001Let's break the end of the session. And if you guys join me in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Right. We've got uh quite a few things to cover tonight. There's the uh tentative 2526 budget. Um we've got kind of some initial feedback on our facility planning that's happening right now. Uh connects events are coming up. Uh I think Mr. Graham will talk a little bit about that as well as our goals and KPIs for education. Um we've got a little bit of a summary overview of the kickoff events that we've had this year with Mr. How. Um there's a technology report tonight as well, special report. Um
002and then as far as uh business, we've got some an auditorium project to look at, review, and approve as well as the employee. So I'll pass it to Dr. Shepford for the uh superintendent report. >> Okay. Good evening everyone. We'll start tonight by talking about evidence-based funding. We have some good news and some challenging news. The great news is evidence-based funding is still in place. I typically show this chart every year. OTHS is defined as what's called a tier one school, which means that it's not close to adequacy. It's in the greatest need of all school districts. A tier four school, for example, would have a 100% of the adequacy target in its funding. The top number that you see there, the 37.1 million is what our evidence-based funding adequacy target is. Basically saying in
003order for us to adequately educate our students, these are the resources we would need. On the bottom, you can see the $21.1 million are the resources we have toward adequacy. The gap this year then is just over $9.9 million. The good news is is that for several years, even though we were getting what's called tier funding, which is the extra funding going to those districts more in need, we were still seeing that gap increase. But if you look, our last year of increase was 21. Going into 22, we were at 11.7 million. Then even though we got more money, that gap was 11.8. Then it started to close a little bit. 11.3 went up a little bit last year 11.5. So we do see the smallest adequacy gap that we've ever seen. The legislature did
004allocate $37 million to evidence-based funding this year. An additional $37 million statewide. $31.8 million of that is for the tier funding. As a tier one school, we receive more of that funding than the other schools do. So tier one and tier two schools, those in the most needs, receive 99% of that tier funding. Okay? So pretty much all of it. Um our number, however, for this year is around $560,000 for tier funding. Last year, that number was 1.4 million. The reason it's smaller this year is that we have more friends with us in tier one. And what I mean by more friends is Chicago public schools which as you know is a very large school district was a tier 2 district last year and was designated as tier one district this year which means we
005are sharing that tier tier one money now with Chicago public where last year when we saw the $1.4 million in tier funding um Chicago public was at tier 2. Um it is again we're getting closer. We're moving in the right direction. we will receive. This year, we're expected to receive $12.7 million in evidence-based funding. Last year, we received just over $12 million. That's where you'll see that additional 560 coming in for this year. >> Quick question. >> Yes. >> Did I mean, did they change how they calculate? I mean, it seems like the gap closed a lot. We're getting less than we've gotten in the past. >> They did not change how they calculate. However, our local resources were higher and that's one of the things they take into uh consideration when they determine >>
006where that gap is. >> So, our EAV increased, which means our property tax resources increase, which means that our resources towards adequacy increase. >> Okay. And they go off of EAB, not how much you actually get. >> Yes. >> But it's not so much how much you collect. You mean >> correct? >> Yes. >> All right. >> They actually have uh close to 40 data points they use um to determine it to determine evidence-based funding, whether it's demographics, local resources, federal resources, um cost of living, and the list goes on and on. Um so there's lots of factors, but that that local resources plays a large factor in it. >> Okay. Um, tonight also we have the tentative budget posted before the budget is approved at next month's board meeting. We will have a finance
007committee meeting as well as a budget hearing at the opening of next month's board meeting prior to approval where we'll discuss uh the budget in detail. However, it does need to be posted for 30 days prior to adoption. So, it's been posted since Tuesday of this week. We had noticed in the fallen weekly tonight I'll just provide a very high level of some significant uh factors that play into the budget. The first one and always the most impactful will be our salaries and benefits. We're looking at an additional $1.5 million in FY26 which represents a 5.2% increase in the budget. We do provide cushion in that. You'll hear me say over and over again both tonight and then of course when we go through the budget hearing next month that we budget conservatively. So our
008goal is not to spend all of our budget. We're going to make our revenues a little lower than what we expect. We're going to make our expenditures higher than what we expect. And you'll see that as you look at the trends of our fund balances and where we've landed over the past several years. Um we've always ended to the good of what was originally budgeted. Isby when they interpret how we need to operate our budget, they will of course allow you to spend less than what you budgeted for, but you do get penalized if you go over budget. It is not permissible. So, we always make sure we have space in there both within the contingency in each fund and within the individual line items. Let's see. Um, within that uh that 5.2% increase, that's
009higher than what we expect. We do have uh either four or four and a half percent increases through our collective bargaining agreements. Two years ago for our teachers, we had that large increase of 8.78% average. Last year was 4.5. This year the average is 4.5 as well. Um last year, which was the first year of the new collective bargaining agreement for pair professionals and service workers, we saw a 10% increase. Um this year we're seeing 4% and we'll see uh between four and 5% in that collective bargaining agreement um next year as well. And those employee classes not covered under collective bargaining agreement follow those same trends. We also have I as I mentioned on the previous slide our ABF tier funding of $560,000. Uh we have new grants some of them are known some
010of them are not. We were issued the DODIA Klein grant. That's that career focused grant of $500,000. So you'll see differences in there both on the revenue and expenditure side. And then still to be determined um is the security grant which accounts for another $500,000 of expenses and possibly revenues if we're awarded the grant. But a lot of the pieces in that may be things we want to prioritize anyway for the sake of security in the district. Our mandated categoricals, that's a fancy way of saying state reimbursement. So, we have those in the areas of special education, transportation, and the state free lunch and breakfast. I've spoken to you before about how the state has been prorating these for several years, and we expected deeper prorations this year. That has come out. So, I wanted
011to share those with you, and this does impact uh the revenue side of things. So, our special education private tuition proration is down from 91% last year will be prrated down to 77% this year. So, a significant cut there. But the ones where we'll really see it in our budget and in our bottom line and fund balances are in transportation. Special education transportation decreased by 2% from 71% to 69%. But regular ed transportation was prrated at 85% last year and is down 6% to only 79% while our transportation contract costs are going up 4.5%. So you'll see where we used to have a pretty steady fund 40 because of the state reimbursement coupled with the increase in transportation costs. You'll see that fund balance has started. We've started to take away that. A lot of
012districts have to utilize their working cash funds to transfer over into the transportation fund because we must transport our students. We fortunately have not had to do that yet, but if these prorations don't uh improve, we could see that supplement being needed in the ne in the coming years. probably not for at least five years, but it depends on where those prorations land. Um, our vehicles, we're trying to get, again, we started this last year in a rotation of vehicles. We plan to replace two drivered vehicles this year. One is by necessity because we had one total earlier this summer. Um, and then we plan to get another one. We are also still waiting on one of the mini buses that we ordered. Gosh, I mean, it feels like a year ago, but that will
013fit this year's budget. So, that's included there as well. In terms of our construction projects, we have $230,000 left to pay from previously authorized projects that have crossed across the fiscal year in our fund 20, which is our operations and maintenance fund. We also have a million dollars still owed on those previous projects in our health life safety fund, which is fund 90. That's our HVAC projects, our flooring projects, etc. Um, and then there is room there because we're doing this facilities assessment. We haven't made a lot of movement. Um, but we are having things revealed that there is movement that needs to be made in in facilities. So, there's an additional $1.4 million set aside for other projects that we may need to approve that could hit this year. And then what um Mr.
