6/18/2025 Regular Board Meeting

001You guys feeling good? All right, everybody. We're going to get started here in just a minute. If you could please give us uh some quiet to work with. We're going to call this meeting to order at 6 pm on June 18th. If the secretary could please give us a roll call. Sure. David Shepard, present. Lauren Dowin, present. Dr. Michael Thomas, present. O'Neal Gray, present. Denise Jones, absent with notice. Rachel Maroquin present. Michael Almiller present. Okay, we have a Excellent. Everyone can please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. the board of education could please review the agenda in front of them and if

002there are any additions or deletions, now is the time. Otherwise, if I could have a motion to approve the agenda. Motion to approve the agenda. Thank you. And if there's a second, I'll second. Thank you. And a roll call, please. Dr. Michael Thomas, yes. David Shepard, yes. Rachel Marquin, yes. Lauren Dowin, yay. O'Neal Gray, yes. Michael Al, yay. Agenda approved. Yes. Staff reports. Dr. Woodland, take it away, please. Okay. Our first report for this evening is regarding Junth, which is a holiday that we will be observing tomorrow. Um, Miss Amanda Hatar, coordinator of belonging and student success, assembled the student video representing and highlighting this holiday. Hello everyone. Today we're going to be learning about Junth, a super important day in American history. June 10th is about celebrating freedom and how everyone deserves to be

003free. It happened on June 19th, 1865 when soldiers came from Galveston, Texas and said all enslaved people are free. It took a long time for this to reach Texas because it was far away. But it was a happy day when it did. Imagine waiting so long to hear you're free. As Opal, the grandmother of Junth said, "Junth is not just a black holiday. is a celebration of freedom for all Americans. What was the Emancipation Proclamation? A long time ago, many people in America were enslaved, which mean they were forced to work and weren't free in 1862. President Abraham Lincoln wrote a special rule called the Emancipation Proclamation. It said that starting January 1st, 1863, enslaved people in some places could be free. But not everyone heard about it right away and some places didn't follow

004the rule. This paper was like a promise that freedom was coming and it helped make Junth happen in Texas. What was the Civil War? The Civil War was a big fight in America from 1861 to 1865. It was between the northern states and the southern states. They fought because they didn't agree about slavery and other things. Black soldiers fought to make sure everyone everybody can be free. Junth became a state holiday in Texas in 1979 thanks to activists like Al Edwards and spread to 46 states as a holiday or observance over time. In 2021, after decades of advocacy, including Opal Lee's historic walk from Texas to Washington DC, Congress made a Junth a federal holiday signed into law by President Biden on June 17th, 2021. Today, Junth is celebrated with parades like Houston Junth Festival,

005family cookouts, cultural exhibits at places like the National Museum of African and American History and Culture, and moments of reflection on racial justice. Events in Canada and the UK underscores its universal message of freedom. Junth is more than a historical event. It's a celebration of resilience, freedom, and culture that continues to inspire. Let's reflect. What does freedom mean to you? And how can we honor Junth's legacy in our communities? We all come together to celebrate this holiday. So, thank you so much to Amanda for putting together that um celebration for us to share. Next on our agenda is our review of our end of year celebrations. So, we had an amazing day celebrating our Be Evergreen Awards, years of service, and our retirees. Thank you so much to all the board members who were able

006to attend and participate. So, this is a picture of our Be Evergreen Award, and then of course our retirees. We had many, many, many retirees full of love, laughter, songs were included. Um, but everyone had a wonderful, wonderful afternoon, and I just want to wish all of our retirees well in the rest of their journey. Um, okay. Next up on our agenda is an update from our community task force. So, as a reminder, the community task force was assembled for three sessions total over the course of the past three months. During this time, many topics were discussed to address the long-term needs of our district's facilities. The goal of the task force was to determine what to test in survey format format in the larger community. The decision to place a bond referendum on the

007March 26 ballot will ultimately be a decision of the board and we will continue to keep you informed. Today I have a few members of our task force to share their perspective of the process with you. And first I would like to welcome up Miss Julie Kelly. [Applause] Thank you. Um, so first of all, thank you for including us on the task force. I think it's really important to get community feedback and listen to all the stakeholders. So, I really appreciate that you guys have included us and being part of that process. So, like Dr. Willin said, I'm Julie Kelly and for the past 20 years, I've been deeply rooted in the community as a parent, as a resident, and as a teacher at Central Middle School. At our first task force meeting, we toured

008central. And to be totally honest with you guys, it was embarrassing to me um to see our building through the eyes of our community. Um because people noted the smells, the mold, and the overall decay of our building. As a teacher, I see those things, but I also kind of put on blinders and witness the things that are happening with our students at Central. I watch our sixth graders who come in as little kids grow into independent teenagers who walk out with their own fully formed opinions and ideas and see the magic that unfolds in our building. However, I also see the um significant limitations that we have at Central that are imposed by our physical space. I've seen students with disabilities and injuries who need to be taken outside of the building to get

009to the gym, the nurse's office, or the main office simply because there is no way to reach those parts of our building without using stairs. I've seen hallways so narrow that our students are constantly backed up in places where only one or two can move across the hallway at a time. I've seen classes be interrupted because students have to walk through one room to get to another room. It's the only route, the only way in. I've taught in basement rooms with no windows and slanted floors where my tallest eighth grader actually had to duck to walk through parts of the room. And I've taught on the top floor with a room that has weeping walls, persistent mold, and buckling floors. Our dedicated maintenance staff has done the best that they can to try to keep

010up with these issues, fixing problems as they arise, or I should say patching them because the reality is that this building is 100 years old. The patches, they don't last. And there's some fundamental problems like the severe accessibility issues that cannot be patched. Our students deserve better. I think our teachers also deserve better. We pour our hearts and souls into educating our children of Evergreen Park, but we do it in an environment that sometimes works against us. Our students deserve a learning environment that supports their growth and doesn't hinder it. I understand wholeheartedly that investing in a new middle school will mean an increase in taxes and that sometimes that's scary for people. However, in order to keep our community desirable, I think we absolutely must invest in our schools. Strong schools are the foundation

011of our community and our student success alongside the well-being of our staff is not negotiable. A new middle school isn't just about a new building. It's about providing our students and our teachers with the accessible, functional, and inspiring space they need to thrive. And that is why I fully support you guys going forward with the plan and hopefully putting together a referendum and getting a new central. Thanks. Can I I just want to hold you for a minute because I do think it's really important if any board members want to ask you any questions about the process just from your perspective. Do you have any questions for Julie? No, she asked my question in in regards to the speech. 100 years old. 100 black. Well, it'll be in 1927. Well, okay. Yeah, it's 100 now.

012It's long. Yeah. Long, long, long time. A lot of Yeah. Okay. I just want to share that um I experienced the same that you did touring the school. I had never been in Central. I've had two children, you know, complete central went on there doing the adult thing in life and I had never actually toured the school. So went on a tour. No, it's not right. No, it's institutionalized. It's it's like the colors of the prisons I've worked in. I'm like, that's jewelry. The the basement hallways. Um the children I mean, I can touch the ceiling during there just standing there. There's no windows in area where they eat and passing like from class to class. It's like whole turn, scoot over, stop. That's just not conducive for education. school has outgrown I guess you

013can say the the times of today because if you look when it was made um you know people were smaller and I'm being realistic people were not you know as robust I can say like myself and others so it's like uh yeah they I'm pretty sure that that at the time it was you know adequate but now it's really sound like it's just really outgrown it uh it use it has and if you go around to any of the like um other schools in wick, which I've done a lot with my kids as they're playing sports. It's like, whoa, this is what we could have. This is what like everybody else has. The halls are like twice as wide, you know? The light is much more It's much brighter. It's just everything is new, you

014know. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Just like to challenge anyone that's listening or in the room, tour central and then tour southeast. It's like night and day. Mhm. Like literally like night and day. So we have to do something. Yeah. Cuz again thinking of the I mean quite naturally that's what I do. So kind of thinking like man that would be a nightmare to get in there and we would Oh it would be impossible. Yeah. Just on the simple fact that I'm like man that would I'm sitting here thinking like it would be a nightmare if I had to go in there do something. You couldn't eat back at school if you wanted to and and um it's next there's just like no room for the students to get out of the school fast enough to safety.

