001I'm going to make a motion to reconvene the regular meeting of the board of education in open session. Second call. >> Yes. >> I >> Richtor >> I >> Johnson I >> Brown >> I. >> All right. We're in uh open session and if everybody would just join me in the pledge of allegiance. There's a flag in the back room. I pledge 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. >> All right, agenda wise tonight, it's uh pretty short compared to last month, but we've got a little bit of an update on our master plan. Uh we've got an update on our AP uh AP exam results as well as uh dual credit numbers.
002And then we're going to learn a little bit about OTHS connects as well as our athletics and activities and and kind of how those programs have been going over the last year. So without further ado, we'll jump into the administrative reports. Uh Dr. Shackleford. >> All right. Good evening everyone. I have a brief report for you tonight. Both are exciting things. The first is in the realm of communication. As you know, our web master, Daniel Cox, has been working to revamp our athletic site. It used to be hosted externally. It is now external. We communicated that to our communication committee earlier this week. Uh we have brought it in. On the left, you can see a picture of what it looks like. Arbiter, which is our scheduling system, will now be speaking to the website
003to feed when the events are taking place. I know that's something that everyone was kind of chasing before. Um, and the next step is he's planning on transitioning that into our app that came out last year. So, if you haven't had a chance, go to our website, uh, take a look at this. It's now uniform with all the other areas of our website and should be a lot more user friendly, informative to people coming to learn about our athletic program. So, I know it was a tremendous lift for him. Um, the things that he's done with it look really, really great. Um, on the other side of that with communication, we also have put out official newsletters. We typically send things out through Skylert, which is our messaging system. They're in the forms of email,
004sometimes have attachments, but we've been talking with the communication committee about um an actual newsletter. So, we've generated some content and then with the help of Mr. Cox for design, put one out in the spring. Also had the help of Mr. more our AV manager to design our first newsletter and I have an example of what our summer newsletter looks like. It has live links in it. We're hoping to make these at least quarterly or perhaps more often as needed as we need to get information out. Um, and then we can also post that on the website in addition to our socials for other stakeholders who don't get our email distribution list to be informed of things coming up as well. In the area of security, we have some upgrades going on. First of all,
005our key card entries are getting revamped um, as we speak. Uh right now we take a key card and uh mine's in my ID right here and I swipe in to get in any of the door entries. Board members, you do the same thing. We're going to make it two factor for the upcoming school year just to increase the security of the system. So in addition to swiping the key card, we'll have a pin that we key in. Um we're still working through the details. Some of the initial card readers in the new system did not fit our previous systems. We had a few different card readers depending on where you enter the campus at. So, we're working on making those uniform, but we're still hoping that by at least day one of school, we'll
006have that rolling. Until then, we'll work with the old key card system. But again, this should really help with keeping our buildings more secure because even if someone I didn't want to have my ID uh got into someone's hands, they still wouldn't be able to get into the entry without the PIN. Uh, we also have, as you approved last month, uh, a new SRO that will be primarily housed at the Milbour campus. They did complete the hire. I will likely butcher his name. His name is Tom Pannitki. I could be saying that wrong. He's been an officer with OPD for two years. He was then an officer for five years with Fairview Heights prior and four years with the SIU Police Department. And he is a former Marine. So, we're really excited to have him
007joining us at the Milbourne campus. He'll be also assisting the feeder schools in Oallen as well. >> Does the city council still have to approve that or vote that in? >> I received that communication from Chief Brighamin. I don't know if it was his recommendation or if it's been formally approved. I don't have the answer to that. >> I read something in ballot weekly this morning. >> Okay. >> Sounded like they still had to vote on >> it was proposed that they need to vote, >> but it was sound like it was going to happen. >> Wonderful. Okay. Thank you. Uh, also something that our director of security, Scott Becker, plans to start implementing this year is either quarterly or monthly just open security meetings that would be held at the end of the school
008day. They're specific for our staff members. Um, that way they can share any observations they have, any questions that they have, uh, and and just kind of get that communication rolling about security in our schools. As you know, it's a very fluid thing. It's also very important to all of our stakeholders. So, that's something we're hoping to implement this year, too. And then the Milbourne entry design we were hoping to get approved and completed this summer. Cost came in three times as much. So we put that on hold, but FGM has been working to redesign that where we can still accomplish the goal of the safety and security of that entry perhaps at a lower cost. Uh so we're hoping to get that done next summer. It likely will be rolled into that full facilities
009planning and assessment >> and a possible grant. >> Oh, that's right. and and that security grant that I mentioned last month that Mr. Graham and uh Mr. Becker worked on together. Moving on to our facilities assessment. Uh I wanted to just give you an idea of where we are in that process. Um I know Jody Cy, our superintendent intern and our English department chair did a great job of sharing things and have been leading a lot of the charge with this. Um, we have completed our staff survey that happened in the spring as well as interviews that happened right before the conclusion of the school year. They've been really exploring our existing four floor plans. Uh, we're doing department uses usage designations, meaning what are these rooms used for? Now, we're asking the chairs, what
010is the capacity of this room? What's the desired capacity of this room? How does it work? How does it not work for you? We did put out a parent survey in our summer newsletter. We'll probably put another push out for that when we get our back to school email rolling. And there's also been site visits, meaning visits here and assessments of our current facilities. Next coming is our program verification that will occur in August. So when we come back to school, we got the feedback from the stakeholders. uh we walked the site, found out of what our rooms look like, what our assessment of our current functions are within our facility. So then we're going to come, they're going to come back to us and say, "This is what we see and what we heard.
