001He's an interesting guy. never had like the strain of he doesn't and Mrs. Malbeck, we are ready. Welcome everyone. The board of education of Glen Brook High School District 225. Thank you. Remember that someday. Uh, Miss Smith, could we please have a roll call? Mr. Downing here. Mr. Gaki, present. Mrs. Hope. Miss Mullenbeck here. Mr. O'Hara here. Mr. Shine present. Dr. Steinberg here. Six members present. Wonderful. Um I think the first thing we need need to start off is a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Wonderful. Um that means we're moving on now to item three on our agenda which are the board and superintendent reports and we will start with um Dr. Grall and the superintendent report. Well, good evening everyone. It's my first
002report which means I might have a few things to share. We're going to have a little celebration uh as we go through. First and foremost, for those who may not be here this evening, or for those who are and would like to do a little multitasking, I'd encourage you to visit www.glenbrook225.org. When you navigate there or to any of our school websites such as glenbrooknorth.org or glenrook south.org, you will find a newly refreshed interface. I want to call out a few really cool things here. Uh, and actually while I'm doing that, Christina, would you just mind um uh switching to uh kind of hitting escape and I already have it queued up there. I'm going to our page. So, first and foremost, you'll notice that our uh entire visual presence has been refreshed and there's
003very large clickable icons and clickable menus. Um, part of the reason why you're seeing that is when we looked at the actual data, over 70% of our parents and students access the district or our school websites on their mobile device. And as a result, when you're navigating through all of these different areas, you don't want it built for someone who's sitting in front of a very large desktop screen computer. You want to able really quickly be able to uh navigate through and find what you're looking for. At the same time, we also realized that the majority of our website viewers are navigating to find three key things. They're looking for P school. They're looking for calendars and bell schedules. And they're looking for the staff directory. But we would be remiss if we didn't call
004out our new community engagement platform, Parent Square. And so all of these tools are right there accessible for you. You also notice as you scroll down through the page, we've gotten rid of a lot of excess information that our data showed no one ever looked at. And in its place, we've made very large uh scale graphics and access so that members of our community can easily access our strategic plan, see some welcome messages from our principles and myself on the district side, but also uh Christina, if you'd be so kind, jump to the newsletters. Even though we're switching a lot of our communication to parent square, we've also found it being very helpful so the community members see what it is that we're communicating out in those weekly principal messages or weekly updates. And so
005right from the main page of the website, you can access an archive um on a a week-by-eek basis of those communications coming out. Again, just trying to simplify access to information. Excuse me. Where is that bottom part? U the bottom part right there. If you go into the third section of the website, it's newsletters. And you can also access those from the our district or our school section, and it's right under, oh, forgive me, I'm getting my words wrong, our families area, and then you have newsletters and also all those bell schedules. I really want to take a moment and thank Carol Smith and Christina Salanas, our two communications professionals in the school district, for championing this effort. Um, we started the redesign process, um, as maybe crazy as this might be, only in April
006and we're at a full redesign of our website. And for anyone who might be interested in seeing what the process is like to design a website, on the back uh, counter of the boardroom, we have all of our story boards. Here on our story boards, you'll see that we looked at school districts around our area, their websites. We looked at school districts and state organizations across the nation and we even went down to wellfunctioning retail mobile websites that our students are used to using. Um, and you'll see um, uh, post-it notes and call outs and mixing and matching. And we're really excited to be sharing this with our families. Our next step that we'll be working through over the next few weeks is cleaning up some of those menus even more. collapsing or or improving
007descriptions and really working on our searchability so that when a family member, a student, a staff member clicks that search icon, not only again can they see all of those key popular things that folks look for, but when they type uh some information into what can we help you find, that they're getting that result that they're looking for. So, just wanted to call those out, thank the communications team, and really encourage feedback to be sent to us. so we can keep on improving these sites. So just really exciting changes there. As we go back to our slide deck, we have a few more things to talk about and one of them certainly is our launch of Parent Square and I just thought it would be cool to talk about some of the statistics um with
008our first largescale message going out on uh Monday, July 7th. So, in that first message, we talked about the things that parents are most interested in in July, which is what do I need to do for the first day of school? That includes reviewing your student fees and includes navigating the power school and purchasing memberships to our wonderful parent organizations as well as items such as the yearbook and activity pass. And of the over 8,900 parents uh that received that message, just wanted to point out that 265 of them already logged into Parent Square and said, "You know what? I don't want to receive my information by email. I want it by text the minute it comes out." And so uh nearly uh 300 families have already signed up for that. And uh a little
009less than uh 550 families have downloaded the parent score app. And that means instead of text message, instead of email, they're getting those push notifications right to their phone and they're able to go into Parent Square and not only can they see the content that the district is sending, but they can appreciate it, the ever popular liking, if you will, and they can also add comments directly to the sender there. So, just emphasizing some some real exciting advances that we have. And along those lines, just want to point out some reminders to our families. The student fee system is open. If you are seeking to have your student take the bus to school, we've already started to build our bus routes. And we build our bus routes based on everyone who purchased a bus pass
010by July 11th. Um there is still opportunities to purchase your bus pass, but we strongly encourage you to do it as soon as possible. And then finally, information about picking up your Chromebooks and also getting your instructional materials such as textbooks or novels that are still used in our classes. Um, that information will be sent out next week. And pickup appointments uh will be scheduled between August 4th and August 8th. So, no long lines. You'll choose an appointment time and you should be in and out within 5 to 10 minutes. Another exciting thing that's happening at this time of school year are our capital projects. And I know that Mr. Shine had the ability to to visit the transition services facility today over in Northbrook. And I have just two pictures because I didn't want
011to show too much since we have a ribbon cutting coming up that we'll talk about in a moment. Um, but this is our our new 8,000 square foot facility at 1200 Shurmer Road. It's intended for our students that are continuing to receive transition skill support um uh typically after their 18th birthday. This shows our new teaching and instructional kitchen. You'll see a lot of counter space um a traditional oven and the beautiful setup that you would see in a home environment or in a commercial setting. And then this is just an example highlighting again how many windows are all over this space. natural light coming in. Uh this is actually one of our work rooms for our staff. Um and you just see this this natural light coming throughout. So a little bit of a