015Thank you so much. Appreciate it. [Applause] Next up, I would like to invite George Peso who is also a member of the community task force. George is going to introduce himself and he has a lot of history associated with Evergreen Park and I'm excited to hear his perspective. [Applause] I wish I could write a check for the whole thing. I really do. Reason why I say that back about 1955, I came to this town. I was 12 years old that I attended uh Central at the time. It was called Central Junior High at the time. And uh so you put the numbers to do the math, so to speak. I'm 82. And I know people tell me I don't uh look like it. Well, I tell them just as a funny thing, I sleep in

016Bear Grease. But that's beside the point. So anyway, uh you know, the building's going to be central is going to be uh 100 years and two more years. And basically, most public buildings are designed for about 35 to 40 years and Central has done it twice. Outlive its usefulness twice. Over the years, it's been band-aids. That's all it was. I'm very surprised that previous individuals, leaders in our town didn't recognize this, that this school will one day outlive itself. Back when I was there, it was status quo because we didn't have technology. We had whatever the methods the teachers were using. building codes were at that time status quo but today there's a lot of difference that building is full of just code violations left and right I mean you can probably find them by

017blindfolded right guys but uh I I realize all the other schools are uh are in need of changes and so forth maybe what is it one of them is probably reached this almost re reaches or actually reached this 40-year I believe that's south uh or northeast I believe. Am I correct? I don't know all the ages. All the elementary schools are older than 50. Okay. But uh you know and it's it's time to look at stuff like that because you know I don't know in what's going on in all the buildings. Central I do I've been in Central many times. A little little side thing I do is I I play Santa Claus and I've done it in Central a couple times. and I'm there at the veterans breakfast every year and uh you know

018it's just things I see I don't like obviously and then again we have another building that was was it's been taken a long time ago and it was the original four room schoolhouse and it's actually was built on the site that you want to build the new building on and I was just talking to the architects here and I said to him During demolition, if you guys find pieces that hold foundation, I want some of it because I'm the I'm in charge of our historical commission. I'm also the co-founder. And we have some items from our commission right here. Afterwards, you guys can look at this. And uh you'll find a lot of it interesting. A lot of it is toward uh central, but I have one item here that was in the old original

019building from 1916. Wow. It's the teachers daily register. So we have plenty of those. Actually we got them from central. So but all right enough of the prelim stuff. I'm supposed to give a report on the task force meeting. Okay. All right. Now I know everybody's got got a copy. Pull it out. Follow me. I'm going to read it because there's too many details in here. Okay. First of all, I want to thank that lady over there for allowing me to be part of the District 124 task force. I've never been at a task force meeting and I was just very impressed for it was well done, very detailed and very enjoyable. I mean I myself through my career retired architect and I've been to various type types of meetings as well. So but anyway,

020let me continue here. I have been involved in many meetings in my architectural career, but not one like the three well planned task force meetings that I recently attended. In each of the task force meetings, we were educated very well in our preparation toward the project of modifications of each quadrant school and a new building of a badly needed Central Middle School with thousand lines underneath that. Please note that Central Middle School will be 100 years old in two years. built in 1927. I graduated from Central Junior High name at that time. 1957. At that time, things were status quo. But today, the building has outgrown its usefulness due to many changes such as space, technology, newer educational methods, and newer building codes. At the first task force meeting, we had a detailed tour of

021Central Middle School where we saw the many problems that both teachers and students had to deal with each day. after the tours were completed. Let me ask one thing or say say one thing here. Uh one of the main problems that I've heard and actually seen some things because the attitudes of students when they get out of a building and if they feel uncomfortable, you can see it. And if you're in an old building that is really twice useful useless in general, you'll notice that too. And the teachers have a rough time. You know, bless those teachers for teaching in a in a building like Central. I mean, it it's it's not an architectural monument to begin with. It's an old building. That's it. So, okay. Okay. Now, we had a detailed tour of Central

022Middle School where we saw the many problems that both teachers and students had to deal with each day. After the tours were completed, we had a discussion of what we saw, plus how we felt about what we saw and voiced our concerns as well. At this meeting, we were given preliminary layouts of each of the quadrant schools, plus Central Middle School. Guys, you did a great job. Uh the architect made a presentation of these layouts explaining the proposed modifications to each of the quadrant schools plus the new build for central middle school. Also the introduction of two proposals for getting the work done was made. One proposal titled proposal A that involved the construction work on each of the quadrants plus the new bill for Central School. Uh the second proposal titled proposal B that

023involved construction work only on Central Middle School. One of the proposals would have to be selected by the task force and would be placed on a referendum to the residents of Evergreen Park to vote on next year. I might add that I took a little bit of liberty and searched out different companies that would donate for educational purposes and I found probably about almost 40 people or 40 companies and I found out the names of their CEOs and their addresses as well. I mean they might not come and give you $4 million or something like that but every little bit counts and can make a little dent over time. So thank you George. Thank you. At the second tax task force meeting, we had a detailed tour of the Southeast Quadrant School where we saw

024some of the problems that they have been dealing with over a period of years. We also toured a couple of the mobile classrooms that were on site. These were not popular due to security reasons. Plus, some of the neighbors in the area feel that the mobile classrooms are not a good look. There was also a presentation of what the amount of taxation would have to pay each year or the taxpayers rather uh each year for proposal A and proposal B. The amount of tax for each proposal would be based on the value of each resident's home. Another presentation was made on how the proposed referendum will be received in two 2026 based on outcomes of on past elections and what is the right time to put the referendum out for vote in 2026. One thing

025people when they see uh a big project going to be built, they don't stop and think about the taxation in general. Everybody pays taxes differently. You got a big house, I got a small house. We're not going to pay the same. And it's all based on the on the uh value of your house plus what deductions you've got. This is important. You know, I'm not a great accountant, but this stuff I know. I made it my business when I was growing up. You get to know these things. This one makes us all adults. How to handle a dollar. At the third task force meeting, we had a presentation from the architect showing what some of the interiors of the new central would look like. The addition of a new historical room that I like was

026added in the central middle school plan. This room would exhibit the history of Evergreen Park. There were some changes made to the previous presented plans for each of the quadrant schools. The next order of business was to select which of the two proposals is to be on the referendum, proposal A or proposal B. We were divided into groups of five and each group was to discuss and vote on which proposal was desired. The consensus from all the groups turned out to be proposal A is to put on the referendum a member of the school board. a former police chief, you talked extensively about security in various areas of our school buildings. He also talked about how to provide security in various areas by describing various types of security hardware. Now, by the way, did you

027finish the puzzle? Yes, I did. You know what that is? No, I do not. That is the first school room school building in town, the four room school house and it was on the site where the proposed school should be built. Wow. And that is in the courier I watercolor and you you can pass it around if people want to look at it. That's cool. But you'll see actual pictures here in the courier at Ives tradition. So let me end with the foundation of every village, town and city is the quality of their educational system. Thank you. If there are any questions no question. Thank you. All right, George. You have been so dedicated to this process. I've got more to go. But I do want to ask you a question. Why is this so

028important to you again? Well, you know, when you it's I call it payback. I mean, I've got a good education out of this town. Both high school. I graduated from Evergreen in ' 61. Graduated from Central 57. Yeah, I know I'm 82, but I'm not the normal 82 year old. I'm full of energy. So, you know, but sometimes you things do make you a little slow down a little bit, like a knee operation, stuff like that. you know that that doesn't bother me. I'll get around. But uh it's it's it's just important. I love this town and if everybody had the same attitude, this town would be better. I know it can be better. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it now, but you know, just in general, there's always room for improvement. That's it.

029Great. Thank you. Okay. One question. Sure. If I was a parent seeking some place to raise my family like right now, what would you say to me to attract me to come to Evergreen Park? Low taxes because people always talk about the dollar first for some reason. I, you know, I mean, I'm not making a million dollars. I'm retired. But I like to invest in our future and that's our kids. That's the main thing. But all right, even even at in at my state of retirement right now, all right, I say if I don't have a car, I've got all the amenities that I need here. You've got two hospitals, one in Oaklan, one here. You've got uh hardware stores, you've got uh bakeries, you've got or one bakery, I should say. Um you've got

030grocery stores here, everything. you have medical facilities and not only the hospital, you know, there are some doctor's offices here and there, but if you have to travel a little bit, there is still some bus service you can use. You know, our our town is always uh thinking of especially the seniors. I don't consider myself a senior. I'm too energetic. So, but that's that's what I I would do, you know. Okay, that's my advice, right? And I think people are friendly here, you know. So, any more questions? How about you, sir? I don't have any questions. Although, I have a request that you keep this energy up when we have to start knocking on doors. You know, I here I've done this for years. Okay. I' I've been a uh zoning board chairman now for

031let's see for over 30 years. It's no longer. And I've been involved in many elections. Um, when I do play Santa Claus, I have to go to people's homes. And I cut that down in half only because I want to. Um, even though my wife made me the brand new, uh, Santa Claus uniform. It's styled in the late 1800s. But, uh, that that I even take serious, too, because I love to see the smile on the kids' faces. So, every year I'm at new building. It's by Circle Park, and I'm I see about 300 kids. I counted one day. So, this this last year was a little over three, but it's a lot of fun to me. It's my I tr tell people it's my drug of choice, even though I've never been on any

032drugs other than what's prescribed. So, but uh yeah, it's it's a great life here, believe me. So, thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. [Applause] So, our next step in regards to our community task force is to continue to survey the larger community to determine their interest in proposal A as recommended by the community task force. And at this time, I'm now going to invite our architects up to update us on what proposal A consists of. That includes central middle school renovations, a new central middle school, and then renovations to our elementary buildings. Hi. Hi. Those are tough acts to follow. I know. Look at that. I'll try and keep that kind of energy, but good to see all of you again. Uh, new board members. I'm Ed Wright. I'm a principal with the

