001what's up [Music] how's everybody I would like to call the February 22nd 2023 regular meeting of the Fenton Community High School District 100 board to order may have a roll call please figure off here Hade here Kovac Louis here red zinski here Rego Here kingpal pawn here and we have a quorum so I mean reciting the Pledge of Allegiance [Music] um thank you and as usual James please help us read the fentanylation beliefs and bison waste statements our mission statement cultivate successful passionate and empowered rigor relevance in relationships our belief statement successful passionate empowered Learners Thrive when we provide a safe caring and welcoming environment diversity equity and inclusion unifier community school and home collaborators one we Champion Innovative teaching and engaged learning with the state-of-the-art facilities we Infuse social emotional learning into academics and
002culture we prepare students to fulfill their civic responsibility we immerse students in authentic Life Experiences the Bison weight 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 be to be creators of the future great um so next we we're looking at the public hearing on fund transfers I would like to open the public hearing concerning the intent of the Board of Education to transfer 10 million dollars of funds from the educational fund to the operations and maintenance fund and we we've discussed this previous meetings the the legal notice of public hearing was published in the Daily Herald on January 31st in 2023 now I will hand it over to Bruce to
003discuss the transfer Ence I know the board's very familiar with what's happening here and the steps we've taken up to this point to for um but going back to December at the December board meeting the board agreed to utilize 10 million dollars in reserves to fund the water mitigation project that will address flooding issues in the district and on the district property uh subsequent to that at the January 12th 25th board meeting the board reviewed the procedures to transfer said funds which includes a public hearing which is where we're at tonight and later on this evening in adoption of a resolution directing the transfer of funds uh this will be the final action by the board that will be necessary to complete this transfer so uh that resolution is on as I said later on
004the agenda this evening for the board to formally act on thank you Bruce sure uh do we have any public comments on this transfer no no okay we will now close the public hearing of the fund transfer we'll now resume the regular meeting and so again Rick do we have any requests for public comments today no sir okay thank you uh so then we go to recognitions and uh uh item is for documents okay thank you very much and as we bring in our chess team we could get to the next slide please [Music] unfortunately Aidan Torres isn't able to make it tonight so we'll look to schedule him next week's 100 and I'm sorry next board meeting next board meeting uh so here we have some nice photos here the Fenton chess team and
005here comes our state qualifying chess team how about a round of applause [Applause] that's very good okay tonight we want to recognize the Fenton chess team who qualified for the ihsa state finals a few weeks ago we'd also like to honor Ms downen in his Bible here tonight this marks the 16th consecutive year that's right 16 consecutive years the Fenton chess team has qualified for the state finals how about another [Applause] and so what we're going to do right now is I'm just going to announce the the this year's players on the team we're going to give you a nice certificate here so just step forward please uh Drew salski Emilio Sanchez [Applause] thanks Emilio Brenna Ralston okay Victor vrushka edamari Gomez Alejandro Aguilar Carrera David severiano Peter shostek and Casper gritch all right thank
006you very much and now we're going to turn it over to Ms Downing uh Mr Bible and I just want to say thanks to the board for all of the support and helping us to go to the state tournament this year we also want to recognize Mrs Bray and Mrs reinerson because they are always super supportive and helpful in getting our season underway um you already heard a little bit about how how we did at the tournament but this was our 16th consecutive year we finished 12th of the 3A teams something that's unique about Chess is there's no individual recognition there's no ability to compete as individuals there's no rankings as individuals everything is just a team result but I did think we had some individuals that probably deserve some special recognition tonight so Drew
007salski at board one uh earned Five Points at the state tournament Victor kruska at uh board four won five and a half points [Applause] variano for the first time in program history went 7-0 with seven wins [Applause] yeah come on up yeah uh okay so I'm really grateful for this opportunity that both my coaches have given me uh Miss down and Miss Bible I really appreciate you guys miss Downing giving me a bunch of lessons in chess I couldn't do it without you and especially this Bible she's given me so many snacks to provide a text to everybody during the tournaments and that's super awesome so thank you guys [Applause] anyone else want to say a few words okay all right we're going to take a quick picture up front or do you want to
008come back why don't we come back here is that good since we're already here why don't we come back here thank you okay yes yes okay excellent congratulations again to the chess team uh next we'll get right into the informational items James sure we have a full plate tonight to start us off we have Michelle Papa Nicolo our director of post-secondary Pathways in Career Technical education Michelle will talk about recent legislation related to College and Career Pathways our new College and Career platform and opportunities we provide for our students in the area of work based learning along with industry Partners Michelle thank you Mr on Tango hello Board of Education it's nice to see you all again it's nice to see you thank you um I'm gonna we have a lot of updates I'm gonna
009try and get us through it quickly um I'll start with some of the boring stuff and then we'll get into some of the more exciting stuff where I've tried to include a lot of pictures of our students in action we've been up to a whole lot this year and um I'm looking forward to sharing with you everything we've done so just as a reminder I think I've presented this at some point in the past but we have seven Illinois College and Career pathway areas that have been defined by the Illinois State Board of Education and those are them up on your screen agriculture and natural resources arts and communication Finance Business Services Health Sciences and Technology human and public services Information Technology manufacturing engineering technology and trades so the only thing I usually emphasize on
010this is you notice it's not just career but it's College and Career all of these career paths can can require education and some of them don't so we're trying to you know ensure that we're covering the gamut so in front of you I left a career guide for each of you our incoming 8th grade families all received one of these career guides when they came to meet us during freshman orientation and we really like this guide as you can see if you turn into any one of those areas it starts to tell you the types of occupations available with a high school diploma with a certification with an associate's degree with a bachelor's degree or plus bachelor's degree so you get a sense of what kind of occupations and salaries and job growth and job
011demand there are in all of these areas so we thought that this was a really nice resource for all of our families as they start to think about what they might want to do what our students might want to do once they leave High School what we also did is we've aligned all of our elective areas in those same seven areas into programs of study or Pathways and inside of this booklet I put a pamphlet so you can see what we've done with our elective areas and how we have an intro Class A skills class advanced class and any related coursework in each of those specific Career College and Career pathway areas so as a reminder why this is so important is we have a really important Mission here and we've established this together over
