001corners. >> Hi, >> Puff. >> Hi, >> Isam. >> Hi, >> Ou. I >> And if everybody would please join in. Can we just flag to the back? Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Agenda wise tonight, we got quite a bit to go through. Um there's going to be a hearing just like last month on the annual statement of affairs and drivers ed waiverss. Um we're going to cover the mandated categoricals and funding for those those uh categories. Um we've got an education update with also with a little an update or overview of the work being done on mission vision um and that the development there. Um, we've got some uh
002feedback news on our FPLA group and our honor society members. Um, Mr. Cox is here tonight to talk about website, social media, and kind of a little bit of a report out on communications. Um, then we've got some financial stuff with our HBAC project that's bid has received and needing approval as well as uh some temperature, humidity monitoring equipment that would be used for the 300 200 balls. And then is our student fees uh for next year. So, um with that, we'll move into the uh we're going to join adjourn the board meeting to do the hearings. So, I'll make a motion to temporarily adjourn the regular board meeting to hold hearings on annual statement of affairs of driver's education fees. >> So, move. Thank you. >> Uh all in favor. >> Okay. Good evening.
003>> We will first go through the annual statement of affairs. Um the waiver for the publication. The waiver application process um is that we provide required notices for a public hearing to the general public, Illinois state legislators, and the collective bargaining representatives. We hold and document a public hearing, which is what we're doing now. Allow time for public testimony and submission of written receipts. Um the board will vote on the waiver application and then we will submit it to Isby for general assembly approval. Isby's action would be they would recommend approval or denial of the request to the general assembly. The general assembly then has 60 calendar days after reconvening to disapprove the waiver request. And if they do not disapprove the quest, if they do not um disapprove the request, then the waiver is
004deemed granted. um the cost of the publications in the local newspaper. Back in 2008, the cost was um $95 and we estimate within the next 5 years that the cost would be upwards to $1,300 per year. The administrative recommendation is that of would apply for a waiver for the Illinois school code regarding the publication of the ASA. And section 105 of the school code requires that school boards shall make available to the public a statement of the affairs of the district prior to December 1st annually by publishing in it in the newspaper or general circulation in the school district and annual statement of affairs. Ofall will continue to complete the ASA submitted to the to to the ESB by December 15th and retain copies of the ASA in the school district. We'd also publish the
005ASA on the website by December 1st. The only requirement that we're asking to eliminate is to to eliminate is the publication in the newspaper due to the cost. Any questions? >> What's the content of the ASA? What goes in it? >> It includes salaries. >> Salaries and but it groups them into different categories like under a certain amount, over a certain amount. >> So it lists And I think historically we posted that on our website, >> right? We posted on the website because it's such a long it's it takes up a lot of um space in the newspaper. So the price is pretty large >> and so just when we say post on our website, it's not going to be behind any logins or anything like that. >> No, it's public information >> and we've
006had this waiver in place for the past 10 years. This is a renewal of the waiver. >> That's awesome. Any more questions? >> I just the salary schedule stuff that we post on the it's updated every year with whatever >> by December. Yes. By December 1st. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Thank you. Next, we will talk about the waiver to include salary and benefit costs in the calculation of the $250 fee for driver's education. And the waiver application process is pretty much the same. Provide notices to the general public. um Illinois state legislators and collective bargaining representatives hold and document a hearing and allow time for testimony and submission of written requests. The school board will approve it or well we'll vote on it I should say. um we submit the application to ISBY for approval
007um to not since the fees do not um there's no requirement I'm sorry of general assembly because the fees do not exceed $250 and ISBY will approve or deny the request. The action from Isby is they will approve or deny the request to the general assembly and they have 60 days after reconvening to disapprove the request. If they do not disapprove it then the waiver is deemed granted. These are the driver's ed fees. Um cannot see them for and I do not have it in front of me but um the the revenue Thank you. So the expenditures for fiscal year 25 was $34,996. Revenues were $183,321. So the net cost for driver's ed program is $121,674. So the expenses do outweigh. Um the rationale for the fee in the last um two years we have
008purchased two new drivers ed vehicles per year um totaling $100,500. It is a costly program, but it also is mandated by the state of Illinois and is not adequately adequately reimbursed. Um, local private driver's ed classes and behind the wheels are at least minimum $350. Any questions or comments? But um yeah, just to make sure we're compliant, we're going to ask if there's any public comment or comments that anybody would like to make on uh these topics before we close the hearing. All right, with that no comments, we will move on hearing. Someone make a motion to close the annual statement of fairs and drivers education fees waiverss hearing. >> So move >> second. All in favor? >> I hearing is closed. Uh at this point we'll reconvene the regular meeting of board of education
