Oak Park Elementary School District 97 BOE Live Stream - November 15, 2022

001to do the most boring video ever get ready let me know when you're ready and Michael you're right you're good yeah I'd like to call this meeting to order of the Oak Park School for the 97 November 10th I mean November 15th at 709 pm roll call please Ross driven yes yes yeah Eric Jackson here meeting calls to order at 709 p.m. okay thank you um do we have any public comments today there is no public comments comfortable [Music] all right special reports g97 Joy culture and celebration update yep thank you so um we have I'm gonna invite up to the table here um Amanda Siegfried our uh senior director of communications and uh blanie Boos who serves as our executive assistant to the superintendent and board secretary so they will be taking the lead

002and sharing our update and our our joy update has a little bit of a surprise for board members today [Music] good evening everyone uh so we have several things today that we're excited to share out um first we're going to start with some student recognition student celebrations sorry not safe okay um we shared this through our newsletter but we're so proud of our rainbow clubs at Brooks and Julian who were recently honored by the Oak Park area lesbian and gay Association Plus uh Abby Berman from Brooks Nate muraski from Julian and Ashley cannon from Julian are all staff sponsors for these groups um they were recognized for uh just the work that they're doing to create welcoming and accepting School environments for all of our students so we're really proud of that recognition uh we

003also wanted to recognize this is very middle school-centric today but we're excited to recognize our Julian girls basketball team which actually I think last board meeting when we were recognizing the cross-country Runners they won a conference so we got the girls together for a photo and we're really proud of their accomplishments this is this and then um in terms of the student celebrations too we um Dr Sean I had the opportunity to go over to Brooks Middle School where the Brooks Earth action team which they call themselves a beat uh they had actually did a presentation with Senator Don Harmon and they were talking about the Balboa Prairie which is under threat from the expansion of the Rockford airport so they actually gave a really thoughtful well-researched uh they had signs like they did this

004presentation was really impressed by them so that was just really cool and we're really appreciative that Senator Hartman came out to talk with the students and even though it's middle school-centric we do have both middle schools represented so that's yeah okay excited about this part of the agenda on November 15th today um across Illinois we celebrate school board members for school board members when I look at today I think about my journey here it is year 18 two years in this current role as the board secretary and I have to say I have a newfound respect honor and admiration for the work the effort and the commitment that each of you do on behalf of the constituents that has put you in this position on behalf of the students of District 97. we are grateful

005for your tires efforts and for your ability to be flexible through a pandemic through all of these things that has come across this board table publicly behind the scenes you have dived in you have maintained civility you have been respectful and you have allowed this District to continue without hesitation so that's something to say something to see something to celebrate so we have a little a little slide there [Laughter] do I just press oh thanks [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] Illinois thank you for your service for the Julian girls basketball team [Applause] we also appreciate how our board members show no favor to them [Laughter] uh we also wanted to point out that tomorrow is education support Professionals Day uh we are finding that there are many many days that we get

006the opportunity to celebrate our staff but it's awesome because we always want to celebrate our staff uh the ESP day is actually recognized by mea so they recognize quite a bit of employee groups uh as part of this day so you'll see us sharing this out on social media uh we have a ton of staff that would fall under this our teacher assistants our media assistants our is maintenance staff custodial staff Food Service health and student services technology and Communications technically false under that um so we are going to be looking forward to celebrating them a little bit more next month but we just wanted to point this out we'll be sharing this out on social tomorrow and asking people to use the hashtag to thank all of SPS in our district we know that

007they're often the people behind the scenes that kind of keep things moving along and doing so much to support our students so we're really appreciative of everything that they think so I think that wraps students yeah thank you great thank you and actually we have um to our next presentation is about kind of preparing for winter and we have two members of our from our maintenance team Mike Claire is going to be joining us as well as um Matt Murphy from our Brooks team so we're happy on this day before um the support celebrations and recognition to have you as well so if I could at this time invite up the team that's going to be presenting on our winter preparation that's Jamie Keane our senior director of buildings and grounds Mike clear and Matt

008Murphy from our maintenance team and from Brooks Felicia Starks Turner Dr Turner is the associate superintendent of Education Michael ernstorf is our senior director of Technology Amanda we got the whole team coming up here today um this is a whole thing when the snow falls um our senior director of communications is already up here uh Dr ebony Lofton Chief academic and accountability officer and also Kathy kazanowski who serves as our interim uh co-senior director at of Human Resources so we're going to go ahead and get started uh are you uh clicking from there are you okay all right great so um we wanted to take a little bit of time and and it just happened to be we did not plan that this was the first day of snow that's how good we are I

009guess um but we wanted to take a little bit of time to get ahead of some of these kinds of questions that come up um at this time of year um really making sure we talk about um remaining healthy and our strategies around prevention um and and health um and health and wellness and then also talking about what will happen in the event of inclement weather good news my colleague Dr Greg Johnson happens to be in the room and so he's part of that strategy with us so we'll go ahead and get started and I'll hand it over to uh Dr Starks to get us started so um as we prepare for winter our be safe and be healthy team is charged with the task of collaborative collaborating both internally and externally to ensure that

010our schools are safe and healthy places for our students to learn so cold and flu season is upon us and this year the Department of Public Health has noted an increase in respiratory viruses including the flu RSV and covid-19 health officials are urging individuals and families to take basic precautions to protect themselves this winter that includes staying home and sick washing your hands frequently covering your nose and mouth when you pop and sneeze and staying up to date on your vaccines the district has created a short one-minute video identifying the things that you can and should do to keep our schools healthy these strategies promote the common good it takes all of us working together to prevent the spread of illness we'll be sharing this video via social media our district weekly wrap-up and our

011school newspapers [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] strategies our team continues to review Community metrics and school mitigations and we will make any necessary adjustments as we shared in August we were collaboratively collaboratively with the Department of Public Health and District 200 to develop our mitigation plans for the school year we maintain an open dialogue with our Community Partners and our next meeting is planned for early December in terms of resources District 97 continues to have a large supply of covid-19 tests available as needed from the school nurse and we also have a good supply of mass for students and staff as needed you may want to talk about what you're doing oh yeah October of 22 for the fourth time since January of 2012 we have conducted indoor air quality testing we measure carbon

012dioxide a particular matter under 2.5 relative humidity and temperature all of our readings came in normal for occupied buildings we also included this time hallways bathrooms 100 of the classrooms in all common area spaces we did find one school had high temperature ratings but we looked into it we found out that the boilers were not set to remote so they weren't going on and off from outside remote temperature they were in local which means they were just running at all times so we resolved that we're retesting next week and hopefully everything will be under as it was uh we also have increased communication reminders and all of this information continues to be shared in the my d97 wrap-up the information also appears under the signature line of the school nurse emails and the principals also

013send the information out weekly to their communities we will also be sending this presentation via our district and school Communications not only be ready for our students who might be spreading germs we want them to stay home when they are ill we also want our teaching staff to be home to get better as well so the district comes prepared for the winter months with a large pool of substitute teaching teachers which consists of our daily subs our long-term subs and our permanent subs and as the board is aware even at the start of the pandemic the board was very gracious and invested heavily in permanent Subs in the district we currently have 26 permanent Subs that serve the district on a daily basis to meet the needs of all of our schools if there is

014anyone in the community that would love to be a sub for our district we highly highly encourage them to apply at www.op97.org to help us out in our classrooms to make sure that we have highly qualified instruction taking place at all times so um this is uh me again here so I wanted to just um take the time to note on this next slide um that um you know our our goal is always to have our schools open and then um and to have uh regular days of instruction and learning for our students um however certainly there are times when that is not possible and so on this next slide um we've outlined kind of the process um that uh that's one of the jobs one of the things on the job description is to

015make that call and that usually happens um in conjunction with District 90 and District 200 because there's certainly a regional and a family impact and so we do strive to have alignment across our districts and then you can see here in the white box the kinds of things that we would be thinking about when making that decision of whether or not uh to close schools so this is just an overview of that and then let me hand it over to talk about what happens in terms of uh communication yeah so even uh before we get to the part of book we always try to make the decision by eight o'clock the night before just so people are not scrambling in the morning however even before that we've had the practice like you know the forecast

016generally ahead of time so a lot of times we'll send emails kind of saying what the process just reminding people what the procedures are um and letting people know when they can expect a decision so again we normally strive to make that decision by eight o'clock um if we don't do it by eight o'clock if something changes uh with the forecast we will do that by 5 30 the next morning and we do that so you know we have staff coming in uh some of them Drive quite a way so we want to make sure that everyone has session uh we send out this information through a number of channels uh we do an email to all staff and families we do a robocall and text message to all staff and families uh Facebook Twitter

017both of which are at Oak Park 97. uh we post on our website and then it's also on the emergency closing Center which does feed into the television radio stations so on that rare occasion that we do clothes for weather and we want to make sure the construction continues so that the learning goes on so um e-learning days actually provide us the opportunity to keep instruction going um either synchronously or asynchronously so we have a blend of both and we have to have at least five hours of learning on per state guidance on those e-learning days so a sample schedule so in our elementary schools teachers would start taking attendance at eight o'clock we assume or Google meets and then they would proceed through the actual schedule so from eight to three o'clock each core