012many years now the mission of Fenton High School is to cultivate successful passionate empowered Learners through rigor relevance and relationships and we really feel like the rigor the relevance and relationships are all developed through this type of coursework and through this these types of opportunities that I'm going to talk to you about today so here's the boring stuff Illinois State Board of Education you know we have a school report card well starting next year we've already started collecting the data but they haven't put it into the formula just yet because they've been waiting for schools to kind of get a handle on all of the indicators and how to collect the data but the College and Career Readiness indicator will be part of our school report card and when it's on there we will have
013students that are designated into two areas either a distinguished scholar or a College and Career scholar and there's a number of criteria under each one of those it includes GPA attendance sat performance accelerated or just college level coursework in both of those areas there's some slight differences depending on the GPA but both of them do require that three career ready indicators are met so all the way on your right hand side there's those are the career ready indicators it can be anything from a career development experience an industry credential military experience dual credit or other early college credit 25 hours of community service which is great because we already require that a program of study two or more organized co-curricular activities so you can see there's a lot of different ways that students can meet
014these indicators but we will start we we have started and this will start counting on our Illinois school report card very soon another important update from isbe is about our College and Career pathway endorsements so house bill 3296 passed in May and May 27th this was actually a bill that was already connected to the post-secondary and Workforce Readiness act that was passed in 2006. it just gave more guidelines and dates and it it gave definition and form to some of the requirements that were already in the act so the first thing it requires is that we have an implementation of our Pace framework and the pace framework is just a series of college exploration activities usually coming out of the counseling office then in 2027 we have to we for our graduating class of 2027
015we have to offer at least one College and Career pathway endorsement to them in 2029 we have to have another one and in 2031 we have to have at least the third one available to our students so what are these I put a handout in your little packet there as well an endorsement for a student to earn an endorsement it can go right on their high school diploma there's some requirements first they have to have an individual plan then they have to have professional learning and the key areas in in the professional learning is they have to have career exploration activities 60 hours of cumulative internship experience and at least two team-based challenges with adult mentoring they also have to have a career-focused instructional sequence with at least two two courses in the career area
016and six hours of early college credit so that can be a dual credit an AP course or an IB but we don't offer that and most schools in Illinois do not and there they have to be academically ready for non-remedial coursework so they can either take a transition course or they can um have a certain GPA in order to get into certain classes at COD so not every student has to get an endorsement but we have to have all of these factors in play in order to offer them an endorsement so that's what we're doing is plotting out and planning how we do this in each of those seven areas some areas were closer than others and we know for we we know for a fact by the end of next year for our incoming
017freshmen we'll be able to offer at least one like the the law asks us to there is a they're making the rules right now on this but there is an opt-out provision um just so you're aware Boards of Education can opt out but when we're looking at all of the school districts currently applying for ccpes you can see it's not something anybody's opting out of right now um the one thing the Illinois State Board of Education asked us to impress Upon Our Boards of education and our District administration is that the vision for this is not about quantity but it's about quality for schools and districts and they believe that by doing and offering these endorsements we're only going to raise the quality relevance and authenticity of instruction for all students and we're going to
018increase opportunity for all students to become proficient in those essential employability skills all right so how are we going to track all this how are we going to monitor all this because it's a lot there's a lot of requirements for CCRI there's a lot of requirements for ccpe so we have purchased and have been starting to implement and um start to put together our school links platform so this is a comprehensive College and Career Readiness tool it's not just for tracking CCRI components and ccpe but our students will use this platform for signing up for their coursework applying to colleges doing lessons about colleges and careers connecting with professionals signing up for volunteer opportunities learning about internship opportunities and other job opportunities there's also an alumni database so it's one of the most comprehensive College
019and Career Readiness tools that I've been exposed to in my career so we're really grateful that we have the opportunity to work with them and we think it's going to help us quite a bit and then all students at Fenton should be on this by early fall next year this February our 11th graders will be onboarding and our ninth graders will be onboarding in April School links so what's the area that's probably the most challenging and that we're putting the most effort into right now in order to get get prepared for these College and Career indicators and the endorsements is our work based learning Continuum so right underneath that work based learning Continuum that's the Roe our regional Office of Education is kind of using that as a framework but the Illinois State Board of
020Education under that at the bottom of the page you can see it starts as starts with career awareness then exploration then team-based challenge Career Development all the way into pre-apprenticeships youth apprenticeships and apprenticeships so that's kind of the Continuum and the thing that is probably the most challenging thing for school districts is the increasing intensity of employer engagement employers have a lot to do already they're trying to run their businesses they're trying to make money to give their time to our students is an ask but I'm going to tell you we have wonderful partners and we've done a great job working with our industry partners and they are so committed to helping our students at Fenton and I'm really grateful for their partnership and we're going to take you through some of that right now
021so here's the fun stuff now it's like rapid fire let's see what we can do all right so under career awareness that first part of the Continuum um you can do a few things in this area first is just some career exploration that's what School links will do view science is another platform we have pathful is another platform that we have where students can watch videos of people in different Industries and then we have the as Fab which is the career exploration program from the military we're actually offering that exam coming up March 3rd and what the students get out of that is a comprehensive view of what careers they're qualified for we also have been holding we've held one job fair and we have two more Career Fairs coming up in March we've held
022a career talk Series where we've had a number of professionals come in and talk during our lunch hours with our students in a variety of areas you can see the flyer up there I can't I can't see it from here but I hope you can see it and those are some of the pictures we had um Mr Torres that's actually one of our teachers husbands and he is a business marketer he was he was great with our kids we have some pictures from our jobs fair and then up at the top we have our very one and only Mr rodzinski and Metra came to talk with our students so those are just some of the highlights from our career talk series and our job fairs then we move into career exploration this gets a little
