001Hang on, Miss Mullen Beck. We are ready. Good evening everyone and welcome to this meeting of the board of education of Glen Brooks High School District 225. Um we will start with calling the role please. Miss Smith. Mr. Downing here. Mr. Glowaki present. Mrs. Hope Miss Mullenbeck here. Mr. O'Hara here. Mr. Shine present. Dr. Steinberg here. Six members present. The next item on our agenda is approval of the agenda. Um, Dr. Grall, have there been any changes to the agenda since it was circulated and posted? There have been no changes, but we did update or upload a new copy of the overnight trip request. We had one error on the date of an exciting trip for Glenrook North where the uh uh choirs will be traveling to Greece and we had the wrong departure date.
002Okay. Um, in that case, could I please have a motion to approve the agenda? I move. Second. All in favor? Anyone opposed? Motion carries. That takes us to a very exciting moment this evening. That is our superintendent report. What do you have for us tonight, Dr. Grall? Well, for those who may not be in the room to see the whole display of amazing support from our parents, our staff, and recognizing our students, um I'm going to actually introduce uh Dr. Georgees and Mrs. Hughes uh to welcome and share with everyone why we have some awesome uh students here with us today. Thank you, Dr. Grall. This is an extraordinary evening for the Glen Brooks. Um this year, the Glen Brooks are pleased to recognize 31 students across the district as National Merit Semi- Finalists. And
003to really understand the extraordinary achievement this is, I'd like to share with you all what the National Merit Program is. Over 1.3 million juniors in 20,000 high schools enter the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the PSAT NMSQT exam during the fall of their junior year. This nationwide pool of semi-finalists represents less than 1% of US high school seniors and includes the highest scoring entrance in each state. The number of semi- finalists in the state is proportional to the state's percentage of the national total of graduating seniors. But to become a finalist, the semi- finalists and the high school officials must submit a detailed scholarship application in which they provide information about semi-finalist academic record, participation in school and community activities, leadership abilities, employment, honors, and awards received. A semi-finalist must hand outstanding academic
004record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn an SAT or ACT score that confirmed the students earlier performance on a qualifying test. From over 16,000 finalists, more than 1500 are expected to advance to the finalist level, and we will know that designation in February. This is an extraordinary achievement for one high school district to have such a large volume of students who have earned this tremendous honor and we are so proud of our Titans and Spartans. So, I'm going to start out by uh identifying our Titans who are National Merit semi- finalists. Um so, when I call your name, just kind of wave and then we'll hold our applause for the very end. All right. Casper, Ian, Selma, Vahan, Nathaniel, Alisa, Justin's not here with
005us this evening. David, Sophia, Gregory, Rashan's not here, Alan, and Miles. And with that, Miss Hughes. Yes. And we're pleased to recognize our National Merit semi-finalist from GBN. So, same thing as I call your name, please wave. Uh, we have Kristen, Allison is absent. Matthew, Jaden, Alicia, Sydney is unable to be here. Stafford, Kabir is unable to be here. Jaden unable to be here. Lyanna, Susant, Jack, Molini is unable to be here. Lauren, Nathan is not able to be here. London, Andrew, and Hanning who's unable to be here, but let's give them a rousing applause. And before we transition to our next group to recognize, I just want to take an opportunity and point something out to all of our folks who are here. First of all, to all of our amazing students, congratulations on
006your accomplishment. This is an amazing opportunity for you as a scholar and truly representative of great things that are happening each and every day within our classrooms. But in addition to that recognition, this group is the first to receive our new board of education commenation, which are those medals that each of you have. So for those who haven't seen them up close, um as we move forward and recognize students at the board level for their outstanding achievements across the 4A of academics, athletics, activities, and the arts, we'll be providing them an individual medal. If they're homeschooled as Glenberg North, it'll have a green ribbon, and if you're at South, it'll have the blue ribbon. And on the back of those medals inscribed are our core values which ultimately represent what it truly means to be
007a Spartan and a Titan and a student here in the Glen Brooks. So congratulations on your recognition. We are so happy for you to be here and we look forward to seeing what more you have to do as you continue your studies here at the Glen Brooks. Can we give them another round of applause? and all of our kiddos can say exactly where they are for right now. Could we welcome up our students from GBN from our girls golf team? So maybe I'll have you all kind of come across the back here just so since we are all So we are happy to celebrate our IHSA state champion girls golf team uh for their third year in a row for a state championship including their coach Mike Schrader who's here and assistant coach Chris Cooper.
008But to share some additional words about the success of this team I'd like to invite up our assistant principal of athletics Molly Tomlinson. What makes this celebration so extraordinary is the historic nature of their success. This marks the third state championship golf team in a row. However, it is not just the titles in honor of state champions that we recognized, but also the stories behind their success. Year after year, this team demonstrated the ability to perform under the most intense pressure. This year, they demonstrated an incredible comeback at sectionals, showcasing mental toughness that few high school teams possess. The final round surge at state, specifically their push on the back nine, proved that this team saved its best golf for the moments that mattered most. The depth of talent on this roster has been remarkable.
009Martha Kuahara, who's unfortunately sick tonight, returned to the podium for individual honors of second place in state, and the entire team's success was built on contributions from every member on the team. From Lauren John's five birdie explosion in the final round to Laura Hughes consistent excellence in study foundation to Lindseay Hang's timely birdie on the crucial 18th hole and every player's contributions during the tournament exemplified the collective effort that defined this team. We are thrilled to celebrate this historic event and achievement, including marking it with the first of many new state championship signs for the district. Please help me congratulating the threetime state champion Glenn Brook North Spartans girls golf team. Thank you so much again to everyone who's here. Congratulations on continuing the Spartan legacy. I can't wait to see what next year will
010have in store. At this time, recognizing that our students and parents might have some other celebrating to do um you are welcome to stay for the remainder of the meeting. Otherwise, um, Miss Mullen Bell, if you can support, if we can take just a few moments to let some folks head on out. All right. Thank you again. Let's give everyone another round of applause. I said he's like, "Yeah, why?" When you need it like when it's 4,000 a couple things this week you could have used I know that was you like that because I was on the other side you Indiana took this last year. Um, that would have been Well, that was wonderful and congratulations to our Titans and Spartans. Uh, we're moving on now to the next item on our agenda, which are
011board reports, and we will have a report from the facilities committee. I'm not sure who will be reporting from the facilities committee. Have you decided? I'll I'll offer just a little introduction and then I can uh defer it over to the team. Um earlier today at 5:00 the facilities committee had an opportunity to come together to learn more about our 10-year master facility plan. Um, it is a tremendous uh amount of work that's been put in by the district's architects from Archon Associates, our construction management firm, which is Nicholas and Associates, uh, led by Dr. Kim Patac, our director of operations, Mr. Casey Wright, our associate principal of operations and student experiences at Glenre South, and Mrs. Lauren Bonner, our associate principal over at Glenre North. Um, I know that Mr. Shine and Mr. Downing
012uh had some summary points, so I'll turn it over to Mr. I'm happy to fill in any questions you might have. Thanks. I'll just hit a couple of the the highlevel pieces. Um, so as R.J. mentioned we are talking about a 10-year plan and that's reflected back against all the things we've done uh I'd say over the last 10 plus years and we we talked about some of those things uh going back maybe a little further but um the complete remodeling of all of our classrooms uh for example which is just a huge monumental change in the buildings currently we're we're doing restrooms which are not sexy but they do age out And um the new designs they've come up with um provide better facilities, better looking facilities, um uh tur turf fields. Um so
013we've always done a good job in my opinion keeping the facilities modern but even within the context of doing so there's always a list of things that need to be done. These are um viewed should be viewed as forever facilities and if you want them to remain um relevant, you have to continue to look forward and keep up with a facility that will match your teaching and learning needs. And really that's kind of the focus. Um, and we will continue to live within our means, uh, doing these projects with no no tax increases. And I think that was, you know, one of the important points the administration um, emphasized with us. [clears throat] Only thing I'll piggyback on that is um you know the 10-year plan is really to you know with any building campuses
014as large as ours you have to maximize useful life of everything you have right and over the time things have to be changed. You have to have new roofs. You have to have new this. So, we're really putting together a master plan that will not impact the budget and um make sure that we're staying up with modernization as well as safety and maximizing the use of the life of all our facilities. And I just wanted to add it's with a huge focus on helping our students thrive. All this is coming from a place of where we're focused on the 4A. So whether it's academics, athletics or arts, it's focused on all of that. Thank you so much. Uh did any board member want to report on any other subject? Uh just quickly I uh I
015attended the IASB North uh meeting uh recently and Dr. Bolton from who's a former uh uh teacher and administrator at True North which we were part of uh did a presentation on belonging which I thought was very interesting given our strategic plan and how important belonging was and just wanted to highlight whoops as my thing went to sleep and now it's looking for my face. uh it it he referenced a couple of key points that I think just to remind us you know schools are a unique place where ch our children are the first time that they're part of a community and so that's why belonging is so important because it also helps open the brains for learning and buffers impact when a stressful trauma occurs. So those are a couple points as we were
016doing this and just reminded me another context to why that was such an important goal for us to focus on in the upcoming one to share with the board. So, uh, next meeting is in the spring and stuff, so we'll make sure if anybody else wants to attend, but, uh, then they did a huge promotion for triple I, which I know a lot of us will be going to. Great. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Um, in that case, the next item on our agenda is recognition of community visitors. Um, and we do have someone who has signed up to speak tonight. Um, our public comment period is up to 30 minute period for public participation. Each individual may speak to the board for up to two minutes. We ask but do not require that each
017speaker state their name, address, and relationship to the district to facilitate followup if needed. All speakers are expected to conduct themselves with respect and civility towards others. Please remember that this is a business meeting of the board. All comments should be addressed to the board and should concern board business. The board receives public comments as a source of information and considers them in making decisions and in the establishment of policies. It is our practice to take no action on any items nor to discuss any items members of the public have raised until the board has had time to gather information and then objectively discuss available options. However, during the meeting, the board at its discretion may choose to address an issue or correct any misinformation raised during public comment. While the board does not control
018the topics brought to its attention or the substance of public comment, speakers are reminded that their comments are not automatically protected by any immunity or other legal protection. And tonight we have with us James Williams. Thank you. James Williams, 1827 Sunnyside Circle. James, I'm so sorry. Would you mind pressing the button on the microphone? Thanks so much. No problem. 15 years ago, I graduated from Glenberrook North High School with an IEP with a modified high school diploma. I had to I graduated with an unlikely path compared to most of my fellow Spartans who would go on to a four-year college. That option was not possible for me because of genuine academic limitations. However, I got an amazing education while at Glumbrech North with teachers who understood that limitation and helped me prepare for it. 5