012plug for our community as well as our board members. On Friday, August 8th at 9:00 a.m. we will be hosting our ribbon cutting. And we would love to have uh any community members who would like to tour the space and experience it join us for that ribbon cutting. And then we'll be doing an open house for a few hours. Um, and we're also going to be sending out invitations to every student who will be attending transition services next school year as well as other students who might be in other placements now who might find this a wonderful home. Um, and so, uh, put it on the calendar now and we look forward to seeing you there. There might be cake. Putting it out there. 9 a.m. 9:00 a.m. All right. We'll do a ribbon cutting
013down downstairs or a little presentation from 9 to 9:15. Ribbon cutting upstairs on the third floor uh right at 9:15. And then we'll go on uh with tours throughout the facility beyond Glumber Transition Services. This is a picture of the newly reloed or resurfaced, I don't know what the best term is, uh uh fieldhouse over at Glen Brook South. Um, this has been a project that's been under consideration for quite some time and it is fully complete. And in addition to the new floor, uh, that has nicely visible lines for courts, um, we've also cleaned up some of the other, uh, lining, uh, uh, that is throughout the fieldhouse, including the track. So, very appreciative of this, and our students are already utilizing the space. Over at Glen Brook North, when you walk in the
014front door, you might experience a little bit of dust. And that's because we are in the process of putting um some very cool finishing touches on a massive hallway renovation, which is by our dean's office and the attendance office. Just want to point out how much space is captured and a total different experience when you removed what we call a spline ceiling from the top. The ceilings are nearly three feet taller uh than they were previously. Um in addition uh this area is now sprinkled through a sprinkler system. Um and there is going to be student seating and collaborative workspace throughout. Um we look forward to showing some updated pictures, but this uh picture was actually taken uh just this morning. Also, uh, in addition to that hallway, we are replacing a large amount of
015carpet throughout the first floor of Glen Brook North. So, all around the idea, the library, uh, right here is right past the student center. Uh, you'll see a lot of carpet replacement all the way to the other end of the building. Uh, interesting fun note from a capital project standpoint. Um, we found that this was one portion of the building that actually had um a lot of padding with the carpet which was adhered to the floor in a very strategic manner to make sure it could not be removed in uh the future. Uh, so we had a little bit longer of a delay cleaning up the flooring area. Uh, but uh everything is looking great now. Uh over at Glenrech Norris on the second floor, we are going through our continued bathroom replacement process. And
016so just want to point out we've really become more efficient as we're modernizing bathrooms by building a lot of the plumbing offsite and then bringing it in and simply putting it in place and making connections as opposed to putting all of the piping and all of the the secure holds together on site. And then very very special, very exciting project. Uh we are making a lot of progress on the new sound system at the Glenberrook North CPA. So I know it doesn't look like a lot here, but there are tremendous amount of wires uh traversing and being pulled through piping and also uh the starting of uh termination of those wires into the sound system. over at Glen Brook South and actually uh even today over at Glenberrook North, we're doing resurfacing uh addressing the
017addition of new sidewalks in different areas to make our students walk to school or walk from parking lots even safer. So, you'll see some of those and that I went to Dr. George's first slide. I just want to make sure I covered everything. That is everything I have for projects going on so far. But before I move in that, Mr. Shine, I know you had an opportunity to tour transition services. Is there anything you wanted to share from your experience? Um, no. Thank you for highlighting that. At the space is absolutely outstanding. It is so light and so bright and so inviting. Um it's just marvelous and I hope that everybody uh my fellow board members have an opportunity um and especially if you'd seen the space we had um currently or prior above little
018Louise in Northbrook. I mean it's just night. It's like going from a like a log cabin to a skyscraper or something. I mean I mean I mean it's just unbelievably modern and I I can only imagine um I've not spoken to them directly but how some of the families must feel about this change for their their kids. So it's awesome job you guys. Thank you for sharing. And a little plug to learn more about transition services facility. the third edition of Glenre Insights, our district podcast will be coming out in the near future and we talk a little bit about the exciting changes happening there. So just another way check us out on you know your preferred podcast platform. With like and subscribe is correct. With that said, I'll transition over to Dr. Georgees who
019had a really cool experience. I sure did. Three weeks ago now. Yeah, I sure did. So, I had the extraordinary privilege of being able to participate in the Habitat for Humanity trip this summer. Um, it is such a perfect example of our District 225 vision to inspire each learner to apply their abilities, knowledge, and skills to promote collaboration, adaptability, and a broader understanding of success to positively impact our community and the world. uh and witnessing that it was such an idealized model um of what makes this district extraordinary that I felt compelled to share the highlights of this trip with you today. Um this year marks the 20th anniversary of this program. Uh and over the course of a week, students enrolled in the summer school course traveled to Manaste, Michigan to build, remodel, and
020maintain homes in that community through our longtime partnership with Habitat for Humanity. Um the impact on the Manaste community and countless District 225 students is tremendous. Um, this photograph you see here of of this June's group, if you walk into the habitat facility, there is a room that houses all of the photographs of more than or excuse me, of two decades of Spartans and Titans who have served others and made a difference in the lives of countless families. When we go to that community, the Glen Brooks are known because we have had such a positive impact on the lives of that community. Um during this week of summer school, our students learn um a variety of construction skills. They learn the power of service and developing a philanthropic spirit, but it's really only one aspect
021of the course. They also engage in curriculum about the uh seven habits of highly effective teens by Steven Kobe. They learn important life skills such as budgeting for meals, cooking, cleaning, and teamwork. uh and they are provided opportunities to experience the ecological preservation and uniqueness of the Lake Superior and Hayawa National Forest. This interdisciplinary service learning opportunity is aligned with focus area one of our strategic plan to innovate and implement creative strategies to help students explore their passions. And it is absolutely a living example of learning re-imagined in focus area 3. This summer we had 44 students participating in the program. Half traveled in June and that was the group I I was able to travel with. The other half are in Michigan as we speak right now. Um under the leadership of GBS teacher
022Mike Cindy. Um the program continues to thrive. I would really like to take a moment to thank the following staff for volunteering their time to make this program possible. There's a photograph of the June team. Um July team is literally there right now. Um, but as you can see, that's uh GBS teacher Mike Cindy, he's the leader of the June team. Sam Booty who's a GBS teacher. Uh, Bianca Banish who works at both GBS and GBN. And Iris Estrada, who uh is employed over at GBN. Um, those three were the Chaperones. They were an absolutely extraordinary team taking good kids, good care of our students, and being excellent role models. Right now, our lead is Alex Kosis. Um, we have Briana Wolski, uh, Kenny Brown, and Richard James Davis. They are all from Glen Brook
023South, and they are up there with our students right now. Um, in closing, I believe the impact of this trip is best heard through a student's voice. Uh, and therefore, I'd like to share the reflection of a GBS Ring rising senior, Xavier Custodio. He says, "Spending a week helping a family I had never met before through Habitat for Humanity was one of the most eyeopening and meaningful experiences of my life. Going into it, I expected to do physical work like painting, lifting, and cleaning. What I didn't expect was how much emotional and personal growth I would walk away with by the end of the week. This experience challenged my perspective. It strengthened my character and it gave me a deeper appreciation for service, teamwork, and the power of empathy. So, thank you, Xavier, for summarizing
