001Thank you, Clara. The mission of district 15. By leveraging strengths and providing high quality support, we will honor our diverse learners in reaching their full potential. Welcome everyone who is here. Some people very recognizable, some not so much, but thank you for coming out this evening. And this is a bittersweet board meeting where we come together and say goodbye to a wonderful board member, one of my favorites quite honestly, who has served us and our community well for the past eight years. while at the same time we welcome someone new to our board who we are confident will fill the seat absolutely well and serve our community in a uh in a like good manner and uh bring great things for district 15. Thank you Anthony. Not kidding that you're one of my favorite board
002members as you know. And uh Lauren, thanks for coming with the kids. the uh it's always a special night when the family shows up and welcome Eric Bachmann and uh I noticed Gage sitting over there on the left and your mom and welcome. We're uh we're looking forward to what you bring to the table. And on that note, we will begin the meeting. The pledge of allegiance this evening will be covered by Kimell Hill. Go ahead. There we go. Good evening, President Shupai, Dr. Hinds, members of the board, and community members, my name is Michelle Lakama. I am the very proud principal at Kimell Hill Elementary School. With me tonight, we have our amazing assistant principal, Amber Daniel, our amazing music and um sponsor for SOS club and the very best student leaders in our
003school. They have been working very hard this year to implement a variety of initiatives to give back to the community. those in need and to spread kindness. I'm going to turn it over to Mrs. Dean for introductions. Good evening. My name is Kelly Dean. I'm the comprehensive music teacher at Kimell Hill School. I'm also the proud co-sponsor of our newly formed SOS club. When my colleague Stephanie Hernandez and I talked about starting a student club, we wanted to give students the opportunity to serve, encourage them to find ways to show kindness, and help them discover ways to make a difference. In less than one year, our 35 members made up of third, fourth, and fifth graders have done just that. And the Kimbleh Hill community is noticing the ways that they are putting service over
004self. I'm so happy that some of our fourth and fifth grade members could be here tonight. Some of them would like to introduce themselves and tell you about their favorite parts of being in the SOS club this year. All right, Audia. My name is Aia Jay and I'm in fifth grade. My favorite thing about being in SOS club is raising money for the North Carolina victims because they had a terrible hurricane. We gave them to convoy convoy of help. Good job. Thanks. Hi, my name is McKenna and I am in fifth grade. My favorite thing about being in SOS club is doing an extension cord and string leg donation to make the recycling process easier. We gave them to the village of Palentine. Thank you. Hi, my name is Elena Hill. I'm in fifth grade.
005One of my favorite projects we did in the SOS club was helping kids after the LA fires. We collected uh money and donated it to um we donated it and so so the so the kids have could have someone else to love. Hi, my name is Sophia and I am in fourth grade. My favorite thing about being in the SOS club is leading a lesson for other classes for the month of kindness and reading a book to first and second grade how to be that I am kind. It is how to be kind. During the month of kindness, our uh club members had also prepared some kindness buttons that you see some of us wearing tonight. We even brought some for you um the schoolboard members and um that was part of the month of
006kindness as well. Um, in addition to the projects that the students just talked about, we also partnered with our Kimbleh Hill PTA for a pet supply drive for the Buddy Foundation and a serial drive for Faith Feeds Food Pantry. The fourth and fifth grade members volunteered at worked at our annual Kimble Hill Family Reading Night. And in conjunction with our schoolwide month of kindness in April, we collected pop tabs to donate to the Rama McDonald House Charities. We're so proud of them and can't wait to see what they do next in the years to come. All right, you guys ready? All right, just like you said before, please stand for the pledge. [Music] All right, the flag is right here behind us. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and
007to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So, can the SOS kids sponsor get right in front of that screen that says, if there are any parents, if there are parents that would like to come up and take pictures, you're welcome to come up right in front just uh on the other side. I'll get out of your way, boys and girls. Thank you. It sounds like you are doing so many wonderful dates to help people both at Canav and outside of Canav. Enjoy these high five highlighters as you make lists of future uh service projects. I have one for your wonderful sponsor this one. Lost anger. Happy [Music] day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you, Kimell Hill, for being here.
008and uh beginning our meeting for us. All right. Good evening, Dr. Hines, President Shupai, and members of the board of education. It is with great pride that we recognize Zoe L, a seventh grade student at Plum Grove Middle School as the recipient of the May above and beyond award. Zoe exemplifies leadership, perseverance, and dedication to both her school and the broader community. Recently featured on the cover of hearing our way magazine, she serves as an inspiring role model, especially within the deaf and heart of hearing community. From a young age, Zoe has shown remarkable resilience and responsibility. She has developed strong self- advocacy skills and consistently works to ensure inclusivity and understanding among her peers. Her confidence and determination in overcoming challenges make her a true inspiration. Zoe's positive attitude, strong work ethic, and commitment
009to excellence extend beyond the classroom and into her community, including her involvement at her dance studio. She fosters a culture of acceptance and encourages others to advocate for themselves and each other. We are proud to have Zoe in district 15 and honored to celebrate her exceptional contributions with this welldeserved recognition. Congratulations, Zoe. You can come up and take Emily, it's not too late to come back. Just saying. Next year Okay. Music music contest and festival recognition. Good evening, President Shupai, Dr. Hines, members of the board in the district 15 community. My name is Megan Price and I'm here as part of the teaching and learning um department to talk to you a little bit about our instrumental music program. We're incredibly proud of our students who participated in multiple contests this year, including the ELMA
010state level contest and festival and which um is really we had almost 100 students participate in. We are really proud of our students. They are at our many concerts that I'm sure you've been starting to get invitations to this week. They're very excited for those to close out their school year. Um we also have really a lot of growth in our program that I wanted to share with you as well. We have 60% of our incoming fifth grade students for next year and then 40% of our middle schoolers leading to nearly 2,000 students in district 15 participating in instrumental music and um over 150 total participating in all of our contests. So, we're incredibly proud of them and the services that we offer them through our instrumental music program. We wouldn't be able to do
011that without our amazing teachers. They really lift that program up. They are who our students are here for in addition to getting to learn all of the amazing skills that they get in our instrumental music program. But we thank you for supporting them and supporting the program as a whole. We couldn't do this without you and without the teachers um to lead our students on in all of these experiences. Thank you. Thank you. It's your shining moment. No reason to be afraid. Good evening, President Shupai, Dr. Hines, valued board and community members. I'm Jen Reman. I am the proud principal of Lake Louise School. Life is better at the lake. But before we honor our fabulous staff member tonight, we would like to honor on behalf of Lake Louise Anthony Wong. I want to extend
012on behalf of the Lake Louise community, I want to extend our sincere appreciation to you for your eight years of outstanding service on the board of education. Your thoughtful collaboration and support of district initiatives had led to have led to a profound positive impact on the educational experiences of our students, families, and staff. On a personal note for Lake Louise School, we want to thank you for your generous, generous, generous donation to our library. And if Mrs. Mueller was here, she would be jumping for joy with me so that the students continue to be able to honor you through the joy of reading. We are honored by your dedication and passion for district 15 and our Lake Louise community. Thank you for your service. And now I would like to introduce my assistant principal, Lauren
013Green. All right. Good evening, Dr. Oh my goodness. Sorry. Here we go. Let's try again. Good evening, President Shupai, Dr. Hines, and esteemed board members. It is my pleasure to recognize Kathy Nolock, also known as Mrs. K, which is what we call her, for the above and beyond award. Kathy is so incredibly humble that she had no idea when we were walking in the room that we were walking in there for her. She is a dedicated member of the Lake Louise family for 26 years. She demonstrates thoughtfulness, dedication, and genuine care to our school every single day. Her smile as she walks in them through the front doors each day is just contagious. She's an invaluable resource to our school community. She is commonly known as the lady who comes around with the lion's pride
014cart because she always makes sure we do we do it and ensures that every student gets to purchase an item even if they were absent. If anyone knows Miss Kay, you know her love for our students. She goes out of her way to ask about our families and check in on them. One specific memory that always comes to mind is when Miss Kay was able to get one of our selected non-verbal students to speak. She found new ways each day to attempt to engage in conversations with them. Around the holidays, one of our structured break spots had pictures of cookies on it. So, she started to talk to him about cookies. At that time, the student lit up and told her how he just loves cookies. Miss Kay was so impressed by that was so
015amazed about this moment and so were we. We were so thankful and proud of her dedication and persistence to always make the student feel comfortable enough to speak. She always takes initiatives and if she needs she jumps in and supports. She's made a personal goal one of the years to match her SIP goal to increase positive interaction cuz she knew just how important it was to our school. She's a lifelong learner who seeks opportunities to make a positive impact. Kathy, on behalf of Lake Louise in District 15, please know your dedication, initiative, and unwavering commitment and excellence does not go unnoticed. We are so incredibly fortunate to have you at the lake. return. Congratulations. Thank you, Kathy. Good evening, Dr. Hines, President Shupai, members of the board of education. It's with great pride that we
016recognize the district 15 nutrition services department as one of this month's above and beyond honores. It's no easy task to serve breakfast and lunch to thousands of students every day, but our nutrition services team does it with consistency, care, and an unwavering commitment to excellence. From procuring, assembling, delivering, and preparing over 2,000 breakfasts and 6,000 lunches daily, this dedicated team keeps District 15 nourished and thriving. Their impact goes well beyond the tray line. Through fresh fruit and vegetable bars in our elementary schools and self-service produce stations at our middle schools, the team empowers students to make healthy choices and explore new foods in a supportive, welcoming environment. Their creativity and care helps turn each cafeteria into a space where students feel seen, supported, and wellfed. Earlier this month, we celebrated National School Hero Lunch Day,
017a moment that reminds us just how essential these heroes are to our school community. Today, we are proud to recognize the entire nutrition services department with our above and beyond recognition for their essential behind the scenes work that ensures every student receives the fuel they need to succeed. Please join me in thanking this incredible team for going above and beyond every single day, making us all proud to be 15. for you. And we're going to try to figure out a photo. Probably two rows. Yeah. Forward. Nobody wants to be in the front. Two rows. So, we're not in the middle of the screen. We need the risers and take one for the team. Tina, someone laying on the floor in front. [Laughter] Perfect. Okay, I can see everyone perfectly. So, no one moved. Just smile.
