Regular Meeting - Mar 24 2026

001Hi, thank you Michael. Time to tell 7:05, I like to call this meeting to order. Can you please call the roll? >> [cough] >> Rostervan? Here. Chris? Here. Kearney? Here. Sperlock? Kim? She She stepped out for a second. Per Johnson? Here. Moore? Here. Um First order of business is the uh public hearing on annual dismissal of teachers. Can I get someone to read the motion? Public comment? I move that the Board of Education of Oak Park School District 97 open the public hearing for the annual dismissal of certified staff. I move. We need to say a motion. Second. I move. We need a motion, right? I just made it. Oh, I didn't hear. Where you been? >> [laughter] >> Did someone second it? Yep. Yes. Actually, we're going to She's got to call the roll

002and then we're going to do the closing motion of the hearing. Kearney? Yes. Kim? Chris? Yes. Moore? Yes. Sperlock? Rostervan? Yes. Per Johnson? Yes. Okay, now can I please get a closing motion? Yeah. Meaning we have no public comment? No, closing motion um on this hearing the public hearing. But do we have any public comment on this hearing? Oh. No. No, we do not have any public comment. I move that the Board of Education of Oak Park School District 97 close the public hearing to the annual dismissal of certified staff. Second. >> [snorts] >> Kearney? Yes. Kim? Yes. Chris? Yes. Moore? Yes. Sperlock? Rostervan? Yes. Per Johnson? Yes. All right, public comment. Um I have Bob Picaro. Sorry, Picaro. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Bob Picaro and I'm coming before you this evening

003to speak in favor of having the eighth-grade grade class trip go to DC for for now. Uh I understand that in the last couple of years this body has decided to send kids to alternative locations, uh St. Louis, Nashville, others. The idea being that if we lower the costs, uh more kids would have access to this trip and then uh that would create greater equity. Uh unfortunately, that has not been the result from what I understand. Although there has been those trips, there has also been what's arisen a a shadow trip where where kids, you know, go see go to DC and then a second group go to to St. Louis or or to Nashville. And really this breaks down along uh economic lines. You know, the kids who can afford sending their parents can

004send them for afford sending their kids to DC do so, ones of typically greater means, and the ones who are do not have those means go to Nashville or to uh or or to St. Louis or now we're considering alternative locations. Um This is you know, I think this was a laudable intent. I completely get why alternative locations were considered, they're now being considered again. Unfortunately, the result is that rich kids are learning how to run the country, other everyone else is going somewhere else to learn about whatever they're they're learning about in St. Louis or Nashville. Um so, uh there's really not any way to control the behavior of of those of greater means among us and we want to create equity. So, I think really the only option for everyone is to have

005the trip go to DC cuz if you do have the trip to DC, you have a get a great number of kids who will go there. This will lower costs. I understand there are people in public comment who are talking about lowering costs and others who are much more intelligent about that than I am. For my part, I can tell you that we are uh my wife has already started raising money to try to help those kids uh who need would like to go to DC and aren't able to because of costs. Um I think it's important. It's very very important. There really is there is only one DC and uh I'm sure you can imagine I share your feelings. I'm I'm speculating about your feelings about what's happening in DC right now and I'm

006going to speculate that I agree with all of them. And uh I find nothing more encouraging [snorts] and heartening about the future than when I talk to kids in Oak Park. We have an outstanding group of big-hearted kids and I want them to believe I don't want them to feel that place is accessible. I want them to see the halls of Congress and the presidency and and be there when the time comes and I want them to to not be a foreign land to them. So, please uh just with you, that's my part. I'd like for them to go to DC. Thank you very much. Thank you. Courtney DePinto? Hello. Um my name is Courtney DePinto. I am a parent of two middle school students in Julian. Um I'm also an educator myself and student

007advocate for IEPs um in both Oak Park, Chicago public schools and a variety of other districts. Um And I'm here today uh to speak about a decision made by a member of the board whose absence actually speaks volumes about this DC trip. Um You know, we as a district have said that we value equity um that equity and diversity and inclusion are what's important here. It's why I moved here. Um And to have a board member >> [snorts] >> refer to this this trip, making the decision you all voted, I've seen the video, you all voted that you're going to go through WorldStrides. I worked in international education, taken trips all over the world with kids my entire 25-year career. So, you make this decision to go with WorldStrides. Let the kids vote between Nashville

008and St. Louis. The decision is made to walk around Vander Vanderbilt University which has an under 10% acceptance rate. It's $95,000 a year. So, not really accessible to our students that we're looking at equity now. Um and you know, even the highest level students in Oak Park, I do college admissions, they're not getting into Vanderbilt right now. It's a set like very rarely. It's a 7% acceptance rate nationwide. That's That's ridiculous. A board member on this board whose whose absence right now speaks volumes made the decision that to vote for all students to be able to go on the WorldStrides trip in the name of equity and then turned around and spearheaded a Washington DC trip for her child and parents that were in the know. Uh she chose equity for for those who couldn't

009afford to go to DC but also told some parents that everyone who could afford to go to Washington DC through Close Up which is a program that someone I would never work with um based on pricing um where she spearheaded sending this trip during the school days after that. Um however, she did not include everyone. Uh not even everyone who could afford to pay to for Washington DC. Um one of those one of those students that was included was my son um who has now asked me why he is not part of everyone. Uh who could who could afford to go at who to >> [cough] >> who could go to Washington [clears throat] DC? Why isn't he part of everyone right now? He has noticed that as students prepare to head to high school

010in the fall, Miss Sperlock has decided who among the students qualifies as part of everyone. Uh and who does not. And June of 2017, that may have thought she was she had good intentions. I want to believe she had good intentions. I'm trying really hard to. Um But the result is hugely problematic. Um she created social tiers, excluded students, and taught students that those in the in crowd, particularly in a mean girl mom dynamic that that that have been that has recently been studied quite often. Um and I have some points from studies of that. I want to point out that in my life and career, I've seen the very worst of what bullying and exclusion and immoral values in education can cause, the loss of student life. Um I know we try to value

011equity and inclusion in D97. I made the choice to move here because equity, diversity, and inclusion, and what I believe to be values that align with my own being important to this district and community. This is my first This is my first concern about the choices Miss Sperlock made about this trip. I would also point out that when the decision was made for students not to go to Washington DC for the eighth-grade trip, my family decided to plan a DC trip for spring break. Um my husband happens to be friends with a US senator who'll be giving us a tour of the epic capital. I could have spoken with Miss Sperlock and arranged this. I didn't get a phone call. I didn't get an email. So, those students don't get to get a tour get

012to hear a senator speak. I would have arranged that. It would have been free. Um and so now my son who wants to be a constitutional lawyer, speaks about Barack Obama and Jamie Raskin as heroes, didn't get to go to DC and was othered and not part of everyone. Uh In looking into Miss Sperlock's actions, I want to point out some problematic behavior I've seen um and and with her and those that are included in this trip. Dr. Dr. Noel Santorelli, a clinical psychologist based in Atlanta, has been recently has recently been speaking about adult mean girls and how they exist and tactics they use. Several of the tactics Dr. Senderelli describes were used by Ms. Frerichs. That's sorry, you've hit your time limit. We have a 3-minute Okay, so you don't want to hear

013about the selective inclusion, the information control, the status signaling, the and overall, the worst of it being that she used her status as a school board member to have students sign up for a DC trip, made everyone think, "Hey, this is official. That's a school board member. She has responsibilities to this community." Thank you, Mr. Kincaid. And the plausible deniability is disgusting. Okay. Um superintendent update. All right, thank you. And so, just a few slides before we end with an update from our safety team and Amanda. Oh, do we have the Yeah, this is Oh, it's fine. Oh. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Disgusting. And so, as we move into March, there are a few celebrations that we have within the month of March. One, March uh the week of March 1st through the

0147th was um school social work week. And so, we just I know as we are a little behind, but just a huge shout-out to all of our D97 social workers in our building and the hard work that they do each and every single day for our scholars. And then also, we all know that this month, the month of March, is Women's History Month. And so, just a huge shout-out to all of the women around the table, in the room, and within our community for everything that you do each day. Just want to make sure that we acknowledge every single one. And then also, we have some celebrities um in the room, but also in our district. Um our first Cook County Co-Region Teacher of the Year, Elise Smith, which is a kindergarten teacher over at

015Mann. She was um just announced Let's give her a round of applause. I hope that she >> [applause] >> is listening. She was announced as our Co-Regional um Teacher of the Year, which also puts her in the running for our ISBE Teacher of the Year. So, we are rooting for her. And then also, Dr. Ebony Lofton has been announced as Those Who Excel Administrator. And so, we're hoping that she will get that award. And also, we have Molly Masters, our second grade at special education teacher over at Longfellow. So, a huge [applause] shout-out to those individuals. And so also, I want to call up Dr. um Felicia Starks and Amanda Siegfried up to the front. They're also going to provide us an update on our um school safety and preparedness in D97. So, we heard

016couple of weeks ago um a group of our community members came in and really just expressed to us their concern for our just school safety and preparedness um in regards to just kind of the spring. And so, we took that feedback that we heard and really as a team kind of looked at what we currently have in place and some of the things that we need to look at. And so, we just wanted to kind of come back today and just give a feedback um give an update on some of the things that we've been looking at and some of the work that we have in place. So, I'm going to turn things over to Felicia and Amanda. Thank you for having us back. So, we wanted to come [clears throat] back as Patrick said

017to give an update on some of our safety uh protocols and and and what we have done as a district um in response to some of the public comment that we've heard, but just also in response to our ongoing review and refinement of our uh safety protocols. We always take feedback uh whether it be from the public or the staff and take that into consideration, take it to the safety team, talk about it because our whole goal is um continuous improvement. So, um so basically, what we heard of that February board meeting was there were several um public um comments uh and people um sending emails and they shared passionate concerns um and questions regarding immigration enforcement and our school [snorts] preparedness. And we certainly um as a staff do appreciate their strong advocacy for

