Regular Board Meeting - March 17, 2025

001e thank you the March 17 2025 Board of Education meeting will now come to order Mrs Mo R call please Mrs buter here Mr eses here Mrs Hill here Mrs sad here Dr micho here Mr Loach Dr Bruno here uh the board does have a need to briefly adjourn to a closed session uh may I have a motion to adjourn to close session to confidentially discuss 2c1 the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees of the district or legal counsel for the district including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee or against legal council for the district to determine its validity I need a second second any discussion did you get a motion no I didn't hear that's why I got a second from Ted but I need a motion

002you said you needed a second so I gave you one I motion I was anxious there we thought maybe I missed it really quick like bmer I make the motion yes we're good I'm doing roll call Mrs oh gosh yeah sorry um Mr eses yes Mrs Hill yes Mrs Sayad yes Dr micho yes Mr laach yes Dr Bruno yes yes all right we will be back shortly e e e for coming and waiting apologize for making all all of you wait it is now 6:51 the board is back in Open Session Mrs Mo roll call please Mr tento here miss manik here miss Ryman here Mr eses here Mrs buter here Mrs Hill here Mrs Sayad here Dr Mich here Mr lobach no worries here Dr Bruno here thank you very much Mr Lok would

003you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance a pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republ for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with the liberty and justice for all we made a mistake oh really we we should we should have had her do the pledge and we made a mistake that next meeting you sit here yeah you that was that was phenomenal great job well done all right uh as we do as is our tradition we start with celebrations and recognitions uh Dr mchu you will facilitate these celebrations our first celebration is um of our Headley students um we we're going to start with wrestling Charlie would you like to introduce your fine wrestlers are you comfortable doing that sure okay would yeah why

004don't you come on up to the podium we have is it turned on Charlie is the green light on I think it's on so we have first we have a sixth grader Camden Cullen and we have an eighth grader Nick Ortega um yeah I'd love to say a few words about them they are they are really you know special kids um i' you know I've been doing this I started this program 19 years ago uh and I'm lucky with the amount of support and the amount of Interest I've had in the community um and it's just been amazing privilege for me to to work with these guys and you know Camden is he's a sixth grader um and he puts in an amazing amount of extra work uh into the sport um you know he

005was going to practice um for me and then a lot of times he'd go to you know he'd go to a club he'd go to another practice and somehow you know balance his his studies with all the extra time he he put in and and I think it's because he just you know for the pure love of the sport and the challenge of it uh and Nick um very very you know similar they both have different you know personalities and different styles but the the way that they approach life is very very impressive um you know Nick I both had them last year they both did very well is that good okay sorry about that uh they both did very well they took eth and state so I think their goal was to this year

006was to really go for it and and be state champions and uh Nick took a similar approach he spent a lot of time um you know he'd come to practice uh for us for two hours and then he a lot of times he'd go to get some more training in with a different you know a nearby club and um so you know these are two of the most self-motivated kids that I've ever had in the program the 19 years um so I couldn't be more proud of them and I'm even more despite like their incredible um defeat that they did to be state champions like I'm even more proud of like um the type of people they are like they love their their teammates they're very respectful to to teachers uh and they they're you

007know they they help out their their teammates all the time so I couldn't be more proud of them uh just to give you kind of an idea of you know their what they accomplished in the 19 years uh in the program I only had only one other state champion and that was 15 years ago so these guys decid you know what let's let's triple that in one in one year let's let's make it three and uh it was it's it was a crazy I mean it was a unbelievable experience for me and the coaches um because we we only took two of them down state and we never lost a match they they both they had to win four really really tough matches um and uh I couldn't like couldn't be more proud of these

008guys can we get a round of applause for these these two um I ALS I also just want to note that um you know I'm I'm extremely lucky the amount of support that I've gotten for this program um you know from you guys and from uh Mr diely who um you know we we uh hosted regionals and he he was there for a few hours and the assistant principls took a turn and they all rotated and we had tons of families uh the cullins and the oras took the lead on it it was a huge production and uh to host it it's lots of lots of planning and um you know and we just had so many families pitch in and whatnot so I I'm so lucky as a coach to be involved in such

009a great supportive community and uh we absolutely love the Ortegas and the cullins and we appreciate them so much so well thank you very much we really appreciate great work the kids you were going to say something else yeah no we thanks so much for the invite and uh you know to recognize these kids because it's truly a rare feat that they they accomplish so I'm just curious do the young men want to I think they might want to say to say a word or two your parents or something you could say really quick come on sayon brief there you go come on up there you go ah now you got support um thank you for my coaches Mr mclusky and my club coaches my parents for just give me this opportunity go to go

010out there and wrestle okay you yeah the guys in the room just like endless support and I'm just grateful for the coaches and like all the matches yeah thank you wonderful much appreciated all right jef next okay we can do that then do you want to do that all right I'm willing to do that all right uh so we a little switch a given uh time and we have some other students here and you may be wondering about the art projects that that you see on the table I would have normally spoke to this a little later in the meeting under what's called board reports uh but U for time no no no yes yes other people may what what you see displayed here a really exceptional um example of the creativity uh that's coming

011from our schools and our kids in February Force Glenn hosted the third annual art reception right uh titled For the Love of art yes and every student was able to participate in the fair by designing a heart yes a heart that is used to decorate the space but in addition students were invited to submit a featured art piece I don't know how many yall had uh but I did it a lot a lot a lot uh at the fair and during the event the students also participated in a group art project and of course it came with cookies they were provided yes always uh what's an art project without cookies um each piece of artwork had a tab that detailed the artist's name title of Peace the medium and the great so for example this

012is a cake and it was made do you mind can I say who by Vivian Greco where's Vivian oh that's you all right and this is acrylic on canvas and you're a fourth grader right oh and you have a family member here with you who's here with you to celebrate yes Elizabeth and you were a volunteer right during the uh during the program and so um I guess I'm not going to reach maybe Steve what does your say real quick I have thank you it's Sunset Splash is the title it's acrylic on canvas and he's in grade four so very well done please yes two this is Eagle by JP Robertson acrylic on canvas grade one what wow are you can see well done grade one JP Robertson that's amazing you kidding oh here wow

013I'm sure he's streaming this man some people can just do art can't they that's cool yeah I was doing like stick figures how would we keep them down I've got Juliana Cordoba is that you Julia you're not here Juliana who is not here allegedly did reindeer magic acrylic on canvas and she is also grade four nice job I have Rose Bale uh hip hop heart watercolor paint glue and glitter grade one lovely yeah and of course these are just a few examples uh oh do we have another one over there yes oh apologies if I get your last name wrong Marco Marco fosi is that I get that right this is an abstract art painting acrylic squeegee technique which I'm really enjoying actually uh great one nicely done and where is Marco is that Mar

014oh there you are yeah yeah yeah well done well done so just real quickly Elizabeth you obviously spent a lot of time putting this together Susanna you're the PT do you want to just step up real quickly introduce yourself and say anything say something come on a really wonderful event and I do so Susanna and I have been doing it for three years um it's very simple art fair that they can submit their art and we do a nice little compliment card on the back the kids really like that and but it it's not that you know it for the the how special it is it's not that much work and it's we think all the schools should do this if they'd like to so we love it because there's not a lot that celebrates

015like the visual arts like there's tons of sports and Performing Arts but there's not a lot that celebrates visual artart so this is our chance to do that I will say I've been to this in the past I haven't been this year but I've been to it in the past it's not a simple event you have I mean rows and rows of of art were put up you have a packed House of kids that are coming in to show off their work they're bringing in parents they bringing in friends they bringing in grandparents it's a packed house I mean so it's not it's not a simple event you could say it might not be a lot of work but I'm sure that's just talk because I've been fun doing it and and the community enjoys

016it as well like I said what I was there was a lot of fun right I think we had over 80 like I think we had 83 kids this year so that that had featured art so many more bring in the like the hearts that decorate but thank you for having us fantastic thank you okay uh so I have one more recognition we got one more real quick recognition not quite as impressive as what we've just seen and it doesn't involve any artwork but please Dr to MCH it doesn't but it's a big deal I'd like to recognize a school board you received the 2024 Schoolboard governance recognition designation which is designed to acknowledge those school boards that have engaged in activities and model behaviors that lead to Excellence and local school governance in support

017of quality public education the board was recognized at the recent DuPage division iasb meeting in March so congratulations board well [Applause] done okay with that because this board's so hardworking we need to take another break we're gonna take a a a brief 10-minute break and then get back into the agenda and we'll allow our young people e e e okay thank you we're back in session U Mrs Mo a quick row call Mr eses here Mrs buer here Mrs Hill yes Mrs Sayad here Dr Michael here Mr lak here Dr Bruno here thank you very much I'm glad everybody came back all right uh we'll move then to public participation members of the public who wish to address the board should complete a form and submit it to Mrs Mo we ask that speakers respect

018that we are obligated to adhere to YouTube you know what I skipped something and it's because I'm looking at people that I know are here to speak and I had a conversation with him but I skipped right past something really important so you're going to have to wait a little longer um we're going to to go to a update on our strategic plan uh that our district has worked so hard with the board on so Jeff please uh your presentation thank you okay public participators I will try to keep this short okay so I'm not going to go through the entire length of the Strategic plan at the last board meeting I believe we talked through that at Great length what I did want to talk through is um the fact that in Dr Sullivan's

019report she and the stakeholders recommended that we condense the wording that we focus the metrics we streamline the committee structure and we communicate the plan and tonight I want to bring back to you some of the adjustments we made after the last meeting so there were a number of comments made at the board table uh let me go here I'm going the wrong way at the board table one of them was ensuring that special education and language programs are highlighted we were encouraged to gather feedback on the new Kindergarten Center throughout the first year and make sure we include the evaluation of facility needs for preschool our team talked through the best way to go about these and I do want to have a little dialogue tonight about how we did if we hit the