018Ready? One, two, three. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay. Um, as our nutrition service heroes are heading out, I just want to call everyone's attention to our staff spotlight since our last meeting. Uh, four staff members and then we celebrated nurses day, teacher appreciation, staff appreciation week, administrative professional day, as well as bus driver appreciation day. So, congratulations and thank you. Nice. Okay. All right. May I have a uh motion for the acceptance of minutes, please? I move to approve the minutes from the April 9th, 2025 regular board of education meeting and close session meeting as attached. Second. Nice. Thanks, Frank. Um discussion. All in favor? You know, I'm just wanted to um let you know there were a few um updates to the minutes. Just the um uh updates
019on the um positioning of um where we documented um I don't know. Um yeah, it was Frank's name. It was actually Lisa and then we changed it in an updated electronica and printed new for them to sign. Yeah, there it's already updated. So, good to go. Yep. All in favor? I I motion carries. I'm going to abstain from that just uh because I wasn't there. Okay. I wasn't there so abstaining. Okay. All right. Just want to be honest. It was captured in the minutes. Yeah, I know. Prominently. No. May I have a uh a motion for 6.1, please, for u close session minutes review, please? I move to approve the semiannual review of the close session minutes for the most recent six months as presented. Second, discussion. Uh just a quick update. I know, um,
020Lori and I reviewed, uh, the close session minutes on May 1st, um, for the last 6 months, and I know we still had some pretty sensitive and ongoing topics on there, so we did choose to keep those, um, closed at this time. I think we had a partial release for one of them, but um, again, a lot of sensitive topics and things that we're still working through. Um, and I know we had discussed in prior conversations about reviewing six months prior, um, going back more than a year. So that's for the that's it. Thank you. All in favor? I I motion carries. At this point we will commence our organizational activities. Um we will begin with uh announcement of the uh Cook County Clerk's office the official election results and then we will have board
021recognition and then we'll move forward with seating the new board. What do we know? Okay, we're looking for our the judge, Judge Loza. Okay, we'll see if we can contact her. Right. All right. And then if you could go to the next slide while we're waiting, if we can track her down. Um, what's our backup plan? Okay. Okay. Yep. You move forward with this. I'll figure this out. All right. Anthony, come on down over here. We've got a couple little things for you and embarrass you for a few minutes. So, bear with us. Okay. As you heard Miss Raymond say, um, we thank you for your service, your eight years of service. Here is a check. Um, just so the board knows, um, instead of getting Anthony a bunch of little little flashies, even though
022every who doesn't love district 15 swag, we decided that we were going to make a donation in his name in honor and that allowed him to decide, you know, which one of our schools or whether it be the one foundation where we make this donation. So, as principal Oh, thank you. So, as principal Reman said, um, Anthony chose the Lake Louise Library where his children attend and he took our $5,000 and he and his family matched or 500, sorry, 500. She really was 5,000 and your wife would kill you if you matched it with 5,000. She sure would. Um, but the family has agreed to match that donation. So, $1,000 will be going to the Lake Louise Library, and the librarian um is really excited to buy some new titles. We will put little tags
023in each of the books um saying that they are a donation from you and your family. So, kids that open those books for years to come will know how um those wonderful books wound up in the library. Additionally, we have a little thank you book for your eight years of board service. Uh different staff members and kids wrote little thank you notes, so we've compiled it into a book for you. And we have just a nice little thank you card for your for your service, Anthony. It's been a pleasure. I will Who's going to help? Finance committee reviewing close session minutes. What are we going to do without you? I don't know. Yeah. Uh I just want to say that uh it's it's been an absolute uh privilege to represent the district over the last
0248 years. And um looking back at all the things that we've accomplished, um you know, it's the district's in a a better place. Um, but definitely going to miss the board and the people here, but uh I will be around Lake Louise. I'm not far away. And uh and congratulations to Mr. Bachmann. Um looking forward to you jumping in with the the board and seeing what you guys can do. So congrats. Heat. Heat. Wait a little bit. All right. One, two, three. Thank you. I think uh it's relatively amazing when you look at the accomplishments quite honestly the uh 8 years ago of coming with a whole bunch of dreams some of us that were seated at that point Zubir was here already there were a number of us seated and then some that came
025after um there were there were a lot of ideas that were on a list that we all ran together with Anthony on um at that time that really were dreams and a little bit pie in the sky and we wanted moving 15 forward so badly. It wasn't called that at the time. Dr. Hines um helped pull that name together, but we had hopes, dreams, and expectations, but weren't necessarily sure it was going to happen. So to sit here eight years later looking at those accomplishments and and what has been done is I I'm impressed with us. Thank you, Anthony. Yes, very much so. All right. Um, may I have a motion to adjourn SA DA, please? I move to adjourn CDA. Second. All in favor? I I motion carries. Okay. So, with the judge not
026being here, the back the backup plan is the board president. Okay. So if we and then in the absence of the president the vice president the uh but since you're want to just appoint me to do it I have her sounds great. Yes, let's do that. I'll do my best to be her. Okay. All right. Lory's appointed. Do you think we should run the family with your daughter? Right. She's Yeah, she'll be a lawyer in one week she graduates. So yes indeed. I'll I'll I'll let her know I'm doing this. Okay. All right, Anthony. Thank you so much for your your service. Let's all come and give him a big hug if you want to get one. Thank you. All right. So much for this gift certificate. She's going to remember right about now. Right.
027Exactly. It's okay. All right. Where would you like to be, Lori? Um, probably at the podium. Okay, we have to do the um the rest of the motion. Yep. But for reorganization though after first we need to do the uh Okay. And then I'll complete. And I have um Frank and Lisa and Jim and Eric. Come on down. You're right there. Okay. Okay. We're about to conduct the board oath. Can you hear me? Okay. Each school board member before taking his or her seat on the board shall take the following oath of office. I'll say I then I'm going to have each of you say your name and I'll complete the rest of um the opening passage. I Eric James do solemnly swear that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of member
028of the board of education of community consolidated school district 15 in accordance with the constitution of the United States the constitution of the state of Illinois and the laws of the state of Illinois to the best of my ability. Do you want to repeat that? I further swear or affirm that I shall respect taxpayers interests by serving as a faithful faithful protector of the school district's assets. Each affirmed. Wonderful. I shall encourage and respect the free expression of opinion by my fellow board members and others who seek a hearing before the board while respecting the privacy of students and employees. Please affirm. Okay. I shall recognize that a board member has no legal authority as an individual and that decisions can be made only by a majority vote at a public board meeting. And I
029shall abide by majority decision of the board while retaining the right to seek changes in such decisions through ethical and constructive channels. The board president may designate a local official such as a judge to administer the oath at an open board meeting. Otherwise, the board president will administer the oath during an open board meeting in the absence the president, the vice president, or they'll tell the superintendent to do it. Wonderful. And the board adopts the Illinois Association of School Boards Code of Conduct for members of the school board, a copy of which um shall be displayed at regular board meetings and one has been left at each of your place uh tonight. Do we have a deal? Wonderful. Welcome to the uh board and welcome back at least and thanks to everyone in the office
030that that voted and we still have um a wonderful board here and I know they're going to continue to do fantastic things for the students and staff of district 15. Welcome aboard. Thank you so much. Let's take a picture. We have little certificates for um for you from the state of Illinois and county clerk's office. Okay, let's kind of center ourselves. This will be [Music] Thank you. And then Eric, you have um a spot next to you. It's a full-time job. You know, just so you know, it's a lot of action on this end. A lot of action. I got the phone. Sorry I didn't call you back, man. No. And as always, everyone is welcome to switch seats once we uh we we reach seat everybody and decide uh who's going to be in
031the uh officer position. So we can do a little music and musical chairs. It'll be great. Um let me see. May I have a motion to appoint Dr. Hines as president proempor? I move to appoint Dr. Lorie Hines as president prompor. Second. All in favor? I I. Motion carries. The district's uh executive secretary uh will act as the board secretary for the initial reorganization activities of the board. May I have a motion, please? I move to appoint Clara Nef as a secretary promporary. Second. Okay. Called all call to order. All in favor? I. Okay. Hearing all eyes. Okay. Roll call. Khan. Ader. You got it. Okay. Ader. I. Herino. I. Batman. Hi. Hunt I Khan here. Shupai. Oh, isn't it here? Here I voting or it's just a present. I'm here. I I am here.
032I am here. I here I'm here. Taylor, I am here as well. Okay. Okay. So, I need nominations for the position of board president. They're now open. Motions are taken for nominations for the position of board president. I move to nominate Samantha Ader to serve as president of the board of education. Second. Okay. Anyone else? All right. It is announced that Samantha Ader has been elected to serve as the president of the board of education. Congratulations. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to turn the meeting over to you. Okay. But before I do so, I want to give our outgoing president no some flowers as just a token of our appreciation for your dedic. There you go. And a little card. Thank you so much for all your hard work. been a wonderful stick around. Okay.
033Start switching seats now or should we wait? Let's just maybe wait till we're through with all of it. All right. All right. So, now it is time to elect the board of education vice president. The new president announces nominations for the position of vice president which are now open. Motions will be taken for the position of BP. I move to nominate Frankenino as vice president of the board of education. Second. Okay. In favor. The new president asks if there are any further nominations. Do you have Are there further nominations? Okay. Hearing none, nominations are closed. You're the new president. You need to announce your new VP. All right. Um, page four. Bottom of page four. Okay. Uh, I am happy to announce that board member Anorino has been elected vice president of the board of
034education. Okay. Election of board of education secretary. Sam, that's you. 7-Eleven. All right. Uh, nominations are open for board for the position of board secretary. May I have a nomination? I nominate James Taylor for the position of board secretary. Second. Okay. Any further nominations? No. All right. Hearing none. Um, I am happy to share that Jim Taylor, board member Taylor, has been elected as board secretary. Congratulations. Okay, we do not have a treasurer. Our CSBO takes care of that. So, moving on to 7:13. You'll establish the time and place of meetings. Okay. May I have a motion to establish the time and place of regular board of education meetings? I move to establish the time and place of the regular board of education meetings as presented. This is the first time that I've done that
035in Second. Second. All right. Roll call. We got a second. All right. Ader. Anerino. I Hunt. I Khan. I. Shupai. I. Taylor. I. Bagman. Just also have in the record we typically meet on the second Wednesday of every month starting at 700 p.m. here at Sunley. Okay. All right. So, now we are moving to the committees. All right. Do we have to do nominations for this? We'll just Okay. You're just stating them. Do you need Do you need a list? No, I've got the list. No, we're just announcing who's on the committee. Not reports yet. Yes. Okay. So for our um board of education committees serving on the uh finance committee is uh Wenda and Lisa. Serving on the equity committee are Zubar and Jim. And serving on the Ed Red committee is Frank. And
036serving on the 15 Foundation committee is Eric. Very nice. Good. Thank you. Okay. Before we move to public comment, I know you already gave the gift, so you you beat me a little bit. Um, but first, I just want to say I just have a few words. Um, I want to say thank you and that I'm deeply honored and humbled to step into this role. Um, I want to express my sincere appreciation to my fellow board members for placing their trust in me. It's a responsibility that I take very seriously and I look forward to continue serving in a way that continues our collective commitment to students, families, staff, and our community. I also want to take a special moment to recognize and thank Lisa for her extraordinary leadership over the past eight years as
037board president. I feel lucky to have learned from the best of the best. Uh your calm, steady hand has helped guided this district through times of both challenge and progress. Your dedication to collaboration, thoughtful governance, and keeping students at the center of every decision has left a lasting mark. Um, you have helped move the district forward, uh, pun intended, through your leadership, supporting the moving 15 forward efforts through countless hours, um, helping to navigate a global pandemic, uh, and building trust with our community. I know you're not technically going anywhere, but did want to say um thank you so much and we are so grateful for the time and hours that you have spent in the president role. So, thank you. Absolutely. Welcome. And then lastly, I do want to extend a warm welcome to
