001the mission of school district 15 is to produce world-class Learners by building a connected learning community the uh we appreciate you all coming tonight as the record attendance tons of students tons of people it's amazing and on the most beautiful night essentially that we've had of the uh the whole spring so far so what's wrong with you people I would like to begin by thanking our community members who took the time and made the effort to run for a seat on our district 15 board there were good campaigns run by all of the contestants and it was great to see that everyone really seemed to be leading with students as the central Focus our thanks as a community go out to Justin hakey and Chris dargas for their willingness to serve Sam Windon zubair I
002congratulate you all on your success like to serve already in your back is great and to Bear yourself for the third time as you all know board service is voluntary we do it because we love it um even on a beautiful day and I and it is truly a big commitment but that's something that is so important to our community as a whole our children and everyone around us right now we do have so much important work that continues and we're really grateful to continue to function and I have said many many times we are a really high functioning board we have been for a number of years right now is the time that that's really important so thank you to the community for helping us to keep that going we intend to continue to
003function at that high level as a dedicated group of board members and look forward to the upcoming years while we're doing it together at this time I would like to welcome our leaders and our students from Jane Adams we can't wait for you to run the Pledge of Allegiance for us [Music] [Laughter] five minutes [Music] oh we are having a fun day thank you so much uh board president shupai Dr Hines distinguished members of the board we are happy to invite some of the club members from the Boys and Girls Club at Jane Adams who attend Club every Monday through Thursday from 2 15 until 6 15 at Jane Adams they are a driven group of young students who participate in a program that is designed to empower students to not only Excel in school
004become good citizens but to lead healthy and productive lives Al yulitzaliva the director of the of the Palatine Club will be introducing a group of Jane Adams club members and staff and share some of their favorite activities and experiences hi I'm Julie so I'm the area director here at Palatine I oversee two of our sites here for Jane Adams we have I'll start from left to right we have Anderson we have Emily Sophia Lily Isaiah Ivana Aaliyah and we have Sarah right here on the right energy want to come first hi my name is Anderson and I'm gonna talk about what my favorite thing is about Boys and Girls Club they show us new things like how we all remember about boys and girls because they show us how we are a group and they
005show us how how this was to a learning new things and and they gave us um things what we needed and show us um show us how how we work as a team and as as a group and teachers help us for if we need hope and they could be there for help for us and and those and also they you friends can help you back if you help them back these are some things I like about boys and girls club first we eat snacks if we don't get hungry and we do lots of organized rotations these are some activities we do during Boys and Girls Club first we do Power Hour which is when students have homework as the staff members can help us with their homework second we do arts and crafts where
006we do lots of like paper boats and we do drawings third of all we [Music] we sometimes before we do snacks after we do snack we go outside when it's a beautiful day after all of that we do we eat dinner so after we go on the bus and go home Boys and Girls Club is very fun because parents get to like organize their stuff and clean the house and make dinner for for their kids fun for everyone [Music] thank you hello my name is one thing I love about after school is when you go to somebody's class like Mr Royal's class um my teacher at first grade it's really fun you can do activities and everything and you first do homework and then when you go outside and play it's fun hi my name
007is Isaiah cicassos and I'm in fourth grade and this is my first year in Boys and Girls Club and I'm so happy I'm able to be a part of this club because of all the fun interactive things we do because wait wait wait that's good wait never mind thank you hi my name is Juana and I'm going to be talking about like a couple of my favorite things that I do I like to do in Boys and Girls Club first of all I like how we do power hour because I don't have to work I have to go there every day and then when I come back at home I don't have to worry about getting stuff done because I already finished their Boys and Girls Club second of all um I like how we
008how we go outside sometimes when it's very nice outside I don't I get to have all my energy out outside and I don't get to like be energized inside when I like once I get inside I don't have to be energized again and then and then third thing is that I like how like the staff treats us nice like everything about the staff and how they give us like free time if we need it or if we want it they give us everything we want and everything we get to have is good people hi my name is Aaliyah cicassos and I'm in sixth grade and this is my first year attending Boys and Girls Club I enjoy being at this club for various reasons reasons is full of enriching programs and fun activities also it
009has given my brother my mother a peace of mind knowing that my brother and I around good helpful caring people when my mom received the invitation to allow us to join Boys and Girls Club she was very happy she's a single mother so she spends most of her time working and then gets home and starts preparing dinner for us so the fact that so the fact that the school school offered an interesting alternative to my brother and I instead of staying home or constantly trying to figure out who was going to watch us was a relief during Boys and Girls Club we have a specific time cut out for homework called Power Hour and if we need help there are great teachers around to help us I love this I love this because I can
010get all the help I need and I won't have to take any homework home I also like that we do a lot of Hands-On activities for example we have stem which requires a lot of building and modeling we also do Hands-On activities at gym I love with that we do teamwork activities because it is a great way to make friends and learn how to work well to well with others in boys and girls club we have a program called Junior leaders in which we are taught how to be great leaders and in which ways we can be helpful to those around us it's nice that we don't do the same thing every day but we still have an organized schedule if it wasn't for boys and girls club I would have been at home just
011switching from one electronic device to the other the whole day neither my brain nor my body would be getting any activity this club has given children like myself the opportunity to create friendship explore new interest interests broaden our knowledge maintain a physical healthy body and has instilled valuable lessons in us thank you boys and girls club for the awesome opportunity and for all the effort you put into this club we truly appreciate it thank you board for listening may you all have a good night and practiced our speeches I apologize they were polished but we certainly wanted the opportunity I apologize yes you have one more there's one more do you have one more yeah hi good afternoon my name is Sarah so what I like about um boys and girls club is that the
012teachers there are really kind and they can help us with anything we need like Power Hour we can just study there and the teachers can help us with their homework and then um we eat snack and they give us really good food and then um we just do like things that like if it's sunny outside like today um we go outside and play with our friends or and we can do activities with some teachers and we do fun things and at the and then at last we eat dinner and yeah okay one because now we're ready for the Pledge of Allegiance right ready pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation underground indivisible with liberty and justice for all if there are
013any parents in the audience that would like to come up and take a picture you're welcome to come up in the middle so you've got a good a good angle hey perfect okay everybody ready one two three boys and girls you did a wonderful job telling us how much you enjoy Boys and Girls Club so you get a special gift from me you have your very own high five highlighter for Power Hour [Music] yeah thank you award Masters who's uh who's coming up next Lori is there someone here from word Masters we have a student recognition come on down all right good evening presidential High members of the Board of Education and superintendent Dr Hines oh my word Masters friends you're going to come back here behind me I know I didn't tell you that
014part we did rehearse a few things all right perfect if there's any other friends in the audience from word Masters we tried to collect everybody and come on up and come on over I'd love to have you up here with us as well okay so for our student recognition tonight we had three fourth graders and three sixth graders received perfect scores at the word Masters meet recently and so a little bit about word Masters challenge it's a national competition for students in grades three through eight that encourages growth in vocabulary and verbal reasoning and so of that national competition we had these six students who received perfect scores so we are very excited to recognize them here tonight and we have their teacher here as well or one of their coaches yes so we have
015Ryan E from Whiteley we have key Finn H from Whiteley we have Sophia l we have Caleb M from Whiteley we have Gabriel L from Hunting Ridge and we have Sean Z from Hunting Ridge [Music] yeah if anybody wants to take pictures come on all in the middle it's a it's the best view you can calm this side you can come on that side be wherever you want all right now keep smiling for your parents all right okay but wait there's a high five highlighter for each of us wonderful thank you and congratulations and you are perfect all right so if you guys want to meet in the hallway one more thing for you one more thing all right thanks word Masters nice job all right do we have a representative from Lincoln School sure
016I believe I saw the principal of Lincoln School in the hallway and here she is okay hi board Lori Hines how are you everyone um I am here with Natalie scoresky she is a long time Lincoln parent who has stepped up to help out with supervision during lunch at Lincoln School before and after school everyone's really short staffed this year I know that's been a super fun topic for everyone um but Natalie has graciously given her time each day to help Lincoln out for two hours every day we have two noon hours at Lincoln School um because we can't quite fit all our kids into the cafe at the same time and she supervises inside and outside during this time she interacts super positively with our students helps them problem-solve situations keeps everyone safe and
017happy and then gets to know them on a personal level as well Natalie this year noticed that many of our students might have hats and gloves but they do tend to forget them especially when it's really cold outside um and so she worked with our office we came up with a plan to address that um we have a community closet for more permanent items like coats and backpacks and things like that at Lincoln but Natalie also brings this green bag of hats and gloves out to lend to students out during recess she lends them out to students the kids know to go up to Mrs Gorski ask for a hat or a pair of gloves or something like that so they can stay warm at recess they return them to her at the end and
018then each night we've worked out with our custodian those get washed that they're clean and ready to go for the next day Natalie also noticed that with some late buses this year that the office was just needing some extra hands to help getting all the kids in and the into class to class as quickly as possible so she stays after her morning supervision time and helps us out in the office with that just so we are not all overwhelmed and that other people can kind of get started with their day she helps with dismissal on Friday so that our staff can get to their PD time on time and that the kids can get home safely as well on top of that Natalie is a very active member of our Lincoln PTA she's always volunteering
019in different ways to support our community and really gives I think all of her extra time to Lincoln School so we're just so happy to have her at Lincoln we're so happy she's such an asset to our building congratulations thank you so much Natalie I think each school would benefit from at least one of you so thank you so much and Becca is going to take your picture so if you could scooch over a little bit you can run but you can't hide from the camera she is thinking right now what no high five highlighter wait a minute right [Music] thanks Natalie we are very fortunate to have three staff recognitions so Natalie was one of our March representatives for the staff member of the month and we have two for the month of April
020so the first one is from Winston Elementary School come on in come on in pops so Minka San Pietro is our nurse at Winston Campus Elementary School and she was selected as a staff member of the month for this month for going above and beyond I get the pleasure of seeing that every single day and just ensuring that our kids are in a good spot to be set up to be successful and this was a nomination by our Administration so The Tipping Point for us was the week before spring break Minka served as the nurse for not only Winston Campus Elementary but Winston campus Junior High because we were short and the nurse on the junior high side was out Minka made herself a valuable to support a building of 1 000 plus students during
021that week while still continuing to be student-centered positive and welcome Enrique with a smile Minka was amazing in supporting the building and she truly is an asset to Winston campus and district 15 because of her expertise previously in the nursing field her thoroughness with her work ethic excellent communication and constant positivity we are so lucky to have such an amazing nurse in district 15 and district 15 is honored to recognize such an amazing staff member for going above and beyond thank you see it's always fun when we get to go to the schools with balloons because people think it's somebody's birthday or you know it's always a fun surprise we got to go into the nurse's office with the whole class of kids to bring the balloons for that one so that's a good time
022all right and our final staff recognition for this evening is from GMS good evening Dr Hines president shupai Board of Education and the community my name is Kate Ehrenberg and I'm the principal of Sanborn Elementary School I'm here with Mrs Tiffany Costa our assistant principal and our honoree this evening Mariana malinovska Mariana started at Sanborn just a few short months ago as one of our general education program assistants in that short amount of time she has made a large impact on our school community Mariana is Ukrainian and has built has been such a huge asset to our newcomer students she is friendly welcoming has built connections with our students and never resists helping our school when we need it she has a daily schedule where she supports classrooms and is helping students acclimate and transition
023into a brand new environment Mariana has supported phone calls home when there have been nurse visits help support conflicts between new students and has helped console a family who recently lost multiple family members in the war in the Ukraine in addition she teaches students vocabulary terms ahead of time so that they can access the lessons in the classroom has helped families with registration and so much more she always has a smile on her face and does what she can to make sure our newcomer students have what they need and feel comfortable at school GMS loves having Mariana and she is such a huge asset to our school in District 15. so we're honored to recognize her as an amazing staff member for going above and beyond this month [Music] hey listen to him oh thank
024you so much oh okay do you think this one's sort of Doom you take a picture of you guys [Music] thank you thank you very much thank you thanks Mariana all right and last but certainly not least we have a community recognition this evening so following the fire at Windhaven complex in Palatine our community sprung into action there were several families and individuals impacted by this devastating fire and we also had several students who were impacted as well partners for our communities or as we like to call them the POC worked with local organizations to create a donation drive for those impacted we want to thank everyone in our community for their generosity and thanks to their generosity the POC is currently at capacity with all the donations that came in come on in Christina
025and Company sorry I should have called you yes come on down so one of the other local organizations that reached out to district 15 first right after we had sent a notice of a donation drive with Saint nectario's Greek Orthodox church I wasn't sure if we had any comments there they had I'm so glad so they were able to they had reached out to us first and they had asked if there was anything that they could do to help donate as well so say nectario's donated over 8 500 worth of gift cards to the POC to be distributed to people impacted by the fire we wanted to just share that we are simply overwhelmed with the generosity of our community and we wanted to thank everyone who donated volunteered and provided support for anyone that
026was impacted by the fighter so thank you to all of these amazing people here and everybody else that is not up here with us right now that helped to support those impacted thank you so if you want to come this way okay perfect thank you thank you thank you so very much thank you we will now open our meeting two quick things yes can we advance G up yep go back there we go okay just a quick congratulations again to our three incumbents for your successful run to continue to serve on this wonderful board of education for district 15. we are so thrilled to keep this group intact and keep Sam Wenda and zubair with us continuing to move the district forward and doing what's right for our students so thank you for your dedication
027to the district and everyone in it and as the superintendent I myself am just thrilled as is my team and obviously the larger Community because they came they voted and we did it so congratulations thank you thank you congratulations is there a doctor in the house congratulations Dr McFadden please stand up even though you don't want to um keep Emily McFadden for those of you that don't know is one of our directors of teaching and learning and she recently defended her dissertation literally perfectly no edits comments or feedback and Not only was it perfectly done it her school is looking to have her present it and potentially publish all her portions of it because it was done in such a scholarly manner so we are so fortunate to have you in district 15 Dr McFadden
028congratulations that's all right now we will open up the meeting for public comment please remember that this is not a dialogue between you and the board if you have a specific issue which requires a response superintendent Heinz or a designee will follow up with you as needed please state your name and identify any group that you represent limit your remarks to no more than three minutes if somebody previously has articulated something with which you agree you may state that you agree rather than reiterating the entire comment and finally please avoid any comments specific to any person student or staff member respecting that person's right to privacy this is not the form to comment on Personnel issues there are additional rules regarding policy number two to Thirty that can be found at board policy 2230 if
029you are interested all right we are going to start with 7th grade students from District 15. and I have two of these so there are two parts I'm not sure how y'all want to run it but you you're the boss of it right now okay I only have three chairs you can just make sure that you switch the microphone between each of you when you're anybody is speaking so that we make sure that anybody that is watching right now on YouTube will get they'll be able to hear exactly what you have to say thanks for coming hello board president shupai board members and superintendent Heinz thank you for your time tonight I'm a seventh grader at sunling Junior High we are here today to speak to you about our school library and access to books
030I've brought along with me a mug that belonged to my grandpa this was his banned books mug this mug is special because when you pour hot water into it the black lines disappear and reveal a bunch of titles of historically banned books I have seen my granddad drink out of this mug many times and have wondered why were these Books banned in the first place I've asked my parents to let me read some of these but guess what I've not read a single book listed on this mug because my parents said I'm not old enough yet and I guess that's the main point and why I'm here to speak to you today as my parents they have the right to control what is okay and not okay for me to read but they do not
031have the right to tell other kids what they are allowed to read and they should not have the right to decide what kind of access to books are allowed to every student at my public school library in our district there is a system in place where a parent can the school or librarian a list of books that their child should not be allowed to check out in my opinion this is a reasonable way to give parents control over what their own kids can read but still allow other kids access to the broadest range of books possible in our school library did you know book Banning is growing at the fastest rate in history according to Pan America last year there were over 1500 different titles banned in school districts across the country I'm thankful that
032right now book Banning is not a huge problem in our district but it's a growing national issue and I would like you our school board to please continue to protect our rights as students to to have access to as many different books as possible in our libraries thank you thank you hi I'm Annie and I'm here to talk to you about why Banning books is unfair and unending in theory if you ban a book and it works you can pretty much get any book banned because that's one thing that humans are really good at complaining and that's okay because sometimes we can complain for good reasons reasons that are effective but a lot of the time we do tend to complain to just swell complain if you ban a book you can complain about any
033book you want and then after that we won't have a library anymore 7th graders will end up reading books that are made for fourth graders and I don't want that we should be able to read books for our age I like the books that I read and I feel that they are appropriate for me if you don't agree with something in a book don't be close-minded about things don't think that your opinion is the only right one because everyone has an opinion and they have the right to have that opinion and so if you don't like something in a book or you don't agree with it and don't read it don't dump your opinions on people if they choose to read that book then let them it doesn't mean that you have to read it
034too I'm also here to talk to you about why Public School libraries are a place where kids have the freedom to read the public school library is a place for kids to get books if they don't have the money or resources to get it somewhere else and that is the case for a lot of the students in our school it is their right to read what they want from the school library as long as their parents agree they have to re they don't have to read everything in the library they get to choose and that right to be free to and to choose what they want should not be affected by Banning books now I know that in my school library all the books are appropriate for the age that attends that school yes some
035of these books might be scary gory and so on but kids should know the content in the books because they have stickers on them saying scary mystery and they can choose not to read that book so I think that the children at district 15 schools had should have the right to read what they choose from our libraries and not be limited by book Banning now I would like to leave you with a quote that I found a person can decide that they don't want to read a certain book a person can decide that they don't want their child to read a certain book but a person cannot decide that an entire school or entire town cannot read that book thank you thank you hello board president shupai board members and Dr Heinz we are also
