Fenton High School Board of Education Meeting December 15, 2021

001i'd like to call the december 15 2021 regular december meeting of the fenton community high school district 100 regular board meeting to order may have a roll call yes figueroa yeah here haid here jalwick here redzinski here rhaego here here and we have a quorum please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance of the united it states one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice james please read our offended mission beliefs and by the way statements our mission statement cultivate successful passionate and powered learners through rigor relevance and relationships our fit and belief statement successful passionate empowered learners thrive when we provide a safe caring and 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 facilities we infuse

002social emotional learning into academics and culture we prepare students to fulfill their civic responsibility we immerse students in authentic life experiences our 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 innovative innovators of the future thank you james uh next we will appoint uh or we have a new member appointment to to fill the seats that paul wiedemann left for new board education member appointments may have a motion that the board of education approved carrie lewis as the new school board member for fenton community high school to fill the current vacancy figueroa yes hayden yes galwick yes redzinski yes rhaego yes tinkpop yes motion passed

003and we have filled the [Applause] let's seat don't get comfortable though okay yep go ahead so welcome aboard did you want to make any statements for for now are you good thank you for your thank you sean um this is just an extension of the investment i've made over the years investing in the kids i've coaching just another step going in that direction hopefully continue to make an impact thank you thank you very good so in order to fulfill your your office we have to have you sign in so we have an oath of office for you to read so please do so i carry lewis do solemnly swear that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of member of the board of education of fenton community high school district 100 in accordance

004with the constitution of the united states the constitution of the state of illinois and the laws of the state of the illinois of illinois to the best of my ability i further swear that i shall respect taxpayer interest by serving as a faithful protector to the school district's assets i shall encourage and respect the free expression of opinion by my fellow board members and others who seek a hearing before the board while respecting the privacy of students and employees i shall recognize that a board member has no legal authority as an individual and that decisions can be made only by a majority vote at a public board meeting i shall abide by my i shall abide by majority decisions of the board while retaining the right to seek changes in such decisions through ethical and

005constructive channels as a part of the board of education i shall accept the responsibility for my role in the equitable and quality education of every student in the school district i shall foster with the board extensive participation of the community formulate goals define outcomes and set the course for fenton community high school district 100. i shall assist in establishing a structure and an environment designed to ensure all students have the opportunity to attain their maximum potential through a sound organizational framework i shall strive to ensure that a continuous assessment of student achievement in all conditions affecting the education of our children in compliance with state law i shall serve as education's key advocate on behalf of students in our community school to advance the vision for fenton community high school district 100 i shall strive

006to work together with the district superintendent to lead the school district toward fulfilling the vision the board has created fostering excellence for every student in the areas of academic skills knowledge citizenship and personal development [Applause] put that back back up hi how are you congratulations here we go rick [Applause] and and now we need to uh since paul wiedemann had resigned we we have a vacancy in the vice president position so we are looking at uh reassigning a vice president uh do i have any nominations for the vice president position um yes i'd like to nominate juliet rhaegal so i nominate myself too okay so then um i forgot we do this so do we do we vote first or do we vote in or we we do a vote for juliet first we're both

007together juliet first then okay just a raise of hand uh for uh juliet then for vice president for julia vice president yep okay uh and then for leo okay so then uh juliet you are our vice president now congratulations [Applause] um so now that we've fulfilled okay so um don't get comfortable that's right yes you do juliet if i have anything to say i'll just pass a note okay and also so congratulations um we do have board committee appointments as well and so we'll start with one position in the finance and facility committee to fail so who's the already uh who else is sitting in the finance facility but so it's took company john since paul left this one's an important one okay you know what um can we get the mic getting hot is

008it do you want to tell us about this committee sure okay real quick the finance facility meetings is exactly what it says it looks at our budget to make sure it was fiscally responsible uh it also uh talks about our facilities facilities meaning this physical school building as well as our campus our fields and property within it as you know uh we all know we did a facilities assessment that's why this is so critical especially with our uh a potential referendum run uh to improve our facilities this facility the committee will probably meet four times a year and probably pick up as we move forward with our uh building initiatives okay just to let you know we are all on subcommittees as well and so that's these are some of the ones that are are

009coming open that's a real good point to um patty let me just read the committees here and and people shout out if they're they're in that committee i believe in the bensable community foundation sylvia and and juliet is that accurate yes yes um uh dei committee is sylvian kit board finance committee it's john and that's the position we're looking for kerry and uh the illinois association of school board delegate that's kit lan that's myself but i i need an alternative for that which is leo i thought i was the alternate she wasn't no i'm usually the the representative and we need an alternate for that one um maybe we should tell carrie what the what the commitment is for that also okay for the finance facility committee it's it's usually before the board meeting carry

010and we're probably going to meet four times a year okay uh for the lend uh committee it's usually once a month i usually attend that and i will contact an individual um hey look i can't make this meeting could you attend it for me um i'm usually one uh i haven't missed one yet do you know what day of the week is that it's usually friday 8 friday 8 a.m i i will say uh just by default that because paul was also on the finance committee i'd like to point you to it if that's okay yes i'll accept that to the finance committee that was the one i was thank you thank you great thank you um then also the ned said he'll turner and we also have the netsec uh committee yeah what what

011date is that one doesn't that meet like on a monday that's usually on monday yup monday at 3 p.m there is two meetings um that is the governing meeting and the um operations so the operational is at 3 pm uh the governing meeting at 4 p.m usually it's like a 15 to 20 minutes it's not that long right leo's the current sitting president uh for the governance um and he would need an alternate uh for that if he can't make the meeting but leo doesn't miss the meeting as well so we just need an alternate once a month usually monday i used to but i work on mondays now all right i got work i i'd hate to commit and not be able to be there as an alternate mondays are my work day too

012that's that's a bad day for me i'm very interested in that one now come on don't give it to the new guy again [Music] is it possible that we leave it where it's at and then um cleo would call someone to who could fail let's do that yeah i mean with notice i may be able to adjust my schedule if i'm not teaching so i mean yeah i think that might be best and see whose work will allow you with a couple days notice as long as i don't have a class i could make that adjustment for three o'clock where is it it's in roselle and rosella north yeah with with some notice and an adjustment to my schedule we're permitting i i may be able to help out with that absolutely okay that's fine

013great so that's settled yeah next order business is public comments do we have any requests for public comments today we have no one send in okay thank you mary information items james sure uh real quick um this one is from the comments here we go let's get my notes here all right the next topic here is public engagement and phase update this topic is about public engagement in our face update with eos eos is a consulting firm in regards to a referendum here's a quick uh summary of this project prior to the pandemic the board authorized a facility audit of our entire campus that includes the building and grounds the facility audit was conducted by an archit r architect which is str after the audit was completed str presented the findings to the board and

014staff str also conducted an educational adequacy focus group involving staff and administrators after the focus groups the district asked str to prioritize their facility assessment and other findings and calculate the cost to improve the facilities then the coveted pandemic hit we took a pause everything was halted with this initiative fenton went into remote learning and later hybrid learning in july 2021 str presented to the board the cost to improve the facilities the board of education hired e.o sullivan consul consulting firm to guide us through a potential referendum eos sullivan has a four-phase approach phase one focused on presenting the uh focused on presenting the conditions of fenton high school and to gather community feedback phase two uh presents potential solutions based on community feedback phase three will narrow the potential solutions and gather feedback phase

