001Good evening. Welcome to the Community Consolidated School District 46 Board of Education meeting. We are at Graves Lake Middle School this evening on Wednesday, July 16th. Um, can I get a call to order and a roll call, please? Mac is absent. Braden here. Nash >> here. >> Halverson >> here. >> Hun >> here. >> Miller >> here. >> And Weedman >> here. >> All right, we have a quorum. Will you join me for the pledge of allegiance, please? Thank you. Uh, can I get a motion for the approval of tonight's agenda, please? Miller Halbertson. >> Hi, >> Weedman. >> Hi, >> Braden. >> Hi, >> Hume. >> Hi. >> And Nash. >> Hi. >> Great. Do we have any public comments? No public comments. All right. Um, that brings us to board reports and I
002will start on my right with Miss Yun. Just quickly, it's been a while since we've been together. Um, so I just wanted to give a big thank you and community shout out um for the great participation and engagement in our annual Junth celebration of Walk Freedom here in Grace Lake. Um we continue to grow year-over-year and it was super exciting to see um I think we uh ced at 200 or so folks out this year which is outstanding. Um and this is not possible without the district leaning in um promoting community and inclusion here. And so everything that that event culminates is really you know kind of cornerstone to our mission of creating equity, cultivating community and empowering learners. Um so I was really proud to see not only the district so well represented the
003board colleagues, but also we had our newly elected mayor, uh, Mayor Davies, come out and do a welcome address. So, very well attended and I'm grateful for all the volunteers and the district leaning in to continue to support this year over the year over year because our community is truly engaged by it and we're having impact. So, thank you. >> Okay, thank you. Um, my only board report for this evening is a note that the board reviewed closed minutes from the past few months of our closed sessions on April 23rd and none were uh approved for release. So, I just wanted to congratulate Mr. Wildman and um thank you also for the podcast and the article that was were both published in his professional organization. Um and I want to thank you for really holding
004up members of our whole community from volunteers to Amanda to a whole bunch of um people who participated and make an impact in sustainability. So thank you for for doing that. um very much appreciate uh that team effort and team recognition. So, thank you. Along those lines, I also want to hold up Mayor Dave Davies because the CEC walked with her this morning and learned a little bit more about Gelatin Park and the restoration of that area as well as Central Park and the new area across from Dog and Suds if you're familiar with that walking path. and it launched into a discussion about flood mitigation and um water filtration which was fantastic. She started to talk about Mil Creek which of course impacts Frederick School and some of the effort that's uh in the
005planning stages in order to make that more of an amenity for our community too. So I wanted to make you aware of that. And then just fun fact, when the gelatin, if you didn't already know this, when the gelatin stack was excavated and and all of that area was was restored, they found 20 ft of dead birds in that smoke stack. So, thank you to those people who had to um clean that up. So, yes, not exactly toxic, but certainly unpleasant. So, yes. So, fun fact, that's my board report. Can we >> I'm so used to >> That's right. Um so as part of my job with fire department um I deal with the hazardous materials parts for the county. Um there's new legislation on the books that is working its way through the system
006regarding hazardous materials and school districts and schools and emergency planning for that. So you know that's coming down the pipeline that you'll have to um include any businesses or buildings in town that might affect um the schools like even the rails. So the rail that goes past uh metal and all that will also have to be included in those plans. Um, so that is coming your way soon as it gets signed down south. Um, but that was one thing that I learned today while I was at the Emergency Planning Commission. Just passend. >> Thank you so much. Well, I will start by just a few comments about our location tonight. Um, board, thank you for your flexibility um, and understanding and thank you to our on&m team and Mr. Smith um, for helping us kind
007of on a moment's notice reschedule our meeting right here to GMS. We had to do that because we're in the process of putting in our new chiller over at Frederick and so it just wasn't ready for us and was too warm. Um but it's kind of it's nice to be back in this area which board members who've been around for a while along with administrators you know we used to have many a board meeting in fact for a while all of our morning board meetings in this space um and we're just so now used to our space over in the falcon room um as evidenced by the fact that we don't actually have all the proper equipment here anymore. We are sharing mics. We may not, we know our sound isn't going to be pristine.