019years later, I was given the chance of a lifetime when the Glenre North Booster Club invited me to return to Glenn North as a booster club volunteer. This year marks 10 years of volunteering with the Glenre North Booster Club and 10 years of formally supporting Glenberrook North athletics and extracurriculars. I would like to thank the staff, other administrators, and other people at Glenberrook North for helping me during these 10 years support academ extracurriculars at Glenchrook North properly. It is not something I take lightly, but I am I am glad to have been able to offer 10 years of volunteer service to Glenber North High School. Thank you, Mr. Williams. Having no other uh community visitors signed up, we're going to move on to our consent agenda. Dr. Grall, have there been any changes to the
020consent agenda? There have been no changes. Uh could I have a motion, please, on the consent agenda? I move second. Mr. Downing. Yes. Mr. Glowaki, yes. Miss uh Mr. O'Hara, yes. Mr. Shine, yes. Dr. Steinberg, yes. Miss Mullenbeck, yes. Six members voting yes. Moving on to our discussion action agenda. The first item on the agenda is 7.1, the curriculum improvement annual report for the 2526 school year. Dr. Grall. I don't think there could be a better time to learn more about the hard work our teachers and instructional supervisors are doing each day in the classroom than today when we recognized so many distinguished scholars. We are truly appreciative of the hard work that our teachers are doing. in particular recognizing the changing demands that are placed upon them as to be candid sometimes keeping our
021students attention can be a bit challenging and other times um recognizing that the curriculum continues to evolve. it continues to change. Um, and that requires constant lesson planning, rethinking how it connects with state standards and all tying back to supporting our students for whatever pathway they ultimately choose post high school experience. This evening, I'm excited to welcome all of our instructional supervisors as well as Mr. Breag to provide our first academic report for this year. Just as a small note, we have several different reports that we'll be going through. This one is really focused on the curriculum improvement process. Um, and the only request I would have is if we can provide an opportunity for Mr. Breag and our instructional supervisors to present the report and then after that we can go around and answer
022any questions just to kind of keep that flow going. With that said, Mr. Britag. Well, good evening. As Dr. Grall said this is our annual curriculum improvement process report. What's really important about this is it really focuses on what our instructional supervisors work on daily with their departments. The intense work that goes into understanding our curriculum, understanding our students needs and then taking action on that. As part of this curriculum improvement process, I think it's really important to understand the three important ways and reasons behind our focus. First, it honors that this is a focus on continuous improvement. What you will see here often when it comes to curriculum seems like it's moving the Titanic because it is a laborious uh activity and work that our people go through. So even the smallest change requires
023constant dedication and a beacon towards continuous improvement. The other piece here that's really important for everyone to understand is when we're doing this work, we have a direction that we've aspired to go as a collective group. Each year all these fine folks behind me, we gather and we talk about the direction. What are the refinements? Where are we going? So you should hear and and feel some themes emerge from the work as we collectively go towards these directions we've laid forth. But there's also a commitment to autonomy. So our departments have to look at and understand what are the needs specific not only to our discipline and our building but this particular group of students uh cohorts that we're experiencing right now. So you'll notice all of those pieces when you hear from our departments
024today. Now I will say um there's 11 departments that are going to go. Um they could share for a long time on all the work they're doing. We've asked them to really put an emphasis on one story arc. What has been something they really want to celebrate from their work and what are some next steps they're taking. So, please understand that when you hear these, uh, there's a lot that they could be sharing, but they've really centered in on one item that they think would be important for you to hear. With that, I want to welcome up our two wonderful associate principles who are going to share a couple of important documents that you have in front of you. We in education, as you know, sometimes get caught up in our own um, acronyms and
025language. So, um, it would be easy for us to sit up here and talk to you about during our PLC's we often focus on UBD while we, uh, keep intentional items on our HYPs. So, as you go through that tonight, you will hopefully understand a little bit more about that with the resources that are in front of you. There might be a pop quiz at the end. It's good to see you all. So, at your tables, you will find a copy of the curriculum maps. It's the larger sheet in front of you and these are the curriculum maps. I'm going to look at this page first that's more uh purple and I'll go to the back side later. But on this page, this is a common template that we're using um with our PLC's. So
026our professional learning committees, we've designed this from the understanding by design UBD model where it really takes what we want where we want our students to go and work backwards from there to get to where we want to go. So understanding by design that is UBD. Um the first page like I mentioned uh is is a bigger picture where teams agree upon components including enduring understandings, essential questions and the focus for the PLC. And on the back page, it breaks down the units and the skills assessed as well as the content. So it gets a little bit more nitty-gritty. And in short for this UBD design, stage one really is what do we want our students to know? Stage one is what do we want our students to know? And stage two is how will
027we know that they have learned it? Basically assessment. How will we know that the students um have learned it? And [clears throat] that's assessment. And Dr. Vaselopoulos will talk more about stage three is how will we teach it? So, she's going to talk more about high yield practices, HYPS. I know it's a lot um but she will go more in depth with what uh we're doing with designing our stage three. Okay. So, the other packet you should have looks like this. The first page says inviting spaces on it. Um, HYPS are uh high yield practices and they are researchbased instructional practices. Uh, we're really trying to be deliberate in infusing the HYPS into our UBD curriculum maps. Um, because as uh Dr. Kim said, this is part of how we help students learn. What are
028some researchbased practices we can all rally around? So there are five unique research-based high yield practices that both of our buildings are rallying around and ensuring that we are working these into our maps. Uh we've provided strategies uh for each of these practices and each of these posters also has a QR code which will help lead educators to additional strategies that they may want to use. Okay, now the fun stuff. So with that, we will begin our work. It's important to note that both of those are living breathing documents that are used by our folks. So those are our guiding pieces as we develop a common language. And we will start with the academy and we will just go um through the different departments. So here you go. First up, am I pointing this? Okay.
029Good evening. Thank you very much for having me here tonight uh to represent the academy program. My name is Debbie Cohen and I am the newly minted uh instructional supervisor for the Glen Brook Academy of International Studies and Advanced Academic Programs. Yeah, say that three times fast. Took me a while. So at the end of last year, we looked at um uh a transition that we had to make in leadership. And so as a way to try to make that a smooth transition, Ryan Bag conducted focus groups with various stakeholders in the academy family um that helped us determine our focus for this year's work. So we identified strengths in our program and our shared values including our cohort model and interdisciplinary approach to learning. But we also identified a few issues that emerge from
030those um [clears throat] from those groups and that was a desire to redefine and reaffirm our identity as a program and a desire to evolve and move forward. So, it's been a great honor and privilege to help lead our team towards those goals. One key need that we identified was to create a clear portrait of an academy graduate. So, we have begun that work focusing on what skills and personal attributes we want students to develop as well as positioning them to be active members of the communities to which they belong. Whether that's belonging to the academy cohort, the Glenberrook community, or beyond, our ultimate goal is to develop our students into the engaged global leaders that we know they can be. The academy faculty was so excited about this work that we couldn't wait to
031get started. So, we began our Key initiative. We will call it now PDI. Uh just to keep the acronym thing going. Um so, we recently had we won't we're never going to do that. Um, we recently had all 120 academy students engage in a 2-hour workshop that was focused on defining what peace meant to them personally and as well as in broader communities. The day was so successful uh based on feedback from our students and our faculty that we've decided to continue to bring thea entire academy student body together for additional work on peace. So later this week, a team of over 20 student volunteers from all grade levels in the academy as well as uh four members of the faculty will meet to work to develop a plan for peace day 2, the potluck
032edition. Um, of course, given that it will be very close to Thanksgiving and Academy Kids Love to Eat, uh, we will be working together uh, of course to develop um, a program that is rich and robust, but ultimately the work it is going to culminate in studentled and designed action projects that hopefully have a positive impact on the academy as well as the broader Glenberrook community. So there they are at peace day one. So the peace day work embodies the spirit of the faculty and the students and our goals for the future. So we have actually only been able to accomplish this work through the newly granted PLC time this year. And I wanted to take a moment to thank you uh and to thank Ryan for his vision and also the world language English
033and social studies is in both buildings who have actually had to give some of their time in order to enable us to do our work. So with this time and because of that time, the enthusiasm of the staff is electric. And so our next steps are to complete our work on the portrait of a graduate. And then we're going to create a capstone project for all seniors to complete that will be scaffolded across four years of coursework. And we're also looking to continue to deepen our development as a staff, deepening our work as co-teers in the interdisciplinary model. So I was told to stay to three minutes. Um hopefully I did. Um, and so I will conclude by stating again that it is an honor to be such a part a part of such an
034incredible team of teachers and students in such a wonderful school district. So, thank you for the opportunity for uh me to tell you just a little bit of our story. Next, CTE All right, we decided to share and you get older then you have to have readers on. Um, CTE has focused on embedding curriculum through UBD into our frames for district-wide alignment and instructional quality. This work reflects a shift toward a datadriven and evidence informed approach. ensures all students experience purposeful, coherent, and career relevant learning across both schools. Related to the district strategic planning and the connection to that in terms of CTE, we're primarily focusing on focus area 1B, which is students being provided opportunities to explore post-secary options and career paths, which seems a natural fit for CTE careers right there. And then
035focus area 3D uh which is professional development for teachers and staff on effective strategies to increase student engagement. Uh and that's going to continue to be implemented which happens in our courses all the time. In terms of key insights and findings, we are looking to utilize the new curricular change process to analyze opportunities to increase access and equity in all of our courses. We're looking to increase more rigorous course work which we've been doing through some accelerated honors courses and between the two schools we want to align our course offerings. So this year at South we adopted the management and leadership course which was primarily taught at North in the past and at North we took on the investment strategies course. Uh students really demonstrated interest in these two courses. We had three sections of
036management and leadership run at South and we had four sections of investment strategies run at North. In addition to our key insights, our pilot teams collaborated in summer PD to begin refining our curriculum maps. They their work set us up for this year and we c celebrate them. All right. Uh we are on track with ongoing curriculum map work focused on providing great access and creating stronger alignment between our CTE departments and all remaining curriculum map versions uh maps version one will be completed by 2728 and we're excited in the work going forward. And lastly, in terms of crossbuilding professional development on UBD and high yield practices, uh, one of the benefits of having two schools in such a great district is sometimes, especially in CTE, there might only be one autos teacher or there