015four make a recommendation to the board of education at this time we would like to present our phase one video it is a good summary of of our phase one initiative jim [Music] fenton unites our community [Music] our staff is passionate about helping students achieve their potential [Music] bienvenido welcome to fenton high school i'm superintendent james ontanko in fenton community high school district 100 all our students become successful passionate learners each and every student has the opportunity to succeed in anything they choose fenton was named the 2019 national ap district of the year for its efforts in improving access and results into ap courses fenton performs well above state average in ap course participation college readiness 9th grade on track with 97 percent high school graduation rate at 93 percent fenton students have won numerous

016state championships in speech and been consistent participants in state tournaments across many sports and activities our staff is committed to equitable practices that meet every student at their individual level and provide the necessary support for meaningful learning our college readiness rate among low-income students is 24 higher than the state average our low income graduation rate is 16 higher than the state average we achieve this success through rigor relevance and relationships our staff is passionate about helping students achieve their potential fenton teachers and coaches build relationship with our students and help them succeed these characteristics have resulted in our teachers coaches and board members earning statewide recognition all this happens in classes with the lowest student to teacher ratio and second lowest average class size in dupage county fenton has an average class size of 22

017and an overall 17 students per teacher our team works tirelessly to create a safe and secure environment for our staff and our students this includes a newly constructed foyer that controls all activities using two security control doorways safe and appropriate internet access for all students to use in this evolving digital world our entire staff champions social emotional learning to develop self-awareness empathy and confidence in our students fenton unites our community from families to staff to community leaders we all partner together to prepare our children for their futures we have a strong parent outreach programs which includes parent teacher organization or pto padres unidos polish outreach and adult basic education programs our local senior citizens attend fenton plays and musicals for free fenton has been a source of strength and hope for the community throughout the

018covet 19 global pandemic we provided free food to anyone who was hungry we acquired in-demand supplies to clean our school and create a safe learning spaces for students and staff to return safely fenton was a leader in distributing that life-saving coven 19 vaccine to more than 7 300 members of our staff and the community fenton is committed to transparent and timely communication we do this through weekly and monthly newsletters active websites and social media presence and annual community reports we have also taken important steps to make our district more fiscally responsible we carefully evaluate our staffing needs each school year so as much money as possible goes into the classrooms and our students we've had a balanced budget for the last five years by controlling spending and thoughtfully planning facility improvements we have the lowest

019bond and interest fund tax rate among dupage high school districts fenton's overall tax rate is significantly lower than the state average even with all of these improvements there's one significant obstacles we just can't overcome and that is the lack of space in our aging school building we make do with what we have in our 1950s building but our second rate facilities are keeping our students from reaching their full potential our infrastructure has been extended well beyond its useful life mechanical system plumbing electrical system need to be addressed to keep the building safe and healthy flooding on school grounds continues to be problematic our classrooms and learning areas are small and outdated our cafeteria is too small forcing kids to eat in the hallways our security system needs improvement fenton's athletic music facilities and auditoriums are

020subpar and old airflow is inconsistent with some kids sweating in one room and the others freezing in another the smell in our science and social studies wing is notorious this holds our students and teachers back in academics and extracurricular it creates significant safety concerns for everyone in our school it packs our students into small classrooms that were too small even before covet now the need for more space and cleaner air is even more urgent so we can keep our school open some of our sports teams can't even host a game or tournament here on our campus our kids deserve better with improved and safe facilities our students will perform better they'll have the newfound sense of pride that comes with attending a school with 21st century learning environment just like other students in dupage county

021they'll reach their full potential through blended learning stem extracurriculars and sports they'll have more opportunities to follow their passion graduating healthier more well-rounded and ready for high-wage careers if these are the futures we want for our children we must act now every year the improvements needed at our school becomes more expensive the longer we wait the less we will be able to do that's why we've launched a comprehensive community engagement process working together and sharing our ideas and passions we will create a roadmap for the future of fenton this video is part of our formal community engagement efforts that will be conducted through march of 2022 to develop a plan for the future of our school that is driven by the community this extensive collaboration will ensure that our final community driven plan is fair

022fiscally responsible and reflective of the wishes of our community folks thank you for your time please join us and be involved thank you [Music] included a tour of the building i cannot say enough the tour of the building is really powerful for people to see um it's really a a good exercise for to demonstrate the age of the building the condition of the building the the space of the building and what's lacking there and the responses have been very very positive and supportive of this initiative people want to improve our facilities okay what are the next steps the administration in uh january 4th we'll meet with eos sullivan and eos sullivan against and is our consulting firm when we return from the break and discuss phase two and phase three uh next step would be

023eos sullivan will attend the regular board meeting in january and present their findings to the board in regards to phase two that's pretty much it for now any questions so the questionnaire went out right and who did that go out to the phone questionnaire or you know no it was an email yeah the surveys surveys rick could you uh guide that one the the email survey not the phone phase one i believe the presentations have been converted and they're on our website we are still working with the consultant on the actual survey to embed so that will go to our uh our fenton community because we have their contact info and they can certainly afford it on to anybody they want so that'll be probably tomorrow morning and that went out to or is going

024out too it'll be an e-blast to all of uh all of our students parents but it's on our public-facing website so okay i just wonder if that if it should be two more of the community who doesn't really know about fenton and it's available to them if uh somebody forwards it to we don't have everybody's email address that's a thing we have all of ours so if you would like to pass it on to your neighbors that's absolutely possible rick isn't there's also a way to get uh i see what patty's saying hey look we want to encompass everyone we know we want to throw a wider net to bensonville and wooddale and i believe that's where the phone survey comes in is that accurate yes the phone survey went to a large mass of

025publicly available phone numbers and we knew it worked because a lot of them called us to make sure it was legitimate and it's the same questions the same phrasing okay and there's other campaigns right not not just email but phone calls uh what else mailers i can't hear oh uh as far as other campaigns so we've we've got email blasts we've got uh calls mailing mailings uh anything else email blast phone mail uh so the survey on our website will also be distributed on social media okay and the the two municipalities have been pretty good at sharing our posts at times so that helps okay that's why we hire a consultant as well we're working very closely hey look they wanted to hit emails they want to hit social media they want to hit regular

026mail and email blasts and we do what we can to reach out to the the groups that already assemble like our pto they put out a blast because sometimes a familiar face in a familiar name helps right it's like seeing an email from mr aguilar there's also a text blast as well so how about newsletters the the bensonville newsletter and the wooddale newsletters no so the challenging part about those is they get designed about a month and a half before they go out so portions of the survey process are either over or the next one is starting gotcha but we are writing about this process in those newsletters were there any uh discussions held about possibly either village posting it on a link to the video on their website that's a great question uh carrie

027uh what dale did reach out to me asking if they could um post the video as well as um our website link to all the surveys that's on our website so a link so that their website talks to our website including the video good question there uh bensonville we're working on bensonville we would like to get under spotlight on bensonville which is their tv channel bensonville village they have attended our our public engagements i know the village managers have attended um our public engagement as well as one of their board members dale all of the city councils have attended any tours given to our taxing bodies yes um whether it's park district library fire in chief they are all aware of what we're doing here our initiatives with our public engagement our initiative with facilities