023bit more intense this gives students an opportunity more than just an hour with a professional but maybe a full day maybe a number of multiple days um so right now we're working with Grand Subaru and every week they take three of our students for a day in the life of the service department and they the students get to spend the whole day in the various aspects of their service department and we've taken career tracks to quests we talked about that and we have we also have our students going over to Bensenville School District 2 and Wooddale school district 7 once a week as part of one of our education classes and they get to help out in the classrooms for an hour or so um so yeah that's the picture up at the top that's
024the principal um from District Seven and then we also have Discovery camps so we sent I think two students to the Midwestern University 2022 Mini Medical School Camp they spent the entire month of October on their Saturdays going over for a full day learning about all the various aspects of the medical field Northwestern Medicine offers one of those over the summer that we're going to help students apply for and then there's a little one at the bottom about the University of Illinois engineering we're hopeful that our students will apply and be accepted into those programs okay team-based challenges these are important because they're not just projects you do in the classroom they're projects that you do alongside of Industry professionals they serve as mentors they pose a problem they're saying this is what's happening in
025our industry what are your Solutions and then they Mentor the students to work through that problem so our first shot at this was our green industry Grill which you've heard our Burger Battle which you've all heard a lot about over the last few meetings we're also working with the Illinois Science and Technology Coalition they help hook up students in engineering with companies like Caterpillar or Northrop Grumman and they those professionals from those organizations Mentor our students through an engineering project so we're starting to work with them and Arbor Our Food Service Company Our Food Service Company here is working with our culinary students on healthy menu options so that those are some of our team-based challenges another way our students get team based challenges is through co-curricular activities like FCCLA and we just we are
026starting a brand new club for the future health professionals and one of the organizations that we're hoping to join and start a chapter for is called HOSA and that will allow students to participate in challenges around the health care area okay Career Development experiences we have a workplace experience program it's called internship that's you know the general terminology for it and then sometimes we have embedded workplace experiences in our classes so next year our dual credit intro to education class our students will be going out three times a week to our elementary schools and working inside of classrooms and then those students who aren't in a class that has that they are able to sign up for our workplace experience program and our Miss Lauren Lam who's amazing at finding placements has students all over
027the place and those are just some of them you can see Cloud Fitters a veterinarian hospital a clinic a petty Clinic which I think is like a med spa Trella Otto Mary tool at properties an orthodontist so we have students all over doing all kinds of things that they're interested in finally pre-apprentice pre-apprenticeship and youth apprenticeship the difference here is they actually get paid when they're in a pre-apprenticeship so we are working with our regional Office of Education and a intermediary called GPS Ed and they help Place students right now in two areas instructional sorry not instructional information technology and in manufacturing and Engineering so they help get students and place them and guide them and support them through these pre-apprenticeships paid pre-ish pre-apprenticeships for as long as they want to stay in them and
028many of our students stay in those jobs and they get great benefits and they get a you know a great set up After High School apprenticeship is something we don't really dabble in too much because usually that is a full-on apprenticeship and you usually have to be 18 years old but we are doing school visits for um places that help students get into apprenticeships and we work with placement supports like project project upstart helps get our students ready for the exams for apprenticeships and in-tech Technical Institute that's the electrical union they actually have a great training facility that we're going to be taking the kids out to see how to become an apprentice those are all the fun things that we've been doing in all of those work based learning Continuum areas and our next
029steps really are to create some coherence around what our post-secondary vision is right in these College and Career Pathways there's no doubt that it's coming Fast and Furious from the state and with mandates but we want to know like what is our real reason because it can't just be because we're told to it's because we know that it's good for students and we know that it's going to help them be more successful be Future Leaders have higher wage higher demand higher growth jobs when they leave us so we want to make sure that we have an action plan and those are some of the components of the action plan that we'll work through it'll either be the spring or into the summer you know having a shared vision and aligning some of our human and
030financial Capital making sure kind of everything is working together to help move this work forward and then finally we have to always be thinking about thanking our partner none of this happens without them and they're all committed to it so last year or not last year but in the fall we did our industry breakfast we'll hope to do another one of those next fall and I'm sure it will be bigger because I'm just out there meeting all kinds of people and it's um it's been a great year and we've had a lot of fun working with our partners and making new partners are there any questions yeah currently how many of our students are participating in the program these different programs and uh oh goodness it really depends which one we're talking about um if
031we're doing internships we have two semesters about 20 students each um you know I didn't even cover tcd but tcd is a nice career Preparatory program as well I think we have 115 students sign up for that right now for next year and the career talks four lunches about 20 to 30 each time you know about 100 students every time we do a career talk and um the job fairs was really well received by our students yes yeah and um we have about 50 professional organizations participating in our jobs and our to our jobs and our two Career Fairs so um all of the students have the opportunity it's right in the lunchroom in the Commons so we had a lot of students come through hundreds thank you Miss hate I think our um our
032approach is for all of our students every single one of our students to be here to be not cognizant but an active participant of career Pathways in the future this was this just a huge shout out to Michelle who has done a lot of heavy lifting in regards to this thank you very much Michelle for that I mean just imagine when this was dropped on us by USB Taylor You've got to have career Pathways about four or five years ago we're like okay how do we do it give us some structure but you see the expertise developing here but this is very exciting because we're bringing career in college in our building and we're also going outside of our building that's why I think it's it's here to stay it's going to be one of
033those foundations of Education moving forward and that's why I asked the question because it is it appears to be a very good program and you want to make sure that all the students are have the opportunity to use the programs in different the different programs that's all of your good work should not go I I think I I think we're finally getting to the point where our messaging and our structures will allow us to communicate this well during open houses and during registration season we just you know we have to have all the components in place in order to offer these endorsements in a specific way so I know by next year during open house we'll be launching those pathway endorsements for sure thank you um it is good to see this continue to move
