001motion to reconvene the regular meeting of the board of education in open session. Second roll call. Is I Richtor I Leu Hi. Huff. Hi. Durbick. I brown I. Okay. If everybody would join me in the pledge of allegiance of America to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all and kind of before we get started we've got some recognitions of service comm um the first comes from IASB our association school board which is recognizes members who have put in a lot of service and and years of service um as school board members. So, it's wonderful to see some of our dedicated schoolboard members recognized by the Illinois Association of School Boards ISB through the board's leadership recognition program. The reward reflects hard work, commitment, significant contributions that these board
002members have made uh for our students and our community. Um so, with that, Mr. Durnbeck and Mr. director [Applause] awards award, but she's not here tonight. So, we'll get the award to her next time we see her. Um, next is uh a a a recognition honor for a school board member who's leading the board, I think. Um, so just want to say we're We're here today to celebrate a remarkable person and impactful career spanning 34 years. Um it all be began in ' 87 when Steve was first hired as a teacher at O'Fallon. Uh if you think about it, Ronald Reagan was in office when stood in the West Berlin talking to the McCord to tear down the wall. Yeah. That year. So since that time, a lot's happened. much has changed, but uh Steve's
003dedication to education and our community's children has been unwavering dedication and passion. Uh we've witnessed Steve's commitment in several different roles as a teacher. Steve had a knack for simplifying complex topics and making them seem easy. As one of uh Steve's geometry students in 93, I received building blocks needed to tackle physics and later degree of mechanical and aerospace engineering. So thank you Steve. Um Steve was inspired other others as a coach where he instilled teamwork, discipline, hard work and the importance of maintaining a positive spirit. As a principal, Steve led the district with genuine care for both students and staff. And as a school board member, Steve consistently championed the uh needs of our school and our students while teaching as a teaching or acting as our board historian uh during numerous discussions. So,
004but what stands out the most for Steve is his genuine heart. Um, Steve cares deeply about people and it's shown in every role that you've you've had here. Um, so while we'll certainly miss Steve's presence on our board, we know that it's time for him to dedicate his time and energy to his passions and family. Um, Steve, thank you for your incredible service, leadership, and friendship. I wish you all the best. Uh, and for the last time, are you sure you don't want to do another year? There's a lot there's a lot to do, but as my wife reminded me the other day, and there will be a lot to do two years from now, four years. So, yes, I'm sure. So, thanks. Anyway, all right. Door's still open. Are there any other board members
005who would like to say a few words? I'd like to say something. Uh, I have thoroughly enjoyed working Steve. I He has been just a great role model as far as a board member is concerned. Uh one of the best uh uh been associated with in my 24 years uh serving school boards and uh thing I really I'm really going to miss about Steve is watching Steve during board meetings. I've been fortunate enough to sit opposite of Steve and I enjoy observing him and uh Steve just sits there quietly, takes it all in and then uh at the end he speaks his mind as far as what his position is on some very difficult positions and if he doesn't speak up I'll put him on the spot and I said I'll say I want hear
006what Steve has to say about this. So, he uh is truly been a great asset to the district and will be missed. So, any others? Yeah, Steve, I just wanted to thank you, be able to share with you. I just whenever I was trying to think of what to say and how how you make me feel on the board and I I feel grounded when you you give your feedback and when you talk to the board. I feel grounded in the history of this institution. I feel grounded in your compassion for education. I feel grounded in your kindness and your love for other people. And it makes me want to be grounded, too, because you know, sometimes I'm not always grounded in our conversations. And and it makes me want to be like that. So,
007thank you for being the role model for for teaching me some lessons about how to be great. Just want to say thank you. Thank you. So in addition to being a historian, a friend and a role model, um I did appreciate your the unique perspective that you brought. I mean we all come in with different perspective. Um but you especially brought the the perspective of being a teacher, being the principal, almost the inside baseball there. So um I did appreciate that and I did appreciate the history too. Um you just you're just a wealth of of information and been here long enough to teach and survived Rob over here because of Rob and his brother. But we'll miss you and I think that um you know the fact that the board does we do get
008along, we do listen to other perspectives. I think that's a lot to do with those board members you are on and the fact that you are very welcoming and open to conversation and bringing those perspectives in and listening. And so that's how I learned how to be a board member. I haven't been as long as some of these others, but um it is it is a lot. There's a lot there and there's the dedication to the school, to the community, to the kids and the teachers and the administrators. Um and just thank you for all that you have given. We're going to keep Yeah, Steve, I'd like to thank you uh for your warm welcome being a new board member. uh definitely was greatly appreciated. Uh wasn't quite sure what I was stepping into. Uh
009you definitely provide a lot of insight with your many years of experience. Was it 87? I started here in 87. 87. That's the year I was born. I'd like to tell you I was a new teacher then I wasn't. That's a lot of experience and like I definitely appreciate it all because just providing a lot of insight in regards to things that have transpired over the years. Um and and and also just a little bit of the direction that we're going. Uh it's good to know that, you know, we're moving in a certain direction. Some of the things that we're dealing with, they're not foreign. Just things we have to continue to try to work towards to get better. So, I just appreciate all encouragement and your diligence and just just lead us by example.
010someone who you know desires to serve the community. All right. And we do have one more. She's not here but coming to you from jazz festival city. She wanted me to say words for you. Uh so I'm Donna now. Steve, for the past 10 years, you've been more than just a fellow board member. You've been my neighbor at the table and an OTHS historian. Your knowledge and memory of the district has been invaluable. You've also been the acting secretary when I couldn't be in a meeting, our driver to the train station for ASB conferences, and the countless district meetings, always there to provide support where he could. I'm honestly going to miss hearing you say, "This old man's been around for a while and probably point out staff and parents you once taught or hired
011as principal." Not to mention your yearly Christmas cookies, seeing the different handmade animal ornaments and make every that you make every year. And the stories, always the stories about your grandkids, Kate, your daughter, your dad, the rest of your family, and let's not forget about your hardworking days on the golf course. Over these years, I've come to truly know you not as a board member, but as a friend, and it's been an absolute pleasure and privilege. Your wisdom and kindness, you've meant a lot to me. And while I truly can't imagine board meetings without you sitting by my left side, I know your presence, your impact, your legacy will be felt at OTHS for a long time. So, thank you, Steve, for everything you've done for OTHs, this community, and for me. You will be
012missed more than words can say. All right. So, with with that, you step up. We've got a word for you. Also, so first is a commemorative award for your living room. We've got a brick on order for you in front of the school and a picture of you coming for the 30 plus year service award in front of the building. Do we have kids who are out here tonight? No students out here. You're the one we're honoring. No, it's supposed to be for students. This is I I just want to say thank you to my fellow board members. It is a privilege to work with people whose goal is just to see that this school continues to get better and better every day. Uh they don't come with agendas. They don't want to see anybody
013fired. They don't want to see some friend hired. Uh we just want to do what's best for kids. That has always been my goal as a teacher, as an administrator, and as a board member. Uh we do what's best for our students, and as long as we keep that in mind, we were elected to represent our community. We have by far the best public high school south of Interstate 80, I believe, and also maybe the largest south of I80 for that matter. And it has been an honor to to serve with all of you for however many years, whether it's just a few months or for all 12 years I've been on the board. Thank you. There's another former student over there. Uh he was on a student council when I was an assistant principal.
