OTHS School Board Meeting 3/20/2025

001e second we have a motion to reconvene the regular meeting of the Board of Education and Open Session second and roll call der here RoR here here L here Johnson here Brown here all right if everybody join me the Pledge of Allegiance there's a flag in the back of the room I toes America stand indivisible liy and justice for all all right so we've got quite a few things cover tonight on the agenda we've got a uh propos some proposed Personnel changes for the 2526 school year um I think we're going to talk a little bit about uh changes that have happened in the Southwest Conference athletically uh we had an ISB student Summit that we participated in that was uh that was really good um I think we've done a little more digging on

002uh this tool we use called paper and I think going to come to the board tonight with a recommendation on uh what to do with paper moving forward um we' are going to talk a little about our summer school and kind of what the plans are for this summer um we attended a model un so there's going to be some feedback on the kids that participated and uh there's been a lot of work this past month on cell phones and doing surveys uh from everybody on cell phone usage so we'll we'll learn a little bit about that as well and then uh Miss louy I think is coming up to talk to us a little bit about the counseling department um so we look forward to that as well as the uh some projects we've

003got a cafeteria project that we're pursuing as well as some future projects uh that the uh Administration would like to pursue so we'll look into those and then lastly is our district goals so we're finalizing those at a higher level but these would be the goals for next year so U with that we'll take the administrator reports first and Dr Shackleford like leave before we do the reports because it is already 7:30 um we do have student recognition tonight which is much cooler than my report so I'll let Mr how come to the podium to start us off yeah we want to start off tonight with some exciting news and some great news individually uh can we have senior Amber up here [Applause] Amber six at the IA State Bowling uh tournament on February 22nd

004six Place caps a fantastic bowling career here atot s the OTS girls team led by coach Spencer uh also placed ninth overall as a team so uh congratulations to the team and especially to Amber [Music] [Applause] okay we're gonna put you in the middle and make you a star among adults which is probably the least exciting thing that coach my hand yeah [Music] come congratulations [Applause] okay now we'll going to the superintended report as Mr Brown mentioned this is the meeting every year in March when we have uh looked through the master schedule that's an effort uh with Mr how um with specifically Miss lugy and the counseling department as they're registering students throughout the start of the spring semester and we kind of pass through uh what our enrollments look like and also remember

005to that we have our enrollment meaning what the students desire to take Drive our section numbers so our differences for next year will see a decrease in two sections in art a decrease in five sections in CTE business in family and consumer science a decrease in five sections industrial Tech a decrease of one section CTE health science which is the new course or the course that's coming back after several years of being gone plus five sections um in English minus six sections in science plus one section and in special education plus eight sections and again that's all just due to student desires and enrollments and you'll see listed at the bottom the afjrotc math music PE Health drivered social studies World Language and student services we will not see a change in uh in terms

006of our overall enrollment for next year we'll continue to EV flow as we go through the rest of the spring into the summer even into the first few weeks of the Fall um we are about about 42 students less right now um in planning for next year than we are at this point in time it's ly provided me with that information this morning later on in the meeting we'll ask you to approve those section numbers for next year yes ma'am a little bit over the sessions like um just period um the start with the um English minus 6 is that just our basic English classes or any SP overall but it's representative of the decrease in overall enrollment for next year meaning overall student enrollment so if you think our our our students take English

007all four years so when we have less students we'll see less sections and that's because our students have already indicated what classes are going to take next year right correct this this is the based on so you know yes we know what students have signed up for for next year and and these changes are what the numbers dictated and next year it could shift the other way right sure yeah so the and flows every year the plus eight and special ed so we have more special educational students here said we're still we're minus 42 in our numbers yes but in special education enrollment does continue to grow but this is specifically for that increase we have with our high need students that utilize the south campus the transition house our sore programming um their needs

008are becoming more profound and so the increase is primarily due to the shift in those needs more so than just straight enrollment numbers okay okay then moving on to Southwest Conference news if you follow Athletics regionally in high school you probably already know this news but we have officially added to our conference Granite City msca and triad all of their boards have approved moved being included in the Southwest Conference this won't start in the 25 26 school year but rather in the fall of the 26 27 school year Collinsville has been absent from our conference for several years in the area of football and they'll be coming back in football as well so this brings us to 10 teams all in in our conference it will help with scheduling immensely and it will also help

009with the stability of our conference so a very very good thing for the Southwest Conference so the conference nobody fell out correct we just okay yep yep absolutely so great opportunities um it just expands our opportunities uh with our Athletic program so great news there um the Illinois State Board of Education held its first ever student Summit um on March 13th it was held at Illinois State University at the conference they had 125 students from 40 different high schools throughout the state uh they designed this to engage student voice in policymaking at the State Board level it was done by Invitation Only and students that participated uh went to a range of Roundtable discussions on the topics of mental health education options and counseling curriculum and resources as well as student engagement I did want

010to point out too that our OTS junior class president Deja Robinson she led the discussions at the roundtables throughout the day for the mental health table because she serves on our State student advisory Council so a great opportunity for her then on the next slide I have some pictures from the day and you'll see there we've got a picture with our state superintendent Dr Tony Sanders the students that attended this year were Abby Bell Dean Calhoun Deja Robinson annias slays and Taylor stady also accompanying them were our student council sponsors Kate Randall and Madison zedar um they said it was a great day again this was the first year they've ever done it but what a great opportunity to get student voice into policy and governance at the state level they also uh what they

011observed but weren't able to confirm I think we were one of the only Southern school districts that were in a Chicago suburb um that were represented there so that's wonderful as well and the State Board of Education also put out a press release about the day and uh Dean Calhoun was actually quoted in the ISB article so I wanted to share the quote that they have in the article if you Google student Summit you can read the whole thing he said I'd like to thank for creating an environment for student leaders from across the state to come together to communicate and focus on the issues and strong suits that we have as students um so again just a really great experience that hopefully will continue of our kids being involved uh at the state level

012and that is all I have for you tonight very brief report wild impr thank you what are you trying to say guys good evening everybody um so I also have a pretty brief presentation for everybody we have a couple of things coming out of the education committee that I just wanted to share with you all tonight so uh first one these are a couple of kind of extracurricular academic programs that the school offers um that I just wanted to share the the data on and the uh what we did with you this is Saturday Scholars and medical explorers program program Saturday Scholars is a program we host um it's actually 20 schools that participate we host 10 schools um and then Edwardsville hosts another 10 um where students from these 10 schools come to our

013auditorium at Milburn and listen to guest speakers from advanced fields of medicine um so this year we had three guest speakers we had a stem cell researcher a prosthetic designer and an aging researcher um and they were very high level the stem cell one was way of my league anyway so it was very high level stuff um and then students had an opportunity to ask questions at the end so it was a presentation followed by Q&A and that was the four Saturdays in February the fourth Saturday was a field trip to St Louis University to a kadaver lab and we had 40 students attend that field trip 50 students overall participated in the program along with students from nine other schools um so that's Saturday Scholars then medical explorers is another program with uh St

014Elizabeth's Hospital that happened throughout the year October November and February and we had this was uh students were s by science teacher recommendations so the science teachers knowing students that are interested in the medical field um they recommended them to go to this program and they had presentations on laparoscopic surgery and surgery robots at the St Elizabeth's Hospital so I just wanted to share those two events that just concluded and are are are those for seniors only are they for any any grade um Saturday Scholars is for any I believe it's actually just Smiley students and then medical explorers is uh seniors but it's um there is a GPA cut off for Saturday Scholars students are invited based on GPA and then medical explorers is just based on interest students in high level science classes

015all right next thing I have this coming out of the education committee is our paper online tutoring program um that we've had for the past uh two school years and maybe a little before that um so the program is um it's a website where students can log in and they have two options they can either submit writing that they've done for a class and get feedback from live Tutors or they can ask questions about math problem science any subject um and then have a tutor give them live feedback so there's the writing review and there's live tutoring um and our usage stats are there for the past two school years um last school year we saw 11 about 12200 Live help sessions and 2700 writing reviews and the numbers as of March 1st for this

016school year are showing even though the school Year's not done even the pace of those numbers will not come near the numbers from the year before I also got feedback from teachers on this um several Math teachers said it is not helpful sometimes you'll get a good tutor but a lot of times you'll get bounced around from tutor to tutor until you find somebody that can answer questions um and this was not just the AP Cal students it was students at all levels uh experiencing that I'm in the same feedback from the science department so any feedback from students I did not GA feedback besides the us a lot of the the feedback that the teachers shared was from their students their students were talking about that so if if I had a geometry question