034forward and develop like this while canvassing I heard from a number of former parents expressing concerned or when it is these types of programs are coming back especially those that fall on the CTE it was good told me it was coming so nice or not yeah see the follow through and I only just scratched the surface we did all kinds of other things I only had 10 minutes and I think I went over foreign just thank you thank you for taking this on and and developing this breadth of work that is going to be benefiting the students especially in our community um I just want to make comments on I'm just amazed and you just touched on a little bit of it right so the accessibility to different Industries different Pathways for the kids early
035exposure to all kinds of different uh job Pathways careers apprenticeships um you know college career Pathways so it's it's really remarkable um when we look at how this evolves and begins to Blossom um you know are we do we have ways to define success or metrics what's our goal on that like as far as like you know stage by stage I'm sure you have that yeah yeah you know I what we've started to look at as some of the national Clearinghouse data um and that gives us some insight into student persistence in college um not only how many of our students are going on to post-secondary institutions but how many are persisting and I would really hope to see that as one of our indicators that when students have purpose and when they know what
036their direction is maybe oh and have access to early child or early college credit that they actually persist at greater rates so we'll be looking at that but in addition to that obviously just the College of career indicators tracking those indicators making sure that we're reaching those as well as increasing enrollment in the endorsement areas as they could as they're implemented great great um and then the the other question I had is well two more one is how how do we you know part of our uh strategy or uh goals is to um have a a more robust Alumni Association and have we considered or maybe you have already considered how to tie that together as far as the after Fenton experience and then alumni coming in and kind of staying connected and I've got
037one more question after that yeah no that's a great question um that School links platform that I refer to one of the important aspects of that program is it has an alumni component so that'll help us not only to stay connected with them but involve them into our programs through the school links any partner whether it's an alumni partner or whether it's an industry partner can post jobs they can post scholarships they can post volunteer opportunities for students so it's their direct connection to our students so we're hoping that alone can help build and bridge that Community from our alumni to our current students is there a way to link previous alumni to that or just yep going forward yep we're in the middle of implementation and and trying to get everything set up but
038once we we can work with um with Rick and make sure we have our current list and they'll download it right into the system all of them can will receive an invitation but we'll probably have to do some Outreach as well to explain what the platform is and how it works the last question is um are we do we have some type of uh initiative to you know I mean obviously we do uh probably email blasts and other things our website to get it out to the parents let them know hey this is something that you know Fenton's really offering it's you know something new and it's we're excited to see that so yeah oh yeah we're trying to hit them from every angle um but definitely when the school Links come out that'll be
039part of the open house presentation as well because everybody's going to have to know that it's not only available to their children but it's available to the families which makes it yet another reason why it's so good thank you Michelle yeah thank you thanks for your time it was great to see all of you [Applause] Percival Besson is up next and he will provide us a general profile of the Fenton class of 2027 and how we will assist and support their learning uh he will also share our upcoming academic collaboration efforts with District 2 afterwards principal Benson will provide more information about our upcoming German exchange event Dr Benson excellent thank you so we're going to just take a look at the class of 2027. take a good look at that that is the class
040that's coming in we just finished registration for uh this group so we're really excited to have them we're just going to show some data um just to kind of give everyone a picture of this class so we have about 347 students coming in 58 qualify for free reduced lunch so that's pretty consistent with what we have right now approximately so pretty similar about 10.4 percent El services 6.2 special ed services and then dual qualified students is about 2.7 percent so if we look at sort of the pie chart you could see about 80 percent of our kids are knots better ESL and remainder remainder qualify for one or both this is uh just our our pie chart for free reduced lunch that we already looked at this came straight from the school report card for
041either District 2 or District Seven um and so you can kind of see basically we highlighted about uh 26.2 percent our meeting or exceeding in 2022 if you compare to 2019 sort of that pre-pandemic uh area you could see that and this is going to be a common theme throughout that obviously in education we have some work to do with with kids as far as uh you know meeting or exceeding the established standards so like for example this one was at about 37 percent in 2019 and down to about 26 percent so this District 2 in English district 7 in English a little bit higher 33.8 percent uh which was down from about 41 percent there in 2019 math you could see uh even more stark contrast with District 2 and about 22 percent meeting
042or exceeding standards I'm from about 31 in 2019. this is another metric that's on the school report card about 15 percent of students were in an algebra one uh passing out for one in eighth grade this is for district seven you can see they uh the pandemic hit their heart in math also you could see down from about 26 percent meaning exceeding in 2019 in 2022 about 12.4 percent their numbers higher as far as those that are taking eighth grade uh algebra one in passing so then we did our own our own data collection which we do every year the PSAT for incoming freshmen we had about 238 students take the placement test which is about typical unfortunately about a hundred kids did not take that placement test so we don't have this sort of
043Baseline data to to use whether it be for placement and courses or to track growth over time but you can kind of see the uh the number there that they use is 390 in English and 430 in math so then we're going to keep moving along this kind of breaks it down as far as students that about 74 students great or equal to 390 and then you could see a higher percentage was less than 390. what day a little bit better as far as of the kids that we tested uh more we're meeting standards than those that weren't and this is in English next we move on to math and uh again a pretty big difference here as far as who is not meeting was about 143 at Blackhawk and 34 Wooddale and then those
044that are greater or higher than the Baseline of 430 35 at Blackhawk and 17 at Wooddale so we we put that all together and again this does not include the hundred that we didn't test and uh probably a fairly high percentage of those kids were probably below standards because they didn't come out to test most kids that are achieving at a higher level would typically come out for the test but basically what we have is about 53 percent below that Benchmark at 390. for English and about 76 percent below that 430 Benchmark in math so what does that all mean well what it means is obviously the pandemic hit hard in our communities and I want to make the point that this is these lingering effects that we're seeing here this year are going to
045be ongoing so that's why it's important that we program to make sure we meet our kids where they're at to for the learning loss that occurred and also uh social emotional issues that have become apparent along the way and so and we know that that there were some interrupted learning for sixth and seventh graders in particular the needs are greater but I think here as long as we focus on growing our kids and that's something that we can do over time with this Baseline group of 2027 is here's where we're at what kind of growth do we see over time some of the programming that we have the interventions that we have we're confident that our kids are going to thrive here so some more specific examples of supports we're really excited about this new