018instruction block or elective block has that blend of synchronous and asynchronous signing within it so students still get a full five hours of learning time with their instructor and all of those things are shared either via Google meets or seesaw as a learning management system in the middle schools start at nine so they then convene at nine o'clock and go to 3 30 and they actually follow their bell schedule so this is a sample book schedule so they would proceed through the a b or c day with that blend of synchronous and asynchronous instruction and all of those assignments and instructions are housed in canvas for our Middle School students oops um so how have we prepared for this so uh if you remember back in 2021 the board did approve our e-learning plan which

019then the state also approved plus 40. um through uh we're reviewing that a piece of that is that we have to do an annual training with our staff so that takes place before any e-learning day would be able to be called and again our buildings we've been working with them to deliver that content we'll have that all complete before a day would be called devices and access for students all of our kids came through uh eight again the support of the board of the district all have access to devices as we come back this year and a little bit more I don't know consistency of what to expect day to day some of those devices especially in the younger grades don't go home every day again they have cards or Tech tubs to be able

020to do that but we've ensured everybody has Chargers in the classrooms if they have events at home so as we know as Amanda said like weather's starting to show or predict the next day we remind buildings and say hey make sure the devices are going home if they aren't already ready so that would be a conversation there we do again have the internet for all program so any families that don't have internet at home can get a hot spot from our from our department and again that is sent out pretty regularly from buildings and Art District but that's something that will be highlighted here and where to go and how to do that to ensure that all our families have that internet access and our students do in the event of this but even Beyond

021they have that access across the board and then as ebony talked about we've got that communication with our K-2 classes using seesaw 345 using Google classroom and Campus of Middle School and that's really that main place where all of our families and students should go and this would be a Pitch at another time for the our middle schools and staff to really push out for our parents to engage and they can sign up and have those accounts so that's an information that will continue to push so it's not the day of they're creating those accounts of that scrambling and so we wanted to give you a short overview of what buildings and grounds does behind me to prepare for inclement weather I have up here Mike Claire who is part of our maintenance department he's

022been with the district for 32 years Matt Murphy who is yes [Applause] Middle School engineer who will be moving over to the maintenance department shortly he has been with the district for 18 years [Applause] so basically in September what we start to do is get all of our machines and work in order order any parts that we need to we have our current salt we deliver a pallet of salt to every District every school and then we order our remaining supply for the rest of the year um I have the easy job these two and the rest of the team really do the hard work so I'm going to turn it over to Mike who will let you know what they do to prepare the schools and the streets and the sidewalks to get ready

023for the kids to arrive Mike good evening so we primarily we have three groups we have our buildings the maintenance the buildings and grounds people in the buildings that handle their individual buildings and then we have our maintenance team and we have five plow trucks and they handle your playgrounds and your parking lots and then there's myself and I do all the sidewalks I do about 90 of the sidewalks and that orange vehicle right there with that big snow blower I assist all the buildings so I do all 12 buildings and we salt so we have a we have a spreader that will that will handle a large quantities and then that vehicle also has a drop spreader on it with a with a dump bag and it's very efficient um and we can handle

024with that I can probably do four feet of snow with no problem so that's probably it and then there's bad which unfortunately he's the last building I do because my big loop that I'm doing so yeah um I'm the engineer and I'm responsible for making sure I have the equipment uh working letting go uh responsible to know what's coming what time do I have to be there I'll be the first one there and uh I'll be working straight through until you know could be afternoon by the time I get back into the building uh you know plowing salting pretty much it yeah past would probably take me about six hours maybe a two inch some larger and depending on how heavy it is and I think both of them are selling it a little short

025some days they get there too always some days they're there the night is out um I can tell you I honestly do not have to worry about snow at all um these guys handle every single thing they're out there to make sure that everything is done and completed so I want to say thank you very much for making it a safe environment for us to get to school [Music] [Applause] uh okay so uh one of the purposes of being here tonight is to just make sure that we're really increasing that communication around this time making sure that people are prepared we know people have a lot going on we're heading into the holidays but uh just knowing ahead of time what to expect things that families can do to prepare I think is is helpful

026uh so because we have such an awesome building and ground staff thankfully we're able to stay open uh pretty often even if there is you know multiple inches of snow on the ground or if it's cold we don't always automatically close so we really want to remind folks that we it's best to send their kids to school multiple layers usually our principals are good about sending reminders if we're expecting really cold weather this is a chart from the National Weather Service so we'll be sharing this out I thought it was helpful uh just a few things that uh staff and families can do as we head into the winter months reviewing that e-learning plan like ebony was saying and Michael like just kind of getting familiar with the schedules signing up for the learning platforms

027that way if we happen to Colony learning day everyone's prepared and able to get their students online and learning um you know in a timely fashion uh you can follow us on social media that's where we post things pretty quickly so that's a good place to always find news and updates and then this one I wanted to point out because um so we do send text messages through our communication platform right arrow that's how we notify people of emergencies and I know a lot of people like getting quick information that way you actually have to opt into text messages in order to receive that from the district so this is something with the platform I think it's it's law that we we do have to get that permission to text you so um if you're

028not short if you're opted in you can go ahead and send yes to 87569 I think we had a couple people try it out today and it confirmed that they are indeed subscribed so um I would encourage everyone to do that immediately it's really easy that way when we do have an emergency if uh you will get that notification quickly to your phone and we'd like to thank everyone um for coming and I think it just symbolically uh really all that goes on behind the district and all the equipment and things that the board invests in um that is really such an integral part of everything we do so thanks to each of you and thanks especially to Mike and Matt for coming up tonight thank you thank you is there a chart for what

029your kids should wear after they've lost all the coins [Laughter] I'm so sorry um in the illness section there was a comeback after 24 hours fever free that is not the standard still for covid that is so um I assume you're working with ODP for Park Department say it out loud um on the guidelines for return and that will stay the same so we should have maybe clarified so that's outside of the required days home right um I thought that was what you meant but yeah in addition yeah we can clarify before sending this out if you have covid uh we still do require you to stay home for five days um but then if you hit day five and you're still symptomatic or having to use a medication uh to reduce your fever or

030something yeah and I will say double check with the Department of Public Health because CDC literally yesterday just released new guidelines for for severe illness so on dates yeah yeah we're meeting again on Thursday yeah just to highlight to everyone who's listening that you are in constant contact and constantly be doing the guidelines yeah exactly okay thank you I have just one other thing I I think that the policy in the district is the kids go outside it resistant until 25 degrees I think it's 25 degrees isn't it my point is I know that the classroom sometimes my kid comes home and says my classroom is hot they still have to wear all the clothes because they go out yeah and maybe didn't say that explicitly either but part of yeah dressing your kid in

031layers is they are still going outside when it's pretty cold I wouldn't necessarily you know it's like it's cold so you want to bundle up and just make sure that you're ready so yeah you won't answer the students are well because that you would um be intrigued to know about how many students go outside and how many coats are picked up at the in The Recess because the students says what a crowd but we want to make sure that they are indeed prepared for the weather so if you're a parent and guardian sent you to school with it on you want to make sure you have it on me and then we'll go outside there are no more no more are not going to be in the building because of weather is it e-learning day

032for the most part yeah because you know we um because I guess it feels like no more like make a day because we have the opportunity as ebony said to keep learning and going yeah our family so even though they can't physically come to the school setting we can quickly pivot to the learning so that Learning Academy that also then does not extend the school year so if you do an e-learning correct I thought the slide deck had an exception for days that we weren't planning like we didn't have advanced notice and weren't able to prepare for a new learning day I think that's just a clause in the event that there was some unique situation um in which we did need to call school without any learning day in that case it would need

033to be made up but at this point that's going to be unusual I know that we have colleagues in the room um so I will move quickly through this um so um this is uh my 150 day update um and so I'm gonna move really quickly so I know we've got uh colleagues here for the next presentation on the IGA but actually interestingly um it opens with a presentation I I think um village manager Jackson I probably should have told you that you were going to be on one of my slides um so I'm just letting you know now so um I've been giving these updates uh this is uh the fifth one and next month will be the last one it will be my six month uh transition update so I'll go ahead and

034get started this is a word that I actually had on my first 60 day update um this is the word abar which is grateful but it feels like we should start that is the right word for the month of November um and so this is the word Grateful in Gujarati um and I wanted to say um I had an experience last week that I was really grateful for which was at the Village the swearing-in of Chief Johnson um and this is a quote uh from what you know what she said and um I I'm grateful to have been in a room um that reflected that kind of community of possibility and a community in which we really feel uh together in moving forward in such important ways um in terms of our work here in

035District um that responsibility for the common good being reflected in the ideas of democracy and sustainability and making sure that students have universal access to academic Excellence those things are very much connected to everything that we do every day in our purpose and we see examples of that all over the district this is um at uh Julian they had a mock election really making sure that our students experiences are gearing them up for the importance of voting and being part of our democracy and that our picture that Amanda showed earlier with Senator Harmon and students advocating and using their voice for sustainability efforts and I wanted to put up here tonight the reason we have colleagues here from um D200 and from the village is because we have an IGA that's on the agenda uh

