001and Miss Mullenbeck, we are ready. Good evening everyone and welcome to the Monday, August 11th, uh, 2025 meeting of the board of education of the Glenberg 225 school district. Um, school starts this week. Very exciting. Everyone's busy, so let's keep it short. M can you please call the role? Mr. Downing here. Mr. Glowaki present. Mrs. Hope here. Miss Mullenbeck here. Mr. O'Hara here. Mr. Shine present. Dr. Steinberg here. Seven members present. And um could I understand we have no changes to the agenda. Is that right, Dr. Grill? In that case, could we have a motion to approve the agenda, please? So moved. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Okay, moving right along. Um, the next item on our agenda are board and superintendent reports. And we will start with the superintendent report
002from Dr. Grall. All righty, everyone. Well, first of all, good afternoon and as Miss Malbeck said, it is the first week of a lot of firsts. Um just today we welcomed our freshmen and I know we'll have some of our building leaders um talk a little bit about that in a moment. Um but one of the things that's really important for opening and being ready for students is wrapping up some of our capital projects. And so I wanted to start by just showing a little bit of a preview show and tell if you will. Um there was a substantial modernization project over at Glenchrook North and that was the dean's office hallway. So, right here you see the new entryway all the way down past the SACE. Um, there's a lot of uh fixtures that
003have been added, nice light, a lot of design features, including opportunities for us to house student work and celebrate their accomplishments in different display cases. And then this year we launched a new or if you will a a modernized approach to recognizing our distinguished alumni as well as our distinguished educators. So for the distinguished alumni or alum of the year, you'll notice that they have a much larger picture in the hallway as well as their writeup. And then on the bottom of that picture, bottom righthand corner, there's a QR code which allows anyone who visits to see the whole longevity of all of our distinguished alumni. Over on the opposite side of the wall, there's also individual bricks that are nicely uh done in acrylic where you can see each year, their name uh and
004when they were recognized. And the same is true for our distinguished educators. So really kind of going away from WOA's um a little bit of a dated approach with um pictures in very small to read print. Um I do want to emphasize that all of those um items were actually shared with departments and also put into storage. So nothing was lost. Uh we just took a little modernized approach. Interestingly the same approach was previously done in some of our athletic departments where we had a lot of pictures that had faded over time and things of that nature. So giving a giving a new breath to these recognitions. Here you'll just see a little more of a display cabinet. So we'll have the uh feature student work as well as um as their celebrations. And built
005in uh to this entire area is a lot of seating for students including sitting in GB or N. And I would like to attest that I could fit into the B the lower part of the B. getting out was an interesting challenge, but it's very fun and exciting. Um, over here you'll notice a lot more glazing and access to our college and career counseling and our student services area. Um, just again opening it up, leveraging that natural light coming through into the hallway just creates a nice uh warm environment. Uh, speaking of warm environments, soon um another one of our CTE classrooms. uh this is more in our welding area will be cooler because this is one of the uh ventilation units that we put in. Um you will see especially in a shop type
006area it is very exposed and present. Uh bottom line is the goal is to keep the area cool. And then on the second floor over at GBN we did the next phase of our modernization project for bathrooms. Uh these are similar looking bathrooms that you've seen um throughout both of our campuses and we are really excited to make some uh more good progress there over at GBN. I think my last image here is a picture of the new yoga room also celebrating the importance of coolness especially around this time of year. Um we went away from window units that were cooling the area and have embedded uh ventilation into our primary systems. We also installed new lighting uh and also a new floor. So, a really nice modernized space uh that otherwise would be in
007kind of a not a neglected area, but a less focused on area over the last few years. So, we're excited uh for that for our students. As we prepare for the start of the new year, I always like to share tips. And after traveling across the campuses today, I decided to reduce this down to just one very simple tip. Traversing 5,100 students and a thousand staff members on and off of our campuses in the midst in some folks mind of 15 minutes and more realistically in 30 to 45 minutes. That's a lot of things happening all at once. And I think it's important to just clearly articulate a few important reminders. First, for our students that are taking the bus, buses typically run late for the first week or two weeks. That's that's a result
008of two factors. First, our students are often learning where their stop is. Um, and so they may not be at the exact corner, and so the bus might stop a few times. Secondly, we do have a lot of new drivers this year and they're learning the routes. We also typically in the first two weeks of school realize, oh, even though we we tested driving all of our routes twice, um there are times when road construction happens right around this time and we can no longer turn around in a um in an al cove area or we have new construction that's preventing the vehicle from getting through. So, there will be some adjustments. We'll work with all of our families on that. But just be patient for busing. For students and parents that are coming to
009campus, remember that each year we welcome a lot of brand new drivers to campus. And new drivers need and are taught to take their time to focus and pay attention to all of the traffic rules that all drivers should pay attention to. And so it might take a little bit of time for students to traverse the parking lot. Um we also start to see around this time students practicing maybe uh instead of pulling into a spot they want to back into a spot. So that might take a little more time or just there's not five stop spots to pull into. Uh you really have to be tightly and and getting into a single spot. So just be aware new drivers are new drivers and we want to give them some extra time and patience. Another
010important element, um, we learn about this in driver education. Stop lines are intended for us to stop before the line and come to a complete stop. This is really important on our campuses because of the crosswalks. So, when pedestrians are walking between our parking lots or from sidewalk to building, they're assuming that if a stop sign is somewhere that the drivers are coming to a complete stop. So, all of our drivers, parents, and students, remember to come to a complete stop before the line, not in the crosswalk. And then we have an amazing security staff. They are out there. They are friendly. They engage with parents. Um, and it's important that we follow their directions and acknowledge that they they've been here. This is this is not a new thing for them. They know how
011to get traffic on and off campus. Uh so just be aware of that which underscores the concept. Let's just demonstrate patience and understanding to all. Make sense. Any questions about the uniqueness of the first few weeks of school? Excuse me. What's the status of the construction outside of North? Certainly. So, actually just this past um newsletter cycle, so yesterday, we communicated to all of our families about the Shurmer Road construction. Uh being very candid, Shurmer Road is going to be continue to be at a reduced capacity um with limited right turn lanes and limited left turn lanes on both sides of the street. And that's going to continue realistically for another two months. It is going to be extremely congested at Glen Brook North, especially during um drop off and pickup times. Um in some
012portions, there's even sidewalks that have not yet been poured. We anticipate that the sidewalks will be fully poured uh by the villages contractors sooner than the roads will be fully repaired. Um but it's it's going to be difficult. Um all the construction that um connects on the Glen Brook campus to the outside is all completed. So we don't have anything outstanding. Um but walking especially crossing from for lack of better terms the Highland uh baking area over uh there's missing sidewalk there. Um there's temporary um traffic control fixtures in place. Uh so sidewalks are not clear or at least crosswalks are not clear. Um and the normal sensors that we have been accustomed to do not exist. So do we have additional personnel who who will be out to facilitate the movement in the in
013the morning and after school? Yeah. So our security team over at Glenrook um North is led by Kristen Wick, our assistant safety and security manager. They're acutely aware. They're working with Mrs. Bonner, our associate principal over at North. Um, I anticipate there will likely be a need for additional uh, for lack of a better term, traffic control. Um, and we've already started that conversation with the village. Um, because some of those areas are outside of our jurisdiction and we'll need their assistance. Uh, but our staff will be present and will be navigating where they need to be as we start seeing how the traffic evolves. But be patient. get to campus early. And as I always like to remind folks, most of our students don't walk out the door at 3:15. Most of our students,
014realistically, at both campuses are walking out closer to 3:30, even 3:40. For parents who are picking up their kiddos, I'd recommend extending that a little bit. Let the traffic clear and you will have a lot quicker time coming in and out. The most important thing over at Glenrech North because there's limited area to stage vehicles, they you can't block Shurmer. So, um getting to campus at 2:00 p.m. and already extending um traffic will be forced to move and and there's not a lot of place to stand on Shurmer at all. RJ, do you know if the village will have any additional support? You mentioned you're coordinating with the village, but with Shurmer there's a routine of parents stopping on Shurmer to pick up their children and stuff and it becomes very dangerous I would imagine
015with the construction and stuff. Yeah. So, we've had a lot of conversations about that. That's not only just us but also Maple uh who experiences a similar just in a little different area. Um I think all of us are are in essence waiting to see how the first two days go to identify what additional changes or modifications need to be made. Okay, thank you. Absolutely. With that said, I am very fortunate to have Mrs. Hughes and uh right now we have a pretty large event, the Been there, done that event over at Glenber South. So that's where Dr. Georgees is right now. Uh and so Dr. Kim will step in for her. But Mandy, would you mind just giving us a little overview of the GBN orientation? Yes. Uh so today GBN welcomed about 500
016of our newest Spartans to freshman orientation this afternoon. They were greeted by about 205 upperassmen volunteer leaders which was comprised of both peerroup leaders as well as an 125 additional student leaders from our junior and senior classes. Each of those student leaders were partnered with two to three freshman students. Um they had a chance to spend time getting to know them during the welcome presentation. They walked around the school and provided some individualized tours and walked their schedules. And then finally, they sat with their partners in the main gym for the class of 2029's first pep assembly. Um, a robust team of our peer group coordinators, our counselors, teachers, IAS, security team members, support staff, and administrators work together in this new format for GBN. The buzz in our building was very exciting, I have