014Um so it it has been a thrill. I have really led a really lucky life. I uh I spent 34 years as a teacher, administrator, coach. I never went to work. I went to school. Um and when I retired, I I I needed to continue to serve. But uh at 72 years old now, thanks for reminding me that you were born here. I came here and but but I still am I am I am privileged because in this community I run into former students all the time. It is always a good experience. And so thank you all and I'm going to miss you all. I would like to stay around. Uh, but I know that my grandkids need me some more. My golf game needs more improvement. I was not very good today. Uh, and
015uh, I'm I'm going to miss this, but I I need to spend more time with them. My my wife needs more care uh, after her knee replacement. Uh, I will spend some more time with my dad. My 93year-old father is still with us. Uh, And a week and a half ago, my two sisters who are both nurses told me, "Dad has between a day and a week to live." They said that to me just before Christmas of 2023 and he's still with us. Uh I'm going to I'm going to go babysit tomorrow night. He is uh not able to take care of himself anymore, but he lives with my sister and I'm going to give her a little bit of a break. I will cherish every minute of that like I've cherished every minute I've
016been here. So, thank you all very much. I appreciate it. [Applause] Graduation picture. Okay. We're in the middle. We're in the middle. All right. Two. Congratulations. Thank you. That's right. So, with that, our agenda for tonight, we've got uh quite a bit to go through. Um energy assessment, facility planning with Dr. Shackleford. Um Mr. Graham's going to cover grants. Uh we've got a update on the CT do for Miss Clemenson. Um We'll talk a little bit about our recent best retreat. Um there's some discussion around some school fees for 2526 school year andou. Um we're reviewing an update to our calendar and an overview of our health insurance. Um so with that uh let's start the administrative reports. Dr. Shackleford. Sure. Good evening everyone. I'm going to start tonight with an energy assessment. So when
017we had our board retreat this past spring, we dug in a little bit more to our facilities needs and energy is a big piece of that. We've been talking about green initiatives for several years and now have an opportunity to explore that more. Um so we did have an energy assessment completed. Um, the first item there is is our lighting, which the great news is is we have a great maintenance specialist here, AJ Martin, who has been slowly replacing all of our lights on both campuses and continues to do so. That's a pretty heavy lift. Um, and we'll be completing those hopefully uh over this summer and into next year. Um, our HVAC of course uh it seems almost every board meeting we are either uh working towards starting a new HVAC project, completing one
018or making progress. We just had some installed over this past spring. Of course, the largest one was in the 2324 school year when we had the replacements over at Milbour. Those continue as well. And then uh the biggest finding I guess would be our Milbourne building automation system. So, we have all this new HVAC over at the Milbour campus and it's functioning properly. However, there's an automation system for our HVAC to work, which is circa 2009 when the building opened. So, the aging components of that system are problematic. So now, if something goes down at the Milurn campus, it's able to be fixed and repaired by our HVAC specialist, Greg Brown. However, a better, more updated system would serve us well. So for example, I have some things listed there in our current system. Our
019controllers are outdated. It's causing failures that can be fixed but then repeat uh repeat fail. Um the the operation itself isn't inefficient. Again, when you're looking at now over 15 years aged on those and then also there's no visibility of the current space temperature. If you're in the classrooms there, they they have a dial where you can dial just a couple degrees, but you don't have an idea of what those couple degrees actually are outside of your general feel. Um, so in the future, uh, recommendation would be for us to upgrade or replace that existing system. It's time for that. Um, and then also to optimize the sequence of operation. Um, have schedules, set points again, just so it's running more efficiently. We've discussed before that with our energy costs when we compare our costs
020at the Smiley campus which is very large to the Milburn campus which is smaller but does have more air conditioned spaces like the large auditorium. We're here the don't miss and air condition. Um they're about equal in terms of our energy costs. They should not be a building um that just opened in 2009 has the capability to be more energy efficient. So after getting those HVAC replacements, addressing this automation system uh could be a huge advantage for us. So um the rough estimate is that we could save around $700,000 over 20 years. So about 25 to $30,000 a year um for a base spend of around 2. And again, I'm ballparking right now. We're at very beginning um phases with a base spend of about $250,000 of investment to make those things happen. Again, the
021beginning parts. We have another energy assessment that's still in process that hopefully I'll have be able to report to you on in the next couple months. Uh solar is also a piece of green initiatives that we've been talking about in more detail. So, we have reviewed some potential locations should we choose to move forward with uh solar at the Mgrim campus, the northern field area, which we don't anticipate regardless of growth would have um any it wouldn't be usable space for the district otherwise. Uh the Smiley campus, as you know, we're landlocked here. We've got a whole lot of building, a whole lot of pavement. Um, so options there if we were to look at Smiley could include the Pamper Dome roof, the South Gym roof, the multi-purpose room roof, um, a carport on the
022Weber parking lot, a carport on the main or south parking lot. Um those are I guess we could consider a little more um invasive from what I've heard at our facilities meeting meaning that you know there's a roof under that solar panel if we deal with the roofs and the roof has to be maintained the carports uh how would that affect access they tend to be more expensive things of the like um I have heard uh through our facilities meetings that the northern field at Milburn is very desirable the others would require more discuss whether we'd want to invest at that at this at this time. Also, solar options. So, there's there's kind of two ways we can address this solar. On the left hand side is a system purchase. So, basically, if we do
023a system purchase, that means we're buying it. It's our equipment. Um we can get uh tax benefits, state incentives. Uh we of course then would have full control over the project just like we do with any of our other construction projects. that would provide us with more flexibility for future projects because we're not locked in with an outside supplier uh for a period of time and uh the long-term potential savings are about three times as much compared to what I'll uh present next which is a power purchase agreement. Okay. So again shortterm there's upfront cost of course and it's significant longterm much more significant savings but it will take a long time for us to recapture those savings. Um the other option would be a power purchase agreement. Um so those would have no or
024very low upfront costs and again these can be done with any of the scenarios that I just discussed about Milbourne or the options over here at Smiley. Um it would give us a predetermined price for electric for 15 to 25 years. We would not own it. We would not maintain it. Um but we wouldn't realize as much um revenue from it as we would again about a third of what we would get long term in the other. So, there's some decisions as we go through, which I'll talk about in a moment, our facilities assessment, our long-term facilities planning that we will need to make in terms of what do we have to do we have enough to invest now? Is that an appropriate priority um so that we can reap those benefits um farther down
025the line or do we need to capture the savings now because the the money that we have available now needs to be put forth towards other items. and that wouldn't be determined then until the end of our facilities assessment. But they're things that we need to be thinking about. So master facilities planning, this was something that came up. We've always had our our five-year rolling plan that we review annually at retreat but also ongoing through our facilities meetings. Um what we're looking at now is more long term and really just kind of looking at what are our needs, what are our desires um to modernize and make appropriate our facilities for educating students um and looking at a more long-term approach. So you have an opportunity later on in tonight's agenda to approve um a
