001so we'll try to get done early tonight i would like to call the april 20 2022 regular april uh meeting of the fenton community high school district 100 border board to order may have a roll call please mary hey girl here hey here here luis here redzinski here rhaego here ting po pong here and we have a quorum please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice james please read our bison way statements fenton mission statement to cultivate successful passionate empowered learners through rigor relevance and relationships fenton belief statements successful passionate empowered learners thrive when we provide a safe caring and welcoming environment diversity equity and inclusion unify our
002community school and home collaborate as one we champion innovative teaching and engaged learning with state of the art facilities we infuse social emotional learning into academics and culture we prepare students to fulfill their civic responsibility we immerse students in authentic life experiences the bison way students and adults at fenton high school create a safe caring empathetic environment where we believe in each other respect diversity communicate openly grow together and hold each other to high expectations to become the leaders and innovators of the future thank you james and mary do we have any requests for public comments yes we do we have one uh anthony grizzini regarding the referendum okay thank you and uh just uh to set the boundaries uh limited to three minutes per speaker with a limit of 30 minutes per topic thank
003you good evening good day good evening you guys hear me yes yes um first of all i want to thank everybody on the school board and everybody in the audience for investing in our community i think the referendum is a fantastic idea 129 million dollars is not a lot of money in today's world and my public comment is really only to ask you to be stewards of this money as you move forward with improving our community and improving the educational outcomes for our kids neighboring school district elmhurst is near 22 million dollars in cost overruns and their referendum their contingencies and construction have been blown nobody's minding the shop in my own school district where i'm a school administrator we have an owner's rep the owner's wrap really makes sure that the things that we're
004doing are done well for um our school district and for our community and that the uh constituents get the best value and the people the kids get the greatest benefit from the construction and then the infusion of energy and optimism that comes along with the true gentrification of the school so i want to applaud you and i just hope that you you continue to be stewards of the taxpayers dollars because uh safe and well maintained schools right are the hallmark of success you have to maslow before you bloom and as you walk around the building here as i've coached youth wrestling in the building for a few years now i see the impact of the changes that have been made so i just hope that you continue to do that and i want to thank
005everybody for the hard work and i'm very very very excited that on june 28th the referendum will pass and kids in bensonville will have the same opportunities as kids in some of the surrounding areas so thank you before before you take off excuse me excuse me before you take off could could you state your name again just for the record and also the village you represent i didn't get here could you stay here uh well i'm a resident of cicero illinois and i'm also a homeowner in bensonville illinois so thank you two places kids that live in elmhurst with their mom and i i have a question too what did you call it an owner the owner that the person who is coordinating your full name no no no owner rep so yeah my school
006district has an owner's rep owner's rep okay the owner of this rep really does works through our bidding process alongside the superintendent and helps make sure that the construction manager does what the construction manager is supposed to do we all know that when you put things out to bid and you go to those responsible bidders there's times where you know there are change orders and things that happen right and those change orders drive prices up in cisco district 99 it's just something that's been beneficial to us and i think it'll be beneficial here don't have a horse in the race as far as the construction everything else that goes on but i i do think that given the times that we're in and the costs overruns that go into construction looking at different avenues to
007save money are it's a smart approach thank you anthony for coming in i appreciate it thank you next we go to uh next we go to celebrate our excellence here at recognitions with sam please good evening and tonight we are going to honor contest ram drama drama and group interpretation so thank you all for coming out here tonight with this wonderful crew uh first like i said we start with contest drama directed by dr mike mitchell assisted by amanda baker jeremiah barr this year's show a piece of my heart was a compilation of two stories about heroism of nurses in the vietnam war a very moving performance the cast and crew of peace in my heart were undisputed sectional champions it was really no contest thank you thank you i thought you'd like that evelyn
008but that's okay on their way to this on their way to the state finals while at state delilah johnson evelyn perez and carissa lara earned all-state cast honors [Applause] dr mitchell is here to share more well first off um i would like to thank the board of education for inviting us here tonight to recognize the achievements of these students uh each one of them is going to come up and tell you a little something about like their favorite memory or whatnot from the whole experience quite honestly i can be known for being very long-winded so i promise to be very brief so that you can hear from the cast and crew but before i hand it over to them i would be remiss if i did not acknowledge the the pleasure is to work with
009uh ms amanda baker and jeremiah barr they are just like the best production team people to to work with um i would also like to thank mr aguilar he is here i was hoping he would be here for helping us out as a chaperone i'm not really sure if he fully knew what he was signing on for but rest assured we will ask you to join us again if the opportunity arises um without any further ado i would like for the casting crew to come up and just say a couple of things but before they do that i do have to just make one quick comment somehow at the award ceremony they skipped over delilah johnson's name so evelyn and carissa got a chance to get up there and get a round of applause with
010all of their peers from across the state um i would like to do one more round of applause for her so that she gets her just [Applause] okay without any further ado uh cast members and creators would just kind of line up and introduce yourself and just you know favorite memory that kind of thing hi my name is evelyn perez and i was part of the contest drama um i think one of my favorite memories was um i think the friday of competition we got stuck in an elevator and we were stuck in there for like 15 minutes and we didn't expect it because it said that there was like a 15 max capacity and we only had 12 people in the elevator but yeah we got stuck for like 15 minutes and so i
011think that was a pretty good memory um but i would like to thank my family my friends and the cast crew and directors of contest drama for making this experience so worthwhile um with this being one of my last ever plays at fenton high school it was like truly an amazing experience and so like i'd like to thank anyone who was involved with that hi um my name is nathaniel herrera and i was very uh lucky and fortunate to be a part of this year's contest drama a piece of my heart um i would first like to start off by thanking dr mitchell and mr barr and miss baker for making uh this year's production as great as it was um i think the best part of it all was just being able to tell
012a beautiful story with all these wonderful people behind me so thank you hi i'm erika ayala and i was a student director for this year's production um i think my favorite part was just being able to be with my friends for one last hurrah almost as a senior it's a really hard goodbye it was my privilege to be a director for these amazing people [Applause] hi my name is lita aguilar and this year i had the honor of working with dr mitchell and miss baker and all of the amazing casting crew members for contest drama um favorite memory that i have well erica already said it we got stuck in an elevator how crazy is that and um there's a fun little thing that you might not know about it because they didn't tell you
013but it might have been my fault [Laughter] um there was a button and i may have leaned on it but i you know there are 13 people in an elevator so you know 50 50 chance that's what i like to say um but not only that experience that i've had with them being stuck in an elevator can tell you a lot about people um but every other experience i've had with them over the past time that we've had together this year it's been amazing and i will keep that with me for the rest of my life it has been the best experience this year [Applause] hi my name is carissa um this is my first year doing contest drama and it felt so awesome to be in person again and like have getting to watch
014all of the amazing performances and i feel so fortunate that i was able to do it with a team of like awesome musicians and performers and it felt great to do that again so yeah thank you my name is natalia alvarado and i think my favorite experience as the others have said is the elevator it was a real bonding experience but overall i think the overall experience was being able to spend time with people that wanted to create this show and be able to perform it to people thank you hello my name is alex and i was part of contest drama my favorite moment for sure was still the elevator it was still one of my favorite moments but for sure one of my other favorite moments was just being a part around contest drama
015in general cast and crew and the directors they were just very much welcoming with open arms to be honest they're really amazing thank you [Applause] hi my name is ariana um getting away from the elevator my favorite moment was just being able to see so many other schools have the same passion for theater as us and being able to see their awesome performances and i want to thank you guys and of course the cast and the crew for giving us the opportunity to do that thank you [Applause] hi my name is delilah um and my favorite part about conscious drama was well obviously you can see we have a pretty small cast um not small enough to successfully fit in an elevator i guess um but i was really able to make like a strong
016bond with each of the members of this cast which was so cool and they're like a family [Applause] hi my name is adam and uh um i think my favorite uh experience for doing this this is my first year doing this and uh my i have a regret of not doing this before um but i'm very glad i got to do this specific play because um i think like leta said uh it'll stick with me forever i'm very glad i got to do with people i was able to do it with um but i think my favorite experience is the moment right before every performance that we had where everybody locks together and everybody's has the same mindset and everyone has to go to the bathroom right before we have time um but it's just
017that moment where we all think we got this no matter what happens this has been such a great experience so uh luckily we i got to have that moment like three times a few times so um it's cool i'm very appreciative that that's the uh that's my last time ever getting to do um uh stage play here in fenton um but i'm very glad i got to do it with people i was able to do it with and uh yeah it's an experience that i'll keep with me forever thank you okay we could take a quick picture over here and then we'll continue on i think we could it can't be best over space over there [Music] mr bear would you like my chair yes [Music] [Applause] my support okay slide on over okay next