017to say. Especially hearing all the different welcoming conversations between our student leaders and the freshman students asking about their summers, their activities, what their um things that they're anticipating for school and and all those different um good conversations that they were having. One of my favorite moments included our marching band students and our director, Mr. Briggs, teaching all of the students the GBN fight song at the end of our very exciting pep assembly. It was a great day. Well, over at GBS, we also welcomed our class of 2029 for the Titan experience this morning. There was such great energy in the hallways throughout the building. It was really fun. Um, we had 94% attendance of our 681 freshmen who learned about the Titan uh Titan values from Dr. George's, how to get involved with the
018SAO and athletics departments, and understand their core schedule from the student services department. Our peer leaders provided our freshmen with a tour. And finally, similar to GBN, our band, cheerleaders, palms, and student council led the freshmen through their first pep assembly, and they also learned the fight song. In addition, GBS had 55 transfer students today participate in the transfer orientation this afternoon, which was led by the student services department as well as our Titan ambassadors. Um, then in the afternoon, we had we welcomed all the Titans home this afternoon for an openhouse to walk their schedules before the first day of school. It was a great day at South. Thank you so much, Mrs. Hughes and Dr. Kim. My only other comment just to share is tomorrow we welcome back all of our staff for
019the first Glen Brook Day um to support and enable all of our staff to attend uh professional uh development and get together uh as we have an opening staff address. All of our offices will be closed until one o'clock PM. We have already sent an email reminding families of this uh just maybe about an hour or hour and a half ago, so they had it right in their inbox. Uh and then our offices will um open up again. Um to that end, uh members of the board, you are welcome uh to come hear Miss Mullen Beck's address uh to the staff. Remarks, not an address, remarks. Um we will gather at um probably closer to 7:50 in the CPA at Glenchrook North. If you are coming, please make sure to wear your lanyard as most
020of the doors will be locked and you'll need to uh to prox. Um and the easiest thing is to park right in front uh at door A at the main entrance and then uh head over. Um the actual address will be about an hour long and then um staff will go into different meetings from there. So looking forward to welcoming them back nearly um 1,00 to 1100 staff members uh tomorrow and that's all of our reports. Okay. Uh before we move on to recognition of community visitors, I did want to give any board members who wanted to make report an opportunity to share. Okay. Well, I would just wanted to mention briefly that a few of us attended the opening of the transition services building this week. And if you haven't been over there, you
021got to get over there. It is truly extraordinary. Um, and it was a great moment. Um, everyone really enjoyed themselves and I I don't think at least I know I'd seen the photos, but my expectation was not to be in such a wonderful bright 360 environment and I I think it's going to be um just a a tremendous facility and um resource for our students. So, that was terrific. And again, I encourage you if you have a chance, you're over there, um, stop in because you will be blown away. Um, it's really spectacular. Okay. Uh, next on our agenda is the recognition of community visitors. And I don't think we have any tonight, but that's okay. Uh, once school starts, I'm sure people will get a little more engaged. Um, of course, in the meantime,
022you're welcome to call us, email us, um, let us know what you're thinking. And that brings us then to our consent agenda. Uh no changes to the consent agenda. Any comments, questions? Okay. In that case, uh could I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So move. I second. Miss Smith. Mr. Downing. Yes. Mr. Glowaki. Yes. Mrs. Hope. Yes. Mr. O'Hara. Yes. Mr. Shine. Yes. Dr. Steinberg. Yes. Miss Mullenbeck. Yes. Motion carries. Excellent. That brings us to item six, our discussion and action agenda. And uh for that we are going to start with an update on our multilingual learner services um program. Um and we will have Dr. Anderson and Mr. Bretag um address that. Oh, hi Dr. Georgees. Just in time for the multi-learn multilingual learner services program update. So, as we get
023started, uh, Dr. Anderson, feel free to approach. And I have a remote that I will give to you. Actually, can I just pass it on down, Dr. Johns? Um, as the board is familiar, over the last few years, we have worked extensively within our programmatic structure to ensure that our students whose native language uh is not English have the supports they need to be successful. um whether that's at Glenrook North, South, off-campus or transition services, we want to make sure that our students and their parents um have the support they need to understand the curriculum being presented in order to actively participate. Um and also for parents to be active participants in their students education. Um each year uh we receive assessment results that give us a um a statewide benchmark of how the state
024is performing with respect to multilingual learners um and also local um understanding. And one of the things that we focus on is of the students who have been identified which students have made growth in their language proficiency. Um, one of the goals of all for all of our students is that our students will achieve a level of growth that allows them no longer to require specific services in order to access their education because they will have um, uh, reached a level of proficiency in the English language. Um, to give you a little more understanding of what our different work um, has been and what our work is for this year, uh, Dr. Anderson is our assistant director of multilingual learners. um and she will walk you through a little background of the ML program as
025well as our progress that came through this year. Very much. Um I'm very excited to share an overview of the multilingual single learner program in district 2.5. Yes. All right. Thank you very much. I'm very excited to share an overview of our multilingual learner program in district 225. Uh you may hear me refer to multilingual learners tonight as MLS throughout my presentation. Uh we want to kick things off with first a celebration uh of our multilingual learners English proficiency results from last spring's access exam. As Dr. GL mentioned this is a statewide assessment that measures academic English proficiency in the domains of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. A score of 4.8 out of 6.0 qualifies a student for reclassification as English proficient. And these results represent readiness to excel in academic set settings without direct
026language services. So reclassification is our goal. To reach this milestone, students must demonstrate interdisciplinary mastery of academic language. This type of task that the students have on these these exams blend together mastery of precise disciplinary specific language and um the critical skills necessary for all language learners to be successful in academic settings. Uh, prior to 2024, district 225's reclassification rate has always hovered near the state average of about 6%. Uh, but in 2024 and in 2025, our students made huge gains. Uh, in 2025, our district's reclassification rate was 12.6% more than double the state average of 6.2. This reflects not only our students dedication but the expertise of our staff and the strength of our programming. Even though our students are making great strides in English proficiency, we remain focused on identifying and eliminating barriers,
027ensuring that multilingual learners can succeed in the pathway of their choosing, whether that's college, career, or or other post-secary plans. This chart shows the percentage of multilingual learners as part of the total school population at Glenrook North in green and Glenberg South in blue. Since 2017, the ML population has grown significantly. Districtwide, the ML population has grown from 12 2.4% 4% to 8.1% at the beginning of this school year representing a 237% increase. Uh the most significant rise in the population has occurred in the last 5 years. This chart contains the top languages represented at each school. It is important because ML program service offerings depend on student language groups at each school. When there are 20 or more MLS sharing a language, the school offers a transitional bilingual education or TBE program. When there
028are fewer than 20 MLS in the same language group, the school offers English as a second language or ESL supported classes, also referred to as a transitional program of instruction or TPI services. In the transitional programs, MLS's ML services are gradually reduced in intensity as learners gain greater proficiency in English. We have TBE programs in Spanish, Russian, Mongolian, and Korean at Glenberrook South because those uh languages have crossed that 20 speaker threshold at that school. other schools um and other language populations at GBS receive ESL or TPI services. Some notable trends, uh transfer students, uh continue to make a significant proportion of our overall um transfer student number. So, the multilingual learners are are well represented in that group. So, these numbers will go up um as we continue the school year. Uh for the
029Korean multilingual learner population at Glenberg South, we're currently sitting at 14. Historically, we have had over 20 Korean speakers. However, we are celebrating that eight of our Korean speaking students qualified for reclassification in May of 2025. Another population that you want to look at is the 19 Korean uh Ukrainian speakers at Glenburg South. that population has stayed under 20. Um, but we have preliminary supports in place. Um, if we go over the 20 mark this school, 20 speaker mark this school year. Districtwide, there are 64 languages represented in the program. All right. Next, I want to show that we have two primary service models to support multilingual learners in their gradual transition to more general education classes. Most MLS experience a blend of these two models. The first model that you see on the left
030hand side is dedicated sheltered multilingual learner courses. These courses are designed exclusively for multilingual learners. They provide targeted English language development and content instruction in these classes mirrors the standards in general education. for our TBE programs. This includes bilingual support to reinforce understanding and content access. In model two on the right hand side, uh the general education courses with ESL endorsed teachers, multilingual learners participate alongside their peers in standard classes. Courses are taught by teachers certified or endorsed in high yield practices for supporting multilingual learners. High yield practices offered to support language development are beneficial for all students aiming to develop strong academic proficiency skills. This slide is a visual representation of how the two service models influence students schedules. Uh so at the base of the pyramid uh you'll see that that represents the
031newcomers and they can spend up to five blocks of their schedule in model one or the sheltered English instruction classes. Uh usually students spend on average about two one to two years in this model. At the intermediate level um students can have up to four blocks of uh instruction in model one but also it can blend with model two. Again, students spend about two to four years uh in this area of the pyramid. And then once students reach the advanced levels of proficiency and near reclassification, they spend usually at least one block in model 2. And this happens around 5 to seven years of um instruction. The majority of the students in the Glen Brooks um are represented in the advanced level of the pyramid. uh students. Approximately 35% of multilingual learners that join our