014Brown mentioned at the beginning, the $150,000 for the auditorium, repairs and replacements of malfunctioning parts. Um, transportation contract 4.5% increase. our commercial insurance up close to 9%, our health insurance at a 12.7% increase. Those are the highlights. Again, I'll go into more detail um when we go into every part of the budget next month and when we meet with the facilities committee next month. Okay. All right. Facilities planning. So, this has taken off and has been pretty exciting. Um, this is kind of more a we're finding out where we're at still before we go into where we want to be, right? So, FGM has been working with our department chairs. Department chairs have been providing feedback, working with their departments to get feedback from them so we can get a great picture of where we
015are as well as what we believe our needs are. Then they'll take their expertise to uh base it against best practice standards. So you'll see some best practices in square feet per student. Um the first line and the green area are different professional organizations. I do want to point out that Izzy says you need 160 square feet for students. Then if you go down to the blue lines in the middle, you'll see that at Smiley. We have 165 square feet per student. At Milbour, we have 253. But I do want to mention with that ISBY number that is very old that was established in 2009. Okay? So it's very outdated. Services and uh educational spaces look very different then. Um and it also excludes all PE spaces while our numbers include all of our PE
016spaces. Uh they also FGM provided for us some of our neighboring districts. Um, you know, Mscuda you can see is at 217, Westland at 200, Mount Vernon at 178, etc., etc. So, you can see we are on the low side of square feet per student. We feel that in the building every day, but these are real numbers to show it that it's not just a hunch that we have at the Smiley campus where we >> only where they were able to get school information from because I'm like, where is Belleville or Edwardsville or >> it's who they were able to get the information from and also clients that they're working with. I think those are all new buildings, >> more readily available. The um well at Waterlue they're doing work with them now and their
017model, right? Is that what you're saying, Ethan? >> Well, the four and the red are new buildings, >> right? Yes. Newer construction. Yeah. Thank you. >> Does that answer your question? Okay. All right. So, the smiley campus, this is where we'll see the most need. No surprise because our aging campus. All right, so existing space utilization. Um, if you look at this map, I know you can't read what all the different colors mean, but they represent different departments. As you can see at the Smiley campus, we have little to no uh cohesive spaces for departments. So, science is all over the place. English is all over the place. CTE is all over the place. That's why you see a smattering there instead of things grouped together. Also, 75% of our instructional space here has no
018access to any direct sunlight, and that's because of all the additions that we've done over the years. Next is a heat map. So, the green represents where according to best practices, we have an adequate size space for the students that we're serving. The yellow indicates spaces that are stressed, but we can make it. And then the red indicate severe. So classroom sizes have changed since smiley been built as well. And our classrooms are too small to accommodate the needs of our students. And there's actually a great visual analysis they gave us which I'll show you next. So let's talk about the typical size for general education classrooms. Okay. So the recommended best practice says we should have 840 square ft. Our smallest at the Smiley campus is 690. The average is what's outlined there in
019uh in the dotted line. And then our largest is 820 ft. So we're at about just over a 10% deficiency in the size of our classrooms on average. And this is kind of what it looks like if you put a fit test. So we have started to change the desks that we use when we replace desks. That's an annual item that the facilities team does. The desks we're buying now are not these small compact desks that we bought years ago because now we have not only a notebook, but we have a textbook, we have a computer. Um, we need more desk space than we used to use. And also, we started purchasing just this year desks where the chair is not connected to the desk because flexible seating is now important to teachers. And if
020you have a chair that moves everywhere with the desk, you can't put the desks in different uh organizational patterns. You can't move the chairs out of the way. So, we wanted to have just more independence and flexibility, but those desks are larger, 24 in x 18 in. That's the size we need. Um this is how it works in our space. So, on the left is how it would work if we had uh 28 desks in our smallest classroom. As you can see, it does not work. In our existing classroom, we can fit, but it's very tight. There's no room flexibility and the proposed classroom which is the recommended square footage. We have some room you can see along the right side there of course that could be fashioned whatever way is appropriate for you know
021whatever way the teacher would wish um for either flexible learning spaces storage um alternative instructional spaces and things of the like science labs. This is where we're seeing the biggest discrepancy. So the recommended best practice is to have 1440 square ft. uh you can see that our average is just over a thousand square feet and when we go that's a 27% deficiency and if you look at what we have existing at Smiley that's on the left um you can see there aren't separate desks because the lab stations have to double as our desks. Um there are not prep areas. So the proposed lab you can see there's an area for desks as well as the lab area and then not shown there is a prep room. Um, we do have those common spaces over at
022Milbour, which I'll I'll go to in a minute. Um, but you can see just a tremendous difference in our science labs in their current state and what would be recommended. All right, so moving on to so those are the really high point what we're seeing so far from Smiley. Then right now what they're doing is uh FGM came in Wednesday, met with our department chair, shared this information with us. They also shared um what the department chairs uh recognized as needs within their department or desires within their department. Wanted to make sure they captured that correctly. We'll be providing that feedback uh through the end of next week and then they'll kind of start to put that big picture together so we see what best practice says in terms of the actual physical space we
023have. Um now we're seeing and we're doing some site visits tomorrow. It's an early release day uh within the department. So, we will see next uh what we want, how that compares with best practices, and then they'll start kind of piecing together um some options. Okay? Based on all of those things, at Milbour, you won't see as much. So, now you see the colors are grouped together. Um this campus just opened in 2009. It was designed as such, and it hasn't changed as much as the Smiley campus has changed over eons of years. In terms of the spa, I'm pardon terms of the space that we have. heat map looks much healthier at Milbour as well. Um, you'll see mostly green indicating it's adequate space in most areas. The only two spaces that were identified
024as not adequate were that red spot on the far left towards the top is the band room and then the red spot um towards the bottom. That's our sore classrooms. Um those are really being stretched right now. we have to make learning spaces in the hallways and be very creative in how we're serving our students there. Um so definitely a need identified there. But outside of that, the main academic wings at U Milbour are much healthier than they are here at Smiley. >> Yes. >> Question. So at the beginning, Milbour has a really big square footage per person. Mhm. >> Is that mainly because there's so much like gyms, auditoriums relative to classrooms? >> Yeah. I mean, and even you look at the look at the corridor, look at what it's like to walk in
025a corridor in Milbour compared to what it's like to walk in a hallway here, you know, the the width of the hallways, the size of the classrooms. Um, we do have that auxiliary and then that large gym area as well. We have the auditorium that's a huge space that's included as well. And our cafeteria is pretty large there, too. There's space in that cafeteria here. Not as much, right? Okay. We have a foyer that's nice and open there as well. I mean, it kind of goes on and on. Okay. And then that's all I have for facilities. Any questions on facilities? Again, we'll continue I'll continue to update you on this, but I just wanted to let you know where we are in the process. >> And then I know that Mr. Graham and Mr.