028both at the bensonville level as well as the wood day level as well as the chamber of commerce and obviously the school districts the district 2 in district 7. okay thanks rick next one is equity report uh this is mr barrago with his equity report for this month good evening everyone i'm mike brago and this is our equity report our december commemorative observances and holidays are the following on december 28 to december 6th was hanukkah december 25th is christmas day and december 26 to january 1st is koanza our third session of the grading for equity book study took place on november 29th our instructional coaches did a fantastic job facilitating thoughtful conversations about the impacts of grading regarding the three pillars of being accurate bias resistant and motivational i was fortunate to sit in with

029a group where we discussed the importance of these pillars in addition we concluded that regardless of what adjustments we make it is imperative to develop trusting relationships with our students in order to in order for any meaningful changes to take effect as always big shout out to the instructional coaches for providing a safe and brave space for teachers to have such meaningful conversations on december 9th k ward michelle papa nicola and myself presented at the dupage equity and excellence network meeting our presentation focused on fenton's equity journey that began in 2013 when we brought in equal opportunity schools to remove barriers and increase diversity in student enrollment in our ap courses we highlighted our great work with dr yvette dubio and amazing progress we are making in just the first semester of implementing our equity

030action plan we should be very proud as a district of the progress we are making and continue to leverage the momentum we have built speaking of equity action plan here are the end of semester review first up systems this crew has been researching a number of school districts and other institutions in order to develop our own statement and dei definitions the strand has completed the final version that will be posted on our school website the student voice climate and culture strand is making an impact as previously mentioned mr madel has done a great job creating a safe and brave environment for students to voice their concerns our productive meetings with students have led to changes in our dress code policy that will officially take effect in the next school year there is nothing more exciting

031than having our very own students advocate for themselves and in turn make a school-wide impact that removes bias from our policies and ensures equal treatment the professional learning strand launched the equity self audit on november 29th to all staff the purpose of the audit is to help staff recognize where they are at in their equity journey we believe that change comes from within and successfully create meaningful changes we must acknowledge our biases in addition the audit will help the strand along with a teaching and learning strand to determine appropriate professional training opportunities that are targeted based on the data analysis of the data and planning for training opportunities will begin when we reconvene next semester the strand also finalized our equity professional development statement that will be recited at every pd to ground all facilitators

032and attendees and establish an equity mindset the teaching and learning strand is in the process of planning the implementation of illinois's cultural relevant teaching and leading standards using data from the self audit the strand plans on dissecting what teachers are already doing and filling in the gaps through professional development opportunities the strands goals of implementing equitable grading systems and policies is in progress through our school-wide book study last but definitely not least is our family and community as agency strand this ambitious group is in the process of finalizing plans for big events coming up in the new year first on january 13 2022 we will host our second b-pack meeting outside of fountain high school for the first time the meeting will be held at the bensonville public library for those who are unfamiliar with

033b-pack it is our bilingual parents advisory council that encompasses by this unitos and our polish parents group the goal for hosting this meeting outside of fenton high school is to expose parents to other community entities that can help support them and their families on february 10th the strand will leverage our bpac meeting to initiate the creation of our equity advisory committee that will consist of parents and students this is part of our equity action plan at this meeting fatis unidos polish parent group asian parents group black student union representatives the pto and booster will be invited to learn about our equity action plan those who are in attendance will be encouraged to join our equity advisory committee the meeting will be held at the deer grove leisure center fenton high school is rocking and rolling

034and we're just getting started let's keep this momentum going as we begin the new year until then i wish you all the best of holidays and a happy new year thank you can i tell the board how excited we are for the district equity leadership team to hit the road running mike said we're rocking and rolling let me just take you back a couple years ago it's about pre-pandemic we were the first school um working with the regional office of education to have an equity audit um we felt like we needed to make sure that all of our students as well as staff are equitable okay what you have seen when mike described the five strand um i really love how he described it is that they're also these strands right now especially the family

035are working with other groups like black student union ptos to get the word out right to to expand uh to build a relationship um which is all very very exciting uh for for this sort of work so the district equity leadership team sometimes called delta is composed of 38 staff members including administrators teachers as well as non-certified staff it is a cross-section of our staff and it just shows and demonstrate how passionate we are about this initiative okay any questions there okay and you guys met dr dubiel as well before let's go ahead and move on uh open lunch pilot program before i turn the mic over to uh uh dr benson here just real quick this this initiative is really about the covet right we want uh to social distance and especially during the

036colder months we've i heard it was 64 outside today unbelievable for december i wish i was out there so as the colder months comes we need to make sure our kids are socially distanced and this is one of it's a pilot program once again um we're going to pilot it uh for the month of january see how how it's going if it's going well we continue to february if it doesn't we shut it down in february i hope i didn't steal your thunder sam uh but on to you no that's fine this will be a a pretty quick update but just so you know we have initiated the process where we're soliciting uh parent permission for students seniors to pilot this open lunch program it's going to start second semester and thus far at last

037count we had about 120 seniors that are signed up you could see the breakdown by lunch period fourth hour lunch tends to be heavy senior lunch period hence the little bit of higher numbers thanks to dr batson and mike barago who you saw in the equity report we devised a scanning system which is linked to the spreadsheet so we will have oversight of students you know basically scanning their id and then if they're part of the program they're free to go if for some reason someone decides to scan their id they're not part of the program then they're not so but we don't anticipate any issues with that but just understand there is oversight of the program it's going to start second semester and we'll probably get some extra communication out to those seniors just

038letting them know you're all set you're ready to go and starting second semester there have an open lunch what if they choose to maybe not go one day can they do that absolutely right they don't have to go every day they're only only we'll know when they leave because they'll go outdoor one that's part of the parameters of the program and so it's totally up to them let's say today it's really really cold and they're like i don't want to go open lunch today they can exercise that right any other questions uh just real briefly so parents are coordinated somewhat with this right and yes right they had a form that they had to sign off on with all the legalese on it about the program and give permission okay thank you thank you sam

039next slide please real quick uh 19 updates you've seen it all week uh you receive our letter we had in covent incidents every single day it matches the two-page trend as well as the illinois trend there it's on the rise there folks uh you see there that's all of uh age level um across uh dupage this one is the pediatric level here let me just i can't really see that far green is uh the highest there is five five to fourteen thank you so much um uh as we know there's vaccination being offered for 12 and up um but those are concerning to everyone here uh at fenton next slide uh this slide right here is the covid hospitalization we also see the hospitalization i think this is important to all of us here as

040well so we see a rise there as well so what are we doing about it we're doubling down in the three w's kind of like what we did last year the 3w says again is wash your hands wear a mask and stay uh watch your distance so we just need to reiterate that um because there is uh covered fatigue um so as soon as soon as the semester start there's going to be another uh push for that please wear a mask watch your distance wash your hands uh covert 19 um at fenton here is our our scorecard here as you can see it picked up this last week or two but in general staff 14 staff this semester tested positive for coven and 47 students confirmed cases any questions with the covet updates is benton

