001All right. We will get our meeting kicked off. We've got a full house tonight. Um All right. Can we do a roll call, please? Yes. Ather. Here. Anair Uno. Here. Tamer. Here. Shubai. No. Khan. Here. Bachman. Here. Hunt. Here. All right. Um mission statement of District 15. By leveraging strengths and providing high-quality support, we will honor our diverse learners in reaching their full potential. Welcome, everyone. Uh I'm sure Dr. Hines will also give this reminder, but we do have the District 15 Gala that's happening on Friday. I got my tickets. I hope everyone here um gets their tickets as well to support our Feeding 15 initiative. All right. We can go ahead and get started. We've got the Pledge of Allegiance from Pleasant Hill. >> [clears throat and cough] >> We practiced this 12 times.
002>> [laughter] >> So, I apologize. All right, are we good? I don't think you want to be behind me. I think so. You guys are We're filming. You'll figure it out. You'll You'll You know when your order is, so you'll figure it out. >> Okay. >> [laughter] >> All right, Dr. Hines, President Ather, Board of Education, community members, thank you for having myself, Mr. Wilson, and I'll introduce the staff member that's behind me in a second here tonight to lead you in the Pledge of Allegiance. I have with me a club that's been at Pleasant Hill for quite some time, and this club means a lot to us because um at Pleasant Hill, we like to instill with the students uh what making a difference is. And this is our Helping Hands Club. And uh
003they do quite a bit throughout the school year, not just to help students or staff or school community, but also um surrounding local organizations that are in need as well. So, what I'm going to do is turn it over to our sponsor, where uh if we did not have this teacher, Mrs. Jamie Gasounes, a third-grade teacher uh sponsoring this, we wouldn't have a Helping Hands Club. So, I'm going to turn it over to her and the students so you can hear a little bit about what they did. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you. Um oops, sure. Shorter than you. >> [laughter] >> Um yeah, so the position opened for the Helping Hands Club, and um I was inspired by my own daughter, who's a fifth-grader at Pleasant Hill, who loves giving back. And um decided
004I'd give a try uh sponsoring it, and I sent out a flyer asking uh do you like helping others? Do you like giving back to the community? Do you like making a difference? And these students answered the call. So, um I would like to introduce Sadie, Penny, Kayla, Chloe, Marisha, Gary, Sophia, and Sarah. And in the true nature of the club, I'm going to let them help tell some of the things we did this year. So, just come out here. Yeah. >> [clears throat] >> In September, we advertised, collected, and delivered about 100 pastas and sauces to the Palatine Food Pantry for our Pasta with a Purpose food drive. In October, we advertised, collected, and delivered 70 Halloween costumes to the Palatine Opportunity Center. In November, we created a banner sign to welcome veterans written
005by the Pleasant Hill students for our Veterans Day assembly. >> [laughter] >> In December, we created a holiday video montage of pictures to music to celebrate our PH community and spread joy and positivity. In February, we did a Super Bowl drive for soup and donated 116 cans and boxes of soup to the Palatine Food Pantry. Each week of this school year, several of our members volunteered their recess time to be kindergarten buddies and assist their kindergarten teachers and their students. And currently, our Helping Hands members are preparing to enter rooms this April to read aloud to classrooms and leave a short discussion related to autism acceptance and awareness month. Thank you for this opportunity. Please stand for the pledge. >> [clears throat] >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,
006and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Yeah, we're going to take a picture. And after we get the official picture, parents and family members feel free to come up and take photos as well. All right, families. Amazing. Thank you. NICE WORK. >> [applause] >> OKAY. YEAH, GROUP. VERY COOL. ALL RIGHT, as seats clear out, feel free to snag them. Oh my gosh. Cute. Cute piggies. All right, next up we have our student recognition, our YEA students. I got to meet several of these folks presenting about their businesses. Very cool. Come on in. Stop just before the screen. Yeah. Maybe two rows. There's looks like a lot of tall people in the back. >> [laughter] >> And then make a second row in front.
007There we go. Perfect, perfect. All right. All the sponsors. Good evening, President Ader, Dr. Hines, and the Board of Education. Also known as future customers of some of our friends over here. Um, tonight we are very proud to recognize our students who've participated in the Young Entrepreneurs Academy or the YEA, and that's in partnership with the Palatine and Rolling Meadows Chamber of Commerce. Uh, we've been doing this for many years, and this impactful program empowers students to develop business skills, build confidence, and turn their ideas into real ventures, as many of you saw um before our board meeting tonight. They worked in teams. Uh, these middle school students identified real-world problems and created products and services to address them. We had such things as uh for the string backpacks, padding that helps uh keep your
008shoulders feeling good. We had gloves, different types of gloves that could keep your hand warm. Um, all sorts of very useful products. And so that they have worked together as teams to collaborate and create um these prototypes and different uh business ventures that we can all be part of. Um, so not only is that fostering entrepreneurship, but this is helping open doors to all of these students for opportunities and leadership within our community. They're already talking about showing up at back-to-school night and selling their wares, going to different uh sporting events here. So, we're really proud, and uh they have all of our contact information, so we'll be hearing from them shortly about how we can further support them. Um, so we want to congratulate all of our students who have been part of this,
009and we want to uh thank Steve Steven and Len from the Chamber and Hillary, who was one of the educators who helped support this, um just making this experience possible, because when you when you see those products, those are real things that we could all be using that came from the minds and knowledge of of our students here in District 15. So, um this is always a fun event, and so it was exciting to see it all. So, um I'm just going to read off some of the names of the people who are here tonight. There's even more who couldn't be, and then we'll give them a round of applause. So, we have Abigail, Alina, Adyan, Alexander, Armaan, Ava, Ayan, Hannah, Ilya, Ishpreet, Nareena, Nishaan, Radya, Rian, Sanika, Tiwa, Veer, Zia. All right. And with
010that, if you could please give a round of applause for OUR STUDENT ENTREPRENEURS. >> [applause] >> ALL RIGHT, NOW CAN YOU MAKE A THIRD ROW? CAN THE BACK ROW JUST STEP FORWARD? The back row step up Guys in the front row, the back that half, and you can go on the other side. Being in front of the screen with the photo is really hard. Some of you may get up. There we go. You guys crouch down in the third row. Yep. Ava, can I scootch over? Guys, come through. Steve's still in the front of the screen. Hard. >> [laughter] >> It's very difficult. All right, hold up your certificate. Smile. Say shark tank. All right, families. Take a picture. Say hold it for the last minute. Families got to get the picture. >> [laughter] >>
011Just keep smiling. There's lots of people still making their way up that want your photos. Front row's feeling the burn. >> [laughter] >> Awesome. Congratulations. >> [laughter] >> Oh, no worries. No worries at all. All right. Up next, we have another student recognition for our ITBE Poetry and Writing Contest for multilingual learners. Oh my goodness, he's so sweet. I can't even. And a bow tie. I'm going to snatch you from bow tie. It looks the best. Are you kidding me? I don't know. Amazing. He's here for poetry, I know. Oh, it's not working. Okay. Good evening, President Ader, Dr. Hines, members of the Board of Education, and members of the D15 community. Tonight, we have the opportunity to celebrate something truly special, the voices, the stories, and the brilliance of some of our multilingual students
012here in D15. Each year, the Illinois Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages and Bilingual Education, for short, ITBE, nonprofit organization, offers and sponsors a statewide poetry contest for students in grades 5 and a writing contest for multilingual students in grades 6 through 8. These [snorts] contests invite our students to express their ideas, experiences, and identities through language, whether through poems like haiku, acrostic, diamante, or bio poems in the elementary grades, and through powerful essays in the middle school grades. And our students embraced this opportunity to share their voices with creativity, heart, thoughtfulness, and authenticity. Our elementary students wrote about places and identities that were deeply meaningful to them, places like Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Japan, Nigeria, and the United States. Some wrote about themselves, some wrote about who they are or who they are becoming,
013and some wrote about the connections they've made across cultures. Our middle school students shared deeply personal narratives that were meaningful to them about family, fear, resilience, and courage. One student wrote about how they supported a younger sibling during a frightening international flight, even as they faced their own fear. Their story made visible the universal values of love, responsibility, inner strength, and quiet courage. Another student shared a deeply moving story of war, writing, "We moved to Chicago for a better life in the United States of America. The moment I came out of the airport, I felt that kind of calm in my soul, and I felt really relieved." These are not just essays or poems, they are the lived experiences of our students shared with honesty and bravery. Many of our students and families have come
014to a new country and have had to adapt, and learn, and grow in ways that require tremendous courage. And language is one of their superpowers that helps them navigate different linguistic systems, cultures, and customs in ways that deepen understanding for all of us. Their languages, their cultures, and their stories are truly gifts that strengthen District 15 schools and our community. And we are so proud of each and every one of you. Thank you for sharing your voices, and congratulations on the effort you invested in this achievement. And I also want to thank their teachers who went above and beyond, as our D15 teachers always do, and facilitated this opportunity for their students. So, please join me IN APPLAUDING THEM. >> [applause] >> AND NOW WE'LL PRESENT EACH OF THEM THEIR TEACHER will present each of
015them with a certificate. So, from Marion Jordan, we have Aleem who placed first in the category of acrostic. And we have Yukito who placed or who earned a newcomer award of merit, and he's also from Marion Jordan. And we have Arlen who also received a newcomer award of merit for third grade, and this is across the entire state of Illinois. And we have Dave who placed first in the bio poem category in fourth grade from Marion Jordan. We have Toro who also earned a newcomer award of merit in fourth grade from Marion Jordan. And Dennis who placed second in diamante category, and he's a fifth grader at Marion Jordan. And we have their teacher Navila Jahan-Clair. And those were our winners FROM MARION JORDAN. >> [applause] >> AND THEN WE HAVE ANOTHER FIVE students from
016Paddock who earned certificates as well. We have Maxim who earned the first place diamante award for second graders across the state of Illinois, and he is from Paddock. We have Ayo who placed first in the diamante category for third graders across the state of Illinois, also from Paddock. We have David who placed second in the category of haiku. We have Dorina who placed first place in the acrostic category from Paddock. And we have Diana who is not able to be here tonight, but she earned a newcomer award of merit, too. And we have their teacher CLAUDINA MATO. >> [applause] >> AND THEN WE HAVE OUR MIDDLE school students who participated in the essay contest. And from Thomas Jefferson, we have Olivia and her teacher Ava Pitzer. And then we have from Walter Sunling, Maria and
017her teacher Mr. Bustos. And then we have Viesturs who also placed in the contest but could not be here tonight as she would love to have been if she could have, and that is her teacher in course, so I wanted to mention to her as well. So, an applause for all OF THEM, PLEASE. >> [applause] [applause] >> ALL RIGHT, I THINK NOW WE'LL TAKE A PICTURE. EXCUSE ME, can I ask the parents to help me make two rows? Sure. We'll have all the MJ's MJ guys in the in the front row. Okay. All right, all of you in the front. All right. And if the back row can come up a little bit towards the screen. Oh, yes, there we go. And then nice and close. There we go. I love it. Oh, very nice.