026how we're going to talk about this, but I just wanted to end with uh we had buttons made there made possible by the NOIA grant that Laura Brick oversees and it's I mean it's something little, but just uh kind of saying that we're glad our students are back. Our teachers came back last Monday and students Tuesday and it's nice to have life back in these buildings. So that's all I have for you tonight. >> Thank you. >> All right, good evening everybody. Um I just have three uh topics I want to share with everybody tonight. We have two new events that I'll cover the details of that are coming up. One tomorrow and then I wanted to share the results of our KPI data um in the education committee. So I'm going to talk about
027parent connect day, >> parent connects night and our KPI data. So all of these things actually are tied to the continuous improvement process that I've shown this slide many times. But we have identified some growth areas. We've created some programs to address those growth areas. We're going to monitor how they're doing. We're going to adjust. So that's what we do. Um and that's how these events were basically for by looking at this data. So we have our district goals of decreasing ourism, getting our students more connected to the school, getting them to participate more and we have our communication committee some uh goals about increasing opportunities for parents. So the data we looked at as part of this process was our um extracurricular participation rate which we found about a third of our students are
028not involved in anything. No clubs, no sports. Um and we found 43% of our students saying that they don't feel like a real part of the school. So those two data points we thought we've got to address these. These are these stand out to us. So we came up this event to address those. Another slide that Mr. Kad shared last month is the participation in GPA. So students who were in zero activities had a 2.6 average GPA and we saw 30% of our students aren't in anything. So that's that group. That's a large group that's got 2.6 average GPA. So we designed Panther Connects Day. Um so this event was designed by me, Mr. Koad, Miss Lugie. Um and then the u the DODIA grant that Laura Le is overseeing has a team of teachers
029as well. I'll show you them in a second. So those those groups all got together to plan this day. Um the goal of the day, the theme of the day is to get involved and get connected. And so students tomorrow are going to be rotating through different sessions. Um basically a lot of it's the important information they need for that school year, but it's also who we are as the adults in the building, what services we can provide to them, and then they're going to be able to see all of our clubs and activities at the activity fair. And we're going to have a pep rally to end it to kind of kick off the year with some excitement. So that's the theme of the day. The five events they'll be going through our advisory
030at administration and class sponsors are going to present who we are, what we do. Um the student council will come up during that presentation too and just talk about how they can get how students can get involved. Counseling and social work will present on the services they offer to students and then what that students what those students need to know for that grade level. So these will be grade level meetings. We will have the activity fair in the cafeteria in the NPR. set up right now uh where students will be able to browse our 60 plus clubs and activities and sign up to join them and there'll be displays for all them. So, uh that'll be awesome. Uh we have had activity fairs here, but they've been at night and we've seen not very many
031students come to it. It's been a parent really. So, this is amazing that the students will get to see this and hopefully we'll get a lot more students involved from this. Um, and then in advisory, we're going to do some team building competition activities, uh, just to kind of get a higher energy level. It's so they can have fun there. And then end it with a pep rally. Um, all the freshmen will be coming over here tomorrow, the activity fair and the pep rally from here. >> One quick question. What time do you anticipate the pep rally? >> 11:25 is the start time we have. 11:25. There's some time before that for everybody to get out there. We're all going outside for new a while, I don't think. >> And the weather looks great. Um,
032that team of teachers there in the corner. We had a conference this summer. Um, it's called the SEAL conference. There were about 12 other schools that attended. Um, and every school had a team of teachers who's trying to create some kind of initiative to improve social emotional learning. That's what stands for. Um, and so our team focused on the advisory activities that we're going to do tomorrow. Um, just a couple of contests and games we're going to do and then a kind of an icebreaker index card game where you write down facts by yourself. So, it's it's going to be fun. It's going to be great. Um, that's the schedule for each grade level. Each grade level has a different rotation. Um, we'll be moving around the building as as grade levels and then basically
033be grouped together as advisories within that. the teachers will be supervising their 20 or so advisory kids throughout the day. So that's um the next day tomorrow. Any other questions on that one? Okay, be awesome. Then on September 8th, we are still keeping our next night for our parents um but we are kind of beefing that up as well. So, at Connects Night, uh, which previously was just an activity fair and some counseling department meetings, we're adding on an open house meet and greet where teachers will be available in their classrooms for parents to meet for an hour uh from 6:30 to 7:30 after those counseling meetings after that activity fair. Um, it is a meet and greet. It's very early in the year, so we are going to set the expectation with parents. This
034is not a parent teacher conference. Um, we can't have parents kind of monopolizing teachers because it'll be a large crowd. We're trying to get as many people in the building as possible. We'd like multiple parents in the room at the same time to meet, greet, get the syllabus, figure out contact information, just a quick introduction. Um, so that'll be the open house and then counseling will be presenting the same information they present to parents at Connect in the past, which is what you need to know for that grade level. And then dual credit. Last thing I want to share are the KPIs, the results of our KPIs for the education committee. So we set these at uh about this time last year, we set the the indicators that we wanted to track and how we
035wanted to do in these areas. So for the academic achievement KPIs, we had grad rate, nth grade on track, ACT and program enrollment. And for our school culture goals, we wanted to track chronic absentee rate, extracurricular participation, behavior data, and student survey data. So I'm going to show you the results for all of these that we have. We have most of these now. Um so first was grad rate. That is the biggest KPI. It's the most important piece of our school report card and we set a target of 93% for the class of 25 and we hit the target and exceeded it to 93.8%. We set that target because that's what the state considers a perfect graduation rate. We get full digit points out of 50 uh for that metric. So it's in green because
036we hit it. We're moving the right direction. Uh our next steps with all these will be to decide do we want to keep these KPIs? we want to alter any of them and what do we want our next targets to be for the for the class of 26. So that'll be the next meeting we have. Next one is nth grade on track. Um we were in the upper 80s. We hit set a target of 91% and we did improve. So we're headed the right direction. I've got that colored in yellow because we're moving the right way. We just did not hit our target yet. Um so we'll continue to try to improve that. Um in this area we did have some freshman credit recovery that may have helped there. to get us a little bit
037closer to our target. The ACT results have come out along with the cut scores that just came out last week. Um I think Mr. House going to share more details about how we were involved because we did have some teachers involved in that. Um so we do have our unofficial meet succeeds rates for the ACT which will be 57.8% in English, 54% in math and 59.6% in science. So those rates if you compare to the old rates above. You can't exactly compare, but a lot more students are meeting and exceeding on the ACT than they were on the previous few SATs. Um, it's looking more like our 1718 and our 1819 SATs were with more than half our students meeting exceeding. And I shared these this data over the summer. I just didn't have the
038cut scores yet when I shared that. So, that looks great. It was a baseline year because it's a brand new test. Um, next one we had for academic achievements program enrollment. We wanted to track the percent of students enrolled in these five types of classes. This is actually live data from this school year. So we already know our results for this year. We set targets for the next year. Every time we set a target um in four of these areas, which is AP honors, dual credit, CTE, and world language, we moved up. More students are enrolled in those four areas. Um, and art and music was the only one that did decrease. It decreased by maybe a percent and a half. So point and a half. Um, but the other four went up. We do
039know that we can't increase all five of these every single year. It's impossible because of the amount of classes that student could take. If people want to join CTE, they might have to drop music. So, it's a give and take. Whenever you're looking at student course requests, but we did see progress in areas we want to see progress. And then chronic absenteeism. We have an unofficial rate of 21% which was an improvement, slight improvement over 21.2%. Uh our target was 19. We're heading in the right direction but it was a very slight improvement. >> Extracurricular participation. Uh Mr. Posette shared this last month. >> Let's go back to >> why are we below the state average? uh you >> you want to be below stand number >> that's the percent of students who are absent
040for 10% of the school year >> okay and that explains why target is okay >> y >> extracurricular participation increased uh to 73% we we did have do have a new activities director so the the record keeping is probably going great um with Mr. goes that. So that may explain part of it. A 20 point jump is a huge jump, but 73%. So we're targeting the other 30 uh 30% tomorrow. Behavior data. We were trying to track the percent of students who never are excluded from a class for a discipline reason. So either with a class suspension, an ACR, or an OSS. Um our target was to have 80% of our students never be excluded. We hit that target. 81.1% of our students And then lastly, student survey data. We're still working on this one.