036for today and even this I know that there are a lot of questions that the board has asked even um over the weekend and as we've put up but um this really reflects some important ideas around um be it safe and healthy and this priority that we've had in the district um and we've named it right there at the top this idea of collaborating with not only the Oak Park Health Department but also the police department to make sure we're working in Partnership to leverage our expertise and to be efficient with resources and that's what this IGA is about I also recognize though that there have been questions that have been raised critical questions by board members about on the intersection of this uh this IGA and our Equity policy and um you know the

037concerns and commitment around racial equity and this is also traces back to this slide you've seen before around the history of the community and and really being explicit about um you know these big ideas of democracy and human Freedom that that's what that that's what we're talking about here today it's not just an agenda item it's really um asking big questions having robust debate and expecting that when you ask questions that they are responded to and thoughtful ways that are based on evidence I I've been thinking a lot in my transition about the importance of taking different perspectives and checking my own ego in those moments and making sure that we are staying you know student-centered and anchored in those big ideas and that this checks and balances those questions that you send um at

038first it's like whoa that's a lot of questions but at the end of the day it's those checks and balances that are our accountability and that make us better and that all ties up to what we're here to do this idea of universal access to literacy and learning is our responsibility to make sure that that happens here and that every child in our care is ready for the Futures that are ahead of them and so this whole area is related to this other priority of being curious and really creating a positive uh culture um and in underneath this priority we've mapped this idea of naming what is our culture what are those shared agreements we make how do we we debate with each other how do we engage in two ways and so I want

039to name that all of these principles and the things that we'll be voting on and talking about tonight are really related um to what this is all about and I uh and I'm grateful to to be here uh very grateful to be here uh as we have these really critical conversations so thank you to all of you all right yep thank you coming through Indiana um I have a motion for the consent agenda I'm here with the board of education at the United States exclusive success Journal so I can't Prosperity yes yes yes okay yeah more yes Karen yes point of order do I have to we have to approve a minute separately from the cassette agenda no they're all part of that stage thank you all right we're moving to the first level we're

040at discussion in action for the IGA yep got it okay and Michael you have that this one yeah the PowerPoint okay um and I know that I want to acknowledge that we have um superintendent Greg Johnson from District 200 in the room um also Village manager Kevin Jackson is in the room um Dr Danielle Walker um Dei officer at the Village as well as officer Jacobson the interim Deputy officer at the Oak Park Police Department are all here so I think we had decided that we're in the room for each other this round but I'll just go ahead and present from you so um okay no worries we need to share okay let me do that so I'll go ahead and start presenting without slides through just the content uh so um you know we

041finished this first round um we went to all of the um Boards of D200 d97 and the village and um in October and then we've had kind of a a robust process of um uh you know we stayed focused on these Keys same key Provisions that were in the uh the agreement and we've stayed true to these uh values and beliefs that we shared out that first time and we did have over 50 questions that we received from all of the three boards and what we did with those was is what's outlined here we had several meetings to kind of code and discuss and think through how to respond to those questions and what you see in the board public board agenda is the um you know the document where we have really crafted together

042responses uh to your questions and when we looked at the questions they kind of broke all of them have this driving interest in the middle of uh positive youth development of all the young people in Oak Park and then we broke and coded them into these four categories kind of what's required by the law how does the community have a voice how are we going to make sure this is implemented consistently and how is their transparency in this process and so as we did that we also reached out to legal counsel and asked and kind of asked them to put this chart together where it outlines exactly what statutes are in the IGA what exactly is legally required where that's reflected in the IGA and other important aspects and this is all publicly available as

043part of our work products to get to to this point there are also then all of the questions were coded and that document this is just a snapshot of a part of that document is is available and you can see we some parts we answer jointly and other parts we answered with our own specific contexts of d97 D200 in the village um what I would say as a takeaway kind of overall statement is that um our what our legal team confirmed is that there's everything in this IGA reflects either what is required by state law or what is already outlined in existing policy of the school board that this IGA doesn't extend uh law enforcement's involvement in schools beyond what is required or already stated that being said um we you know still got questions

044from the board saying that even though it is implicit in the IGA the board's questions pointed to the need to be explicit about these um ideas and these values and so here there are existing implicit limits on Student Records which is one of the large categories that we uh heard back from you about and um we can say here that um in in as currently proposed it implicitly limits the scope of students records that can be shared with law enforcements too what's required under the law and what is necessary to maintain safety in schools but given that the board's questions are like I understand that it's implicit but I would like to see it explicitly stated what we are proposing is that this language which we can read into the record and add to the

045IGA this whereas clause be added to the IGA as an explicit statement around uh Student Records so let me put that up there so you can read it on your own foreign so the second area in which we received questions and concerns is around the police interviews and again here um there are implicit limits that our state are in the IGA um so that really law enforcement interviews of minor students without a parent or Guardian present are only possible when necessary in the context of a health or safety emergency or when the police present a valid court order or warrant which explicitly prohibits um the district from contacting the parent or Guardian so even those even though that's implicit we are proposing then that we add this explicit language and so again I'll pause here

046this is explicit language to be added to exhibit B around police interviews foreign like to offer um to in response to the questions that have been posed um is that the amen the motion could be amended to read what is on here so that um the motion would be to approve the proposed IGA with the Village of Oak Park contingent upon the inclusion of the additional provision as noted on slide 12 explicitly limiting the scope of student record information sharing and uh slide 14 explicitly limiting law enforcement interviews of minor students on school grounds and so that's offered tonight as the to the board as a way to um to reflect the feedback that you have provided and so then here we are in terms of this timeline um this is up for a vote

047and for your feedback via vote tonight and then um Thursday at D200 and then on Monday at the Village so at this point I will take any additional questions although I didn't want to add sorry about that there was this one other slide that we all talked about with Village manager Jackson and a superintendent Johnson that um we would commit to um you know a continuous process of looking at these um the implementation and to committing to coming back next year to repeat the cycles for the purposes of presenting out and sharing our progress and being as uh transparent um as possible with what we have learned and how we're progressing so at this time I don't know that I will be able to answer um here yep and that's the human motion so if

048you have any questions I just have one question um and the piece on slide 14 or ask and the four it states and the rare circumstance where a law enforcement officer must interview a student without their parent Guardian present the district will ensure that an administrator or other appropriate School of personnel who would you envision that person being so um you know in our practice the administrator is usually the principal that is there um but I know a doctor uh Starks our principals have a practice of uh calling uh Dr Starks in the district office Whenever there is a inquiry on the part of law enforcement and so even though the principal would be the administrator Dr Starks is often called upon to also be present at the school sites in those circumstances is there

049anything you would like to add yeah I understand that um you know just being a very Dr Shaw said so anytime that the police show up you know at the schools the principals know to call me and then I would go over to the school and you know assess the situation you see what's going on and often time I call our legal counsel to share the information so that I get some advice as well uh before we proceed thank you so following up on that um the district administered being present is I would love to hear more explicitly what their role is when present so for example are they acting in loco parentis meaning they're looking out for the safety of that child or the rights of that child um you know I so I

050doctor starts I know and I think she would do an amazing job at this I have absolutely no doubt um but as I've stated before I you know having it under the assumption that it would be Dr Starks in the room I feel a little uncomfortable with kind of the vagueness on that of what the role is of the district person if that makes sense I would I would feel confident in saying that any administrator that we have or that would find themselves in that situation would inherently understand themselves to be in local parentis and really looking out for the rights of the student I think that the district from what I understand in my conversations and other places too we are generally skittish about these kinds of situations want to make sure first of

051all that we're doing the right thing and then also recognizing all of the reasons that the board has raised these questions are present in all of our administrators care for students as well and so I would say pretty you know clearly and confidently that I would have no concerns around the intent or of the um you know the way that the administrator would conduct themselves would be really to in that protecting way that you would be hoping for yeah and again I I just to expand this Beyond doctors I mean I don't have anyone that's District at this point that I could ever met I would say oh I wouldn't want them in that room um but I when something hinges on a person acting a specific way with something like this it does make

052me a little question and maybe give me one question but are you proposing I'm not necessarily proposing additional thing I would I would love to see what other people weigh in on that so would you want to add to I mean it would so if if we're doing it I would love to see something that says well I'm sure administrator or other appropriate personnel is present during the interview or some I mean I'm not sure that's the right term for it or if that even is a or if there are questions as to why that would be problematic um I guess I don't think it would be problematic but I I think that there needs to be and there should be and we can confidently have um an assumption of our administrators and and our

053teachers and our staff and that find themselves in that situation um it uh really exhibit like really exhibiting the qualities that you would be seeking in that moment if and when that isn't the case um then that becomes a different situation and that would be true probably in a hundred other situations that that same individual would find themselves in that is to say if we have an individual that is um acting in bad faith or that isn't exhibiting those standards um we would probably see that behavior not only in this circumstance but in others and and it would be our responsibility to act on that but I think as far as like uh the board's confidence in this language and in what Our intention is around protecting students I can tell you that you know

