December Board of Education Meeting

001Mrs. here >> we have two board members who are ill and unable to join us tonight and I hear your back is bothering you so if you need to step stand up and stretch you're welcome to not a problem um tonight we're joined by uh some of our MacArthur students to lead us in the pledge of allegiance and then tell us a little bit more about the principal advisory partnership group uh that Dr. Nestrom coordinates here at MacArthur. So, if we could have all of those students come forward and stand up here. We'll all stand and face the flag. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Our students stay up here. We want to

002learn more about what this fun activity is that you all are a part of. So who can tell us what the Am I saying it right? Is it the principal advisory partnership? >> Okay. What uh who do you meet with? at lunch. >> What else have you done recently? What else have you been playing? >> Anybody played Plinko? You had Plinko board at lunchtime? Was that you guys doing that? >> What was that about? boardchards like t-shirt swag. One of the things they did is they picked the prizes. So the plushes that came out with the t-shirt and things hat socks and trucker hats I think. And how does one become a partner of the principal on this? No pay. >> Volunteer and and you volunteer your time. You come in at lunch and activities.

003>> That's really cool. And could you just go down the line and tell us who you are and what grade you're in? Start with you. and eighth graders and there's a lot more, right? What's the total number of approved? >> Well, it changes because sometimes they have tests make up. So, they have a sub that comes in for them or band lessons and other things, but we have about 10 advisories per grade level. So, around that number, some of them are split up. So, probably 30 to 40 kids in, right? And our we met with our eighth graders uh last week for the monthly minute that we filmed that will be or yesterday. Was it yesterday? Time flies that we filmed. So, thank you to our eighth graders for appearing in that video that will

004go live tomorrow. Awesome. Where do you meet? How frequently And then when will this claw machine be available? >> This is the first time hearing the talk about it. >> I've had conversations with many people in my life. We have talked about it. It's the first time. So we can circle back to that again. Yes. I don't know where we can rent the claw machine purchase. lots of cool stuff that happen. >> Never know what kids will say. >> You guys remember the projects that have happened over the past few years? Have you been a part of this group in the past or is this your first year for everybody? >> First year. >> Okay. >> So, they did a lot of and picked out the fabrics for the student lounge and things. And so

005we have a couple more purchases coming up games probably January. >> Yeah. And they were the ones that kind of commissioned the art club to work on that and had the idea of all the possibilities are possible put your mind to it. So that was the theme that the art club came up with and they went through those components and None of you were here. You guys were probably the whole logo that went through the ad group. So there were some initial drafts that were >> audience without being angry with >> didn't look like he just wanted to hug, >> right? >> It wasn't so sweet and cuddly, did it? want to strike a little bit of fear into the enemy at home. Looks like you're going to get stung and then just wants to

006give you a hug. Yeah. So the naming of the courtyard >> the dugout space came from the kids or >> No, it wasn't seven. It was after >> I hear the more adults it the kids will think it's not fun to do anymore. Well, we thank you very much for coming for being great uh examples and leaders in the school and in the district. And we have uh certificates for you that Dr. N will pass out. Were you able to get a good photo? >> So, um students, if you want to turn around because sometimes I don't know if this happens in your family, sometimes parents want to take a photo of you when you do cool stuff like this. So would you just do that the favor and just like look and smile even

007doesn't have to be a huge smile. It doesn't have to be like Well, thank you very much. Appreciate you all. >> Thank you very much. >> At each regular and special open meeting, members of the public employees may comment on or ask questions. If you'd like to address the board, please >> just a couple offormational updates before our exciting MacArthur school improvement team presentation. Annually, we're required to post and share the adults compiance report. Uh so that is in the fact that we are full compiance now. So that's great. >> Uh you may have heard a little bit of chatter about this at about uh our current law firm, one of the law firms that we work with is merging with a a larger firm and frost. They're also known as F3. And so um

008we have a letter that I signed. >> Yeah. Let me see if I transfers our engagement from Creob to F3. Nothing will really change in terms of that relationship to me. >> The nice thing about this merger is that there actually will be more resources available to us a wider range of representation people who have um different areas of expertise. So um we're uh we're excited for them as they make this move. So that um letter of engagement is in the packet. Uh also uh our early childhood program is annually reviewed by um the state and we are excited to share that once again our early childhood program has earned the highest level rating a gold circle rating. So great job to Dr. Dr. Shroa Mrs. and all of our staff and teachers who work

009in our early childh >> He was here. He had his concert. Yeah. >> So, um we're going to transition next into the MacArthur School Improvement Team presentation. We're joined by uh Dr. Nestrom, Mr. Caper, and a dedicated zoo from MacArthur. Thank you all for joining us. for the audience. Uh the board of education hosts its meeting at each of the schools once each year and when we come and visit the school, we uh take the opportunity to invite the kids to uh lead us in the pledge as well as uh for each of the staffs to share their progress toward their school improvement goals. And so welcome uh to our friends from MacArthur and we'll let you share your Five years. Thanks for having us here. MacArthur Middle School picking up with the gamified theme

010for everything in D23. I think it's Xbox controller. Not one of the ones that we used to have growing up. But so in with that leveling up our learning to the state of the school address for this year. >> Here's our team. >> Sorry. >> They're here to help with the So you could next we always start with the data. Our growth data is still green um which is the expected growth on the negative side. So it's lower than some of our other green spots. So we'll keep an eye on that. But we are u in the green expected growth. I do want to bring the school report card rating. We are commendable. Two years ago we were exemplary. Last year we were commendable and we are like the second highest commendable you can be

011um for this year. So we're really really close. >> What was that.5? >> I think it was uh someone who had three daughters and they you know missed one math question and you know but >> we're not going to point any fingers. So >> thanks. Appreciate that. >> We're really really close and hanging. And so that commendable exemplary rating is for the top 10% of schools um across the state. And so when you look that we feed into 214 one of the higher performing districts in the area and we're one of the higher performing middle schools in the state um the work that our kids do be murals and everything else. The academic work is what we're really here for and we're >> this is really great. It's cool because we haven't seen the details

012of that before, right? We only see the ratings but to see how close you are, right? That we're, you know, that you're the top 10% in the state. That's really great. >> Yeah. And especially compared to our local theaters and things, the girls we've had, especially through and postco, um, our teachers and students are putting the work in. It's not me taking this test. So, it's someone else that's doing performances with it. So, we're really excited about all of those components. But next I just want to talk about kind of our next piece is really framing it out into the quest of a video game. Mr. Alms was kind of helping with some of these components. Um and in our quest the first one is laying the foundation kind of our philosophy and how we

013really approach a lot of the work at MacArthur. The mission number two is the climb that we're on for this year. And then the last mission that we have is to celebrate our hall of fame at MacArthur and that's the MacArthur Hall of Fame. You've never seen it before. Um, AI helped create that one. Next, please. So, uh, last month I read a book, Renee Brown, Strong Ground, Strong Ground, and in there she references in one of the chapters on I just kept thinking about our staff when I was reading it. And there's a quote in there that she stole from Papovic, the former San Antonio Spurs coach, and it was the stone cutter. In their locker room, it's when nothing seems to help, I go and look at the stone cutter hammering away at

014his perhaps 100 times without as much of the crack showing up. But yet on the 101st blow it splits into two. And I know it's not that blow that did it with all those gone before. I think when I look at the work that we've done here, it's really setting up our MTSS structures four or five years ago that allows things to happen in our kids to be safe and feel like they're part of the strong that have been working on standards based practices for two years and trying to tweak on a few things that yeah, we're going to get to some places but it's not from 2026. It's from the stuff from 2024 which I hear about in a couple slides too. But with these people here, this is their work. I mean, they

015show up every day. They swing. They don't really swing anything figurative, but they reflect. Our teachers have been doing a lot of reflecting this year. They keep showing up and trying to get the next slide. The five foundations she had in her book that I kept thinking about, especially our our group, the teachers here have been building a learning culture of vulnerability and reflection, having honest conversations about maybe our our practices, our looking at the last couple years haven't been what really kids need. So we're going to tweak a few things because we want to get that extra half percent so I'm not below that line next year. >> But again, we're not doing it for that external validation number five. We're doing it because they want to do better and find joy and meaning

016in their work. Diverse ideas. We have a lot of different pieces of how to attack all of our grades and our processes there. And so putting them on the table and having those discussions is huge. And that discipline, the hard work of working a priority standard to a learning target to a success criteria all the way to a levels of learning is not fun all the time and they're working on that through their discipline and connecting with each other through that accountability and care all kind of resonated through um that book. So if you haven't read it, it's a great read for the holiday season. If you're going somewhere on the beach, it's a very nice. So you've seen our strategic plan goals, student success, family partnerships, teaching and learning, innovation, our mission, our vision

017at district 23, where it all intersects the realms of how video games and the worlds that they come back together. Next is our four goals at MacArthur specifically. Next, we're working on a goal in the building for MTSS and looking at our tier one, two, three systems as it relates to The previous slide had Stephanie Rder in this room talking to our teachers after school with our pause program. How do we make how do we make it more effective for the kids that are there and which kids do we need to do? And so we're looking at some of the data to find those bubble kids just to give that little extra because we're only at a half a percent. So we're just looking for those little pieces that we can do to help those

018kids that they can make those growth pieces. artificial intelligence trying to use that to deepen learning to fill in gaps and to help with our language components that we go through. Standards based practices is huge for our work this year as we try to get all of our um teams to have a common assessment by the end of the year. And then stakeholder communication really trying to enhance our communication beyond the grades of a whole child and more regular communication. So that's our work here at us. So our first quest, yes, the quest for student success. Um, going off of what Dr. Nestrom was saying, I'm really taking a rear view approach and looking at some of the work that we've done. Uh, in our district improvement team about three years ago, we looked at