033LA Architects. Peter Perelli, associate principal. So, we've been uh pretty busy the past few months. Um, you know, meeting again with administration and staff and kind of refining and updating plans and obviously participating in the task force. Uh what we're going to show you today, these are still what we call conceptual plans. Things can and will most likely change, but what we're trying to do is understand that we have the programmatic needs identified, the spatial needs identified, and being able to put appropriate costs to those and kind of understanding that they can work on these buildings, but the minutiae may change if this does move forward. So, uh with that, I'm going to let Peter kind of walk you through the plans and I will jump in and out as we go. All right. So

034tonight we want to start with a recap of the proposed designs. Uh I know some of you have seen this twice already, so bear with me. Uh but we're going to do a general overview of all the schools where we have work scheduled and proposed at all schools. Um so we can just jump right into it. Yeah, you got the plans up. Excellent. Okay. So we'll start with Central Middle School. Um so here we're proposing a new three-story school on the south end of the site. So, it's a new building pushed closer to the street uh to pull parking and drop off onto the site. That's that's the primary purpose of pulling it to the south. Um that pink outline that you can see, that's the existing building. So, you know, we are going to

035have to um potentially build this in phases. So, we've identified phase one and phase two. Phase one would be what we'll see as the classroom and administrative area. Uh and then phase two would be the storm shelter, which is the gymnasium. the gymnasium would follow. So you can see how tight we have to hug the existing building in order to keep uh all the operations of the existing building uh going. So basically classes would run uh as scheduled throughout you know um the 18 months or so that it would take to build the new building uh and then we would you know the existing building would be unaffected during the time that we build the new building. Uh and then we can discuss as we get into as we f further develop the design the

036potential of of demoing portions of the building to allow that phase two to continue because you can see how just how tight it is. Um there's a few logistical challenges that will have to be addressed along the way. Contractor parking, some of the things that came up in our community engagement uh workshops that people had questions about, but uh nothing that's insurmountable. Um everything that you know all this has been dealt with before and other hundreds of other projects. Um, and it it's just going to have to be uh something that's that's developed during the process and we'll have to get through. So, couple just highlights to this as well. Just can't iterate enough like the importance of trying to keep the building running and not not displace kids and that that's one of the

037main reasons. Um, but also the pickup and drop off portion there. Actually creating a drop off lane in the site to get people off the streets and and help with the queuing and having some dedicated parking within the site. I think that's going to alleviate a lot of the pain. Um, also bringing the play areas, getting some green space and a track interior to the site so the kids aren't outside playing off of 90th basically. So the building kind of shields them from that and just makes a little bit more of an appropriate setup for that site. So there there's a lot of things happening here that just kind of work out very well with the way the building is sighted. Yeah, excellent point. the the actual building, the new building is going to create

038kind of a buffer to busy 95th and create more of a a secluded secure area for all that parking and and play. And we'll see that on the 3D image uh that we we created in a couple of slides. Give a better representation of the park parking lot. So, we start with the first floor. All right. So, a lot of colors. Um so, in general, we've got um at the at the south end of the site or the or I'm sorry that the uh south where you see entry lobby which is actually uh page down which is east uh but there's a red triangle. All right, that red triangle is the entry to the building. Uh so purple is administration. As you walk in, you'll have a secured entrance. Immediately you'll you'll be um moving

039into the administration area and we have a historic society right up front. Uh and then as we move throughout the building in general light green our general classrooms. Um orange is the cafeteria. Uh and then we have food service in the center. And then as we move up the page we have science labs, band, music and then the red block there is the gymnasium. So, lockers, storage, and then a stage. So, one thing that we developed through the process was originally we had the the stage in the cafeteria area. We move and we're going to do a cafeteriator. We moved that to the gym side. So, now that now it's a gymnatorium. So, you have a stage uh and so basically an auditorium and a gymnasium in double as both. Uh and we've developed that

040red block as not only the storm shelter but also what we're calling kind of the community wing to have that be an asset for the community and bring other people onto the site. So we'll have to develop as we you know move forward in the process um separate entrances and ways to lock down the building from that wing for after hours activity. And the nice part there is you can isolate that after hours. Yes. And then also bringing in a performance space with the incredible things your kids are doing right now, the awards they're winning without such a space. It it just seems like something that could be a real enhancement. So in total over all three levels, there's 36 classrooms um 36 general classrooms, which is more than the existing. Just want to point

041that out. There is some outdoor learning area there too. that that box kind of in front of the orange just creating a a place for outdoor classrooms and some other outdoor activities. Just getting the kids outside the building a little more often than they are now. A lot of lot of potential for that. And there's also seven science labs on top. Seven seven science labs that are split between each level. So, we couldn't fit all on one level. So, um our our approach was to do two per floor. So you'll see as we as we move up each floor, uh there's at least two uh per floor and then we have a steam room on the on the third floor. So all right, moving on to the second story, we've got more of those lime

042green general classrooms ringing the perimeter. And then we have the library on the uh second floor. And the library media center also has a learning stair which is basically like a amphitheater open amphitheater stair that will lead down to the cafeteria. So that that'll all be one big open space for presentations, large gatherings, things like that. Also a great place for staff to come together. That that's another thing that you don't really have. So creating not only places for kids to come together, but also staff so they can collaborate as well. Uh and then the second on the second floor near the gymnasium, we've got the fitness room that would overlook the uh the gym below. So again, very conceptual, but we took all this feedback and tried to arrange it. Here's our first stab

043and um kind of a springboard. You know, hopefully this does move forward and and we'll use this as a basis to um to design the building. But certainly things could change like Ed said. But but for now, this is our our first first flush. So then on the third page, uh, third floor, you've got more general classrooms that lime green, support staff in the middle, and then the steam hub, which is in orange in the in the center, and then the three science labs um on on the top of the page there. That's going to be a common theme as we go through all the buildings is providing adequate space for student support services that that just they don't exist now where you're you're multi-using spaces or they're going in the mobiles and so actually

044providing the space that allows for that that need um is something that's pretty critical in all the buildings. I think on the next slide there should be yes. So, here's here's our very preliminary um first uh you know attempt at just general massing of the of the site. So, here's what it could look like. There's a lot more detail that will go into the building, but based on these uh various schematic plans, this is kind of how we see the building uh unfolding. So, you see the uh drop off lane there. So, we're we're bringing cars into the site um near that staff and visitor parking. Uh and then we've got the uh outdoor courts and the outdoor track all contained within the footprint of of the site. And then in in red re redish

045pink you can see the outline of the existing building. So basically once once everything's fully developed existing building would be completely demolished and then we would develop the site into parking, outdoor play and uh and the drive aisle. One one thing to add is this is a three-story building. your current building, sections of it are three stories, just one of them is underground. Um, but it is spread out quite wide. So, the the ability to be able to stack it more efficiently, it's it's easier to construct, it's more cost effective to construct, and it's a better use of the space. Okay. Then moving into the elementary schools, there any questions on that building before we jump ahead? Sorry. No, I think I mean I think it looks great. I mean, I think that a lot

046of the even like the slight changes have been done. I mean, like the parking I think is going to be huge. Huge upgrade. I mean, it is it's one of those where it's like I feel like that's one of like the most difficult things is when it's like Sawyer's packed with all of the cars and you've got drop off and pick up and to have like an actual like flow of traffic there. I think not just for us, but it's like anyone who has to get through that area of the village. Residents that are around. Yeah. They're always having issues, you know. I mean, I think that would be it's just it's very nice. Nice. All right. So, jumping into the elementarymentaries, we'll start with Northeast. So, u one of the main goals obviously with

047with the elementarymentaries is to get rid of the existing mobiles. That's that's the primary driver. So, one way to do that is to create a prek classroom um early learn early childhood edition at Northeast. So bringing all those prek classrooms to Northeast and creating a early childhood center uh and that would free up space that has kind of a domino effect that would free up space in all the other buildings and then we're able to get rid of the mobiles and bring all those programs that are in the mobiles inside of each building. So by creating one central early childhood we kind of free up all that extra space. One thing to note, um, you know, we're doing additions. Doing one or two classroom additions across four sites is incredibly inefficient way to build. Uh,

048you end up paying probably close to double for those small additions, it's barely worth the contractor's time to mobilize for that. So, when we can pull program out of other buildings to free up interior space and create larger additions that make sense so we can build more efficiently, it it just there's a lot of benefit to that. cost. Yeah. So, so a goal with either the addition or remodeling that we have highlighted the renovation um would be that every school would have OTP art dedicated OTPT art and music and then steam lab space and student support. Um so either through that mix of so we're showing in yellow so you'll see at each school yellow is addition blue is renovation. We tried to accomplish that um through some mix of either addition renovation in each

049school. Uh and then also soft surface playgrounds at all all three schools. North west doesn't have that because of the park, but we'll we'll get to that one next. So, here at Northeast, uh we have in that early childhood edition, we have six pre-K classrooms and support spaces, uh with toilet rooms in each prek, a gross motor room, a sensory room, project tree classroom, and two extra kindergarten classrooms. That was a uh a requirement of the existing building program. Uh and then we have dedicated parking uh near the prek. So, the so the early childhood center would have its own entrance with that red arrow there. that would be its own dedicated entrance kind of separate from the main entrance of the school. So it' almost be like its own attached micro building onto this