041going to be offering the booster how we did the vaccine right we we have we were one of the first to um uh to offer boosters uh at the beginning of the year rick was that august uh or july i forget i it was a little bit late october okay uh so we were the first uh since the booster is so widespread and ubiquitous um i think we're go we're gonna pass that on but we still do encourage folks to please get your your primary shot and if you haven't already take your booster why the spike why does this well i mean sure yeah i'll just jump in so i mean it's consistent with the spike in covet and state of illinois if you look at the data we had a nice consistent run of

042weeks uh but we don't see that this is dissimilar to like what we saw if you see uh in september where we had about 10 cases total when the numbers were higher and even the quarantine levels are are higher right now you know the speculation on obviously thanksgiving was a time of gathering and travel did that have something to do with it but when you look at the state of illinois numbers obviously you know we wish the numbers maintained low but but it's sort of part of our reality right now staff have been great um you know we just keep plugging away and and following the mitigation efforts and and staying as safe as we can but um you know we'll get through this week and then we'll see what comes after obviously the winter

043break but it's in that type of season where we're probably going to see escalated numbers i heard a virologist say that it's like we don't really have the cold and flu season we have a low vitamin d level season where everybody's vitamin d levels drop off in the fall and the winter because we've turned away from the sun and so we're not getting the exposure to the sun to create vitamin d in ourselves we have to increase our vitamin d levels any other questions all right next slide this next topic is about inter-government agreements okay in particular tcd as you know we send our students to tcd the technology center of dupage for cte classes just real quick let me give you a quick background and i'll talk about the iga and the government said

044that needs to be renewed so it's consistent of 14 high schools hintsdale dupage downers grove lake park westmont naperville elmhurst lions indian prairie lyle wheaton fenton west chicago and glenbard's and next slide please and here are some of the offerings there at tcd that our students can take auto body repair automotive technology computer information system construction trades cosmetology criminal just to name a few there students really take advantage of of those classes here as well just like any contract or in a government agreement it just it has to be renewed and the reason why i'm bringing this up to you i sit on the board i'm the president of the tcd uh board and our job tomorrow actually we have a meeting to revise the wording just like any other iga and part of the

045reason why i'm bringing this up to you because eventually the board the tcd board will take a vote on it okay which is consider consists of superintendents then i bring it back to you to get your approval on it okay because we have this partnership with tcd i just want to make sure i take every step i what i would do over there i present it to you okay so what i'm going to present today right now right now is basically uh the the language change that we will look at tomorrow because i don't want you to be surprised a month probably is going to be either january or february when all of a sudden i bring you an iga and you're like james what is this iga well remember in december i brought this

046up there was going to be some language change in this agreement nothing really much has changed it's just a language change at this present moment the tuition fees are still the same it's still the same 14 different uh high schools the courses are the same it's just this has to be renewed every five years or so next slide here oop next one do you have the the pdf jim okay so i will we i want you to get a visual i want the board to get a visual of the iga and when we have revised it reworded it and reformat it you will get a copy you will see a lot of kind of like some of the contracts that we've worked on there's a lot of crossouts and why the new language is because

047it is israeli has different rules and regulations now i'll give you a couple examples here for example the first page is changing the this is the iga jim if you could scroll down first page i think is page numbers and table of content that's been revised you see the red stop right there jim um basically formatting the the pages there next page uh the date that is going to be effective uh into some different wording there as well um for example i'll leave it right here some of the revision has been changed for example instead of illinois revision stat 1985 the authorities are granted by the illinois state code and the illinois intergovernment cooperation thank you jim the purpose of the system is to develop and implement a regional education for employment program for students

048who are enrolled in member districts so things like that so i hope that you guys are getting it's nothing major there's nothing changed uh uh there definitely changes there but it's the wording in the uh the vernacular there and the vocabulary as well instead of area the recommendation by the state is resident attendance um i can keep on going unless you give me tonight okay we got it james is this new i mean like why are these in red they wanted to include that name all the schools that are involved yes it's the same schools this is considered and revised on an annual basis this is actually for 2023 we would like to work on this now uh because it's going to be 2022 and if we don't have a signed iga they're going to

049lose funding and the two grants there help me remember michelle is perkins and or bruce ct ct grant and perkins and that's a lot of our money here for our cte classes here and also to assist the send kids to tcd does that make sense we'll revisit this again okay we just want to let you know we're doing some some changes um uh with the iga we'll bring it back to you i'll bring it back to you either january or february when the tcd board has voted on it so the big thing is the schools are the same the fees are the same the classes are the same and we're updating the language to become compliant with all the changes that came out absolutely thank you okay future green energy concern i brought this up

050last uh board meeting in regards to uh sustainability in green uh as you know we i reached out this is once again still fledging stage it's a neophyte stage right here we haven't signed anything we haven't agreed to anything this is all conversation in regards to working with the future green energy consortium which was basically endorsed by the illinois association of school board you've saw them when we went to triple i some of you uh they're also endorsed with the illinois association of school administrators a lot of schools are taking advantage of this so what have we done i want to keep you guys posted on this uh they've asked for our roof sizes so i went on the roof and measured i did not do that tommy did it so no no they wanted

051to see the roof sizes as you can see right there we got plenty there's a lot of surface area there okay they'll also want to know rough condition can it support panels right is it strong enough um in general um a roof uh it's well taken care of and there are some issues that we're working on and lastly they requested yearly electric costs how much does it what's the electricity cost for fenton during a duration of 12 months and thank you mr martin for supplying those uh that information to future green so that's where we're at okay and once again this is what why are we doing once again is sustainability uh we're doing the right thing for our planet and number two is is is cost efficiency we believe we could reduce our electrical

052costs anywhere from 20 to 60 percent and the way they described it is basically it's like a toll way right to go to the tower you got to use their toll here with with future green with solar panel is we don't have to use a tow way we bring in our own energy here there's no delivery costs okay and that's that's where the saving is hope that makes sense i will continue to bring more information uh in regards to solar panels yes do we consider say is it easy removed if there's a repair that needs to be done to say you know is there the solar panels are they designed in a way that if there needed to be a repair done that's a great question that's a great question that was one of our

053questions bruce and i in regards to future green energy consortium when they put this in for us they are responsible for it yeah the actual installation and maintenance nothing to the school of the panels but our roof underneath is still our responsibility it's still our response yes and we can remove the panels to access the road absolutely and they've been made aware of our potential referendum and the fact that we could be remodeling in the next two to three years and how would that impact if we have to remodel do we incur the cost of the panels with the remodel right we have not had that discussion john okay okay not yet not yet we haven't gotten that far we haven't gone that far okay just a question though are during considering the age of

054the building um new technology is there any internal upgrades to make the systems adaptable to the energy coming in as far as our building bruce i'm going to turn that over to you or jose yeah we've done a number of things over the years and taking advantage of energy grants through the state of illinois for instance our led lighting we just did some upgrades last year in the two gyms so it's basically a subsidized you know new product that's installed and also not only subsidizes the cost of the insulation and the product but and it lowers our energy overall energy cost as well as well as improving the lighting in the areas that we uh needed to have it improved in so so upgrade take care of any potential compatibility issues right carrie was your