037might only be one entrepreneurship teacher. So, the ability to meet with our colleagues to analyze student evidence, go over pedagogical best practices is really important to us. So we want to continue doing that in the future and then continue integrating high yield practices into our coursework through inviting classrooms, building a sense of belonging in our courses and through teacher clarity. Thank you. And before we make the next transition, I want to take an opportunity and acknowledge that Mr. Bruno is now Dr. Bruno. Good evening. My name is Anna Schultz and I'm the instructional supervisor of English at Glenrook North. David Adami is for English at Glenberrook South. Um, and we're here tonight to talk to you a little bit about the strategic work of uh the of the both the English department at North and
038South. And over the past few years, uh, the main focus of our work has been the restructuring of the senior year course experience. Um, so we've semesterized course offerings. We've also introduced a dual credit offering through the English department. And we've also, um, introduced courses that have centered the unique voices and lived experience of lived experience of members of the Glen Brook community. And as you can see, our work is directly in alignment with the district's strategic plan. Tonight we would like to highlight um something that we are incredibly proud of which is um our dual credit enrollment. For the first time this year we are offering English composition in the English department at both Glen Brook North and Glen Brook South. These are the number of students that you can see currently enrolled in
039the course. Um and uh will be are on are on track, excuse me, to be earning dual credit through English. So roughly a quarter of our seniors at both Glen Brook North and Glen Brook South are on track to earn dual credit out of English this year. Uh secondly, we'd like to celebrate time uh that the district provided for our PLC's to start to roll up their sleeves and think about aligning uh curriculum at the moment horizontally. Uh and next steps will be vertically. Um but super grateful for the for the volume of time, the consistency of PLC time for course teams to meet and really collaborate in meaningful ways. Um and then the third uh finding again a great success. Um you know APA hit our ninth grade teams this year. Um we were
040ready for the work. We spent a lot of time preparing for that last year. Um we're happy to report that there were the the adjustments we made to uh meet our students entering honors courses sometimes for the first time um have been very successful. Uh so uh again those are are important to highlight uh specifically as we move uh forward. So now um as we have two what we think very successful bookends right our senior restructuring uh clearly very successful uh in the first year um successful adjustments made at the ninth grade level in welcoming uh students into new for for for whom the honors classes are are new. Um now the important work uh kind of continues to ensure that our vertical alignment into 10th grade and 11th grade um is coherent and clear
041so that uh students are are both challenged and supported uh throughout the course of their four years. So and finally we are very excited to continue supporting students enrolling and earning dual credit through the English department. Um so we are in the process of proposing another dual credit course that we hope to bring to the board's attention very soon. Um and uh hopefully soon our students will be able to earn uh six credit hours out of the English department specifically. So thank you very much. Good evening. I'm Cody Alberstat, fine arts is at Glimbert South and Chad Davidson is at North. Uh much like our colleagues across other departments, the fine arts departments at GBN and GBS have been collaborating closely to strengthen alignment between our campuses and implement backward design across disciplines. This collaborative
042work was initiated last year and continues throughout this school year. It's allowed us to be much more intentional uh in connecting our instructional programs uh with post-secary opportunities and expanding access for our students to more advanced and rigorous study within the arts. These ef uh these efforts have been evident across all of our content areas. Uh some have been really targeted like updating our broadcasting course titles to reflect collegiate and industry standards while others represent a broader uh more broader programmatic growth such as developing our honors programs. We're extremely proud of the work that our teams have done to design honors experiences uh within fine arts courses. They've been employing backward design uh to process from our AP and capstone courses, creating differentiated and challenging learning opportunities. This allows our students to deepen their skills
043while also pursuing their artistic interests. We believe that this is going to increase access uh for our students to more rigorous and advanced studies and empower them to explore their passions while preparing them for advanced coursework both here at GBS and beyond. And so, um, before we get to next steps, I would just like to reiterate, um, my colleagues who, uh, expressed gratitude for finding time for us to participate in these, uh, PLC's, they've been incredibly valuable. And while they initially were met with some anxiety and apprehension because of all the acronyms and everything, uh, once we figured out that this was really talking about our practice, um, the excitement is is really, um, really palpable. So, thank you for that time. So, um, as we look forward to, uh, the future, we are going
044to continue our UBD, uh, focusing beginning with those capstone courses and then figuring out what those support classes or, uh, preliminary classes need to be doing in order to get our students to those capstone courses. And in the area of HYP, we decided to focus specifically on uh, teacher clarity. And one of the reasons that we were um choosing that one is because we already feel like we're doing an amazing job at uh inviting learning spaces and also relationships. Those are two of the other hyps frankly I thought we were supposed to be doing all along. So that's not new for us. Um but we thought clarity was something that maybe uh we could we could put an eye on. Um and so uh again I just wanted to say thank you for allowing us
045for this to have this time for our work and uh please know that it is being used quite wisely. Thank you. Hi, I'm Phil Gartner is of mathematics at GBS. So pleased to be here with you tonight and especially to be presenting alongside my colleague Kim Johnson. Maria and I have worked with Kim for many years while she was a math department chair at an area school. We're happy to have you at the Glen Brooks. Kim, thank you. Those were very nice words. Thank you, Phil. I appreciate it. And thank you for inviting us here tonight. I'm happy and I'm grateful uh to be able to join this district at a time where all this amazing work is happening. Um our entire team has been deeply engaged in the process of refining uh not only
046what we teach but how we teach it and why it matters to kids. Uh we started last summer with an overview of our CIP work. Um and then we had eight different math teams from both buildings begin the curriculum mapping process. Uh that work continued this fall. Um, our teams are moving beyond just a list of standards and they're really prioritizing deep understanding and knowledge transfer. Oh, I think I neglected to click my slide, guys. Oh, nope. I think I'm right. This is me. Um, we also want to share that we're very excited and proud of this work uh that our teachers are doing with our freshmen um and our implementation of the APA this year. Uh both of our schools are putting more students in challenging math classes than ever before. And for example,
047more students are taking algebra 1 accelerated honors rather than the lower level algebra 1 class. Um in order to help those students find success, we're intentionally using strategies to create inviting classrooms where everyone feels valued. And building on that foundation, we are designing engaging and mathematically rigorous tasks. Now, by focusing at both those things, the dynamic engagement and also the welcoming spaces, we're empowering our students to find success in math and persevere through challenges. It'll be really important for us to measure that impact and we're letting data guide our decision-making process. We've been analyzing preACT data, classroom performance data, and our own intervention data for students that are receiving extra supports. And as we go through that process, uh the insights that we gain will be invaluable as they show where our students are excelling
048and where we may need to provide some extra supports or strengthen our supports. Thank you, Kim. So, what's next? Our PLC's are now using this data to improve the student experience. Yeah, you were good. You're always good. And then [laughter] what's powerful is that each PLC has determined its own committed goal and artifact for both curriculum mapping and high yield practices. The PLC's are offering the time and structure for teams to look at classroom data to inform their work and next steps. We are leveraging the additional time to advance our work on all fronts, curriculum, instruction, assessment, classroom environment. This is about growing together and supporting our PLC's in this important work. And we're proud of our teachers, deeply grateful for their partnership. We thank you for this time this evening. And next, we'll turn
049things over to our multilingual department. I am Christine Anderson. I'm the assistant director for multilingual learners. Um, our population has grown from 2.4% 4% in 2016 of the total district population to 8.1% today about 420 students. With that growth, we've expanded bilingual programs, instructional assistant positions, language and family liaison positions, and ESL endorsed staff across buildings. Importantly, most multilingual learners receive all or part of their services in general education settings. So, this work really touches every department. Uh we are very fortunate that we just uh completed a cohort with St. Francis University and I just sent my 32nd letter verifying field experience hours um with more to come. So we're adding more endorse staff um as we speak. Uh our 12.6 classification rate is more than double the state average. It shows that our model
050is working. As we continue to grow, we're focusing on student voice to understand what instructional practices help our students thrive academically and linguistically. As we move forward, we are centering student voice by conducting focus groups and individual conferences to understand what instructional practices helped our students achieve the greatest English language learner growth. So to develop our focus groups, we selected students whose growth between 24 uh 2024 and 2025 who uh grew more than one standard uh excuse me, one and a half standard deviations above the mean um in that uh time period. We asked the participants to sort 49 instructional practices into four categories. Helps me a lot, helps me a little, doesn't help, and not applicable. So, as we move forward and we're looking at our f focus group data, here's some of the
051preliminary findings that we have. Uh, what we found the focus groups valued the mo most was uh consistency um that was consistently identified, excuse me, was teacher clarity and relationships as the most powerful supports for their language growth. Students expressed that working with classmates, especially those who speak different home languages and general education, English only speaking peers helps them practice real world English and grow more confident. Feeling safe to ask questions was a major theme that emerged. Students emphasized that they when they can check for understanding and ask for help, they make faster progress. They shared several nuances to uh the value of authentic relationship and connection with teachers. And they shared that this goes much deeper than just saying hi. They were looking for staff who truly knew them and were able to make
052an effort to check in with them from time to time. [clears throat] Finally, students said, "My teacher believes I can do hard work. This connects to our work around feedback on performance, encouragement, scaffolding, opportunities to learn from mistakes, and challenge. In other words, they could sense that teachers thought that they could really do it provided then they provided meaningful support and that demonstrates how high expectations drive growth for multilingual learners. So, as we look forward, our focus is turning to student feedback into action. We will center student voice by continuing to use focus groups as a tool for reflection and program improvement. We will be implementing professional development that highlights what students told us, specifically how clarity, relationships, and challenge intersect to accelerate their growth. And we will support PLC's in reviewing curriculum and instruction
053to ensure lessons are accessible, inclusive, and meaningful for all learners, not just multilingual learners. And we will share our focus group model with other departments as a strategy for instructional improvement. So with that, as our population continues to grow, so does our opportunity to ensure that every student experiences success in every classroom and I will turn it over to PE Health and Driver's Ed. All right, good evening everyone. I'm Josh Dan, the instructional supervisor over at Glen Brook South. Alongside me is my counterpart here tonight, uh, Scott Pleasure. is at uh GBN. So we first wanted to say thank you for giving us the platform tonight to speak about the amazing work that our staff has been engaging in over the better part of the last year within our programming. Uh specifically we have also