017I might get a tutor who's good at algebra but a geometry and so I would get bounced around I'd might be on hold for a period of time till they finally got the right sometimes two or three or four different Tut would come to me before they could actually answer my question and that's that's the the teacher feedback is actually saying what the students have told them so my question would be what was the teacher feed back then in that case but I was just curious I wasn't a fan this and we had a big push in 23 it was it was it was new and we were all behind it and we were making a big effort to get kids to use it do we we are we really pushing the same way now

018or is it just more the push this year was uh at the beginning of the year we showed students how to log in through advisory classes and then we showed them the features of it and then I left it to the department chairs to decide if they want it to use in their classes we have some English teachers that are using it for writing reviews part of their curriculum but um Math and Science last two years ago what was it May May or June yeah end of the semester so last spring when when I reported on our usage last year we were already seeing a downward Trend and continued frustrations with the consistency of the quality um so there was intent behind not promoting it as much this year knowing that we likely were going

019to be leaning off of it you know because if we push that engagement the same way and then you're ripping a bandaid off that we're now dependent on um you know so we introduced it but not with the same fervor that we did on the onset so you did meant mention the category wise as far as the students background what have you uh any significant results one way or the other as far as our lowincome students as far as like improving academic achiev I don't have the data on that um and neither does paper and they don't either yeah they they send a report that basically shows this chart here this table so yeah we do not have a way to determine we had heard some of those issues before with math and science and

020we fed that back to paper hoping this next year would actually improve without our push to to do that and it sounding like it didn't correct and our stud it hasn't proven useful to our students and they're not taking advantage of it so uh coming out of the education committee the recommendation with combining this decline in usage the teacher feedback the student feedback and the annual cost which was funded through Esser grants that we no longer have the committee is recommended that we don't renew for the next years um and talking to the department shairs English being the only one that's actively using it in a few classes they are totally okay and they will be fine going back to what they've done before w and I guess for 120 Grand the utilization and the

021benefit doesn't add up to 120 Grand correct we can do something else if you did the math on the dollars per session you could use your money a lot more I will say I I I appreciate that you guys are trying tools throw I mean and the board's behind it we put money behind it but I I'm very happy that you guys assess that and find out pretty quickly you know that it's not as good as we hoped it would have been and we're quick to kill things that don't work so you know commend you guys for uh for doing that too but I want us to use it up until May our our work all right the next thing I have also from out of the education committee is the summer school flyer which

022I you'll approve later in the meeting I just wanted to share U the dates and the courses so um it'll be through the month of June that should be a a slash not a Hy that's my mistake but 6 June 2nd to June 30th and we will offer the same courses as last year um driver ed technology Essentials PE and credit recovery and all that's pending Staffing once we have a fully staff we'll be able to offer those four classes and then the last thing I have is the five essential survey that I report on I believe every August or September um is going on right now and our response rates I just wanted to show you from earlier this week our parents are only at 9% so we will do another push to get

023more parent feedback um you don't get a report from the state on your parent feedback unless you get to 20% so we will try to get to that 20 um in the next couple of weeks so I have a question yes if a parent has two kids at the school can they fill it out twice or is it just once per household that's a great question I have to look I do not know because it's not going to add up to 100% then because you got sometimes one kid for household I'll look but based on that it sounds like you would count it twice but I'll check how did these numbers compare with prior years the parent rate has always been low um and the teachers and students are right on and we have a

024an early release day next week where teachers have the time to do that survey if they want to and then and for teachers it's not a mandatory thing it's just something we ask them to do and then students we do require it for students because it's on the school report card so your uh student completion rate of 95% is considered a perfect score so we have reached that we're actually at 96 as of today so we are over the over the perfect score for that I I think we normally get a higher teacher response yeah so we're giving them time next week at the in the early release day to knock that survey out which takes about 15 20 minutes so it was around 7 70 some per last year which was low compared to

025years prior to that so hopefully we'll get a lot of respons to this next week okay and that's it thank you and next is the fin all right uh as of the end of the month of February we had collected 87.8% of budgeted Revenue compared to about 86.9% last fiscal year and uh about 1.5 1.5 1.6 million was collected in February and just like the trend pin most of the year um we're a little bit higher percentage wise compared to last year because we received um a higher percentage of our local funds and federal funds um when compared to last year um expenditure wise we're 2/3 through uh fy2 and we've expended 60.1% of our budgeted expenditures compared to 58.3% last year and uh a little over 2.8 million was expended in February again same

026Trend um we're about 11% higher in our hls expenditures when compared to this time last year just again because of the timing of projects but that's why we see the percentages a little higher this year still um does anybody have any questions on anything all right for members of the audience hls is Health Life Safety those teachers sure like their acon right thank thank you Mr how princi report yes okay well good evening everybody we're going to start off tonight uh with some great news from the model un uh front here and on March 4th and 5th 81 OTS students wrote resolutions and went to the McKenry University to participate in the M spring conference OTS was very successful again every year we're successful and our students do such an amazing job and came away

027with 10 different Awards congratulation goes to miss Turner who's sitting right over there and one of our model un sponsors and Kayla Hubler for having such great rep representation at McKenry University so uh it was it was an overall great event for them okay um we're going to move to the cell phone survey results now just to give you a little background on this um we surveyed the staff here at OTS back in December okay we got the results from that at the end of January early February we surveyed parents and Guardians about cell phone um usage here at school got the survey results from that and then this week uh we surveyed the students okay and I'm going to just kind of give a broad overall General view of what each group consider from

028these these questions and what they thought the first question was would you like OTS to consider moving to a schoolwide cell phone policy the blue color is yes the red color is no and the green color is undecided if you look at the staff overwhelmingly yes uh 80% of the staff said yes we should go to a an entire schoolwide cell phone policy the parents and Guardians are a little bit more mixed you can see there 50% 50 6% said no 30% said yes and 15% were undecided and of course students 80% said no no way no no cell phone uh uh policy here so uh again it's kind of interesting to see the differences there between the different groups the second question was Should students be allowed to use their cell phone during lunch

029you can see the staff 68% uh said yes 21% said no the parents were 84% uh yes yes they should and look at that students 99% 99% uh said yes they should so uh that was kind of too uh the next question is if OTS went yeah can I say real quick I I'm a little I am a little surprised I guess I I've been watching the news and some of the schools in St Louis are doing this right now and they're implementing policies I think it was like the Parkway schools and they were talking about their their survey feedback and this our results kind of match up with our teachers but not the parents because the parents responses at least on the news the parents were pretty consistent with teachers okay so it's a

030little different in the result and I don't know if maybe it's the way the question was phrased or or what but I I think I'm a little surprised I think that the parents were so against having a policy or having a you know something in place I guess that doesn't match up with other school systems were yeah and there's definitely a possibility that they interpret it as you know strict like a complete 100% ban on coming in the school you know because we we were just asking very broadly so they could have all they could have perhaps interpreted it differently but not sure I won't be get a out they have this this is a little tough to see but this question read OTS went phone free in the classroom what do you feel is

031the best way to administer this and if you remember we have the staff we have the parents and the students what you see there is the staff had they they felt more that the number pouches in the classroom so what that means is you have like almost like a shoe rack okay in the classroom and it's numbered and when the student enters the classroom they put their phone in that pouch okay for the class period whereas you see the store phone and the backpack was sort of mixed there with the staff but leaning more towards the pouch the parents overwhelmingly supported storing the phone in the backpack just keeping it available to them but in the backpack and then students overwhelmingly of course said if we did go that direction then it should be stored

032in the backpack okay so any questions on this slide here no all right so next steps we're going to get some feedback from our next PTAC meeting which is going to be in early May regarding cell phones the administration is currently working on the student handbook for the 25 26 school year right now um and so throughout the spring the administration will discuss certain things to change or to tweak in the handbook and we're going to use data and recommendations from all of our stakeholders to shape the cell phone policy and then hopefully by June usually it's in the June board meeting the school board will approve the student handbook which will include of course our cell phone policy okay um at the end of the day we're going to as as a school try