038Eric, our newest board member. Your perspective as an educator and your commitment to the community is going to um strengthen and support our work. So, thank you so much um for stepping up to serve and congratulations. All right. Everything label district 15. All right, moving on to public comment. Anything else before we close out? No. Okay, that's it. All right, so we will now open our meeting for public comment. Public comment is governed by board policy um 2230. Please remember that this is not a dialogue between you and the board. If you have a specific issue that requires a response, Superintendent Hines or a designate will follow up with you as needed. Please state your name and identify any group that you represent. Please limit your remarks to no more than 3 minutes. If someone
039has previously articulated something with which you agree, please state that you agree rather than reiterating the entire comment. We encourage you to avoid comments specific to any person, student, or staff member respecting the right to privacy. This is not the forum to comment on personnel issues. Finally, the board expects and appreciates mutual respect, civility, and orderly conduct throughout the meeting. First, we have Michelle Thompson. Do I just start? Oh, you can come right here. Oh, where do I go? Right here. We'll let you sit and then just make sure that the little green light is on in on the mic. Thank you. All right. Hi, my name is Michelle Thompson. I currently have three children enrolled in dual language program at Jane Adams Elementary with the younger child still at home eager to join them
040in a few years. In January 2019, when it was time to register my oldest child for kindergarten, we found out that district 15 was in its first year of implementing dual language program in the district. I was beyond excited to learn that the district was offering this opportunity and even more excited when she was accepted into the program. As an educator working in multiple districts with dual language programming, I have seen firsthand the impacts that dual language education has for students and was so excited for my kids to have this opportunity, which I know will have a positive impact on their futures. When we committed to sending our daughter to a school across town from our neighborhood friends, knowing no one, learning most of her day in a language she's never heard before, we knew
041we were taking a huge leap of faith in hoping that it was the right choice for our children's future. We also knew we would most likely have her go to her base junior high, which at the time was Plum Grove, so she could meet more people she would go to friend with. The original commitment we made to the dual language program was to be at Jane Adams for for kindergarten through 6th grade. Even through CO, we stuck with DU and teamed up with other families to hire a Spanish tutor to help with e-learning. In November 2022, we voted yes for the referendum and were in full support of moving 15 forward because we knew it would lead to positive changes for students across the district. With the passing of the referendum and boundary changes that
042came with moving 15 forward, our base middle school is now Thomas Jefferson and the dual language program at Jane Adams only goes through fifth grade. The new boundaries mean my daughter's dual language journey now ends in fifth grade. and continuing Spanish at Thomas Jefferson is limited to Spanish one and two, covering only basics she learned already as a kindergartener. Through discussions with the multilingual department, who is always very responsive and supportive, we explored possible solutions, including an inner district transfer to Plumroveve, which does offer a heritage Spanish class. While this is a great option, lack of transportation makes it unrealistic for our family as we will have a child in middle school for the next 11 years. Wow. Also, my daughter has expressed to us that she really wants to go to her base middle
043school with neighborhood kids. We made the choice for her in kindergarten, and we think she should have some choice now. Our experience with dual language has been incredible. My children are so proud of their bilingualism. The program has fostered friendships and enriched their education. But it's heartbreaking that now by choosing our base middle school means accepting a gap in language development and potentially hindering their path to the seal of biiteracy. I really urge you to consider adding a Spanish elective at Thomas Jefferson that is beyond Spanish 1 and two. I completely understand restrictions that staffing and class sizes are always a concern, but there are other t families within the Thomas Jefferson boundaries that also share this concern. students from bilingual homes, students from private schools with early Spanish programs that are transferring to public
044schools, and those who simply want to continue advancing the dual language program. Bilingualism broadens opportunities and makes students more globally competent. We committed to dual language through elementary school and have been an advocate and positive advertisement for this program for six years. Please help us ensure our children can continue their language journey at their base middle school. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right, up next is Caitlyn Finn. Thank you. Hi. Uh, my name is Caitlyn Finn. Thank you for your time this evening. My husband and I have four children in district 15. A second grader over at Hunting Ridge, a fourth grader in the ATG program at Paddock, and a sixth and eighth grader over at Plum Grove Middle School. I spoke at the board meeting earlier this year regarding my concerns with
045screen usage by our schools. On top of my concerns with the detriments of screen use as part of education, our kids have also been relaying stories of how students use Chromebooks for entertainment purposes. Such as last week when we were all told that students were engaging in a Tik Tok challenge by sticking pencils into Chromebook USB ports to make sparks. All of this causing risks to themselves, damaging property, and taking away from valuable instructional time. I have shared some of the research that I found with the board and administrators in the district. Through discussions with the administrators, there was an admission that the current usage is largely a factor of what was adopted due to necessity during COVID and not as a result of any research findings. There was a takeaway for the district to
046better understand how, when, and to what extent screens are used. However, it was also conveyed that making changes in this area would not be quick because it is hard to get alignment and because there aren't really any other schools in the area that are using screens less than we are. Since these meetings, I have continued to educate myself by learning more about the dangers of using screens so heavily in schools. I've also talked to several other outofd district parents, some of whom have children at schools that are either screen-f free or extremely screen light, all reporting positive feedback following changes that were implemented. Uh, one example is St. Teresa School in Palatine. I implore you to not let the status quo of screen use in nearby districts serve as an excuse for why we can't
047quickly pull back on screen time. Please reconsider the need for onetoone devices and please do not require kids to bring Chromebooks home each night. Please return to books and writing on paper as proven more effective ways of learning compared to screens. Use technology sparingly and deliberately. Our kids have nine years in your education system. It's not a long time but the choices that you make will impact their lives forever. Last week, I started a petition laying out my family's concerns. And to date, we have over 300 signatures from other concerned people. Some of them who are here with me today. Before CO, we would have never thought it was possible to make the extreme changes to work from home and to school from home. Uh, but we quickly learned that when something is important enough
048to us that big changes can happen extremely quickly. And this is something important enough to us and we hope that this is important enough to you. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Thank you. Oh no. The judge is here to Okay. Um, next is Luis and Daniela Gutierrez. You want to go talk to one. Good evening. Uh my name is Luis Gutierrez and this is my wife Daniela Gutierrez. We currently have four children in the dual language program at Jane Adams. Uh we understand that you're unable to respond directly to us during this meeting and that our comments may be referred to Dr. Lazour and Mrs. Orbansky. Uh we want to express our appreciation for their ongoing support and partnership on this issue. They've been instrumental uh in helping us understand the
049challenges and explore solutions uh in this particular issue. We hope you'll continue this conversation with them uh following this presentation. Our family made a long-term commitment to the dual language program to help our son become truly bilingual and globally prepared. He's been in the program from kindergarten through fifth grade. Even during the disruptions of CO 19, we invested in private tutoring to keep him on track. We accepted a cross-d district placement despite logistical hurdles because we believed in this program's vision and promises. Our plan was always for our son and our three other children to attend Sunling, which was our home school at the time for seventh and eighth grade. Uh then take the heritage speaker Spanish courses there and continue on to FM High School with the goal of earning the Illinois Seal of
050Biteracy. However, recent boundary changes have reassigned us to Thomas Jefferson, which currently offers no path for students to continue Spanish after elementary dual language. The only option available is to apply for an intrad district transfer to Plum Grove, which offers the necessary Spanish class to continue his use and learning of the language he has spent the last six years learning. While we live just seven houses from a Plum Grove bus stop, the current transportation policy states that the intradist transfers are not guaranteed busing, which makes the solution unworkable for our family. We are willing to pay for transportation if needed, but the policy requires families to reapply every year with no guarantee of approval. This lack of stability jeopardizes the educational pathway for our son and his siblings which they had followed since kindergarten. It
051is important to note that the district currently is willing to bust Thomas Jefferson students to the Winston campus which is further away to continue dual language. Yet there's no transportation to support support for pong for to Plum Grove even for students who live much closer. That inconsistency highlights the need for a more equitable solution. We're not asking for special treat treatment, just continuity in the program that our son and his uh siblings, his excuse me, his brothers and sisters began. Without a solution, students like ours may be forced to abandon years of hard-earned Spanish proficiency despite the sacrifices they have made in English proficiency. We respectfully propose two options. One, guarantee transportation to Plum Grove for dual language students trust trans transferring from Thomas Jefferson who wish to continue the program or secondly offer the
052heritage speaker Spanish course Spanish course at Thomas Jefferson giving friend area students equitable access without the need of a transfer. These small practical steps would ensure fairness and honor the district's commitment to the language development and academic excellence as outlined in the moving 15 forward initiative. I ask that you reconsider and reread the mission statement that was made at the beginning of this meeting when looking into this issue. Thank you for your time and for your continued dedication to all the students at District 15. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I have my green shirt. Thank you. Okay. Any other green sheets? No. All right. Okay. We are now move on to superintendent report. Sure. Lot to share tonight. Okay. Uh just before this meeting, we had um a community engagement session, my final catch
053up with Hines for the year. Uh shared a bunch of information as we always do, took some questions and um it's it's been a wonderful addition. I've really enjoyed it. and um I hope it has achieved its goal of trying to increase two-way communication within the community. Um I'd like to extend a special thank you and a shout out to our communication department. If you could advance the slide. Um they always do videos and send emails out when it's appreciation week or day or month. Um so we wanted to do the same to both Ahmad and Jen. and we made you a cute little video to let you know how much everyone appreciates all your efforts um to communicate here in district 15. [Music] Thank you to the best communication officers, Miss Duncan. Thank you
054department for all they do for district. We appreciate all the ways to keep us informed on what is going on in the district. From organizing high five Fridays to taking pictures at our school, your hard work does not go unnoticed. Thank you communications department. Thank you. Thank you for all the things you do. and D15 communication department. Thank you for sharing our story. Thank you. Thank you for your text, website, email, robocalls. Just a quick thank you for all you do. We really appreciate it. All right. Um, our second rounds, my second rounds of the superintendent middle school student advisory continue to take place since our last meeting, which is a great way to interact with students. And as I always say, they're never shy uh sharing what's on their mind. This young man is
055a magician in the making and um he had some magic that he wanted to share with me on that day. That's an SRP little guy. His name is Frank. Frank. And all right, we have been busy in the soup's office um with assistant principal interviews. Our assistant principles, many of our our newbies are in the audience tonight for approval. We have Mon'nique. Is Emily here? I can't see. We have Lauren, right? And who else? Uh, Sana back there, Sana. And is that it? I think so. So, that'll be later this evening. We're very excited um to on board some new assistant principles and within the next day or two. We're going to finalize assignments. Ahmad and I were working on letters today and we'll be communicating um very shortly. So, that has been a lot.
