001Board of Education in open session. So second roll call. >> here. >> Isa >> here. >> The blue >> here. Johnson here. Brown >> here. Join me in the pledge of allegiance of Igian 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. Okay. So, agenda wise tonight, we've got a hearing for the statement of affairs and the driver's education piece. Uh we've got a report out on the Illinois budget and education funding. Um we've got a CTE report from Miss Hazler, an amended 2526 calendar, a final 2627 calendar, and uh the board 2627 school year. And then last we've got a through wall for representation at co kazba which is the uh consortium of state school boards
002in Louisville Kentucky which is in um so with that we'll we're temporally going to adjourn the regular meeting of the board to do the hearing on the uh annual statement of affairs and the driver's education fee wavers. U make a motion to temporarily adjourn the regular board meeting to hold a hearing on the annual statement of affairs and drivers education fee waivers. So moved second. >> All in favor? >> I oppose. >> Okay. Motion passes. So we're now at a hearing. Um Beth, do you want to talk a little bit about the annual statement of affairs? >> Um sure. The annual statement of affairs is a required annual publication for all school districts. the regular stamp and it involves reporting on vendors that were paid in a certain range of money as well as employees
003who are not part of our um regular EIS report which is our TRS employees, our teachers, administrators. Um it is published annually on our website. We've had the waiver in place for as as long as I came into the district office. So up to about 10 years ago, I know that we've had this waiver in place. ISB's default is that you publish this in um a newspaper that publication is and and Miss Gray will talk about this a little bit too, but the publication is very expensive because it's a large publication and also we recognize that we reach through web and electronic postings maybe even more effectively than we do through publishing in a newspaper. Um, so we have had a waiver in in place for again five to 10 years uh to where we
004do post on the website but don't post in an actual physical newspaper and Miss Gray will talk about that. >> Thank you. Good evening. Um I'll first talk about the waiver application process. Um and it is to to provide required notices for a public hearing to the general public Illinois state legislators and also the collective bargaining representatives. Behold and document a public hearing, which is what we're doing now. Allow time for public testimony and allow submission of written statements, actions taken by the school board on the waiver application. And then we submit the application to ISBY for general assembly approval. The ISBY assembly act action. Isby recommends approval or denial of the request to the general assembly. The general assembly has a 60-day calendar date, 60 days um after reconvening to disapprove the waiver request.
005And if that does not happen, then the waiver is deemed granted. Um this slide just gives you the cost of the um annual statement of affairs that goes in the newspaper publication. In 2008, it was $995. We have had it waved since 2011, but the cost is approximately $1,300 a year. and we are trying to prevent that cost. >> Um the administrative recommend >> just to clarify so we still publish we still run >> create the information every year and we publish >> and we publish it on the website just not in the newspaper. >> Okay. >> Um OTHS should apply for a waiver of the Illinois school code regarding the publication of the annual statement affairs. Section 105 of the school code requires that the school boards shall make available to the public a
006statement of the affairs of the district prior to the December 1st annually by publishing in the newspaper of general circulation published in the school district an annual statement of affairs. OTHS, we will continue to complete the annual statement of affairs, submit it to the an annual statement of affairs to the Illinois State Board of Education by December 15th, and retain copies of the ASA in the school district. Additionally, we will publish it and display it on the internet website by December 1st. The only requirement that we are wishing to eliminate is the required publication in a newspaper of general circulation due to the cost. >> Any more comments or questions? >> Okay. Thank you. >> Next. Next, we will talk about the waiver um of the ISBY rule to include salary and benefits cost in
007the calculation of the $250 fee for driver's ed. And this process is pretty much the same. We provide required notices of the public hearing to the general public, Illinois state legislators, and the collective bargaining representatives. We hold and document a public hearing allowing time for testimony and submissions in writing. um school board takes action to approve it or not. Um we submit the application to ISBY for approval. No requirement of general assembly since the fees do not exceed $250 and ISBY will approve or deny the request. Isby recommends approval or denial of the request to the general assembly with the same 60 days after reconvening to disapprove the request. If that does not happen, then the waiver is deemed granted. Um, these are the driver's ed cost. Those numbers are kind of small. Um, it
008just breaks it down. The expenses for fiscal year 2025 was $34,996. Revenues for fiscal year 25 was $183,321. So, the net cost was $121,674. OTHS did purchase two new driver's ed vehicles in fiscal year 24 and two in fiscal year 25 total $100,500. Driver's ed is a costly program and it is mandated by Illinois and is not adequately reimbursed. The local private driver's ed classes and behind the wheels costs are at least $350 and ours are $250. Any questions or comments? Thank you. >> Sorry, the driver's ed cross here. Do we have to have a driver's ed class? >> Yes. >> And then it costs more than it costs more to have our driver's ed class than to have private private setting, right? So, we gave every single student $350 to go take in the
009private setting. I don't know what the math is with the students we have enrolled versus what the overunder was but >> are there so the students that are enrolled not all pay some of them will have okay that sort of answers that question >> any more questions >> James plus I think on Saturday we'll be discussing fees and things like that so probably be a time to you know talk more about that if we wanted to change something in terms of our fee structure Okay. Someone may make a motion to close the annual statement of affairs and drivers education fee waivers hearing. >> All in favor? >> I. >> All opposed. Motion passes. And now we're going to reconvene the regular meeting of board of education back. session. >> Okay, good evening everyone. Um, as
010you may know, we did receive the state budget address from the governor yesterday. So, I'm going to provide you some highlights that have been provided um specifically as they relate to evidence-based funding and our mandated categoricals. This slide shows the current year. So this information existed in advance of what we heard about the budget coming up for fiscal year 27. And some highlights from this slide, this slide was prepared by ISBY, is that in order to make evidence-based funding whole enough to get all of our school districts to at least 90% of adequacy, it would would require an investment of $3 billion. And we of course, you know, we've had this kind of 300 to$350 million a year being tiered um being given additionally every year for the past several years. In the upper right
011hand corner, the chart represents the changes in tiers. Tier one representing most need, tier four representing little to no need to reach adequacy. And it does demonstrate that there are fewer districts that are tier one districts than there were when this started. So for example on the left side which is I believe FY19 there were 314 school districts that were identified as tier one in most need that has decreased to 286 districts. As you know OTHS remains a tier one district funded at 73% adequacy. On the lower left, the bar graph shows the state contributions over the years with FY18 on the far left, FY26 on the far right. So, the state has invested additional dollars there, starting with $6 billion in FY18, and in FY26, we were at 8.8 billion. The line going across
012the bar graphs shows the number of districts that were above the 70% threshold of adequacy. We just crossed over that line this past year, moving from in the upper 60s to 73%. The line has increased, however, we haven't become a part of that number quite yet. Um, and throughout the state, we still have three4ers of our students who are participating in school districts that are funded under that 90% threshold. So, again, we're inching toward it. We're not there yet. The budget address, uh, again, this is just a summary. It just happened yesterday, so I haven't dug into a lot of the details, but did want to give you information that I can share. Um there was evidence of the prioritization of education funding. It wasn't to the extent that isby that professional education organizations had
013hoped. Nonetheless, there's a tighter squeeze with other state units than what we're seeing for public education. Um the governor did talk about concerns about the uncertainty of federal funding. We're not as heavily reliant on federal funding as many other districts. Um, however, we do have an impact from that and there's a lot of unknowns right now about what our federal funding will look like in FY27. That's true for the state as a whole as well. There's of course long-term budget uncertainties. Um, and then competing demands and this is anytime anyone does a budget, whether it's for the state, the school district, or your household. Um and there were um a significant amount of resources that were directed towards public education, which is a good sign, although it does fall short of what we asked for.