032district begin at the newcomer or intermediate levels. After reclassification, students are monitored for continued growth. There are a few factors that determine the the level of service that each student receive. Um the first thing and most importantly is the student and family preference. Next is a consideration of their post-secary plans, their English proficiency scores, and what their prior experience in the general education environment has been. But it's important to note that throughout their experience in the Glen Brooks, they have access to general education courses as well as support. Looking ahead, we have three priorities. Our first priority is to refine our current practices. We have a strong wellestablished multilingual learner service structure. This foundation enables us to provide highquality support for ML students across all academic language settings. Our second priority is to use PLC's
033to improve services in both model one and model 2. We aim to refine instruction in ML exclusive or sheltered courses and enhance language supports and general education classrooms as well. This includes developing curriculum resources and ensuring consistent use of researchbased high yield strategies to meet ML students needs in every subject area. Finally, our third priority is to continue support for students beyond reclassification. Roughly 25% of our district 225 students have qualified for multilingual service at some point in their K12 journey. Reclassification is not the end of the language learning process. Ongoing support is essential to ensure these students continue to thrive academically. Intentional academic language development benefits every student, not just multilingual learners. And strengthening the skill across curriculum prepares all learners, multilingual and mo monolingual for college, career, and life. Thank you. So, if
034the board has any questions, um, Dr. Anderson, Mr. Retig, or myself are happy to answer anything. Just had a quick question, make sure I was following the narrative of the memo and everything correctly. Looking at table one, since we always love playing with numbers and that's what everybody kind of gravitates, these lovely infographics, we have 330. Uh, just using Glenberg South for example, we have 330 in table one. that speak a different language at home if I understand that correctly. So on the I guess how many other langu the 61 since we had some that were tracked as little as two or one language how many other languages do we have being spoken? So the total languages in the district is 64. Uh I am not that quick on my feet with math but um
035maybe somebody in the room is uh but the total languages including those top languages is 64 at all of our campus. Marcel's got it. So go then I just want to make sure that I followed with table number three the the reclassifications for 2025 given that that is just using Glenber south as an example is now 347. So, do we have 330 that are going into the pipeline and 347 that came out and were reclassified? So, the total number of students that were tested in the spring at Glenberg South, I'll just use that as the example. It was 347. 44 of those students met reclassification criteria. Okay. So, I was just trying to understand the difference between the total and 20 in the two tables, table three, the 347. Why is that different from the
036languages spoken at home? How is that survey done or what's the difference? Absolutely. So, uh sometimes there are students who don't participate in access. The majority of students do. One example would be the students who are at the transition service center. Um and in our previous school year, they were embedded in the numbers represented at each campus. So, when we look at the reclassification data from last year, it represents the program numbers from the previous year. Oh, so 2025 is for last year. Yeah. Then this new table. I've been pulling this thing every day up into this presentation. Exactly. Right. I was just trying to catch the what the 2025 assuming they were both for spring numbers. But overall, most students participate in access. There's very few exemptions and it's one of the only tests
037where all students are required to participate. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. I just more of a comment. You said we grew how much in the last five years? turn to that. I believe it was 237% in five years. Well, in the from 2017 until now, but the most in eight years, but that's really commendable that you guys were able to turn around and address that need that quickly. So, I just wanted to make that comment. Thank you so much. We really have phenomenal staff in both of our campuses and our students are very well supported by their families. So, we're very grateful to the community as well. No, I mean some languages I'm sure you're like struggling to find somebody that spoke. So, nice work. Um, in terms of reclassification, um, can a student
038be reclassified at any point during the year that staff feels they're ready or is it like just at the semester or h how does that timing work for a student? And I have one other question. So students can only be reclassified after taking the access exam each spring. So if they progress during the year, they they they can't move up to a different part of the model. It's an excellent question. So while students might not be reclassified, the most important thing for us with placement is the students goals and their post-secary planning. So if they're making progress that isn't necessarily captured on access, we have the ability to titrate their services to match their goals and their present performance. So we don't follow access as a lockep measure. We triangulate that against other information that
039tells us how the student is performing. And the most important thing is that the student has agency and what their postsecondary plans are and how that informs their schedule. Is access then a statemandated. Okay. So that's the gatekeeper and so we don't really have much of a choice. Correct. Just think of it as a two paths. We have our own internal path where we're monitoring like any like we do for any student and and then these students have the requirements. Okay. Thanks for that clarification. My other question is we always speak in the district about the 4A academics, arts, athletics. What do we do to engage these our these students in the non-academic um part of our offerings? Thank you. Yes. So we've made great strides in making sure when we bring students in that
040right off the bat we're finding out what their interests are and we're connecting with the staff members that can provide opportunities. So one excellent example that Dr. Kim provided earlier was our Titan Ambassador program. Um through that program, uh our ML coordinator, Esther Bowen, will match students with somebody who shares a language with that student to introduce them to the building, get to know them, find out what they need to be successful, and then we use that information to strategically provide those resources to the students. Additionally, our counselors are are huge assets in that process and finding out what the students need um in order to participate meaningfully in all four A's. And I'm very excited to have parent square this year. Um I think that will be a huge tool in knocking down um
041any barriers that we had with parents understanding how they can help get their students involved. Along those lines then is parent square have the multiple languages? I mean I imagine it would have a couple but this is quite a No. Parent Square basically gives um our parents the um ability to communicate in their native language uh to a staff member whose native language might be English and it has the ability to translate all of the Google languages that are in the database. Great. Thank you. Uh just so the state the growth numbers in the state on that on the on the one chart I guess they're growing faster than we are. Um because it if is that what the bottom number means? Are you talking about the go back to the other one? Well, I
042guess yeah. Yeah. So that is the proportion of the state uh public school population in the state that is multilingual learner. Uh they qualify for multilingual services. Okay. So we're we're we're less multilingual than the state is in general. Okay. Um and then well it's a percentage thing. So you get a pen, you get another penny, it's 100% Not going to do the math part. Yeah. Um, so do we know what what we did to change our program to to get the the big increase from 23 to 24? Was there a um, so um, in 20 2023 to 2024, we really examined um, what we were doing to provide um, an experience for the students where they could demonstrate their top proficiency level. Um, so we addressed some different things with the testing environment. Uh,
043we also did a little bit of test prep with the students to explain the format of the test. Um, research suggests that anytime you describe what a layout of a a text looks like, whether it's a test, a movie, whatever it is, that that is going to increase somebody's ability to perform well in that environment. So, we made sure to apply some of those research-based practices around how we can support the testing environment. And I think that really made hu huge gains with the students. Yeah. And then they feel successful too. Yes. Um do we after they reclassify out, how do we track them if they're still with us for a couple of years that like do we how do we follow up with them to make sure that they're still if if uh if
044that makes sense. Yeah. To make sure they're still swimming well. Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, when grades are released, we pull their grades of all the students who have been reclassified in the last two years and we look and see how are they doing academically. Also, um, you know, through our student services department, it it's not all about academics. Sometimes it's about adjustment and other factors that might be at play. Um, so sometimes our counseling staff might bring a student to us and say like, is there a a language piece or a culture piece that we need to consider here? And um this year I'm really excited with the late start PLC structures and some of the high yield practices that we're looking at that our teams are going to be even tighter and we're going
045to support each other even more um to just provide a really robust service for our students. Okay. Um actually what is a PLC? Professional learning community. Oh, that's what it is. Okay. Thank you. Professional something. Yeah. Yeah. Um you may know it as a late arrival day. Thank you. You're welcome. Um, no, that's it. Thank you so much. It's so wonderful to see the the progress we're making and and the change. You know, it's neat to see when you guys implement something and you see a big change like that and a big success like that. It's really neat to see it and uh congratulations. Thank you so much. I have a few questions. Oh, you go first. So, first, yeah, congratulations. This is so I think the greatest part of this is we don't stop
046academic progress just because of a language barrier. So to that kudos to everybody because that allows people to move forward. I'm a little bit I don't know what's the question. The concern sounds too strong. So I don't want to use that word concern but since the students are with us for only four years if they reclassify at the rate of 10% even though 10% is great that means that probably 50% of the students do not reclassify by the time they go to college. So question number one is how do we track their progress? They they're becoming academically good but they may have a hard time passing the general test that everybody tests to classify for college. And then on the other side when they come to college we force them to pass in one year.