020mark for the special education we did have it in the action step which Jay I know when you said it last time uh we had mentioned it wasn't an action step but we did not have that in front of everybody at the time but what we did is in order to pull it out even more we broke the action step into two two parts implementing the instructional best practices for all students but also reviewing special education and language learner services to ensure High rigor and expectations we know that we do have achievement gaps that we want to close so we are going to purposefully be reviewing both of those areas currently we are for language Learners and also um putting a spotlight on special education um I I feel already we've been doing that more

021so this year um with the help of Molly Victor and Libby Jansen so we thought in the action step that would be the proper place for that yeah and I think that's important especially oh yeah I think it is I think it's important especially given the current climate things that that we point that out and make that an affirmative step so thank you yeah jumping to goal three I'm going to start with this the second bullet point engage with stakeholder groups to evaluate the facility needs for preschool preschool is certainly important to the board and this was something that uh we were intending to do anyway so let's memorialize it in the plan so we thought adding a state an action step for that would be appropriate the first bullet point under goal three this

022is where I want to see where the board is in terms of metric or no metric and engage with stakeholder groups to evaluate their satisfaction with the Kindergarten Center throughout the first year of operation so I know Jess you had mentioned that yes of course we want to open the Kindergarten Center but we don't just want to open it we want to knock it out of the park and we want to know how people are feeling about it so our team went back and forth we're thinking do we add add a metric for that where we were feeling like the action step was appropriate was because for the first year we don't have a baseline we'll gather Baseline throughout the year at the end of the year we'll have a number for that but also

023at the end of the year we'll have the five Essentials that will then measure just like with all the other schools and we thought that would be the metric we go moving forward so not to have a standalone metric but I also heard what you were saying in we want to make sure we don't just want to open it we want to open it and we want it to be highly successful so I wanted to hear your thoughts and then from the rest of the board if we did not come to you with a metric but I am not opposed to doing that if the board is feeling like that's the way to go so what are your thoughts Jess yeah I mean uh I don't want to tell you how to do it but

024if you were to just have one survey question was how satisfied have you been with the Kindergarten Center um and it was from very dissatisfied to very satisfied I would expect the average answer to be satisfied or better that's that's what I want to see I do think you could be more nuanced and ask more than the one question um and I think there are um impress pression points that you could focus in on like the first week or the first day the first day of the first week the first uh curriculum night uh is a big thing so you know just uh looking at what are our moments where we're we're really having an experience for those families and um how can we evaluate that we've met the mark Or Not and I think

025we'll want both of those uh I like the idea of a just a general how satisfied are you I think the nuanced ones we'll want for the next year so that how did curriculum curriculum night go so that the following year we can adjust we want it to be more of a formative survey for that um but I do like that idea too about having something that measures overall satisfaction um other board members okay moving on for the committee structure the original uh committee structure of theate the Strategic plan had four subcommittees and then there was a goal area team connected to a goal but not necessarily to a subcommittee so some subcommittees crossed up to three goals and one of the things we heard from the various feed the feedback from the various stakeholders

026was can you make it more streamlined so in in order to streamline it we thought let's connect each subcommittee to a goal and the subcommittees we would still want to have the same cross-section of board members community members staff members and administration on there but then underneath there we would have instead of a goal what formally calling it a goal area team we would have a staff committee to do that work so for example uh the subcommittee for goal one academic Excellence if Dr Webster was doing a curriculum review she would be working with a variety of Staff members to do the work and then that group could bring recommendations to the academic Excellence subcommittee which would also have staff but board members community members Administration to use as a feedback mechanism bounce things off

027of before it got to the highest point which is the Board of Education and having that in each of the four goal areas we thought could have a nice up and down structure um of subcommittees flowing into committee work all the way back up to the board so I'm going to pause there thoughts on the it seems very simple in idea but from an efficiency standpoint our team was feeling like this could really maximize all of those stakeholder groups to get feedback to when we bring it to the board we know we've run it up and down the chain multiple times so any thoughts on this so there there would be no more gats right is that what's Happening Here We would formally not have a goal area team but there would still be the

028gats were an administrator and staff members there will be point of need commit commes in all four of those goal areas so for example Early Learning facilities I would think a lot of the preschool um staff would want to be a part of all that work along with Molly Victor um a number of other administrators on that but then the early learning facility subcommittee would have more than just staff it would also have board member it would have community members I'm sorry Jeff so did you say that there would not be any more gats would be correct not in their current form current form it would be committees for each goal area basically by initiative or by area of need so there's committees and then there's the subcommittee maybe we'll have to call maybe there'll

029be sub subcommittees we were trying to keep the the wording as close to the current strategic plan as possible um underneath each one of those goals would be smaller committees which would be an administrator and staff functioning similarly to how the goal area teams focused I think one of the questions with the goal area teams was they were established but sometimes they they were looking for work to do and I think the flip of this would be committees are assembled to do the work so for example all the Committees Dr Webster had a social studies committee we were doing a social studies review she pulled together teachers they did the work and then that team disbands they don't need to keep that going and we would have that in each of these the Committees would

030come and B based on the work but these subcommittees would consistently be there overseeing anything for that goal area and and the subcommittees produce something that they gener that they then um provide to who who does the subcommittee report to the board so the subcommittee it would be a feedback mechanism so that for example if sorry Dr Webster I just keep using you but you just did this wonderfully I think with that social studies review is we needed to do a social studies curriculum review she pulled together the team social studies teachers there were specialed teachers I want to say there was El teacher on there so it was a cross-section of staff to be doing that work this would then with this structure the work they were doing would go to the academic Excellence

031subcommittee to get some feedback here's the work we've been doing what other things should we consider to use as a sounding board maybe get some ideas and then go back work some things so that it's polished and ready to go for when the final recommendation goes to the board so it's another layer but it has a nice cross-section because you do have parents you have a board member on there and you have um other administrators on there as well so it puts another step in there of feedback getting a wide variety of stakeholders as opposed to the staff doing something and bringing it right to the board can I ask one more question T did you have a phone and ultimately yes it will all come back to the board but how are you imagining

032updates on these goals through the year from these subcommittees would happen it's a great question I would anticipate we would develop a timeline for monitoring of when we would bring things to the board we will have metrics we'll know when those metrics are something like five Essentials that's one of the metrics that's on there when that five Essentials data comes in Dr Bruno I don't want to put you on the spot but we typically have that may would you say or would it not be until the following fall I would say it's probably Following fall okay once it's all aggregated so maybe it would be a September board meeting there would be a five Essentials report I I guess that's Erica that's you too with the five Essentials of we would know every September we're

033going to talk about five Essentials we're going to see how we're doing according to our metrics so there would be a monitoring timeline so that all of the metrics on the Strategic plan are being talked about at the board table in front of the community I see a hand from our board student board members yes I'm not sure who so actually recently we've taken the five essential survey I don't know was that what you're talking about you would do it in next September right to take all that data or whatever you're talking about it sounds like that data won't be put together and given to us until I'm guessing over the summer meaning we would have all of it and then we would present it in the fall saying so so here's what last year's

034eighth graders said okay but then we could at least update the board to see how we're doing for our metrics okay yeah I'm glad to hear that you're taking it that's good anybody who has not taken the five Essentials please take it that data is important to us yeah okay great all right I have one more slide communication of the plan um we want to make sure that everybody is aware we've done a lot of work with a lot of different people for for this and this is the work of the district here so we want to make sure that we have a chance to um communicate the revisions to the plan and make everybody aware that we do have a a wonderful strategic plan here so you see here some bullet points that we

035plan on doing Erica is going to lead the charge on that I believe I'll be on a road show at some point going around talking to various groups um I do want to highlight the third bullet point is highlight the plan in the community survey two of the metrics are about Community satisfaction and in terms of how well are we informing the community and how well are we engaging the community the Baseline for that is coming in a community satisfaction survey I believe in the month of April April very specific April 7th um it is going to be mailed out to everybody in the community because we also want to make sure that we get the perspectives of the 80% of people in the Glenn Allen communities who do not have kids in our schools

036so I just anybody who's watching tell your neighbors we are sending the survey out because we really do want your feedback and it's going to give us just similar to what you said some general satisfaction data on how we're doing as well as some more nuanced data that if you're a parent you'll take some more um detailed questions pertaining to the school experience but the purpose of this is to help us get better that's my last slide okay questions any questions on the last slide or the whole package all right Jeff District staff everyone thank you for the good work and of course this is just for the next year and a two years and we'll start this all over again all right good that's important to end strong right for sure all right now

037members of the public we'll get the public participation who wish to address the board should complete a form and submitted to Mrs Mo we ask that speakers respect that we are obligated to here to YouTube Community guidelines and are asked to maintain respectful decorum and limit comments to 3 minutes or less with about 30 seconds to go uh in your comments I will politely interrupt you and ask you to finish up Mrs MO is there anyone who wishes to make public comment tonight we have a few uh Joe stilling okay Payton wiler and Ty Gamel here we go no I get three minut sorry um why dyslexia decoded we believe that all children in education should have the literary skills they need to succeed in reading and writing throughout their entire lives our goal project

038dyslexia goal is to spread knowledge about dyslexia throughout Glenn Allen and to get uh trained Professionals in uh the d41 school district um the problem is that little to know teachers in District 41 are trained on how to deal with children who have dyslexia there is a lack of early diagnosis for children only 62% of fourth graders can read at a basic level leaving 38% behind in reading skills um the solution our solution is to provide trained professionals throughout d41 School District as well as um provide a standardized screening for all kids in the d41 school dist because it's important to catch kids Young when they have dyslexia um past the age of eight it's very hard to um help kids with dyslexia so it's important to catch them before then and then finally we

039want to spread awareness about dyslexia throughout Glen Alin um to end the stigma around it in summary uh a media action needs to be taken in order to um help as many kids with dyslexia as possible we can do this by providing trained professionals uh in school districts and also providing uh standardized screening in d41 District thank you I have a packet that shows um Illinois's performance on dyslexia um in general know if you could leave it with Mrs Mo when you're finished she'll make sure okay thank you thank you so much thank you so much for coming in for your advocacy Mrs Mo Rebecca Taylor Rebecca I like that idea first my name is Rebecca keman Taylor and I have kids at Hadley and Churchill I'd like to commend the district for its thoughtful