008So to anyone who is watching this at home, we do apologize that there may be some sound issues. As you mentioned, we are all sitting in different places. So it's just the wild wild west tonight here at GMS. Um, and I want to welcome everyone to a new fiscal year and the start of the 2526 school year. I say that knowing of course our little friends are not on site yet. Um but they will be soon and of course the planning is um happening happening happening. People are very busy getting ready for our students and for our staff to come back and in fact since it's after July 1, it is officially the be beginning of 2526 school year. And I want to welcome our new administrators to our school district. Starting with one who's
009sitting at the table, we have Amber Bogrin here, our new director of ML services. We're so glad you're here, Amber. Um, welcome. Um we have not at the table but just want to mention them to you. James Vanardan, our new facilities manager who is um already proving his worth um so significantly stepping up consistently and helping Jose quite a lot. Um and he's just just started. We have Jeff Higgins, our new principal of Meadow View, who has been very busy hiring new staff and getting used to his new school. Um, he's had people drop in and see him and he's really enjoying his new digs. And we have Ryan Lazar, the new assistant principal over at Frederick. I got to see him today as we were talking about some matters to do with Frederick, and
010he too is setting up his office, hiring people, and getting the schedule going. So very very busy man. Um and then not new to our team but I do want to mention that Mary Murphy is the new assistant principal right here at GMS. You know that she was previously the assistant principal at Frederick and transferred back over here to GMS. I say back because prior to being the principal at assistant principal at Frederick, she was a dean here at um GMS. So that's our new team and I'm gonna Oh, right before I hand this over to you Amy since then I'll have to grab the mic back otherwise I do want to mention board that as per your request we have set up our board schedule moving forward with four finance committee meetings scheduled as
011a part of the regular board meeting rotation. I know that um Mr. Wellman will be talking about that later when we're presenting information about our strategic plan. All right. Good evening. Uh I as Dr. Glickman shared, we are busy getting ready for the upcoming school year um with our students and so I wanted to talk a little bit about our math trainings. Um as um you know um you approved a new math resource for this coming school year, K8, two different resources. Um, and so we started our training sessions in the spring. Um, and so sixth through 8th grade had some training sessions in May with a trainer on site. Um, but this week specifically, we've been have we've had some optional training sessions um for K K1 on Tuesday, 2, three today, and four
012five uh will be tomorrow. And those are focusing on really helping to show what a lesson will look like within those um within that resource and then helping our teachers to be able to think about what planning can look like for unit one so they're prepared for our um students. There will be some planning sessions next week for our sixth through 8th grade teachers. So we have lots of people coming in to work on math. And then for those who were unable to come over the summer, but actually for everybody, we will have our trainers for both resources on site again on August 12th as one of our opening day activities. So really excited. We've been getting incredible feedback from our staff and they're excited to start digging into the new resources that we have.
013Thank you. And I want to apologize and correct an error. Apparently, I said that the new principal at Meadow View is I I'm not going to state it again, but the name is Jeff Pricket. Believe I said Jeff Higgins putting together Jeff Prickets. Jeff Pricket, who is the new principal at Meadow View, and Josh Higgins, who became the principal of Woodview last year. And if you could just take the mic away from me and keep the meeting moving, that would be best for everyone. >> Thanks, Dr. Glickman. Um, can I get a motion to approve our consent agenda, including the personnel addendum that was uh sent to us earlier today? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Braden. >> I Nash. >> Hi. Hume. >> Hi, >> Halerson. >> Hi, >> Miller. >> Hi, >> and
014Weedman. >> Hi. >> Great. Thank you. All right. This uh takes us to our action items. And first action item is a motion to approve board policies 118. Do I need to say anything else regarding the detail around the policies for the votes? Okay, great. motion for that. Thanks, >> Weedman. >> Miller, Nash, >> hi. >> Braden, >> I >> Hume, >> and Herson. >> Okay. Uh, next we have a motion to approve the Grace Lake Federation of Teachers Contract. >> I'll second. Hume. >> Hi, >> Braden. >> Hi, >> Halverson. >> Hi, >> Miller. >> Hi, >> Weedman. >> Hi, >> and Nash. >> Hi. >> Okay. And finally, um, can I get a motion to approve the administrator contracts for 2025 2026? >> Halverson. >> Hi, >> Braden. Hi, >> Kun. >> Hi,
015>> Miller. Hi, >> Nash. >> Hi, >> and Weedman. Okay, those are all our action items for this evening. Um, we're going to move on to unfinished business. And first up, we have an uh W Architect Media Center update. All right. Um before we jump into the presentation, I'll just give a quick update on the construction that's happening this summer since since Dr. Glickman mentioned the work over at Frederick. Um here at the middle school, uh the boilers are uh all that work's basically done. They're in the process right now of just kind of fine-tuning some of the temperature controls and getting that integrated in. Um so that's going to be ready to go in the next couple weeks. Over at Frederick, uh chillers installed. They are ready to start it up, I believe, at
016the end of this week or maybe early next week. Um then they've got the same just sort of some controls integration to get that wrapped up and preview is about a week behind that. Uh so they're just kind of going stuff. So everything's right on track where we need to be ready to go for the start of school and and ready to get rocking and rolling. So with that we'll jump into the stuff that's on the books for next summer's work which is the media school stuff. You said this does not work correct. That does not turn on helps sometimes. >> All right, cool. Uh so our agenda real quick tonight uh we're going to start off with a a quick review of the floor plans just to sort of get everybody up to speed
017and see how the feedback from the core planning group and the user groups have been overlaid onto the buildings to to see those adjacencies and everything. Uh we're also going to talk about the student feedback section that we had um which is a great time and then sort of the next steps that involve the design committee um how the uh the budget sitting right now and then schedule for future steps. So, if we want to take a look real quick at Meadow View, uh this is kind of where the floor plan has settled. Uh just a couple things to note as we flip through these. If you remember from the core planning group, some of that design criteria um was about how the large group and the maker space at the uh the younger kid