019this uh, chart and graphic of the stagnation that kind of happened during co time and the trajectories that can happen. The one that we were really hoping for was the one that closed the gap as you went forward. And how we saw that happening was really supporting those students that were in need at first. So we end up crafting double intervention periods where students could have that executive functioning coaching, the extra math support, a second dose of reading. And we did that so strategically that through that process in two years we end up not having too many students those decisions. >> We really have some strong people helping them out too. >> Absolutely. >> Uh so through that we were able to identify some additional areas of how do we profession become more successful not

020only here in district 23 but in their future endeavors through 214 St. Ver and community members. Uh so some areas that we've really gone through and principal advisory, the same group that you just saw, was exploring their future interests, what career paths they wanted, what future jobs that they were looking for, what they're interested in learning in high school, and crafted a really cool opportunity to create some new classes here like guitar class, business, and marketing where students made food trucks. They started all the way from the design phase, uh figuring out a menu, how much stuff would cost, uh creating and doing some 3D printing of food trucks and pitching kind of like Shark Tank. Here's what our design is, here's our product, here's our procedures, and here's how we want to make it

021a reality. >> Yeah. So, the bottom picture is advertising for I think it's Lizzy Town hot dogs and tacos. And so, they're going through the whole business plan. >> Yeah. and even our communications class uh which started with really identifying breaks in communications how you can strengthen that and it's transformed just through identification of what students want but it'll help them best do they spearhead all our announcements that are student driven now and still have other projects where it's not just video communication but posters from the school getting present in front of classes we have two guitar kids that perform at the earlier this week. So they've never performed in front of a live group before two months ago, three months ago. Truly identifying though that none of that would happen if we didn't slow

022down and focus on those tier one processes. So after we were able to support our tier 2 or students that needed intervention and get them at that level playing field, how do we work with students and staff to really create the foundation and cornerstones of what does supporting students look like at a tier one level university? So through that I feel like we're in a really good place right now, but still continuing to 1% better of what can we do to improve or.5% better. um and really leveraging the the best and the champions of the students in it. >> So, one of the things in our second domain in our strategic plan for the district is really teacher PD and but it also is administrative PD. So, tomorrow I meet with all of our principles

023and we meet monthly to go over some of our our standard practices and other things as we lead forward. trying to have collaboration within the district, but I'm the only middle school guy and I just have Mr. Gator. So, we need some friends. And so, in November, they usually host probably 8 to 10 12 other middle school principles to talk about what they're doing and how we're using AI to plan PD or how are we changing our bell schedule to better um affect the needs or how are we incorporating the pace framework into your curriculum and things. So, they're all here and then they got to see our career fair later that afternoon. Uh going down the statewide conference was a great time to meet with other principles and at the middle level education conference

024in Indianapolis. So had two presentations in each of those um with Kelly Rockway um as we'll talk about here is our instructional coach who provides a lot of inhouse PD for myself and uh there's a better way to say that there's better way to frame those out taking some of our staff through a coaching cycle is helpful but mostly working with the teachers and things and so she's going to talk about we've had a couple presentations over the last couple months um on our partnership. >> Yeah. So I think uh is very gracious to say he gets coached a lot and I think he uh we benefited from working together and kind of getting feedback from the teacher level and bringing it to the admin level of what do teachers need when it comes to

025professional development. And then in my own coaching circles I started to notice that a lot of the coaches really didn't work with their principles that closely we started to see such good changes coming from it that I wanted to spread the word. So we started we developed a um engineering a powerful partnership with your instructional coach to drive student success and end up getting accepted at a number of conferences across the state to present that and everyone wish I could work with my principal like that. So great that you guys went so well together in every but um I think I like that he said he needs people too. I'm the only middle school instructional coach and so I partnerships and I've developed some really good ones with uh the Libertyville and Northbrook instructional coaches

026and through that have been able to bring my teacher friends along to their schools multiple times and them to our school and that just creates more opportunities for our teachers to learn from teachers outside of this district last um oh wait actually I'll get to that in just a second. Um, so I'm going to flip a little bit and talk about where we're at with um, professional development in our building. As Pam mentioned a number of times, a lot of our focus right now is around standards based practices and really kind of looking at what we're instructing at every grade level. Last year K to8 all of the teachers across the district really spent quality time looking at standards for their grade level and their contents and determining what is the most important knowledge and

027skills that we need our students to develop and bring to the next grade level. It was a lot of work but it laid the groundwork for this year. This year we really determined that we needed to spend time and deep time learning about standards based practices and how does that look in our class? What do we need? know about the terminology and what knowledge do we need to have as educators. Pam and the summer really thought about how's this going to look for our school. We don't have a lot of um time and staff meetings are very fast. We also have uh department times where teams need to get together and really talk content. And so to support the work he developed weekly meetings where teachers would meet during team time and that has developed

028into what we clarity Mondays. It's not everybody's Monday and we have met weekly to go in deep with these with these concepts all year long and what's really turned out to be our process has been the first week is really a lot of learning Cam is our instructional leader he leads that where I support is in facilitating where needed and then helping to plan it is a lot of planning a week just non-stop for the most part and so um our teachers are getting experience working together, collaborating, learning together. They come back the next week and then they try it out and practice it themselves and then they all take it into their classrooms and try it with the students and then bring the student work back. And this has given us an opportunity to

029look at student work and talk together and have collaborative conversations around what students are doing. All of which are kind of new processes for us. And I will say around the building, I'm hearing teachers using the language now in conversations. The other day I heard that needed some criteria to learn about how to be kinder to other people and she didn't have the criteria. She doesn't know how to do it. So when I hear that I go, "Oh my gosh, it's sinking in. They're getting it. They're starting to use it." So I think that's been um it's worked really well the way that we have it going. Oh wait, hold on. I just want to point we uh did take on a theme every week this month and leaned in heavily. So we had a

030specifically designed themed clarity Monday and teams were taking pictures, laughing, having a great time. So, I think it's just they've been really great about soldiering through and all these criteria how to get. >> Yes. Was not very clear. Um my role outside of planning the clarity Mondays also has really delved into using feedback cycles. So as teachers are trying all these new concepts, new learning and really trying to get comfortable with the language and practicing with our students. They'll come back and that's developed a lot of work between myself and them and kind of be partners and thinking about what is it that we're trying and how could we adjust it and make it better and level up our instruction. One of the early teams to adopt some of this was our eighth grade uh

031ELA and social team and they work this summer to develop their units with essential questions which is one of our first pieces of standards based learning and that is used to ignite inquiry and to get kids thinking about what they're learning right now and uh they also leaned into our schoolwide goal of AI and developed an essential question they're going to run throughout the year and that is how does AI create and limit opportunities for us now and in the future and this is getting to draw on their learning from social studies but apply it with AI as well. And so that's been really powerful to see teams taking things like that and not knowing a whole lot about it but going let's go with it and try it with the kids and I think

032they're seeing great results from that. Um what else we have? Oh, and then more of um our district work with Northbrook and Libertyville. Last spring we took over Dena and then a number of teachers and from that they learned about something called first chapter Fridays over at Northbrook that they were doing and they brought that back here and they have implemented that this year where for eighth grade they reached out to the entire district and ask any teachers to come in once a month to read a chapter to their students and that's toite more interest in different novels that maybe you guys know that too what they maybe they wouldn't have read otherwise. So it's again just another example of how these connections and collaborations can really support teachers contin. >> Lastly for the coaching

033realm my coaching team and I last summer, spring kind of or spring really realized that this was going to be a lot of work for us to learn as adults and when you teach and and you're with kids and you're learning all the time learning outside of that becomes really hard and so we thought how can we make this fun for teachers they have to learn so how can we make it exciting we developed gamified PD it's called level up learning our gamified uh theme and we developed a website where teachers can submit any of their professional learning that they have, but they can also participate in PD that we as coaches create across the district. We have every coach in the district supporting it. Teachers can take whenever they want to. Um, it then

034gives them points and we have lots of fabulous prizes that the coaching team has developed including the most prize per building and that is parking spot. And so you can see Gina and Laura have both been our winners at MacArthur so far. So they get to park wherever they want and their spot for the month. It's just been a fun way to get people engaging in learning and I'm going to have them explain how the levels work because they're the actual participants. So the level one like the receiving of the learning and those are usually like you go to the clarity Monday meetings, the PD meetings after school and then there's online PD and then the level two then taking that learning that you learn and taking into the classroom. So then trying it out

035and getting the kids used to language like learning targets and success. >> And then level three would meet with your coach, talk about what you tried in your class, go back. >> And then we have a level four which is where the learning becomes truly transformational. You are the expert and you can teach other people about it. And so that's the highest. It's worth the most points because that's just like with our students. We want our teachers to go in deep with their learning. And Laura and Dina both have done level four. They're gonna explain next a little bit about how they did that at a uh what was it? Forget the American middle level educators conference in Indianapolis last month. Um so we started this project two years ago with sixth graders, a bunch

036of sixth graders and we were able to go to Springfield. Uh two of those sixth graders were And um that led to the opportunity for us to present the same project at Indianapolis this year. Um the project started with reading a class novel in class about a character who has to go across the United States and one of the stops she makes is at Mount Rushmore. Well, in the book she questioned why did they pick those four white men and put them on on that mountain? Well, then that led to some discussions in the And the kids are like, "Why is it like why are those?" So we got together and we're like, "Well, if they if we created a new Mount Rushmore, who do you think should go up on there?" And this then

