi. Mr. Clevenger. Hi. And Miss Banks. Abstain. Four I zero nay, two absent, one abstain. Motion carried. Do we have a recommendation on student 2425-000022 expulsion case? Yes. I recommend the board of education authorize the issuance of a decision in the expulsion case for student number 2425-000022 consistent with the findings from the hearing officer's report. and that student number 2425-000022 be expelled from Decatur Public School District all events, property, and activities of the district for the remainder of the 2425 school year, all of the 2526 school year through the first semester of the 2627 school year with a stay for alternative education. Student number 2425-000022 can return to their home school on
078the first student attendance day after winter break of the 2627 school year. Do I have a motion? So move. Second discussion. Miss Bradford. Miss Banks. I. Mr. Clevenger. I. Mr. Reynolds. Hi. Mr. Shider. Hi. And Mr. Wetszel. Hi. Five. I zero nay two absent. Motion carried. Thank you. Uh there'll be no action right now on item D. We'll be moving back into executive session uh to continue discussion of that issue and then we'll come back to open session uh to continue that item. 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, director of human resources and the human resources department as presented. Do I have a motion? So move second discussion. Have a question on
079one item. It's called just to understand what the item is. Uh corduroy ag stipen on March 24th at teaching and learning. So what was that about? That is the quarterly stipen that our egg teachers get through the three circles grant. They get teachers. Oh, okay. It's for their 100 hours. Oh, they were both capitalized, so it threw me off. Oh, yeah. I thought the attorney general or something. No, it's agriculture. Okay. Thank you. Other questions? I'm just glad Melissa is staying with us. Do we have a motion? Still moved. Oh, we we have a motion and second on the floor. Okay, Miss Bradford, Mr. Reynolds, hi. I appreciate you, Mr. Wetzel. Hi, Mr. Shider. Hi, Miss Banks. Hi, and Mr. Clevener. Hi. Five, zero Nate, two absent. Motion carried. Thank you. I recommend the board
080of education approve the superintendent of schools compensation for the 2425 school year and the 2526 school year as presented. Motion. So move second discussion. I was just thinking we might need an addendum to that to extend it another year. So just saying other discussion I'm going to counter that and say get your rest. Miss Bradford, Mr. Wetszel. I Miss Banks. Hi. Mr. Shider. I don't feel that we've done the appropriate procedure for developing this contract. So no Mr. Mr. Clevener I and Mr. Reynolds I four I one nay two absent. Motion carried. Do we have a recommendation for the final calendar for Decatur Public School District 612 2425 school year? Yes. I recommend the board of education approve the final calendar for Decatur Public School District 61 2024 2025 school year as presented. Do I
081have a motion? So move. Second. I'm assuming that was the one we received last meeting, right? There's been no changes since the last meeting, right? This one um this is for current year. Okay, you can speak to All right. This is actually for this year. This is just finalizing our last day of student attendance. Um because we didn't have any snow days that we just had two e-learning days. We're just confirming the end of the school year as May 22nd. Okay. Sorry, I misunderstood. Miss Bradford, Mr. Shider. Hi, Miss Banks. Hi, Mr. Wetszel. Hi, Mr. Cleger. Hi, and Mr. Reynolds. Hi. Five, I zero nay, two absent. Motion carried. Thank you. Do we have a recommendation to increase the teacher ready program slots from 25 to 50? Yes. I recommend the board of education approved
082to increase the teacher ready program slots from 25 to 50 as presented. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second discussion. This is wonderful. Yes. I think yes. It's a extremely positive move waiting list or something. Six people waiting. Yes. Yes. That's outstanding. Awesome. Miss Bradford, Miss Banks. Hi. Mr. Wetzel. Hi. Mr. Reynolds. Hi. Mr. Shider. Hi. And Mr. Clevenger. Hi. Five eyes. Zero nay. Two absent. Motion carried. Do you have recommendation for the handwriting curriculum learning without tears? Yes, I recommend the board of education approve the handwriting curriculum learning without tears as presented and it is just a title. Do we have a motion? Second. That's cursive discussion. It's um all handwriting, printing and cursive. Printing and cursive. Yes, Miss Bradford. Mr. Shider. Hi, Mr. Cleger. Hi, Mr. Reynolds. Hi, Miss Banks. Hi, and
083Mr. Wetszel. Hi. Five, I zero, two absent. Motion carried. Do we have a recommendation for the FastBridge DNA Star Assessment Software renewal? Yes. I recommend the board of education approve the FastBridge DNA, I'm sorry, FastBridge DNA Star Assessment Software renewal as presented. Do I have a motion? So, move. Second discussion. In the past, I've voiced my concern about over testing and I still feel the same way. So, I'll be voting no. Miss Bradford. Mr. Shider. No. Mr. Wetzel. I. Mr. Clevenger. I. Miss Banks. Hi. And Mr. Reynolds. Hi. Four. I one nay. Two absent. Motion carried. Do we have a recommendation for the district consolidated plan? Yes. I recommend the board of education approve the district consolid consolidated plan as presented. Motion. So move. Second. Discussion. Yes. Uh this is not the roadmap 2030 plan.