033to make the best decision uh educationally because that's what our what we look at is what's best educationally for our students but we will of course take everything into consideration there all right keep in mind that the state is in the process of looking at policy yeah that's that's been a big right now with Governor pritzker's making his way around uh schools and trying to promote a Statewide cell phone policy y so we'll see if that happens do we know when that policy is expected to come out I don't see I I've looked all over I don't see any votes on that yet I think this came up at is like the iasb level like for Association schools and they didn't pursue it to push the state leg ation because I think they decided it

034is best for the local districts to make their own decisions but also was a resolution at the conference that Edwardsville had actually brought up hoping that that it would save them from having to make the decision right ib's position is local control they do not they're not supporting a state resolution to tell I guess very much yeah and specifically during instruction okay so it is specified during instruction it's not a don't have them in the building but there's a lot of momentum behind it okay well that's all I have for tonight thank you everyone um all right so that's it for the ad oh no no no I'm sorry Miss L you're up okay well good evening everyone I am Tiffany lugie and tonight I'm going to be sharing an overview of our school counseling

035um programs and the supports that we provide to students both academically socially and in their post-secondary planning I'll also be addressing some of the key points that were submitted I did send an email to the board with a survey asking for some feedback and I did receive um some limited feedback so I will be addressing some of that information tonight so topics for discussion include the following our Department name change we did a rebranding you as you may or may not be aware but I'll discuss that academic supports and interventions course selection and advisement process that occurs throughout the school year School counseling curriculum and special programs AP testing and dual enrollment um I would first like to just introduce you to our school counseling department members we do have a team of seven school

036counselors that are represented on both campuses at the smiley campus we have five full-time counselors um one of whom is here this evening we have Mrs limra who is representing our counseling department but we are broken down by alphabet at the smiley campus so we have five counselors that are broken down by Alpha so they will see those students all three years and then at the Milbourne campus we have Mr Hatton who's there full-time and then as the Director I do go back and forth between both campuses I have a case load on um both campuses primarily at the uh Milbourne campus I see students last names R through Z and then I also work with our special populations to ensure consist see and Alignment within those populations specifically the sore program our South Campus

037and the transition house so that just gives you an overview and breakdown of our counseling department okay um so as I mentioned we did do a rebranding of sorts and what this is um is in reference to is is the term guidance okay so guidance has been retired so you won't be hearing me talk about the guidance Department tonight but is the school counseling department and we've really embraced that this year in the sense of looking forward to how we can um holistically represent the school counseling so guidance um implies I gotta tell you it's it's not as little when it's in front of your face but when it's that far away the font is really small so I'm trying to read this but guidance implies a limited focus on scheduling and postsecondary planning whereas

038School counseling is much more holistic and a better representation of what our school counseling department and school counselors do within oths specifically it's also recognized by isby and the national standards such as the American school counselor Association support the title school counselor oh thank you Jared to reflect the full scope of services provided these old eyes um it promotes student centered support and then enhances our professional identity as many of our counselors are also professional school counselors or professional counselors as well okay I have one question yeah please didn't we change the branding like I don't know it's been changed since I've been on the board it before then so um we have been trying to really push School counseling for a number of years okay and so we've been we've been using it Loosely

039but this year we really tried to implement a full implementation okay of School counseling and I have to say our administration's been very supportive of that um I'm not saying that the guidance word doesn't still C up and uh in conversation but just recognizing the importance of keeping alignment with Professional Standards when it comes to um that terminology okay so um School counseling is a comprehensive curriculum model we work with students both directly and indirectly in a variety of settings and this I'm not going to go into detail with all of this but um we are looking at a a curriculum in terms of our programming that we do for students and curriculum is an aligned with our presentations that we provide and our advisories and I'll talk about those in a little bit more

040detail and also our um overall School counseling calendar and the way in which we present information to students and the timeline that we deliver that information so the curriculum is awareness skill development and application in the areas of academic College and Career and social emotional development areas address include um academic awareness such as transcripts and GPA and I'm going to talk about an exciting um lesson that Mr Hatton is doing at the Milbourne campus currently with um freshman career exploration and college exploration responsive Services would also be direct these are more prevention and intervention services dealing with students that are at risk both academically and social emotional individual planning would also be Direct Services assisting students in monitoring and understanding their own development such as student planning goal setting awareness of classes course selection utilization

041of test scores and then system support would be supporting the larger school system as a whole staff students um testing master schedule things of that nature okay so part of the uh questions that I sent to the board included the following question what topics related to the school counseling department are you most interested in learning about and the feedback I received was academic supports and intervention as well as course selection and advisement and then a follow-up question was how can the school counseling department better support District goals and Student Success and the response included encourage students to challenge themselves with harder courses as opposed to taking an easier course in order to get a higher grade so I do want to speak um give some time to these topics academic support and intervention includes the

042following I have to get up here I cannot see I'm sorry so um okay academic support intervention includes identifying students in need and this is done in a variety of methods primarily using Skyward as a reporting system so each week we receive a weekly in eligibility report from Christy schy and that ineligibility report identifies students who are not passing two and a half credits or two and a half credits or five classes so that gives us a baseline to determine which students we need to call in or which students we need to see to start doing some remediation with them that is limited in scope because there could be other students out there that are passing five classes but failing one class but that one class could be their English class and that class is

043needed to graduate so a further deep dive would be doing a DF report we don't pull this every week we pull this every few weeks so that we can see if we're missing any student that's not appearing on that eligibility list so once again our counselors uh receive those and they review those each week or every other week to look at interventions and then additional Data Tracking includes monitoring other academic Trends as needed such as math level changes so we're looking to see are we seeing a significant number of level changes in a certain area and this it's primarily occurring at the Freshman Campus as students are transitioning from 8th grade to 9th grade It's Not Unusual to see a large number of math level changes as students are getting adjusted to high school um

044or other performance skills so we may identify um a particular class we're noticing a trend where there's a large number of students that have a d or F in that class and so we identify that we reach out to the department chair and we try to look at ways to collaborate to ensure um that we can uh we work to help those students sometimes it could be uh honestly a classroom teacher issue it could be a grading issue it could be a newer teacher that's not inting grades on a timely basis so those are really good things to start taking the look at it's when you identify that it may be a teacher issue or grading issue um how is that rectified so in that situation Donna that is going to go to the department

045chair so that's a disc between the academic chair and that teacher so you identify to the chair and then they yeah and then you know in in the case where it could be um a teacher who's maybe having limited assignments or not putting those assignments in um I mean that's something we can see in the grade book and it's a discussion that we'll bring up to the chair and there could be value in that it could be a class where there's not a lot of make it it could be an essay based class and so I mean and that's just having those conversations with students to talk to them about the importance of when those assignments are um delivered that they are given fewer opportunities so they need to maximize their opportunity in that class

046whereas in a different class they could have daily assignments right so they have more opportunities to improve their grade so it's also understanding those different teachers and their teaching style and Grading style as well okay referral options for academic support include the academic Assistance Center which is an advisory and school program which offers structured support and the math tutoring lab which is also offered during advisory those are rostered this year which I'm sure that you're aware so that has helped to ensure consistency and tracking for students so not only tracking and physical tracking knowing where students are going in the building and not wandering the building but also tracking the sense of we can see if it has improved their grades by going there you know they started with an F for a D minus

047and then they're improving and so Mrs McNichol does a really great job with the math tutoring lab data sorting that data she Compares that with the DF list looking to see you know who's failing classes the percentages in those classes so special thanks to Megan for um working with us on that math tutoring lab and then we also provide peer outside tutoring connecting students with peer Tutors or external tutoring Services um some students are very uncomfortable going into a classroom setting like a math tutoring lab it's overwhelming for them they don't know how to go in and ask questions so some of our counselors will work to identify maybe a student student of their own that's maybe a National Honor Society or an upper level class to do some peer tutoring connect them into the

048library the idea room in the library um so a smaller setting where it's not so overwhelming where they don't feel this anxiety of going into a class and not knowing the questions to ask SOS team provides students that are struggling with academic social or emotional challenges the SOS team is a really great resource at OTS we work closely with each other to ensure that um all hands are on Deck when it comes to making sure that we're meeting the needs of students and then additional interventions could be Credit Recovery identification and enrollment okay the course selection and advisement process um presents an individualized approach to academic planning this is not a one-sized bits all if it was we could have students do it themselves quite frankly but that's that's not our philosophy and that's not