054our administrators have the same intention that is behind your question and um that is that can be an assumption made um that can be an assumption made when we and should be an assumption made whenever we have the administrator acting in a certain that in local parentis role for for our students so I think this touches on something I had raised and admittedly I raised it earlier today so I this is unreaver um this sort of short notice I think that um as I was looking through the IGA and the materials like part of what's in the igas there is discretion in a number of circumstances and there has to be right you can't Envision every possible hypothetical and say if hypothetical acts manifest then this then why happens so there are there's language about

055the like reasonable language like when feasible um and as a lawyer there's dozens and dozens and dozens of cases about what does reasonable mean what does feasible mean Etc it's not and what what I take from that is that um what you might think is reasonable in the circumstance and what Venus might think is reasonable in circumstance and what Felicia might think is reasonable in circumstance maybe similar or maybe very different and I think in part of the things that I think we're focusing on here are things that aren't going to happen very much hopefully hopefully the police will not be searching or interviewing our students on a routine basis uh and we may have different ideas about what is reasonable when trying to know to contact parents what's reasonable about whether you wait a

056certain amount of time I think some of this addresses some of that I think even to the example Nancy just raised like to my mind it's not about whether somebody would have ill intent going into the interview it's like would they have any idea what to do you know you may be the most well-intended person and suddenly you're in a room or a police officer is interrogating a student and it's like I've never been in that room before I may not know what to do to sort of effectively look out for the interests of the student um and so I think like for me um part of what's really important is what connects to the IGA from the district level so just to kind of run through it and I shared this already emailed it

057to some other folks no so there's language in the IGA and then our policies that the superintendent or Desmond of the superintendent May request the assistance of law enforcement when conducting inspections or searches I would love to see some kind of guidance about when it's appropriate to do that consistent with our values as a district consistent with the goals that you described at the front end the same policy talks about when feasible searches should happen outside the view of other students and I think there's a couple other kind of student oriented protections there I would love to see some guidance around what do we think is feasible because these are things that can happen we can have hundreds of different people in the district that may have to interpret when it's appropriate to search a

058student or not I don't I don't know or you know maybe it's a smaller number but it would be helpful if they all had a similar idea about like you know what like we should really protect that student's interest unless it's absolutely necessary that we do it now in under those circumstances um in the interview section of the IGA and in our policy um our policy says that the superintendent shall develop procedures to manage police requests to interview kids I think the language you added today helps create some clarity around those circumstances but I would love to see if we have those procedures what they look like or if we don't to create some clarity about that um and then um I do think that the auditions about the when you might do a search

059without a parent present if it's emergency if it's if there's a health situation like to me that addresses some of the concerns um that I had there and then the last piece around the interviews and this is probably less for the district and more question for the police department is that both the IGA and our policies say a practicable the police department of the district will make reasonable efforts to ensure that the officer conducting the interview is trained appropriately I would love to better understand to what extent officers in our district do have the appropriate training what measures we have to ensure that if it's a subset of officers that they're the ones that get sent to the school Etc um and that you know maybe some guidance that there has to have an officer

060who doesn't have that training do it there has to really be extraordinary circumstances and maybe over time our goal I think this is feasible I really don't know maybe our retirement goal is that every officer in that park has that as the appropriate training in case they get called to our schools um so I think so yeah just to reiterate I think for me it's sort of like what is the IG connector in the broader context the other last thing that I shared earlier today that I'll just mention again is um in this sort of like assessment coming back after yours this idea of like Beyond sort of what the sort of leaders responsible for implementing this see in terms of success challenges Etc is how do we get to student and parent perspectives on

061um and it's not just a perspective on the IGA obviously it's about their broader experiences in terms of Safety and Security yeah and I think that um that we had that list of questions that you just went through um teasing apart those in three buckets number one is kind of what is legally required and cleaning up the language and making it the implicit things explicit is proposed here that's one bucket the second bucket is the implementation within the district so those procedures that the superintendent or designee um you know establishes what are the training plans the consistency and I think that's how we approach those questions was um what are our plans I hear that very clearly what are our plans to make sure that principle a principle will be in principle C and this

062goes to your question too Nancy in that moment is going to you know understand their role the same way that that that's that District implementation and in a place where we owe you some responses and we will get those to you and then I think it's the third one is this new space which is collaboration with the village and District 200 around these questions of the officers team training is something we've talked about like the youth and student voice I know is something I've heard from the village and everybody as interested including like when the park district and when we've talked about these things together there's a shared interest in that so I think that is in that bucket of kind of community implementation what might that look like I don't know that there's an

063answer there but the question is heard um and then certainly some of these things around um have been shared as interests around having these training experiences together with officers and administrators and also getting to know each other through those threat assessment teams for example um having consistency in the training so those are the three buckets and the other two were in the mode of that but I would ask and that you consider that um those shouldn't preclude the board from voting on the first part which is the legal requirement that is outlined in the IGA because I had a couple questions I very appreciative of adding the explicit language similar question to what Nancy said and kind of a theme that Gavin identified um in addition to kind of the discretion there's sometimes when it's

064written in passive voice so you don't know who is so for example in the records determined it's necessary but like who is determining it is that the district gets to determine this or like and and I think that comes up sometimes it's it's the question of the district as the I would say that the district as the folks charged with caring for our students should be making those decisions but I don't I don't know what's intended by the language and that was not in this one it was in the other language that was added because that was the one about records but but it appears um in other places and it just kind of creates what if what if the police say it's necessary and the district says it's not they flip a coin like

065I mean I'm not being glimp about it but I'm just trying like what is that how does that get worked out any Student Records shared without parental will be limited to information which is determined necessary for the district to compile so who determines that it's necessary for the district to comply but I guess what I'm saying is my understanding is there's only three circumstances under which it's necessary it's a health or safety emergency there's a valid court order warrant or there's another legal compulsion I didn't I didn't read that to mean there's a broader category necessary but I'm not sure if that was the intention or not yeah I think the intent here was to be very explicit about those three only this is it has to fall in one of these three categories in

066order to be allowable I don't know I don't think it changes the point though because that is the district aside that it's in connection with health or safety emergency so that's why legal counsel comes in so if we were presenting with the situation I would share with our legal counsel but is you know in front of us and they would provide guidance to us regarding if indeed what is in front of us falls into one of these buckets I would assume health or safety emergency means that you need to disclose immediately to a police officer or something about the students history because it's relevant to a crisis that's happened but I don't but I don't know I mean that's that's what that says to me is it's not if you tell me if this makes

067sense without I'm just going to start with route without parental consent will be limited to information which is determined to be necessary you can't stop there you have to finish with for the district to comply with its legal obligation yes but it's still in passive voice like normally you put a subject before the it would be which the district determines to be necessary but I think it's implied it is a passive voice the implication is that the district is the determinant and I'm using this as an example but I think that there's other examples where the and it's back to kind of what Gavin was saying where it says necessary or reasonable and in addition to that being vague it's not clear makes the decision on whether it's reasonable a district person or a non-district

068person but um I I still have a couple questions on also like age difference I'm still I'm still really uncomfortable with the fact that this applies to seniors and kindergartners the same way and it's just not clear um it's just not clear that we have differentiated or maybe differentiate with our elementary our middle we all know there's differences I'm not suggesting anyone in this room is saying in kindergarten I'm also not saying that everyone in this room doesn't want the right thing for the students but it's it's hard to imagine that one set of protocols applies fully and I can't think of every hypothetical um but so I mean the most obvious one is obviously a physical altercation between students that are six and students that are 16 that have very different ramifications and I

069and I don't know what happens there I don't know what you know what gets reported and what doesn't because there's no kind of difference in in that treatment I think that's a good point because I've you've all read stories about a six-year-old being suspended for kissing a girl and they say a sexual assault and we all know six year olds will also use a trash can but if I've tried yeah I am but um I think that to Holly's point in all seriousness I do think there's a big difference between a five-year-old grabbing a girl and she's like stop and he's he's loved goofing around and um you know he's five versus a 18 year old um so that was one thing I think the I'm so thankful that we have two attorneys um so

070happy I did not go that route I hear that a lot now I have the utmost respect I wanted to go to law school but just wasn't in the cards but um I think this is a really important conversation I think that there are so many words there's so many interpretations I think what's important to me because I don't think we're ever going to get to a point that everyone's like this is the perfect language but I think what's important to me is certain expectations and I would like to see the training um I would like to know like what is a protocol what are the guidelines because I think to your point we would all expect everyone to do the right thing but if that were the case we would not be aboard here

071sitting to look at discipline of personnel and suits and all that kind of stuff we do have people who make mistakes because we're human um but then also I think the second part of that is if I'm a teacher and we've heard this story before I'm a teacher a student attacks me the police come in you're upset because you've just been attacked by a student you may not be in the frame if I want to protect that child you may be feeling angry you may be hurt you may be embarrassed upset whatever the case may be so I think to me it's not so much of um that we get the language right because I don't think we are there are so many interpretations but I think it's that training what are the expectations what