054been engaging in the UBD model and frameworks. From that work with our staff we've identified a need and that need specifically between buildings was alignment and that was our main focus over the better part of the last year. Uh with that alignment uh we tried to move forward with different course offerings that were representative of our students needs, interests, wants and desires as well as the outcomes with these courses. So therefore if we are truly in lock step, we can continue to move forward together progressively uh to accurately represent a field of health and wellness that is forever changing. Uh how this aligns with our strategic planning work would definitely be focus area 2C of equity and access and overcoming barriers amongst the 4A's and 3C professional development for our teachers and staff to continue
055to provide meaningful learning experiences for our students. Yeah. And [clears throat] a couple of those uh things that we were able to do. So the I I think it's my understanding that you also did a little bit of ruler training as well. Um so we had all of our health uh yes all of our uh our health uh teachers um went through some ruler training to really focus on kind of the holistic view of our students that we have. So that we're looking at obviously the social, emotional and physical health of our students, what their well-being is and their ability to move forward. Um the health courses are implementing a lot of that ruler um practices right now which [clears throat] we're um finding to be very beneficial as it comes to um their student
056sense of belonging how they're um how they're feeling and estate um to kind of help their educational growth in that course. And part of that, as Josh was saying, the alignment piece, um, is us to be able to take that, um, the the ability for us to, uh, put it in a health setting and then move that into some of our other PE classes as well, um, and and be able to kind of spread that across the board so that we're looking at that holistic student that we want to continue to build. Um some of the alignment pieces that we've been working on as well that we have in place um is one for uh for yoga one um is now in work at uh at GBS. Um we have started yoga 2 at GBN
057and then the two of those will be in line um for the uh next school year um across the board. again really supporting um the social emotional like learning of our students um incorporating that with the uh the physical side of uh of movement and how [clears throat] that uh continues to just help and benefit students overall. Um in addition to that all of our courses have a um have created a common syllabus from each one of them from freshman um curriculum all the way through to all of our um junior senior elective courses. Um, and we're aligning that from uh from top to bottom just as a focus that it's a uh a like experience from for each student um whether they're at GBS or GBN um from our freshman classes although I said
058like I said to our junior senior elective courses. All right, with all of that amazing work that we've been able to accomplish uh with the strong efforts of our team members over the course of the past year or so, uh the work is not done as Ryan alluded to earlier in the presentation. So we have really through this work not only been able to identify gaps in terms of where we are that we can address now but also moving forward. And some of those things that we still need some time to work on would be career pathways for our students helping them transition into the world beyond the walls of district 225 and be successful. Uh in accordance with that some dual credit opportunities. So, um, some possible examples or things that we might want
059to explore in the near future, uh, might be things like sports medicine, uh, sports officiating, psychology within an athletic realm to help our students maybe seek out additional ways in which they can study or be successful in the real world professionally, again, beyond our walls. Uh, and last but not least, we want to take all of the things we've been thriving to achieve within that work across the schools, um, as a district and continue to expand upon those. We mentioned that we implemented ruler within our sophomore health curriculum. Our goal within the coming years is to implement similar tactics from freshman to senior year in PE and driver ed as well, not just health education. Thank you again for your time and we will pass it along to science. Hi, I'm Mary Rocker. the IS
060of science at North Jeff Rylander is for science at South and we echo the appreciation for the time in our PLC's. I think another valuable thing to recognize is it really brings all of our departments together because we're all working um using UBD as a framework which I feel like that unity is very powerful. um our teams in science have created common syllabi using um the template and then we're working on developing or revising our maps based on where our teams have started. Um we're also focusing on assessment practices and we're working to make sure our assessments are three-dimensional and we thought we'd share another acronym. So three-dimensional is part of the NGSS which is the next generation science standards. You've heard us talk about those before. The three dimensions are the disciplinary core ideas
061which is content, science and engineering practices which focuses focuses on skills and then the cross cutting concepts that focuses on the way students think about approaching a problem. um on all of that PLC work focuses on um focus three of the strategic plan and then we're also working on focus one of the strategic plan by increasing our access to dual credit courses. Um GBN has proposed our first dual credit course in science or earth science class. So you'll see that coming your way and next year both GBN and GBS are looking to increase um our dual credit courses. as we're looking into our horiculture and plant science for example. Um and then what that work did is it um our work over the course of the year um has kind of surfaced three key insights.
062Um we recognized that there was a need for consistent grading practices as well as curricular ownership and alignment to standards and um curriculum teams have worked together to identify grading categories and appropriate weights to ensure grading practices were the same across all classes within a course team. In addition to uh the grading practices, uh we've done significant work as you've heard from all the other uh IS's uh in our curriculum mapping. Um and the reason we do this work is that it helps bring clarity. Clarity first to our teachers so that our teachers can convey that clarity of what it is that we want our students to know, understand, and be able to do as well. But a byproduct of this uh work that has been uh just just uh really excellent I think is
063the ownership that it gives to our our teachers. Um when uh you're teaching a curriculum that somebody else developed maybe 10 years ago um it's one thing but when you get to put your fingerprints on that curriculum there's that ownership that really um has has proved to be very rich. Um, and as we do this work, as Mary said, um, we're using the next generation science standards as our guide for the work and and the three-dimensional nature, um, that she referenced as well. So, we're excited about where this will take us. Uh, the work on common finals, common grading practices will serve our students well. Um, and as uh our math colleagues mentioned just a few minutes ago, um, one of the neat things we're doing this year is is each course team, each PLC
064has developed two goals. One that's curricular focused, that would be the curriculum mapping, one that's instructional focused, that's the HYP work, um, so that they can put their own focus on on what it is that we want our team to continue to grow in. that's given clarity and direction to the work that um that each of the course teams has been doing. And then also we're excited to expand uh and hopefully double the dual credit offerings uh in the coming years. With that we'd like to bring up our IS's for social studies to share about the alignment work that they are doing as well. Hi, I'm Jeannie Logan, the IS of social studies at South. Hi, I'm David Albam, social studies is at North. Um, and like you've heard multiple times over already tonight. Um,
065in social studies, we're also grounding our work um in UBD and HYP. Um, and that's been really guiding our curricular and instructional work. We've been focusing strategically on our ninth grade courses in order to lay the foundation for subsequent years. Um, and our transfer goals have provided a useful north star uh to align our day-to-day with those outcomes that really should transcend our individual courses. So, and that informs how we challenge and engage our students and prepare them for life beyond high school. So, with all of our grade nine courses having stage one and two curriculum maps, we've achieved a guaranteed and viable curriculum for freshman students. And I really want to sort of unpack what that means. Um, and that that students across our courses at each level are investigating and exploring the same
066essential questions as they study world history content. And it also means that we have intentional scaffolding and gradual scaling up of complexity of critical reading, writing and historical analysis skills. Um, and these conversations um have prompted us to ask really good questions um how about how each unit was really developing habits of mind that are linked to our transfer goals and then subsequently how do we assess those transfer goals? um can we design um or redesign our assessments to better reflect those skills? And in addition, as we're seeking to challenge our students more, we can't really talk about challenge without recognizing that we have to address grit. So those conversations have been really um useful and productive as well. Um you know, we've noted that in order to help students develop that grit, we really
067need to start focusing on student metacognition. Um, it's really vital for students to be able to reflect on their own growth and build resilience. Um, as Jeannie alluded to, we are really proud of the work that our grade nine team has done. Um, as recently as a few years ago, it was hard to assure families, community members, students that students were having similar experiences from teacher A to teacher B. Um, after the work that our grade nine team did over the summer and through the work of our PLC's, we have common final exams. We have um identical syllabi with identical uh grading practices and categories and weights as we as we've heard from other departments as well. Um and the conversations around stage one and stage two of the curriculum map which is now set
068also for our grade nine team has been really really rich. Um conversations about what we should be teaching largely through um a deep examination of the ISBY social studies uh sort of standards and guidance. um and the C3 which is like our national sort of like governing body and best practices in the discipline. Um it's been really helpful both for newer teachers to a team to listen to these conversations from veteran teachers about what good world history instruction is and sort of a side benefit um at least at North in the next few years we'll have some turnover due to retirements and the curriculum maps have served like this unforeseen sort of like nice benefit of memorializing like a century's worth of work and wisdom um that our veteran teachers have undertaken. So that's been
069a really nice side benefit as well. um looking forward uh a nice benefit of having so many teachers in the world history team is they also teach other subjects as well. So the expertise and the buyin and the passion that those world history teachers got through their work over the summer and this year they can sort of bring that wisdom to the sophomore teams and the junior teams and the senior teams. So there's already conversations about common final exams and common syllabi um and aligning and really vertically aligning as well. So, we heard Debbie Cohen talking a little bit about the portrait of an academy graduate, the vertical articulation that we're undertaking in social studies. We feel really good about articulating what a four-year social studies graduate will be in the very near future. And
070with that, we'll turn it over to our friends in special education. Good evening. I'm Kathy French, supervisor over at North. Hi, I'm Bridget Buckland. I am the supervisor at Glenberrook South. All right. So the special education department's um strategic focus has been on aligning the instructional practices with general education directly which directly supports the climate and culture as well as the learning re-imagined goals by guaranteeing equitable inclusive experiences and consistent outcomes through enhanced collaboration and professional development. Um, increasing the special education teachers awareness of general education curriculum and instructional practices has already led to stronger alignment between special education courses and those courses offered in the general education setting. Um, as Bridget stated, our main goal really this year and we might be the biggest bene benefactors of the work that's being done in our
071departments um because we um offer courses that are modified versions of those offered in general education. And so we really as a special ed team are fortunate in that we're able to leverage the work that's happening in our content areas. we have delegated folks from our departments to visit um and really be part of the PLC's that are occurring in all of the departments that um you're hearing from today. So instead of working separately, our special educators are working with their gened colleagues and really reviewing once again um what exactly is going on in our gened classrooms. What does instruction in English one look like? What are the key ideas that are being covered? And so that information is just invaluable, not just for those special education teachers who are co-eing in gened settings, but
