001That's like he's enjoying the first I think he's drunk this transition fact it look like it. So Bruce says hi by the way. We have we finally we've been playing with tag for like months and finally have coffee. Not necessarily. Well, I don't know. He's going to his for next week. I just said I hope Jack makes his grand I don't know. I have more of that. But we were thinking we should do better. There you go. And Miss Melbeck ready. Good evening everyone and welcome to this meeting. So sorry. Uh good evening and welcome to this meeting of the board of education of Glenberrook High School District 225. Um we'll start with a roll call. Uh Miss Smith, Mr. Downing here. Mr. Glowaki present. Mrs. Hope here. Miss Mullenbeck here. Mr. O'Hara. Mr. Shine
002present. Dr. Seinberg here. Six members present. Next up is approval of the agenda. Dr. Dr. Grall, have there been any changes to the agenda since it was circulated? There have been no changes. In that case, uh, could I have a motion, please, to uh, approve the agenda? I move we approve the agenda. Second. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Next up is our superintendent report. Dr. Grall. Right. Good evening, everyone. It's very excited to see or exciting to see some of our students here for some recognitions. At this point, I'd like to invite Mrs. you to the podium to introduce our first honores. All right. So, I'd like to welcome Mr. Todd Rubin and our student uh Sean Miles up to the podium with me. Oh, we'll just be a moment. We can we
003can pivot. Why don't we take an opportunity and welcome our our second honore. Welcome back. No, we're going back to the first. All right, we'll start. Mr. Miles, come on over. Take two. All right. I'd like to welcome Mr. Todd Rubin and our student Shawn Miles um up to the podium. Okay, so back in April, GBN broadcasting under the guidance of teacher and sponsor Mr. Todd Rubin uh submitted entries for award consideration from the Chicago Midwest chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Nearly 1,700 entries were submitted nationwide across 28 categories to their various chapters and GBN celebrated the top five recognition for over 14 or for 14 different events at that um Midwest uh chapter recognition. But one of those events led by Alexa Hughes and Katie Surland who were then
004seniors and are now current graduates and Shawn Miles who was then a senior and now a or then a junior and now a current senior won a crystal pillar award in the public affairs community service category for their piece the man in the green and gold suit the James Williams story which made them eligible for national award consideration. For those of you who may not be aware, the broadcasting piece shares the personal story and celebrates the current work of a GBN graduate alum and continuing supporter, Mr. James Williams. You have undoubtedly seen or met James through his work with our booster club, our fine arts organizations, and in addition to some of the presence he's had here at our board meetings. The approximately five or six minute piece follows his journey as an individual with
005autism specifically focusing on how James support of GBN athletics which was encouraged by his peers fostered his own social development and sense of belonging within the GBN and wider community. So if you haven't watched it, please do. It's on YouTube. You can um you can search for it and it's it's a wonderful wonderful documentary. But that was in April and the recognition did not end there. So following their crystal pillar recognition at the Midwest event, Alexa, Katie, and Shaun's work was forwarded along with other top winners across the country for national consideration. And at the end of November, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced the winners of the 2025 National Student Production Awards. GBN was thrilled to learn that the man in the green and gold gold suit won at the national
006level in the public affairs and community service category, which marks the first national level win for GBN broadcasting. This is one of the most prestigious honors a high school media program can receive and it speaks volumes about the students storytelling, technical ability, and dedication. We are all incredibly proud of them, what this recognition convey conveys about GBN and our commitment to developing strong, thoughtful young journalists and filmmakers. So, we've been working to coordinate a board meeting recognition for our students and graduates, which has taken a little bit of time coordinating schedules and in the end, even though we couldn't find a perfect date, we could not wait any longer to share this recognition. So, I wanted to just acknowledge those who are here today. We have Mr. Todd Rubin, our broadcasting teacher and sponsor, who
007are here with his children, Reese and Mac. Uh, we also have Sean Miles, our current senior, and his parents are here as well. Our graduates, Katie Surland and Alexa Hughes, were not able to be present, but I do understand that some might be watching the live stream right now because I did share the link. And I also wanted to share that we extended an invitation to the star of the film who was James Williams um who wasn't able to be here today because he is currently sharing his story by presenting at a conference in Tokyo. Uh but we are very thankful because I believe James parents are here if you would just stand up. Um uh we're really grateful for their support in the creation of this particular piece. So please join me in congratulating