037led to some a research project. They came up with who they thought they wanted up on Mount Rushmore and why. And we researched these which then led to a debate because they all the different groups had to come up with only four that could go up on the And then after we debated and we were we came up with our class final four, we were talking about how we could best represent. So we were like, should we draw it as we photoshop it? And then one of the kids said like what if we try AI and at that point wasn't even they didn't access it on their iPads and we were like well we've never done this before so we don't know how it's going to go and we can try it but we'll you

038know we don't know. And so they would walk in and we them our laptop or our iPad because we had a little more freedom than they did and they would sit in their group and really just try and work on how what can we say and how what should we say and a lot of it was trial and error and watching them kind of work through the frustration of being like why is this working and a lot of um platforms at that time weren't doing imaging so they were really limited in what they could do or you would get like five tries and you to buy something and societ It became a very um a challenge, but we kept saying like, "You guys are pioneers. We've all never done this before. We'll see how it

039goes. It might flap and we'll try." But they really persevered and they were really great at helping each other. So, no, you have to choose say it like this or try it like this. And kids would go home and they would get on their home computers and Google things like, "Wait, okay, think what if we do this?" And like very unlikely kind of kids who weren't usually striving for the leadership moments were really jumping in and being like wait I'll try can I try can I I have an idea let me see if I can do it and the amount of them us we just kind of said okay and they it was really great to see and you would see the pictures and they wouldn't be perfect and they would get frustrated and then

040they go back and they try again so and I reached out to a graphic designer a couple and said like I want to surprise my classes here's what we've come up with here's some screenshots of like what they did you help me like I'll for a picture so that I can say like, "Hey, we did look what they did or whatever." And the designers were like, "You're they're doing great. They're they're let them keep going." And so we I was like, "Okay." I told them, I tried I reached out and they were like, "You guys keep doing it." And so they finally come up with a couple good ones. They were pretty close. I mean, some of them were a big old mess, but I actually think it was kind of nice for them to

041see that it was a big mess because then they had to figure out how to and some kids really leaned in to that challenge and were really excited about like learning how to figure this out and solve this problem and then that we're just like okay and it took a couple days a lot of back and forth a lot of like listening to each other compromising it was a great exercise for them and they were they were overall very happy with the end >> so with all that work I think the biggest part is they listen to the the journey with them and the stone cutter piece really fits because that was two years ago trying to go through platforms that didn't really exist and so in that progression yeah how do they get to

042be those who excel in two years how do they present confidence because they were working two years ago so just those little pieces here that don't always get seen it doesn't just pop up magic so there's a lot of hardc who can help us out. And so this is our big issue. A couple years ago, probably three years ago, the pace framework came out and we had to have career education for sixth through 12th grade kids. And we had a fax class where some kids took that class, but not everyone. So, how do we build those pieces in? So, Samaro, our fax teacher, and I started probably three years ago talking about how we were going to build this in. And they had a list on the website about all these different ways. with a

043career fair. So started putting that together last year. We had a career fair um for less than typical career paths. Um and it was just our school and we had an evening piece and no one really showed up. But then one of the pieces that we did um was really how do we make it more authentic to our kids learning experience. And so tying it into the pathways program at at T14 was how we really looked at that next phase for our kids because you guys classes last week, two weeks ago for high school already and how do we help you guys out the most? >> Yeah. So to speak to that a little bit, um the adaptive pivot really occurred after last year of uh as Dr. N was saying, the main goal was

044looking at those maybe uh not college required jobs because 214 does so well in how do we get college ready? Uh and here's the different pathways and profession. So originally connecting to framework and uh maybe those different professions that don't require college but what we had actually learned from attending uh each year we go to the elective nights one to her there was some stress point of you need to decide today what electives are you taking and just hearing and feeling the uncertainty of I don't know how to make this choice it seems Uh so really working with 214 identifying what are your electives, what are their pathways and what are the jobs and then going the opposite way, what are jobs that people are interested in, what pathways deep into that and then working

045with eth grade teachers and English language arts classes and advisories really helping students not only understand all that information but equipping them with that during the career fair. And what is so who can help us out here is I'll let Dr. explain the people in there but they end up being all community members and people that we have connections with already that helped our eighth graders walk into that room December 4th and already know and have a list of what I'm going to choose. >> Yeah. So up at the top here was Mr. one of our subs who's a retired environmental engineer and still has connections to environmental engineering. Dan Peterson is right here. He works at the village. His daughter is one of our stride teachers here in the building. Um we needed some

046careers that have work permits for kids that are going to be 14. So park district caddy and golfing. And so we have Adam Bradway, Kelly's husband came and gave his day to talk about catting. And then our last connection in the community there is our went around and provided refreshments to the vendors through a ticketing system as they work on their communication skills in they do our coffee here but it's us every week a whole new environment there bringing that community together and then last month the Indianapolis Sam and I presented on the career matchmakers how to swipe right on community partnerships for comprehensive middle school career exploration something like kind of the fun. >> Next, please. And then the last one of the other things we do, we talked a little bit about the

047principal advisory kids is really listening to some of their requests and so talking with them. They want a soccer club, they want an esports team, they want a guitar class, they want a business marketing, they want communications, they want all these different pieces. How do we build that into the schedule. So, we got a soccer club in the fall. Esports is coming up in January, February. Guitar, we've already had that as an eighth eighth grade elective. So, all these pieces are coming into place, but I think the best one to talk about some of these pieces and how they connect to the kids heart is our biggest heart in the garden, >> Mrs. Polaris. >> So, we always talk about our kids test and we know that test scores are based on like how how

048you feel in this building. Um, and so like especially with the soccer club and Christian did an amazing job with it. He took it on. He was like 50 kids every day. I think it was like he did it like every single day. He had practice every single day. 50 kids for two hours. >> He showed up. >> He did. I mean, he was out there on those soccer fields. Um, but you know, we always try to figure out ways to have our kids feel like they belong here. certain demographic, a certain group of kids that you never see coming out for a basketball team or to any to certain club. So, it was nice to go I help volunteer at during your >> tournament and just to see those fields were full of our

049kids that we usually do not see here after school. And not only was it full with those kids, but it was also full with their So it was really a cool experience to see all that because at that point whether it was like just for that tournament those kids belonged at Mac and they were proud to be at Mac and it was just like a really like Christian he did an amazing job next year. I hope it's going to be bigger and better because especially for those kids it was you know moment to shine and they were so excited and they talked about it every day. you know, they were excited to be at school. They were excited to be here after school. So, it was a really cool event that we started. >> Yeah,

050we were able to play against London. So, we try to maybe get home or some other schools. >> And then also with the belonging is really the physical space. And as we talk with advisors and things, we some different places to enhance and things but has been working with student advisory ones belonging that she talked about even more so to get support. So once we had the students are like got to make it look like and so you know last year Julia and were here talking about their visions and what they wanted to do um but it's it's a nice area I think the kids are starting to like in the morning I know that some of the kids brothers and sisters might be in the band orchestra room and they're just sitting in the

051lounge doing their homework you know they're on their just relaxing. So it's like a space. Um so like there were a video for something. Um we needed an area we did a set up. So we our program is kind of worried about you know the chaos of the lunchroom that day. So we're like let's put them in the lounge. So we grab some kids and we that day and they had games and it was just nice for them to spread out and be able to be more I think once we get everything in there. So, we heard a lot about different cycles, feedback cycles and communication cycles and virtuous cycles that we're creating here. But one big piece that we haven't really touched on uh to large extent is the stakeholders and being the parent.

052So uh this past summer we went through as an admin team and looked at all these different areas that we want to prioritize and focus on and each of us chose three. This is like I'm I'm really honed in and focused on that. All of us had standard space practices because we know how crucial and critical that is. Uh but one of them that we really took up at MacArthur was some of that communication parent partnership. Uh and in doing so it became one of our building goals and each team has adopted and create a list of all students and has been so intentional and I know some students are in here. So, if your parent hasn't got a positive phone call yet, they will be um because they're looking and really trying to identify

053those peak moments and students going above and beyond and picking up the phone call or sending an email or a postcard more on the phone call side than the email, which brings another personal touch to it. But through that of also identifying when you're communicating with those parents through parent teacher conferences, phone calls um and other communications that there's more to share out than just a group. So being able to identify through data and what students are doing like joining these clubs and extracurriculars and going above and beyond of helping share that picture. Uh so I know even au of going through and joining unified robotics. You did a math kind of enrichment activity outside of school. So, how you're able to go and capture all these different components of a student that's more than

054she has always here's truly who she is and what she's about. Um, how many pride calls that she's received, how many uh different kind of correction she might need, which is minimal zero hopefully. >> Yes. We're really helping to communicate that as well to identify that while we are academic entity that we're also here to support. >> Next and so our real MVPs yes we have two time national unified banner we have teachers that get to those who excel awards. multiple confusers. But um beyond all that, it's really the teachers like Laurina that try new instruction with the kids. It's Kelly creating personal safety for our teachers as they can try new growth. Athena is always keeping the kids at the center of her heart and letting me know what they want and what they

055want to do. Almost as good as Anastasia did earlier. It's K for building the systems of support and accountability for all of our our kids, but most importantly, it's all of the kids that are giving up their lunch to hang out and make the school better. Um, trying really hard in classes, getting those test scores that they're doing. Um, it's the families that show up. It's the families that let us know when we need to do things a little bit better, but it's also the families that call and say, "Hey, you know, you guys are doing great." Send a regular email and some people are responding back. This teacher helped out my kid this weekend. I want you to know. So it goes beyond all of that because that's what MacArthur is um for our