011Did we hear it correctly before they start putting the plan together?" So we'll have that meeting with our department chairs when we come back to school with FGM. Then we have staff tours and site visits after early release. The tenative date for that is August 22nd. I say tenative because right now on our approved calendar, August 29th is an early release date. We'd like to move that date to August 22nd. Um, and Mr. Graham will talk about that in his report when he talks about OTHS Connects. But after the students release early that day, our staff members who wish to will have the opportunity to go visit other sites. They of course have that opportunity throughout the summer if they'd like to as well, but this would be part of the school year where it's
012actually assigned for that. We have a public engagement event. Again, Mr. Graham will be covering that with OTHS Connects with September 8th. In addition to the OTHS connects activities, we're going to have uh the opportunity for of course our stakeholders to come through and see our facilities and our classrooms. But we plan on having some pictures throughout the area of what the state board of education says an ideal facility or classroom for whatever looks like and they can see how that compares and contrasts with what we have here at OTHS. The final layout as well as a cost analysis will be completed late fall and then the final report of presentation should be coming to us in November or December. That way when the board gets to the retreat in February, which is where we
013do a lot of planning, we can be looking at both the financial aspect, facilities needs, and kind of decide what direction we'd like to go next. That's all I have for you tonight. >> All right. Thank you. >> All right. curriculum and Mr. Grim. >> All right, good evening everybody. Tonight I just want to share our AP test scores, some dual credit data, and then I want to talk about the ths that Dr. Jack. So AP scores, uh, they come out every July. So advanced placement courses are, uh, they're college level courses that are taught by our teachers that have a a national group called the College Board that make sure it's norm across the country. All these classes lead to an exam that's given in the early May of every school year. U and
014then students have the opportunity if they score three or higher to possibly earn college credit depending on what colleges they're going to. Um so we have 19 courses that are AP courses here at OTHS. We also allow students to take courses just on their own independently and take other tests. We had 21 tests given, but we offer 19 courses and 444 exams were administered. Um, there's some very small print data here, but it's also in board docs if you want to take a look. Um, this is just the data of our enrollment. So, how many students are actually in AP biology, how many of them take the test. The test is not mandatory. Um, and then what percent of that class took the test is this chart here. Um, so reasons students wouldn't take the
015test, some of our AP courses are also dual credit, so they're already going to earn the dual the college credit either way um without taking the test. Um, and some students just uh are wanting to go to a college where maybe it wouldn't get accepted. There's some very high competitive like Ivy League style schools that maybe won't take anything lower than a five or won't take it at all. So, there are some students who are in that situation, too. Um, we would like them all to take it. Um we can't require it though so we don't. However, our number of AP exams taken took a huge jump um from 299 in 2024 to now 445 um in 2025. So the reason for that we added two new AP courses uh over the last year which
016is AP pre-calculus which is a brand new course um across the country and then AP statistics was added. And if you look at that pre-calc uh we had 83 students in that class uh take that test. So very high amount of students being added. So our numbers are going up. So when you see the exam numbers go up, you also want to look at the scores. The scores go up, say the same go. Our scores also went up. So that's a really good sign when your tests go up and your scores go up. That's something that's going right if that's happening. So the next thing I've got are the scores. Oh, there's a breakdown of number of tests taken over the last five years from every subject. Um, and again in board docs if you
017want to dig into that. Here are the average AP test scores over the last six years. They have gone up steadily by 0.1 points.1. So, um, we rose again to a 3.7. I don't have the state average data, but we have always stayed above the state average. Um, and that there's other reasons. Some schools do require every student to take it. So, um that could deflate their scores, but again, seeing the scores go up and the test numbers go up is a great sign. Um and there's the average scores for each of the tests or each of the individual classes. And then this is what matters. The percent of students who get a three or higher on their test because to get a three means you pass the test. It's a fivepoint scale. Three, four,
018and five are passing scores. Um, and like I said, some colleges will take every AP score at a three for any test. Others will say, "I'll only take a five and I'm only going to give you a genet generic credit, not a biology credit or whatever." So, it is different for every school, but a three is considered passing. And we went up from 85% to now 89% of our students pass their AP exam. >> Question. >> Yes. So half the kids take the AP tests, half the kids don't. Are is there an expectation that teachers are preparing kids for the exam? >> Yeah. So the whole course is designed um and teachers have to be trained and have to submit their syllabus to the College Board to show that their course is leading to the
019test. >> So everyone's being taught the content that would lead to them to be able to pass the test. So, I'm just a light. >> What about the test prep? Like right before the AP testers actually >> they do, but in AP it's really the whole class is the test lab. So, if you're teaching like AP US history, a big part of the test is the writing component called the DBQ. You're teaching that all through the whole year, which is it's called a document based question. So the whole class is the test prep and then they do very focused test prep right at the end um that everybody would participate in because the students are still the AP tests are before the end of the school year. What are we doing for those that are
020not just looking at French language culture and psychology the last couple of years? >> Yes. What are we doing to try to improve that with those classes? >> I will say for both those that are very small the number of students I mean if they're very small they should be more have more attention given to those individuals >> for French possibly for psychology it's that little credit and most students just take the full credit probably not what% of them take it all% I can go back I probably can't read it 4% of them took the test 142 students took the class and probably were >> all able to get the credit from swig and Not >> it's not valu language tests are very difficult that's world language tests require listening component you have to listen
021to conversations recordings so some of them are harder than others too >> yeah but I guess my question is what are are we going back and the teachers are getting more training or what are we doing in those areas for those question? >> We do the initial training. Um I haven't sent anybody to like a secondary backup training uh because they are expensive and we really have so many that I basically my plan is to space out the training to send maybe four three four teachers every summer. So we're not to the point of retraining yet. Um it's just the teachers get this data and then they're able to use it the next year to compare possibly find weaknesses in their curriculum. So that's the teachers use the data um and that's that's the process.