008Mr. Ruben, Sean, Katie, and Alexa, and our celebration of They brought they brought the crystal pillars if you want to. Let's take an opportunity also to welcome up Mr. and Mrs. Williams. Why don't you come over? Let's get a picture of you with Shawn and take an opportunity to celebrate from afar with James. Did you want um Okay, we're going to come in the middle and then Perfect. Photoshop being easier to photoshop. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Stay here. You are All right. And we have one more additional recognition. So, I'd like to invite Ariela Adobin and her coaches Tom McGovern and Troy AI to the podium, please. All right. So, we are thrilled to celebrate the trailblazing achievement of Ariela Dobin, who is our first ever girls state wrestling champ. Ariela is
009familiar with the state podium as she also took second place at state last year. Um her journey to the top of the podium is a testament to years of discipline, grit, and Spartan pride and of course being supported by a dedicated family and her parents are here tonight as well. Um and I wanted to just share a special note. So, I watched the girls wrestling tournament online and uh I had a chance to watch um Ariela in her championship match and I was honestly terrified because I I'm so not not terrified, I was very impressed, but I was like, "Oh my gosh, I could never do anything." It's really wonderful to see um the confidence that Ariela displays, especially when she's wrestling, which obviously is really um reflective of all the work that you've done
010and your passion. So, um, here to share some additional words about Ariela, um, is, uh, Coach McGover. I have some notes here on my phone, so pardon me. Um, so Ariela, uh, delivered a remarkable season that accumulated in a state championship and one of the most dominant individual campaigns of the year, finishing the season with an outstanding 39-1 record. Ariela consistently demonstrated the skill, determination, and composure required to compete at the highest level. Ariela's success began early in the season and continued to build as the year progressed. At the conference tournament, she put together an impressive performance, capturing first place while also earning the tournament's outstanding wrestler award. Uh an honor that she has now gotten three times um as a freshman, sophomore, and now a junior. Um her strong her strong showing at conference
011set the tone for the postseason. Continuing her her momentum, Ariela claimed first place at the regional tournament, wrestling with confidence and control as she advanced through the bracket. She followed that performance with a strong showing at sectionals finishing third place against a highly competitive field to secure her spot at the same at the state championship. But we all know that Ariel was not satisfied with third place. So at the state tournament, Ariela rose to the occasion and showcased the composure and determination that defined her entire season. Wrestling through a challenging bracket, she continued to execute her game plan and demonstrate her technical skill and the state championship match, Ariela finished the job and finished uh with a 10 to5 decision in the championship match. Ariel's season was a testament to her work ethic, resilience, and
012commitment to improvement. Her 39 and1 record, conference championship with outstanding wrestler honors, regional title, sexual podium finish, and ultimately her state championship run uh represent an extraordinary year and a milestone achievement in her wrestling career. Uh as a coach, um I've been a part of now 13 wrestling seasons. Um, this was by far the most special, not just because it ended the year the way it did, but just seeing Ariela consistently overcome any challenges that overcame her. Uh, started the year, she actually had shoulder surgery um, and needed to take some time to recover from that. And it took everything in our power to keep her off the mat while she was recovering. Um, to a point where I'm I'm confident that she was pulling a Michael Jordan and actually practicing on her own. Um,
013but at the end of the day, um, it was that work ethic and that resilience that ultimately defines her. Um, and as a coach, I couldn't be more proud of seeing her accomplish her goals that she set out. Well, thank you so much to our students, their families, and and for everyone who contributed to our student success. At this point in the evening, you are welcome to remain with us um for the remainder of our meeting or you can use this as an opportunity to start heading out. Totally up to you. Picture. Oh, yeah. I want a picture. Pictures. Oh, wait a picture. We did pictures. Oh, you already did pictures. Oh, good. We've already done pictures. Okay. Wanted to make sure. Thank you guys so much. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. All
014right. As we continue through, I have two items that I'd like to share with the board. Um, one, uh, directly correlates with Ariela's celebration just a few moments ago. Um after about a 10-year um kind of separation from utilizing um street signs to recognize our student achievements, we're excited to share that we've worked with the villages of Glen and Northbrook to resume that activity. Um new signposts have been added near the entrance um at Glenrook North and Glenberrook South. And we have some pictures that you can kind of see here. I also shared some zoomedin ones with the board uh last week. Um but we just had them installed last week. The first set of signs are up and now moving forward um whether it's an individual student or a team of students who achieves