009open session. >> Sure. >> Good evening everyone. The first thing I'll share with you tonight is a slide that you have seen before. As Mr. Brown mentioned at the opening of the meeting, we're talking about mandated categoricals. These are services that school districts in Illinois must provide. We have costs of course associated with those services. We prepare a claim demonstrating what expenses we incur to provide those services. That claim is then submitted to the state and the state reimbures school districts. um our current reimbursement rates and again this is exactly what I shared with you before but I'm providing you some more detail from questions that came from last time uh right now the reimbursement rates are prrated for all of our mandated categoricals for example we're at 76% for regular transportation 60% for special
010education and 64% for private tuition has been a continued decline over several years um the governor's funding proposal increased the funding by $51 million which was a hund00 million short of what ISB recommended just to maintain the current proration levels. Um that included $10 million additional for transportation, 20 million for special education transportation, and $20 million for tuition. So a total of $50 million. To show you historically what the overall general funds appropriations look like for the state of Illinois, we have this chart here. The red line represents the overall appropriations um which you can see has had a steady increase over the years. The dark blue and light blue lines show appropriations for K12 public education and we haven't seen similar increases. Um and we're hoping to get that situation improved. In looking at
011the full funding analysis for our mandated categoricals, you can see in the first column on the left what the ISB recommendation was to again just maintain current proration levels in hopes that we won't have be further prrated. Um then you can see the governor's recommendation. So if you look at the third uh line down on the top chart, you'll see the estimated proration. ISB said please just don't make it worse than 76% where it is now. The governor said, "This is all I can give you." We anticipate that, not knowing actual costs yet, to lower it from a 76% pration where we're at for regular transportation now, down to 67%. Um, then for special education transportation, we're currently at 60%. We expect with that $20 million increase that the governor is recommending that that will
012be lowered to 55%. And I'll talk about OTHS impact in just a little bit. on the right just shows in in a in a ideal world if we had 100% funding for our mandated categoricals what that number would look like you can see for regular transportation we would require almost $187 million and $425 million for special education. So again the ask wasn't um make it better. It was just please hold on to those um those levels. And unfortunately we're not seeing in the proposed budget that that's what will occur. to show you the historical proration. The dark blue line on this line, it goes back from FY12 to FY26 is regular transportation. So you can see we were hovering around 75%, we start to get healthier around FY22, FY23, and then we've seen a drop
013over the past several years. Uh the same is true for the light blue line, which represents our special education transportation, but we've seen a more significant drop there. And then in private facility also a very significant drop. Um those healthiest years were also years that we were doing partial or complete remote instruction. So we didn't have the costs we have. So I'm not surprised it was a little bit higher those years. >> What does it mean by private facilities? >> Um those are special education students that are not served through OTHS and are served through outside institutions. Mhm. And then again, this is just another visual that's very similar to it, but it just takes us back to FY18. The solid line represents the claims the school districts prepared for the state. And the dotted
014lines represent what we have. So again, you'll see a dip in claims in FY22. Uh that 2122 school year was when we were still dealing with some of that our remote instruction, so we didn't have as many expenses there. Um and you'll see the dotted lines trend below the um the claims. Again, just another way of looking at what I shared appro appropriation and claim totals. Um you can see the appropriation we were given by state represented by the dark blue and then the representation in the light blue shows what the gap is between what we asked for, what the state's giving us. A lot of widening in the past two years. Um, driving success is something that a lot of professional organizations throughout the state, including ISAB, um, IASB, um, and ISA are advocating
015for. And we're really hoping that in addition to the attention and the tier funding that's been provided for EBF, and again, we appreciate that tier funding that's been provided every year, we do expect another 300 million to be put into tier funding next year. Um, but we don't want that at the expense of mandated categoricals to continue to be prrated more and more and more. So, the information up here is specific to OTHS. We've talked a lot about evidence-based funding. Um, you can see in the red, that's the unfunded part. So, when we say we're 73% adequacy, that means we're 73% of what we really need to educate our students. Okay. Um, that number this year was close to $10 million. that is smaller than it's been in previous years. So, we do see some
016growth there, but still needs some work. On the right, you see transportation services, which which haven't been shared with you before. Um, so you can see in the dark blue, that's the state support. That's what the state gave back to us. Okay. Um, the yellow represents the local contribution. Part of our tax levy is for the transportation fund and partially funds that. And then the red shows what that gap is. That gap this year in funding was $500,000. Um, I did some just really quick math with estimates of what our transportation increase uh is expected to be next year through our contract versus what additional money is going to be there and what the expected proration is. And it looks like in FY27, assuming this recommended budget goes forward, we will hold steady around that
017$500,000. we won't see an increase because we had a very healthy EAV increase on our levy that is making up for where the where this where the state is is falling further down. So the ask here really is is that uh we're trying to be active as superintendent but also inform members citizens to contact legislators and let them know that while we appreciate EBF, EBF can't be funded at the expense of mandated categoricals. Because if you think about this, we got in tier funding this year $560,000. Okay, that's our tier funding we got through being a tier one school most in need for evidence-based funding. Okay, we appreciate that $560,000. However, what was lost pration and our mandated categoricals? $500,000. So really, when you look at the that that that funding, I I look at