041Um, because we want to change the survey from the five essentials, we're going to do an in-house survey. So, I won't really cover this one. We don't even have the results yet. So, it's all TBD, but we would we will probably change this at our next month's meeting. And that is all I have for everybody unless there's questions. >> Okay. >> Next is finance. Good evening. I will be reporting the numbers for July 2025, which is the first month of the fiscal year. Um, revenues as of July 31st were $4,97,434. Of course, there are no budgeted numbers um this month and they will be presented in October after being approved in September. Expenses as of July 31st were $3,315,530 and we received property tax distributions in the month of July. The first distribution was 3,890,000.
042The second one was 3,414,000 and the total of the distributions was 7,35,147. >> How does this compare historically? So I know we don't have the budget yet, but our revenues as of July 31st, 2025, how's that? >> It's higher because we had a healthy levy. >> Okay. >> And our expenses then as well. How do they compare historically? >> Um, I don't have I don't have that information, but I can get it to you. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> All right. Uh, Mr. H, principal's report. >> Yes. Well, good evening everybody. We are starting off with some great news tonight with two of our finest teachers here at OTHS. Our English teachers, Miss Jod Scythe and Miss Melissa Wilkerson, were selected by the Illinois State Board of Education from a pool
043of 900 applicants to spend a week in Springfield in July. No, mind in July. Okay, they're wrong. So, think about that. Okay. Uh, Springfield in July. Great place to establish the cutoff scores for the ELA portion of the ACT. Only twi 12 high school English teachers were chosen for this prestigious job. and two of those 12 of course were here. So a real big congratulations to to Miss Side, Miss Wilkerson. It's quite an honor and and as Mr. Graham told you about the cutoff scores that they were instrumental in that. So it's really an honor to have two two of our best teachers of course here um take part of a statewide panel. >> And so how did they get selected? So >> I don't know that. Yeah, they had to apply and put together
044resume on their >> Yes. >> Yep. So, >> it's it's pretty amazing stuff. No doubt. >> Did they get Did the state compensate them or anything? >> I I would assume they would. Yes, they probably did something, but I don't know. I'd have to ask. >> Yeah, I would think. I would hope so. Yeah, I don't know the answer, though. >> Oh, wait. So, the district pay for their expenses. That had to been the state, right? >> Yeah, that had to. >> Well, the state at least covered their participation. We don't know if they were to pay beyond that, right? >> All right. Moving on to our fall sports meeting. On uh Sunday, August 10th, our fall sports participants and their parents met in the dome for an all sports meeting. Mr. Patton, our athletic
045director, discussed uh athletic department expectations for athletes, for parents, and coaches. He gave important information regarding the NCAA clearing house to our athletes and the students and introduced our athletic trainers Christian Novi and Caleb Hour to to the group. Um and of course the the amazing services that our athletic trainers provide all of them. Once that all sports meeting occurred, they then broke off and went to their sport specific meetings with their individual coaches where they learned information about tryyouts and and what the expectations were for that particular sport. So, this is a great thing that happens three times a year. It'll happen again for the winter sports and for the spring sports uh that Mr. Patton puts on. Just a great job of that. And then on August 11th was our teacher institute and
046you can see over 300 of our staff joined us that morning uh where Dr. Shackford kicked the year off by welcoming our staff to the 25 26 school year. And then I introduced our new staff. We had 28 new staff members this year. I made them get up in front of everybody and introduce themselves and tell a little something about themselves. A little probably a little embarrassing, but it's a good to put a face to a name for the 28 that were there. And then uh I talked about um what my slogan is this year is communication is key. Last year we started off with the be present uh campaign which will not end. It's going to continue on. But this year I'm challenging myself and I'm challenging our staff and our students. that you're
047going to find later to improve our communication. Uh communication we all know is the absolute lifeline to any relationship. And so I'm challenging our teachers, our staff to improve their communication with our students first and foremost. Uh whether it's through clear expectations in their classroom, communicating with their parents or guardians about expectations in the classroom and creating that bond where that's it's a partnership of course. And then uh really I think a big important thing is communication with each other as a staff. We learn from one another. We support one another. Um we're seeing less face-toface interaction uh with one another. Um and so I challenge myself and our staff this year. Um let's have more interaction, more face-to-face communication, and that's going to lead to better relationships, less misunderstandings, and of course hopefully uh
048better education. So that was my message on that first day. Miss Schneider uh took over from me and gave important special education reminders, discussed new frontline absence and time sheet management system uh which she has been instrumental on. She has done all the work of this uh it's been a beast and a monster for her and she's just done an amazing job of of giving our whole staff the education for that new system. Mr. Becker came in and talked all things OTHS security and then Mr. Graham discussed of course the the upcoming events tomorrow with connect day and then the Panther connects night and open house on September 8th. Once we left our overall group we went to kind of more specific things. Our advisory sponsors met with their grade specific teachers. The departments met
049together to plan for the year. Activity sponsors met with Mr. Koad uh to plan the year for all the clubs and activities. Our athletic coaches met with Mr. Patton to set the bar high for our sports teams. And then the rest of the afternoon was spent during professional development and training. It was just a great start to our school year, which of course leads us to our first week of school. On August 12th, we started a new school year with the classes of 2026, 2027, 28, and 29. welcome the new class, freshman class of 2029. Kind of crazy to say that, but uh that's our new freshman class this year. And one thing I do challenge our students every year that that going forward hopefully too that um the importance of being in school every