018All right, family. If any parents want to come up, please come up and take pictures. Smiling, hold up your certificates. I want to see you. Smile. Okay, I want there They just keep taking pictures. I'm so proud of you all. One more, two more. One more. Okay. >> [laughter] >> Your poem is moving and inspirational. Keep writing. Teachers, thank you for helping them. I hope I have enough highlighters to give them a little nervous. It's for them. I think I have just just enough. Thank you. Five bright highlighters for when you're doing poetry editing. And then there were two that weren't here, right? But we can I have them. But I want to get a replacement for the ones that aren't Attention. All right, thank you. CONGRATULATIONS. >> [applause] >> ALL RIGHT, I CAN SEND
019TWO. The one student from SRP, the other one I didn't catch. Okay, I've got their names. But all right, thank you. Okay. >> [clears throat] >> It's like congratulations. All right, we're almost there. You have These are our teachers now. Yeah. >> [clears throat] >> Okay. All right, up next we have our above and beyond staff recognition for our newly certified and recertified national board staff. Good evening, President Eder, Dr. Hines, and the Board of Education. Um I'm Dr. Claire Qualczek, and I am the director of personnel. And it's my pleasure tonight to um give out our award for our staff that has gone above and beyond um by earning their national board certification. So, national board certification is the most respected professional certification available in K-12 education, and remains the profession's way to identify
020accomplished teachers. Recognized as the gold standard in teacher certification, the national board believes higher standards for teachers means better learning for students. Established in 1987, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards is an independent nonprofit organization working to advance accomplished teachers for all students. The founding mission of the National Board is to advance the quality of teaching and learning by maintaining high and rigorous standards for what accomplished teachers should know and be able to do, providing a national a national voluntary system certifying teachers who meet these standards, and advocating um related education reforms to integrate national board certification in American education, and to capitalize on the expertise of national board certified teachers. Study after study has proven that the students of national board certified teachers learn more, and the impact is even greater for our
021low-income students. The estimates of the increase in learning are on the order of an additional one to two months of instruction, and positive impacts is even greater for our high-needs students. The initial certification is valid for 10 years. And then to maintain their current certification, national board certified teachers are now required to complete um a maintenance of certification. And that process is every five years, and it aligns with when their teaching license expires. So, maintaining their certification is a personal and public statement about their commitment to the profession and to your students. Accomplished teachers recognize that their professional learning and growth never ends. In any given subject and developmental area, best practice and knowledge are constantly evolving. At the same time, changes in technology and policy affect every aspect of education from the classroom to
022administration. So, I would ask you to join me tonight in congratulating this year's class of newly nationally board certified staff, and of our staff who have renewed their certificates. >> [applause] >> SO, I'M GOING TO ANNOUNCE THE NAMES of some of our staff that were unable to attend tonight, and then we'll honor these lovely ladies here. So, Cindy um Aikman is um from GMS, and she's an occupational therapist. Sally Cheeseman is from Jane Addams, a social worker. Celine Cushman is from Hunting Ridge, a psychologist. Caitlin Dempsey is from CLA, occupational therapist. Breanna Dis- Discipio um excuse me, Discipio. I'm sorry. Um Jane Addams, she's a speech language pathologist. Jessica Herworth is Central Road social worker. Ryan Johnson, Jane Adams psychologist. Lauren Kim, Kim Kimball Hill speech language pathologist. Kelly Kolpack, Virginia Lake psychologist. Joseph McTague,
023Plum Grove Middle School speech language pathologist. Andrew Andrea Madia Diaz is Kimball Hill bilingual speech language pathologist. Emmy um Tactio is Lincoln School and she's a psychologist. And then um renewed was Jennifer Maldonado and she was Plum Grove Middle School. And she um she's an ELA. Now, these ladies here with me, um Jean Marie Maramba, Walter Arseneault Lane and she's a bilingual resource teacher. Um Samira Khan, Winston Campus Middle School. She's an ESL teacher. And um Joanna, renewed, did you tell me this is your third time renewing? Second time. Our second time renewing. So, she's earned it and renewed twice already. Um Joanna and Joanna Angelopoulos, Winston Campus Middle School and that's FOR ART. OH. >> [applause] [applause] [laughter] >> NO. AND LADIES, SCOOT A LITTLE THIS WAY. JUST center yourselves up. There we go.
024Perfect. Congratulations and thank you. Thank you so much for everything you do. All right. Family photo. Hold on. Aw. >> [clears throat] [laughter] >> Okay, we're going to have about 6,000 I course I do. About [laughter] 6,000 pictures of darling. THANK YOU. ALL RIGHT. UM NOW IS OUR TIME FOR public comment. Did we get any green sheets? >> see any. Okay. Any green sheets in the audience? Otherwise, I'll move to the next item. Okay. We have orange sheets for now. Okay. Yeah, you want to move to 5.2? Yeah. Okay. All right, we are going to move to item 5.2, which is our district-wide partnerships and community engagement presentation. Okay, I'm back. >> [laughter] >> Good evening again. Um I am so excited to share an update on community engagement here in District 15 with all
025of you alongside with several of our District 15 parents and some of our partners. I just realized we're missing two people. Jessica and Vicky, are you here? And they will each introduce themselves when it is their turn to talk. So, to provide some additional context for you, Did I turn that off or Here we go. Okay. [laughter] To provide some additional context for you, in District 15, we have just over 11,000 students and as of just this week, we have 3,578 of those students who participate in our bilingual programs. Over 80 different languages are spoken in our district and our top languages are Spanish, Ukrainian, Russian, Japanese, Polish, Telugu, Korean and Bulgarian. Our administrators, our teachers, our support staff, our district office and our whole D15 team work incredibly hard to listen and respond to
026the voices of our families and to invite them in as partners in their child's learning. We also work hard to leverage our relationships with our community partners to expand the opportunities and supports available to our students and their families. We know that research is very clear. Is very clear that strong family engagement matters. Right, it is associated with many positive outcomes such as reduced absenteeism, less school anxiety, fewer conduct problems, better attitudes towards learning, improved social emotional competence, higher self-confidence, higher graduation rates and post-high school education. Family engagement provides a strong foundation for a positive and collaborative learning environment that leads to higher expectations and higher levels of academic success for all of our students. So, before we go any further, we want to recognize that there are a great many partnerships here in District
02715 and unfortunately, we can't recognize them all tonight because we [clears throat] would be here all night and possibly into the morning. But we want to recognize these 10 partnerships that we have tonight. And each of our representatives here will answer one, two or all three of the questions up here, which are how does your group reflect the voices and needs of the District 15 families? What are some celebrations and impacts of your efforts and what you value about engagement in District 15? Our first group is our multilingual parent advisory committee. So, you can see here that the multilingual parent advisory committee is the umbrella under which all of our BPACs fall. In any public school district in the state of Illinois, the State Board of Education requires that a language specific parent advisory committee
028be implemented when 20 or more students who speak the same language and qualify for services in support with English are all in the same school building. So, in District 15, we have six different BPACs or language specific bilingual parent advisory committees that fall under our MPAC. Okay. So, tonight we have one of our very active MPAC parents here who's going to share a little bit about his experiences. Thank you. Um yeah. Good evening Board of Education and District 15 family and District 15 member. So, uh it's my honor to be here to share some thought about the MPAC. Um I have kids um study in uh Central Road Elementary School and Plum Grove um junior high school. So, um to begin with, I would like to say that um like the MPAC uh play a
029vital role in strengthens um our district community um um so um To enjoy that, um so by that, it's give the family a strong voice and we feel very connected between like the school, family and district all together. So, uh and this is um make it very confident um like the to have and own um of the member, including family, to have like the contribute for the success for all of our student. Yeah, and yeah, for the past uh few years, I've attended um several events like the form the access testing, uh like the how they um they prepare for better like the family involved to prepare better at home. And also the summer um enrichment program guideline and the summer um guideline for the develop language during the summer activity. So, yeah, so basically,
030um by um by that, it's um address all the the family need. For example, during the summer, how can can we involve our student for the further activity and we have a list of the resource of the activity provide from the MPAC that is really really helpful and like by that we can reference and it is strongly can like we can apply directly and find out the necessary resource for our student growth. In my in my experience from the positive applying we can have like the support our student better from the communication and make them later to encourage them for the communication and share what they learn and what is the difficulty every day. So previously we try to communicate with them like try to use English but that is not the good way and
031yeah we encourage to use our native language. However still to impress and encourage them for the mindset building and they can later move to the second language later to English basically. Yeah. So um Yeah so for that we also have the very good team for the later um summer activity. So based on later the activity guide from the the community and we also have a team later scheduler and the planner and how we we support our student better at home. Yeah so this is the really good material and resource. So for myself I very grateful and strongly very proud to be a part of the our community. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you Mr. Wang. And now we have one of our Japanese bilingual BPAC parents who did not was
032not able to come tonight but she wrote her comments down so I'll read them for you. Learning English as a second language at MPAC is useful not only for just learning language but also for learning how to make good communication, relationships, and sociality as a member of CCSD 15. Thank you to MPAC we can have good experience in the United States. I hope we can continue to learn English more. And these are some of the pictures of our different language specific BPACs and we're excited to share that we do have a math night coming up for all of our language specific groups in the month of April. And this is our Ukrainian BPAC. And now we have two representatives from our executive board of the bilingual Spanish parent advisory committee and this has been the
033longest standing BPAC in District 15. It has been around for more than 20 years so it is very well established and we have Jessica and Vicky And I will translate in English for her. My name is Jessica Marones and it is a pleasure to be here tonight. The District 15 bilingual parent advisory committee is not just a recipient of information but a channel for communicating parents interests and needs. The workshops and conferences held throughout the school year reflect the needs of our bilingual families based on topics previously identified and grounded in the realities of our homes. Families feel more comfortable sharing their perspectives and the barriers they face in their children's education with other parents who share their language and culture. >> [clears throat] [clears throat] >> Um impact the next Junta Directiva as the
034proposito de nuestro BPAC otro um in 2025 And I'll translate for her. She said good evening Board of Education. It is a pleasure to be here and represent our BPAC tonight. My name is Vicky Galvan. One important achievement of BPAC was the creation and approval of its bylaws developed through the collective work of our executive board. This document defines the identity and purpose of BPAC as well as clear guidelines for how it operates. Another achievement we can highlight is the increase in parent participation in our events, workshops, and conferences. One example is our welcome back picnic and resource fair held on in September 2025 which had a total of 500 participants this year and demonstrated the trust that our families have in the district and in our committee. Another example is a literacy focused event