046initiative and I know uh superintendent on tanko has kind of LED this effort working with the superintendent district 2 to get a more collaborative environment particularly in math we just saw the data math is challenged especially challenging right now it's not just our communities across the states Across the Nation but what we want to do is come together here at Fenton and have like a three-week more intensive collaboration our teachers with their teachers with younger students so we can start to build that capacity and especially even with eighth graders you could see it's in July so that'll feed right into the school year so hopefully we give them a nice foundation for when they come in a couple review of some other interventions we also have academic literacy not just for English which is what
047we've had historically but also for math it's almost like uh like one day they're working on English skills another day they're working on math skills so we have approximately 70 students so that that data we're able to collect um we're going to have in in that this environment where they can get extra academic support and basically it's a class for them and foundations of math we reviewed that how we've broken down our curriculum to to for students that are below grade level that need that extra support breaking algebra into two parts and focusing on those foundations we have about 120 students enrolled in that program there then of course we have some of the old standby obviously bison time which is critical and what we want to emphasize next year we've already started meeting with
048our bison time committee is we want at-risk students reporting to these uh Labs where they can receive assistance many times it's AP kids it's kids trying to go test corrections from like a c to a b or B to an A but what we want to do is program specifically so kids that are struggling are reporting there maybe one day a week two days a week right now we are getting some but we got to be more purposeful in what we're doing because obviously the stakes are high and then finally we've talked before ntss the academic interventions that we have here and the social emotional interventions through groups and in other programs so we're committed to supporting our our students we're excited about the class we have so far the turnout's been great and anytime
049we've had anything going on there's High interest people are excited and uh we're ready to kick it off so um any questions on class of 2027. yes I you said that there were 100 students that didn't come in and take the test is the test not required or is optional so what we do is we we take it on a Saturday and we obviously publicize so everyone kind of knows about and they come in and it's a they all sit in mass and we do the PSAT test so it's kind of The Suite of tests where you could see okay here's where you're at in eighth grade and then ultimately your junior year when you're taking the sat with it's required then you can see see the growth so no it's not required um but
050we obviously let would like everyone to take but if they don't take it it doesn't necessarily change anything it's just we have to collect data a different way on students yeah it would give you a jump start you know if you if you knew that student was struggling I'm I you know I can share uh a time where I had a student what Blackhawk that came and transferred one of my sister's children transferred in from the city of Chicago and um he was failing everything and there was a statement made that if he's if he wasn't failing everything we could assist him and I didn't understand that if you know what if someone's failing everything that's that says that they need you know assistance I mean so is there any way that that could be
051considered uh where it's mandatory you know to come in and get the testing done or could you offer it during the school day so that you know maybe there's an issue with getting a ride to school on a Saturday or something like that where is there a possibility that it could be during the school day for kids that could make it on a Saturday or something to that effect I'll take the lead on that that was one of our concerns here when the results first came out what happened to other students our goal Ms Hayden and Miss Rego is 100 of our students take that test um one of the interventions where we were going to make sure it happens next year is either we go there and test all the students so we don't
052miss anybody or they're not we don't miss them coming over here or we bust them over here to defend high school and I know I've been talking to Kate about that a little bit you want to start something like of some possible plans we had for next year yeah I mean we've been talking about that for a while but that's something that we're looking at uh both of the feeder schools are open to that bringing the kids over here and then thinking about how can we expose them to the career Pathways and things like that maybe they can tour the school um but the other thing is the psat89 is great and we'd love to have that data but we do have data on the other 100 kids we're not coming in blind so they
053have map scores or iar scores we also do articulation with the teachers so we do we do have data this is nice for us to have so that we can see longitudinally but it's not that we're walking in like well they walk it we don't know where to place them so um we would love to have all the PSAT 89. a registration requirement could be considered like part of the registration is that I don't know I don't know if that that's possible but yeah well and even if you don't maybe even if it's not the test we could have a screener or something like that for registration where we could have definitely get some data right away about kids yeah I agree with you that's a good thought interests but we're in public school we
054can't say no right that's right if they don't take it we can't say no to them we're a public school right it's that simple yeah right and I showed some of the uh obviously their school report card they had their mandatory tests that they take in middle school and that's the Kate's referring that there is some data but it is helpful we I mean because this data flows nicely right into the data that we're going to collect down the line so it I know you uh uh Dr Benson you touch base a little bit on um you know the effects of covid on uh you know social emotional mental health um probably suffering from trauma based on loss and and just the the historic event that just happened uh just not too long ago um
055when when we look at the hundred kids that didn't take it is this an all-time low how does it compare to other years that's a good question it's about the same honestly it's pretty similar okay yeah so so we've been managing with this type of yeah that's right exactly yep okay I don't know if this is related but with the uh PSAT and act those types of exams uh test taking skills because the more you see it the more you adjust and ready for that and I don't it's something that I was exposed a lot to developing those types of test taking skills and do we offer anything along those line to assist to students with that great question um and and that did hurt us during the pandemic because we couldn't really get we
056had that before and then we had the pandemic and it was hard to get kids together but we did bring that back this year so we do have groups after school we also have an online option with support where kids can work on preparing for the s.a.t and it's free which is nice because we all know there's programs out there but it's two three four hundred dollars not everyone can afford it so and is it every year because I know sometimes it wasn't every year here yeah we brought it back this year right so last year every single year they I mean it's every year that you have it for this from here on out yes starting this year we plan on on having it okay because we need an option for kids we saw