018levels really wanted to to have that operable wall between them. So, we could open that up to be a larger group session maybe for full staff, things like that. Uh at Prairie View, the next building, uh you'll start to see sort of how we've applied where the um meteor center specialists uh desk is has got visibility kind of to the full full breadth of each sort of zone. The large group, the stacks, the story area. Uh it's got some visibility into the small group through a borrowed light window. We then look at Frederick. Frederick starts to become one of the more unique buildings with some of the older students. So there's not a story area in this one. Um but with those older kids, the adjacency from the maker space to the STEM start to
019be more important. So the operable wall is now between those two spaces to allow those to open up and have a shared curriculum or for larger uh group gathering spaces. As we move on to park, uh sort of the same concept. You can see where we we pulled the maker space and the STEM adjacent to each other, which meant that the uh media specialists moved off sort of to the side uh for that work room. It also created a staff workroom with some of the spare space we had left over, which was a need in that building. So that'll be an opportunity for teachers to come and make copies and not have to come in and disturb the students in the media center itself. Like I mentioned, we got a lot of feedback from the
020students. Uh we actually had two student groups that joined us and met with some of our architectural and interior design team. Um we got some great feedback from them. These are some of the themes that came out of it. Those groups were made up of some of the older students in the district. I think there was a remind me if say if I say this wrong, I think it was a group from the middle school and a group from Park if I'm not mistaken. Um, so basically they've those students have lived this these media centers throughout their their educational experience. So they had a lot of great insights to to provide to the group and really what came out of that was sort of the common themes that are starting to create sort of how
021the design is going to evolve from this point forward. Um, you'll see in the the word grouping here things like nature, outdoors, earthy. Um, we kind of really pulled from that and are starting to set up this uh sort of nature theme that's going to going to drive a lot of the design discussion. Here are some photos from that exercise. Um, so we've got the the students broken up into some smaller groups. We have them starting to look at the floor plans as they were at that time. Um, starting to, you know, pull images from magazines and other design books and things like that to start to to sort of apply those to how they want to see them applied in the space. Um, and get some good feedback from that. We then also had
022them share those designs with with the rest of the groups. there's a little bit of a presentation uh for each of those small groups too to to give their feedback to their peers. And that's really where a lot of those themes, like I said, came from. So, our next step then is to form our design committee as we start to then uh like I said, the floor plans are pretty well settled, but now we want to start talking about how do we put uh paint and how do we put finishes and lighting and all the fun stuff that goes in and kind of gives the space life. Uh so, we've, you know, like I said, centered around that that nature theme. And what we're going to do then is meet with some of the users
023and staff from each building, a couple, two, three people uh from each building. So that within that theme, each building is going to have its own identity, right? So whether that's one building's the the forest theme, one building's the desert theme, one building's the the oceanic theme, things like that. We can start to build that identity for that. Um we'll have a few rounds of meetings uh where we'll go through that. And uh the focus, like I said, is going to be really on the materials, the colors, the finishes, and the furniture that's going to go into that space. Um, we've also at this point have gotten our first uh estimate back from our our estimator. Uh, we're right on track with where we need budget wise. Um, we're going to start to to filter
024in a couple of alternates uh just to give us a little bit of flexibility on bid day. So, if if things go sideways, we've got some some ways to get back on track, but right now we're right where we need to be. Next slide. And then as far as upcoming schedule, uh, this month is a busy month as we start to get our furniture vendor lined up. We actually just had um the first round of furniture stuff coming up from our vendors off to the administration to take a look at and we can start to narrow down who we want to work with for that. We're going to meet with the design committee in a couple of weeks, start talking about some of the technology stuff that's going to go into the spaces as we
025start to do that. And then in the coming months, it'll be uh kind of refining some of that, starting to get into things like some of the nitty-gritty like door hardware and that sort of fun stuff. um before we find out our final owner page turn, do our final estimate and get out to bid and come back to you for award in November. Any questions on any of that? Feel like I'm fast through that. >> I love how the students were engaged and their feedback and ideas were incorporated. um and you know them feeling heard and seeing having a handrint footprint with this um you know it's going to be really exciting for all the the future kiddos to come. So thank you for that. >> Yeah, thank you. It's always one of the funnest
026parts of what we do from a design standpoint. >> Talk about how that came up. What exactly were they saying? What what was your just your sense of >> I wasn't personally at that. It was uh people that are much better at design than a mechanical engineer is. But uh the feedback I got was it was you know we kind of we basically sort of coach them through like here are the ideas to look at and it's a um we sort of you know get the ideas going with some some starter ideas sort of things like could be a nature theme, it could be a animal theme, it could be kind of whatever and then they just sort of blossom off from there. Um >> I don't know Amanda I think you were there. Was
027there anything missing with that? >> Yeah, I think There you go. run with it. You're doing great. I think a lot of those themes were tied to the school colors too. So the oceanic was the blue the building that was the blue one >> including the colors that are um already existing throughout the school right in the building. Correct. Yeah. >> All right. No problem. We'll be back again for another one probably in a few months. >> Thank you. Very exciting. >> All right. Thank you. >> I have FOMO in those >> anytime there's a word cloud. Yeah. How about it? >> All right. Yeah. All right. Um, >> our next item for unfinished business is a strategic plan update. picking up sound like this. What do you think, Amanda? What do you think? Yep.