047Yep. And 90% of them pass in one year if not more than that. So I have few questions here. One is if you share that concern and if you have any data to look at that. The second one is are are the high school standards on classification higher than the college standards for classification? Because you know theory says that the younger you are the easier it is to acquire a new language. Second language acquisition. So by the time you get to college, if somehow you manage to pass in one year, to me it sounds like our standards are looser than l lo l lo l lo l lo l lo l lo l lo l lo l lo l lo l lo l loser than than the standard that we have in high school. So
048I don't know any answers on what you know about that. A comment on your second question first. I would say that I don't know if most multi or monolingual students would perform well on access. It is a very difficult test to to pass. Um to address your first question, um I'm going to hand it over to Ryan Breitag first, but I have some thoughts of my own, too. So, we look at every year we present the clearing house and the dashboard report. And I don't have the numbers right in front of me. I was quickly grabbing them. But it is something we highlight that the majority of our students when they go off to college are not only qualifying for college ready level courses that we are seeing across junior college through four-year universities that
049that's the case. That's inclusive of our students that are leaving us not having been reclassified but are going into the college. So I can definitely um as our um when we present the dashboard report I believe in October I can pull that specific category of student population. Yeah. Just and to be precise um I'll make up an example for an Argentinian kid so I don't stereotype any other nationality. All right. Somebody comes here is great at physics mathematics physics and so forth. So his qualifications are great. Now he may qualify for MIT except that his English scores and his reading comprehension scores may not allow him to classify to MIT although he may be an MIT perfect candidate. So on one hand, we're doing a great service for that student on part to what our
050community does with everybody else, but on the other hand, we seem not to find a way to address the other issue for that student that was going to take care of how he makes it into college, not through his or her mathematical skills, but his language comprehension skills. And again, I'm not sure it's so bad as it sound. I I'm just having a feeling that this reclassification is asking for more than what the SAT or ACT may ask when they go to the exam because I always numbers will be awful in terms of placing international students in good universities and I don't think that's that's the case. Multilingual I should say not international. Absolutely. I I'll just add two quick points to um the narrative that you're speaking of. Number one, I I think we
051we all know the trials that we faced when we brought forward accelerated placement act. This is one of the positives that come from that is that we start to see students from various degrees and angles rather than just as can they speak the language? Can they is their language skills at a point where they can succeed. So that's one thing that we continue to look. There's a number of students that are qualifying for courses through accelerated placement act that are simply wonderful to see and the embracing of that by our staff is equally wonderful and I think we're going to see uh differences as that continues to roll. In order to support that I I think Dr. Anderson has mentioned a couple times high yield practices. In in short, those practices are essentially we talk
052about five habits that we want no matter what student you're working with. One of the most important ones in this conversation is challenge that how are we challenging students to the next level? How are we seeing them not in a deficit way, not from a deficit model, but that they truly can contribute if we push them and challenge them while also not stretching them too far. So, I think it's just important Dr. Anderson's mentioned that a few times. That's in direct relation to the conversation you're you're mentioning. Yeah. I I just want to say something I probably said many times. families are moving to this district because they trust on our education and they trust on the work we do so their sons and daughters succeed. So, so I believe the data backs that have
053I just don't like to see it at least in this particular aspect. I think overall we are successful. I would like for that to continue. Yeah. The last thing I would highlight is that it does take five to seven years to become academically proficient in another language. Um and it's it's a longterm process. So one, we give the students several tools to build out their resume as they're applying to colleges. One is we encourage students to qualify for the seal of biiteracy, which gives them access to college credit at all Illinois public uh institutions. And then we also have them in their essays talk about what their journey has been like a multi as a multilingual learner. So they can use their story as a source of empowerment um and you know prove to themselves
054and to others that really you know their their um narrative matters and that they can make a contribution even if they don't feel like their language skills are always perfect because quite honestly I don't know if I always feel like mine are perfect either. Um so it it's important uh that we continue to provide uh avenues for the students to you know experience very rigorous content at the same time that we're building their English language proficiency. Right. Thank you. Thank you. I have a few questions and they're kind of all over the place. So, um let me start by saying though that this is you know another year of fantastic progress for these students and um it's great to see um I I do echo what um Marcelo says. I think, you know, one of
055the reasons why we're seeing an increase in this population is it's probably well known that we are good at helping, you know, students in this situation um reach proficiency. And I think that's terrific because that's one of the greatest tools that we can give um a student is to help them with their their language proficiency. Um so in no particular order, uh Dr. Britech or Mr. Bright, you said with the um accelerated placement act, I just want to make sure I understand. So, is are you saying that with the accelerated placement act and the new level of honors that we have that we're we're now able to take some of our multil- language learners and put them in an honors environment that they were not able to access before? Absolutely. And as Dr. Anderson mentioned
056then we provide the language support so that they can be successful because what we're learning and this is again the benefit we we've all talked about the the challenges with it but one of the benefits is we start seeing students from a strength or asset base and realizing they have the skill set to perform at that level but there may be a language barrier that we can push what we call a push or inight support to ensure that that student's achieving at the rigor in that area while getting the language supports they need. I I do think that that sounds like a great benefit of the APA that maybe we didn't realize s necessarily realize would would occur. So that's fantastic to hear. Um, with respect to students in our at at district 225 during
057their four years with us reclassifying, um, I just wanted to maybe it's helpful to point out that when we talk about the models and we're looking at the timeline that these students are on, um, you know, this is a multi-year process, longer than a four-year process. So I would like to understand a little bit better I guess um our you know many of our our multilang language learners are coming from our feeder districts and I'm assuming that you all work together in a in a on a continuum recognizing that these students are going to you know straddle um learning environments in say district 34s for example and then come to us in 225. But to what extent are we seeing transfer students come in or students who are coming in from different districts where we
058don't have a relationship with the district, we don't have a lot of insight into what um what they do with this population of students. Is is that perhaps contributing to um is it fair to say well maybe we we can we're going to see less improvement with this group of students just because we we don't have as much history with them. you don't have an integrated program or is that too fasile a conclusion to reach? There's a lot of factors that come together just like with any learner with any subject that determine how well they'll do. Um are there additional factors that we need to consider to make sure that they land well in our district? Absolutely. And I think we're um working on building that out to make it more robust. I I don't
059know if we could single it down to that one factor, though. I can tell you that the transfer student pop uh population spec specifically at GBS um about 40% of them last year were multilingual. Um so it is a significant number of students. I can't remember the number we landed on at the end of the year for trans. We're at right now 55. Yes. And of that 55 I've gone through about 30 students um records to see if they previously qualified or if they need to be screened. So it it's a pretty substantial group of people that we are servicing. Okay. And that just just to to Marcelo's point, you know, to try to make our our uh reclassification process, our numbers more robust, that might be a subset to really focus on what we
060can do for this particular group of students. Um and then lastly and very um granularly, so with the 19 um Ukrainian speaking students uh this year at Glenberg South, if we get a 20th student in October, do we just flip over or how does that work exactly? Does it wait we wait till the next year? Because that seems like a lot to switch models. Um, it seems like that bright line is very important and I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't do that if that's what's what's um what's mandated or what's appropriate. I just wonder how you're going to do it. So, um, every spring, and Dr. Grall, you can definitely um interrupt me if I get this wrong. Every spring, uh, for our consolidated district report, they pull the numbers of what's currently in our
061program. And if at that time we have gone over 20, then the expectation is that we would be ready to implement the bilingual program in the following year in the Okay. Um but it's important to note that that timeline from when that data is pulled does not line up with our staffing timeline. So for example, a couple summers ago or last summer, we had to add a Russian TBE program because um the staffing numbers we did not have that 20 speaker threshold yet and we crossed it um before the consolidated district plan numbers were were taken. No, Dr. Anderson summarized that very well. The only element I'd add is when timelines do not coincide, and this this happens often times with students receiving special education services, an IEP, uh maybe an initial eval, and an
062IEP is developed in May when staffing has been finalized mostly in February. In those situations, we do build in a level of contingency into our staffing formula. um if for some reason that's not sufficient to meet the student needs, we bring forth a separate memo to the board requesting additional staffing. So in that case, if there if we do hit a threshold or identify at the end of the day whether or not we hit a threshold um there is a need for students, we'll bring that forward to the board. Okay. Okay. Uh the preliminary supports though we have is um a language and family liaison um speaks Ukrainian as well as Russian and then we have an IIA in place that speaks Ukrainian right now at GBS. So terrific. Okay, thank you very much and
063again congratulations on another great year of progress. Thank you. I just wanted to add one more comment. um as the board will um kind of start to identify um a few weeks ago we took a little bit of a deep dive into our summer school program. This evening we've taken a bit of a deep dive into our multilingual learner program. Throughout the year our goal is to provide um these background presentations on particular programs especially as we have new members uh to the board just to kind of give a level of familiarity. Um, and I think you'll find um, especially as we go throughout the year, how closely these programs, the progress we're seeing, and our recommended activities directly align with our strategic plan. So, this consistently driving home the point that our road map
064that we're on is all linked back to that master plan. Okay. Um, next on the agenda is the policy manual customization agreement with the IASB. um and Dr. Grall will present uh a recommendation with respect to that and then Matt and I um on the policy committee will share our thoughts as well. Thank you so much, Miss Mullenbeck. Um one of the um projects that Dr. John's has um uh been a great asset to I was going to say you volunteered for um he really likes policy. um was recognizing that our policy manual, even with all of the work we have done over the last four or so years, um still has a significant um amount of growth to be done in the largest section of our policy, which comes into students and um instruction.