024the power of this program and defining what makes learning at Glenrook South and Glen Brook North in District 225 so unique and extraordinary. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Georgees. The second part of our superintendent report um begins talking about Glen Brook summer school. And before I transition it over to two amazing leaders that we have over at Glen Brook South, I just want to talk about them for a little bit of time. So while I say that, um Miss Canola and Dr. Kim, if you'd like to come up to the podium. RSL Canola is our associate principal of student support over at Glenberrook South and Dr. Joyce Kim is our associate principal of teaching and learning at Glenberg South. And as the board might recall, a few years ago, we transitioned to having our two
025associate principles oversee all of the ins and outs of summer school. A lot of times we think of summer school as a bit of a smaller program, but the truth, as Joyce and RSLi will point out, is that we have over 1,200 students participating in summer school across two semesters and across two very unique programs. our traditional summer school program where students are taking courses and then also our extended school year program where students are working to support their goals um as they're continuing their education uh from the end of the school year. Running summer school begins well before the first day in June. In fact, a lot of planning begins right before the winter break and kicks off in earnest right after the end of the first semester as we're starting to identify teachers
026who are able to devote time during their summers to supporting our students as they expand their horizons, catch up, or make up some different courses. I am truly appreciative of Joyce and RSLE taking this task on because this is the first year that we're in this new model and that candidly meant there weren't a lot of instructions written down. There might be some past practices that weren't written down um and a lot of learning to be done. And they opened their minds. They took each situation that was presented to themselves with a lot of grace and appreciation and understanding and they have possibly run the smoothest summer school that at least I have seen in this school district in the last 10 years. And most importantly, I believe that they're building and documenting a wonderful
027foundation so that we can keep this going as summer school transitions to Glenberrook North next year uh to support their colleagues. So, with that said, Dr. Kim, I know you're going to get us started. Thank you. And we look forward to learning more about summer school. This is fancy. Thank you, Dr. Gral. This is not um something that RSL and I did ourselves. We had an incredible team with us and who supported us and we asked a lot of questions. Um and people were just so willing to help and and be our our teammates side by side. So, um, like Dr. Gell said, this was the first time where the AP of teaching and learning and the AP of student supports um, really had full oversight from start to finish. And like Dr. said, the
028start was really early. I looked back today at my calendar and our very first meeting. I don't know if you remember um, Arselli, but was September 16th, so it was right after school began, but it was needed because we needed to plan long term for um, this program. So before I talk about uh some of the updates, I would be remiss if I did not share some thanks to the specific people on this slide. I know that we all can read, but out of great appreciation, I would like to say their names. So you can see the slide but Sophia Alvarez, Ron Bean, Sean Garrison, Dan Gorski, Susan Lavell, Katie Mchuan, Linda Regal, Laura Ree, Terry Ryan, Doug Schiller, Josh Stanton, Zyra Ouie, Stacy Wolf, and the Quest staff. And a shout out to Alam
029um Hzan Hijazi, who is um our Quest staff manager. Um, but these people really helped journey with us from start to finish. Uh, we're not done yet. We end next Thursday, so it's all going to be fine. Um, but they helped move us from a planning stage to an implementation stage. Um, and in the next slide, because I have the clicker. Okay. Um, thank you also to the summer school staff. You will see the numbers broken down from uh by semester 1 and semester 2. Um, semester 1 had a few more classes available than semester 2, but we had a robust uh, teaching staff here. I want to thank not only our teachers and counselors and certified staff, but all of our staff members who helped greet our students, smiled every morning, welcomed them in.
030This is the very first time where many of our incoming freshmen are having a high school experience. If you see day one, they are terrified and their parents and their guardians are terrified in the car and we have to wave um because they're letting their their kid go to high school and it's a ginormous high school and so um they were scared and lost in the halls and we had everyone get up and help even if they were not summer school staff members every this was a collective huge lift and m maybe their first day they were nervous but I assure you they will probably tell their families and their community members ers and friends that we have the best warm positive friendly team here in the Glen Brooks and I'm so proud to be
031a teammate alongside them. The next slide shows um the student enrollment data and you will see that most of the students do come from south but we do have a a a large uh group of students coming from north as well. We do have a few students who also join us from out of district. Um first session we had 38 core sections offered. Second session we had 25 core sections offered and you will see the number of students who enrolled first session was 734 and second session was 59. I'm very happy to share that we had a a 95% attendance rate. We're pretty strict on that uh attendance policy. And like I shared because we're not through with summer school the second session yet. We don't have the numbers yet for the attendance data. This
032is pretty comparable to last year. I did check um we had 21 uh fewer students first semester and then seven fewer uh students second semester compared to last year. Okay. It's my pleasure to talk about our extended school year. Uh if you are aware of our extended school year, it's for students with who have IEPs. Our case managers that and IEP team basically decide along with the student at the family that a student may need extended school year services so that there's no regression academically, socially, um behaviorally as well. So we had seven programs that uh classrooms and programs that served 92 students. All but one were taught and developed by our teachers. Um our staff, you know, developed the curriculum. They collaborated with our teams to ensure that the needs of all of our
033students are met are met. The one person we forgot to mention because it's extremely important. He's like my right person, my hand person is Joe Malloy. Um he's one of our instructional assistants. And because part of ESY is that we provide transportation for our students and he and I are on the radio all the time making sure that our transportation is available. Nas also who was at the district now Julianne we're in constant emailing back and forth with first student making sure that our students ride is here making sure that they're on time. So Joe I have to give a shout out to Joe who taught me a lot and just helped me navigate this process. Thank you. Um, in terms of ESY, one of our three of our seven programs, we have math strategies,
034read and write strategies, as well as work study. For math, the students are identified as needing to again to additionally to support their math instruction and skills. So, we had 19 students in that class. Then read and write is focusing on reading and writing comprehension skills, 20 students. We had our work study program. They focus on career exploration and job readiness skills. I had the opportunity to observe that classroom and the students were learning on how to they were going to go visit the ACE hardware store um as a vi as a field trip and they were learning on what things that they could find at a hardware store. So it was really great opportunity to just watch them engage with their teachers. Now, typically for ESY, there could be more than the 92 students