056Thanks to my principles, assistant principles, cabinet members that have helped um with screenings, reference checkings, scheduling of meetings, and whatnot. Uh we really appreciate it and it wouldn't uh couldn't have happened without everybody getting involved and and uh working hard putting in some extra time to find some additional wonderful leaders to join the team. Um hang with Hines as we said continued. I was at Lincoln today had a great visit into many classrooms. Um and saw a butterfly release in second grade which took me back to my classroom teaching days as a second grade teacher. Uh but it's really been fun continues to be fun to be in the schools. Um since our last meeting, our DYI, our district um committee on educational excellence uh met, our parents has partners met as well as our
057superintendent communication council, which are our teachers uh that meet with cabinet and uh me. I really appreciate everyone's participation. I know schedules are busy, so it's always nice when groups of people come together, learn about what we're doing. We had a new format that we used with DY trying to engage the um members of the community around our work but also looking for linkages between the work that they're doing within the community. Um we are underway with SEIU negotiations. Uh we've been meeting um preparing our proposal, but we received SEIU's first proposal um last week and we met today and we will continue to um to move through their proposal and work on our response. So the negotiations are underway and I was down in Springfield at SAISBE. I sit on the advisory board and
058um had a wonderful visit to Springfield. I continue to work on SB1799. Um Ed Redd Bridget Peach and I have been in almost constant communication around it. Um as we all know, they'll be in session in Springfield till the end of the month. And um we have amendment language that's being reviewed. So hopefully the initial plan will not be the one that is voted on, but that they're accepting some of our amendment language. I hope to bring an update that is manageable for the district uh back at the June meeting, but I continue to to pay very close attention to Senate Bill 1799. Um in Sherry's world and the administrative service department, uh she conducted with many of us in attendance the district-wide safety meeting. It was a well attended uh room full of mostly
059first responders. We covered um opening days, graduation, reunification, you name it. We we had a very productive meeting. Uh sure did her first Carl Samberg wow day. Why would you want to be an associate superintendent and I'm sure you turned a bunch of middle schoolers into wanting your job someday. Um graduation planning with the Palatine as uh police department is underway. We will be communicating tomorrow that Winston campus and Sunling will be graduating on the same day as they typically do uh typically one after the other. Uh but it will be at Winston this year. We have um we received late news after getting early confirmation that Palentine High School would be available only to find out that they're going to be doing some fieldhouse and locker room work. It caught us by surprise, but
060it is is unavailable, but we have a plan in place for Winston. They have a beautiful gymnasium. Um it'll be a wonderful facility. Wonderful experience. To me, it's less about the facility. It's more about who we're honoring and it's our graduates. We will make sure that there's parking and that the kids, you know, have a wonderful experience. But that will all be communicated out tomorrow. Wanted the board to hear it first and then um Sher was instrumental in those assistant principal interviews. So she was at the table every single time and then some. So thanks for that. Um business and operations finalizing the fiscal year 26 tenative budget which you'll hear from Diana shortly. Uh we're finalizing summer 2025 facility projects as we've shared with the board. if you could advance the slide. And then
061they're rolling out electronic time sheets um that have already been successful with our nutrition service group um into other departments. So, we're we're almost there where we're going to have no more paper time sheets. Yay. Uh communications have partnered with human resources on this new recruitment video that you'll see tonight. Uh we've partnered with tech to train certified staff on mobile minds, power teacher, and parent square. um analyzed data related to strategic plan priority 3, community and family engagement, which you'll hear more about this evening, and partnered with administrative services for the reunification plan development and communication. Uh ED services are leading SEAL improvement uh work in the gifted programs, gathering data for the June board uh key performance indicator KPI updates, which will be next month. We're extending they're extending attendance communication for the
0622526 school year and in collaboration with TLA updating school improvement that model for next year. In June we will do a state of the district kind of where we are what we've been focused on and you'll learn a little bit more about um that process and where we where we finished the year and where we intend to go next year. Human resources certified staff recruitment for 2526 is underway. we have a significant reduction in outstanding hires compared to where we were last year in May. So, we're very excited about that. We know the work that we did to correct um tier 2 salaries is largely responsible for that as well as every department's commitment to getting out there and finding applicants, screening them, and getting them hired. So, we're out early and uh we will
063not need to use contract agencies, but hopefully none at all, but if if so, maybe just in a few instances, but we continue to strive to be fully staffed. Uh and then they're determining support staff allocations for the upcoming school year and negotiating a grievance uh with with TAI. So, hopefully we'll have resolution for our next meeting. Okay. and multilingual. They're hosting uh multilingual literacy nights in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi at Central Road on May 13th. Ukrainian at Lincoln on also on the 13th of May, Japanese at Pleasant Hill and Russian at Hunting Bridge on the 20th. Multilingual is planning summer camp programs for students and preparing summer PD opportunities for staff and dual language acceptance and weight list letters will be sent out to incoming kindergarten classes uh shortly. Student Services is hiring teachers
064and related service staff for next year. They participated in the Palatine Community Wellness Fair at the Y. Um only CLA remains to be trained for student uh records digit the digitization project. Isn't that nice that you're down to just one school? She's going to have a a massive celebration when this is all done. And we had great success as I shared with the board over the weekend. We had Special Olympic Special Olympic athletes um doing quite well at at their um their sports over the weekend. We will likely recognize our our Special Olympians at our June meeting. Teaching, learning, and assessment is meeting with all middle school teams to reflect on year one experience. Uh as middle schools, what did we do well? Where did we really hit the mark? Where do we have uh
065you know room to to pivot and grow? So, I'm excited to hear that feedback. and they're wrapping up the resource pilots for K5 health and middle school algebra that Lori presented on um last month. They're refining pacing guides and plans for the um fall 2025 opening days based on May institute other teacher institutes. You know, we're always trying to reflect on how things went and refine and and just continue to make things better. So, they'll make necessary adjustments for the start of next year. And then material ordering is underway and the transitioning of materials and staff that are in their new roles. So, a lot of transition work happens in May. So, we're we're ready for the fall. And last but not least, but not least, tech services. Uh there's continued training, configuration, and migration
066to P school CIS for a full launch in June and or July. So they're very busy preparing for the end of the year uh all processes on on on all of our systems, coordinating summer work for tech implementation and installation, planning summer PD for staff, and wrapping up smartphone uh and school committee work. MJ will bring that work um to the board in June. So you've heard June a lot. June's going to be a meeting. So it's going to be a meeting, everybody. But just just so you know, if you haven't picked up my subtle, not so subtle June June June, uh, take a nap. All right. Um, and we want to unveil for the first time our recruitment video. We're very excited to um join this, add this to what we've been doing to
067try to actively recruit um in areas where we have openings. So enjoy. Community Consolidated School District 15 is the second largest elementary school district in Illinois. It has 20 schools, over 11,000 students, and has more than 2,000 staff that come to school every day to serve our kids. My kid went to all the schools here in District 15, and I've lived in Palatine for over 25 years. It's my community. I love the area. I love the schools, the teachers, and everything else. I'm like, I want to work there. So when I started working here, I'm like, "Oh, this is a blast being part of the kids' lives." And it's it's great. I love it. This was my first job straight out of college. I have been in district 15 for 23 years. This is my
06823rd year. Something that I like about district 15 is that our district is large. And so for someone like me who is not interested in being an administrator, I have options besides being a classroom teacher. And that's not in every district. I know that for sure. I chose to say yes to work at district 15 because of the people and because of the atmosphere and the collaboration and the innovation. The faculty and the administration in district 15 are very supportive. Whatever you need or whenever you need it, they'll get it for you. Not only do they care about you as an educator, but they also care about you as a person. You can call anyone at any time to get help, to problem solve, to talk through anything you need, and just to have a
069friend. We have 86 languages that uh we serve. The diversity is among the highest in the state and I think it's wonderful to see that people view Palentine as a place to come and a place that they're welcome. The culture here is very positive. We're very student focused. We're working hard to try to make a difference in the lives of all of our students, helping each child grow and find their fullest potential. We're all here to work together. We're all like a big team. We're trying to accomplish a goal. Let's get these kids to and from school in a happy, safe environment and we we we do it every day. The faculty, they're miracle workers. The things that we do every day is amazing. Like, everyone just kind of steps in, they collaborate, we work
070together, and everything is done for the best interest of the students. There's a number of reasons that people come and and stay. We're very competitive in what we offer in terms of our benefits and pay, but more than that, we're so large and we do so much that there are so many opportunities to find something that really fits your talents and interests. I've stayed in district 15 for 20 years because there have been opportunities for growth for me along the way. So, I started off as an assistant principal, then a principal, I was a director, and now I'm at the early learning center. And it's just been opportunity after opportunity for growth for me and that's been amazing. We have custodial staff who are student teaching. We have program assistants who are getting their masters
071in education so they can be teaching and there's staff members who are going to schools for administration and it it's never ending and the possibilities are limitless. I would describe district 15 as a destination district. People really do move to this area because of our schools and the communities. We have very active libraries, park districts. We offer a lot beyond just a quality education. These are engaging communities that are deeply invested in not only their schools, but just being a good place to live. Everybody is all in for all kids all the time. U moving on toformational reports. Item 9.1 is the update on strategic planning priority 3 community and family engagement. I think we have a couple of firsttime presentations for the board coming on down. There's nothing to be nervous about. We're all
072friends here. We all know each other. We're all fans. [Applause] Good evening, President Ader, members of the board of education, and superintendent Dr. Hines. Um, I am Amad Gibson, the chief communications officer here at District 15. And tonight, my team and I are excited to share an update on the work of our communications department and provide a progress report on strategic plan priority 3 related to community engagement and family involvement. So, when we launched, sorry, when we launched our updated strategic plan a couple years ago, we made a commitment to strengthen trust, foster collaboration, and improve access to information for our families, staff, and greater community. A strong communication system isn't just about the tools we use. It's about how we build meaningful connections and create culture where every stakeholder feels informed, valued, and engaged.
073Over the course of this school year, our communications team has been intentional about laying the foundation for that vision. From launching a redesigned user-friendly website to introducing parent square for streamline messaging to creating new pathways for feedback and connection through community initiatives like read it and dream it and catch up with. We are proud of the progress we made and even more excited about the direction we're heading. Tonight's presentation will walk you through that journey, where we started, where we are now, and the steps we're taking to continue strengthening the vital bridge between our schools, our families, and the broader community we serve. So, but before we begin to fully reflect on the progress we made this year, it's important to start by recognizing the incredible team behind the work. Um, I'm usually the one
074back there going um when we think about the work of communications, it's easy to focus on the outcomes, but behind every word design and system improvement is a team that truly cares about connection. This year, thanks to the leadership of Dr. Hines and the support of the board, we expanded our communications department to better meet the needs of our diverse and growing district. However, we didn't start from scratch. This was already a strong team doing important work, but you all recognize the need for additional capacity to enhance our efforts. Adding an assistant director of communications and digital media role allowed us to cover more ground, be more responsive, and maximize the potential of what we can accomplish. It has allowed each team member to refine their focus while working collaboratively toward our bigger impact. So,
075our department consists of myself serving as the chief communications officer. Um, I lead our department's overall strategic communications as well as our crisis communications, branding, public and media relations, executive messaging, and stakeholder engagement. And I'll let my team introduce themselves and tell you a little about what they do. Uh, I'm Jen Duncan, the assistant director of communications and digital media. Uh, I oversee social media, um, graphic design, family and community newsletters, event coverage, and multimedia storytelling for the most part. Hi, I'm Sandy Kramer. I'm the district's web and mass notifications manager. Um, I've been with the district for um, a little over 30 years, so I've been here a long time. Um, but I've really enjoyed my work here. Um, I do all of the website web content management, the mass notifications, keeping track of
076that system and maintaining it in the background. Um, and I also do a lot of troubleshooting with the principles and any other staff that need help with that. And just a lot of other just general work that needs to be done here. Don't forget your favorite handbook. And it's always like a four month project. Yes. and um she's not here with us tonight. But our final and equally important member of our team is Katie Kawashek, who is our part-time uh reproapics technician. Katie supports our district-wide printing, copying, and laminating needs um and helps bring many of our projects to life behind the scenes. All right. Um as we expanded our team, we also set out to build a strong foundation for the work ahead. um that wasn't just about adding more communication. It was about
077being more strategic and intentional and connected across every layer. Our communication journey this year tells a story of progress, collaboration, and commitment to continuous improvement. So, Jen and I joined the team late last summer, and around that same time, we launched our new awardwinning district and school websites led by the work of Sandy Kramer. Um, Jen and I knew the size of this district we were coming into was large and as a result, how intentional we needed to be with building connections internally before we could look to our families and communities. With that in mind, we met with every one of our principles and toured every school to understand building specific needs in regards to support, communications, and family engagement. And we used our takeaways from those meetings to conduct the district-wide communications audit to
078pinpoint strengths and opportunities for growth. As we moved into the fall, Jen and I were officially on board and we immediately focused on revamping our internal communication processes with the focus on bringing more consistency and clarity to how we communicate within the district. We simultaneously began partnering with other district level departments. One of our first projects was the launch of the read it and dream it literacy campaign in partnership with our multillegal programs department. Um during that time I also worked with our ed services and admin services teams to finalize our crisis communications plan to better support our schools during emergency situations. And as we started to shore up our internal communication systems, we then began to focus heavily on engagement. We launched our communication survey, introduced district spiritware store to support our F15 campaign
079and work hand in hand with our schools and district level departments to boost registration promotion and staff engagement initiatives. So now as we are officially in the spring season with the weather to match finally uh we are in the midst of our parent square transition streamlining how we connect with families across the district. We are also supporting all end of the year communications projects, planning promotions for school and district events, and helping to celebrate major milestones like eighth grade graduations and staff retirements. As we continue strengthening our communications foundation, you want to manage this? Yeah. Thank you. And um it was important to make sure that we had the right tools in place as well. And today we have a strong uh suite of key platforms that allow us to meet the diverse needs of
080our families. At the forefront of these platforms is Parent Square, which many of you are beginning to see and hear more of this spring. Parent Square is becoming our district's go-to system for mass communications. Um to offer more consistency, better translation support, and increased accessibility for our families. Um we have been slowly rolling it out over the past few months and it's already been a major leap forward in how we connect with our families. Our website platform final site set the tone for the work uh we've done this year and our district as you all know is proudly named among the best school district websites of 2024 by final site itself. Um Sandy led that charge behind the scenes managing over 20 school websites our staff site tip line and forms portal um and ensuring
081that all of those sites were uh accurate accessible and welcoming. We also enhanced our back-end support by implementing Milwater, which is a platform that allows us to monitor our press coverage, manage public relations efforts, and track the sentiment around District 15. On a design side, um, Jen does a lot with Canva Pro and Adobe Creative Cloud. They've been instrumental and elevated our branding, graphics, and multimedia projects across both print and digital formats. Um whether it's a social media post, a newsletter, a banner, or a video, having access to those professional tools has allowed Jen to produce highquality visuals that reflect the excellence of our district. And of course, social media continues to be an important platform for celebrating our schools and building those real-time connections with families and our community. Next slide, please. Um so
082as we strengthen our team and our platforms, it was important to ensure that um our work touched every corner of our district in meaningful ways. So our department has been deeply embedded in supporting both district level and schoolbased needs this year. Whether it's helping a principal share an important update, promoting an event, celebrating milestones, we've been intentional about making sure our communications are timely, clear, and accessible. We've led the management and training for parent square and ensured that our website remains welcoming and userfriendly. And in times of crisis, we've provided swift, transparent communications to our families and staff guided by the crisis communications plan that we created this past fall. And on a more regular basis, we continue producing consistent newsletters for our staff, family, and community members, and have been maintaining an active and
083engaging presence on social media. This year we also added exciting new projects like launching our D15 spiritware store. Um develop staff engagement campaigns um like our winter spirit week competition to celebrate and connect with our amazing team members across the district. And in addition to the work that we've done within our department, we've also worked hand inand with nearly every district department and school to support their unique needs. from assisting admin services with crisis communications and registration efforts to helping business and facilities team share updates about construction progress partnering with ad services on attendance campaigns. Um we've just been really committed to telling the story of the work that's going on. Um, we've worked with multilingual programs, um, and supporting events, campaigns, and even video production, human resources with recruitment, messaging, and staff recognition efforts.