055question related to [Music] during installation was there any internal wiring or energy upgrades in in the building with our building being old i wasn't awake wasn't sure about any recent upgrades to allow for a potential upgrade or change like this because with the differences in age you can have some compatibility issues that we incur some cost internally to upgrade in order to take advantage of something like that once again we're in the neophyte fledgling stage here these are just sizes and conditions at this moment i would like to invite future green uh kerry to come in here and really take a tour of our roof and we could ask those questions there i think it's too early to to say at this moment okay and we're gonna seek out other options absolutely absolutely any other

056questions on that one seeing none next slide please this next one i'm really excited and you you should all be excited for this one as well this one real here i'm going to read real slow but i know you can read this as fenton in the bentonville park district continued collaboration we've been working as as i report every board meeting is that the relationship between the taxing bodies has improved tremendously in particular the park district it's gotten so um important here uh that um i ha uh with the director of of the park district mr joe velez um we were able to brainstorm and ask really tough questions in regards to the future of bensonville okay real short i'm going to this bullet this is still preliminary this is conceptual this is potential it's not

057concrete okay um and i've worked with joe and said hey look this is what i'm gonna present to the board are you okay with it okay or am i saying too much he goes no go with it okay so real quick as you know uh they're selling a portion a large portion of white pines okay um uh anywhere between 100 and 250 million and that's not once again those are conceptual uh numbers but that's what they're expecting they will utilize a percentage of the sale and the sale money there and put pump it back to the community okay park district conceptual project is this they would like to put in four turf fields in bensonville one of them here at fenton high school with a dome so we could use it for 12 months so

058joe and i you know we sat down for hours say hey how's the dates the times students you know where i'm going and that is kid our kids have to have first dibs it's on our property um it would we would like to own it okay and when we're not using that using it it would be the park district and quite frankly um the fields aren't really utilized in the summer okay some of them it is and it's not we have this would involve an iga so i'm requesting uh the board or giving a nod that i will just informing you to you that i will continue to talk with mr velez in regards to this possibility they're very strong with us they're strong so strong with this that mr velez is willing to come

059here and make a presentation to our board with maps and fields in the meantime i spoke to him last week as well and basically showed what we have been showing in our public engagement of our master plan in regards to our fields and what we hope to do there as well i think this is a win-win-win for our community our taxpayers our students if you really look at bensonville there isn't one public soccer field in bensonville there isn't they would like to infuse four conversation will continue um i would like to invite them either january and february and there's going to be more information but this is definitely exciting news for us a domed turf field soccer where did they see the the benefit and it being here like in reference to the park district

060and the school are they thinking oh there's there are children there there's programs through the park district why did they choose this place and that's something that i think joe and i have a philosophical agreement on and belief strong belief bensonville children is all of our children the children that goes to the park district is fen children the kids that go to fenton are their children i think that's that's that's it's a beautiful understanding that they're all our kids it benefits everybody um we we we really uh we'll write out some an iga that we that both sides can live with but that's the philosophy we got a service and if if our children benefit and they're all our children the family benefits and if the families benefited bensonville the whole community benefits i mean

061um we like to be at first in everything we would probably be one of the first to have a dome soccer field in in dupage i believe and maybe the state so by field we're talking about possibly and i know this is all preliminary yeah i'm just trying to wrap my arms around us because this is anytime it sounds too good to be true it scares me but this is a good too good to be true i hope so basically this could take the place of our football field and take it out of here right or is it going to be besides our football field is this going to be a soccer football all-in-one is it just going to be soccer is it going to include the stands there are the preliminary thought is to

062continue to have a football stadium as well as a field and to convert the football stadium to be soccer size as well because at a domed uh soccer size uh field will not be able to house the audience or the spectators that's where i was going with this so this would not be in lieu of correct our own potential repairs that's right it would complement it and quite frankly you're putting uh uh just thinking ahead um it would probably um offset or erase or delete the practice field that we were planning on our plan since we have so it's still going to benefit and we could remove from here potentially something potentially and use that as the practice field soccer field but we'll still need to address our own potentially field needs absolutely depending on

063the community engagement in the direction right the stadium field in particular our softball our baseball field yeah i thought it was too good to be true when i write it because i was thinking big i thought all right thank you for the clarification we could ask still a positive we could still ask for more money then hey look could you just do all of our fields so when we ask those questions when folks ask those questions in public engagement what else are you doing besides france and asking potentially oh this is good we we partner up we we look at our tax and body and say hey look how can we all benefit the uh the citizens of of bensonville and wooddale this is all good it's still a positive not as positive as i'd

064hoped for but still all right any other questions so more to come on that so i'm getting the nod we continue to have a conversation with the park district and i also saw nods in regards to inviting mr um velez here uh to present uh some of the ideas the preliminary ideas okay thank you this next one uh it's the draft 2022 2023 student school calendar you guys are aware of this we've shared this with district two district 7. we've shared this with our staff we've shared it with the board and once again this is a draft the goal is to vote on this in january so i want to go over this with you real quick next slide jim here's a visual of how it would look like uh once again this is the

06521 22 school calendar 2223 school calendar and the the picture threw me off there so stay requirement 176 days that's what i get that's what we got to work with 176 days elementary and middle and high school calendars are different we work in semesters okay algebra let's just take art one let's just take art semester one should have the same amount of number of days as art in semester two we try to keep that anywhere between 88 and 89 days to get that 176. okay i think the math is wrong on that one there but it should be 88 and 88 instead of 88.89 but you get the idea we wanted balance the first day of school similar to this year and this is pretty much all similar to what we have um for this

066school year it's you there really isn't much wiggle room here we know we have to start in august and eight and before uh june august 10th is the first day of students thanksgiving holiday is a little bit different here uh kind of like district 7 there in wooddale uh there will be no school that monday tuesday and wednesday no student attendance no student attendance okay so we go ahead um why not start the following week in august and still go to school that week in november because that that's just it's so early you're starting so you're saying uh basically start that next um there is because that would be two days there's three days we start so wednesday thursday friday so the first day of school would be a friday um and we would like

067to avoid that starting the first day of school at the end of the end of the week there as well that's that's just something school monday tuesday wednesday of thanksgiving week we um our practice right now is that we don't have i think this in general public schools do not attend wednesday of thanksgiving because thanksgiving is that thursday and i think that's been in play for how long mary for a while now three or four years we haven't had uh had to work on wednesday okay once again this is this is a draft that's that that's a good question there let me go through here then we could we could uh uh dissect it a little bit more so thanksgiving there end of semester one december 21st i believe that is a wednesday christmas falls

068on a sunday if i remember it correctly uh we don't want to end on that friday because the next day would be christmas eve i think this is good for our families there winter break is december 22nd then to january 6. spring break is always at the last week of march graduation is sunday may 21st because the sunday before is mother's day is that accurate we do not we want to avoid that conflict there then lastly end of semester two is may 24th before the memorial day holiday part of the reason there is that we want our kids to have first dibs on all the jobs here in dupage any questions there that that's a great question uh patty i heard your concern hey look we're starting to early was the concern um i think

069that's pretty much i know this uh the grammar school starts that monday um high school's uh in dupage pretty much august 10th august 11th we like to start on wednesday because monday and tuesday would be our staff institute so we rev them up getting ready get them pumped for the school year then start our kids that wednesday so what was why was 176 days you said that was the goal that that's the state mandate that's the main day okay so it doesn't would you like more days i think this yes and once again we want to balance semester one and semester two silvia there so there's there's no room for any other days off right i mean we have to we we have to take in consideration the federal and state holidays uh we also