040approach to looking at the student personal technology policy and its great efforts to get stakeholder input I'd like to provide a few Reflections on the general direction laid out in Dr McHugh's board report for tonight the direction the administration is headed regarding a new policy is pretty consistent with the current policy with just one change that I see in the summary provided tonight taking into account both the current board policy policy and the related administrative procedure the current policy for Hadley is personal technology often out of sight and for the elementary schools its personal technology often out of sight and not stored in the classroom so the only evident change in the new potential policy in Dr McHugh's board report is that it specifically clarifies that watches are subject to the policy currently they are

041part of the policy under the category of other electronic devices but explicitly calling them out as useful clarification I'm sure there will be other nuanced changes to the policy once the administration presents its formal policy recommendation but this is the one change that's evident at this point I support this change to clarify that watches are part of the policy but mostly I think it's important to note that the potential new policy is really quite similar to what's already on the books so if the policy will really not shift that much then any changes will primarily be seen in enforcement changes and better Clarity in how the policy is communicated to stakeholders Dr McHugh's board report specifically mentions the these two goals a number of times and I commend the administration for acknowledging the challenge of

042enforcement consistency and for its desire to better clarify the policy for all even with these great intentions the devil is in the details in making a clear policy so I'd encourage the administration and board to really consider this carefully As you move forward one example for your consideration and or Amusement what does turned off really mean does it mean the same thing for everyone does a black screen mean turned off is airplane mode sufficient or do not disturb or does turned off mean actually holding the power button down and sliding across the dot so no signal can get in and out from the device do students or any of us in this room ever actually turn off their device or will this be a New Concept for them the other Nuance to a phone or

043watch Being truly turned off is that parents will no longer be able to locate their child or rather their child's device on Life 360 or another tracking app so that may require great deal of expectation management for parents you could go through an exercise like this for lots of other Concepts in the policy to tease out where the confusion or different interpretations might be and I encourage you to do that to make it as precise and clear as possible my final comment is that a desire for better enforcement may make teachers job much teachers jobs much harder I'm sure you'll be thinking very carefully about this I'd suggest a centralized system for enforcement where devices are stored in pouches and retrieved at the end of the day this would significantly reduce the enforcement responsibility that

044teachers have and allow them to just focus on teaching again I'm generally supportive just focus on the details thank you thank you Rebeca thank you so much Kathleen Hokinson hello Kathleen Hokinson Library Aid and sponsor of the one Earth environmental Club at Forest Glenn and you may remember me from last year was that was a lot of fun so uh tonight I thought I not really familiar with this and I thought I was going to be speaking after you discuss the subject that I'm here for so I may be um making assumptions about what your decisions are actually going to be I want to thank Eric deporter and the district for addressing the concerns of our community regarding the black number five plastic used by Quest Food Management Services in District 41's hot lunches our

045one Earth Club researched this issue last year and violet da then a fifth grader presented our findings to the board last spring this fall Forest Glenn's fifth grader Joe stilling took it upon herself to further explore this problem and created a slide deck presenting her findings and shared it with me I found it so compelling that I shared it with Mr deporter recent Studies have drawn more direct conclusions about the dangers present in these black food trays hot drink lids and kitchen utensils it's also worth noting these items are not recy recable for multiple reasons another terrible waste of resources for a single use so while we're happy to see the transition I'm going to hope that this is what's happening to number one white plastic in the lunchrooms we know the elimination of plastic

046from any food service is the goal especially hot food we all anticipate so I'm grateful for our families who take these concerns seriously and advocate for those who cannot advocate for themselves our our young students and finally one Earth appreciates the enthusiasm of many many and others have for the work for our club and for our one Earth so thank you yeah anticipate happy news Mrs Mo okay well thank you thank you all let us then move to reports and we'll begin with the superintendent report you've got a couple of items here all right thank you I have five topics on the report for the sake of time I'm going to buzz through the first four the transportation update will be a little bit metor here we go educator of the Year this was communicated

047out in a variety of places but Mrs Deb lazara second grade teacher at Church Hill won the Glenn Allen Chamber of Commerce 2024 d41 educator of the year she was just honored last week at a banquet and thank you to Dr Bruno Mr eses for being there for joining us to celebrate Deb Kindergarten Center we have uh it it seems by the week it looking more and more like a school and we have so many things going on within that Center I get weekly updates from uh Dave scarmardo sends me these fine pictures from inside there and he gives me updates on all the various the mechanical the electrical HV HVAC Plumbing everything going on in there there's so much going on inside that building and equally there's a lot of planning that we are

048doing as an admin team outside that building so a lot more news is coming I believe just two weeks ago we sent out information about kindergarten there'll be another one coming shortly we know that people have questions we've got answers stay tuned one of those questions and answers is before and after school care people are wondering are we having before and after school care at the Kindergarten Center we are right now the current plan is the park district we'll provide before and after school care at both the Kindergarten Center and at Churchill whereas the YMCA will provide before and after school care at the other three elementary schools thank you to Dr David Bruno and boy I feel like Eric deporter Dave scarmardo there were a lot of people working on this so thank you

049to our our cabinet for all of your efforts Nancy mooch getting Theus in order thank you Molly Erica Chris thank you it's a team effort last week I had both of my advisory councils the students and the community on two separate days um we were so engaged at the we were really engaged in the student one but we forgot to take pictures at the community W so if you're like wow the community is looking little these days nope those are those are both of the students there um the student advisory Council we talked about technology I told them where we were where I was leaning where we as a district we going to hear their thoughts and then we talked about engagement in the classroom which was really interesting we said when are you most

050engaged and when are you least engaged so it was really uh really great conversation at the community advisory Council we also talked about technology we got some I thought really helpful feedback from people who were in the room at the committee of the whole meeting and also there and then we opened it up to what are you hearing in the community and what's on your mind related to d41 and there were a number of things that came up academic rigor came up special education came up communication um that our kids are happy that was I think that the thing that warmed my heart the most is kids are happy they love their teachers they love their schools and we still have work to do and I think our new strategic plan refresh is going to

051help focus our work in all of those areas and we will uh based on the feedback from both of those advisory councils that will help set the agendas for our last advisory councils of the year which I think are in May let's talk busing um Eric I want to set this up a little bit but I don't want to steal too much of your thunder so maybe I should just throw right to you you want to Tee It Up and then throw to me at the end I'm interested in see how you'd set it up actually no I'm happy to take it okay thank you okay yeah so so tonight we just just want to kind of give you an update on where we're at and busing so I'm going to start with a little

052bit of a quick history lesson everybody knows we started the fall off with a new partner in Safeway Transportation Services um and it was a rough start um they were the first they were a change for us first time in8 years after using a previous vendor and additionally we were operating in a new environment where the high school start time which we tiar with obviously was only 30 minutes prior to our start time whereas in previous years it had been 55 minutes so that changed from 55 minutes to 30 minutes and it's absolutely made a difference contributed to many of the struggles we had in the fall but that's what we were dealing with when we started school and as if you can recall as the fall went on um myself along with colleagues from

053the high school district district 87 started to meet weekly with Safeway uh leadership at their Depot to talk about their operational challenges what they're doing to fix some of these issues and that those meetings continue still to this week I have a meeting there on Wednesday afternoon so um tonight's conversation is really to focus on you know how did we get here you know obviously the year started off rough um where we are today is where I want to talk about and where we're headed to next so today I can tell you that you know despite the cold weather challenges that Safeway had uh after winter break their service has really improved to the point where we're almost about as good as we can hope for um I'm happy to report that in the mon

054month of March so far we've had three late buses so each day we run 36 buses in the morning 36 buses at night so we've had three of those over 17 days I didn't count today because I didn't look I didn't hear anything but only three rout late routes I mentioned that just to highlight uh many of the changes that Safeway has undergone to try and meet our demands um specifically they've changed their leadership structure uh their location manager has been changed their operations manager has changed meaning that the person that's in charge of their buses and their Fleet is the best in their company is what they tell me uh they have a whole new process for addressing cold weather issues um and things of that nature so really you know what we're seeing

055today is vastly improved service obviously we want perfect service so we continue to meet with them and push for that that brings us to the other topic for tonight we wanted to talk about is bids if you recall in early February we did put a bid out to explore options should we decide to change bus companies those bid results came back in early March um we sent bids to all of the known Transportation providers in the area and received bids from only three companies one of which was Safeway so of the three bids we received one was um I'm just going to use the word quite a bit higher than what we currently pay to the point where it's really not being considered um the other bidder other than Safeway did have another bid but

056it was slightly higher um so the question we have now is is what are we going to do with these these bids and what are options available to us um what I can say about the bids is one idea we had was to enter into a contract where we no longer tier with the high school you know what would that look like is that financially feasible is it appropriate to do that um the low bid in that environment other than Safeway is Approximately 80% more than what we're paying today so that is substantially higher um with that in place with with that in mind we did look at the other biders um response if we were to continue our relationship with District 87 in a partnership and bid with them and and enter into a

057contract with them again that solution is approximately 5 million more over the next four years than our current arrangement with Safeway so given all of that information uh the goal tonight was really to kind of discuss those options um let the board you know know that there are no slam dunk options in these bids there was no uh surprise bidder that came in that said we will do busing for your District at a similar cost to what we currently have so we really only had one option if we're going to leave Safeway and that option was quite a bit more expensive um with that Dr mchu did I miss anything no I don't think so I I I think if I'm a Community member and I'm wondering really there's there's that's the only option there's

058only one that that really is there is one responsible option out there that that we would flip to but it is something we're going to look at um we we have we do know that the community has not been as satisfied with Safeway as um as as they deserve to be so it is something we're going to look at we are going to entertain is it worth the premium to leave Safeway versus because we have seen dramatic Improvement in the last two months keep working with them to see what assurances can we get can we look at our fee structure with them um to tighten that up even more do we look at un tiering more routes especially as we're going to be looking to add kindergarten routes to that what assurances do we have