050single day. And that's something that was a passion of mine last year. I'm going to continue that this year with really trying to encourage our staff to encourage students to come to school every single day. And we know that our academic success to be present at school uh shows in the data. For example, last school year, students who had nine absences or more had an overall GPA of 2.567. And those students who had less than nine absences for the school year had an overall GPA of 3.209. So again, the data shows the more you're in school, the better your GPA is going to be. more we get connected to our clubs and activities and sports, the better your GPA is going to be. And that's our goal for tomorrow, of course, with our first ever
051connect day. And then, as I mentioned earlier, the the message at the teacher institute was communication is key. I also challenge our students to improve their communication skills and their life as well. As I said earlier, communication is the key to any relationship we have in life. Communication skills are needed in every aspect of our lives and I do challenge our students to put attention on this important skill. Our students more than ever are retreating their own little separate ways less and less social interaction. Um with hopefully the the new electronic device policy that's going to lead to more interaction these events like connect day tomorrow with other events that we have planned in the future more and more social interaction will take place amongst our students. And the last thing tonight is our enrollment
052numbers. Comparing it to last year at this very same time, last year's enrollment, we had a total of 2,601. This year, as of today, our enrollment was 2570. So just a little bit less this year than last year. At this time we have currently right now we have 625 at the Milbourne campus, 620 students in the sophomore class, 662 students in the junior class, and 663 students in the senior class. Any questions? No. Thank you. >> We have a special report on technology. All right. Well, good evening. >> It's an honor to be here and tonight we're going to talk some technology. Um, I'm going to start it off by introducing the technology department. So, everyone that I'm blessed to be a part of their team and I'll start off with the Milbourne campus. We
053have Mrs. Kim Royer. We have Mrs. Christine Rockers. And as we move on to the Smiley campus, we have Miss Laura Green. In this green one here, that's Mr. Derek Abbott. That's a new one. That's why I painted it green. He's replacing Mr. Dakota Herrera who this spring uh was fortunate enough to take an IT director job for the retiring Jeffrey Alt at Freeberg High School. So he was bittersweet to see him go but really happy for him. He's good to see him stepping up like that. Um Mr. Brian Everheart, Mr. Chris Orwig, Mr. Abe England, and I'm the resident clown. And there's Mr. Cory Wallace that has to hurt all of us cats around and keep us in order. And so that's our department. Um, again, very lucky to be a part of that
054team. I always display this every year. It's the department brief, but I I I feel it's important to go over it. Um, basically you can read that, but in a nutshell, we're saying that we're going to uh supply with quick personal support. So fast, I always say like Jimmy John fast uh you know uh the latest useful technology. So there's a lot of technology out there. We're always overwhelmed with all the technologies, but what is useful? What's really going to get the job done? So picking the right picking the right tool um and and we must stay adaptive to the changes and ensure that the money is invested wisely. Uh talk about some milestones as we went through last year just different different things that go on and just kind of stand out a little
055bit. And every year I'll always mention mention this one and and you'll whoops and you'll probably say why room waxing has anything to do with technology. But what actually happens is roughly 800 workstations uh get totally disassembled before everything gets waxed. And even Jared's a lot Jared's a big part of that too that's running the show here tonight. Um and and in and the more time goes on these workstations just you know get two monitors, three monitors now a viewboard. I mean, and and we're finding out now that you got to even plug the USB ports into the right thing that it was plugged into because if you don't put them back in the same order, it'll uninstall the printer or things just fly off the track. So, a lot going on there. But, uh,
056a thank you to Kim Moyer and Christine Rockers and Laura Green and Derek Abbott and Brian Eberhart. They're the ones that do all that. Um, new students. Okay. Okay. So, all the new students that came, 500 new student Chromebooks for the freshmen um have been checked out. And a thank you to Kim Royer, Christine Rockers, Laura Green, and Derek Abbott for that. Uh we had three new carts of Chromebooks and 30 27inch monitors for a 3D modeling lab totaling just about 40K that was CTE funded and thank you Jennifer Heistler for that. And then of course our our OTHS endowment fund. They always do something great for us every year. 12 12 new teacher surfaces and 12 new viewboards. >> That was roughly 58,000 worth there. >> Quick question. Looks like freshmen get new computers.
057So when they when they graduate, are the devices retired? >> I'm I'm glad you're asking that because that's on my mind is that would be the goal, right? like they keep it the whole way through. Um it's on the table. Uh the students last year, the incoming freshman, they had new Chromebooks checked out to them. They keep them and you know that goes on through. I think it all comes down to how much life is going to be left in them by the time we get there, what their value is. And you know, I know I know my own son, he graduated Freeberg this spring, and you know, he he he he had that Chromebook the whole time. And me being a bad dad, I assumed that, you know, he was good. But I took
058him to his college and he was a pen and a pencil. I said, "Where's your Chromebook?" He said, "I had to give it back." And then I said, "You got anything?" He said, "No." And I said, "Oh my god." So, you know, it's just kind of like whoa. And we we've been doing that. We I worked with our Computype vendor um right after that and said, "Hey, can we work together and let's let's come up with a college bundle?" Right? And so I bought one for my son and a couple friends and now we're kind of trying them out and then if they work I think that'd be something to just share with people on the regular because I have a lot of for whatever reason this this summer I've had a lot of people
059asking me about a recommendation for a college device. You know something that's worth the money, something that's going to last them. Um moving on more milestones. Campus door locks. They've been upgraded with MFA, multiffactor authentication and and improved key cards. So, thank you Dr. Shakford and Mr. Scott Beckard that's here with us tonight for being a part of that. But yeah, so instead of just swiping the card, they'll have to swipe and enter a a pin number on the door in order to get in. And if someone would take one of these and try to copy them, they're a lot harder to copy than uh than the ones we had in the past. Is that is it in it's going to go in effect? It's not in effect yet. >> Correct. >> Yeah. >> Yes.
