001I'd like to call the January 25th 2023 uh regular meeting of the Fenton Community High School District 100 board to order uh may have a roll call Mary [Music] Figueroa here Kovac Louis yeah radzinski here Rego here Ting Paul pong here we have a quorum please join me in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance religions for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and James please read our event and Mission beliefs and bison right statements yes our Fenton mission statements to cultivate successful passionate empowered Learners through rigor relevance and relationships our fan belief statement successful passionate empowered Learners Thrive when we provide a safe caring welcoming environment diversity equity and inclusion unify our community school and home collaborate as one we Champion Innovative teaching and engaged learning with state-of-the-art
002facilities 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 Mary do we have any requests for public comments today none this evening thank you let's head right into District uh informational fantastic our first one is eighth grade orientation what a fantastic evening that day it was very successful the programs for the parents and students focused on learning engagement and student programming and student support we had different breakout groups both here at the arc as
003well as classrooms as well as the auditorium we also have breakouts group for our Spanish and polish-speaking parents because that is our community as well after the presentation students and parents attended activities and electives Fair activities Fair included athletic and Club activities and the elective Fair highlighted our elective classes like art automotives and CTE we are currently expecting 346 freshmen's next year next trip is the next slide Jim is the Disney trip 40 music students represented Finn at the Disney during winter break what an awesome event for them next slide Jim um the reason why I keep on saying like it's like because we prepared beautiful pictures for our audience as well as the board you can just see that they're having fun there in sunny Florida that trip provided an edible experience for the
004students via the ever popular Disney sing workshop and you are the instrumental workshops basically they sing and also showed off their talent with their instruments at their downtime also visited the Epcot Center MGM Studios Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom state-bound Olympics basketball very exciting to have a game this evening as well our Special Olympics basketball team played into qualifying tournament on January 15th and earned a spot in the state finals tournament in March go bison they won 47-14 over glenbard North and they upset The Undefeated clembart's South Raiders 31-22 to qualify for the state we continue to celebrate it it was truly a um a celebration of of Bison Pride you can see through this picture's not only did we have our band out we had their students coming out we had our cheer coming
005out there so it was really a great time for our students our fans um during that evening next up is our AP term art show so basically our APR students had a day I'm sorry a couple days here to show up their artwork uh into Commons and into Arc State Testing it's state testing's time which basically means our students will be tested on some of the standards that the state require first one is in February it's access it's English language learners for El students to test their Proficiency in English which is Reading Writing listening and speaking next one is advanced placement or our famous AP as you know may not know Mr Kovac in 2019 we were AP school district of the year of all of the United States uh this for the AP test
006that includes our 10th through 12th grade students um next one is the Illinois Science assessment that will take place in April all juniors are required to take that test also s.a.t which is basically stands for student achievement testing is a college entrance exam it's also the the state measures how our students are doing with with those standards that will also take care take place in April for our Juniors and lastly sealed by literacy which is also in April basically students can take this test to show their proficiency no I'm sorry their fluency on being bilingual or bilarid sometimes trilingual and triliterate many of our students can uh both get their certification in Russian German Spanish or polish water mitigation project update very very excited this month the focus was communication communication to home number one
007our staff our parents and our students number two are taxing bodies just the village Fire Department police department Park District and Library we have put out also a written announcement in communication throughout our community and later on this month we're going to have a newsletter which touches all the homes and companies in Bensenville and Wooddale so we're very excited we want this to be public we want people to ask us questions we want people we want people's input not only our students our staff but community members as well uh next slide is Fenton Foundation as you guys know we're very excited we because we completed one of our strategic plan goals which is to form a fin Foundation thank you president uh Ting Paul pong uh for spearheading that um as you know uh kit
008is our our president uh VP is uh Leo Figueroa and uh no VP for a foundation it's it's Leo Figueroa and our treasurer's uh as Bruce Martin we are ready to go I'm also very proud to announce that we received our first donation of twenty thousand dollars and behind the scene I think it's important for the board as well as our audience there's a lot of work behind the scenes um outside of Bruce Leo and kit Michelle papaniklo myself Rick are working behind the scenes to get these donations to make sure we have all the paperworks in we have the bylaws and all of that and so without further Ado I'm going to give the the mic to Rick to talk about our first donation Rick yep this is a really meaningful story and it's
009a great way to start off this new Endeavor that we have with the foundation so this young man that you see up here his name is Pat Curran and Pat Curran graduated from Fenton in 1958 after being involved in football wrestling and theater upon graduating from college he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and became a naval flight Aviator Pat was deployed to Vietnam in June of 1969 he was assigned to do a reconnaissance flight on September 29th 1969 when his Tower lost radio contact at 8 50 PM search and rescue efforts were unsuccessful and Pat was eventually declared missing in action it wasn't until June of 1996 when his crash site in the neighboring country of Laos was identified the area was excavated in August of 96 but his remains were not returned
010to the United States until 2002. Pat Korean is now resting in Arlington National Cemetery those details I just gave you are directly off of that Memorial monument that is mounted on our wall outside of the front gym Pat Curran's story is known far and wide his mysterious disappearance was mourned by the entire Community which is why they came together to make this Memorial viewing of this Memorial is actually very popular among the alumni from the 1950s 1960s and 1970s a lot of them purposely request it and as you see they take pictures of it one of the recent attendees had reached out to Pat's brother Bill and shared her excitement over seeing that the memorial is still here and that we are still honoring their classmate Pat's brother Bill now lives in Barrington and he