014Um and then uh just part of the the governor's message was that this budget is reflective of a multi-year effort to strengthen schools while also balancing that with um some challenges that we're having financially statewide right now. for evidence-based funding in fiscal year 27. Um the proposal includes 9.2 billion for evidence-based funding that reflects an increase of $35 million, which is consistent with what we've seen over the past several years. Uh tier one districts, which we are, receive 50% of that tier funding. Tier 2 districts receive 49% of the tier funding. So the majority of that tier funding is going to I mean not the majority 99% of the tier funding is given to tier one and tier 2 districts. Um the target ratio uh was 75.6% for FY26 in terms of tier assignment that
015fluctuates yeartoyear. Again we were at 73%. Um something else that I wanted to share oh I'll share that on the next slide. again want to say that that $9.2 billion is going in up from that 8.8 billion that was on the first slide I showed you about FY26, but it's going to take another three billion in additional funds and we're getting just over 300 million to get the schools funded to 90% adequacy. That was the other piece I wanted to talk about. Mandated categorical. So currently our re and I've talked about this when we talk about the budget when we talked about the levy. Um currently there is proration for the claims. We spend the money we tell the state this is how we spent the money to transport students for example and then it
016generates a claim. Our hope of course would be that the formula the state provided us and the claim that we then provide to the state they would say okay then this is the money you get. However, the state has not had enough funds allocated in those categoricals to give 100% of those claims. So, currently this year, we are at 75% pration for transportation, 60% for special education, and 64% for private tuition. And that represents a continued decline year-over-year for five years. >> What's private tuition? >> Uh, that's a special ed component as well. >> Okay. Mhm. >> Um for fiscal year 27, the budget address indicated an increase of $51 million in total for mandated categoricals. To give you a reference of what that may mean for uh an average school district, the state board
017of education asked for $151 million. So hund00 million more than what was given, three times more than what was given. Um, and that was just to maintain the current proration rates, which are already the lowest we've seen in recent times. So, that's disappointing. We're going to see further prorations in FY27. I don't know exactly what those dollars mean for us, but we'll be looking into that in the coming months. Um, also for that, um, FY27 of $51 million, $10 million of it is for transportation, $20 million for special education, and $20 million for tuition. and districts have been advised to, and I'm going to put this in quotes because this is something that I read, um, prepare for ongoing budget pressures. Um, so we've been very fortunate in that, um, to balance the state shortfalls
018and the federal shortfalls. Um we have had over the past two years um increases in our EAV which have helped with our property tax base to kind of offset those losses that we're seeing on the state and federal side. Um we never of course have the guarantee how long that EAB increase is going to continue. will continue to. So if that EAB increase goes from these larger numbers that we've seen, which have been um around 10% the past couple years, that's a big increase in in EA and it's not typical. If those go back to what we expect on a year-to-year basis to let's say, you know, 3% maybe 4% um we're going to that that that ongoing budget pressures, we're going to start feeling that. Okay. Um that won't necessarily affect us, I don't
019think. um to a great degree because uh our EAB is at least estimated for FY27 revenues that will come in um at like around a 9% increase. Um but but past that, as we look into FY28, we'll have to see what that EAB looks like. And if the state and federal funding sources don't improve, uh we're going to have to be looking at some decisions um to maintain our uh integrity financially. Let me talk about something good. Okay. Tonight, uh you have you previewed last month, but you have the proposed calendar for the 2627 school year. Um this is a collaborative effort. We have an internal um calendar committee that started meeting in December and met a couple times after to fine-tune um that was made of all employee classes. So we had representation from
020every group of employees on that committee. Um we kind of discussed what priorities were, looked at um what how days fall within the calendar next year, things that we've wanted to do in the past and we haven't done. Um and then we also then discussed that with the other uh feeder school districts because we know it's important to our community to have alignment with Central 104, to have alignment with D90, to have alignment with Shiloh to the greatest extent possible. um you will see in our calendar that is very closely aligned with all three of our feeder districts. Um some changes that you'll see um nothing huge but some changes that uh I'll note here is we do have a shift from a full day to a half day on the first day of student
021attendance. That was brought up by our committee and that that um that was something that independently of alignment of the calendar. alignment of the calendars really focused on the days kids are coming to school and the days kids aren't coming to school. Um, and this was just to allow first of all a little bit of a of a slow roller introduction for our students where that first day is truly an introductory day and a culture building day and then also allowing our teachers some more time to get prepared um for the school year as it goes on. You'll see what we've seen for several years, two full weeks for winter break. That means two full Monday through Friday weeks. Um, a difference that you will see this year that we've talked about for several years