018that as a net 60k, okay? Because we're not getting adequately reimbured in our mandated categorical. So I would just ask that our community, our board members, um our our staff get involved in advocating this to our legislators. A lot of them did not a lot of them understand evidence-based funding because it receives a lot of of uh attention in the education world statewide, but these mandated categoricals um uh almost are considered kind of a detail and a lot of our legislators as we're speaking with them were not even aware with that. So this graph up here, a lot of school districts have made a a graph that is similar to this that's tailored to their school and we're sharing that with legislators so that again we have the funding coming up through our mandated categoricals
019as well as for evidence-based funding. And then the good news, okay, I always try to end with good news. Um, April, as you know, is the month of the military child. We did celebrate Purple Up Day uh last Wednesday on I'm sorry on uh was it Tuesday the 15th? It was April 15th. Uh the on the left on the upper left you will see a uh picture. This is the reason that the dandelion is the official flowers because it can put roots down anywhere blooms anywhere and the winds carry it. Um and the purple the reason that we're purple is that it symbolizes military children across all branches. a combination of Army green, Marine Corps red, Coast Guard, Air Force, and navy blue. Um, and then a picture of some of our wonderful teachers, uh,
020wearing their purple on purple update, as well as another IMC display. Um, in addition to this, if you go to the IMC's website, you'll see several resources for months of the military child. Um, check that out because there's some really great things there as well. So, just wanted to recognize that we celebrated that uh, last week. And that is all I have for this. All right. Thank you, >> Mr. Good evening, everybody. Um, today I just I just wanted to give an update on uh testing and the mission and vision process that um that we're going through currently. So, I'll start with testing. The ACT test is over as of yesterday. Um so, we had three testing dates for the ACT. We tested at Milbour for the freshman on March 25th. We tested the sophomores
021and juniors on last Wednesday, April 15th, and then we did a makeup, I actually put a 10 and 11 on yesterday. Uh we had 114 testing rooms across these four days. students were tested and only 11 students were absent from the total of those three grade levels. So 99 and a half% of our students took the required tests. We do have a small group that will have to take it next year because it is a graduation requirement. Um we'll get the scores soon because it is an online test now. Uh so we'll have the scores before the end of the school year. Testing went very smoothly on both campuses. So uh big thanks to our teachers and pair professionals for proctoring and a huge thank you to the counseling department, especially Tiffany Lugie because they
022ran the whole show. Um Tiffany's in her first year as testing coordinator and it went amazing. So huge thanks to them. kids miss the should they make it up? >> We provide one makeup day. Um the state gives you a two week window to get testing done and and so >> if a junior does not take it their junior year, they have to take it their senior year with the new junior years. >> Okay. And so on to mission vision. Um I've shared with the board before that we are in the process of looking at updating the mission and vision of OTHS. Our mission is from 2005 and our vision is from 2014. And so we're looking to see if we can modernize. Um and we're going through an extensive process to do that. The
023group going through it is the we call it the academic excellence team. It's the department chairs and administrators. Um and so this is the timeline of that process. And tonight I'll just I'm going to share kind of a one slide of what we do or what we've done on each of these days and then talk about the next steps. So, this schedule comes from a consulting company called the CEC. Um, I took their schedule and kind of made it our own. I spread it over more days than they usually do it. U, but this schedule is from a group that does mission and vision work with schools across the state. They've done um dozens of them and we use some of their examples in this and we follow their uh schedule. So, we started with
024an introductory meeting. The purpose of this meeting first we got the team together who it was 15 department chairs and 12 administrators. Um and the introductory meeting just answered these questions. It's it's introductory. Why are we starting with a mission and vision? What is a mission? We had to get common definitions. What is a vision? And then what's the process and timeline? So I just kind of shared these slides with them. Um so that's where we started. Next thing we did is called an external review. So we looked at examples of different mission and vision statements across the state. Um, we looked at 18 example school districts. These are just some of them. Um, and we evaluated them. >> Ethan, go back a slide. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Would you say that this is kind
025of our benchmark group? So yeah, we chose districts that are uh local conference districts or high performing Chicago area suburb schools or just districts that have major mission and vision plans that are recent like Chicago public has a huge mission and vision strategic plan. So we we looked at theirs too. So yeah, we chose good examples. So the external review the purpose is to see what other districts are doing and then we looked at some articles some research on what does the research say about best practices in making a mission and vision. Um so we looked at 18 school districts and we went through their mission and visions and rated them. So we were kind of trying to find the best um based on their meeting the definition of a mission and vision, their clarity,