011is quite generous in donating his time and money to things that are important to him and upon hearing from his former classmate about this he expressed interest in starting a scholarship fund to honor his brother Pat so we were able to make contacts and we worked together to explore this idea this scholarship is now being made possible thanks to the Swift action by kit Leo Bruce and James by getting all the paperwork done so that he can get a tax-exempt donation in and as Mr antango just said the first donation of twenty thousand dollars has been received and he plans to make additional donations in the coming years as well as other activities that we plan to do to keep the fund going uh right now we're currently working with him on the eligibility criteria
012for the students who are going to apply his wish is to Aid students who have parents or siblings that currently serve in the armed services parents and siblings who previously served in the armed services our parents or siblings who are lost in action while serving our country he's very pleased with this joint venture so far and he plans to present the first few scholarship Awards when that time comes we do plan to extend that segment of the senior Awards night so we can acknowledge his generosity and his role in getting this Foundation up and running as the first official donor in the first official fund inside the Fenton Foundation so that that's the power of relationships because it was someone who's not from the family that decided to reach out to him and you know
013the ball just got rolling thank you Rick uh we're very excited for that and once again we'll have a little celebration uh when he's in the building next up is our favorite foia we received two this month one from uh smart procurement just real quickly smart but human we usually receive four-year smart procurement is a company it's uh it's a purchase requesting company which they request from all taxing bodies both Federal local and local this request has been resolved thank you Mrs Timmons next one is local labs in regards to our Board of Education local Labs is a company that collects public records for their clients usually news outlets they requested information regarding our elected board members including their names as well as if they were elected or appointed that has also been resolved just
014to mind you all School District received that local lab for you after a year our two new buses have arrived we're very excited because we need them I know Bruce is very excited about that and I'm sure our students will enjoy it is it for me for information very good um okay so thank you James so with next we go to the consent agenda do we have any questions or comments regarding our current consent agenda is presented going through the financial reports treasury reports budget summary we're good then we'll move forward with the motion may have a motion to approve the consent agenda is presented motion I think again in a second second thank you Leo and make it a roll call please Rego yes Figueroa yes go back yes Louis Yes red zinski yes
015Ting pofong yes in motion passed uh we'll go right into the discussion and action items starting with the resolution authorizing preparation and publication of the tentative budget for fiscal year 2023 and 2024 any questions discussions on that okay then I may have a motion the Board of Education adopt a resolution authorizing preparation and publication of the tentative budget for fiscal year 2023 and 2024. so moved second thank you Julia second would be Kent and uh may have a roll call please reago yes Kovac Yes Lewis yes redzinski yes Figueroa yes Ching Paul pong yes and uh also motion passed the next item is the financial audit firm agreement questions comments sure I'll just a few quick comments um our financial audit is required every year by Republic bodies including school districts we did go out
016for in 2020 for RFP with uh for auditing services at that time to get a little bit of History I know not everybody was here at that time so we did at that time in March of 2020 we received six proposals we interviewed three firms the committee was unanimous we did have a committee to audit committee to kind of go through the process they were unanimous and unanimous and selected The Firm of waterbach and amen who's our current Auditors um the first experience in civil engine size to have a Fenton that included successfully completing and preparing the comprehensive Financial audits of corresponding state and federal reports for many districts in Illinois similar size and scope was attractive and then in addition their proposed fee schedule would happen to be the lowest of the three firms
017as well so as a result of that it was recommended and the board did approve a three-year agreement at that time in January of 2020 for 2021 I think that was proven to be a so they've proven uh to be a solid working partner they've met all the timelines with submitting and fulfilling the audit requirements and they've been responsive And Timely when we've had questions even throughout the year if we have something to pop up with they're happy to answer and very uh timely in their responses for that so we asked for them to uh if they wouldn't uh would be interested in submitting another proposal for three years they were happy to do that they I think they enjoy working here as well a supportive board and I think we've done well accommodating them
018so they did submit a new proposal um that covers fiscal years 23 24 and 25 and the fees are similar they've gone up a little bit but they average about three percent each of those years which is pretty comparable to last time incidentally their uh highest price in the final year of the audit is is still under what our bit our bill our audit for charging before we made the switch so we're still kind of under uh you know three years ago four years ago what we were paying so we're happy to you know hear that um but we are recommending entering into a three-year agreement with them uh beginning with it would be this would be the first fiscal year the 22-23 uh fiscally would be the first one that they would audit so
019implementation I've included the uh full proposal for your review as well uh we went through that this year so it's the price is adjusted with inflation three percent every year uh qualities the same if not better relationships better consistency yeah no changes or updates from the previous agreement no other than the pricing no uh other than audit requirements that are new you know obviously but yeah but the standard uh services are still intact and consistent with what they were before just for the record could you state the firm's name real quick lauderbuck and amen and they're out of Naperville they're good firm I don't want them in my past life they're probably the up and comers and they're always reasonable in pricing and we've had good luck with them the last couple of years yeah