026master facilities planning project that would be conducted by FGM architects. um what that would include, I'm just going to outline it very very high level for you. We did talk about it um at facilities meetings as well, but it'll include things like stakeholder surveys. So, we're going to ask our staff members uh what what is our current state? What do we need moving forward? Asking our parents, students, community members, and along with surveys, they give you some limited data. We'd also like hopefully before summer is out to have an opportunity for some interviews specifically with our staff before they go um on summer break. um facility tours. That means not only going to other places that have desirable facilities that maybe match that vision, for example, for the science department, um but also tours of
027our own facility because all of us spend amounts of time in very limited spaces, but very few of us have an idea of the entirety of our space. Um and and our space is a challenge right now, particularly on this campus, as you know, but also at the Milbourne campus. Milber campus via bland but we're we're out of building. Um we have uh areas that are not being used for their intended purposes at both campuses. Um we provide different services that we did 10 20 50 years ago and our facilities need to reflect that as well. So really just understanding kind of the state of where our facilities are at. Um as we're planning for next year specifically at this campus we are truly utilizing every bit of space we have at this campus. Um
028we are Mr. How has been hardressed to find rooms for all the things that we need to provide. I think we're making it happen um for for next year but it but in future years without some changes we're we're in jeopardy of having to share spaces which we did before the Milford campus opened um or have more spaces that aren't able to be used for their intended purpose. So um not having spaces uh available for some supplemental instruction and programming that we would have now for example public engagement. So you know once we say okay what what are our stakeholders interested and we can kind of focus that a little bit uh getting our community involved too. After all we're here to educate our community. Our community is our school and vice versa. So um
029getting people who maybe aren't directly involved with uh with OTHS more um involved and informed of the state of our facilities and what our needs are and then from that establishing goals. Okay. So that would be our initial uh plan as we move into this process. Then um FGM would take a little bit more of that lift. So they would start making that plan for our current future spaces. Um, they would create representations that we could visualize. Sometimes it's hard to know what something would look look like for our current facilities and possible future projects. That would include some rough cost estimates and also options for where renovations may be appropriate and new builds may be appropriate. Uh, I know this isn't a news flash to anybody. you don't really have a lot of room
030for new builds over here and um and and we've been we've been explicitly told no more concrete over at the Smiley campus um as well. Uh but we have a lot of options for Milbourne and then maybe some options to reimagine some things over at the Smiley campus. And so in that would be an evaluation. I have on the left our systems looking at things like our HVAC, our electrical, our plumbing, um fire protection, our technology. I'm not talking Chromebooks. I'm talking a technology that none of us see. Um, and then with our structures, our roofing, windows, doors, ceilings, flooring, things of life, those more concrete things that we're interacting with every day. Um, so FGM would review and assess that and they're going to evaluate what does it cost to maintain this? What long-term?
031What does it cost per year to maintain this? Because I think we have a lot of that out maybe five years, but do we have that in 15 years this roof will need attention? in this many years, these windows will need attention. And of course, technology we can't keep up with no matter how hard we try. And then the the last piece before any findings would be presented would be uh a facility condition index. So they'll they'll score the buildings, okay? They'll have replacement costs and that'll help us evaluate again even more how much do we do to upkeep this place? What does the cost of that look like? And what does the actual function and aesthetic of that look like? is this is more well suited with a new facility um for whatever it
032is that ends up being in our vision. Um we'll look at both cost and functionality in that regard and then STL will present those findings to the board to the stakeholders. Um we're looking at you know this space being filled with uh community members, staff members, um board members, administrators, etc. um when we get to that phase so that we can really start to hone in on what our plans are and the goal would be to have this assessment piece uh finished by December 2025. Okay. So, we're right now working on a timeline should the board wish to move forward with this. Okay. And then finally, the this last thing I wanted to mention is that April is the month of the military child and we celebrated that here. So purple is actually the symbol
033of all of the branches of the military combined. And you'll see some dandelions in that third picture, which is from our IMC display. That's the flower because it puts roots down anywhere and blooms anywhere the winds carry it. Um the IMC was instrumental in making the displays, which you'll see in the first and third picture. We of course have three of our DODIA project directors dressed in purple on April 15th for purple update. As you know, IA is our grants that were awarded because of the military military connected status of our community. And then the second picture are stickers that were made by our content creators club for our uh military connected students to pick up and display on the 15th. It was a sea of purple at both campuses and it was a great
034day. So thanks to specifically IMC and content creators and to everyone who participated in it. There was great participation in it to honor our military students. And that is all I have for you. Mr. Graham. All right. Good evening everybody. Um I just have two topics to cover with everybody uh tonight. One pretty quick one which is testing. Um the ACT was just completed. It is the first year. The ACT is back um after eight or nine years of the SAT being the state required test for juniors. Um There's a new test this year with a new online system. Um, but it went very well here at OTHS. Uh, so I'll share that. 9th graders took the preac on March 26th over at Melbourne and then the sophomores and juniors took the pre-ACT 10 and
035the ACT on April 10th. Um, and there's some numbers there. We had 69 testing rooms. 602 juniors took the ACT, which was 90. We had 97 % attendance which is awesome. Uh we had 16 absent who made it up. That was yesterday actually. So the makeup was yesterday. It went very smoothly. Um and I know there were c there were schools that had problems with the ACT on April 8th, two days before we gave it. Um there were maybe 15,000 students in Illinois who couldn't finish the test because of login problems. April 8th was the first day of the test. That's why we don't use the first day. We want to see if they problems, they can work them out. So on April 10th, everything was good. Um it went smoothly. We had a couple
036local districts that had problems on the 8th, but everything went smoothly on the 10th. Um so want to thank almost virtually every teacher, every prayer professional either proctoring or working the hallways. Counselors were sitting in the classrooms throughout the day. So thank everybody for that. And then Gayla Pel, it's her last year. So she's retiring as our testing coordinator. So on our last year we got her a brand new test, brand new system, but she created an awesome plan to hand off to Tiffany Lug who's going to be taking that over next year. So uh definitely big thanks to Gail, too. So that's testing. The other thing I wanted to cover was because tonight the consolidated district plan is up for approval, a draft of that plan. So I wanted to share more details on
037what we use our title funds for and then I just we'll also share a slide on what our other federal funds are used for. So um the first uh grant. Our largest one is our title one grant. This is the current school year, so the 2425 school year. This is what we uh use that title one grant for. The majority of it you're going to see in the blue and the light blue is salaries and benefits. So we um we use title to create smaller class sizes for students who need more support. So um we we call those title English and title social studies classes. So they have a smaller size, maybe 18 students instead of 25 or larger. Um, and so we we use title funds to pay for teacher salaries and benefits to
038cover those extra sections. Um, we also use title funds to cover us one of our social workers. The other largest chunk of it is professional development for teachers. That's teachers going to conferences on their content area or on bigger school issues, administrators going their professional development as well. So that's a big big chunk of it. And then uh smaller things. We use it for internal PD presenters. So anytime we have an institute day, we do pay our teachers who present to prepare and to plan for those presentations. Um so that's a small chunk of it. And then uh we do pay for some subscriptions that are mostly out of the library. Um so that students can access online resources and um a lot of journals that we that they can get for research. So that's