036seventh graders and we would like to add on a bit more about the freedom to read we both love reading all different types of books but some of those are being taken away from us and all of our schoolmates limiting books in school libraries can have a negative effect on everyone in school books are an open Dory to kids imagination and if you put a limit to books kids may never find out something amazing or even experience it have you ever read a book so interesting you lost track of time if you said yes well me too there are many kids who have not experienced that and if you take certain books away you might take away their experience too for example Banning books with certain representation can leave some kids out books that inform
037people about struggles in history about lgbtq and people of color should not be banned we really get to see books like these with this kind of representation for kids and middle schoolers taking these books away from students is putting them in the dark and taking away the truth for them which they will find out anyways later on some of these books aren't even inappropriate and banning them from school libraries is taking them away from students who may relate to events in the book and having these books may be comforting to them foreign we also wouldn't want students to feel disappointed that their favorite book has been removed from the library for some students the school libraries their only source of books so it's good to keep a wide selection for all different kinds of readers
038our school library should be a safe space for all students so we should keep books that students like and love a topic in books that is heavily hated on is representation for members of lgbtq like I have said earlier it's good to have books like these to include all different types of people a good example is the book card supper this book has trans gay and by representation which includes so many people who barely get to see themselves in books there are more middle schoolers who would love to read books like these than you would think in a book about racism is called this is my America it is about racial Injustice against innocent black men who are criminally sentenced and the families have bind to pick up the pieces some parents may think this
039book has bad content in it but it just shows a possibility that could happen to someone in real life kids need to know it is unfair to accuse someone because of their color this book ties to my point because it shows what can happen in real life to real people overall we just want all kids to have an inclusive and open library to any book they want we are going to leave you now with two thoughts from my friend who spoke earlier if you don't agree with the book then simply don't read it and for me books are the key to kids imagination don't limit them thank you for your time and for listening and please consider everything we have stated you guys were all great great speakers I told the girls the uh really
040really great speakers we appreciate you coming and putting yourself out there to speak all of us know it's a little bit scary to sit up at that uh that table and have all eyes on you but uh overcoming that fear and getting out there is important uh the next speaker Jamie Nutt sorry Jamie that you have to follow that I'm like oh you drew the Short Straw you can't pick any seat you like though maybe and you can have your own mic maybe not the short one oh my goodness pull myself together okay uh good evening president shupai board members and Dr Heinz my name is Jamie nut and I am the Jane Adams PTA co-president and I am here tonight sharing our organization's desire to shift to a parent-teacher organization also known as a
041PTO given the potential update to the board policy regarding the language that would recognize a PTA at each school we would like the board to also include PTO in the language this is my co-president Michelle Thompson and my third year as PTA co-presidents at Jane Adams earlier this year Michelle and I met with regional PTA leadership and discussed Our intention to dissolve our Jane Adams PTA at the end of this year in order to form a PTO instead while we recognize PTA to be a wonderful organization we feel that the structure of the PTA the PTO would better fit the needs of our Jane Adams Community we have decided to make this shift for two reasons one we would like all the funds that we raised to go directly to our school Community currently we
042charge our members six dollars for a single membership and four dollars and fifty cents or 75 percent of each membership is then paid out to the Illinois State and National PTA more than half of our student population is considered low income we do not feel it is right to require low-income families to pay for membership to join a school Community organization this membership fee deters families from joining additionally we are required to pay various fees throughout the school year to the regional PTA organization we've asked leadership if they would consider adjusting the various fees based on school demographics to mirror the equity and funding that the state provides across our schools but that was not an option second becoming a PTO would give us the freedom to do away with a traditional membership participation in
043meetings and events would not be dictated by whether or not you have Paid Dues this would eliminate the Divide between the families who can and those who cannot afford a membership we've heard chatter that the Jane Adams PTA is struggling but that could not be farther from the truth we dropped our focus on gaining paid memberships this year and while we lost our good standing within the PTA what we gained was higher participation in volunteership in families as a result losing the label of PTA member has helped more families at Jane Adams feel comfortable to participate this year we've hosted a food truck event family game reading night class parties event a virtual talent show a family dance teacher appreciation events and we're gearing up for donuts with grown-ups our most successful events are those
044that require no fee to be paid at the door we've learned that families will be generous with their donations when they can see firsthand how their money is being used as a ptoe would still be required to operate under a set of bylaws with financial controls we would elect board members hold meetings and purchase insurance just as our current PTA does we've been planning for this transition for more than a year and we have the support of our community we recognize all the hard work that the regional and state PTA does for our district 15 schools we also know there are many ptos in neighboring school districts that have successfully fulfilled a similar mission to make every child's potential a reality we believe that both PTO and PTA groups can work side by side to
045support our communities in summary members of the board please consider voting for the second version of the policy which recognizes both PTA and ptos to enrich our communities thank you thank you Bonnie Miller thank you hi my name is Bonnie Miller and I'm a resident here in District 15. I first wanted a duress Lisa shupai at the last board meeting you gave us a lecture that included how dangerous the door hangers were for district 15. you talked about how a mom contacted you about the door hangers on her door how upset she was because her child could scan the QR code and read the offensive obscene content how is it possible that this mom could be so disconnected with reality that offensive obscene content is in her child's School library that was the whole point
046of the door hangers to inform people of these obscene books Lisa how is it possible that you are so disconnected with reality you told that story as if you were so concerned for this mom's child you said these door hangers were dangerous why because our children might read pornographic material we agree with you children should not be reading obscene books you and this mom gave validation to those door hangers you and this mom your anger is misdirected you are responsible for these obscene books in our children's School library where kids can easily read them without their parents knowledge now I want to address the district 15 parents I stood outside of polls with a couple of these obscene books asking if parents or grandparents want to see them I was shocked at some of the
047responses no I'm good actually I think Lisa you would talk to me you didn't have any concern to look at my books and I don't understand it I mean I just haven't no comprehension of that some of them said I'm glad they can choose to read those books then I would say well can you please give me an opinion on this picture in this book and they would decline and say no I'm good and they would walk away and I would sit there and I thought to myself why would they walk away when they want to know what was in their children's library and if it would to give my their opinion on whether it was obscene or not so then I realized if they didn't look and see these pictures then they wouldn't have
048to do anything about it right when darkness is exposed you have to do something about it right or maybe they would have to change who they were voting for right um let me describe some of the pictures in this book it's this is called the Brave New World if you go to the end there's a there's a lot of nudity and drug use in here but at the end there's a man who's obviously self-harming whipping himself he's obviously not very happy with himself the crowd comes and they're they're chanting we want the whip we want the whip they want to see this man whipping himself then it turns into kill kill and kill him then it turns into orgy Porgy orgy Porgy they're just chanting this then all of their clothes are being taken off
049they're embracing each other next page just naked people all over the lawn on top of each other the guy gets up he's so distressed at what obviously just happened he goes into The Silo a guy follows him after that and look you see his legs dangling because he hung himself that's the very last picture in this book the timer this one has bestiality a horse behind a woman in a sexual position we really want this for our children you guys if you care about kids clean up this Library Janet malagon I don't know how to lower this um good evening everybody Dr shupai Dr Heinz and members of the board and especially thank you to Jim Taylor for replying to my email um I just want to read my email publicly and this is in
050regards to um the approval of the board policy for the PTA mpto inclusion my name is Janet malagon I'm a hispanic mom of two kids attending the Dual language program at Jane Adams I currently hold the treasurer position within our PTA and just signed up for the parent Mentor program that is partnered with partners for our communities I'd like to thank you in advance for your time in reading this email I appreciate all the hard work you have all done with the moving 15 forward as it was not an easy task I am glad we will be seeing some positive changes throughout for the good of our kids and community I'm emailing emailing you in regards to the approval of board policy 8090 parent organizations I would like for you to all for you all
051to please consider choosing the second version which includes and recognizes a PTO in our district our school Jane Adams is seeking to create a PTO as we see a growing change within our school community coming from an immigrant family and growing up in the southwest side of Chicago I can give you countless first-hand experiences and Recreation Recollections from my childhood years my parents worked very hard to provide us an education food and a place to live I recall PTA sign up sign up sheets being sent home from school and my parents always asking what it was and why they needed to pay money to join a school group third grade me didn't know what it was either it was not in their plans to attend a meeting or pay for something they were not going
052to participate to participate in let alone plan to attend the meetings or pay for something they were not going to participate in sorry let alone understand the school I attended Eberhart Elementary no longer has an Affiliated PTA but instead a local school council then meets and reflects their needs as a community and school we would like to provide that same inclusiveness for our students and parents and feel we can do that better by becoming our own organization again please consider voting on the second option which is inclusive of util thank you thanks Jana Terry Paulson oops good evening ladies and gentlemen as you know my name is Terry Paulson and I'm here tonight to talk to you about the sex ed work group for junior high and the reset I saw that there was going
053to be a junior high update tonight and I'm going to stick around to listen to that I read the memo on board docs and the first thing I noticed was that one of the tasks of this work group who was tasked with with giving recommendations for junior high sex ed was to quote determine whether or not district 15 was going to change their initial position regarding the decision not to adopt the nses end quote this rather calls into question your repeated assurances that the district would not be adopting the nses I also see that their recommendation is that the district continue to use Candor sex ed if you remember last fall we informed you that Candor had actually changed their sex ed to better align with the national sex ed standards this is straight from
054their website quote many of our school Partners community members and parents are asking about the recent sex ed sex education legislation site by governor pritzker on August 20th senate senate bill 818. fortunately Candor health education had already been using the national sexuality education standards as a guide during the complete Redevelopment of our sex education programs through the use of a blended learning model Candor Candor increased the student learning time beyond our typical 90-minute in-school program which allowed us to include the additional topics that are listed in SB 818 end quote also on their the Candor website there is a complete list of the standards addressed by Candor now addressed by Candor since they updated to better align with sb818 here's one define vaginal oral and anal sex it says this one's fully in alignment here's
055another one sex assigned at Birth and gender identity are fully defined and it is explained that they are not always in alignment here's a third one sexual orientation is defined using gender bread four abstinence withdraw condoms and dental dams dental dams are presented five demonstrate ways to communicate decisions about whether or not or when to engage in sexual behaviors and how to reduce or eliminate the risk for pregnancy and or STDs this is role playing you're going to have 12 and 13 or 13 year old kids role play this it appears that unless you've already been teaching it you will be adding gender ideology and sexual orientations as topics just like District 211 did when they adopted the national sex ed standards given the content of Candor that I just listed what exactly is the
056difference between using this or adapting the nses this curriculum almost completely aligns with it thank you Terry Lee Bennett [Applause] hello again Lee Bennett Healthline resident tonight I want to summarize Middle School sports being offered nearby with a focus on the 32 districts in our North cook region basketball is King as the only sport available for both genders cross country and track are available in over 75 percent North cook districts the lack of it probably indicating lack of facilities rather than student interest more than a third of districts don't offer soccer nearly a third offer it for both genders and almost a third offer it as a co-ed sport for Mr pennant what about volleyball who was introduced last month as a fictitious character resemblance to any current former district 15 students is not intended
057or should be inferred for volleyball for girls volleyball is also universally available looking at the four closest lake districts the Chicago Public Schools the two West Suburban districts that I attended and all of the north Cook Elementary Schools I find only three districts lacking boys volleyball 29 of 31 or 94 percent of the other North cook districts already offer boys volleyball Wheeling district 21 in Mount Prospect District 57 or the other districts without about boys volleyball program these two districts have a total of four middle schools so D15 will soon have the majority of public middle schools without this program in our region Billy also asked is it fair that boys are not allowed to play in her Scholastic volleyball in the late 70s shortly after Title IX went to effect several courts ruled that
058this type of policy was unfair to high school boys in certain situations more recently case law has generally upheld school districts the right to Bar boys from specific Sports establishing the Precedence that gender equality must be considered the whole set of athletic offerings not just not just single sport so how do area districts balance Sports opportunities in light of Title IX well none of the districts offer support only for boys but several girls offer a single girls only sport three North cook districts offer girls softball to offer field hockey wrestling is the usual counterbalance to these girls only Sports the exception is one District that offsets with coed soccer which has more Sports spots for the boys classifying coed soccer along with wrestling is boys oriented offerings against the three girls only sports or girls
059only Sports and girls oriented cheer Spirit palms and dance D15 and half of North cook districts have a balanced number of offerings no district is out of balance by more than a single offering two districts d-54 and 64 offer wrestling without an offsetting girls option at least 13 districts offer cheer or dance without an offsetting boys offering based on these examples the district seems free to add a support for either gender and still be within the plus or minus one sport tolerance being practiced in our region offering volleyball for girls and wrestling for boys was a decision made a very long time ago girls started wrestling in the 90s since that time the growing popularity of girls wrestling and volleyball for both genders far outpaced the stagnating or declining growth of wrestling for boys because
060these Trends I urge the district to reevaluate its Sports offerings in antboys volleyball thank you thank you Mr Bennett I believe that Dr Edgar will be speaking about that later today next up Natasha Natasha Maldonado thank you hi thank you for letting me speak again spoke last month I know it says no dialogue where I got a lot of dialogue so maybe this time you'll just listen I just want to start out by um by congratulating the Democrat candidates that got uh nominant or got reinstated here Adder this is hunt Khan um I got an email from the Democratic party saying that uh some far-right extremists want to ban books so thanks for calling me Far Right extremist I'm just a mom mom that had two kids that kind of came through the school system
061um those girls that spoke earlier were very sweet about not you know not wanting to ban books but unfortunately of course and I'm glad they're uninformed that we're talking about sexually explicit books and the one that Bonnie mentioned early earlier Brave New World um naked men on top of naked men not appropriate and if you're going to have books like this um they the girls that's really nice that they informed me because I didn't know that there was any books like this in the school um that parents can opt out well you know you better make it very explicit to parents but have a lot of transparency that these books are here so they have an option to opt out of this um the other concerning I think I have it with this book and
062I was shocked my husband was shocked um these are not just regular books these are graphic novels or comic books as my husband likes to say with a man that hung himself we know that kids right now have a really uh struggle with mental illness especially after covid after being locked down you guys really want want kids to have have this you think this is going to help them with any mental struggles I mean this is this is I can't believe I'm not I'm not that old I'm only 43. um maybe because I didn't go to a liberal college that that's why I'm not thinking with other parents in the community but to me this is outrageous so if you're going to continue to have um these very explicit books you need to be transparent
063let let the parents know and and I suggested last time hey have parents come in read the books they they can rate them put them put them some maybe behind a curtain for the the you know really other parents had think this is good for their child then they can access them but it really shouldn't it should have parental approval to read anything like this and I don't know how that there's not more more parents upset about this I I I would I would feel terrible if my kids had access to this at this age um I was talking to my daughter earlier she said it when she went through sunling they did not have uh graphic novels like this she said there was some inappropriate books and they kind of knew about and avoided
064um but uh she said that there there wasn't anything like this furthermore I wanted to think that she had an English teacher that was upset about a book that she took out at the time I was annoyed that she was upset I think that English teacher uh here for bringing that to my attention because I had no idea there was books like this in the school Rosie panone or is it Rosie fennel finoni I was so close the first time good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today my name is Rosie fannoni I'm vice president of the Jane Adams PTA and I'm here asking you to support the broader language in version two of the board policy 8090 on parent organizations this is my fifth year with children in Jane Adams
065and I couldn't be prouder to say that we are jaguars our school Community is so smart so involved and so passionate about making sure that we are able to support every single child in our school as a PTA we're required to charge a membership fee and also restrict participation in certain events and meetings to those who have paid our paid members unfortunately for many families in our school district or in our school Community this is a real barrier to participation and to feeling like they belong it also creates a divide between those who can afford the fee and those who cannot and listening to all the members of our school community we've asked what would be helpful what would make sense what would increase their their feelings of belonging and overwhelmingly we heard things that
066would be resolved as part of a PTO so we'd like to reorganize and become a PTO to better serve our school Community while still subject to government governance requirements as Jamie laid out forming a PTO would allow us to involve all families in our community and more fully direct our donations to the students within our school I support and I'm asking you as well to the more inclusive language in the version two of that of that board policy so that both ptas and ptos are options for parent support organizations allow those parents who are volunteering at that school and know that school Community the best to best support their school and involve their communities thank you for your consideration and thank you for the support of all the students in our district thanks Rosie Rosie
067anyone else thank you everyone for coming and speaking tonight we appreciate your input Diana you want to come down I'd like to uh now have a motion to open and enter fund transfer public hearing please I make a motion to open the inner fund transfer public hearing so Ty all those in favor aye opposed motion carries Diana yeah sure so school code requires us to have a hearing um about the transfer that is in my budget that I presented in September of 4.7 million 4.75 turn your mic on please Diana green light maybe it's just not close enough but I'm gonna go back okay so I know y'all this is riveting okay I know everyone this is really it's honestly a down or after okay so anyway um so the school code requires us to
068hold a hearing tonight again in my budget presentation back in September in order to balance the budget I did include a 4 million seven hundred fifty thousand dollar transfer from the Transportation fund to the Ed fund um the transportation but uh fund balance was reaching a 100 uh fund balance which means um there would there was basically a lot of money there um it means that you know if we have a budget of 9 million in the transportation fund they also had like a rainy day fund of 9 million and across the board we tried to we've been trying to keep the board have been trying to maintain about 30 35 fund balance so in that sense basically we've been accumulating funds in the transportation fund that could be used in the Ed fund success
069where majority of our expenditures are so tonight I need the board to um I believe it is approve um in the either in the consent agenda and action items to approve this transfer um again we would we needed to balance the budget this year in the Ed fund all right Diane any questions so we saw the uh presentation last time and now it's a matter of voting on I think Diana if you wouldn't mind clarifying because I know there's some in the transportation um or Transportation employees that maybe think that the money belongs to that department or to them so to speak and I just really I need you to clarify that point um for the board and and just anybody else that might have that thought please so again there we go there we