035that we held where it was a theatrical performance and the actors were our parents. They performed the three little pigs for for everyone and we did a fractured fairy tale as well and the parents actually didn't like the version of the fractured fairy tale so they wrote their own and we did two plays. So we had over 1,000 people who came out to see them. >> [clears throat] >> Valoramos mucho la oportunidad Valoramos proporcionar herramientas que fortalezcan a las familias Valoramos el compromiso y la res ponsabilidad que tenemos al organizar una charla o simplemente invitando a los padres a asistir a una reunión que se realiza especialmente para ellos. Valoramos la oportunidad que da el distrito de construir y de participar en BPAC en donde ayudamos, informamos, y apoyamos a padres como nosotros que tenemos
036hijos en el distrito y que queremos el éxito para ellos. En un país donde buscamos un mejor futuro para todos nuestros hijos. We value the opportunity to help and support parents who are unsure of what to do and who are seeking resources to help their children achieve academic success. We value providing tools that strengthen families and support student success. We value the commitment and responsibility involved in organizing and planning workshops, presentations, and inviting parents to meetings designed especially for them. We value the opportunity the district gives us to contribute and participate in BPAC where we support, inform, and guide parents like us. Families who have children in this district and who are striving for a better future for them. Tambien valoramos el crecimiento personal al involucrarnos en BPAC Valoramos aprender sobre el sistema educativo y
037el liderazgo Sobre todo valoramos ser representantes y voz de la comunidad bilingue del distrito 15 Tenemos el compromiso de continuar haciendo la diferencia para nuestras familias y las familias que representamos como BPAC y valoramos crear una responsabilidad compartida donde el éxito de cada estudiante sea un logro para toda la comunidad. We value the personal growth that comes from being involved in BPAC. We value learning about the educational system and leadership. Above all we value being representatives and a voice for the bilingual community in District 15. We are committed to continuing to make a difference for our families and the families we represent through VPEC. We value creating a shared responsibility where the success of every student is a success for the entire community. Okay, and now we will turn it over to Addy Gonzalez, who
038is the coordinator for our parent mentor program. Good evening and thank you for inviting me to speak a little bit about the parent mentor program. My name is Addy and I am the parent mentor organizer. Uh the parent mentor program is part of the parent engagement institute and it's also partnership with POC, Partners for our community. My boss next next year. >> [laughter] >> And District 15, it began 5 years ago with just two schools, Virginia Lake and Jane Addams and over time Lake Louise and Winston joined the collaboration and this year Lincoln became our fifth school and we hope to expand to even more schools throughout the district. Um what do parent mentors do? Parent mentors are from the same school community. They work individually or in small groups with students who benefit from
039additional support in the classroom. They support teachers with classroom task and become an extra set of hands in the classroom. And the most important thing, mentors are not assigned to their own child's classroom. Parent mentors serve as a bridge between families and schools. At the same time, they grow as leaders gaining confidence and skills that often lead to further opportunity within the district. Parent mentors volunteer 100 hours working 2 hours a day, Monday through Thursday, inside a classroom and upon successful completion they receive a stipend for the uh to recognize um their time and commitment. Um mentors also receive 3 hours of personal development and that's where we set goals. We um help them get to know the school system. Uh they receive support from District 15 staff through reading and math workshops. I really
040appreciate Renee for all her support. Um it has been amazing. Um I also uh we also receive extra instruction and leadership skills to strengthen their ability to support students and teachers. Receive um and they also receive social, emotional and well-being workshops. So, they we keep them busy. Um and lastly, um if you can see here, um together our mentors build a strong network of support among one another encouraging um each other to pursue personal and professional goals, sharing experiences and we lift one another up. Through these relationships, they do not only grow individually but also work collectively to unite the school community and for positive long-term change. We have an amazing group of parent mentors, mostly women, who dedicate their time and energy and passion in this program and I would like to personally thank
041them for all of their incredible work. We have a couple of them for right here next TO ME. >> [applause] >> AND JUST A UM COUPLE OF THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS, uh three have completed completed their GED. Eight um have enrolled for English classes. 18 have become paraprofessionals. 10 are now working in schools. Two have applied for teacher assistant positions. Three are applying for teacher assistant license by the end of the school year. Two are currently attending college, Richard J. Daley and Harper College. And a little bit of extra personal development, our mentors uh continue to grow through professional development opportunity this year. 27 mentors are certified in first aid and CPR. 27 mentors have completed the QPR, the question, persuade, refer uh suicide prevention training. 26 mentors earn certification in teen mental health first aid and
042it's valid for 3 years. Um and I just want to share a little bit of what the mentors feel about the program. This is from one of our mentors, her name is Rocío and uh she mentioned this, um the greatest impact parent mentors program has had in my life has been remembering that beyond being a mother, I am a woman, a woman capable of doing many things, including things I had stopped doing for many years, things I truly enjoyed as well as taking on new challenges. Another impact, without a doubt, has been socializing. It has been many years since I was part of such a large group with peers who become friends. Lastly, um the parent mentor program demonstrates the positive outcomes that are possible when families and schools work together with uh with a
043shared purpose. Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> SORRY YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW THAT, MICHELLE. >> I KNOW, THAT'S WHAT I [laughter] WAS THINKING. LIKE, I definitely can't follow that. All right, my name is Michelle Thompson and I have three kids that are enrolled in District 15. My oldest is in sixth grade at Thomas Jefferson Middle School and I have a third grader and a first grader that are in the dual language program at Jane Addams. I have been a part of the dual language parent advisory committee for about 7 years since my oldest was in kindergarten. This committee is made up of parents with kids across all grade levels and from all three dual language schools. We meet about four to five times a year virtually with the multilingual department and during our meetings we're
044able to share our experiences as parents within the dual language program. We also have the opportunity to ask questions. We share ideas that we have for enriching the program and the family experience. We're also able to get a preview of upcoming events or changes within the program and at times we can even provide thoughts and feedback on the impact that that might have on us as families. Um some ideas that have come out of our work as the committee include the dual language culture camp, uh junior grade books, family concerts and the dual language curriculum nights. The dual language culture camp is one of my kids' favorite parts of every summer. They make us make sure that we don't schedule vacations during that time. Um they love the chance to come back to school for
045a week, connect with their friends and teachers, practice their Spanish while learning about different Spanish-speaking countries. Each summer they learn about the cultures of four different countries in a fun and hands-on way. Another idea that stemmed out of this group is the Spanish junior grade books club for second and third graders. My third third grader currently participates in this club at lunch and the students are expected to read a story at home in Spanish, which I love, prior to coming to the club meeting at lunch. They have to come prepared um and they have a discussion and they have activities to reinforce what they read about and my daughter gets so excited for the weeks that they have their club meetings. Family concerts is another fun idea that came out of our group. Every spring
046the multilingual department hosts concerts with Spanish singers for families to attend and my whole family loves coming to these events as an opportunity to experience new songs and connect with other dual language families. Um one other event that came out of our group was the dual language curriculum nights and each year the multilingual department and the dual language teachers put together a night where parents of dual language students can come and feel what it is like to learn in two languages. Um this is such a helpful event as a parent because we are able to experience learning, we're able to ask questions and it helps us know how to better support our students at home. It also helps us appreciate the hard work that our kids put in learning in two languages every single day.
047So, I really appreciate the opportunity to partner in my child's education as a part of as being a part of the dual language parent advisory committee. It is so valuable to be a part of this group because we're able to connect and collaborate with the multilingual department and with dual language families from across the district. So, thank you. THANK YOU. HELLO, THANK YOU FOR HAVING US. MY NAME IS SETH Mullaney Kovash. I'm the executive director of Partners for our Communities, POC. Uh Rachel Lara, our I Compete uh director, was uh supposed to be here to talk about the Edgebrook Community Center but she wasn't able. Um I assure you she gave me things to say, so I won't mess it up. Um Edgebrook Community Center is an apartment that it's actually two apartments that we
048rent um at the Baldwin Green Apartment Complex on Baldwin. Um we've been there for over 30 years, POC and District 15 together have been there that long. It serves as a community hub. It's a collaboration between all those partners there, the park district, the city of Palatine, the Township of Palatine, District 15 and POC. We're there Monday through Thursday for after school club from 4:00 to 7:00. Um kids get tutoring, homework help, um special activities, you know, snacks, a safe place to be. And that's what I really wanted to highlight. I know that tutoring and academic success is obviously very important to you all. It's important to me, too. But what I value most about that center is that the kids and the families know that they belong. They know they have a home. They
049know they matter. They know that someone is going to be there for them. And to have that hub there, in addition to just the regular routine Monday through Thursday after school club, it provides a center and a space for many other special things to happen. One of our other partners, Faith Feeds Food Pantry, visits there with mobile food deliveries once a month. Harper College does special outreach events. The family liaisons that Renee is going to talk about in a minute. Do school registration events there. We're able to do outreach events and education about how to protect yourself with regard to federal immigration enforcement and things of that nature. So it provides that place, that hub that people can belong and we're so very grateful for that partnership. And that's just one of the many partnerships
050that POC has had for a very long time with District 15. District 15, if you don't know, is one of the founding partners of Partners for our Communities. POC exists because of District 15 in part, along with many other partners. And we are intimately tied with District 15 through the parent mentor program, the Edgewood Community Center, the family liaisons, the full-service community school, and many other programs. I said to my wife just the other night that I sometimes feel like I'm on staff at District 15, whether I want to be or not. Yeah, you'll take me? All right, thanks. >> [laughter] >> All right. And I don't have the District 15 mission statement memorized, but you put it up on the board. But ours, our purpose is to build a community of active citizens, healthy
051families, and vibrant neighborhoods. As I recall, it's pretty much the same thing. Very, very similar. And I want to thank you for investing in the community. And that's the way I look at it. I learned a long time ago when I was a young man that an oil change on my car seemed expensive, but not getting it was going to be a lot more expensive down the road. And investing in families and communities keeps kids in school, increases attendance, helps their their self-worth. The the moms in the parent mentor program get that same benefit. And we're able by doing that to head off many, many crises. Just like you, I don't want to be in the business of dealing with crises. I'd rather build people up ahead of time so the crisis can be avoided.