050building to one thing to that though there is a benefit to attaching it than being a freestanding building. We're able to take advantage of some of the existing infrastructure that are part of that building. There's some shared services that can happen. Uh if we were to site a brand new prek center by itself on its own site, it would be dramatically more money. They have to bring services over. where you have to develop the site, you can't share some of the services that are on this site. So, while you can isolate it as it to its own function, there there's a lot of benefit by connecting it. And when you say services, you mean like power, water, sewage, those types of services. Um, and then just even basic things uh trash pickup and janitorial staff

051and cleaning up and all those kind of things that go along just operational stuff too. Um, so it would have its own um dedicated entrance and then dedicated parking and its own drop off. So all that would kind of be separate on the uh west side of the site. And then we've got the soft surface playground highlighted in green and then a the darker green is an early childhood playground uh kind of within that u footprint of the general building. I think the next slide might show. Yeah, here's the 3D. Very generic 3D just kind of showing what what the general uh idea is. You got that addition in yellow and then the parking on the west side of the building. Um and then then the play area is identified. Moving on to Southeast. So

052Southeast would have its uh own addition. Um, it would have expanded the the purpose of the addition would be expanding special ed. So, we've got a CARES classroom, art music classroom, OTPT resource classroom, and the new soft surface playground. And there's a little bit of remodeling identified uh inside. We're creating a steam lab to pick up all those extra programs to, you know, have parody between all the buildings. And then we need to remodel the assistant principal's office. So coupled with all these plans too um I think in in the numbers that were presented is all the other uh work from the facility assessment. So roofing windows all of that's included. It might not be highlighted here because we're just highlighting major renovation or addition but all the work in the facility assessments was in

053the numbers that we we did. So there's infrastructure work that's happening in each of the schools as well. All right. All right. And then the I think the next slide might yeah might show the proposed addition and then the this building's a little trickier. It obviously has a different feel to it, a different shape with with the roofs. And is that why they put the pitch roof on? We're we're not sure if that's what it's going to be, but we're trying to work with the existing context and and marry it into the building so it doesn't look like a tack on, but um that that probably will change to some degree. All right. So, Northwest, uh no addition here. Northwest is very landlocked. Um it it's possible to put something over by where the mobile

054is once the mobile comes out, but we feel that we can tackle all of the program um adding that additional program for parody within the space of Northwest without creating an addition. Uh so this is your your tightest building currently has a lot of extra program in it and having that in your most landlocked and smallest building. Um, that's one of the reasons for pulling that stuff out and bringing it over into the larger additions, the prek in particular. Yeah, I believe it has the most prek classrooms. So once all those get pulled out, we'll have empty rooms that then can absorb the extra program. U, so we've got renovation of a steam lab, some support rooms, OTP, project tree, uh, new ADA toilets, uh, and then a few other additional rooms. So uh, no

055playground because the park was uh, next door as well. And this was all based on feedback we received from the early community um workshops and the community engagement that was done. So So no 3D for this one. There's no addition. But then we can jump to southwest. Then southwest we've got um there an in addition on the west side of the building uh which is basically art and music and then a few other support spaces OTPT and then the EL rooms and then taking care of a few other things like um toilet rooms and minimum. So and then renovation would be the steam lab and may I have one more 3D Y there it is. So, the proposed addition on the west side and then the uh the soft surface area questions on any of

056the building plans? No questions. Just a comment. I just want to say like that looking at this and seeing you know hearing some of the community group speakers like I'm really happy with like how intentional decisions are being made. Um I mean in terms of like determining like how to utilize space but not just how do we we add space but how do we better utilize the space that we have? How do we minimize financial impacts in terms of building things in certain patterns loc you know connecting certain facilities together that way we can like continue to like do this at the most efficient way for our community. Uh because these are things that I feel like we all know that we need. Um, I think I know we know that these are things that

057are really important for our community to stay strong, for our like property values to stay strong, for our students educations to stay strong. Um, you know, but again, you're asking people to like participate um and to offer their dollars to make these things happen for future generations of our community. Um, and I just really like the fact that like there were changes that were made on here from like original plans to try to minimize impact, you know, because I feel like it's one of those feel like if we're going to ask people for things, I'm really just grateful that everybody's being so fiscally responsible and everybody's being, you know, very like particular with like here's the needs that we have and here's the things that like our kids, our teachers, you know, our community, you

058know, I mean, some of these things like you mentioned with the gym at central, you know, like, hey, we could try to find a way to block that off to where it's like, hey, here's another gym space that like community groups could possibly use. Um, I just want to say thank you guys. I think this has been a really good project. It's been a heck of a team effort. Everybody that we've been working with along the way has provided us valuable insights and and very thoughtful as to how we're approaching this as well. So, quick question. I know we're landlocked at Northwest. Um, but the site where the moles are now, it's not I know it's not a large site. Is there any way to like consider maybe making something there that's like a multi-purpose

059room or someplace for the the teachers to meet and have meetings or something that we can utilize? It's a small space, don't get me wrong, but something we can utilize that because um I know we do a lot of meetings in Northwest in a library that's on the end or we try to go into the gymnasium which you got to go through something else to get upstairs go I mean it's just some place that's multi-purpose that you can use for we looked at an addition in that area I think in previous iterations there is something that could happen there um we kind of backed away to to the points that was just speaking of like we don't want to go too far add too much that isn't necessarily needed but that is if that is

060a desire and a direction that you all want to look at we can certainly explore that option I know there is some space it's going to be tight yeah it's tight like I say it's not a lot of space there but again just like some place where I don't know just multi-purpose room it could be you know doesn't have to be fancy or anything but just something they can utilize for a lot of different things the the one request that came from our previous parent committee as well as our community task force most recently with Northwest was a remodel to their gymnasium. And what Eric and I were really assessing is how can we uh address some of our continuations and operating needs that parents are saying with our normal operating budget as opposed to

061saying we're going to continue to borrow from the taxpayer for these additional add-ons. Um so we are consistently if you remember we were very firm with the village in terms of the tiff revenue and that is something that we've always earmarked to retention of teachers as well as up upgrading our facility needs. Um we do plan to continue to look at all facilities in terms of what they need to continue to improve upon and and knowing that I mean they can speak to this more eloquently than I that your facilities work just never stops. And so making sure we budget for that ongoing work appropriately is something that will always be on the forefront of our mind. Um and knowing that we also have Rachel and Michael on our facilities committee um to really help

062drive that too. So ongoing dialogue as always. I think we have one more slide. Money. Oh yeah, money. Things cost money. just want to show the fun stuff first and then get to the balance. But um you know effectively you know we're basing these costs on what we're seeing currently in in the industry and in today's market. Uh we have two new middle we have a middle school and elementary school that just bid and starting construction today like right now within the last couple months. Uh we have one that's in design right now in Northbrook who just passed a referendum. Um and we're kind of using those dollars because that's what today's dollars are and inflating them a little bit because by the time if this work moves forward if it were to happen next

063year it's going to take six to eight months to do drawings and then get out to we're a couple years out so we're trying to account for a little bit of escalation. We don't have a crystal ball but that that's what the numbers are being based on. Um so with all the buildings we're looking at you know around $104 million to do all of that work. Um the middle school by itself, we're at about 77 and a half. And again, we're we're trying to leave some room in there because we know things are going to change, but the last thing you want to do is do an ask and not have enough money to do the projects that you don't want to have to go back or cut major scope. Can you just refresh my

064memory? What was the price per square foot now compared to I think you did a comparison like five I was comparing it I think to Arrow because that's probably one that most community members are familiar with um which happened pre- pandemic or it it was starting like right in that first year. um you know I pulled it up on my phone just so I could remember the exact numbers I was sharing so bear with me but effectively what has happened in that time frame um costs have nearly doubled uh due to material shortages labor shortages that have gone on and they have not really come back down maybe a little bit but we're never going to get to those prepandemic numbers anytime soon I I don't see it you'll have some folks here later tonight

065that might be able to speak to that but I don't think they're going to disagree with Okay. Uh, let's see. Yes, Arrow was around $346 a foot, give or take. That's all I fees and, you know, other pieces of that. We're sitting right around $600 a square foot. And that's pretty consistent with what we've been seeing. Um, it's just each year throughout it was just kind of adding another 50%, another 50%, and we've been kind of settled there for a little while, but not seen anything go down. And we start talking about tariffs and other things. I don't know where it's going to be, but we're we're trying to at least account for something. Okay, that's my question. Anything else for DA? Great. Thank you so much. Thank you guys. Have a great rest of

066your evening. You too. So exciting. So excited. Yeah, I mean it's a whole different feel of kids walking into a a new building or even just a new room like, you know, I'm a steam teacher and my room was grant monies and so I'm the new room in the building, you know, and it has nothing to do with me being a teacher. They just like coming into my room because of the colors and the the tables and all the different things in there, you know. I could just sit there and they just want to walk in their room and hang out, you know? It's just a whole different feel than walking into an old dingy, smelly basement. We get the We get the same We get the same thing when kids walk into like our