070go um so you really have to look at the big picture in um fun in um School District revenues and most of the revenue in the district I believe it was around 150 million we have is I mean our budget is 200 million but I believe around 200 I mean 150 is from property taxes and when we do the levy when I do the levy I Levy in each fund but that's always an estimate it's not I mean the levy is will go into each of those funds but you know it's a guesswork of of um again I'm doing the levy in December and it's going to affect effect next year's budget so we're allocating money in each fund hopefully it's going to cover all the expenditures but I don't have a crystal ball and
071um the transportation fund is one of the five operating funds and those funds pay for the day-to-day uh expenditures of the district so we are allowed to move funds between those particular operating funds and it did just in order to maintain day-to-day expenditures so no fund owns their fund balance really a financial decision and while I don't want a fund to go a negative and that's why I needed to move some money and when you look at fund balances and you see where they built up it's really built up over time because we over levied we have over levied in the transportation fund and I can adjust that down at the next Levy um filing next December um and I can do that or the board can we can transfer money between funds so long
072term looking out I I believe I lowered the levy a little bit in the transportation fund which in December and I'll look at that again and and let the board know if we should you know continue to make some adjustments there it's not just a transportation fund it's the operating funds are at l m transportation toward and um whatever the other one is the top of my head you know okay anyway so yeah no fun so no fun the funds don't stay with that you know whether it's O M whether it's transportation we had to move that money around we don't have them to me day-to-day expenditures um we will now open the meeting for public comment on the interfund transfer does anyone have an interest in commenting about this in the audience at this
073point if not I'm not going to kick through the uh the same old same old unless you wanted Mr Bramley the I may have a motion to adjourn the public hearing please second I'm sorry second all right um all in favor motion carries yeah next time uh superintendents reports dries since we have a number of visitors in the audience that are here to do updates I'm going to move to a legislative update is John done here yes here he comes wonderful he's going to make his way to the table here to give the board and Community an update on the work that they have been doing on the Bears project with us foreign good evening my name is John Dunn I'm the managing director at cozen O'Connor public strategies codes and strategies is the largest
074government Affairs firm in Illinois with nine government Affairs professionals we've been hired by the district as well as the adjoining districts to work on Springfield legislation I'll give a brief overview of the legislation and what we've done so far and then see if there are any questions um so there are two major pieces of legislation in Springfield that we've been hired to work on the Bears legislation and tip reform legislation so taking the Bears first and as everybody in this room knows the Bears announced in September of 2022 their intention to move to Arlington Heights to the racetrack property they closed that deal with Churchill Downs in February of 2023. shortly before they closed the deal legislation was introduced in Springfield which is called the the mega project legislation which is the which is the
075the Bears legislation that was introduced by Senator Ann Gillespie and Senator Gillespie's intention was to introduce a legislation to sort of kick off the discussion about what would happen and not happen uh if the Bears moved to what would happen to not happen legislatively if the Bears moved to Arlington Heights there are several aspects to that legislation at Senate Bill 1350 a large piece of legislation 130 some pages for our purposes the the most important part is that it amends the property tax code and so the proposal would create it defines Mega projects which are essentially projects where a company is investing over 500 million dollars in the development also important to note that the legislation isn't limited to the Bears or Arlington Heights it would apply Statewide to any project or development where there's
076an investment of 500 million dollars or more um the key Provisions in the legislation are it creates an assessment phrase for Mega projects and then assessment assessment freeze could last for as long as 40 years um it would require in this case it's the Bears it would require the Bears to negotiate an incentive agreement with the Village of Arlington Heights um you may be familiar with the concept of pilot which is payments in lieu of taxes it's not technically a pilot but it's very similar to a pilot a pilot system so the Bears would have to negotiate an incentive agreement with Arlington Heights where in lieu of property taxes the Bears would make a payment to the village and then the legislation would require Arlington Heights to distribute that money in accordance with the proportional
077share to the taxing bodies so the more you pay the school district not pay collect the school districts are more property tax dependent than some of the other taxing bodies so that money would get distributed proportionally um the issue of course and it's pretty simple the issue is what what would that number be so um that and that's that's kind of the issue if it's a big number that would be great uh for this district and the other two districts if it's a small number it would be great for the Bears um the legislation was introduced in February um we have um me and my colleagues like I said there are nine of us there are three of us that are principally working on this legislation uh and we have input from our other colleagues
078so we've talked to all of the interested legislators we've talked to the speaker's office we've talked to the Senate president's office we've talked to the governor's office you probably saw Governor pritzker's statement about the legislation when it was introduced um we talked to Cook County we had sort of brief conversations with ift and and the Illinois Association of school boards and lots of others and last but not least we've also been talking to the Bears informally about what their plans are that legislation was introduced it's still in the assignments committee which um you know is an indication that it's not moving at least not right now unfortunately nothing ever dies in Springfield so we are staying on top of it to see what the next steps are and we've had informal conversations with the Bears
079about amending their legislation so far we haven't had any um conversations that have resulted in an agreement but we're still talking to the Bears and we're trying to set up a a more formal meeting with the Bears in the near future to talk about if we can reach some sort of agreement with them on the legislation turning to the second piece of legislation this is the Tiff reform legislation also introduced by Senator Gillespie and Senate Bill 1391 the Paris legislation by the way has a companion piece of legislation in the house but all the sort of actions in the Senate so the tip reform legislation was also introduced on February 6 by Senator Gillespie it had a hearing it was assigned to a committee the Bears legislation it was assigned to a committee there was
080a hearing a subject matter hearing which means no vote a lengthy subject matter hearing there were 174 witness slips filed in favor of the legislation and 132 witness slips filed against the legislation the bulk of the proponents were school districts and school-affiliated organizations and the bulk of the opponents were municipalities municipality organizations and as well as some some developers development organizations that bill also a very large piece of legislation 125 or so pages and just a couple of key points it would limit the term of tiffs it would limit Tiff extensions it would allow school districts to opt out of tiffs it would prohibit over overlapping tiffs or transfer tips on an amendment was filed to that also substantive amendment that would give teeth to Joint review boards joint review boards which you're probably familiar
081with are part of current Tif law but they are essentially advisory boards right now and the amendment would turn them from advisory boards into boards with authority to approval authority over Tiff extensions and Tiff transfers and overlapping tips um so that bill has also it was um kicked the committee there was a hearing in the executive committee which is the the Senate executive committee and the house executive committee in Springfield are the Committees that um hear um the big pieces of legislation so it went to the executive committee had a hearing uh it's back in the assignments committee now so um that brings me to sort of my final point that I'm happy to take questions that that summary of those two pieces of legislation begs the question of what's the what's the road ahead
082so in Springfield um session this session started beginning of January we're just coming off a two-week Easter slash Spring Break um at the House and Senate will be back in Springfield uh next week and they'll be in every week from next week through May 19th which is the schedule the German date so five weeks left in session um so with the Bears we like I said before we continue our discussions with them to see if we can get make some movement on reaching an agreement a settlement with them on the second piece of legislation the Tiff reform legislation if frankly remains to be seen what's going to happen with that bill um this session because there are only five weeks left it's possible that that could become it is a very significant piece of legislation
083so it may get kicked into summer summer discussions and summer negotiations but that's that's just a guess right now so that's my legislative update I'm happy to answer any questions is the expectation for the village in the particular Bears project that they would be attempting to use both of these approaches you know with the with the Bears legislation and the T and and just regular uh seeking a TIF district um on unclear so the the second Bill the Tiff Reform Bill really wouldn't be in the Bear's interest yeah I'm just saying are they expected to to go that route just not not not for the legislation but just generally seeking a tiff uh e District yeah I think um right now I would say yes I mean the mega project legislation I mean technically it's
084not a tiff um bill but it's kind of the same um it's I would call it a variation of Tiff legislation so the Bears have said publicly that um they don't want they're not seeking public funds for the stadium of course there's a lot of development around the stadium and also you know In fairness to the various public infrastructure that the development may may build so um I I would I don't know if how the Bears would characterize it I would characterize this as we're still I was going to say the first inning but I guess for the Bears to be the first quarter right so yeah so so we're not we're not um it I think it remains to be seen how they this is their first shot at how they could fund this
085development and I think it remains to be seen as they come back to the table with maybe you know round two of how they seek to fund it thank you I would also just add this is typical of um you know there was um the Cubs had an initiative of Wrigley Field initiative a few years ago that I was actually involved in a little bit Soldier Field of course back in 2003 was renovated there were bonds issued by the sports facility Authority and going way back with the White Sox in 1988 so they're for you know the major sports teams to come to Springfield to seek something is not Is Not Unusual they don't always get what they want but it's not unusual to show up any other questions it's good it's hard to keep
086track of all the moving pieces so thank you we're happy that you're helping us do that thank you thanks so much John we appreciate it um we're gonna take a quick five minute break while this team assembles because we're going to need to get some more chairs up for um seven section one so if you guys want to start setting up we're going to take a five minute break before we break out um I just want to make a real quick comment you know we do our best to respond to the people in our community who have issues or concerns and as you all know we try very hard to do our best for our elementary and Junior High children that are part of our district 15 Community also we had multiple people speaking this
087evening on Aldous huxley's Brave New World the version that was adapted and illustrated by fed forum that book is not in any of our collections at any of our libraries in District 15. nor is the other book that was pointed out this evening yep and Slaughterhouse Five of course not in our libraries but so in case you were curious um five minutes if everyone could be back at um 8 35 that would be super foreign add extra chairs okay um so much like the tremendous amount of work it took to develop a moving 15 forward plan to get ready for the November referendum this wonderful team we've not stopped we've been very hard at work daily um really now trying to operationalize the plan and tonight everyone's here to give you an update so since
088our victory in November which I just let's clap one more time about um we want to give the board in the community an update as to what the team has been up to and where we stand in terms of our our planning and implementation efforts after we present we will leave time for questions that you yourselves as board members have or that you're hearing from the community and we'll make sure that a member of the team can answer or include that information in tonight's presentation so um if you could go to the next slide please and we do have Rob Schwartz from RSP on the line here's an overview of what you're going to hear tonight so uh phase one bid award recap at Plum Grove TJ and our wrs site Logistics and final renderings
089will be shared we call that the Ooh Ah part portion of tonight's presentation because it's really exciting RSP will give some updated projections based on current numbers this fall if we model them into 2425 we've got some shifts in enrollment we'll talk a little bit about some additional enrollment impact based on newcomers and other areas that are really spiking in terms of enrollment we will talk a little bit about phase two construction which we will have out to bid in a handful of months it's hard to believe that's around the corner but in July we will talk throughout the presentation we've had some changes in scope as we've refined designs we'll talk about kindergarten and right sizing kindergarten classrooms moving some additions to different places where we're identifying need we'll give you a very brief
090overview of phase three and phase four plans this group will come back in May to further identify and and build out what the additional phases are going to look like we will provide you an update in the one to five year Master facility plan so it's been a while since we've talked about that and we have made some adjustments to the plan Liz will share some original capital planning funding ideas we'll recap and then we'll give you a revised Capital plan financing update we will talk a little bit about the first round Bond sales at 50 million that you know we've already taken care of and our next issuance and their plans and then we will again leave as I said time for questions and answers so let's jump right into it and could advance
091the slide we will start with Plum Grove before we jump into Plum Grove Joe Papa Nicholas Nicholas and Associates construction manager Phase One update um Jefferson Palm Grove and Sunland are all part of phase one as we all know they all have bid two of them bid in December and the last one suddenly been in February so I'm happy to report that the bidding was extremely favorable it's reflecting about 51 percent of the overall boundary work um within within the phase one bids we have 2.8 million in contingency so we have about five and a half percent contingency built in for um to accommodate unforeseen conditions um and or owner edoscope work so it's a great start to the overall boundary work and um again I just want to kind of recap where we are
092with phase one again it's 51 of the overall work so all in we're around 61 million so it's a tremendous start and we're looking forward to the upcoming three phases please knock what all right thank you all right Palm Grove take it away all right I'll uh turn it over to Mike here we're just going to talk a little bit about um what's going on currently at Plum Grove um and sort of the next few weeks um as we head towards commencement good evening and uh let me talk to you about what has transpired so far uh Plum Grove during spring break uh the construction fence was installed and uh it does not Encompass the track so regular track PE activities and practices will continue to take place construction entrance is being agreed to with
093the city of uh Rolling Meadows to access an existing drive through the site of their retired facility there and so there won't be any kind of disruption in uh normal uh Plum Grove traffic the logistics of site preparation are being gone through currently with uh the additions being staked out and uh all the utilities being planned that have to come uh as part of the additions themselves and uh based on when we receive a few permits we can get started with uh Earth moving and uh then by the time of uh summer break uh full uh um progress with the additions on uh Plum Grove itself okay next one is the site utilization plan sure yeah I don't know if it's easier if you go to the board or if you want to just you
094know talk us through it from your seat the uh the red line the heavy red line represents the construction fence as installed during spring break and the two uh light green colored areas are the locations of the additions and to the north of the at the northeast corner of that construction staging area denoted by the red line is the existing entrance to the uh retired uh Rolling Meadows facility that's going to be the construction entrance and staging will occur around those additions and traffic within the construction uh fence for uh all of our materials contractors and all that along with on the west edge of the property a uh a path of delineated between the existing fence and the construction fence for the uh for the student access to the track that is outside of
095the construction fence so all the PE uh daily flow from the West End of the building can come past the construction fence and to the track and open field area there the city's been great to work with originally we thought about a construction entrance here but going from two wings sorry bad enough there's no need for a learning curve there so you've been great to work with you figure there's an existing entrance here it's nice and wide yeah everybody's using Joe can you grab the mic it's a and we can hear you great but it's for the benefit of anybody on YouTube so with having the existing so having the existing entrance there at the retired fire station it just made sense um safety's number one priority um so they've been great to work with
096so we're we're just about to finalize um that agreement and um in preparation for our commencement which should be hopefully later this month like Mike mentioned we're just waiting on a couple of permits we expect to have those soon and uh we're just excited to get started you too all right you can advance the slide to the lower level floor plan if you want to talk through any changes thank you Joe and Mike um so exciting to see the project come to fruition here um great great Brown great Brown um really kind of do we are fulfilling the original criteria of the design that was bit out uh last fall we're increasing the capacity of the building to 1200 students you can see here in the upper and left and upper right corners of the
097lower level but that that's really forming that house concept that we had been talking about so that's what's really exciting about this is to begin to look at how that's affecting the Middle School concept and how we're going to align the building to that Middle School concept so next slide uh so here you see the main level um again we're adding uh 18 classrooms total so in this case you've got three on this side and three on this side and in between there is the grade level Resource Center which is really that Central collaboration space here we're going to see some images of that soon and then the renovation of the cafeteria that'll allow you to have three lunch periods so it really is a line that whole population next slide upper level very similar
098you can see here that the two wings that are being added so it's a three-story Edition symmetrical next slide and here's the rendering from the East side you'll see here on the right that's the new addition we really try to blend in the colors of the brick with the existing to really kind of come in Harmony and really create an exciting facade there along Plum Grove so really really excited about that as well as this new entryway here um around the north side you'll see the two editions here and again creating some verticality in the addition again really excited about transforming this building uh into a middle school to bring that concept through um and the interior some viewpoints again of that collaboration space the idea that students come together in small groups and pull
099out sessions really use this space between all the other classrooms as an Extended Learning environment so it's really good clean surfaces very color that matches the student um uh the the um cut of the school so really kind of pulling all that together next slide a view of the new cafeteria again total renovation new lighting new surfaces durable cleanable make maintainable and really a lot more space than they have now and here another view a lot of natural light coming in a variety of seeding really encouraging students to come there before and after school teachers to use it as an Extended Learning space really a destination space really something that the school does not have now so it's again really interesting and exciting to see that transformation again another very inviting areas a variety of
100seating not your typical Junior High really raising that bar so exciting to see this coming together next slide I think that's we're going to move on here to TJ questions for Plum Grove anything we shared all right TJ [Applause] TJ also during spring break got a construction fence installed and uh um temporary egress partitions and routing constructed through the existing building to avoid the uh construction staging area and uh uh if you go on to the next Slide the uh north side of the site uh once again the the heavy red line is uh indicating the construction fence and after uh spring break we uh had the silt fence installed alongside that construction fence on the north side of the building the existing playground is going to remain in operation through the end of the
101school year and then there will be um major Earth moving for the benefit of Pine Park and the park district and some Redevelopment there but the South playground will also be maintained through the next school year and uh to the summer of 2024. uh and the major Edition here is a multi-story uh Edition on the east side of the building as well that's shown in the light green there on the site utilization plan so just a few things to add we do have the permits in hand for Jefferson um so as Mike mentioned Tom fence is up still fences up egress is in place if you've been by Jefferson you'll notice a temporary stairwell on the outside that's all part of the egress plan now that that's installed and approved by all the authorities the
102existing stairwell right here will be coming down starting next week um so so that's nice we also have some site demolition that's going to start up next week but the big the big first move is going to be bringing all this extra material from the north side here over to Pine park so we've been working with uh with the park district and um it's just really exciting instead of just hauling all this extra Material off which forbid purposes was all part of our project it's going to go to good use um and it's going to be a win-win for both the district and and and the park district and the community to enhance the Pine Park field area the benefit is although we're losing some green space over here um right now come the fall
103we'll have a track that's completed usable and occupiable so um so that'll be sort of a nice trade-off at this point we are keeping that North Playground open through the end of this Academic Year the South playground will stay open through the end of next year um and again come fall the track will be operational and then Pine Park um probably spring of 24 will be usable again so we hope to start moving some of this excess material over uh in the next couple of weeks Joe and team I know you've had a lot of communication with some of the Neighbors near where the track is going to be installed would you mind any one of you or a few of you talking about the communication going to homes and really engaging with the community