028All right. Great. All right. So, board, before we start um with our strategic plan update, I want to start with a little bit of a reminder about our history. So, back in the 2021 school year, we organized um around some really important principles and created a new strategic plan together and we did that with a wide variety of our stakeholders and we did it during co remember we had all those remote meetings uh five of them in fact and during that time we created a new mission vision new values or we didn't create new values because you have values values, right? We identified our values and we created new goals. Um, all of the goals that we're going to be talking about tonight are goals that are from that school year and we have continued
029with the same goals up through now. This is our last year of the existing goals um as we we're never done, but as we bring to an end what was set forth by the board at that time. um and and our community. So, as you know, in the spring, we are intending to update our strategic plan completely. Whether the board will and the community will choose to renew our mission and our vision and values, that remains to be seen. I think that's a discussion we'll have to have. But, um certainly there will be new goals. So, I'm mentioning that to you as we talk through all of the action steps that were taken during the 2425 school year and what we're planning to do in the school. What where are we on? 25 26 school
030year. Summer um to bring those particular goals to a close before we renew this. Oh, I got her. Yeah, there it is. Look. Oh, you did it. Did you do it? So, I'll go like this and you'll know it's time. We'll pretend. I'll go and you'll go. We got a plan now. You can see behind the curtain, everyone. All right. So, that's the go. That's the mission that was created back in the day. Um, empowering learners, creating equity, cultivating community. The goals that were written are in service of that mission. and the tasks because that's what we're talking about tonight. The tasks that were uh accomplished last year and the ones that we intend to accomplished in this coming school year are also in service of that mission. There it is. All right. Now you
031know how to do it. >> Okay. Curriculum goal one. >> I'm on it. I have to move this up though. Um so uh curriculum goal one was to or is to review and update teaching learning and assessment practices and materials through an equity lens to create culturally responsive learning environments. Um and as you can see with this list uh we've accomplished a lot during our last school year. Uh the first thing was that we focused on instructional practices for inclusivity for all. Um there were a couple ways that we did that. One of those is through our intervention period. Uh, every school, every grade level has intervention. Most of the schools call it what I need or win. And that's an opportunity for us to be able to meet the needs of all of our
032students. We're always looking at how do we challenge students that need further challenge and enrichment as well as how to we focus on supporting our students who might need some further support. And then in addition to that, uh, Dr. Lorenzo spent some time working on this through um some of the findings from the opportunity review um in order to help to pre to provide our students everything that they need. Uh in addition to that, there was a culturally responsive teaching and leading PDT last school year. Uh that focused on their Illinois culturally responsive teaching and leading standards. Uh those standards are more about what teachers are doing versus our typical standards that are focused on students. And so that PDT spent some time really digging into those standards, looking at how do those impact our
033instruction and what are some things that we can do further with those in order to support all of our students, which goes with that first bullet as well, providing inclusivity for all. So very much um interconnected. Uh we had uh class meetings and advisory happening. So class meetings were K4 and advisory was 58. our social emotional learning coaches and our deans helped to structure this time to really focus on some of those social emotional learning needs um and provide some opportunities within that to support our students. Uh we had evolve at all three three five buildings this year. Um that was some small group intervention that supported or social emotional learning. Um and we had they did a presentation earlier to the board in the spring. Um we also had a math PDT. So remember
034PDT I keep using that acronym is uh planning and design team. Uh the math PDT recommendations were brought to you um because our focus was really on an adoption for a math resource and how are we going to continue uh providing the best instruction in math. So that was the re those were the recommendations that we brought to you with that resource that you approved. And then we made some updates to the report cards at kindergarten through fourth grade. So we were already a standardsbased report card, but they had headings and we didn't have so this year we added standards as well to provide more clarity for families. You're going to see some of these things come up on the next slide as well as we talk about where we're heading. Um, but it gave
035us an opportunity to really provide more clarity about what students were learning K through 4. So, here's what we're going to do in this upcoming school year related to this goal. Um, we are going to provide some professional learning around those culturally responsive teaching and leading standards uh to support our staff with that. Um, that PDT was led by Amanda Woodruff and Dr. Diaz. Um, so Amber and um and Amanda will work together to provide that professional learning and talk about our next steps with our staff. We will continue to establish consistency and service delivery. This was something else that came from the opportunity review and Dr. Lorenzo is leading her team through some of that. um as well as um you'll see on our next goal related to um consistency and service delivery for
036multilingual students as well. So all of that is part of this goal and then we are continuing to work on formative assessment. So formative assessment is that information that we're gathering along the way throughout instruction to better provide supports for students within our classrooms. So, it's how teachers are gathering instruct information to help to um help to design and drive their instructional decision making for things like small groupoup instruction and intervention to be able to think about how do we best meet all the needs. So, kind of goes back to some of the things that we're doing to provide consistent and inclusivity for our students. And then we're going to start talking about 58 report card and how we can start moving that up um as far as standards based. So we're going to be