035identified, but it is an opportunity for parents to say, "We're not interested in this in ESY this summer." So, I did want to point that out that not every student that is ESY eligible participates in summer school. Thank you, whoever's clicking for me. Thank you so much. Um, and our next program is job coaching. And I do have to send a special thank you to Stacy Wolf, our assistant director of special education. She oversees our transition program that Dr. Dr. Grall mentioned and job uh Rob Fleming he and she coordinate and partner with our community partners as you see our students participate in communitybased uh vocational training and experiences. So these are our 18 community partners for this summer. Uh each some of the students may require a onetoone that goes with them onto the
036job site to support them and they're learning vocational skills. And these are students that are above the 18 um 18 plus in the in our transition program specifically. Some of the students that you saw in the work study, those five students could potentially go into the job coaching program next summer. Thank you. For the first time um in the history of the Glen Brooks, I believe uh we partnered and had our GBOC program in summer school in the actual building. So they spent one week at GBOC and then they transitioned into the building. Um I think a lot of people I also had concerns but we worked with Doug Schiller who is the assistant director. We worked really closely to make sure that um all the needs of his students were being met especially because
037they do have some unique needs. And so far it's been going great. Um and we check in with him at least once or twice a week just to see how things are going. you had see 16 and 15 students. Um the last one is our TLS program and it this is in partnership with True North this summer. All of our TLS students continue to build on their reading and writing and math goals ensuring consistency during the summer months. In addition to their academic work, students are actively practicing essential life skills and social emotional skills that support the greater independence and confidence. uh through True North um and their staff and the staff some of our staff are also working there. They provide hands-on experiences each week also with vocational skilluing activities to daily fitness classes
038and meal prep and their approach again is making sure that the students are receiving a well-rounded experience with all facets of their of continuing and developing their life skills. my favorite. Yep. So, I do have a couple celebrations to share. Um, we offered both get ahead and recover uh credit recovery classes. So, um students who may want have wanted a uh lighter load for balance uh in their schedules for the fall might have taken a class uh for get ahead and credit recovery. Those who did not earn a passing grade um oftentimes for courses that are graduation requirements. So that uh those two different categories there. We had a 99 p uh percent pass rate first semester and no behavior incidences. I was trying to check uh put an emoji but it this doesn't let
039me this template. You all need to work on that uh emoji part. Um and and we also did proactively invite incoming students uh incoming freshmen who we knew needed more um math support uh to take pre-alggebra in the summer to boost their algebraic skills so that in the fall they would really hit the ground running. Research is very very clear on algebra. Um having the uh strong algebraic skills are a strong predictor of students overall academic readiness and future success. And so we were able to offer that course I think for the first time. I think that's a pattern too. Um so some requested classes could not run but we were able to offer a class called personalized exploration for some of those students impacted so they could take the course online. Uh continued celebrations
040here. Uh there was also a study skills class which really focused on executive functioning. um during first semester. It was highly successful and we even got a community member shout out. You can see um it says uh 225 study skills class offered in the summer is a gem. It's all executive functioning skills and has been very helpful for my kid. Exclamation point. It's only three weeks, so if you have a high schooler, you may want to explore next year. Um so that was a shout out that we we received from a community member. Um there were that's the breakdown of the students. We had mostly incoming freshmen, but we also did have a few sophomores and even a senior. And I just think just the fact that a child or student went home and said
041something positive about summer school um is and talked about it with their families, there's just so many wins right there. So, I was happy to see that. Okay. Can stay up here. We go back and forth. Um along with celebration there's always some challenges and one of the challenges like many school districts I think face is finding teachers to teach summer schools. For us specifically in the math and science um I think because we also had a shorter summer this year we simply had to unfortunately cancel some some math classes and and and uh science classes because we didn't have math teachers or science teachers available to teach. Um so and that's one of our challenges. So, it's something for us to consider and look into that as we progress. We also had an issue
042with driver's ed. Um they the state of Illinois is the state um Illinois State Police had a backlog and we're trying to get instructors also uh because we had such a high demand with students wanting to take driver's ed. We were uh very fortunate to have a group of students and parents that were very flexible when it happened to us because we did not want to cancel the behind the wheel portion for them. So we worked with Josh uh Stannis who's our instructional supervisor. He did amazing work in trying to coordinate and plan behind the wheel. Each of behind the wheel student has to get six hours with an instructor and he did an amazing job of working together rec coordinating and rescheduling the students that were impacted because of the delay. So that was
043a challenge that we faced. And another challenge that I know we faced every summer school is attendance. Um, I think we want to I'll talk a little bit about this, but suggestion would be that in the future we really communicate early in the fall when families are thinking about summer plans and maybe buying tickets that we really emphasize that when summer school is. I did see it on the onepage calendar, which is great. Um, because some families are like, "Oh, we didn't realize." And you know, we already have this family trip. Can they miss three days? were like, "Sorry, we can't because you're talking about a semester class that's condensed in 12 days." So, that was a challenge that we uh definitely faced considerations. One of the things that Joyce and I have talked about,
044I asked Linda Regal, who also saved us. Uh Linda is honestly truly the person who runs summer school. Let's be honest, it's she runs summer school. So when we met in September, we're like, Linda, what do we need to know? And she has been amazing. Um, we would like to collect feedback from our families and students about how easy was it to register, what, you know, what are your needs? What are your thoughts? We also want to talk to our teachers. Was the hiring process easy? Was it too cumbersome? What can we do better? So the first step that we would like to do is uh do a survey. Um, we'd also like to in collaboration with our GABN counterparts and our district uh leaders that are here, we'd like to look at an audit
045to see how many what are the types of the classes and courses that students are taking based off of the student survey. We could ask are they really just trying to get ahead? Are they uh making up credits? What's the purpose of summer school? We also wanted to explore targeted interventions a little bit more. Um like um Joyce talked about the pre-alggebra, we worked with uh both of our instructional supervisors in math. We identified kids in December that the middle schools identified saying, "Hey, they need additional support." We invited all of the families. There was about 40 kids that we identified. Not all 40 students could participate, but we would like to explore more classes like that that could potentially be an intervention similar to the study skills. I'm like, we need to advertise that
046class more because uh executive functioning as those of you who are nodding your head know that is something that our families have asked for in my area which is student support. Um and again communication I think is just something that we need to improve on. Thank you so much. Uh Dr. Guo, do we take questions or we just presented? Well, well, let's say this. When I had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Kim and Miss Kenchola and said, "Can you provide a little information and background on summer school?" I would say they took it to one level and then really wanted to make sure that they highlighted the amazing work of their colleagues and not just take all the credit most certainly, but also identified uh where there's areas for growth. So before we do