104directly around the plans listening to their concerns trying to take them into consideration to the extent that we can yeah so we've had communication with four of our neighbors they expressed concern and I think we've you know addressed and kind of really just informed what was going to take place because any kind of change is always comes with a little bit of anxiety so I think they were understanding and those meetings and conversations that we had took place um and and I think that we're under a good start and we'll see how it all transpires they have I have an open door policy with any of them if they want to ring me up and you know any other concerns and we left drawings with the ones that wanted drawings I would like to add
105to thanking the Hoffman Estates Park District they worked very well with us we had an opportunity instead of hauling soil off to wherever to actually make their area um improve improve their area and fix their drainage and they had some washout areas and whatnot so they're taking a lot of the soil which is going to allow for a right size soccer and they'll be allowing us to use that as we as we currently do but in the future be able to really collaborate with their space and make this Middle School on power with other middle schools having a track and a soccer field so they have worked with us very well when are when we transition and we lose the two playgrounds they're going to build a playground for the community so there's a lot
106of collaboration and really very happy that they worked with us so well great to hear we could go go to the next slide so you should be pretty familiar with the floor plan at Thomas Jefferson the existing building really lends itself well to that house concept the general classrooms do group themselves together quite well the south portion of the existing floor plan has a whole grade level there we did some modifications there to improve circulation add lockers into that building so you can see we also added a flexible classroom the teacher planning resource area uh so that's one grade level on the first floor the existing kindergarten classrooms we're renovating into art classrooms the music up shown in red up in the top right there we're expanding that as well to help facilitate middle school
107music the existing cafeteria is being turned into two stem classrooms to fulfill those curriculum needs everything to the right right here is the Edition where the new cafeteria and kitchen will be housed as well as a correctly sized gymnasium for middle school and Associated locker room next slide up on the second floor I mentioned the great houses two great houses would be on the second floor each had their own sports spaces and new lockers a better circulation as well as the three new science classrooms in the Edition next slide uh this is just a view of the south side of the addition you can see on the left side that's the existing building on the right is the addition uh you can see here it provides a nice entrance for after hours events that whole
108Edition can be locked off from the rest of the school so if you have rentals or there's a concert or a game uh no one's wandering around the rest of the building because they don't need to and so that helps facilitate that next slide this is inside the Commons in the addition to the left would be the existing building and everything you see here is the addition and to the right is the cafeteria it's the gymnasium it's the lockers so it this comments Wildlife focuses uh on circulation but it's also a breakout space for students coming out uh the art rooms it can be a collaboration space it also functions as a after hours Lobby for those special events slide uh A View From the second floor of the commons you can see on the
109right those are those new science classrooms and you can see it's two stories tall to let a lot of natural light into that area [Music] next it's just a view into the new cafeteria you can see it's also has Windows to look outside so that Creek and nature as opposed to what the existing is now it also enlarges it for that population and the kitchen and the server you can see on the right so you can have nice flow through when lunch periods come next questions or comments on TJ all right taking it easy on everybody tonight all right sunlings up next feels like we've been talking about this for like my whole life we have at least almost my whole tenure right right it is exciting to see it all come to fruition I
110think I'm sure as it moves forward we'll have all the questions so sunling as uh both Plum Grove and Thomas Jefferson had a construction fence installed during spring break and uh sunling uh it has uh their permits they've got started uh the if if we can get to the next slide we can look at that configuration there is a staging area to the uh northwest corner of the parking lot um then the construction fence goes around the addition and uh has made accommodations for students to access the track that's being adjusted uh now so uh shortly the original uh access to the track on the paved path will be maintained for those students and will control the construction traffic so that's not an issue the construction fence area that encloses the footprint of the addition
111also does not impede on normal bus Opera Nations around the back of the building and transportation so that's been accommodated and uh currently uh the uh original the existing site conditions are being uh pulled out in the initial site demo and uh there is an abatement project that's happening on the outside of the the building there to allow the addition to be constructed so uh the district's uh abatement Consultants are going to be working on that in the in the next week so once that's out of the way then uh Foundation excavation can commence and uh relocation of uh utilities that are also involved in those areas okay I have nothing to add to that great schedule okay for sunling uh similar to Thomas Jefferson we are adding a cafeteria into the Edition the Edition
112is on the back side of the building here uh next to where the transportation facility is located and uh next to the existing Auditorium and existing it's housing a new cafeteria to right size that as well uh it's modeled pretty much after Thomas Jefferson uh as well for the kitchen uh we are also adding an auxiliary gem to create that third teaching space for PE uh that's all happening in the back side of the building right across the if we can stay on that slide uh directly behind us across the hall the new library is actually going to get installed in those three existing classrooms and taking over the existing upper area of the cafeteria uh as well as uh the library there's a new Commons that'll be part of that uh material so it'll
113be really create a nice Central node for the school right outside of that Library there's a few classrooms by the existing gymnasium that we're going to renovate to make those better spaces for learning activities next slide so up on the upper level here you can see the where the existing library was located we are adding classrooms and renovating a few other areas to create those teacher planning spaces so the upper level will house two great houses and the lower level or the other Wing down over here holds the other great the exterior this is the exterior of the addition so these are actually the windows from the cafeteria looking out uh this is the commons uh so this is actually in the existing cafeteria obviously getting renovated uh this is looking up from the lower
114area up to where the library is the library is through all that glass right there next slide this is also in the comments so this is up on that upper level pretty near to right over here to the right is the new library to the left is that Commons and the existing Corridor is that way so you can see how it's it'll create a nice Central hub for this school inside the Library this is looking towards that Commons on the right through that glass next and another view of the library to the left is the commons we have some small group rooms that'll be added into the new library to the right is where we just were looking questions I have a question with regard to do you remember in the original planning when we
115were doing all the Roadshow pitches and there was the area that was going to be as a potential addendum or we were going to have an extra bid that if thing if the bids didn't come in there would be the alternate for the um the enclosure of that area between the uh the addition and the school that's that was on there right are you talking about the two classrooms by the existing gym uh so yeah we are informed of the deficiency of those areas right now and so that alternate was to improve it if you know bids came in favorable the district could select that and I believe the district did select that right nice before we if this is the end of these three I'd like to thank because it looks simple but the
116logistics of working out the the egress and the construction and all that um was quite extensive at all three facilities the principals the staff everybody in those facilities the local fire departments and those three different local fire departments um all came together to make this work and a big thanks to all of them because uh it looks kind of simple but it wasn't okay we can move to slide 58 yep phase two construction under development you can see that as we said at a previous board meeting phase one timelines that we outlined within our moving 15 forward initiative they were met so we are on target which is amazing and it was really a huge team effort so again I I Echo what Jim said not only the folks in this room but every other
117partner across these three communities has really come together and is helping make this happen phase two design work on Jane Adams Hunting Ridge and Winston campus are being performed by Arcon Whiteley Lincoln and Pleasant Hill Wold that work continues we've had meetings with principals and had custodians they know their buildings inside and out they have really helped us identify things that we maybe didn't see so they are really helping us develop very solid plans because they know very deeply how their buildings flow and how they work and and really truly when they don't work so they're really helping us solidify all of our plans we intend to go out to bid in July and we will be coming to the board with more information on phase two next month foreign schools GMS Kimball Hill Willow
118Bend will be out to bid early in the fall and we'll start just like we did this year we'll utilize spring break when the district is when the schools are not occupied and we'll start at Spring of 2024 there'll be expansions and in some interior rentals phase four Central Road Lake Louise mayor and Jordan Virginia Lake will bid later that fall of 2023 with the summer 24 start so lots of moving parts we are becoming logistical experts and we hope to have an on-time delivery of the remaining three phases the way we've done with phase one okay next slide Mike and Jim do you want to talk and Dan about the five-year Master facility plan and changes to it y'all start this up hi Dan Critter with wool um well this is a five-year look
119Outlook and it uh it's organized by category and by year and it's really a condensed version of something a spreadsheet that's much larger than this but uh we wanted to give you a snapshot of this tonight um there has been some fluctuations in this plan and it is a planning tool um anytime we work out with the district then on planning their Capital Improvements there are fluctuations priorities a surface that we need to reconsider so as you talked heard a little bit tonight there was some as design developed at all the phase one and phase two projects and we're still getting into phase three now some of the needs education needs to make those more successful has have surfaced and we've been making adjustments to the move 15 forward plans to to adapt to those
120needs so we have been looking at this as a place where can we adjust some things in The Five-Year Plan to make sure that the cost impacts of those educational needs are accounted for because this is really a complimentary document to the move 15 forward piece so that bottom line of 60 66 nine needs to also work with what Joel will be presenting here as a total number on the Move 15 forward so um we've looked at this from a from a very balanced approach of looking at how all the schools are affected if we do shift something out a little bit but I will tell you that the core value improvements especially things that are dealing with life safety remain intact in this in this and this going forward so the next five years
121you'll still be looking at those improvements taking place things that might be shifting out as we redefine some of the furniture needs we've also looked at life cycles potentially on roofs and HVAC systems that we could buy a little time and move those things out and still have a very successful end result all right yeah so we're going to give you a little security cameras update right now since um I think December they the company we're using is Esco and they subcontracted we have like three different companies I think we showed you that a couple months ago so procurement and programming of the hardware is taking place background checks are being completed electrical contract or site work blocks were early in April and we are on target for a summer install there is some work
122being done after hours I believe Pleasant Hill is one of the schools because it's very complicated but most of the work will have to be done during the day so it will be done in the summer ready for a school opening in the fall um Furniture analysis do you want to speak to a little bit of that back in the five-year forecast five year plan I mean we could go back a slide and just a moment please what we looked at is uh initially when we were budgeting for the projects we had more of a placeholder for furniture what we've done is we've went through and did a much more itemized approach to making sure that new spaces are prioritized as getting Furniture as well as uh kindergarten spaces there's a parity or Equity amongst
123kindergartens and then cafeterias and things that are new spaces that can't be furnished with what you have so that was the first charge to make sure those spaces are covered and that really led us to prioritizing what you see covered in the furniture budget right now that's not to say that going forward there might be other things you could pull in and supplement that but we want to make sure we got the base new spaces and Equitable spaces especially at the kindergarten level um to make sure that there's parity now I'll add on um to to what he's saying um we we've always held from the very beginning um a baseline that was going to be Equitable across the schools and that Baseline I always had the ability to move based on the amount of
124funding that was available so we're still holding on to reiterate the library's cafeterias gyms in the hallways the the LEDs in the hallways uh the tracks so there's an equality throughout the district for those Baseline improvements and so we've been able to hold on to that and then of course taking care of Life of life-ending equipment HVAC roofs playgrounds in Asphalt is still part of that plan this just shows you what those numbers look like now why so this is Liz's slide keep going on the slide so just finalizing remaining libraries we have on there um I know this summer we're doing this summer we are working on CLA Central Road Kimball Hill Hunting Ridge and Marion Jordan they are part of those five years with the remaining libraries in the next phases playground you
125want to go back yeah the other thing that's not on here but I'd like to highlight is uh the extra work that Andy and Andy thumb and perfidio Diaz are going with uh going in already and and be doing ceiling and LED lights down the hallways I think they've gotten four buildings done um they're killing it and they're putting us way under budget so not everything's running over these guys are and their crew are doing a great job and the playground prioritization those also were held into the five years so when you look at the five year you'll see the placeholders that are still there for the for the playgrounds that need to be redone so yeah all right Liz okay next slide so this is the original plan that the board saw before they
126voted on the resolution initiating the public question and you know obviously 186 million the top part is the projects moving 15 forward and the capital plan and then the bottom part is the funding we went and issued 50 million in December closed in January to get the district started but this is the um older plan so let's look at the update so moving 15 forward has a large amount of work to be done in fiscal year 24. so the other thing that's increased in fiscal 24 is some of the furniture prioritization and those kind of things so the five-year Capital plan is also a bit higher than original so an fy24 we have 103 million so in order to meet that cash flow we're looking at the issuance of the next 43 million of referendum
127bonds this will be the final issue of that 93 million authorization and the 36 million non-referendum debt certificate portion if you recall those bonds are paid from the operating funds of the district about 2.7 million a year then the prior plan did not look at us coming to you with that that service extension-based bonds uh for working cash until FY 26 because of the change in the schedule we're going to need cash sooner so we've split that 32 million into two pieces the first piece in fy25 you can see the 15 million and then the second piece in FY 26. so that's the 32 million so you know what the pieces are a little bit different but we're still the 186 million project and the different funding pieces that were talked to all throughout the
128reference random financing plan to the community so let's go to the next slide sorry the numbers are small but the good news is we went to market with the uh 50 million last Jan December January and our interest rate was much better than we projected we're at 3.67 percent and that lacked in the first 50 million um what you see here is the next 43 million scheduled for November of 23. we've got a 50 basis point cushion in that and we're looking at 4.36 including that 50 basis point cushion so if we're to go to market today we'd be closer to 380. you know Market wise we hear the FED is getting near the end of their rate increase moves next one first week in May hopefully 25 basis points and then maybe they'll be
129done we had a pretty good inflation number that came out today that gives us hope that will be the case so I'm hoping we'll come in lower on the referendum Bond piece but if we end up at this spot it's not a problem because we are spot on with regard to the promise to the taxpayers so that's the referendum Bond piece I want to talk to you briefly about the non-referendum bond pieces the debt certificates which would be issued at the same time um yep you're on the right page as the referendum bonds because we want to consolidate the number of issuances to consolidate any cost of issuance right so um both those pieces would be sold together um the other piece I mentioned if we go to the next page are these referent or
130non-referendum bonds paid from The Debt Service extension base if you remember these bonds just extend the district's payments at the same level where they've been so we are extending those payments out about 10 years given the district room to issue more of these types of bonds in the year 2030. a little bit about the authorization process the 32 million in order to issue them the district must go through a petition period and a public hearing that period is good for three years so my thought is that we move forward with that petition period this summer and get it out of the way when people remember why we're doing this non-referendum piece it's part of the overall Capital plan that is does not increase our taxes but Inc just extends them at the same level right
131so because we're doing that I want to talk to the board and the finance committee in coming meetings let's go to the next page about possibly the death certificate piece maybe turning in that into something called an alternate Revenue bond which is also paid from the operating funds so if the payment and and the burden is absolutely the same but since you have to go through petition period with the non-referendum d sub bonds of 32 million we could do a petition period at the same time and turn those debt certificates into alternate bonds why would we want to do that alternate bonds are sold as general obligation bonds they have a separate tax levy associated with them so each year as you use your o m fund that tax levies abated so from an investor
132point of view it's a little bit stronger credit and since we're selling the 43 million General obligation bonds it would just be a more attractive to investors to do both of them as General application bonds and since we have to do that petition period anyway that's one thing I want to talk to you about at both the finance committee and your upcoming board meeting and you know the savings between death certificates and Alternate bonds can be three to five basis points so over 20 years that's between seventy thousand dollars and a hundred thousand dollars now if you divide that by 20 years we're talking you know five thousand to seven thousand but every penny counts it's your operating funds so we can talk more about that but the schedule suggests that we're going to have
133this finance committee meeting sometime hopefully here in April then we'll bring you the financing plan review it as well as a method of sale for the next bond issue in November we'll do that on your June 23rd 14th meeting sorry and then we published the notice uh of intent in the local newspaper for possibly both the dsub bonds and Alternate bonds have a public hearing on those two pieces of non-referendum debt at the August meeting and then it's in the September meeting we would suggest approving the parameters Bond resolution which authorizes the 43 million remaining referendum bonds and the death certificates or alternate bonds depending which way you decide to go then we would receive the proceeds in November and Joe and arkan and Wald will be very happy because they can continue their great
134work with this plan which really heats up here in 24 as you can see questions [Music] um back in January I believe it was I got I went out for an RFP on Investment Services for the 50 million dollar of bond proceeds and I awarded it to pfm Asset Management I spoke with them last week and we got a recap here of where the 50 million dollars is is been invested you can see I think it's the fifth bullet point we deposited 50 million 1757 with them on February 24th and we have taken a drop 2.8 million because that's the accumulated expenditures between mostly architect fees and some Nicholas bills so we have so right now there they have a balance of 42 million 450 and you can see in the right box on the
135bottom the different tranches of the maturity dates staggered out based on a cash flow that Liz and I had worked with Nicholas on about when we meet we anticipate needing the cash um the the investment in the term trust is as you can see the yield is between 4.78 and 5.1 we did this a year ago be like zilch huh and um and then we keep some in liquidity in case we need so in the lower left you'll see there that we have some right now at 4.7 in uh more of a liquid um a liquid of fund um let's see so I think that's mostly where we are sitting right now you can see everything between May and December so that as we go longer term we are get a little higher return okay
136any questions thanks good news all right so now Rob are you available there he is I'm hoping everyone [Music] yes you raise the volume a little Scott thanks all right if I have someone that can advance the slide I will proceed and if I start getting too wordy I just came from a two-hour facilitation meeting to change boundaries for elementary middle school so I'm kind of glazed a little bit but let me talk you through um what's happening in this information for your District because there's quite a bit of changes that we've been talking about with your Administration on things that are different than what we saw last year and for sure two years ago and it's related to some of the new data that we now have access to so this first slide in
137front of you is the birth rate information so one of the variables we look at is what's happening with live bursts if you remember last year I talked a little bit about how the signs were indicating that during the pandemic and now here the years later we're seeing fewer live births and it's been playing out that way if you look in 2021 the latest data we could have for Suburban Cook County there's a little over 24 000 live births if you go back to 2007 in that column we had almost 33 000. so this is one of those variables future kindergarten classes and that's why in the last two columns we give a range if we just exclusively looked at this metric of what that might mean for future kindergartners and just on this metric