022and finally decided to move forward with this year and the other Oak Allen districts were um on board for it as well is in the proposed calendar. We have a full week of spring break. Um, and that will also include um Good Friday as an additional day of spring break this year. as the committee deliberated, we saw where the timing of Easter was that at that let's say we put the the week-l long spring break leading up to Easter. Easter's early next year. I believe it's in March. Don't quote me, but you could look at the calendar and see. Um it it it's going it's going to be early and it creates a very long stretch with um no breaks and we're used to es and flows. We're used to a holiday here, a teacher
023institute there and things like that. So the committee decided, hey, can we do Good Friday, take the week after Easter this year. Won't be that way necessarily every year. And then the exchange for that is, and a lot of schools already do this. We've always continued to take Casmir Pilaski that first Monday in March as a holiday. We would no longer take Pilaski as a holiday um next year. Again, that could change year to year depending on how spring break falls and depending on what the committee's priorities are. Um, but you'll see no Palaski Day holiday, but a full week of spring break that occurs after the Easter holiday, but also includes Good Friday. Uh, and then the school year does end significantly, even if we use every single emergency day before Memorial Day. So,
024that's what you will um really this next year is one of those calendar years where just the way the dates fall also made it a little bit easier on us than some years that are more challenging. But one of our committee members, uh, Libby McGee, actually went several years out and saw that there we'll be able to sustain, um, this pattern for several years to come. >> So that's for the calendar year. What's the minimum amount of student education days that we're >> 176? That's what we have every year. >> Yeah. And so we're just doing the minimum every year of education days. >> Have we ever thought about expanding that? >> We have not. >> I think one of the for me, you know, looking you know, days of instruction for students is actually
025a positive in terms of their education long term. >> You know, I always worry about just doing the minimum. Uh so just something to think about as we're looking at these calendars. >> Sure. I will note that the that that yes, I understand that it's the minimum because it's what was required, but it's also the standard across all public school districts. I'm not aware although they could exist of school districts that do other than the prescribed 176 days. >> Yep. And then we have four institute days. >> Are any of the institute dates in April? I'm just wondering it's going to be a long April next year. >> It is. That's why we put spring break after >> I think. >> Um >> did you did you look at Okay. Yeah. Okay. >> First and
026second of April are the Okay. >> Yeah, that was part of the reason though was, hey, let's go a week later. That's going to be a long >> Yeah. And then you got six full weeks of classes. >> Tell us less right now. Tell us. >> Okay. All right. Any other questions on the calendar? >> Looks like 31 states, by the way, require 180 days or more. >> Oh, interesting. >> So, Illinois is the 176. >> Some are less less. >> Missouri's less. Kansas is 186. Okay, that's all I have for you tonight. >> Mr. >> All right, good evening everybody. I have a very quick presentation for you. I just wanted to share last week we had an institute day and I just want to share it was a great day. So I wanted
027to give the details of it. We had an institute day that was entirely focused on artificial intelligence. Um so it was the AI institute last Friday the theme of the day AI. We brought in eight outside expert presenters including uh Mr. Huff from our board. We also had five internal experts. Uh our librarian Jin Laura, Madison Zedlar, Susan Craft, Christina Buer, and Meredith Riddle. We're all internal presenters. Um got a lot of great feedback from teachers. Um and the day was organized for beginners who have never used AI at all or people who have been using it and maybe there's things they haven't thought of or we've got some experts. So it's it was for them too. Um and it's also designed for people who never wanted to use AI and never will and that's
028okay. That's what I shared with teachers in the morning. Teachers don't have to start using AI but students already are. So the point of the day for those teachers that don't want to use it is to find out what students are doing with AI and to talk about how to teach the proper use of it to students. So I got the list of topics that we had. We actually had uh more than this. These are just the big topics. We had AI for beginners, AI department specific um assessment, lesson planning, how to teach it to students, ethics and risks and then for the really advanced people coding and creating their own generative AI. So that was the institute pictures for you and that is all for for me. In fairness, we have an eight hour
029meeting on Saturday. >> So, we will make up for any anything. >> Financials um are being presented for the month of January. The revenues received in January was $1.7 million which is 84% of the annual budget. Um and actually last year we also received $1.7 million in January 2025 which was 84% of the budget. Expenses for this um for January of 26 were 3.2 million which is 53% of the annual budget compared to 3.1 million last year 54% of the annual budget. So we are um very close to last year um in comparison. Any questions? >> All right. Well, good evening everybody. Uh tonight we're going to start off with some great news. Uh this is somebody we've already seen this year. So we're going to celebrate Mrs. Ritzell for the second time this year.