070have to take the consideration or the different contracts that we honor with fea floss and um and seiu we have 12 months to keep in mind as well as 11 months and obviously the 12 month employees as well okay there's a lot of variables there um but what really drives us sylvia is the state mandate 176 and keeping semester one and semester two balance because you don't want to have 76 days of art semester one and 102 right semester two and you can think about what happens with math and language and social studies we could revisit this okay um but i would like to approve this because families are asking they want to plan their their their their summer break or their trip next year especially the winter break we've had positive feedback in regards

071to thanksgiving and whenever the local school district is doing that already they don't have student attendance on those days i think they will have they have an institute day as well as a uh parent conference the entire day we have an election next week yes we do have an election um as you saw november 8th 8th yeah it was like but yeah 22. okay when we d when we set up these calendars i'm sure we probably take some input from different stakeholders absolutely in particular state uh district 2 in district 7. in particular our our breaks winter break as well are as our spring break because they want their kids to get a high school kid and they have a elementary school they want the high school kid to be at home when the breaks

072are there to take care of their brothers and sisters so we want to be cognizant of making sure honoring the family so we'll be taking on this action on this next month are you looking for a motion to sleep no next month okay it's all next month i'd like to give you guys a look up for a first look at it okay fantastic this one every month we like to talk about the esser update i'm going to hand it over to michelle papa nikolao and mr martin um elementary and secondary school emergency relief so that's what it stands for it is they are federal funds uh intended to help the district statistical district during this pandemic so that's kind of the purpose so we'll go over the next few slides answer any questions that you

073may have and uh we are following the guidance for these funds from the illinois state board of education and we're going to talk about next steps as well we can go back one slide actually do you want me to talk about public comment okay if you can go back one more thank you so when writing this grant um bruce and i do this somewhat collaboratively he takes care of the numbers i take care of the narrative and part of the grant is to ensure that we provide the public the opportunity to provide input in the development of the district plan and for the use of the esser funds so we're pretty early on in this grant right now it runs through september 30th of 2024 there were some things that we put in motion pretty

074quickly but there's still a lot of time before we actually finalize this grant so our plan is to put out for public input in january we're going to post on our public website our plan and our so that covers two things the safe return to in-person instruction so what are we doing towards prevention and mitigation strategies the second thing that we're going to post is how we're planning to spend our funds so these two areas will be publicly displayed on our website for 30 days there'll be a survey that folks can fill out we'll also obviously open for public comments at a board meeting so that'll be next month so that'll all be detailed on the front page of the website starting january 4th and ending february 4th we'll still keep it on the website

075in our covid area of the website but it'll be front facing front page for a month overall they just we just need to ensure that our plan is focusing on academics and social emotional impact so there's a lot of different criteria we're going to take you through the slides that'll be on the website so you have a preview before it actually goes up so the first thing it will talk about is the goal of our our high school our fenton high school safe return to in-person instruction plan it'll point to the illinois state board of education supporting in-person learning plan as well as the cdc guidelines that we follow so in those cdc guidelines we talk about mitigation guidance like face masks social distancing quarantining requirements um extensions uh implement oh extending to meet the

076guidance from isb and then cleaning our air and our air circulation protocols and making sure everything's as safe as possible and then we'll go into our plan for using the additional funding which at this time our plan is there's some work on hiring of additional staff for academic and social emotional needs as well as some mitigation and prevention safety strategies so this is our learning loss counselor to help create plans and monitor student progress for those who are deficient in credits or on quarantine status are learning lab tutors to help mitigate learning loss during the pandemic and additional social worker to assist with students mental health concerns additional staff to teach sections of mathematics as a remedy to students learning loss during the pandemic and finally the director of equity and innovation to oversee learning

077labs data analysis of student learning loss and creation and the creation of innovative programs to address student learning loss there's a particular component of this grant there's 12 major categories was one doesn't pertain to us because it's early childhood but one of this one of the major categories is implementing an equitable and inclusive return to in-person instruction so we will fund the director of equity and innovation through this grant so the other and maybe bruce can talk to this a little bit more we've talked about this before is the facilitated uh facility improvements for air quality and we'll outline that in terms of hvac and mep yes thanks michelle we already used some of our other grant money uh previous grant for some our ionizers as you may recall to help improve air quality um

078and this this uh grant will continue to continue that work really throughout the building that will not really interfere with anything that we may do in the future so we're very mindful of that so i just want to make that clear to everyone but what we've done uh as we continue through this process we've included and purchased air purifiers and for each classroom we have a higher grade air filter than we've used in the past we're installing a unit ventilator in in one of our classrooms that it's just not doesn't have appropriate air flow so we're hopefully going to get that installed over the break and the board already approved that so these are ongoing things they'll continue to be more things we'll update the board on that as well as we look at air

079quality and assess the conditions of those systems in our building i should say too that this is a three-year grant so we have three years to spend these funds through uh september 30th of 2024 so just so everyone's aware of that this bucket of money is about 1.6 million dollars and um so that'll it's on a reimbursement basis so as we expend the funds we we seek a reimbursement on a quarterly basis so that's that's kind of how it works and that's consistent with pretty much all the all the grants federal grants that we uh have that come into the district and then on the last page we'll have a thank you for your input a link to a feedback survey and based on that feedback survey based on any public comment that comes in

080in our january board meeting we'll take that input and put it into consideration into our grant they pretty good with the reimbursement like you know as far as time frame is concerned when you spend you know when the school spends the money uh the government sends reimbursement they are um as long as we get it within their timeline which is typically 20 days after the close of the quarter i would say less than a month they're refunding the money so back to us so they're they're good with that yeah how much of the 1.6 have we used thus far uh probably roughly about a third yeah and that's in in the budget this year that the board approved back in september i think this whole exercise is an accountability by the state we've done i

081think we worked diligently the first requirement was make sure you talk about it at the board meeting and we did ester oneness or two and so three we've been diligent about that we do it every month it's that running joke with administrators we always put bruce to talk to it and it's basically the same information over and over now they have taken to a next stage now you gotta push it on the website so once again it's it's an accountability um by what means are you evaluating the success of [Music] the ionizer the air purifiers on air quality is you have a means of evaluating or measuring that's you know the improvement of the quality of air in the building yeah well we continue and have consulted with our architect and we'll continue to work

082with them we also have had engineers come in to test the air flow and the purification as a so on a periodic basis we'll have that uh evaluated and if adjustments need to be made we'll we'll make them as needed right for example we've done a balancing where we've looked at participating to make sure that they're close at capacity and then make adjustments so i assume that that was used to place the equipment that was far both both both the two before and and during and after honestly uh because we we've also looked at our uh existing systems as well to improve air flow so we've you know for that work mechanical work we've also used some funds to devote to that to uh really maintain the system and and make it more efficient as

083we kind of move through this process that's a really good question another aspect to that is besides the airflow better quality the mechanical improvements of it but i think it's also a psychological uh has a psychological effect to our community our teachers who work here every day hey look um the board and the admin is doing the best they can to improve air quality and it gives you more um we say ghana's more enthusiasm hey look it is a safe place and once again the title here is to return safely back to school okay can we move on we got a couple more slides here next one is a foia from local labs okay and they were basically asking do we use panorama educational program we do not know uh what that program is we