084Um, and worked on that video that you all just saw. Um, worked alongside student services to promote events obviously every day with the superintendent's office and enhancing that family and community engagement. uh TLA with curriculum material support, technology. Uh MJ and I talk nearly every day at this point. We should probably combine our departments. Um but we've just been proud to maintain strong partnerships um throughout the district internally and then also our partnership with our school buildings and our five foundation. So for the next part of our presentation, we'll share how these efforts align um with the work happening around strategic plan priority 3 um strengthening community and family engagement. I our district strategic plan makes it clear that our strength as a district isn't just found within our classrooms and it's rooted in the
085partnerships that we cultivate with our families and our community as well. So, the work that we just spoke to laid this school year's groundwork for this vision, and now we're excited to walk you through how Priority 3 is coming to life through opportunities and initiatives that we've been building together. I will hand it off to Jen. Oh, sorry, not yet. Um, so, um, the first step was refining how we communicate. One of the first thing we did was standardize our newsletter process at the district at the district level. We created a consistent schedule for distribution, built a formal content submission process, and leverage the leadership connection system for more time-sensitive updates. And this not only reduced redundancy, but brought more of a rhythm and predictability to how information reaches our family and staff. Um, in
086case you haven't heard, we also launched our transition to parent square. Um, and we've also been leaning more into social media to meet families where they are and celebrating the incredible things happening in our school in real time. And on the community side, we restructure, as Dr. Hines mentioned, how we hold our engagement events and meetings, making them more intentional, welcoming, and more focused on interactive dialogue rather than one-way updates. Um so each of these changes have been rooted in the same belief that when communication is clear and timely and inclusive then our community connection thrives. So as we continue working towards building stronger bridges with our family and community, it was important for us to not just launch initiatives and enhance current practices but to step back and ask ourselves, is it actually working?
087Are we reaching people? Are families and staff feeling more connected? And that's why we made it a priority to gather feedback directly from our stakeholders to assess if and how these changes are making a difference and where we still have room to grow. Now it's all right. So I've got some numbers to share. In a response from our annual communication survey specifically measuring how effective families find the district's communication efforts on a scale of 1 to5, we can see there's been a clear and significant improvement from 2024 to 2025. In 2024, the average rating for this question was 4.01. This year, the number rose to 4.36, reflecting a stronger perception of our communication efforts. Notably, the percentage of families who rated communication as highly effective increased substantially from just under 40% in 2024 to nearly
08860% in 2025. This upward trend speaks directly to the impact of our intentional strategies over this past year. Um, looking at how informed families feel about the things happening in district 15, we can see there has been another significant rise from 2024 to 2025. We asked families to rate how informed they feel about district happenings on a scale of 1 to5. In 2024, our average rating was 3.96. In 2025, the number rose to 4.28, reflecting a stronger response due to our increased and improved efforts. Um this data here uh reflects family feedback on the ease of use of our website. Comparing results from 2024 to 2025. In 2024, survey responses were based on the previous version of our website. While in 2025, families responded based on the new site that we launched in August. Um
089we're proud to report a significant increase in satisfaction with the average rating rising from 3.56 to 3.99. The percentage of families who rated the site as very easy to use nearly doubled um while lower ratings declined across the board. The improvement confirms that the updates we implemented on the website, including a simplified navigation, a mobile friendly layout, and stronger translation tools are making a meaningful difference for our families. It also reinforces our commitment to creating accessible family centered tools that help our community stay connected and informed. And if I can interject really quickly, I know Tom mentioned um when he was reporting on um his work towards the strategic plan earlier this school year that although those numbers seem like very incremental and minimal, our district is so large. So that like.3 rise in rating
090is like actually a really big deal numbers wise. So I just wanted to make that point. Yep. All right. Um and then we have social media. For our last look at numbers, um, redefining and expanding our social media presence through intentional strategic content planning is an effective way for the district to strengthen connections with our families and the community. In August, we conducted a full audit of every social media page associated with the district. As part of this effort, we ensured that every principal had access to their page and provided expectations and support for posting. We asked each school to post at least once a week. The goal behind the the goal being to give families and community members a consistent meaningful glimpse into the life of their school highlighting learning growth and the strong
091relationships being built every day. Uh this weekly posting standard ensured equity among our large district. Every family in district 15, no matter which school their child attends, has opportunity to stay connected and informed through a platform that many people are already familiar with and actively using. According to research from the Pew Research Center, 68% of adults in the US use Facebook and nearly 70% of those users check it daily. Um, daily Facebook usage is at an all-time high. When we post on social media, we are not asking families to seek out information about the district. We're showing up in a space that they already visit, often multiple times a day. Um, this is why social media is such a powerful communication tool. It allows us to reach people in real time, build relationships, and tell
092our story consistently and compellingly. Um, yeah. Oh, wait. Can you go back? There's a little bit more. Okay. So, you can see on the screen, um, the results of this work are proving to be positive. Every key metric that we track, um, which is reach, engagement, clicks, visits, and follows is trending upward. Um, we don't just post randomly on social media whenever we feel like it. there's a lot of strategy that goes into it and thought behind it and then also um evaluation afterwards. So, we are always looking at these metrics as well and you can see they're all trending upward. So, um we're really happy with with what we have been seeing throughout all this work. Okay. And then our website analytics, we have some numbers up here for you to digest as well.
093As you know, we launched our website, our new website in August of 24 and had several updates have been made to better serve our community. In developing the site, the communications team relied on expert guidance from our partners at Final Site, as well as feedback from staff, families, and community members to ensure a user-friendly and accessible experience. Key improvements include full ADA compliance, robust translation capabilities. Our site now supports translations in our top 29 languages. Um, in addition to English, we have Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Korean among the most used on our website. Um, the website currently spans over 4,000 pages across the district, schools, the5 Foundation, staff web, and has engaged over 36,000 users with more than 168,000 page views. Notably, we've seen marked increases in traffic to key areas such as
094employment, calendars, menus, and our staff web, indicating that our most sought-after information is easier to find and navigate. With mobile users now making up 60% of our traffic, we've prioritized mobile friendly design so all users can access what they need when and where they need it. Okay. Ahmad spoke about read and dream it a bit earlier, but this was um in addition to our website launch, we collaborated closely with multilingual department for this campaign which was designed to foster a love of reading across all student populations with a focus on accessibility and family engagement. Beginning in November of 2024, the campaign featured weekly virtual bedtime stories in multiple languages. The initiative not only supported literacy development, but also created meaningful experiences for families at home. Um, by leveraging our new website's improved translation tools and
095mobile friendly design, we ensured that families of all backgrounds could easily access and enjoy these resources and they were easily accessible on our website. um to promote literacy and foster deeper community engagement. The district also launched a virtual book club initiative last summer aimed at connecting, enriching, and strengthening our community of readers. In alignment with this effort, the communications team partnered with multilingual department um to ensure the initiative was accessible and inviting to families of all language backgrounds. This collaboration combined with targeted outreach and clear messaging played a key role in the program success. Participation in the book club has grown steadily. We had 332 families total last year. This year it's already at 355 and expected to rise a bit more. Okay. Um a key opportunity that's been created to deepen family engagement is
096our parents as partners initiative. This is where parent representatives from across our schools come together with members of our cabinet team for a series of collaborative meetings. These conversations are designed to give parents a deeper look into the work happening in district 15 from curriculum development to student services um while also giving us valuable insight into the parent perspective. It's an opportunity for two-way con communication for families to better understand the decisions that shape their child's experiences and for us to directly hear from parents about their hopes, questions, and ideas. Um, building this type of part partnership helps us ensure that our work in the district is informed, transparent, and rooted in the real experiences of the families that we serve. Um, one of my favorite ways um that we've worked to strengthen community engagement
097um this year has been through Catch Up with Hinds. Um, also because I love the title of it. Uh while board of education meetings provide an important space for public participation, they are structured in a way that limits that true two-way dialogue. Um and catch up with Hind was created to bridge that gap, giving our community members, including those who may not have students or direct ties to District 15, the opportunity to engage in genuine two-way conversations with Dr. Hines. Um throughout the year, Dr. Dr. Hines has traveled to different locations across the communities we serve to host these gatherings. Um, and just earlier this evening, she held the final catch up with HMS session of this school year. Um, right across the hallway. Um, at each session, community members were able to hear updates
098directly from the leader of our district, ask questions, share feedback, and engage in open dialogue about topics that matter most to them. And these sessions were about meeting the people where they are both literally and figuratively and strengthening that trust through authentic conversation. Um through our district advisory committee on educational excellence or DY meetings, we brought together leaders from our local police and fire departments, park districts, village governments, PC partners, high school districts. Um and at first these meetings were mainly consisted um consisting of us sharing district departmental updates um with our community partners and as Dr. high mentioned during her superintendent report earlier this evening. Um we were like talking in our in our weekly or bi-weekly meetings um with the comm's department and we saw an area for improvement and realize that these
099meetings provide an opportunity to not only share those one-way updates on district initiatives but to hear community partners' perspectives and strengthen their collaboration on areas that impact the health, safety, and success of our students. And not to say we weren't asking about updates from our partners before. Um it's just that now we're a lot more intentional about creating meaningful connection points and exploring how we can better serve and support one another. Um excuse me. We also attend the Prince of Peace Church community leaders meetings um hosted by the church that has a similar struct. Um, these pop meetings serve as an extension of our outreach efforts, building relationships with groups that directly support many of the families that we serve. So, both DC and Prince of Peace gatherings have allowed us to broaden our lens,
100bring more voices to the table, and ensure that District 15 remains connected and collaborative. As we look ahead, our work in communications and strategic plan priority 3 is not slowing down. It's only expanding. Um, first, we're excited to share that we'll soon be launching a D15 news page on our district website with a district as large and vibrant as ours. There's always something incredible happening across our schools. Um, however, that high volume of good news has made it challenging to get all of those stories placed externally. So now we're taking ownership of telling our story inhouse. Um making sure that the celebrations, innovations, and moments that the district um that define the district are shared directly with the community they impact most. Um another exciting milestone ahead of us is the full roll out of
101Parent Square at the start of the 202526 school year. Um we spent the past few months laying the groundwork for that transition and by fall parent square will serve as our district's official communication platform. We're also continuing to think creatively about our meeting um about meeting our community where they are beyond traditional events and meetings. We're exploring opportunities like potential community movie nights or organizing district-wide readalongs at our libraries, maybe having Dr. Hines as a guest barista at a local coffee shop. Absolutely. Um the goal I need more caffeine. The goal is simply to create um more authentic meaningful touch points. And in terms of our communication strategy, while our data shows that we're making real strides in transparency, consistency, and connection, we recognize that continuous improvement is key. So, we'll keep monitoring and analyzing