072those that then come back to special education and are the leaders for adapting that gened curriculum to be able to meet the needs of learners who need something different. Um, and that is for all um students in special education, those who might be right kind of at grade level standards and also those who might need something very very different um like a life skills curriculum. So just increasing that awareness helps us to really be thoughtful about what we're doing within the special education classroom and making sure that we know what our students need to be able to um ultimately hopefully make it into a general education class at some point. Um the other piece that I would add is we're able to benefit from um the curriculum map. So having a universal template for not
073just the maps but also the syllabus allows us as a special education department to really look at those artifacts and think about how can we modify this in a meaningful way. It is a great place to start a conversation with a gened colleague because we're working off of the same templates that are familiar. And so we'll be able to more um with more um with more specificity describe to families when they ask how does a special education course in the area of math or English or social studies look different than what my child would be getting if they were in a general education class. And while we've always had our the ability to answer that, this just really makes it much clearer to families because we'll be able to point to a map and identify
074the areas that we might do a little differently in special ed to meet the needs of our students who require a special education instructional class. And then finally, one of the biggest things that we're working on right now is gathering data through our opportunity review. And so we're working collaboratively with um really all the staff in special education and student services to review that data and we look forward to working um in you know in partnership with everyone at our district office and with our consulting group to get that information all synthesized so that we can really look at how do we improve our practices in special education overall. Okay. And then next but not least is our world languages colleagues. Good evening. I'm Amanda Morris, instructional supervisor at Glenberg South. Josh Moral, instructional supervisor
075for World Language at Glenrech North. So similarly to what you've heard tonight, World Languages is going to focus on datadriven work, specifically in assessments. So, we are really excited to be living in stage two of UBD assessments. And while we think that our curricular improvement process, curriculum improvement process really addresses all of the areas of the strategic plan, it creates opportunities for students, addresses inequities. Josh and I are really excited about the idea of empowering students and staff members with this data. So, a lot of what you'll hear tonight is about UBD stage two and also this idea of empowering our staff and empowering our students. So, as you can see, um, we have about a couple of tangible examples, key findings if you will, as to how common rel uh, reliable student assessment data
076supports our teachers and empowers our students. But just as importantly, our students uh, want what common world language assessment data could provide them. Um, if you'll see a 2024 spring uh qualitative survey of nearly 400 Glenberg, North World language students found that 79% of language students reported wanting wanting college credit for their language studies and 40% identified the Illinois States by literacy as a goal. Updating our assessment practices um and analysis provides them with these opportunities and empowers them and gives them ownership over their learning experience at the Glen Brooks. So moving forward, we really hope to continue to find our vision of assessment practices in the world language area, especially as our department moves into this next era uh in the Glen Brooks. And like we've been mentioning, at the core of this project
077is empowering staff members, giving them the tools they need to analyze data to be able to create meaningful change in instructional practices and reimagine learning experiences for our student. We've been doing that already in our PLC work and we're really really grateful for that time as many of my colleagues have mentioned and we look forward to sharing the results with you next year. Ditto. Um before we go to Q&A, I just had a one point I wanted to bring up. This this crew is they're humble. If you've ever heard of someone building a house, imagine that house was being built by nine adults all trying to decide what goes where, when it goes, how it looks, how it operates. That's curriculum mapping. The work they just talked about to create a guaranteed and viable curriculum.
078I'm back there like a proud, you know, when we started this work four years ago, they asked for this movement and I and I the energy and effort that they have put forward to get to where we're at today is second to none. Um, so if I could just give one more round of applause for all of them, this work is really impressive. So, first of all, thank you so much to all of our instructional supervisors, to Joyce and to Maria and Ryan for your leadership in guiding our faculty down this process. One of the things I think it's important to pause just for a moment is at the heart of everything we do is the classroom, is our students learning experience. And a few years ago, the board of education in the community set
079forth a process to develop a strategic plan to reaffirm and also set a direction for our next steps. Today, I don't think we could have heard any greater examples than our focus areas one, which is all about student empowerment. We heard so many examples about how we're looking to make sure that students success in their learning pathway in high school, how they have different options that meet their unique needs and how we are ultimately gearing up to support our students as I said earlier in whatever path they choose post high school. At the same time, focus area three is all about what you're doing right now, what our teachers are doing, which is reimagining what the learning experience can look like. We heard so much from our special education instructional supervisors, Kathy and Bridget. We
080heard so much from Dr. Anderson in our multilingual learners about how important it is to know what that pathway, what that map looks like because we have students who have some greater needs and in order to empower our case managers, our special education teachers, our family language leaison, our multilingual teachers in order to support them in doing their job. They rely on their colleagues to do oh so much. And to be in a place where we are building that plane while flying with a variety of folks in the room, it's it's just amazing what we have already accomplished. And I might be a little biased. I'll acknowledge it. But there was a lot of conversation about dual credit happening in a few departments. And at the end of the day, when we think about reimagining
081learning, in many ways, for decades, Glen Brookke has been leading the pack in reimagining what high school looks like. And part of that is making sure that each one of our kids just by benefiting from being Spartans and Titans right here in district 225 that they have or they're a bit of a step ahead of their peers from neighboring districts as they go into whether that is a college pathway, a military pathway, or a career pathway. And there's a few special opportunities that we have still in store for this year where the board and the community will have an opportunity to get a bit of a a preview of what's happening in our classrooms. And I know that some members around this table have talked about the importance of understanding a little more. Um Debbie
082talked about the academy program. What is this program that I keep hearing about that I just learned? We are doing a great job of defining what our graduates will look like. What are these opportunities across CTE, across math, across science that are setting students up for hands-on and applied careers? And that's just the beginning because don't forget at the heart of everything is also music and fine arts. I'm going to hold some more on that for later on. Little shout out to my colleagues. So, as we um as we move into questioning, I'd encourage if there are some topics that the board would like to learn a little more about during this process or afterwards, please reach out. We are starting to uh set up what our future topics could be in the spring. And
083at the end of the day, there's nothing better than hearing and learning more about the experience of our students. So before we transition, let's give one more great round of applause to all of our educational leaders right here. Well, that was a lot, but fantastic. Um, I'm going to start with Mr. Golaki. I'm sure you've got some questions. Well, first of all, I wanted to say uh it's wonderful to hear how everybody's f the common language and focus on common assessments and curricula uh the curricula is helped you really to free up energy to focus on the heart of the matter the student and helping them get to that level of what our expectations are at the Glenberg so they go on to succeed and learn. So, it's wonderful to see this all come to
084fruition and thank you for going down this journey. I have more I guess common questions supposed they came up during different sessions. So I don't expect answers today but maybe future presentations if at least these could get addressed into your presentations uh to help us as board members understand where we can support you and everything. Um, so this is maybe not particular or and they'll come from different presentations as you guys uh came up but one is you know how is it some were referenced but it'd be great to hear from everybody when you uh present your curriculum and with the focus on how is this aligned with community college or trade schools that came out of the CTE one but when we were talking about the dual credits how does it align with that
085but then also another variant of that was during the health presentation we were talking about sports psychology and that came to mind well we actually have a wonderful psychology AP program here under the sciences. what's also the uh if there is any type of work coordination happening with fellow programs to identify that for us as well uh because that's interesting and then also fine arts what this is more coming out of fine arts but out of any electives uh what is the enrollment I mean we know for English sciences math we're all required to have them do that but for the electives what does enrollment look like I know um few I think it was last year when the fine arts group presented it reminded Hey, we've been wrestling with a decline. So, what are
086we, you know, it helps again to get us that perspective of where where do resources and efforts need to be put? Um and then finally uh let me see you the uh well in sciences you mentioned the uniformity of grading and assessments and everything that if everybody could during your presentations share what that may look like as examples going forward and stuff not for the but in the future subsequent presentations. Uh that is wonderful to hear but it it's interesting I'm I'm getting a sense that the assessments are not your traditional finals. We always hear about, you know, finals and that, but we've changed a lot and I and so I know some programs are leading the way and doing assessments in a different way. So, it'd be great to hear what you're doing in
087that uh venue as well. So, thank you. Yeah, just [clears throat] a quick note on your final two points there that all of these fine folks um [clears throat] we had asked them to keep it to one topic but they um so they can blame they can blame me on this that they all had in [clears throat] we've established common syllabi we are working on common final assessments. So that is something we are collectively working with. If you actually look at your curriculum map template in front of you, um you will see that at the bottom it notes about final assessments and where are you in the development of that with a timeline for completion. So all of these fine folks that is in progress right now and we have a full timeline that I
088can share. Appreciate that. U Mr. Downing uh first of all great work. Thank you. You guys are quite dedicated and you could it was palpable. you could hear the excitement in your voices and um I'm sure it's passed down to the kids and and so thank you and I feel like I learned it class today. CIP PLC UBD um yeah different language thank you language group [laughter] [gasps] um I I don't have questions is more comment um it's great to see that uh this has empowered everybody um I think that's very important piece of any work right if you feel empowered and you you feel a part of the process and you feel like you're heard um that trickles up and trickles down So that that's wonderful to hear. Other comment I had was um
089I think it was Jeannie Logan mentioned grit and I think that is critical for kids today to be able to have grit and build capacity to be able to handle hard work, build a capacity for resilience. So, um, at some point in time, I'd love to hear more about that because I tell you the things I I learned here, um, through about hard work and goals and perseverance, you know, shaped my life. And I'd love to hear more about what you what's going on with the kids and what we're doing to build that capacity, build that grit, build that resilience. Mr. hair. I won't have to answer it tonight. Oh, no. I promise. Um Oh, go ahead, Ryan. No, I just wanted to uh say on that front that as our curriculum maps come out,
090you may have heard a number of references to transfer goals. um to bring some clarity which may help as as we unpack that a little bit in our strategic plan if you were to look at 3C it lists off a number of key criteria or areas we want students that is affectionately what we've called a version of a portrait of a graduate so our departments have taken their course maps and said which of these will this course help support one of those is resiliency and grit so just so you know that that is embedded in our strategic plan and now embedded into our curriculum maps. Mr. O'Hare, uh, no, thank you guys so much for all the work you're doing. I I really appreciate hearing about the PLC's and how that extra time does help.