015a first, second or third place finish in an IHSA sport or activity, we'll be adding a street sign. Um our goal is to keep those street signs up for a year and then as new one come, we'll replace them kind of in chronological order. So, as as um maybe not surprising as it may seem, um we have three signposts and they are nearly going to be filled uh by the end of next month and we're not even done with a school uh school year yet. So, very exciting for all the wonderful things happening and very grateful to the villages of Glen View and Northbrook for supporting our students and recognizing them. Our second topic goes back to the master facility plan. Last week, we had a whole number of um student, staff, uh community member,
016and parent feedback sessions on the master facility plan. These sessions were focused on the stadium renovation projects. And I know we'll hear from some of our board members as we get into board reports, but one of the new things we started last week was gathering our students together at both Glenrook North and Glenre South and asking them what they think. they had an opportunity to interact with the large um displays of graphical renderings and uh and designs of what we're looking at from a conceptual standpoint in the stadium and they then had an opportunity to share their feedback. Um the feedback was submitted using a Google form and if you kind of synthesize all of the different themes uh we came up with four uh primary um kind of recurring topics. The first is there
017is a lot of talk from our students about traffic congestion around the stadium and athletic areas. To be clear, this isn't just traffic congestion with respect to the school day. It was actually about when you're coming to an evening game or in the afternoon when there's multiple things going on. Maybe some are in the stadium, some are next to the stadium in ancillary fields. Um there's a variety of challenges that they brought up that had not actually been shared by any of the adult feedback we have gathered thus far. Further emphasizing the benefit of hearing directly from our students. We also felt and heard their excitement about the addition of a pavilion at both Glenrech North and Glumbre South. Our students found that as a great way for them um maybe not only those who
018are going to the game to enjoy the contest on the field but also enjoying an opportunity to interact with their peers um in some casual seating areas. So they shared some good excitement about that. Um there was actually a good amount of discussion about storage. Um our student athletes or activities or our band members who have um traversed the different fields and out buildings and found a lot of issues getting stuff to and from the building and also where it goes uh for temporary and permanent storage. Um and yes, there were a few comments about bathrooms. um in particular um the um uh excitement about having bathrooms that are available both inside the stadium and outside of the stadium again for those separate fields that are in use just as much as the stadium uh
019but don't always have some of those features. So just exciting to share that we are continuing to gather feedback at this point. We have met with uh our parent booster clubs. We have met with staff, coaches, uh, and some other community members. With, uh, that feedback and student feedback, we're moving into the next phase of developing some renderings. And we hope to share that information towards uh, the end of April or beginning of May uh, before it will formally come to the facilities committee to possibly lead to bid specifications. So, great excitement there. And, Miss Mullenbeck, that concludes my report. Thank you, Dr. Grall. Um we will then move on to board reports and we have a number of board reports um this evening. The first is um regarding the Glenberg South Booster Club meeting
020um and Mr. Glowaki and Mr. Shine will be reporting from that and R.J. I think already hit a lot of it on the head. It was very enthusiastic. The group was very excited to see the initial sketches but I think it was a very interactive session as well too. So Lauren and Kim will be putting together their feedback in terms of collecting what they saw. Uh but initially just walking the room very excited about the common areas to meet in the focus on the bathrooms, the experience that that we were coming at from this. And I think uh if any constructive feedback there's they're looking for opportunities to still think a little bit more about what else can they contribute and do to help out with the project. Skip, I don't know if there's anything
021else you'd like to add. No, I think that, you know, pretty much covers it. Bathrooms were obviously a they were a hit. They were a big topic. And underneath the stadium, um, we were reminded that those areas are used not only for storage, but also for various changing of different kinds of uniforms, band, palms, whatever. uh cheerleaders and that they would appreciate it if we could, you know, improve, you know, what's going on under this under the stadium seating. So, it was nice to be part of something that was all kind of positive. You know, it was a lot of energy. Um it's been few decades since we really addressed this other than the turf itself. And um so I think entrances are going to be a be a thing to work through. Also entrances.