037uh creating a PDT for that. So that is a lot of work that is happening related to goal one. So now I'm going to talk about goal two. There's a lot related to teaching and learning in our goals as it should be because we are here to support our students. Uh so this second goal was to investigate options uh for new or revised course offerings with emphasis on world language, dual language and encore opportunities. Previously in previous years you've heard me talk about a lot of those things. Um this year specifically with that we accomplished um implementing our new 58 schedule uh which you may remember provided more consistency within our 58 buildings um and between our 58 buildings. I'm going to talk a little bit about that on the next slide as well in
038a minute. Um, we had our multilingual PDT. Uh, that PDT made recommendations for implementation not for this school year but for the 2627 school year related to um a differentiated multilingual supports and services. Um, and then also looking at our dual language programming in order to provide students a two-way two-teer 5050 model. So, I'll be working uh with Amber on that. Um, this school year or not at this school year yet, that's what we did last school year. Um, and then in addition to that, with the new schedule, we provided consistent encore classes for 58. So we offered art, STEM, music, band, and choir during those times for grades five, six, seven, and eight. So all the buildings had all of that. So now I'm going to talk about what we're going to do this
039school year on the next slide. And we have updated that 58 schedule. So we implemented that schedule for a year. We gathered some staff feedback related to that. Um, and there are quite a few tweaks that we're going to be making. So, I'm going to share some of those with you as well. Um, fifth I'm going to start with fifth grade. This past school year, we had 106 minutes for ELA and we had 53 minutes for math, science, and social studies. So, we had a d basically a double block for ELA. Some of the staff feedback was that we need more time for math and science and social studies. Um, and so we had to start to look at how do we do that? We also know with our new math resource that we need
040approximately 60 minutes to be able to teach that well. And so we looked at what can we do? And so we this in this upcoming school year, one of the tweaks that we're making is we're going to have the 70770 um model again, which is what 68 also has. Remember, science and social studies are on that AB schedule. So that will continue. And then uh so we're going to have that time. We've talked with uh we had feedback on that from staff to be able to look at what's going to happen with ELA. We're okay with that and we're going to uh provide the same. We're going to pro provide deep instruction still for ELA, incorporate some of that into science and social studies as well. Um we are also moving choir before school at
041GMS rather than during the school day. Um that came from feedback from staff as well. Uh we are for band there are we are having band will be within grade level. So last year there were some students that were having to go off grade level for band as many of you know. Um students will receive their band instruction in their grade level encore. And then wind ensemble in addition to that will have some before school practices so that the seventh and eighth graders who are both in wind ensemble can still have full band practice. So, we were working we worked uh really hard to make some changes in order to support all of our students so they still get what they need. And then we are also going to be spending a lot of time
042this year providing professional development related to um instruction for students who are multilingual in order to be ready for our implementation next school year. That was a lot. I'm going to turn it over to Amanda. It's you. All right. Thank you, Amy. Um so the technology uh strategic plan goal is to develop, review and communicate a comprehensive technology plan on an annual basis which focuses on equitable and engaging technology rich learning environments both inside and outside of the classroom to serve our students, staff and communities aligned with district goals. So the things that we worked on this year is we formed a technology planning and design team. That team um consisted of different teachers and staff from different grade levels, administrators. We met three times a year this year. Um we first reviewed the progress
043towards the current technology plan. Then we put a survey together to gather staff input and hear really what their needs were and how things were going for them. And then we met to take all of that feedback and set some new goals which I'll talk about in just a minute. Um we provided some professional development to staff specifically around parent square which you'll remember is our new communication platform. Um and we also did some introduction to artificial intelligence. Um we are working on right now we've had probably about 100 staff members come in this summer um on doing a certified staff device refresh. So um the board approved this spring the purchase of new um MacBooks and so we have been getting those ready for teachers um and they are slowly coming in this summer
044to pick them up if they want to. So that's an exciting thing to see. Um, we also worked on as a department a long-term refresh plan for infrastructure and equipment. So, our equipment is really the backbone of everything that happens um in the district. Everything from um cooling a room and making sure you know what the temperature is to um providing instruction for students. And so making sure that that infrastructure is really where we need it to be and we have a plan that makes sure we're balancing the budget and making use best use out of that equipment um in the upcoming year based on the feedback um from staff and the planning of that technology planning and design team. Um these are the goals that were identified. So um creating consistency in classroom technology.
045So we have Ben cues, but there's a little bit of variance between duck cans and other things like that. So creating a plan and getting those things also on a refresh cycle is going to be important to again for that consistency and and consistency in budgeting also. Um and one of the things that we heard loud and clear from staff is um more professional learning opportunities and that can look like a variety of different ways. So, some videos, some how-to guides, um hopefully some um time while staff is together in person, large group, small group. We're going to do what we can um specifically around um utilizing our district online resources, but also incorporating the four C's, which are creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication. Well, that was quiz to myself. Um, so I'm gonna
046I'm gonna pass it over to Chris Wildman, I believe. All right. No, I Jose, not Chris, but sorry. Well, facility goals. So what we're going to do is review, expand, clarify the comprehensive master facilities plan on an annual bas basis to continue to create equitable quality learning environments both inside and outside of the buildings to serve our students, staff, and communities with the focus on aligning decision making to district goals. What we've accomplished uh this year is uh we work with W and also Premisar mechanical contractor a long range of facility facility plans. Um they are older buildings so there's a lot to look at. So the more help we get the better we're going to be at uh um getting the school district back together. Um the media center planning with also with W.