049what we do so we do encourage students to take rigorous courses but also while maintaining balance and understanding that each student is unique and each student presents their own social emotional um concerns and so it is not our practice to recommend that students take courses below their achievement level however it is our practice to have those one-on-one conversations with students and families to ensure that students are taking classes that create balance in their day it doesn't benefit the student to be enrolled in all honors courses while participating in a heavy extracurricular um case load or course load and to be sleeping four hours a night we know that's not healthy just so that they can show that those classes are on their transcript or just so that they can you know receive a certain GPA

050or a certain grade we want to teach them how to choose their classes wisely how to make inform decisions that benefit them that do Challen them we talked to them about the idea of rigor in their curriculum and what that word means and how it impacts um the college admissions process but also in a lens of understanding that these are teenagers who are still developing and they're going through a lot of emotional challenges and sometimes trauma and we want to meet them where they're at um so an example of this would be um English students follow appropriate writing sequence based on skills so students may not we had that a lot this year which which was very odd we had a lot of seniors coming in and saying yeah you know what I I'm not

051going to college so I need to get out of X too put me in that easier writing class and that's not happening so students are they're in the appropriate writing class based on their previous writing class and based on their sequence of courses they don't get to choose some of their classes some of their classes or what we call an automatic enrollment however on the flip side you could have a student that is is um a marketing focused student who's interested in pursuing business in their senior year they're choosing not to take a fourth year of an advanced level science so that they can fit in some business electives such as honors accounting or marketing and advanced social media marketing so that's an example of you know you can pull back in some areas yet

052continue to challenge yourself in others so the goal is to challenge students while preparing them for future success all right what I going to do now is spend a little bit of time on the course selection process as sort of a life cycle so the course selection process begins in 8th grade it's structured data driven and ensures accurate placement in core coursework including English Math and Science there's multiple measures used for placement including 7th grade standardized test scores which is the Illinois assessment of Readiness for public schools in Iowa um the Iowa test for our private schools we look at their current eighth grade grades as reported by their teachers and then also their teacher recommendations to provide us with that core course initial placement the annual review and adjustment of that rubric that's used

053to identify that core course placement is done each year by the assessment coordinator at academic Department chairs they analyze those data Trends they re-evaluate the placement rubric to determine if adjustments are needed to that initial placement rubric articulation occurred this year under the direction of Mr Graham to ensure um to increase alignment between theater schools and nth grade teach teachers so what we were hearing through the years is that eighth grade teachers did not have a clear understanding uh or Direction when it came to those recommendations they didn't know you know why would I be recommending a student for honors geometry what is the skill set that a student needs to be successful in honors geometry so Mr Graham worked to um I know the snow days kind of damp at that so they had

054to do it virtually but it did occur and I think it's something that's going to continue to occur and that will be a very good uh key or a very good uh part of this process to ensuring um appropriate placement and then each year students advance to the next level based on grade prerequisites and academic performance so this represents the timeline for e8th grade communication of registration you can see that this starts in the fall of the Year leading up to uh the year before they start 9th grade so in the fall of 2024 this is representative of this year we start data collection so I reach out to feeder schools to get their eighth grade demographic data Mrs Appel as the assessment coordin coordinator reaches out to get their I Iowa Iowa Data and

055then we compile all of that data to determine initial placement and then that placement information is sent out to the feder schools and um we then get that information back in January so between the fall of 2024 to January it's all about data collection we're just Gathering the names we're Gathering the demographic information we're identifying students that are special education or special populations and then we're getting those rubrics back on January 15th Mr Hatton and I um present 8th grade parent night to all of our feeder schools we have two presentations where we go over um a lot of great information leading up to the course selection process placement and then also just some other details about life at the Freshman Campus um in mid January we look at final placement with the academic chairs

056and myself and our assessment coordinator using the information gathered from the theer schools and then a team of school counselors consisting of myself Mr Hatton Miss licken Brock Mrs dismukes go out to the uh Mrs dismukes go out to the theater schools and meet individually with those eighth graders to select their classes families will have access to the course requests via Skyward probably I have may on here but it'll be it'll be sooner than that so so at this point in time as we know based on the section numbers that you received all of our eighth graders have been met with they've replaced in their classes they've selected their courses and they're in Skyward so a quick question you collect the data early fall of 2024 so you're really collecting the data for their seventh

057grade year so there's two data sets so you're collecting their standardized test scores from seventh grade because our standardized testing in Illinois occurs in the spring so that's the last standardized testing data set that we have or there seventh grade I scores the other information that we're getting if you go back here and you look we we send out to them placement files are sent to feeder schools December 2nd so December 2nd to January 8th our feeder schools review all of our initial placement and then they put in their own recommendations so for example they're looking at students that were placed into honors algebra they can put all of the students grades in there and they can make a recommendation to bump them up to honors geometry or likewise they can make that recommendation to

058say I don't think that this is a student that should be in the honors class based off of the articulation that we did with the uh ninth grade teachers and I would recommend the student be placed into advanced bical one so we're really looking at their first semester final grades of their e grade year so the system seems pretty robust for the process for ofal um and it's growing more robust which is which is great I'm glad you guys are putting in the effort to dig into our middle schools and you know better ready kids for their freshman year in high school how how does the how do how do kids outliers you know that come to us from maybe other states uh maybe they're military kids they're coming from another country um you know

059they don't necessarily fit into that road bus model that we're we have here um how does that work I guess no that's a great question so we use the information that is presented to us okay so some students come with nothing they don't have a transcript they have no current grades so we are doing our best to assess and make the best guesstimate as to what their skill level is so keep in mind at OTS student grade level is determined by their first year of high school enrollment so we do not retain students each year okay so if a student comes to us from Thailand and this is their third year of high school they will be a junior at oakal Township High School regardless if they have any credits at all so we will

060place them into the appropriate junior level courses with the exception in that case we may put them into sophomore English to better assess their skills okay um all other students in the best case situation come to us with some sort of placement criteria we ask that incoming freshman provide us with standardized testing so that we can align that with our rubric because we also have percentiles not just scores but you know it's greater than or equal to 85th percentile 50th below Etc um other schools when a student comes to us from bille East and it's October we have to enroll them in the most Equitable class that they would rolled in at their previous school okay however what we know is and that's where I said earlier this is not a one-sized fits all because

061Algebra 2 at Beville East making that up that may not be the equivalent to algebra 2s but we provide the student with the opportunity to enroll in the class and then a determination may be made that that's not the most appropriate class for them so we have to get creative in terms of looking what the appropriate class is does that make sense that that answer your question sometimes kids will start the school year and then decisions will be made among them change very often yeah I figure it out you can't figure out any else you have to figure out as you go yeah I think our our most difficult population is our students are moving into us and they present a Marriot of challenges I mean not only is it an academic challenge for them

062but it's a really big adjustment challenge for them and so they have a lot of issues that they're dealing with and so that all sort of culminates sometimes in um not seeing material not doing well academically so that's it's a special population one that our counselor spend a great deal of time working with thank you I mean I know it's not the majority of the population but thanks for explaining yeah it's pretty significant okay just to give you a a brief highlight of our current student course selection and advisement timeline once again this this two represents a life cycle and almost spans the entire school year we start in September and we conclude in March those dates that are in orange up there represent advisory presentations we have advisory presentations at each grade level to

063review the course selection process and then um we do meet one on one with every single student for that process this just provides you an example of some of those course selection forms so not only do um our students presented the information in person typically in um in a setting like this so for example when we're meeting with our Juniors we'll call all of them in and advisories and here present a lesson to them prior to meeting with one-onone they'll also receive a course selection sheet that is on the left hand side um this the sheet that's in the middle is the form that the counselor uses when they meet with them what you can't see is just some of the details up at the top so I'll read some of that information to you

064so some of the information that we Gather in those individual meetings while we're meeting with them are you know are they NCAA or na student athletes it's very important for us to know so that we can advise them accordingly do they have an IEP or 504 what are their plans for After High School year college twoyear College trade school military other uh major of Interest or desired military branch we then have some graduation requirements in the middle and then at the bot bottom we just have some um student handbook language primarily for our Rising seniors related to eligibility so for example students that are electing to take only four classes are not eligible for extracurricular clubs Athletics Etc so we're making sure that students are very informed throughout the process so if a student does