047any questions, can we just give a round of applause to these two wonderful folks and then if there are questions we certainly can take them now or we can follow up later. Sure. Um and and you may guys may or may not know but that the difference between GBN and GBS is there a reason why um more students are coming from GBS or maybe not meeting a need at GBN or do you guys not know? I wonder the same thing actually. And so I that's why I looked at last year's data and it was very very similar in terms of percentages. Um so I'm not we do have a more uh more students at GBS. Um and maybe because I was thinking it's housed this year at GBS so maybe more students are willing but
048last year it wasn't correct. And so that's why I had the same question and I didn't have for those of us who have been here covered. Yeah. I think part of that is if we look at their two recommendations at the top, that's going to really help answer that question. What is the intent of summer school and and helping our families and our students know is it um credit advancement? Is it uh credit recovery? Is it enrichment? Those are areas I think uh your recommend your second bullet there is a tremendous recommendation for um actually getting at what do our students need? Okay. Yeah. What are the families looking for? Correct. And then on the the one where you mentioned the the eighth graders, the the 40 families, was that across all of our feeder
049districts? Yes. Both schools ident both instructional supervisors in the math met with their counterparts in the middle schools and then we identified student based on test scores and teacher feedback. Perfect. That's that's awesome. Yes. Getting them in. And you're you're right. They're so little when they come in as eighth graders. So it's a little terrifying. They're actually like this. It's like you're all over for us. They're like they're like this. Mr. So um for those students that are trying to get ahead once parents are very appreciative of the summer school program here uh whether they're athletes or in the fine arts generally where we I've been hearing from families that have been taking classes to get ahead. question. This may be for Ryan actually in light of the APA challenge changes that are coming and
050everything. A lot of questions were how many of these can in the future be counted towards honors or will there be more honors options because they're carving that out and sometimes they were on that honors track but only what's available during summer to free up a schedule so they could participate in the drama program or participate in varsity sports. They're having to choose. Yeah. At this point, we stayed true to our past practices with summer school in that regards, but I think not to consistently reference this, but I do think we need to look at that and we need to look at how do we bridge because now we have clear data from our students, who needs what supports. So, not only that advancement for those students that need it, but we also know who
051could use what we would call a bridge into high school to set them up for equal success. So APA is helping us from that perspective. Yeah, exactly. Pushing us into some data informed decisions that in the past we haven't had. Okay. Because there seems to be interest in terms of people wanting to even take more classes if they were more weren't hurting their GPA. Yes. Because some of them they're getting knocked down and stuff. The other one was uh people also from the families. I've got a child going through this. She's not happy, but she'll be happier in the fall when her schedule's lighter. We're in the same situation. Uh but they were very appreciative of the July 4th break with everything moving up this year and the schedule being changed and stuff. Very appreciative
052to just have a clear week instead of like, oh, I get in for a day, I get to go do something with the family, but now I could actually unplug and new semester and a lot of them got their full week of vacationing in that week. They did a lot. So, thank you. Great, Dr. Steinberg. Three hopefully quick comments. First, congrats to everybody. 99% passing rate is great in any circumstance. And if you add that some people miss some classes, that's even better. So relay congratulations to everybody. I agree with I think was your comment. Summer schedule is a commitment and it's only a short commitment. So and we have two sessions of summer. So it shouldn't be a hard choice for the family and the student. If they cannot commit to the three weeks
053or at least missing one day or two days, they should pick the other one. It's like it's I don't know if respect is the right word, but we are all in the same boat and families are making choices and everything is a set of choices. I'm taking if I'm taking summer school for enrichment, I'm taking summer school for advancing and getting more time then at some point we have to give time somewhere else. So, so I don't know if our support will do something for that or not, but I think we have to have clear rules for that. It the only caveat that we have looking at the future as we have more data on the people that have taken that have to take classes to recover for bad grades. That may be to me
054and again looking down the road there's a difference on not getting a good grade. There there's there's a huge difference between what class and what grade you didn't get a good grade. Maybe you did 80% okay but not enough to pass the class and it's like who knows one day we get to more individualized curriculum and you can accommodate but right now we are not there so so if you committed to have to come you have to come and a good thing if you understand the material help the other people that are sitting with you because it's a short course so you can you can help my last comment I don't know I I feel the pain on we don't have enough teachers to teach and I teachers need to be certificate I assume to
055teach in the summer Yes. Yes. I I wonder if we can if we can work close to home, but with universities that have different programs to try to get people that maybe they normally get their their job their their career services offices and there so many teachers that are changing jobs within year one and year two or they want to beef up their curriculum could be available for the summer but they don't know how to reach out and and back to you human resources but expand our reach of of staff that that want to teach because to to my colleague's point if students want to take classes and we have the students here and we can make the effort to have the teachers at least we I know you we are making the effort so
056don't take this the wrong way but maybe there's a way to increase the pool for sure I think we need to be strategic about it I think we learned a lot this year about the timing and when but reaching out I think both of us through our networks we were like we need teachers we need teachers so it's just timing it was also um so I think we just can improve on that um to increase that and you know our our teachers work so hard throughout the year. So some teachers like I just need a break. Yes. I did have some teachers say to me this summer I just can't. It's it's a shortened summer. I just really want to spend time with family. And I did hear from families too who who have said
057you know I had my older child take summer school is great but I just you know after co I feel I feel that what I'm hearing is that mo a lot of families they just want to keep that summer sacred with with for mental health reasons and and and just to have spam family time. And so for for various reasons I think we see numbers shifting. Thank you. Any other questions? More of a comment. Um uh congratulations. The excitement and the energy you guys if it was just half so palpable. If you just put half of that in a summer school I'm sure it was terrific. Thank you. and I'm cannot wait to and I you know I don't know if you guys are going to do a survey or not but I certainly would
058be excited to hear because that sounds you probably got a lot of positive response so much thank you so much Joyce and RSelli and Miss Malenbeck that concludes our report. Wonderful. Thank you. That takes us then to item four on our agenda, which is recognition of community visitors. But I am not sure if we had anyone sign up to speak tonight. That's okay. You can always call us, send us an email. Um, and then, you know, we'll have a meeting again in a couple weeks. Um, so we're always happy um very happy to hear from members of the community. Um, so please use any and all of those um outlets in order to reach us. Item five on our agenda is our consent agenda. Uh Dr. Grall, are there any changes? There are no changes.