039title one. Um title two is a little bit smaller and really only in two areas. We have another teacher that's a title teacher paid for out of title two and then title two is mostly professional development as well. So those are the two big chunks of that. Title one and two are kind of paying for the same types of things. That little one, the private school share private schools that are within your district do have to be given a certain small chunk of your title two and four. And so that goes to First Baptist. First Baptist. Yes, they got a scary smelled. Um, and then title four is mostly used for advanced placement course supplies. So, um, supplies for labs and sciences or AP art classes need a lot of supplies. So, we use it
040for that. Um, and we can also buy textbooks with as well. And then the other piece is Rich's Challenge, which is a program that freshman go through that's it's like a character building and it's about Coline and how to treat people. So, that's a program we run every year. So that's the title grants. Um we also had a very small which is a home just just for my education. Um does every school get these three titles across the state equally? Um your your allocation is based on the percent of lowincome students in your district. Okay. Um and so ours at 24% or around there gets us totals. Um and then schools with 70% or more they're title one schools so they a lot larger more a lot larger grant. Thank you. Um McKenna Ventos uh
041grant intended to help homeless students. This was something that was actually not offered this year and then the ROE found some got some money from the federal government to to give out to schools. So we use it for backpacks and supplies for homeless students. It was small this year but it was kind of a surprise grant for us. That's the total that's the total $485. Yeah. Um and then the DODIA grants. I'll just briefly cover what what we did this year in those four areas. Julie Kun is going to present here in a minute on the CTE one so she can share what they're doing there. Um in world language it's in the third year of that grant. Um this year they had the Mandarin course that they paid for the online platform for that.
042Um they paid for some teacher PE and tuition to get master's degrees in Spanish. They paid for some app subscriptions so teachers could have like interactive programs that they use in their class and they pay for a program called Level Up Village which is a it's kind of a virtual pen pal where the students record videos of themselves and send to other schools and other countries and then those schools send back. Uh the school culture grant is in year two, the C3 grant. Uh this year they they paid for restored practice professional development which was very wellreceived at our two institute days and that'll continue over the next couple of years. Um we had a guest speaker in the beginning of the school year, Jared Scott, uh that had schoolwide assembly. Uh we have mentoring
043programs going for boys and girls at both our campuses that are coming out of that grant. And then we have a new piece of the grant called the team which really started um which that stands for social emotional learning. So that team is looking at how can we improve our school our students connectedness to the school. We gave a survey and we've got kind of an average to low rating on students saying they felt connected to the school. So that team is going to look at that survey and try to figure out what we could do to implement something to improve that. And lastly, the pathways grant which was just given to us this school year. So it's in year one. So really this year has been training for uh grant director and then buying
044supplies for a tech lab that we'll launch next year. So, not not a lot of activity in that yet. So, quick question money given to us through the Department of Defense. Yes. What qualifies or allows our school to get access to this money? Because um of the number of military connected students that determines kind of the level of grant you can get. And so, it's a competitive grant. you have to write an application and um they award your funding based on your numbers. So our older grants were 750,000 over five years. Now we're down so it's 500,000 over five years is our our pathways in our school culture but it's based on military connected students. Okay. So the survey we get each year out it's important that families disclose their military stats. The cut off
045uh for getting that higher level is 500 students who were in the four 460s I think. So we're quiet there for the higher level. Okay. Are any of these at risk? Uh this is all federal funding, right? The title grants are written into uh into legislation. So they there's been nothing about any of those being at risk. Um DODIA told us to apply for next year for another one. So they are saying that they'll be hopefully being able to offer those. So we did we did put in an application for one to start next year. So does it come out under the DoD or the Department of Education? The DoD grant they call it's the DoD education activity. So I think that's the same group that runs the overseas schools. Okay. And that is all
046I have for tonight. Mr. Financial report. All right. So, um, as of the end of March, we had collected 91.2% of our budgeted revenue and as compared to 90.6% at the same time last fiscal year, around $1.6 6 million was collected in the month of March and just like it's been the difference in the higher percentage is primarily due to receiving a higher percentage of our budget local funds compared to this time last year. We're still seeing that um we are 75% through FY25. Um and we have expended as of the end of March 66% of our of our budget as compared to 64.5% last year. And um around 3 million was expended in the month of March. It's getting closer. The gap is getting closer, but we're we're still seeing our health safety expenditures
047um about seven 8% higher compared to this time last year. Does anybody have any questions on Well, tonight we're going to have a lot of good news. A lot of good stuff here. We're going to start off with our Science Olympiad competition. Um, last month Dylan Cutter and Carmen Carmen Mason won first place in the state of Illinois science Olympia competition in forensics. Dylan and Carmen were given a scenario and had to analyze the evidence to solve a crime. They got first place out of 2017. That's quite quite an achievement. So, congratulations goes out to Dylan and Carmen. Our sponsors of the Science Olympiad team are Miss Lick, Miss Stewart, and Miss Stamber. And they prepare these students of course for all these competitions. and they want to make sure that all they know all
048their students did a great job. Uh so shout out to them. FBLA um they had their state competition. Uh OTHS had 74 students that participated in 57 different events. 41 of our students placed in the top 10. 20 of our students placed in the top four. And what that is that qualifies them for the FBLA national competition. And of course, our FBA leaders are Miss High School, Miss Coffle, and Miss Hercules. And and obviously do a great job as evidence by our results at this competition. Our band, our band uh competed at the University of Illinois Super State competition uh where at this competition, it's the first time in history of OTHS that two of our our bands were selected. Okay, only eight are selected. Um, and two of those eight are from OTHS. And
049that's remarkable. I mean, that is remarkable. Of course, our leader, Dr. G, and and the super successful band program, we expect no less, of course. So, they did just a fabulous job. It's May 10th. May 10th. Okay, there you go. you're all the time. Our junior ROC Gateway Invitational uh competition was congratulations to to our our drill competition, the team for taking first place overall at the 2025 Gateway Invitational Drill Me, which was hosted here at OTHS. Congratulations go to cadets Gallagher, Lockwood, Carol, and Dorfner, and the entire OTHS drill team. The drill team is led by Colonel Violet and Master Sergeant Neely who brilliantly prepare these students for competitions. Of course, retired Senior Master Sergeant Brendar is a big part of that as well. He comes back uh weekly and helps out these students
050and they did a fantastic job. And just for you that may not know, Craig Bdard's been doing this since we formed JOTC in about 2007 or so. Continue to come back. Yeah. come back and volunteer. He was our first non-commissioned officer. A robotics team. On March 22nd, the robotics club competed at the Central Illinois Regional and earned a second place finish. The students built a 4 and 1/2t tall 125 lb robot in the span of two months. The robot has the ability to navigate using cameras, reach over six feet in the air, as well as pick things up off the ground. This was truly a team effort and a well-deserved finals appearance. Our sponsor of course is Mr. Eric Malvik. He's the sponsor of the club. And also there's a retired science teacher by the