065not meet a prerequisite to continue onto a class um maybe an honors class or you know honors account or accounting one to uh accounting two they do have the option to sign what's called a parent request for a change of level so they override that prerequisite those those forms are used sparingly they're not handed out to students in some cases um The Counselor may present it to the student who's right on the cusps a good example of this would be a student that was on honors Al for one freshman year maybe they had a b both semesters a grade high enough to move on to honors geometry sophomore year honors geometry they received a B minus one semester which then kicks them out of that honors track they must maintain a certain prerequisite however so

066for junior year they would Advance on to Advanced algebra to but then student says well I'm really good at Algebra I liked algebra more so than I did geometry so this request or this parent change of level allows them the opportunity to do that okay here's our advisory programming we have advisory sessions throughout the year at the Freshman Campus we have three quarter one Mr Hatton goes into each advisory class and presents a high school 101 lesson he looks at skills support and success strategies he also um completes a learning style inventory with students Quarter Two preparing for sophomore year we have students come into the um auditorium at Milburn and we talk to them about courses requirements and PR represents in the spring this is ongoing right now Mr Hatton has a really exciting

067lesson where he's decoding the transcript for students and helping them understand what a transcript is helping them to calculate their GPA the impact of uh of grades upon the transcript and how that carries with them he's also talking to them about eligibility and course options and then at the smiley campus we present to sophomores Juniors and seniors in the fall sophomores and juniors is really about the course selection process and planning for the next year for seniors we look at college applications parchment which is transcripts apprenticeship programs career paths and then we just concluded our sophomore spring programming where students um explored career clusters and they took an interest inventory Mrs Li Brock uh organized that for us next week we're working with Juniors on exploring colleges and career opportunities in their advisory and then

068in May Mr how Dr Coy and myself will meet with seniors for their senior exit survey related to graduation and finishing the year strong okay some indect student services involve curriculum support I talked about a little bit student support services including but not limited to IEP meeting scholarship management student athlete compliance transcript processing we also have two uh Public Act mandates that we organized within the school counseling office and Mr Hayes who is our school counselor that is in charge of both of those that's the FAA completion initiative and the CCI data collection the CCI data collection is tied to the school report card the F completion is a graduation requirement Mr Hayes with that initiative um holds F completion workshops and F FSA ID workshops for students and families throughout the school year so

069I have a question even if a student is not going to go on to college they have to complete a you do that's that's per the state of Illinois they also provide the um a waiver for that so students can either complete the pass or they can sign the waiver but Mr Hayes works with the elois Student Assistance Commission to pull that data from the FAA and right now he's updating that weekly and sending information to students weekly to track that to see do I do they have a waiver on file or have they completed the pass so the student signs the waiver not if the student is 18 if they're not in the parent guess my question is how are you how successful I mean parents really have to provide that data right so

070how successful are we at getting it I guess in the F so the student can say my parents refus to provide the data oh I guess that's true but I'm just perplexed that because it's mostly like your tax return kind I will say I think we're at a 74% completion rate for this and um which I would which I would say is is a very good completion rate for the FAFSA most families are going to be completing the FAFSA I would gather it would be 75% of our graduating class 25% that wouldn't that's kind of an alignment with actually our postsecondary Trends right um it is in a student's best interest to complete the FAA yeah I'm glad you guys por it because I mean I think a lot of kids wouldn't realize that there's

071opportunities for them if they didn't F and and you bring up a good point and because that does happen so particularly at private schools where a lot of families may think well I don't you know we earn too much money our EC you know our expected family contribution is too high why would I complete f up well institutional grants which is free money that a lot of private schools can give willingly um are often U relying upon a student completing F so would the F help at all any of our students going to trade schools I mean do they look at that at all um it depends like if you consider Ranken to be a trade school then yes if you consider Paul Mitchell to be a trade school which I would then yes because

072um they do uh provide Federal funding for students so there are some that do not like New Image Cosmetology in town I don't believe does so I I really think it depends if they're going to swi and going through a career program of course yeah so you say it's um a state requirement but um for graduation correct but we're only 75% how does that well we have to be at 100% right but 75% for p the completion but students can also do the waiver oh yeah well and then last year the state said well any student that didn't do either you could just assign them a waiver so um so the state's really saying we want you to try really really hard but we're not going to withhold a student graduating by not I not

073do yeah those are really good questions um so oftentimes in the school counseling office we find ourselves um serving as event programmers and we love that too um some of our event that we have put on include some parent Guardian programming OTS connects uh previously to that we we had uh uh separate parent nights throughout the year but this this allowed for a condensed evening of grade level breakout sessions AP dual credit senior financial aid andca our eighth grade informational night that I already talked about honors night which is the last Monday in April is a culmination of scholarship of our scholarship management process and then of course graduation is our um final event of the year additional programming services that I'm not going to talk about in detail but this just gives you an

074idea of some of the wonderful things that are taking place by our school counselors in the counseling office um first generation student programming decision day that aligns with honors night skilled Trad Fair Chamber of Commerce job fair that we do at the beginning of the year hshs high school Healthcare day hshs provides an opportunity for students to go on campus and job shadow and last year we presented it to our students as just an outside activity and they reached back out to us and said we had so many students from Ofallon could we just do an Ofallon event so we're doing that this year Mrs L Brock is in charge of that she organized how many students do we have we had 25 25 that was their Max that was their Max so we'll be

075taking 25 students to stus hospital so that they could do a complete da job shadowing in the healthare that's super exciting yeah Ty that's what we're finding too is that colleges are looking more and more for that um you know for kids that want to go into like medicine and things Premed or things like that they are looking for kids who spent time shadowing which you you wouldn't think they'd be looking at for that but they actually are no I mean that there's a term for that it's called demonstrated interest colleges want you to have demonstrated interest particularly highly selective schools so what does that mean that means that I've demonstrated an interest by attending camps by you know being a member of Robotics by doing medical explorers by doing hshs boot camp by doing

076job shadowing so no that's yeah that's um that's fair I want to highlight just a really uh just a couple of exciting programs that we did this year one of them was our on-site admissions fair that took place on October 1st 2024 uh participating colleges including SIU Carbondale SIU everville and mckendry the event highlights included on the spot application reviews instant admissions decisions no waiting no guessing um students applied for free scholarship considerations we have over student 70 students that participated and the impact is that it provided a major step towards students Futures removing financial and admission barriers to higher education we plan to expand this for more schools next year but this was um this was an exciting day for um our students and then um another program highlight is our scholarship process but

077I wanted to highlight as a result of that an on-site admissions Fair we had one student that qualified for a full scholarship to SIU carpale that's the chancellor scholarship and so they came here and surprised him and awarded the scholarship and his parents were here and it was it was a big thing parents were hiding in our in our lab and he was over here but he was texting his mom because he wanted to get out of school and it was it was fun but uh yeah so that was an exciting uh outcome of our uh onsite another program highlight this year is a CEO program it is fully operational in the 25 26 school year if you remember we we've been talking about this for a while it was just a baby in the

078fall of 2023 where we were um in talks to create this program cohort but have been in discussion for many years um in the fall of 2025 our first class of CEO students will start we have seven out of the 20 will be in the inaugural class so that's exci special special thanks once again to Mrs liab Brock and business teacher Mrs Heisler both CEO board members they played a key role in bringing this program to OTS so we got how do we get more than our fair share is it do they put all the names in they don't yeah so they don't know what school the kids are coming I see oen had seven muda had seven um Le had one freeberg has do the ma okay another H program I wish to highlight

079is our skilled Trade Fair this was under the direction of Denise dismukes Erica shler and Shannon lick Brock and this is a really exciting um uh event that takes place on our campus this happened last week our target audience is Juniors and seniors they attend during advisory periods we had over 40 organizations representing skilled trades career programs direct entry opportunities we had some local businesses like real estate Landscaping that were there um swick career programs alal and EMS students had an opportunity to net work with industry professionals learn about Job entry requirements you know and as Shannon was saying she had some students there that were kind of Meandering they're like you Ian I'm going to Old Miss like why do I need to be here and she said you know one day you may

080need a plumber right and you may need to know what you're talking about to this plumber so it's a really good idea to just go talk to these individuals and learn about their industry and learn about their trade and also your plans can change after freshman year of college so keep your options open Student engagement to encourage participation students completed an interactive vendor engagement activity 15 students were awarded $10 gift cards as incentive of participation so um well done okay are there any specific data points or Trends you would like to see included number of students AP courses compared to the number of take AP and then data on Dual rment that's where I'm going to conclude the presentation tonight so um the school counseling office manages the following Assessments in collaboration with other stakeholders