018up we have group interpretation they also performed extremely well at sectionals taking second place in the group and terp category very difficult sectional well-known throughout the state and also advance to the state finals nicole hendricks and melissa feinberg directed a rendition of the 1990 hit movie edward scissorhands my favorite part was when edward poked a hole in the water bed in the water and then he kind of went all over the place that was that was my favorite part at least so it was great um so while at state angel santiago sochi quinones and yarli galeno earned all-state cast honors [Applause] now i'll turn over to miss hendricks to share a little bit more [Applause] hello it feels like i was just here about a month ago lovely i'm so happy to be back and
019to be celebrating our griffin terp cast this year with edward scissorhands this was the show that got shut down the year that we you know worsened the world was shut down and so we were so happy to remount the show even with new kids and new parts and some kids returning and taking on new parts as well and having a little modern twist on a dark romantic tale together the kids created a 30-minute story that was absolutely lovely and endearing and had a humorous moment and thank you so much for allowing us to have a fan of us as well it was nice to have some support there and uh nice to see you in the audience too mr uh dr benson and um i couldn't have done any of this at all without uh
020the lovely miss feinberg [Applause] and the wonderful uh tech director mr barra also putting our set together we have a new like universal set that we'll be using so thank you so much mr barr for all of that [Applause] and yes john aguilar made himself available and boy yeah he did not know what he was getting into as mr mitchell had mentioned and it was absolutely lovely to have a parent there on board also considering like how does the schedule work how do we get from this close to this place and keep this moving along and celebrating and having live theater in person again um we have a few representatives who volunteered to speak on behalf of the group so i have three speakers tonight um and we will um leave out the elevator situation
021[Laughter] but i'd like to invite up who wants to go first all right sochi konyonez was shaking her head no but she means yes [Applause] i'm pretty sure this is my fourth time here so i think you guys know who i am um um just to start off i'd like to thank all of you up here again thank you so much for guiding our school as much as you can and for obviously interacting with us and having us up here every single time we've accomplished something i'd also like to thank the wonderful co-directors that we had i can't speak too much about them or else i start crying because of how much i love them um but no i don't think i'd swap this cast for anyone else in the world i wouldn't have chosen
022any better people to spend about 100 hours with in march alone um don't even want to think about speech but um as often as we would get on each other's nerves i think every single person on this cast is incredibly inspirational and i am incredibly grateful for having them in my life thank you [Applause] uh hi i'm angel santiago i'm a junior i uh i played the role of edward during the performance so so um i wanted to start off by saying like thank you to the whole cast and directors i'm going to keep it short because as some of them made fun of me already the water mix the waterworks might come in a bit so i'm gonna keep it short um it really was an honor to work with everyone uh the seniors
023who i've known all my years of high school um the new seniors that i've met the juniors the freshmen sophomores everyone um my favorite memories were always performing i got to make some stupid faces and flail my arms out and spike up my hair and get a really funny reaction and at stake what really what we stood up to me was the crowd reactions and i remember specifically is towards the end of the show i was supposed to lean in for a kiss before we kiss of course we don't kiss but it got really uncomfortably close because someone wouldn't walk in a bit soon but you could hear one once he comes up the stairs he could hear you could hear all the all the crowd go and ah once they realized it wasn't gonna
024happen but yeah um it really was an honor to work with everyone and i wouldn't exchange this cast for anyone else i'm glad we got to do this after oh i was in the original show so i'm glad we got to do this and redo it and go to state with it thank you [Applause] hello i'm morgan i'm a senior and this is my first time up here so as nervous as i am i want to start off by saying gi and cd aren't teams they're families um and you learn that throughout the way and i wanted to come up here to say how proud i am of each and every person behind me even our directors by putting up with us um and each and every person was able to put on such a
025different persona given the circumstances and the time crunch with the early saturday mornings and the late evening nights i think that we did amazing i wouldn't also trade this cast for anybody else and i am honored to be a part of this team because this is my first time doing gi and i encourage and anything to push other people to join even if it is super last minute um that's all thank you [Applause] okay let's come on up for a picture this time here i am see i read my quote book uh very good let's go right into informational items with uh james please fantastic the first one is bensonville park district presentation uh it was an honor to have the entire park district here their board of uh their board their staff their director
026joe velez it was fantastic they were here during the finance facility meeting so i'll summarize it as best i can to make a long story short they want to partner up with with fenton in regards to two fields soccer fields in the near future but joe started off by saying this which touched me um really in a special place your kids are our kids they're all our kids fantastic and that's how we like to see their park district kids as well whether it's district 2 and district 7 they're all our kids living in our communities they support our facilities which is basically the referendum they want us to stay away from um or we would like to as well to duplicate services whether it's you know facilities more fields make sure that they're utilized in
027an efficient way they launched their bensonville park district 2.0 which is to create more green space and more activities for the residents of bensonville as part as well as wooddale because part of their park system is also in wooddale specifically for fenton once again two soccer fields at fenn with one of them being having a dome they also would like to as part of their 2.0 initiative and another indoor pool uh within the community um and they want to do this to build all this without any community costs zero dollars for taxpayers as it was quoted in regards to the soccer fields an iga in the government agreement would have to be formed between the park district and fenton i will work on that in regards to where we need to get to uh what
028we need to do to get there and obviously presented to the board when we move any kind of movement uh it seemed to me it was um there's a certain of urgency it's not let's wait a year it didn't seem like let's wait three months it's like we're going to do this next week as fast as i will you guys know i like to move a little fast as well so i'll get you definitely more information um for for next board meeting timetable once again is i heard next month at least to start the talk with the iga joe has experience creating iga where he worked as a chicago park district director as well but what he wants us to really focus on is having a resolution this last piece was having a resolution probably
029i'm suggesting next board meeting which is may to have a resolution to start working on the iga so two parts let's do the resolution first then let's get the iga document um next up is informational referendum events that's a great picture rick okay i think he took it himself there uh now it's uh let me get back to my notes here um as you can see here um we have plenty of activities we are very busy um with um getting uh informing our community um in regards to our referendum um let me just spend a few minutes highlighting some of the referendum educational events leading up to june 28th this is truly a team effort and a lot of folks are putting in a lot of momentum and energy uh to these events and most
030of them are here including our architects there in the audience as you will see we tried a couple events with referendum educational information basically to talk in an informational way about the referendum as our referendum survey reports it is important that fenton engages and inform community members we know if they're informed they're more likely to support the referendum this is the most uh current version of the information referendum events now there's three slides here i'll go through it quickly it is incomplete we are trying to schedule more informational events groups like district 2 and district 7 boards who are working on um presenting it at their at their board meeting as well as religious organization so let me just take a look at this one real quick so mailing number um could you go to
031the first slide jim so mailing uh referendum mailing number one went out this week uh we have our board meeting this evening city of wooddale referendum presentation is tomorrow at 7 30. we'll have two students there one from bensonville and one from um wooddale to help bruce and myself present our referendum informational uh presentation uh during the spring musical april 21st to the 23rd jose michelle sam and mary uh will have a informational booth a referendum booth table um uh during the the spring musical before and after as people walk by and it's really cool the way had if you if you could see what jim if you could go back so our our board members knows exactly how it's going to look like it looks like that so we have flyers brochures and the
032posters uh that we had made so exactly the presenters who are there like michelle or jose or sam can quickly say hey look here's our brochure this is what we're uh planning to do on in regards to our facility improvement uh uh league of women voters will be here on on friday kate and sam is leading that chart as well with mary league of women voters as we know uh helps with voter registration um and inform our kids to fulfill their civic duties um they will also talk about early voting and absenteeism uh voting as well they will also will be here on may 7th for our cinco de mayo comes coffee with the superintendent is this saturday 9 30. uh i will lead that charge along with mary and rick and later on that
033afternoon on the 23rd we have about 75 senior citizens to see uh the pull up the play um at one o'clock rick 12 o'clock so um as you can see this week is full of direct activity it's a blitz of hey look informational about the referendum week number six uh 25th of the next week incoming freshman activity athletic sphere always have that same booth there once again engage in form information touring coffee with the principal at sam's turn to give up one of his saturdays uh they're saying we're ready for that one so if that's on uh uh there you go we'll make sure you get double express on 9 30. um we try to switch it up uh in regards to time as well next slide [Music] mailing number two goes out may 2nd
034so when we say mailing there is a brochure there's information about the referendum to all the homes in bensonville and wooddale as well as businesses so everyone is uh informed in regards to what we're doing here at fenton the goal is very simple inform inform oversaturate so we do every can everything we can to engage our parents our residents within the both communities uh during the choir concert 5 2 6 p.m jose and mike uh berago will will amanda booth talk to individuals give tours if they choose to okay it's also uh um an option padres nido's on five five band concert on five six with rick and eric uh coranda cinco de mayo comes which is basically admin and leo admin has been a real advocate i'm sorry leah has been a real advocate