072types of questions are permissible when do we say to a student be quiet um because if an officer comes in and said did you do this and the person's you know maybe a little bit scared I know sometimes if when I went to the swearing in I was like oh my God I'm in this room with all these officers um so for different communities being around police feels differently and so if I or my husband um are in that room and a police officer is like getting a little aggressive my protection I'm not saying that it would but I might start to look at like did I do something wrong am I you know being questioned here so I think that I would like just like to see what are the expectations I think that's

073what's important maybe the same way we do fire drills Let's Do A Drill the police come they they're asking questions what are we doing and then who's all involved in that I think it's important for the administrators but it's a teacher who's in the classroom nine times out of ten when something happens so how are we training the teachers um what are what is their expectation I think it's great that Felicia is going to come but Felicia might be and Jimmy now is getting lunch and may miss the call and then it's an hour before she gets there so what's happening in between that time and I will add I was going to comment on training I thought it was really interesting when we talk about e-learning that we're not going to do any learning

074until everyone's trained but we're going to implement this tomorrow or whatever and I mean is there a delay mechanism where we could do training we could agree even if we agree to it we'd say look we're going to do it on a three-month delay so that we can train before any of it goes into effect I had a couple ideas about chain tonight can we approve the threat assessment right away because we all have had no question so far on that and then do we do the other parts I mean I don't know where they can are there parts of it that would go into effect that concerned me that are different the default is our policies that exist already yes and they're totally contained with a clear about who has this and the default

075is also the law and so the law so I guess that's my question like I don't know what I don't know that what changed to me to be honest like part of looking at this IGA was a recognition that our policies aren't as good as they ought to be or that we don't know enough about procedures that sort of match the policies as much as we should I don't know that delaying it changes the training I mean it well it adds training right we could do like what I'm saying is if we don't put this into effect for three months then what is in effect is District policy and state law and District policy and state law as I understand it are pretty much what's already what's in the IGA anyway so I'm offer like

076training doing whatever training guidance Etc is appropriate as soon as possible I just don't know that delaying this accomplishes we don't go back to some other set of services yeah I think that's also important to say that having the IGA actually clarify some things um you know given that these are existing laws and existing policies so that's what's on this slide here is that it actually designates which individuals in the Oak Park Police Department and which individuals within the school district are going to communicate with each other as opposed to those laws and policies exist but absent the IGA that clearance isn't there so in a way with if the concern is around implementation which a lot of the questions that you're raising are around nuanced implementation this is around bias checking this is around

077positive culture this is around all of those things that are that we are absolutely supposed to be working on but there isn't a training that we're going to give or receive in three months that's going to get us there so you know these are this is the big work you know but if we were to change our policies because we are recognizing that they're not the greatest is the agreement change automatically I don't think it does I don't think that's written in there and so if we were to take a review at our policies because we're realizing that they are pretty outdated and could stand to um better reflect the community's values then how does that ultimately interact with does the agreement change and by the way I read Audrey citation I think there's a

078little bit of there's definitely some that I think have made in there versus um and so you know it could be have a little more discretion and you don't have to go that far but even if it complies with the law you can always put in more protections like you can do the law but then also provide like you guys did in these two state in these two Provisions yes this is the law but we want to do better than what the law is and we want to provide these projections for our students that go above and beyond and I think that there are some opportunities there including in our own policies by the way like I looked at our policies and I was like I voted on it probably like 10 times too in

079the last eight years so I'm because yeah I think what's really important is the kinds of things that board member Moore talked about like the effective student handbook and these things are built into our commitments of um being proactive and preventative and creating positive cultures and using the lowest intervention um of to you know to redirect behavior before jumping to higher levels all of these are are things that exist it's it's implementing them well that is the work and I think um the other question so you know that's going to be ongoing work and isn't going to be addressed in the language of an IGA um and so I think that um you know the other question Holly that you were saying is about the differentiation and I think the my understanding is that you

080know the law is written to face a public school district to K to 12. it's not written like a different law for you know it's not differentiating by age and so that's why um you know the IGA language doesn't differentiate because the law kind of that's outlined on this sheet those statutes um right here apply to us as a bucket category of pre-K you know to uh 12 public school um organizations it's not a different law I I do think that's that that that's a place where providing guidance where we have described like so for example if you talk about like what's reasonable right what causing Holly's point which I told I think everybody would agree with is what's reasonable for a six-year-old is different from what's reasonable for an 18 year old when you

081would question them when you would search them how you would sort of respond to their behavior what's so I think like it to me it goes to this issue of discretion like I agree the law is not going to be so differentiated that it's just not how the law functions it's not that nuanced of a tool but districts can function in a more nuanced way and I think as we to your earlier commitment around providing better guidance around how we intend to use the discretion that we have I do think that's a place where that could be addressed is what may what the guidance may look like for Middle School administrators may be different than what the guidance looks for an elementary school administrator and even within an elementary school no matter if a kid

082is five years old or 11 years old how does the training and the implementation um how is that differentiated by age group yes is a fair question I'll also just add that we had an IGA for years and now we don't have works I think what Dr Shaw pointed out in regards to this actually you know how to buy some things that actually gives us you know like more protections is something to point out and we've had situations in absence of the IGA of not student you know discipline I know related where we have um you know myself we need to contact the police department and um you know not having the IGA I just have to call 9-1-1 and get whoever I get you know on the phone where having this IGA you talk

083about having somebody dedicate this by training we know is going to come over we have a direct contact with um bring the alleviates um some situations that we have been in and having had the IGA and have not had the IGA dealing with the situations um and then it needs to be more difficult not having that James I mean big on purpose um you guys have to stay high level but uh being able to pick up the phone and call a dedicated person and somebody who we are familiar with who's coming with us and have them respond quickly instead of spending what feels like an eternity on the ball identify myself and because I'm just calling the regular you know number when the opening minutes count having the IG plays I think alleviates that and

084this is beneficial to us if we may be responding to emergency situations again not you know discipline related but uh things happen sometimes I appreciate that um I do think that we're at a different time and I think that to your point the systems it's not people so I hope that everyone in the room understands this is not about people this is about systems that have consistently for decades failed um and so as we investigate this you know to Holly's point I don't know how many policies I've kind of looked at scammed and said all right sounds good I trust you guys but when you have the opportunity something this important because I don't want to be here a couple of months from now saying how do we miss this how do we not interrogate

085this this is too important to say I'm going to trust that the system works because look where it got us um and so I think it's really important so I just wanna I'm coming to this from a place and I'm sure that I can't speak for everybody but I know this board's heart the reason we have so many questions the reason why we're like picking at these things because we understand that the system is broken and we cannot address it if we don't like look at every note in both um and so it's not that we don't trust the people as the systems and so I definitely appreciate that but I do think that these last three years have really taught us to just be mindful of like what's going on I think just I'm

086in a different place in my life as I look at my son who's 10 years old the same height as me so I look at things a whole lot differently than I did when he was seven um so I think that's why we're so like passionate about this it's just because we don't want to be here um in a couple of months or a year from now whatever um Sam we should have done a better job at looking at this I think just to build off of that we don't want to be in a place where we're reacting because of and so I guess when when I hear you say that that training that might need to take place is uh sort of big initiative I still think there could be a way to say

087what's the most important training that needs to happen to set people up for success for this IGA to a plot off the ground well knowing that yes like if systems is what's at play this is not something that's an easy fix but what can set us up for success and I will say um going back to what you just pointed out um having an agreement in place I think everyone here is I bet I will speak for myself that was one of the things that I was first excited about in hearing about this was because I do think having a relationship and having connections and having an understanding between where things are going is important it's critical um and I don't question that part of it in any way where I start getting concerned is

088the amount of times we're saying implied um we assume um I would assume and and the amount of times we're relying on our knowledge of the people involved in this because again to the other point that was just made by board member Moore it's you know I the people are not the question here because I think we have a lot of really good people in Oak Park who are in these positions right now who are doing this but all it takes is one bad actor to suddenly topple this over and if that's the one time you're talking about you would see it before that but what if that's the first time we see it and stuff well that can have critical implications for one child and while we're looking at the overall safety of the

089district and the teachers and the students and everybody we also do have a a role to look after that one student in their lives as well so that's why I think another reason to be questioning this when we are frequently referring to things and saying well that's implied or we assume that's what happened that makes me nervous in an actual legal agreement that those words are being used I I hope someone has given you a plug of context since it feels like they could have just given you the name phone number and you can't really still not able to so we have to call for me even without an IGA it seems like are there any more questions so we have to make a motion we have to vote Dr Shaw can you put that

090yes I'm sorry is that the whole motion right that's all emotions can someone kindly read them yeah I've moved that the Board of Education about Park Elementary School District 97 approved the proposed IGA with the Village of Oak Park continued upon the inclusion of the additional Provisions noted on slide 12 which explicitly limits the scope of student record information to be shared with law enforcement and slide 14 which exclusively limits law enforcement interviews with minor students on school grounds we have a second there is no second in the motion can I ask a question when do you think we could see the training yeah I think um I would ask for explicit direction from the board of what you would like to see so that like training like what tell me what you would like