052So I just want to thank you for your investment in the community in all of these ways that we're talking about. Thank you. AND >> [applause] >> AND WE'RE GRATEFUL TO SHARE THAT WE HAVE A similar partnership with the Village of Rolling Meadows. And you can see in this corner picture here, there's an apartment there as well that the village makes available to us. So we are able to provide tutoring as well over in Rolling Meadows for all of our families right where they live. It is also a hub for the families. It is the busiest apartment I think you probably >> [laughter] >> would ever find. There's so much happening there. They offer many different events, violence prevention programs, parent support programs, restorative justice and conflict resolution, case management, school registration workshops, legal clinics,
053financial literacy programs, mobile food pantries, weekly tween talks, and so much more. And we are also really fortunate to have a small but very mighty team of family liaisons and a district translator / community engagement facilitator. [clears throat] And you can see the fruit of just a few of their efforts over the last year. We hosted 65 different registration workshops in the community, resulting in 1,220 registrations for students. And this group also has made over 3,200 phone calls. We have to log them for the grant, so we know. It's over 3,200 phone phone contacts in order to really promote all of those different events that our BPAC has offered over the course of the school year. And that has resulted in more than 1,000 participants at all of those events all together. And we also
054have our bilingual preschool parent advisory committee. So we have our last parent here, Mr. Rigoberto Barreto. Good evening. My name is Rigoberto Barreto and I am a parent of a child in the preschool program. And it is an honor to share my experiences with you. When I think about how this program reflects the needs and voices of families, I see it in the growth of our children. Through the multilingual preschool preschool program, our children are developing both socially and academically. They are learning to communicate, to read and write, and to build positive habits. As a parent, one of my greatest joys is seeing my daughter come home excited to share what she has learned, like writing the names of her classmates and celebrating those small achievements with our family. In terms of celebrations and impact,
055this program provides opportunities for us to come together as families. Activities like the Multicultural Night, the Winter Concert, and family workshops allow us to connect with teachers, administrators, and other families. These experiences help us learn about different cultures, share traditions, and feel part of a united community. What I value most about my involvement in District 15 is the support and dedication we receive. The multilingual program not only supports our children's academic and social development, but also guides us as parents. We learn strategies to support our children at home, strengthen our family bonds, and build build positive routines. We feel supported every step of the way as our children grow with confidence and security. >> [clears throat] >> This program not only prepares our children for kindergarten, but also helps them develop the skills, confidence, and
056curiosity they need for the future. It reminds us that a child's growth is a shared effort where families, schools, and the community work together so our children can grow and Thank YOU VERY MUCH. >> [applause] >> GOOD EVENING. MY NAME IS ANDREA LANDAUER. I'M the assistant superintendent for student and related services. And this evening I just want to highlight one of our partnerships for our families with children with special needs, and that's our relationship with the Northwest Suburban Special Education Organization. NSSEO, as we refer to them, does several opportunities for us throughout the school year for our parents of children with disabilities. And one of the things that they provide are um parent education evenings. You know, whether they're hosted here in the district or out at their parent education resource center. So one of
057the little gems here that our parents have opportunity to access is the the PERC, as it's known as the Parent Education Resource Center. It's located in our community on Plum Grove Road, and there's a small lending library and a small space where parents can gather and share their stories and connect with one another. But it's also the environment in which they host some of the parent evenings that are not held within the district. And there are two upcoming events that I just like to highlight. One is Retiring for Three, coming up in April, and another is Decision Making Alternatives. And both of these opportunities highlight special needs planning and future planning for adulthood. So it's never too early to start thinking about, you know, post-school transitions and opportunities. So thank you. >> [applause] >> WE
058ALSO WANT TO HIGHLIGHT THAT OUR COMMUNICATIONS department has curated and made available a number of different resources to support families and they are located on the webpage, the landing page of the District 15 website. And we wanted to promote two upcoming events. One event will be held on April 23rd and our author and speaker Dr. Devorah Heitner will be presenting at Winston campus and will share workshop titled screen wise helping kids thrive in their digital world. And then on May 6th, we will also have an event at Walter Sounding Middle School and will screen the documentary like and that will be followed by a discussion with themes that have been explored in the documentary. And so we'd like to close with a 1-minute video that showcases community engagement in action here in District 15. And
059please keep in mind that this is not my full-time job to put together videos. It's not my my skill set, but I did my best to showcase this in action. [music] >> [music] [music] [applause] >> That was great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Do you have any questions for us? Okay. Well, I just want to thank all of our presenters tonight and for all of the work that you do every day. The heart that you bring to District 15 matters and it all comes back to our students and supporting our students so that they can truly rise to their full potential. So thank you very much. Thank you so much. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. OKAY. ALL RIGHT. WE'LL GO BACKWARDS. We're going to go to item 5.1. Hi. All right, thank you. Thought it
060was the bright green. Sorry. All right. Good evening everybody. Pres- President Ader and members of the board and Superintendent Dr. Hines. Uh we're going to shift to something that's a little more dry. Um we're going to discuss the 26 million um D sub or working cash bond sale that um we are going out for in May. Um we have here Liz Hennessy, managing director at Raymond James, who you all know very well. Um we're going to I'm going to turn it over to Liz. Uh we presented this, as you can see here, to the finance committee back on April 1st. Um so we'd like to review that with you and give you some of the details of this coming up upcoming bond sale and some other updates, too, along the way. Thanks, Diana. Can you
061hear me? Okay, that's great. All right. So I'm going to talk about the market first. Uh since the outbreak of the war with Iran, we have seen the price of gas go up dramatically. This has caused uh US Treasury bond rates to increase also by over 50 basis points and municipal bond yields have followed. Um with the uh breaking news really last night of the 2-week ceasefire, rates came down today uh 10 to 12 basis points. So, you know, we've seen a lot of volatility. So uh the rates I'm showing you tonight are from the update that we shared with the finance committee last week. This uh chart that you have in front kind of summarizes some of those things that I was mentioning, but the top graph talks about the supply, which has been
062very large in '25 and has been less so now in '26 with this raise in interest rates. And then the bottom chart looks at demand. The good news is demand for municipal bonds is still very strong. So we are finding markets, we are getting deals done. The next page looks at the AAA municipal market data index and that dark line shows the average uh for the last 30 years as well as the rec- the high and the low on the top and bottom of that light blue bar. So the dark line is the yield from years 1 through 30 and the red line is where we are now. So you can see we're kind of right on top of that 30-year average. So we were experiencing a little pressure downward, but now we're because of
063the gas prices and whatnot, we're we're right on top of it. Uh so, you know, that's not the worst thing in the world, but it's could be better. And then this next page shows what's happened between Jan 1 of '26 and March 27th of '26. These uh show the increases in rates in the years 1 through 30 and you can see that they've gone up anywhere from pretty much zero up to 0.42 or 42 basis points. So those again are those increases that are stemming from the um hostilities in Iran. And here is the US Treasury bond. The 30-year average is the dark line and the red line is where we are now. So those yields are higher, which is expected, but it the good silver lining is that helps your investment earnings. Okay, so
064next I want to go into the draft uh of the updated capital updated capital plan from March 31st. We've looked at this with finance committee a couple times this year and with the board, I think about 6 months ago, but it's changed a little bit in that the life safety items have been more looked at more carefully and added on to in fact in the year fiscal 2031. So the highlighted items in green can be paid with any funds. Um the yellow highlights represent health life safety items that may be paid with any funds as well, but specifically may be paid with health life safety bonds. So we talked about uh an issue of life safety bonds down the road. I'm going to touch on that tonight, but this is not at a decision point
065tonight. Tonight we're focusing on the 26 million, which was authorized uh in '23 as part of the 40 million debt service extension based bonds that are part of the moving 15 forward plan. So our deadline to issue this remaining tranche of bonds is this summer. You do have projects uh clearly, as you can see in the capital plan, that can be paid for with these funds. We've got um summer of '26 uh 8.7 8 million 750, summer '27 22 million 532, and summer of '28 25 million uh 681 combined health life safety and other non-health life safety projects. Um so uh that's the resolution board will be reviewing and hopefully approving tonight. In this scenario, um we always look at the opportunity for the board to come back with additional bonding for continuing capital needs.