091You know, we we we make decisions here and we don't always know if it's helpful or not. And so I appreciate hearing that from you guys. Um, you know, I think it was interesting Ryan mentioned it's sort of like a battleship and you got to turn it and and you have to keep we have to keep reminding ourselves that each of you is responsible for I don't know six, eight, 12 other people. So you got everybody you got to get on the same page, get them all going the same direction and that just takes a lot of work and I really appreciate that because it can be like hurting cats. I mean you're and you're dealing with a bunch of teenagers. You got to get on the same page. I've had those in my house
092and they're they're cats, you know, they go all over the place on you. So I I really appreciate it. Um, you know, it it we started this process four or five years ago, I think, and and and I can really see the difference as you guys start talking about alignments and and getting it. I I know someone mentioned that I thought we were always supposed to be doing this, and you're right. We're always supposed to be making connections with the students and stuff, but unless you have the common language where you talk about it like you do all the time and you get everybody on the same page, um, you know, it I've been impressed with teachers because it's not a job for them. It's a calling, but at the same time, it's still a
093job and you just kind of get in your ruts at times and so you got to get out of the rut occasionally because it's just human nature to get stuck and stuff. So, I really appreciate you guys knocking people to get change. Change is not easy to happen. Um, your reward for hard work is we're going to ask you to do more work. Um, and I guess a couple of things that that came that come up to me that really impressed me are the dual credit ideas. Um, you want my daughter went had a bunch of AP credits and got almost no credit for it, you know, but you have a dual credit, it's it's worth something. Um, I I I love Pete's idea about how how we start to mess some of these things
094together, you know, the psychology. Um, I think PE and and health. Um, when I went to high school, it was kind of one of those things that was just on the side, but in many ways, it's one of the more important things. Uh uh mental health is something that I don't think a single one of our parents is against, you know, and you guys are the ones leading the the charge on that. So I I appreciate from you guys. Um you know, in general, I'm just really happy with what you guys have done. I I look forward to hearing individually because we can have better longer conversations. Um and thank you very much, Mr. Shine. Well, staff, our leadership team, I am absolutely blown away by what I've heard here tonight from you. I applaud
095you. This is an amazing thing you have done along with your daily tasks and requirements, supervision and leadership of a team. You have somehow found time to re-imagine what we do, what you do to make and improve our students lives their their lives. This is it for them at this time. So you are improving their lives and their future outcome. And I've sat here and heard things like this for two decades. We have talked about aligning curriculum. We have talked about common syllabus. We have talked about common um grading or expectations. And it was so hard so hard to move forward in the smallest ways. Even just the names of courses. They may have taught the same same information using the same materials, but we'd hear well, you know, it's different at north than it
096is at south and we've always called it this and we would, you know, kind of hear this these kinds of things and it would like move along glacially one little piece at a time and then somebody would retire and then there'd be some movement over there in that department. But you guys [laughter] really you you guys have just em embraced this and I I cannot believe it that that I'm married to a to a retired second grade teacher and at that at that level consistency is everything right and you build from there. But it it it's also so critical for you know our kids. And I just want to you know some things I heard here I just so wonderful dual credit um from from many of you Dr. Anderson focus on um uh datadriven
097you know decisions um you know in a really critical area um uh what else? Oh the common syllabuses um common expectations uh common evaluations um there was a time where we were not really open to dual credit. other schools were you know way ahead of us and there there are good reasons for this but the world has changed and it's really nice to hear you from a variety of departments you know being open to this not the least of which and it's not a it's not a reason to make that kind of a decision but college has become so expensive that this is a big help to students and families um at least to put the opportunity there and as as Matt said lots of AP courses, depending what university you go to, they're like,
098you know, wonderful, you took it. Now go go go take that Cal class again and that physics because it's not it's not our thing and uh it's great to be open to that and I it's I'm just really appreciate it. So, what I would ask you is how do you share this vision with parents because uh one of the last presenters and I I forgive me I've taken a lot of notes here. um um ma made a comment, what do we want for our graduates or [snorts] what what do we want of our graduate? What do we want a Glenberg graduate to look like? You know, what what is the end? Of course, it's not the same for every student, but all of these things you've laid out here, I would suggest can be codified
099and simplified into a message that can be brought to parents in in in in the various forum that are ava a available because this is really an incredible story. I mean, what you guys have done here, you know, pushing against 75 years of of of of history of great history, it's to make a positive change, not to not to like not to ignore what happened in and where what what brought you guys to this point, to honor it and build on it, but it's just amazing. I am floored, absolutely floored by this effort and I just want to thank you. I want to add just one comment to Mr. Shine. Um, we've heard a lot about portrait of a graduate and this is a topic that Yep. This is a topic that often time is
100looped into a strategic planning process, but as a district we hadn't had a strategic plan in a little bit of time. Um and so we delayed that process of the portrait um until we had a year or two under our belt. One of the topics that the communications committee will be processing in the spring um is a discussion of how do we bring back individuals to not only share the great work that's been done on the strategic plan but help inform what our portrait of a Glen Brook graduate looks like. Um, and so our hope is in the next 18 months we'll be able to really answer that question with and illustrate it with a lot of the great things that are happening here. Dr. Steinber, thank you. You are a tough act to follow.
101So I I'll try to make my way. I just want to say one thing on top of what Skip was just saying which is you know you're all also representing a group of teachers and these teachers wake up every day preparing the lessons thinking what's coming ahead having to deal with the problem of the day having office hours doing everything else in the meantime thinking about these new implementations and in the meantime trying to get feedback of how these implementations work and then bring it back to these special times to work on it. So if you think that normally having one job is hard enough, kudos to all of them and all of you for making time to not be contempt on what we are doing is good and we are in a great district
102but saying that's not enough and in a positive spin that's not enough. We want to do more and so kudos to everybody those of you those of you who are here and those of you who are not here but they're going to be talking to you tomorrow or any other time. I just I just have general notes and questions. I heard this or read this somewhere couple of weeks ago and and I I start with this because somebody was saying these kids come these kids in general right comes from very good schools go to great universities and then after three months or four months they are piled up in debt and they are pile up in anxiety and everything because the real life skills somehow were missed on all these metrics and curriculums and and
103and I know we have classes where we teach how to balance a checkbook and things like that but I wonder as we do our regular life work which is teach them math or teach them geography or teach them more social studies maybe deal a little bit more with these things but remembering that on top of everything we have individuals that go through their lives and they are learning curriculum but at the same time they're facing things that are going to face three four or two years down the road so when a kid fails on an exam or fails on a particular situation it's not only a learning experience in English geography or something else it's a learning experience and how do you take failure and what is the meaning of the war failure versus the
104meaning of the word challenge which is way easier to deal with at this point when they are still going back home instead of when they go to college. So I know we work on sense of belonging and well-being and everything else. But I think sometimes as teachers I hope we all remember that that there are other things happening in our kids every day. So as as we work on curriculum we also work on not detaching on how our students are evolving as personalities human beings during these four years that we have them. That being said, I I share with my colleagues a lot of points, so I'm trying not to repeat, but you all talk about dual credit. It would be nice to know how many credits or we our students can get in dual
105credit or a mix of dual credit plus KIPP. I know students can take KIPP. So you were talking about AMP, AP courses. Maybe those AP courses could help our students to take the clubs while they are still in school and have an idea of right now at the top a student can leave with 16 credits, 12 credits, nine credits, I don't know, but we aspire to get into two, three years to X numbers. We talk about the financial part of it, but there's another side of it. A lot of kids want to do dual majors and sometimes dual degrees. Having the genet courses taken out of the way while they are in high school will allow them to take two focus areas and get into two different careers at one with the same money that
106they are spending now taking courses that are just general education. So having a plan on how much we can expand and and being able to share that with people, that would be one of my points. I heard a lot about it. And I like this idea of of making courses more challenging and and and working on the rigor of each course. And I wonder if how we assess that in terms of student feeling at the end of the course. You know sometimes people are like if we make things harder maybe academically they do well but people are stressed out but I know you're working a lot in terms of how do we teach and how do we assess there was a lot of talking about assessment so maybe there is something to learn here in
107terms of we are making things ch I know one of you said it I can't remember who but we're making it challenging and the students perform better actually when we making it challenging so we are figuring out how to translate rigor into something that our students can deal with and feel proud at the end of it. So, so metrics, assessment, sharing of this. I know everyone say well you start sharing data from the test that would be helpful. um we talk about ESL so that that's only one area but I think I asked this last time you presented I would like to see what's the impact in terms of performance you know as as we as you said it earlier as we support our students to work in the regular classroom what's the impact of
108all the interventions that we are making through ESL and to working with teachers from other disciplines on ESL and how that helps the performance of the students in regular courses it's it's really important I think for all of us that these students when they graduate they're at the same level with everybody else and English is not an issue in terms of performance they they may still have ways to go but in terms of performance in regular classes it's not an issue speaking of metrics um I know this for my day job but you all work with different groups so we are making a lot of changes the question is at least numerically for or not to make it anecdotically but what is the rate of adoption you have a department that has 10 people and
109you're making changes on the curriculum. Are we feeling that everybody's getting on board at the same time? Are we seeing I know you are picking up some departments are picking up by layers. We start with ninth grade. Some people said the opposite. We start at the top and we go back. Are we getting everybody on board? Are we getting the same results with everybody? Yeah. Um it's an important point for everyone to hear. Um, last year each of these teams of IS's sat down with their associate principal of teaching and learning and myself and developed out a five-year plan for which courses would go when and the rationale behind it. Part of our work, as you heard tonight and all of you have supported, is how do we empower the departments to know what is