018our safety protocols um and clear communication because that is something that we align on and that we certainly have in common. So, in response to the public comment and our just ongoing work um in the area of safety, both the board and district leaders um know we are aligned with the community on the importance of of strong, you know, safety uh protocols. And and I just also I mentioned that we also, you know, align our work and we communicate with the high schools so that we have strong alignment, you know, um across the village as well. So, what we've been doing um as a result again of our ongoing work and from the um what we heard from public comments, we have reviewed and and strengthened our protocols throughout the year, which is something that

019we um can take uh do continuously anyway. And um we have um updated um communications that we sent to the community and staff via email and our board highlights newsletter. We did that on February 10th and 24th. Um we also developed FAQs to address some of the some some of the questions. So, we really have uh been making efforts to um more strongly communicate our safety um resources and responses and also um you know, strengthen, you know, our communication and really over um you know, communicating. And uh with that, I'll turn things over to you. Yeah, so as Felicia shared, um we really um wanted to take um kind of an inventory of the things that we're doing based on the public comment that was shared. Um thankfully, the way that the public comment was

020shared was extremely thoughtful and organized and it made it really easy for us to kind of go through point by point and make sure that, you know, like we were identifying the things that we were doing or um where there were maybe some legal policy implications and things like that. So, we spent a lot of time doing that. Um one of the things that we really realized in doing that work is that uh we actually did have a lot of things in place and maybe there were opportunities to strengthen the communication around the protocols in place. Uh so, that's something that we identified as a priority right away and have taken some steps already. And then we also have some things um we have some things in the works. Another thing that we did um

021like I reached out in addition to all the resources that were shared, we had, you know, we had some community members that referenced some districts that had some examples I think that they were interested in. They shared a couple of those. We looked pretty extensively at the area districts to see what had been communicated, what was available. I reached out through my professional network, which is the National School PR Association. And um what was shared with me was actually a Google Drive of resources, communications documents that had been shared in Minnesota. Um and this was about a month ago. So, this was kind of, you know, they were still dealing pretty extensively with everything that had been going on with ICE. So, um we spent some time reviewing all of that, too. And something that

022was sort of affirming was that our protocols really were in alignment with a lot of what we reviewed. So, I do think that we are um you know, in alignment with best practices in terms of what school districts are doing. I think this is an unprecedented situation. So, we are all kind of doing our best, but we seem to be um kind of in lockstep in terms of how we're addressing those safety concerns. Um but then we were looking at the communication to kind of see like what would be more helpful. Um one of the resources that we had um or that we saw was a more visual um flowchart, I guess, of what front office staff should do in the event of ICE coming to the office. And that was something that we were

023like, "Oh, we already have the content here. We can kind of just turn this into something that was a little more friendly." So, um that was something that uh we've been working on the last week or two. And we will be distributing this is a draft, but um the idea here is that we will um give this to front office staff in a front back. Um one side has some general protocols that actually were we developed this document I think like last year. So, this is an older document that has just sort of general best practices for safety in the front office. But then, the other side represents more that internal safety document that had already been shared, but I think in kind of an easier to follow flow uh and hopefully, that'll just be

024a quick resource that we can keep the front desk that folks are able to grab. So, that's just an example I think of the type of uh tool that we were kind of looking at to just amplify amplify the things that we already have in place. So, um something else that we spent some time doing is reorganizing the page that we had set up with our resources, which honestly was set up I I want to say like early last year, very quickly in response to things happening very quickly. So, we really quickly put up some language that was approved by legal and we have resources and things like that, but also recognized that it needs to be easy to access for our families. It needs to be organized in a way that makes sense. Um

025so, uh something that we did was sort of change the layout. I have a screenshot here so you can see what it looks like now. We put the FAQ right at the top. So, some of those questions that we've received over the last few weeks, those are addressed in the FAQ. The key points just emphasize those things we keep saying, you know, we don't ask for immigration status, what's required for a law enforcement agent to come into our buildings. The resources are accessible if you click those drop-down menus and then we added a section called what families can do right now and under I think under the there's like make a family plan. We linked a template to the family plan. So, just kind of incorporating more of those resources that were shared with us

026and some of it we had in other places, but hopefully this is just easier to navigate. Um and then something else we're working on that hopefully we'll have in the schools soon is we're going to make a paper version of some of the resources that we have linked here. Uh but we'll put it in an English-Spanish version that we can have in our front offices. That way if anyone wants to grab it and they prefer that form, it's just another way for them to get that information. So, um we're going to continue to do things like that, kind of look at um additional examples if they pop up and um yeah, that's where we are right now. And then also this is like a a first step um as we're doing cuz we know when

027some of the parents were here, some of them asked for responses back and so we haven't gotten to that phase of it yet. We wanted to be sure we get this layer done first so that when we provide some of the responses, we can link to some of these documents um and some of the updates that we have done that will be part of our response. Do I have any questions? I have one. Um so, I'm just looking back at my notes from the last time and I know some of the um requests were things like school-based safety teams and there are um some comments as well as some teachers talking about not having clarity on what schools were doing. Do we have a plan in place? It seems like we have really great information,

028but to actually make sure it's disseminated kind of across the board and that everybody is very clear. Yeah. So, one of the things that um we did since um that February meeting was we met with the principals and we made sure that we went over protocols um with them to make sure that they were clear. Um they also schools do have um individuals in place who can who are designated to respond um to safety-related um events. And then we as Amanda mentioned um we did reshare with staff um the some of the safety resources that we had shared before and we asked principals to make sure that they also like talked about that at staff meetings and pointed it out to their staff and they reviewed it at a staff meeting so that we make

029sure that everybody was on the same page. Anything? No, I don't think so. Yeah, the staff we we sent out that um reminder email um I think a couple weeks ago to the special guy. You And we'll probably do the exact same thing after spring break as a another reminder. >> Another reminder, okay. Sorry, Deb. Oh, no, you're good. Um after the public comment, you guys hopefully have seen the email that they followed up with. They kind of itemized their um suggestions and I think you were just saying the plan is to follow up with them and I know some of the things on their list, I believe are things we're not currently doing. Have Have we looked at those things or are we looking at those things to consider whether there are additional measures

030we might take? Mhm. We have um um looked at actually all of the the requests and kind of um like um kind of planned out and looked at like what would be like can we, can't we, can we maybe do some of it but not all of it. Just to lay it out for us as administrators so that we had a clear um picture of how that may look um and and then you know, providing um maybe some reasoning behind maybe why like some of the things that were asked that we cannot do um but that what we can do, we will and then um so that was part of the things that we are the safety the district safety team is also taking into consideration what that look like. Can we do this? Can

031maybe not implement it the way uh that it was presented, but can we take parts of it and if there's some real reasons behind why we can't do some of the things that were requested. That's great and I will just say I think sometimes people ask for specific things and there's an underlying concern and there may be other ways to address the concern that's different than the exact thing that they asked for and so um to the extent that if there are things that we don't feel we can do, a a discussion that gets at what is the underlying concern and are there other ways we can get at it, I think could be really helpful. I just want to second that. Um that was my big concern is that sometimes we get focused on

032well, we can't do that, but what if there is a is there a need that we could do something else about? Um I also wanted to find out um is the website also available in Spanish? I know you mentioned the the Yeah. piece in the office, but is that also being translated? [snorts] So, our website translates through Google Translate. Yeah, like most websites, the button is right at the top of the website. So, um yeah, it's easy to translate in that way. Um we could also it we don't often like translate entire pages because it it becomes redundant. We found um and I've talked to registration the registration team about this. Sometimes it becomes redundant because the folks that do want their information in different languages often have that already switched on. So, then it's

033like it's just a lot of text. But um but yes, we we've like taken steps to make sure and then um we do like anything that we have that, you know, if for some reason folks can't uh access it or they need an interpreter or something like that, we have lots of tools now in place for for that so that we can provide that at the school if we need to. And I would suggest just because Google Translate is Google Translate. It's a lot better than it used to be. If someone could just review that page um to make sure because that information is of particular interest at the moment. Yeah, and I know some of the resources that we have um linked like for example, I think the family plan like I do think

034that's in both English and Spanish. So, we're Thank you for putting this together. You know, I I do really I think I heard a lot about those family plans and how tricky those could be. You know, people don't even know where to begin so that's a good resource that it's up there. Um I do think some of the the public commenters and then the follow-up communication was in hopes that maybe the response could be more than just in writing, but maybe like the an opportunity to sit you know, and and gather some information in person. Is that something that you're you're um planning to do? Yeah, it was part of as we um sit together and like plan our district response, we definitely did hear that and that will be something that as we are

035planning our district response that we start to we will be like taking into consideration and seeing how can we engage because um like Gavin said like what may be some underlying um what's really the underlying concern is you can't get to that sometimes through print. Um you have to have a dialogue. And I we did have as just as an example, we did have a you know, a meeting right before I think that that board meeting where we met with I think three parents. And I think that there were hard questions, but I do think it was a positive discussion in the end because we were able to kind of talk through some of the nuances and like we were able to explain some things and get like even trying to get at what Gavin

036was saying where like, you know, it's like what exactly do you mean? What aspect of rapid response are you most interested in? Maybe there's something there. So, I I do think you're right and I think we are I know we've always been open to having those conversations. I think the last thing I was just going to say was because the most not that, you know, all the comments were helpful in terms of insights, but I think the there was that one staff member that spoke up on behalf of other EL or world language teachers. Um and so, you know, that was also one of my concerns as a board member to say like, hey, you know, if people are taking on extra responsibilities or they're volunteering not because it's assigned, but just because it it

037comes from the profession. I just wanted to make sure they were part of the conversation if possible. And so and there was a follow-up Okay. Yeah, so there was definitely a follow-up follow-up with that particular staff within that department. Um just to kind of gather more information and to look more into that particular like some of those things that were kind of stated to learn more about some of those things that were um kind of said. And so, a member of the core instruction team did look into that to gather more information and to kind of respond to that. Just want to say thank you. Um as you mentioned Oh. This is um similar to something that happened back in 2020, which we will not talk about. This is unprecedented and I think like talking