022It's the same as like an ACT score data that an English teacher would get. >> So you said some schools require the kids to take the AP test. >> Some do. Yes. It's It doesn't count towards your um towards your report card score, but it is listed on there. >> US News and World, >> it does go into that. Yeah. And a lot of these schools that require it also pay for it for everyone. >> They're not cheap. So that that's another component of it. >> 100 bucks a test >> about 100. Yeah. So that'd be that'd be difficult for a large school like us with not that many >> understand that decision force our students take that >> yeah couple of reasons one is the costs one is the dual credit in a lot
023of them so okay next slide I've got on AP is just the future of AP so the previous school year we added two Um, we are looking at for 2627 to add a history class and a possibly a science class. We're waiting on the college board to release this anatomy class as a as an option for us. We already have anatomy. Um, so just be making it AP. And then we're looking in 27,28 28 29 to add an English option for sophomores and then a capstone program that's kind of a it's more like an APA research course. So you do a research project in that class can be taught in any department. Um, so those are the the potential new course proposals that'll be coming. There's a list of other big tests that we don't
024offer. So, we'll be looking at those too to see if we could in the future. Um, especially in social studies, we got government, geography. Um, there's a actually and African-American studies. That's the biggest department that has some some big tests out there. Um, and then college board professional development. Like I said, um, my plan is to send three or four teachers every summer. Um, the training is really good. It's a five day training um with teachers from around the country who are all doing the same course. So they all share resources and then you get the expert teacher who grades the test running the program. So it's very good training. >> They're all over they have them in St. Louis, uh Kansas City. We had to send somebody to Oklahoma because that was the nearest
025one for that subject. So they're all over the place. >> I think it's good to offer these even if you don't have 100% of our students taking a higher percentage. It gives the it gives the students who are want to a more challenging faster subject are so even if we don't have 100% participation I think it's good for our students to challenge those >> they're still getting the experience of a college class even if they don't take the test at the end. So I also wanted to look at our and share our data on other college credits earned. So I have this chart here is our Swick dual credit from the previous school year and actually the previous four school years. Um so Swick actually shared this with me and I just wanted to share
026with you all to show our enrollment in dual credit courses at Swick have gone up over the last four years. Credits earned and then the big one is tuition saved. So that's the cost of a credit at Swick, $123. Our students save $775,000 in swift tuition >> and tuition in Switz for us is free, right? There's no cost. >> True. It's it's there's the equivalent because if you transfer that, it would save you somewhere else. >> Yeah. >> So, our new AP courses, are some of them going to have the option to be dual credit as well? >> That most of our APs that are dual credit are actually through Slooh. There's a couple that are Swick. Psych is one of them. And then there's about five or six that are uh Slooh. So Swick
027shared that data with me. So I asked Slooh, can you share the same thing just so we can see Slooh costs a lot more than Swick at 2,000 a credit. So obviously our savings are a lot bigger there even though we have far fewer students um taking those courses. But again, 120 students enrolled, earn 614 college credits and save 1.2 million. And there is cost is slew, right? But it's it's it's a fraction of the total credit cost. >> Yeah. >> I just ask for the new AP courses which are quick or if we could at least entertain or look into the possibility of doing this. >> We do always try. Um it's harder to become a dual credit teacher than it is to become an AP teacher because of the requirements that colleges have
028for 18 hours of master's work in that field. As opposed to AP would just course for five days. So, it is hard. So, I put this together. This is the three college credit earning programs combined. Um, just so you can see how many credits were earned on the AP line. I'm assuming I'm counting every three as a college credit. And I put it at the SIU rate, which is which would take most all of those. And so, you can see the tuition save total for our students in these three programs, $2.5 million. So that's an awesome This is the best slide on here. >> Yeah, pretty cool. >> So that's our college credit recap. The other thing I wanted to share with you was ours connects event and a proposal to change that for next
029year. Um so OTHS connects is an event we hold every year in the evening. Um it is intended to give parents information from the counseling department and to showcase our clubs and activities and to recruit students into it. That's the point of the event. It's a good event. I know the board has a table at us. Some of you are familiar with it. Um, at the event, we get good parent attendance, but we do not get good student attendance. We get low student attendance. So, part of that event is an attempt to recruit students into activities, but we're not hitting the audience that we need to be hitting for that. Um, so that's the event. Some data I shared uh with some department chairs and administrators, I'll share with you too, is we have in
030the 2425 school year. So Mr. Posa and Mr. Pat are going to update this, but in the previous school year we had 53% of our students involved in an activity or sports. About half our students are involved. We gave a survey as part of our SEAL grant, our DOIA grant. And in that survey, we asked students a bunch of questions about belonging and connectedness. And one of them was, "Do you feel like a real part of OTHs?" Only 43% of the students, or only 57% said they do. 43% said they do not feel like they're a real part of OTHS. So looking at that data, I think there's a big group of students that we're missing that we want to get involved because we see and if you look the next thing district goals and
031targets we found in our research on chronic absenteeism that probably the number one and two ways to get students to come to school is connectedness through activities and relevant classes that apply to them in their future. So those are the two big ones. This event will hit the first one which is involvement. Um we also have district goal to in increase our participation and connectedness through we have a huge grant for that um that we're trying to improve on and then we are looking to increase our communication. So the proposal is to take our one night event and split it into two separate events. One during the school day for students and one at night for parents. So these are the two events. These are the short version. >> Is there a way to expect
032kids to sign up for something? We can't force them to, but we want to expose them to it. Right now, they're not. >> Is there a way to sign up for a club name in a bucket TV >> incentives? Yes. Or >> I mean, >> yeah, >> we want them to sign up, but we want them to legitimately participate in it, too, and not just want to be the TV winner and then never show up to German club or whatever. Um, so yeah, I I think exposure first, though. just the students that we are not connected were never coming to the event at night. So this is to bring that event to the school day and to get every student in front of the activity fair a good idea to do something at Melbourne in