026their conciseness and their applicability. Um so that from that process we got a few that are very good that we liked. The next step is an internal review which was extensive review of OTH data, OTHS data history. Um, we covered finance, facilities, school culture and academics. What I did is put together the story of the school over 100 charts and graphs. So, it was a 100 slides of the charts and graphs to tell the story of the school. And we went through that extensively. It included a 20-year data history for almost everything we looked at. Um, so what was our graduation rate in 20056 that school year? And we looked at comparison school districts, some of the same ones I just showed you. Um, so we compared how we did last year to uh 15
027other school districts across a lot of different data. The essential questions, the point of this activity was to see where we've been and where are we now because a vision is where we want to go. So you have to understand where you've been before you can decide where you want to go. Um, so yeah, we have to answer these two questions before we can do a vision. To summarize the internal review, which was huge, we did a SWAT analysis, which is just a a quick way to put it all in one chart. So, our strengths, our weaknesses, our opportunities, and our threats is what we did based on that internal review. So, strengths, what are we good at? Weaknesses, where do we struggle? Those are internal based on the data. Then externally, we looked at
028opportunities. What are things that we're not doing yet that we could? So, it's not a weakness. we're just not doing it. Um, an example would be starting an ACT prep program for students on the low. Something we're not doing, but we could, and it might become a strength if we do it. Um, so those are opportunities. Uh, professional learning communities with teachers is an opportunity. Threats are things that we can't control. So, I put we want those in there because you want to separate those from weaknesses because you don't want to spend too much time on threats that we can't control. Um, so funding became the biggest threats. So internal and external strengths and weaknesses are internal opportunities and threats are external. From there, so we got our SWAT analysis. It's a summary of our
029data. We then started looking at a portrait of a graduate which is going to be part of the vision. So in our current vision and mission statement, we have a couple of traits in the paragraph that are listed. What we want to do is kind of create a visual of that so it's easier to follow what we want our students to be when they graduate. So, we answered these three questions. What hopes do we have for our students? What traits do we want our students to have that apply to them no matter what their plans are? And what skills do we want them to have in a changing world? So, those are the three questions we answered. And the goal is to create something like this. This is from three districts. Uh, Neapville on the
030left, Oswego in the middle, and Edwardsville on the right. Um, this is kind of what the new vision statement of a school district looks like where you have the six or five traits that you want your graduates to be and then throughout your your strategic planning you define what those are and how you address them. So that's kind of the step towards making our vision. And then from there we conducted stakeholder surveys. So we sent surveys to all faculty and staff, all students and all parents. We shared what the group came up with for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. We shared what the group came up with for traits for students and then we asked for feedback. So we asked for on the SWAT analysis, we asked for what are we missing? What did we
031miss? Um because some of the stuff didn't come through in the data. So we wanted to see if we miss anything. And then with the portrait of a graduate, we just said here's 30 traits our team identified. What do you think are the five most important for our graduates to have? Um and actually all surveys kind of said the same thing for the portrait of the graduate. Um, so we're going to probably go with those five that were selected. Um, and then yesterday, yeah, yesterday we began drafting the mission and vision. So everything we've done before this is inputs. We're gathering all this information. We're using that as an input to create and brainstorm what a mission should be. So that'll be our output. Uh, it's the creativity phrase. So yesterday we we just started
032with verbs announce. What verbs do you like that you've seen in other districts that we should do? There's empower, there's provide, there's all these different verbs that because a mission statement is really an action. It's what we're going to do. So, we look got a list of verbs, got a list of nouns. Students, everyone, those are nouns. From there, the teams created phrases and that's where we're at now. So, we've got a few phrase ideas. We're going to kind of expand on those and then the next time we meet, which will be next week, we are going to kind of narrow that and start scoring our options on our rubric to hopefully come to a final recommendation of what we believe our mission should be going forward. Um, once we get to that, we will
033bring it to the education committee for feedback and then the next steps would be to revise it or present it at a board meeting in May or June. So, any questions on the process? Okay. >> Thank you. Um I am reporting on numbers um through March 31st. The revenues for the month of March were $1.5 million, which is 91% of the annual budget. Compared to um fiscal year 25, it was $1.5 million. Um also 91% of the budget. And the expenses in the month of March were $3.2 million of expenses, which is 65% of the annual budget. Last year, this time it was $2.9 million of expenses, which was 66% of the annual budget. So, very comparable year-over-year. Any questions? >> Thank you, Mr. >> Good evening, everybody. Uh my my report's going to be
034pretty short tonight. We're going to start with some real good news here. Uh going back to the FBLA. So, uh on April 10th and 11th, the FBLA went up to Springfield and they brought 74 OTS students with them up there and they had 39 students that placed in the top 10 and 17 of those students qualified for nationals which is going to be I think it's in July in San Antonio this summer. So, pretty exciting news on the FBA front. Of course, special thanks goes out to our our FBA leaders, Miss Jen Heistler, Miss Cheryl Coffel, and Miss Hercules. Uh really, really proud of the efforts they put in with these students and and obviously tremendous success there. National Honor Society on April 13th, a few of your board members were there. Um, there were