060>> Uh cyber security improvements, they're always going on and it's it's really all about multifactor authentication, just multiple ways. Um and we've been I think pretty lucky here at OTHS. We have Mr. Abe England. He's very passionate about that and he's he he's he's very talented with it. Um that and and everyone gets along with it. We we we thought that we'd have a lot of kickback from people saying I'm not going to use my phone for multifactor, but they do and it and it works pretty good. and uh he he's always on that and he's gotten really excellent at integrating single sign on because we're get we're just all these different platforms are coming left and right all the time and you want to have a million different accounts to log in or just
061one and he's the one that's making it all based off proths email uh Canvas it's finally complete so the job's done it's no more blackboard for this school year And a big part of that has to do with our Canvas pioneer teachers. So we have like email forums and so people that have a passion in something um they they'll join that and all the teachers can see. So it's not necessarily just one person like me teaching everyone about Canvas. I mean I'll do a one-on-one with them anytime but that's happening all time 24 hours a day. And there's a lot of lot of learning that takes place on those platforms. hotspots um for checkout. We've eventually reduced them. Their highest number was 120. That was during CO times and we we've some less and less
062checked out and we've been hovering at 40 and you pay per month. So, we've been deactivating them and only using what we need. They've now got old and crummy. So, we've been able to replace them with brand new ones on a new contract. save a little bit per per month, but also that contract will let us expand up to 150 with like 4 day turnaround time if we if we run into a emergency or something like that. Moving on for goals for the next for this this school year going forward. Um, and this is really a project that's it's happening. Security cameras for the new concession stand out at the football field. and the softball fields in Melbourne. And that includes Wi-Fi, Mr. Richter. Uh I know you've always wished for that. So that was
063incorporated in that job. Um replace aging network cabling here at the Smiley Classrooms. I I ran most of that back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. So those copper cables are starting to turn kind of green on the end. So we're always whittling away at running new copper wire to those classrooms. cyber security. Yes, it continuing to keep up with the trends. Um, redundancy solutions. We always like to have options. Got to have options. And, uh, Newspire, that's our that's our cyber security partner. And, uh, basically it's like a burglar alarm attached to all of our hardware and our firewall and a lot of our cloud platforms. Kind of like ADT for the home. If that software detects activity such as ransomware or malware, then that fires back to either us and or 247
064folks sitting live in a seat to act on our behalf, notify us, whatnot. So, we've been very very happy with them and thankful that we can keep working with them. faculty workstations that that's you know all in all I'm going to say from from the department to to the customer to the equipment to everything and I'm not going to jinx it but I'm just going to say it's like that but the next thing on the list is our faculty workstations are getting they're getting kind of long in the tooth and uh especially now that we have these big fancy viewboards and and things that you realize as time goes on the video cards and the motherboards don't have the have the juice or the horsepower, let's say, to push a 50ft cable to run all
065the features of that viewboard. So, we're seeing that they're getting they're getting a little shaky, a little weak. Front line, we're here standing by to assist and support the roll out of Front Line, the new time time and attendance system. And then AI, I guess if anyone's got a ever got a nickel for every time they've heard the word AI in the last couple of years, but of course continue to monitor and understand its impact. Uh thank you AI pioneers. So we have a AI pioneers forum or Jod Scythe is a big part of that. Melissa Wilkerson's a big part of that. Um I mean they're they're learning a lot and they're sharing a lot. Um I put a side note here just the tools in the toolbox. If if a person is worried about
066a uh AI or how to hold down a student from cheating on you, um Aristotle Classroom, that's that's a computer monitoring software that Jod Scythe um and all of her English teachers are going to pioneer that starting this semester and they're going to be able to basically see the screens um see what's going on on those devices uh while while they're in class. And then there's then there's of course lockdown browser. So when a teacher delivers a test that it'll shell the machine down to just the test and nothing nothing but the test and then our then our IT help desk. So our department in of itself to continue to develop and promote because we're a virtual campus as well as a physical campus. And that's what I have. Any questions? Dwight, I'd just like
067to say if you mentioned Wi-Fi, uh I travel throughout the state and Missouri as far as that goes for, uh different schools in Pelon always has the best Wi-Fi service for him. So >> that's awesome. >> One of the always check the Wi-Fi. You guys have got it together. >> Awesome. >> Well, any other questions? Thank you. >> Thanks. Appcate. >> Thank you. >> Uh committee reports are next. We've got communications Johnson. >> Uh okay. Communication committee met on August 12th. Um we started off with um Mr. Graham going over our uh KPIs that we have drafted up and we need to come up and figure out a target for those. Um We'll do that at the next meeting. But we also went back and kind of readjusted some of the KPIs to determine if
068they were true KPIs. So, we're still working on that. So, more to come that we can present to you guys probably next board meeting. Um, and uh, part of that was making sure that we bring back I mean bringing out all of the communication avenues that we can, which kind of led into our next discussion of ways to reach out to our stakeholders to make sure that we're meeting all uh, the community in the different ways that they communicate, not necessarily everybody use social media. So, we had a a a long discussion about ways to do that and I think we we had come up with a suggestion that we're going to see how it works to trigger them back to our website. Um, and with that, Damon Pox uh kind of educated us before
069we went down this long rabbit hole of things that we have available for us already. Um, and in doing that, he also gave us an update on some of our social media where we're at. Um, as you know, the website has been updated and then the athletic portal is now finally updated. So, that was great news of getting that site up and running. So, we're we're pressing forward and we have a lot of good stuff going on. We want to make sure that PAC uh PTAC meeting um that we uh get more uh people involved in that. we're going to reach out and invite uh actual families and community uh to come and support that PTAC meeting. Um and then uh also try to tie in with the city on make sure that we have
070a tie in on their website so that we can get those people who are just you know not part of OTHS to come into uh have avenues into our website to get information out there. So more coming back. That's where we are right now. Our next meeting is September 9th at 5:00 p.m. for communication. Um, anything to add? >> Education. I was a little stuck in construction traffic on that, so I got there a little late for the education committee meeting. So, if I miss anything, please please let me know. But we did go over our targets for the KPIs uh where we're at pretty much what you all heard today kind of just in more detail looking at the targets and seeing if they we're meeting what we want to do for next year's
071goal. So we'll go and look at that closer. Uh just giving us some some things to think about and where we're at. So that was most of all of the meeting um that we discussed targets for for this year's KPIs and readjusting. Um Mr. Graham, did I miss anything I need to add? >> Other than that, we just covered kind of the new initiatives for the year. >> Oh, the new initiatives, the comeback and every the different connect activities that he briefed also. So just a recap of all of that. Our next meeting is September 9th at 400 pm. Please come join us. That's all I have. >> Thanks, Mr. Richtor. >> Uh we met on the 12th. My report is attached. My expensive report is attached. Uh one thing I wanted to cover uh
072on that though is the cafeteria project. Again, uh workmanship was disappointing and uh If you've taken a close look at it, you can see the waves in the floor. And needless to say, that's not satisfactory work, and we will not accept it. Uh the contractor offered us $60,000 to make patch repairs. However, we uh decided that that wouldn't be satisfactory and that we wanted it done right. They proposed that they do it over the Christmas break. However, we felt uncomfortable with that short time frame uh to uh allow that. So, we uh have instructed them to uh start as the first week of June and have it completed by the month of June. So, uh that's where we are as far as that goes. And that's just >> is it the whole project or just