030Uh Mrs. Ritzell earlier this year she got the Emerson Excellence Award. Well, now she's got another award here for an award of meritorious meritorious excuse me service in the student support personnel category from the Illinois State Board of Education those who excel awards. This award goes to educators who have gone above and beyond in service to their school communities. Mrs. Mrs. Ritzell is an experienced educator who takes on leadership opportunities and whose accomplishments uplift the culture of learning here at OTS. Mrs. Ritzell stands as an example of excellence in her profession and of course is an integral member of OTS and the OTHS way. Again, congratulations to Mrs. Ritzell. last or two weeks ago Saturday on February 7th, the bank of a foul shootout occurred of course where showcase five games involving both our boys
031team and our girls team uh and some of the Midwest most elite basketball teams. This of course is a great event that brings together the entire Fallon community. This event is a year-long process of getting sponsors, finding and securing top ranked high school teams from around the United States, which by the way, Mr. Patton and and his his crew of Neil James and Rick Gibson, uh, they literally have to call around the whole United States for teams and then they might get some teams locked up in April. Well, then some of their best players transfer those high schools and so they have to on the fly try to to get different teams in. So, this is a year-long process that really they deserve a lot of credit. Uh they're not here tonight. They're at a
032girls basketball game which unfortunately got beat tonight. Uh but they deserve a lot of credit putting this big shootout together along with of course the other volunteers that that work and make this just a great profound community event. So, it'll be on again next year in February and we'll see what lineup of teams they have for for next year. This month, February, is Black History Month, and we have some activities here that's going to take place in the in the Panther Center on February 9th. We have what's called Moments Through History. It was a popcorn and movie event that provided students with information on Black History in America, and that took place here in the Panther Center during lunch and advisory periods. Tomorrow we have what's called stepping into black history and we're going to
033learn all about the history and the impact of the divine nine. We're gonna have step team come in uh and and do some dancing tomorrow during lunch periods and advisory in this in this room here. And of course a special thanks goes to Dr. Coley, assistant principal for organizing these wonderful events. Now, something that's not so fun to talk about tonight, um, is something that we all need to know more about. And I want to make sure our public, our parents, our students, most importantly, know this information about vaping. Um, so we're going to take some time tonight to to look at vaping. We all know just the problem is serving our youth in America today. Um, some statistics, they're tough to come by, accurate ones, I should say, when it comes on the number
034of teenagers that vape in the United States, but it's estimated that roughly 10% of all high school students report vaping in the past 30 days. Now, what parents need to know, of course, in uh nicotine vapes versus THC vapes, nicotine vapes are standard cigarette vapes, of course. THC are are marijuana vapes. Um, both are horrendous, both are bad, of course. Um, but we need to know what the difference is. The the picture you see up there, those are generally what we consider nicotine vapes, okay? Disposable vapes. We're going to see some examples later on of THC or marijuana vapes. Vapes are especially difficult uh because they don't smell like smoke. Okay? They're hard to detect. They smell fruity uh sweet smelling. And so as parents and as school personnel, uh this can be a very
035very difficult thing to detect and also because of the size of it. We all know how small they are can literally fit in somebody's palm. And so it it's a real difficult time for schools in in fighting this battle. We all know the problems that vaping can lead to. of course, addiction, lung irritation, breathing problems, increased heart rate, increased blood pressure. On top of that, I know uh Mr. Huff, one of our board members here, has been very passionate and some of our discipline hearings that we've had, and I echo his statements during those. They're they're very well said and mean a lot. Meaning, these companies that produce these vapes know what they're doing. They're stealing from us. And that's a line that Mr. Huff uses in there. It's stealing your money and it's stealing
036your life because it's going to lead to addiction down the road. And we as schools need to to stand together, fight against this. It's a tough battle. However, and as as I've been saying already so far, OTS is not alone in this problem. If you talk to any school personnel around, every school, even grade schools, believe it or not, are having these issues. And so we need to enlighten the public, understand the danger of this, and promote, of course, getting rid of these vapes in schools, in schools, not unique to OTHs, but the bathroom. The bathroom is primarily where these vapes are being smoked. Obviously, there's privacy in bathrooms. And uh I put in there the main reason for tardiness. All right? Now, that goes a long ways, but I know for us as as
037school personnel and the assistant principles battle this on a daily basis. Generally speaking, if a student has a tremendous amount of tardies, most likely there's some vaping involved. Okay? Uh we can't prove it. All right? But we just kind of know this through our experience in dealing with issues like this. And so that that's something that we have to think about going forward and how we're going to battle that as well. Okay, let's look at our student handbook and how we handle it here at OTHS. Now, you have nicotine vapes, THC vapes. All right, it's kind of hard to read up there, but if a student is caught with a nicotine vape, this comes directly from our student handbook on page 32. The first offense is going to be one day of ACR or in
038school suspension. With progressive discipline, it gets worse. You know, as if you get caught a second or third time. If a student is found in possession of a THC vape, then obviously the discipline is going to be a little more severe. Um, it could include up to a 10-day suspension from school with a potential for what's called a discipline review hearing before the board of education, which could potentially result in expulsion. All right. So, this is serious of a defense as we have here at OTHS. um that carries a very strict penalty of course. All right. And OTHS takes this very seriously when it comes to THC possession. Um as you could see what's in our handbook, >> Mr. >> Yes. >> question. Um the policy says could >> do a large percentage of these
039end up with a 10day suspension. >> The overwhelming majority of them, yes. Usually 10 days, if not more. percentage of these end up receiving some sort of disciplinary action from the board of education. >> What percentage you say? >> Would you say a rather large percentage? >> A very very large percentage. Yes. And that that's how serious the board and the community has has determined this to be that we can't have these in our schools. We cannot have it here at OTHS. And so students need to understand, parents need to understand the seriousness of bringing that on campus. >> Thank you. All right, let's look at some stats here with regards to vape in the last three semesters here at OTS. Starting with the fall of 25, 23 different students were were found in possession
040of a nicotine vape. 10 students were found in possession of a THC vape. If you go back to spring of 25, it was 12 students in possession of nicotine vape, eight students in possession of THC vape, and then the fall of 24, 16 with nicotine, and nine with THC. Now, these numbers don't seem high, >> right? I have a question. Are these numbers indicative of they may have been found, one person found both >> or they're separate? >> That's a great question. Um that that could be both potentially, you know. Uh let me let me take that back. No, that that would be individual because if they're called with the THC vape, that's going to carry the the more stringent penalty, which in most cases comes to the school board. So these numbers, as I