067science and they're like, "Oh, wow. This is all like nice. It's new. It's like colorful." Like it is it does make an impact in terms of like the students just being like engaged and happy to be there. And even parents like when they've come for conferences and they come to my room, they're always like, "Oh, I wish the other rooms were like this." It's just a different feel. Yes, for sure. Thank you. All right. Next, uh Dr. Carlson, we have Hello. Um we have spring benchmark scores that we're sharing with you tonight. Um our principles will be sharing out um on all of their growth scores um for the school year and I'm really excited for them to share that with you. They've worked really hard and um have done some really great things this

068year. So that's exciting. They're also sharing with you the results of their five essentials surveys, which are the surveys that go out um to parents and students um really about the culture of the buildings. Um so excited to share those with you too. So up first always Dr. [Music] I tried changing the order once and I got push back. So, so these are our scores for the year. So, just as a reminder, the achievement scores is is how they did compared to other students nationally. Um, so our district usually looks at the 50th percentile whereas like anywhere from the 25th to 75th percentile would be considered average. um we set the benchmark a little bit higher and say the 50th percentile and then we also look at the growth of like how they grew compared

069to other students who started at a similar point to them. So they take off everyone that started at a similar position. See how those students grew and that's the percentage of students. That's the percentage the average percentage of students that grew. Well, for MClass, it's the percentage of students that met average growth. For um for the other slides, it's the percentage of it's the average percent of students that they did better then. Um so with our MClass scores, this is for our kindergarten and first grade. So this is our reading scores. So we I'm very proud of my teachers and the work that they did both these grades and all the grades. They've did a great job this year with the growth, especially if you look at our kindergarten. We started with the lowest percentage

070of achievement in terms of the fall benchmark and then just not only the growth, which was fantastic, but also just the the increase in the achievement going from 23rd percentile to 64th percentile in uh kindergarten and and first saw um good growth as well too going from the 51st to the 74th percentile as well too. We did this year we instituted um because we've been having more students come in without formal educational experiences in our kindergarten. Um so we instituted we call them SWAT teams. We have to find out a better name for that. But basically where they just really introduce and and practice those basic skills to get them kind of going get them ready with that um with those skills so they can be better readers as they go up in the grades.

071So then on the next this is our star scores as well too. So same thing we had great growth. The district I should have said this the growth um goal is 50 at least 50 or above. So as you see we kind of met that goal in in all the different grade levels for reading. So this is great. We did work on small group instruction. We started that work this year and that's one of the things we hope to continue next year as well too. So with math same thing great growth again. Um and same thing if you look at the going the achievement the the growth in the achievement is also we're headed in the right direction um which is great. So this year we really looked at math lesson planning and uh we

072were part of the math for all and the the UDL work with um Jen Dale. So we hope to continue that work next year going into like look using more of the common assessments um diving more into the small group reading with uh with with the reading scores and then also with our PBS as well too. So then the next is the five essentials. So just as a reminder, the five essentials is a survey that um our fourth and fifth graders take and then also our parents are our teacher all our teachers are invited to take it and our our staff are invited to take it and then parents are invited to take it as well too. So the parent scores aren't um displayed in on these particular graphs. Uh but this kind of shows

073how our schools are doing. So it's comparison between 2024 and 2025. So the the green uh means that it's very strong or strong and then there's neutral, weak, and very weak. So it compares your scores kind of across the the state to other schools within the state. And the five essentials is designed to show um these are the five areas that are shown that if you have strong strong um things in these areas that you'll you'll show more growth with your students. And so we did see we we saw growth with a lot of our different categories. So actually Northwest we grew in the subcategories we grew in 26 out of the 30 subcategories. Um which is great. So that's the graph kind of on the right which is kind of hard to see but

074it it shows like last year's scores and how it kind of increased to this year's scores too. So given the fact that we have a relatively newer staff than some of the other buildings. I think this is a we're showing some good growth and we have a good foundation on which to build. Um I think next year just like I said focusing more especially getting the the involved families a little bit back to being a little bit higher. Um we have some plans in that for that for our PBIS efforts and things like that as well too. But I think it's a good foundation um to have and then we look forward to kind of increasing that of work with we kind of talked about before questions. Thank you. Thank you. stuck. So, um little

075bit new testing with our kindergarten and first graders uh this year really allowed us to get a little bit more granular data on the specific skills. Um we know that kindergarten and first grade is so important because it really sets the base and the foundation for for our other students. So really strong growth numbers from our our K and one teams um just in terms of number of students achieving and then also um those students that are meeting their their growth targets as well. So strong year for kindergarten and first grade for that. Um and we look forward to having that math data next year. Um reading uh also also really strong data. um lots of when you look at all of the fall to spring, all of our uh grade levels uh had higher

076numbers of achieving students. Um and then fourth grade obviously saw a dip in in our growth, our SGP score, but again more students were achieving at the end of the year um as opposed to the beginning. So we'll do some some deep diving into um just some of the students maybe that struggle and figure out how we can better support them. And then the math numbers were just fantastic. Um you look at like a grade like third grade where 93% of the students are are meeting or achieving um and uh really strong SGP numbers across the board for that. It's a really positive uh star uh data for both reading and math and we look forward to to kind of continuing that and and some of the things that we've done has just been really

077targeted with our uh after school uh groupings. Um and just making sure that we're touching kids across all uh performance levels. uh whether uh it's a it's a group of a grade that really would benefit from having an enrichment group as opposed to um a group of students maybe hovering in that 40th to 50th percentile um to get them over the achievement mark. And then our five essentials data obviously um a little bit more yellow up there than um there was last year um but still organized well for improvement. I'm going to be doing some it's very nuanced some of the um some of the scoring or some of the way that people answer questions, but our biggest dips this year um were around uh like student perception um and then some some general teacher

078collective efficacy um which uh is is a really important one. We know that's if you're a Hattie fan, that's the number one um impact score in terms of uh effect on student achievement. So, uh, really looking at some of those individual questions, um, and and having those conversations at the beginning of the year, uh, with teams, um, grade level teams and then and then the staff as a whole. Um, we are anxiously awaiting those AR cut scores. We saw some preliminary, uh, score data, and they were extremely encouraging. I know that's one of the things that I've talked about up here uh in previous uh data presentations is um star is one thing, but looking at the percentage of our kids that are achieving on state standards is um one of the areas we focused

079on as a staff. Um and those numbers are are really encouraging. If you take the cut scores from last year um that they'll look really positive um but if they do any of the changes that we anticipate, they'll even be even higher. So we're hoping to see how those play out in the fall. Great. Thank you so much. Thanks. Carrie, hi everyone. Hi. How you doing? Okay, so um overall we had a really great year um in terms of not only academic data but behavior data. We actually had our PBS meeting today and our referrals were down. So that's like the first crutch we always like to you know look at is behavior because we can't get anywhere academically if we don't have our place. So this is our um first art mclass data with

080our kindergarten first grade. Um I am super proud of the progress you know that our students in first grade and kindergarten have made. I do want to just add a little note like 30% of our kindergarten similar to that have never attended preschool. So, we're starting, you know, from the ground up and trying to implement those beginning um foundational skills. And I think in first grade even we were off to kind of a slow start and we just kept saying trust the process, teach with integrity, be consistent, and we're super excited about those first grade numbers. That's, you know, we said just make sure that you continue to um be consistent. Um I might steal Matt's idea with his SWAT team. We were talking about it. This is the best part of like having colleagues

081and Britney's coming over to us and she's familiar with it. So, we might be starting the year off with those kindergarten, first grade students with that like kind of skill and drill, you know, just a couple minutes, key consistent minutes. So, um and then in third grade um through fifth grade, I'm sorry, second through fifth grade, um super excited about this growth as well. Um, we did see quite a jump for overall at Northeast from fall to winter. So, something to look at like making sure that our practices are still being consistent from winter to spring. Um, but um, super excited. I of course want, you know, I'm super competitive, so I want to start pushing those numbers into the 60s and the 70s. Already told the staff that we're going to do some um,

082deep diving right in August. They're going to get these reports. Um, I'm excited about our win time next year. That's already in my schedule. So, that stands for what I need. And we're hoping to hone in on, you know, more individual students. Little sidebar, I just want to say like in the fall, 74 of our students at Northeast School um were tier three in reading and we ended with 51. So, like that's some that's some of the data that you won't be able to see, you know, here looking at this. And then in math, we started with 53 in tier three and then ended with 39. So we're moving in, you know, really in the right direction. Small group instruction was at the forefront of our um, you know, of our building goals this year,

083too. Okay. And then next is five essentials. Yes. So, um, 2024, um, you'll see, I mean, it's my, if you look at like the last graph, I'm pretty similar like for both years. Um, you know, strong in, uh, collaborative teachers and effective leaders and then pretty neutral and like involved families, supportive environment. Um, I'm trying to use the vocabulary words that are in the questions, especially for the students to expose them to really what it means. You know, sometimes they're like, "Do I feel safe?" Like, "Not at all." Well, then I ask like, "Do you feel Yeah, I feel safe." You know, so it's just kind of sometimes the wording of the questions that I want to make sure. But, um, yeah. So, I mean, I feel like we're kind of the similar from year