091to see because I think there was also time frames like within the next three months or like I think as clear as you can be of what you would like to see and then we will who will respond with that in my opinion it's kind of like curriculum like who would be involved what level would be responsible um what are the expectations not like I see Gavin's face um I would just like to just understand like what are the expectations so the expectations of the in the IGA it was like which expectation like if we're training administrators under the IGA the Corsa action so you have a question yes John yeah I guess I'm a little confused because it seems like like if we don't vote on the IGA tonight ultimately it doesn't really change

092anything because we're still defaulting to the law and the politics that are already in place um so in some ways the vote doesn't matter without saying that if the vote doesn't matter um and it seems like what we're more caught up the implementation of regarding the crops and that's not necessarily going to come out in the IGA right that's going to come out in our own District level policy and procedures and so for me like we can discuss on before the things that need to happen in terms of the implementation of the IGA but no like those things wouldn't get written into the IGA so are we saying we're not going to vote for the IGA if these things aren't in place ahead of time I guess I'm a little confused about like two parts

093of what we're discussing and what we're actually voting on and what we're trying to push for because to me it seems like they're too they're obviously related but they're not the same thing and I feel like they're kind of getting collapsed into the same time that makes sense yeah I agree with what you said John I think that it's it would be important to think about what if there's other things we need in the agreement itself then I think we need to say what those are and have a discussion about those things as as I said earlier as many people have said there's a lot of questions around how it gets implemented what procedures we have in place I'm very interested in those things I I trust that when you say that you will come

094back to us with those things that you'll come back to us with those things I don't I don't feel a need to hold the IG over your head to get movement on those things as well um but I agree with John I feel like that they're two different things and I think a lot of very understandable concerns about what could happen are getting attached to the agreement itself when I I don't know that the agreement itself is going to address all of those things yeah so my question was to your point you're right I just wanted to just ask that question like can we come back to this can we say right here right now on YouTube and wherever else we're streaming um that we come back in a certain amount of time to see

095a little bit what that implementation looks like to address the concerns that we've expressed tonight about the language foreign I mean absolutely those are the right questions about um you know what is our training around these These are also questions around just general in general are um good practices around uh you know effective student behavior and incident response and emergency preparedness and all of these different things and so um if your question is can we get an update on how we are training our administrators and our staff yes in the areas of learning related to this I you know to how students are treated and how we respond to behavior um absolutely we can do that yeah yeah so I think it makes me feel a little bit better to know we're going to get

096an update to address some of the the language that we talked about so even though they're separate we're asking these questions because of the language so that's why I was asking can we just have a follow up to kind of address some of those things I I feel like I would like I read the responses to the questions and it seems like we've contacted legal counsel we found out this was required by law and then we kind of stopped putting in the student protection and I I think the question would be to and perhaps it's not even to our lawyers no offense to our school lawyers but it's just some of the lawyers that work on student rights and rights as it relates to interactions with the police and civil rights that the question is

097how do you take a community that wants this that's what we say in our objective we we say a whole bunch about positive Youth Development but that's not really it's it's not in the agreement right the agreements made objective is to work together to prevent eliminate discourage acts of crime violence intimidation promote discipline and safety in schools but it's not the positive youth experience like that's not really captured and if that's what we want as a village and as a community and with our schools maybe we need to ask somebody like what can we do what can we do to have a better agreement that complies with the law that does everything like I'm not trying to get out of doing anything the law requires but how do we do it so that everyone that's

098involved knows that this is how you do it in a way that also represents the progressive values that we want to have in our agreements like I I just am not convinced that this agreement is the best you can do um from those angles it feels very much like an agreement any Community might come up with to follow that and I I think that we want more from that we all of us want more than that and so I I'd be curious to know not how to get out of the law maybe it stays exactly the same but what else can we do to help guide our school officials our families our police our village on what it looks like to really do what we say we wanted to do as a memo I agree

099with you but I guess it goes back to that question if we if we say like we want can you go back and edit this that we're we still have that other one so like what do we can we vote tonight and then we continue to work on this language can we make amendments or is it like a now this is what's in it can we amend it I think if we approve it tonight I wouldn't want to then start amending it you know I mean I think we have to and there's also two other bodies that we have to agree to whatever well there's only two parties to this one us and this police tower yeah but I I feel like either we want to change it or we adopted I don't think we

100adopted with the expectations in the short like we can adopt into the next expectation that a new year we revisit it and discuss or we did not do it I think is Holly suggested another question no no no um consequence earlier I mean these are based on policies or good for tabs right and it seems like they're maybe outdated or not as reflective of the values that we want to have in the community and so two um something she said earlier if we were to revisit some of these policies um to be more protective of students right for whatever I guess like like and I'm not saying we need to go jump on that tomorrow especially because I'm an opportunity but um you know done then so we go back to the IPA and like

101refinance you know and so I think like it's again had looking at the steps like in terms of you know like again this is like the minimum or this is the expectation of what's supposed to happen legally and procedurally um but if we think we could use better like we can think about within our districts what are the policies of procedures and that maybe making out like a year however long from now we go back and revisit the IG once we have a better handle of what our own policies are like does that make sense I think that does take on the bonus of going to other people instead of I hear what you're saying yeah I think there's like a few different dimensions to what you're saying John one is like our policies are

102a reflection of the law as it exists so most of the updates that happen on a routine basis are the laws change or a new case has been decided that changes our interpretation of the law Etc um but we could look at them with an eye towards where is their discretion within our sort of within those legal boundaries to do things that reflect our values is how he's suggesting um you know an agreement between I don't know what other constraints May Factor here but the agreement between two parties typically can be changed as long as both parties agree to the change that we're trying to make I don't think it's probably helpful or feasible for us to do it all the time and have it be ever shifting but I think at some point in

103time coming back to it could make sense I also think that within our policies and this is reflected in the agreement too there's a bunch of stuff where it's really about what we do it's not about what the police department does it's about when do we call the police department it's when do we permit this thing to happen how do we use our discretion and I think the things that are strictly about what we do are things that we can control we can work on and change and obviously within the parameters of the law as well I don't know where any of this leaves us right now we have I'm happy to make a motion again you have a motion on the floor without a second however I I also um the police department or

104a police officer or our designee officer partner officer however it's going to be worded it doesn't come into our buildings unless we call and ask so I the policies before the phone call or the policies to be implemented once that phone call is made are on us we need to make sure how what when we call that officer for a specific reason in the process by which we want him to behave in our him or her to behave in our building with a particular student or whatever the situation is we are all sort of skittish and or concerned there's a better word I can't find it but I'm Lavon um because for however long we had an outdated IGA and we didn't have those policies and an officer may have come into a building or

105was in the building we had resource officers and because the definitions and the behaviors weren't explicit there was student harm yes everybody agree to that kind of sort of maybe we are we are working to prevent that but we have to acknowledge that that system was absolutely broken should we talked about assistance that system was absolutely broken we are looking at a different system and while it might not be perfect we we are putting those processes ideally in place that prevent us from that Brokenness we're looking at it in a year from now we are looking at our policies when we have invited that partner officer into our school building and how they should behave if they have to interact with a student so I I feel like we are doing the things to help

106prevent harm to students which is I think what we all want even the the police officer would would want that um I feel so my personal opinion is so much of that lies more with our own District policies than it does with us agreement I think but we still have emotional I'm just saying I think what I'm hearing is that we potentially move forward with this amended motion knowing that we can come back on our end with a deeper look at our policies to move forward with implementation yeah okay does that mean you're going to suck on emotions I suck into the motion huh so now we we have a motion on the floor okay Kim John sorry yeah apparently yes more yes no no Ken Hall yes cross driven no all right Johnson yes

107thank you so next on the agenda is good yeah so I would like to invite um our senior director of Finance um Patrick King as well as senior director of buildings and grounds Jeannie Keane for the second visit of tonight uh and also Rob grossey who serves as a consultant at the school district [Laughter] it's too early in the winter for the beard yeah all right good evening um thanks for having us we're here to present the 2022 town of tax Lobby in our financial forecast so I will I'll start the presentation with the levy um Rob will get out some of the details on the financial forecasts Genie is here for you know some of the financial forecasts he's made highness and capital stop so she's here for some moral support and questions and

108capital if there's any questions but um I'll be I'll be leading and Rob will take over and then we'll be happy to take any questions as we finish so started off so the tentative tax levy so some factors to consider when making a Lobby decision um some of these slides will look familiar we you know we kind of reiterate these things from year to year but just want to remind um some of the major factors to consider when making this decision as a board so the impacted the decision on the long-term Financial condition of the district how does the decision impact fund balance our fund balance policy of maintaining three to six months of reserves the impact of the decision on the long-term quality of educational services in the district um so will the district

109be able to maintain fund balance Reserve targets without adversely impacting Staffing programming to finally impact of the decision on the condition of the district's facilities so will the district be able to address Capital needs and wants in its buildings well both maintain the fund balance Reserve targets and desired Educational Services so this is the timetable for the tax levy adoption so we're here tonight presenting that the estimated tax levy we're required to present that at least 20 days before our choosing taxation hearing so that'll be conducted on the December board meeting so there will you know adopt the final Levy and all the appropriate resolutions so we need to file all the necessary documents with the county and the final Tuesday of December which would be December 27th this year okay so this is a