059that that's going to go off without a hitch so I think those are the things we're weighing right now as we go back to Safeway but this is not an easy swap them out for somebody else and it's going to be great in fact I I think if we brought anybody else in to try to do the tiered right now we would probably have a similar learning curve for that so really the answer if we did leave Safeway would be to pay the premium of going with somebody completely untiered and there's a large fiscal um element to that too that we're keeping in mind so those are the things that we're wrestling with um any thoughts from the board um yeah I appreciate the historical look back and I'd just like to add a little

060bit of color to that as well um this is my 10th year in the district and so I I don't have the longest memory but I I do have a long memory of uh our previous provider for student not being perfect and had there we're having quite a few complaints about them as well and in particularly from a board perspective when we were reviewing bids when we chose to go a safe way a huge motivator of that decision is that first student was not willing to work with us to optimize the routes and we needed to optimize the routes in order to shorten our window from 55 minutes to 30 minutes and that was a huge element of our decision um it has been very Rocky um but it sounds like from your description we

061have a better working relationship with this vendor now than we did at the end of our previous contract would you say that that is correct I would yeah one of the strong kind of things that Safeway has done is they really have been responsive to us in our meetings with District 87 and Safeway leadership team we've really you know pushed them hard to to look at different solutions um if you recall back in the fall when we pushed for8 teered routes Safeway came to us about a month later and said hey we found two more we're going to untier without being asked you know we were pushing for improve service um and they knew that that was the solution we needed and they did that without even being asked so they have been a good

062partner in that regard and I also want to point out that with our previous provider their structure was set up so that negotiating with their um bus drivers and being able to attract bus drivers and being Nim and flexible to the market was a little bit um hampered whereas with our new um with Safeway even though we've had troubles they have a lot more flexibility and that that was part of our decision making with going with Safeway the first times is that also correct yeah very also correct um I I I H I have a lot of reservations about um maximizing our our premium or paying for a premium with the uncertainty we're facing for next year as we expand our operations to a Kindergarten Center and as we see federal funds being under threat

063um however I think we could go to bid every single year if we are not seeing the kind of service that we need continue and I would like to see some greater amounts of accountability so that when we have cold weather days we do not have children sitting at bus stops for an amount that they have no idea how long that's going to be and then neighbors are having to take other people's kids that they don't necessarily know in their cars to school and I we have a fantastic community so that happens in a lot of places but it probably doesn't happen in all of them um and so uh while I think there uh is a lot of good sorry coming from um what you're saying today I I I I still don't feel

064great about where we're at necessarily because we had some there were a some very egregious hiccups any board member question all right I will then Tess go ahead um just out of curiosity is there a specific like when we're talking about Transportation I know a lot of the issue is we have buses that show up late to pick students up and then drop them off at school and then they show up late to school to drop students off at home is there like a goal number that we're shooting for or like something that we would set as the satisfactory times for any of those you know like pick up drop off pickup drop off like times you know what I mean did yes so test we do have those times 8:30 yeah so the way

065our contract is is written right now is they're supposed to be at the school 10 minutes before the bell time because of the challenges with the shorter window between District 41 and District 87 we've allowed them to get their 5 minutes before um without penalizing them but the goal is to be 10 minutes before and then after school our goal is to be off all of our Properties by 15 minutes after the Bell so 3:45 um currently they're doing that you know it's been a big lift and they've tried hard to get there it took them a long time but they are meeting those times currently all right thank you thank you I have a question sorry T um Eric can you just elaborate a little bit more on what the benefit of staying with

066d87 is yeah absolutely that's a good question um you know part of our history when we switched to Safeway is we did this as a as in a joint agreement with District 87 um the bid was such at that time that the cost to go as a partnership team into this Arrangement saved the high school quite a bit of dollars over what first student had had bid for them and in uh recognition of that you know District 87 actually agreed in an intergovernmental agreement with District 41 to share some of that cost savings with us so our arrangement with District 87 is very favorable favorable in in the sense that we save money with them they save money and both of our taxpayers are the same people um every District 41 taxpayer is a district

06787 taxpayer so um that relationship is is very valuable for us um one aside I would offer is you know in review of the bids that were submitted um in conversations with my colleagues in District 87 they've indicated that their in their opinion the financial uh cost to move away from Safeway is substantial um they have not uh experience the challenges we have as far as late buses and missing buses because they're the first tier you know every high school route runs before the elementary route so while they've been a great partner to us and every time we meet they talk about what can we do to increase the efficiency of District 87 routes so we can get to District 41 routes first or sooner and and perform better for that District they do recognize

068that the financial benefit with maintaining the Safeway contract is substantial Jason over over the years whether it be the prior vendor um and then when we switch to Safeway this year there were a lot of our problems were at the beginning of school years um and we saw that we saw that persist this year and I know that you Jeff uh the team had put in a lot of work with Safeway to improve those Services he went through some of those tonight um one of my fears besides the winter stuff but what do we what is the process um come August um for the district to have a insurance is that Safeway is ready to go and I know that they do practice runs I know they do this I know they do that um

069but what are what what are the processes in place going into you know August 2025 that that safely does and that the district can look at to know yes they're there or not stely you need to do a couple more things so that you're ready to go yeah great question um you know first thing I would say is obviously the second year around they know what they're getting into so it's going to be a lot easier but I mean sitting here on March 17th we've already started discussions about when we're going to meet over the summer to look at their operational plan to make sure that they're ready to add those additional buses for kindergarten to uh to really go over Eric your time is up yeah I know I'm getting cut off I love

070it no but great question we've already started those conversations about meeting um we have a schedule in place already about when we're going to provide our registration data to Safeway so they can make the required modifications to routes to address those new bus riders that aren't currently riding the buses and new students to the district so that's something we've already started working on and then the next it's kind of a follow to that so next year um we're going to have a new set of buses for not our youngest has you know we have our prek kids um but for our kindergarten is that that we're be buzzing a lot more of of that so I'm again I'm assuming these conversations but what conversations have been had with Safeway to make sure the district knows

071that Safeway is in a place to Services kindergarteners on a timely basis so we don't have little kids out absolutely they know it's coming we've been talking about it for months um it's something that we're going to work on memorializing in a contract Amendment because it will require you know additional buses anywhere from 6:00 to 8 we haven't really zeroed in on that number yet it kind of is dependent upon registration completing and all of that um but they're aware it's coming we've put that put them on notice many months ago and and they're preparing for it and they prepared to meet the needs whether it be six eight routes whatever they may be yes they've said they can they can do that any other board Jess you have another one please uh what work

072is planned or how do how do how are we evaluating whether or not we've optimized the stops themselves you mean in regards to Route run times or just efficiency like the location of the route stops so that we've got so that's running as efficiently as possible we have you know a reasonable distance but also where you don't have so many stops that it's slowing us down it that is ongoing and they do that on a weekly basis that's why you know not many know this but we do update the times and Skyward Parent Access twice a week because if a bus is running a little longer than we want it to and it's getting closer to a Bell time in the morning we work with Safeway on ways to sharpen those routes up and shorten

073them by a few minutes and that involves sometimes removing one stop or uh identifying stops that are on the route that there are no bus riders on um that's one thing we've done this year is really focused on keeping track of where bus riders are getting on and where they're not getting off and where they're not getting on the bus and by looking at that data we're able to shorten those run times make them more efficient and get to school in time is that the question you're asking um I I mean are you're changing times but you are ALS are you also changing like where the stops are to optimize we do when it's required there's not a lot of bus stop changes just because these are long standing routes that have been in force

074for a lot of years and as the when we prepare the routes at the beginning of the year we look at the run times and we we have some metrics on saying this is as long as we want a route to be if it's longer than that we're going to make it change before school even starts okay yeah and when you change the times do you send out a notification to the impacted families absolutely we do yeah that's one thing we can Target each each bus route and send targeted updates to just those bus parents so I should read my emails then I missed it last time absolutely my kid for a week before we figured out email had a couple notifications whether through Skyward whether through email but I know I saw it my

075wife is tax have you seen this supp's go out the route so good to know yes any Steve Julie I I just well well first of all thank you very comprehensive uh Deep dive in um I and if I understood properly is you still have these bids there's still that um that premium that that could be paid that there's value um if we went to un teering uh so something still to look at but you also have opportunities to continue you're meeting regularly and you can continue to negotiate with Safeway um contractually and there is the ability annually uh to go out the bid there are there were penalties many times this year and they likely will have string more stringent conditions going forward and also that it's a that it's a different bus company

076after that initial start with those two exceptional days when it was and and just spoke about people on you know waiting far too long but otherwise uh 72 buses a day in the month of March and only three buses have been reported late that's I don't know how I don't know what 100% you know I don't know what the level nobody hits 100% but that's incredibly good that's a huge Improvement I I just want to underscore you you know Eric when you talk about that window going from 55 to 30 minutes mean that made all the difference in the world this was not something that District 41 had uh uh uh U brought forward that the change was coming from 87 we were partnering uh with them and you are un teering more buses and

077it seems to me that as many as you can unteer at least the ones that you think are pro that remain maybe a threat or problematic um adds value even if there is a bit more expense on that so it seems like you've got um a responsive partner and you have opportunities to continue to negotiate uh a deal uh going forward so I feel pretty good about where you brought it did you have your he notice how he's watching the three of you he's got you man he zoned in go ahead yeah sorry I just wanted to say thank you for everything that you're doing it's like really improve a lot since the beginning of the year and you're doing so much so I just want to acknowledge that you're welcome thank you I guess

078somebody should have said yeah I'll take it on behalf of all of us well well said what you said all right thank you Jeff thank you Eric all right board members any board members other than me who has a board report okay now we're losing the rest of them good night thank you for coming yes go ahead yeah they did a war the mine is pretty short um so I recently attended two school plays so Hadley presented the greatest show I don't want to steal any thunder so I won't go into it too much we have some uh board members that were uh participating in that so um both of these plays were extremely well done very large crowds at all of the showings um there were so many parent volunteers really too numerous to