035180 new inductees this year and a total of 361 National Honor Society members between the junior and senior classes. A special thanks goes to Mrs. Ritzell who's been I think this is what the fourth board meeting this year that she's been praised. Uh, so she's had quite the year. Uh, but in all seriousness, she just does such a wonderful job who sponsors the National Honor Society. uh this is a yearround process uh that she holds meetings and holds kids accountable for community service. Uh just just a great of course honor on her part that helps out 361 total students. So uh it was a great night the other night we had there seniors. So we're ending the year here of course with our class of 2026 final days. Um they they of course been just
036a great class. uh three weeks and some change here are going to call it a day here at OTS and they've been great pride for our community as we approach the end of the school year once again we're going to conduct advisory period meetings with the senior students to reinforce this pride and expectations that every student in this class finish on a positive note we're going to ask our parents please work with us to encourage their students to make good decisions at the end of the year here uh so their final days are positive. That's going to happen on May 11th. Myself, Dr. Coley, Miss Lugie, we'll bring him in here in the Panther Center during advisory periods and just talk everything about graduation and also of course the positive end to their high school
037career. So, uh, without a doubt, this has been successful in the past. We're going to continue that that hope as well. What are some upcoming things? Obviously, this coming Saturday, we have our prom at the Regency Center in Ofall and then we have the after prom at St. Clair Bowl. And again, I want to give a real shout out to our township group that puts on the after prom uh from 11:30 at night till 3:00 in the morning uh where our students can go and have a safe night. Uh go bowling, incredible amounts of food. Uh the prizes there are amazing. from TVs to computers to game councils. Every student that goes is going to get a gift card of some sort. Uh it's just a real great thing that these volunteers put on that
038night for these students. Next Monday or this coming Monday is honors night at the Millburn Auditorium. Uh educator appreciation week is May 4th through May 8th. We have our next PTAC meeting on May 12th here in the Panther Center at Smiley Campus. And we have our final exams on May 19th, May 20th, and May 21st. And graduation for the class of 26 on May 30th. Obviously, between now and the end of school and beyond, lots and lots of spring sport activities to go see uh and root on our Panthers to victory, of course. And the last thing, enrollment. If we compare today's enrollment to a year ago, uh you can see a year ago we had a total enrollment of 2462. The current enrollment as of today is 2441. Any questions? Okay. Thank you. >>
039Thank you, Mr. Cox. I'm Mr. Cox. I think I've met everybody in here at this point, but uh mine's real easy tonight because I provide a video for us to watch. Um so we'll take a look at the video. I kind of go through explaining I do a SWAT analysis as well. Mr. Graham kind of explained what a SWAT analysis is of our communications committee. Um and then I explain a few things on the website and then our app. I just feel like it's a little easier that I can walk through it with a video and then I'll feel some questions at the end of the video. Good evening. My name is Daniel. I'm the CTE teacher here at OTHS. But more relevant to this particular video, I am the website and social media coordinator
040for OTHS. Just want to thank you for the opportunity to share an update on our website, social media efforts here at OTHS. Tonight I want a quick snapshot of our current reach, what's working well, where we can grow, and what our focus will be moving forward. I want to start with a quick look at our reach and engagement. Since August 1st, we've had over,200 website requests. This can range from anything to update club activity page to full pages within our website. Our social media platforms continue to grow with over 6,700 followers on Facebook and nearly 3,000 on Instagram. Facebook more catered towards the adults in our lives. And Instagram tends to lean towards the students. In just the last 20 days, we've seen over 119,000 views on Facebook and more than 64,000 views on Instagram.
041What this tells us that our community is paying attention. They're engaging with our content and they're looking to us for information. One of the more fun highlights this year was actually our April Fool's Day host. Something I like to do each year. We joing garage project at Smiley campus uh was going to take place and it definitely got people's attention. Another fun post that we had and highly engaging was our Valentine's Day post where students and faculty were able to walk up to a camera and say what they loved. Uh that got excellent reactions as well. So beyond the humor, moments like this show the power of engagement. When people interact with our content, whether it's serious or light-hearted, it increases visibil visibility and it helps us reach even more families. Our communication efforts are
042guided by four main goals. First, promoting the successes that are happening every day here at OTHS. Second, gathering feedback and perspective from our stakeholders. Third, creating more opportunities for community engagement. And fourth, continuing to develop a clear and consistent communication plan. These goals help ensure that we're not just posting content, but being intentional with how and why we communicate. At the core of everything we do is understanding that communication matters. It builds transparency. It strengthens family engagement and highlights the opportunities and accomplishments happening across our district. We don't just want to share information. We want to make sure every student and family feels connected and informed. When our communication is clear and consistent, it builds trust. It reduces confusion. and it helps our entire school community stay aligned. Our goal is not just posting content.