066So, for working cash bonds paid from the D sub in the green, we have another issue suggested in the year fiscal year 2030. And then in the yellow, we have an example of 52 million of health life safety bonds. So, you know, if we look at the total of those yellow bars up top, the life safety items, you can see it's a large number. It's 81.3 million. So, we're looking at funding a portion of it in this example with the 52 million health life safety bonds. And that should get the district through its capital plan through the year FY 2031. Now, the you know, we could uh move these numbers around within a range, but uh the 29 million additional projects really are complete health life safety projects, HVAC projects, um in multiple schools that
067are required under health life safety and qualify. So, that's the new part of the capital plan. This example shows uh 52 million of health life safety bonds in combination with the other debt to fund some of those needs, which continue to um be an issue for the district as you look forward in your comprehensive uh master facility plan. Yeah, I'll make a a little comment. So, uh these numbers have gone up since the last capital plan we showed you. Some of the 29 or the 29 million is part of about 40 million. Remember when we first were um identifying projects back in really COVID days, and we had included some of this HVAC in those projections, and then because of COVID, there was a lot of cost escalation, right? And if you recall, we had
068to keep trimming back on the amount of projects that we knew were needed in the district, but we weren't not going to be able to we you know, as as escalation as the cost escalations kept, you know, increasing over the year, year and a half, um like HVAC projects uh really escalated in in in that in cost. So, we had to push out about 40 million worth of projects. So, the 186 million that we were able to, you know, use, 93 passed in the referendum, and then 93 from the district did not was not able to absorb about another 40 million that early on we had identified. So, we pushed those out. Now, that 29 million in 30 some of 30 31, that's that's part of the 40 million that we're putting back in the
069plan here. So, um what what Liz will talk more about is is and and we'll we'll come back to probably next month with one of our health life safety amendments, but we want to we're we're hoping to leave some flexibility in future years to future administrations so that they can issue some deep cuz D sub can be used for anything as Liz said, but health life safety um is restricted. So, we've put projects here that we were pretty real rest assured that they will qualify for health life safety. That 20 Some of this was going to be paid for with some D sub. What we want to we're we're recommending as Liz will also discuss leaving some of that out in future years so that if there's our projects that come up that we can
070only that will not qualify for health life safety, then we can fall back on the D sub. Thanks. Okay, so let's talk about the working cash bonds, the 26 million. So, looking at this chart, sorry the numbers are small. Um we've got the EAV. We've estimated a 10% increase in 2025, which is a triennial reassessment year. Then we have the debt service extension base, which grows at CPI every year. That's the fourth column from the left. You can see in 26, we know that CPI for 26 levy year is going to be 2.7%. That gives us a debt service extension base of 7.3 million. After that, we've assumed it increases by 2%, which is the Fed's goal to get uh inflation down to that. Um we have the current D sub, and then we have
071the 25 the 14 million D sub that was part of that 40 million authorization, and here we're doing the 26 million in the light blue. It's going to be repaid over 10 years. Um so, that's great, and we have room for another issue in the year 2030. That's currently estimated at 22 million in our scenario. It could be higher than that, but to the extent it's more than that, it's going to cramp the district down the road. We've been very intentional every time we issue these D sub bonds to give the district flexibility to come back to that trough and issue another tranche of bonds every 5 years. If we increase this 22 million back up to 40 or even 50 million, that will not give you the flexibility you need every 5 years. And
072the D sub, as just to remind you all, is an extension of a part of it it's part of the tax cap. It's an extension of the payments taxpayers have been making. The increase is just the CPI increase on that. So, uh we want to use it judiciously. We want to leave you and future boards flexibility to come back and continue to address your capital projects and um keep these buildings in great shape. So, that's the the D sub plan, the working cash bonds that you're going to be talking about on the resolution tonight. And as you can see, the estimated tax rate for debt is very stable for these bonds, just going up a penny or two over time with CPI. Next, I'd like to address the 52 million example we talked about issuing
073that in the year 2027. That'd be next summer, next uh July if the district chose to move forward with that. We have shown a repayment of 20 years. Um and that is uh generates the 52 million. Um the rate has a cushion in it. Of course, we're at a higher rate level right now. We hope they come down, but the impact of this is 9 cents on the tax rate. For a $350,000 home, that's $83 a year. And for the $400,000 home, it's $96. 97, I guess, rounded up. So, life safety bonds, if I you remember, we spoke about those a couple uh 6 months ago. In 24, they changed the law to allow life safety bonds to be issued um same way as referendum bonds are, outside of the D sub. So, they do
074increase taxes, but they give the district a really important tool to be able to address specifically and only health life safety projects approved by the ROE and the state of Illinois. Okay. Okay. So, just to review that public act, um sorry. Oh, we're on the time. I guess we Oh, there. Okay. Um it was approved in June of 24. It allows fire prevention and safety bonds to be issued outside of the D sub for tax capped districts like D15. It also changed some things about the debt limit. Voter approved bonds no longer are subject to the debt limit. Um unfortunately, that happened after you issued them, but you have plenty of debt limit, so that's not an issue. Also, the max repayment has been extended to 30 years. Just to talk a little bit about
075the timeline for health life safety bonds. Um the district architect provides life safety amendments deal detailing project costs by building. That's how we came up with those items in the yellow. That was from the district's architect, Wold, looking at what qualifies for health life safety. The ROE uh Board of Ed reviews and approves health life safety amendments. The ROE uh then approves them, sends them down to the state. The state reviews and would approve them. That takes at least 6 weeks, uh maybe more. The district must have a public hearing prior to the issuance, um and then they may be issued by resolution of the board. Um Do you want to talk about the when the health life safety survey was done recently? Wasn't that just completed? Yeah, when Wold presented that, too. So, um
076the only uh the only thing I really want to say about the health life safety is um there was a there had been a question in finance committee. So, we'll have to do some amendments for some of the projects. Like the the most want the the the one we'd uh like to discuss next month is the Virginia Lake HVAC project. So, in the health life safety report that Wold put together, That only reflected replacement costs of existing equipment. It didn't consider the cost of bringing the entire HVAC system up to code and looking at the whole system. So, we and we knew that at the time um So, we we knew that we in our presentation presentation we said we had to do we there would be some amendments coming forth because when we when
077you when we really want to do it the Virginia Lake project the cost is going to be much is going to be probably around 9 or 10 million dollars. And in the in the amend in the survey is about 1.5 because that was just some like-for-like equipment. But the whole project has to be brought up to code. So, um we will be just presenting those details at Finance Committee. And then I believe the board has to approve these amendments. Um and again they qualify for health life safety. So, you know, in the next in the short run you know, it's one of the reasons why um one of the beneficial reasons why tapping into health life safety and and not D sub. You can use D sub for them. But we recommend um savings like
078we said saving some saving some of that bonding for the D sub in in future uh years. Great. Just to review the schedule, this is for the 26 million. Um here we are tonight uh considering the parameters bond resolution. The parameters bond resolution authorizes the issuance of up to 26.7 million of health life of working cash bonds um within certain parameters subject to final approval by the uh board president and the uh chief school business official. We plan to sell those bonds the week of May 4th via competitive sale. The money would come in June 4th. Uh and then on June 10th there's a resolution to transfer that working cash 26 million into fund 60, the capital projects fund, so it may be properly spent on the projects. So, we've covered a lot of ground.
079Questions? I mean, I I guess my question would just be So, in to su- to summarize from the last time we received the uh kind of capital expenditure {slash} the bond report are we just saying that there is now an additional amount that needs to be accounted for based on the kind of revised uh life safe life safety expenditures that that wasn't there the last time we saw this? There will be um again because we're having more of an engineering design um uh you know, analysis or whatever of these like HVs like the Virginia Lake. That those deep dive into the design of the project will require an amendment. Because for again like for instance we'll we'll speak to you more about Virginia Lake, but again um the Wold amendment is or survey that is
080didn't um wasn't a deep dive into all the design plans of the They they they included it just the equipment that really would be a one-for-one like-for-like replacement. But the project really requires a a a new design the whole has to be redesigned. The whole HVAC, you know. And so yes there will be that's part of the 52 I believe. We're going to have Jim Kapounas come. So, he can explain it much better than I can. I do understand it, but he can explain it much better than I do. So, he'll come and we'll we'll go into more depth about that. Okay. So, what was the original life safety estimate? From Wold? Um I mean, this is 81 million. So, what was it before? Um I don't have that in front of me. I thought
081it was a hundred right. Sorry, we continue to forward projects that are off that health life safety list. But it was over a hundred thousand and we've tightened it up. 100 million. 100 million 100,000 Let's do it all. 100 million. >> Yeah, it was right. I mean, remember there were the A's and the B's and the C's. And the A's were really like really minuscule I think about less than a hundred thousand. Our up and it's 81 million. Our first our decennial was 150 million. Then we drove it down to about a hundred and that was covering what we did ask for in the referendum. And then the one the most recent one Frank, are you talking about or Yeah, he's talking about the last one I'm Okay, hold on. I thought you meant the
082older one. No, not 2015. That's the last >> Here you go. From December of 2025. I don't think I have it here. The report identified approximately 32 million of facility needs um in conflict with health life safety code. That was from December of 2025. Yeah. If that's the one you're talking about. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. All right. So, what >> 32 million and then this is saying 81 million. 81 million. Because All right. So, I >> things happened. I mean, you broke out the health life safety out of the total projects in 27 and 28. So, they were put in the just the total projects. And then that 29 million is new and reflects all that HVAC work. So, I agree we're going to have to have Jim and So, so is it
083Am I understanding correctly that like a portion of that increase in life safety is because you've just allocated uh things that were going uh that were part of the D sub >> a D fund D sub, yes. that were going to go in the D sub and now been allocated to the life safety. But in terms of truly new things there's 29 million. And then because we're we've decided where we hope to go out for health life safety bonds we're identifying additional projects and moving them up. Yeah. The 29 were always there. They were out farther. Okay. >> And we moved them Yeah, we've moved them to to summer of third 2030. They've always been on there, but we didn't they're in more in the 10-year they're in the 10-year plan. We've moved them up.