041was saying, they don't seem that high. Um but that that's we know what's happening in our bathrooms. Okay, we know what's happening there. uh it's very very tough to see and really catch, but our security team of course, which we'll talk about in a minute, does a great job of this. Okay, so what are we doing here at OTS to stop or deter vapingformational campaigns to show the dangers? What we're doing right now, of course, um things on panther beat, we do all calls, you know, posters up in the hallways. uh what I'm doing right now with the report of board meetings, we try to supervise bathrooms throughout the day. The difficulty of that is we have 10, you know, 12 bathrooms throughout our campus. Okay, 12 different bathrooms. Our security team, that's what they
042do throughout the day. They just roam around the building, go into bathrooms to try to make it a deterrent so that students don't do that on campus. We also want to partner with parents and guardians on what to look for at home. So if we can stop it at home, they won't bring it to school. So again, what are things parents should look for? Well, they should look for items that resemble USB flash drives, what look like pens, small electronic devices. Look for or smell for a sweet fruity sometimes skunk-l like that would be more your THC vapes on clothing their hair in their room backpacks. Look in your students backpack. I know that the board knows this more than than probably most of us here. One of the things we hear in discipline hearings,
043why did you bring that to school? Why did you bring it? I didn't want my parents to find it at home, so they put it in their backpack. Okay? So parents, please check your students backpacks. look in the car for vape devices. Also, increase secrecy, spending more time alone, you know, uh spend time with them, see what they're doing when when that's occurring so that if they're not smoking, they're engaging that activity. And then see where they're spending their money. You know, um nicotine vapes on average are anywhere from $10 to $30 depending on the amount of what are called puffs in those. THC vapes can range anywhere from 20 to $50 for disposable ones and 20 to $100 for cartridges or pens. And so, you know, parents see these little cartridges that are literally
044about an inch in length and they're going to have a little yellowish kind of substance in there. That's generally a THC cartridge. So, be careful of those. See where they're spending their money. And of course, the scary part for any parent, for anybody, is the danger that these THC cartridges have. And that's the incredibly high potency of THC in them. Uh they could be anywhere from 70% pure THC upwards of 95% pure THC. Uh which, you know, when you talk about it compared to like just the regular marijuana leaf, it's so much higher and so much more dangerous. On top of that, the chemicals that's inside these things, there's very, very dangerous and scary stuff there. I put up here just some anti- vaping resources for high school students. The Truth Initiative, that first one
045up there is great. That website is is fantastic. Has all kinds of interactive things in there, uh, lessons even. Um, but these are just some some things to look for if you're a parent looking for some anti-aping resources, uh, for your son or daughter. Any questions on vac? And the last thing always have is our our enrollment numbers as of today compared to last year at this time. Um we have a total today of 2469 students compared to last year at this uh exact time of 2516. >> All right. Thank you. Excuse me. In other reports, Miss Miss Heisler. >> Yeah. Yes. Um, thank you for having me this evening. Yes. Um, my name is Jennifer Heisler and uh, as you can tell, it is CTE month for this for the month of February. Month
046of February is a very busy month in the world of education. So, everybody likes to celebrate the month of February, which is awesome. Um, so tonight I'm going to share with you some new things, but I'm also going to recap some items for CTE. CTE is can be a complex program. Um, we actually dive into a good chunk of it here at Ofallen. Um, but it can even be larger. So, I'm going to go ahead and proceed. And to start with, I'm going to start with some facts for CTE. So our first set of facts that I'm going to share this evening are going to be for that we actually have four divisions starting this year for in CTE at OTHS. So career and technical education. We have business division which uh includes 21 courses.
047Family and consumer science division which has six courses. Health sciences which have two courses and that health sciences is our brand new division for this year. We also have industrial technology and engineering which holds 13 courses here at OTHS. So a total of 42 courses exist in the fallon CTE division um and department for new this year for 2526 school year. We actually have three courses that students were able to take or be selected for. The first two listed there health occupations and medical terminology are two new health sciences. These programs we have actually tried to get for several years. Previously we had instructor an instructor previously for a few years and then we were not able to find instructors. Um but this year we were able to find um Miss Coots and she has
048been doing great for the students and really providing them with a lot of opportunities. We also have our Silver Creek area CEO program which holds seven OTHS students this year. Uh that is our creating entrepreneurship opportunities program which you have heard of previously and approved as a board previously. Next year diving into the 2627 school year we're actually going to have two new courses on site at Oallen and that will be a foundations in multimedia and communications. That course will actually be housed with a few sections at um Milbour and actually one section at Milbour for next year it seems like and a few sections here at small week. So we're diving into those Milbour students and then an introduction to AI course. So those are the two in-house courses at OTHS for next year.
049In addition, we're actually going back and reigniting a program we had several years ago, and that is the Collinsville Area Vocational Center um academy that we're allowing students to take. And that academy is we'll bus them either in the morning or afternoon or they can have their own transportation as well. So that course work students are able to sign up for an option of 24 additional CTE courses offsite at Collinsville and those are offered to juniors and seniors. In addition, the majority of those courses require students to have prerequisites met here at Ofallen first. So that's a really exciting thing to offer back and the numbers have really been great and students are excited to take advantage of that. Continuing on with some facts, we now with the growth over the past few years, we
050have seen 18 now CTE instructors in four divisions. We have 11 instructors in our business division. We share one teacher with social studies department for one section. We have two instructors in our family consumer science. As mentioned, we were able to get a teacher for our health science and we have four industrial technology and engineering instructors and one of those is also shared for a section or two with the art department. On top of that, the dual credit courses that we partner with for Swick, we have 19 courses here in our CTE department. And within those 19 courses, we are able to offer students 67 dual credit offer u I'm sorry, 67 dual credit hours if they are able to take and maximize um the opportunities that we offer here. Okay, so we're going to