057our low-income options we want to make sure everyone has access to that and some kids like online just for that because they like to prepare on their own but we know not everyone prefers that method so those are more in-person working on English or working on math and so we we have that running right now it's definitely helpful because there's a skill to right doing these tests there is there's sometimes little it's a lot of tips and ideas here's how you approach it instead of just Road memorization type stuff it's it's important just just finally I just know that it's difficult for a student to start behind you know and then have to catch up so that that's you know that's right and it's really not their fault right and so that's why we've spent
058a lot of time and Kate's done a great job and even Michelle will also working with the different yeah well well she has done great work but working with these different divisions and how do we adjust what we're doing because we don't want to fall behind we know some kids are we have to differentiate more we have to meet some kids where they're at and math as you can see can really I mean math more than anything either you get it or you don't and it builds upon itself and so when a kid comes in struggling like you're saying in math and if you just come in and say okay here's where we're supposed to here we go and then you've got kids here and it's like not connecting but um but we're doing a
059lot better in that area and we're understanding that and so I think those are all part of the components that we need to be cognizant of and that you know this is just kind of The New Normal and we need to adjust and it will be fine um because everyone's in the same situation so I would I also would want to just say like words of encouragement because you know it looks like we're being proactive and reaching out and extending our resources here at the district into the other districts our feeder schools our you know uh tri-district partners and we're trying to hedge this a little bit it looks it sounds to be is that correct yeah exactly and that specifically mentioned James because I remember when he came in he was meeting uh with
060Katie is that her name yeah with Katie over District 2 and they have some Grant funds and we have some Grant funds and it's like let's make this work so and the math teacher our math teacher really excited about it which was great it's like yeah bring them over and so I think we can learn from each other um it's a little different having fourth and fifth graders running around but people like me that have four Sons I'm used to it so I I'll be fine Bruce might get a little nervous but um but we'll work through that it's strategic we got to get them in here early yeah fourth grade we started real long just number one you can see that acronym many many times mtss if there's a deficit here our energy has
061to be here we're offering before during and after school tutoring now we're educating students during the summer we just have to because of that deficit difference so we know the challenge ahead of us we're committed to it and we just can't give up hope on it yeah all right okay anything else yep uh thank you Dr Benson next up is Mr barago our division leader of math and science and directory too quick yeah what's going on here an authentic Liberian vegan so nice yeah yes sorry I've been looking forward to this all day we're going to talk about that German exchange program thank you thank you oh it feels different too I feel like I'm ready for oh is she are we taking pictures um anyway High interest in our Exchange program in Germany over
06240 students were interested and so right now this is going to happen folks so I'm here to tell you that um our partner school is the leibenets gymnasium and Rottweiler home of the Rottweiler dog if you've heard of that that type of dog before yes that's where they came from I guess so we're looking at about a two-week trip somewhere between uh mid-june we would go a more reasonable likely number is probably about 20 students in chaperones we're in the process of working that number to 20 because you know there's more interest in that but we'll see what the criteria is and we're working on that we're also working on finding host families eventually because once we go there in the summer they would come here in the fall so we're looking for about 20
063families that would would host some German students the other thing that's reassuring is there's this organization called called Gat the German American parent program a government organization in Germany and they help facilitate this exchange so this isn't just myself and the principal and at the gymnasium figuring this out it's an organized system where we apply there's also scholarships that our kids can get to help to defray some of the costs we're also looking at some fundraising opportunities but um yeah we're really excited um Lorenzo Rubio you've probably you've met him before he's our multilingual program director and he's really taking this on doing an excellent job so there'll probably be more updates as we get closer but this is sort of our first you know formal bringing this to the board I have one question
064sure where did you get the Hat Kate came through her husband's German um and so I might have our team takes care of me when it comes to my props I don't know I don't always have a prop handy but they come through when when we need one so well done yeah good question any other questions it sounds like a great opportunity yes Eric said the kids are really excited so it's an experience of a lifetime yeah it's amazing exactly all right thank you thank you Dr Benson all right sorry about interrupting you up next is equity Report with uh Mr Mike barrago uh for this month's Equity report because I think I still have the clicker [Music] hello everyone my name is Mike barago and this is your Equity report let's kick off this
065report with our commemorative services and holidays people [Music] this report will highlight conference presentations recognitions Black History Month events and activities and dealt updates in case you missed it our very own Dr Jim Batson was recognized on the December 2022 issue of tech and learning the article how one edtech leader supports Equity highlights the many ways that Fenton High School leverages Technology to meet the needs of our students congratulations Dr Batson on January 21st I had to honor partnering with Dr vet dubio and representing our district at the Illinois Association of Latino administrators and superintendents educational conclave in Oakbrook our presentation shared our Equity Journey at Fenton High School that played a role in the increase of students taking AP courses that changes in our breeding practices the growth and strength of our student voice
066initiative and more during the presentation I highlighted the importance of walking the talk and receiving the support we need from leadership and our Board of Education in order to make meaningful changes we are fortunate as a school district to continue to advance our Equity efforts and effectively providing students the support that they need the diversity committee and our black student union have partnered to celebrate Black History Month by highlighting black excellence and history on January 31st BSU took the time to decorate our windows with quotes and various images in the art Miss Wright has provided a space for students to use their creativity through a grid method paintings of basis of prominent black Americans for the entire month students read announcements about influential figures to highlight major contributions by black people that are often forgotten
067in the history books on Wednesday February 8th and 22nd BSU and film club have partnered to celebrate Black History Month through films the group selected From the Rough and monster for their screenings [Music] on Saturday February 11th members from BSU and ignite visited the Illinois Holocaust Museum where the Negro motorist green book exhibit is currently being showcased for those unfamiliar with a green book it was a metaphor for Freedom it helped guide black Americans to thousands of businesses for over 30 years in an era of Jim Crow laws and Sundown towns that green book offered critical life-saving information and Sanctuary big shout out to miss flograc and Mr Simon Sanchez for making this possible for our students on Tuesday February 21st our Jazz Ensemble led by Mr George Will conclude our month-long Celebration by welcoming