020we have so and we're still saving money from our original firm that's a plus uh then if nothing else we'll move forward with emotions I may have a motion that the Board of Education except the three-year pricing proposal from lauterbach and almond LLP to complete the financial audit for fiscal years ending June 30th 2010 three through June 30th 2025 with reservation to review and extend or terminate annually some second Carrie and roll call please Regal yes Colbert Yes Lewis yes radzinski yes Figueroa yes Ting po pong yes motion passed this one is a resolution to transfer funds this will be discussion only to be voted on in February and sure thank you uh yeah this this resolution was driven by um the work that was approved by the board last month for our water mitigation
021it's a 10 million dollar project that to be funded with cash reserves from The District's Reserve so but in order to make that happen a resolution has to as to that would transfer money from the educational fund that has bigger fund balances than the other funds and that would move into the operations and maintenance fund and ultimately into the capital projects funds where um projects such as this would need to be paid for accounted for in that particular fund so this is just kind of an informational item but it would be it would be published in the paper a public hearing notifying the public before the resolution would be acted on by the board paper this week a public hearing notice letting them know what we're doing with this resolution and the amount of it
022and then at the February board meeting we would present to the board the actual resolution uh hold the public hearing present The Resolution Act on the resolution and uh what all goes well we'll leave resolution will get past and then we'll uh make that uh transaction happen within the funds the funds part of the timing of the hearing and things stick with the prior skin or desired schedule presented to us we're able to start work after school at least this time things to start up by the way it does and a great question you know we've already begun some work already we've had some smaller bills come in that we've you know have adequate funds to budgets to pay for that but the bigger work we would expect and anticipated to happen this summer that's
023when you're more of your contracts would be awarded construction manager you know fees would be coming in architect fees that type of thing so we anticipate more of the higher end summer and this would be funds would be in place prior to that so we we had a finance meeting earlier today and so we we have a pretty good idea of what's going on but I think for the general public to know this is a project that's necessary uh number one and it's kind of an extension what we were hoping to start with referendum this will be just a very small portion of the the most emergency need which is the water mitigation um and and as far as spending goes when we do transfer These funds uh it is going to be assigned only
024for the purpose of uh Improvement right this project yeah this project yeah so it's very clear I want the public to know that is it's it's assigned very specifically for that um it's also publicly noted so that's all transparent um the timeline the timeline of this is uh again go ahead yeah we would like to start as soon as possible like Mr Martin said the some of the work has started already we like to uh break around this tune and finished the project by January next year so it's approximately eight to nine months worth of project and and the level of disruption as far as the staff and student population and our Workforce we've looked into making sure that I mean within reason just communication and preparation for that yes that is correct we still
025think Paul pong and just what I'd like to also reiterate in addition to our letters to our parents and students community that no student programming whether it's academics or extracurricular including Sports will halt that means it's a normal programming for next year even though we have this water mitigation project for example football practices we have secured areas for them as well as soccer as well as band and other activities we have communicated with District 2 as well as the bensible park district we want to make sure that none of our students are hindered by this project so the programming student program will continue in regards to home games Force particular for our football team we will secure a stadium for our home games right now there are five home games for football where you will
026secure we're very confident having great relationship with other high school districts into page to secure that for our students and so your your anticipating just one season and then the following season they'll be back on their home turf yes well said and then actually it'll only be an improvement because now not only will football be able to play at home soccer will be able to play at home our track meets will be on a better facility and best of all we'll stop damaging our building and start to be able to correct things that all this flooding has caused over the last 20 30 years so I mean I think this is a win-win and this is part of the 10 million that we already committed as a district to to you know prior referendum attempt
027and also now we're just following through with it so and we can't put this off if we don't stop it it's just going to get worse it's going to cause more damage and it'll be more expensive next year in the next year so it's it's a project that needs to be done any other comments before we vote or I'm sorry if we don't vote we vote next next next next month so there's time any other comments or questions on that okay thank you thank you Bruce up next is our uh typical 2023-2024 school calendar do we have somebody to speak for that or okay um last uh board meeting in um in December this was presented to you uh thoroughly um we've also received feedback uh from Howard we also asked for feedback from our
028staff our unions our feeder schools we would like to recommend this school calendar for 2023 2024 we feel it's been vetted out and we feel that it's a solid and fair calendar and we have to let our parents know as soon as possible so they could uh plan accordingly whether it's a Vacations or trips for the summer and I think you mentioned it's coordinated with the other the Peters yeah Peter schools both brunsonville too and Wooddale questions guys comments okay let's go ahead and vote on it uh may have a motion to connect us interrupt for a second are you saying coordinated as far as like um uh holidays not necessarily start time but at least holiday time correct we're fortunate this year that we are going to all start at the same time holidays
029for example Martin Luther King President's Day Labor day as well as uh winter break and spring break okay very good all right I didn't mean to interrupt okay sorry a good question any other stuff just just a thought came to mind as as far as how the water mitigation might impact this as well is there is there any noted items here that we should make make light of or in regards to the calendar it will not affect both academic as well as extracurricular most of the work are outside if we look at academic academic I believe is safe from this project so the the there won't it won't impact inside School inside that's correct okay good question all right then um I may have a motion for the Board of Education to prove the 2020.