038to other school board members around the country and even just um other taxing bodies like this is something that I think we're all like trying to learn from each other. Um there are plans to have like a safety form coming up soon and so um I don't know where they are in the planning, but I can follow up with the next um I forgot what they call that meeting I go to, but it's all the taxing bodies. Council of Governments? Yes. I'm like, cog, what is it? Um but then also I think to your point about um I think it would be helpful for us to kind of understand like this is what we can do, this is what we can't like um kind of in a form so that we can kind of answer

039those questions and and be aware. Um and then lastly, School Safe for all act as something that was recent I guess or somewhat recently passed, but it has a lot of information and it also tells us like what things does Illinois have to be in compliance with. So, some of those really great ideas out of Minnesota, because of Illinois law, we can't do those things. And I think just like having that information and maybe pointing people if if people care to read that, um it's a really comprehensive thing. It's it's recent and it gives a lot of really great guidance from ISBE. Um about how we can. So, it's sweet 7.150. Um and it was it's in the press material. I know you ladies already know that, but for anyone who's listening who is interested,

040um I think that's a really great guide because it's really specific to Illinois. We did preview that um our administrators um and um it was outlined because there are some of the things in that that we're already doing. And then, we also outlined like in after July 1, when this takes effect, these are some of the other things that we would have to put in place. And as the um said we'd come back to them as the Empress policy was released to let them know where, you know, um the district finally landed, you know, with that just to make sure that they were fully informed um so that we are in compliance. Any other questions? I have one. Order. Um I want to say thank you again. Um I the comments by the families and

041community that came were very organized, really really well thought out, and I think we all received them that way, and this is an example of that, but this got to be a living breathing dialogue document. It's going to we're not out of the woods and we don't necessarily know what's coming ahead. Um so, thank you for that. This was incredibly thoughtful. I also was wondering if the hard copies that you're leaving that you were talking about potentially where you're saying you were going to translate them into Spanish. Can [clears throat] we do two things? Find out what other languages at each school maybe the principal might want that in um because while our Spanish-speaking um families have been impacted by ICE greatly, other immigrants have also been impacted um and maybe that translation into Farsi

042or something else may be helpful to those families, but I don't want you to spend the time and the energy and money to do it if it's not necessarily needed for that particular school. Just So, like a little bit of a We have um good data on our languages. >> are talking about? Yeah, and yeah, usually we look at our top ones. There's usually a pretty steep drop-off after Spanish, but you yeah, I like I generally have an idea of our top five, so yeah, I'll touch base with them on my department. We can do that. All right, thank you, ladies. >> Thank you, ladies. Thank you. Next I'll move to 8.1. Transformation of both area update. We would like to bring Michael and his team up to provide an update. I know Michael would

043be excited to provide this update. This is my favorite screen. Hi, Michael. All right. Uh so, thank you for the opportunity to We were scheduled to do this last time, uh but obviously more information uh from last night's FACT meeting uh is timely and uh important for a few things. So, Jennifer is here uh to represent our group. So, again, I said this before, the amount of time we were talking just before this, the number of FACT meetings, and the consistency and kind of tied with this, and I know there's a ton of other groups that are meeting, sustainability task force, CASE, and all these different groups to help kind of feed the information of where we're going with um master facility plan and how it ties to all these other uh goals, initiatives, direction

044of what we're doing. So, we thank all of them and we're just here representing that work and and sharing that tonight. So, we'll do a brief kind of reminder from what we presented uh believe it was back in December uh talking about some of the things that we've been really focused on around the sustainability. And then, uh where we left the FACT meeting last night of of recommendations and then next steps for what we would be asking I heard this before what is what are we going to ask the board to um approve and when and how that all looks. So, that's what we'll all go over tonight and have any questions at the end. So, um as we're doing again, the the first few slides are just that overview, just reminders. So, we were

045able to develop kind of the scope the um of the plan and where we got everything, all play safety surveys, facility assessments, walk-throughs of our buildings. Um and again, this is ranging back from the last 18 months. All of the land work uh collaboration with our engineers, our principals, PTOs, um staff that have provided feedback in along the way. So, yeah, that's what's generated a lot of this work. Um and created some guiding principles. So, focused on critical health structure, health life safety items, safety security. Again, I referenced the sustainability task force, so the sustainability policy and goals and work that's happening within that group. Um and then, where can we align and ensure the educational spaces are supporting what's going on in the classroom, which is the the critical piece to what we're why

046we're here. Uh then we organized all of those in priorities. So, our priority one is something that has to happen in the first five years. Recommendation there, the critical things, health life safety, things that are failing or will or projected to fail in the first five years. Uh priority two is a smaller group, a smaller number of items, but they're ones that are connected to uh priority one and might and would have some benefit to do it cost effectively to do it um in a line with one if we were able to. Um and then three is where those are the items for year six through 10 um have lifespan that and even potentially lifespan beyond um the 10 year, and that's where we would be evaluating on annual, but even as we get closer

047to that year six, maybe there are some items that don't need to be done in that period. Um but that's where we looked at there. And then, four things that are beyond 10 years. And we you won't see those in the recommendations for this plan. And then, the last thing that internal is just smaller things that in those visits, again, we're not going to just ignore those things. We identify them and a lot of those are already being done as part of our standard work and things that we do. The next three are just breaking down what does priority one, two, and three look like, the cost, and the types of things. Uh again, this is no different than what was before. Uh so, as you'll see kind of a common theme, most of the

048stuff is mechanical equipment on the roof and um roof replacement themselves. So, in priority one in that first five years, it's really uh a large amount of that, 82% um and then health life safety makes up 16, so really small on anything else. Priority two, uh smaller number about 9 million, uh but again, you still have a large amount of mechanicals, roofs, um and mechanical equipment, and then some heat items within that and then a few other little other diversity within it, but that's two. Um and then priority three, as you see a lot of mechanical in that um with a few other little things along the way. All right. Another reminder of additional scope, things that came from those walk-throughs and those conversations we shared. So, LED lighting, uh looking at air conditioning a

049few different options, air conditioning just on its own, or looking at lights and brights. Um and so, these are all just things that we were um looking at and and investigating and determining. Elevators at Hatch and Mann, those are the only two buildings that don't have it. Uh have an elevator. Looking at electrification, either full or a phased or a number of different options. That's where Jennifer's going to talk a little bit about some of those mechanical and options that we had around um and the alignment with the sustainability work. And then finally, as uh uh looking at solar. So, we have a bid uh that's out right now. We'll open that on Friday, so it'll be an update on the 14th around what that looks like. But that was a our option. That's good.

050All right. So, I'm going to turn it to Jennifer to kind of walk through uh some of those mechanical system options and things that it really what a big part of what we've been exploring and discussing and talking about for the last two months and gathering a ton of data around. Thank you. Um so, I I'll thank you. >> Sorry. That's okay. >> [laughter] >> Um we realized that um after we completed the master plan and evaluated all of our existing system that if we wanted to explore any HVAC systems system HVAC systems that um strove to achieve the sustainability uh policy goals for the district, now is the time to to look at those. So, we um as Michael said, since December, we've been working with our MEP, our mechanical consultant, as well as

051a third party um entity that did um the energy modeling for many different systems in order to evaluate them. So, we have lots of pros and cons for each of them. They vary between first cost, impact on sustainability, you know, operational costs, and and even down to how disturb how much are we disturbing these buildings in order to install the systems. Um Okay. Um so, we came up with about seven different options to review against, and we used Julian Middle School only as a test case scenario and um options three through three B are kind of a stair stepping thing, but still each option was modeled and evaluated against how they could be implemented at Julian and we have kind of leaned on that third party entity in order to help us evaluate with these

052metrics. So we looked at total energy costs and annual maintenance costs equipment and installation costs and we have reconciled those against the amount of money that was already at allocated within the master plan that we had done originally looking at simple paybacks and return on investment and then again they how how does it stack up against the test or the policy for reducing greenhouse emissions. Um so it was a lot of a lot of back and forth a lot of evaluating, but it kind of came down to are we getting our bang for the buck? Um we really found that after reviewing all these systems and and looking all these different metrics none of none of the options really allowed us to maintain fiscal responsibility and also at the same time achieve the sustainability policy

053goals. So just for an example option one was to replace the Julian ATC system with a geothermal system. So we got about 40% savings in GHG, but it cost $29 to install. Um and the annual operating costs and utilities and maintenance just didn't stack up for what made good sense for the taxpayers dollars. So the recommendation from the FAC committee is to maintain a like for like replacement of the existing systems at Brooks and Julian. We would replace things that have failed first and then as things fail we would continue to replace them later and that is actually what is already included in our master facility plan now. Um and then we can annually review the elementary schools as time comes up and and see how we can incrementally improve our decision-making when when we're

054doing each school. Technology is changing constantly even if we're staying with the same system, there's different levels of efficiency that we can gather in some of the equipment. So it might be worth the an incremental additional amount of money to replace that equipment and gain better gains for our sustainability goals. Um and even looking at boilers as they start to fail can we achieve an electric boiler rather than using a gas boiler and and afford it as well as gain those benefits. So the preference really of the committee was to divert the premium costs to get to those other systems towards things that give you a a bigger bang for your buck. So you're getting there's really a larger impact with lower costs in replacing LED lighting for example. I've heard a lot of the

055lunchroom management of food actually does a lot to help with your sustainability goals and controls on site solar which Michael will talk about later. So that is currently the recommendation of FAC is to for Brooks and Julian for now we're going to stick with the same system that you have. We'll replace [snorts] failing equipment as it fails, but the equipment now is 26 years better in technology. So even still it will be more efficient than what you have at the time. Um and as we talked to like that recommendation like right now for Brooks and Julian the reason for that is cuz it's 27 28 mechanicals and we're not replacing everything. But we're replacing the equipment that we are would be higher efficiency but like for like and that would be a commitment I think

056it's about 8 10 little bit more than that years down the road, but that that type of technology and that path of design is that structure for them. As we go to the elementaries that's when as Jennifer said use all this data all of this information that we've collected it has the landscape changed what is different or where are we at with our financial goals and stay all of those things and can we make a change and can pivot on and leverage those resources or design or anything for any of Um so and Jennifer talked a little bit about that. So from FAC tonight just sharing that what our recommendation and we shared this before at the time in December January recommendation was recommendation C which was to do would be to take priority one