102the feedback that we're getting and adjusting our strategies accordingly. Um and then finally to be even more proactive, our department will be conducting cross- departmental um planning meetings this summer with district leadership. Um we hope that these conversations can help us identify new opportunities for collaboration, anticipate communication needs for next school year now that our department has a year under his belt and um streamline those systems where possible. Um, so at the end of the day, everything that we do in communications and everything that we strive for in our strategic plan comes back to making sure that every student, every family member and staff member knows that they belong here. So, we're proud of the foundation we built and we're more excited for the work ahead. Any questions? And also um for anyone watching um
103as a part of us moving to parent square that is now going to be um the platform in which we construct and distribute our newsletters. So in order to uh stay updated on the happenings within our district, please scan a QR code and subscribe to our family community newsletters. Nice. You guys have been busy. Yes. Yes. Any questions? I wanted to um just thank you for the communication and um I I agree with you. Um clear, concise, timely communication actually makes the uh community actually feel more connected. Um I just wanted to double check as far as the survey results. Um can I just uh confirm what was the response rate of the um district parents or the district community? Was it like half the the community responded to those surveys? And um also just
104in comparison to last year, is there more um respondies uh comparatively? I don't know the numbers at the time. I don't know the numbers, but I know we had more. Yeah, I know we had more. Um I can get those um numbers for you, but I do know that it was an increase in participation for sure. Okay. Thank you. Also just want to say thank you. That's amazing work from one year in to over 30 years in. Just um really really grateful for everything that you all have done over the last year and before that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all very much. All right. All right. Thank you. Good night. Thank you. Okay. Uh item 9.2 update on the May 2nd institute day. I'm in the baby chair. We can we can switch,
105Tom. We can switch. All right. Um well, good evening, President Ader, um esteemed members of the board of education and Dr. Hines. Um we're here tonight to talk a little bit about our May 2nd institute day. So in district 15, we have four institute days over the course of the year. Um we have two in August to launch the school year, one in January where we typically um monitor the progress that we've made and refine the things that we're working on and then one in May where um we reflect and then typically shift our focus to the next school year so that we can hit the ground running. Um, we also sometimes, um, as we did this past year, put half-day professional development days into the calendar. Um, especially when we're addressing, uh, something critical
106like school improvement planning or, um, we focused some half days on our CHAMPS initiatives last year. Um, and institute days are absolutely uh, critical for for staff because they're critical for students. Um, they help teachers stay updated on best practices. Um, we, uh, get to work together as a team to make adjustments to our curriculum pacing guides and we learn about new resources on these days. And as you know, like most school districts, District 15 really faces some significant um, challenges with securing substitutes. So it's difficult for us to release large groups of teachers during the school day because of this. So institute days are really essential time for teachers to come together to collaborate um and get access to everyone's best idea um and then to continue to learn so that we can provide
107students with the best education possible. So on May 2nd we planned sessions for over 30 different teacher groups. Um we launched the day with an introduction to new technology tools and then following that teams worked on professional development um aligned with their role. So tonight we're just going to share some of the highlights of this important day. So as uh as Dr. Hines and Ahmad mentioned earlier uh we launched the day uh with a virtually provided uh district-wide introduction to three new platforms in our technology ecosystem. Uh the first one being something called Mobile Mind, which is a learning platform uh that allows our staff uh to access learning materials uh on demand and streamline uh professional learning as we begin to build those professional development resources uh on the platform for educator learning paths.
108Um, we also gave a preview of our P school for teachers um, as we are migrating to P school CIS for the 202526 school year. So teachers got to see how they're making seating charts and getting a insight into their grade book and how might attendance be um, taken and things like that. Um and then lastly, we launched uh parent square. Um and the teachers were able to get started in preparing for their communications. Uh kind of strategically thinking about how they're going to integrate this new tool into their toolbox for communication. and um teaching learning and assessment hosted um many different sessions but some of the sessions that we hosted focused on supporting teachers with new resources for next year. So as you know we adopted new resources in middle school social studies and
109in middle school math. Um but other teams also looked at at um new tools. Our RCS and intervention team looked at an assessment tool um and instrumental music reviewed um tools related to uh their teaching. Uh our intermediate teachers focused on differentiation in math instruction and our electives and specialists teachers worked on standardsbased reporting and on common assessments. Um and every team really did something that was very specific to their role. But probably the most important thing that happens on institute days is really the chance to collaborate um to talk with your peers about what works and um what would you have done differently or or what do you definitely plan to do again next year. Um, in some cases, teams work together to make minor shifts in in a plan uh for next year,
110but in other cases, like for example, our STEM teachers, um, they worked with our instructional uh tech team to really map out our new class for next year, app creators. Um, so our May Institute Day uh really helps us refine uh what what what we've started, what we're currently working on. But in May, it's equally important to set the teachers up for success at the start of next school year. In multilingual, we assembled a team of very enthusiastic and dedicated teachers, instructional coaches, and members of our department to go to each of our elementary schools and spend two hours with all of our classroom teachers focusing on developing our asset assetbased mindsets and supporting our EL newcomers or our most recent arrivals here in the country and developing ory with very intentional practices. and conversation
111and dialogue supports that we can use to do that as well as utilizing strong visuals to support and increase access to the curriculum for our multilingual students. And we also were able to assemble our groups that have a unique per a unique role. Uh our bilingual preschool really explored our pyramid model behavior plans that we implement in the classroom. our world language teachers came together to collaborate on best practices in particular for our Spanish for native speakers program and as well we assembled our ESL and bilingual resource teams and they dove into um a very exciting topic for us which is cohesion and writing. What does that look like and what does that mean? Um for student and educational services um we planned a wide variety of activities for the May 2nd institute day. There
112was discipline specific training for our teaching staff, our itinerants and our related services staff and our nurses. Um literacy and mathematics, excuse me, sneeze. Literacy and mathematics instructional strategies and curriculum for special education programs was explored. And then in early childhood um they participated in a training on the eers the early childhood environment rating scale participated in the um professional development and then did some self-reflection and assessment of their own environments. Head services primarily supported two groups during student day. First was the uh CLA staff. We provided a comprehensive and more indepth training on deescalation and crisis management techniques something that they uh utilize on a regular basis. We had an outside presenter that we supported and went really deep into what these techniques are, what's allowable, what's not, and alternatives for their use. And
113then we also support the gifted program. Uh a few years ago, we started a dare greatly initiative which is meant to support students social emotional needs in a gifted program, something often overlooked. We began with uh doing restorative circle training with our teachers. Got that off the ground and now we've en engaged in parent seminars and feedback from those seminars resulted in a training to support the teachers with many lessons and whatnot on how to move students forward when they have difficulty in group in small group work. One of the things that's real common is they just aren't able to collaborate well because they all have such great ideas. So, this is something that really is a key part of their instruction and we were able to work with them to move forward on how
114we can support those kids. And then we just pulled together a few pictures of the day to share with the board. It's a Sparrow robot. Okay. Oh, yes. We should look at the robot again. That's our STEM team. Yes. And that's it. Thank you very much. And thank you. So I so much goes into these institute days. Um you know over 30 different teacher groups, just hours and hours of endless planning. They're very powerful days, but they wouldn't happen without all of these departmental leaders um and their teams making it happen. So thank you very much. Good stuff. Thank you. All right, last but not least. Good evening, Dr. uh President Shupai, Dr. Hi, members of the board. Oh, President, you know, take two. We are here. I'm I'm Sheri Lazor, the associate superintendent, and
115I have I'm Erica Johansson. I'm the proud principal over at Carl Samberg Middle School. Hello, everyone. And we have partnered together to work on a um reunification plan for Carl Samberg's um seventh grade students that we're going to be talking about that we'll be able to initiate throughout the district in the coming years. So, we're here just to tell you a little bit about it. Um, so as you know, we're always trying to enhance our safety efforts in the district as it's it's an on ever ongoing um concern that we want to make sure everyone's safe. Um, and in doing that, we have to look at ways that we do things. We currently had a relocation plan, but we never really had any type of plan um on if the relocation had to become more
116of a permanent type of relocation. So, we we've relocated for minor um situations, but we've never had to have anybody picked up. And what we found was that we don't really have um a good plan. We wanted a solid plan to be able to support students and staff and and families in case there is that type of crisis. So our long-term goal is to create this for the entire district. Um but we are starting right now with Carl Samberg and their seventh grade students. Um next we go. Yeah. Okay. Um so we started uh this year in the fall we had at administrator academy where we talked about um and we were about our safety measures that we had in place and we were trained by the I love you guys foundation around um their
117standard um their standard response methods and a lot of it aligned with what we already had as far as our safety plans. However, again, like I said, we didn't have any relocation reunification plans. And so, that got us thinking of what we needed to do to move forward. We started working with um our trainer from I Love You guys um who also trains on reunification plans and decided that as a district we were going to move forward with uh planning and training for that. Um we uh Michael um Pek is the person that we're working with and through I love you guys foundation and um he came to Illinois and he came to Palatine and he spent some time with Erica and I at Carl Samberg as well as uh the relocation site for Carl
118Samberg and then he went to all the different schools and and looked at all of their schools and what that looked like and how um they would get from their uh school to the relocation site and then he's helping to create a plan for the whole district. So he took lots of pictures, he walked the neighborhoods, he's always trying to figure out what is the best way to keep us safe if, god forbid, we needed to do a reunification. Uh so then um in collaboration, we spent many many hours with him in writing our reunification plan. Uh we've been fortunate that Erica um and her team at Carl Samberg have been um hands-on and and great partners in this um new uh endeavor because it definitely is something that we need to hear have lots
119of voices and hear all the different obstacles that they've gone through as far as relocation and what could come uh moving forward. So we've been able to do that. Okay. So, uh, the drill, we are, uh, going to have our first practice on May 30th. So, this is Carl Samberg is going to have a an event. It's all going to be simulated. It won't be real, and we're making sure that the kids and staff know that it is, um, it is not real, but we are, um, we're going to have the event on May 30th. Um, our participation group is our seventh grade students. I've got a great group of seventh graders, about 140 students. We're a nice small school. Thank you. Um and we just um this group is a great group and it's
120a great group of staff. So um but the whole idea is to practice and evaluate in just a controlled setting. Um I have a wonderful relationship with our um with the church that we work with which is our relo relocation site. Actually the pastor is a parent in my building and so that's an added bonus that he has a very vested interest in making sure that we stay safe as well. Um so we started with some communication to families. Um, the letter went out this past Friday. So, I communicated with all families at Carl Samberg um that we were going to have this event, but I'm asking specifically for seventh grade families to engage with me. Um, they have seventh grade families have an opportunity to volunteer to um participate in the drill. Um the
121way the seventh grade families would participate is um that they may choose to pick up their child from the relocation site after they've had communication saying we need we're going to start reuniting families with their children. Um it's not just that simple. It's taken hours and hours of planning to figure out how we're going to relocate or reunite the families with their child. Um but we are trying to um simulate what what it would look like because the more you practice and the better you've become at practicing then you know you'll be more prepared if the unfortunate event does happen. Um so we are encouraging our families. So I've sent I've sent a text I've sent an email and I'm about to engage a little bit more uh just to to try to help get