084to year. um and trending in the same the right direction. Any questions? Great. Thank you. I'm Kathleen Casper. I'm the assistant principal at Southeast and Southwest School and I'm excited to share our Southeast data today on behalf of Haley Verier who's actually home with some sick kids and she's sick herself tonight. Um, so I'm just going to run through it with you. So looking at MC class, if you look at that far right column, we have really big celebrations in our growth. Um, kindergarten, over 65% of students met that average growth. In first grade, 77%. Also, if you look from that fall to spring, we saw a lot of great growth, especially in first grade. We saw some huge jumps. Kind of like Carrie said that trusting that process in the winter, you know, teachers

085were worried about if curriculum matched and all these pieces. We made it through the year and we saw that big growth. Next one. So in reading for second through fifth grade, um we're looking for that median SGP to be above 50. So second, third, and fourth grade, we saw that. A huge highlights in third grade um with the median SGP of 64 and in fourth grade of 70. Um we'd like to see better increases in achievement, but like second grade was a celebration with an increase from 44 to 53%, which is like a 9 percentage point increase. In math, we also had SGPS above 50 in second, fourth, and fifth grades. Um, in second, our SGP was 65. In fourth, and fifth, it was 61. Um, third grade was really close to 50 at that

08647. Um, we also saw achievement increases across the board from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. A huge highlight is looking at second grade, but where they went from 35% of students meeting or exceeding um, up to 60%. So, that's a 25 percentage point increase. Um, also in third grade they went from 53 to 62, which is nine percentage points. Um, so some of those those are some of the celebrations we had in math. Um, now looking at our five essentials, as you see, we have a lot to celebrate. Um, looking at our 2025 results, we see green across the board in every area. Um, we had some huge jumps like ambitious instruction, we increased by 21 points. Supportive environment, we increased by 13 points. Effective leaders, we increased by

08711 points. involved families by seven points and collaborative teachers we increased by six points. So, we're really proud of the work that we're doing at Southeast and we think like when we look at this that the results of the survey really do like really does represent the work that we're doing. Um, we have a really hardworking group of teachers who really are collaborative and really are working hard to meet the needs of our students. Um, we've also really worked hard to establish those family and community partnerships. We have a lot of family events that we've um done the last couple years. Um, and we really appreciate the support of kind of the district leaders and some of the district initiatives to help us move in this more collaborative um, direction. So, all those pieces kind

088of work together to end up with our current results of all green. Are there any questions for Southeast? Thank you. Hi everyone. Um, so I just wanted to preview a little bit. So the last year the school improvement team, which is composed of administration, team leaders, and teachers, we co-created school improvement goals to drive our work this year. Um, it's really important to me as the building leader to have really clear goals with action items. So all of the work that we're doing is connected to school improvement and growth because we know deliberate, intentional action is how we can move our building forward. So, our academic goals this year, um, we had hoped to improve the percentage of students that meet or exceed in both reading and math by 5%. And then like all the

089other buildings, we wanted our SGP to also be at 50 or above for all grades in reading and math. And before I kind of talk about the data, I just wanted to share our action items of how we were going to get there. So, um, we currently have the coaches lead department analysis. So after our STAR fall and winter benchmark, they meet with all reading and math department. So like sixth grade math, sixth grade reading, and they look at classroom level data to really talk about um where our students did really well and where they didn't. So we can then either pull small groups or modify our instruction. Um and then we also do a team analysis. So that's facilitated by the team leaders, but um I'm there as well. And that's with like eighth

090grade gold and eighth grade green. And that's really important because although not everyone teaches reading and math, everybody impacts our students and I would say probably all teachers are teachers of literacy. And so it really is important like Scott said for that collective teacher efficacy to have that team analysis as well. So we did that after fall and winter. Um this year we had a huge push for math common assessment analysis. So after each of the six module assessments, they also looked at their common assessments. Um, obviously a focus on high quality tier one instruction. We did some LL incentives, math for all, like Matt talked about. Um, a focus on intentional planning. We also had students do goal setting this year. And then we did some really fun incentive um, challenges. Our most recent

091one being the hot ones challenge, which was really fun. I don't know if you heard about it, but um, that was really fun. And it was just a builder. It was one of those days where I was like, I get paid to do this. It just was really fun. Um, so as you can see, oh sorry, go way back to the reading. Um, so as you can see, we have lots of things to celebrate. So we did meet our reading SGP at all levels, which is great. Um, and then if you want to go to math, we also, um, met our seventh and eighth grade SGP. And I really want to shout out seventh grade math. They had a median SGP of 62, which is great. Um and then eighth grade math um was the

092only grade and um content between math and ELA that did meet the um 5% mark. So they were able to increase the students that meet or exceed by 5% which is exceptional. Um and I really want to take a minute to just thank our instructional coaches, team leaders, teachers really for their intentional effort um and focus on high quality tier one instruction because without them we would not see these results. All right. So now for the five essentials. Um we also have lots to celebrate on our growth from five essentials. We were able to move four measures. Supportive environment, effective leaders, collaborative teachers, and involved families from weak to neutral. Um our strongest performing measures are collaborative practices, parent influence on decision-making in schools, quality professional development, instructional leadership, and teacher principal trust. The most

093improved was principal teacher trust, quality professional development, program coherence, school commitment, and parent influence on decision-making. I did just want to mention here that teacher principal trust and school commitment that are in our um most improved and uh teacher principal trust is in the um top five. Those were our lowest indicators last year and those were actually two indicators that we were specifically targeting this year through our school improvement efforts. Um so similar to with our academic data when we met as a school improvement team, we also looked at our five essential data to create um culture and climate goals. So last year our goal was to increase um school commitment um from 2% to 25%. Oh, sorry. Keep it's back here. Yeah. Um and our school commitment grew to 45% which is great. And

094then one of my personal goals this year was to increase uh principal teacher trust as rated by staff because as you know trust between the teachers and principal is crucial for positive school environment, improve teaching practices and ultimately better student outcomes. When teachers trust their principal, they feel empowered, safe to take take risks, more likely to collaborate which leads to increased teacher effectiveness and student achievement. So, um, it's hard for me to brag about myself, but I did just want to highlight that principal teacher trust did grow from 22% to 58%. And I really just wanted to highlight all measures within this category range from 92% to 98% of teachers agreeing or strongly agreeing. And they ask things like the principal has confidence in the expertise of their teachers. um if they feel the PR

095they can trust the principal at their word. If it's okay to discuss their feelings with the principal, if the principal takes a personal interest in the professional development of teachers. If the they feel the principal looks out for the welfare of their teachers. If they feel the principal puts the needs of children above personal and political interests. If they feel respected by the principal and if they manage the school effectively. Um and then I wanted to touch on our goals for next year. So um similar to what some of the other principles shared, we are going to work on student safety as reported by the students because that was one of our weaker indicators. Um particularly students report um feeling somewhat safe in the hallways and the bathrooms. So the admin team is working on

096how to survey the students and really figure out well what does that actually mean? Um to kind of figure out how we can target that. Um and then we have two administrative goals. So our one administrative goal is going to be consistency with discipline. Um we did like an additional survey um and staff reported that was they felt um when we asked them if they felt discipline was consistently um administered 39% strongly agreed. So we're going to target that to make sure staff feel that um discipline is being consistent among all the administration. And then I'm going to continue to focus on principal teacher trust. Um and then similar to um with academics, I do want to just thank my admin team, Chris Lavin, John Jensen, and Jim Smith, along with the school improvement team

097and all the teachers, coaches, and staff because it really does take a team and collective effort. Um and I really am grateful. So, you know what I want quick quick? I just want to say you don't want to brag on yourself. Well, I'll brag on you. Um, this is what we were looking for. Not trying to be funny. Last year when we were sitting together trying to brainstorm like what are we going to do? We have the community, we have the students, we don't have any really good ideas. So, we came up with a structure, but you did the work. You put the work together. And that principal teacher trust was one of the huge topics. It was blaring that we had an issue with. So you did the work and for us to be

098neutral and all these is a good platform to be on. That's a great platform. Thank you. [Applause] So fun. Um yes. So I just really appreciate all of the principles and all the teams. I think they worked really hard all year and um to be able to see the vast majority of those student growth numbers above 50 is is a huge improvement and I'm really excited about that. Um, so the next thing that we have, um, Jenna staying put, we have our CMS school improvement grant that we, um, receive every year. If you remember some history with this, um, CMS was targeted in October of 2022, um, for our English learner student population. If you remember, we put together a great plan and were able to make um, some pretty vast improvements within that first

099year. The following year, then we were commendable. However, once you are on that list, you continue to get the grant for four years. Um, and so we have continued to work with our um English learner population and put together plans each year and put some extra grant funding towards that. So, we have um Dr. Miller just going to talk a little bit about what our goals were from this past year. And then we really she puts together an excellent um as she talked about school improvement plan just in general for her the entire central middle school building. So we've really kind of pulled some goals from that as well to um target this year as part of this plan. So she's going to talk about um all right. So one of our first goals was

100to um using the high quality tier one framework move from not yet in place to in place for component 4.3 diverse learners by the end of this school year. Um so the end of year data we were partially in place. So we um when we think about like the rating for high quality tier one it's not yet in place partially in place or in place. So we didn't yet get to that um all the way in place but we were partially in place. And the things that we did this year to get there where coaches again met with departments to intentionally plan. We had lots of conversations around supports and accommodations and what that actually looks like. So some examples of like adding sentence stems um using technology so like text to speech, adding increased