057and priority two do those in the first five years. Um and and part of priority two if we delay those there's escalations there's other numbers and that might pushing it back five years and it ends up being that the same projects and the same things are estimated out for about a 1.8 to 2 million dollars more just because we're pushing it down the road and there's tying things to that. So it made sense to do that now and that's what's in the modeling we've been working with Crystal and the financial team around what does that look like and then looking at priority three for the second five years. Um and again we'll annually look through this and as we get closer so like a 28 29 look at those last five years and are there

058other changes that we can do is there better life in some things and we can adjust we know things are going to change, but this is based on all of those assessments and conversations and expertise this is that the plan we were at and the recommendation from from FAC. All right. Um other considerations. So we talked about those other things to being able to share what recommendations FAC might have. So specifically LED lighting and this is the conversation in the case team the sustainability like low hanging fruit we need to work to figure out how do we do LED lighting and it makes sense to do that across the district. We've done I think it was about 33% across the district already between mostly the middle schools. It's really just their auditoriums and then the

059new additions that have been done. So the third floors of all the elementaries and then some of any of the new wings or anything that have been done, but that's really the the gist of that. So we've got some additional information we've been gathering walk throughs see where does that look like. So that would be one recommendation to continue to explore and move forward on that. Um and then the team we we talked about this a lot last night or a little bit last night around the elevators and accessibility being Hatch and Mann are the only two that don't have it. They do have lifts. Those lifts take like seven minutes up and seven minutes down. So we talked about accessibility and the importance of that. We really felt strongly the recommendation to move forward

060with both Hatch and Mann on elevators with both of their buildings and to do that in the first five years. >> [clears throat] >> All right. So that's about 1.6 is what it's estimated out right now. All right. And then we will bring forth what the solar looks like with costs and all that stuff and Nenea talked to a lot about that of like what does that look like over 25 years. So we do believe there's a lot of positive things around obviously energy offset, but incentives and things that are in place and we believe we can get to those timelines and to do that still. So I will that would be one thing that will come back on the 14th once we get the bids and everything else like that. All right. Things that

061we at this point in time based again on all of those goals and and where we're at right now FAC did not have we talked about the mechanicals. So while it's not a full electrification at this point in time or a phase there are certain things that we're doing and then leveraging those premiums to do some of the things like solar look at the food service look at other types of the controls and how do we kind of change certain things operationally to be more effective and lower greenhouse gases and just find different ways to do that. So these are not things that are built into the plan or being recommended from FAC at this point. There are other directions or questions that we're had we can take that back, but right now that's that's

062where the team is at. And a lot of it's because of the financial and where costs are What's the light and bright? We did that too. Uh so the light and bright it's it's a so those classrooms so what happened on the third floor and jump in please, but it's it ends up being the ceiling. So the ceilings get replaced with tiles, lights, paint in the wall, tiling of the floor. So it's just kind of like a full classroom refresh. >> Okay, that's good. And that's built in LED lighting is built into that. >> Oh because of the work on the roof you mean? No, that would just be your classroom. When you do the you could do just AC, but the pre there was it wasn't that much less to just do everything. >>

063Right. You're affecting enough of the room that it makes sense to go ahead and just do a full refresh because you have to take out the ceilings and do stuff and do paperwork to do some stuff. So But it's just for the third that third floor where >> Those are already done. Currently done. >> are the other classrooms that haven't been done. And there's other temporary solutions that are there, but not to go through cuz again that number was I think it was around 50 million dollars to do that across the board. Yeah. Oh yeah. [snorts] Um and and this is just kind of a summary of some of those things and as we go through this like have those decisions on gas electric boilers or other systems as we get to those different checkpoints

064and how can we incrementally do things using the data all of this information that we have to inform us along the way to continue to make good decisions controls as energy things change and as that landscape changes over the next 5 10 years just being ready to adapt and do those things within kind of this plan. Look at our contracts, management of those things, and how do we continue to reduce those greenhouse gases and reduce costs. So, those are things that we'll continue to do. And then looking at solar, especially as we do these roofs, what options do we have? Looking at that, what is the offset, and so on. As I say that, as we talk about like that annual piece is where we're evaluating where we're at. We know, as I shared, the

065first 5 years, importance of these roofs and mechanicals. And I've provided a few updates around Julian specifically. So, we've had a number of things with their roof over the last few weeks. And then recently in the last couple of weeks, we've had a number of contractors that are have been on the roof looking at how do we continue to repair this. What are our options at this point? And we are at a point now where we the probability of needing to move that up this summer is real. It's already part of the plan for 2027. So, like as we build out our projections and our funding and all of that are there, but we do need to So, we are talking with Jennifer and looking to move that bit up for Julian for this summer.

066It is in a bad place. We need to address it. ASAP. So, we are we will be releasing that. I just want to share that today. We're continuing to work with the different And we've had the contractors that are already awarded those to give us some feedback. We've had the repair contractors out, all of that. So, they've been continuing to do that this week after all the snow melted and everything last week to get up and see what can they do and identify what are all the options. And that's really where we're at at this point. So, we would bring the bid back. So, we're going to go out to bid. It'll be at least we're planning next week. I mean then we bring it back on the 14th is what we're targeting for you

067to review. So, that's where we're at to determine what that what that might look like. And so, conversations, we'll think about just the Academy programming that's happening at the building, how do we schedule that, what does that look like? Those are all things we have to have a lot more information before we can start at that. But it is those are real conversations, but we can't keep doing what we're doing in that environment. Kids have everybody clean up and everything is a lot. So, Last thing and then I'll open up for questions. So, 14th, big piece of that is then Crystal working with them to provide this information and bring back the projections and financial, what are the different options that Fork has kind of looked through for funding this work. That will be on

068the 14th. We'll talk again on solar and the roofing pieces on the 14th. And then on the 28th is when we would be coming back to the board seeking approval for the 10-year plan, which would give direction to move forward on 2027 as we talked about a little bit tonight. And I know Venus and Holly had talked about within Fork, what are we being asked to approve? And right now that would be because if we add the elevator, we add these items, it would be about $86 million over the next 10 years that we'd be looking at. And that's some of the modeling and stuff that Crystal and team are working through and will present next week of how or what options we would have to fund that. And the difficult piece to do so.

069questions. I just had a quick question. I know a lot of things were scheduled to for the summer, summer programming, were slated to move from Brooks to Julian. How does this impact Now, we have Will we have them work on both the buildings essentially? Are there Have Have people been notified that we might need to find other space or So, this is really fresh, to be honest. Like we had conversations, we talked a little bit last night cuz we learned certain things last night before fact. Shared with Patrick and cabinet today. We have been thinking through that cuz obviously that does impact things. And a lot of the programming ends midday. There are a couple programs that we'll have conversations with tomorrow that go beyond the afternoon. But in working with John, there are some

070opportunities of like just starting the work a little bit later, so most of the programs are through the day, and then the work starts in the afternoon. And obviously it depends on weather, too. So, there are That's Those are all variables, and that's why that timeline and and we'll talk with the company, are there ways to like kind of shrink that timeline and have multiple teams go out when they do? But those are conversations that we plan to have this week. And it may not be an impact or we may have options that we can move them to another location or however that is. We want to keep everything as whole as possible. It doesn't mean that we're going to open Brooks up because they do have a little bit more roofing and and locations

071that have to happen. So, we would stay with that, but Julian is the one we we want to work through and how can we manage that and keep the programs as whole as possible in what they're doing. But again, it's like right? We want to be able to get that information to you guys so you're aware of everything where it's going. And then we will obviously that's obviously on YouTube and people can see that, but we will have those conversations tomorrow just But we don't have exact details yet of what that might be. So, those are both '80s buildings, correct? So, [clears throat] we're not anticipating hitting anything that would require any remediation while students are in >> No, they're actually from 2000. 2000 Yeah. >> So, you know, there's not going to be any

072issues with that. And then my another quick question for you is when you're talking like for like in terms of replacement, does that mean like for not geothermal or are we talking like meaning a gas boiler is like an electric boiler? Like what what level are we looking at in terms of sustainability and like for like? Yeah, so at the middle schools right now, um, and and sticking with this recommendation C, we're going to be replacing the the rooftop unit air handling units, rooftop units that are failing, and we're going to be replacing them with a similar unit. More efficient because it's now versus 2000. But this we're not going to change the system. So, the system will still function the way it is. We don't have to do anything on the interior. We're really

073just replacing that unit on the exterior. That's kind of what we mean like for like. Now, the boilers at the middle schools aren't really ready for replacement yet, so we do still have the opportunity to explore either more efficient boilers or different kind of system where maybe even electric boilers at that time. But right now we're really just focusing on in '27 2027 and 2028 replacing those failing units with the same type of system units that we have now. I have a question about air conditioning. >> [laughter] >> I know it's not hot yet, but it comes up every year when we start having hot days and people freak out. I saw it's not one of the additional scope that recommended on that slide. And so, I was wondering if, um, in not doing more

074additional air conditioning, if there in the long term there's enough spaces for students to move as needed. So, I know like in the past they've moved to like other classrooms or gone to the library. But just as we talk about global warming and whatnot, if that's a sustainable sustainable not in environmental sense, but like a doable plan down the road. Like you know, I guess like are we going to have like three groups of kids like classrooms in the library, which doesn't really work if you're trying to do multiple days. Or with like declining enrollment or it's not I mean just the the demographic decline in general, if that's becoming less of an issue. I guess I'm just trying to figure out like it's not going to get cooler in the long term. And so,

075as we every year we get the air conditioning clamor emails, how you see that working or Yeah, I think as part of not being the recommendation at this point is that was really focused on like those most critical items. And based on where we're at on what funding, I mean if that's something that's of a desire, I think that's the conversation that we have to figure out how to fund that and what does that look like. And I think that would be a piece again, we didn't want to like overload you with so much information today. So, I think that will There will be those options. Obviously it's there, we have the pricing, the the proposal for it. So, if that is something that is a desire to have from the board, we can do