030sure will this will the air must be running next fall which the white the the kid never say the word correctly the aromatic hair masks yes would that be happening next fall yes sir there'll be not just next it will happen this spring as well May 6th okay yeah excited for this spring I'm already hungry for it but for next fall this stuff is going to be under construction where we had that is there a plan to have that in a different location yes sir around that yes sir we have another plan it will be in front of the building fantastic awesome thank you can I just ask one other question regarding um the water mitigation just before we approve this it's somewhat um how about PE just out of curiosity how will that be
031affected by or will it be affected by this you know as far as uh gym teachers uh utilizing outside will they just not do it will they just do things inside um that's a great question indoor PE will not be affected as stated we also have parking lots we have our tennis courts it's not going to be utilized and we also have District here in the Park District that could accommodate our needs if needed for PE whe whether let's say for example there's a softball section PE curriculum or a walking exercise there we have communicated both with District 2 and the park district assistance okay all right I know that we got off of that subject but it just it passed oh great question okay we'll get another chance next next month okay okay so
032they may have a motion and that the Board of Education approved the 2023-2024 school calendar is presented we'll make the motion I'll second it and Mr Kovac yeah can I get a roll call please Mary there you go yes Louis Yes red zinsky yes Figueroa yes go there yes motion passed and we go to community reports next starting with the BCF um I'm so sorry I I really just put a cookie in my mouth um I have a meeting tomorrow so okay nothing too to report the bi committee has nothing to report the finance facilities committee we kind of went through it anything to add gentlemen we covered at an earlier meeting in this meeting I went on a good course I have a plan perfect policy committee we had that after the uh today
033this evening and we went through some policies so look at that next month uh ISB delegate that's me uh February 1st is going to be our ISB meeting for your search second first I think first Wednesday first Monday yeah [Music] the national coming up here end of March so that would be good for the board to get some more training and development I think that's about it um blend blend has a meeting this Friday via Zoom at eight in the morning I will be attending James and nedsec we don't have a meeting until next month okay all right so it'll be a good report next month uh so that concludes the committee reports uh next board meeting and a new business on Wednesday that's February 22nd 2023 at seven with Canada Ford Finance facilities committee
034meeting scheduled prior to that regular meeting at six um we will be going to the closed session now I just want to uh let the attendees know thank you so much for coming in and being engaged with us so uh so then we'll go with close session we'll need uh privacy on that um it may have a motion a second to go into closed session for the purpose of the appointments employment compensation discipline performance or uh dismissal specific employees of the public body or legal counsel for the public body including hearing uh oh and I'm sorry and and we will have new business either just so you know um 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
035specific employee for of the 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 this act uh five Illinois cs-122 C1 also the purpose of the collective negotiation matters between the public body and its employees of their representatives or deliberations concerning salaries schedules for one or more classes of employees according to Illinois five Illinois cs-122 C2 uh motion so moved second and a second thank you guys carrying Kent frago yes resinski yes Figueroa yes Kobe Yes Lewis yes teamfo Palms yes [Music] over under uh so uh we are into Open Session now and we have no further business tonight so I'm sure everybody wants to get home so can I get a uh motion
036to return yes yes that would that would be Kent and who's the second okay reluctantly ready go yes go back yeah yes yes [Music] and uh meeting adjourned uh Happy New Year to the district and uh Happy Lunar New Year for those that uh celebrate