051shift gears a little bit. And one of the things that exists with CTE and career and technical education, especially in the state of Illinois, is that in 2022, the House bill uh 3296 was passed. And this bill actually requires school districts that enroll 6 to 12 student or 6th grade to 12th grade students. They had to adopt a postsecondary program and career framework. We call them endorsements. So this bill and law was set up in the state of Illinois. All high schools that fell into that region or districts or that area, the 6 to 12 had to adopt this. and they were given a timeline. So the timeline that we were given was that um no later than July 1st, we had to of this past year 2025, we had to have one endorsement ready
052to go for students. Okay? And an endorsement encompasses several classes within O within CTE. By 2029, we had to have two endorsements prepared for students to be able to offer them. And then by 2031, we had to have three endorsements prepared to offer them. So again, an endorsement is >> Give us an example of an endorsement. >> Sure. Um I'm actually going to I don't have it up here just so that I could save some time there, but I'm going to pass this out to the board members. Yeah, you can go ahead and pass those down to the board members. So, the endorsements, for example, I'm going to share with you what we actually have. The current status of our endorsements for this house bill 3296 at OTHS. We've already met by 20 end of
0532025. Actually, I was finished the planning of it. Julie Kudson started this venture. I finished the planning of it last spring and we finished up business management was our last one that we finished because we were able to get CEO approved. CEO then allowed our students to have an experiential component to it. Okay. Um we also have a construction and drafting and engineering endorsement. And the reason we're able to have those endorsements is because we have construction two, which is the advanced construction component where they're actually starting to build um items, projects, things along those lines. Okay. The other endorsements that we are wanting to have, if you look at the last bullet up there, um we're wanting to try to get a marketing endorsement, an information technology, which will hone in onto the computer
054side, the programming, cyber security, those elements. And then finally, now that we're able to have this health science teacher and offer that, um, we're wanting to really dive into the health science side to be able to give those students the experiences to go out to hospitals, doctor's offices, shadow, and to start to develop those skills. So, that is the Illinois law component for CTE. All right. Now I'm going to switch gears a little bit. And now I'm going to switch gears in CTE here at Oallon. Everybody should be aware I believe in this room that we have DODIA. And we are actually in our last year of DODIA here at OTHS for CTE. We were awarded the grant in October of 2021. We actually if I go back in the timeline of that the previous
055year we knew that we were applying the actual award came in 2021 but we had already been uh working towards that and planning towards it. So we've worked for five years and what we've developed if you look up there is a creating career pathways that sounds kind of familiar to what the state ISBE requires us to do. So what we chose then to do was to partner the two together. So whoops one more back. All right. So we developed CTE careermies using our DODIA grant in our CTEMIES. This is to provide students with exactly what ISBE is also asking us for. So we were trying to work smarter not harder and be more efficient with what we were given. So three big things have come from DODIA over these five years. The first bullet up
056there is we were able to develop 12 CTE careermies. That's part of the documentation that the board members just received. So those 12 CTE careermies this year we actually hit the 12. So we were able to get the public service with the health health services part of that. Previous I believe last year we had 10. The year before we had nine. So we've been gradually able to build on these careermies for students. What those careermies do, it prepares them for a pathway, which is exactly what ISBE was wanting us to do. The second big item up there under developments for DODIA, we see several PD and training opportunities. DODIA is huge on PD and training for educators, but we really were able to marry together what students got out of it as well. So they
057we had heavy training in construction, engineering, AI, our business areas as well. The third element is that we were also, and some of you are possibly familiar with hearing us um kind of boast about this because we're so proud of our students for taking advantage of it. 700 students as of December 2025 have completed industry certifications at OTHS CTE. And it is amazing how that has grown. So, I'm now going to show you a 10-year history of those certifications. Four year or four years combining 2015 to 2019, we certified 107 students in Microsoft, Excel, Word. Um, those were simply just through our business division. We saw that students were starting to become interested. Then, DODIA fell into our laps. When Dodia fell into our laps the next four years, look how that number jumped. It
058went from 107 for four years. Then it bumped up to 332. Now what we were able to do in those four years because of DODIA for CTE, we were able to go across all of our divisions for CTE, industrial tech, family consumer science and business even deeper and to provide those to students in just the fiscal year, not school fiscal year, calendar fiscal year of January to December. So, spring 2025, January 2025 through December 2025, we certified 337 students. That got us to the 700 students at that point within 10 years. I am projecting through surveys of our teachers that just this semester alone, we're going to grab another 200 students. That will bring us to over 900, a little over 900. And I would be jumping up and down if we were able if
059we were able to get to the thousand mark. So that is industry certification. So that is one of the big components that DODIA has been able to provide us with. Um so if you kind of look through that list, it's very, you know, we have CPR and AED at the top. That's brand new. We're starting to get that going with um those health science and med students. Um and then we still have the others that we've been diving into over the past 5 to 10 years. So to continue on with these re recognitions of certifications, here's a little sampling again on the lefth hand column there of the table. Those are um I believe that's what nine to 10 of our pathways. Right now we have 12 pathways. Not every single pathway has a certification
060at this time but we are working on getting that component in. And then there are some of the industry certifications on the right hand column that we are able to provide students. Now obviously this is not a mandatory thing for students. It's an option. students have seen a great deal of reward because they've come back to us as teachers and said, "Hey, I don't have to take this class now in college or hey, I'm able to move up to this level on my job because this employer is now accepting that certification and I can now move forward in a different part of the job than another student walking in at the same level with the same experience." So, that's a super exciting thing that they provide. So how do these kind of marry? So I
061just mentioned a little bit ago ISBE and those law requirements and then I mentioned DODIA. Okay, so there are two huge components and like I mentioned also we wanted to make it smarter not harder. So we married the two together to develop the 12 CTE career pathways. So, by having those pathways now exist, and they can always exist, we can modify them yeartoear as we're able to offer new pro um new classes or certifications to students, but we're still able to meet the law, the House bill set for ISBE. Okay, shifting gears a little bit. Shifting gears, what's new in CTE? I mentioned a few of them already. Our health occupations and med courses. So, we have uh our instructor, Miss Coats, has been great with partnering and reaching out to outside partners. Uh St.