076that. There are different temporary solutions to kind of curb that. Obviously we talked about that last night, too. It's not There's been some studies and we have some partners that we talked to and they did that around the number of days that are like I guess 15 or 18 days I talked about, but we also know global warming, it's it's getting worse. So, it's something to continue to determine and determine once we see that like here are the projections, is that something that we want to explore? And I think it's as we're going in, that's kind of the desire of the design of this of going into everybody the first 5 years. If in 3 years it's like, "Hey, we're at a point where we should do this or we need to do this or

077things have changed and we can." that we're going back into all of those buildings that second 5 years and we could adapt if that's something that is something to do. What do you think? What felt the interesting seeing like what those options are so that we can decide like do we want to I think like just understanding how many classrooms does this affect, how many cases does this affect, and then like what that price is so that we if it's like 50 million, we might say, "Okay, let's wait." Um but if it's if it's not that big of a cost and We have the number. What Do you remember what >> 50 million. I think it was about 50 million. Hey, there you go. But I think to your point that it's like, "Well, how

078many classrooms would really be Yeah. Like Yeah. Wait, I I I I don't I don't know that one, but Oh, there was something that they'll be existing to know. They know how many classrooms at each school need to be um air conditioned so we can provide that information for you. But I do think it's like 52 million if I remember. We looked at it last night. And that is the light and bright because it makes sense >> Yeah. Yeah. Um and and that is really it's the elementary schools first and second floors. Yeah. Yeah. And other than the ones that have been remodeled like we have we have a couple of the new wings in some of the buildings. Uh and then we also at that time that we did studies. So, every floor has

079a room. First and second floor of all those buildings when we were doing the pilot study however long ago. Yeah. So, and there again, there are temporary solutions, but those are not um as efficient and all of those solutions. So, would folks be interested in then bringing back like the number of classrooms and Now that we know it's 50 million. 52 million. Money may still be But I think that's too. I I'll talk with Crystal too of like base the recommendation on this and this is what it would look like or what would need to happen on a financial pieces to do that as well. Right? So. >> [snorts] >> Any additional questions? All right, thank you. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. >> [snorts] >> Okay. Uh can I get a

080motion to approve the consent agenda? I move that the Board of Education of Oak Park Elementary School District 97 approve the consent agenda as presented. >> [snorts] >> Second. Ross Driven? Yes. Perez? Yes. Kearney? Yes. Kim? >> [snorts] >> Yes. Per Johnson? Yes. Moore? Yes. I'm sorry. Actually, I don't know 10.1 E-rates. Okay. I move that the Oh. No. Oh, yeah. I move that the Board of Education of Oak Park Elementary School District 97 approve the E-rate award to CDWG for the Fortinet firewall and licensing for a total of $40,999 before the anticipated E-rate reimbursement and as presented at the March 10th, 2026 board meeting. Second. Kearney? Yes. Kim? Yes. Perez? Yes. Moore? >> [snorts] >> Yes. Ross Driven? Yes. Per Johnson? Yes. All right, before we go to um staffing uh Sorry. Uh 10.2

081of staffing honorable dismissal dismissal of certified administrators. I just wanted to remind everyone these decisions are about aligning with staffing. Um and so it's very common uh amongst districts. This is the first time we've done it in many many years. Um and though we tried to have most of this happen through attrition, um you know, we had to make decisions based on enrollment and uh a lot of decisions uh a lot of the data that we had in order to support the district. So, just wanted to share that these [snorts] decisions are never taken lightly. It's always, you know, a complicated and hard uh discussion um and decisions that are being made. And so, I really appreciate the hard work that our administrators have done to get this information and make these hard decisions. Um

082and so, with that, can I get someone to read um motion 10.2? I move that the Board of Education of Oak Park School District 97 approve adopt the resolution to honorably dismiss the certified administrator listed in the attached resolution at the end of the 2025-2026 contract. Second. Ross Driven? Yes. Perez? Yes. Kearney? Yes. Spurlock? Kim? Yes. Per Johnson? Yes. Moore? Yes. Can I get someone to read to 10.3? Uh sorry. I move that the Board of Education of Oak Park School District 97 approve and adopt the resolution to honorably dismiss the non-certified administrator listed in the attached resolution at the end of the 2025-2026 contract term. Second. Kearney? Yes. Kim? Yes. Perez? Yes. Moore? Yes. Ross Driven? Yes. Per Johnson? Yes. I move that the Board of uh Education of Oak Park School District 97

083approve and adopt the resolution to honorably dismiss the teachers listed in the attached resolution at the end of the 2025-2026 school term. Second. Ross Driven? Yes. Perez? Yes. Kearney? Yes. Kim? Yes. Per Johnson? Yes. Moore? Yes. 10.5. Sorry. I move that the Board of Education of Oak Park School District 97 approve and adopt the resolution to dismiss the non-tenured teachers listed in the attached resolution at the end of the 2025- 2026 school term. Second. Kearney? Yes. Kim? Yes. Perez? Yes. Moore? Yes. Ross Driven? Yes. Per Johnson? Yes. All right. Um discussion action items. Uh 2026-2027 district insurance rates recommendation. Can I get that motion? I do. Is there discussion? Is there a discussion? Are there questions? Okay. Do you all have any? Oh, I thought I didn't know someone was going to present on it.

084Well, are there any questions? Is it the price going up? I mean >> Yeah. Natasha. Yeah, I thought we were getting a presentation. There is a memo Yeah, I know it's Yeah, I think it was attached. Oh, thanks. Oh, yes. Everyone, sorry. So, we have not had an insurance presentation with the board in a number of years. Um our rates have been um increasing each year, but by a nominal amount, 3 to 5%. Um however, this year um there is a much larger percent increase. And with that in mind, I wanted to make sure that um I shared that information and um talked through some of the um specific reasons for the increase. Um right now, we are still currently under the normal um we are still under what other companies are getting or other

085um organizations are getting. However, this year our projected increase is um going to be between 15.4 and 16.8. Um I will say that uh one of the some of the plan changes, some of the state mandates are what are driving some of those costs in addition to our loss ratio. Um and so, one of the things um that we identified was our loss ratio put us in a category of approximately 107% of what was projected. And so, that did fall pretty much even or in the middle of the pack across the 130 organizations uh school districts that work with Gallagher. Um our increase in the um HMO space is going to be 15.4% and then our um our increase for PPO is going up. We landed in a 15.2 band. However, one of the state

086mandates is that um all of our policies have to include fertility and menopause treatment. And right now, our PPO does not cover that. And so, they project that the increase the increase in claims related to infertility and menopause would probably cause at least a 1. 53 increase on top of the 15.2. So, we're really landing right under that 16.8% increase. Um across the 130 members um of the co-op that we participate in, we are kind of in the middle of the pack. So, we do There are some districts that are receiving insurance rates that are higher than than what I've already described. Some are up to 20%. Um some of the things that the benefits committee discussed were, "Do we want to make plan changes?" Because we haven't seen this type of increase, um we

087did decide that we did not want to make plan changes this year. However, we wanted to start meeting earlier in the school year um to review our co-op. That was Um to review our co-op, review our plans, really finding out where people land um because some of the things that we could that could help reduce the increases in our premiums could be things like changing our co-pays, changing our deductibles, um all of those things. But uh because we didn't want to impact more more of our staff than others. We felt like that was it. That was a difficult decision. And so with that in mind, we wanted to have more time to discuss and think about if we have another increase like this, is this do we want to make plan changes? Because although it

088may not be coming out of the premium, it would increase, you know, if we increase co-pays, if we increase deductibles, then it's more more money out of staff members' pockets at that time. This is a much larger increase than we projected, so I have been working with Crystal to make sure that we address this increase in our budget plan next year. And we need a decision tonight on this? I do need a decision tonight only because they we literally just got the insurance rates Sunday night, but what happens is from here because our open enrollment is in May, they need April to be able to update all of the plans and get everything in order for us to roll out open enrollment. If there was a decision that the board wasn't ready to approve that,

089then we would then look to push out open enrollment to maybe later in May or June. Just clarifying. >> Yes. No. Yeah, thank you. I guess we If we I was going to say it would be helpful in the future to have the actual numbers what this means. I mean, this is two to three times Yes. what we were projecting. Yes. And we do provide a benefit that we especially with HMOs, we cover because this is significantly on the district. >> Yes. And so I will say that that's why I wanted to get it on the agenda, but I didn't actually get the rates until Monday night until Sunday night. And so we do know that our HMO is going to go up the 15.4% and then initially our projected our projected PPO cost was

090going to go up the 16.8% because that was the number that we originally fell in, but they needed to finish calculating our last quarter of claims to determine if we were going to be in that band. So that actually came down to 15.2, but then adding the fertility and some of these other some of the other updates through the mandates that have been received, that added an additional 1.53% and so we do know that those are our rates. 15.4 for HMO, the 16.73 percent for PPO and then it's 3.9% for dental. Yeah, this is um I guess this is a lot of information. And I understand you did get it on Sunday, but I think even if we got it on Monday like here's some options cuz right now I'm not sure what the options

091are because if you don't want to change plans, it seems like the only thing we can do is either approve this or hold off and then that pushes back the open enrollment. And I don't know what the implications are for that. Yeah. And again, we their renewal meeting and this also impacts our open enrollment time frame, right? Their renewal meeting was March 19th for us for them to give us the specific rates. And so we can put it off till next till next uh board meeting. I'm not suggesting that. I'm just Yeah. wondering what are what are the options. Yeah. So the options the only other thing that we could do to change these in any way would be to make plan changes. And so those plan changes were the ones that I was talking

092about in regard to is it a you know, are we going to change the co-pays? Are we going to change the deductibles? There's also an option to change the PPO structure and go to a three-tiered approach in that and that could save us a percentage. However, we were able to identify that there were 29 providers that our staff use that wouldn't that and they're currently on PPO that would no longer be in network providers. And so it it was some of those things as to why the benefits committee went and recommended just to go with the increase versus the plan change. >> [snorts] >> What's the impact if we did wait till the next meeting? I just have to work with Gallagher to see about um possible what is a next open enrollment time we

093could do. So it just put it puts it pushes back our open enrollment, but again the the plans don't take effect until July 1. So it's just how much time do we need to turn it over and then the new benefits take effect for staff to elect their benefits. So we're not on the same schedule as the high school. No. And I know that the high well, I believe that the high school they have what? Four weeks or something like that to select their benefits? We have a two-week window. Okay. So if we push this back we talked about this in April and then the April meeting is like the 14th and so then we would roll it out we would give it they said they needed like three to four weeks to get everything

094updated in the system. So then it would be the end of May beginning of July that we would be looking at. No, sorry. Beginning of June that we'd be looking at doing open enrollment. So we definitely want to do it before the school year got out, but so we would just do it those last couple of weeks of May beginning of June. I guess me personally, I would just like a little bit more time like to understand. Like this is a lot of information. >> Yes. And I would like like to know what the like see what the options are. I know you would still interpret it cuz right now we just have like a spreadsheet of numbers and I'm like, what is this impact and trying to be thoughtful about as you mentioned the

09529 uh providers. Like all that information I think would be super helpful for me, but if the if you know, I'm one of seven, so other folks feel comfortable I think I have a follow-up question. Like I don't I don't think you'd be able to answer this now. Like I would go with more time to like contemplate the options cuz I would say like my one feedback piece as a former employee is that insurance is really really expensive for a family of four. I was I was very I literally like made a lateral move and still saved because the insurance is more affordable than D200. So you know, so one of the programs they have is like, oh you know, if like your spouses have you know, access to a program or insurance in there.