138that would say hey there's potential for there to be fewer kindergartners go to the next slide past enrollment by grade this again is only kindergarten through eighth grade there's preschoolers and our Focus has always been the the K through A's but the key takeaway here actually two is with the colors that are in the cells if you start at that eighth grade column and you go one to the left and one up you can see a little bit enrollment has changed year to year for those grades and so for instance that 1261 when you go back when they were kindergarteners and that was 1198 students so from kindergarten through eighth grade on that particular class is increased um the other thing that stands out on this slide takeaway is our eighth grade classes tend to
139be larger than our incoming kindergarten and so we have to offset that by some of the cohort changes so let's go to the next slide um this next slide shows that cohort change year to year and what I really want to bring to your attention is this is potentially some good news in your enrollments K-8 enrollment stabilizing and when we look at that row that starts from from to 2 so 2021-22 to the 22-23 school year look how many black numbers we have there so that's positive and we haven't seen something like that we'd have to go back to 2015-16 to 1617 and then before that 2011 12 to 12 13. this is indicative of some of the new students that are moving into your District so this is one of those signs where we
140think things may potentially be stabilizing right now it's what I would say is an anomaly that's happened in the past but we've not had consecutive years where that's occurred so that's what's happening on this slide next slide the other element that we have been focusing on is the last three years is migration and so understanding who's left the district that was there the previous school year and then who's new to The District in the year that we're analyzing this so the green side of this represents the students that were receiving services and then the following year were not the orange part of the bar is on the right side are students that are new in that particular school year so what's really good again a positive for your District even though we've K through a
141we've seen declines the last two years with migration we see Triple digit positive increases next slide another visual that I like to provide you all is where are our students so this is K-8 students and the redder the area is the more dense or more number of students that we have so when you look up on your Northeast Corridor a lot of kids and then as we come down um to the southeast of the interstate you can see another couple bubbles of red so again this is all tracking back to how we're managing what your projections could be in the future next slide from the information that we've gleaned from The Villages and pulled out with different plants and earlier listening in on what's happening with the Bears developments we've classified areas where we know
142there's developments so green areas represent where there's current activity and then the yellow area which is the the Bears development we have as happening within the next five years one thing I want to point out this is the mentioned to your administration because we've had lots of conversation as as that bears development moves forward we think there's going to be some other areas that we may not be showing on this map that may pop just because of the Synergy of of this new kind of exciting once in a lifetime situation of new developments on there with that bears Stadium area next slide all the information that we have on the on them starts to translate into what we potentially could see in those areas that we've identified so really the main takeaway potentially over 1700
143units could be built in this area and I think it potentially could be more with some of these other info developments within the city of Valentine um but a lot of growth and this is one of those variables we want to keep monitoring because as we see some of the developments that are being proposed that might be two bedroom three bedrooms might be more affordable housing they could potentially develop more students than what we have seen in some of the other developments that are not two-bedroom three-bedroom and or affordable next slide this is just to give a visual of that bears development and always we move to the the east side of that development that's where we're going to see the bulk of of the residential components that's mixed into those units that we showed
144on previous slides next slide in all these bullet points I'm not going to read all of them it really we kind of have a few things why we've listed some is with the pluses and some with the negatives pluses mean that it's an indication where we could see something positive that would lead to a positive impact on your enrollments the negative might be something that could indicate that there's a potential for enrollment to be the same or decline all right so this is really a key slide for for all of you to to Really hone in on so I wanted to give some perspective of what might be variables or things to think about for why enrollments could increase or potentially could see a decrease because we have some some negative signs here so we've
145had eight consecutive years where the K-8 enrollment has decreased but one thing that we did different in this modeling this year was as we had conversations with Administration about during your enrollment change and we started to look back with the data they provided as we looked at I think was March dates of enrollments from the student database going back the last five years one thing that was different this year was we've seen a positive increase and I know I heard this in some of your board meeting in the past and so what we ended up doing with our modeling was this is something unique and so we focused in when we geocoded those students to those specific areas and I made a attractiveness variable for those particular planning areas where we're seeing that during your
146growth and so what that did is something quite substantial when we get to the projections is instead of it being as much of a decline as we were showing last year or two years ago it's really kind of decreased that rate we still have the potential for the K-8 enrollment to decrease over the next five years but it's definitely not going to be at the rates that we were seeing last year so some of the driving forces for enrollment increase are listed below those last three boxes um so the big thing is development activity and the type of development activity so these two three bedrooms affordable housing that that could be a driving factor for being able to have households that may have school-aged children and then that migration Trend I think that's really big
147the full report we really try to capture specific groups that we're seeing that's a little bit different than two years ago and specifically the Ukrainian migrations is quite big um again looking to the Future some of the elements that could be important to what we see for your enrollment I really want to highlight that the second bullet point is when we have full day kindergarten I think that's going to have the ability to get more students in sooner than when they would be first graders and that's going to be important as we roll out all these changes here in the next few years because we won't see the bump from kindergarten to first grade like we currently are many of them are going to start in the kindergarten year again I've already mentioned some things
148with development and the migration so next slide I don't think that's my slide other content you wanted to share I'm going to ask the board if they have any questions about what Rob reviewed I think the thing that we've noticed with the data is we were seeing an increase in our early childhood numbers we're seeing a big increase in our El numbers so overall the decline that was projected or that we had seen for a while is really stabilizing and even on the rise and I agree with Rob we probably will have more kids come to us in kindergarten because of the full day offering which will then adjust down the number of kids we would typically then get in first grade so we're going to just watch the numbers but he's given us a
149lot of things to consider as we watch enrollment and continue to send our updated enrollment numbers on a monthly basis through and we're just watching certain areas where all the heat map looks different if you recall when we first started this work with RSP the heat map was just in the Northeast quadrant now you see different areas popping up within our boundaries where we're seeing also increases in enrollment so we're watching the numbers very closely any other questions for any questions for Rob feedback all right Rob thanks for hanging with us all right thank you take care bye okay an X Out of exit out of there any questions for the larger group because this does conclude our presentation from our wonderful team nope questions all right to digest it's good stuff pardon it's a
150lipid digest that everything is going as we as we had discussed earlier so that's nice all right thanks go home go to bed thank you all okay next up our overview of Junior High human growth and development I know there's a handful of you in the audience come on down [Applause] oh she's got Becca can you advance to their slide this was just are you doing it okay I've got control oh my goodness please take that away from him doctor probably not a bad idea yeah that's the president shoot five members of the board Dr Heinz thank you uh we have been engaging in a review of our Junior High human growth and development otherwise known as the sex ed module uh in our Junior highs we've called this a mini refresh because we've only
151reviewed this portion of our larger Health curriculum we're not making any changes to the health curriculum but we wanted to review this because of course there were questions raised about this portion early on the year and so we wanted to go through a systematic process to review it to determine what had been taught what we believe were the needs of our students moving forward and how we would address those uh next to me is of course Dr Emily McFadden who is the director of curriculum who has supported this process Miss Megan Price and Miss Julie Crawford who we all the four of us ultimately comprise the team who's responsible for this area and I want to thank them for the wonderful leadership and job they've done in this very uh tender topic so this first
152slide is a representation of what we call our rdim process it's a process that we use to systematically review and make decisions about any curricular area be it reading be it science be it math or be it this area the importance of showing you this slide is to give you an idea that this is not a process that is done willy-nilly but it is done with thought planning and tension and with any other curricular area it involves research multiple people looking at it coming to decisions to make sure those on the front lines who actually interact with our kids in a teaching perspective those people who have parents or children in the district those people who are mental health professionals those people who are Health Care Providers have input into what the larger student body
153needs are but also what are the best practices that we should engage in to make sure those needs are addressed and we will talk a little bit later on about some of those components and some of the res research that we did so you have a larger sense of the local standards of practice and what are considered to be best practices in this area now like any of our larger teaching and learning instruction our larger plan for core instruction is that it is balanced offers A diversity of perspectives on a subject matter and addresses the needs of a whole child so you can see that this little diagram here sees the three major areas that we look at in our students we want them to be academically prepared for future challenges we want them to
154have sufficient behavioral relationships and preparation to be an active citizen in their community and we want them to be confident and informed socially emotionally to make safe choices we feel that those three things comprise a healthy individual moving forward in district 15 into the high school and into adulthood those are all three important areas that all have to be addressed for a child to be ready to address and work within the diverse learning community and work community that is common in our nation today uh this is our true framework it's a framework that we have adopted over the last several years that reflects the major areas that we expect to see in our classrooms when any content is being taught and you can see it has several areas there one of the things that is
155important especially is this idea of agency ownership and identity this idea about being able to understand your world to make informed decisions if you're a young child is so that you can discuss this in important ways with your peers parents and Community as an older child so that you understand responsibility and the importance of having self-confidence and informed ways to address the world and the challenges around you so one of the things that we talk a lot about when we're talking about health instruction especially through our professional organizations namely shape America which informs a lot of our PE and health work is really around students grappling which is a true like framework favorite word that they use is the students are actually grappling with their thinking and their understanding and shape America calls that skills-based
156instruction and what that looks like I like to tell the story because I might have a thing for donuts my team can like really confirm that um if you have Donuts that are in your office and they look amazing like they always do and you walk past them um you know as an adult typically that those are maybe not the greatest choice for you they might not align with your health goals that you might have but we still might take one anyway the promise of that understanding is really that skills skills-based instruction really wants us to understand that that knowledge about what is good for us is not enough we have to be understanding of um how to make good choices in the face of a lot of different variables and we want our students
157to have those skills a lot of that involves practice but when we say practice we're talking not practicing of any acts of course we're talking about practice of conversation points so for example if students are really working through refusal skills we talk a lot a lot about that with consent and health in general those refusal skills would be something that we would want students to actually practice what what phrasing are you actually going to use in this situation what are you going to do if you have peer pressure those are pieces that we feel kids need to practice in order to actually understand how to implement for themselves in a safe way so that skills-based instruction is again taking things beyond the point of knowledge foreign the next slide please okay um so one of
158the things that we talk about when we talk about any of our content areas is what is the role of the teacher uh in the classroom because there are things that our teachers are there to do and there are other things that are they're not um for this particular content area we want to make sure that the teachers are there to provide medically accurate information that the information is developmentally appropriate that we are presenting to our students we want to make sure that those teachers have credible sources from which to present that information and then also we want to make sure that all of our students are feeling included that they are safe in that environment and that they are part of that discussion and that they feel that from their perspectives that they are
159being heard and seen and that they know that um those teachers are one of the trusted adults that they can go to when they have any concerns um we also want to make sure that we include in that group of people our Healthcare professionals that are in our buildings in that same capacity um and our health care our nurses and so on sometimes see kids and are able to provide medically accurate information as well and not necessarily that formal classroom um the things that our educators are not doing in this capacity when we're talking about this sex curriculum is that they're not there to in any way provide their own perspective influence anyone's decision making or in any way take away from that autonomy that a family has in order to share what it is
160that they believe in their own family structure and they should not in any way be influencing telling them when they should be engaged in any kind of Acts or so on from that Sexual Health standpoint sorry sorry I'm still talking you still get me um so we um pulled together as I said we really think that it's important there are so many people in our buildings that really touch um a part of this and have kids who are coming to them as confided adults and so we decided that it was super important to have a widespread of of people in our committee we had nurses Healthcare professionals administrators and then Health teachers from our junior high buildings and as well as working with us from the teaching and learning Department um we had several goals
161we wanted to make sure that we were reviewing what we were doing so that we made sure we were we were on the same page we then wanted to look at were we in compliance with the state mandates that we are required to follow and present in our in our classrooms and then we wanted to make sure we were reviewing what's Best Practices currently as as Megan stated in our health curriculum um and then identifying kind of where it is that we needed to close any gaps if any um and we'll get to exactly what some of those decisions were making in a moment um and then we want to make sure that our staff were trained what were their needs what were they asking for and because we had those Health Educators right in
162the room with us they told us what they needed and they made sure that we were going to have that on our agenda moving forward um and then we wanted to make sure that we had a clear communication plan with all of you so that we were informing everybody what was that results of our rdim cycle for this particular piece of our health curriculum so that we make sure that we're very transparent so that moving forward everybody can understand what it is that we are and are not doing thank you so I wanted to pause for just one moment and thank our committee members they are an amazing group of people truly um they put a lot of time and energy and deep passion and Care into this in service of our students so I
163want to honor that work and and really acknowledge it um part of this as Julie mentioned is really taking a hard look at what we've done in the past um for transparency sake just so we can go through what has been done in district 15 we've used Candor health and Glenco Teen Health for nearly a decade Glenco Teen Health it was adopted in 2013-2014 school year it was published around that time obviously at this point knowing that it's really covering medical information it makes it pretty outdated as we know we've all been living through pandemic life for the last few years that alone should kind of speak to us about how outdated 2013 feels in terms of publishing of our materials so that's definitely something that we are ongoing reviewing and looking at Candor Health
164in particular we have done on a yearly basis they have live presenters that are public health professionals and health education professionals that come in and speak to students with staff present and in the past they have been coming in seventh grade typically in the spring so those are our past practices Glenco Teen Health is of course provided by our district 15 PE Health teachers we as Julie mentioned we are really looking at what our past practices were closely so that we are able to understand how those compare to the research and policy that's out there what do we have to do what are we not doing that we have to do if anything and how are we able to help our practices meet our community and meet our students needs thank you so on the
165note of area practices one of the things that we really were looking at especially with the state's different considerations with the national sex education standards is what districts are and aren't using around us and what policy tells us we need to use versus what some are choosing to use so out of the districts that we've spoken to we spoke to nearly 30 districts about 29 two of them have adopted the national sex ed standards and these are just to clarify Elementary School Districts 73 percent of the 29 area districts use either Candor health education and or Lurie Children's Department of Adolescent Medicine resources neither program is fully aligned we will talk in a little bit about the actual specifications of the program that we're choosing that might help with that question about alignment with standards
166but just to be clear those are they're not fully aligned with the National Standard thank you um the content aligns with past practices of district 15 over the last 10 years so those things are are still all aligned with one another um the remaining 27 percent of the districts are typically using internally created resources there are a few one-offs that are using resources that they're fully saying are outdated or not usable for much longer and most districts are in some level of a review similar to us but they are using things that are covering the same topics we were sure to ask them about which topics they are using which makes us really in in pretty close alignment with what most districts around us are doing in the elementary buildings thank you when we are
167entering a review cycle some of the things that we're looking at with standards around what we do and don't need to cover are really getting ourselves organized around topics we again lean on those medical and professional organizations to help us make sure that we have accurate sources of information to be able to share with students and teachers our core goals and our core guiding Concepts here are really around creating empathetic students that can enter our world as Dr Edgar said as contributing citizens that show care and concern for those around them no matter who they are we are also trying to instill positive School climate in our district which I think our schools are amazing at and we want to maintain that we also want to have affirmation for all students and again that medical
168accuracy piece cannot be stressed enough it is critical to this work especially in our given given our current climate where there's a lot of different feelings about what's factual and what's not we have to take careful look at what we're sharing with our students and more than that how we're helping them discern information for themselves based on the Illinois standards and mandates that we are required to cover we do have these general areas that we've kind of broken out into General Health and promotion there's recognition and prevention of injury and illness problem solving and conflict resolution abuse and personal safety which does start to be aligned with Aaron's law which is where we have kind of separate instruction happening in our district hygiene puberty body systems and sexual health and then influence and evaluation of
169media internet technology we know that's playing a role in all of these pieces we are really looking at making sure that all of these pieces that we're building into our instruction that were required to do are developmentally appropriate for students and we're leaning heavily on professional organizations to help us determine those pieces there's a lot of alignment across the Illinois standards and many other sets of Standards including the national standards there's just alignment by nature of them having similar Topics in the same way that literacy standards would look the same or similar across really closely aligned grade levels or states or even National standards so we see a lot of that overlap there we're also looking at not that highly effective instruction we want to make sure that our instructional practices are such that our
170students are engaged and they understand what we're asking them to do with the information that they have when we're looking at all of these instructional pieces that we have to cover one of the big questions that we have whenever we're doing a review cycle is how we tell if we are on the right track how do we tell if the resources that we are considering using or have been using are aligned with the instructional requirements that we have from the state when we are looking at professional organizations every single one of them that we looked at really directed us back to the CDC health education curriculum analysis tool the nickname for that is the hecat so that you don't have to say all of those things over and over again it has several different areas
171that I'm not going to read every single piece of them to you it's a very very extensive document it does have a sexual health education module to it that we utilize to help us make decisions again as Julie stated the idea here is to not have our personal values and beliefs in this work as much as humanly possible that is not our role our role is to make sure that we are serving as many of our students as we possibly can so we used this document and actually had one of our nurses commend us because she was really doing her own research and was excited to see from a medical organization a tool that helped support health education so that was really nice this tool really came with unanimous support from our committee they ended