056community here. We're the last school a lot of kids go to and so it's kind of that last 23 experience for all of them year in and year out to deliver those reliable pieces. So next we have unlocked this level halfway through this level and now we're going to go on. But we're really grateful for the partnership with the board and our kids and parents and stuff show up and believe in us to try and do the great we do every day. So, thank you. >> Great. Thanks. You know, I like everything talking about like partnership of peers, right? really reaching out to other schools and you know ideas and just the one thing that I mentioned briefly wasn't really here like the partnership of 214 especially the math partnership and really making sure that

057we're getting aligned with all the other you know theater districts to make sure that you know that our math curriculum the levels that we're at are are getting aligned with that we're working with with our peer districts and to do that. I think that's just really important. So, it's really cool just to see like everything in here is great, but to really be reaching out, right, to to all the other districts that you're working with professional development to, you know, make sure bringing in all these other ideas, right, that the best ideas are coming in. I love the fact that we're reaching out to other districts. What are you doing? How can we help you? How can you help us? I also like taking our eighth graders and pairing up pairing them up with you

058know I remember when I was living this and I felt like it was a very overwhelming process moving into high school now they're choosing career paths so there's so many other opportunities out options very much love guide them when they're in high school so they can really kind of guiding Their minds are probably changing like what I had going into Right. And so I mean I think it's really good to kind of help them, you know, you never want to force people into something way before their time, right? Which I think I feel like that they just to let them know the options that are out there setting it up and advertising it a lot that you did reach out to another middle school that was interested in want to see ours first before they

059do theirs. So that's where that partnership reaching out to families where it's not only teacher night or you know email or phone call about that your child doing, right? That's really I mean that you know they do that in as well. That's really nice to do. I think it's a really good outreach kind of program in the community to say that we see your child and care about your childice. is more positive engagement. Absolutely. >> I hear you sometimes when I call parents right away. >> That's like administrator 101. appreciate you sharing. Great work. We're really proud of you. Next, we're going to move later tonight. buildings. We got an update on some of the construction on the agenda later. also talked about some of the agenda as well. Um an update on the networking

060project for this summer. There was a pre walk through and There were seven vendors that participated and we believe that the - funds will cover the bulk of that. >> You got seven responses. >> That's great. >> Three bids submitted so far. Two bids. >> Two questions asked, bids forthcoming, but we had seven vendors on the walk and all are interested in replying. >> Uh there was an update on snow removal. We have a new vendor this year for snow removal and we had early snow test. Uh so we walked the campus afterwards. They removed the snow but talked about some of the um where the snow was dumped just uh for safety in sight lines. trees. >> Um, also uh we had an update on the custodial cleaning products. The agreement with Pathans is

061ending and so we had his team reviewing other products and Let's see. So they will they've identified another product that they will use Spartan. It's called Spartan and the change is anticipated to happen in the January February time frame. They'll do a training during day and there will be savings using that. And then >> so and those funds have been released. We met on the December Jeff Rollinsson, you know, I think just the only kind of takeway topic that we had for that was really, you know, just because of the kind of capacity that we have for the future. One of the things that we want to make sure that we're doing is kind of having a set project that was a good meeting. I think that one of the things that he really talked

062about is kind of you know risks that he sees across all districts cyber security everybody. everywhere. Exactly. Y uh walked through kind of the financial planning calendar. Um talked about EPs, right? Again, I think that's in today's agenda as well, right? EP static and kind of increased in chunks, but really increase talk about registration fees. Registration fees action items that are tonight for the final year transportation that was a big >> Oh, that's right. Because we've had so many children as Carol just mentioned grants and The only thing we talked about was funds for that. They need to increase the part because of that unanticipated student. As always, we started with shining stars. They had four students from Timber Ridge. And Mike, the principal and assistant principal. They did a presentation on each student, a

063short presentation. Two of the students are actually transitioning back to their home. So they talk about that process and how students progress in in those ways. Um superintendent report uh store went through the various programs and what they've been doing in the last month and and for the holidays. Many of them are are doing, you know, service projects for families, collecting donations for meals. Uh the DHH program is planning for those. Um also uh we briefly about the articles of organization. These are the new articles for NSSO. They have been approved. Um at that time they had the five members uh member district approvals and now so they will go into effect. new operational board composed of member district. They will meet their first meeting. They will meet monthly uh operate under uh so those

064meetings will be open to the public and the public comment and have a schedule of those meetings going forward after that first meeting HR Carter went through there were 32 policies for first read most of them they're you know the five some of them uh and also the current bargaining collective bargaining agreement with teachers will expire at the end of this school year. So preliminary work has started on identifying goals and priorities for the upcoming negotiations. So that so uh business department had uh the auditor forget the company now um came and did gave a report of the audit for NSO and there were no findings for the audit and he also announced the deco is supposed to get 750,000 in Mal institute day coming up at NSO. They have taken over a good part

065of Harvard College and that will be on January 5th. over 1800 registered and at the time they're bringing in speakers and let me pause. Were there actually 32? I don't think we had quite that many. There was a lot. >> So for the So we met last week and had the first three for those 33 that are for your reading pleasure. Um I you know I think that some of the biggest takeaways right from some of these that would really impact us were uh some potential changes to the way that high school credit uh can be granted right and so I think that we need to see and so that's a change the policy but then we really need to wait to see how is right kind of adapt that and uses it but I

066think that that will have a change in the way that students here can actually credit for high school while taking classes at that was covered at all in the way you guys >> um you know a lot of stuff you know a lot of rules but then a couple other ones in terms of like the way technology is impacting bullying right so that talking about how you know sexing can be considered bullying using fake AI, right? AI considering uh again more flexibility and you know kind of parental choice, right? participation in classroom activities ensuring that courts give parent a lot in terms of I don't know if you want to talk about a little bit in terms of kind of like the flexibility or you or Craig about the flexibility in like kind of these

067standard classes right you guys have talked about like the Medal of Honor movie and about the Irish potato and But like some of those changes they give are giving us a little more flexibility for kind of some of the required stuff that you don't necessarily have to do. >> Yeah, that that's been a longstanding challenge, you know, under the larger umbrella of unfunded mandates. Uh it's not to judge one topic is worthwhile and another is not. It's that in the eyes of ISBY often times everything is important. So you have to make sure you provide everything for everybody. And um our operational push back has been how are we supposed to do that in the same number of days in the same hour, you know. Um and so our advocacy has been toward more flexibility,

068making more local decisions about what um which of those mandated topics are critical for us, which of them are things that we would opt to do or not to do and so the policies and the legislation is beginning to move in that direction. There are some waiverss of holidays that um were included in the policy again as well as some different choices. The one specific choice we had to have to make is regarding the Irish potato famine specifically whether we are or not going to include that. And given that there was list of eight or nine new health topics uh that were now required. Uh we are going to vote no to not that it's not important but that it's among all of the topics that we are required to teach. We're not going to

069have that as a piece in our policy. >> That was my biggest question about the policy. >> Right. And that's part of the reason why when Craig does the curriculum adoption review cycles, that's the reason it's on the cycle is because you have to review and refresh, you know, what the standards say. Um, and then the other component of it is they always start that with a review of, you know, are we are we covering everything we're supposed to be covering is in our health curriculum in particular. where and how and when are these elements that are now required going to be delivered to kids. So making sure that our curriculum then also they changed language around the funding. It used to say if funding is available and they struck that. So it just says

070you may provide gifted because there was no funding coming at the state level. So they struck that. So it doesn't necessarily change our our internal goals and strategic plan goals of developing enhancing our gifted talented accelerated programs remains. It's just it's no longer required. It's no longer in policy. The phrase about funding budgetary funding is available. >> The other one I had a question about. So some of that we don't yet know because after it goes through the legislative process it will go through rules and so then in the rules phase they'll say this is how and the specifics of how to meet that. Um my understanding in the reading of it is that it's uh if we are aware of something that we're to report it. It's not that we need to investigate. It's

071not that we need to deem anything uh if it's going on civil but if there is a civil dispute around uh student safety for example and we learn about it then we will be required to report that to whom we don't know yet likely local authority just to make sure that they're aware that we are aware that's a huge pretty interesting stuff. >> Uh I just think there was some language in about um law enforcement. There was a change in of So now a lot of the policy used to say police or police interviews or police officers and that language is now replaced by law enforcement. So law enforcement interviews rather than police. So that's kind of another one that changed just a lot of footnotes. >> Yeah. >> No, that is Thanks for pointing

072that one out. Um, there's a provision that if you have single gender classes or activities or programs that you review them to make sure that they're not perpetuating or based upon stereotypes. So, uh, we don't currently have any single uh, gender forces or activities. So we'll be striking that boards are allowed to strike that portion if it doesn't. >> Yeah. So we're striking that we don't the first read from 33 tonight and then we'll put >> and then but you know there's a lot of interesting topics but I don't think that there's anything to make a decision. >> Yeah. >> Otherwise, >> any other question. Um, next wanted to just talk briefly about what was take away from this this year's conference that we thought would be important to bring back to let people know

073what we attended to one I went to pictures and on boarding a superintendent a lot of really great stuff to think about some of the stuff we had talked more on the back. We've been looking more on the front of the things like you know first week as we start very Yeah, that one too. What are some easy wins, right? Yeah, Spencer was right. Like the hiring is like part one a extremely important, but then really helping with the transition, right? And doing everything that we can to make sure that they're, you know, to make the transition as smooth as possible is just as important. >> And some of the easy wins like like, okay, you make your announcement, you have them there, they come out, whatever. And then like the next day, how can

074you get them in front of people quickly that are just like, hey, here's who I am or whatever and not like have this whole drill down session of like you have to have everything prepared. It's an opportunity for who they are, what their goals are and like kind of move on and so that way they can at least build some rapport. So some really good stuff and I have the slides. I know >> that for slides if you load you know you're access somewhere >> you can get you can get to all the resources from the >> all the slides even ones that you >> I say as someone who's new on the board um who was an attend on the attendee side as opposed to on the conference organizer side took a little bit