033that regard to get them started their first year. >> Yes. So the event planned for that day first it will require moving our release day to 8:22 which is a Friday and that is because it also feeds into blue and gold night that night. The school day will consist of sessions of students rotating through counseling department presentations, administration and class sponsor presentations and advisory activities and then attending the activity fair in a rotation so that everybody's in a different place at once. Uh so that's the idea for the event. We have a more specific detailed version of it that I didn't share but that's just the gist of it. Um, so the biggest thing we're wanting to do is bring that activity fair to the school day. The other parts of the day are just
034communication and improving. Basically, being able to get in front of your class as the sophomore assistant principal is very valuable. We're doing that this day very early in the school year to be able to say, "Here's our attendance expectations. Here's grade expectations. Here's behavior expectations." To be able to share that with students and connect with them at the beginning is very important. So, we're trying to make this a big deal event by putting it all in one school day and then we'll end it with a kickoff pep rally and it will be a noon dismissal and then we'll have the blue and gold game that night. So, that's the plan for the day, the student event. Then we are also >> question. >> Yes. >> Sorry. So, will the Milurn students come over here? >>
035They will. So they're they'll do their activities of admin and counseling and advisory at their building and then they'll come over like they do for the homecoming day. Same kind of setup as that. >> So where um how are the activities going to be >> in the Panther Dome? We'll have the bleachers pull back and every club and activity will have a table run by our student leaders from upper classes that run those clubs and I'll have a presentation from each club. >> So what were the pet >> out of the pack? >> Oh, yes. Outside. >> So that's the school day. The parent night. >> What happens if >> we have a we have a couple backup options for that? one is going back to advisory and doing something there. So, we're we're still
036figuring that out, but we got to have a backup. >> Um, the nighttime event will be focused on just parents. So, it'll be called parent connects and we're setting that date for September 8th. And we're kind of combining the old connects with an openhouse concept. So, putting that all in one night to try to draw in as many people as possible. We're going to start with an activity fair at Milburn, which is where all of our new parents would be uh to try to just showcase what we offer. We're not there to recruit students because the students will be there, but to showcase here's what our school does, and maybe the parents nudge their student to join something. So, we'll put the activity fair at Milbour. We'll have counseling presentations at Milbour and Smiley, which
037is what we did at Connect Night every year. uh they do a dual credit and AP presentation, they do grade level presentations, and then we are adding an openhouse meet and greet at both campuses. So teachers will be in their classrooms for one hour and parents will be able to freely rotate around the building to meet and greet teachers and we're going to communicate strongly that this is a meet and greet event. Every teacher has 120 parents and it's a meet and greet. You come in, you introduce yourself, pick up the syllabus, get some information on how to contact the teacher, write down your email, and move on to the next teacher. So, it's a meet and greet. It's kind of like a social hour thing. Um, that's the idea for it. So, we're also
038working on ideas to draw more people in the door like raffles, but that is the night event. Any questions on the parent parts? >> Yes. So it'll be they'll have like the practice run with this on the 8:22 date and then they'll run it for the parents on 980. >> Okay. Thank you everybody. fight this. >> Good evening. I will be presenting um June financials which is the final month of the fiscal year, the 2025 fiscal year. As of June 30th, 2025, on the revenue side, the district I'm sorry, okay, I'm sorry. The district collected 102.8% of budgeted revenue compared to 104.7% in fiscal year 24. 1,605,593 was connect collected in June. On the expense side, um, as of June 30th, the district had expended 85.2% of the budgeted expenditures compared to 85.6% in fiscal
039year 24. 3, 297,29,000 was expended in June 2025. Any questions? Thank you. Good evening everybody. Uh we're going to start off the principal report tonight um with some information about new teacher orientation. We had new teacher orientation yesterday and today. Uh we had 11 new teachers that joined us in this twoday new teacher workshop. Um day one started with learning all about OTHS. So we introduced a lot of different people. They introduced each other. Um and we learned the OTHS way as you can see here. Um that that really promotes our our unique culture that drives every one of our decisions. Of course, number one being the most important uh students first. Everything that we do here is student driven. So I gave a little presentation about the expectations of being a great teacher, how
040to get the year started off in a great way. Then it was handed over to Dwight Esenshide and Dan Cox, which taught these new teachers uh all things technology. Okay, they learned about Canvas, how to get on the OTS website, how to do Skyward or email, get all that set up. Then we moved on to Christy Schulty and uh got that jar. Yeah. And she discussed with them how to use Skyward, how to input attendance. And that's a very daunting task for these new teachers because most of them have never seen this. And so that takes a long time. And Christy does such a great job of teaching these new teachers and how to do it. Go. We're stuck. And then athletic director Corey Patton discussed the athletic department. gave out some free t-shirts to
041um to the new teachers. How how how school events work. They can come in the games for free with their families, of course. How to if they want to work events, be ticket takers, how to schedule buses, school vehicles, uh and also how to really rent the facilities as well if they need to. Jared and Mike Meyer discuss all things AV with the new teachers come in. Of course, the audiovisisual department does such a great job providing our our teachers and our staff with so many different services. And so, uh, they did a great job of presenting all those things they provide. And then day one wrapped up with Karen Turner, Jen Laura, and Laura Sanchez talked to the new teachers about the OFT union and provided lunch for them. On day two, then we
042started with a great discussion from Mr. laws um about teacher and staff procedures, very specific things related to our handbook, how to handle certain situations in the school, uh and just really kind of a Q&A session. And then Miss Schneider, Miss McNichols provided all kinds of information about special education topics that's going to relate to their individual classroom. Dr. Kohley, Mr. Koad, Dr. Heavens, Mr. Walls, Mr. printable. Miss McNichols had a roundt discussion about the student handbook and really just gave them scenarios and what to how to handle specific discipline issues if they come up. And then Karen Hayes and Mary Matthews assisted with the new teachers with insurance questions. And then finally, uh, we got IDs, key cards, uh, through the security team, and now they're ready to go. So at the end of
043these two two days, the key thing for these new teachers is to get them off in in a great setting and of course it's a big team effort by everybody involved and that of course is the OTS way. So it was a great two days. These 11 new teachers feel very comfortable. At least that's what they're telling me. Okay, we know they're not. Uh but that comes with time. But uh we try to get them off in the best possible foot we can. Any questions about the new teacher orientation? Okay. Um, okay. Here's some facility updates that's happened this summer. And we'll start off with the cafeteria. It's getting the entire new flooring, of course, getting replaced. It's looking very, very good right now. And it's going to be completed, of course, before school starts