059Okay. In that case, um just I think one thing I did want to call out is that um on the policies, we did make the change that um Mr. Glowaki had suggested in the last meeting. Okay. Terrific. Wonderful. Um in that case, uh could I have a motion? I move second. Miss Smith. Mr. Downing. Yes. Mr. Glowaki. Yes. Mr. O'Hara. Yes. Mr. Shine. Yes. Dr. Steinberg. Yes. Miss Mullenbeck. Yes. Motion carries. Wonderful. Next item on our agenda. Uh we have our discussion action agenda and the first item uh for that is our 2526 fiscal year tentative budget. Thank you so much Miss Melbach. As we get started with the fiscal year budget, I want to take an opportunity and acknowledge a topic that has been talked about in the media uh and also by the
060Illinois State Board of Education, and that has to do with our federal funding. And so, there's a lot of information coming out, different news articles, and certainly things you hear on the news. And I wanted to take this moment to um provide some clarity as to first of all the percentage, if you will, of the school district's budget um that is supported by the federal government as well as um kind of piecing together or connecting what we've heard and how it directly impacts the school district. So, first and foremost, if we look at last fiscal year, um federal funding accounted for about 3% of the fiscal year's budget, and that 3% translates to approximately $4.8 million. I've identified here on the slide, and I'll just mention them verbally here, that the overwhelming majority of the
061school district's federal funding comes to support our students with disabilities through revenue streams known as IDEA. Um, and then we also receive other funding uh tied to community-based uh experiences known as the the STEP grant uh and also Medicaid reimbursement. And that's uh when individuals who are on the Medicaid program receive uh nursing services, speech language pathology, uh counseling, social work, uh we have the ability to reimbur reimburse a portion of that. And so you'll notice in general that that's where the majority of our funding uh from the federal government where it's it's directly targeted to. And a lot of that funding uh is reimbursement as opposed to just a general uh funding stream. Well, if we fast forward on July 1st, um the state superintendent of education, which is Dr. Tony Sanders, he sent
062an email in what we know as the the Isby weekly update. And in that um email, he shared that Isby received a letter from the United States Department of Education that states, and I want to emphasize, that certain program funding allocations have not yet been finalized. So again, this I want to take an opportunity and pause and say even though we might hear different things, the specific termination or or terminology on the letter is that it hasn't yet been finalized. Um, but that's not all federal funding. Again, going back to that slide, the majority of our federal funding is targeted for students with disabilities. And those programs are not the programs that were identified uh as not yet being finalized or frozen or on hold. The programs all have very technical terms, title one, part
063C, title two, part A, and so on and so forth. And I I tried to to correlate those with kind of what they really get at. And you'll notice that Glenberg only receives $138,000 in those programs that have been identified um as being on hold. Um I certainly want to acknowledge that the the largest amount $77,000 is for title 2 part A teacher quality. We utilize that funding to support teacher professional development. Um so that is uh bringing individuals in house, providing teachers release time to do work, providing mentoring support or sending teachers out. And so that certainly is is an amount that is is directly tied to our teacher development. The other amounts are tied to uh supporting overall student supports especially for our students that are English learners or what we refer to
064in Illinois as multi multilingual learners. Um, and while $138,000 is most certainly a a large amount of money, we are able to continue maintaining our programmatic um uh uh standards that we've set throughout this fiscal year, even if that funding is not available. And to that end, we talk a lot about this with the finance committee, but not as often um as a committee of the whole if you will, with the full board. So throughout my tenure at the school district in the last 10 years we've experienced a lot of whatifs or it could happen. Certainly we experienced a a pandemic that impacted the revenue stream to the school district. Um but we've also heard of largecale shifts. Sometimes we refer to it as the pension cost shift uh or a property tax freeze. And
065in an organization that's nearly 94% locally funded, that would be significant. Um, one of the areas we're very prideful of is we have built a a financial um kind of foundation that provides us the ability to not make quick reaction decisions as a result of of an announcement that gets made. And what we mean by that is in the event that a funding stream is impacted, it is fully cancelled, um we get notified it will not be continuing, we will continue programs um as budgeted, as staffed, as planned for until the end of the fiscal year. As soon as we get definitive answers though, we will bring a group of stakeholders together and we will process through what that means for us. We'll do those logical things which is identifying any um uh for lack
066of better terms lowhanging fruit that we can address. We'll try to find other efficiencies. We'll look to see if there's com combination of efforts that can that can free up other resources to support the programs as opposed to impacting programs. But nothing will happen um uh outside of a process that we go through that is thoughtful, that is intentional, and that is transparent to all of our stakeholders. That includes our community members, our students who are impacted, our parents, and our staff members. Um so, I just wanted to get started uh with that federal funding update. Um and then uh as we look for uh the remainder of the fiscal year budget, we just had our finance committee and I wanted to take an opportunity and defer to um our committee members to share what
067we discussed and I believe Dr. Seinberg, you had mentioned that that you were going to add some thoughts. Thank you. Um, so does everybody get a copy of this or not? Or it's in the It's in the agenda. All right. It's in the agenda. All right. So Vicki did a great presentation for the committee going mostly on a a re a summary of the previous year's budget and comparing our budget amounts to the actuals. and we went through categories that I'm going to go briefly through some of them and then we went through the summary of the budget built for this upcoming fiscal year that actually started two weeks ago. As a reminder, the way we do budget at the district is zero budget model. So every year we start not from scratch but we
068build the budget from from direct need. a couple of key points that I believe Vicki mentioned and where something fell and and who you are. Yes, I assume by this point even if they close your eyes and hear me talking know who I am. So um anyway, so a couple point I'm on page 34 if I'm cor you can't stand seeing my thank you distraction point. If we look at page 34 um overall if you see the allocation what is actual which is the second column we had less revenues coming from the state although we don't know correct me if I'm wrong we don't know if this is the final number there may still be more property taxes coming but this is as of the numbers that we have access now so you basically got
069a little bit almost 3% less than what we were expecting expecting to get in that category. There were other categories that we got less. If you look at the numbers, overall our direct receipts were three 3.8% down compared to what we were expecting. Now, to balance that, our expenses were also paired down a little bit. And if you look at the total direct dispersements, we spent 97.7 of what we were expecting to spend. So, we spent about 2 2.3% less. And when we add uses of other funds, I thought that expenditures were 1.7 less than than we were supposed to. Overall for the year, we're expected on an amended budget to have a change of overall fund balance of 4.5 million 4.6 millions almost. And we ended up having an actual of 7.1 almost 7.2
070million. We budget. We budget in in what is the formulation you mentioned? We want to have when we create the budget, we have the same amount for expenditures that we preview for revenue. So we look for a balanced budget. Yep. With the exception of purposeful uses of fund balance, which is when the board intentionally is seeking to spend reserves that have been accumulated for targeted projects that support students. And in those cases, like you said, the board approves it. So what we see at the bottom of page 34 which is some negative amount on the change of the overall fund balance. This was preapproved. We agreed that we were going to be spending some money that we were going to be taking from from the original budget. I make a pause here before going to
071the next one in case people have questions that or one of my colleagues wants to add something on last year's budget. And if you have questions Vicki is standing there. I just want to point out that this is very early numbers. We're very early in the audit window um for the close of the fiscal year. So, these numbers are likely to change by the final budget. Um we will get closer to those budgeted numbers than the actual as it's displayed in this chart. And I just wanted to point out for everyone else, we're also releasing this two weeks earlier than we have in the past. So, we have more time to review. This is no action tonight. This is for review purposes. So you can also get your questions to Vicki and uh the staff