065And when you start to go through one policy after policy after policy, you realize that a policy that might only been date be dated 10 years ago. When it comes into becoming in alignment with state and federal laws or administrative codes that schools are required to follow or even case law, um it becomes really out ofd almost to a point where to get it up to date you need to we use the term sunset. one policy and start a fresh. Um, and about a month ago, maybe two months ago, the board policy committee identified that, you know, we talk a lot about press. um maybe it would be a good idea to have representatives from the Illinois Association of School Boards or IASB come in and give all of us an understanding of what press
066is, how how do these model policies come to be, who's actually writing them, how are they vetted, how are they reviewed, and um well, we we learned more than we had anticipated. Um, we learned not only does press have model policies, but they fully support and I would argue encourage local boards to make their policy manual their own with a baseline, if you will, of the press policy. Um, and so to that end, I'm going to actually transition over to Dr. John's and ask him to walk through what we learned and ultimately what is a recommendation of the policy committee as a whole uh which we'll talk about in just a little bit. Dr. Johns. Thank you, Dr. Gavl. Bottom line up front, the uh policy committee is going to ask the board to um
067vote in favor at our next meeting into the utilization of the press plus services to help us expedite and complete and then keep current our policies uh into the future. Before I go any further, uh I realize that I bet somebody wonders what press is. Uh so definition of press, it's the policy reference education subscription service and it's it's a subset of the Illinois Association of School Boards. They have approximately six or seven attorneys that work for them on updating the policies that go into their press that we use as recommendations or foundational materials. and they have um attorneys from virtually all the major law firms that support uh school districts in Illinois um as an advisory council. So they produce a packet that comes out three to four times a year of all policies
068that need to be updated and we have been updating our policies um at a pretty rigorous pace for the past couple years and I believe as a district we've become much more policy centric in amongst part of that work. A lot of times we'll introduce policy that needs to be worked on. will work with uh the work groups inside the schools throughout the district to help them understand the policy change and then continue the process of of updating it. Uh so last week on Thursday the superintendent subcommittee of the executive cabinet which is it's the executive cabinet and two board members uh met with press to talk about the different offerings that they have and the recommendation we have is to is I'm sorry our current process is we adapt our current policies u so
069we keep some of our own language and then we adapt or fold into it the recommendations from press once upon a time our numbering system was completely different than presses which made it really complicated when updates came out. Uh new uh administrators came in from other districts would have no reference uh on policies. This was very confusing. Uh we've done a lot. I would say we probably have completed 75% of our policies, but we have the two biggest chapters to go. Uh unfortunately, as we're chugging along at a decent pace, the context is changing much faster. So every time there are new laws in education or major court cases, we can see that we'll have to update or renew different policies. We've already been told to expect 40 policy updates in October alone, which that's
070several months worth of work for us. Uh and then according to the IASB's um publication that you may be able to get, um there's 95 new K12 bills passed last year in the leg legislature. Each one of those could represent a different policy for us to to come. One court case that was um a national court case from last year is going to require us to change 11 policies. So you can see that we just can't keep up with really a torrent of changes for our policy manual. And the problem is this risks us being out of date or out of compliance with laws or best practices. So the solution that was presented to us by the ISB is that they do a customized process. They meet with us as a district, get to know
071us, uh get to know our policy manual and our approach, and then they work on their own to create a customized u policy manual for us that is largely built on their foundation. And they'll meet with us and uh continue to make revisions as necessary across a couple meetings to make sure that we have an up-to-date policy manual. They believe they can get that done within one academic year. So, uh, there's two major phases that we're proposing. The first is the one-time comprehensive refresh. It's a little, it's approximately $12,000. That's underneath the contracts bec uh, policy that we have of 30,000, but we felt that this was such a monumental change in practice as a district. What this does is they'll go through, we probably have several hundred policies that they'll go through to bring
072up to speed. Uh, like I said, they'll customize it, but they'll also integrate in legal updates and they'll make a migration to the IASB's policy platform, which my next slide is a picture of. Phase two is essentially the ongoing. So, every time a law or a new um court case would require changes to our policies, they'll look at what we have, they'll issue to us the update that we would need to have. And with those updates are hyperlinks to related documents and cross references to administrative procedures, and it's it's much more streamlined. We still bring it to the board. Policy is still a board activity. Uh this time though, if if we're using the press services, it is vetted by the attorneys that work for the ISB and it is informed by the advisory council
073of the ISB. And this is it's I'm sorry it's so hard to read. This is district uh 113's version. Uh they all look like this. Um it it isn't the most modern in uh user interfaces. It is incredibly searchable. So approximately two years ago when we went to diligent you heard me uh very excited about the searchability of our due policy manual at that that time this is far superior. Uh so uh so you could find words within each of the policies. It makes it much better for all users. Uh you'll note that recently we've had students quote back policies to us. It makes it much more user friendly if something is very searchable. Yeah. So we believe the benefits of this will bring us to legal compliance much faster. Uh maybe even make it
074possible. Um and we can then take that workforce time of the administration, the executive council and really work on developing administrative procedures, pushing out the information on these policies and procedures and making sure all the documents, forms, uh information sheets that we have that we pass out on a regular basis are all clearly tied to the new policies that we create. gives us clarity and accessibility and it's gives us a a sustainable efficient policy development process. So that's our recommendation. In terms of cost, one thing I g I don't dwell on is that oftent times if we have a policy that we're not sure of with our own language, we can easily spend $600 on a policy for for legal support, legal language, legal analysis on the policy that we're working on. Uh and we
075have the big ones to go. Uh, so I I know $11,320 is is more than nothing. Uh, but we're spending money that we don't really clock with each policy that we have created as it stands. So, and we're out of date. Any questions? You have comment? matter. I was going to suggest that maybe Matt as the veteran member of the policy committee who's been doing human work for years on this might have some thoughts to share. Uh yeah, I mean it first I think there's some positives. I mean it it gives us cover. Let's just be honest. You know, it's not just us writing it. It's press has the attorneys. You can come back. You know, it gives you more heft in your policies that that you know you're on the right track with them.