022And then one other piece of feedback I received following our uh last booster club gathering was a recognition that rebuilding stadiums will require time when students are off the fields. And so we've received some more feedback about um any options we might have to still provide especially our graduating seniors the ability to play some games on the fields before construction begins um which is a challenge with the spring uh and initial demolition. So we're working with our construction managers um and hope to have some updates on that. From an entrance standpoint, Glumbre South has a large archway entrance that um was built, I believe, back in 2013 or 14. Um and there's a desire to retain that while also building upon everything else that people like. So, um we're working with the architects now to
023take that into consideration. Same thought with the um concession stand incorporating that as that was part of a contribution or part of it was contributed. Yep. Yeah. So the goal just so everyone knows um we hope to retain all of those donated areas which were the washrooms in both stadiums and then at Glenberg South was also the um large um stadium entrance. So we should be able to incorporate those and really it comes from the feedback that we're hearing from everyone. So keep the feedback coming. Okay. Thank you. Um the next report will be from Dr. Steinberg and that is from the bilingual parent advisory committee. Thank you. Um I attended I don't know when last week Wednesday. Nice meeting organized by Dr. Anderson and and Mr. Break. I think they were about 60 60s
024something parents. Nice distribution in terms of you had almost like Mongolian, Korean, Russian, Ukrainian, Spanish, like a whole variety of languages and parents sitting together. I've seen something that sometimes we take for granted that we what we have at the district. Parents had every table had a a set of headphones headsets. So as the main presentation was being given by Mr. Britak, parents were getting live translation for a second. I thought this is like Armenia UN. So people were getting the translation right away which was very nice and very thoughtful. Um a lot of talk about a nice presentation in terms of reminding people how important is to be in school. So you know I guess policy absentism but it's more about being here and and how impacts the impact of not being here. I
025was surprised I did you ever mention this here the the difference between the absentism rate of of students every student versus I don't want to call them what second language student I don't want to call them international bilingual students and there's stark difference in terms of absentism so I don't know the reasons but it was interesting at least for parents to see it out there I think it's important that it we have to learn things, we have to see them first. So this was the topic of a conversation then people spread in groups by language. So I I went to the one that I bured the least which is Spanish. So I I I met with the group but I I assume the conversations very were very similar. Parents very committed on trying to help
026their students, their kids and trying to be make sure that that their kids do well. common topics social emotional support which is I think something that we are working lots of parents having questions not not knowing how to work with the system when they understand we all I had teenagers but these parents all have teenagers at home and sometimes they don't know how to navigate through through their ups and downs and seeing how the school could help them interesting programming I don't know if this is across all the demographics but at least the group that I was there was kind of surprised that their kids were not more involved into different programming. So nice conversations. It's nice again for parents to be supported by the school. I I somehow I miss this because my wife
027was attending meetings of my kids who were in school but it's nice to have a school that gives so much support not only to the students but to the parents. So so kudos to again Mr. Break and Dr. Anderson because it was great program. Thank you, Dr. Steinberg. Um, our last report will be regarding the policy committee meeting and I will share some highlights um from that meeting. Um very excited to say that after a lot of hard work um and um really digging into um the entire policy manual, we have now gone through and worked with press to update and modernize the entire policy manual except except the legislature just keeps getting ahead of us. So although we have gone through Yeah. and the entire manual we Exactly. before before we can bring it