072this over the next coming weeks. And one more thing that I think R.J. says all the time that it's that there's still some funding that we get through grants or or other funding that sometimes comes after the year it's over and there's some exercise on rebalancing or moving those funds. If there are no questions, Madame President, I think we go to page 42 if I'm not 42 and 43. If you're looking at the electronic PDF, it'll be page 56 and 57. Thank you. So when looking at this year's budget in what you can see again this is compared to the actuals to the numbers that we have up to now from last year's budget. So the from the year they just finished and our current budget we expect 2.2 increase on total direct receipts receipts
073and and total revenue up 1% because we do a balanced budget. If you look at the bottom table, the table of expenditure summary, you'll see that expenditures originally if you look at total expenditures is higher than total revenues. But to the point that RJ made earlier, we had approved the use of some funds for capital projects. And that's what you see on the bottom two lines, column two of of the expenditure summary table to have a balance budget of 231,18610 and our expenses also increased compared to last year. I don't know if you want to comment in terms of we have more capital projects that yeah I would just offer one of the largest expendure expenditure increases that we saw on a line item not overall budget but line item is that we increased the
074amount of salaries for non-licensed staff members and that is directly attributed to bringing the final phase of staff who used to work for True North as district employees. So instead of paying a contracted service, now they're district employees. And so you see that transition. And then we have some final um large capital projects uh that are coming to fruition. One is our guaranteed energy savings contract that we've talked about in the past. We kind of called that the battery project. Um we also are um paying our last installment on the building automation system uh project that has been going on for a little more than three years now. And we also are replacing our fleet of maintenance vehicles uh to assist with snow removal uh lawn maintenance and things of that nature. I defer to
075my colleagues more comments from this table for this table. Questions for Vicki or RJ? Just another note that these numbers again are very tentative. Um, just as the name of the budget sounds, uh, this is based on information that is known at this time, there's a lot more information that'll be coming over the next six weeks before the final budget is presented. So, there will be some changes. And if anybody really wants to dig deeper, you can watch the finance meeting that happened before this. I mean, it's it's available, right? You can watch it online. Available online for public inspection. Okay. So there's no action then tonight? No action tonight. Um and we just need your approval to make the budget available. Um and then schedule a public hearing for um August 25th. Okay. Do
076we need a motion for that or do we just uh consensus is fine. Any objections? Think we have consensus. Excellent. All right. Um, thank you so much uh to all the members of the finance committee and Miss Tarbor. Um, that takes us now to um item 6.2 which is uh the appeal the determination of the district's petition to withdraw from True North. And for that we have uh Dr. John's. Thank you very much. Uh this is uh quick item because it's largely a um was largely forecasted in our last meeting uh as a continuation of the process to withdraw from True North that we started several months ago. Uh, one thing I want to make as a caveat before I dive into it, we do know that there are ongoing efforts uh, within the True
077North Leadership Council, the the 18 districts that uh, function as a board in determining and setting the direction of that organization to either move forward with the dissolution uh, to find a way to maybe create different forms of cooperatives or consortiums or finding ways to change the structure of the organization that might be so appealing that our district and other districts that are in the same position as us might reconsider whether or not we actually leave. In particular, changing the fiscal structure or the financial structure of the organization and making critical leadership changes. With all that in mind, the administration and our legal um council recommend that we proceed with the withdrawal process, but at the same time monitor these developments carefully uh to see if what happens is if something is in the best
078interest of the district. So, a little background on where we stand in terms of the petitions. Uh to to bring you back a couple weeks ago, we had submitted petitions to withdraw to the other 17 districts. I believe we knew at that time that we had a couple who did or were were going to vote against our petition and truly in fact there were four districts that voted against our petition. So that requires us now to submit an appeal to North Cook. The North Cook appeal um requires uh that the superintendent of the intermediate service center convenes a three-member panel of people with education expertise but who are not members of our district. The panelists must be impartial and non-local and they determine if our district can independently serve our students. And part of what
079that requires is, and this is it's an enormous document, is our comprehensive plan. We're wrapping up. We're probably a week to two weeks away from finalizing our comprehensive plan that we will submit to the intermediate service center. At the same time, the ISBE is going to work with us taking a look at our plan because even if the ISC approves our plan, we still need the ISB to approve our plan. So, we want kind of early feedback before we get to that stage. And so, if approved, we're still on track for withdrawal uh effective July 1 of next year. So what I need today is to permission from the board, direction from the board to make the next step which is for the board to approve the appeal of the petition for us to move
080forward with the withdrawal from and that's the appeal to North Cook ISC. So that's the motion I'm requesting tonight. Any questions? I do have a question but you first I'm and I'm not sure if you we may not have the answer today but in my view there are two options at the table. One option is to follow the recommendation and hope it goes okay and we can withdraw on July 1. Option number two is to join everybody else and worst case scenario we withdraw on July 1 of the following year and that has an additional cost for us. What is not clear at least to me maybe we went over this the meeting I wasn't here is what is the cost that we would incur on this decision compared to the cost that we incur
081the other one because there's there's a fiscal component to this well there there's it's a good question and there's both fiscal and non-fiscal components of my answer so there is some debate amongst the other member districts on whether or not our approach is legitim legitimate. We are saying we are following what the state law says. Our position is that the articles of agreement exceed the capacity that they have. Therefore, essentially unlawful and we're going to follow the state code and we think we've got a legally strong u position there. If we were to wait and ideally uh Representative Katzmaul's bill is signed by the governor, then we could just hop onto that which would have the timeline of us withdrawing a year later and it's a kind of a greased pathway then, right? Everything's in
082place. So, in terms of our workload, um many much of it will be the same. maybe the psychological stress of and potential uh legal work lying ahead with our current plan uh would not be there. So there's that I don't have a dollar figure for. Um but we're anticipating our member fees for next year will be someplace between $650 and $750,000 for the following for that year. Not for this year for the for the year that yes for that for that if we kick out our withdrawal a year between 650 and 750 yeah yeah I would anticipate it being a little higher just as cost creep from a financial perspective too when any district withdrawals. So in in theory if if the um organization dissolves there will still be outstanding pension liability payments that must
083be satisfied. So we already know by with by submitting our intent to withdraw that we're going to have to make payments for their IMRF pensions and other liabilities that exist. Now those liabilities can decrease in cost if assets are sold or there's available fund balance or things of that nature. But I just wanted to bring that up because if we were to remain in for one more year, which might be um uh an option that we want to further evaluate, we would have that year's payment as well as the pension liability costs that were somewhere in the neighborhood of uh $1.2.5 million if not more. Um cost onetime cost. So, if you don't have to pay the 700, but you do have to pay the 1.2 1.5, um, it would be beneficial to decrease your
084overall outlay. Um, that's one thing we don't talk a lot of bit about a lot about. We certainly got it in our analysis, but there is another payment no matter what that we will have to make. Yeah. No, my question was there's a difference if it's we're talking about 600,000 versus a 100,000 versus 600,000 versus 450,000 because there's another element to it which is in the last month the mood for the lack of a better word of that board has changed 180 degrees. So I we were talking about a board that was looking at this organization as being an independent organization that switched almost overnight from a board that is talking about we are 18 districts and what I think we need to be concerned at this point is regardless of what happens with this