047This is the media center is something very important to all of us which is uh what we put forth uh to the community during the u referendum and it's uh going to help enhance student uh learning environment. Um also the uh what was accomplished this year was the park campus uh outdoor learning space and we are looking to continue that at uh several other schools like uh Frederick and GMS. So the next slide um for the next year we're going we will continue to work on the long range of facilities uh plan. We will continue to the media center renovation planning um constructions at uh excuse me Prairie View uh Park campus, Frederick campus and GMS. Uh this is which is going to occur in 2026. Uh we will plan the uh student support spaces
048with updates. Uh we will investigate LED lighting at all buildings. Uh this will uh obviously help in the uh in our commitment to the sustainability and uh saving energy, you know, and obviously funds for our school district. very much needed uh to help a lot of the poorly lit places and uh also with controls added from what we're planning. We will also be able to control the lighting at any given time with the controls that don't are use kinetic energy which is nothing that uh will need anything u special to put to install. Um, also we will continue for planning for uh outdoor learning spaces again for Frederick and GMS. With that, I will uh pass it over to Chris W. >> Thank you. I'm just going to read the finance goal. review, expand and
049clarify financial practices to increase transparency and communication with a focus on aligning financial financial decision making to district goals. Um so we'll first talk about what we've accomplished this year. The finance committee met quite a lot actually. I think we met six times. Um three of those were to literally to establish what the levy was. We had a very robust discussion over those three meetings to be able to determine what was and I said at the time a momentous decision based on the information that we had with the additional EAV from the levy um from the referendum to be able to really look at the long-term effects of that levy and that decision was I think a great one that that was done with all the input of the community and all the input from
050the board members. Uh we've continued our sustainability dashboard that is available on online. It shows all four of our solar photovoltaic arrays at all four of our buildings which have uh solar panels and we've continued to update our financial dashboard. uh continuing the work, we are going to formalize the the calendar for the finance committee and we've actually give you cons outline about what those are going to look like. So on September 17th, we'll be bringing Wald back to give an update on the longrange financial plan. Alongside Wald, we will be bringing back Elizabeth Hennessy from Raymond James, who's going to be able to talk about what that funding and financing is going to look like to pay for those long range financial plan goals. On November 19th, we'll be bringing Baker Tilly here to
051give an audit update. Uh following that meeting, at the regular board meeting, the board will be able to vote on the audit results and discuss further if necessary. On February 25th, we will be bringing a staffing discussion to you because that fits very much well into the staffing timeline that we have established as part of our budget process. And then on May 20th, uh that will be the presentation of the preliminary budget. So we'll have the opportunity to use that finance committee before to discuss it in more details. And with that, I'm going to hand it on to Leslie who's going to talk about the communications goal. >> Good evening. The communication goal is to review, expand, and clarify communication methods to provide consistency and transparency with stakeholders and establish a CCSD46 brand that supports
052the mission, vision, and values of the district. This past school year, we integrated our new communication platform, Parent Square, which included training building administrators, office staff, and teachers throughout the district, as well as providing information throughout the year in our newsletters and social media to encourage families to activate their accounts and to update their communication preferences. Student services communication. Dr. Lorenzo and her team worked to streamline their communications with staff by utilizing the teaching and learning updates with dedicated information for student services topics including overview of updates, the welcome back to school information, behavior support, privacy and confidentiality, uh, accommodations and assessment information. We also added a board of education update section to our district newsletter and I have heard positive feedback from our community that they really enjoy that addition. School newsletters. We worked
053on consistency in our school newsletters this year, including sending information home on a more consistent basis through the building newsletters, making sure the information was consistent throughout the district. And we worked on parent square templates for each school with consistent format. We also created an internal document which is shared with all school administrators to make sure that the district messages are also being communicated through the school newsletters. Next slide. For for this upcoming year, we are looking to continue to improve our family engagement and increase the number of families who are using the parent square app to interact with our teachers buildings and the district. Thank you. >> Thanks, Leslie. You know, board um our team really enjoys both preparing this report every year and delivering it because it is such a wonderful opportunity for
054us to reflect on what we accomplished as a school district the prior year. This is really just a highlevel summary of the work of the school district and that work is for the most part directed by the goals that were set through the strategic plan. Sometimes the work also is related to other things that happen that we have to respond to but to the best of our ability we keep our focus on the goals that have already been set. And then we had the opportunity to talk deeply about what the work will be ahead. And that was the second slide that you saw for each one of our goal areas. So with that, what questions might you have for us? Oh wow. Um >> right. Um would a longer school day with a longer school
055day for students help to support that? Absolutely. Right. uh we would be able to have more opportunities to be able to support our students and kind of spread out that instruction a little bit. Um yeah, I mean short answer to that is yes. >> That's a really good question. Um, >> yeah, I think I probably would have to look at look into it and look into I know there are different school districts um in the area and within um both Northern Cook and Lake County and Mckenry County that do have longer student days. So, it probably be looking at what some of those are and looking at what would make sense. >> Well, I mean, Yeah, it's very it's very >> Yeah, I can speak to that. Right. So, um >> it's much more than
056just six weeks. So, I think you're looking at a lot of people, even Mr. a while behind me who's worrying about the budget as are we all um who would love to have a longer school day. But as we allude to there are many complications related to that including the fact that we've just approved new employment contracts for all both of our employee groups that um that are based on a particular length of day. So those are just some of the things that we have to think about as we think about um whether or not we can have a longer day. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. >> Yeah. Absolutely. Our vendors for sure. But it sounds good. >> Yes. And and and you were asked from instruction. >> Yes. Other questions? Yeah, so that's a great question.
057um some of the um the survey questions that the planning and design team put together did some of those questions did focus on Ben Q. I think um a a theme that came through was really um people are using it the way they feel comfortable using it um and if you know they had more support and more time um professional learning time specifically around Ben Q. Um but kind of like Amy's answer of would more student time be great? Of course it would. But also it's a balancing act. We have only so much time um to provide professional learning opportunities for our staff. So finding the right balance and ways to incorporate BenQ training into that. Um, part of what we're also looking at is, um, BenQ boards were purchased with ESR funds and ESR
058funds are no more. Um, and so finding a way that, um, we can start to plan for when those will need to be refreshed as well. So, we're starting to to really plan ahead and think through what that could look like. >> Yeah. Great question. So, band students will still have band during encore. So, um there's what is the piece that's going to be happening before school. So, here at GMS, um jazz band was already before school. Um wind ensemble and symphonic band were both during encore. Um and wind ensemble most specifically had students from both seventh and eighth grade. And so what happened this past school year is we had to tweak some schedules, student schedules in order so that they could have a full band practice. So they will still have band in
059their during their encore with Mr. Thomas, work on all the things that they should be work that they need to be working on to be successful in Wind Ensemble, but then in order to make sure they still have that full band experience with both seventh and eighth grade, they'll do that a few days a week before school as well. So, they'll still get that during their encore class. And then if students are in choir but not in band, then they would go to the other encourse because choir will just be before school. I'll just stay here. I mean, I had the most slide. So, lost this school year. It was one of the changes we initially made um in the 58 schedule. A part there were lots of reasons behind that, but some of it
060was that the fifth grade teachers are using a K5 resource and that resource was recommending a longer period of time for instruction. And so, um, they were trying to still mirror one to provide that transition from fourth grade to fifth grade to more mirror what an what the elementary literacy blocks look like. Most of our elementary lit all of our lit elementary literacy blocks were between 110 and 120 minutes. So they were trying to mirror that a little bit, brought that down to 106, which allowed them to have whole group instruction, writing instruction, small group writing instruction, small group reading instruction. Um, and so we tried that this year, but it there was a while the benefit was there for literacy, it was taking away from the other contents. Mhm. In terms of math. So,
061math was already um with the new schedule this year was 70 minutes at sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. It will now also be 70 minutes at um fifth grade. So minutewise, there's plenty of time for whole group instruction, small group instruction, um and time to ensure that our students are able to apply what it is they're working on. With the new math resource embedded into that time, there's a lot of time for math talk. Um, there's math discourse. There's opportunity to have hands-on exploration and hands-on learning to better understand the mathematical standards and to more deeply understand what it is that they are learning as far as math practice. So, it's not just about the way that most of us learned math where it was a lot of memorization and a lot of wrote instruction.