044on August 12th. The weight room at Smiley has received all the new free weights and racks. This new equipment is going to be a benefit to all of our students through PE, through our athletic programs. Um, if you haven't gone by there, swing by it, look at it. Um, the the weights are are much safer, okay? And, uh, it's going to be a nice addition that we have here at our campus. The new landscaping project is underway at the Mourin campus, and if you haven't driven by there, uh, it looks great already, and they're not even quite finished at all yet. Uh they're going to plant bushes in the fall when it gets a little cooler to make sure they survive the dry heat here. And then of course our custodians throughout the entire summer
045they clean and wax every room. And and I don't think people understand the undertaking this is because they have to unhook everything, take everything out the hallway of every single classroom, wax it, and then put it back in. Um it's a major undertaking. They're finishing that up really right now this week. And so it to be ready to go for uh for all the walkthroughs that are about to come up. Oh, and let's go back to registration here. Our online registration did start on July 7th. We do have inerson registration on Tuesday, July 22nd and Tuesday, July 29th, but that's really only for families that need some kind of tech help or if they have a unique family situation where they need some affidavit. but we have that available and it's all on our website
046there as you can see. And then finally, um our important dates coming up starting on July 30th, we have our first walkthrough day where uh families can come in and see their lock the students locker uh their classrooms and where they're located and they can just kind of walk around and see where things are both campuses. On July 31st is our walk of Palooa this year led by Dr. heavens and that's going to be an exciting event to try to draw more sophomores here at Smiley so they feel very very comfortable on their first day when they come in on August 12th and then August 6th, 7th and 8th are more walkthrough days. Our teacher institute is on August 11th and the first day of students of course is on August 12th. Any questions for
047me? Thank you. >> All right. Um, next we have a special report, Mr. Pat, Mr. K on athletics and activities, I guess, moving forward, right? >> All right. I'm not going to go through every word there uh in regards to mission vision, but uh word you see in there that I kind of pointed out there, you're going to see the word character. You're going to see the word developing leaders and modeling integrity. That's something we talk about with our our coaches and our our athletes every single time we meet which is uh really monthly we talk about those sessions. You'll hear those words again as we go along. And for the clubs and activities just to kind of summarize again a lot of words but if we had to summarize it our goal with clubs
048and activities is to provide a space uh for like-minded students to find a group that they connect with. uh because we want this to be a place that students are proud of and we want this to be a place they're excited to come to. They might not be excited to come for algebra or geography, but they might really be excited to come for their tabletop club meet that meets uh after school because that might be an opportunity for them to really feel like this is their home. So, if we summarize that, uh it just be to create a space for all kids to feel like they belong and that they're invested in something. >> All right. As we uh we've looked at these things, we're going to break down the numbers here. we looked at
049and found out u there's a lot more kids involved than we thought we were looking at from last year to this year those numbers that 53% now it's up to even further than that which we'll talk about 848 total athletes filled 185 roster spots okay so obviously they you break it down there were 667 uh students that played one sport 173 played two sports and eight played three actually one of those eight was I think four sports uh which I love I love love love plus four athletes. I wish we had more. Uh this day and age with with select sports, it's much more difficult. It really is. Uh and a score of size, it's that much more difficult. Um we have 390 scholar athletes, which again, you have to have a 3.5 GPA um
050to uh uh be a scholar athlete. That's a little less than half of our athletes. That is awesome. That is awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Which we'll break down here in a minute what playing one sport, two sport, three sports, what it does for your GPA. And on the activity side, we had a total of 1,08 students in at least one activity. 614 participated one activity, 207 participated in two, 103 participated in three, 44 participated in four, and there were 40 students that participated in five, and we stopped counting after that uh because those are the super super overachievers. So then the total number if you take athletics and activities combined. So again, you got people could be doing both. 1,856 students are involved in at least one sport activity total. Um, which equivalates to 73% of
051our student body. I think we had 2545 students last year in attendance. That's an awesome number. That's an awesome number. I we believe what we got going on with the connects and some other things Mr. K is going to talk about, those numbers will only grow over the next couple years for a minute. And one thing that that I just want to uh kind of point out is we definitely need to thank Christy Schulty, our registar. She spent quite a bit of time helping us pull this data. And one of the things that we really wanted to emphasize with her is we didn't want this number to double count students. If you have a a soccer player that's also in NHS, we didn't want that student to count twice. So, she meticulously went through and
052counted it by student ID numbers and removed all the duplicates. So, we feel really confident that this number is an accurate representation of how we're able to capture uh extra involvement for our students this school year. Yeah. >> Well, thank you. I know last year. >> Sure. You're right. And first year for us doing it last year, we when we got the data, >> appreciate she did a fantastic job. It really helped out a lot these numbers. So, um and what we looked at as far as the GPA in regards to athletic participation involved at least one sport, 3.24 24 two sports 3.453 sports 3576 and then what we found was if you do not participate in either a sport or activity data shows that a 2.561 average GPA so you look at those numbers
053what we want kids involved and again we'll talk about a little bit more here um trying to get those numbers even higher that 73%. Sorry. And we saw similar um response to the GPA for number of activities. Uh obviously the uh there's probably a high correlation between the number of activities you are in and how motivated you are academically. Um so we're not uh 100% um surprised by those revol uh results. Uh but it it just it does just speak um to the benefit of being involved in something >> and the activities number is totally separate from the athletics. >> Yeah. So that that 1008 students were just uh students in an activity not athletes. It would that was the in 1,00 856 >> or is the question you're asking how many athletes are also
054in a club? >> We do not have that number but I'm sure we could find that for you. >> And then moving to some, you know, other exciting things going on OTS. Well, we currently have again 26 sports uh just under 900 total students. The athletic leadership council. This is a, you know, leadership council is something we've been doing for multiple years here at OTHS. Um, just last week we had a summer leadership camp um at the uh Commonville Convention Center involving many many high schools in the Metro East area. Um we had 20 just under 25 work student athletes that went um it's in the middle of summer. That's be you know even in the morning. So they went from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. um uh getting trained uh in their leadership council.