076um it keeps us current easier. Uh right now if you go into section seven especially and you start pulling up random policies, there's stuff from 2010, 2008, 2002. Um so it and I think it also keeps it'll get us better aligned in both schools too on procedures and other things which is a very big positive. Um, and the costwise, I know you mentioned the $600 for for a policy, but that doesn't even count your time and R.J.'s time, and then you have maybe Barbers's there or, you know, Angelica's there. And so, you've got a bunch of, frankly, highly paid people sitting around for a couple hours. I think we met uh 20 to 30 times last year. Um, at an hour and a half to two hours a piece. Uh, it starts it starts to
077add up. Um, you know, some of the problems. Now, it's not perfect. It's a little unwieldy, their their their policies. I'm not a big fan of words. I like to keep the policies easy to read. Um, and it I do like it when the students come in, like my daughter when she was having an issue at the school with the gym and she's like, "Oh, let me look at the policy." And she looked at the policy and then, you know, it's it's nice that our students do that stuff and I want them to be able to read our policies. And and I'd really like it for them to fix their system. It looks like something out of the '9s when you try to search their system. It's kind of frustrating, but we'll get there. I
078guess um it's easier than ours currently. So, uh I think while it it does cost, there's a lot of benefits to doing it and just getting it done. It'd be nice to to kind of, you know, it's like the stables that Hercules has to clean. You just got to get the hose and wash this thing out and then you can start over with everything you got. Jesus, [Laughter] I'm gonna make that reference for future. I was going to I was going to say more like Cisphus in the Rock, right? Because I feel like, you know, one of the things that Dr. um John's pointed out is despite all the work that the policy committee has been doing for years on policies and you can spend a lot of time getting a bunch of policies up
079to date and then one fell swoop the legislature puts you right back where you started because that policy is not up to standard any longer. Um so that you know, you push the rock up and it rolls right back down. And this has been happening a lot. It would be great to get to a point where, you know, we've got it all cleaned up and we have assistance as we go through this process um of updating continuously as um new information um is being pushed to us. I do want to point out a couple of things that in addition to some of the um benefits that uh Matt pointed out um is that the and I know that Dr. Johns didn't have a time or didn't explain this the process that we would go through
080for this. But one of the things I find most appealing about it is the entire process that the the board the policy committee our district would go through with the press folks at IASB would be public and that would mean that they these are public meetings the public are would be that that um comply with the open meetings act. So our community can be part of the conversation about policies. And I think that that's tremendously beneficial because if someone has a particular interest in a particular policy that affects their family or their students, they can come tell us what they think about it. Um we we don't frequently have that conversation until after the policy has been put in place and then when someone's not happy about it, they come and tell us about it.
081I would rather they tell us as part of the conversation so we can take those concerns into account because um as um Dr. John's pointed out, you know, they don't just hand us the policies. We they customize them for our district. So we can give them the feedback to let them know that, you know, we understand this is your model, but this is the way our district works and that's not going to work for us. We want to do it this way. Um the the the point about administrative time, I think, is is really crucial. We ask so much of our administrators and this is to be able to take this off their plate. Um, and not entirely obviously because we need to have their input in order to have this be effective, but to
082have the the real, you know, granular work of it done so that we can come at it as needed um to complete the process rather than slogging through the entire process I think will just be so so much more efficient and cost-effective. Um, so those are the reasons or some of the reasons why um I am in favor as a member of the policy committee of this recommendation. And now questions. Mr. Glowaki, I'm all for given that one of the main purposes of the board is policy and and pointing this forward. I just want to make sure I understood how the subscription service works because my understanding from reading the attached documentation, it's still a template. Everything still needs to be vetted by us. While they customize some things, it's still our vote at the
083end of the day that we adopt their template or not and may modify it subsequently based on community input and everything else. Is that correct in the understanding? It's not necessarily that it's going back to press to vet for them and they approve it, which is something that you just mentioned that confused me a little bit. No, no, I'm sorry. Yeah, they will give us a foundational document. They will uh examine our our own past practices, our own policies and then make the customizations that are as ne that are necessary. In phase two, when a new policy is issued, they will try to incorporate those customizations into the new template into the new document, the new press document, and then our board then again would pass it. So they're collecting our version but not necessarily
084adopting. Yeah, they're looking for that's the part that was confusing. Correct. They're looking for the the significant adaptations that are within our our policies and then carrying them across. I suspect because of our our effort in the past of merging policies and procedures that we'll have some places where we need to separate those again. It'd be advisable for us to separate those again. But those are decisions we get to make as we go through the process. Because that leads me to the the next movement policy was issuing was moving more to the handbook and procedures. moving press out of policy and with press depending on I guess the wave that may go through press at times and stuff they may be moving things more inward or yeah because they are politically driven by the is
085IIA the organization at times as well too depending on who's in leadership has been my experience over the years I would just offer um in general the IASB's belief in policy comes down to a policy should provide an overall sense of the will of the local school board which then directs administration to implement um those those larger concepts. Um our policies historically had a lot of uh this is our overarching belief and you will implement it by doing 1 2 3 4. Um, so I think the way we've been moving over the last few years, especially in the operational policies will be in alignment. I think our greatest uh difference probably would be on the student and instructional side. Right. I guess my concern is if ISBA and press decide to flip, we still have
086the opportunity to correct not flip with them and everything because it still just a template and we adopt them. Exactly. Okay. Yep. Yeah. And with Glenberg with the amount of customization we've done, we have some unique Glenberg policies that are specific to our situations. Um those will also even if a policy doesn't exist in press, if we have it, it will be created. Uh the one item they clarified is they have a special numbering sequence for local policies to make it clear. Um so we might have some number changes, but otherwise it'll be embedded. It's a wonderful tool and definitely support, you know, having this added. One thing I just wanted to add um uh Pete because you brought up uh procedures is and this isn't part of the conversation right now but they also
087have a tool where you can separately have the procedures manual have be put together similarly and I when the conversation we had with the attorney from press um the other day very much they very much have this mindset as R.J. described of having, you know, policy lives in the policy manual and procedures live in the procedures manual. And they should, I think a lot of what we would end up with is getting having it become clear what procedures are currently in our manual, our policies, and ought to be moved into something like a handbook or a procedures manual. So that might be down the road doing the um the fine-tuning of the procedures, but this this focus on policy will move us in the right direction of being able to, you know, clearly make those
088distinctions, I think. And I just want to offer one little other color commentary, the the potential future as an administrator or as a teacher or as a parent. My ideal world is when I am able to type in a topic and I see the policy and I see the procedure and I see the links to handbook all in one spot as opposed to going handbook is over here. Procedures are in Google Drive in 70 different places. I'm being very candid. Um and over here is policy. So, one of the biggest excitements for administration um as we've been working really diligently to align our practices and and ensure consistency across Willow Road now across four schools. Um having all of it centralized will greatly improve our ability to lead and manage consistently. So, um I have
089some concerns. We had looked at press multiple times over the last period of e eons here and it was felt that the policies were not a great fit for the Glen Brooks and that we constantly were in a mode of creating or modifying our own. And we have put a lot of time and resources into modifying and upgrading our current policies. I agree that this this this weaving together of policies and procedures really creates confusion and then students and families frankly focus on the handbook, right? It's it's the one thing we give them and they sort of only go to the other place when something sort of goes wrong or they ask for something, they can't have it and then we refer them to a policy. But by and large, most people, you know, kind
090of work through it. And just want to, you know, I often feel like the things done at the state level don't fit an individual district all that well. In our case, the Glenn Brooks, but not just the Glen Brooks. We're all individual districts. A lot of districts have to have the press kind of model because they don't have the means and methods and skill sets to create the policies and our policies certainly aren't stagnant. You guys in the last you know whatever time have gone systematically through these and I know occasionally we also get caught out. something will come here. You have to refer to a policy and you look at it and you go, "Oh, 1999, great. The world has changed and we missed this one." And so I think the press piece helps
091you with that. I am less enthusiastic about changing the wording that in our policy with all those words are there for a reason and and you know we've paid quite a bit to legal fees to the expertise of our our staff to get them the way they are to the expertise of board members sitting around this table. You know, sometimes just a few words can have an a very serious impact and the lack of those words can lead to significant unintended consequences and we've seen that. So someplace in here there has to be a balance and I I really am concerned about just saying well they'll just kind of reo it in their own image or something because I don't think the work they've produced in the past has been that wonderful. It simplifies things
092because templates simplify things and consistency simplifies things. But we have gotten to this point over a long period of time with multiple iterations and when a policy is no good, you guys have brought it here and said this is we need to sunset this thing for example. So it's it's a dynamic. I feel like what we have is dynamic and I worry about giving that up for convenience. And so somehow we need to balance that. Though I do wish like we could like take what we have and and get it indexed properly and separate these pieces and get more into procedures because that seems like the right way to operationalize what do we have about 200 how many policies couple hundred right about 1500 pages worth well pages yeah okay but in terms of numbers
093of policies so you know it's a lot to digest so those are kind of my thoughts thank So a few comments. Um the way I anticipate this would happen is um we have an intake meeting with the full board is able uh to participate and encouraged to participate. Um and it's a it's a large questionnaire in which they're seeking to understand our belief on policy, our structure, things of that nature. Um then they um and and to being very candid for the amount that's being charged um they have a lot to review of our local policy manual that is going to be very different and they're going to have to go policy by policy and um I I think they're going to have a good opportunity to refine their practice through reviewing our policy manual.