035for the cinco de mayo this has been indoors for at least two or three years now uh pandemic put it to a halt so we'll we'll launch that this this uh cinco de mayo weekend 5 7 may 7. the following music department awards 510 rick is going to man the booth as well as provides uh tours so you get the flow we're doing this every week uh two or three events four uh events per week next slide uh then we go for the final run there the middle of may we'll have a mailing number three if we need mailing number four we will um eos has been a great partner uh for us leading the way coaching us being the cheerleader on the side and exactly what we need to do to inform uh our
036residents um week seven uh during graduation both at wooddale and bensonville i will speak in regards to the referendum uh just once again future fentanyl students need to know their parents need to know what we would like their students to experience well here at next line then it goes all the way to the election day um once again this is a living document if we feel like we have to put more on one area of the community we will whether it's the religious side or the school side or maybe the taxing body side or just our parents right so um it's a living document and it and it will evolve any questions on on that section board are welcome to come too as well so um i think i know kit has volunteered a couple
037times uh to be present okay moving on what else are we doing with the with the informational referendum well we're going to launch a new video today is that the premiere showing uh directed by dr baxton dr batson do you want to say something good evening many of you probably remember the video that we did as we launched this uh process early on uh sort of a community engagement video uh we took a page out of that book and created this one uh that you'll see here shortly and it basically uh describes the situation describes the challenges we have and talks about the referendum what what impact it is so it's very similar to the presentations that james has been giving around the community but just in case somebody doesn't get to go to one
038of those presentations this takes a page out of that so we'll watch that now [Music] at fenton community high school district 100 all of our students become successful passionate empowered learners [Music] each and every student has the opportunity to succeed in anything they choose [Music] welcome to fenton high school i'm superintendent james ontanko our finn high school district community works together to ensure all our students become successful passionate and empowered learners [Music] we are proud of our school our staff is committed to equitable practices that meet every student at their individual level and provide the necessary support for meaningful learning our staff is passionate about helping students achieve their potential benton teachers and coaches build relationships with our students and help them succeed our team works tirelessly to create a safe and secure environment for
039our staff and students but there's one significant obstacles we can't overcome the lack of space in our aging school building [Music] we may do what we have in our 1950s building but our second-rate facilities are keeping our students from reaching their full potential our infrastructure has been extended well beyond its useful life mechanical systems plumbing and electrical systems need to be addressed to keep the building safe and healthy air flow is inconsistent with some kids swaying in one room and others freezing in another our security system needs improvements flooding and building entries continues to be problematic our classrooms and learning areas are small and outdated fenton's athletic music facilities and auditorium are sub-par and old and some of our sports teams can't even host home games or tournaments this holds our students and teachers back
040in academic extracurricular programs it creates significant safety concerns for everyone in our school it packs our students into classrooms that were too small even before the pandemic made the need for more space and cleaner air even more urgent [Music] our kids deserve better that's why our community came together in a comprehensive community engagement process over the past year working together and sharing ideas and passions we created a roadmap for the future of fenton the community driven 129.7 million dollar plan to renovate modernize and expand fenton high school will now appear on our ballots to approve as a referendum in the upcoming election on june 28 2022 if the referendum is successful we will be able to renovate our school to make it safer for students and teachers improve our programming and career learning spaces modernize
041our classrooms for the 21st century learning with improved and safe facilities our students will perform better they'll have the newfound sense of pride that comes with attending the school of 21st century learning environments just like other students in dupage county they'll reach their full potential through blended learning stem extracurriculars and sports they'll have more opportunities to follow their passion graduating healthier more well-rounded and ready for high-wage careers our community developed a road map for the future of fenton high school and it is now a referendum to achieve the improvements desired by our community the district 100 school board voted unanimously to place a referendum on the ballot in the upcoming june 28 primary election to meet these critical needs this 129.7 million dollars referendum will fund these projects with an approximate tax impact of 395
042a year for the average homeowner if these are the futures we want for our children we must act now every year the improvements needed at the our school becomes more expensive and this runs contrary to our efforts to make our district more fiscally responsible we have taken important steps to control spending and ensure as much money as possible goes into the classroom and our students fenton has the lowest bond and interest fund tax rate among high school districts in dupage county and an overall tax rate that is significantly lower than the state average for additional information please visit our referendum page on our fenton district website at www.fenton100.org there you can learn more about our roadmap and find a list of events where you can visit the campus to see firsthand what this roadmap means
043for the future of fenton our kids deserve the same opportunities provided by other districts in dupage county this plan we develop together will provide a safer 21st century learning spaces for all of our students [Music] that was a great question with what john was asking is it 395 from the gig no it isn't bruce you want to talk about how it will be divided depending on expenses to avoid confusion with that calculator we kept it flat and steady but more than likely it will be less initially at least for the first year or two and then gradually increase maybe what i could do since the video is complete is after the presentation i could go into my speech we usually show this yeah that's a good point yeah and it's it's exactly what's it like
044if we only spend 40 million that first year it's not going to be 3.95 might be 30 bucks right so yeah like that that's a real good it's going to be laddered well yeah and i think you need to know that yeah i would be thinking like right away great that's a good point all right so what we have now here i'm going to invite rick kambic uh once again a lot of energy a lot of torque and a lot of force here moving this forward and once again board is communication communication and and more communication so we're gonna ask um rick here yes you know he's our website guy and he's gonna just show you real quick what's on our website so you are well informed or if if community members asking hey look
045where can i find more information you can refer them here the local paper picked up from james's weekly letter that we launched the web page so that went out to several uh about a thousand people and then the informational brochure also has fenton.org referendum so as we pass more of these out people go directly to it and up top we have our drop down menus and facility referendum is its own role so it stands out so dr batson if you can start scrolling down a little bit so this is a lot of the informational messaging that's in the video as well as on our brochures it's laid out in more of a story format there's an intro there that encourages people to come into the building and see it for themselves and ask questions and
046we've got a table here of three referendum links that take you to sub pages as we continue to go on there are going to be more so we're in the process of building those we're going to click on them in just a minute but go ahead and keep scrolling down so we've got some more more pictures because there's a lot to tell our story that one was from the choir concert and we took a lot of water right beforehand there's a soccer team that can't play on our campus it's the same courageous group that came in and gave us some feedback and this states the the next picture scrolling down uh it dates back to 2019 when we were actually talking to the staff about the needs and and uh the state of the building
047so this is all there's an extra picture that we haven't seen in a while that's some of our science rooms and in fact we have to lug a lot of their stuff back and forth culinary classroom where the classroom is in the lab space as well and then despite all that our kids are succeeding but how much higher can they go if we give them the better tools so more pictures to tell the story um and a lot of this has to be repetition so if we scroll all the way back up to those quick links so we're going to start with a question and answer you go ahead and click on that one each one of the sub pages we're going to start with with a great picture and if you also notice under
048the picture each page has click here to read spanish and there's also click here to go back to the main page and then at the bottom there's a click here to go back to the main page so our whole group as i scroll down uh compiled a lot of different possible q and a's my favorite one is the the shirt that he's wearing that says your district the ap district of the year didn't think so hey it's a question question answer page so that will also evolve as we get some new questions that we uh we feel like need to be answered we'll put them on there i think that disclaimer is everywhere that this is an evolving process we're more than happy to update the webpage as we go informational events so again this
049is a lot of what you guys just saw but made available to everybody so there's james again our official town halls to talk about the referendum and then there's a transition paragraph that says hey we know you guys are busy so if you're already going to be here for the nhs ceremony or already going to be here for the music hall kill two birds with one stone here's a list that we know we're gonna be at bring your questions and then the referendum text information so on that one uh in the intro it describes that the bombs will be taken out uh at the time that the construction is about to occur and then it will be phased in over a period of time and the impacts or the additional tax may not be seen
050right away so here's our interactive tax calculator uh it defaults to 229 because that was the designated average based on the research and what the average home is in bensonville and what dell it also defaults to the homeowner exemption assuming that everybody is living in the property that they own and then you can just go ahead and click in the numbers and change the numbers or you can change your exemption and it just auto adjusts the math and at the bottom it gives you the new estimated annual tax impact that's great and you can type in any uh any value any dollar amount and it will it will adjust uh so this took a lot of programming but i think it turned out great uh we've already gotten some some feedback on it where people