122some more families involved. Um we're ideally looking for a good chunk of parents to participate so that we can better our practices and kind of know um what the mistakes are and what we can do to fix them um as we plan. Uh so as far as it's really an interdep departmental collaboration. So it's not just my school. Um it's really looking at the whole district and and what we would do as a whole district if a school did have to go through this process. Um it's just it's not just the school and the site. It's a practice for the whole district. every department listed has a pivotal role to play in the success of this reunification. Um, I'm very fortunate that at transportation I won't really need busing support um because we could just
123walk over to the church, but if the church was unavailable, we'd need to be able to have the the transportation department support my school. I do have the mile students in my building and so they may need help with transportation. Um, this year I don't have any seventh graders in miles, so I won't need the transportation department, but that's something that's in the back of my mind. If I have students who need um, transportation support, even though the rest of my students may be able to move over on their own, how could I engage transportation? Um, as far as nutrition services, we're going to feed the students when we go to our relocation site. So, we'll have lunches prepared for them. Um, we're going to feed the staff and the students. Um, so the nutrition
124services department would have to come up with how could we make 140 meals pretty quick if we needed to. Now, if it was my whole school, it would be about 500 meals. How could they make it real fast if we needed to feed everyone? Um, the technology department, we're going to be looking at, you know, do I have do I have access to technology at my site? Do I have hotspots? Do I have extra chargers? Do I have um power strips? Like that that's a huge part for their department. We look at buildings and grounds. Do I have garbage cans? Do I have floor mats? Do I have access to things like cones to help set up the reunification in the parking lot? Um, and then of course our partners with the Rolling Meadows Police
125Department and Fire Department have been fantastic. Palatine is going to step in and observe as well um because they'll be doing this in Palatine at the Palletine schools. But the Meadows um groups have been fantastic and very supportive. They're all in and and want to help out. So I think the biggest piece is why does it matter? Um it's ch this whole piece has really challenged us to think about what I would want as a parent. I'm a parent of two children. What I would want as a parent if I were to go through this process and how what would make me stay calm and what would make me trust the school and that's each of the people I've chosen to be on this committee with us. That's the same m that's the same mindset
126they've gone in. If if I were getting this call and I were getting these messages, what would stop me from running right to the place to go pick up my child? and we want to make sure that we are thinking through everything with clarity and making sure that everybody understands that we are staying calm. We're going to keep everyone safe and we're going to make sure that reunification is as efficient efficient as possible. Um so the and that's all the support we've received from the I love you guys foundation and specifically Michael Pek. So it everything that we've gone through so far has really justified us to or make us justify what we're doing what we why we're doing it. So there you go. So as we discussed, this is going to be a district-wide
127initiative. We're going to start we're starting with Carl Samberg on May 28th. Um we're going to have some training for just the Carl Samberg 7th grade teachers and staff. And um they're we're going to go through the whole reunification training to get them prepared for the actual um practice which is going to be on May 30th. In the afternoon on the 28th, we are going to be meeting with all of the district principles and they also are going to get the training. So they'll go through more a little bit more of intense training. It'll be specific to their school as opposed to the Carl Samberg and that's why we separated it out. But everybody will be trained on this and they'll have their own set of documents, their own set of information, their own plan
128for their school. Um we um invited them to come also principles to come observe if they can for parts or any of the actual reunification drill with Carl Samberg so they can get an idea of what this is going to look like because as I said they will also be going through this in the coming years. Um we we ultimately want everybody to experience this all all schools all grade levels all parents are going to be invited to it. it's going to be a a step process because it does take um a lot of time and and commitment from parents and them having to come pick up students and then also we also don't want to initiate fear and as Erica had said um that's definitely been our biggest concern and we spend a little
129bit of time too talking about what how are we going to address this with the students how are we going to prepare them with the students and and and really um work to make sure that um they're safe and um just recently we talked about um I talked with the ed services department about like the mental health component of the students who are participating in this because it can be something that is a little bit more scary than you know any of the drills that we go through and the drills that we go through can also be and so this is just that added additional layer. So we are definitely working on that bigger picture to maintain um everyone's comfort level and safety and understanding of why we're doing it and how this is going
130to go on. Um, so our hope is to never ever have to use a reunification plan. Um, but we feel that, you know, there's a huge sense of relief that we have a plan that we're practicing and that we're going to know so that we are as prepared as we need to be in the future moving forward. Thank you. Any questions? I was just going to say thank you for taking it on. I had the opportunity, not this past schoolboard conference, but the conference prior to do a workshop with um it was a law enforcement and fire department in a school district that did the workshop. Um and they partnered with I believe it was a Leather You guys Foundation, if not something very very similar. Um and it was probably one of the most
131intense professional developments I've ever taken. um the the level of detail and the amount of things I you just wouldn't think of. Um the we it was an a roleplay event. So they had us Yeah. They had us participating in that and there were no actual children involved and it was a pretty emotional experience in itself. But um so just thank you because I think that you're going to think you have it all set and then go, "Oh, we have a lot more." You know, and that's that's that's the purpose, right? And I think right and I think just kudos to you and the district for for doing it because it's like you said hopefully we will never ever need it but something that's going to be so necessary if God forbid we we do
132need it. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you. You know one thing you said is it everything is like a wellthoughtout process and you have to think about you know here to there and I will tell you that Erica and her team have thought about everything asked all the right questions. they participated like they they're thinking things ahead of where we need to be and how to plan it out and it's just been a really great experience with them because they are like really digging deep and and trying to make sure we can get every question answered before we go through that process. I was going to add also Erica that you mentioned that how you have my in your building. Of course I asked the question when I was there, right, cuz it's what I
133do. But um they didn't know and they they were very open about that, but they were aware that they didn't know. Um, but they were very open and honest about the fact that it's such a a daunting detail oriented process that they were just working on the the majority of the population first, which really made a lot of sense obviously because that's the the higher majority, you know, the higher number of students and bigger number of safety things to think consider. But I just wanted to say like if that's, you know, when you're having that mindset to share that with the people who are helping you also cuz they they were craving that information. and they were looking for me to participate in that and I didn't have anything to offer or time to give,
134but um yeah, it's it's something that's not not available yet and I think they're going to be looking for it. So, we're definitely working on it. It's definitely our plans. It's hard enough for typically aabled kids to think about how to evacuate them. Yeah. So, and part of our, you know, our population, we have a a a very one a wonderful multilingual population in our building. And the other piece is like placing the translators out as we're doing the reunification, making sure it's, you know, we've English speaking, Spanish speaking, Ukrainian. So we have people available because that's the emotional surge that parents are coming in. They want someone who can speak directly to them, not just through like Google Google Translate. So we're trying to find that piece as well, which is, you know, it's
135something that came from the staff. How do we stagger the the speakers so that we have enough? It's pretty awesome what my team's doing. I'm really proud of them. Yeah, they're doing great. Yeah. I I got a question with regards to I'm kind of curious. I know that Samberg has uh has the the church nearby. Yeah. That provides some space for the kids to go to. So, have we figured out like what happens with other schools where you don't have another building close by? Just kind of in general what? Yeah. So, we do all of our schools have a relocation plan currently and have a relocation area. So, it could be another school in our district. Most of them are other schools in our district. Um some of them are park districts, um high schools,
136uh Plum Grove because it's so large and where it's located. Their relocation is actually Harper, which is one of the things that we want to do maybe moving forward is is give each of the schools a second location just in case because like you said, the church is right near Carl Samber and that's where we're using. But in case of an emergency, we may not be able to go there. So we need to have a second um location just in case. So that's like one of the things that we wanted to talk about is where can be another location that everybody can go to and make one additional plan if needed. Um but so but yeah, that's I mean all of the schools we already have them and they've all practice the relocation drills this
137year. So we do that as part of our safety drills every year. And then once you guys do determine where all the locations are going to be, is this information that's going to be given out to the parents um like in a handbook or something or is this just something that gets sent out to them? So if it happens, it's it's like that double-edged sword and and the police will tell you our Yeah. that we don't share it. And the reason we don't share it is because if there's an emergency, we don't know what that emergency is. Okay. And so that im that communication should come from us and us to be able to relay it to the parents as well as, you know, um if the emergency is because of a parent, we don't
138want them to know, god forbid, where we are. Yeah, I get your point. So all right. Thanks. Wonderful. Sherry, um, you know what? I'm so sorry. Um, I just wanted to, uh, tell you that I appreciate that you addressed the mental health component of it and, um, just, um, you know, piggyback on that, um, the psychological impact to the students. Um, like how do you ensure that, um, these students, um, you don't create a elicit like a trauma response or um, or even create one? Um, is there a debrief or what are you going to do to to protect the students? Can I address for at least what we're doing at Carl Samberg? Um our clinician team um has close relationships with our students who've been identified through 504 process or through the MHA mental
139health screening. Um so they are identifying the students at the seventh grade level because that's our focus group right now. Um but they're identifying the students at the seventh grade level who may be triggered by this event. And then there we're going to call parents. We're going to talk to the parents and make sure that they do want their children to participate. As part of my communication, there is an opt out option. Um, we're encouraging everyone to participate um because it is going to be completely safe and we'll make sure that that is very all the kids know, but we are hasing our clinician team talk directly to the students who were um who are going to be participating in the drill. So, for our drill, that's um that's something that we're going to be
140doing to ensure that we don't have students who are triggered. From a bigger picture, I'm sure Sher can address that to you. Yeah. So from a bigger picture, I will be working with the ad services department to kind of come up with a plan to help support like as a district plan to add it into our reunification. Um just to see uh cuz right now we have a sample size, right? We have a sample group and so it's really easy for us to be able to to pick out and to know and if and the bigger picture when you're working with all the different schools and if god forbid it wasn't a drill, what would we do? So that's going to be part of our planning as well is to be able to come up
141with a plan. But I think also the more we talk about it and the more we we um get students to understand like the point behind it as opposed to it being like a a negative thing. This is like a preparation. And so for example um you know this is going to be because of a gas leak. And so like we're starting with something that is could be something very typical but not quite as scary. Um and so that's kind of the hope is like as we do this along like that's going to be our our conversation of why we're doing a reunification. you can't go back to school because there's a gas leak, your parents have to come here and pick you up. Um, which helps to change their mindset of the understanding. Um,
142but again, when in a real situation, we have to have a we have to have a plan. So, that is definitely part of our planning that we're at. Okay. Thank you. And then um again with a um the clinicians um team talking to the students. This will there'll be um a debrief right after it's over just so that we can learn from what the students experience. Definitely. Definitely. That is part of it. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? You both hit the road, Erica. All right. Uh we are at item eight, board committee reports. Ed red. Okay. All right. So, uh, May 9th was the, uh, committee deadline day down in Springfield for legislation. Um, so they need to pass out of the committees in order to, uh, get down to the floor.