079mention but they did a fantastic job and the students had Tech week which is a very um timec consuming week there's a lot going on during that week and uh that's in addition to all of their normal school work clothed so it's certainly compend and their hard work really paid off um Gina woods and Christina lindall were the directors and they were truly exceptional um and they had huge casts as well it's a lot of students to manage um I am biased but I would put these plays against any in the country I really think that they were phenomenal um I I stand behind that statement so um but anyways I'll if you have any other words I could you can leave it for yours as well so anyways thank you thank you Dr Michael

080yes how about if I swing over here no Ted are you about to hit the button I guess you could just real quickly uh Dr Bruno and I um attended the iasb to page Regional uh uh meeting that was last week was it uh or no was week before yeah two weeks ago losing track of time the speaker was um Dr Wallace I forget uh what the what's Ken Ken Wallace yeah I forgot what the school district he's from oh he is me okay um he was talking about um changing um changing thinking uh about how to prepare students for a changed economy it was kind of an interesting talk yes it's always I always appreciate the fact that Ted really does make an effort to go uh to all of those uh dinners and

081it's great joining him particularly when they were honoring District 41 and T you got a picture right you did get a did it get you in a picture okay good to uh to have you there uh over here no no Miss Hill I did some things did some stuff I did some stuff um at the end of February I attended the Lend meeting um where they had um first name was Noel and she was from the American what is it Association of school administrators I had to pull it up on my computer because I couldn't remember what all the letters stood for um and she talked a lot about um what the federal department of education does um some things that will be decided in the courts um Federal funding idea which is the individuals

082with disabilities Education Act um and then had some thoughts for uh board members um I attended the com meeting and then I went on a PTA tour and I went to the PTA executive council meeting um and they talked about all their things and then I attended the Hadley PTA meeting a couple days later and then I attended the Church Hill PT meeting a couple days later and notably Church Hill um as you might expect had a whole bunch of questions about um changes and um concerns with the new kindergarten building and the new kindergarten program coming so um I have relayed them to Dr McHugh and he will will or already has I don't know um get back to them but they they have many questions and there's a lot happening on that campus

083so um understandably so and um thus ended my P PTA tour and I also attended a um um a zoom meeting with the Illinois Association of school boards um advocacy ambassadors um which I signed up for a year plus ago um so that was largely State focused talked about um Governor pritzker's budget add address um gave us a legislative update um which had like so many bills but um that was I think that was last week on the 14th yeah um and so this week was supposed to be very busy in Springfield so we were supposed to keep our eyes open for IB um legislative updates but I do not have one from today for you but evidently there will be a lot happening so um and that's all I have thanks all that you

084have well first of all thank you for tripling up I think you may have had to uh do some extra work because maybe well Ted and I were at the iasb dinner or somebody with somebody someplace else yeah I was definitely substituting but I don't know who it was but I did walk into at least one they were like you're not Steve and I was like I'm not Steve but we figured it out it's okay thank you of course no problem and certainly on the education legislative um um agenda there's a a lot going on and it's only going to get thicker so um you're going to stay very busy as an ambassador and thank you for that kind of advocacy okay over here Jess taba no good Mr lobach I got a few on

085my plate um I heard I just stepped out for a moment to um talk to people that came to to advocate for dyslexia and I think continuing to advocate for special education services um is so important so I'll get to that under my continu advoc advocacy for special education services in just a moment but start with the Arts first um I know someone I think with Steve talked about about the various plays um Tess you did a great job um the whole had the drama production did a great job in in the greatest showman I I I thoroughly enjoyed watching it I'm always impressed with with the the capabilities and the talent of of these kids and it's just always an impressive back so great job all around um I know there's a lot going

086on with band and drama this week the band Orchestra of a solo quintets all those of a small group things are going on this week um the the choir is singing at at the Wolves game on Friday night which I'm going to go go see that so so that should be a lot of fun so there's a lot of fun stuff going on with the Arts here at Hadley um U I want to thank State Rep um terraa Howard and Senator Elman they put on a very nice um idd which the term is intellectual um developmental disabilities Roundtable where they brought in representatives from various different groups I could I a lot of different tables were had and they had a very good show and it was about 2our Round Table discussion talking about very

087different items with uh community members and leaders throughout throughout the gladell lomard areas and so I want to just thank thank them for putting that on um then leads me up to what is the highlight of many people's year which is World down C is Friday um March 21st so we handed out socks throughout the district and we do this to recognize everyone's differences every every's abilities throughout this District um when I was a kid one of my favorite beer favor movies was feris Beer's day off and there was line he said I don't believe in isms I just believe in me D sy's not an ism but there's a lot of isms out there a lot of syndromes out there and uby also said you know there's a quote everybody's family's got weirdness in

088them um but everybody's unique and everybody's ISM and everybody's weirdness makes them who they are and drawing attention to the value that every single individual person has um to me is one of the most important things we can do because it's not just about the person with Down synd the person with whatever ability or disability it may be it's about everyone's Community experience together because we all enjoy these schools we all enjoy this Village we all enjoy this state this country together as a community and when we can see the value in every single Community member whether that person has Down syndrome whether that person has ADHD whether that person has something that you just don't know what they have and they money have you know what they have or they're just some typical person

089we all enjoy this together and the world's a better place we can all look at everyone and see the value and see the potential and see the worth in every person and so for World on syndrome day I will be doing a tour of all the schools we'll be handing out socks to all the staff members we'll be going to visit the uh seventh grade science of departments when they talk about their um what's it called the blanking on the DNA that what do you do in seventh grade that subject do it right now genetics here we go and we'll talk to a couple science classes um and we'll go to we we we'll go to different classes throughout VAR school I know Dr will come walk with it we'll just talk to kids and

090some Sometimes some of the best things you can do is just have that conversation and kids are generally curious and when you have a conversation as to hey why can't I understand a kid with down when it talks sometimes a lot of people don't know that their tongue's big their mouth's small so sometimes it's harder to talk and people oh didn't realize that and so you just get to have these conversations and ask real questions and sometimes people don't know what where to ask it and so I'm excited to do that and I want to thank um uh the Glenn Allen Public Library um this is the second year writing they're doing a an event to celebrate World on CER day on Thursday of what month is this April or March March March 20th the

091day before World down Center date last year they did a sock puppet um a program I believe is the same this year um so if you're interested is the evening of March 20th sign up uh bring your kids it last year was a ton of fun also we're doing our rock your sock drive again we're we're I'm collecting socks help other people Rock their own socks so no matter what your financial abilities are people going have the ability to rock their socks we have drop boxes collect sced throughout the community with their boxes at Village Hall they're at um the part of community on Main Street Spring Avenue aaman they're at the library they're throughout the school District they're at Faith Lutheran Church with Terra Costa High they're at my office um there's I'm a

092box of thrs community and we collect socks for people's resource center and again we do so just to would you do that you're you're kind of just buying in you're you're you're giving Worth to everyone throughout that community so I appreciate it I appreciate everyone we're done so looking forward to rocking your socks with everyone on Friday and that's that's what I have for today well Jason first of all personally I love the socks wear them all the time I've got a SE think I need a separate drawer for all of them I a few dra I'm also appreciative in the community should know that this is a gift that comes from your family um and you do it annually and you do it with Incredible unconditional uh unreserved uh joy and I have been

093through those schools on one occasion with you U and it it is something that we're all grateful that you do so thank you personally and on behalf of the board well done brother thank you well done all right now what do we got students yeah top me top that come on beat that I'm gonna say they probably will they do um first of all before I start I'd like to thank Dr Michel for that wonderful foreshadowing earlier because you predicted exactly what my report is about so from March 7th through March 9th all students participating in the Hadley musical put on an out standing Show after hersing during the entirety of the week prior students also performed for Girl Scout Troops on Wednesday the 5th and Thursday the 6th students at Forest Glenn performed the

094production of Aladdin this past weekend on Friday March 14th and Saturday March 15th and put on a phenomenal performance all Hadley choruses have a concert this Thursday March 20th and all eighth grade students will have their graduation photos taken March 26th as they begin their departure from and start their journey to glenbard West U my report's fairly brief but just to recognize that the St bdri uh event is happening this Wednesday March 19th for anybody who didn't know I'm sure you did but there's a lot of shaves I think there's about 20 if I'm right who so um generously volunteered there's going to be a bake sale face painting a raffle as many as many other activities to do it's going to be a lot of fun um M's very short as also um this

095week um schoolwide State testing for IR Illinois assessment of riness and just to show how like to show the state what we know just do our best yeah yeah we appreciate you doing that yeah all right can I ask a follow question oh you have a follow have a question Tess who were you we got to know now that we we've been told who are you so I was lety Lutz and you might not recognize the name because she has a very prominent beard which is how she's known in the movie so I was the bearded lady in the first all right that was a that was a mystery solved now we know a beard huh good look all right thank you all thank you all good work let's move into the discussion portion of

096the meeting and we've got a couple items we'll start with the board policy revisions and Jeff you have a policy committee so supporting you so take it away yeah um Steve and Ted we did a first reading and everything was press press recommended changes anything you want to add to this Ted or Steve I can talk real quickly um as we know press stands for policy reference education subscription service and it just it uh the goal is to really be consistent with best practices and this particular session we talked about a couple things um covers new training for board members for I'm sry covers training for new board members it's not new training for board members um we talks a little bit about the board president as a spokesman for the group spokesperson for the

097group um it talks about procedures for operating social media and it also talks about safety and um safety procedures and policies related to aeds U in the buildings which I thought was excellent um it has some pretty standard Financial updates as well so it's all pretty pretty standard stuff it covers some important things but it's all pretty standard very good well Dr Michael Ted thanks for your continued service it can be very mundane getting in a lot to read uh but I appreciate it and Nancy Mo thank you for coordinating all of that all right then our next item is the EAP Pawn Network for the whole District this is switch Replacements Andrew please correct so you might recall last year we did the pond Network um for um Forest Glenn and that actually does