051are able to better look at their own situation and my favorite part is we're able to code it so that it auto adjusts the cell phones so everything on these three four pages uh auto resize and are functional to anybody who wants to get more information so again it's evolving we'll be adding more to it uh and the great video we just saw there will be a sub page for referendum media so takes time and a lot of energy and we our full steam ahead thanks rick i just want to give a shout out to a lot of team members working here uh including rob grossi um at bruce with with all accurate information in regards to prices as well as our architects there with the question and the answers and eos sullivan helping us
052two together as you can imagine we're trying to create an airplane while we're flying at the same time too so it's quite challenging every day is a little bit different but definitely doable okay any questions there next slide please this next one is the school administration restructuring sam so we just wanted to highlight and talk briefly before we are in the process of restructuring our administrative team and i want to emphasize that it's healthy for us to look inward we are very pleased with the people that we do have as our administrators so that that's not what's striving we're adjusting some positions basically to improve on any inefficiencies that we have in the system even leverage a lot of time gathering like i said feedback having different phases of what we were going to do
053um a little more more detail about your closed session having a general overview um we also have two resignations uh one tonight on the last one so obviously whenever that happens it's an opportunity to shuffle people around have new experiences with people um so sometimes that plays a part too i want to emphasize it's the same number of administrators that we have as we have currently so you may see someone a little bit of a different title or what have you but it's the same individuals also i want to highlight who we are we do have a new position that we've already posted division major wall pedaling with programs uh we're already getting some quality applicants for that position and that's what it does it replaces a vacated division leader position although the departments that
054it's serving are different but it certainly isn't an open position so part of what won't be seen as save administrators um with their absolute different duties and but could also be uh based on those transiting nations so the process will actually be as far as after this board meeting and finalize the board by the main warranty and we will have recommended candidates here any questions here mind keeping in mind that we're going to talk about this during closed sessions because we're going to mention names and contracts contract lengths and hr information overall next side please this one's exciting health insurance renewal bruce martin yes last month there's no picture on that slide what happened i i well it's more next month so this is just a preview what what possible picture do we have of
055health insurance we're working anyhow in any event we received our health insurance renewal information uh last month um so we're giving you that information tonight and we'll have more information next month as well because we do belong to an insurance pool and you know we have some new folks here that probably want to hear more about that but in any event um our health insurance renewal and this will take effect july 1st 2022 so a couple of months away but our ppo is going to go up six and a half percent and the hmos are three 9.7 excuse me and dental is 3.7 last year the current year we're in now we actually had a modest decline in rates so that was a great thing to experience so but uh you people are coming going
056back to the doctor now the world has opened up and i think procedures are happening elective surgeries are happening and uh so drugs are being taken uh you know that type of thing so those costs are medical costs are all going up so um open enrollment we do have for our staff uh every year we conduct that in may so may 2nd to the 20th and more information will be coming out to them to alert them of that uh period of time um this year it's kind of interesting we're going to have a total uh online enrollment so self-serve enrollment so staff will have the opportunity to make changes themselves of course the approval would go through you know the business office but uh they'll have that opportunity uh availability i should say rather than
057a traditional paper form so we're excited about that we've been working on that uh for a while now to build that database so we're really excited to launch that so um anyhow more information i'll share next month but just wanted to kind of give you a preview of how things are shaping up for us for the next fiscal year school year real quick what's the participation rate from us from the district what do we pay what percentage do we pay the uh the for the teachers with the uh ppo it's they contribute 20 the board contributes 80 and then the hmos are a little bit higher they're in the 90 percentage that the board contributes any other question okay next line this one is student code of connect is an annual event sam thank you
058so um regarding student appearance and i want to highlight part of our academy initiative we have student voice uh committee that he says early on in the school year um it came out smooth views for some of the answers we had a few different um a few different words there under these various categories uh of what is appropriate acceptable it's not including you know it's to being compliance that's under the letter b students at the student center and then coaches and sponsors and the best ones followed any questions no wheelies so who who determines acceptable right um well we kind of went away from was where is sort of some sort of as you can see with crosstalk shoulder to mid thigh that isn't necessarily um you know different people different looks i mean it
059just became a little thing where you didn't want to like try to measure out what's going on obviously some people had longer arms and others some people look different than others and perhaps this person could be highlighted with this person so there's some inconsistencies in it but ultimately the options are listed there as far did we have some some incidents with wheelies is that why uh no wheels and rollers so it seems like kids getting the class faster maybe this right it's more as a safety issue and destruction of our our floor john's going to be right there hey look don't scratch that community that necessarily it's an automatic situation um cats are crosstalk so they can have it well that's a great question um pants can be worn um he was absolutely emphasis is
060done fully but no we would not pick us up so but if you said clothing you kind of be in particular to denounce going between hats and clothes yeah right it's nice but it's on the conversation you consider it clothing once you start to get too specific then it gets to be long and repetitive [Music] i wear beanies sometimes so indoors my head gets cold it makes sense [Music] a section here any other questions no okay next next slide i think a job fair and career fair sam back to you um so thursday april the 28th we have our careers in doubt fair uh rumors completely bring it back obviously after times unfolded where we haven't necessarily able to do this right now we have between 20 and 25 companies still seem to get a
061few more in but obviously could be you know from unions uh armed forces public works uh parks and recreation and in various businesses that they may be there what would you like to try to do obviously there's things like giveaways which is always fun a pair of sunglasses or candy we're also going to have a raffle for students that participate not just but actually participating in interest uh kind of you know even more interests uh as far as from a student perspective but it's a great opportunity for kids to see what's out there and talk about people who are looking forward to that so you do have the military now yes yes we do that first picture there to europe to our left here is uh the park district which joe was talking about at
062the job fair next slide i think this one's yours too sam okay um [Laughter] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] right next slide real quick there's five foias that we received this month uh i'll just go through them real quickly all of them have been resolved the center of square reporters wanted to know if there were any trs excess salary and sick payments abc wanted to know a little bit about challenge library books which are books that they're trying to shelf we haven't have any requests for that canon solution america all contracts agreements for copier printers etc smart procurement we do this every quarter in regards they're require requesting for all of our vendor requests that we have partnered with this last quarter and smart local 265 all can contract agreements for new construction renovation maintenance and calendar
063year 2022. um mary timmons is our foia officer she's doing an excellent job in regards to this thank you mary once again all five have been resolved thanks mary you're welcome thank you mary uh thank you for the informational items and we go right to consent agenda uh do we have any questions or comments regarding the consent agenda i i know i asked this earlier about the survey so is there a way to and i'm all about saving money can they just expound on the survey that was done in 2014 or do they have to like do we have to go from the ground up i think we could discuss that at the discussion action item patty does the consent agenda yeah just a real quick comment on letter g right there real quick that
064is our music and choir um they've been trying to go to orlando uh florida for the last two years now cove would stop that so we're very excited to send our students our music and choir kids to go there this year thank you that's probably some surplus of funds from board questions we're good all right so i may have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented i'll make the motion thank you john one second sylvia let me have a roll call please yes rigo yes figueroa yes hayde yes galloway yes louis yes redzinski yes ting po pong yes and motion passed uh next is our discussion items we'll start with the uh tentative amendment see tenant amended budget 2021 and 2022 for bruce okay thank you kit uh sam i don't know if
065you wanted to do this part or not uh yeah i know you've been on a roll yeah all right never mind i didn't know if you wanted to wing it [Laughter] all right sorry uh last last month we told you we would bring a tentative amended budget to your uh board meeting tonight so that here you have it um if you can go to the next slide jim this uh from time to time you know the board does uh will need to amend a budget we did bring that forward as we as as i said this kind of language is right out of the mechanics of the school budget so i just thought i'd share that with you because we don't do it very often but we follow kind of the same procedure as adopting
066that you know the original budget so posting the notice of the budget hearing and availability uh 30 days prior to the budget hearing adopting an amended budget at a public hearing health after the budget uh hearing um and then posting it on the district website and then filing it ultimately with the state board of education so we'll follow all that but just so you have the formality of the process legal requirements preparing in tentative forum available for public uh the public 30 days prior to adoption our date would be uh we would do the public hearing and uh the adoption uh recommendation at the same board meeting on june 15th um and then of course it has to be adopted by the end of the month end of the fiscal year and then we'll submit