110best for their discipline yet stay collective on the vision and in terms of the common language. So each one of these IS's has they've developed a plan. It has it's across five years they have their first completed um curriculum app. What you're hearing today is uh some have started at the senior level, completed their senior course and are now working back. Some are working from the nth grade forward. Um so yes, plans are in place for all courses to have gone through curriculum mapping. And to your point, however, going alongside of that is our high yield practices. Because it's one thing to talk about curriculum, it's another thing to talk about it and keep in mind inviting spaces, relationships, engagement, challenge. Those are pieces we we have right alongside of this work. Thank you. My
111last point actually goes that way. And I I'm just thinking it actually I met the first time you talk at the board you talk about spaces. You came here with all this this initiative about about changing classroom spaces and furniture and everything else. That's how I met you way way back then. And and what I was thinking is that if we think about real life right now almost everywhere that we interact doesn't look the same that 10 years ago or 15 years ago. and and in general classrooms haven't changed that much except that here we make a conscious effort to change the way classrooms look and our learning spaces look. So I wonder how this back to your chess mentioned point how this all ties in together when it's just not simply a curricular movement
112or not a teaching movement it's entire living movement inside of what's happening in the classroom and outside of the classroom. We've learned a lot through a pandemic that some things can be done outside, some things could be replaced and moved in. So somebody bringing a story doesn't have to be from one program or another program or how we change from whatever we were doing 10 years ago to what we are doing now still great on curriculum, still great on engagement and everything else but how the experience in the classroom in the Glen Brooks has changed throughout all this time. Yeah. The direction we want to go with that in support of what you're asking is that you heard tonight about a guaranteed and and viable curriculum. In other words, we're aligned. We know what we're
113going after and we have the tools in place to bring it to life. Our high yield practices are to guarantee a common approach or common language to visible learning. What we've done this year um for the first time in in my time is establish baseline data on what is the learning environment like right now as we begin this launch and then we are measuring that annually with the goal that in five years we've seen significant progress. So all along we do the uh data dashboards. You'll start seeing reports in our in our data dashboard of that progress so you can understand the changes to the environment in the collective not in these little pieces. Thank you and again thank you everyone. Um, it's hard being the last one to speak because we've already said such
114great things because it really was a spectacular presentation across the board and I have questions but they're kind of all over the place. So, I thought maybe what I would do is just share some observations. Um, you know, we have the perspective of looking at you all and I just want to say to you that as each of your colleagues came up to present, all of you were smiling and nodding and so excited. And I think that really speaks to what you talked about like how you you are all coming at this as a team. Even though you're coming from different departments and you're looking at different pieces of the puzzle, you you have a common goal. you speak a common language and you're excited to see your colleagues progress against, you know, their um
115their field. Um you're doing something similar but different in your field, but it's all, you know, driving trying to turn the battleship together, right? So that's terrific. I have to say because I just think this is so funny, Ryan, you were sitting there and I I said to Marcel, "Ryan looks like a proud dad." He was so excited and then you got up, Ryan, and said, "I feel like a proud dad." it. It's true. And I I think that um that kind of enthusiasm that the level of um like really genuine engagement is is so wonderful to see. Um I think a lot of uh people would look at an initiative like this which is massive and takes years and just think so much work, so much extra work. And instead you're coming at it
116with this attitude of we get to do this. We get to do this great thing. I I think one of our newer people to the district said, you know, I'm I'm thrilled to be at the district at a time when something like this is happening and it's because you have big ideas and you want to contribute to that. And I think that that's just terrific. Um I do think um also one thing I wanted to mention because I heard it brought up a few times um by a few different speakers is talking about like another big thing that just got dropped on your lap. I I've heard you talking about embracing the um accelerated placement act and seeing how that gives new opportunities for our students. Um and you're running with that and like finding
117ways to have kids who might otherwise never really had the right challenge level before to to stretch them a little bit but not make them feel like this is too much. I can't do this. We have a we have a place for those kids now. And I think that's fantastic. And I think that having all of this work happening at the same time as you're rolling out the APA, our kids are just going to have more opportunities and more challenges. And um I as I you know, I think it was the multilingual learners who were saying they want a challenge. They they they um they excel when someone pushes them a little bit more. And I I think it's great that we're going to be having more of our students um be able to take
118advantage of that and things like the dual credit programs and all this. So, so thank you so much. This was really eye opening. I think one of the things that um Matt said, which is true, is sometimes we make decisions, we're not exactly sure, you know, how they're going to play out, but I feel pretty comfortable that, you know, this is working pretty well. [laughter] I feel like this this sounds good. Um and it's nice, you know, um we're not we're not other than than Marcelo, not a professional educator. I don't pretend to know how to teach kids how to do things. You guys know how to do that and clearly you really know how to do that. So, thank you so much. At this point, I just want to acknowledge as we continue on
119in the agenda, the next topic is very exciting. It involves the word policy manual modernization project. Uh for any of our instructional supervisors and associate principles that desire to make a transition, thank you for your time this evening and great work. That was great. Dr. Johns, would you like to share a brief update on the policy modernization project? I prefer to call to PMMP. [laughter] It's shorter. Well, well, well. Good. Very quickly, uh, want to update the board on where we're at with the policy manual project. Uh, we have a meeting coming up with the IESB, uh, for our next drafting meeting, uh, to go through some choices we're making regarding policies and whether to retain the district 225 policies or adopt press policies or something in between. Our next meeting is on November 13th.
120uh to get ready for that. On October 16th, the policy committee came together uh in a working meeting to look at policies under sections or chapters 1 2 3 4 and 8 which constituted 91 policies. As you can see in your packet, uh we made choices of retaining recommendations to retain 19 district 225 policies to adopt 59 press policies and then had another 11 that should be amended in some degree or another. I think we're making really good progress. Uh but I do have to point out to everybody in the committee and those who are watching because this is really exciting stuff. Um the big tough ones are coming. So, we've got chapters six and seven um that will be coming up very soon. Uh all of chapter 7 and half of chapter 6 we'll
121start working on right after the November 13th meeting. And that's our update. We're making good progress. Any questions from the board? Were there I was going to just any new policies that were not in our current policy may we should incorporate. I just want to make sure I'm reading the chart correctly. Yeah. When we say adopt press policy, I didn't differentiate whether or not we had it or not. I could probably do a a count for you for our next meeting uh for the next packet, but I would say we probably had just loose guesstimation 15 policies that we didn't currently have that we needed to have. Okay. In this batch. Yeah. Now, we also had many policies that Preston didn't have. So the Glen Brook way, that'd be interesting to have that breakdown just
122to know if we're where we're at compared to other districts. Um, okay. I have a spreadsheet for that uh that I was planning on putting on our district. We have a web page on the board page for this project uh that's getting a tremendous number of hits. Um, and I will put [laughter] that's two and RJ doesn't count. Okay, we're getting no traffic. Um, also known as we'll share an updated memo. [laughter] Yeah, I will uh I can put that on the website as well. It just has my annotation from those meetings. So, it's it's I don't know if there's a simple way just to add a column even on this chart or something. Uh, I'd have to do a manual. That was just one that I was like, wait, sure, I can add that
123next time. I just count through and I can get that in subsequent memo. Mr. Downey? Nope. You what what is else is there to say, right, Mr. Sh? Um, I was pleasantly surprised at the number of policies that fall within the template. I mean, more did than did not. Yeah. For now. For Yeah, for now. But Oh. Oh, really? Yes, [laughter] there there is a slight caveat. Section four are the operational policies which we did a concerted effort over the last five years to completely align the press. [laughter] I might have had something to do with that particular section. So wait till the next trend. What do they call that? A ringer. It Yeah, the the load to come is much heavier than the one we've carried. It's a good start, but we'll take the
124win. Well, we we we did it this way to start with these policies because we're all very new to this process and and many of the people on the committee haven't looked at policy with this much volume and by starting with those that were in pretty good shape, we're able to get some some steam at it. Dr. Steber, build resiliency, [laughter] grit, building grit as a committee. Uh just a plug that the November 13th meeting is a public meeting. So if you have nothing better to do on a I think it's a Thursday night for three hours, come see us. I believe it is. Okay. Um in that case, we will move on to uh the next item on the agenda, which is our summer 2026 recommended capital projects. So, as we get started on
125this topic, I just want to acknowledge that um we have had a lot of board members present uh at our facilities committee. Um and even for those who weren't able to attend, there's been follow-up questions um and we've been sharing all of the materials um with the full board. And so, just in the interest of time, um I'm going to give a little preview and then invite uh Dr. Patak uh and Mrs. Bonner up to answer any questions. Um, each year the school district presents a series of capital projects and this chart here really does a nice job of of summarizing what's happening. There are some very exciting things for some folks and for other folks they are less exciting in terms of roofs. Uh, we do have that. Um, we get a little more
126exciting when we talk about chiller rebuilding, transformer replacement, and some elevator retrofits. But when it comes directly to the student experience, the real excitement is in um two lines. Um we are proposing the remodeling of the new pit bathrooms over at Glen Brook South. So that's more in the science math wing area. Um and at the facilities committee was it was raised a few things. Uh building materials really are at a fluctuating price point right now, shall we say. And so, um, recognizing that fluctuation as well as increasing costs in in labor, um, we were originally focused on just a new pit, but we're actually going to go out to bid for both the old pit and new pit. Here's what's really unique about Glenberrook South. Um, by addressing the bathrooms that are on the