096Like do we have that option and then do we offer an incentive for our staff members to be on their spouses' insurance? Like that was something that Yeah. We don't necessarily have any any benefits like that or incentives like that to say, you know, we'll give you this if you get your own insurance or if you can get on another plan, we'll give you you know, supplement that. We don't have any of those options. So for example, like when I talked about we did review a possible a possibility of making a three-tiered PPO, they call it a blue choice plan. And so that would that's when that's those 29 providers became came into effect. And the other part of that is because because of what those providers are and moving them out of network, then

097the cost for the people using those become more. And you know, some of them were like Luries, they were UIC, they were and so it was cancer treatment. It was you know, children. >> providers? It was systems? It was right. It was the providers using those systems. So like Luries was one of the 29. Okay. And so similarly, we also looked at you know, if we changed the specialty co-pay on our on on prescriptions that are special that they consider specialties. Right now that co-pay is $90. We could get back or recoup 1.2% I think if we change that specialty to $150. We have 21 claims. We don't know how many of those claims are one person. So it could be that that those 21 specialty prescriptions are spread across 21 people or it could

098be a family that has multiple prescriptions that fall into that specialty category. One thing that's also Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I was going to say one thing that's missing I think from the documentation that we have is just a clear-cut number of what is the budget impact on this to the district as well. So I do appreciate you know, we want to have good coverage for our employees, but we also cover a lot of insurance for our employees. We're pretty high up on that. It [clears throat] would be helpful to have the number of what are we actually looking at. Yeah. I can work with Crystal on getting that impact based upon where we are in space cuz as I identified, we did need to update in that budget line because we did we're not

099expecting that. I think [snorts] where where I'm struggling is we have this information, we have a time crunch to go to it just doesn't feel like we have enough time to explore a three-tiered system or like I know personally for me to be on my husband's insurance and I have insurance available to me, we have to pay a monthly fee. Would that help us recoup? And that's it was a shock to us, but as I asked, it is now becoming more and more common for employers to do that. Is that something that we should be adopting to help defray some of the costs? My There's a lot There are lots of things and options that we may be able to explore to help soften the financial burden, but I in this moment, based upon what

100you all need in the open enrollment window, I don't feel like we have enough time to thoroughly explore those. And that's very concerning. Yeah, and I totally agree and and this was something that even the committee discussed because of the idea that we said we wanted to start working on even reviewing these in the fall. And to even try to find out what are our loss ratios at that point in the school year because again, we didn't get this information until late February, early March. And at that time, they didn't have out They just said this is where we're projecting that you fall in the loss ratio and in the band. Um however, they were we did not get the exact rates until this week. I also don't I want to be careful to say

101like we don't have enough time. Like I feel like this is a very high priority in our budget and in our employees, which is our most valuable thing. And just I mean, I would I'd make a plan about my insurance, but this is This isn't Yeah, I'm going to shut up now. But um yeah, I think just like better understanding like what are those things who take us I just need a little bit more comprehensive information so that we can make this decision. Cuz I certainly want to make sure especially as administration, that people have like adequate health insurance, but if it's like two people use this service, like do we need that service? Can we swap it out? How many people are taking advantage of fertility services? So, I I I would say as

102much as you can if we could prioritize this so that the next board meeting we have like a little bit more context. Cuz I wouldn't want to just approve something and later we're like that was a big decision and we didn't we rushed through it. Yeah, and I can even um I'll have a presentation the next time and we will I can show you some of the options that we reviewed um to see what the that impact was um and to try to provide at least a selection um for you similar to what we did with the benefits committee. Um because those were some of those were some of the topics that we discussed in that meeting. Um and so we have those examples. And now we have the official end results of what the

103rates were. I think it'd be helpful to remind the board as part of that presentation what's in our contracts about what's covered in our insurance. Yes, the percentages. >> Yeah, yes. Okay. And if it would be possible um connected with the high school, maybe. I know that I'm sure there are things that I'm not thinking about, but to Becky's point I think um that has been a big benefit that I think um OPRF pays like a They give us some money because my husband moved to my insurance and so that might be cost saving. That would open up negotiations though, would it not? I mean, that's not a thing. >> Possibly, yes, because of the because we specifically have the rates um the percentages that we pay um and what's covered, which is part of

104why I added for our largest employee group. Um however, there are some other things that, you know, there's an MOU or something that we might want to look at based on what we have. Thank you. Sorry, I keep getting off of my thing. Um to our concluding items for remarks. Um You can go first. Uh I was uh I had the chance to attend the Julian middle school play performance, which was um about censorship and book banning at the district or uh well, not book banning per se, but censorship. Uh and it was um actually really well done. It was called Explicit Content. And uh the students had an opportunity to or talk with the playwright um [cough and clears throat] as well as communicate with another middle school that was doing the play. I

105forget. I want to say in Massachusetts. Um and they did like a little talk back afterwards. Um it was really good. I thought it was a really thoughtful production. Uh um I just want to give a little shout out for that. I was saying they should have they should have come and done a little performance for us, but uh it was right on cuz it was looking at like the potential censorship uh of a play that the It was like very meta, I guess. Um about a play that the middle school was going to do and they uh actually reenacted a board meeting where they were going to vote and in the community about whether this play should go on or not. So, it was very cute. Um but I was really taken with uh

106how thoughtful the production was and um how articulate the kids were in terms of running the talk backs with the artists the people who were in the audience. So, it was pretty cool. So, just a shout out to Julian. Thank you, John. Anybody else? Yeah, um I want to So, we got some public comment tonight about the field trip. We've gotten a few emails recently about the field trip. And I think it's worth um thinking about whether the approach we're currently taking is working. Um as I think most folks know, if not everybody, like when we decided a few years ago to not do DC any longer and to go with trips that were within driving distance, the primary driver of that was the fact that we couldn't ensure that every student in the district

107could go on a DC trip and that that was something that was both uh can you know, an issue that was consistent with our equity policy, but also we have a policy about field trips, policy 6240, if anybody is listening at home. Um which basically says that if a student qualifies for a fee waiver, then the district will cover their expenses for field trips, which was also prohibitively expensive for us. We could not guarantee that all of our students could go on the DC trip and so it would violate our policy and I think also the driving concern was just this creating uh such a important experience that some students would be excluded from. I think we find ourselves in a situation now where some of the concerns we had are being raised again because

108we have a private trip um that has the same kind of issues that our district trip had. Not all students can afford to go. Sounds like not all students were aware of it. Um it is a private trip. It's not within our power to tell parents that they can't uh organize a trip to DC, but I do think that given that it's happening and that it it's primarily targeted targeting or servicing District 97 students, um it means that despite our efforts, the decision we made around field trips isn't actually addressing the concern that we had uh when we made that decision. And so I honestly don't know what as we're thinking about planning for future trips if there is a solution. Uh it certainly seems like at a at a minimum, there's some clarification that

109we can make with people about the nature of the trip and the and whether it's district endorsed or not, which it isn't. Um but I do think that um it doesn't make sense for us to sort of act act like it's not happening or that it doesn't impact on our students cuz it does. And so I think I'm just putting out there that I would be in favor of us as we're planning for next year thinking about um whether there's anything we can do to address how it is impacting our students. I do want to put in the record that the way people talk about DC is about as as if 100% of those kids went went. Half the population went, even when we covered it. And so I do get really frustrated. And I've

110repeated myself multiple times. Like as a kid who went did my eighth grade trip to New York cuz it was bus worthy from Philadelphia, which is where I went to school in eighth grade. We didn't go to DC. I don't really understand the obsession with DC and like flying halfway across the country. It seems very really privileged to me. I mean, but I'm saying but I but I guess I'm just trying No, I'm not trying to go down that road. Sorry. I got I sidetracked myself. But um I guess my point is there's been a lot of misinformation and I feel like some very loud voices about how this is some rite of passage and everybody goes to DC, when in fact not everybody went, even when we were going to DC as a district

111like endorsed trip. And so it's not so much I guess But that's why we got rid of it in the first place is Right. And so but so I guess I'm trying to riff Not only that, not everybody went, but could go. Right. And so, I guess I'm trying to use this to kind of correct this information like this I I mean, I'll I'll be honest. Like, I mean, I'm going off a little bit off a tangent off what you said, but like the amount of uproar and furor over this over people's participation in it as individual parents. Um I will say I am like so fed up with the way this board gets talked about in the community. I'm just going to put it out there. Um we are treated and spoken about as

112if we are idiots, as if we hate children, as if we hate students, as if we hate teachers, that we make these decisions in a vacuum. I'm going to use my soapbox for a second cuz I'm sick of it. And I am super frustrated because we're not paid for this. When my kids were young enough, I was paying to show up at these meetings because I was getting a sitter. Um and I feel like I just need to say something because the level of vitriol that's on Facebook right now in the last year or let's say all seven years we've been on the board, but I feel like it's getting worse. And people talk about us like we are not human beings. We just had public comments talking about us being immoral or evil or