067the hisp so that's kind of our specific protocol we would follow here at fenton um just kind of a high level overview there weren't any dramatic changes but there were some pockets of areas that we wanted to kind of share with you and change and update and that kind of leads to some other changes along the way as well that may not be more modest but still you know to give an accurate depiction of how we're tracking we did make some other changes to go along with this but overall when you look at the entire budget revenues are up four and a half percent of 1.6 million dollars and i'll get more specific as we move on what's driving that uh expenditures are up about 2.1 percent or 731 000 and then our estimated ending
068variance is 1.5 million so that is a slight improvement from the original budget of 670 000 roughly the sources uh and the and the changes um of revenues the local state and federal local is up 4.6 state two and a half percent and the federal 5.3 percent so the drivers here as you can see this corporate personal property replacement taxes that's the biggest one um that uh we knew that was tracking higher we knew we wanted to obviously amend that in this amended budget it's about 1.3 million dollars more than the original budget so we budgeted about 1.8 million dollars and those estimates are from the illinois department of revenue that releases the funds distributes the funds so we took their estimate um and they're far more than than what that estimate is it's uh
069about 3.1 million dollars what we're projected to receive and we've received the bulk of that already we'll get one more payment in may so that's a 76 percent jump so that's a it's a dramatic and significant so we wanted to share that information with you um the other food service is the other piece that's that's high uh tracking and these are a good stories but just deserve an explanation so the food service revenue that's our uh really our federal reimbursement for our lunch program participation has been strong and so that's great when participation is stronger higher we get more reimbursement and the meal rate is higher under the program we're currently operating under we'll go back to the traditional nslp national schools program next year but we're under that kind of universal free program now
070and that's how we're operating so good news there but overall uh that four and a half percent it shows their esther um the grant amendments uh 5.7 percent michelle so graciously uh diligently uh amended her title uh grants um and really what's what causes those uh amendments to the grant are we when we get our final allocation uh that's what we amended so to take on some more initiatives or things that that may have not been able to be budgeted initially are now because we have more funds available um the esther funds we know 10.8 percent and then adjusted interest earnings um actually the esser is a decline of 10.8 and that's more of a timing issue is what's driving that and then the biggest drop there although it's not a significant amount of money
071it looks like a you know dramatic increase of 85 percent drop but interest earnings are kind of plummeted um and are not doing so well we hope that that is already changing for next year so we should see an increase from what we're experiencing now and then the next slide this just kind of gives you an overview of the revenues um by source again uh so the amended budget and the original budget sound at the bottom there and you can see the local state and federal sources and all the way over the dollar change um if you look at the middle column there of 1.5 million of the total column and that's that four and a half percent uh change from the original budget and then when we look at the expense side um what
072change there are these things listed there salaries less than one percent so not a lot there we did make some tweaks to the substitute salary account that we had to increase modestly benefits 1.3 uh purchase services 10.6 um really what's driving that is payments to our food service management company so we're serving more lunches we're serving more meals we're being charged for more meals that they're serving so that's kind of driving that but it's you know the revenue is offsetting that additional cost um supply is a modest change there uh equipment capital outlay 25 bump um that includes um a proposed uh purchase of our buses two buses that are coming up at least at the end of this year we did include that in there this is not final folks i just want you
073to know that what if we uh our intentions are to bring a recommendation to you this is not approving that purchase today but we'll bring that to you before the end of the school year so um but that is in there as a placeholder right now in the budget and then the other item tuition was pretty much flat it was a modest decline there and then uh the other big item is the non-cap of 7.6 what we did was collapse some other budgets and consolidate them that were in the supplies account and um zeroed out some of those accounts that we weren't using or didn't need as much and we put some of that money or most of that money uh in the non-cap equipment and then we added another 25 000 into that account
074as well for the purposes of purging purchasing fitness equipment for our fitness center here um the plan is to phase that in over a two-year period so it would be this year next year all of our cardio equipment is old uh not working very well we've had it repaired probably beyond its useful life so we're kind of on life support right now with that equipment so i've been working very closely with our uh pe uh department chair dr kuranda and our athletic director to work through that so um we've got a plan and we will bring that to you at uh in the coming uh months meetings to for a final formal approval for your consideration how are we containing the supplies isn't cost of supplies overall they're going up for sure um some of
075the items they're already under uh under a bid so we're okay there so that helps certainly but uh we do expect costs to go up they will go up they were already experiencing that now fuel cost is a great example but paper goods things like that you're seeing it in the store we're seeing it here on a wholesale level um what else do i have here next slide this is just a kind of a expenditure at a glance by category so we're just kind of comparing the two budgets the original versus the amended by object or category you know salaries benefits down the line there's that 2.1 percent change to the expenditures across the budget uh and then this is just the next slide is just the summary of operating fund revenues and expenses [Music]
076we have the educational fund all the way down to the working cash fund uh the beginning balance revenues expenditures variance and then the estimated ending fund balance so the operating funds is on the front page there of close to 1.6 million dollars if you look at the second from the right column the variance all the way down that 1.593 that's the projected balance surplus at the end of this year and then the next slide is the non-operating fund so that's your debt service and capital projects and things like that so when you look at the total all all-in funds we're at that 1 million 501 454 number uh projection so as i said earlier that's that's up uh quite a bit from about 680 000 uh initially projected and really the big driver there is
077is attributed to the cpprt payments so thanks to the illinois state for that um the next steps would be to approve the tenant budget and place on public display we'll continue to refine it as we move forward and then we will present the final tentative amended budget at the june 15th board meeting for formal approval so that's uh my quick uh review of the amended budget and i'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have regarding the cpprt i'm not quite familiar with is that is that just how how much is that just the every year thing or how does it is it's it's really uh it's replacement taxes so when back in the 70s when there was a personal tax placed on individuals and corporations which was a kind of a you
078know a syntax almost a controversial tax they abolished that back then in 78 and 79 for those respective categories um but they needed to replace that so it's it's a collected from businesses in the state of illinois that's the state collects and that distributes that to governmental entities and appealing school districts so it is a uh we're in that million plus category every year this year is kind of a true exception okay i don't know if we've ever received you know three million dollars we'll take it gladly but um you know it's it's kind of an anomaly yeah yeah it's not it's not i i'm pleased to say it's not but it's it's uh we had quite a discussion with my peer group too everybody's kind of is that anybody getting as much money as
079i am and it's it's amazing and shocking at the same time so yeah that's kind of what's happening amend the budget every year we haven't since i've been here um you can amend it uh yeah we've certainly you know amended grants and things like that and or reported you know big changes and things like that yes through resolution and things like that we've yes absolutely and as you did last month we did a transfer then it's always good to amend the budget when it's positive and not the negative uh yeah yes that's a very nice statement very positive pretty pretty simple when you're amending into positive yeah now as far as the ester grants uh is that going away is it what is it what is the sunset well it depends on which grant so
080the biggest grant we receive is is good for two more years okay yeah and then we have one that will end next year and then another one that's going to end the end of this year so there's three buckets okay yeah all right if no further question this is probably not really budget related but kind of yes at times before i became on the board i've heard lab teachers say lack of supplies a lack of lab equipment we weren't able to do this with that how much is that related to space or is it just is it really resources i'll just throw those out yeah i'll speak up and say i'm going to speak in michelle if it's resources or consumable goods or pipettes or something like we have the resources to purchase those um
081to do experiments which might need more space uh better technology that's a space issue um our staff i believe and we backed it up if they need a resource we usually get it for them whether it's laptop whether it's chromebooks um whether it's um i mean i can't we always find the resources uh for for those classes and supplies it's it's probably a space issue sam anything or michelle do you want to say years um [Music] that are going away we did find some place suspended right before we had to we're doing our best it can be very challenging because you have to you know spend it on the categories that they you know you need to that's required so but it uh we're we're doing our best and i think we're on track yes
082all right thank you we have a motion of the board of education approved the 2021-2022 tentative amendment budget as presented and placed it on public display in the district office it is further recommended that the board schedule a public hearing at 7 pm during the regular scheduled meeting on wednesday june 15th uh 2022 prior to the adoption of the final amended budget uh somebody have a motion second patty and uh leo and uh they have a roll call please yes regal yes paid yes gallowing yeah lewis yes redzinski yes figueroa yes ting po pong yes and motion passed uh bruce the scythe survey proposal yes indeed so um this is really a kind of a topography study and we'll get the paddy's question in just a minute but um we did work with our architects