094Um but ultimately they're going to produce um updated recommended policies. I anticipate then um Dr. Johns, myself, other members of policy committee will literally go policy by policy by policy not just accepting what is presented to make sure that those specific words to make sure that unique circumstances to us um are present. Glumbre has had a variety of of um opportunities for us to learn to get better. Some of those things we have embedded into policies. We've had some unique elements of what we focus on in education that might be different than what um a district uh an elementary district down the street here or a unit district down the state might do. Um and so it would not be a wholesale adoption without us going through policy by policy. So, I just wanted to
095just kind of give that perspective of what would happen. Do you think it would be beneficial to have them do some kind of a pilot instead of entering into a wholesale, you know, um, engagement, but and pay them. I'm not saying they should do it for free. Don't don't get me wrong, but give them a certain piece of policy and procedure and see what comes back. We've looked at some districts that have gone through this process and what I can't say is that I've seen, for lack of better terms, the redlinined of what they were what they where they started and where they went. Um but I have seen districts that have gone through this um an area where pilot or not where it would be very obvious what the quality would be or what
096what the outcome output is would be in chapters um or forgive me sections three and four. Those are the operational policies that we have completely aligned. Um, one of the things that may not be known by the full board is over the last 2 and 1/2 years, more often than not, we've actually wholly rewritten our policy aligned with press. Um, we've we've adopted the press as the base and then we've filtered in our own language as it's needed because we're at a point where there are some challenges. um at at the cost point it is I would be comfortable with it moving forward as is and if we get to a point in our review process and we say we're not comfortable activating and moving forward we would still have that choice. Yeah. I don't
097understand us acquiescing our control I guess or giving up anything. This is just another tool that we are utilizing as a template and still coming before the board on all well policy first and then the board for any changes and everything. I'm looking at the bullets in the memo. They're just doing reviews alignment with the most recent templates. So we get the numbering um retention of our existing policy that are normed integration of all our legal updates. That's I think the big concern. Did we miss anything? So there's another set of eyes reviewing it. those six attorneys and then finally, you know, the rounds of reviews and everything support. So I I'm not seeing anything in the memo that's so so a tool. I see it as a tool. I mean, so we just mentioned
098six attorneys, whatever. So then what we're saying is their interpretation in writing or rewriting of this is supersedes what our attorneys have have done with us. I mean that this is what I don't understand. I mean they have a template. we're paying quote for the template with some customization kind of lapped into it. Yet that's different than hey this belongs in section 1302 instead of you know 9005 this needs to be reumbered. That's a that just makes it better. But the actual language it's I thought from your description you're trying to modify the policy in general so it conforms to the the standards in the template. There's really which may be okay. Yeah, there's there's really a few things going on. So let's just take an operational policy on uh contracts. Um, so all contracts
099uh before the board that are in excess of $35,000 require approval, etc., etc. Um, what they would do under under that uh using that policy is they would look at, okay, here's what's in the press policy. Um, it's an easy example because so many boards might um have a a number like $10,000. So, they'll they'll highlight that. um they will identify oh in your policy you require um uh policies to be presented as part of a memo to the board with supportive documentation that's not in the press policy. So now we have to take those specific procedural things and put it into the the model policy. Um more I mean from a student perspective when we when we actually work with our attorneys to uh we have a policy from 2009 um uh we'll take
100uh the bullying policy um that we worked on last year. um we actually have more and more started with press and then aligned where we were. And the difference is um when we engage our attorneys, it's not as much um it's not as much them comparing our language or the language or disputing the language and press. Sometimes our attorneys are taking cues from the policy committee, make it shorter, uh less words, make uh make the language maybe more understandable. Uh substantively there's not many changes um unless there's a unique procedural thing that we've added. Um that's just how we've done it. Um in recent years I think one of the things to think about skip right now is we're peacemealing this thing through. Um I feel like this is a nice opportunity for us to
101just do the whole thing because because we need to do the whole thing. Peacemailing you mean because we look at a couple at a time. Yeah. we do two or three or four and then something will come up like oh let's go do this one too and then we'll try to get back on track it but this makes us do the whole shebang and it's going to be a lot of work it is tremendous benefit yeah that's one thing to point out is that the policy committee I think I made this bad joke during our conference call it's going to be a fullcourt press this year to get this done it's going to be a lot of work and any board member who wants to sit in on any of these meetings is of course
102welcome to and we will of course be coming back and reporting because we don't want to end up in May with a brand new policy manual that's been all spiffed up and Matt and I have looked at it and Dr. John's has, you know, looked at every, you know, INT and it's brand new to you because the board needs to sign off on it in its entirety. So, you really need to come along for the ride because if otherwise it's going to be a slog. I'm just going to tell you when you get the 1500 pages to look at all in one fell swoop. But we're gonna what we're trying to do is just streamline this and knock it out in one academic year so we have a a a new starting point. Um and
103then it's not this two steps forward, one step back process that we've been through. And and you know, I've only been on the committee for a few months, so I haven't had to do a lot of this dance that you all have done. um but it sounds very frustrating and um not super efficient. So this gives us a chance to get ourselves in the right place and then moving forward have a better tool as we are updating. Can I can I say um so I think it's you know if we have policies and this has been it seems very uh prehistoric the way we're doing it primordial. Yes. Um bigger word than I can come up with. I like dinosaurs. Um, so we, this is obviously I'm not afraid of the work. I'm happy to
104help. But if we look at this from a perspective of okay, we revamp everything, right? Then trying to disseminate that information down and getting everybody on on board with that and the procedures. I mean that's uh another thing alto together and and then educating everybody every staff on all those different policies if they change I mean how much I don't know how much they're going to change but if you're bringing in best practices I'm assuming there's going to be a lot and you know are we ready and capable and can we can we that's not a question for you it's just a question in general that's that's that's another big piece of it too because then all of a sudden you have people that are out of policy because they're And you know, so totally.
105So just to give an example, we we go through the pol or the um handbook changes each year. And this year with all of our administrators, we had everyone go through about um probably a 45 minute hourlong session on every change to the handbook. Um and we got through them. It was efficient. It actually led to a lot of good questions. Led to an identification of variety of typos uh that need to be fixed. But the conversation across the team a lot of pages um the the conversations got so so much deeper than just what changed it was okay so let me understand in this situation if this happens this is how we would handle it. It's very very powerful. I can say that this is really one of the first times we have consistently
106done that because this is our first time we've had a complete redline version of our handbook which was really awesome from a policy standpoint. I want to emphasize something. Even if our policy doesn't reflect what Illinois school code says or the US Supreme Court declares or what have you, we are obligated to implement the law. And so we are con constantly having conversations with our leaders um sometimes parents or students when things change and having to implement. Um, one of the one of the elements that hopefully many of you will hear tomorrow during our um, address, my address, um, is that we are a learning organization and we're showing that we're a learning organization through our actions by establishing these PLC's, the late arrival times when not only will our teachers be learning, our administrators
107will be learning, our support staff will be learning, and we fully intend and on as we develop new policies or change our procedures that we are using that purposeful time to communicate it out that we are moving away from the concept of sending an email with a 100 pages of documents that people don't necessarily know what they're looking at and making sure we're being purposeful uh with our time and communication. So I do believe we have the capacity to implement. I believe that we've been doing this in peace meal because our board governance documents have been out of date. Um, and I think this will greatly help us. Have they ever been through this process before with somebody else? They totally revamped it and if so, did they have some sort of a communication tool
108or a best practice as it relates to going out and and sharing it with the whole staff? Yes, ISB has a variety of tools and they we are well from being the first or the first hundred or 200 districts that have gone through this. However, we are unique in our policy revamp in a total we are but in a total revamp. Yes. Okay. I think that was the one thing not to speak for the policy committee that when we learned how uh how much this is not a unique problem to us. RJ correct me if I'm wrong. Did they say there were 600 current clients of this out of the current 850 districts? So many districts have been in this this spot. I've been my previous district we got up to speed all in one
109year. So I'm just going to just reserve the right for I would say policy should reserve the right that if this goes longer than a year be prepared because it may be more after you get the initial review you may have so much that comes up that we go wait there is a purpose here. We've got to go find the history of why was this redlined beforehand. Let's discuss it and it might be different execution plan. Sure. So a couple of comments and I'll start from the end actually echoing you were saying if we bring everything together at once it's a little bit unfair to the board members but I'm thinking also to the rest of the community. I know the masses that attend our meetings, but some people may read these things and saying
110we're going to change 200 policies in in a span of two weeks. We're going to vote on them. It may be too much because not for us. Maybe we are due to put that time. But we don't want to get into a situation where somebody that pays attention comes back and says you're expecting me as a parent I'm doing different things to sit down because the notes of the meeting comes on a Friday or the required 20 something hours and have comments on these 200 policies that are changing and I like what you were saying earlier in terms of you're bringing different areas of education every meeting. Maybe the approach could be similar where we grab sections and once we have everything ready, there's no rush for us to approve everything in one meeting or