028to the board um to um address any questions and then hopefully get approval. Um we do have to have one last meeting to address the changes that have come through in the past year that we've been working on this project. Um so right now um we will I don't think we have that scheduled yet um Dr. Johns, but that will be scheduled soon. Um, our goal is to share um the revised manual um with the board on April 13th um with a goal of adopting it on April 27th. Um Dr. John's has taken the laboring or with this project all along. Um and one last big task for him is that he will be preparing um or is preparing already um some highlights for the board of of major changes. you know, a lot of
029these things are are just bringing us up to date. Um, some of these policies were 20, 30 years old. Um, some things needed to be brought into alignment with um, new legislation. Um, there's a whole panel plea there. Um, Dr. Johns will put it in a nice digestible format to make it easy for the board um, to see, you know, what the the the big changes are. Um, and yeah, we're we're right where we want to be. Um, one great thing to share is that moving forward with this new press platform when we have these um, admin, you know, legislative updates coming down the pike constantly, we will be able to process them much quickly, more quickly. It'll require a lot less board time, a lot less administrative time. It'll be just much more efficient.
030So, this is really a huge step. Um, and uh, we really appreciate um, all the work that especially Dr. John's has taken um um on this project and we're we're really close really close. Um finish line is insight. All right. Um that then takes us to the next item on our agenda which is recognition of community visitors. But I do not think we have anyone signed up today. Um if ever you do have uh uh want to share any thoughts with us, you can send us an email, you can um come speak with us, you can leave us a voicemail. Um, we're happy to hear from you. That brings us then to our consent agenda. Um, Dr. Grall, have there been any changes to the consent agenda since it was posted? There have been no
031changes. In that case, could I or is there before I ask for a motion? Did anyone have any comments on the consent agenda? In that case, can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I motion we approve the consent agenda. Second, Mr. Downing. Yes. Mr. Gaki. Yes, Mrs. Hope. Mr. Shine. Yes, Dr. Steinberg. Yes, Miss Mullenbeck. Yes. Motion carries 6. Uh, we have a relatively short agenda today because the next thing on the agenda is topics for our next meeting. Um, we know already that we will have a policy coming up. No, that's not the next meeting. That is it. The 13th uh policy manual. This was the meeting that's still to be scheduled. Okay. Uh, so we're looking forward to that. But actually, yes, the first draft will be at April 13.
032April 13th. That's our next meeting. Put that on your calendar. Quite some time away. Okay. Um, we also, as a reminder, have a communications committee meeting that evening, uh, which should be on everyone's calendar. We'll send reminders out. Um, and, uh, Dr. Pac and Miss Tarver are working to schedule a finance committee to review a few different topics. Um, we anticipate sending out a little poll to see people's available availability um probably right after spring break. Uh, if you have any other topics though, please feel free to forward them over. All righty. Um, uh, this evening, the board of education will enter into a close session to discuss sensitive matters as allowed under the Illinois Open Meetings Act. Please note that no action will be taken following the close session this evening. Uh, forgive me,
033there will be action. Oh, I'm sorry. There will be action following the close session this evening. Um, at this time, I will entertain a motion to consider the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees of the public body or legal counsel for the public body, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee of the public body or against legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity. and collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees in accordance with sections 2C1 and two of the Open Meetings Act. Yes. Good thing someone wrote that down for me. Um, could I have a motion, please? I move. Second. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries.
034Uh, I think we'll just go straight into closed, right? Okay. Thank you. Come to a close. You're welcome to uh hang around for after close session, but at this point, we'll ask you to head out of the room.