083very closely we did do an rfp for these services um to solicit proposals for from surveying companies to conduct a survey on our properties to study really the stormwater management flooding issues in the in the on the property this really would be an updated version from the 2014 survey so at that time um there was it was a limited work and scope it was more focused on the specific areas that they were working on not the entire property and i think this uh the intentions of this uh proposal would be to build on that 2014 uh study uh as we move forward so we know that you know when we did the in 2014-15 we did the construction here we used a different architectural firm but i think it is not it's still useful um
084but but it's not as comprehensive as what we need it to be and what the architects are recommending so um the the proposals were there the you can see there's quite a bit of price difference we are uh recommending with with str's uh blessing to to go with the least expensive proposal from a firm that they've worked with quite a bit and support um so we would likely pay for this all next year there might be a partial payment for work completed this year which we can handle uh budget-wise but um the majority of the the billing would occur in the next fiscal year and will budget accordingly for that how can there be such an extreme difference in these three bidders you have two that are very close and one that is almost half
085getting what we're paying for are we going to get what we need by spending only half the money sometimes things look too good to be true and are we going to get what we need or are we going to regret this i know we can't predict it but that's such a huge difference it does give me pause it is um sometimes that does happen on occasion we are entrusting the professional opinion of our architect who has worked with this firm in the past um called me and alan i know you're both here i don't know if you have any to add to that yeah so uh so not only has this firm actually worked on his site right if you get a low low one probably throw it out yeah but uh yeah the european
086method throw out the top throw at the bottom pick from the middle you're probably better off which we can't do by statute right right why would we do something sensible but by the way this is a professional service so it's not bound by public bidding laws okay so we could do i'll put it to every one of them any one of them but uh but they uh but we have confidence that these guys will do a good job and so you said they worked on this site before yeah they did some surveying back we had done some studies to address the flooding back by the auditorium and they did some topographic surveys around there that helped us you know figure out how the land was applied maybe that's the savings are already familiar with the
087site and have half the work done yeah a little bit that now makes sense this be useful with current 3d uh yeah well that's part of why we need this is because the survey is actually you know the paper thing that we see isn't the important part it's the it's the electronic cad file with the points that are in three-dimensional that the the civil engineering firm can use to do cut and fill and topographic kind of analysis and things so it's really that model that's more important more details than the piece of paper that we'll get called the survey yeah that was looking through it i was missing that info when i was reading through the materials that was provided in our packet so may have a motion that the board of education approves the
088proposal for surveying work uh from ari allen associates limited for a fee of 30 33 500. so moved thank you carrie thank all right we'll take leo for a second yeah they have a wrong call rhaego yes youngwood yes lewis yes redzinski yes figueroa yes paid yes ping po pong yes and uh motion passed questions no again no graphics yeah okay so this is the community engagement consultant proposal at our august board meeting the board did approve a contract with e.o sullivan consulting for community outreach um that initial contract developed a plan that placed a ballot question on the upcoming june election and that objective as you all know has been accomplished uh this new uh an additional attached proposal will provide consulting services that will help educate the public on the plan that will
089be placed on the ballot answer questions and motivate people to vote so their voices are heard so they uh to accomplish the co sullivan will work with the district to develop effective informational messaging they have provided samples of their information plan and timeline that which we included in your board packet i know mr untangle feels comfortable we all feel comfortable with this firm that we think they've done good work um the detailed proposal is attached to your review so at this time we are recommending to uh accept this proposal as presented in the amount of twenty thousand dollars and i will say when i i amended the budget um i did make some adjustments in other areas reducing it so there really won't be any increase this is kind of offset that there's an increase
090here or a fee but it'll be offset with some other adjustments i've made in the budget so it won't uh have a negative impact with absolutely all this stuff basically phase four was completed when you guys voted for the referenda to move forward all the mailings all the structure of the mailings the website design um as you know they've done 14 referendums in the past they say that over and over again we're following their playbook they're coaching us for the next step which is mailing one two and three that is not a fenton thing we're doing the work we we are i mean how else can i say it we're following the recipe on how to make a cookie right um and that's the cost of this contract is hey give us the recipe uh
091to have a successful referendum that's one aspect whether it's the mailing whether it's the town hall meetings whether it's when to do it when to set up the mailing the strategies behind it as you know to uh ed sullivan also mentioned another branch we're in the informative branch right of the referendum there's also the campaign branch that we can't touch just for the voting aspect of it that's also part of this as well so um uh i i do highly recommend that we continue with our partnership with with sullivan until the 28th and now after the referendum i think we know that we know how to make a cookie now right so we could do it on our own for november and and march but uh it's still very helpful for me as well as
092my team in regards to what would next week look like what was the next month would look like how even though we can't we don't know what's going on in the other branch of this campaign um or we're leaving in very good hands that's being taken care of so that's part that's part of the price anyone that else want to add anything today and this was discussed originally so we knew this was coming exactly it was a package deal just in two sections to meet all the legal requirements so this isn't unexpected but i get the question but yeah we probably do need to follow through and finish the process in order to hope for the best outcome right it seems like you know i get the question and you know uh my teammates always
093say hey look we're doing all the work well yeah we're doing because we this is our building right we're we're the folks in the trenches but they're the ones that are the chess players and putting the right places in the right square pegs i hope that makes sense maddie okay i just wanna like if we're already doing these things and then we're gonna pay them right we didn't know what to do until they tell us to do it see what i'm saying yeah we'll do the work but no one told us to make cookies right or to put coconut or milk right put in the oven at 375 or something so bruce has already budgeted i think we know what to do yes yeah so i think the the point john was making too is
094we're seeing it through until the first the first election and then we'll the umbilical cord will be cut off probably that's so graphic [Laughter] i like to cook the cookie we'll do the cookie baking the cookie any other questions [Music] uh they have a motion that the board of education approves the proposal for consulting services from e.o sullivan in the amount of twenty thousand so moved second uh julia and kerry uh and may have a roll call please mary yes rhaego yes lewis yes redzinski yes figueroa yes paid yes galiwick yes tinkpop yes and motion passed uh next we go to jim for the student chromebook purchase of fiscal year 2022. good evening as we uh discussed last month at the board meeting we plan to bring your uh for your approval tonight a resolution
095to um purchase our stu our chromebooks for our students uh this happens every year uh for the last several years we've been doing it slightly earlier in this march april time frame and that does a few things that gives us the chromebooks sooner so that we can actually prepare them and have them ready uh with lead times the way they are for some of this equipment it takes a while to get these things in the other purpose is to have those available for our incoming freshman students who are taking summer school so that they have a device to use during summer school in the past we had handed out some old device and then had to go chase them down and swap them out before the beginning of the year and they were sort of
096suffering with these older units so there's a couple of benefits there i also had mentioned that the price had gone up about 30 uh which was a shock to many people um in response we've normally uh used a consortium or a contract purchase that's already been bid previously by an organization and they come back and they bring us the lowest price uh just to make sure this year i went out and checked a couple other uh vendors of the same product as well as some other products with similar specifications this price still came in at or below any of those others so i felt confident that it's not just us that's uh this is the market that we're living in um in spite of the fact that when up about 30 percent the actual cost
097is on the resolution tonight is not 30 percent higher than what we actually paid last year it's 174 some thousand dollars last year was about 150 in the mid 150s but um in in this case we are ordering slightly fewer chromebooks because the incoming enrollment the incoming freshman class is slightly low than what we had last year so we were able to offset some of that cost increase by ordering a a few less chromebooks for this coming year so any questions on that i'm happy to we use esser we use title funds in combination yes yeah we use a combination of title and actually we used a little more title thank you michelle um a few more title funds to offset that difference this year and that that was helpful because during the last year
098we didn't do quite as much of professional development that we would use title money for because we didn't travel we didn't go out of state we didn't do those things that we would normally do we still did professional development but not the higher cost ones so we were able to move some of that money into that and offset some of that and to be honest with you i'm just putting off some purchases that we had planned uh to offset a little of it uh and we'll work on that uh later in the summer but we need to get these these devices for our kids i i will tell you some districts are going cheap and getting lesser quality uh machines in order to not you know go over what they spent last year these are
099really good machines they're durable this also includes it's not just the purchase price of the device it includes a four year warranty and it includes accidental damage which means they could drop it run it over with a car whatever it's repaired uh prior to us doing that we were running 75 to 100 000 in repair costs a year uh for keeping our chromebooks in service so it's well worth the bit of additional cost for that more than offsets that that price that we used to pay and we used to spend a lot of time repairing chromebooks which we don't have to do now because these are more durable so there's a lot of a lot of good news there so are we guaranteed the inventory they're they're talking four to six weeks right now on