110recap of um tax cap tax cap history so what's what's the tax cap history and just give a little tutorial um in case anyone's not familiar um so we're in Cook County so we're capped by um the lesser of five percent or the change in CPI so CPI is the Consumer Price Index published by the Department of Labor so historically as you can see that's been much less than five percent every year so we broke this out in the kind of 10-year increment so the most recent 10 years the average has been about 1.95 even with the five percent max for this year so it's as low as low as it's ever been in the past 10 years the average you know the prior 20 years it's about two and a half percent so just

111to give you a historical look at you know where it's been [Music] this is a breakout of the revenues and that's like 23 budget so as you can see real estate taxes you know make up the vast majority of our Revenue source so it's just the Highlight the importance of this decision on our on our fund balances we don't expect this Dynamic to change um it's typically 75 to 80 percent in some years we've got a little bit more on Federal grant Revenue with assetter funds this year but you know we anticipate evidence-based funding and stay Flat state grants um another logo which the bulk of that is replacement taxes so we'd actually project that to go down a little bit in future years as well so this is a breakdown of the levy request

112so overall Levy is 89.2 million which represents a 5 increase from a prior's extension this will allow the district to capture the maximum five percent increase plus I think tax revenues generated from new taxable property in the district I went into a slide on that one this year we still estimate around 8 million which it came in exact almost exactly as we predicted this year um so that would generate an additional 300 000. so from the breakout per final you know the majority of it goes through educational fund and our operating funds the building fund transportation um special ed which is part of you know the educational fund as well um so that's the breakdown of the levy so estimate impacts to the taxpayer on the library request so this is assuming a 400 000

113market value home um so a tax extension for the non-violent interest funds would increase five percent from the prior year a tax extension for the bond fund um would only include the levy associated with the voter referendum bombs that bonds and that would be flat in the prior years of the county automatically extends that Levy based on our debt service schedules so overall this represents an annual increase of approximately 227 dollars for the portion of the tax bill due to District 97. um this is a breakdown of our fund balances as of June 30 to 2022 so our overall fund balances which I presented you know multiple times through our budget budget presentations um another settings is 42.8 million which it's about four months of fund balance reserves which within our fund balance policy so

114this is just kind of circling back to our first sliding on so our tax layer recommendation of five percent supports the long-term financial and facility objectives this will help us maintain the fund balance Reserve targets within our board policy objectives of three to six months through fiscal year 2028 I will maintain balanced budgets and fiscal year 2026. Rob will get into some of those details in the next slide and this will allow the district to continue to improve the safety quality and functionality of its buildings without the need for additional debt issuances the fiscal year 2028 as well so we'll hand it over to Rob I think I can handle it quicker if you wanted thanks great to see everybody again it's been a while so um I think it's a great practice that the

115district does by linking the levy decision with financial projections uh we've been doing this for the last couple years and I think it's a great idea uh it's actually I've been incorporating that with other districts as well it completely makes sense so I want to start really quick with uh historical uh perspective of the school district and uh this slide I think is a very important slide and I kind of view it in two different segments one is 2013 to 2017. 2013 through 2017 were quote normal years um your revenues grew by uh 2.5 percent and your expenses grew by 4.2 percent and as a result of that you could see that your revenues which were the blue dots I went from being above the expense red dots to below them and and uh because

116expenditure growth exceeded Revenue growth um the district started incurring deficits um then uh two um anomalies happen that will probably not happen again hopefully won't happen again uh for quite a while one is the district passed a referendum and two is the district had a big tip expiring that had been it was in existence for over 30 years um that generated a significant amount of money into the school districts and you could see the big pop of money it goes up and down just because the timing when the money came in so on the revenue side we had these two novelists that are now gone we got the money but now growth is going to continue more in line with what 2013 to 2017 look like and then on the expenditure side um you could

117see that from 2018 through 2021 expenditures are relatively flat they grew at less than one percent a year that's for two reasons one is uh if you recall the Board of Education instructed us to freeze discretionary spending which we did and then um covet hit which um it's it's less expensive to operate virtually than in person so expenditures for all school districts were down so the combination of the two kept expenditures relatively uh putting the revenues and expenditures side by side uh you could see the that this translates in the following surpluses and deficits so you could see in 2017 the district started deficit spending and um and as I mentioned it was merely the function of expenditures growing at a faster rate than revenues but since the district passed the referendum and since the

118TEF the district has that annual surpluses uh and had another significant Surplus in FY 22. in terms of fund balance reserves uh the district has a another relatively unique policy of having a minimum and a maximum uh Target which I think is a great idea and the theory is is that if it gets below the three-month Target then the district considers referendums or expenditure reductions and if it gets above the six month Target the district considers abating taxes to the taxpayers and the district you could see uh going into 2016-17 was getting to a point where it was dangerously getting close uh at the falling below that three-month line the Board of Education decided to go for referendum the community supported the referendum and fund balances resumed back to the middle of our targeted levels

119uh the green part of the bars that represents uh referendum bonds that were issued uh with the money sitting in the bank ear barked for future capital projects this is a very important slide um one of the one of the tasks uh that uh we presented last year was it what we call a transparency policy where we compare various metrics to other school districts uh one of the metrics that we look at is months of fund balance reserves so these districts were predetermined prior to being working with the district but but uh they essentially are districts with fairly High equal SSS valuations per pupil and fairly low percentages of low-income students uh comparable meaning that they don't get a lot of money from the state um and you could see that uh Oak Park's well

120the the um the median uh uh months of fund balance reserves is 7.67 months of reserves so even though we have a 3.6 month three to six month fund balance Target and we focus on being on the higher end versus the low lower end it's important note that the higher end of that Target is still below the median of the school districts that we service now what does that mean um well this year was a perfect example of Wide Fund balance reserves are needed especially in Cook County because uh it's not surprising that LaGrange and Oak Park within all these school districts that are the only two school districts that had to borrow money is your text to spatial warrants to pay their bills because we didn't have enough fund balances and we reside in

121Cook County which is the dangerous combination so um that's that's the risk that the district has every year um I I think that the fund balance Target is a solid Target uh but but um we always strive to try to be on the higher end of the target and then in terms of outstanding debt uh all that's left for the district is referendum lines all the all the non-referred bonds are paid off the district debated on the last couple years of non-referendum bonds so you could see that going forward the tax Library related to debt is going to be relatively flat so now we get into the five-year projections projections are only as good as the assumptions uh Patrick and I spent a lot of time um going through the assumptions uh and and coming

122up with reasonable numbers and I'm just going to highlight some of the major ones on the revenue side again with almost all your growth coming from real estate taxes that's the most relevant projection and we're projecting let's see if we know that CPI is going to be five percent this year uh it's likely going to be five percent again when the board considers the tax levy in 23 and they were projecting that it's going to go back to historical levels of two and a half percent um after that there might be some signs that inflation is starting to weighing a little bit and you know we'll see but that's embedded in our projections uh corporate personal property taxes uh because uh those are corporate taxes that are paid to the state that under distributed uh

123to to the school districts uh every every school district in Illinois got 217 more than they got the previous year unexpectedly uh partially because of economic growth in the state of Illinois um that should continue again next year but we're projecting that the economy is going to slow down a little bit and that number is going to decrease a little bit um and then this year in 2023 you'll see that the projections will look uh better than they would have normally looked because we're getting some one-time grants including 500 000 uh from the Department of Commerce and upper Economic Opportunity 3.7 and Esther buddy uh and 1.6 billion dollars in emergency connectivity fund money and and just a side note is that the district does a great working with a lot of different school districts

124your District does a great job of capturing grants that a lot of school districts don't go for uh building in grounds and Technologies and that's really helped the district uh expenditure assumptions seller expenditures are projected to grow according to the current collective bargaining agreements and they broke five percent annually thereafter um that's a function of inflation that's influence a function of the labor shortage that exists and um at least a function of what I'm currently seeing as far as teacher settlements are going right now insurance premium uh projected increased 7.5 our project are going to increase 7.5 this year projected uh employee benefits to go six percent annually in 24 which is historical average uh Transportation costs a lot of school districts are giving their uh renewal quotes starting to get them in and uh

125the first Lobby by the transportation companies in several instances have been 20 plus as far as uh other major ones so I I met with Michael and um at this moment in time um we feel comfortable with assuming seven hundred thousand dollars spent annually on non-capital equipment which is mostly technology and then we met with Jeannie and now that the buildings are getting closer to being um addressed after a lot of years of not a lot of money being put into the buildings um we we feel again at this moment in time that with a three million dollar annual expenditure that we can maintain and continue to improve and and do what we need to do so putting that all in a blender um as Patrick had mentioned um were projected even with the five