055Uh we meet monthly uh leadership council and I meet monthly during lunches. I love it. It's my favorite time of the month to to get a chance to get out of my office and go talk with kids in regards to leadership talking about those things. We discuss you know communication um integrity and so forth. Character plus training is a new thing we started uh this will be our second year doing it coming up. Uh we meet three times a year with them. um the same group of kids uh all together now and we take them out for quote a little bit of a field trip um in here. Uh so just under 60 students are all involved three times a year uh where we do some more character building um training um and over the
056court and we have some summer coaches training too. We do the same thing. Our coaches came and did the exact same uh training in Collinsville last week that the students did. um athletic team accomplishments over the last year. We had five conference championships. That's 43 in the last six years. That's awesome. We are right there at the top two in our conference in our area. Uh regional championships last year, five sectional championships, two and again as you know we had two final four finishes last year with another state championship as five state championships here at Ohio Township Hospital in the last seven years. Extremely extremely excited about that number. >> That's awesome. Um next year could you break out what um like who was in the state championships just >> who was I can tell
057you right now we had we've had girls bowling in 2018 uh 2021 was girls soccer girls soccer you know three last nighters 2023 girls soccer again and girls basketball and then this year girls soccer yeah great >> they're doing fantastic >> and then on the activities side, we offer approximately 70 clubs uh and activities um for students to join. Uh that list, there is a comprehensive list on our website on the students tab. There's an entire page for clubs. Uh during the last school year, we were able to offer some new clubs. HOSA, which we talked about at the last meeting, is health occupation student association. Um is a huge opportunity for growth on our campus. Uh, OTHS reads is a book club that students initiated. Uh, the circle of sisters step team, uh, the
058Asian culture club, and then a club, letters of love, that writes letters uh, for young people that are uh, chronically ill, uh, or battling um, cancer in uh, hospitals throughout the country. Uh, super proud of those groups. uh the Matty Best Foundation uh which was obviously uh established in honor of uh former student Mattie Best who passed away two years ago uh catered a lunch for all of our sponsors and plan to do that again. Uh we had volunteer opportunities with the Carla Smith Behavioral C Center's holiday fundraiser. We had over a 100 students uh volunteer time uh to work the uh 12 days of Christmas event that the Carla Smith Behavior Center uh did and the 100% of the proceeds from that event were to fund their 2025 pro bono work for the community.
059Um so super proud of our students and clubs there as well. We also established a partnership this year with a organization or website called Omela. Uh these are the same people that found uh the Remind uh 101 software um from several years ago that uh really uh impacted the way that educators and schools communicated with families. Omela's goal is to help schools accept payments uh in a way that's extremely userfriendly for the user and then also for the schools to be able to collect those funds. Uh the sky's is the limit on this partnership. uh they love OTHS and are highly invested in uh what we're doing here. Uh they are going to add card readers to their platform uh for this upcoming year. So uh if you can't pay with your phone using the
060QR code, you'll be able to swipe a card as well to be able to pay. They have been an incredible partner for us. >> When you say pay, you're talking about activity. >> Yeah. So there's several different ways. If you're going to colle collect club dues, you can do it through Omela. You can fund raise through Omea. We're actually going to sell parking passes this uh upcoming school year through Omea, which will allow us to not have students camped outside overnight and they'll be able to just uh buy those parking passes from the comfort of their own home. Um concession stands, they can help you with that. There really sky is the limit on ways that they can help. convenience fee. >> There is there is a convenience fee that's passed on to the user,
061but they do not charge the school a dime. >> So, they they charge a standard um card fee like many um establishments do now. And they actually are a tip based model to where there's an option for uh the user to add a tip to whatever the charge is. Uh, and I did not believe that they made enough money that way. I thought there was some sort of hidden we were going to get bezled by this company. Uh, but they, uh, swear up and down that they actually make enough money to survive using the tip model on their website. >> So, there's not a user fee, convenience fee. >> There is a convenience fee, just the standard uh, card fee that you you'd pay for anywhere, >> but there's no fee for the school. >>
062And homecoming tickets, too. Homecoming tickets, prom tickets were sold that way. Many of the clubs are using it to collect uh club dues or sell t-shirts, things of that nature. >> You have to ask this, right? So, if you're going to pay 100 bucks for parking, right? >> Correct. You're the student, it'll end up being like$102. >> Correct. >> But that convenience fee is a normal >> Absolutely. It's not like a five or six. >> No, it's an industry standard fee. Uh that's less than 3%. I I want to say it's 2.5%. But I'm not 100% sure on that. >> But you don't have to use it. >> You do not have to use it. No, ma'am. People can come in and pay in the district office. Uh, and they get an authorization code that
063will allow them to purchase the ticket on Omela, but they will not have to pay using the website. >> So for parking is always a big thing. So for students who aren't, you know, hoping to be able to camp out, they don't want to use able. No, the only way to purchase is through >> Omelo, >> correct? >> So, let's say hypothetically you wanted to pay cash. >> You would come into the district office, you would pay cash and in exchange for your cash, you would get an authorization code. So, when the link goes live, you would enter your authorization code. So, when you go to the pay screen, your pay screen would be $0. >> So, you have to do that ahead of time. >> Correct. How are we getting the word out to
064our students? >> Many ways. Uh they were uh there was an announcement that went out in all advisories. There was a paper copy of the a document that explains all of the procedure that went out in advisory. And there was a Skyward message that went out to all junior senior students and their parents. I'm keeping going. So some of the areas that we want to grow uh with clubs and activities is we want to expand our tracking of student participation throughout the school year. That number that we share at 108 is people that signed up to be on a a roster initially. We want to make sure that those students are actively engaged throughout the year. So we want to figure out ways to make sure that we're not just signing up at the beginning
065of the year, but that we're remaining active throughout the year. Mr. Graham did a great job. We are super excited for the activity to fair to be during the school day. We think that is really going to allow us to target that 27%. We really want to figure out that 27%. How can we take that 27% and find opportunities for those 27% to have something that they look forward to when they come on a daily basis. We want to expand the activities website to feature promotional videos for each club. And they are planning to update the lip dub video from uh several years ago. Uh that was a huge success. Uh that's going to be a big undertaking for Panther Beat and student council >> and some future in uh continued growth in the athletic
066department. Uh summer youth camps. We had just under a thousand uh youth this summer in our camps and both campuses. Uh continue junior high and high school coaches collaboration. This is an ongoing thing that's been great with our junior high coaches and our high school coaches. Um one thing we're looking to add this year adding more social media to our athletic teams. um something we're really pushing to our our head coaches to have some sort of social media. U we meet August 10th and we're going to talk a lot more about that. Um I'm I'm a big believer in that. Uh but it's very difficult if if those teams don't have some sort of social media themselves to just put it all on just one or two people doing it for 26 sports. It's difficult.