100this particular model um this is a very similar model to we had what we had last year the irony is many of these companies when they break out their models like some of the models are just now coming out so you can't really get the newest model so these are models from the late last calendar year i'll say because the new ones aren't available here so it's an odd position to be in but basically these are readily available if we wanted the latest and greatest we'd have to wait till a fall and we certainly can't do that we can't you know put our kids in that position so um yeah there is some some lead time issues but we used to get them in about two weeks and now it's more like four to six
101maybe seven weeks uh they also just they also prepare them so they assign um you know our wi-fi codes and all that kind of stuff ahead of time they unbox them and they prep them for us so that we stick a tank on and assign it to suit so it's safe that's part of the price yeah all part of the price of imaging it and getting it ready yeah yeah so we get yeah we get some of the service as part of our contract with them i'm sure there's plenty here okay anyway thank you okay thank you so then we'll uh have a may have a motion for the board of education approved the uh fiscal year 2022 purchase of a total 355 dell model 3100 chromebook computers from cdw g for the amount of
102175 370. zero cents that's patty and sylvia ii may have uh navarro rhaego yes redzinski yes figueroa yes haid yes galloway yes lewis yes ting po pong yes yes motion passed up next we go to james for our salary adjustments for the year 2022 and 2023. thank you uh the board is well aware of this that we do a salary adjustment to our nine union staff which includes administrators at will as well as our bus driver we feel that these salary increases are fair and just and let me just go through them real quick the adjustments are as follow administrative salaries for an overall increase of three percent this will not include administrators who are in the retired retirement track ad will salaries for an overall amount of three percent and bus driver salaries for
103an overall amount of two point five percent it uh we spoke of this prior so we good on that okay let's have a motion we have a motion the board of education authorized the superintendent to make adjustments to staff salaries to become effective for the 2022-2023 fiscal year adjustments are as follows administrative salaries for an overall increase of three percent this will not include administrators who are in their retirement track at will salaries for an overall amount of three percent bus driver salaries for an overall amount of 2.5 percent [Music] making a motion so move second thank you carrie thank you john and can i have a roll call rago yes figueroa yes haid yes jalawik yes lewis yes rudzinski yes tinkpop yes motion passed next is our resolution for appointment to the da os
104uh es board of directors james all right this is a real quick one deo stands for aka tcd as you guys know that the tcd um of cod you gotta love all those acronyms e-i-e-i-o it's composed is composed of 14 high school districts to give access to their students to participate in cte programs programs that includes autos cosmetology criminal justice emt nursing fire and so forth i know this is very important to our board as well as our community so the motion is to appoint me once again as the representative to be part of their board to lead that charge do you have time i do i'll make time okay well then we're good uh now you get a motion to for the board of education to approve the resolution to point superintendent james ontanko
105as fenton's representative for the dupage area occupational education system as presented second okay thank you patty thank you juliette and uh may have a roll call regular yes hayden yes jalawik yes lewis yes brazinski yes figueroa yes ping pong pong yes the motion passed discussion only items that would be the construction manager updates please james thank you uh real quick the district interviewed four construction management firms in april okay team fenton included carrie john bruce jose and myself we also invited our architects for reference and input the four construction manager firms were gilbane peppers nichols and ici interviews uh per company where approximately an hour long questions revolve around pre-construction so what are they going to do for us before the construction or during construction especially when there's a staff and students in the building
106after construction when they we think it's all over and something breaks down six months later um uh staffing we discuss safety and we also ask specific questions related to defend fenton including flooding lack of space or wetland in the south uh west corner etc pretty much that discussion involved all my teammates here anyone want to add anything carrie and john i know you guys were real an integral part of that discussion lead officer i would say three of them were really close uh they all seem to be capable of performing the task um for us one just simply it was really close and it became personally what do you prefer what are you looking for specifically as far as issues and things that come up how are they equipped to address them but also how
107stable is potential staff and secondary staff and that's where they started to separate themselves there and it became a little little clearer decision once you consider all of those things it was an interesting day it was an educational day i was glad i was able to make myself available for that and good questions good dialogue good information and in the end we were able to make a decision a majority of us were leaning one way and then uh the people that weren't the people we had as our primary were their secondary so in the end it worked out well uh i think we'll get a a very good company representing us in uh the remodel uh when the referendum passes not if let's be positive one the referendum passes and uh we'll be in a
108good position to move forward and i think some of what was brought up in public comments um i feel we need to still be cautious of that but i think with this company i feel a little more comfortable in that area as well as far as overruns and owner rep and our input into the thing uh into the project as far as our staff and the board so i i think we're going to be in a good position with this company if we move forward with the word wording that yeah and and the administrations agree with with john's assessment as well as carrie the company where uh what we would like to pursue a contract with is called gilbane the the biggest school contract uh construction manager firm i believe in illinois we've done our
109homework i've called other superintendents to see some background ground information who have partnered with them including stevenson um top tier school in the north side we've also looked at comparable uh prices okay so they're pretty much comparable and um um what we would like to do next board is once again this discussion is to for bruce and myself to reach out to gilbane company and to try to negotiate a fair contract for fenton that we could all live with and we might bring in the architects to assist with that as well um anything you want to add um jose that were present as well as uh bruce yeah i i think it was a great day great productive day um i think sti did their job bringing for helping us bring four firms uh to
110the forefront and it was a nice problem to have uh struggling to you know three very highly qualified they were all qualified but the three that were very close uh in uh you know their presentations and likes that we all saw strengths in all of them i think any of them would have done a great job uh you know we came to the agreement and it was a great group really the collaborative group to work with and um i think ultimately uh you know we felt very comfortable with this company bringing them forth so uh you know it was it was a good process and a tough one but a nice problem to have so once again next step may uh we're going to try to pursue a contract with them if it's a fair
111contract we'll present it to the board and we'll ask the board to approve it jose was there anything i'm sorry no that's what's going on i just thank scr they did a great job putting a great you know group of people together you know made it difficult for us i agree with kerry and john i mean i think it was interesting to see the dynamics in terms of every group brought a different presentation and some of the um you know the the cream rose to the top obviously in in the process but um really good uh process to be a part of and interesting parts process to be a part of i was interested to see their plans some of them had done their homework they already knew what they wanted to do you know
112if if this was tomorrow if we started they already knew what the plan was going to be they already had a site map you know in terms of like where they would set up um what their plan was year by year you know in order to get this done um so it was actually pretty similar a lot of them so they all kind of had the same plan of attack in terms of how they'd like to do the construction um so it's a fascinating process i was glad to be a part of it and i'm i think we're going to be in a good spot going forward i wanted just to thank our facilities competing chairs too for devoting close to what six to seven hours that day for it i know john asks uh
113for for time off so that was such a show of commitment so i really appreciate you guys spending that time uh on behalf of our board and our community so thank you for that just one insight to you it was important for jose myself and bruce to really see the day-to-day manager that's going to be here at fenn we want to make sure they're receptive to us kind of like alan and colby hey look we want you to respond like in now not next week so we were engaging that as well and i think we chose a good company for that we met the two individuals it's going to be here in data table uh process whether it's safety whether it's receptiveness and and and accountability hey look you said you were going to do
114that what happened so um it's you you really need to meet the individuals and um it was really uh a good process so once again uh we'll try to get a fair contract we'll work with the right individuals even we're bringing legal to look at it as well so it'll be ready for you to view now next real quick question of if the contracting it doesn't is there a chance that the contracts don't there's no agreement with it or does it get changed and then how does that work contract in regards to per work or the contract with with orders yeah with the group i think uh there's going to be pricing in the in the contract and i think once it's the pricing i said it's agreed upon they're held by it okay colby
115anything else i needed to end with uh pursuing a contract with right with a construction company and what that entire entire house uh yeah uh i think well first of all their services are at will anyone can terminate or them for that point the contractors generally charge a fee which is their kind of profit and things and then they charge what are called general conditions for the manpower that it takes to do that work and that's on a time spent kind of basis and they usually provide an estimate and rates that that would be billed against then you know firms like this always you know come in under that kind of number so so i think you know i think that's the real thing so we want to we want to just look at you
116know their staffing you know make sure that's appropriate not too much not too little you know to get the job done uh i think they presented some staff that that seemed excellent right a site supervisor who spoke spanish uh you know so just some really nice kind of qualities that they that they have there's a real good point we there's also timelines as you heard uh it looks about two and a half years to two years uh two summer worth full summer of work so it's you know it's nice to see there's light at the end of tunnel once we start this so more information to come all right thank you and uh next we'll go to the committee reports we'll start with our bensonville community foundation committee um [Music] did did you have anything