073>> or just the cafeteria floor? >> Just Yes. So, uh, so that's, uh, disappointing, but, uh, as we've seen, uh, with workmanship, uh, it's not quality, uh, and, uh, just something we're having to deal with. I work at, uh, for the Cardinals and we deal with it, the same stuff at Bush Stadium. So, it's, uh, very, very disappointing as far as that goes. So, uh, that pretty covers our uh meeting. I'd like to thank our staff. We had several staff members there and as you can see in my attachment, everything is uh uh spelled out as far as the problems we have as far as uh uh some classrooms are concerned. So, and we are addressing it. So, >> it's been one week in upgrades on the campus. Has there been any feedback from the
074aesthetics of kids or parents chopping stuff up at the upgrades there >> on the landscaping. >> Oh, we've had several comments on it. >> Yeah, sure. Yeah. >> I didn't know kids have been back. They're noticing a >> Oh, I I don't know. >> They only go there for one year, so it's all >> I mean, you're walking into school with a new look. >> Yeah, it's new, but at the same time, it it's got a long way to go. >> Sure. >> It's still not up to standards. on the rock. >> It looks great in in a way, but still below standard >> needs to be better than what it is. So, and that's our fault. So, I think it looks nice. >> That's That's my Okay. Uh, finance. I don't think there was
075a meeting. >> There's no meeting, but there's a meeting coming up. When is that? 16th of September. >> Wait, let me make sure I'm not lying. >> And we'll look that up. I'll just hop over to the person. >> Oh, I'm sorry. It is. It's September 9th, the day of all committee meetings. It's at 6 p.m. >> Oh, wow. >> Yeah. >> After communication. >> Turn it off. >> All right. So, September 9th is Air Square for the finance committee. Um and that's where we'll discuss the budget >> right >> at that that meeting there. Um okay so personnel and negotiations we did have a personnel committee meeting this week Tuesday where we went over a new employee handbook. Now that handbook does not emphasize this does not uh overrule or change any of our
076policies. Our policies are the guide stars, but the handbook will provide useful information to our employees that might not be included in the policy and we literally went page by page uh from every single hand. It's there for our approval. Um and I think it looks good. I think the only thing we ask is at the end or as we're approaching the end of this year to put a survey out to the employees to see, hey, what what information is not a policy piece of information that you could use and have a helpful document to help guide you on it. Um, but it's a great start. >> I had a quick question. So, the handbook because I'm crazy with this, but are the employees going to be have to show off on it like the
077students or is just >> Well, these aren't so this handbook is not policy. >> It's like a guide. >> Yeah. >> So, you can't preach the handbook if that makes any sense and get discipline for it. So, it's not like um >> like the student book if you reach it you can >> so this is just a playbook >> so how do we know if they read >> it'll be well the same way we know you know all employees are held accountable for being uh familiar just like our students with the student handbook I mean it'll be disseminated to everyone the board policies that are relevant are shared with the staff at the beginning of the year be the same way >> and this is brand new right >> no it's not brand There there
078was one that existed in the past, but it hadn't been updated in a decade. >> Nobody was really looking at it. >> And I think you know several a few years ago it stopped being handed out because it was outdated and so we're bringing it back so that there that playbook can be there for the employees. >> Okay. And then the plan I guess you up >> make it more robust for next year, right? >> Kind of bare bones right now. That's the idea to make it something useful that employees stuff that they need quick resource for them. >> That's why it's good to have at the end of the year. What do they >> Yeah. What are you wishing for? >> And that's it for >> Heather policy. >> Um we had a if
079you remember the at the last board meeting on the 17th of July, I mentioned the policy meeting on the 15th of July. But the the um policies we went to over weren't ready for presentation to the board. So what you see at first reading now are the policies we went over on the 17th of July. They're for first reading. There are 17 of them. Um for the most part, you know, we're back on the press schedule, so that's good. So most of them had no change to them. There is one new policy though that is students who are parents victims of domestic violence. Um they that's a whole new policy there. So there's one there. The other ones are ones that you would have seen before. We did not have a policy meeting in August
080because the 17 updates in July. Uh so there's nothing there for second meeting. Our next policy meeting is not on the day that everybody else's is. We will be meeting on the 2nd of September at 4 p.m. Um, but what we've also done over the summer is we put together a package up for IASD submitting for the uh governance award. So, thank you to the board members who helped me with getting input into that. I think we had a solid package. Not quite sure. I think it's the spring um division meetings, but we'll be notified whether or not we get the governance support. I think you guys Thank you guys for that herculean effort over the last 18 months or whatever it took to get all of our policies back in. >> Well, thank thank
081you too. >> You guys didn't like me or anything. Uh and then if I may, Rob, about the >> um we've got the the southwestern division meeting coming up on October 22nd at Belville and it's going to be the purpose of that is to show us the cave. So, we'll be able to go and see what they've got out at Belgo Cave for our students, see what their options are out there. Uh, for the new board members, the two new board members, Super Saturday on September 13th. Uh, ours is in Collinsville. I don't know if anybody signed up, but that's how you guys can knock all your training up. And it's also a good way to uh leaz with other board members in this area. I'll be coming up there to meet with the others
082in the southwestern division. >> When is that again? >> It is September 13th. That's when they come with all of the the brief things, everything that just standard training that you need to check, get all the training done. And then just a reminder, ISD has really been beefing up their website and now they've got a um they call it IASD community which is platforms where you can connect with others. It's almost um it's almost like a I don't know what to explain. You can post questions and everybody can weigh in. You don't have to be connected with them individually like you do on something like LinkedIn or Instagram. It's almost like a a board a bulletin board, a public electronic bulletin board. You can post questions and and people can answer that. So there's there's
083that out there if want to get connected with other board members across the state. And I will be going up to the division meeting actually tomorrow. So it's a long division meeting this weekend. And bring back whatever we want from that and that is all I have from >> the next thing is uh best which we we didn't have a meeting this month best but we do have a best meeting coming up in September so September 8th 4 p.m. there's a best meeting at the Shils and then lastly is the uh city so we did have a meeting with city met August the 7th uh and the superintendent of 104 uh made a great announcement in the fact that they finally have the mind remediation under control at Joe Arthur Middle School. So that was
084a big deal. Uh we uh discussed disabled veterans exemption and then Eric uh Mayor Van Hook met with Representative Charlie uh Meyer in that regard, too. So, not only did we have a uh great past mayor as far as uh our interest in the uh veterans exemption, our new mayor is uh on the bandwagon as well. So, that's uh really refreshing to hear. Uh we discussed the penny sales tax and uh anybody that's been around a while knows uh what the situation is there. So, uh just probably uh remain u uh in discussion until something comes up uh that's going to be uh worthy of pursuing. So which I believe all of us believe it's worthy of uh of pursuing. So uh we uh discussed ev evidence-based funding. So there's some good news as far
085as that goes. And then we discussed this mandate which is the mental health examinations that are uh proposed for next to begin next year. So uh that's going to be something that we'll have to look out for and hopefully as time goes by maybe that'll go by the wayside or >> or will at least be funded for. This is requirement to for all students every student >> and that's so needless to say that would be a half year study like assessment >> assessment we don't have the details but that every student would complete a a mental health assessment and I think I think the intention is very good like it's to advocate for mental health but a lot of these mandates again that's going to take resources we have to know how to navigate that