172up using it and answering questions about it very similarly across all of the different domains about all of the different resources out there and the spoiler with this is that there really aren't that many resources out there there are especially not resources that really allow you to purchase individual modules but even then there's very few I mean we can all understand at this point why people aren't itching to get into writing curriculum for this at this point but there really are very few resources that are out there so we used this to try to evaluate the resources that we had close by um when we're talking about the committee's recommendation we thought about it in a couple of different Avenues there are pieces of this work because district 15 has such high quality Educators and
173and really is thoughtful about the work that we try to do there are pieces of this work that we want to continue um one of the big pieces as you know we want to continue using Candor health education we specifically want to use teen sexual health course one this one focuses a lot more on Anatomy prevention and treatment of disease as required by the Illinois state standards and mandates we want to continue to monitor the policy we know that as as usual with the state a lot of these things are frequently changing so we are constantly monitoring when these mandates update when the state is changing something and we're also really paying attention to our staff and student data we took a lot of consideration from our staff members this is a very very difficult
174area for them to teach for a lot of reasons but I think generally the societal view of this content area makes it feel very risky for them and we really want to honor that and take into consideration how we support them so we're going to continue to monitor all of those pieces and envelopment we want to make a few shifts we are moving to align a little bit closer with those around us from seventh grade to eighth grade delivery of this material for the most part there are a few pieces in the Illinois State mandates that we do have to cover in each grade level but for the most part the bulk of this instruction would happen in eighth grade we are still working out the exact timing I know there's still some questions about
175when in eighth grade I think that's something that we still have to look through Staffing for to make decisions about but we are trying to make that as responsive to our students staff and scheduling needs as as possible and Megan just so everyone's clear I know we mentioned this a few months ago but our seventh graders participated in this module last year so they're our current 8th graders so we're covered this year we have to determine when we're going to um utilize or have kids engage in this curricular module when they're in eighth grade right of next year right just want to make sure yes um the other component of this is that Candor health does not cover all of the Illinois State mandates or standards in the same way that they don't cover all
176of the national standards there are pieces of the Illinois state standards and mandates that we are going to have to create some internal lesson plans for we have plenty of internal resources that we can use to do those pieces and would make those transparent to parents and caregivers in the same way that we would with any of the other pieces of this and then the final thing that we wanted to really look at is what what do we need to improve or enhance um so a couple of things we have always presented a letter to parents so that they had the opportunity to opt out of this for their student for any reason there's no particular reason that a parent may decide this and there's no judgment as to why or when that that is
177determined for them um that is a mandate and uh we're going to talk a little bit about that particular opt-out but we've always had that practice but we wanted to see what can we do to better inform so that we can really enhance that practice so um starting in parent orientation which is the beginning of the year we would just make sure that our parents were informed this is happening in eighth grade right that's a shift and we want to make sure just like with any other curricular area they're informed right at the beginning of period orientation that this is coming down the line and they should expect a letter from US we would be presenting to them a letter that would have an opt-out option for them a simple Google form that they could
178provide to us um and but also we wanted to take it up a notch and make sure that they know what they're opting in or out about so having parent presentations that would give them the opportunity to hear and see and ask questions about what it is that's going to happen in those classroom with their students this is important for two reasons one is we want to be transparent so that they're fully aware of what's happening with their students the other reason is so that they can have that role as a parent to follow up with their students to have those discussions at home and to really know what's going on so that they can they can come together as a family to help the support their students um we want to make sure that
179um we're training our teachers and we're also informing our staff in the rest of the building when is this going on this may you know cause some scuttlebutt around and this is the kinds of things that might stir up eighth graders right they're going to be talking and so we want to make sure that everybody's aware in the building when it's happening when that instruction is taking place um so informing the staff informing you know the administration making sure everybody's on that page it also may you know come up some trauma for kids that it may bring up things for them that they weren't aware of and so we want to make sure that the mental health professionals our nurses are aware this content is being presented at a particular time the parents know it
180everyone in the building knows it and so we're supporting our students in a 360 model the other reason to make sure that our parents are informed of this information is if they decide to opt out they may have the info information that they can go ahead and present to their child as they desire at home if that's their choice so really being transparent being proactive in that communication just that much more and making sure everybody who is involved in supporting those students and those teachers is aware of what's going on all right um so one of the pieces that's been referred to is the opt-out process the state of Illinois has a process already in place uh that mandates school districts uh to allow families to opt out without cause or reason for a variety
181of topics um some of the ones that you know are included are things along the lines of SEC you know sex ed as we're talking about um sexual abuse so part of this is we want to not just be transparent so families feel in control of being able to make decisions that feel right for them but the state also has a process that we want to be transparent about so that families know that there is an option and and that control I think is really helpful so that they know that they're in the driver's seat of that they know what it is that we as a school district are doing and then they get to make a choice um thankfully that opt out process has been in place for a long time but it we
182want to continue to promote and make sure families are aware of it because again we want them to feel as partners in this process with us one thing just really quickly to add to that is that students that opt out of this sorry keep pushing the table students who opt out of this with their families they are it's important to us in the terms of our values as Julie mentioned um to really not cause any judgment on any of those students so we are also committed to making sure that they're experienced through that process if they choose to opt out is one that is as comfortable for them as possible we know that it's already a difficult topic for a lot of people for a lot of reasons so we want to make sure that
183we're caring for our students in any level of these different scenarios that they might go through and that all of those pieces are presented to our family so that everyone's aware with enough time ahead to make thoughtful decisions and to really have those conversations and review materials in a reasonable way so what are our next steps um we still have work to do so um part of it is is that you know what we do for any curriculum is as we adapt things we create a scope and sequence and we want to make sure that the timing the pacing um all of those things align and make sense so creating that scope and sequence is really um you know one of our first our first next steps if you will additionally professional development you know
184just as again we do for any of our Educators here we want to be up to speed and everybody to be on the same page of what's expected what's best practice what are we as a district committed to so um providing that professional development for those Junior High teachers specifically is going to be something that we're going to be we've started but we're going to be continuing to do on an ongoing basis in a very intentional way again giving families both the opportunity and information well ahead of time we don't want this to be a last minute oh I missed something my child didn't bring home a letter I didn't check my email and see that we want to make sure this is really done in a thoughtful and timely manner so that people can
185both have information think about what feels right for them have conversations reach out and ask questions and then make decisions and not feel rushed within that process um so we are you know we are you know committed to making sure that this process has at least at least five weeks in there if not longer um so that again parents and families have time to make choices that feel right for them um and then again we're always working with staff the rdim process while the big chunk of it happens at once it's never ending we're constantly working with staff we're checking in what's working what's not what do we need to think about and those conversations are going to continue because we're constantly refining what we do um and so we're going to continue with that
186feedback in and monitoring process um with our staff and our families because again we want to do right by our community here and then um we have this is again just one small slice it's one small slice of Junior High Health we have K-8 Health um our job next is to start in the next school year an rdim cycle to look at our our full um scope of K-8 health and again go through the same rigorous process of looking at what's you know what is best practice what is out there what is our community doing our neighboring districts doing um you know what is the state telling us that we have to do which is first and foremost so again um you know this work never ends this is again just a mini refresh uh
187bite it is part of a much larger process that we're going to continue going through um on behalf of our students and community what questions can we answer for all of you we're happy to always be answering questions but especially related to the things that you've heard tonight uh what are you guys targeting to actually have the work completed we are sorry we are working through working through um as Emily mentioned and and Dr Heinz mentioned we have um eighth grade incoming eighth grade students that need to ex be exposed to this material they have not yet gone through any sexual health education so we need for them to be able to go through that by the end of eighth grade um to be compliant with all of the state standards and mandates um typically
188because of the way that our structuring of scope and sequence work goes is that a lot of that is done in the summer so Our intention is to have that done by the Fall a couple more no probably more like the beginning before school starts yeah we like to have those Scopes and sequences in all of our plans ready and available for teachers by the by the day students walk in that door okay thanks can you speak to the rationale of shifting from seventh grade to eighth grade I heard that it was more in line with other districts around us but just curious more of the rationale for for that decision sure there's a few different pieces of that I think um as we all know with middle school students there's a wide breadth of
189Readiness for some of those topics I think that whether you're looking at the Illinois standards or the national standards all of them are are based on a sixth through eighth grade band so their requirement is that you're going through the end of eighth grade as a deadline essentially we know that our students are also like I said in developmental levels where some of them may be ready in seventh grade for some of that material and then some of them may not even know some components of really any of the pieces of what we're talking about with this content and their ability to really grasp that and understand it and utilize it to be safe is is less so we're trying to not just align with districts around us but also align with the band that
190the state is asking us to do and then trying to meet the developmental needs of our students making you guys indicated that um yes yeah yeah hired not talking as loud as usual um continuing to use the Candor health education team Sexual Health course one so that leads me to believe that there are a lot of different modules to Candor health so it's not a one and done type of a thing exactly they offer a wide variety of courses um and those are different links and with different topics and so if you go on the Candor website they'll they are very explicit in telling you which of those courses exist and which of the Illinois standards that they are addressing as to what Megan said they don't actually in the course we use they don't
191even address all of the Illinois standards so yes the standards are really meant so the districts and and communities can make choices about what feels right for their their groups you're also talking about um 90-minute presentations that are done um I think the reality of what you can cover in a 90-minute chunk of time is maybe different than um the depth that those standards are in any standards honestly are going through I think it's not possible to cover them all in that amount of time um so we are considering all of the pieces that we're required to do and that analysis has been done by our committee of of what they do and don't cover through their 90 minutes and then what we're responsible for beyond that with the state can I just ask as
192um we as you complete the work of what you're going to present there's some in the community that are are very concerned about this topic and um can I ask if there's any opportunities for open houses or so that parents can come and have questions you know have a question and answer session so that we could just be more transparent about what we're doing for sure one of our planned communication pieces is an event that families will be able to attend um given the availability and distance of you know all of our vendors and the availability of our community based on feedback that we've had this year through our parent universities is that event would likely be virtual but there will absolutely be a question and answer opportunity for any parents and caregivers that have
193students that are going through that content so they have an opportunity as Emily had said well in advance of instruction taking place so that we can help them understand and make informed decisions yes in advance of the opt-out process so we would say five weeks out potentially you would do your parent education event then you would give families at least three weeks with that opt-out process to continually review look at the process and determ make a determination and then obviously we would need a little bit of time to determine what how many students that is supervision of those students Etc so we would take the last week of that time to make really informed decisions as a building for what to do in those in those situations you can build that in also to meet
194the teacher walk your schedule at the junior high that's when you have a large amount of families coming together they want especially you know seventh and then even 8th graders find their locker walk their schedule you've got a lot of Junior High parents High attendance rates curriculum night at the beginning of the year map it all out put this date in your calendar you could start from the beginning of the school you could start with Summer mailers there's there's so many ways to make sure that we engage our parents and that they're aware and I would say honestly like our parents come in often around this time of year they look at the material they make decisions for their family and that's how it should be which is why so many districts are leaning heavily
195into the opt out whether or not they adopt nses or Illinois state standards they want the parents to decide if the time and the content is right for their child and if they want the school to deliver that information or if they would rather do that themselves and nothing's going to change with with that in District 15. the parents need to be the drivers or the caregivers of whether or not they want their children to participate and you know Candor makes their their presentations and slides available but what we want to do though is intentionally have a D15 opportunity in night because to Megan's point for it's 90 minutes so only only some you know like there's only so much really being covered and in addition to that there are so many courses so it's
196very easy to think oh we're doing all of these things when we're not we want it to personalize it you know we want this to be a personalized experience so we do as a d as a district want to offer that kind of um you know more community-based opportunity for our families to make decisions for their for their students so yes Candor may offer these things but we want to help be a partner in that so that when questions arise we we can talk about these things so so Dr heinz's Point people can make decisions that are the right for their family and I assume as part of your process that you've you've looked at the various modules that Candor offers as as part of the process and picked one that was could you know
197that that was consistent with all the all the values that you discussed you know one of the ones you discussed the developmentally appropriate um inclusive all those different things so I'm sure you you guys have been through and you probably have seen some modules that you didn't think were appropriate for this community so bear we we had several vendors come in to talk about their products how they're taught what's taught in them and whatnot so we did a review with that we also reviewed various curriculum that might not have a vendor directly attached with it so that we really were very informed about what the options are how they aligned with our board policy about providing balance instruction that does not only provide one side of an issue but provides multiple pictures of it and
198and that's really allowed us to make sure that we were making this decision in a way we thought was very informed and appropriate given our past practices and and what our student body needs to remain safe and secure in making good decisions the other part is along with these new enhancements to engage parents the the letter we've always provided but apparent night we've not had that's a new one Candor does provide a video as that will provide as part of these parent nights that parents can look at in addition to our work where all the slides that Candor uses in the discussion that is typically had about the slides can be viewed at home so so there's really I mean they'll know what we are working with Canada to do but they'll be able to
199fully look at what candor's talking points around these things are so you can see whether or not there are things like role plays which are not mentioned in there however you know they will talk about what these are the talking points you would see so parents have a much more realistic picture about how a concept is introduced and and I think that will disarm several people and it will Empower others to say you know that this this might not be for my family and so this is something that I wouldn't want my child to attend or some will say you know I thought this was more or different than it was I think this would be okay and at that parent night they can ask more particular personal questions to make sure that they are
200able to make the most informed decision for their family their values what they want their children to take away from this as possible I think it's about informed decisions it's also about you know letting you know what we do and don't cover for the sake of if you want to go in a additional directions with your family you are having awareness of what your child has experienced and then you're able to build on that with your conversations at home I think there's a lot of layers to that informed nature I think we're also really leaning heavily again on those professional organizations in the health education world and then in the medical field to be able to help us make decisions about that so that it's not our opinions about what is developmentally appropriate because to
201be frank everyone has different opinions about that based on a lot of different personal factors and demographics so we're really trying to be as objective about that as we possibly can with the really that lean in on our professional organizations [Music] sorry candy I think that's good I mean I just you know as a parent with with kids in district 15 out that three of them over well two of them are out of district 15 so I have a recent memory of this I've actually found that the sex ed program I know we're talking about changing it but it does sometimes at least in my house it was able to facilitate the discussion of how these Concepts uh how they how they work around with our own personal family values and so it does uh
202facilitate the conversation about okay here's what we're learning what you know what do we believe what what you know how does this work with our world view and and maybe our religious beliefs and these sort of things so I think it's it's a great opportunity to facilitate that discussion especially for people like me who don't want to have that talk ever so it's nice to have that kind of entry into uh you know like an introduction into having that discussion and Our intention would be that that capability would still be there for sure thank you I just want to say thank you all for all of the work and as we have talked about that it is a sensitive topic and appreciate you all honoring the rdim process and sticking to um what we've committed
203to as a district so thank you so much thank you all very much thank you thank you and I just like to recognize this team you you can tell by the way that the conversation was weighted that there's a lot of competence on on the side of the table this has been handled in a very thorough thoughtful way and I just it's really been a pleasure to work with the team that has engaged a series of stakeholders and done a really good job on on trying to come to what we think is the best decision we could thank you all Dr Heinz could we could we go through the interscholastic sports I know that the the agenda has like the calendar between would that be okay okay can we move it to the end of
204the night okay thank you that's Lori's way of saying talk fast top I just won't let him talk it's fine don't worry we got it usually so um as you know we have a very comprehensive and um yeah and desirable offering in our inner Scholastic Sports it includes several variations of various Sports we're fairly competitive with our other uh schools in the area and we have actively been looking to see if there are ways that we can always expand the opportunities that our children have through their schools and that includes also what we offer in terms of our interscholastic Sports as you know there's we've been approached you know uh several times around is there a possibility of making expansions to what we currently offer and so we wanted to take some time to talk
205about how we use our rdim process as we go through to determine what we offer how it fits with local standards of process of practice how it fits with our student body needs and are there opportunities to update and enhance what we offer from what we currently do because maybe student needs interest facilities expansions Etc have allowed us to do different things than we have in the past so it's fortuitous that we had all of the Architects here talking about 15 forward we're talking about rdims because this is really where the combination of all of those things um so we are actually at the perfect time to be going through another review cycle um but this time for our um our Sports offerings and specifically because we are shifting from having 7th and 8th graders
206at a junior high model to having sixth seventh and eighth graders now at a middle school model um and we are already starting our work with looking at all of the different opportunities we can be providing in middle school for our middle school students but this this is really the time and place for us to start looking at and thinking about what opportunities do we want to have like what have we offered previously what do we want to be offering what is the with our new facilities that we were all just looking at what potential exists there and I think again that's a large conversation that we're having about middle schools overall and and this is a really exciting slice that we get to to talk about um so you know we have enrollment changing