126percent increase in stock deficit spending now now why is that um so the reason why that is is that the two five percent increases if the board does approve those they're only considering one this year um that will help keep the balanced budgets but but once the two and a half percent a revenue growth kicks in from real estate taxes and keep in mind if 75 of your money grows at two and a half percent and the other 25 never grows in the school district that's a blended increase of about two percent so if you're if you're wrapping to start growing at two percent that's a hard number to maintain especially for school districts that are going to be forced into locking into contracts um that are assuming current inflationary levels so so we're projecting

127based on the assumptions a gap that will extend beyond the revenue growth from so basically the expenditure growth the impact of CPI expenditure growth will Outlast the CPI impact on Revenue growth okay one thing I meant to point this out on my CPI slide so actual CPI is that was published was seven percent but the department of laborers or caps at five so this is I think this is the first time in history it's exceeded the five percent you know in the 30-year history so and as of this year it's it's at like 7.7 so it's trending around seven percent again for the 2023 lobby as well so I'm at the point that out on my earlier slide and then in terms of fund balance reserves um what would happen is you could see is

128that as we start deficit spending uh the fund balance reserves start getting gains usually close uh by 2028 to the uh three-month Reserve Target uh we did run the analysis under various Levy options increase options for tonight uh for December and uh so we so the blue bar represents the five percent number that you saw the previous slide four and a half percent is the red and four percent is the green and you could see that uh that uh while the five percent brings us dangerously close the the four and a half percent reasons at the three month line and the green brings us below the three-month line and it's important to know that from my perspective the if if from a mathematical perspective if we could maintain expenditure growth in line with Revenue growth

129we'll never have to go to referendum again and that's always been all the recommendations that I've been since I've been here I'm the expenditure in the revenue side all the stuff that Patrick and I talked to all have the goal of trying to maintain fund balance reserves as close as possible to the Biddle or upper middle of the um of the the fund balance Target of the school district uh so key takeaways is the district uh needs to increase real estate tax revenues about address anticipated historically High expense growth caused by inflation and labor shortage uh the district's projected that Financial stability during the window of time of five percent real estate growth and which will collect through the fiscal year 25. uh and then with project the real estate Revenue growth dropping to two

130and a half percent the district must begin now to bring expenditure growth down significantly so even though the district is in good Financial shape now it still needs to make sure that it's getting its best return on investment and all the dollars it spent so with that Patrick and I will entertain any questions you may have can I just add sure participated in the fourth meeting um and they did they had a very a robust discussion about whether or not um our six percent our sixth month is two um small of a fund balance that that what we've experienced by being between three and six months is having to borrow under these circumstances even though the cost of that borrowing was 65 000 which is relatively small compared to our budget that we operate very

131leanly and whether or not we should be having a conversation now that we're experiencing historical amounts of inflation about whether or not the three to six is appropriate um the the other part of the conversation that ultimately led to them recommending the five percent also and supporting that is the amount of uncertainty very appreciative that Patrick and Rob obviously are capturing because we were one year behind so we're capturing two years of inflation that I think we all are experiencing like as individuals but the district is experiencing on a system level but we're not trying to act as if that's going to continue for a third year but none of us really know if it really is going to come down and so this is kind of facing uh we're only doing two years we're

132not you know there's definitely could say it could be three years right there's a lot of uncertainty and that was a kind of the concluding statement by one of our fourth members was that there's so much uncertainty um healthcare costs are going up the transportation costs are going up um theoretically it should all come down to political normal on prior levels but we don't know that and so we are saying it's going to come down and try not to be hyperbolic or you know create some kind of sense of that that we're not going to come down um how we're inflate our numbers right so we're just doing two years based on what economists are saying but there is uncertainty there um and then the final thing I'll say is what Patrick just brought up

133and that is that um you're not going to be able to recover all of the inflation and all of the inflation is still affecting the district so um I remember the last referendum not these are not on memories but I do remember that we have the the money staying flat from the sources outside of property taxes means that to your point that you made 75 of our Revenue micro the rest is just flat like no matter what happens with inflation no matter what happens with anything that's never going to going to increase so that statement funding and other sources funding don't change any other questions thank you you just quickly need to do the function for the next meeting you want us to do the motion to say there's a hearing more public hearing the

134ability to post okay I move at the board of education at Park Elementary School District 97 adopt the estimated Levy for the 2022 tax you're an authorized to publish for a public hearing on December 13th 26 seconds yes start Johnson yes yes yes Kim yeah more yes Ernie yes we have a motion for the ISB maintenance brand that was all under considered oh it is well then that makes sense committee reports right am I missing anything I keep getting out of board you're doing great what you're doing great a board book keeps kicking you out because I don't know how to talk so the first one is I go and then on the screen that works standing committee there we go thanks any reports for any of our standing committees I just did the fourth

135report it was all up 11. came and joined our meeting which just surprised me I have three minutes late like oh what's that um so there was some concerns from constituents about the safety of a park and how we as a district are collaborating with the other taxing bodies um to ensure safety and so I told them about our IGA um and that you know one of our concerns and you know where we would ask for his support is how we're doing this consistently and equitably across you know for student safety and the students focused um there was some language used that I felt was a little problematic um but I just you know I think as as long as we're all on the same page I think we really can't control the language or

136ideas that other people have but I think just I'm very like just um thankful to work with all of you who speak about our students in a asset frame way um because I was not done on the call so just to let you know that constituents are asking how are we collaborating and uh Harmon wanted to know so that he can you know speak about this intelligently um so yeah and I think he's planning to join more of our meetings in the future that was it digital Council videos okay uh we they haven't yeah until it's tomorrow so next time tri board Community I can talk about Community Council but before that trip board or any of the other did the I think did our collaboration meeting happen since the last word I think so

137we had a governing board meeting at Dr Sean John and I all attended um it was a good it was a good meeting kind of going through at the years of successes and some plans uh for going forward our next meeting is it's a Wednesday December 7th um and that's when they need a form of us at the high school and um some of the discussions were about what the panel should be if you guys may recall last the last time the panel was very good it was about kind of the emotional social emotional impact of coconut students and they they got very good feedback from that and they're trying to kind of create another panel experience that touches on another topic that we will all be able to relate to and as a village

138and as a community and um and the interim director is Laura Crawford who's been with the organization for a very long time she did a very good job talking about um you know finance and introducing her team of this good meeting John and I don't know or Dr Shaw anything to add um I attended the opef meeting oh John was Adam oh John sorry were you adding no I wasn't saying he's gonna picked up well I just wanted to hear you say yeah um I attended the Oak Park the community council meeting there was talk about the Imagine project but just a project to rebuild the poles and one of the pools has had pretty significant repair that was closed for a long time but they are are still working on it [Music] I don't

139know when they break ground but it's coming that's what I remember the second thing that came up was around school safety um if you don't have a kid in D200 or you heard about heard about it in the community it was a big fight that happened among students and they had to do a soft lockdown um which means that they the teachers are instructed to close the doors to their classrooms to minimize students in the hallway um and of course kids videotaped it because I saw videotape for my kid um and so there were some parents there that were concerned about safety they reviewed the policies what I can tell you was from the video you could see that their administrators or teachers or whoever whatever adults were around were acts actually immediately impacting and

140de-escalating the situation so that is fewer students are harmed as possible but it was really chaotic and it was concerning and that took up a significant amount of time as they laid out some of the things that they are trying to do to mitigate school fights but there were lots of people that are under the impression that there aren't fights at high schools period across the country or at least where they grew up and there were many people quickly to dispel that because by tapping and really addressing the issues of mental health and um addressing the challenges with those students before they did say that this time last year they had 14 fights this year they've had seven so they're while seven to seven too many it is certainly a result a reduction uh in

141the number of fights as a result of some of the de-escalation tactics and helping kids cope with whatever their challenges are before they get to the point where they're fighting operative so it was very interesting I learned I know more about that than I can't remember the Imagine project because the whole safety issue took up a significant amount of time but it is on the D 200 website all right board marks so I do have a quick board question um and I realize I apologize I meant to ask this beforehand um but since I still see Amanda for there now I have a word maybe for next week um we used to we've had several weeks where the um uh Mom's demand action have come in to speak about safe gun storage and we did

142used to have the guns gun safety and safe gun storage information in the digital backpack but it doesn't seem to be there anymore is it possible to renew that and get that popped back into the case because I think while we're still thinking through policy or looking at what we're doing at least having that individual backpack would be a nice thing to do I think I know that that's been uh a request and it has been in there the past and I believe there is uh still a link that we can revisit we can revisit and get back to you okay thank you any other board [Applause] it is national board recognition month day you want a whole month I think it's just okay I think it's just a day remember what it was I

143remember last month I didn't remember this one I have to say I hope John comes back next meeting and I don't have to decide but I do really enjoy working with you guys we've spent a fair amount of time together um in these meetings and in other committee meetings and um we don't always agree but we discuss and talk things out in a very respectful Manner and I appreciate that if the government ran the rest of the government and the way that we run our meetings we'd be a really good shape but that's just fine training but I just want to say I think I appreciate you guys I appreciate our diversity and opinion and perspective and it's nice having two lawyers on board too so thank you for for being great members of our

144community and great board members all right meeting in adjourn five boys vote all in favor yeah