051name of Mr. Curry up there that comes back all the time and uh so he needs a special shout out as well. So our robotics team doing a great job. National Honor Society induction was on April 8th. There were 175 new inductees this year and there's a total of 330 National Honor Society members between the junior and senior classes. A special thanks goes to Mrs. Ritzell who sponsors the National Honor Society. This is a a year-long process uh that that is just it requires an incredible amount of planning and organization. The school counselors, Miss Lugkey, and Mr. Hatton were also very instrumental in the planning of this great event. and we're coming upon the seniors final days here and uh it's always a great source of pride for us as a school uh that that
052the seniors are about ready to graduate on to new and better things hopefully as we approach the end of school year we will again be sending home a letter which was already done to parents on March 19th and we'll again be conducting advisory period meetings with students to reinforce this pride and our expectation that every student in this class finish on a very positive note we'll be asking parents to work with us to encourage their students to make good choices in terms of their behavior during these final days of school. During advisory periods on May 19th, we will be taking our seniors directly we'll talk to them, excuse me, directly about the importance of finishing their high school experience in a manner that is reflective of their outstanding character. Miss Lugi will come in uh
053Dr. Coy will come in myself and talk to them about you know the expectations for graduation and how important it is not only for them but for their families. And we hope we have we end this year on a very positive note. And of course, we have lots of faith that will happen. With that in mind, we have some some very very big dates coming up here. This coming Saturday, we have our prom at the region center in Fallon and of course the after prom is at St. Clair Bowl. On Monday night, we have our honors night at the Milbour Auditorium. The week of May 5th and May 9th is the educator appreciation week where we of course pay honor to our great teachers. We have a PTAC meeting on May 5th at 6 PM
054here um in the in the Panther Center of the campus. And of course, final exams are going to be May 27th, May 28th, and May 29th. And our graduation is on Saturday, May 30th. Any questions? It's Saturday, May 31st. Did I mess up? It's just the 31st of Saturday. I don't want anyone to come on the wrong day. Yes. I was thinking we have graduation practice on the 30th. the graduation on Mayor. Thank you. And uh Mr. Kudson is gonna You're talking about the CTE education and the DODIA grant. Yes. Okay. Thank you. I'm Julie Kudson. I am the CT department chair and current director for the creating career pathways project which is our CTE DODIA grant. Some of the facts about CTE uh we currently have 14 full-time CTE instructors. We have nine in
055business, two in family consumer science and three in in industrial technology and engineering. We also share uh two part-time instructors with social studies and the art department. We offer 40 CTE courses, 20 in business, six in family consumer science, and 14 in industrial technology and engineering. With the addition of health science, next year we will have two additional courses in the department. We have 16 dual credit courses and offer over 50 credit hours for dual credit within the department as well. Over the last 5 years, we've seen an overall section increase of 20% since 2021 2022 in our department with over a 51% increase over the last 10 years. This chart shows um the courses that have increased the most over the last five years with our top increases being in advanced video production at
056180%. Culinary careers at 100% video production at 96% welding technology 2 at 95% and advanced applications excel access at 82%. In addition to the courses that are shown here, we've also seen a seven-year trend average increase in business ownership, marketing, small engine repair, and all of our drafting and engineering, excuse me, courses. In May of 2022, Illinois passed HB 3296, which is the PACE framework, also referred to as the career pathway endorsement. This requires school districts that enroll students in grades 6 through 12 to adopt and implement postsecary and career expectations framework. Because of our size, we are required to have three endorsements by the time um the class of 2031. Um with that, we have one required this this summer by July 1st. We have two required for the class of 2029 and three
057required for the class of um 2031. In order to um obtain endorsement approval, schools must meet requirements for dual credit course sequences, academic readiness, team based challenges, and career exploration. Our goal, because we were required to have three um and one by the end of this school year, was have one endorsement by the end of this school year. However, we have been approved for three endorsements already in business management, construction, and drafting of engineering. Um, because construction and drafting and engineering are considered to be from the same pathway, we will actually need one additional endorsement by 2728 school year. We are planning um currently to work on applications in marketing and information technology which will include our computer programming pathway. Yes. What is an endorsement? Uh the endorsement basically means that students meet certain requirements
058throughout their course of their four-year course of of high school and by the time they graduate they can actually get an endorsement on their diploma for those career pathways. Okay. As Mr. Graham um mentioned, we do have a um Department of Defense activity education activity grant in our department as well. We were awarded a $750,000 grant in October of 2021. Ours is creating career pathways. Our first um goal for the creating career pathways project was the CTE careermies. This provides students with direction toward college and career opportunities. We currently are and next year when we add health science, we will have 10 CTE careermies in place and each academy is tied to the school pathway. As far as our um industry recognized certification, that is another focus of our DODIA grant. Each academy offers students
059the opportunity to earn industry recognized certification. Um some of ouries actually have multiple certifications available. You can see um this is our current plan for our certifications. The pathways are listed on the left and then the offer certifications are listed on the right. Some of those do have multiple certifications that are offered to students. Um, as far as our certification success, in 2015, we actually started certifying students in our advanced applications courses in Microsoft Office Specialist in Excel and in Word. Um, we had certified 107 students between 2015 and 2019. Since the inception of our DODIA grant started in 2021, we have now certified 332 students with a 90% pass rate in our certifications. This spring, we still have these certifications to come. So, we expect to certify anywhere from 100 to 150 additional students
060this school year. Teachers and students are currently preparing for their certification exams and those will take place before the end of the school year. Another component of our DODIA grant is developing relationships with industry partners. Our focus has been to provide opportunities for teachers to attend site visits with industry and bringing industry leaders into the classroom to present to our students as well. You can see some of these pictures just represent those activities that have taken place over the last couple years. In our accounting classes this year, we actually had two past OTHS students present for KPMG accounting firm as their employees and the accounting firm has actually hired several of our past accounting students. So that partnership has been ongoing for over 15 years. In addition, our CTE students have also experienced several field
061trips this year, including the St. County Construction Expo, manufacturing day at Swanet City Wolf campus, and the future teachers conference at SIU Edwardsville. They've also participated in several competitions where they contest their skills against other students from around the state and the country. Our broadcast students continue to excel in these competitions and as Mr. Cav already mentioned, our FBA qualified 20 students for the National Conference in Anaheim, California this summer. And I and actually created EPA in 1994. So, I'd love to see her. They're still doing great. If you don't already follow us for departmentalia updates, make sure to follow our pages on Facebook and you can see all of the things that are happening within our departments. Does anyone have any questions? Thank you. wraps up our administrative. So that takes us to our
062uh committee reports and the first up is communication committee with Miss Johnson. She's not here. So I'll just comment on kind of what happened in the committee meeting this month. We had a meeting on April 11th and in the meeting um we talked a little bit about we've we've had some meetings this year with our students and to kind of get feedback on you know how how how they receive communication how they communicate with others and um some of those meetings were super enlightened but we learned a lot um but one thing I think we took away is that all the kids sitting at the table are kind of their student council kids that are involved in every up that are getting straight A's that are in AP and honors classes. Um so a lot