085we have to live with these 18 districts forever because we have other agreements with these 18 districts. So, it's a different relationship that we have now, not because we changed, but because reality sank in on the other 17 districts. So, I'm not suggesting not to go the path forward, but I do suggest that we review how we treat our relationship with our partners because some of these districts are feeder districts. So, right now, we have I don't know how many of those 18 that already approved their exit of the district. And and again, I'm I think nobody would complain if we're talking about five 600,000 versus a 100,000. But if down the road we made the decision that at the end of the day didn't save us any money, we look as we tried to
086do grandstanding where the main goal that we wanted was accomplished, which is for them to review how they do their business and to determine if they're going to change or they going to dissolve. So, those are really good points and I think uh we've worked really hard through all of this to um be as uh careful listeners and empathetic to the impacts of the other districts. Fortunately, in our situation, all the members of the township voted in favor of our withdrawal. So did all the members of the new Trier Township and the four votes against us were the same who voted against District 34's withdrawal. Um an interesting note is one of the districts who voted against our withdrawal uh has asked for withdrawal. So and it's our understanding that all 18 districts are at
087least proceeding with withdrawal but like one of our options monitoring to see maybe something will kind of rise from the ashes here that will be beneficial. So, um, the other thing that's happening I think is important, uh, we're having early conversations with our feeder districts to see what sort of partnerships we can make, uh, to pull resources for some particularly low incident programs, OTP, speech, vision, and assist of technology. and what can we do collectively since we're all so close together in this township to to save money to make sure we have and more importantly I should say more importantly to make sure we have services for these kids. Thank you. Any other questions? I actually had a question. Um, are any of the other districts that have now sought to withdraw, are any of
088them following the same statutory path that we're following? It's my understanding that they're all following either the articles of agreement or the bill um brought to the floor by tra and passed by Tracy Catsmaul uh with the 2027 withdrawal date withdrawal date. As a reminder, we started before that bill was even initiated. So, we're kind of a in that middle ground there. Okay. and district 34s, if they're successful on the path that they're on, will they'll their their withdrawal date will be next year, 2026. Yeah. Ours will be the same, right? Yeah. With them. And I just wanted to offer clarification. Uh it's been a while since we looked at these numbers. District uh 225's proportional share of uh OPED liability is 2.5 million, not 1.5, 2.5 million. However, should the organization dissolve, there are
089approximately um $37 million in assets. So, that would just uh we are entitled still to a proportion of the assets. So, now that we're a few years in, we've hired a large number of staff, we we have our programs framed out better. I'd like to ask that we receive a a summary of of the of the programs and expenses because one of the reasons that we decided to go along this path was we felt that the financial model was very unfair where we paid a very high amount but sent very few students for services and it was very disproportionate. So, we've made this change and I'd like I'm curious where we are uh with our expenses with all the staff and you know the things that go along to support the students and the programs
090and also let's make sure we look at numbers of students involved because if that's fluctuating around then obviously you have an impact on staffing. So, we will um Thank you. Fortunately, we're actually in a really good spot. One of the uh benefits of a piece of legislation that was passed a little more than a year ago is that um we are now able to seek reimbursement for public therapeutic placements that exceed our what we call our two times per cap or two times tuition. Um, so we have uh very extensive accounting for Glenberg off campus as well as um our transition services program and our TLS program. So we'll bring all of that to the board um likely in the early fall if that's okay. Are those federal or state dollars or a combination state?
091But us recommending the appeal doesn't really change anything because we can still get all this information and decide to stay. Is that correct? That's correct. And the work that's the report, the the the justification or the demonstration that we're capable of providing these services to our kids. That's largely done at this point. It it's largely done. In fact, I have a meeting tomorrow with a couple people on the team to go through the first cut. Um it it's going to need some revision. It's an just an incredibly enormous document. Um, but we're really close. Okay. And um, where things sit right now with True North is there's just a lot of uncertainty timeline wise, goals. Yeah. Sort of the whole everything. Yeah. It's there's a lot of work that's going to need to be done.
092There's several different um ideas for how to proceed. Uh a couple committees have been recommended uh uh recently, you know, two uh amendments to the articles of agreement were passed. Uh there's others on the table that are coming. Uh so there's a lot of flux. The superintendent of True North has taken a position out of state. Another uh high level administrator has resigned. So there is a lot of um I don't know how to say this. There's just a lot of change happening and and we don't, you know, we're empathetic to what that feels like. We want to to help. We don't want to cause more disruption. Uh but for the sake of our district and our taxpayers, we feel it incumbent upon us to proceed. I guess on a de facto basis, we're already
093handling our students. Correct. Right. That's the the last move in terms of handling all our students was the opening will be the opening of the the transition center. We have a small number of families that asked us to to leave their children in the true north program which we agreed to through the through the middle of next year because those students are particularly sensitive to radical changes. And so we honor that. Um, and I suspect I really hope that when some of those families see the center, they may change their mind. Well, and it sounds like there's radical change coming to True North regardless. So, yeah, as long as we're taking care of our students, I'm comfortable. It sounds like whether we we we should proceed on the next year basis because at worst if
094it doesn't work, we can go with the the bill if that does get signed. It's not like it's an eitheror thing, right? So, okay. And and Another point just to tootu Dr. Gelshhorn is you know we've offered any assistance we can provide and when it comes to taking another look at finances either moving forward or recommendations have been made so far Dr. Grall's on record of of offering his assistance um which he's particularly skilled at. So whatever we can do to make the best of that situation or to make it better for us and for the others who want to withdraw, we want to be a part of making a a good thing out of this situation. Any other discussion? Can I have a motion? There's a scripted motion. So I move the board that
095the board of education authorize the administration to appeal the determination of the district petition to withdraw from true north educational cooperative 804 to the north cook intermediate service center. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Okay. My computer is sleeping. Um, that takes us then to review and summary of the board meeting and we had a pretty light agenda on this one. We had a a wonderful presentation about summer school which was exciting to hear about and um um sounds like great things are happening and we'll just a few more days um to get through. Um we also heard about um Dr. George's trip to Michigan with Habitat for Humanity, which sounded like a wonderful experience for her and for the kids. Um we had uh discussion of the um budget with a
096presentation from our finance committee um regarding the tenative budget for the uh 2526 school year. Um, and we approved making that available for review. And we just um approved uh pursuing the petition um um the excuse me, the appeal of our petition to withdraw from the True North Cooperative. And I believe we do have closed session tonight. Oh, I'm sorry. Before we talk about that, um I would like to say that we have on our agenda item eight, possible topics for future board meetings. If any board members have any subjects that they would like to have addressed at a future board meeting, speak now or send me an email. Okay, great. Um, in that case, we do have close session tonight and let's see. One thing I do want to point out is that we
097will not be having any action coming out of close session. Um, so, you know, for a large audience, that lets them go home. Um, where is my script? Here it is. Ah, okay. At this time, I will entertain a motion to consider collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or the representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees. Security procedures, school building safety and security, and the use of personnel and equipment to respond to an actual a threatened or a reasonably potential danger to the safety of employees, students, staff, the public, or public property. and litigation. When an action against affecting or on behalf of the particular public body has been filed and is pending before a court or administrative tribun tribunal or when the public body
098finds that an action is probable or imminent in which case the basis for the finding shall be recorded and entered into the minutes of the closed meeting. This is in accordance with sections 2 C2 8 and 11 of the open meeting act. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Okay. Uh, five minutes to wrap up pretty quickly. Okay. How about we're back.