127first and second floors combined with staff and student bathrooms, you actually will have addressed nearly 90% of all bathrooms in the entire building by the end of this summer. Um, really putting us on good uh a good pathway. This is also the summer where uh summer school is being held at Glenburg North and therefore taking the majority of your bathrooms out of commission outside of your uh athletic areas is is more optimal this summer than trying to split for next. Um if the bids come back abnormally high um we might make a an amendment or modification to our recommendation. Um and this particular project normally we function on this pay as you go process where we build in the construction to our annual uh operating budget um and a and a placeholder of about $6
128million that we put in each year. Um this year with a larger expense closer to 10 million uh this would likely be a purposeful use of fund balance. Um it's a little premature to talk about that primarily because we always project or present conservative estimates. So it certainly could be that that prices come back. They're very advantageous. We'll be one of the first districts out to out to bid uh for projects and so that amount may come down. So that's the GBS project. Over at Glen Brook North um there has been considerable discussion about um two two challenges. One challenge is regarding our nurse's office which is located in one of the most uh trafficked uh uh and populated hallways of the entire building. Um and so that means when students might be having issues
129and we need to partner with our um EMS crews from the village of Northbrook um in order to navigate to the nurse office. They're literally walking through the um or half of the school. When that happens and when you have a student or a staff member in need, that requires you to shut down a substantial part of the building, which generally leads to the whole building, remembering uh the terminology we learned, being placed on a hold. Um, and so in an effort to prevent that uh from happening, um, we're actually looking to relocate the nurse's office right next to an exterior entrance, also directly, uh, in the same hallway as our TLS classrooms, um, which have some of our most medically fragile students. Um, and so that relocation would happen. And at the same time,
130we would look to add a satellite health center to support our students at Glenberrook North. As the board uh will recall, in 2023, we added the Glenberrook School Health Center at Glenberg South and Glenber North students have the ability to access it by driving over or leveraging our our shuttle transportation. Um but direct re response from our students is and staff is that that is not as convenient and really challenging for them to make it over. Um and so we're looking to um provide some additional uh or provide staffing directly at a GBN location uh which would improve uh utilization um from Glenberrook North in particular. As a side note, two uh celebrations. One, we've shared previously with the board that the Glen Brook School Health Center has some of the highest utilization of all
131health centers across uh the Northwest suburbs. Um and that is really a testament to the great service we provide, but also the value that our community finds. And the second thing, one of the commitments that we made uh when we first opened is that we would have a goal of achieving zero student exclusion as a result of not having required physicals or immunizations uh at the October 15th deadline and we are very excited. This year is the first year that we officially reached zero exclusion and I think that is uh truly a testament to the services that we provide through the health center and the uh availability of it. So uh with that said that's an overview of the projects. I'd like to invite uh Dr. Patak and Mrs. Bonnerup and we're happy to answer
132any questions the board might have. I'll start with uh Mr. O'Hare. Uh yeah, this might be more for R.J. But it just occurred to me the GBN nursing office, does that do we have to redo the contract with um the health service provider we're using or is it just going to roll in? That's a great question. So our agreement with Advocate Health um was built in a way to provide this level of coverage. Um so we h we are sharing um or we have one full-time nurse practitioner and we are sharing a half nurse practitioner with Maine Township. Um it's was built initially to provide substitute coverage if uh our NP was off. Um and then we also have um a mental health social worker that um has provided services in um temporary office space
133over at Glenrook uh North as needed. Um, with this new model, the only thing we might evaluate is if we need additional reception support, um, and medical assistance for, um, for lack of better terms, uh, getting individuals into their treatment rooms, things of that nature. Um, but otherwise, uh, we don't have to make any amendments. We would just increase our our staffing if that happened to be needed. Okay. Thank you. Are there still um, was it do we receive some grants? We do. But would they will they still be available going forward? Yes. So, our grant right now, unfortunately, with the current state of affairs in um in general uh in government funding, um we were hoping that there might be more opportunities for a second grant uh to come out this year. It doesn't
134look like it will be available. Um we currently have a $75,000 a year grant with the Illinois Department of Public Health and then we continue to receive um a large portion of Medicaid reimbursement for services that we provide which we don't anticipate would be impacted. Um but we will keep our eyes out for additional grants. Having a second center would make us more eligible. Mr. Wacky. I just wanted to compliment the team on kind of this not just for this year, but this strategy of keeping on top of our facilities constantly and it may be a little bit of a bump this year from other years, but it keeps things much more uh reasonable as we go through and allows the wonderful folks to use the spaces. It was great curriculum. So, kudos to everybody
135involved. Mr. Downing, no questions. is the six million as it sits up there. I'm sorry I didn't process what you said. Is that for all of it? Yes. So that would be for the new pit and the old pit. Thank you. Dr. Steinbrook just comment [clears throat] more than a question. you mention it the I know predictable unpredictability in terms of pricing that will face cost of materials and so forth and none of us can predict the future but we're looking at large numbers where even 10% is significant. So, so as you get the bits and everything else, do we have some sort of layers of what we can do in terms of maybe we don't have to do everything and we can move some things for next year hoping that next year is going
136to be more even with inflation things may be more stable, things like that. Yes. So during the bidding process, we would break some items out as alternate bids. So for the bathrooms for instance, we would likely create the bid specifications so we have a deduct for the old pit bathroom. So in the event um bids come in high, we could just completely deduct the whole old pit bathroom and not not do that section. We can also do alternate bids for one or two of the mechanical items as well just to give us that flexibility. Thank you. Okay. Um so are we do we need to do an approval tonight or authorization of anything? No. Yeah. So, this actually would come back on consent agenda at that time that the board would formalize the acceptance of
137these projects for the 2026 year. Um, but really the the actual acceptance is after bids are awarded. So, um this approval act ultimately just allows us to work with Archon, but we can wait for consent for that. So, that's next next meeting. Okay. Okay. Terrific. Thank you. Thank you all. Our final topic is your topic. Is my topic. Um yeah, we talked about this a little bit at the last meeting. [laughter] Uh you as you know the triple eye conference is coming up and I will be serving as our delegate at at the delegate assembly. Um they will be voting on a bunch of amendments to the um IASB constitution. Um unless you are a constitutional maven, I don't think you'll be too excited about most of them. [laughter] They're uh trying to trim it
138down a little bit, make it a little um easier to read. Um get rid of some um outdated language. I don't think there's anything controversial there. And then there was only one proposal that's being advanced this year, which I understand is unusual, and it is for funding of an unfunded mandate for seat belts in school buses. Does anyone have an issue with that that they'd like to There was a mandate that that sounds like Is [laughter] hold on. I have a graph, too. The ISB would like to have funding for this mandate, but um I think that I'm not sure which district proposed this. I can't recall. This was Sycamore um community unit school district. Um it was proposed Sycamore runs their own buses uh their own busing system. Uh as do many large unit
139school districts. Um, last legislative session, a bill that had been presented probably for 20 years did finally get approval. Um to be very candid, they got approval um because one of the largest um manufacturers of school buses made a commitment to the general assembly um that it would not increase the costs of their buses um for adding the seat belts and therefore it took away the concern for future bus costs going up or at least so the manufacturer said it actually doesn't go into effect until 2031 for buses manufacturing manufactured after that time. Um so I think some things might change uh between now and then. Um [laughter] interesting. Um I I will say that this at the end of the day there are many there are many initiatives of the general assembly uh or
140forgive me the the state government that come forward that have expenses associated with them that often don't have funding to pay for them. Um so this is this is a good thing to say we should allocate funding if there's going to be a requirement. And just to to clarify, the resolution would be that the IASB would make this one of their lobbying efforts is to seek funding for this mandate. That's all the all the resolutions are geared towards um directing the IASB's advocacy. So they're lo Yeah, they to your point they lobby on behalf correct of this Springfield. They're asking for the resolution to be approved that they would lobby Springfield for the money to pay for this mandated, which I guess we're saying now actually won't become expensive at least for a few years.
141We'll see. Who knows? Or for our particular school district, this is a less of a concern because we do not operate our own buses. Um, and so any requirements of safety uh is built into the contract at the end of the day. So unless anyone has any concerns, I plan to go to the delegate assembly and vote in favor of the resolution as has been recommended by the I just wanted to add at the North Cook meeting, they did reference that there may be some last minute resolutions added because it is light. So we probably should just be mindful of our uh emails or something. Okay. But that's all right. I think that uh that brings us then to our item eight possible topics for future board meetings. Um as you know we have been
142trying to work our way through the list of items that board members has proposed and we have a little bit of a calendar for that um of these subject matters being addressed um at meetings as we go forward. I see that we have on here uh as a possible topic 8.1 the 2027 to 2037 master facility plan which we heard about from the facilities committee earlier. I anticipate Miss Malenbeck that we will push that based as we process the feedback we got from the committee. We'll probably push that a meeting or two at most. Um however uh next meeting we will be presented by treasurer Tarver the tax levy. So the estimated policies [laughter] and taxies. This is awesome. This is true. The fund never ends. What we're going to get next [laughter] no guarantees
143at the current time. second installment is that are we getting money? Sov are we getting Yeah. So I I Yes. I'd like to remind everyone that tax bills are a result of a coordinated effort between the Cook County Clerk's Office and the Cook County Treasurer's Office and the Cook County Assessor's Office. The most recent dashboard indicated that tax bills may go out by December 1st. Um right now we are we are doing okay um with respect to u meeting our our financial obligations. However, a large number of districts in the North Cook region are continuing to grow very concerned um and looking at issuing tax anticipation warrants. I would not anticipate that will be an issue for Glenbrook assuming that we do receive uh receipts by February or so. Um but we'll keep the board
144informed if that changes. This is getting to be very candid a bit concerning regarding government coordination. What's the normal turnaround between the date and when we get to see the funding trickling down? you, if I remember correct, we got about a third of our funding pretty quickly because it's escrowed. Um, and so those funds release really quick um and the majority of it within uh 30 to 60 days. Mhm. Did anyone have any um other subjects that they'd like to add to the list, share with us this evening? If something comes to mind then during the next couple of weeks, feel free to call or email. Um otherwise, I do not think we have close session this evening. So I'll be looking for a motion to adjurnn. So moved. All in favor? I. Any opposed?
145Motion carries. Enjoy your reading. She wrote.