098its final cut over this spring break and that'll be completed so this would be for the remainder of the buildings in the district to take advantage of the current e- rate cycle and leverage the funds that we have available to us there so we want to replace all the switching um gear across the remaining elementaries Hadley and the few that are in the CSO as well and it's going to follow the same technology that we've put into Forest Glenn um we don't have the dollars in there right now because it's sitting in the usack portal for bidding it has a mandatory 28 days to sit in there for our next um board meeting we'll have the um summary of The Who bid um and the cost that um is estimated to come out of that

099and then I'll be able to also tell you what will be offset with the e- rate funding we did have about six vendors that showed interest when we had our mandatory meeting so we should have some good responses coming out of that as well and they did a walk through to make sure they had understanding we included everything that we learned from our Forest Glen project and Might Recall we had one um request to the board that we came back for some extra approval when we did the forest Glenn project so all that's included in our bids so that we taken all that knowledge and put it forward so that we don't shouldn't have any surprises coming out of this project as we um finalize that in the next for the next board meeting great

100yeah very good yes yes thanks for the detailed information report yeah all right and then the third and final item is the student personal technology recommendation and Jeff this is your leadership here yeah I think Rebecca stole some of my comments in the uh in the public comments part but I think for tonight I don't have anything formal to bring but my leanings at the committee of the whole meeting were only strengthened by that conversation I also ran the thoughts by both the student advisory Council and the superintendent advisory Council before going and and and starting to actually work on policy I wanted to make sure that the board Direct directionally agrees with where I'm going so that I don't bring you something at the April 21st meeting and you said Jeff that's not what

101we heard at all in the committee of the whole meeting so my recommendation will uh and when I say mine this is the work of the cabinet our team the principles but um as the superintendent I am the one bringing this to you so uh when when there are people who have an alternative opinion I want you emailing me please don't email the board I'm the one making the recommendation but the recommendation would be um often out of sight and uh that would be for prek all the way up through 8th grade and that would include watches we'll need to figure out as Rebecca had mentioned in public comment the devil is in the detail we will need to see what that looks like and there also may be a feeling out period of what

102that looks like at it might look a little different at Hadley than at the elementaries but I would want to be able to bring a policy to you with the help of the policy committee next month that commemorates that idea is that what you heard at the committee of the whole or did you hear something that you want me to take into account let me open it up then to folks Jess you yeah I think one of the things that I learned at the committee of the whole meeting that I really hadn't considered before because I get a little um anxious when I think about not being able to reach my child in a ser I emergency um and apparently I haven't I didn't do the research myself um but what I was told from

103somebody who did seem to do quite a lot is that having those communication devices in those situation actually can put your child in more danger because they're making noises um or they they might be distracting your child from what they need to be doing instead so um so that is one thing to consider and maybe for me to learn more about um and also uh I I thought I lost my dog uh this weekend for like 20 minutes and it was pure Terror but now she has an Apple Air tag so for any any parent that has kids that don't change their shoes very often that's where mine mine goes for those Littles where parents just want to be able to track them um cuz that that's why we first got our kids um watches

104was so that we always knew where they were and Apple Air tags do that really well wow okay I'm glad you found the dog yeah she's behind the couch yeah texted the whole community and they were all out looking for her couch good for her uh other Ted you got your finger on the button well you know as as Becca mentioned and you emphasized yeah the deil devils in the details um and I think I mentioned um when we started this that not only am I interested in reviewing the policy but actually what what's the enforcement part and Rebecca touched on that as well interested to hear some of that as you shake out all the details thank you Ted others no so again I was really thrilled with the committee of the whole meeting

105well design great feedback thank you uh thank you community and again thank you board this all began was triggered the Catalyst was reading the book The anxious generation you've been very thoughtful uh I do take very seriously any change that we do that adds a burden to teachers we ask so much for them um and so enforcement does primarily you know fall fall on them so and it does strike me that out of sight so it's not on the wrist if it's a watch the phone is not out uh but as I understand it it would then it would remain in their possession they're not asked to give it up it doesn't go in a pouch they have it on them correct is that correct no will you tell me does does the student have

106their watch on them but it's not on their wrist it's in their it's in a bag or something they have their phone it's not on we're not checking we're not asking the teacher to go into the bag check uh but they do have it on their possession so they leave the classroom they could pull it out if they go to lunch they could pull it out anyway correct no they can't just yeah I think this will be something as we get into the policy to detail out what that is um whether that means it needs to be in Locker somewhere if it means that we do eventually want to go down the road of having something in the classroom I would want to have more discussion with people about what that could look like um

107ultimately there's no one right way to do it uh I know a number of school districts including my former my former two because I serve two school districts um had different policies under the same umbrella of off and out of sight and they were both successful so there's no one right way to do it it's what's right for us to start and then we're going to need to adjust at the building level um I think at the end of the day though everybody's going to be on the same page here whether they agree or not it's going to be clear and it'll be up to us to communicate what that is we'll just want to be very clear about what that is what enforcement looks like I think if we do this well it won't

108be a huge added burden for the teachers because there will be Clarity and yes students are still going to I mean come on they they told me at the last student advisory Council exactly how they were sneaking phones in and out and things so of course students are going to try to push the envelope but um everyone will be very clear not these three to be clear not these three but you were in the room when people were telling me that like oh yeah Dr McHugh I'm trying to sneak my phone into the lunchroom like really you're you're telling me that okay um so we we know that's going to happen but I I do feel like it'll be few and far between once we have a culture of we don't have those devices out

109um whether we are going to have them ultimately be in a locker or a backpack or versus off and out of sight Maybe it's there we're not going to be checking kids having them empty their pockets when they come classroom every day that would be unduly burdensome but all of those pieces we will work out in the next month or so I just didn't want to bring something to you in April and you said what meeting were you at because we saw it going a different direction sounds like directionally we're on the right page T I'm I'm just uh curious if you can I don't know if you can Define the the exact reason why you're leaning towards this cuz C you're were saying you're at 880 85% so what kind of threw you over

110like what made you say okay this is what we're going to do cuz the main the main change is for Middle School right so I'm just if you can just elaborate just a little bit for me yeah I think the main policy change is Middle School the main um making it apparent to everyone is watches in at the elementary because right now I think that has been a huge challenge for Teacher enforcement of I I from my understanding teach aren't sure like do they have to take it off can they have it on is it in school mode so watches at the elementary while it is covered under the policy right now I don't know how well known that is so it'll be how enforcement at the elementary and then the middle school there would

111be the change in policy there and I feel like I was I was looking for something at the committee of the whole and the two Council meetings to to push me the other way and it it it further strengthened my feeling like I think this is the right way to go for District 41 it's already where I I came into this leaning that way a little bit and every piece of feedback has pushed me further and further toward that I was actively looking for the reason I was looking for the teachers to say this wasn't the right thing to do I wanted that and I I didn't get that from from the teachers so I I do think this is the right thing for district 41 but again I I wanted to run it by

112you one last time before I come with a formal recommendation are you receiving any apprehension from them about enforcement not directly but I have to believe that if if I was a teacher I would be wondering all right what is that going to be what is that going to mean for me what I have said uh I think Dr Bruno I think this came up with the association when we talked to them saying we will have very clear guidelines if anything this gives you cover because it's clear to everybody the administr the building administrators know district office knows parents know but I I wouldn't doubt that some teachers might be feeling apprehensive so we're going to need to be very clear about how this work and how we're all there to support the teachers and

113in districts that have done this it sounds like they have a little bit of bumpiness in the beginning and then it just becomes the way they do things and remember kids are far more adaptable than the adults I keep telling adults that um kids are very adaptable very flexible we're the problems for things I think this is going to be harder for the parents than it is for the kids if I had to guess when we go there so we'll we'll lead through it we'll work through that we'll get there um but also listening to the students feed back on what's working for them because we want um we want to take your voice into account too very good Julie please I'm sorry I thought I hit that the right way despite the small change

114in the actual words it sounds like the effect is going to be bigger and so I think it's important that as a district we do a really good thorough job conveying this information to the parents and families and students um and literally the parents and the students because my child comes home and says mom they told us abnc not regarding this but other things you know I'm like oh I must have missed that email uh you know so it needs to come from it needs to go to both places and it needs to be very clear and I think we start early um and often and right so then it's then it's very understood and the teachers aren't the one enforcing it's not like the teacher has to do the explaining the teacher's like no

115this is what you're supposed to do with it either put it there or put it here or whatever the whatever the rule becomes then hopefully it's very easy for the teacher to enforce it because we all understand the rule this is the rule you know it too you know um so I just think the communication of that will be top uh top of I agree yep okay wonderful thank you well then we'll look forward to the policy commit doing some more granular work and bringing us back something exciting in April all right we're going to go uh to our action uh items the the consent agenda are there any board members who would like to have any item removed from the agenda to be considered separately all right hearing none may I have a motion

116to approve the consent agenda which includes the employment recommendations resignations and retirements and terminations as listed on the Personnel report disposal of surplus property donation and Gifts Freedom of Information Act report investment schedule monthly Revenue expenditure summary report School District payment order summary of bills and payroll treasurers report vandalism open and close session board meeting minutes of February 10th and March 3rd 2025 facility use agreement between Glenn allenon District 41 in the Glenn Allen Park District for the park District's before and after school child program facility use agreement between Glenn Island District 41 and the BR R YMCA for the YMCA's districts before and after school Child Care Program resolution approving proposed amendments to the dup page West cook intergovernmental agreement that was the last one motion second any discussion no of course not there's

117no discussion good job Mr Estes just like to quickly thank the uh Ben Franklin Church Hill and Forest Glen PT for their most generous donations and yes Mrs buer yes Mrs Hill yes Mr lobach yes Mrs Sayad yes Dr micho yes Dr Bruno yes thank you very much all right let's move into recommendations first up is approval of teacher resignation agreement in general release may have a motion to approve the resignation agreement in general release between the board and Serena sarazi I'm sorry if I mispronounced that a teacher in the district substantially in the form Pres presented and recommended by the superintendent and signed by the teacher and to authorize the president secretary to sign the agreement motion second second any discussion roll call Mrs Mo Dr Mico yes Mrs Sayad yes Mr Loach yes