062um everything through our articulation with the high school is about how do we interact deeper with our students to have them get to a deeper level of understanding of their math um standards. And so that's something that we've been working really hard to ensure that our students are going to be able to get before they get to the high school. >> Yeah. I'll just add that Um, one of the things that is most difficult in running any organization is getting the day out. Like making sure kids show up, teachers show up and good instruction happens and all the things that go in with day in and day out while still pushing a strategic plan for forward. Um, very very difficult to unwind yourself from getting the day out. um especially as things emerge and and
063deal with the emerging issues um and keep your eye on the goals. So, I just wanted to, you know, I think I've said this before, but um I don't see often in my other interactions with organizations non-educational um the amount of discipline to stay focused on a strategic plan and not get pulled off course by the events of the day or the events of the month. and we've had some pulls. Uh so I wanted to to tell you all again um that that's that's exceptional. It's it's not uh it's the exception and not the rule, I would say. So um thank you so much for your just your consistent push towards the strategy piece as well as making every day really good. Thank you. And sorry, lost my I'm lost in a world of papers
064here. My >> What's our last? We have one last topic. >> It's a budget update. Mr. Wildman stands alone. >> Yeah. All my friends left me. It's okay. Okay. Good evening, members of the B administration community. anybody's watching online. Uh today I'll be providing a budget update for fiscal year 2526. Uh this budget update reflects the latest developments since the tenative budget was presented in June. Um we've just talked a lot about the mission, but I'll just talk about it again. As we discuss the budget, it's important to center ourselves in our mission. Empowering learners, creating equity, and cultivating community. These pillars guide all the financial decisions that ensure all our resources are aligned to support students and staff. There's the strategic goal again that I just already talked about it. It allows us to
065focus on increased financial transparency which is what we're literally talking about tonight. Aligning decision making with district goals and then we have our board policy for col20 um as we aim to maintain an operating fund balance between 25 and 30%. So here's the timetable that I presented at the tenative. You might notice that there's an additional update in here. It wasn't on the original timeline. Um we reviewed the preliminary budget in May, the tenative in June. Here we are producing an update for you for for discussion to understand where we're at in our budget planning. The budget will remain on public display uh through midepptember and we still plan to have our hearing September 17th and then it'll be filed with the state on September 30th. So here are the updates. Some changes since our
066last review updates include not surprising uh the full costing of the GFT contract has been included. So that includes all the different areas that were that were ratified and approved tonight. have included in the budget. We have received uh bad the negative news I guess that our state grant which is the teacher vacancy grant has been decreased by 33%. It was $185,000 and now it's $123,383. So that was a state grant um that we just received that that allocation for the upcoming year for the school year that we're just in now. Um and then I'm going to talk a little bit about federal funding in the next few slides, specifically title and idea. So this was a slide I presented back in January. Major development impacting federal funding was the executive order that was issued
067uh which paused all federal grants and loans at the time. This federal level decision affects programs across the country as you know including education streams that we rely on. So I'm now going to talk about them in the next slide please. Okay. Um this slide highlights the specific federal funding that we believe could be at risk and some of them are at risk that we we're actually recommending that they're reduced from the budget. So we have title one through four and I um the uncertainty makes it difficult for us to plan long-term programming when we depend on these funds. Before I do that, I'm going to I'm going to actually talk about which what each one of them is. So title one is improving the academic achievement of the disadvantaged. So that provides financial assistance
068to schools with high numbers or high percentage of children with low-inccome families. Then we have title two which preparing, training and recruiting highquality teachers and principles. That's to uh the aim that is to increase academic achievement by improving teacher and principal quality. And we have title three which is language instruction for English language learners and immigrant students. self-explanatory that one. And then title four, um, which I've not included in here, but I'm just going to talk about it anyway, um, is student support and academic enrichment. And the purpose of that is a block grant to supports well-rounded education. In the past, we've actually included a title 4 grant in in our other allocations. And then we have idea which is the individuals with disabilities education act. And the purpose of that uh that legislation is
069to ensure that students with disabilities receive free and appropriate public education in the most least restricted least restrictive environment that we can provide for them. So this is I put this chart together as a way to kind of illustrate the walk through of what how we budget in terms of what we've received in previous years, what we believed we were going to receive back at the original discussions in January, February, March through May, what actual allocations are as of today and what those reductions look like. So as you can see, we have title which is around $315,000. Um then we have title two which is actually a carryover carryover from the previous fiscal year. Um title three we don't believe we're going to receive anything. And the reason we don't we think we're going to