081of advanced placement is administered by Denise dis mutes and Erica shler uh there are a total of 360 students enrolled in AP courses okay so 360 students enrolled in AP courses of those 360 there are 251 OTS students taking AP exams and they're taking multiple exams because you see there that we are administering 463 AP exams and then we have two homebound students we also administer the ASAT which is the armed services vocational aptitude battery assessment the PSAT nmsqt and then the weo with Mrs McNichols who administers that and then we help facilitate that as well okay and then lastly dual credit opportunities um we partner with St Louis University 1818 um Advanced college credit program you'll see here that we had u a total number of credits awarded for the 2425 school year of

082618 um the credit hours are vary from three to four hours there's only one class that's full year and that's 18 chemistry so you'll notice that our slooh 1818 dual credit program is primarily for our Advanced um level coursework our AP level coursework slute allocated $1,350 to OTS scholarship funds to assist students in um who need to pay for that and that money was divided up for students that were on free reduced ledge and so um this allowed five applicat to have a free class we also offer dual credit opportunities through swick um our swick dual credit program is managed through Mr Graham our director of curriculum we have 24 unique courses of those 24 five are what we call type T transferable and U what that means is that they they would transfer um

083to a four-year College towards the general education curriculum in Illinois right not just Illinois so they are transferable okay but I'm going to talk to you a minute about what you're referring to so in the 2425 School school year enrollment in the Swift dual credit coursework program save students an average of $775,000 Mr Graham shared that uh future dual credit offerings will be determined on on an as needed basis and our Swift dual credit is free a students correct yeah and slooh is not that expensive $75 yeah it's a reduced it's like $75 a credit hour um so aot oh my gosh yes it's it's highly reduced compared to would be for the student to take that so what do remain um future dual credit Poli will be I think one of the questions was

084are we anticipating growth within dual credit and Mr Graham indicated that growth would be as needed so for example like medical terminology next year that could be a class that develops into a dual credit it is always dependent upon staff Staffing um credentials and qualifications so we want to expand it but we have to have the right staff member who has the qualifications so we just if an opportunity comes up for us to get a class duel credit we're going to take it but it may not always and I went to the Trade Fair which was awesome um I was really impressed like swick had a lot of a number of boots it surprised me how much they have to offer there they're incredible and it was their spring break so those people were there

085on there we had a lot more that typically come but you know I don't know they were in cor or something but those that were there on their spr so and they're they're always wonderful at Outreach and and trying to get students and swi also has great programs for us to take students out to as well which we have done okay um so as far as dual credit I just want to clarify that uh the school counseling office manages the enrollment of student in dual credit courses dual credit is uh managed however through the director of curriculum's office when it comes to being offered and the expansion of those credit opportunities when we say only five are transferable out of the 24 you said you were gonna explain that yeah yeah so it's hard to

086see some of those classes up there so squ has career programs and they have transfer programs your transfer programs are Associates of Arts associates of science um and generally speaking a transfer course is a class that can be taken at a community college and transferred to a four-year instent tion so a class like um computer networking is uh a little bit ambiguous it's not a transfer class it's a career oriented class so it's a class that's used at swick towards a specific career program towards an Associates of applied science and computer networking for example okay um however you could have a student that goes and is studying computer programming and they may I'm going to talk about that right now okay so one of the questions that came up in the survey was this are

087there other four-year institutions I.E mckendry that we can approach to increase our dual enrollment offering some out ofate schools won't accept dual enrollment credit from a two-year institution like swick and I don't want to say I disagree with you but I disagree with you on that because as dual credit acceptances vary from institution to institution regardless of the awarding institution okay so dual Credit Acceptance once again varies by Institution and state regardless regardless of if it was swick or if it was slooh or if it was SIUE that receiving institution unlike a high school has the autonomy to determine whether or not they will accept that credit you may have experienced this in your own educational history or or through your children but um what I do know is that courses taken at swick are

088highly transferable and courses taken through St Louis University are almost a little bit less transferable than swick because sometimes colleges view that those transfer codes at a community college to have a little bit more validity than they do at some four-year institutions so many institutions accept dual credit courses particularly those from accredited colleges however some schools have specific restrictions notably highly selected institutions we're going to find that a school like Washington University accepts no dual credit a student is much um a student is more likely to receive college credit by taking the AP exams at a highly selective University than by enrolling in dual credit so students are encouraged to research transfer policies using University trans for equivalency tools such as transferology that's in our curriculum guide and calling and communicating with colleges we call

089all the time you know call the U the admissions office and ask them about their dual credit uh acceptance policies I you know my son and some of you have children that have graduated from OTS when he when he went away to school he went to an out of state institution I mean he got with him 22 credit hours and it was a significant amount um some of those credit hours for example in AP Chemistry were not accepted into his major because it was a stem major they were brought in they were put on a transcript they counted towards uh maybe an elective but they didn't count towards that APK and honestly to his Advantage he needed to retake the anyways because it provided him some good skill sets to be able to take that

090class at college and I would I would say I've had two kids come through two kids did some duel with swick and both were told from the two colleges they went to that they couldn't accept the to so it's not every I do not have experience with every College Nationwide that is true um but I do think we we should look for other opportunities because foure college is for easier to explain to foure college before your college well I want to talk about this I'm not going to go it DET but this this tells us maybe why we can't do that so there's there's really two things that are happening up here on this screen on the left hand side we have What's called the ELO articulation initiative this is that Statewide transfer agreement right

091so within within swick's um course catalog they're going to identify if a if a class is an i AI class meaning that it's part of that transfer agreement and so it transfers seamlessly between Illinois colleges so it consists of 12 13 core courses 37 to 41 credits recognized by participating colleges universities all of those colleges and universities in the state of Illinois um agreed to accept this package as meeting their general education requirements if the student completes them and also if they just take them as single 10 classes okay this is where it gets a little bit more complicated the Dual credit and the Dual credit quality act Ethan you could probably speak about this more so than I can but here's what I do know the mpa which is the model part ship agreement

092that is part of the Dual credit quality act grants the local community college first right of refusal for dual credit courses so what that means is we can't just go to mckendry and say hey can we get can we partner with you to create dual credit for work is that it does it does I I was not aware of that so thank you um is that an Illinois rule guess would be yes yeah I can't say that because I know for example State of Florida has done away with community colleges um I was a resident of Florida until I moved here in 2017 to St um so the two-year colleges if you want to go to to the State of Florida you're not going to get credit there um no that one I wasn't I

093wasn't aware which explains why we don't go to country and the courses were picking up SL an offer this I think we had I think they were grandfathered in to be honest with you I I believe that they were grandfathered in prior to this and correct me if I'm wrong on that think so I think okay because it seems like they're different courses so let me give you an example of this honors and adate Physiology last year we wanted to make that a dual credit class okay um we could the first our first um step in that direction was Contracting swick to see if we could do that but not only do they have the first right of refusal but there also has to be that instructor qualification component so if Swift doesn't have the

094class automotive repair okay we'll just throw that out there let's say we had an automotive program and we wanted to get an automotive repair dual credit class swick doesn't have that program so they're going to refuse it they're going to deny it and they're going to say go great go go to casasia go get it elsewhere no worries but the anatomy they do have they can't offer it now the only way we can offer it is if we meet the uh instructor qualification so the instructor has to have a master's degree in the content are area or master's degree plus 18 graduate credit hours in the content area which we were able to secure so we were able to offer that okay um if an instructor does not meet these qualifications the Dual credit request

095may be denied and Swift will not sign off on us to go to another school and seek dual credit with them they have to sign up on that okay my understand okay thank you for this very long presentation that was not my uh future Department goals include expanding on onsite of mission spare enhancing our collegey career experiences continuing to provide those offsite opportunities collaborating with our C oia Grant working with Christina beer to support Student Success initiatives for Readiness and then establishing transition programs partnering with Administration to develop transition support for Rising nth graders fifth graders and grade question no that was very good presentation thank you and I apologize I'm I'm telling on myself I don't know about the other board members I do know the one that responded to you because I can