075of a mind shift for me. Um but there was there was a lot um as as a first time attendee it was it was I think it was a great conference. I think there were a lot of sessions geared towards a newer um attendee but I feel like there was duplication I felt like condensed a little bit. >> Um, I love the networking opportunity. I feel like that's just as important meeting and getting to know them and bounce ideas off of them and just have what works for you, what challenges are you having, how you challenges. Um, so I thought that those connections are are crucial. They're so important. And so I thought that was good. So, but a lot of lot of good sessions. Um, >> yeah. And I um and the networking part

076of it I think is just so important. And over the years, you know, I I go to these I've heard it before. And there have been a couple years where I've like gone to some of the sessions like in rural issues and stuff just out of curiosity >> and you know there's issues that are similar and there's a lot of issues that are very different that we would never even know about. Um but I think learning all that is good, you know, it's good for what we do. >> Um for the networking. Uh I don't know if North Cook had a meet up >> uh and there were like 30ome people that showed up and everybody was kind of happy to have that opportunity. >> So, you know, I think they'll do it again and

077maybe other um you know, divisions will do similar kind of things. to be important down the future. This is like little little regional learning opportunities and it's unfortunate that there were so many sessions to choose from. I mean I had five or six sessions in one time period that I really wish I could have gone to and um so I know it cost a lot of money to record them and broadcast them later. probably not just from a financial standpoint. Um there was overwhelming amount. So perhaps considering extending that day to have some of those sessions more spread out would be that day. I sent in my comments and and one of the things that I missed is um there in past years there was something on Saturday afternoon called carousel panels. >> Oh yeah.

078>> And I thought it was a great opportunity to what it is is it's you know they put they have I don't know 30 tables in in a room and each table is a presentation and it's 20 minutes or 30 minutes instead of 90 minutes, but it's Saturday afternoon when your brain probably can't take another 90 minutes of one thing. And so you get a bit of other things that you're interested in and I I missed it. >> Rapid fire kind of you can go to number of tables. That's >> so I don't know if it'll come back. >> Yeah. The la the last thing I'll say and I don't know if this is true for other people but I know like I think our plan worked because there were some conversations with people who

079were interested and wanted to hear more about the opening. So I think although we pushed that pretty quickly I do think it was a smart move for the reason we did it was to have those conversations there. So >> I think a couple of us had some conversations >> just I had I had gone to one about the use of AI schools too and they actually had three different soups kind of come and talk and uh >> there's you know I I >> you know the guy from 99 in Cicero where he's kind of he kind of geeks out with this stuff right and so that he had so like he delivers right when he the board packet he delivers the board packet he actually has Yeah, like an AI summary. >> He actually uses

080he actually uses Notebook LN, right? Which is I think an academic. >> Yeah, you're gonna see a sample of that in Chris's presentation. >> But but like so the board he delivers the board packet, but he also delivers like a PowerPoint presentation summary of the board packet that I created for him. And AI creates this audio podcast, right, that that his board members apparently swear by. It's like this 20 minute audio podcast summary that the board members listen to summize the packet, right? >> But then, you know, the other two, right, were people that were kind of just getting off the ground, right? And so, I think that it's just and you know, I think one of the things I thought was was really interesting is that they kind of had is that they're really

081clear about like where it's appropriate to use it, right? So, they kind one of them kind of had like the stop sign system with their students to say, "All right, in this class, this class is red. You you were not using AI in this class or this class is yellow." And you know, if you want to use it, you know, you talk to the teacher. and tell us how and then there's green where it's like we encourage use you know AI for a certain time. So I think that that's you know I know that Chris is going to talk about it more later but to really make sure that as we're moving forward they're really kind of establish framework and ground rules for how it's getting used >> both in classrooms but then also right

082the profession you know that the professionals can be using it as well. >> Chris got a couple. >> Yeah. Right. >> Any Anything else from I thought it was very worthwhile again positive. So >> all right uh consent agenda. Uh tonight we have the approval of the minutes from our last meeting and the December report. Yes. >> Mr. Gordon. >> Yes. >> Dr. Nice. >> Financial report. >> I had the financial report. Yeah. some questions report. >> Yes. >> All right. On November 13th, The board of education adopted an estimated tax levy for 2025 as developed by the assistant superintendent for finance and operations and the finance committee. At this time, the board wishes to conduct a truth and taxation public hearing for the purposes of allowing anyone to address the board regarding the 2025

083certificate of levy. May I please have a motion to open the public hearing on the 2025 certificate of tax. >> All right, time is 8:30 vote. All those in favor? >> Anybody post? All right. Is there anyone that wishes to address the board? Um so just I share this um information every year with the board just as kind of an overview of the levy process and then just to let everybody know exactly where we're at. So just a little bit of um insight understanding of exactly what new growth um they may be seeing. We have a sense of our prior year extension. Obviously, we know that this year we got that final information a little bit late. Um we know what obviously what prior year CPI was, but the levy year EAB and then the

084new property are still our best guess. So when we work on the estimation, we um we have our prior year capped extension, then we multiply that by um the 2.9% CPI or the 5% wherever we're at on CPI and that we determine our aggregate extension and then to that next slide, um we can add um those that new property. So, for us, we typically use anywhere between 5 and 10 million. Um, we're looking at a reassessment, so we're going to um bump that up a little bit. Um, and on the reassessment, we projected um uh 20%. And that would actually wouldn't affect our the amount that we get back. It does affect the actual rate though. So, when we look at our actual extension and we do that calculation summary, we have our cap extension.

085We have due to CPI 657,000. Um, and then we see an anticipated increase from new property which is 281,000 which shows our approximate weighted extension of $23.6 million. We would add to that um recent legislation which allows us to recapture some of those refunds um that have been issued. So the anticipated total due to the district for tax year 20 uh 25 is just over $19,000. So, next steps obviously tonight we have the approval of our levy request and then the um the levy certification is due to the county by the second the last Tuesday in December which I believe is like the 30th but I'll get it submitted um in the next day or so approval and those levy amounts are finalized and then they'll be reflected on the spring property tax bills questions.

086It's a pretty quick levy 101. >> There you go. >> For us, um, and we'll talk, well, we don't really need to talk a little bit more. We have so much more to talk about, but we don't um included in the actual tax levy item are the um the documents that we need to send to the county. And so, you'll notice that um typically we're required to hold a public hearing if we exceed u levy request over 5%. For us, we're at 4 4.11. So we we we're not obligated to hold the public hearing. Um but we do that for transparency purposes. So >> you said that referring to potential legislation. >> Yeah. >> Have some remedy for this. Is that still still very active in that. Yes, the Cook there's a group of superintendents

087or people that were hoping to across Cook County districts uh that were asked hoping to get to sign on to this pledge, this request for um better communication uh timely information um then potential around legislative uh action that can either u prompt the county to meet its obligation to disperse the funds in a timely manner. Um that's less likely because the state doesn't necessarily have that influence. But there are some opportunities potentially through the banking industry, for example, for uh the state legislature to set an expectation for banks to release the funds that people are already paying into their escrow that is sitting in the bank. Um release that or at least some percentage of it at a at a earlier date. all of it in the in the intention of saving taxpayers money and

088it not just being wasted. We're we're waiting on money that people have already paid. They've already paid their taxes and that's already difficult. And now districts, many districts, we're fortunate that we don't currently, but many districts have had to issue tax anticipation warrants, pay additional funds just to borrow money in that kind of payday loan because we're waiting on those those revenues. We are losing out on interest earnings. So, it is a loss to the district in terms of revenue that we could have gained. Um, as well as And in our case, in the the case of the Treasury, if we have to liquidate certain holdings, we're going to lose potentially the earnings on those. So, you know, all of it, understanding this is year four of uh the county really struggling to meet their

089timeline and obligation. Um there we understand in the paper there have been reporting around some of the factors that are involved in that. But uh we've been very active as a superintendent group uh as well as park districts, library districts, municipalities because all of us in Cook County are we were supposed to get that money in September and we are now $10 million and we're a small district. There are other districts nearby that have much more significant dollar amounts that they're waiting on. And it's it's part of the rationale why fund balances are so important because you need that money available, but there's the practical side of even with our fund balances, some of that money is invested and it's not liquid. So for what seems to be a relatively straightforward transaction that we've done

090for decades and decades and decades for us to be in this position where once again we're waiting. We're hopeful that we'll get this last uh this currently owed funding to come in. But then we're going to turn around and hopefully receive March on time. >> And for us the For us, the lost interest at this point is about $147,000 just in those tax, >> right, >> Donna? Your peer group, do you hear similar things from other counties or does this seem to be >> No, it's just county. >> It's just a county um school official around session. They were they were in >> what? And when people started talking about some tali and they wereounded, >> right? Any other anyone else want to address the board? >> Yeah, thank you. That's was said that that

091was like a 101. That was really clear. I I really like how you walk through that one. That was >> You should save that template. It's a good one. >> Well, it helps. >> It helps the community too, right? Understand. Exactly. Thank you. >> Have a motion to close the public hearing on the 2025. 43. Is there all those in >> favor? We'll move on to that. >> All right. Yes, we do have a couple of presentations and Chris and I have pledged to each other that collectively we're both going to keep our presentations as brief as possible. you got the double whammy of the two of us tonight. So, um, but we're excited to share this first presentation on, uh, the finances and facilities update, uh, connected to our strategic plan goals 3.5, 4.2.