101vocabulary supports. Um we also added increased supports for newcomers. Um we continued to work on small groupoup instruction, our STAR data analysis and both at the department and team level we did look at subgroup data so we could identify additional supports as well. Um so again we grew from not yet in place on the high quality tier one framework to partially in place which is great. Um but we didn't yet meet our goal. Um for the second goal we had was by the end of this school year we will improve upon student behavior by increasing the percentage of students who receive zero and one referrals for a minor behavior from 73% to 83% and students who receive 0ero to1 referrals for a major behavior from 83% to 93%. Um some of the things we did

102to get there was we had in um consistent incentive assembly criteria we did out of the blue days. So that was tied specifically to like for instance if sixth grade was really struggling um to come with a charged Chromebook. Then we did an out of the blue day and advisory. Everyone who has you know 90% or above you get you know either a cookie or a popsicle or whatever. Um so we increased the amount of out of blue days. We did that monthly. Um consistency with live school. Um, we worked with Dr. Aaron Dale to create disruption, disrespect, and defiance profiles. Um, because we learned that, you know, everyone's threshold for disrespect is different. And so, we really wanted to have common language so we could, um, ensure that like if I'm writing someone up

103for being disrespectful, if they did that same behavior in someone else's room, they would also be written up. Um, we obviously did progressive discipline this year. We had a consistent advisory schedule. Um, we hosted an end of year barbecue. We had deescalation, professional development, um, consistent consequences, tier 2 and three intervention fidelity, and really revamping ISS. Um, so for minor behavior, our endofear data was 60.4%. Um, so we did not meet that goal. And then for a major behavior, um, we did increase from last year. So the amount of students that received 0 to one referrals for a major behavior was 86%. So that was more than last year, but it did not yet it didn't hit that 93%. But still a good thing to celebrate. And then our third goal was related to attendance.

104So we really wanted to decrease the number of students who were missing um like that tier 2 10 to 19.9% of school. So that moderate chronic um absenteeism from 12% to 8%. Um and we didn't hit that. We had 17%. But I really did want to shout out the students that were missing 20% or more. We did decrease that a lot by half. So like last not well 23 24 we had 33 students in that category and this year we had 16. So we were able to cut that by half which is great. Um and we did that through adding attendance attendance to the um academic excellence breakfast criteria. We also added an attendance um criteria to our incentive assemblies. We sent home a lot of um communication home. We provided parent education on the

105importance of attendance. We added attendance interventions and a clear like procedure for that. Um and then we tried to do but it was a little inconsistent monthly tier one attendance incentives. Um so as you can see we didn't necessarily meet all the goals that we set out to but I do want to say that is okay because we can still pause to celebrate our wins. Um, and so when we presented our end ofear data with staff, um, it can kind of sometimes be disheartening when you report that you didn't necessarily reach your goals, but we did have staff just take two minutes at their table and, um, do a quick round robin to share like one small win they had this year. And so I do think that's important that um, although we didn't necessarily

106reach these goals, there is just a lot to celebrate. And then now I'll share the three goals that we have um, for next year. So um using the high quality tier one framework, our goal is to move from not yet in place to in place on component 3.1 which is alignment of instructional materials and tasks. Um I'm not going to read all the action items, but you can see some of those on there. Um I think the most important one is that um the team is going to be trained in look fors for this component so we can be really consistent when we're going into classrooms and um observing it. that we can make sure we're all observing the same thing. Um, and Dr. Carlson's going to help us with that. And then we're just

107going to consistently review data and just see how we're doing on that. Um, our second goal is also related to behavior. So, we are looking to increase the percentage of students receiving 01 referrals for a minor behavior from our current reality, which is 60% to 70%. Um, and some of the action items I shared are going to be the same. So, still monthly celebrations tied to a behavior goal, continuing with out of the blue days, continuation of common language and consistency with 3DS. Um, and then we just recently met with our school improvement team to create some of this and they had some other ideas of doing like student of the month nominated by each teacher and just doing some more like immediate reinforcement in addition to live school. um because we currently do like

108the quarterly incentive assemblies, but sometimes, you know, for middle school kids, that's too far, right? Like we need more immediate um kind of reinforcement. So, we're going to work to do that next year. And then our last goal is related to um improving the percentage of our multilingual students that meet and exceeded reading um by 3% from fall to spring. And so, we'll do that through um data analysis. And it's great because Dr. Carlson is going to hopefully get us training um in one of our late starts, which has actually been asked for by teachers to have um star training so they can best look at classroom data like what is the best classroom report to pull? What should they be doing at the classroom level? Um which I think is wonderful that they're asking

109for that. So I'm excited to see what that will be. Um we'll review the growth proficiency report after the star assessments. I would say that's currently kind of inconsistent. Some teachers do it, some teachers don't. And then the coaches and I do that, but making that just a regular practice so teachers can see, you know, is one class growing more than another? Are all of our classes growing? Are they all not growing? And really kind of focus on um just figuring out the current reality so we can best support our kids. Um focus on the middle of the pack. So STAR, when you pull a lot of the data, it'll report like the students that are on watch. So they're not necessarily urgent intervention and they're not meeting or exceeding, but they're kind of in

110that middle ground. So really focusing on the students that are in there. Um and then continuing with individual goal setting and a focus on um tier three interventions. Any questions? No question, but like a comment just for all of the administrators. First, I just want to say like thank you guys for all the work you do. Um, second, I love hearing these reports that like everybody's consistently like coming up with plans to improve, you know? I mean, nobody's like, "Hey, we're doing great. We're just going to run it back next year, you know?" So, I love I love hearing all of that. Um, and kind of tying a couple of the things tonight together. I looked at some of Jenna's goals here. We had ELLL last year. We had referrals and attendance. I think those

111are three things that a brand new building would probably help with all of those. giving you wider hallways, giving you small collaborative rooms, um having a building that looks appealing and kids would just want to be there. Um and then next year again, you have the alignment of things. There's collaboration spaces on every floor of that construction plan. Um which would allow teachers to have that time on a plan period. like at our building like our science department, we launch at a giant table together and we literally talk about like what's going well, what could we improve upon and we get to have that conversation in many cases multiple times during the day. Um, and like the increase in our capacity because of those conversations is like through the roof. Uh, you have again referrals.

112Um, and then you have the multilingual support which again some of the smaller individualized classrooms could give teachers and students spaces where they can collaborate and like a nice comfortable environment to have that. So I just thought that like your goals I mean I feel like those are the building goals and I think like seeing this plan like there's spaces in here that would allow like those goals to become easier because you're working your like butt off. Like I mean it's crazy like for anyone who's listening to this like the amount of work that Jenna is doing on a daily basis. I know Miss Lavin are helping out as well doing all the same heavy lifting but it's just really important that like we give our kids the best things. So like the hardest working

113staff that I know can like meet those objectives. So sorry soap box off. So this plan will be for you to approve tonight the multilingual school improvement plan. So great. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, I'm going to report out on behalf of our student support services department and Miss um Amanda who is um out. So, we have an update regarding Special Olympics and I'm going to pause the video um and just report out on it and direct you to the fact that our video is located on our website. It's approximately 10 minutes long. So, I'm just gonna I'm gonna speak to the the video and the Special Olympics. Had an increase in athletes for our second annual event with 70 athletes competing in eight sporting stations. It was an amazing day. We had 19

114staff member volunteers their time to coach the athletes for the eight weeks leading up and they absolutely volunteer all of their time which is amazing. The Southwest Student Council led by Miss Grazvich and Miss Pervent Miss Provenzano. Thank you. held their annual chalk your walk on 529 2025. And prior to the event, the student council decided to donate all of the proceeds to the D124 Special Olympics. And that was a huge success. And they raised $1,15 that will go towards next year's Special Olympics, which is amazing. So, if you want to see more information, um Evelyn's son interviewed a number of um guest speakers. It's really cute. So, I I will send it out to the board to to review. All right. Next up, Eric Cars. Eric, how's it going? Monthly financial report. Uh, statement

115of expenditures. Uh nothing really crazy, just salaries and benefits as school is out and nobody's really buying anything for the classroom. Statement of revenues remain relatively flat. We received a large large sum of revenues in the month of April and as a result the fund balance has gone down just slightly. nothing crazy, but has gone down a little bit, which is expected. And then when I present again next month to you guys, um I'm expecting it for it to go down again as a result of the summer pays and other payrolls. The fiscal year 26 AROW budget um is in here to be approved by the board later today. Um expenditures, they're budgeting a 7% decrease uh while adding 5.4 four new FTE next year which was nurse, OT, PT, SLP, two pairs and a

116teacher point4. It's it's all like one was like 1.8, one was like 2.3. It's just all very I think it's based off case loads and things like that. Um PO increase was 6.9%. Uh HMO increase 5.2% and their workers comp program had a 46.87% increase. revenues are projected to remain relatively flat. The only projected increases are in school meal reimbursements. Uh as a result, Evergreen Park's Prorata cost, which is basically our fee to be a member of Arrow, uh this current fiscal year, it was at $168,836 and it's just up roughly $20,000 for next year. Eric, just so clarity, that workers comp program increased. Wasn't that primarily due to just the cost of the insurance? Yeah. So, like it's just very random. Like ours went up. Okay. Portion like that. Another item on the agenda