067So um really try to add more social media to our to our head coaches to get that running. I'm bringing back the following weekly. I don't know if you remember those final weekly. I used to do whenever I was assistant athletic director many many years ago getting that weekly report of hey Oliver varsity JP and freshman level sports are doing an email will go out to all faculty um weekly from our it will come from our assistant athletic directors part of their duties um getting that out. So scores and updated records and things like that and uh you know future drills we did again to continue to improve our facilities. I appreciate all the help you guys give to us for increasing our facilities. Um the wait room is big been a big hit this
068summer. The kids absolutely love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. It's still got some work to do in there. Some things are still coming in but uh continuing to improve those facilities. It goes a long long way with our athletes. So any questions? >> Good job. >> Great job. >> Thank you guys. appreciate you. >> Well, that concludes the administrative reports. Next up will be board committee reports versus communication. >> We did not meet this month. same thing. We will meet August 12th first day of school. So we all be here >> 4:00 for the education committee >> uh facilities Mr. >> We met Tuesday. Uh thank you Mr. for giving part of my report. Appreciate it. Um, however, there are a few items I'd like to cover. Uh, one is the you I
069reported the last meeting that we had a tripping hazard uh on our drainage uh new drainage system uh down at the pack. And uh we believe we've got that resolved not only should be done by uh uh the start of school. One is uh what it's been in fact it's in the report my report. So, uh, uh, we had an option of going with a diamond, uh, plate, diamond plate, uh, as far as a metal piece to go over the, uh, hazard or going with a black powder coat, uh, paint. And uh we decided uh when we went down there, Corey, myself, Tom, and the architects decided to go with the uh black powder coat because it'll go well with our uh fence and what have you. Uh let's see. Another thing, uh the Milbour
070Auditorium evaluation came in. I'd like to point out and give kudos to Mr. more for all the work that he did there. It was very frustrating uh his work on this for some time but basically believe it or not could not get uh any company that would be interested in doing the project. So he finally reached out to a company in Tennessee and they came in and did an extensive evaluation. Uh the valuation came in pretty high. Uh Uh and what he he did in his evaluation was uh his recommendation was basically the latest technology and what have you for a professional group. And so uh uh Cy went back I mean uh Jared went back and uh told him that uh we'd uh what we could do as far as uh toning this down
071for a high school group and what have you. So, uh uh we were able to save significant money in that regard and we uh we did not basically have time to go through this extensively at our meeting. So, we what we plan on doing is addressing that in the next meeting and hopefully we'll bring a proposal to you uh next month >> for the evaluation as far as the improvements at Milber. >> Okay. the auditorium >> and then another thing that we have to address in the near future is our solar project. Uh we we don't want to we want if we are going to decide that we want to go ahead with this we want to take advantage of the incentives that are involved uh in that uh drop dead. So, uh, we do,
072uh, we have some concerns as far as our controllers out at Milbour specifically, uh, which we've had problems with, uh, ever since the building was built. Uh, so our architect has has reached out and they're communicating with Schneider in that regard. So uh once we get that resolved, we'll go ahead and put a plan together as far as a recommendation is concerned and uh hopefully we can have something uh I'd like to have something by the September meeting as far as a proposal goes. So >> can we do that without knowing what facility project? That's why they're going to work with um work with that GM to make sure they're not in conflict. >> Right. >> And then our next meeting meeting will be the first day of school, believe it or not, August the
07312th at 3:00. >> All right. Next is next two is for Mr. Hub. He's not here but there were no meetings. So we finance >> for finance. >> Okay. >> And then personnel you're on that committee as well. There was no meeting. Is there any planning? >> Okay. So I I would assume once you get that meeting policy press. We're all proud of we thought we had for a while, but we didn't. So, we did have a meeting 15 July a little bit just for holidays, vacations, but there are 17 items for first reading. I will note a lot of them are just updating the dates. substantive changes to a lot of them. There is a new policy though, one that's due for first reading. >> That will be next month >> because of the
074timing of the meeting. We couldn't update our edit. So, it'll be first reading in next month. >> So, we did that. >> Okay. >> I did I did I I put the delay. >> So, disregard for such uh you will have then 16 for first reading, but we still have 12 on second reading. just updates request. Um what I have also uploaded in there on our new business is the code of conduct um in our policy and pretty much we have in our forum you remember the IASB code of conduct is posted but that's IASB. We haven't for adopted a code of conduct um even though we say the oath every time somebody else is brought to the board and we've signed up to it. We haven't formally adopted that. So I'm ask >> I
075think it's slightly different than the oath that we give different things. >> So it's not exactly the same. So you'll see that in business and the next policy meeting is not on August 12th. It is on August 5th at 4M if we have updates from press. We don't have any updates for press. And I wanted to clarify I communicated for none of the items that we reviewed on Tuesday are in the packet for first reading because we did make some changes. Um the original intent was to do that, but we couldn't get them posted 48 hours. So when you get to that new business, it just says they'll be delayed. So those all 17 of those will be >> in August. >> So you guys don't have any homework next month, >> but you will