113whatever. And I I'm done with that. Like I mean, I I whatever. I don't know what that means. I'm done with this. I'm not I'm not about to storm out and quit, but I'm real close I'm real close some days, you guys. Um and so, I know this is not really the space for it, but I feel like it needs to get voiced because I'm so frustrated by it. And I feel like we take these tiny moments in Facebook where we're like, "You guys, we do have kids in the district." Or "You guys, we are human beings." And like it's not I I just I need to put it out there. [clears throat] Like it's just frustrating. And um I know we're not only public of elected officials in the community that get excoriated. Um

114but we I feel like we get some of the worst. And it very few people defend us. Every now and then we'll get emails like, "Thanks, you guys, for your service." But like in a lot of spaces where people just rail about the board, I people aren't stepping in. I mean, I think it's interesting we're talking about being like upstanders earlier. Cuz it's just it's it's very frustrating. So, I'm going to shut up now, but I probably needed to put that up there cuz I've been getting real heated about it. >> [laughter] >> Clearly that struck a nerve. And I would just suggest that we can both consider whether there's a more equitable way to do the field trips. To your earlier point, I agree. >> expect stability. >> Yeah. No, there's two parts. I

115agree that the eighth grade trip is >> [clears throat] >> not working the way it is, and we need to maybe have more conversations about it. Um but part of that I think is also sometimes like maybe we just need to educate people in the community that like your right of passage or whatever your kid 10 years ago's right of passage doesn't mean it has to be like it doesn't have to be a totally Yeah. all or nothing. Yes. I'm glad you brought this up and I your feelings are very valid and you know I would go to bat for you any day, anytime. Um I think that Venus brought up the the point of misinformation and there's a lot of it going around. And so, you know, just clarifying and I know we talked

116about this, but now since we're here, um this trip was uh originally organized by parents at Ascensions. But there was an invitation to D97 parents. This trip was advertised on both the D97 um This trip was originally organized by Ascension. That's not what I was told by Holly. Holly told me she was the lead organizer for it. She Well, she told me and she said that this was originally planned by um some parents at Ascensions and then there was an invitation for families of D97 to attend. And what about last year? I don't know about last year. I'm just speaking on this year that the comment that she like it was like her and a group of friends, to my knowledge that is not factual. When Holly's back, she can address it if she'd like

117to. But I think um to to John's point about the I think like just getting more curious and asking questions like who I mean, even right now, we're both like, "I thought it was this. I thought it was this." So, having like clear a clear understanding of like what um what actually happened, how it came about, but then also like we have different like there are some things I might do with my kids as a parent that is different than what I would do as a board member. And I think like understanding those two two different things. If I I took my kids to DC because I thought that would not be an option. So, I took my kids to DC. I didn't invite anybody anybody else. But if I was like, "Hey, John and

118um Venus, like let's bring your kids." Like I wouldn't want to be vilified because we decided to take a trip. I But I do think the process needs to be clear because I was hearing that it was on it was advertised on some Facebook groups. It was advertised in some of the schools. Then I heard it wasn't. So, I think just getting a clear understanding of how that trip came to be, what things are working for that trip. So, she uh Holly texted me today. They did meet with Danny Davis and they meet they met with um Tammy Duckworth, some of her representatives. So, there's an education component to it. But I think just understanding like beyond the if it should have happened or how it should have happened, what are some things we can

119learn from that trip that these students took? And how could we apply it if there was fundraising? Whatever it is, like how do we move forward is my basic point. Like there's no point in us rehashing like what she should have done and what she should not have done. But this trip, was it a success? How much was it? Can we use some of that information to inform our decision about the next trip? And I'll just say I don't want to raise it cuz I'm interested in digging in on Holly's role. I'm saying that we moved away from a DC trip because we were concerned about the inequity it created. And then whomever created a DC trip that more or less replicates the one that used to happen and primarily serves our students and apparently

120Ascension students as well. And so >> serves our students. I do think that that's a controversial point. I don't know what the numbers are. >> of our students. Our students enough of our students go on it that other students are aware that they go on it. That's an organized trip. It's different than individual parents choosing to take their kids wherever for spring break. I think we it's a group trip that involves a lot of D97 students. So, my point is it's replicating the concerns that led us to go move away from DC. We can revisit DC. We can There's a lot I don't you know, as I said earlier, I don't know what the right response is, but I don't think um I I don't think we can pretend like we solved the problem that

121we were trying to solve by doing away with the DC trip because now it's just manifested in a slightly diff- maybe slightly, maybe significantly, different, whatever form it is manifested in a different form. And so, I think it's worth thinking about how can we um if our original intent was to address the unequal or inequitable opportunities that were created by it, those persist and how can we try to get at that? I specifically remember asking Ebony after the Nashville trip. Nashville was the first one, right? No. Nashville was the second one. St. Louis and Springfield. That specific question. Did we achieve what we were looking for? Did we close that equity gap? Did we have more students that fell into those parameters by which um we would help provide um a financial benefit for them

122to go on those trips? And the answer was no. So, we knew last year that we didn't meet the goal. However, maybe that was an anomaly. So, we did it again we tried it again this year. I I think this is the point where we look and say we tried something and we were in the effort of being equitable and I'm not sure we achieved what we were looking for. Numbers may tell us that they don't. I don't know the the um Nashville numbers yet, so I'm not trying to say that. >> challenge and say we also need to find out what is the root cause. Like Yes. Is it the trip itself? Like what is the root cause of like who are we trying to target? And are we actually talking to that particular

123group and saying what is it that you're actually looking for? Is it a trip? A one-way trip for 3 days that you would like to send or 2 days that you would like to send your scholar to? So, I think we need to >> that or having that discussion. And I honestly don't know. Did we have discussion with the groups of folks that aren't showing up for these trips? Um we're at that point where we need to discuss it for sure. Agreed. I I do like the idea of a DC trip. Both of my children did the extraordinarily expensive DC trip when they were in D97. And for me, I remember doing it when I was in eighth grade, but I grew up in Illinois. So, I'm not on the East Coast where I took

124whoop everything. Um So, for me, we're so much closer to DC >> [laughter] >> For me, DC is a right of passage that I like and a tradition here in Oak Park that if we can continue it, great. But it does need to meet a lot of the equitable criteria, educational criteria, and cost criteria. Cuz otherwise, we're just doing a rite of passage because it makes us feel good. Yeah. >> And that's not the point. Um but I think there are a lot of parameters. I also think that we could perhaps work with our PTOs or families and community to find out some of those root causes, but also look at other alternatives for funding this so that the burden isn't on parents. So even though you may or may not decide that you can

125afford it, there is a Now it feels like there's a group of people who feel the pressure to want to do these things and maybe can't afford it and are upset by it. I get that. I want to try to make this what we intended for it to be that we're not doing right now. I'll just say two things and then we can move on. Um number one, I think as parents, sometimes we have to tell our kids no. Like I got twins and I'm like, if this is $2,000 per twin, y'all ain't going. We went to DC for $2,000 for a whole [clears throat] family. Um and so if that were my choice, 4,000, we're not going. We're going to We're going overseas somewhere. Um so I think that's number one. Number two, I

126think getting to the root cause, like someone said, "Well, the black kids can't go because they can't afford it." And I was like, "Oh, okay." Um so I don't like that narrative. I wonder, however, are the black kids not going cuz they're not interested? Because maybe they've been to DC. And so I think we have to like we want this to be equitable, but the way people talk about it also like if I'm a child and I see that, like, "Oh, I can't go cuz I'm black." Like >> [clears throat] >> So I think like the way we talk about it when we say like free reduced lunch, like that's that's stigmatizing the kids and they might not be as um excited. It could just be kids are just like, "It's lame. It's whatever." I

127think when I went to Emerson, I think we went to Springfield. We had a ball. Um but yeah, I think just finding out from the kids like why they aren't going and involving parents. Like they let my kid decide he wants to go to St. Louis and there was no input from me. Like we saw it after there was a survey and I was like, "I would have said no." Or "Can we do something different? Can we fundraise?" I I applaud the the gentleman who was here who said his wife is not fundraising. Like we need more people like that who are like, "I'm ready for the solution and not just I want to complain about the issue." So I think there's a longer discussion to have. I think part of the reason we moved

128away from it is that there was fundraising and it wasn't enough to cover what it would take to meet our policy commitments. >> lot of years at the museum work, I would be very hesitant to rely upon fundraising as any method for something that we are seeing as an annual big piece. So Which again, if I mean, and that was fundraising for just half the kids to go. So like if we're talking about increasing the number of kids, that becomes a huge issue. So we're obviously we're not going to resolve it tonight. >> Yes. They have and this is obviously a topic that's got a lot of interest, but I'm just suggesting that it's worth stepping back and thinking about it as we move to next year. >> And I think we did we did

129ask for that last year. We asked to talk about this much earlier, so I'm going to spank my own hand because we didn't uh bring it up a little bit earlier, but it was supposed We were supposed to talk about it before the next trip was finalized. I think it was on the agenda. >> No, we have it. It's set It's set for this year before the planning starts for next year. >> some things back. I thought we were supposed to talk about it last week. Yeah, it was on the agenda last week. I do have one last comment to make on this because it was misinformation. Um the comment was made that board member Furlock voted for the trips to St. Louis and to uh Nashville and then took her kids to DC. Um

130let the record reflect, she did not vote for those trips. She was adamantly opposed to them, was very vocal about being adamantly opposed, and even worked with our admin staff to try to find some alternatives. So her money is where her mouth is. And it's in DC right now. All right. >> [clears throat] >> Uh moving on. Thank you everybody. As you can see, we do care about these things. We do want to make them equitable for everybody. Thank you, Gavin. Um Could it be a future agenda item then? Like you did push it into the It's It's on the 14th. And I think um in your update to us, you didn't say that um Dr. Lofton was sending out surveys to the participants. So do you think we'll have those back by the 14th?