063of our discussion was kind of around, you know, could we have meetings during the day to try to get a broader demographic that better represents the entire student body. Um and then I think kind of walked away with discussion uh goals for next month's meeting to uh kind of talk into our annual goals and trying to work on setting KPIs and we'll kind of get into that stuff at our next meeting on May 13th at 5:00 pm. Um next is education committee. Uh Mr. Durbeck. Yes, sir. We met on April the 8th. Uh most of the meeting was devoted to talking about uh the potential for e-learning days. We had a rather abnormal weather year and that I believe we used nine emergency six. Okay. Um but uh so uh thanks to our administration especially
064Mr. How he has gone to other districts of of our size and looked at those that have e-learning policies. We have to have a policy in place that is approved by the state in order for us to use an e-learning day. since we don't have one currently. He and several department chairs, I think, are working on that. Uh we're trying to get a feel on what our teachers would think about the potential of an e-learning day instead of a snow day. Um we know from CO it's not the most effective use of your time. And as I said, we you know, we probably haven't had six emergency days, snow days in the past five since COVID until this year. So, it's a rather unusual thing, but we are looking into it or the administration is
065looking into it and we'll bring a recommendation back to the board because if the state board approves it, which would seem likely, um that we would then as a board have to make policy determine whether or not you're only allowed, Dan, am I right? Five five e-learning days. So if you would have a a year like we had in 1983 or whatever it was, I believe we we were home from school for 10 days. We didn't go for two whole weeks and then they declare those act of God days and you don't wake them up anyway. But uh uh they're looking into that. We spent most of the time discussing uh what that might look like. I I was very curious as to what our teachers department chairs all felt about the whole idea and
066uh look forward to getting that report back to the board uh once that's been determined so that we can take the appropriate action to support what our teachers want. And that's about all we had. Uh we do not have our ethan that was my last education committee meeting on the calendar for May. Do we have one on the calendar for May? Yeah, for May 13. And I'm talking to Donna right now about um what this she'll take your your chair. She's on the committee with you, but correct. Correct. Yeah. But I will no longer be a board member and so I probably won't be there. But that's all we have. We talked about the exchange student as well. We also Yeah, we also did talk about the uh our our exchange student and the policy
067that we have for that. Uh we have a deal with our own local Rotary and Rotary International and so uh they have always been uh very successful in helping us when we have exchange. We're a rather unique school in that since so many of our students are military related, many of them have lived around the world. And so while it might be uh appealing to have a student from Spain come time with you if you happen to go to Breeze Central in the middle of Clinton County. Uh Fallon has had a lot of students do a lot. So we discussed that we discussed why the policy exists the way it does and uh at this point in time and we sort of intend to keep it the way it is. Okay. Um next is uh
068facilities. Mr. Richtor, u my report is attached. However, uh I'd like to discuss a couple of items that aren't that clarified as far as the report is concerned. We met April the 8th. Uh Mr. Jeff Taylor from the city of Oallen uh was present and uh his uh reason he originally wanted to be there was uh for the sale of uh the property that we own uh out on Oakill School Road. Uh so uh that was discussed and then we've discussed it as far as a board is concerned. So, we're going to go ahead and pursue that sale. Uh, and he's doing the research as far as everything uh that needs to transpire on that. Then, another good thing I have them there was is we were able to discuss the smiley uh bus drop
069off uh and pickup situation that we have going here. So uh uh we discussed different avenues and what have you and uh basically what we came up with uh as far as that basically uh was the construction of a light at Weber Road. He thought that would be the best uh avenue uh as far as that is concerned and that is in future plans for the city. However, uh that could be uh a long way down the road. So that uh needless to say that's still a problem as far as the district is concerned. And uh we we basically have done everything we can to do do what we can to uh rectify that problem. Uh and then another guest that we have was uh Snider Electric who is uh basically handling our solar project
070and they they are present tonight as they were present last meeting. They gave us a good presentation and uh the next uh uh course of action on that will be basically presented to the entire board. So, uh, you'll be seeing something in the near future on that. And then Tom, uh, Mr. Goodrich, uh, we've had some concern as far as storm damage and he did an evaluation as far as, uh, potential problems that we may have. discovered some issues with the air conditioning units as far as a physical uh damage is concerned but nothing so far as far as uh operational. So, he's going to uh once we get all the units up and going and uh uh he'll be able to evaluate that to see whether or not what course of action we could
071take as far as insurance claims or what have you as far as uh storm damage and that would pretty well covered it. So, okay. And then one last thing on facilities with Mr. Durn leaving Mr. to join the facilities committee um through our reorg coming up. Okay. And there's also one other item that's not on the report that I'd like to mention. Thank you. Uh uh the city uh well, first of all, it was announced two weeks ago that uh the city of Edwardsville is uh pursuing a fieldhouse. And then in the last meeting that uh Rob and I had with the city which was uh just shortly after that was uh that the city of Walen has now they've been talking about a fieldhouse for years and they have uh made the announcement that
072uh they will start the initial planning for that and we will be involved as far as the planning of the uh city field as far as uh placement what needs are as far as that goes. So, we'll be looking forward to that. So, and that's it. Thank you, Steve or Keith. Um finance committee is next and we we we haven't had a meeting of finance. So, um really I think we're waiting for the audit to come back and then we'll we'll have a meeting. Um personnel negotiations change. So, are waiting on the bids for this year's health insurance contract. Um, those should be coming very soon. At our reorg meeting, Beth, correct me if I'm wrong, but our reorg meeting, the intention is to like approve a recommendation. So, be on the lookout between now
073and our reorg meeting for a recommendation from the personnel committee to the board. Obviously, you guys can disagree, whatever, but we want to give our employees as much time as possible to have smooth transition. So, we'll be doing a little pre-work before the rework. And you're going to give us all the documents, so we'll have time to go through. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. And the other thing I want the board to because I'm I I want the board to really think about is I'm concerned about another high raise this year in uh our insurance costs. and we're always going to be fighting sort of this looking at a year for self-insured fully insured and and the I think the only way we can really take control of our cost destiny for insurance is to move for
074to selfinsured that might not be a decision for this year but I think it's something we might want to commit to for going to next year we go to selfinsured but then we have a pot of money if you will just as a catastrophic I mean, it seems like we need to have some sort of a if we're selfinsuring, we need to have an insurance pot just in case. Yeah. And Yeah. So, we'd have an insurance pot. We pay Well, what we probably wouldn't we would be self-insured, but what we'd probably do is we'd go in a group of self-insured people and they would have the pot of money that we pull from, but we'd pay essentially a percentage of our claims into that pot and then we would purchase stop-loss insurance, right? So, you
075know, we could purchase stop-loss insurance on individual claims. We could purchase stop loss on uh aggregate claims. We could do both, right? Which probably do both. And so, we'd have a pot of money with it insured on the money. Um, but I think that's that's something that I just don't think we will ever get these costs under control unless we go into self insurance and really talk about, you know, networks, services, all of those things and where we're in control of those things. What would the difference be to our employees if we go to selfinsured? It's really so a lot of large employers um and mediumsiz employers are actually self-insured. So for the employee it's really the same experience, right? It's not going to be an OTHS insurance card. It's going to be an United.