118Mr eses yes Mrs buer yes Mrs Hill yes Dr Bruno yes and that motion passes thank you approval of Professional Services contract with AHS Staffing L LLC may have a motion to authorize Dr David Bruno the assistant superintendent for human resources to enter into a professional service contract with ah HS Staffing LLC for a cost of approximately $1,864 for the time period of March 21st through the end 2025 through the end of the 2425 school year funded from The District budget Contract Services special education account motion second any discussion Mrs Mo roll call please Mrs buer yes Mr eses yes Mr lobach yes Mrs Sayad yes Mrs Hill yes Dr Michael Yes Dr Bruno yes and motion passes IB policy manual customization and press plus implementation may have a motion to authorize the superintendent to

119engage with IB to transition the board policy library to press plus as outlined in the the board report motion second the the only this point I want to make here is I know how much of an upgrade this will be to assist Mrs Mo uh to really keep track of uh the board's policy archive and to Steve's point to make sure we're abiding by best practice so long time in coming glad we're doing this yes go ahead Nancy roll call Mrs bumer yes Mrs Hill yes Mrs Sayad yes Mr Loach yes yes Mr eses yes Dr Michel yes Dr Bruno motion yes motion passes all right take next next item technology purchases for the Kindergarten Center may have a motion to authorize the technology purchases for the Kindergarten Center supported by the 2425 and 2526

120technology budget as outlined in this report motion second can I just say how wonderful it it sounds to my ears to be talking about purchases for the Kindergarten Center Yes sounds really really kind of exciting H very good all right roll call Mrs Mo oh I'm sorry T you have a comment I I I feel like I just need to say something uh it's not necessarily just regarding this specifically but one of the discussions that did come up at the Cow was about instructional use for kindergarteners for devices so just there just said it yes very good all right Mrs V Mrs Sayad yes Mr lobach yes Dr micho yes Mrs Hill yes Mr eses yes Mrs buter yes Dr Bruno yes motion passes uh next item is the social studies curricular resource recommendation may

121I have a motion to approve the adoption of National Geographic as the core social studies curricular resource at Hadley junior high as outlined um to be the f as outlined above to be the to be funded from the teaching learning and accountability budget as outlined in the board report motion second question I'm excited yeah and just thanks to all the teachers who participated as well as the students and parents that gave feedback Dr W you've had pretty heavy lift with curriculum over the last over years our math curriculum our literacy curriculum our social studies curricul so thank you for the work science is next been busy all right Nancy roll call please Mrs Hill yes Dr M yes Mr Loach yes Mr eses yes Mrs buer yes Mrs Sayad yes Dr Bruno yes motion passes

122next item is the 2526 student fees may have a motion to approve the 2526 school year student fees as outlined in the board report motion second discussion um um any chance of researching more sustainable assignment notebooks very good chance that we will research that absolutely we'll look into that um and thank you for having a quick discussion Interruption there I wanted to make one note there is one correction I became aware of this morning um the music field trip which is on the lower grid on the recommendation tonight we do not charge that because the PT generously donate to cover that expense so that is a fee that you can approve but will not be charged it's a $3 fee in that bottom grid so what the board is acting on here um will not

123include that correct fee yeah we will not assess that that fee we approve it just W assess it yeah you can approve it we just won't assess it assess it that's yes all right I do uh want to say and I appreciate the the the look at student fees the last board meeting I had raised the the possibility of eliminating those fees uh and I think that there's still some long-term interest in in doing that uh but we we find ourselves in uncertain times and as just pointed out earlier we're going to be opening up a a new facility and and there can be additional cost around that we're not quite sure what federal funding is going to look like we'll talk a little bit more maybe in our in our board governance report so

124we do want the community to know that this is an area that I think we'd like to uh do some work on but now is not the most skillful time to do it with the levels of uh of uncertainty so you know with that all right Mrs milk roll call Mr eses yes Mrs buter yes Mrs Hill yes Mrs Sayad yes Mr lobach yes Dr micho yes Dr Bruno yes motion passes uh next up is the quest food Management Services LLC contract extension may have a motion to authorize assistant superintendent of Finance facilities and operations Eric deporter to execute the proposed three-year contract extension with Quest Food Management Services as outlined in the board report motion second discussion daa um thank you for um doing the work for trying to get Halal options for the

125meals um I just want to make this disclaimer that uh it's a very rigorous process to get that Halal certification and I know it's going to be Halal friendly but um you know the fact that Quest is willing to work with us on this like it's going to take even more rigor um and so be ready to answer questions um um from families about this so you know thank you I really appreciate the work that went behind this but it's not done so I just want to say that um there's still a lot that will need to be done for that so but thank you appreciate you're welc absolutely Eric can you just speak to uh exactly what the recommendation is here yeah so so there's there's a couple things here the recommendation tonight is

126is connected to an extension to our contract with Quest food Management Services so this is a three-year contract extension that's the action that you've been asked to take tonight um as you'll see in the board report I did put a couple updates um the first obviously is the district is excited that immediately after spring break we are going to start offering Halal friendly options uh in the next couple weeks we're going to begin communicating that to our families to let them know um at the elementary schools those menus are already up if those of you out there are really ahead of the game and you're ordering for April you'll see those options out there ready uh but we're going to communicate those across the district just to let people know of that change um secondly

127um we did go and look at the black plastic containers I know that's been a concern of many um community members uh we've already got samples in uh our food service director has looked at those uh has found a workable solution so we are absolutely moving away from those black plastic containers effective immediately uh the cost was nearly neutral I think it was two cents greater for an alternative so that is in place and already being used um moving forward just thank you I just wanted to thank the community for their um advocacy on this issue and particularly Josephine stilling who put together a fantastic PowerPoint um I I couldn't believe that came from a student at uh Forest Glenn and so I just thought that was really great and it was actually very inform

128ative I did read it and learn some new things so thank you very very much for that um I I do think that the um the alternative that you're considering is compostable yeah um so I would just like to plant this seed that uh it would be it is possible in the world of possibilities to actually have a compost uh pickup as we do in the um village of Glenn Ellen um and so I don't know if that would be an option for the school but it would be lovely if the next time you're negotiating um garbage services and recycling if you can also look at composting so that we could then actually compost food waste and those compostable containers that in the bar I hear you superintendent always talks about getting better Reaching For

129Excellence okay thank you Jess all right yes good Mrs Mo roll call Mr eses yes Mrs Hill yes Mrs say yes Dr M yes Mr lobach yes Mrs buer yes Dr Bruno yes thank you motion passes uh and then um finally to approve the 20 uh 227 strategic Plan update may have a motion to accept and adopt the changes to the 2227 strategic plan as presented motion second need a second oh I didn't hear it I'm so very sorry discussion any discussion just briefly I know I I mentioned it earlier um but I think you know with the uncertainty going on um with the Department of Education with laws pending regarding 504s I think I'm including I'm a mention specifically of the focus on special education by The District in the Strategic plan is is

130very important and I'm glad to see that in there and it just highlights the continued commitment to um students with various needs and abilities throughout the district so well said okay Mrs milk roll call please Mrs bumer yes Mr eses yes Mrs Hill yes Dr micho yes Mrs Sayad yes Mr lobach yes Dr Bruno yes and that motion passes okay let's move to board governor learning together and we have postponed the book talk uh and board members are encourag to finish reading the book and be prepared one other just so we you know just one quick he's got another other uh but we will conclude the book talk at the April me do you want to bring your other really quick and I should have brought my board report but I get all excited about

131how the world is I forget I just want to thank daa for inviting the board to participate in the faster at radon um I wasn't able to fully fast for some medical reasons today but I just think taking the opportunity to St at other people's shoes and have a little bit of experience at other people experiences and taking the time to understand other people's wies as to why um the fasting goes on it's is just really important so I just want to say thank you for that invitation for giving us an opportunity to share and that experience with with you and and some our community members so thank you thank you thank you very nice all right Mrs Hill microphone this time um so I sent you all an outline and I promis not to

132read it to you but at the end of this I would like us to compose some main ideas and talk about who we would like to send a communication to um when Dr Bruno brought this Bob Bruno brought this up um he suggested maybe uh State superintendent Tony Sanders um I don't know if you want to do that and maybe some of our legisl lers or just him or we can talk about that but I would kind of like to hear some like top concerns from you guys um what actions we would like the recipients to take and why is this important to us like you're quote unquote why right like what where where's the heart behind it so just as a quick rundown because I know you have all the words ahead of in

133front of you or you did at some point um in current events the Trump Administration has cut almost 50% of the Department of Education Workforce including several of the offices of civil rights um in an effort to send education quote unquote back to the States um and privatize education through school choice um just as a quick reminder I'm sure everybody at this table knows this anybody watching at home um federal funds provide School nutrition programs though at d41 d41 we do not uh use that um they oversee programs like individuals with Disabilities Act special services for IEPs 504 Title One protection or Title One funding for schools with um low-income students um civil rights protections uh privacy protections um and the every student suceeds act among I think other things that I did not read

134the state sets learning and curriculum standards though it does not set curriculum as we know because we approve that because Dr Webster and her team works on that um the state of Illinois provides some school funding including evidence-based funding in Illinois and I got those um numbers from probably Eric through my questions from the board today still have to go back and look at that I didn't have time to put it in here um they set teacher they set oversee and provide teacher certification standards testing and the issuing of their certificates and preschool for all grants um local Boards of Education Tada uh we Levy property taxes which provide about 80% of our budget um we approve curriculum after after Dr Webster and her team find it and do it um and we decide policiy

135dictated by federal state and local laws and other policies as provided by such laws like we will talk about or we did talk about with um personal technology use in our schools um privatizing education through school choice basically gives choice to children who already have a choice most of the children in states that re that have Universal vouchers available most of the children who have vouchers are already attending a private school and the vast majority of private schools are religious and to me if we have a separation of church and state we cannot have private we cannot have public funds for private schools because that destroys the whole line of church and state um private schools can choose their students they don't have to take every student and they don't have to provide provide services