084Um so that we can use the bond >> use them on the for the health life safety and Avoid escalation was the conversation as well. Avoid cost escalation. Putting them in the second 10. Mhm. So, we'll dive deeper into that with Wold and Jim next. I think the point of our presentation tonight though is that we're we're selling lot we're we're going We'd ask you to approve that resolution tonight for the 26 million because it you know, 40 million was um approved in 2023. We did 14 last March or February. So, the 26 is the last tranche of all the moving 15 forward bonding that was approved um by the board of the 186 190 million that became 190 million. The next going forward is to take more of a serious look at health life
085safety bonds and the and the combination of timing of the D sub pushing out the D sub farther. We were going We originally presented oh gosh, a year two years ago we were going to go with 40 million of D sub. But then in the change of the rules for the health life safety and a lot of discussions we've had over the last 9 months or something like that and some of and the presentations we're we're you know, asking the board to think about the use of health life safety to supplement these projects including those ones way back when when we had the we didn't have the money to fund them because we had to push them out. They went to the they went to the 10-year. But now they're sitting here in 2031. That
08629 like we said is new, but it's not really new. They were identified projects three four years ago. We three four years ago. And and we've pushed them up because of the availability of possible health life safety and amounts of funding. On on page of on page 10 Mhm. So, is this showing when certain D sub bonds are concluding? Uh because I you know, the numbers are because you got current D sub debt service and then it ends in 2028. So, that's when that stuff is paid off. Is that it? So, if I'm reading this properly. So, the current bond that we're looking at the 26 million will have a final maturity of 2034. I'm I'm sorry. I'm talking about the the column that says current D sub debt service. It's the first column. Yes.
087And how it's it totals up to 28 million, but it but it ends in 2028. Right. That was before the 25. So, you got to add the actual I separated out the 25 to the column to the right of that which we already issued back in March of 25. Right. So, these are the 2025 and so I want to make sure I'm understanding this. So, that ends in 202030. So, you're saying those bonds will be paid off in 2030? Correct. >> Okay. And then the then the ones you're proposing now uh those are going to be paid off in uh 2034. >> Correct. Yeah. Okay. And that's so so that's how you read this. Yeah. Got it. >> And you know, we try to keep them short within 10 years. And so the 26 bond
088allows more bonds to be issued in 2030. So, we've always estimated a bond there. We've got it at 22 million now in that D sub bond. But, I think and I probably should have brought the graph for you so you could see how these all fit nicely together within that uh limit, which is part of the tax cap. What's the Is that the column here then in green where you have projected D sub debt service where you're adding them all up, right? That's right. Okay, so this is like then becomes the rolling payment for D sub each year. Correct. Got it. Yep. All right, thanks. Yep. And in the bright green on the next column to that, you can see that's where we have more capacity after the 2030. So, that's in 2035. But, as
089all those payments are limited to the fourth column from the left, it's called debt service extension basically. That basically goes on forever and increases by CPI. Got it. All right, thanks. Sure. So, in the action items, there'll be a resolution for the 26 million uh D sub bond that we'll ask you to approve. Next month, will Jim also be talking about It sounds like we already have one amendment. Do we anticipate a lot more additional amendments? Okay, well, I'll have him talk about that. >> Okay, great. >> I'm not I don't know off the top of my head. I just know they want to amend for the original leak. Okay. All right, thank you both. Thanks for staying, Liz. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> See you all. All right, where do you want to
090go now, Dr. Uh we'll do insurance. Insurance, okay. 5.3 graduated up. >> [laughter] >> And And today she Today she was really crazy and she walked into 205 with no crutches. And I acted like her mother and said she needed a crutch. >> [laughter] >> Yes. Yes. When do we go? Uh good evening, President Ader, members of the Board of Education, Superintendent Dr. Hines. My name [snorts] is Anthony Fichera, Director of Fiscal Services. And I'm Julie Lozada, Associate Superintendent. Uh we are going to discuss the overview and discussion of medical, dental, vision insurance renewal for 2026-27 next fiscal year. Um our insurance committee is comprised of the CTC union president, vice president, associate superintendent, assistant superintendent of human resources, director of fiscal services, our benefit and payroll manager, and then a team of Alera Group,
091which is our insurance consultant. We meet quarterly to discuss uh regular updates regarding our insurance. And right around December, January is when we start to talk about our renewal for the upcoming fiscal year. Um just a reminder, District 15 is self-insured. That means we pay our own claims. We're not part of a large group where we split all the costs. We pay them directly ourselves. Um an overview of the health insurance renewal. Um Not Not much significant changes from last year. A lot of the same stuff. Uh rising insurance costs due to inflation. That means higher costs from doctors, more higher costs from uh hospitals. You know, everything All prices are going up all across the board. Um highest levels in recent times for all this medical 8 to 10%. Pharmacies 12 to 15. We
092are seeing a large jump in pharmacy all across the board. Um specifically, there's an increased use in GLP-1 drugs for diabetes and significantly for the weight loss side of it. We are seeing a large number of high high cost claimants and a a lot a lot more of those claims coming through, especially this year. And from our meetings with our with Alera, we don't expect those to fall off anytime soon. Um there is an increased utilization of specialty pharmacy prescription costs. Uh specialty is obviously more expensive. It's more expensive than your formulary and generic, so um increased cost of those. Another cost to us is a state-mandated state of Illinois mandated bill for infertility and menopause coverage, which resulted in a premium increase of about 1%. Can't do anything about that. That's a That's a
093statewide mandate. Um so, we have it in there effective uh July 1st. On the other side, uh we are seeing an increased utilization of virtual programs, telehealth, like Hinge Health, Galileo, and MD Live. These are helping lower our claims, um lesser amounts, less more The more use of those helps reduce the number of claims and keeps the price of those claims down. So, in total, our im- the impact of all of these resulted in about a 6.8 percent increase in our premiums going into fiscal year 26-27. However, in effort to keep those costs down, we um one of the things that we looked into as a cost-saving measure is we do this every year where we we go to bid for our stop-loss company. Uh this year, we've always been with Blue Cross Blue Shield.
094This year, they came at um their bid was at 6.8%. Um but, there was a new company that came in um and came in at 4.2, which would save us that 1.6% overall for the premium increase. And so, that was exciting for us to be able to save a little bit of money and to be able to try a new company uh to cover those stop-loss claims. Um In addition to that, we uh Anthony talked about our telehealth opportunities we've had this year. We had MD Live as well as Galileo. Uh what we found is that MD Live um was at is actually a little bit more cost uh actually Galileo is more cost-effective for the district because it's charging per member as opposed to per use. And so, um it also provides a wider
095variety of services and uses for our staff so that they have been utilizing it more so than we would we were with the MD Live, which also saves us money overall. Um and so, we are going to be sticking with Galileo uh moving forward and no longer keeping the MD Live. So, we won't have both of them, we'll just have the one. Uh so, because of this, we're hoping to recommend to the board that we have an increase this year for health insurance at 4.2% with no plan changes. And this is lower than we've had in in several years, uh which uh is exciting that some of our costs have gone down. But, in the same token, we're being mindful of the fact that over the last several years, we've seen significant increases in the
096cost of insurance and claimants, um especially because if you look around insur- uh health costs as Anthony said is going up. And so, we're fortunate that 4.2 is our recommendation for this year uh because our right now our claims were not as high as we anticipated them to be. Uh for dental, uh we have seen a very large increase in utilization. Uh our typical inflation is about 5% for dental. This year, uh we've gone above that, and so we're recommending a 9.5 increase for the dental premiums. Uh and that's with no plan changes as well. And lastly, our vision is uh staying the same, no plan changes, and uh no premium changes. The recommendation is staying at the 0.0 cuz that's kind of leveled out. Um so, those are the recommendations from the the insurance
097uh team as a whole to try to uh maintain our funds as well as provide the insurance the great insurance that we have for all of our staff. Any questions on that? It was lower than I thought it was going to be. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. Us, too. Yeah. Yeah. All right, any questions? I think the Blue Cross um Blue Shield Blue Blue Choice that we adopted last year really made a significant impact on our our our budget for this year. Um and we have seen the the the positives to changing over to that um with some of our funds this year. That's great. We'll take the win. I know, we [laughter] need it. We'll take it anywhere we can get it. Exactly. Thank you so much. And thank you to the insurance committee members,
098everybody that's helped us get here. All right, do you want to go back up? >> Yes, I do. Okay. Superintendent's report. >> So, I love this picture. This is a picture This is an actual picture from District 15. From our 70th year. Um well, of educational excellence. That was the D 15 blessing. And we still have those fancy clocks. They are so fancy. And this is something. All right, so as I always do, this is what we've been up to since our last meeting. I had a welcome I had a welcome lunch and transition meeting with Dr. Smith who, you know, I'm I'm outing him, makes delicious peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. So, expect them in August, board. Just just saying. So, I'm getting you on getting you on getting you on notice there, Dr.