062Elizabeth HSHS, Mr. Graham was able to start that relationship a few months ago and now we're also diving into the Highland location. There are multiple um practice professionals coming in from physical therapists to occupational therapists, EMTs, dentistry, orthodontics, nursing, um all all kinds of of professionals in the healthc care field. We also have SIU Edwardsville nursing and therapy programs that are coming in and partnering this year. Uh also, Swick dual credit. Miss Coats actually got her dual credit um certification through that created last second semester. So we were able to offer med students this semester with swift dual credit. So it was great that she was able to do that. And of course we have our Silver Creek area CEO program and I know a few board members and administrators have been able to join
063CEO for a few events. I am on the board for CEO Silver Creek area. It is an amazing opportunity for these students. We hope that it continue to grow. We have seven students up there. That's actually from yesterday. They had their banker day where they had to present their businesses and try to do a they actually did a 30-minute pitch with a business plan and financials to see how much money they could get to go towards their business. and it was exciting to see um how that's following through. Make sure you follow us on social media with that because that just explodes all the information out there. So, they're really able to just continue to grow the relationship in the community. >> And that's what I'm actually mentoring one of those students. It's just incredible
064how far they've come just in the the past couple months of of how they just the training they bring in, the businesses they visit, and just the mentorship that they get business. I'm not an entrepreneur, >> but it is great to see the evolution of the students, >> right? And the confidence that it builds in them and just the creativity that our students have, it's incredible. So, kudos for bringing that. It's been a huge team effort with multiple people here at Ohio to help get it going. So, thank you very much. And if you you see anything out there, just start spreading the word because the more people that are aware of it, the larger and more beneficial the programs can be to many other students. >> Start looking out for these businesses that the
065kids are starting. New businesses starting there. >> Yes, they do. >> Okay, so moving on. We're going to go ahead and I'm just going to highlight a few things um that my department shared with me and some photos, some PD experiences that they have, our industry partners. We have our industrial tech guys go out to various um businesses and get trained up on large equipment. Um like I mentioned, the health science is bringing in different um presenters and they're getting really handson experience. You see up there, they're doing blood pressure and uh heart rates and listening to heart of like um you know actual babies and infants and newborns and doing blood pressures and vitals. We have um industry partners KPMG, Boeing coming in. There's Kevin Bossy on a large. It is a Ethan, this
066is the one that you were asking about. It's a enormous laser machine and it actually puts laser etching in wood products. So, he's actually finishing some stuff up now with students. And then Jen Mueller went to a culinary um experience to get skilled up in that and bring that back to OTS. and students are diving into field trips. Again, part of DODIA is to help provide those hands-on experiences, whether it's our FBA students going out, educational students going out, accounting students going and winning awards, um, Skills USA and going and doing showcases for CTE. Um, and then also our Panther Beat kiddos up there in the middle. And then other student organizations that we have, um, our Panther Beat actually has a student that has been on the offen weekly front page for two weeks
067in a row. Um, so that's been exciting to see. And Skills USA is getting ready to do their big competition coming up next month. And Panther Beat, like I said, is is doing amazing things with working with the Bank of Oen shootout, interviewing, winning awards, and all of that. So, that's exciting to see for those students. Where do I see OTSCT going in the future? Like I mentioned, the endorsement, wanting to try to get at least one more of those accomplished in in those areas. And another big thing, and I know I've talked to some of my peers here in the audience and other department chairs, working towards an advanced placement option possibly in CTE. And so that is on my docket for researching this year. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to
068ask. We highly encourage you to follow us on social media. And thank you. >> Thank you. THANK YOU. Next up is the committee reports communication committee. Miss Johnson um the education committee did not meet this month. We are scheduled to meet on March 10th of next month. And the communication committee did not meet. We're scheduled to meet on April 1st. Okay. >> This the 14th. It is 14. >> Um facil facilities. Mr. Rick is not here. Dennis, could you uh Mr. Could you provide the update for this month committee? >> Yeah. Uh we had a meeting scheduled on well this month, February the 19th. Um there was nothing to come out of the meeting. Uh so we scheduled our next meeting here for March the 10th. Uh which will be at 300 p.m. time for
069that meeting. Then we have a report attached from that meeting. >> Uh finance Mr. H. Thank you. >> No, no finance committee meeting this month. Uh we did have a personnel committee meeting uh special board meeting. I guess it was >> on Tuesday of this week. But that's Tuesday the >> was it Tuesday of last week? >> It was Tuesday of last week. um to discuss superintendent midyear evaluations. No scheduled right now. >> All right. Policy and governance. What's the deal? >> We had a meeting on the third of February and we had 80 new policies that we went over, new updates mainly and then footnote updates. I think the just went through updated all their footnotes and stuff like that. So nothing substantive. You'll see eight on first reading. Uh there are 20 on
070second reading. Again, they're mainly just minor changes and then some footnote update. Our next meeting for the policy committee is on the 3rd of March at 4 p.m. >> that will be pending. >> Okay. Uh special committees. Uh there was a best committee meeting scheduled I think on the 26th but I think it was snowed out. >> We we are narrowing makeup dates for that. Now the superintendents are looking at late March early April but to be determined. >> Um and we also have a city council meeting. Mr. Richtor is not here to report. So, I I'll give a brief update, but um I think district 203, we shared a little information about our facility planning and all the things we're doing there. District 90 also is working on facility plans in addition to like
071bond referendums and um they brought up potential new boundaries maybe uh in the horizon for district 90 because uh I think there's some imbalance in the populations of some of their schools. I think maybe the evidence is over. I can't remember what school but um >> I think with the bonds they were issuing bonds but not referendum. >> No. Yeah, it was a >> Yeah, exactly. >> refinance. >> Yes. >> Yep. Central talked about cost increases and funding decreases and um you know I think they're having a lot of challenge with their Doner school. So they're shifting some of the students to their other school. There's they've just got a strong need to think to do that moving forward. Um, and they were also talking about refinancing. And then the library talked a little bit.
072They have a new facility. They're trying to pitch in referendum and uh I think they're having a public awareness meeting recently. And then the city was talking about the increase in costs on their fire, EMS, police, and potentially uh a need for a rate increase coming coming down the road at some point. And uh that's pretty much it. Um any any other special committees that I'm missing? >> The endowment um meeting was postponed until uh February 24th um due to the snow day that we have here. So February 24th dates the Southwest Division meeting reminder is the 11th of March at 6 PM at Granite City. Uh we're going to be talking about cell phone policies, which is um as Governor Pritskar reaffirmed is one of his interest item areas and is potentially coming up
073for statewide legislation again. It didn't make it to the floor for a vote last session, but they're again just sounded like what I read to it as in the classroom. >> So, it sounds like we're maybe already where the state's going to go. We don't know where they're going to go. We don't know what the proposed legislation is going to look like this year. It might be different than it was last year. We just don't we don't know that is a is it an area of concern in getting the cell phones out of the class how and what they're going to pass. We don't um and the second thing I think I mentioned it before they're in their strategic planning. Um I went through a focus group for the midsize school district and it's interesting.