076It's going to be Blue Cross, right? It's going to be it's going to look just like their other insurance. The claims administrator will also be a third party administrator. It's going to function just like that, too. So, it's not as an experience. It's not going to change, right? The bills don't come from the school. It's not going to be coming from the central office. Beth isn't going to be sending out medical bills. Um, not yet, at least. And also, it's the same. Well, when you're self-insured, you pick, right? So, you pick. So, um, you know, some self-insured plans around here, I think Belleville's one of them, they opened up a clinic essentially and said, "Hey, here's here's our primary care clinic, right? You could we wouldn't have to open up clinic, but we could make
077deals with BJC, with SSM, HSHS, or a number of other doctors to give preference to our members. And so, that's part of the advantage. The other part of the advantage is really on the side. So, right now, the world of pharmaceutical benefits, and I was actually having this conversation with someone else, the world of pharmaceutical benefits in the United States is is just broken. Not just not just for OTHS, but for everyone. It's broken, right? There's these middlemen, there's these rebates, the manufacturers do things, there's all these things. But when you're in a fully insured plan, right, the insurer of that plan basically takes all the rebates, all the manufactur. It doesn't get passed on to us, right? But if we were a self-insured plan, those rebates, those discounts, those sort of differences in prices,
078we would recoup some of those rebates lowering our far pharmaceutical costs, right? And we could sort of do a couple of things with that that reward. We can try and keep premium costs flat. So we could just basically return it to the member, right? We could try to reduce costs. We could try to increase benefits, right? There's things we could do with that. Now, with all that said, to get those pharmacy benefits manager, sorry for the lecture, everyone. To get those pharmacy benefit uh things, we would do like a PBM, pharmacy benefits manager. And that's a dirty business. It's a dirty business. and we really have to make sure that we've got the right one in line uh with the right structure and the right price transparency for us too. So I think for me
079this is probably not something I'd recommend going self-insured in this cycle but it's something that as soon as we sign with a fully insured I think I'm going to recommend or I'm going to advocate for on this board that we start just planning on selfinsured in the next cycle. Just take control of of the cost. It is going to take It is very complex and it's going to take some planning and I just want to make sure that that as a board it's the financially best for the board but it also doesn't come on the backs of our employees and our members. I mean we just got to provide that. Yeah, absolutely. You know, yeah, we don't want to what what I'm more concerned about is the cost of premiums increasing. That's my biggest concern
080getting that under control. I think we would have more control over that in a selfinsured environment. Yeah. And this is an important discussion. Obviously, it's a big cost for us as a school. Um, you know, for those big cost buckets, we should be looking at them every year, you know, trying to figure out um special committees, I'm sorry, policy, Mr. Le. So for the policy committee, you have eight policies on a second reading. We did not have a meeting this month because there were no um press updates. However, there are a lot of press updates for the next one. So our next policy meeting on the 6th of May at 4M, we're going to have a number of policies to go over because there was a big press release. Um I did sit down and
081thank you Dr. Shakleberg for showing me the audit that we have. um that check basically checks compliance on all of the policies that are that we have. What it doesn't do is look at the the OTHS specific stuff. So we're at our next policy meeting. We'll go through OT specific requirements and see how we can put it roll that into the compliance audit. I think you just closed out for this year or you're closing out soon for this year. Um so then in the policy committee um we'll look and see how can we do it for next year to check the compliance. I remember last year we went through and made sure all of our policies were up to date compliance which is checking to make sure we're following our policies. Um and that's our
082goal for for next year in the policy committee. Uh next policy meeting again 6 May at 4 p.m. I did want to touch on the IASB talking points um with the new board members coming with at least one and I know we're going to have to fill our other vacancy there. The IASB has redone their web page for training. It's actually really good. I've gone out and done a number of trainings there as uh as Karen knows because I've given her my certificates. Um but that's really good. I'll I'll commend it to the other board members too. It's really easy to use, easy to get through. Um the joint annual conference a few months away but they're going to open the registration on June 2nd and they did a heads up as you did of
083a large press release um in April which I think we've already we've already received right um the southwest division meeting is June 4th 6 p.m. in Fletchers and that's when they will be the election of the division officers and we're going to discuss the um division engagement and future meetings and and how to get more of the board members involved in that and special committee I just had PTA conversations over coffee it's coming up the more formal one on 5 May 6 to 7 here at Smiley. There is a parent survey in people's email. I think it went out today because I think I got it. So, um the parent survey, this is the one where we we ask for input from the parents from the what we going to talk about that is all.