084have to look it up it's basically a education an independent educational technology company we do not use that program so we basically that has been resolved and that's what we reported to local labs next slide this one right here what we like to do here is basically a semester one review what we have done our safe return back to school it's only been four months but it feels like two years i mean quite frankly the the stuff is going on and we're gonna tag team this with uh principal benson great i mean it's um it's been a great year obviously here we are uh december the 15th you know we had our luncheon today with the festive atmosphere we significantly accomplished something here i know we keep emphasizing it one of the points why we

085want to continue to celebrate that we've done this collectively together so part of that review is obviously looking at demographics you can see the breakdown there i would say our ninth grade class is obviously a little bit higher which is encouraging you know moving forward that we have a vibrant community and more kids coming i wanted to highlight our el oh yeah i thought i was maybe it wasn't on but anyway um our el population is rising uh there's reasons for that i would say we're about 70 students higher part of that without going in a lot of detail is access testing is occurring in eighth grade and with the pandemic and everything there was a low turnout of access testing we also do that here at the high school but that really does account

086for that spike typically we're just around 200 or a little bit more than 200 so that may come down but obviously we have a diverse population coming to this country a few years ago there was from guatemala that seems to have settled down and our primary we have students still coming from mexico but that that was maybe a little one a little bit out of out of what our normal numbers look like but that's sort of the explanation there otherwise yep everything else was consistent and as we we take a look this is our uh enrollment by race i know that's hard to see i have the percentages here it breaks down to approximately 2.1 asian 2.6 percent black african-american white is at about 27.7 percent hispanic latino at 64.6 percent and then two or

087more races at about 2.7 percent and we know through these board meetings that we've had a lot to celebrate throughout this school year but just to kind of recap you can see uh the successes we've had as far as all conference athletes remember we joined the upstate eight you know a few years back and here we are garnering athletic accomplishments we're extremely competitive in this conference which was an upgrade to where we were before so we're proud of all of our students there you remember we meeting victor a board meeting or two ago and his accomplishments you may remember the boys soccer team winning the two-way regional championship and of course i our ill mea selections we've heard many of these students singing throughout the year and at recent concerts just tremendous musical talent here

088at fenton okay my turn real quick this is an exercise we like to do every semester uh to make sure we celebrate our accomplishment but also to preview what's coming second semester so later on we're going to discuss about what's coming second semester so real quickly uh we we've hit this theme over and over we had a safe return back to fenton that means all students all staff all athletics all clubs all parent outreach we're back to normal on that one and i would say it was it's been very successful because of the collaboration as sam was talking about we've also this semester the covent mitigation has been successful we led the way in testing and contact tracing that includes vaccination booster shots ppe's signage of covet as you know kids are coming back how

089far do i have to be away from the other student the signage the logistics the tent that we had uh kova testing verification ventilation ionization and the nurse support we also have to address and we're doing it real well uh pretty well here is address the learning loss and um scl as well for our students coming back from the pandemic we've also had flexible furniture in all the classroom and serve funding managed that accurately and effectively and fiscally as well strategic plan 2.0 was accomplished this semester our equity journey continues with delt and dei training our community community committee and public engagement session has been successful we're in phase two right now collaboration with the taxing bodies and school district has been strong since we've returned to our uh to school in particular in my

090part here assisting the interim superintendent at district two uh as well as working with joe velez and the park district with some initiatives coming second semester uh also we accomplished thank you board for our district and seiu agreement it seemed like it was forever the arbor adjustment was fantastic the workers there at arbor are very thankful to the board that we made that salary adjustment for them which is the right thing to do also to fentonville fenton and i spoke about this the park district collaboration we also have a new board member here uh carrie lewis that we're excited to work with and we continue to feed our families okay during this trying times with food for families what else did we do this semester part two continue to collaborate with cod and other colleges

091towards establishing dual credit opportunities for students as you know i went to the republican one of their board meetings and made a public comment that this has to move forward ongoing articulation with district 2 and district 7 in areas of career programming we established a dupage roe workplace experi experience network in collaboration with the regional office of education thank you mrs papanegelow professional development for all staff admin board members teachers non-certified at will all staff weekly newsletters published on their website for easier access and sharing thank you mr kambic continued presence of the bensonville independence newspaper they are taking the newspaper here in bensonville they're really taking some a lot of our from our weekly newsletter and published there at their uh newspaper we continue to continue student led ieps in our special education department

092continue to infuse restorative practices in our daily discipline establish student voice committee establish restorative practices and discussion groups with our deans what do we have to preview for semester two uh construct the strategic plan 2.0 you guys created and passed the strategic plan now is the admins turn to put in action plans as you know you heard mrs pop nicola we cannot have over 83 action plan that is really not doable i agree with her but we're not in a good start because we have 20 goals to put it out for that so you do the math i think we're going to break 82 action plans we're going to continue with the phase three of our facility initiatives with eos as well as our architect and our community we're going to continue to combat covet

093through our mitigations whether it's vaccination the 3ws air quality and so forth we're going to establish more dual credit dual enrollment opportunities with our partners establish more workplace internship experience for our students we're going to continue to develop covet learning laws and prevention and mitigation there we're going to increase parent outreach and involvement open lunch pilot will start off in january 4th on board new board member mr lewis we'll have some meetings together budget planning development for fiscal year 2023 will start financial projection tax implication for facility improvements will also start next slide here what else are we going to expect course selection and master schedule build okay so our students are starting that thing started a week ago then we'll slowly build a master course program where what classes is is uh ambry and

094the tegu and james over here and start to create that that's a couple months worth of work uh we're going to launch a new covet shield testing it's a saliva test uh we're going to introduce be a good force for good it's an anti-bullying program mr madel's going to lead that charge we're going to plan for our next year hires we have uh two retirements this this spring that that needs to replace and we'll look at our hires as well in ftes we're going to continue to amend the escrow grant as needed we're going to amend a fiscal year 2022 budget as needed prepare for summer school prepare for fall semester and continue to combat coven through mitigation any questions with the preview and review you got one more item that's a lot all right

095we did you guys did awesome let's we gave each other a hand there that was a lot come on now [Applause] okay just real quick lastly um totally different topic but very very important to us last friday during a basketball game at glenbard south high school one of our students reported a racial slur incident at fenton we respect all races and cultures fenton does not tolerate racism nor racist behavior our administrator investigated and addressed the incident with the glenbard administration that's the end of my report okay thank you thank you james um any any questions or comments anything about the informational items you'd like to follow up with if not uh let's go right to consent agenda get it going do we have anything going on there do we have any questions or comments about

096the consent agenda um julia you asked a question that i had which said thank you but like what is what does it mean to be overloaded but overload so um um and instructional coach that's an instruction you want to take down michelle what is an instructional coach we have seven of them one of them went on a leave a family medical athlete so we hired somebody to replace that person in the interim but they host professional development they coach new teachers and veteran teachers you know through their evaluations just in the classroom how to improve practice overall okay just to answer the question let me just fall back the question was and you guys got the email was what is an overload we had a teacher taking fmla and one of our teachers took over