111two meetings. We can go section by section and then give time for us and give time for the community to give feedback for the people that are interested and have the time instead of trying to, you know, push through everything. We pay for the year anyway. So, we may start whenever the this is ready and go group by group and and give everybody the time to to give feedback or or just to look at it. And I have a question. This is gonna deal only with policy or is so how we going to keep up with processes and and handbook as our policies change? So the we utilize the model student handbook which is a uh publication of the Illinois principles association done handinhand with the Illinois Association of School Boards with press. So, we're
112already in that alignment and we we do our our revisions uh each year. Um, with respect to uh procedures, procedures are something that are somewhat embedded into some of our policies and like I mentioned are in all the Google Drive documents. Um once we have a baseline policy set in conjunction with the handbook, we will look to move administratively into developing our procedures one procedure at a time which is a a massive effort. There are so many so many documents and so many separate procedures based on departments or based on situation that now can be compiled together. But you have to have the policy first. So my last comment is that and this echoes part of the comments from from some of my colleagues here. I would like for us I'm saying us very loosely
113here because the first intake is for the policy committee but to look at this through two different three different lenses. Okay. So I'm the first one is the law. We want to be compliant with the law and I understand they're going to let us know changes in laws that should impact tension policy. I I think having consistency with everybody that's great because there's one law for everybody like I think Dr. John said earlier, but there's a second kind of lens here which is the content of the policy, not just simply what the law says. And this is where I kind of side with with with skip here where when we look at IASV, as Pete was saying, sometimes proposals that go to IASB have some some requests that you think like this may work downstate
114but definitely won't work with us or or the opposite or this may work for smaller school districts and don't work with us. So while the law may say one thing the have we move from the law to the writings of the policy itself we need to pay attention that this is still consistent with what we want to do just to make sure that we don't have any surprises down the road. My third lens is language and and I I'm I'm particularly we just talk about multil- language speakers and so forth. I'm not talking about the wording itself but the tone of policy how policy comes and and and I think we are a you know there's a difference of writing things and these days with with generative language you can talk a lot of people
115talk about tonality and policy should be something that not only should be clear but should be done on a way like I think Matt says it earlier that if our students are going to read it they don't realize this is I grew up under a military dictatorship so I always use the same example I don't want a kid in school well I you know I don't want a kid in school to read policy or read a handbook that looks like you should be doing AB CD. While it could be say the same way but on words that are more you know engaging for the students to read because at the end of the day we can do whatever we want but we want the students to read them and being able to interpret them and
116and and work with them or at least be compliant with them. That's my three cents. Law, content, language and tone. Yes, Miss Hope. I I I know it sounds like it makes a lot of sense. This one-time comprehensive policy renewal is there or manual refresh. Is there anything in the annual ongoing support that isn't included? Things like new policies that maybe would be coming from our district or the community versus the state or like what isn't included in that annual. Yeah. So in addition to the the maintenance cost that we see, I I like to think the maintenance cost is really access to their online platform and the support to um implement changes because we don't get direct access. They take our submissions and they program it. Um we also uh the district has historically
117subscribed to press. So that is a total another subscription fee. I I forget what the actual amount is. Um we do also have a lot of local policies. So for example, we have three policies that are part of our GA collective baring agreement. Um one we just recently uh had updated uh which are separate. In any of those we would continue to work with our attorneys. Um where it would we need to coordinate with ISB is literally to get the the new number that we can use. So we could label it what we wanted. We could put the content that we wanted. Um we would just need to confirm the number. So that wouldn't be included and we wouldn't need our attorneys to look over anything that we've updated via press in addition to their
118attorneys. Yeah. So we really do a blend of it. Um if we read a policy and administratively board policy committee and there are no concerns like it is it's it's very straightforward. We typically don't engage in attorney review. Um, attorney review is a pricey uh endeavor at about $350 per hour. Um, and uh there are times when uh we'll need that effort and other times that their typographical errors alignment with the law and we just accept. separate note, you mentioned that our current policies have a lot of things that out as a part of this process to put processes or protocols once we take that on. Is there Thank you. Is there a way while we're doing that to concurrently like track some of that so that when we're ready to do that, we haven't
119lost all of that material and it's organized and a little bit easier. Yes. So, the only thing we'd be pulling out for example would be procedures. So the the 1 2 3 4s and ABCDs um we still need that information for operating. So we do have a standard operating procedure document that includes that kind of cross referencing policy. We would likely move it there with the much larger goal of getting it all together. Thank Okay. Um, any other questions or comments or concerns? Thank you. So, we have a recommendation from the committee and I think the plan would be to have this come back on consent if that is what the board is ready to do. I don't exactly know what I do at this point. Um we will uh we'll update the memo to
120reflect the recommend the formalized recommendation and then they'll be brought forth. Um we will start coordinating with the policy committee. Um because of the nature of the work that will be done here. These will be as Miss Mullenbeck said public meetings. Um I encourage everyone to come to uh these meetings. I find them very fun uh quite educational. um they not prehistoric they are lengthy I I I think it I don't know if we've said this enough but folks who are on the policy committee uh past and present it is a tremendous amount of very technical work sometimes you're literally looking at words sentences commas semicolons I've learned so much about semicolons um and other times you're looking at substance but I mean it it's a lot and so Matt and Sandy now currently they
121are committing to a a big part however if we think of the most important roles of a board of education it comes down first and foremost to adopting policies and everything else that the board does is defined by those policies so this will be a a great step in a good d in a in a positive direction I think it'll it'll help us move forward Um but it's going to be a lot of work and so just thank you to the the policy committee. As we make progress, we'll bring them forward. We we'll we'll in internally ourselves uh develop a document at the board can literally uh for lack of better terms policy one was it substantially changed? Was it minor changes? What what's done? and and so even though you won't necessarily see that
122directly from IASB, we will in our own uh analysis provide that and that way you can see see it all. But I think this will be good. May I suggest similar to when we were doing the superintendent transition and everything we had the mini site for the public community to see the progress and everything. Could we do some I guess this goes back to communication but something to make this as transparent as possible. show the redline versions. Here's the product that's coming back out of the press and and we really want to encourage people, you know, to come to these meetings because it gives them an opportunity to weigh in and to the extent that we can publicize this is what's on the agenda this time, guys. We're looking at, you know, section five and
123these are the things that are going to be, you know, some people care about some parts of the policy manual and not so much other parts of the policy manual depending on what that corner sign. You can tell I mean dressed up as a dinosaur. Lots of ways to engage with our community. So So this will come back on consent then our next meeting. Yes. Two weeks. Two weeks. Thank you all. Okay. Um if everyone is ready to move on, we will move on to our possible topics for future board meetings. Um I believe Dr. Grall has a suggestion. I do have one uh Mr. O'Hare is the first person to volunteer uh to attend a tour over at Glenrook North to see the capital project. So for anyone who is interested, please let me
124know. Um we will start um gosh, I forget the exact date, but two weeks from today. August 25th. August Oh, I have it written. August 25th. Um we will start at the main entrance at GBN. We'll walk through the hallway. We'll go take a look at the CPA which received its new sound system. Uh we'll take a look through the CTE area, go up to the second floor, look at the bathrooms and things of that nature. So, it'll be a little fun gathering. And if timing works out, once we drive back here, we can take a quick walk over to the GBS fieldhouse floor if you haven't seen that yet. Um but it's just kind of an annual tour we do each year. So, just let me know if you're able to join. I was
125going to suggest we do our meeting over at GBN. keep keep things moving. But yes, sign me up. All right. Would would anyone else like to suggest a topic for a future board meeting? Uh I'd like to follow up on an email I sent earlier in the summer about uh having wellness, student safety, and a variety of other topics identified identified on our calendar well in advance, at least which month we're going to address it and and everything. in Miss Lee's memo reminded me that, you know, that would have been proactive instead of reactive that we see where these topics are coming up and everything, but they're very important to the community. Yes, her lawyer was excellent on that point. I was also going to bring up mental health and wellness just to know, I
126mean, we just talked about the multilingual services and I know I missed summer school at the last meeting, but if we could know like just sort of an overview of what the services are and and any strategic plans around it, I would love to talk more about it. So, we have a bit of a proposed calendar which we're going to talk about during the uh board governance uh training which is scheduled for this Saturday at 8 a.m. Um, and all of those topics uh that have been raised or or presented will be addressed and we can make sure if we're missing anything else, add those as well. Okay. And then one last thing that I wanted to highlight is what's not on tonight's agenda. It's usually the item before adjournment of the um regular meeting
127and that is the recap of the meeting. Um as you know we were trying to uh make our meetings a little more efficient and it seemed as if doing a recap of the meeting was not necessary so we dropped it from this one. Can you guys live with that? Okay. Absolutely. Excellent. All right. In that case, uh the next um item on our agenda is adjournment. Can I have a motion, please? I move. Second. All in favor? I motion. Thank you all. Sorry, Carol. I think it happened at the end of this. Let's look what were the gifts.