117that you wanted to say from the meeting that you went to uh the only thing that i that uh stout with me was uh there was uh just positive feedback from the women's conference that was held here uh and it was something that they've uh been to vale community foundation was happy to fund and they did mention that there were a lot of people that want to see it happen again and uh that one of these the students that bring the program um they're graduating so they're going to be looking they would like to see another student uh from benton bring that uh women's conference again so it was they said it was a decent turnout but they believed that and they had a great speaker so that was something that they would really like
118to they'd be happy to you know uh contribute to so that was basically that was what um i got from that would be important to us and then um just the other day we got a emails stating that the giving due page days which is an online fundraiser will be occurring may 2nd through the 6th [Music] we uh we'll be and speaking to james putting that on our sentinel um website there'll be a tab for that and then um i'll also forward that to our board members and if you are um inclined you can put that on your own social media page and then anyone that would like to they can go on to this uh giving dupage days and there's a number of different non-for-profit organizations throughout dupage that anyone could um donate uh
119funds to it it goes from animal shelters to the bentonville community foundation i mean there's uh i want to say hundreds of them there so it's a good way to spread the wealth of these non-for-profit organizations and it is a full week so um i'll be sure to for them to all of us on the board and then um specifically if you would like to donate to fenton you can do that as well through the bensonville community foundation this is another great opportunity to to give back to dupage and particularly fun it's a fundraiser a county-wide one we'll do that thank you the we're doing the 5k as well yeah i i don't i know venting is here yeah right anything going on with the ap fund uh that was not brought up i don't
120believe it was brought up okay all right thank you so next is the uh the dei committee and so we had our first uh bi committee meeting today and uh sylvia was kind enough to leave that so she spent that time so i will give the report um and i'll try to recall what we went through a little bit hopefully you can fill in the gaps again um so the first thing is you know di what is what is the difference between equity and equality i think that's probably a good start to clarify and i think the analogy that sylvia put out was was really potent which is you know a whole school that needed shoes we can certainly buy shoes for all of all of the kids but so that's a quality where equity
121is buying the right size shoes for each child so you know it's needs based making sure that every child gets what they need so i thought that was very clear and potent we went over the makeup of the demographic for our students so is that going to be posted at all or is that just something we went over we could post it uh i'm just successful if not that's okay too it's accessible to a report card um but what what we in a nutshell learn about uh di is that we live and breathe it here at fenton it's part of our strategic plan and um it you know we're trying to create a sense of belonging um a culture of love and acceptance and it goes through all parts of this building starting with our
122infrastructure our curriculum our finance our operations all parts of it and and we have built-in processes and committees in place to make sure that that vision and mission is accomplished in a nutshell that's it sylvia sound good so next is our uh finances for the solely committee and i don't know that we've gone through it enough or it'll be good that's why well the vinsonville park district came out and provided a presentation regarding their bensonville park district uh two 2.0 and really gave an elaborate claim for the future for the park district as far as providing a campus like a uh environment from between the library the blackhawk middle school and also the park district to extend space courts at the park district uh put in the field over there and address similar to us
123water issues of course but also to provide two two soccer fields to defend high school but beyond that they wanted to enter a iga with with the with the district and also other entities to so we can uh eliminate duplicate services collaborate and work better together and provide services to to the communities both communities with dell and baseball so i have a question on that if we go forward with the fga and they want to put in the center field because that you have to coordinate that with str right like what for something else absolutely yeah definitely there's a it's timely it's timely and and there's going to be some coordination behind it for sure um what i thought was really important to to hear from joe was the fact that he mentioned um you
124know setting aside personal agendas and moving the community forward that was really welcoming and then a couple other things was the tax efficiency how how he wants and we should be all thinking about maximizing tax dollars to benefit the community so and just for clarification we're talking two igas one for the fields and one for more interoperability is the way i understood that or i guess we could roll it all into one but it almost sounded like he was talking about two either way we're going to cover all the bases right that's absolutely right we're going to cover all the bases and and work together and collaborate and be a team member exactly and there's glad you brought that up john there's a step before that he would like to the board to approve a
125resolution so that we could start working on the ij that's the first step and that's what we're going to bring up is that what we're going to put on the agenda for next month so we could have that resolution to move forward correct i'm comfortable with it i think we should we'd be foolish not to i and just a thought to you know so that to me i'm looking at you know how our community will will be curious and want to have want to have questions answered and you know possibly get it confused with the referendum as well as just something to think about maybe we need to have uh some type of clarification between the difference between an iga with uh the park district and uh the referendum but uh that's really well said
126that the iga which is a project with the two seconds outside of the referendum we'll we'll find some messaging for that okay thank you they did lay out this plan to say it was not in this was not attached to conditional it is the plan the department district have rather the funding source regardless of funding source regardless of the sale yes correct this was important let's go to lend reports there's a meeting this friday but just real quickly i've been forwarding information to you in regards to the land which stands for legislation legislative educational north dupage which we're a part of the one you probably stuck out in your uh in your mind is the covalent day which was approved by uh the governor jb pritzker so we'll learn more a little about other legislation
127um in springfield this friday and the next one is also my north dupage know there's also years later yeah we got the operation of our meeting and like uh every every year we get the personal report the renewal of the hill helped live in students they renew all the various equipments and [Music] recognition of the employees and more or less it was like that it was a short meeting and i glossed over the sba isb delegates so we we recently had a isb uh meeting that included all of dupage uh educators and uh we were in joliet and we actually downers grove downers grow we had jolietis the speakers but the downers grove uh referendum we were able to see how much of a impact uh the renovations made with the facilities and i think
128just opening up the rooms for for for education and curriculum and the staff and so i don't know you guys want to comment on on your experience with that and it was very interesting to see how detailed and thoughtful the layout of the renovations were from opening up the classrooms adding as much glass as possible so there's a visual of staff working together or collaborating the same with what's going on in the different labs to some of the small details of dropping power out of the ceiling too having the ceiling open to adding in uh you know the wife the wife adapters for every classroom and office to uh the wi-fi adapters in every classroom because with old buildings that's that can be a real challenge it was very thoughtful and well done camilla's faces
129were well thought out and uh offering off uh alternatives to in classroom to open space flexibility all around it was it's very well done i like that the garage door concept yes that did open you know make two spaces i thought it was a really nice tour to have prior to what uh we'll be going through i i also the uh the dollar amount initially and to be honest i thought wow this is a lot of money that we're 129 million but then when you see the work that they've done in the cost that it was it's like okay i get it we have a lot more work to do here at banking than they had so it made me understand better that i will be on three buildings their budget was 160 was it
130one 664 million i think that's what that's what it was yeah about hundreds between two buildings but that didn't include all of the uh pre-work they've done leading up to that yeah and where that's where we were missing over the years they've had some work done in smaller stages that prepared them to use that 164 much differently than we have to with the 129 that we're looking for i was pretty impressed with their culinary department there that was very impressive i don't know if you had a chance to see that kitchen on every station yeah it was very impressive few screens in the tables with uh computers that um went down into the table and kind of made a table and when you're yeah that's exciting a sense of pride for our students our staff
131faculty the community uh definitely um well thanks for sharing guys um next is the board policy committee we did not have any changes so we're good on that um that's more of an administrative process this administrator uh that's basically the student handbook um so uh the next board meeting is wednesday may 18th 2022 at 7 pm um so we're going to go and propose a closed session we have a motion and a second to go into closed session for the purpose of the appointment of employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees of public body for legal counsel for the holy body including hearing testimony on a complaint laws against and an employee of the public body or against legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity however a meeting to consider
132an increase in compensation to a specific employee of a public body that is subject to the local government wage increase transparency act may not be closed and shall be open to the public and posted and held in accordance with the uh this act 5 illinois cs 122 c1 and collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees according to illinois state statute five illinois cs 120 2c2 you may have a motion look at the tables yes challenge yes louis yes francis sure why not figure out yes yes uh yes and we're going to close session you guys want to take a five yeah yes we're back in the open session uh so we just came out of closed session
133uh may have a motion and a second okay patty and leo uh can i get a roll call please regular yes yes hey yes yes motion passed we are adjourned thank you guys thank you you