084Perfect. Thank you. Um that takes us to special committees and the the other special committees. Um D is involved with I'll give a real update on some of those. Uh we've got the best committee um which recently most of our board members went to, but we had a a pretty much a citywide retreat which um hasn't happened in a long time. It was pretty cool. Um our high school was there, District 90 was there, Central was there, um Shiloh, um the city of Oll, the city of Shiloh. Um so it was it was pretty well attended across our community, which is really what the purp the best is is to uh kind of bring the broader community that falls under the this high school district's umbrella. Um so in the retreat we really focused on
085vision 2030 and the goals of vision 2030 but we set up roundt discussions where we kind of got to talk about best practices across the different districts and we were able to do a little brainstorming you know and think about ways to improve all of our schools collectively. Um but at the same time I think we were sitting with a lot of other school board members from a lot of our districts. It was it was great relationship building that I thought and uh I think the main feedback from everybody in attendance is that everybody would like to participate in this again. It just we we kind of want to make it an annual event every year. So hopefully the uh momentum stays behind that. It feel it felt like it would and I think a
086lot of good things came out of it. Um the takeaways from the meeting, I think the superintendent most likely have those and are probably organizing those and figuring out how to build those into the district plans. Um the other special committee as uh Keith mentioned already a little bit was city council. U talked a little bit about the fieldhouse and the city's interest in um creating a fieldhouse possibly out at the sports park. Um but they also talked about uh district 90 and 203. We talked a little bit about changes in demographic changes within our schools, how the uh um building and facility requirements have changed over the last 20 years, as well as finance adequacy, the money that we receive from the local tax base and the state. You know, I think a lot
087of people have assumptions on what that stuff looks like and and not a reality of what that stuff looks like. So, we I think we opened a lot of eyes with the city council and uh it was a good discussion and I think that carry forward. Uh the library was also discussed. The director of the library is working on building a new facility um kind of north on 7 Hills Road and uh that possibly leaves a building empty, you know, down the old library. Um if I think district 90 is looking at it, I think they're not sure if they could utilize it or not. They can lead us to it. Well, they have some concerns with being able to utilize it, but you know, it could be an opportunity for us to I think
088um that's that's it for committees. Um comments from our visitors. Were there any written communications before the board? Um public comment. Um at this time, is there anybody in the public that would like to address the uh school board? Okay. Well, that takes us to our consent agenda. So I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda items in their entirety including but not limited to prior meeting minutes, financial reports, payment of bills, freedom of information act request and disposal of obsolete equipment. Second roll call. Is Richtor, Leick, I Brown, I. Um, old business is next. Um, we've got a motion to approve board policies as presented. So, second. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes. Um, new business. Um, we've got, uh, our personnel sheet. Um, so make a motion to approve
089the appointment, compensation, discipline, performance, dismissal of personnel items as presented. So move. Second. Roll call. Is Richtor Learn. Hi, Brown. I And before we move on, I think Dr. Shackleford would like to make an announcement. So, in the personnel that was just approved, we do have two new members of uh the administration joining us next year, and they're both here tonight. So, first uh is Miss Shelita Gray will become our director of finance and operations. So, just want to say and Mr. Alex, fresh from the lacrosse game. Thank you for coming by. We'll be joining us. [Applause] Um, next we have a motion to approve the honorable dismissal of an interpreter. So move second. Roll call. Is I Richtor? I tough. I brown. I a motion to approve the pay applications for construction projects. So
090those second roll call I Vtor I I brown I uh motion to approve up to 200,000 for FGM architects to complete a comprehensive facility assessment. So move second. Is there any discussion that anybody would like to have on this? I think it's needed. It's definitely needed. Okay. Uh with that, a roll call. Is I Richtor? Hi. Le Huff. Hi. Here. I Brown. I uh 9.5 is trips in excess of 200 miles. And there there were none. So, we're going to table that one and move to the next. Um a motion to approve school fees for the 2526 school year. Some move. Is that good? And before we vote on this, Dr. Shackleford, could you comment on whether there were increases, if there were, how much? There were no increases. It will be exactly as the
091same as was this school year. Okay. Um, so roll call. Iter I Huff, Durbeck. I brown I. Um a motion to approve the memorandum of understanding between Township High School District 203 Board of Education and the Oalon Federation of Teachers regarding the uh family berement leave act. Second. All approve. Any oppose? Motion passes. Got a motion to approve the consolidated district plan that aligns the federal funding requirements for title one, title 2, title 4, and IDEA. So move second. All in favor? All any oppose? Motion passes. Um motion to approve the amended OTHS public school calendar for the 2526 school year using prior roll call. So move second. Before we vote on this one, could you explain why? The only the only change is removing an early release date that was originally sc scheduled for
092January 28th and adding one for March 4th. This came at the request of Gail Pel, our assessment coordinator because there's training for proctors that has to take place prior to testing. Um, this year we tried to put it in a full institute day, but anyone who was missing that day, then there was difficulty getting them scheduled and our proctors have to be prepared. So moving that um early release to March 4th will give us another afternoon for proctor training for state testing. So she recommended it. She's not doing it next year. So well she recommended in concert in concert with Tiffany will be taking her spot. Yes. Yes. So it doesn't change the actual attendance date. It just changes early. Yeah. All right. So all in favor? Any oppose? Motion passes. Um, a motion to
093approve Mary Matthews Smiley as the in Smiley as the additional OTHS authorized agent for employment certificates uh for 2425 and 2526 using prior roll call. All in favor? I oppose. Motion passes. Um, our health insurance is a discussion. Okay. I just had a couple updates. I know James shared kind of conceptually what's going on. We are still waiting on our renewal. Um in February we did have assured partners out for our institute day to provide some inservice for interested uh members. Um the we we're discussing the possibility of a shift um in renewal dates. Right now we do our open enrollment in June for July one implementation. Um we're looking at what it may look like if we move that to a calendar year with December open enrollment with January. That would either extend a
094a year um a coverage year by six months extending it to 18 months or we'd have a very short year of six months. Not sure what that'll look like in terms of renewals. Um last year um our medical loss ratio, so our our claims are what drives our cost primarily, right? um was at 96.1% of expected. So, it was healthier than it had been. And last year, we had a 5% increase. We did have an insurance committee meeting uh several weeks ago, and to date um this year uh our medical loss ratio was over 100% at 104.6%. um which is um not as encouraging for getting a healthy renewal because we're we're overusing um I shouldn't say we're overusing our members are are using more insurance than what was anticipated. Okay. What were the estimate
095when we went down last year? They have so they have these they project they project out right and so they say we get x amount of premiums with our profit margins we should get x dollars. So, so a fully insured plan and so you always want to be below 100% because they'll that means that they're making money off your group, right? But when you're over 100%, we've been over 100% except for last year, I think for the last five years, which means we break their model every single year. So last year was the rate. It's not that they lowered our target. Unfortunately, it was. Yeah. So, we're still waiting to see where they come in. So, you know, uh, Sigma will come in first. That's who we have currently. And then, uh, they'll get some
096comps and then a negotiation process um, goes through. But we have our next insurance committee meeting um, in the coming weeks. and then hope to at the special board meeting like James mentioned be able to have a recommendation for the board so that our employees have time our nine months employees particularly have time to review understand ask questions about the plan before they go on summer break after the 29th and and one discussion that didn't have that was is insurance something that can be talked about across the cities the school districts you know and make it a bigger broader opportunity for you guys. I think that's and I think that's a great idea. The problem is our pool is it's not it's the bad pool. It's the bad pool you want to make. Not the
097bad pool that's but our pool is an expensive pool, right? And so so there's some documents that you'll see in the exact session, but some of the variance from the norm, our pharmacy spend is 60% out of the wrong direction. Varian of the other other pools, right? So, it's it's really tough. We want to like we want to mix with other pools because we'd like to get a less riskier pool and then get that that would lower cost for us, but fortunately that could raise cost for the other pool and that's that we're going to be in that catch 22 I for a while and that was more data that was presented to us at our last insurance committee meeting. what he's referencing right now. Yeah. What they shared today is posted, right? So, that's
098all we have for now. Um, it'll should start moving quickly. Okay. All right. Thank you. And, uh, the last item we have is, uh, we're just going to table this time because we're waiting for our finance to come back. Um, so with that, we're pretty well wrapped. Is there any other business board members would like to present or discuss? Just like to say we'll miss All right. Uh our next board meeting is uh May May Yeah, May 22nd. And uh we hope to be discussing our student handbook, our health insurance renewal, and an amended budget. some of the important dates. I think Mr. How already hit on this prom we've got on the 26 honors night 28th and PTA coming up on May 5th. So with that a motion to adjourn the regular meeting of
099the board of education. All in favor Exercise.