068students in the morning with music we will also have Beignets for students to taste test in celebration of bad Tuesday our adult strands are continuing to make progress the system strand led by Dr Batson is in a process of reviewing its first set of policies to ensure gender neutral language the teaching and learning strand is currently executing its goal of diving into the culturally responsive teaching and learning step leading standards led by our instructional coaches and Miss Kate Ward the professional learning strand led by Miss Stephanie Jackson will be offering staff staff a six-week viewing opportunity of the 1619 project series on Hulu The Strand has also continued its podcast programming through the podcast Club our Equity PD cohort of new teachers and advents have completed seven trainings since the beginning of the school year
069the group has two more sessions that will be held in April and May to complete their Baseline Dei training lastly the perfect the professional learning strand is providing opportunities for staff members who want to take their Equity Journey to the next level by sending a team of teachers and administrators to to the Northern Illinois University's social justice camp in June the family and Community as agency strand led by Miss Michelle Rodriguez is in the midst of planning for our May 4th Equity advisory committee meeting where we will combine forces with Padres unidos and polish parents group to celebrate Polish Constitution Day [Music] last but not least our student voice climate and culture led by Mr Jason medal is making strides and learning from our students and creating action plans through our four-strand structure the strands
070are climate and culture diversity student learning and the principles Advisory Group the principles advisor group is a space for students to share general information that climate and culture strand is currently addressing student concerns regarding vaping the student learning strand is currently discussing and learning about students experiences regarding grading practices an adversity strand is in a process of action planning to address hate speech that's a wrap for our community report until next time have a good evening questions there okay moving on real quick summer school days just wanted to let the board know usually summer school takes place in semester one in June semester uh two in July okay fin Foundation is next as you all know creating a fin Foundation is one of our strategic plan goals we have met this goal in moving forward
071Rick cambic our director of communication and Community engagement however he's Mrs Timmons today will provide us the latest Foundation News Rick all right so as we talked about last month relationships out in the community are important so as you see right here this was the September 11th remembrance program we did last year and the VFW in Wooddale post 2149 participate in that event and we've also had our students out in the community performing for for different holiday events they came across some additional funding and decided they wanted to make more contributions to the community and decided to approach us and they said that all of our children are a community value and a Community Asset and they wanted to donate 1300 to our school for us to choose what we feel is the best use
072of that so that will they'll be for the foundation to decide how to how to proceed but we are now up to 21 300 uh balance in the Fenton foundation and we would [Applause] definitely want to celebrate the VFW at the appropriate time that was very generous of them to to think of us you wreck up next is uh Mr Jose Jaramillo our assistant uh superintendent he will review The Press policies we've discussed last month Jose so you know we last last month at our meeting um we discussed 54 policy related changes or updates that were developed by press um at that point you know we recommended and we Rec we talked about um you know all these different these different uh things that that are brought up by press um the only one that
073we did not recommend adopting was that six two two twenty uh bring your own technology is that some that's something that Fenton has done for over a decade now provide technology for students one-to-one technology so we recommend adapting all the policies except for that one and you'll have the opportunity to vote on this during the discussion and action idols thank you up next um four years we received uh two foyers both uh foyers have been um resolved first four years from local Labs requesting teacher salaries and the second is from Mr Larry anzalone and regarding uh uh doc pay that concludes our informational items all right thank you James uh let's get right to con consensus um so do we have any questions or comments regarding the consent agenda just real quickly I've uh as
074you read my email I've informed the board earlier that um two staff members have submitted their resignation retirement they are now uploaded on board books and you also have a hard copy in there just wanted to make sure you are aware of that any questions okay shall we vote uh may have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented so moved second got it okay get a roll call Rego yes Figueroa yes hate yes Louis yes radzinski yes King Paul pong yes and the consent agenda pass motion passed for that board just real quick we have uh our new athletic director in the house coming today Mr Pedro Rodriguez let's get my hand on Applause Pedro can you say something good evening everyone my name is Pedro Rodriguez I'm honored and excited for the
075opportunity to serve as a director of Athletics and division lead for physical education at Fenton I was raised in Elgin attended Elgin High School and have a deep understanding of the upstate Aid conference I bring a decade of experience working in two Chicago schools in various capacities my passion and purpose in education centers on providing our students with opportunities skills and knowledge to best prepare them for life after graduation it is with this experience and excitement that I plan to serve our students athletes moving forward I can't wait to immerse myself within the Fenn Community build genuine relationships and continue to cultivate academic and athletic Excellence I look forward to seeing all of you at our events go bison [Applause] Pedro thanks for coming is that your wife there you want to quickly introduce her
076yes of course my wife Taylor [Applause] thank you all right congratulations uh we go to discussion action items next and so we start with the um the resolution to adopt fund prints first so it may have a well we're going to go through it so they have a motion that the Board of Education adopt the resolution of Community High School District number one number 100 DuPage County Illinois directing the transfer of 10 million dollars from the educational fund to the operations and maintenance fund went through that already so I'll make that motion based on our past discussions second okay can I get a roll call please Rego yes hate yes Lewis yes red zinski yes Figueroa yes Ting Papa yes yes definitely motion passed and next is the field house door replacement bid if no
077further questions we'll go ahead and uh just for further clarification that it was that bad it was that bad because it was a triple I tell you what I I don't know if waiting is going to work but I'll defer to you because I'm hearing that from a lot of places including my full-time job we're lucky we could even find doors from what I'm being told let alone triple and I noticed was one of our safety items great I'm going to defer but I don't know if we're going to do better the next time we were we were estimating between an architect was estimating between anywhere between 200 and 300 they're coming at 900. I agree I'm not surprised by that and I'm just happy we could find doors I really am it's it's pretty
078bad out there right now [Music] maybe a longer lean time I think the architect just here Will utterly shocked at how much so they strongly suggested uh we uh agreed with the recommendations project the bids and go out through the fall earlier with the hope of getting more booters [Music] I don't think it's going to hurt I just hope it doesn't go up I really it's a rough world out there right now and I get it and we want to be frugal but we also need to get the work done I know this is an action item on the safety side so I mean I'll defer to the recommendation but if it comes in bad again next time I think we're gonna have to bite the bullet because it is not a pretty Market out