043It's making sure every family and student knows what's happening and can feel that connection. This slide provides a quick snapshot of where we are as a communication standpoint here at OTHS. Uh we feel very strong about our consistent and positive social media presence, our branding, and our ability to share timely updates. You'll see a SWAT analysis here on this one with strengths top left, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. While we do feel strong about our consistent, positive social media presence, at the same time, we've recognized that there are areas for growth, especially improving the website user experience and expanding how we tell our story. There are exciting opportunities ahead, including increasing student involvement, which is one of my goals here as a teacher of video productions is involving the students quite a bit more and using
044that as a more robust way to tell our story here at OTHS. And like any organization, we face challenges. Uh, anytime you involve social media or anything online, there's different algorithms that you have to play with. there's the potential for information overload and ensuring consistent communication across all groups. Overall, this helps guide where we focus our efforts next. So, as we look at these things, we celebrate our strengths. We have an opportunity to work on our weaknesses and realize that we do have some things out there that we can't control. So, our goal is to control what we can and just put the information out there and hopefully our families are engaged and aware. Moving forward, as we look ahead, our focus is three key areas. First, making information easier to find, especially on our
045website. Second, telling more OTS stories with a consistent, authentic voice. And third, using data to more intentionally to guide our decisions and improve results. We're proud of the progress we've made and we're excited about continuing to grow and strengthen communication across our district. Let's take a look here at uh the OTHS website real quick. I want to show you a few things that you might not know. One of the things that students brought up at our last communications committee um which I should bring up that was an exciting uh meeting that we had when we invite the students and we get to pick their brains on what they like um is talking about just getting the information to the students. One of the big things was the daily bulletin up here on the top right
046of our website that students visit. We're constantly trying to look at this and find a a way to better engage the students on a daily basis. So, that's something that we kind of we heard the students and we're looking at different ways to do that. But on the main page, you'll notice that we are going through um a little bit of an update with our mission statement and some of the goals here at the district. So, we updated the website accordingly. We used to have the four E up here, but we put a new logo and icon up here just to kind of um help us guide through that branding and mission statement process that we're working through. Um as you scroll down here, here's what I really wanted to focus on was here's our
047news and announcements. It's typically matches what we put on social media. Uh I put on here as well. One of the cool things about this is when you go to this news and announcements page. Um you'll have the opportunity to subscribe to this page using these buttons here. So you can subscribe to I'm sorry I clicked the wrong button here. You can subscribe by clicking the bell and you can actually pick what you want to subscribe to which is this is the news uh feed. Then you would click next. I can't do it because I have RHS if they don't have social media or in l or in lie of or with social media. So that's a good opportunity um for people to take advantage of being informed. We also have our calendar and then
048our student broadcast uh the Panther Beat Daily Show is always embedded in the website and then our social media here online. Um, one another quick thing here as we uh look at these is our academic pages. Uh, our one of the goals is to create a video highlighting each academic page so that when somebody were to click on let's say CTE department when we click on that department you are welcomed with a video um so that parents and students can go there and kind of get a an idea of what that department is all about. So we're working on creating those as well. We've got several of them up, but um keeping them updated, creating them. Um that's one of the goals that we have here within the next year is to get everything up
049to date and on each particular academic site uh for each department. Um and then the other thing of course is athletics. Athletics is always a big one. Uh we've now pulled athletics website over into our hands. It used to be not controlled by us but now I uh am now the coordinator of that as well. Uh broke it down fall, winter, spring sports here inside athletics and then a full athletic schedule. So what happens here is let's say spring sports and let's look at tennis. Um each individual team has its own page. They're all branded the same. So you'll be welcomed with hopefully an updated picture of the tennis program. The head coaches, assistant coaches can be found here to the right. And then a schedule. And this is a big one for people. Uh
050the schedules are there so that our visitors of the website can come here and quickly find out their favorite program when they're playing. U that is actually controlled through our athletic department through an arbiter program, but as soon as they update it there, it automatically sends to our website. I have it crawl out there and get information every hour and then it brings it back here. So it's the most up-to-date information can be found for all the schedules there. And then coach Miner is good about sending pictures to update of recent tournaments and progress and accomplishments there for the tennis program. You can also find their team roster and any other form that the coaches deemed necessary to put on their website. And we also embed their individual um social media pages for that particular
051program, in this case tennis. So that's an exciting update since the last time we've we've spoken. Um so that's the website in a nutshell. The last thing I want to kind of show you is our app that we introduced last year. Um, I've recorded, this is just an example of a video that we put out there. We talked about uh having more video storytelling on the website. This is an example of something that I created to put out there for our stakeholders so that they are informed. So, I'm going to go ahead and play that now for you and um and then I'll kind of touch base after this. Let's take a moment and learn why you should download the OTHS app today. First, you will want to find us on your favorite app store.
052A quick search for OTHS and you will see our branded logo pop up. Download the app and get ready to be connected like you never have before. Once you open the app, you will see our district news feed at the top of the page that you can scroll through. You can also access this at the bottom of the app where it says district news. Here you will find the most up-to-date information about OTHS. Back on the main screen, you will see our district calendar that contains all the events from our main website. You can also click on the bottom of the page where it says events and this will expand all district and athletic calendars. You can filter these calendars by clicking on the top right icon and select the calendars you would like to