086because not all families will support that. Um so we're kind of waiting to see what the state does. Sometimes like what Keith was saying, sometimes the mandates they have um once they kind of get into understanding how to implement it, they have to make a little some shifts in that. So we don't know what the application or implementation will look like yet. What what's the one we had a couple years ago that went >> well we had that every student was going to have to take world language and then you know they realized well that could negatively impact other elective areas such as CTE art music and that has now been pushed back and and so once you see what the unintended consequences are sometimes those mandates change and shift >> and that's it. >>
087Yes, you have something to add >> just that the next city meeting is November 6th. Got it. All right. So, uh, next we move on to public comment. Is there is there anybody in attendance that would like to present to the board? Then we will move to the consent agenda. I've got a motion to approve the consent agenda in its entirety, including but not limited to prior meeting minutes, financial reports, the bills, freedom of information act request, and the disposal of obsolete equipment. >> Or I just have a question about the band that's being sold. >> Where is the money that it's being sold going? Our our practice is to replenish whatever paid for it in the first place. So when things are purchased by the boosters, it goes back to the boosters. Purchased by
088the district, it goes back to the district. >> Okay. >> Our options are to remove it from the consent agenda, take that kind of stuff. >> I just wanted an answer to the question. Give me a motion. >> I'll move to approve. >> Second. >> I Looks like there is no old business to discuss tonight. Uh so in new business, we've got our personnel sheet. So it's a motion to approve the employment, compensation, discipline, performance, dismissal of personnel items as presented. >> So move second. I >> Johnson I >> uh next is contractor pay. So a motion to approve the pay applications for construction projects. Second >> I >> Johnson I >> and >> I >> uh next are trips in excess of 200 miles. Motion to approve trips in excess of 200 miles. >>
089Second. >> Call I Richtor. >> Hi >> Johnson. I >> Hi Hi, >> hi. >> All right. Next is our >> next is our auditorium project. Um, so I just maybe we can discuss it for just a minute before we >> um sounds like there were a couple bids like maybe initially a whole lot more quoted than back. >> The the the project though was much larger at the beginning. um it was around 365370,000 and that was to bring it to kind of today's modern standard in total. Um however with the facilities assessment that's occurring um we've paired it down to you know less than half of that um to truly just replace or repair things that are failing things that our st like for example the sound board right now doesn't work to the
090extent that our staff members are bringing their personal equipment to come in and make that run. Um, so, uh, really just paired it down. Those those other things are still desired in the future, but there's not that sense of urgency that there are for the items that are listed here, which are those audio repairs, um, the the lighting, um, the lightboard, the computer. I would think I I don't know how to liken it to a but maybe if if you were still operating on Windows 2000, our lightboard is like still operating on Windows 2000. So, nobody in the industry, including school systems, uses that type of uh equipment anymore. And then house lighting, if you've been in the space, and all of you have in one place or another, you'll see where you look up
091and there's fixtures that are broken um that aren't working at all. And then, uh the pipe drape is a is a is a the white drape in the back that is torn and stained and not functional anymore either. Those are the most urgent pieces. >> And we agreed on this. We talked about this in our with a retreat. >> Identify this is something to do, right? >> Yes. >> It's within budget, I assume. >> Yes, it's part of the budget. >> This is basically the bare minimum to get the the program back up to where it should be, not above what it should be. Last question. So, the stuff we're buying, I would assume if we like next year we decide we want to buy some more of the stuff that we didn't buy. >>
092Yeah. I mean, that's always >> do that. we're buying now is still useful. It's still >> Yes. >> So, what what we're not doing is there's no upgrades in in a video package, for example. um the the lighting fixtures that would be replaced are basic fixtures. Um there's desire for so fixtures now rotate and move and you know if you go to any kind of you know performance you'll see that it's not those but those can be added on one by one as years go on or as a package if there's ever a time that the district would want to invest in a package. I want to just throw kudos out to facilities because it took a lot to find a contractor who could do what we wanted in this scope. >> That's all Jared
093Moro saying. Jared did all of the work to prepare this and and work with the vendor and get the different packages and tear it down to something. >> We he had to work a long time to get someone to be responsive to come out and check out the space as well. Any questions? >> All right. Then a motion to approve Milburn Auditorium repairs replacements as recommended by the facilities committee. >> So move >> I >> Johnson I >> uh next is extracurricular and extra assignments. Um so motion to approve extracurricular extra assignments for employees, staffers, and volunteers as presented for the 25 26 school year. >> So move >> I >> Victor >> I >> Johnson I >> All right. And uh our tenative budget which is that Dr. Shackleford explained will be kind of
094hit a little harder next month. Um there'll be a preliminary financial committee meeting to do the first public hearing and then I think it'll come up again in our next board meeting in September. Right. >> That's when it's actually approved, right? >> Y so lot to do on that. So right now it's just tentative and we're making a motion on the tenative budget. So motion to post tenative budget for the 2526 school year. move second. >> Iter. Um, and a motion to approve the IMRF resolution to report pre-tax dollars as IMRF earns. >> So moved. Second. Isa. >> Hi >> Conor. >> Hi >> Richtor. >> Hi >> Johnson. >> I >> and I. >> All right. And uh the employee handbook we discussed. So motion to approve the employee handbook as presented using previous
095roll. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? I >> any oppose? Motion passes. And then last, a motion to approve resolutions to regulate employee and board member expenses. >> So move second. >> This is annual revenue >> I >> Johnson Huff. >> Hi >> and I. >> All right. Then this is the first reading of the policies uh M. Le mentioned. Uh so it's a discussion if there's any questions or comments. If not, we can move on. It'll be a second reading next month. Um and then I guess other last is other business. Um were there any agenda items that miss this agenda? >> All right. Any other uh items for board members? I'd like to make a proposal. Uh went out and visited Milburn the other day and uh I think it
096would be a good idea if that we uh have a board meeting out there once a year and uh to make that campus one feel that they're more part of the uh district than what they are and I believe we'll have a better turnout particularly as far as freshman parents are concerned if we had had eating up there. So, there's really not that much involved. You just set it up in the cafeteria with tables and uh uh there's no reason why we can't do it. I mean, it's opens it up. I mean, let's at least give it a try to see if uh if it uh the populous uh response. >> Is there space for us to do the executive session? Yeah, we do it in the classroom. >> Yeah, it's the greatest. >> So,
097well, I'd like to make a motion that uh effective uh next month that we move our uh board meeting to the Milburn campus. >> No, next month. >> Well, we can't we can't But I think what we can do is look at the calendar, maybe see what the best month would be where there wouldn't be conflicts >> with the facility. >> I think you said once a year. >> Yeah. >> Once a year. >> Let me do it. >> Is there a second? >> No, we I we can't act on it. It's on the agenda. We can look at dates and then we can have it as an agenda item >> next month. >> Also, I think the board has the ability to set where >> probably anyway might not even need action. >> As
098long as we give the public yes, I got it. >> I think if we want to put it in policy, >> right? >> Yeah. >> And I think don't because calendar is supposed to we'll figure all that be updated. place that public attend, >> right? >> Yeah. Yeah. Totally fine. >> So, our next board meeting is September 18th. We will vote on the budget for next year. So, the dates coming up tomorrow is an early release with students in the morning and then they get out early. Labor Day is the first and September 8th is the uh connects I think, right? open house >> and you guys have a table at that last year. >> Okay. So, we should have a table again. So, hopefully everybody has that on their calendar. September 8th and activity
099>> or we can follow >> 5:30 to 7ish. >> 5:30 to activity first 5:30 6:45. Okay. >> 5:30 >> and meeting. So motion to adjourn regular meeting board of education. So move >> second. All in >> favor. Thank you.