131Hopefully I believe so. Yes. Oh, you were saying regarding The one that they just talked about. >> Yes. Yes. Yep. Those results I think are in. What middle? The the survey that was sent to Nashville. We haven't sent that just yet. We're sending that this week. >> on Thursday. Yeah. All right. Um standing board committee reports. Back. Gavin and Becky. I've been a careful number. You usually aren't all the time. >> I mean, beyond what we've already heard, I don't have anything to add. Uh PTAC, Duncan and Holiday. Uh we had a workshop night. I don't know what we called it. Um a little ago. Uh it was um a small but mighty turnout and everybody loved it. It was um around uh three different sessions around um trauma-informed practices, restorative justice, and developmentally appropriate

132kind of discipline uh {slash} development and um the um it was a mix of parents and teachers, which was really nice to see uh folks giving up their evening. Um and they liked it so much, we talked about um you know, wanting all the parents or all the uh teachers to see it. So I know the folks involved um like Felicia are going to look at um potentially bringing it to a PD in the near future. Um but it was really cool. Like it the people there were really really um grateful to have been part of it. It was It was really good energy. We have Yeah, we have a possible date. Oh, nice. Yeah, for staff. Yeah. Take it on the road. Okay. Uh intergovernmental news and reports, Nancy. Um I have um so

133yeah, we had >> four. Oh. Yes. Um oh, sorry. No uh real update. We are talking about the same related costs to all of the building updates in that plan. Um so Fork provided their input. Um so in this being Fork and Factor, overlap is quite a bit. Sorry about that. Okay. I go. Go back to community fridges. Um we actually had a presentation from the team that has been maintaining the Oak Park community fridges. Um they were grateful to D97 for the uh collaboration that has been provided in eliminating some food waste that food that hasn't been touched, hasn't been opened, is still in good shape, but we can't use anymore. Um we've been working on distributing. So it's um that was a a helpful component, but there are also other considerations coming up

134on that. I'm actually going to provide an email to the board cuz there's some discussion that we need to have on it, but I want to actually provide some background information before we Um oh, question on this one. Um have you seen the updated IGA yet? Has that hit? I have not >> Okay. You'll be seeing it soon. Okay. And is that again, if anyone has any questions on the board, there's the lovely sheet that shows what has changed, why, um what has been updated in the IGA that hasn't been updated in like 10 years. So um take a look at that if you have any questions, at the very last moments of being able to ask them. And that's like everybody's responsibility in each in each of the governmental Yes. So it's the same

135IGA for each one. Well, I've seen it, but I haven't received it. Okay. Yes. It It It is coming your way for legal review. Okay. Um PTAC, we met and we we talked about the um new superintendent. We talked about uh safety the safety plan, but we primarily used our time to talk about concerns regarding technology and access to external content. And so there was a lot of concern about students um doing non-school related work and things of that nature on their iPads. Um and things on their Chromebooks. And so just reminding um folks that, you know, making sure that our our students understand their behavioral expectations. Um they, you know, there are adults who are doing things on their on their own phones when they're supposed to be in a meeting, so I think

136to some extent like understanding is going to happen and how can we curve that and then there was a suggestion to reduce the use of Chromebooks and again reinforcing behavior expectations. Um So, very spirited conversation about that. Um and so, yeah. Can I add to that actually? Not really Well, it's related, but had like principal visit the high school in the last like 30 days or so and it was because he was passing the policy of like phone home like this idea of like no phones in school. So, I know eventually that'll be like part of a conversation in our district, but I feel like there were trends towards like having technology available and one-to-one devices when we went through COVID. And then we like never revisited that. Like I I or maybe you did

137before my time. So, I was wondering like with all the research coming out regarding K2, which is probably where these parents may be concerned not just what they're accessing, but the fact that we still have one-to-one devices for K2. I just wondered if that was on anybody's radar or future agenda item. There's also like the cost we invest in those contracts for those devices and I think like kindergarteners for example don't have access to them or they they don't have to take them home until like second half of the school year. Anyways, it causes a lot of issues. I know we've gotten a lot of emails about that as well. Yeah. All right. Sustainability the United Center Sustainability Task Force. We have not met since the last board meeting. Um But yeah, we haven't met

138since the last board meeting. CEC Um so, I realized that IGA was just hanging out. It was perceived. This is what I get for putting all my notes on the same page. So, if you were looking a little confused, that's the one you should be looking out for and I suspect you already translated that in your head. Um so, yes, so we will be getting the IGA on that one through. It's been through committee, it's been through a meeting, it's been through at the tri-board meeting. Um that will be coming your way now for legal review. Apologies, should not have put all my notes on one page. Um I will also say a reminder that um annual last stop to kindergarten is May 17th. Um it is always a lovely event um and a great

139way to get your kindergartner really excited and parents as well really excited about the upcoming school year. Um another piece in May is we will be heading down to DC on May 13th for early childhood advocacy day. Um to go talk to in Springfield to go talk to our legislatures about legislators about supporting early childhood perhaps with some funding. Um and then finally Uh what day was that? That is May 13th. Um I did also just want to add that we have in collaboration with D200 and the village submitted to the IASB annual conference uh to do a presentation on how you can work together to actually support early childhood using CEC as an example and in particular looking at for example why should the high school districts care? Why should the village care? Um

140it's a little bit of an easier sell for us because we get we get right at the kindergarten, but how does it work to work together to actually support the littles? Can you repeat your dates? You said April 17th was >> April 17th is the last stop to kindergarten update. Uh or sorry, May 17th. May 17th May 17th is the last stop to kindergarten update. Would it be helpful to send this in an email? >> Yes. I was like I wanted to put it in my phone, but I don't want to stop. Okay, awesome. Thank you, Nancy. OPEF Yep. Uh we talked about recruiting more board members from across the district, so trying to make sure there's representation for all the schools. Um There's uh the big upcoming open house event, which is just first

141I know we wrote down the time not the date. Um Sorry, give me a second. Uh it's Sunday, April 19th is the Oak Park Education Network's open house. They'll have the State's Act Teacher Award, uh which they'll be awarding. Um I can't remember if I'm supposed to if I can say the winner or not, so I'm going to wait until next meeting because I know who it is and I'm really excited for that person, but I don't remember if it's public, so I'll let you know. Um But it's going to be family friendly and then the reception will be uh honoring the teacher. That was the big thing. Can you also send that out in an Yep. Thank you. Uh District 209 [clears throat] Forest Community Council, Venus. Um so, I'm going to go two

142meetings back in February. Um the council had a meeting at the um building Grant White Grant White School, which is in Forest Park. Um this school has been closed by Forest Park practice Forest Park School District, but it is being leased I don't think owned by Oak Park River Forest High School for their site program, which is community integrated transition education. So, this program is for our um physically and mentally diverse students who um it's an out outcome-based program focused on uh helping the students to build independence in their homes and their communities, teaching them life skills. Um they often are are taught not only education, but also vocation and they have a whole building and it's a really really great program. Um many of the students have been able to find jobs. Um it's

143a way for them to learn some of those independent living skills, um consumer skills, how to maintain a checkbook, how to maintain a debit card, um social emotional, recreational, advocating for themselves, getting them set up with adult services. Um it's a really really great program [snorts] and the kids that were in the program gave us a tour of their school and it was just a phenomenal program. So, um I am I didn't know a lot about it. I didn't know that there were additional programs for OPRF students after they graduated, but to see it um and to see the excitement in the students was awesome. Um I was glad that we had our meeting there. It really wasn't a meeting, it was really a tour. Um last meeting, which was last >> [cough] >> Thursday

144um uh the Dr. Williams, who is the new executive director of equity at OPRF spoke about um equity, but also parent engagement. Um so, I don't have the slide deck. And I didn't make the meeting, but I can tell you what it's about. If I get the slide deck, I'll share it. And that's the update. Thank you. Uh Joint Equity Team Um they had Tony Sanders, who was the state superintendent, speak. Uh they highlighted some of the major bills that are coming up that will affect schools. Uh this is more geared towards high school, but I think it's cool. Uh they're talking about offering world language credit for kids who have proficiency in a home or native language, so high school credit, which is cool. Um but you already kind of mentioned the cell phone

145bill that principal was at the high school for. Um HB 4416, which is going into effect in June 1st, uh will offer unemployment insurance for ESPs. Um Uh so, they're doing a survey currently at the financial impact of that. Uh when they're not employed during the summer. Um The other one um is uh there was also conversation around vouchers in the public schools system also a voucher system coming into play. Um And so, one of the things that people were talking about was whether public school districts might be um eligible for some of those vouchers and so, they were saying if there's a part of the district that has a 501c3 status um that they might be eligible for dollars. So, it's not known right now. So, if you don't have some aspect of the

146district that has kind of a foundation or 501c3 status attached to it that might be something you want to consider as those dollars might come available. I think it's really complicated to me, but that's the gist. Thank you, John. Looking forward, our next meeting is April 20th. April 14th Uh and the proposed agenda items will be the District Technology Area updates, the eighth grade trip. Uh financial review of projections and fourth update. Uh we will discuss the annual audit findings and there will be a presentation for that. SY27 teacher leader roles, cap year RFP contract, title policy revisions, super exciting stuff. Um and that is it. Uh can I get a motion? We need the title insurance on the go. Yes. Yeah. Thank you for that. I hope it turns out. Um also get like

147a tiny update on the ice slash school security stuff. Um just cuz I know people have been have speculated like whether ice will make more of a presence in the area. Um and then also with ice being at the airports. I don't know if that's going to mean anything for us more specifically in the community. Um if there's any big updates. It doesn't have to be a huge presentation, but if again, kind of in response to as things may or may not be changing. Um if there's anything important to flag. But if there's nothing important to flag. Yeah, well yeah. I mean I think if um yeah, if there's any like big changes or updates, I would love to hear about it. Um just cuz I know yeah, it would be good to get a

148written update and if there's something substantial >> Yeah, that's Yeah, I was sorry. I was having a hard time articulating >> [laughter] >> All right, so say it again. >> something maybe something maybe something in the update. >> Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so if it's Yeah, and then if like yeah, if it seems like there's something that needs to be said more in the agenda, but if not, then that's fine. Oh, we do have an option to set a meeting. All right. Can I get a motion to dismiss or adjourn? I move that we close. If we just want to do a voice vote, I say yes. Yeah. All in favor?