076have some next. >> All right. And then last would be >> sorry the report conference that is coming up. They've got the registration for the Friday workshops. If you haven't already talk to Karen you're late but I know she's already got us registered we're heading up there. Um and then just a reminder for folks that they've really updated their website and their training website. There's a lot of really good trainings out there. Not all of There's a lot that are free. I think the open meetings app, you know, meetings app. There's some really good information out there. So, I just encourage you to uh take a peek maybe every couple months or so and see what's out there. Refresh your memory. I want you to think you know um and look into some of the
077trainings that they're doing because they're really putting a big effort in making sure that we have the resources we need here in order to do the best that we can for our Um, as far as special group, special committees, um, I don't think there were any meetings in the past month by any of these, but we do have a best committee meeting coming up on August the 8th from 4 to 5. Monday, September. >> You're right. That's what I >> And then there's a city collaboration meeting, I believe, on August 9th. I think I'm live. It's Thursday, August 7th at 9 a.m. I went in there looking crazy. >> I'm sorry that you went I thought I was the only one who had it down. Well, August 7th is >> and then they told me
078there's no >> Okay. Well, we'll verify August 7th then. >> Making that up, too. >> All right. Uh, public comments next. Uh, is anybody like to address the board at this time? If not, we'll move on to the consent agenda. Got a motion to approve the consent agenda items in their entire including but not limited to prior meeting minutes, financial reports, payment of bills, information requests, and dispostor. >> I All right. old businesses first and we've got a second reading on some policies. So make a motion to approve work policies as presented before second. >> All in favor? Any >> oppose? Okay, motion passes. New business. >> All right. This is Oh yeah. All right. So we have the food food contract looking at. It looks like What we asked to keep some staple items
079flat cost like milk and cookies for Yeah. And uh so it looks like that update keeping those flat I guess probably everything else. Well, everything else went up. >> How does the price? >> I don't believe it was a mistake, but I also didn't ask that in the first meeting. That did not change. price >> packaging is going to be comparable to the soda. >> But the golden pink went up, >> but the pure went up. I think that's >> I don't know and I didn't ask. >> We can. However, I I don't know how we would pull that out. We need action because before the board meets again, these prices are going to be implemented. >> We can approve this as >> as long as they Okay, just check it. >> It just seems
080like everything else. >> Sure. >> And then this. >> So this approach is written, but we'll see. >> I'll provide clarification. We'll make an adjustment. >> Yeah. >> All right. So a motion to approve student and adult prices for 256. So move >> I >> Johnson I >> All right. Moving to new business. Uh first item is a motion to approve the employment compensation discipline performance dismissal personnel item is presented. So moved. I >> Johnson I >> Next is a motion to approve pay applications for construction projects. So >> I and next is trip expenses. So motion to approve trips in excess of 200 >> miles. >> I school calendar. the death you wanted to >> Sure. The only change is that the board previously approved Wednesday, August 27th as an early release day. We'd
081like to change that early release date to Friday, excuse me, August 22nd, so that we can have the inschool OTHS connect say on Friday the 22nd. >> Any questions? Motion to approve the amended or change of public school calendar for the 2526 school year previous. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes. And a motion to approve the threat assessment procedure prior. >> All in favor? I. Any oppose? Motion passes. Got a motion to approve board member expenses. This is primarily for the original roll call. >> Ison. Next, we have a motion to approve Ethan Graham as the designate and Jennifer Hler as the alternate for the Southwestern Illinois Career and Technical Education Systems Board of Control. >> All in favor? I motion passes. Uh, a motion to adopt the ISB code of conduct
082for members of the school board is explained using Prior roll call. So >> all in favor? >> Any oppose? Motion passes. A motion to keep the executive close session minutes closed at this time. Prior roll call. So move. >> All in favor? I. Any oppose? Motion passes. And last, we've got a discussion on board policies. I think there's >> policy policy here. Um it was all I'll all postponed the timing of the meeting. >> Okay. So do first meeting. >> First meeting. >> Yeah. >> All right. Uh last question I guess. Were there any items to consider that didn't make our agenda? >> I did have an update from facility committee. You had asked about the bus and Miss Gray checked on the status of the bus and they said delivery in September. >> Mid
083early September. So we're hoping that that date stick. So, thanks for checking out. >> That is good news. >> That's the new activity bus that we've been waiting on for a year. >> Yes. >> All right. Um All right. So, our next meeting, uh regular board meeting will be the August 21st. Um I guess we have some things coming up with uh tenative budget review. Now that you've got that on here September 18th, >> so the tenative budget will be presented at the August meeting and then the actual hearing will be September 18th, a month later when we adopt the budget, >> right? Because the number of days it has to be posted. >> All right. So budget works coming up for us and then I guess will there be a finance meeting? There will
084be a finance meeting in addition to the tenative budget being presented in um and then other dates we've got in person registration coming up late July and then the building walkthroughs for all the students are late July that first week in August teacher institute day August 11th first day of school August 12th closing remarks or things to All right. With that, a motion to adjourn the regular meeting board. So move. >> All in favor? All right.