143So, uh, Ed Red's been working on negotiations for amendments on certain bills that were opposed to. And, uh, here's a little rundown on what's going on. There's, um, House Bill 3039. And this uh this bill would allow seventh and eighth grade students uh to take a required high school course at their current school if offered by the future school by passing the course and the high school's end of course exam. So I don't know if uh we've talked to our our high school districts yet. Are there any uh classes do you know yet that we're thinking about associated with this? I think it's just math. We have Yeah, we have our students that are in auto level math and I was just kind of curious. Some of our high school, one of our high school
144feeders allowed credit and one didn't and I think now they're both allowing it ahead of this bill. Yeah. Okay. So, well, great. So, we're a little ahead of the curve then. Yep. All right. We aim to be that way, Frank. Yeah, we try to, you know. Yep. All right. We got uh also House Bill 3772. And this this is an interesting one. This is a bill that was uh pushed by ISBE uh which prohibits expulsion in K through two and requires superintendent to provide written or verbal approval for suspensions lasting longer than 3 days. Um and uh we opposed this bill. We opposed this bill, right? There was over uh 900 witness slips that were submitted in opposition because uh it restricts the local administrative control over student specific situations. So, I put out an
145action alert to all the leadership and hopefully many of them were within that 900. I know I sent mine. Yeah, there was probably about six from D15. I checked on it. Good. So, anyways, this did get passed out, but uh you know, we'll see what happens on the floor if there's any further uh amendments before they take the final vote. Um and then uh Senate Bill 1672. Uh this uh this bill was originally uh mandated for uh universal dyslexia screeners, but it was amended uh to focus on data collection for ISB and stakeholders to better understand local practices. So um it's not going to be a mandate anymore, which that's you know beneficial to budgets. Um Senate Bill 2427. Uh this requires that school boards uh have a policy restricting the use of personal devices
146during instruction time for uh the uh school year 2627. We've already got a we're working on a policy. So that's uh has been changed from just being like a universal school ban of cell phones to more just district specific that the district can come up with their own policy. But that the district has to have a policy. Uh the next one here is Senate Bill 2420. Whoop, that's the one I just read. Senate Bill 191. Um and this has to do with getting threepoint safety belts in school buses. Um this bill is just for newly purchased buses after 2031. So that's quite a ways out. Um, and it's not we does not it does not require that there's a retrofit to the existing buses for safety belts. Um, and then the last one, your favorite
147one is Senate Bill uh 1799. Yeah. 1799, which restricts the use of emergency third party contracts to one 90-day period with subsequent renewals requiring the local union's approval. So, this uh bid did pass out a committee and it's uh but it's it's going uh it was kind of promised that they would be committed to returning it with amendments. So, that's that's the word that we have. So, we're hoping I received draft language. So, you've seen the amendments. Well, that's good. Hopefully, the amendment language is something that it's better than the initial will not cause serious problems. But I I assume we'll be finding that out in the next uh week since all these bills the session comes to an end at the end of May, right? So there's a limited amount of time for everybody
148to monkey around with stuff at this point. So very soon we'll know. By June we'll know. Yep. So there you go. June meeting. June meeting update for everybody. All right, that's it. Thanks. Thanks, Frank. Uh5 Foundation. Jim, do you want to do something today? I Yeah, that's great. Um, so the staff tribute campaign was very successful. This was where the community uh and parents and such could uh give a tribute to uh staff member, bus driver, nurses, teachers, principles, anybody here in D15. It was very successful um record-breaking actually. There were 611 tributes distributed to the district. Um and that is uh compared to only around 300 tributes last year. So, it's a huge huge uh uh growth there and quite the record that we broke. So, thanks for all the tributes that you've put
149in. That's it. Okay. All right. Finance committee. The finance committee met um May 6th um to review the budget. Um we had a special guest from PMA Financial um and they were there to present the um district budget uh forecast and projected fund balance. um PMA um really function to be our auditors um to be a second pair advised to look at our budget um and our current finances. Um but the current the tenative budget will be um ready for June. So big meeting for our upcoming June meeting. Okay. Equity committee Zubar. I don't have an update at this point. Um, I guess Jim and I will touch base and see, you know, if we want to continue what uh Sam and I were doing now that she's uh left the committee. See if you
150want to go a new a new route. All right. Oh, sure. Um, yeah. You want to give a North Cook update? Okay. Um, I'm just going to provide a short summary for North uh North Cook. Um the executive meeting, our next executive meeting will uh occur on Tuesday, June 17th at 5:30. Um and I will provide you updates after that meeting. Um but important to note that the deadline to submit resolutions this year is June 25th. Um so um I will be uh talking to every one of you um more specifically about resolutions that we can submit as a um or a resolution that we can submit as a um as a district. Um also uh ISBY the constitution has not been reviewed in years. Um so there are 19 constitutional changes that are um
151uh currently being reviewed and up for um uh for the executive committee or um andor the board of directors to address. Um this will be um up for final vote on the delegate assembly and um in November. So um as soon as that information is out which is um around September in addition to the resolutions we'll also um Zubar as our delegate uh representative will um submit that information to all of us to u to review. Again that's the constitutional um changes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. So moving on to action items 11.1 approval of the personnel report. Um, please note there is an amended report that has been published immediately prior to the meeting with a number of additions. So, just note that. Uh, may I have a motion, please? I move to
152approve the personnel report recommendations for an administrative administration um certified and non-certified staff members as presented. Second. Second. Uh, discussion and roll call. Anino. Hi Hunt. I K. I Shupai. I Taylor. Hi. Bachmann. Hi. Ader. I. Item 11. Before we move on, can I introduce members of the audience that are still with us at 9:23? And I think maybe someone's husband might still be be with us. So kudos to you, sir. Okay. So, we have uh Shane Burke Meyer who will be the new director of teaching, learning, and assessment. Um Mon'nique is right there, right? Uh Lauren and Lauren's husband that welcome back. And is that is that everybody that stuck it out through thick and thin today? Wonderful. Welcome aboard. We're really happy you're here. Congratulations. Okay. Thank you. All right. Um, item head
153out now if you need to. Yeah. Item 11.2. May I have a motion, please? I move to award a three-year contract to Midwest Air Filter, Inc. Grand M Grand Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the amount of $179,44.13 as presented. Second. Second. Uh, discussion. Roll call. Hunt. I. Khan. I. Shupai. I. Taylor. I. Backman. I. Ader. I. Honorino. I. All right. Motion carries. 11.3. May I have a motion, please? I move to award the purchase of four buses to Midwest Transit Equipment, Kinki, Illinois for the following. two used 71 passenger buses for $159,954 and two used 47 passenger buses for $179,72 for a total estimated amount of $339,656 as presented. Second. Second. Uh discussion. Can I um Oh, I'm first. Hey, can I just double check? I I couldn't really understand this tabulation because I know it's
154for two buses and not four, but when I look at the um other bus, central state bus sales, I I believe that's for four buses. So, can you just um help me understand why this graph looks like this? I can clarify that one. We asked for the brain buses. What they offer us is hydraulic. These are a lot cheaper anyway, but we wanted the air bus. Thank you, sir. Sorry about that. Okay. Uh again, um we we did ask in the bid for airbrick buses and they did not uh or they could not supply the airbrick buses um that we asked for. Okay. So for both the Midwest and the central states, right? Correct. Both of those. Correct. Yeah. Four from Midwest and two from Yeah. We'd actually asked for 10 buses, but there was
155no bid for the other buses that we wanted. Okay. So that's why they were they seem to be cheaper. Um but it's because of the brakes. Yeah. The other thing that is not on there, we did ask them to supply with seat belts and various other items on the bus. Uh that was the base price. Then when you added the other items on brought them up as well. Okay. Since you brought that up, um I have heard this argument back and forth for years about no seat belt, yes seat belt and um and the fact that buses are larger than any other um you know transportation device on um on the road and that you know so is the is the recommendation for four seat belts in order I mean I understood what Frank said
156and and the um I I can only give you my own input on this one. This district was a way ahead of the game for many years, even before I came here and I've been here a few years now. We've always had a three lap belt system on the buses. Um, I know that there's been a lot of talk for many years now put about putting in the uh shoulder belt system and how that would actually reduce the amount of students we can put on the seats. There's many aspects into that, but District 15 has for many many years supplied the uh lap belts uh for student safety. Does that answer what you um the the real question is, is that really supposed to be I mean I understand why we do it, but um
157as far as statistics would um say, does that make it safer for students? What is safer for students? um and efficient I would say at the moment the design of your bus seats is the safest and that's what I was going to say why you don't need bus uh seat belts historically has been the height of the bus seats yes for students that that's a little safe cocoon between in the front and the back of the seat and then the other thing is if there should be an accident littleer kids being able to unbuckle and get out in an emergency is is risky so that's another reason I've always heard Tom that we don't You're absolutely correct. Utilize the evacuation. Exactly. If you look at the design of the seats as they are just now
158in a major accident, rear or front end, those seats would cocoon the kids uh fairly safely. Thank you. I appreciate it. Frank, did you have a question? I did, but Wenda covered it. I was going to ask why we were, you know, why why the price was different between the two. And then I guess just to follow up, so we're only going to get then four buses total, two and two. Yeah, that's what it says. Y just clear. That's all. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other discussion? Okay. Roll call. Khan. I. Shai. I. Taylor I Bagman I ader I Anerino I Hunt I All right motion carries 11.4 May I have a motion please? I move to award a one-year contract for milk to Bob's Dairy Franklin Park Illinois for 377,140 as presented. Second.
159Second. All right. um discussion. I think we kind of always say this, but that's a lot of milk. Mhm. Have a lot of kids, but that's a lot of milk. A lot of milk. All right. Roll call. Shai. Hi. Taylor. Hi. Bang. Oh, sorry. I have it. I have Breman. Hi. Aer. I. Anelino. I. Hunt. I. Khan. I. All right. Motion carries. Item 11.5. May I have a motion, please? I move to approve the district 15 consolidated district plan as required by the Illinois State Board of Education as presented. Second. Second. All right. Uh, discussion. All right. Roll call. Taylor, I. Bagman. I. Aer. I. Hanerino. I. Hunt. I. K. I. Shubai. I. All right. Motion carries. 11.6. May I have a motion, please? I move to approve the updated 2024 25 final official school
160calendar as presented. Second. Second. Uh, discussion. All right. Roll call. Batman. I. Aer. I. Hanero. I. Hunt. I. Khan. I. Shupai I. Taylor I. All right. Motion carries. Consent calendar. Is there anything anyone would like to remove from the consent calendar? All right. May I have a motion, please? I move to approve the consent calendar items as presented. Second. Discussion. Uh, do we do a roll call or is this an all in favor? It's roll call because it's money. There's no discussion. Got it. Oh, okay. For consent calendar. Got it. Okay. Thank you. All right. Uh, roll call. Ader. I. Honorino. I. Hunt. I. Khan. I. Shupai. I. Taylor. I. Bagman. I. All right. Motion carries. Correspondence. As always, we've included the foyas that we have received, which as you saw were many. Um, any
161questions? Poor Jamie is all I can say. Every month. Poor Jamie. There was one that was like 500 pages. That was crazy. We believe it's likely I AI generated. You know, we're trying to verify it all. So, yep. All right. Um, move to a lot of work on this. Motion to adjourn. Are you going to close after? Yeah. Do we have to go back into close? No. Okay. Okay. Close. I move to adjourn the meeting. Second. Yes. All in favor? All in favor? I I meeting ajourned. Thank you.