092Um, and, uh, I want to thank members of the construction committee and the buildings insights and finance uh, for your participation in those discussions as well. Um, we have u a lot of things coming together as we start to wrap this up. So, we're uh we're excited about sharing the opportunity with our MacArthur windows sighting and doors project as well as um where we're at with the Eisenhower presentation. >> Chris is deliberately sabotizing your time commitment. >> I know. Well, he knows that any time that it takes away from mine will actually come out of his. Can you make it a full screen? >> Yes. >> There you go. Awesome. Thank you. Uh, okay. Okay, the second slide again is just reaffirming our shared vision and commitment around this project. I include it in each

093of the presentations so we know that we're rooted in these expectations. Next slide, please. We wanted to give kind of an overview of where we're at with facilities budget in general, both for this fiscal and for next fiscal. Can you walk us through these? >> Sure. So, as you know, um bond proceeds from the debt uh the debt certificate sale and then the um refinancing bonds um yielded a proceeds of $16.5 million. Um immediately that brought in approximately $540,000 in interest and then we calculated out approximately $300,000 that we would see likely in fiscal 27 tied to those dollars. the Senator Mark Walker grant, which um we just received um funding approval on uh was $525,000 to be used on capital projects specifically at MacArthur. Um and then that is the uh school maintenance project

094grant is um $50,000 uh over the course of the two years. And then um fund 20 summer budgeted allocations of approximately $100,000 a year um would uh fund smaller scale capital projects um between MacArthur and uh Eisenhower for a total of $18,165,000. Um I just want to clarify one thing that the um Senator Walker grants and the school maintenance project grants are specifically um paid out on a reimbursement. So we have to go ahead and spend those dollars to receive those dollars back. It's um it's a it does require a match by the district. >> Are there any constraints on those >> uh bondable capital? >> Just bondable capital >> and in the senator's grant has it tied to MacArthur >> or MacArthur or a slice of cabinet, but we would put it in. >>

095So in our budget um just kind of and and we'll break down the detail a little bit later in the presentation, but MacArthur, we're currently just over $2.5 million. Eisenhower, we're looking to be just over $14 million. Um two uh fund 20 summer work for this. We're we're thinking we've got approximately $250,000 in um concrete replacements is kind of the most pressing thing that we saw. and and really that's uh it's asphalt patching more than straight replacements, but we do have some um alligatoring that we want to take care of this summer. And then it would um leave just over a million dollars for future capital projects that we'd be looking to work on. So, we present both these two slides, the what kind of what's in the bank and what's on the docket to

096show not actuals of where we're going to end up because obviously we won't know that until we get through the bid process, but to kind of have the mindset of we know we're not going to spend every penny on Eisenhower because we have other projects that are necessary, other projects for the future with a goal of really trying to stretch those bond proceeds um for a couple of years and into some other projects. Having said that, that's not to say that we might not need to or might not want to dip into those proceeds and hold less for future if there are certain elements that as we're going through this process um come to light as being an ad alternate that is a top priority. So, we just everybody to see kind of the here's

097the here's the money that we're setting aside for construction and these kinds of projects and then these are the kinds of projects and where we're at with each of them. So the MacArthur project is uh wrapped up in terms of the planning piece of it. If you go to the next slides thanks. Uh this is for the window siding and door uh replacement repair and replacement. Uh we are at the December board uh to award the job order contract with construction beginning this spring summer uh to be completed by August. So, we want to give you an update on um sort of where those uh the the bid that or the job order contract that is in the packet um with FH Passion U has been has gone through the their pricing uh process and

098we're at a point now where we can see the actuals there. Um so, if you'd go to the next slide please, Christian. Again, uh we're looking at replacing and repairing uh the windows, siding, and doors throughout MacArthur uh in the same fashion as we did here at uh Grodsky and Ross and Sullivan. throughout the process. However, uh to live within that budget just like we do at home, there are some um things that we had hoped to do or would love to do, but that just don't fit within our budget. Um and so, for example, just some of the things that were in the original plan that the board had seen that have been either reduced or eliminated um in the current bid, the base bid that you're looking at tonight or the the contract

099that you're looking at tonight. There are some um main entry interior doors we had planned on replacing. Instead of replacing those, we will repair and repaint those. There are some doors uh at the interior of the cafeteria. We had hoped to create a vestibule because that's where the kids come in and out of um from from the buses um but that was an expense that didn't uh fit within our within our budget. Uh the board will remember that we replaced um an exterior door at the cafeteria because of a a snowplow accident a couple of years ago. Um we had replacing that this plan as well. Um, we're gonna not be replacing that door. It's still in pretty good shape and will match the others. So, we're only replacing one of those doors. And then

100in the initial planning, we have all of the louvers around the exterior of the building uh that we were going to remove um and then either and then replace. Um, we have reduced that to we're only removing and replacing ones that are significantly damaged. Um, if the contractor um can scrape and clean and paint it and it will will meet our expectation, then we won't be removing it and replacing it. We'll just be doing those repairs again as a way to live live within that budget. There are are however three alternates that um we've been talking about. These have been in the conver in the conversation over the last um cycle of discussions. The first alternate is that exterior wall in the MacArthur gym. It's called the curtain wall. Um there are pre-existing openings that

101have um since been uh panled over So, we don't currently have any windows built into those openings. We currently have on the picture on the top left, uh, we have the doors and then just solid metal panels from the doors up. The alternate for this um that we would like to see would be uh replacing those metal panels with frosted uh safety glass um to allow a little bit of natural light into that. uh active space. So that's one of the alternates that um is included in the the packet that we are uh suggesting as an option. The next alternate is the removal of the dust collection system at MacArthur uh in our what was the the wood shop. Uh we had a vacuum system that removed that dust and filtered it. Um it is

102not used any it has not been used for a while. It is simply um taking up space. >> Well, it is used by >> Well, it's used by people climbing. >> They like they like to climb. They they have found that to be helpful. Um if we were to remove it, it's a um could be a it's we would want to remove it because of the safety concern. Um but uh that And that would be an additional $49,000 to this project because it can be a standalone project. And because there are elements that we uh might be able to do inhouse, we obviously can't do all of that work. We're not going to do the masonry and those kinds of things, but um if there is some work that we can do inhouse, um we're

103going to recommend that we hold off on this ad alternate for now. Um and maintain uh we leave this out of the the job uh for now and we can address it at a later point. >> Is there any part of that that's on the inside? >> Yeah, there's there's piping on the inside and some um >> that fan. You can also see that in the lower center >> that would come out as well. So this $49,000 would remove the interior and the exterior components. >> My other question remind >> it's completely 100% dead. Yeah, it's just again it's a right the list could go on and on and on. We have to to live within the budget. We know we have to make some decisions. So, this was one that we're recommending not to

104move forward with at this time. >> Uh the third is another alternate uh that is included in the bid. If we chose to accept this alternate, we would take out uh,000 out of the base bid. So, this would be a a reduction in our costs. However, uh we're not recommending ex to doing that at this time. Um it's hard to see from from where you're at. I apologize, but the portions of the building that are highlighted in the uh schematic at the top um are identified as the windows that are most recently installed here at MacArthur and we believe that to be in 1996. So those windows are already at 20 >> 29 years 30 years almost 30. See how I did that math on the fly? I knew 20 was wrong. >> Um but

105because of the way that they're installed, there's no siding connected to it. The windows themselves could be done as a standalone project at some point in the future um without disrupting the rest of the sighting. So, the architects had shared this as an as an opportunity to save 155 if we chose to. We could live with those windows as is and kind of kick the can down the road on replacing those at some point. >> What was the age of the rest of >> in the future? Oh, they go all the way back >> there about 55 60 years old. >> So, our rationale in not accepting that simply is you're going to have economy of scale. It's not going to be any cheaper to do in the future than it is to do now.

106If you're going to do the project, you hate to do a project and then say, "Well, we replaced most of the windows except for these mostly along the front um and then kind of around the science wing on the the field side. Um that newer addition to the building is when those were were installed. So just to give the board some of those um options, Christian, you go to the next slide. um to come up with that. We worked really hard with our um architects and uh Passion uh to get our all- in construction budget in under uh under our goal which was 2.3 uh to get that at 2.193. you have arons fee and then there are district managed components including um interior painting uh window shades we're doing on our on our own

107we're not doing that through the the bid u the job um gym floor >> we've got an allocation for landscaping restoration uh the gym we would like to paint the gym the bid would cover painting of one wall in the gym because that's the one working on. So, we'd like to paint the other three walls. Um, and then, uh, the floors. Um, we would like to get those done as well. And then, um, potentially some, uh, new furniture in the main office. Those are the, um, the district manage projects. So totaling all of those down and again some of them are parts of our typical summer fund 20 work. Some of them are grant dollars from u Senator Walker. Some of them obviously a lot of them obviously are from the bond proceeds. Um we

108would recommend uh accepting the curtain wall and declining both the dust removal and the windows. The one other element here is that we with that approval of the project as it's presented here. Um the two the curtain wall and the dust collector we don't actually need to act on. We have a 30-day or 60 60day >> 60-day. have a 60-day hold on the pricing which will get us into the Eisenhower bid opening. So, we still are nervous that we want to make sure that everything we need to do at Eisenhower, we can do under that budget. We're obviously hopeful that those will come in, those bids will come in under budget, but if we absolutely needed to spend another 50,000 at something at Eisenhower, we would be able to back out of the curtain wall

109and if we had bids that came in at Eisenhower and we had available funds, you could add the dust collector at that time. So, just for where we're at in the process tonight, we're we have two um later on, we have two motions uh to consider. One as the base uh bid as presented and the second as accepting the uh curtain wall. Is that correct? Am I saying that correctly? >> You have the two actions are the approval of the job order contract for the base and then the approval of the uh not including the deductive for the 1996 windows. Um >> the other two items we can take action on in >> questions about the the Mac before we transition. Yeah. >> Are there other opportunities to creatively? >> Well, no. Like we have