053see in the future. Every athletic team is represented and the calendar refreshes every hour for the most up-to-date information. Back on the main screen, if you click the more tab, you will see much more information, including our staff directory. After selecting Oalen Township High School District 203, you can quickly conduct a search to locate the information for the staff member you may be needing to contact. All of this information and more at your fingertips every day, courtesy of the OTHS app. So there you go. Kind of a cool little feature there of the app is the calendar settings. So you can uh subscribe to only tennis or you could subscribe to only the district newsfeed if you would like. Um and you can get notifications on that app when things are updated. >> Just want
054to thank you all for your time tonight. And if you have any questions, comments or concerns, feel free to always let me know. can be reached at my email address or walk around >> and appert if you guys ever have suggestions or stories you want to run or anything uh teaching video productions it's really easy to grab some students and like I said the storytelling is going to be a big part of the future here you getting that word out there. So, you seem like it. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next up is board committee reports. Uh first is communication committee. And uh Miss M. Johnson's not here tonight, so I'll just give a brief update. I wasn't at the meeting, so if I if I missed anything, I guess
055let me let me know. But um this past week was the student council attendance. or was any student just student representation wasn't necessarily >> just the council >> y >> um and it sounded like the feedback that we got from the students was re really really good um there were some strengths and opportunities identified uh dual credit extracurricular our academic rigor that students kind of saw that as a success >> they really like >> okay this year >> and then there were they identified some opportunities which like equity access um improvements to be made to the smiley facilities. Um improvements that could be made to bathrooms um I think they've talked about extracurricular coordination. I think what they probably meant was um I have a bunch of sports tonight. I get home at 11:30 and
056then I have four AP tests tomorrow. you know, so if if there's a way to better coordinate activities with schedules, that would be appreciated. Um, it sounds like they notice attendance and tardy issues with uh with peers um and you know, identified opportunities there. Uh career planning they they thought was an opportunity I guess you know for maybe college and and uh the classes that they're taking and um they talked alignment to their career paths um in in in terms of selecting classes and things like that. Um could be an opportunity uh test prep was uh identified. I think they probably met ACT. So, you know, they're could be a free support for ACTs that would be real positive for a lot of students. Um and then they they like the CTE the CAVC opportunities
057and you know more more there they thought is a good thing and then I guess uh that was pretty much it I think. So >> yeah and the only other thing is that we you know asked um you know led by Mr. and just the best way to get information to them and they mentioned a lot of things you talked about in the video which Instagram the students aren't necessarily wanting to go to the website for things um they talked about a need for Panther Beat to be seen consistently and the challenges we have in the advisory program of whether it's interest in watching it or whether those 25 minutes are also the opportunities to go do this thing I have to do during a non-academic period or this thing and there's other events and
058trying to find a way to still get the news out but not diminish the opportunities you have to engage in other activities during advisory. Um, >> sounds like they value Panther though the information. >> Yeah. Yeah. And and then they value Instagram. >> Mr. Cox, we missing anything. >> All right. Thanks. Uh, facilities is next. Mr. Uh my report is attached and uh only thing I have to add is that tennis courts have been repaired and they'll be ready to go for conference finals and then also for sectionals. So we'll keep our fingers crossed that that uh is remediated for a long time. So >> thank you. uh finance committee. We just had a meeting, Mr. >> Yes. So, we had a meeting last night and in that meeting we discussed our current bond issuance,
059working cash bonds, uh uh and sort of financial planning through our debt obligations and bond issuance sort of in a long-term strategic sense. Um no decisions were made. was just a projection of uh what uh our debt obligations look like over the next four years, over the next 20 years um and what we can do to best serve the district and the district's projects. We also discussed uh financial reporting in the board meetings and monthly board meetings and uh cost efficiency exercises as well. >> And then I don't believe we had personel negotiations. So, and uh Mu, I'm not sure if we have policy this month. >> We did not have policy and we did not have any new policies last month. So, nothing to review. Um, our next meeting should be May at 400
060p.m. If something comes down that needs to be updated, we do have and apparently we will be meeting. >> All right. And uh Since you're up, do you want to just cover briefly? I know you went to a conference. >> So for ISB, um there's two new in district workshops if you're interested in them. Um it's on the IASB website is board readiness for the superintendent transition and fierce conversations. Um just two new ones that they're rolling out. Uh there's also annual conference scholarship which IASB is doing uh and it's for folks who have not gone to the conference before. So I don't think anybody on our board does it but just so that uh the board knows what provides to our member districts. There is a uh southwest division the governing board meeting is
061on the 6th of May at 6 pm over in Fletchers. The June meeting is always the governing board and so they'll be planning for the next year on what we're going to do. Um the executive committee met and threw out some ideas on you know whether on topics we want to make sure that the meetings are topical um they'll present be presenting those there but we put everything about you know from AI or say or how to make your school safe or you know various uh options there so be thinking about that if you have any ideas of what you would like to hear at the division meetings strategic planning for ISB um I was up again for the the final of the two inerson sessions that we is on on track for um approval
062by the board in August and presenting at the conference in November. Um kind of alluded to that before is redoing all their therefore planning on where they're going for the future, how they can best serve the members here. I know I think you might have been in one of the conversations on that. So it's all moving forward separately. I did go to COSBA which what my report is also attached here. I believe she put it under the special committee ones. Uh went to a number of the different breakout sessions which it was very interesting to see and I know I mentioned it last meeting um how other states work and how other states interact. But um on my trip report is actual list of the uh sessions that I went to and kind of a