099Smith. Um we've had meetings with our tax attorney um and engagement approval uh is in your packet in the within consent tonight. So, we will we'll talk a little bit about that before you vote on it. I have some information to share. Kicked off my second round of Hang with Hines school visits and I held my uh middle school advisory meeting starting this morning with Sunling. It was wonderful as always. Um as President Ader said, our 80th birthday anniversary party gala is this Friday at the Cotillion. Um and all proceeds from this wonderful event will go to uh Launch Our Feed 15 initiative. So, we're we're hoping to have a total of 300 tickets sold. We're getting really close and we have a lot of a lot of fun stuff planned for the night. Okay,
100speaking of the gala and the 80th birthday, we're going to show a little video that we put together. Few folks in this room are in the video. 2026 marks the 80-year anniversary of District 15. This proud history celebrates not only past generations of excellence, but also those to come. My first year in District 15 was 1984. I came to the district as a teacher. I taught at Virginia Lake. When I look at photos from the past and compare them to the present, we now have the open spaces, the art rooms, the multi-purpose rooms. The facilities are our treasure and I think that they have been well maintained and well [music] cared for. I started working here um as a young administrator in 1998. We had 1,350 [music] very diverse kids. We had a special education
101program. We had one of the behavior programs in the district. So, the school was happen. I left the district as an assistant principal from Winston Campus in 2002 and then I came back as the first female [music] superintendent of the district in 2019. When I think of 80 years, serving children is probably the most impactful and important thing that I that I think of. The thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of children that have been educated in this district is is really something to be proud of. I have experienced District 15 as a student, [music] as a teacher, and as an administrator. And something that would surprise me today would definitely be the technology. [music] Uh when I was a student here, it was a very big event to go to the computer lab. And
102now >> [music] >> students have access to technology throughout their day and in a one-on-one environment. We didn't have STEM labs. We now have beautiful state-of-the-art STEM labs. We still haven't given up on [music] paper, pencil, and you know, good old-fashioned books. We really do look to find the just right balance. Even though we're very tech-savvy in the district, we we want to make sure that we're still using [music] what we know are some of those tried and true old-school, if you will, resources. Over the last 80 years, so much has changed and evolved. The tools and some of the practices and resources may have changed, but our commitment to people, our students, [music] and our staff, and our community have stayed true throughout. My favorite thing about school would probably be the teachers and
103assistants for me. >> [music] >> The teachers are really helpful with students and they really try to support us in our education [music] and try to provide us with whatever we need. The people are the reason why I stay in District 15. Ever since I was younger, it wasn't that I [music] just wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to be a teacher in District 15 to give students the same thing [music] that I got as a kid. I feel when students are truly seen is when they feel staff members see them as a person as well. One of our principals learned how to say good morning in Ukrainian in a different language. So, when the student came in and they heard, you know, good morning in that language, I mean they they stood a
104little taller and, you know, hearing that language at home and then coming to school and seeing that connection really was powerful. One thing that District 15 has always done well has been to >> [music] >> include knowing how valuable and important it is to include those who work so hard to make things happen. This is a large community. We cover 35 miles and we service students in all or part of seven municipalities. [music] So, they're very different. They're as different as each and every one of our kids. But as as a collective, I think what they've taught all of us is that if people work together, anything is possible. What I hope never changes in this district is the pursuit of excellence across all aspects of what a school district needs to offer. We don't
105just deliver academics here. We really want to educate [music] the full child and give them a really rich and robust experience. And I think that's something that everybody that works here is very proud of. For the next generation [music] of District 15 students, I want them to really look back at their District 15 experience and think District 15 prepared me academically, of course, but it also helped challenge my thinking, helped me collaborate effectively with others, helped me learn new technologies. >> [music] >> I am proud to be 15 because of the work we do with staff for children. District 15 is a quality school system with a spirited community and served by caring professionals. [music] We don't settle for what's good enough. We have a world that's changing rapidly and I feel that District 15
106has kept [music] up with creating a environment where children can be successful through all the tools that we offer. We have so much to be proud of, especially when we work together collectively to make sure [music] that all of our students are able to reach their full potential. >> [music] [applause] >> So, you saw it here first. We'll show it again at the gala. If you haven't bought your ticket, it's not too late. All right, what's next? I think admin services, right? Yes, so yes. Um our badge pilot started at Jane Addams, Kimball, Carl Sandburg, Sunling, and SRP. And some of my middle school students had some questions for me today about the badges and why we need them. And just so the board knows, they're going to wear them every day. They're going to
107look just like the adults. They have their pictures and their uh their names. They can use them when they get on and off the bus so we know who's on the bus. We make sure they're on the right bus. Um if we can't find a student, that's going to help us to be able to track down where they are. They'll use them to quickly swipe in for lunch instead of having to to put in their their code, which sometimes they don't remember. Um they'll use it when they go to the library. Um and then uh Principal Deets said, "And if you take your lanyards places, most most places will give you around a 10% discount." So, that changed the tides. Um pretty quickly. They were excited about that. So, we're going to work out some
108of the kinks um but it's so far so good, I think. And and we have this small group trying it out um and then it will be launched with all of our our our kids next school year. Um our meetings are beginning with our districts go over our intergovernmental agreements, in which we have a number of. You typically review those annually. Uh we interviewed for us the CLA principal, who's up for board approval tonight. Christie Low, wave your hands. Woohoo! That'll be later. Well, soon, I promise, in the personnel report. So, we we have our our next principal in the room. And then meeting with and reviewing new employee management systems and applicant trackers. That's also uh underway coming out of Dr. Lozoya's office. Um business has been working on the budget planning meeting with
109departments. So, we continue to work on driving down the deficit and we've really done that by another 5 million. Um our departments will attempt to do any a zero-based meeting with Anthony and Diana. Um really justifying what it is they need in terms of uh their work for the upcoming school year. How does it link to the strategic plan? Beyond the recurring costs, what are the things that we must do? Um and some of the things that we've tried to or aspired to do, we might not be able to do as we've told the board as we as we work to balance the budget and and do so potentially with with with fewer staff members. So, those ongoing conversations will be underway. The comms department worked with our partners on that wonderful video. And just
110they're part of a team uh that's really working to put the gala together. So, gala communications and promotions are ongoing. And then they're working on the WCAG and ADA compliance ahead of the uh new DOJ ADA, few more acronyms, title two requirements that are due um soon. So, we're we're working to make sure we're going to be in compliance. Uh Ed services supported a wellness fair for 250 families across multiple elementary schools. Uh they're continuing to advance restorative practice leadership training for building administrators. And just remind, remind, remind that beyond the training is the importance of applying what we're learning about restorative when we engage with students and families around um discipline. Uh recognizing staff for successful restorative practice implementation is part of that work. And then they provided building-based support. That's just really ongoing
111um for behavior um and to help support the teams as they work with some some challenging uh behaviors. Multilingual organized English uh proficiency screeners for our incoming kindergartners. They're hosting uh uh multilingual math nights and you can see the dates and schools as well as uh what impact groups will be participating in those math nights. They're conducting dual uh language lottery, which is which is a very big deal. And their acceptance and waitlist letters will be sent out on April 21st, reminding the board that kindergarten is really your only entry if you're a monolingual Spanish speaker. um or monolingual English speaker, monolingual Spanish uh that is there's support so they have an opportunity if you're a monolingual Spanish speaker to get in at a later point than kindergarten, but if you're a monolingual English speaker
112wanting to learn Spanish you can't miss that deadline. And then they're preparing for multilingual summer school and putting together that beautiful presentation. Uh student services uh District 15 health services selected to participate in the Teams program cohort through the American Academy of Pediatrics and Center for Disease Control. The only Illinois school district selected to participate so congratulations to that team. Uh FY27 budget and professional development planning uh is underway across all departments um and student services met with D211 and D14 for high school curriculum articulation meetings to make sure we have that vertical um alignment. Uh teaching, learning, and assessment spring sports are up and running uh-huh pun intended. Uh finishing the 3-5 pilot and planning uh the implementation around that. That'll be coming to the board in May or June. May. I knew it
113was soon. Uh also worked with 211 and 214 um around collaboration and our our um alignment with our ELA our English language arts curriculum. They're planning around professional development needs for K-5 largely around literacy correct shifts in literacy. And then planning for a new staff orientation, back to school institute day, and just getting the curriculum ready. Again, as I always say in this time of year you're you're straddling two years. You're in your current year, but you really are also spending almost an equal amount of your time um getting ready for next cuz summers are are pretty quick. And then last but not least technology. Um they are working on finalizing the District 15 instructional technology guidelines for staff which is a document that I'll have MJ uh make sure she runs uh through the
114board you know potentially at the May meeting. We're going to try not to overload June like we tend to do. But we're going to we're going to see if we can get it in in May. If not might be August. They're finalizing those two community learn 15 events that Renee uh in terms of community involvement um were in her presentation. The screener of helping kids thrive in their digital world and then the the screener and discussion of like. So hopefully you will all tune into that. And then curriculum development for the library program will be launched in 2026-2027. There is something I heard floating around that the libraries are going to be closing and that's not true. That is just you know fake news on the internet. Our libraries are going to stay open and
115they're going to be staffed and and whatnot. And then organizing and participating in the review and evaluation of an new employee a management system and application tracking uh which is she's doing in in conjunction MJ's department uh with admin services. And that's just a little taste of what we've been up to, but another busy month um in District 15. Any questions for me? No? All right, wonderful. Great. All right, we are now at acceptance of the minutes. May I have a motion, please? It's 6.1. I move to approve the minutes from the March 11th, 2026 regular board event meeting and closed session meeting [clears throat] as attached. Second. Discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carries. All right, board committee reports. Ed Red, Frank. All right, so the legislature is in one of the busiest
116stretches leading up to the April 17th crossover deadline. Uh by April 17th bills must pass out of their chamber of origin so that the opposite chamber can start considering them in committee. So hopefully we'll see a lot of stuff happening. Yeah. In the next what 10 days? And then uh I want to highlight a bill that's currently under consideration that is of interest our district and our community. It's a Senate bill which allows Illinois to opt into the federal scholarship tax credit program which provides privately donated funds to be used by public school and private school students for educational needs. Under this program donors receive a federal tax credit of up to $1,700 for contributions to scholarship grant organizations. And the important thing here is people to realize that >> [clears throat] >> this is