110insurance reserve like if we're worried about somebody falling off or >> No. Okay. >> No. I mean again we can we can choose to allocate more dollars to it. We can make it a project that we do in house. It's something that we could try to bid independently from this after we see what happens with Eisenhower if you know I think there are elements obviously that are going to be like I said the masonry we're not going to do ourselves but uh removal of the fence taking that apart like we likely wouldn't be able to do the concrete. removal. We don't have that kind of equipment, but if we could get a good amount of it done, that's our strategy at least knowing that we want to get it taken care of. >> Maybe we

111only do the outside. We don't do the inside. We'll have to >> that that all then becomes a a calculation on capacity >> under the district managements. Did you say furniture for the main office as part of that? >> Like again, like if we need furniture for the main office, like I'm all for it and I like I appreciate all this, but just >> it doesn't seem right to me to be kind of bundling furniture for the main office as part of this project. >> You know what I mean? Just the way that I'm hearing. Yeah, that's I guess I would say that's why we showed the dollars all being bundled as well. >> Okay. >> Because right the >> operationally we would take the 50,000 allocation that we have in the budget for furniture

112and allocate it at MacArthur's office. >> Right. >> So that's where the funding comes from. But we wanted to show it as part of all of the dollars. You know, we of you can take Mark Walker's 525 and only use 2 million of the bond proceeds toward this. >> Yeah. No, no, I I I totally agree. Right. And I and I don't want you to not move forward with it, but I get But >> just the way this is presented here feels like it's bundled as part of the windows and siding project, right? Everything else feels feels related, right? Apart from that, that's something. >> Okay, I hear you too. >> Yeah, >> but this is great overall. Like I really like that and I and I I would agree with the accept the client

113the client have there >> and I agree with Spencer and what you guys are thinking, right? If there's any way to figure out a cheaper way to do that >> because 50 grand sounds like a lot to haul that away. >> Yeah, right. Okay. Uh we're doing a similar exercise with the addition at Eisenhower. Understanding that while the MacArthur project is fully designed, fully planned and bid out already, we're still at the 95 95% way through the process. We still are finalizing the design elements. Um and then we still go out to bid. So, a lot of the projections for costs are assuming kind of on the higher end. Uh certainly our hope would be that bids will come in less than that. Part of the process that we benefit from is that our partners

114and the architect and our construction manager, they're opening bids all the time. And so, they're getting real time dollars of what steel is costing. They're getting real time dollars of what bids are coming in for concrete work etc. So that they can refine their numbers and their projections from where we were two years ago which were you know again much more uh general to being very specific uh at this point. So similarly here uh we're hoping to uh wrap the construction design hit 100% um in in January, early February with uh bids going out in early February with a March approval uh and awarding of those bids and then about a year and a half of construction uh with it starting in spring summer of this 26 and then being uh ready for August of

1152027. >> Would they say spring summer of 26? Like I mean is there potential to be having some like that lot that back lot torn up this school year? >> No. Okay. >> Not that one of the main things they have one of the first things they have to do is move the transformer. >> Oh yeah. >> From one side to the other side. >> So there's some of that work. There's some prep work that they can do in the ceilings and on the roofs that won't disrupt the setting, but once they get into the summer and beyond, then they'll establish the perimeter, safety fences, etc. >> So, we don't anticipate any disruption to the current traffic patterns for this year. >> Not for this school year. >> No. Okay. Next slide, please. So again,

116we have been working under some of these assumptions. We have been really working to keep that all in construction target at 125. Um here again there's our architect fee and district managed components. >> Sure. Run through some of those. >> Yeah. So some of those um uh things that we'll be managing in house obviously um some restorative landscaping. We are planning on replacing the Gavventa lift. Um that's about $50,000. We'll do the window treatments here. That'll be >> That's the wheelchair gent is the wheelchair lift. >> That's the one from the main floor >> from the goes from the all three floors. >> That's right. It doesn't go all three. >> It's been How old is that? >> It's been really >> So we need to do that no matter what. Yeah, that's >> um

117window treatments. We'll be doing that in house as well. We've got some mural work um that we'll be looking to add to kind of enhance some of Luke's uh story book characters. Um we've got anticipated technology needs of about $30,000. Furniture we're coordinating all in house. That's going to be about $500,000. And then we're also looking at a traversing wall which we've gotten one little grant for. Um That's one thing that we'd like to add um into that new multi-purpose room as well. >> And so there again, anything that we take off of the plate is not subject to additional fees. So we're saving money by not including it in the bid, but then it becomes a a balance of capacity and time. How much? There's only Amy and Luis and you know Cal and

118the maintenance. So how much can we really promise to be there uh to to have quality eyes on the project? So trying to manage those u expectations of of time. Um so we're currently in this phase now where we're reviewing some of the ad alternates um and some things that this term value engineering is just a nice way of saying ways to do it uh more cost effectively um that do impact uh the the product and the end the final product as well. Um but we're in the process of doing that. So we've got images that we want to bring to your attention um of things that have already been removed because of uh again their cost. Um and then a number of things uh if you go to the next slide please. Thank you.

119>> Sorry. >> Is the archon fee is any of that already been paid? Does that include what we've already some of it? Um there has been some additional fees incurred because of the kind of redesign and the retreat. Do we know how much of that 968 like was already they've already received? >> We haven't seen an actual like still yet to be paid what's been paid we've asked for that >> but it's not going to be at the end of the day it's not going to be >> no just the total cost >> and the way that a big project like this rolls out is with this process of add alternates. So you have your base which is if If we have to spend every penny we have to get just this, that's enough. Then

120if things come in under budget, are there additional things that would be really helpful to have, really important to have um that you don't require uh as an absolute necessity? Then you can give yourself the opportunity to still put it out to bid and see kind of where the prices come in. So that's That's where there's some opportunity for decision making as we get post we get to the bid process and post like we just talked about with the three at. So, if you go to the next slide, sorry. This is an overview of the uh existing building in the new addition with the parking lot kind of overlaying the um satellite view as uh board member Gerdonis has specifically requested, but I think it does show the >> we're actually not essentially not touching

121the field at all. >> Uh it is going to disrupt the field a little bit. >> It it will a little bit that There's a sidewalk that runs through it. the field outfield's going to be a challenge >> curves you're gonna have >> but we don't have any building on that field trips over the curve coming in >> and I think again that's important as you go to the next slide to talk about this is a reduction of a reduction of a reduction as we've tried to go from our first vision of what it really could be with eight classrooms and um to what we can afford and what we have capacity to do. So, just to highlight some of the things that have already um come out through the through the dis discussion and

122design process, um there's a removal of Clare story windows um creating sort of a second story uh off the roof that would have allowed natural light into the space. That is removed. We'll show an image of that in a minute. Hall width was moved from 10 feet to 8 ft. Similarly, ceiling heights were from I don't know what it was to to 12 feet. Now 12 to 10 >> and okay, maybe it was 12. It's 10. Um, we talked about the exterior classroom doors and the sidewalks on the outside of the uh south end of the building. uh we reconfigured the classroom so that we uh are not required to have that secondary uh exit and so that saved money both in terms of that and the constru the concrete outside. We'll show you an

123image of that as well. Uh we rethought the design around the multi-purpose room walls themselves. So rather than brick construction, it will be um >> pre-cast concrete um with some decorative face and painting on the on the exterior. Um and then we have uh flooring and siding options. Um the types of flooring that we think would be best long term cost a little bit more. Um so we're shifting to the base bid the existing matching kind of the existing flooring which is higher maintenance cost in the short term and if the bids come in um favorably we would recommend likely alternate the ad alternate for the different type of flooring. We're doing that in the restrooms as well. Um uh tiled walls versus cement walls. We're going with cement walls in the base bid um

124with an alternate of one the one wall with the mirrors uh being tiled. Some of those types of things are where we're at kind of just now as we're looking at the the process overall. So as we sort of look at the existing ad alternates, these are things that will be included in the bid process but are not a part of the base bid. So the base bid would be the four classrooms, the parking lot, and uh the multi-purpose room. The biggest uh when we look at these, some of these you're going to say, "Yep, that makes sense. We have talked about that before. Uh I'll point out a couple of the others. Obviously, our one of our top ad alternates would be uh adding a fifth classroom space. That gives us the space for

125the long-term uh needs of the district. Again, that's probably the most costly of of the options. Uh the main entry exterior canopy that matches what we did at Ross and Sullivan with kind of the arched um name plate um is an ad alternate. It we show we'll show you a graphic in a minute that shows it with and without. Um the main office being relocated is been something that we had talked about. um that's a really expensive component of the project um and isn't essential to full day. We would view it as essential to the redesign of the entire building, but we could get away with maintaining the existing office as it is where it is and then modifying it with the nurse's office and some um restroom for the nurse's office and some upgrades

126there. Um, so that is currently being bid as an ad alternate that again should pricing come in then we would be able to move that main office. If it doesn't come in where we hope it will, then that would likely not occur again unless we choose to make a decision sooner rather than later. We talked a little about restroom tile options, flooring and siding. Again, we're looking at using um uh the brick. Help me with the siding. It's not the Nisha anymore. >> Yeah, it's just going to be a different brick. >> A different kind of brick. Okay. >> No, no, no. Be like a standard brick. trying to think of what you called it. >> Right. Uh we talked about if we were to move the main office, there is the opportunity to either