117for later approval is the food service pricing. So, last month I presented the extended day pricing um to you guys. And so, I looked into the food service pricing for the next school year. Um there's one in order to be a part of the national school lunch program, you have to improve, you have to increase the prices by a minimum of 10 cents. And so that is what I'm recommending to you guys today is to increase by that minimum of 10 cents to stay aligned with the national school lunch program. So for full price breakfast it will go from $155 to $165 for elementary schools. And then for the middle school go from $180 to $1.90. Um full price lunch would go from $2.85 at the middle schools to $2.95. And then for the middle

118school, I mean elementary, sorry, middle school will be $310 to $3.20. And then the last two years, um, the board approved letting reduced, uh, families get their meals for free. And so I'm recommending that again tonight. Um, any update on state of Illinois providing um, I haven't seen anything really like with the food service area. Um, the only thing that I've seen the state talk about is the C program. We're not in that program and it's not getting rid of it, but I think it would be something about like criteria to be accepted to the program and we currently don't qualify for C because of our low income numbers. The reimbursements are just not worth it. It we would we would lose a large amount of money every year as a result of switching into

119it. Thank you, Eric. Yes. Now, last week we had some interviews for a construction manager for the future construction that we have uh 2026 and hopefully hopefully and we would like to present to the board today. We would like to recommend FH Passion as the construction managers for the district and we have asked um they brought Kevin Belkkey from FH Passion to come up and and just give a few words. Good evening. Good evening. Hi, my name is Kevin Milky. I'm a lead superintendent for FH Passion. I've been at FH Passion for 13 years. Um, my role is direct uh direct support for project superintendent. So, um, we can manage multiple sites um, at the same time. Um, we're really excited for the opportunity to work with the district. Um, see great vision and the

120need for it. Hold on, lose my train of thought. I mean, you guys might know our name. Um, you've probably seen us on the highway. Uh, Midway O'Hare, but uh, we've been in the school business for over 30 years working with school districts, um, helping schools, um, helping in the communities. We're very used to working in tight sites. Um, and it's just, uh, I think it is a really good fit for us. We're a we're a big company, but um my division is a small division and we just concentrate on schools and so that's that's all we do. But we have the resources of a big company and we're just excited for the vision that uh DA has for the district and glad to be a part of it. and we're going to help with

121pre-construction services, estimating, presenting stuff to the board, presenting stuff to the community, getting involved with the community, site safety and site logistics, and uh just can't wait to get started. Great. Same here. Thank you so much, Kevin, for Thank you hanging out with us tonight, too. One thing that I really liked about the about FH is like you said, they have such a big network and so really going to get really accurate pricing. We're going to know what the market really is going to say at the time of going out for bid for different items. Finally, property tax appeal board. It's that time of the year. Uh we have one for this month as a recommendation for Florida Plastics International, Inc. Um, it's a 2021 appeal and the recommended the recommended settlement is $18,995 for

122district 124 and then $15,86 for the high school. Any questions on any of that? Thank you. All right, back to us. Huh? Board reports. So, we have the board committee assignments. I sent that out to the group earlier this week. I trust everybody's had a chance to review it. Uh nothing really new. We've been kind of talking about this for the last couple of weeks. Anybody listening at home that's interested in the committee assignments, they'll be up on the new website in the next week. Uh item B, the IASB regional meeting report. Mr. Shepard, please. Oh, just quickly, um nothing really exciting. I'll just give to you. First of all, they headed in the middle of nowhere. We were like in the the very corner of Cook County, like Indiana. You could throw a rock.

123We were so far out. It was ridiculous to drive out there. But, uh, got out there. It was just a pretty much standard meeting for this time of the year. Uh, they did recognize the superintendent birthday. I guess the board was busy with something else, so they couldn't and they kind of mixed it together, so it was a little fancier than normal. They had some table settings and, you know, it was kind of kind of cute. Um, she basically their superintendent gave us an update on some of the things that they've done. They've improved the water system. As you know, out in Soap Village, there's issues with the water. So, they've been working to fix the water system for the students out there. Um, they also did something that I thought was kind of impressive.

124Um, they have 1,400 students total and half of their student body is enrolled in summer school, but it's basically not for academics. is for just like something to do, just like to keep the community together, and they're all enrolled in it. And I thought that was pretty impressive. Um, they also, uh, let's see, they invest $6 million in a preschool edition, which is equipped with a sensory area for children with autism, which I thought was extremely impressive. Um, I'm going to at some point be bold enough to ask to tour it after I drive all the way back out there again. But I'm going to see you take some pictures and bring them back so you all can, you know, can see. Uh, they had 12 children who place state on track. Uh, eight of

125them went on to the next level. So, I mean, they're doing some pretty good things way out there in the corner of Cook County that, you know, I'm going to build some relationships with them to see if there's some ideas that we can, you know, borrow over here with us. Uh, other than that, it went to a standard meeting. They approved their meeting, the minutes from the last meeting. They did their nominations. They did their um elections. New people got voted in. And pretty much we went over when the next meetings will be happening over the quarters and the locations. All in all, it was just a standard meeting, you know, and that was it. Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Sheff. Public comments. Do we have any public comments? We have none. Bear with me, please,

126everybody. Per board of education policy 2230. A few reminders specifically about the logistics for the public comment portion of every meeting including this evening. As is posted on our agenda publicly for every meeting to respect all of our stakeholders, our comments, our commenters, our board, our public, we adhere very closely to the threeminut limit for comments for everyone. We will set a timer and we expect everyone to respect their three minutes. In addition, we do not respond to public comments at board meetings, but we hear them. We respect, we listen to, and we take into account all community member concerns. If there's a specific question that comes up that we can respond to after the meeting, we will do so in a timely manner or direct the appropriate staff member to respond on behalf of

127the board. Okay, action items. Here we go. A the consent agenda. We have one, approve monthly transactions report for May 2025. Two, approve fund balance reports for May 2025. Three, approve expenditure report and projected payroll report for June 2025. Four, approve board minutes from the regular meeting of May 21, 2025. Five, approve the closed session minutes from the regular meeting of May 21, 2025. Six, approve the destruction of closed session tapes from February 2021. Seven, personnel recommendations. There is a host of additions, several FMLA leave absences, and some resignations. Could I have a first to approve the consent agenda? Motion to approve consent agenda item A. Thank you so much. And is there a second? I'll second. Wonderful. May I have a roll call, please? Dr. Michael Thomas, yes. David Shepard, yes. Rachel Maroquin, yes.

128Lauren Dowen, yay. O'Neal Gray, yay. Michael Miller. Yay. Motion passed. Excellent. Item B, approve title 10003 CMS school improvement plan. Could I have a first? I'll make the motion. Thank you. Could I have a second? Second. Wonderful. And a roll call, please. Rachel Maroquin, yes. Dr. Michael Thomas, yes. Lauren Dowen, yay. O'Neal Gray, yay. David Shepard, yes. Michael, yay. Motion passed. Beautiful. Item C, approve fiscal year 26 AROW budget. Could I have a first? Motion to approve the 26 ARO budget. Is there a second? There's a second. I'll second. Wonderful. May I have a roll call, please? Dr. Michael Thomas, yes. David Shepard, yes. Rachel Maroquin, yes. O'Neal Gray, yes. Lauren Dowin, yay. Michael Miller, yay. Motion passed. Spectacular. Item D, approve new food service pricing for the 2025 2026 school year. Could I have

129a first, please? Okay. Excellent. And a second. Beautiful. And may I have a roll call, please? Sure. O'Neal Gray, yay. Dr. Michael Thomas, yes. Lauren Dow, yay. David Shepard, yes. Rachel Maroquin, yes. Michael Aler, yay. Motion passed. Excellent. Item E, approve extended day fees for the Wait, did I do that one already? No. Excellent. Thank you. Approve extended day fees for the 2025 2026 school year. Could I have a first, please? Motion. Second. O'Neal Gray. Yay. Dr. Michael Thomas. Yes. David Shepard, yes. Lauren Dowen, yay. Rachel Marquin, yes. Michael Miller, yay. Motion passed. Excellent. Item F, approve construction manager contract for FH Passion. Can we try that thing that Denise was doing from Arrol? Which is there any objection to the objections to the previous role? Can I I just say it and then we

130Oh, perfect. Okay. Yeah. What we just like it's almost eight. So, right. Moving right along. Roll. No objections. No objections. All right. Motion passed. Beautiful. Item G, approve property tax appeal board for for Florida Plastics International. Any objection to the previous role? No objections. No objections. All right. Motion pass. Beautiful. Next up, recess to closed session to discuss appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees of the district or legal counsel, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee or legal council to determine its validity. Five ILCS120C1 voice vote. All in favor? I. I. There are no nays. Beautiful. Uh, everyone listening at home, the stream will be stopping now. Anybody here, you're welcome to stay as long as you like, though I don't know when we'll be coming back. If

131you're leaving, please enjoy a cupcake on your way out. Thanks for coming everybody. I don't think so. All the new people, our community task force presentations, a new person or