074a lot of the items that the questions were what can IB do to better support the districts um and it it did come up with you know more transparency the training was always good it did come up with the um um what's the update press updates and press plus and the cost of that did come up so um we'll see what comes out of that I am on the core planning team we're meeting on the 20th and 21st of March so we'll get all that input just uh create a strategic plan and way to go forward for IAS. So if any of my fellow board members want something from all >> appreciate it any other special committees so public comments come next there's anybody that would like to address the public at this time. If
075not, we'll move on to consent agenda. So, I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda items, including but not limited to prior meeting minutes, financial reports, payment of bills, freedom of information act requirements, requests, and the disposal of obsolete equipment. >> Second, but I do have a question. Uh, under the payment of bills, Did the executive content there? >> Uh 912. The executive content. >> Why is there executive content? Why is that executive content? I I VMO that is the the credit card receipts that used to just be put in as one line item and then the board asked for it to be tied out. I I don't know why it's an executive content. I think that's just where it was started to be posted. >> Can Can we just move that to because
076I don't think everyone can access it content, right? I don't >> correct. >> Can we just move that to >> Yeah, you have that note for moving forward. >> Sure. And as long as we do that. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> That's un So there is no real reason for it being there. >> No, I I wouldn't think there'd be anything confidential in it. >> I I I looked through it. I didn't see it. >> Okay. So post meeting, we'll move that to public. >> Okay. Um so can we get a roll call? >> I Johnson I Brown. >> Hi. Okay. Old business is next. We've got some board policies that are going through their second reading. So I'll make motion to uh approve board policies as presented. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All
077in favor? >> I. Any oppose? Motion passes. Um new business. We've got our appointment compensation discipline performance dismissal of personnel sheets. So I'll make a motion to approve the appointment performance dismissal of personnel items as presented. >> Second roll call >> I >> Johnson I Huff >> I >> Brown >> I um next is contractor pay applications for construction projects. which we do didn't have any place. >> Pass on item 112. Go to item 113. I will make a motion to approve trips in excess of 200 miles. >> So move second. >> My only ask I do this every time. It's so close to the trip. If there's any way we get additional lead time, what what would happen these trips if we didn't approve club for example? >> That was cost to us because
078I I saw that the students were then going on their own. >> These trips >> and then some of the trips are pretty expensive compared to others. Is is there budget like for these like >> our typical is to limit to $250 per bus? However, um whenever we have groups that are going to regional, sectional, state level events, the district's practices define those events. >> So, I think that both the HOSA, tell me if I'm wrong, HOSA and FBLA are state events. Correct. >> Correct. >> Okay. That's defining it versus when maybe they're fundraising. >> Yep. >> Okay. Um, can we get a roll call? >> Hi, >> Johnson. I >> Hi, >> Brown. >> Hi. >> Um, next are the school calendars and I think the first one is our existing calendar. Um, I
079think we made an amendment or changes. Um, it looked like um, what was the change on the calendar? >> We had an emergency date. You know, we had an emergency day on December 2nd, which means we need to change May 21st, which was originally an emergency day, into the final school attendance day. That's the only difference. >> So, I'll make motion to approve the amended OTHS public school calendar for the 2526 school year using. >> All in favor? I. Any oppose? That motion passes. The next is our new calendar for the 2627 school year. So I'll make motion to approve the OTHS public school calendar for the 2627 school year using the previous roll off. Second >> second. >> All in favor? >> I oppose. That motion passes. And last is the uh calendar for
080the school board meetings. So, I'll make motion to approve the board meetings dates and times prior. >> I have a question. Um, I know Mr. had suggested that we do some of our meetings at the meeting we had at Milberg. Did we decide that that wasn't a good idea? >> It was and it didn't result in greater attendance and Okay. >> I think setting it up and you everything's set up here to have the meeting. to recreate that there became >> just wasn't it it would be fine if it was worthwhile but it wasn't okay you know >> there was no additional public attendance there was no >> okay >> um and I guess the only the change the only change in prior calendar that we saw was July that >> yes >> I think
081it was July 16th >> right and and that was just my mistake in the initial draft where I just did it four but because of the number of Thursdays it I moved it that one. >> All right. So, uh all in favor >> I oppose. Motion passes and then uh next we've got a board member expenses approval. So I'll make a motion to approve board member how the reviews expenses for the consortium boards conference in March of 2026 move second and just to kind of clarify we're able to do this because not all board members attend the uh the Chicago conference so there's funds left over and it's in our interest for M to represent us at she kind of does more stuff at the higher state level as well as the national level I'll
082bring it back some really good sessions going on there to go to >> so um can we get a roll call >> Johnson I Hi >> I loo Hi, >> Brown. >> Hi. >> All right. And uh this is just discussion item, but we've got additional board policies for first reading and next week next month we'll come back and have the second vote for approval. Um so last is additional business that came across post agenda. I guess >> um nothing except that the approval for the waivers was not added in time as an agenda item. That's my fault. So the approval for the waiverss that Miss Gray suggested will be part of retreat on Saturday. So remember that waiver hearing that we had next board meeting will be in March the uh March 6th 19th.
083Um, and some of the big things we'll be talking about is the summer school offering and then staffing recommendations for next year. Um, some of the important dates coming up, we've got February frolics on the 20 20th and the 21st, our board retreats on the 21st, no school on the 2nd for day and then early release on March 4th. And with that, I'll make a motion. >> What time is the retreat? 8 a.m. Breakfast will be ready at 7:30 >> is in the boardroom. I think we're looking at four o'clock. four will be the latest ending time and we may utilize all the time this year depending on facilities conversation. >> You didn't mean the ear. >> Nope. That will be >> we will end at four and resched another meeting if needed. >> You
084guys over there ready for us to end? probably anyway slow motion to adjourn the board of education second. All in favor.