063little summary of those. So I was very happy to hear Ethan talk about what is the portrait of a graduate because I did go to is a portrait of an AI graduate. Um how what are we looking for our students in the future and how are they going to interact and how can we best prepare them um for the jobs that we don't even know about right now that are going to going to be there. So happy to talk to anybody about any of those but you can see the rest of those in my report. Um and then I think that is all uh PTAC also on the 12th of May for another special committee 12th of May at 6:30 and that is all that I have to report. >> Okay. And I the last
064thing we have to cover is best. So, we did have a best meeting on April 13th and the next best meeting will be June July 28th right 9:00 a.m. GMs. Um, for the most part, all the districts covered facility projects that they're currently working on. And it looks like most of these projects are being uh funded through bond refinances um like adding gyms and kind of building expansions and things along those lines. equipment, stuff like that. Um, district 90 talked a little bit about teacher vacancy grants and uh I think they were talking in terms of like having a parent professional teacher. So, I'm not sure if we're doing that, but might be something to pursue if we're not. Um, they also and then the last thing that was really covered pretty heavily was uh
065the city's kind of broke into disabled veteran exemption. Um, so the group spent a lot of time talking about that. Um, There was actually an article, you know, found weekly today. Um Pam Funk was there. So she uh from the conversation wrote a pretty nice article uh for the paper, but uh it it pretty much summarizes the district's intent and the issue at hand and you know how the uh district is looking to our district, all the other districts in the area, uh the city leaders across the St. clair county and I think we're trying to work with a couple other counties too that are heavily hit um by the veterans exemption to try to look at hiring lobbyists uh to put a little more pressure on the state legislation to potentially um not not
066eliminate the exemptions but maybe change how they're funded, you know, and try to get them to be funded at the state level instead of at the local levels, which uh pretty severely impacts our ability to fun schools city municipalities. Um, so any questions? >> All right. So, that takes us to our consent agenda. And, uh, I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda in its entirety, but not limited to prior meeting minutes, financial reports, payment of bills, and the freedom of information. There is one in 814 on the bills that I inordination with that I'd like more information. >> Um, okay. I guess what is your request? >> Further breakdown. >> How about we pull out? >> Do you want it to be removed from the consent agenda to be approved at a later
067date? >> Okay. So, I'm going to make a motion. >> I would recommend with that motion that all of these bills are due. And if you pull all of that out, We won't pay it. Yeah. So, just specify which bill you'd like to be the exception. >> So, Blake, could you >> in the motion, please? >> Could you make the motion, B? >> Yeah, I'll make the motion to remove bill for meeting for the water heater replacement. >> Uh, from from uh agenda item >> and then the remainder of the bill would stay in it. Second roll call. >> Corners. >> Hi. >> Is >> I RTOR >> I >> Brown >> I. >> All right. So that particular bill has been removed from the consent agenda. So now I'm going to make a motion
068to approve the consent agenda with the exception of the bill just mentioned in its entirety including but not limited to primary events, financial reports, payment of bills, freedom of information act. So moved second >> I Victor >> I >> Brown >> I All right. So that's the consent agenda. Um next we'll get comments from visitors. Uh would anybody like to address the board at this time? Um if there's no interest in addressing the board, we'll move on to old business which there is no. Um so in new business uh first would be our personnel sheet. So I will make a motion to approve the appointment compensation discipline performance dismissal personnel items as presented. >> So move second roll call >> is >> Ictor. I >> brown >> I uh next is contractor pay applications for
069construction projects have been completed. We'll skip 112 and move to 113 which is bids received for the smiling hback project. I'll make a motion to approve the bids received for the smile HVAC project from Bay Heating Cooling in the amount of $27,950 is presented. Second roll call vote >> you I Vtor >> I >> Brown >> I um next is the data monitoring equipment which looks at temperature and humidity be for the 2300 hallways. Um so I'll make a motion to approve data monitoring for 200300 hallways at Smiley campus for a cost of $7,530. >> So moved second. Roll call. >> Victor, >> I >> All right. Next are school fees. So, I'll make a motion to approve school fees for the 2627 school year. So, >> secondreg any other questions on these? >> We
070get a roll call. >> I >> Beth, how many years? >> I'd say it could easily be a decade. >> I I think that's an impressive. >> I really do. >> It is. >> Next is the OTHS consolidated district plan. I'll make a motion to approve the consolidated district plan that aligns with federal funding requirements for title one, two, four, and um using prior roll. >> So move second. >> All in favor? >> I post the motion passes. We've got trips. So I'll make a motion to approve trips in excess of 200 miles. So move >> second roll call >> I >> review I RTOR >> I >> brown. >> Uh intergovernmental agreements with swick and running start. Uh so make a motion to approve the intergovernmental agreements with swick for running start >> swick
071using fire roll call. So >> second. >> All in favor? >> Any oppose? >> That motion passes. And then next is a first reading of board policy. So there's >> So that wraps it up. Um was there any other business that we received? >> Okay. So, our next board meeting will be May 21st. I think we'll be discussing our student and broke health insurance and the amended budget if there's >> likely needed. Okay. >> I'm sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Brown. There's a possibility to and a hope that health insurance that we have a special board meeting prior because the next day of our board meeting, the day of our board meeting is the last day of final exams, which also is the last day of our nine-month employees, our teachers um work. So, um
072we will likely try to get a special board meeting in advance of that so we can do open enrollment before they are dismissed for the summer, but just in case it's there. >> I see. So you'll be looking for our approval moving moving forward >> so that we can actually enroll. >> I I do think one of these this is not >> but one of these years we should move our open enrollment period into the winter instead of because we're chasing the last >> like a Jan. just move on. >> All right. And then uh as mentioned before, we've got honors night coming up, Pac final exams, and then last day of school on the 21st. That's that's that. Uh so make a motion to adjourn the regular meeting of the board of education. So
073move. >> All in favor?