136for any students if they don't want to um okay I think that's my rundown great how'd I do was it fast I know it's late and we've been here a long time no you so much yeah that was a lot take I you want to start with your questions then that's what I'm doing so I am now on page two which I promised so who who do you who do you guys think is the best I'm always back to Steve I'm sorry um who do you think is the best person or are the best people to send this to like who who do you want to Advocate to to protect our public education no blank stares aoud somebody has to say [Laughter] something what you got Bob well only to to know because you did

137correctly note that I wondered I thought perhaps a a communication to ISB superintendent Tony Sanders um as a as an advocate for the state and as someone who is going to interact with the federal government he's going to be the first point of contact that that would be a perhaps an effective place and then in addition we could run this communication through lend and they have a federal uh committee that interacts with with Congressional Representatives is it still around does it still exist I I thought it I I think it does but that's something we can find out through lend and the other possibility is something sent directly to the Congressional reps within this uh District okay does that sound good everybody it does I'm wondering to what to what arm does the I B

138have ISB yeah the associ right good question I actually didn't think of that we we do have a Statewide leadership and I'm not sure what there whether it's a lobbying or yeah good question let's look that up I'll put on L we part of the new Association correct Ted do you recall we're not part of the National School Board Association there's a new group that formed oh you're talking about C cosbo is that what it is yeah I think I think that's that's what it's called yeah so that we would probably have to look into whether or not they're a whether they Advocate on behalf of the Consortium yeah yeah yeah yeah are we not part of that did you say we are part of Illinois is correct yeah yes we are a part okay

139okay um moving on TP three concerns you guys would like to address what are like the big picture items that are like super important to you that oh yeah what are those gu guess of M special education funding it and special education funding um and continued recognition I mean there I I I think well funding is of of main concern I think there's also um they concerned with you know when I say about an IEP is that it's a document that travles with you right um and whenever you I'm a well recognition of of I and that continuation of what do you mean by recognition right now there's I'm not trying to be a pain I is a legal document just like anything else it it travels with you so if you if you were

140to move from District 41 to another school district your I can travel with you right um and you know and same with4 your 54s can go up the ladder with you um there pending litigation regarding Pap four plans in place not in Illinois but in Indiana and other states um if 54 was to be eliminated that could affect lots of students and oh so you mean just their very existence behind them is that what you mean ex yeah and yeah I'm I'm really not trying to be a that's fair that's completely Fair sometimes I talk with assumptions like you know what I'm saying that I'm assume you yeah exactly AP Ida for sure okay uh what else Julie I think uh Student Success um and is broadly covers the title One funds for low-income students

141as well as the every student succeeds act and at the heart of that is Student Success for everyone um it's not any certain group it's all of them right so that's way of encompassing title one yeah yeah encompassing title one because there's I don't I read it on Facebook so it must be true um but that there was a some sort of keyword search and like access there's anything with one one of these hundred keywords uh what like access that those programs are cut oh so you have to avoid anything that sounds kind okay make it sound capitalistic okay I'm trying to make it sound capitalistic um okay we can do more than three I was just trying to like hit some hot spots but I like the fact that you were trying to focus

142this in does anybody have a Jess is really does encompass a lot is there a a third one that's what I was or fourth one to yeah do you have a a three or something you want to add to one or two what else what else are you thinking uh student privacy is Paramount so if there's if anyone's going to try to mess with that they're going to have to go through me no I mean I think we should fight like hard okay and that's the furpa yeah that's the furpa and that's one that doesn't really isn't covered by the other to right um and kids who are hungry can't eat so I guess that falls under the umbrella of Student Success I would put that there right um what I see your typing Julie

143I'm gonna give the keyboard is the it's a little weird and so I make a lot of mistakes cuz the keyboard's a little weird yeah the capital the shift is shift key is the problem shift key what I'm struggling with there are no capitals in my document right now so I can't handle it learnning all the details of the technology this a slash instead of the shift is making me nuts um okay what I think one very important function of the Department of Education and and and why it was actually brought into existence in what 70 Carter was Carter was elected so 76 77 78 79 somewhere ter yeah was civil rights protection anti-discrimination uh protection and you know Julie you did a you underscored the importance of keeping Public Schools public so communicating something

144that really strongly puts a break on any movement to privatize schools and to turn them into commercial Investments I think that's fair I mean you know because also when you look at you know like you said 80% of our of our district is is funded by local property taxes um small percentage from fed um slightly larger but still small percentage compared to the 80% funded by by the state if you start looking at vouchers and you're taking money out of that 80% um that's going to start affecting the ability of this District to provide um class sizes that it does the you know all those things on those student fees list I mean um it's going to affect their ability to provide the same level of services and education to to our kids now okay

145our student board members are leaving us thank thanks guys have a good night good to see you so and um you touching on that fourth bullet point private schools can choose their students right right I don't I don't think it's a coincidence that it's called school choice because it's the schools making the choice they're trying to H you know tout it as parent choice but it's not really it's the schools making the choice yeah the tuitions I think are often more than the vouchers would provide um and so again you're going to have the students benefit from it who already have the choice and then you'll have other students who no longer have a public school because they are no longer funded at all and they don't have a private school that they can afford

146that's near them or that they can get to or that probably service even exists right like there's there's going to be school deserts if we if we step funding public education just like there's food deserts and everything else um any other top three wrong top three concerns to add or should we move on to the next bullet point here next bullet point what action or actions do we want DR Sanders to take in this matter or the other people that we had on the list up there oh we got a share document that's why like wa what I share it right you did you did I don't know how it I don't know when up no it's updating that's you can see my excellent typing guys get excited about the typing switched back I was

147like well I'll fix it later talk it out loud it so it may vary a little bit if we send it to multiple parties but I think um what they'll all have in common is really um first of all using their voice uh to defend Public Schools but but but working on a plan that that pres preserves protect Public Schools right that that protects them preserves School protects their kids and then and the educational opportunity is provided to all children from at a public school that's right it's really ability to do it so we're asking them to put a plan together we're asking them to have a strategy uh I don't think you know the state is not powerless um and the state voices are very important Congressional reps uh also uh carry votes sit

148on committees can request information so there it it it strikes me that asking them not just to communicate their support for public schools but having a plan of action and and and actually demonstrating some willingness to resist uh changes that really do threaten Public Schools I don't think we need to be too right we're not going to be so detailed we're we're the what right we're not the how right yeah we don't need to right um but I mean I think it's helpful when you're going to write a letter to somebody be like this is important to us you gotta you got to say okay now this is what I want you to do about it right um okay and then I think this is the last question what is like our why why does

149this matter to us why do we why do we care which I feel like is a little separate information kind like the whole Laura Bush thing right those left behind I mean wasn't it Laura Bush that was a hot that was a w right it was a w and and but I think that but that is but that is why it's so we don't have those students left behind right in that you know one thing Public Schools do is that they educate everyone they educate the most marginalized students they provide the opportunities for every student including the marginalized to succeed and to grow and as I said earlier and to have a community which they're accepted in and can Thrive it and to restrict or reduce that in any way yeah I don't want to

150even Ed in sentence cynically yes please cynically it costs less to educate people than it does to incarcerate or to um uh care for folks who have fallen into some sort of mental Fugue because they are not living to their fullest potential so it costs less it does it does cost less longterm thank you for I think the money Money Talks right that's a good point to ice bring up I would point point out in answer to your question that as board members we in fact took an oath and it came with all of this stuff including advocacy which not all uh boards uh assertively take up if you go to ib's website you can go right to a page in which they State very clearly the role the importance the Paramount importance of advocacy

151on behalf of our stakeholders kids students uh in employee employees uh and then there is a two three page document that further goes into why you should be advocating why you should be putting in witness slips why we have a Julie Hill attending Len why we have people go to the triple meeting and serve as delegates why we send letters why we work with the elected uh leaders uh and and it you know it goes on to talk about what can we do as a board and in fact when you look at that uh proud to note that we seem like we do uh all of those things including what we're doing here tonight so I think it's consistent with the oath that that we took and of course Jason laid out that you're going

152to leave students behind if we don't Advocate oh yeah so does that give you enough to work on yeah this is great thank you all for your um willingness to take the time and thought and uh contributions to my poorly typed document here I will fix the typing when I make a letter um and so then bring this back to the board on in April and then we approve and Mrs Mo will send it for us things could change between now and then so keep an eye things will no doubt change all right thank you all thank you Julie great job thank you Julie thank you yeah wonderful job all right we're gonna um well Jason you gave us the other board uh item that you want to speak to so upcoming meetings Monday April

15321st is the regular Board of Education meeting and then Monday May 5th will be the reorganizational meeting of the new board following uh the April one I know right Consolidated election uh and then natthew will that be here over at it'll be here okay be here at Hadley and then um then the first regular board meeting of the new board will be March 19th here at Harley at 6:30 are there any items that's May 19th what's that it's May 19th oh it is May 19th why do I I'm stuck in March gotta get me out of there thank you Ted May 19th are there any items board members wish to present uh for consideration to a future agenda then Motion in a long night second can I read just for the record I know man

154would appreciate that may have a motion to adjourn to close session to confidentially discuss section 2c1 the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees of the district or legal counsel for the district including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee or against legal counsel for the district to determine its validity section 2c2 Collective negotiating matters between the school board and its employees or the representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one more classes of employees section 2 C5 the purchase or lease of real property for the use of the school board including meetings held for the purpose of discussing whether a particular parcel should be acquired section 2c6 the setting of a price for sale or lease of property owned by the school board section 2c9 student disciplinary and finally

155section 2 C10 the placement of individual students in special education programs and other matters relating to individual students motion second any discussion Mrs Mo Mr rties yes Mrs buter yes Mrs Hill yes Dr Michael Yes Mrs scad yes Mr Loach yes Dr Bruno yes and uh just to let anyone know the board will not be taking action after Clos session thank you and good night happy St Patrick's Day yes for