096tell but um but I I I would have responded so I'm I apologize don't apologize that's okay I gu question you did did that's okay all right thank you I couldn't tell your question all right yeah all right all right committee reports we'll start with communication Johnson um so I would like to turn that over to you actually I came in that meeting late do you have anything we met on the I think it was the 11th of March communication committee and we had students join us for that meeting um primarily we get their feedback on Communications on social media on um things throughout the school to uh see how well they thought our social media was going and give us ideas to advance our social media and our apps but for more details um

097yeah so we did meet on the 11th it was at 5:00 pm um the students were there it was our student council um specifically who was there um and we talked to them a whole lot about cell phones and got a lot of information um and we talked a little bit about like how they get information which kind of surprised us a little because you know I think as an adult we have a certain way of communicating in information is totally different you know how how they go about getting information isn't how an adult one so that was kind of a big I think takea away from from meeting with them I think the other takea away from meeting with them was uh it would be good to get a broader representation too because the

098student council kids are are kids that are in every Club every activity they get perfect grade you know get some other kids to that are that that that show a better representation of the Dem demographics that we have in our school maybe um yep and then we talked about the athletic website um I think we're waiting on the company that uh that is putting it together to complete their work um that yeah so I think that was pretty much it so you know good conversation I think having the kids there is awesome you know I think we get a lot of information a lot of feedback so you know maybe that's something we should do more than once a year yeah think talk about that too and then the next meeting is on the 8th

099at 5: pm thank you that's my report all right education Mr dck okay first report from the education committee is 52 to 50 rout with five minutes left in the Missouri game uh um we met and and Mr Graham went over many of the things uh that would have been in my report uh one thing you did mention we have a pass advisory right now that was recommended by the education committee with the counseling department to deal to help with our new students we talked about uh we did have it so new students being new to not just not new to OTS new to the to the school in general we've done for our freshman but it turns out that since we get freshman from six different feeder schools and from outside all of them

100essentially are new and we have a lot of things to help them to become acquainted so we don't know that a pass advisory at Milburn would be necessary we had uh six am I correct if six pass advisories here in the fall I believe yeah we can I I think I think that was the number we talked about in the in the spring we had two sections here at Smiley with a total of nine students that doesn't make for very good scheduling or fairness for our staff that you know you'd have uh uh be assigned to an advisory that might have three or four kids in it when the teacher in the room next to you has got an advisory at the same time with 17 to 20 kids in it and so we talked

101about uh also because for scheduling it makes it a little bit easier on the counseling department and and just making a master schedule and that we would have a continue to have our uh Smiley pass advisories in the fall but not necessarily in the spring and so that was a one thing that was in the our notes that uh we we talked about paper I'm sorry when you say pass advisories are you referring to the students that transfer in correct that's our students thank and we had them at both campuses but again at no everybody's new okay and even though most of those kids may be from Carol Fon they're still they're getting together with each other with Shiloh kids and St Clair kids and Pontiac William Hol kid and Central kids and then students

102who are new to the area transfer count for the first time so that was discussed just as something that we could deal with we discussed paper uh the five essential survey I don't think it's necessary for us to talk about the doia Grant application that just it's another opportunity I I hope we are successful and doia grants have been uh quite good to us and our next meeting is on April the 8th at 4 o'cl in the library all right thank you Mr RoR facilities we met on the 11th my report is attached uh however I'd like to comment on a few things uh this summer is going to be a very uh not much uh construction like we've had in the last few years uh we're going to be limited to the uh cafeteria

103as far as new flooring and the kitchen uh new flooring uh I'd like to remind the board that we will be doing the dome roof again as I briefed you in the past the uh company that did it last summer used a defective paint so that is being redone and then in the meantime as far as solar energy is concerned we're waiting a proposal from company as far as that goes so that's my report uh our next meeting is going to be on 8th of April all right and then in finance we haven't had a we didn't have a meeting this month our next meeting will be scheduled as soon as we get our audit back from uh from the accounting firm um Personnel negotiations um Mr Huff isn't here tonight so there was a

104meeting um on the 20th um it was uh basically midyear performance review the board with our uh with our one and only employee so um since then since the meeting I think we've get we've provided Dr shackle fer feedback um you know so I I think at this point I guess just questions the board might have is any question any thoughts you have on the process or the uh the feedback the quality of the feedback because I think the intent is to make it use make it uh directional um you know and and hopefully you know get to the end of the year where we don't have surprises short thing but we uh go to your feedback on that and you can give it now or just talk to us offline at some um special

105committee reports We've Got U IB regional meeting was held this monthy Poli oh yeah just little I'll just keep it with you you can do that and so polic Comm did need on the 4th of March uh we have eight new policies um to review that for first reading we have 10 for the second reading but thanks to Sarah we are now caught up actually Karen has Tak that over taking it over so we are all caught up and we're just working on the um press updates and so some of these are ones that you have seen recently but we're just getting back um on track with with press updates there so the Roe review you said is on April 5th I believe is when that's when it's due when it's due their annual review

106of the compliance you want to explain to the board like what our thoughts are and why we're why we're investing investigating in that right so the um Regional Board of Education regional office of educ Office of Education I knew it was a Bo Regional Office of Education um check basically checks us for compliance make sure that we are following all the policies and that's a very involved process of basically proving to them that you are so it's an online system and we have to upload and by we I mean Administration has to upload evidence of um what we're doing and that we are meeting all of the policies um so just having the policies is one step the second step is making sure that you're complying with the policies and so that's part of that

107compliance part that that compliance making sure that we're following through with that um what the policy committee needs to do after this Roe compliance check is we need to go through for all the and there's not many of them um there's two that I can think of right now OTS specific that changes that we've made to make sure we're in compliance with those um so that's the next and I guess at the end of it we need to determine if we think that audit is is the effective um me method for uh you know checking for Poli right right review that make sure that that's there so um we'll look at that then and continue to uh make sure that our our governance is in line and we're doing everything the way that we should

108you want to hit onb as well I do um but first our next policy meeting is going to be on the 1 of April tentatively tentatively we don't have a press up if there's no press updates we might not um might not have one I checked today and the March hasn't come out but just I know come it's fine so any um from iasb we did have our um regional meeting so thank you to Mr Brown Mr R M Johnson for attending that that was a um down at Triad where we had the opportunity to go we heard their presentation on U rehabilitative program um Center the center that they have there where students who are at risk of of not graduating they might have High attendance High um not being in class or poor

109grades and just trying to get them back into back into the school setting back into to school to make sure that they can graduate um and they've taken a much different approach um as opposed to just disciplining kids and sending them somewhere what they do is they have a re uh what what they called it too rehabilitative program where the kids apply and the students who know that they are struggling with attendance struggling with grades can apply to go to a separate it's a separate campus um and do some classes there and they can go back and forth It's hybrid and it's it's individual to the kid and what is best for that student so some of them go to their core classes at high school but then they have other classes in this the

110separate Center um that are focused on getting the child getting this student um to graduation by tailoring the education what's best for them um something that you know something for us to think about something for us to look at I think there was a lot to to take away from that yeah I I would highly recommend we've looked into that program we that was one of the models we used to design our physical space yeah but even I don't know I I I just sto that program and it wasn't just kids it was high anxiety kids which you mentioned in your peer-to-peer mentoring um for whatever reason they're struggling in for whatever reason if they're struggling in the big high school setting that and as long as I me we're looking at facilities anyway we're

111doing that comprehensive review that's think to roll into that and it is in our facilities plan already that was that's that's our alternative school ask is essentially that like what we've been talking about this is an alternative school not it is it's just they call it something different but it's this the students we we desire to serve in our Alternative Program are exactly what you're describing it's not just discipline it wasn't discipline it wasn't discipline at all I I know but what I'm hearing from you they use it also within that model is students who need like almost like kind of a time instead of a discipline so they'll end end the success CER into it and out of it flow back and forth in addition to those who are there fulltime yeah yeah so

112I do think we do need we should and I'm glad to hear that you are yeah yeah that was part of when we did the research even last year to do what we're doing this year that was the model that was presented in uh February 24 kind of in our fiveyear plan so we love that program too yeah yeahp to it for sure so it was a good meeting I also want to congratulate Heather for her first successful meeting as the iasb director for the southern region I appreciate you guys support all right so um other uh other other committees uh we do have a city council congr uh collaboration over shared uh facilities coming up um that's on April 3 um Mr RoR and I will attend that and uh you know represent the