117a tax credit not a tax deduction. So every dollar donated is taken off of the taxpayer's federal tax bill. These funds can then be used to support K through 8 students with expenses such as tutoring, special education therapies, books, online learning materials ACT or SAT prep tests, uh AP exam fees, and trade training. The program relies on private donations incentivized through federal tax credits rather than redirecting state educational funding. So that's something that's very important that people need to realize with this this uh new law provides. It's a it's for But Illinois needs to opt into the program before then so that state approved scholarship granting organizations can be established prior to that date. So this is something I think that everybody needs to fully understand. I think some people confuse it with uh vouchers
118or somehow taking money away to private schools. I think that's one of the I think that's one of the things that people are concerned about is will will will federal or will these dollars stay within a public school setting or will they routed Well the the the individual that donates it makes that determination. So if a person wants to donate it to a scholarship organization that donates to public schools, they can do that. Or they can donate to a scholarship organization that donates it to private schools. Yeah. But it's it's their own it's their their own money to decide whether or not redirecting money from the state. Frank, do you do you know whether those uh I guess those organizations haven't been established yet. >> them. Yeah, they're not set up yet because there's some
119rules that need to be set up first too that are supposed to come out in June and July somewhere right around there. So it's a little bit you know pending, but that's that's a basic framework of it. And I think it's it's something that hopefully Illinois you know opts into because I think there's opportunities there for funding for public schools. Yeah, I I think that that middle organization is probably the key. Like who are the people that establish those uh scholarship organizations. Are they designed to go to private school or public school? I think therein lies the rub. That's so much. >> Sure. Those are those are going to be state approved organizations so it's really in the hands of the state. Is there any chatter as to where the state is leaning on that
120or Um you know there's there's lots of individuals that are actually backing the program. Was recently I saw was it uh ooh Was it Mendoza? I can't remember her name exactly. Colorado? Colorado's actually supported it. Yeah. That's one of them. There's like 28 states that have already opted into it. So I think some are holding out until they understand the rules and regulations. Yeah. Right. And they'll be coming out soon, but you know the bottom line is it's it's a tax credit. It's not redirecting of state funds. So that's important. Yep. And then uh there's also uh moving on to the other important stuff here. We had a house bill 4416 which has to do with uh unemployment payments for ESPs. Uh so this would allow educational support personnel to receive unemployment benefits during school
121breaks longer than 1 week. Uh this is primarily targeting summer breaks. So I mean this would uh directly increase the amount of money we have to pay into the Illinois Department of unemployment or I should say of employment services, right? IDES. So this is going to directly impact property taxes if it passes. So And our budget. So right our budget and then property taxes because we'd have to increase taxes to pay for this. Some money's got to come from somewhere. It's not going to just materialize. So I think most organizations at least school [clears throat] districts are in opposition of this because of the increased cost the significant increased cost to the budget. >> Yeah, I mean for for our district alone you're probably talking about two to three million dollars. Yep. So I think
122statewide there there's estimates around statewide around 400 million. So hm Uh the mega projects bill uh House Bill 2789 that's uh set up to help the uh Chicago Bears and other large projects large projects that are investing 500 million or more. Uh that bill has been uh sent back to the uh the rules committee where it's basically on on hold while they probably complete negotiations. So I don't >> [clears throat] >> I don't know specifically what the negotiations are looking like, but that's usually a a move they do to shelve it for negotiations, but I mean something that's going to have to come to a realization here in the next 10 days because they got to vote on it by the 17th. Uh let's see. And then the last one I thought was interesting was
123the House Bill 4535 which are the e-learning days for elections. Um, this bill would would allow schools that have polling locations to elect to move to e-learning days without it counting as one of their five emergency days. So, this passed out of committee in the house and is off to vote on the floor. And that is it. Okay. All right, 15, Eric. Yeah, we we had a 50/50 raffle announced on March 17th and it is our biggest fundraising event of the year and Mike G uh split the pot and came away with $16,050. So, congrats to all of the the district for raising $32,000. So, congrats to him. We also have staff appreciation week coming up on May 4th through 8th. It is live right now on the website and for a $10 staff tribute
124donation, a staff member can receive a personalized card and a sweet treat. And so, please go on the district website and nominate your favorite teacher for that. And our next meeting is coming up next week. Awesome, thank you. All right, finance committee, Wanda. Thanks, Sam. Lisa and I met with the finance committee April 1st. We did review thoroughly the capital plan and funding options. Of course, the bond resolution that was presented tonight and nothing more to add other than we thoroughly uh um went through some of the questions that was already addressed tonight. Yeah, that's it. All right, equity committee, Jim Zubair. Yeah, we don't have information to share tonight other than I think we finally got five very busy schedules together. So, we have a meeting on the books for next week. April 15th.
125>> April 15th. Fingers crossed that that remains the same. >> [laughter] >> We have had there's five of us that are trying to get together with extremely busy schedules and just uh But we did it. Yeah, we did it. So, hopefully that will work out and we'll have something to share in May. All right. Okay, we are good to move on to our action items. Item 8.1, may have a motion, please? I move to approve the personnel report recommendations for administrative, certified, and non-certified staff members as presented. Second. Discussion? All right, roll call. Ader. Aye. >> Anarino. Aye. Taylor. Aye. Khan. Aye. Bachmann. Aye. Hunt. Aye. So, if I may be Oh, sorry. Yeah. Uh motion carries. I just want to I just want to make Kristy Lowe stand up and embarrass her for just
126A MINUTE. >> [laughter] >> SO, CONGRATULATIONS. WE'RE VERY EXCITED. KRISTY, if my memory serves, you've been an assistant principal at CLA for 14 years? 13 years? >> Wow. She is one of the, you know, lifelines at that building and we're just so excited that she's going to be moving into the role of the principal. And I'm sure we if we listened hard, we could have heard the staff the staff cheer when you made your announcement. So, congratulations and welcome. Congratulations. Congratulations. Sorry. No, of course. All right, item 8.2, [clears throat] may have a motion, please? I move to approve the 2026-2027 Board of Education meeting schedule as presented. Second. Discussion? All right, all in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Item 8.3, may have a motion, please? Move to approve the resolution providing for the
127issue of not of not to exceed $26,700,000 general obligation limited tax school bond series 2026 for the purpose of increasing the working cash fund providing for a levy of um direct to annual tax pay annual tax to pay the principal and interest on said bonds and authorizing the proposed sale of said bonds to the purchaser thereof. Second. Discussion? All right, roll call. Khan. Aye. Bachmann. Aye. Hunt. Aye. Ader. Aye. Anarino. Aye. Taylor. Aye. All right, motion carries. Item 8.4, I move to approve the 2026-2027 health care renewal medical, dental, vision rates as attached. Second. Uh discussion? Roll call. Khan. Aye. Bachmann. Aye. Hunt. Aye. Ader. Aye. Anarino. Aye. Taylor. Aye. All right, motion carries. Item 8.5, may have a motion, please? I move to award a 3-year contract for pest management service to Smithereen Pest
128Management Services, Niles, Illinois in the amount of $28,980 as presented. Second. >> [laughter] >> Discussion? I will say I am writing the first time to Google every time. >> like a neon sign with like a rat on it, [laughter] right? They should if they Good marketing, good marketing. All right, roll call. Bachmann. Aye. Hunt. Aye. Ader. Aye. Anarino. Aye. Taylor. Aye. Khan. Aye. All right, motion carries. Item 8.6, may have a motion, please? I move to approve the final 2025-2026 school calendar as presented. Second. Discussion? Dr. Hunt, do you want to verbally highlight anything from the calendar publicly? Okay, for 25-26, this is just really we don't think we're going to have any more snow days, knock wood, and uh it it just really lets us lets us know that the last day of school
129for our students will be Wednesday, the 3rd. Our our 8th graders are done before graduation, they have a half day. Should we need to use additional inclement weather days, it would move uh to the latest would be June 9th. Okay. All right. Roll call. Hunt. Aye. Ader. Aye. Anarino. Aye. Taylor. Aye. Khan. Aye. Bachmann. Aye. All right, would anyone like to remove anything from the consent calendar? I just want to highlight one area, the contract with Pulaski Financial. 9.7. >> 9.7, just to give you the just to give you a little bit of background information on that. So, as you know, we work with Franczek in terms of our negotiations with anything with that has to do with the TIF and certainly the the Chicago Bears, all the all the work that we've been doing
130over the last 3 years with the Bears. As you also know, we've hired a lobbying firm out of Cozen O'Connor and they've been helping us, you know, move this I'll use a football, you know, a football pun, you know, move the ball down the down the field, right? So, the next group that we've we're going to engage in, hopefully for a small amount of time, is Pulaski Financial. And this really is a company they provide professional municipal advisory services. It would be in collaboration with the two high school districts, 211 and 214, with really the primary objective being to secure expert financial analysis and representation regarding the Bears proposal for this, you know, potential multi multi-billion dollar mixed-use project on the former Arlington Park site. So, it really what we want from them is if
131they build here, it's really important for us to understand the project's long-term financial implications. This is decades decades and decades that they're going to be within our boundaries. This firm, after interviewing a number, really they're registered as municipal advisors with the ex- Security Exchange Municipal Security Rulemaking Board and they really are held to a very high fiduciary duty of care, which we need because this is beyond any of our depths, even Ares, our our attorney and our and our lobbyists. So, the scope of services really are to do four things for us. Revenue identification, identifying specific sources of educational funding or revenue sharing opportunities stemming from the project. And there are a million ways that there can be money that can come from and such a a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity within our district. The financial impact
132analysis, helping us estimate incremental municipal costs and revenues alongside specialized analysis of tax-exempt bond financing and debt service projections. As good as Liz is, that's not her area of expertise. That's what this gentleman does. Negotiation support, participating in discussions with municipal officers and stakeholders to advocate for appropriate educational funding. That said, keep in mind we have an MOU. We have that MOU with the Bears, Village of Arlington Heights, the three school districts. That MOU is going to make sure that we will have student impact fees. We will have um per pupil expenditures for any students that that site might generate should they put housing there. But then also to cover potential capital outlay costs should we need to build additions to any of our schools if there is really a large influx of students. So,
133this this negotiating support will also they will participate in discussions with municipal officials and stakeholders to advocate for appropriate educational funding that could be potentially beyond the scope of the MOU. And then strategic advice, preparing operational and capital cost estimates based on district provided data to ensure future infrastructure needs are met. Okay. Um, so that's kind of the long and short and the clock is not really going to start ticking too much until we know whether or not they're coming. And it's the million it remains the billion-dollar question. Here, is it going to be Hammond? Who knows? But where we want to have this authorization should we need to engage this group. So, I just wanted the board to have a little bit more information about it. The other thing I would call out is
134that this is a cost that's split between the three districts, correct? Yes. Just like our our lobby our engagement with Cozen, that winds up being about $300 a month because we're we're shouldering it across the three districts. So, yes, that is true. So, thank you for adding that. Yeah. All right. All right. Can I have a motion, please? I move to approve the consent calendar items as presented. Second. Discussion. All right. Roll call. I. Ader. I. Amarino. I. Taylor. I. Khan. I. Bachmann. I. Hunt. I. All right. Motion carries. Correspondence. Dr. Hunt, FOIA. >> Sorry. I just got something from somebody in the audience. No, [laughter] it's You know, FOIA is my favorite thing, or it's Jamie's favorite thing. As always, I send to you every Freedom of Information Act we've received. They continue to
135come our way fast and furious. A lot of the same people submitting request after request. Do you have any questions on what I've submitted? No. No. No. All right. Motion to adjourn. I move to adjourn. >> [clears throat] >> Second. Second. All right. All in favor? I. Meeting adjourned. Thank you, everyone. All right. All right.