079there and I'm just happy they could find doors because I know at my other job they're not finding doors or cars or trucks so this is the world we're living in and we're going to have to pay more but I I'll defer and hope we can do better but I wouldn't be surprised if we don't uh as far as doors goes do we have a timeline on um you know is there is there a cutoff date for for getting it if we don't get it now thanks John yeah we have a motion that the Board of Education not award the project and close this bid so moved yeah a second second okay I'm getting a roll call Ray go yes Louis yes radzinski yes figure off yes hate yes Ting Paul pong yes motion pass
080to reject the project uh next is the 2023-2024 net set classroom lease agreement sure I could take that off as you all know NASDAQ stands for North DuPage special education Co-op they rent a room classroom from US every year the numbers are increasing in those classrooms and they will rent two rooms this upcoming school year there's going to be a bubble of number of students that have increased the class size in those uh in that program so they will be renting two for at least two or three or four years we charge fifteen thousand dollars per classroom all of these all of our all of their students are from um Bensenville or Wooddale so they are our students so for for the motion the total price would be thirty thousand dollars so fifteen thousand dollars
081per each classroom tax money into US money into US yes and we have the space we do have the space yes and they are also they compensate for um their teachers that's not coming from our heart money here at Penn High School Heist as well it's really a win-win situation if you think of co-ops it's it's it's engineered in a way so that students with with accommodations or what needs are cared for in a much more economic um yeah win-win's good all right so um we have a motion and a second to approve the meds like police agreement is presented yield thank you John and Rick can we get a roll call please Rego Yes Lewis Yes red zinski yes Figueroa yes hate yes ping pow pong yes motion passed uh next we look at
082the uh I a iasb press policy recommendations and we went through that earlier do we have any questions on that pretty straightforward so then I may have a motion the Board of Education approved October 2022 iasb press policy recommendations as presented and discussed at the policy committee meeting held last month on the 25th of January 25th 2023 except for policy uh 6 220. negative Motion in a second so moved second and a roll call please Rego yes radzinski yes Figueroa yes eight yes Louis yes motion passed and we breezed right through that let's get to committee reports starting with the Bensonville Community Foundation from January was there oh no uh was there a meeting it was January yes uh uh nothing really to report I do know that um the principal Community Foundation does always
083um uh give a scholarship to um the students at uh at Fenton I know that they are going to continue that this year um I think it will be one last year they did give two I believe that the number um will be 750 dollars for one student in the field um they they must play a musical instrument I believe so um I don't know when I guess it was speak with the counselor I'm not sure how that works um how they get the information how students get the information on their student council yes to their counselor so um but that would be the difference instead of two there'd be one perfect and the amount of 750 dollars so now that we have the Fenton foundation with the Bentonville Community Foundation because I wasn't at
084the meeting in January uh support or give a donation where it's not a requirement to have music but a donation to the Fenton Foundation is that sure what go ahead no you're gonna go first one Foundation can give to another Foundation that's if that's the case I just wanted to give Miss Reagan Ms hi to a heads up our German exchange team will fill out an application uh a ground Foundation uh Grant application for their German trip to defend uh the Bensenville Community Foundation um The Exchange team is working very hard to fundraise but some of our our students will need some assistance so we'll be asking you um in your board if they could support or offend students to go to Germany just a heads up so that would mean that um a mini
085Grant form would need to be filled out yes and will you be doing that at the next for the next meeting or would that be something in the future what would you recommend MS frago uh I would recommend what I would recommend filling out the mini Grant form um maybe for the March meeting okay yeah we'll get that done Dr Benson yeah all right we'll get that done right yeah the sooner the better yes that's what I say yeah they need it before June yeah yeah so I would break yeah I would recommend sooner yeah just to because we only meet every uh Ever every other month so okay thank you uh the more di Community me and um Sylvia will be meeting uh to go over that you know in probably by March yes
086yeah um the finance and Facilities committee do we have any news on that any other thing to report just that we will have a finance facilities committing meeting in March in March that's right okay um policy committee we we did that last month I think so we're I think we're good there unless we have anything else to add we just voted on adopting that um ISB delegates okay so I think that's Juliet now so would it be would it be me now for the entirety of the year because I did it okay yes it is me it's good you've been feeling very very special you are the woman for the job yes perfect okay yeah um I can fill in if you'd like but yeah what do you need from me no just a report
087so I I could just uh yeah help me out okay I can speak to Okay well one thing is um you know so the superintendent evaluation is coming up and um I don't know if you guys noticed your emails but there's an implementing and effective superintendent evaluation process uh uh you know kind of a webinar of some sort that's hosted by our association that's February 23rd so if you don't see that it might be a good thing to look into it because we're right up there at the season um so so I guess I would urge you to look into it encourage you to uh and then uh we've got the March 30th uh National uh convention coming up so that'll be a really good uh develop an opportunity there for us and is there
088anything else that's it right yeah that'd be it that's enough so um let's go to the next report which is lend [Music] we will be present okay great last is nedsec and we kind of went through that yep uh just thank you board uh for um renewing the lease for netsec once again these are our students that live in Bensonville Wood Dale that we are assisting real close to their home so thank you great that that uh that concludes the committee reports uh our next board meeting is uh Wednesday March 22nd and it's at 7 p.m again with a tentative board Finance facilities committee meeting scheduled prior to that regular meeting time is 6 pm and uh so next we'll go into a request for closed session so I may have a motion and a
089second to go into closed session and I'll read this paragraph again I know John loves it um session for the purpose of the appointment of employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal specific employees of the public body or legal counsel for the public body including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee of the public body or against legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity however a meeting to consider an increase in compensation to a specific employee of a public body that is subject to the local government wage increased transparency act may not be closed and should be open to the public and posted and held in accordance with this act five Illinois cs-122 C1 also the purpose of collective negotiation matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives
090or deliberations concerning salaries schedules for one or more classes of of employee five Illinois CS 1 2c2 I may have a motion and a second to get into closed session so sorry II Leo's first roll call please Rago yes Figueroa yes Aid yes Louis yes Brad zinski I need him to repeat that I just say ditto yes uh yes and you guys want to take a quick five before we even come back okay from closed section motion don't move second Ary [Laughter] uh Rego Lewis yes radzinski yes Figueroa yes paid yes ping pong pong yes thank you thank you [Music] guys miss Mary you know yes you know another thing that I found out since