207we have different grades going to be there we have an additional school so we're going from four to five it's it's going to be a lot of planning um but it's really exciting and I think the thing we keep talking about is just this doesn't get to happen often you don't get this opportunity in districts to really re-envision an experience for students and and our Junior High's turning the middle schools are are that opportunity and quite frankly we're geeked out about it like this this is this is the fun stuff um and so we're going to be engaging in an rdim process um to really think about and take a hard look at what we have traditionally done and what opportunities could there be um to create and enhance and and provide even more options
208um on the table for kids I'm gonna I'm kind of go off that just a little bit um just to talk about what typically we've done for sixth grade this just is talking about inner classic but just to to put that middle school piece on it and connect it a little bit um typically our sixth graders have experienced intramural sports and then they have three district-wide events throughout the year um they have a typically a cross-country meet a two ball which you saw here we had our Awards um a couple months ago or whatever and um and then a track meet at the end of the year they also do other intramurals besides those in their buildings throughout the year and um the the kids love being a part of that it really tease them
209up for getting involved in inters classic Sports at the junior high level which is the purpose of that um and so um and and it really tease them up for that whole idea of school spirit as well they're really into there's nothing more magical than I'm playing with your school colors on and being part of that whole team identity and again with that Middle School model moving they get to be then part of that in that whole Middle School group so typically right now what we have in our Junior High inters classic Sports again at the junior highs we do also have intramural sports going on as well so this isn't the only thing going on we have three no cut Sports and five cup Sports our three no cut sports are cross-country track and
210wrestling and yes we do have girls this past year we had 15 girls who wrestled um and did Fabulous so it was pretty cool it is an up-and-coming sport for women let me tell you um so it's really exciting I just wanted to give you a few numbers because I think these are pretty impressive um I'm just going to go through our Sports cross country this year we had 316 students are wrestling 152 soccer we had 301 uh basketball 200 and girls volleyball 112 and track we are going to have 490 students participating in track and and Tom is is you know staring darts over at me because we have to move those people and with some of our moving 15 forward we're moving them because we have limited track use because of that so
211we're making accommodations and our transportation has been awesome at supporting us and making that happen thank you my kids would love it Tom okay um so all told this year we'll have about 1600 athletes participating in our Junior High programs which is just super impressive and um and we have about um I think last counters about 70 coaches as well so the opportunity for kids and coaches who are teachers during the day to connect in this other Arena it's just super exciting we talk about our SEL and connection with kids and making sure we're taking care of them I know I got comments again and again from our wrestling coaches about how engaged some of our students who in the doldrum of winter and they weren't as engaged and excited about going to school just
212woke up and just took on a whole nother look at their schooling because of their involvement in our wrestling program which was just really a wonderful thing to hear so we're really excited to have so such high participation numbers they bounce back immediately after the pandemic last year just as a total number we had about 590 I'm sorry 1590 students so we're just a little higher this year but it bounced back immediately kids want to be connected they want to be part of a sport they want to put on their school colors and represent their school in a special way and we are thrilled that we're able to do it in such a robust way um we may not have as many sports as other schools but our numbers of participation are enormous um so
213one of the things that we started looking at is can we add other things because sure we would love to right we would always love to be able to address the needs of anyone who's interested we have some Spirit squads that operate um and uh cheer that that kind of do it off the side that are not intersclassic competitive sports but they're operating in our buildings as we speak so we wanted to say can we do other interscholastic sports competitive Sports so we looked at are we flipped there yes so we looked at you know what is our building use and this is current right this is not after our wonderful beautiful places that we're going to have as our three or five middle schools um but we were really landlocked we went to our
214uh building administrators twice last year and then again this year to see what is this like what does this feel like can we expand or not and and the answer was our gyms are used throughout the whole year in our inters classic Sports because as our fall and spring need to go inside because of inclement weather they use those gyms as the exercise rooms or the workout rooms and the practice rooms we often have kids doing jogging and exercising in the hallway and um and so on so that they can get that in when the weather is bad outside luckily we've had a beautiful week to start start our girls soccer and I think we're going to have another good day for our first track meets tomorrow so um so we were really kind of
215confined we couldn't expand at that time now looking at what our opportunities going to be once we have these enhanced facilities we also have to recognize we're going to have more kids more grade levels in those facilities as well and how are those kids going to articulate our our sixth grade is going to keep on with our intramurals or not so those are all the decisions we get to have fun with and we get to explore and we get to explore with our kids and find out what are they interested in what do they want to do it moving forward um so we're really interested in how all that's going to look once we got these facilities in our heads and try and couple them with what else can we do go ahead next steps
216yeah I think it's you actually think it's time hand Dodge to everyone so um as you can tell we have several things to continue in exploring this to see what options we can actually offer in the future the first is looking to see how the middle school facilities finally come out thankfully we've been able to provide some input along the way and just just as a small example like we'll now have multi-purpose rooms in each of the each of the middle schools an important piece will be do they have appropriate anchors for like a volleyball net you know it's like like you know the space is one piece but the setup is another so thankfully we've been able to provide some input to the group who's making this larger plan so that we can utilize
217those spaces maybe in ways without that input might have been more limited so we're really hopeful that with the expansion of indoor areas that we'll be able to of course provide more offerings in one way or another to our youth another piece of it is you know we've we've been talking a lot about one sport but the real question is is is that what students really want is that what really is primary in their level or priority for us to look into so the other part with new opportunities is trying to solicit information on what does the student body see as the most important expansions if we were able to provide that what's going to fit with current interests trends that our students have and how that might fit with new sixth graders even coming
218in right so that's another piece the other of course is talking with our coaches and administration about what infrastructure changes we might need to have to support expanded Sports offerings there's a financial piece of course but there's also just a willingness of coaches to be available to coach an additional sport or Sports Etc so we have to see on our end whether or not there is interest or things that we could set up so that we have appropriate staff for whatever expansion as well and then finally we're looking at of course providing you guys with updates as we get closer to the moving 15 forward implementation so that you're well aware of what we found what we're anticipating to offer there can be questions it also is a way of informing the broader Community about
219our progress as well and and what we're thinking in terms of the information we collected and what it means for our final destination in 2425 are there any questions about interscholastic Sports just curious how you're going to solicit student interests [Music] I'll let the new doctor talk about methodology for soliciting students um you know this is we have two processes really happening we're gonna have a middle middle school committees running to help really develop these robust exciting schools and then we'll have this rdim group looking specifically at um our inner Scholastic I think that my guess will be we will have multiple surveys going out to kids right like it's we want to have the right inner Scholastic sports that they're interested in but to Julie's point it's not that's just one thing that we
220offer we have club sports and and um and clubs and and after school and extracurriculars and we want to get their feedback as to what are all of those things that they want um so that we can be really mindful of creating a a very holistic robust programming opportunity for kids and so we'll do we'll do surveys if we need to do focus groups we'll do that but we want kids to be driving this um with us so we're gonna work with them and get their feedback and boys volleyball will be on the survey right absolutely and but it's interest for everything right and we also want it to be open and right because getting a pickleball I mean like there's just things that kids are really into and we want to we want it
221all to be on the table so yes we of course are going to put all of the large sports that we know whether our district or our neighboring districts are doing so because if this is a competitive sport we want to make sure we have people to play I don't think anybody's doing pickleball yet make sure Billy gets the kids on it thank you there's a quick question so I obviously this is all Forward Thinking and planning for the future how young will you go with the survey will you do all students like thinking you know I mean our current what would it be fourth fourth graders would be in our new middle schools right so we would go that low to see what their interests were but would we go younger like to see
222what our I don't know first graders are aspiring to play I don't know how how young would you go kids are really exposed Expo anything because I think our PE teachers and our specials teachers do such a great job exposing kids to a variety of extra interest to have and so that changes so much between first and you know second and third grade but yeah we're going to like we're going to have to as a committee decide who are we getting input from do we want to talk to kids who maybe have already gone through the district to say now that I'm in high school and I see what we have offered here you know like let's let's really get a wide variety um but we did also have talked about you know the whole
223purpose of what our sixth grade currently does is to set them up to go to Junior High and know what those options are so then we need to have conversations about what are we doing then at the elementary schools so our elementary kids have a voice in terms of starting up clubs right because every year at the building level they have input into clubs that we offer and then they they just need to let their voices be heard and they have to find a sponsor so we have a wide array of clubs that we offer both at lunch some I think maybe even after school at the elementary level so that's potentially more where we could elicit Elementary voice in making sure that all kids know that they can try to form a club of
224based on their interests I would just like to add that expanding can mean many things expanding can mean adding additional sports or can mean we have I I have the number somewhere but not right in front of me how many kids like try out for particular sports that are cut Sports and so enhancing or expanding could mean having a more robust intramural program for those kids who don't make those cut sports but want to continue to develop say basketball right kids don't grow and develop all at the same rate and so as they you know get taller you don't know when that's going to happen but they want to continue to hone their basketball skills even though this year they may not have made the team so enhancing expanding all that can can morph into
225many different ways on how we want to include as many kids as possible one of the things that's nice about our current program is kids can they can participate in every single season um in different sports which is a really wonderful thing at this age for reducing overuse injuries um and so on and it gives them kind of that Smorgasbord to decide like what do I want to then focus on when I get to high school how can I develop this skill more so that when I won't go to try out for my high school basketball team I'll have that confidence um so I think expanding can mean many things it doesn't always have to mean another of something different um so I think we have to look at it in a very comprehensive way
226and we have the opportunity to do that right now which is really exciting it's an expansion mean um going into a more I is a yeah thank you yes um it could right um uh there are area schools that participate in the basketball for that um those are possibilities as well so we'll explore that as part of it that just adds another layer of competition either for our our no cut Sports our track in our cross country but it could add another layer of competition for our cut Sports such as our volleyball and basketball teams they don't have soccer for IESA okay all right thank you very much so I'd like to just thank Julie Julie's knowledge about our interscholastic Sports and just how to look at it it's scary yes it is and it's
227it's very detailed and just thinking about it in creative ways has been a really it's been it's been it's very well developed and you've been a terrific thought partner so I just wanted to recognize that thank you thank you thank you Emily and Julie thanks everybody thank you and you have a quick update on insurance trends yeah we're going to do an insurance and then calendar okay very good okay so just very quickly um this is a few short slides on the um uh renewal of the insurance rates which you'll hold on in the action items the Lara group we've been working with them for several years it used to be I think AGM and another with alera I think it was the ATM but um next slide um so um I want to just
228recognize that the district Insurance committee we met in February and we met in person uh it's the first time we met in person since I started here so it was I believe it was really great to get everybody in the room together um uh just several representatives from the AGM um the CTC representatives and District administration and we we had a long meeting and made AGM presented or presented several ideas and we did land on a Lisa and worked with CTC and they landed on a few which I'm grateful and want to put that out there that they worked hard on this so uh these are a few just High bullet points of what is driving medical rates these days inflation of course raising Health Care rates and Pharmacy costs they expect there will be
229some impact in next year and now too uh trying to show a spike in the use of specialty drugs and obesity medications which are major cost drivers to insurance plans covet 19's impact on health and Health Care utilization continues particularly Mental Health Services Fallout from the pandemic compounded by stress on employees cause caused by high inflation these things are making people have anxiety and related side effects next slide so they did present several options as they said and we the committee uh agreed to adopt prudent RX it's a copay optimization program that allows members to obtain specialty medications at no cost and applies to all specialty medications there's this thing about a coupon prudent will reach out to those individuals who are have a specialty medication and will give them a coupon and they use
230that at the pharmacy and it's a really great savings for them can save the district 272 000 annually so with that that's the major change in the medical plan and so um we have a premium increase of only 4.9 I do think that's reasonable considering there's a trend about of seven percent next slide and then we also have um would like to report that we are going to switch from Blue Cross Blue Shield dental to Delta Dental I've had that in several previous districts that's very very common provider and it will result in a decrease of 1.8 percent but we are able to offer um adult orthodontia with a maximum benefit of for staff independence of fifteen hundred dollars but we still will see savings and VSP which is a great vision program we have
231is also for you know with no proposed changes no rate increases so again thank you to everybody on the insurance committee we look forward to more more importantly meetings together being abreast of uh what's happening with our health plan and um so I ask you to approve our rates during the action items any questions oh thank you Diana and team sure if Lisa's on the line still Rebecca do you know oh you have the calendar oh sorry sure come on down yes that's it you're almost like The Wizard of Oz like I heard the voice so um did you guys did you get a copy of the updated 120. yep um so uh president Dr hives the members of the board and the community I'm here to tell you we have another updated calendar um
232but this is the last one um don't cheat the messenger but no um in all honesty you know um Lisa really felt that it was really important to hear the community and what they were saying she heard what you were all saying talking to the teachers into the unions and so we did make some minor changes for the upcoming school year um and uh one of the things that was a common message was around when we were starting that it was an earlier start so we did change the start date from that August 11th which was a Friday to August 14th it's one day which is a Monday but then we have a Monday start Monday Tuesday Wednesday would be the Institute days and then students would start on that Thursday so it does push
233it back a little bit um and that keeps us in line with that mid-august start for our students um and then uh the other change is in January we typically have a one day Institute day uh and for next year we're looking at separating that out and making it two half days so that the students still have credit for being in school but we're not taking a full complete day off um and the teachers still will get the professional development that they need and want so those are the two big changes um the good news is we're still out before Memorial Day so we can still support all the construction that we heard tonight about um so but that would be based on all the information that we've heard is there any questions yeah I
234can ask no it's just those couple days yeah and Lisa did talk with the Union about splitting up those Institute days and we're taking that third institution Bank putting in in August because we want to have two full days of chance training um for the staff before school starts honor the Loa which will give teachers time to set up in their classrooms and then schools whether it be I meet the teacher or walk your schedule with giving the principals a little bit of time as well to welcome staff and go over the massive amount of information that they want to share at the beginning of a school year so all right thank you thank you all right reading an acceptance of minutes you have a motion please make a motion to prove the minutes from
235the March 8 2023 regular meeting of the Board of Education and executive session is attached second discussion all in favor aye aye motion carries um board committee reports Edward Frank okay so um what has passed recently uh is that the uh the tenure dismissal hearings bill with uh student protections that did that passed the house almost unanimously um they're still working on the bill for new student arrivals to get more funding to uh districts that are you know have more children showing up as uh refugees um and let's see of course the tip reform where he talked about that and that's uh I'd say that was most of the highlights there nice all right let's move on move on so one pipe Foundation um had their 50 50 raffle excuse me and the winner took
236home fifteen thousand dollars minus taxes of course so what 10 bucks or something um the next event will be uh the fun family run on May 20th so check the website for tickets for that and then coming soon we'll also be a staff the staff tributes those are coming up as well thank you very much finance committee no new updates at this time but I know we're looking we we tried to get a date and then there were a few people that couldn't participate so I will be reaching out to you this week to with a couple dates that the whole team will be available and we hope that you will be able to make it after work as well okay Equity committee it's a bear Sam Sam uh we met with Dr Heinz earlier
237this week um and Robin and talked about uh timeline for strategic plan so the district should have the draft ready for our May meeting um the equity committee will meet in advance of that to review ask questions and be a first look um to go through that so we're excited about that and then we're planning on continuing to talk about a how are we shopping out the Strategic plan to the community so they have an opportunity to see it and ask questions as well and then the role of the equity committee moving forward so that we are aligning our work of our committee to the Strategic plan and what that means for our for our board more broadly and I think we also contemplate like that that might mean that we're we're the committee where
238we're evaluating how the Strategic plan is being adhered to overall you know over time or after after it's developed makes good sense all right thanks before we go to 9 points let me bring up a couple things everyone should have received anything would you come up just while you're yeah everyone should have received an email about filing their statement of economic interest by May 1st the um that was one the second thing is Lori and I had tentatively scheduled an iasb starting right um meeting or clinic whatever you want to call it um for May 22nd with the anticipation that maybe we would have some new board members since that's not the case are you interested in doing it do we need it or do should we cancel let's cancel all right [Music] she's like
239are you kidding me one more night forget it are you really okay with that yeah I heard it a few times yes I had it set up as a I hope we don't need it thankfully we don't need it so but I had it set just so we would get to get an early date but okay good okay let her know thank you you betcha all right um 9.5 second reading of board policy eight zero ninety parent organizations so um I know several of you probably have received emails from different individuals in the community I'll just give you a little bit of history on that policy that policy was changed from our original language back in 2021 and as you know we most of the time we adopt our policies right from press and press
240write sales policy for us to align with the statute and our lawyers always tell us that that's most legally defensible if we stick with the Press policy so that's how that policy got changed in 2021 then we were approached and we were asked if we could take the language out that said booster clubs because we don't have booster clubs in the district we we typically have just historically have had parent teacher associations across the district um so then we did the first read of that policy with the booster club language out then a new um flurry of emails came in from some other individuals because as as tonight you saw some people came to speak because there is in particular one school right now that's interested in becoming a parent teacher organization and not staying
241with the Parent-Teacher Association so I have given you two versions of that policy one with um the language that we had for our first read and now the other with language that includes um that we would support parent teacher associations and parent-teacher organizations um and I have does anyone have any questions about the difference of the two things that I can answer for you I mean because this is ultimately your decision on what you're gonna which version you're gonna choose so you did research oh yes so I did I wanted to know like what our surrounding districts um do and basically a Park Ridge 64 Lake Zurich Wheeling Arlington Heights Mount Prospect Elmhurst all have the language of PTA and booster clubs so um if if we were to take it out we'd be one