113school and work with the city uh to see if there's opportunities to share facilities and then um Mr Johnson I think there's a best committee meeting coming up the 25th of March we have a best committee meeting this meeting is primarily to uh plan our Retreat that is in April I don't remember the date in April but that meeting is on the 25th at 4M and our Retreat is April 3rd or is it the 10th it's the 10th from 6: to 8:00 p.m. at the public safety and then the best meeting all board members are highly encouraged to be there y was that Joseph AR through Middle School next best um so that W kind of wraps up the uh the board reports uh which takes us to comments from visitors I I um were

114there were there any written Communications to the board other than the uh request from uh Tisha L yeah okay so I'm just going to bring up the uh the letter email that the board receed from uh uh Tisha lene um she I think she was reaching out to the school regarding exchange students I think in this Cas there's a student in Germany and uh the ask that she has um is that you know we reconsider our policies or take a look at our policies because I think the way our policies are currently written um it's very focused on the rotary and a certain number of uh exchange students so you know I I I guess the conversation is we have policy in place and you know this do wouldn't really conform to our policy um

115another take we could take we could have on this is to uh send this to the policy committee you know for further investigation and review and to bring back a recommendation to the board um so I think right now we should talk about and decide which of those two options we I actually I'm actually showed up can I speak for then let's just do that we uh we are we could just go into public comment and I'll invite you to come uh address the board okay okay um it's an issue we deal with every couple years so yeah just about every year for that matter and I think it's not just a policy question I think it's education to education so let let let's hear what um m L has to stay and then must

116decide where it goes from there after afterwards all right um so in terms of uh public we we'll address the public comment at this time um do you mind if I pass out some forms I didn't I didn't um make enough copies I didn't know how many copies to make I looked can you share pass for sure I got it all right and you know um I'm kind of I'm kind of nervous because like it's my first time coming to school board meeting Mr Brown has a statement he makes prior to public comment so he'll make that statement and then we'll get started with it mainly talks about um you stating your name and then making sure that if multiple people are speaking we're covering a single issue and not covering the same issue multiple

117times and then it just limits uh the conversation to five minutes per person so go right in it um my name is S D I work for international cultural exchange services um I feel like it's a very exciting job my ultimate goal is to um eventually get between 30 and 50 kids I'm trying to make it a full-time job with my other job because I want to make it full-time I need more schools more host families more students to do that um and I highly respect my company that I work for very much so they've been in uh business since 1991 they're uh they're accredited with the Department of State and they're um certified with the csiet um several um people at our headquarters have served on the board of the csiet um they actually

118invited me to a few different trips I'm actually going on a trip um April 1st through the 4th for a convention a learning convention to Arizona so I'm pretty excited about that and um like um I won a trip to the Dominican Republic um which I opted out of that because um I wanted to focus on my students at the time um but uh it's a very exciting job uh actually one of my students called me when I was you know I'm like oh I'm I'm uh getting ready for a board meeting you know so can you call me later or tomorrow you know um but um our kids are very very good kids um they make very good grades um and the only reason I've had any issues with any of my kids has

119um been homei homesickness um and um I was able to recognize the issue and it got resolved um we U I think that um someone was asking her about um like um what kind of classes that um are taken for um overseas kids um the Department of State uh actually requires English and um either US history or US Government um and they they recommend um Math and Science um but th Math and Science are not required um most of our students um are um most of our students um have to repeat their grade once they go back home so um most of our students like but they do have to um make maintain a c average or a c a c in each class at all times so like if for some reason they end

120up having a d or an F in a class then they are given a chance to um bring the grade up you know but um like U it's risking than getting sent back home if they are making a de up um but our students are very good kids they do make good grades um most of my students want to um we recommend that they not take honors classes because of the um because the they do have to still um like and English is not their first language so they still have to interpret it especially at first um English and so that's like an extra step for them and uh so they're recommended not to take the honors classes but many of them still want to take the honors classes because they are super smart kids

121um I have a student right now he's taking um physics and he's he keeps making a pluses and I'm like wow amazing you know and he's like he's like uh thinking he's not doing well and I'm like how are you not doing well you're making a pluses in physics you know okay um anyway um this is a very highly populated area um it's uh a lot of military families a lot of my uh host families are either involved in the military somehow or they're um they civilians working for um the military still you know Scott Air Force Base um they're scattered all over the place but numerous one you know a lot of them are still involved with the military I know this is like a military town so I believe there would be a

122lot of families that would be interested in being host in this town especially being a military family or military town so um and it's a highly populated area um 30k area and some of our students refest um the 30k areas so um I guess I'm done yeah we we a lot five minutes um so this is not an agenda item it's it's a public comment so typically the public comment the board isn't really here to make judgment or interact um but the board can ask questions so are there any board members that have question specific questions okay if if not I think this is like I said it's not something we can decide on uh is not an agenda item Force but I think the board can decide you know maybe where this goes to

123where it could turn into an agenda item so I think the Board needs to have that conversation yeah um and I guess where people's heads at with this thank you for sharing with us thank you thank you for allowing me to share um any any comment or discussion on addressing this is the discussed previously in the education committee and the education committee makes a determination to bring to the board and if the board agrees then it will go to policy to implement in policy all right so D's recommending pushing it to education which with the policy um put we put that on April agend would would everybody agree with that okay all right that's that's where we're going with this um it'll go to our education committee which um is on the calendar if you

124want to attend it's a public meeting um if it makes it to policy that's also a public meeting so you're you know you're welcome to attend those meetings um so moving on are there any other uh members of the public that would like to address the board okay well that takes us to our consent agenda uh we have a motion to approve the consent agenda entire including but not to Prior meeting minutes Financial reports payment of bills Freedom of Information Act request and the disposal of obsolete equipment so move second roll call der hi RoR hi Johnson I hi hi I right next is old business and U in Old business we have policies that are up for second raing um so a motion to policies as presented second call RoR I Johnson i d

125Hi I hi hi Brown hi right that concludes old business new business um we have a motion to approve the certified FTE changes for the 2526 school year roll call Elsa hi hi der hi Victor I Johnson I I next is a motion to approve the appointment compensation discipline performance dismissal of personnel items as presented so moveed second roll call Hi D hi RoR hi Johnson I brown hi um next is a motion to approve resolution authorizing the dismissal of a non-certified employee for reasons other than a reduction in force as presented so moved second roll call I have a question yes uh do we need to read the resolution into the record or not you do not you approved the resolution correct no no we haven't approved it yet okay 9 9.3 the recommended

126motion was to approve the resolution authorizing the dismissal that's what we're doing now okay well I don't know if we need to read he he sent just to read the motion that was here okay and that's what we need to do okay that's yep so uh roll call um I Victor I Johnson I and brown motion to approve the pay application for construction projects sub mov soor Johnson I and hi and brown I all right next is a motion to approve base bid and Alternate bid one for the cafeteria flooring project from Millennium Construction in the amount of $224,700 so mov second roll call is hi hi dur hi Victor hi Johnson I brown I next is a motion to approve future projects as recommended by the facilities commit so moved second hior I Johnson

127iown I all right next is a motion to approve our district goals using prior roll call so move all in favor I I any oppose okay motion passes next is to approve a summer school offering for the summer of 2025 using previous roll call so mov second all in favor I I any oppose motion passes um next is a motion to approve the ihsa membership Ral using previous roll call so move second all in favor I any oppose motion pass next is a motion to approve the Sessa Title One schoolwide application wave using previous roll call so moved all in favor I I any oppose motion passes uh motion to approve the Essa Title One schoolwide plan using previous roll call so move all in favor I any oppos motion passes uh motion to approve

128trips in excess of 200 miles so moved second roll call RoR I Johnson I the blue and brown I okay next is a it's it's a motion for the uh audit but um we're waiting for um the dentist Rose and Associates firm to to complete their audit and provide that back to us so we're going to table this one for this month and hope to uh um make a motion on it next month um and then last thing we have in old uh new business is our to consider um maybe a first reading so at this point we can discuss them if there's anything to discuss um without any discussion that wraps up our business for the night um our next regular meeting of the board of education is April 24th um in the meeting

129we hope to do the 24 audit um if if we receive it as well as the amended tax liy if we receive that so hopefully those things come in and we can address them both in um some of the things dates coming up Spring musical the National Honors Society induction on the 8th and our Spring Break On april7 Through 21st so that concludes our meeting a motion to adjourn the regular meeting of the board of education so second all in favor I meeting attorney