070receive anything because there's no actual grant application available to us and usually we actually have to go through a whole cycle to be able to receive that funding and hasn't released anything. So there is no money available for TA 3 in terms of uh idea prek and the idea flow 3. We were just showing those for kind of um we we actually believed we were going to receive $992,000 but there was actually a percentage of decrease of idea. Um so we're expecting to receive $869,711. Next slide please. So why do we think these are at risk? Because um currently $6.8 8 billion I said the right word billion um in title funding has been withheld due to federal empowerment while the empowerment control act of 19774 is designed to prevent such withholding we're in unprecedented
071territory watching carefully to see how this may play out both legally and financially so I think I statement there that we are we're trying to understand what's going to be a long-term funding what's going to be funded next year and what's going to be funded in the long term so we're monitoring about the budget for 2526 and what are the long-term implications of federal funding beyond that slide please. So the the current operating budget as presented was $1.8 million deficit um with withdrawing title one title two and title three is about $300,000 from the previous slide. If that comes to if that is actually what we have, we're at $2.1 million deficit. In terms of that look forward beyond the fiscal year for 2526, the most recent federal budget that passed has doesn't actually have
072any impacts for 2526 or it's it's impacting everything beyond. And a lot of those uh changes actually won't even take effect till 2028. There's a couple which are definitely worthy of note because it's now been passed but it has been passed through Congress. Uh the first one is Medicaid will be cut by 15% over the next decade. So that's going to be two issues for the district. Number one, we're going to receive less Medicaid and then the second thing is there's going to be less people Medicaid eligible who are going to qualify for services which means our title will be cut. It's kind of a vicious cycle if you will. And then the SNAP benefits which will have which The legislation states will they be imposing working work conditions on which could limit eligibility which
073if it limits eligibility of parents it means those students don't qualify for free lunches which could have an effect on the national school lunch program numbers both breakfast and lunch. So these are not something that we can quantify today but they're definitely a lens that we need to be looking at future budget decisions specifically as part of a of the fiveyear projections. Next slide please. Um so the next step obviously um there's lawsuits which have been filed by states. There's advocacy that's happened in terms of making sure that this impoundment doesn't continue and that the the funding is actually released. But on on a district level we're going to obviously continue to monitor this and see what the impact is both for this fiscal year and moving forward in those projections. public hearing will still
074go ahead on September 17th and after that depending on where we're at in that filing. Um it's I we're obviously advocating that it's a $2.1 million deficit right now. We'll prepare for that financial projections based on that updated budget assessment. And that's that's it. That's my presentation. Chris, do you know if Illinois joined that lawsuit? I'm assuming they did. >> Yes, it did. >> That's what I thought. >> Yeah, Illinois is one of the files. Well, that will come through the board briefs for sure. Um, we've just done this presentation. Um, you know, I'm I'm concerned that any other article written could be misunderstood um as not being written as not being objective and we wouldn't want that. So, um I think at the moment I'm thinking it's probably best for it to come through
075the board briefs. >> Yeah. >> But we can call attention to the board briefs. >> C. Yeah. Certainly. Certainly. >> I just also want to note that we received an email from IASB about contacting our federal legislators about the funding delay. Um, and I think it might be helpful for us as a board to uh put something together for Rep. Schneider as well as for our senators. um I know they're aware, but I think our voice at this point and the pressure um is very very important. So, um I'd be willing to either, you know, there's a there's a letter here. I'm wondering if it might even be more impactful if we put something together for the board to send or even ask for a meeting with him when he's home. >> Um particularly, so
076um if if you guys think that would be a good idea, I'd be happy to Okay, great. Thank you. >> Okay, thank you. >> Thanks, Chris. Okay, we have no new business this evening, so we will move to topics for future agenda items. [Music] Certainly. Um, well, the next board meeting is on August 13th. That date is familiar to me for another reason because it's also the first day of school. So, um we're looking forward to that evening. Um we have one presentation that evening which is performance services coming to do a solar energy update. Um and then we're all going to be looking towards a short meeting that meeting on the first day of school. Um September 3rd, we have two presentations we'll be bringing to you. That'll be a summer facilities update. You'll
077get to see photos, um, get a full report on all of the wonderful work that's happened this summer having to do with our facilities and also summer technology projects update. They go hand in hand in some ways. September 17th will be that first finance focus meeting that Chris was talking about and I mentioned during the superintendence report. So, we'll have the long range um plan update from Wald. We'll have a financing update from Jame uh Raymond James. We'll have the public hearing for that budget that Chris just talked about along with the uh proposed timeline for the levy and um that brings us to the end of September. >> Thanks, Dr. Glickman. Do we have any public comments that came in? >> Okay, great. Um, can I get a motion to move into close session?
078Right, that's our next >> Oh, yes. Yes, I have it. I found it. All right. uh for the purposes uh from act 5CS120C1 uh for the purposes of the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance or dismissal of specific employees of the public body or legal council for the public body, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee of the public body or against legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity. Get a motion for that, please. Hume, >> Nash, >> Miller, >> Halverson, >> Weedman, and Braden. >> I Okay. [Music]