097that class so that's what basically taking over the classes taught the class and that's what we call as an overload there's extra pay for that it's because instead of five classes you now you have six and i notice in the personnel that we're increasing our math um hours to 0.4 increasing that doing a and that's is that because of the michelle or sam take that question there sure right right and in our discussion with the math department learning laws and overcoming uh really look at what what occurred in eighth grade no no disrespect to the sender districts but as they get used to our math curriculum we targeted that group to bring the class size down provide more intervention for students so that that's the recommendation there we would be able to do that right

098at the start of second semester so here we are in december this gets approved we're springing into action so that kids can get more support basically right it's part of that covert you're going to hear that over the covet learning laws and that's why the government is providing funding via esser and the question is how are you going to offer more classes and what kind of budget are you going to use it's going to go through the esser funds and that's what it's used for on the the covet leaves mou you know we spoke of this before i know but um just wanted to be clear it's it's it's a it's kind of it's not it's an agreement but also it's a standing agreement where if if uh let's say clovid subsides then then we

099we have our ourselves we can get ourselves out of that absolutely okay and i have a question on that too so this is only for vaccinated individuals so if somebody who's not vaccinated they're not eligible and why is that in our discussion well these discussions have been ongoing for months and in essence this is where we arrived and that's not discriminatory yeah i mean because there are a lot of reasons why people are not vaccinated in the research we've done other animals through other districts this is a consistent pain that the leaf and so if someone who is not vaccinated uh gets coveted then they are they would just utilize their sick time right right but what if they can still teach they're they're not eligible for the covet leader so question is if you're

100taking sick time could you still teach is that is that the question yeah i i suppose that anyone could do that if they're utilizing sick time could still teach typically that doesn't happen though but you bring up a really good point as far as the teaching that's one of the the uh you know when we look at this it's one of the things where since we're asking people to stay at home to keep everybody safe if you know they have coveted the ability to have instruction from those that are at home i think is again one of one of the benefits of the mou any other questions okay so uh may have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented i'll make that motion thank you john a second thank you uh roll call

101please regal yes haid yes galloway no redzinski yes louis abstain figueroa yes tinkpop yes i believe motion passed uh let's get to the committee reports let's start with the bensonville community foundation anything new no unless you have something to do no we we have a meeting next month and i think that um james and i talked and i think that um eileen roberts is going to put together a small video that we can show to the board regarding some of the mini grants that we had that fenton that had asked for to give a little bit more explanation of what exactly that fenton's looking for which might i think explain in a little more detail and give just give a little more explanation and clarity to what it is that um the school is looking

102for and hopefully um you know maybe they'll grant the the mini grants or at least a portion of the the monies to the school so we'll we'll see how that goes after that meeting i'm sorry i meant to talk to you about that sylvia and i haven't gotten a chance to talk to you so that was like for the ap um ap testing and yeah and it sounds like part of the funds went to the public library to the bensonville library some of those funds right i couldn't understand some of those funds went went somewhere else well i mean i unfortunately wasn't able to attend that last meeting so i um i'm not exactly sure what the discussion was so it will be um and i believe sylvia was not there either so it'll be

103good to um be able to be at the next meeting and be able to um you know have a more clear discussion with them about what we're looking for i think okay thank you any anything else that'd be it finance facilities committee did we have anything there nothing new to report uh we'll have to work out when our next meeting is our next meeting will probably uh not in january it would be february after we get the report in january move forward with a february meeting that's actually makes sense so really nothing new that we haven't already been brought up today and then we've got our new we did find another co-chair for you that's right john i didn't expect him to comment on the past he wasn't here so and and we're all backing

104up uh leo just remember that uh i don't have anything reported as far as sb delegate uh blend nothing to report and netsec we had two meetings the previous meeting was in november 30th uh the governing meeting uh get together because we got to evaluate the educators that's based on a covet uh the board decided to waive that one so the evaluation for the teachers it was like the previous year of last monday we had operational meetings and we hear about the enrollment we got 173 students we got a employee recon recondition and we hear about the financial reports and believe me they are doing really good of of course there is some items that need to be taken in the facilities one boiler didn't function so they got to uh repair and do some

105minor repairs in the building so it's my report for nasa thank you leo and the policy committee we had this uh earlier before this meeting uh and we look at them in january okay very good uh the next board meeting uh new business is uh wednesday january 19th 2022 at seven and we have a policy committee meeting will take place again prior to that one uh germany board meeting at 6 00 p.m can i ask clarifying question in regards to policy committee um we've reviewed all of the policies um patty are you saying do we need the policy committee to review it again or are we ready to vote no i think we would we would just put on the agenda to vote okay because yeah okay so so we'll scratch that board meeting next

106uh next january january yep and then we'll go right into the vote so no meeting uh no policy meeting prior to our next normal meeting [Music] may have a motion and a second to go in closer is there a comment there real quick i'm sorry we just want to waive the second reading then for the policy commitment that's correct yes and then and just include that in the agenda and then it'll be included in the consent portion of the agenda yes the voting part of it yes i i think we we normally put it in discussion action items and you could make your comments there patty i would rather it be on the action item we didn't know whether we were going to get through all the policies right so it's kind of a placeholder

107so that's why that policy committee meeting will is not necessary okay so let's be clear uh we we're going to put the policy uh portion of it in the discussion items yes okay mary did you get that it's going to be in the discussion action items not in the consent agenda that's fine i'll make a note of that thank you questions anything else we'll go to closed session may have a motion a second to go in closed session for the purpose appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of 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 is to consider an increase

108in 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 shall be open to the public and posted held in accordance with the the the act five illinois cs 120 2c1 and collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or the representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees five illinois cs 120-2 [Music] can you get a motion go ahead and a second second okay thank you that was uh patty and john and i get a roll call please yes rego yes galway yes redzinski yes louis and we're just hoping to go into texas yes figueroa yes yes abstain [Laughter] okay uh we are in close session do you guys want to take

109a little break before we start again yes okay yes five minutes please so uh the the first motion was who me okay and then the second was okay okay thank you rhaegal redzinski yes louis yes figueroa yes hayden yes galloway yes ting paul pong yes and motion pass we're back in open session we good we're back okay uh so a couple things that uh we forgot to mention which is um the committee report and the one report that i missed was the dei report uh so we'll do you want to take it go ahead and sit down okay so we did meet with uh james and we wanted to discuss a little bit more about the direction of the uh our our board di committee and we we do have a a a i think

110a harder framework on what we want to achieve here part of it is we're going to start having my our first meeting is going to be march and likely before the before our normal meeting um and then we are going to look at uh observing uh some dealt meetings um as well as what else we trying to recall everything yes you um right so so essentially uh making sure we we go and reach out to some of our diverse groups and listen in to the community and see what we can uh formulate so the first meeting is going to be march and we'll we'll announce it publicly and all that so uh with with that said um i i need a motion to adjourn in a second i'll make that motion second okay that's john

111and sylvia and can i get a roll call please rhaego yeah lewis yeah figueroa yes paid yes galwick yes rodzinski yep tinkpop yes and everybody get home safe happy holidays everyone welcome aboard thank you mr lewis and congratulations uh