242of the few districts that that aren't incumbency both types of groups um yeah well it's written the way press wrote it they wrote it as a booster clubs but when you but when you read the description of what what it requires um like it for for like um like the like the organization or club's name and purpose such as to enhance student educational experience to help meet educational needs of students to provide extra athletic benefits to students to assist in specific sports teams like um it has to they have to have rules and procedures under which they operate an agreement to adhere to all board policy and administrative procedures a statement that the district is not and will not be responsible for the organizations or clubs business or conduct of its members including any of
243the organization or Club websites or social media accounts an agreement to maintain and protect its own finances and a recognition that money given to a school cannot be earmarked for any particular expense this is important so the booster club may make a recommendation but cash or other valuable considerations must be given to the district to use at its discretion and that's um that's important because we we've kind of followed that policy across the district because we want to have Equity among our schools and we don't want schools that have bigger funds and their ptas to be purchasing things for some schools and then other schools not have it so ultimately that decision should be left you know at the district level then like okay are we going to approve like a big purchase of something
244so I think the confusion lies around whether it's PTA booster and is a booster even an elementary thing because to me a booster club is a high school typically so when we were first approached we we included the language as press revised it but we don't have a booster so we we took out the booster language because we're not a high school district so I think there was confusion I think people are conflating is booster the same as a PTO right and if the booster language is reinstated can the school that we have one of which you've heard many people a few people speak tonight they want to become a PTO so to me is it is it the booster language that we want to include are we are we being asked to put a
245PTO and making that an opportunity that schools can decide upon I think that's where there's we need to make sure that we're all thinking along the same lines is it PTA and booster is it PTA and PTO is it just PTA that that's what I think this board is being asked to make a decision on and I just want to make sure that everybody is clear about what you're being asked to decide or revise or the second option that I provided has the language for PTO not boost right because we don't write a booster so since Claire's already Rewritten it conveniently okay to include the PTO then I see no reason why we would not just go ahead with that second version because I don't think that's inhibits anybody from doing what they want to
246do somebody wants to do PTA that's fine if they want to do PTO that's fine too right well it seems like that is the issue on this meeting you know in making this change is that you might oh is it that the national PTA the larger Regional ptas or now kind of that the door is open for them not to be getting fees only we had PTA people in the audience that could help answer that question and that's what it seems like we've had a difference would you care to come up um we can't allow a public comment on a specific topic um I do think we have questions that we need to ask let me ask one question um first so something has a band booster yes organization they do so how does that
247I mean is shouldn't that be referenced here yeah we probably would need to add that the word booster club in addition yeah would that be construed as a PTO and it could be a PTO then because it's not the association organization can be for any any purpose okay so it is right right potentially because that's a long-standing existing organization their parent booster fan boosters or whatever they call themselves and I think even correctly I'm wrong any of you um but so the PTA has the strict kind of um recommendations of bylaws and all those kind of things because of the National Organization and state organization and so on but that's IRS okay both right it's the IRS so a PTO would need to be also file 451 C3 status okay and they would they would
248have to have bylaws developed which the group from Jane Adams did provide us with a list of all their bylaws and everything that they've drawn up and then kind of an underlying question that I had I had actually I know I emailed to Dr Heinz not that you would have had the answer but I just didn't really know who else right was for tonight yeah was they you know with the the PTA you have the oversight right because you I think you have to report your financials to a certain organization at a certain number of times or is that IRS I don't know would what how how or who would oversee that Financial situation with a PTO you I mean the principle perhaps the board if there's a lawsuit I mean there is no oversight
249for unaffiliated parent groups district 15 ptas are under the umbrella of Northwest Suburban Council PTA which is our Council oversees all of our district 15 ptas we act as a liaison with Northwest cook region which is the biggest region within the state and has the most education most training most most networking and all of that within the state we're under the Illinois PTA umbrella and then because of that we are under the national PTA umbrella so I'll be honest I I have sent something to all of you we've kept many people that have sent information on the PTA to you um it is not my place to throw anyone under the bus but the council in the region and the state have done a lot of due diligence in trying to assist our ptas whether
250they're considering ptos or whatever and we've had no um cooperation with them to try and help them um so um I didn't want to have to say that but I just want to be honest with you we have tried throughout the last year and this year to try and help make a difference and we have lots of schools that have low-income families and they have ptas and they are successful Tas don't mean that everyone has to be a member of the PTA but the pta's mission is to provide programming and education and resources to all of their families that's what the pta's national mission is is to make every child's potential a reality by engaging families to advocate for all children and that's kind of what we did we advocated and we sent letters to
251all of you what we're asking you to do is help there be equality in district 15 if you start letting local units Veer out of the PTA realm you are going to have a lot of inequity in this District you have schools that have large War chests have lots of money and then they could be you know buying and spending things for their schools and other schools that are low income there's no way that they could ever be able to do that provided the p the peach if local units take advantage is we provide guidance we provide training we provide networking our we have superintendent Becca will come every month when we have meetings to share information with every single local unit in our PTA if you start having ptas and ptos how is that
252information going to be spread to those non-affiliated associations are is everyone truly going to be getting the same information the same opportunity at all of our meetings we have someone we have Lori or Becca there and they give us District reports and then they open it up and our PTA leaders can bring questions and concerns from their local units from their schools and ask questions ask for clarification it's an incredible networking tool it's not just a way and I just want to tell you this um there are such a shortage of volunteers I know y'all you know it's hard to find workers it's hard to find volunteers and all of that well the one thing that's amazing about PTA is they have experienced leaders that are there to help them out that are helped to
253support them there's pre-made resources programs things available ptas can can um you know we have local ptas from District team that have been awarded grants from National PTA and are able to do different programs because they've received a thousand or twenty five hundred dollars you're not going to get that if you're a PTO and the final thing I just want to say is you know what I'll be honest and I made a mention of this at the board of ed um candidates Forum I am a parent of District 15. but my youngest is 19. and I felt so strongly in the PTA in wanting it to be strong in district 15 wanting there to be equality Equity making sure that all of our students get that opportunity to be the best have those resources that
254I came out of retirement okay and you know that's what PTA does dedication and those kinds of things that support I you know we want everyone to be successful and Thrive and we understand every school has their own demographics and their own needs but each local unit has their own opportunity with their own autonomy to spend their money do their own programming to meet those needs and so whether you're a PTA or a PTO it's the leaders at the local units responsibility to provide needs for the needs of their students whether they're PTA or not so I don't know if you have anything you want to say all right now let me ask you a question in the research that you did with other school districts that allowed both how do they manage the communication
255that Julie mentioned and do they all work together do they not are they run completely separately how does that work so and I've actually I've worked in districts that have that have had both like I worked in the district bicycle as a PTO in other districts in the other schools some were ptas it was it was similar like just like like Becca comes to their their monthly meetings um that information was shared out the same with our PTO organizations typically as the building principal I always gave a district report a building and a district report because I attended Board of Ed meetings and I always had the notes from um our board from our Communications person with all the notes of a board meeting also so you know they still had someone right there on
256site to answer questions I know Jim you were asking about um the financials um I know that when I had a PTO in my school they had to do a tax return every year they had to pay an auditor to audit their books every year that was just something that they had established to make sure that you know everything was above board a treasury report was represented at every meeting just like you probably would do at your PTA meeting um the the difference I mean my understanding of the difference was that basically a hundred percent of the funding that they raised came directly back to our school my ask of the board would be that we not vote on this tonight because I feel like there's just a lot of outstanding questions um so that
257would be my proposal that we hold on this I was gonna have something similar it was so are we looking at this policy because of the request or is it just up for us to review as we do other board policies a little bit of both it came through press as a revision which typically they do any annual every five years press reviews policy unless a mandate or something else causes it to kind of jump that five-year mark But then we've had um PTA came to us but then we've heard from people that want to become to come to want to transition to a PTO so they feel like thinking the information that we I'll say I but I know it came to the whole board so the emails that we read um those in
258support of the the only the PTA were very much of what you are sharing with me it makes a lot of sense of why you know why you would want a PTA I don't think anyone's proposing we'd say no PTA but um then we got an influx of other emails kind of unsupportive allow not dismissing a PTA but allowing the PTO um and and in my opinion all of those concerns really spoke to equity which is kind of what what you're saying the PTA is is about and so my reason for suggesting that we postpone the vote similar to what sandwich was saying but also because I feel like you know maybe there's work that we can do as a district to look at why those particular schools you know are either aren't accessing as
259well of the resources that are currently available to the PTA since they are currently ptas um you know and maybe facilitate at least a discussion in that realm to see if if that's something that we can improve before making a policy change um because I you know I intended to be leading toward the second version to have those the PTO option for those schools who are feeling like and I know Jay Adams is the school that spoke up most in email form but my own personal home school is Lake Louise and I know that they have similar attendance issues and involvement issues because of of uh economics so um yeah I I would I would agree that we could postpone the vote and then just kind of suggest that we somehow not the right word
260is investigate but just kind of you know look a little bit deeper into you know why why we're having those inequities in term we know geographically and economically those are the main reasons why but perhaps those ptas could get a refresher or something to remind them of what those resources are how they could access that to improve their membership and then I think the amount that they're charging my understanding is the PTA the local unit can choose right beyond the dues that are paid to the other organizations what they would charge and I think there's probably some discrepancy there too on what may or may not be helpful to their attendance just a thought could I read some room you're on it just it doesn't project big in the room it just gets you right
261online um I just came across this when times are good the group is running smoothly it's easy to wonder it would be even easier if the organization um wasn't the hierarchy of the PTA but the time you'll be begging for that organizational hierarchy and wealth of resources is not when times are good it's when times are bad and I don't know if you happen to see the 2016 article from the journal topics when we had a problem in the PTA and Dr Thompson at the time did a very nice um push off this was not uh something he needed to comment on this was a PTA issue it was delicate he didn't throw us under the bus but um but there was a separation between the school district and the PTA and the PTA handled
262the situation um and and that's what I worry most about with an organization that's unaffiliated is that um you know with parent volunteers a situation of some sort will come across and and there's no support outside of the principles I would guess you know there is no hierarchy for those associations so that's that's my concern not necessarily in the next year or two while the current leaders are here but there's no there's no PTO training program we have we have training and you know as many of our volunteers turn over every year we are doing our trainings three times a year um but there isn't that opportunity for other group leaders so and then can I just say something about membership dues because I was the Illinois PTA membership and marketing director membership dues are
263set by the Illinois and National PTA so the total amount that goes is 450 per member we encourage all of our local units to take in duration the demographics of their School community if your school Community is very mixed and you have a lot of low-income families why would you tack another five dollars on a person for membership you alone are eliminating a whole host of families that will never be able to do that but what we want you to know is membership isn't it's not contingent on membership a local unit only has to have 25 paid members that's it you can have as many parents involved and participating in events and bringing those things forward and all of that you only have to have 25 okay is a membership driven Association we're an advocacy
264group we want to have large numbers so that when we advocate for legislation and things of the state and National level we have large numbers so that we can make a bigger statement a bigger impact to help those things go through but local units only have to have 25. so for a local unit to say that the money is just too much 25 you know 25 members at 450. most local units if you do a dining chair will make that in one night and so don't tell me that it's because of total membership because there are ways around it but there are so many benefits that PTA can bring but local units have to be willing to accept and and really let us help them and work with them and you know my kids went
265to VL I know you know there's the demographics and things like that you know getting families of all of our ethnicities and cultures involved and bringing that sense of um of inclusion that's the important thing okay so there are so many things that we can do to help local units um and um so I just hope you will just consider PTA can make a very big difference and if membership is truly the only issue local units only have to have 25. so Julie if there are 25 members they remain in good standing there are no metrics that say you have to have growth you have to have anything above that and that 25 is not just state level that's National also bylaws insurance and those are all things you want them to have too because
266let's be honest they're providing programs within all of your schools and so you want us all you know to have those metrics and things in place um and so you know there are a lot of things that and granted there are ptos out there that are really well-oiled machines and all of those things Our concern is if a local unit hasn't been uh active in a in a capacity for several years and then they take on doing this all on their own what guidance are they going to have we don't want we don't want to see a school suffer we don't want the parents you know we heard you know we did the reflection showcase Reflections program which is an art program and we offered it up to all of our students in the district
267and we had eight local units participate we had 88 students I'm hoping that perhaps next month we can get some of those uh students in to get recognized because we had six students advance to um honorable distinction at the Illinois level and we had one student that actually Advanced to the National level those are things you don't get by yourself those are things we are so proud to be able to provide and I would hate for a parent to see you know if they have kids in multiple schools and then they see that other schools are able to participate in these things and their school can't it sounds terrible to say but you need to be a PTA to participate in those things and there's a reason for that the PTA is providing and creating
268all these things and having all the programs and those things and we want to bring families we want whether it's Internet safety whether it's Arts education whether it's anti-bullying health and safety whatever those things might be there's programs for all of those things out there for the taking and things that are in English and in Spanish as well so training in English and Spanish programs in English and Spanish all of those things but local units have to take advantage I mean we've been really working very hard to let our local units know of all the things that are available to them and really get them engaged because you know as we said volunteers are smaller and smaller and smaller and if we can give you a ready-made literacy program that you can just adapt to
269your school and you don't have to create it from scratch that makes things a lot easier so but I apologize I know this has been a very long discussion but you can tell we're very passionate and and um all right so we're gonna move the vote out I think it's also a good idea we because of the existence of the sunling band boosters that we probably need to put the I mean yeah we need to research what that's like and why only one school right a little bit more concerning to me than anything I apologize I didn't remember that we even had that one it's one through the first time but sitting here thinking about it I'm like oh yeah thank you very much thank you all right so because it is not so when
270we get to that someone needs to push it out right um action items uh 10.1 motion please make a motion to approve the new position of Chief technology officer then second discussion roll call shoe pie hi Taylor hi Wong aye aider I annerino all right motion carries item 10-2 MJ if you could just give a quick wave MJ Warden she is our new CTO welcome aboard and thank you we're thrilled to have you um item 10 going to I make a motion to approve the Personnel report Administration certified and non-certified as presented second discussion roll call Shoe pay aye Taylor aye Wong aye aider hi annarino aye hunt hi Khan aye ocean carries item 10-3 and if I may introduce Dr Lori Lopez she will be the new um assistant superintendent for teaching learning and
271assessment and just so you know why MJ's uh the CTO was pulled out separate then um Dr Lopez is within the Personnel report is because the CTO is a new position so you always vote on new positions separate any other existing position where you're just putting a different leader in that position or any employee it just Falls within the Personnel report so welcome aboard Dr Lopez and I know this is uh again past your bedtime so thank you for saying and welcome aboard welcome thank you item 10.3 I make a motion to approve the final official school calendar for the 2022-23 school year as presented second discussion thanks Lisa for working on this for us roll call ater aye annarino aye hunt hi Khan aye shoe pie aye Taylor hi motion carries item 10-4 I
272make a motion to approve the revised 24 official school calendar as presented second discussions I just wanted to say um just so that for the audience that's listening um the November election there will be no uh the schools are closed yeah schools are closed all right okay very quickly forgot because it's a night owl but I did forget we have our three new assistant principals in the audience um are they still back I can't really see who's still back there hello okay welcome Allison and Hillary correct John Ellison and Hillary John you're easy to see hi you're John Hillary okay and Allison welcome aboard and and don't worry our meetings are really and truly never this long I promise I promise I promise not usually okay sorry sorry yeah that's okay okay so ten five
273we are very disgusted disgusted or disgusted out wait we're still in the middle of uh we're sorry we're in the middle of a calendar vote okay roll call skater hi annarino hi hi hi shupai aye Taylor hi Wong aye motion Carrie again all right so the question mark that I had before on time five do we have to make a motion to push it out what do we know here or do we make a motion to postpone it right there you go driving I make a motion to move the approval of board policy eight uh colon zero nine zero parent organizations to our next Board of Education meeting second discussion motion carries item 10 6. I make a motion to approve the recommended 2023-24 medical dental and vision insurance rates as presented second discussion okay
274hi Taylor aye Wong aye ader eye annarino sorry Han hi Khan hi motion carries item 10-7 I make a motion to approve the resolution authorizing an interfund transfer as presented second discussion roll call Anna Reno all right hunt aye Khan aye shoe pie aye Taylor aye Wong aye Peter aye motion carries up until right this second I was gonna say this is the shortest bunch of motions we've ever had there are like one-liners who's up for 10-7 no no I make a motion to award a three-year contract for musical instrument repair and maintenance to the instrument Barn LLC Huntley Illinois and the amount of 105 240 as presented second discussion yeah I was wondering uh is there any like fees associated with moving the instruments back and forth to Huntley as opposed to being here
275in Palatine not that I'm aware of no it's all inclusive yeah okay just want to make sure we didn't have any hidden fees there no it's kind of a bummer you know but whatever yeah well okay all right that's it that's both okay aye Taylor aye Wong I ate her hi annarino hi hon hi motion carries item 10-9 I make a motion to award a three-year contract for Pest Management Service to chem wise ecological Pest Management Elk Grove Illinois in the amount of 27 720 as presented second discussion Rocco Taylor aye Wong aye aider aye annarino hi Han aye Han uh shoe pie hi motion carries would anyone like to remove anything from the consent calendar we have a motion please I make a motion to approve the consent calendar items as presented it's okay
276roll call Long all right eater I anderino aye hunt hi Todd hi hi Taylor hi motion carries Dr Heinz correspondence as always we include the number of Oya requests that we've received do you have any questions about the content that we can share nope motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second followers in favor all right