084That is the number one question that I have gotten. No, this is not road mapap 2030. I know that. I just want to make it very clear for everybody out there that this is not that. I'm glad you uh clarified that. For everyone, please. So, the district consolidated plan is just a requirement by the state of Illinois that uh details the things that we have planned for the school district. Once that's approved, then we can submit our title one, title two, all all the plans um going forward. But that has to be approved first by the board before we can then submit for next year's title plans. Was it one more thing you want? Yeah, if you don't mind while I'm here. I just Yeah, I'm very disappointed in what I talked about earlier and
085I maybe got out in front of myself just a little bit. Valerie Wells is nice enough to let me look at her minutes. And so I can't really speak for what the state is actually going to do, but I have asked them to um submit on behalf of all of us. I'm hoping they will submit on behalf of all of us, but I didn't want to say that the state will because they make final decisions, not me. But we're hoping that they will submit on behalf of all of us. So, thank you for that. Do we want to back that up with saying we'll we'll do it if they don't? Oh, we we're ready to do it. Yes. That's what I thought you meant. And in that vein, I'd urge all of my fellow board
086members to reach out to our congressional representatives. Thank you. I would second that for sure. Uh do we have a recommendation for We have a motion and a second. I am moving on through here tonight, let me tell you. Just need a roll call vote. Miss Bradford. Mr. Reynolds. Hi, Miss Banks. Hi, Mr. Wetszel. Hi, Mr. Cleger. Hi, and Mr. Shider. Five I zero nay, two absent. Motion carried. Do we have a recommendation for the Lamar digital billboard renewal? Yes. I recommend the board of education approve the Lamar digital billboard renewal as presented. Motion. So move. Second. Discussion. I I just have a question about how do we measure the effectiveness of our marketing strategies and the billboards. I've seen the on the back of the buses and uh what what are the cost benefits
087of those and how do we measure that? So I can give you a short answer. Um the best way that we can measure it from a HR standpoint for recruitment is to list it as a referral source on the application. So how did you learn about us? Um, so we we presented some data to the board um earlier in an email that um we just added those referral sources in March. So in one month we've had 15 applicants list that as a referral source. But when you think about marketing, it's a layered campaign. So you know someone may recognize, oh look, you know, DPS is hiring, but it may be the job fair that encourages them to apply. So, one is just to get name recognition just for people to seek you out and say,
088"Oh, they're hiring and go to your website." Um, we can only track the data that they supply, which is them saying, "This is how I heard of you or this is what made me apply." So, we are collecting that data though and we'll do a better job of doing that over the course of this next campaign over the 11 months if approved. Thank you. Where are where are our billboards located? Okay. Our billboards are located in Decar, Foresight, Mount Zion, Clinton, Atlanta, Bloomington, Normal, Champagne, Orurbana, Peoria, Springfield, Taylorville, Shelbyville, Effingham, Charleston, Broadwell, Glennarm, Jacksonville, Sullivan, and Tuscola. And we want all of those wonderful teachers to come here to DPS, discover the difference here. Atlanta, Illinois. Illinois. Illinois. Yes. Thank you. In Atlanta, Georgia. I just wanted to make sure everybody knows you might need
089him in Atlanta, Georgia, too. It's one of the electric charging stops. Any further discussion? Miss Bradford, Mr. Cleger, hi. Mr. Reynolds, hi. Mr. Wetzel, no. Mr. Shider, I and Miss Banks. Four I, one nay, two absent. Motion carried. Okay, that brings us to our announcements of upcoming dates and I think we'll see those on the screen here. Um, our condolences to to uh Terry Davis passed away on Saturday, March 15th. Mr. Davis was the father of Holly Kitson, our principal at Parson's Elementary School. Donald Bonszac passed away Wednesday, March 26th. Mr. Bons was the father of Maria Bonszac, third grade teacher at Dennis Lab School. Karen Catmus, who passed away Sunday, April 6, 2025. Miss Catamus was the mother of Kathy Horath, director of the Mon Payatt Special Education District. Condolences to all those families.
090Um, April 18th, a Good Friday holiday, and no school for students. District offices are closed. Uh the 23rd is a district half day for all students. Um and the 26th MacArthur High School 2024 senior year prom Decater Club from 7 to 10. May 3rd is the Eisenhower prom Decater Club from 7 to 10. Now, I move that we return to closed executive session to conduct an employee discipline hearing, discuss discipline, performance or dismissal of specific employees of the public body, and collective negotiating matters between the board and representatives of its employees. Can I get a second? Second. Any discussion? We will be coming back into open session. We will be coming back into open session. Miss Bradford, I think this calls for a roll call vote. Mr. Reynolds. Hi, Miss Banks. Hi, Mr. Wetszel. Hi,
091Mr. Clevenger. Hi. And Mr. Shider, five eyes, zero nay, two absent. Okay, we're now in closed executive session and we will resume on the in third floor conference room and once completed, we will re open the meeting back up again and take an action. Oh, yeah. [Music] Education has been in closed executive session to conduct an employee discipline hearing, discuss discipline, performance or dismissal of specific employees of the public body, and collective negotiating matters between the board and representatives of its employees. Miss Bradford, we're going to we're going to call the role. We don't have to, but I can if you want me to. Let's do that just to be sure. Okay. Mr. Clevener here. Miss Banks Mr. Wetszel here. Mr. Reynolds here. And Mr. Schneider here. Five I zero nay two absent. Okay. Now
092we'll move on to item D. Do we have a recommendation for a possible discipline and/or termination of a Decator Educational Support Personnel Association employee? Yes. I recommend the board of education approve the termination of Decatur Educational Support Personnel Association Despa employee Natasha Cobb effective Wednesday, April 9th, 2025 as presented. Do I have a motion? So move. Discussion. Miss Bradford. Mr. Shider. No. Mr. Clevenger. I Mr. Wetzel. No. Miss Banks. Hi. And Mr. Reynolds. Hi. Three. I two nay. Two absent. Motion carried. Okay. Do we have a motion to adjurnn? So move. Second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Oppose. Same. We are adjourned.