127re reuse the main office space as one classroom or as one classroom with a potential divider that could split it into two spaces, one for art, one for music. Again, that's a domino that falls if we don't relocate the office. That's obviously not there. Even if we do relocate the office, we have to see the pricing on that. You got all the way down to grass sod versus a seed blanket. Again, we would prefer and recommend to have grass uh right off the gate because seed blankets become mud blankets pretty pretty easily. So we took that out of the base bid um and have it as an ad alternate. Similarly um there was uh in terms of storage for teachers in the classrooms and in the offices and in the main office um some built-in

128casework that we have both reduced the quantity of and then or eliminated it in exchange for purchased. Um storage as as a furniture option that saves money in in the long run as well. And then there are some acoustical panels in the multi-purpose room to reduce and minimize the echoing effect. Um, so we've got that in a couple of different designs. Do you do a little bit of that? Do you do more of that? That's sort of where we're at looking at add alternates. It really is coming down to where can we save five, 10, 20,000 um to keep that projected cost at our target. Um we have really gone through and and Carol was at our last um construction meeting and you know page after page after page of if we go with this

129type of door handle or this type of door handle. We want them to be high quality. We want them to to to last. But where there are economies to be had, we're trying to prioritize and make some decisions. So just want to show you a couple of the graphics. U is that partially due to due to uh the lack of opportunity for investment 147,000 talked about earlier. I mean that certainly it doesn't help right because if we had an extra extra 147 we could pick more of these kinds of things but as our budget is tighter and tighter we have less you know again it's just like at home I would love to do a new garbage disposal when I'm doing a new sink too >> but if I only have enough money for the

130sink and I got to take the old garbage disposal off I got to put the old one back on >> doesn't always make sense to do that But if I don't have the money, I don't have the money. >> So your contractor doesn't pay you $147,000. >> Yeah. Right. So again, the first graphic is just shows the the base bid on the left with the potential for adding that fifth classroom. The next one is the relocation of the main office. um our current main office on the top left and then at the on the bottom right would be the potential if we don't move the main office then that's what the rear entry of the building would look like. If we do move the main office that's what the main entry would look like without

131the canopy. You go to the next slide. This shows the classroom with the door on the left. And then the next slide is with the door is now a wall. So we still have good window. Um we have some good natural light. It didn't impact the layout of the classroom instructional space. uh it took a little bit away from the entryway um to reduce the size of the classroom, but from instructional space it was a a good cost savings without really any impact to the kids and teachers. The next slide, this shows the original with the exterior sidewalk along the south side. And there difficult to see from this angle, but there are doors that lead out to that sidewalk with the main vestibule and the canopy. And then the next slide shows it without

132that. So again, with or without the office being moved, this would be the base. If if we are able to move the office and make the canopy that would come out on that left side and then the sidewalk leading and the doors leading out from the new addition is eliminated in this graphic here. You see across the top In our original bid, those clear story windows kind of from this angle you see them. Um, letting that natural light in. Um, the middle bid was with the exterior doors kind of with that different type of it's a two-tone uh type of brick there. And then the west elevation is the um canopy. Next slide shows it without that. So we reduce the height uh without those clear story windows. The um second one shows the canopy

133on the left and a fifth classroom on the right. So the one above it is no canopy four classrooms. The second one is canopy fifth classroom. And then the left at the very bottom three and four show if you have the from the west side no canopy and yes canopy in our original bid. The portion that's in that the far uh right of the picture is the new multi-purpose room uh showing it in a brick face. The next slide shows it with the cast um >> pre-cast walls. And I think that's it. Um Chris and um Craig, you guys want to just give a brief update if you go to the next slide on where we're at with our working groups and the work that you guys have been doing and some of the visits

134and planning. Um yeah, we've we've had a committee uh where we met three or four times with the kindergarten team of teachers. Um, we've talked about kind of our plan moving forward, where we're at with construction plans and those types of things. Um, also our our philosophy moving forward with curriculum and things like that. Um, and then also just getting their insights on needs for the program, things they want to continue doing, um, things we want to make sure we improve on with full day plan and things like that. Um, we've also met with a group parents just to kind of the same plan um to get their feedback as far as what they're looking for in the kindergarten program. Um both positives from uh their they either have children in um that went through

135kindergarten this year or are currently going through it or went through it in the past year. Um some of them also have former children that went through it. Um but just to kind of get their insights of things that they liked about our program in the half day form and want to keep those things around and also uh things that they would love to see in a full day program. Um some of the commonalities that we saw on both sides are making sure that we um see increased time for play um including time for recess. um you know they're concerned about making sure that we increase the academics but I think they they see that more as a given as we have more time with kids in the classroom but they also want to make

136sure that we balance that with play so the day doesn't seem too long for their kids as they increase to a full day um structured play too so teaching students children how to play right through play >> so whether you integrate that through the curriculum or through the sciences So that was a good conversation. And then we um the teachers got to go next door to district 26. Um they have they had for a while and um they had an opportunity to tour some classrooms and observe and then they also were able to sit down and talk with the teachers. Um they ask some questions. Um I think a lot of time centered around um we do a kindergarten screening in the spring into summer and so they talked a lot about you know what

137for the screen to help you, you know, build um good structures for your classes for the school upcoming school year. Um so that was a big conversation that they have >> and they'll be pulling together kind of their recommendations and the plan for uh operational side of things staffing programming impact to transportation food service EDP those types of things in January February and we'll be able to turn that around and include that in our financial projection. Um all under the last Please just again to keep keep uh aware that these continued investigations and the refinements, you know, uh either lead to accepting things kind of as as they are or uh a potential for increased revenue. We know that um you know the board has been reviewing that and thinking about that in over the

138m past number of years um and that uh we be working on that through this spring and summer um in advance of a potential for uh November if we if we wanted to move in that way. You'd have to take action by August. That's a lot. reflections, thoughts, questions, anything we can clarify. >> So, what's the timeline now for those bids getting unsealed and all that happens in February? >> That should happen in February. We still need to we still have a final push to get all of the documents finalized, get it from that 95 to 100%. Um, so we met with all of the trades this week. um they have what they need to update and and this is sort of the ask any other questions now because once you put it out to

139bid, you can't go back and change your mind. So, they're putting the crossing the tees and dotting the eyes on the documents. We would anticipate that going out to bid in February and then um open them late February. >> We'll have a sense where we're going to be at. closer. Um we'll have the 95% budget review and that's the first week of January. So we'll have a better idea once we kind of >> and again that'll be based on bids that they're opening now. >> Yeah. Taking into account some of the changes as well. there's a lot bigger together. >> We realize that, you know, as we've been living it dayto day, we want to make sure that we keep the board and community apprised because even the even the renderings that we put out

140on the posters um may not look like that and we don't want people to come back and go, "Wait a minute, you said there was going to be this." Well, that was the version of it three years ago and it has gone through multiple iterations. But it's it's a very real need to live within our budget. It's just I mean that's just no no two ways about it. So that is something we're taking very seriously. And like I said, we're looking for any opportunity without jeopardizing the integrity of the project or, you know, minimizing um the need. where can we shave off a little bit of money here or there? That's what we have to to get to and then hope for the best um when it comes to to budgeting and bidding. >> Yay

141for following that. All right. Then our next agenda item is a presentation by our very own director of technology and information services. And you all know Chris and I have worked together for what has it been 22 23 years? >> Feels like that. 15 plus. >> Oh, it's only been it's only been 16 years. But um I teased him a lot because he's like a younger brother in many ways. But the work that he has done and quite honestly that he is leading in this area around trusted learning environment is is to be commended. It's not in his presentation. He's not going to show you all of that. He's not going to tell you how he is hosting and driving things forward, but he really is. And so, uh, wanted him to bring you up

142to speed again about our strategic plan goals of developing an AI policy. uh completing the pursuit of our trusted learning environment and then our continued implementation of cyber security plan are all addressed in this presentation >> and I did have quite a bit of verbiage on each slide that was for you with the board pack over the weekend I'll speak to it here so you can feel free to ignore that verbiage uh but the trusted learning environment this presentation is purposefully titled for that is that so well represents the digital ecos we And even the use of the word digital isn't correct because the digital piece is ubiquitous in everything now that it's really just our ecosystem. And you may remember in years past I would give presentations on tech plans, right? Tech plan 3.0

143was a three-year plan. It outlines some of our professional development, cyber security, budgetary plans. But tech is now in everything. It really is just about seeing how it touches leadership, professional development, classroom, data security and business practices which are also coincidentally the five seals of the trusted learning environment. So the trusted learning environment comes to us from KOS which is the consortium for school network and they work with the superintendent organization the business officials organization to say wait a minute what's an overarching framework and mindset that can guide school districts in having a safe, sustainable, manageable environment that really reflects a bunch of best practices. We are fortunate enough to be part of a pioneering cohort in the Chicagoland area that's one of the first states to have a group working together to get these

144five seals. Some individual districts and states have gotten it because it's a nationwide piece, but Illinois is one of the first to put cohorts together. And the cool thing is these cohorts work toward the same seals. Then as they get them and it's totally normal feedback from post and make a few changes along the way. They give feedback and chart their progress. So as other school districts look at this, they have an outline for what to include. And you don't do it just for the recognition, but that's a nice in the capital school districts. It really is so you have a more conscious, purposeful, intentional policy practice procedure processes for data privacy and security for best practice management. Uh next slide. Just so you know, I appreciated the TLE TLC. >> Well, it's most of

145the board might have been too young to even catch that, right? So, I got it. >> Well, I'm glad someone got that reference because it was one letter away. And just as TLC says, don't go chasing waterfalls. We don't need to either. Some of the best things we have are here. So, how did we get to the TLE? We first went onetoone with devices 10 plus years ago. And at that time, so much energy and excitement around the accessibility of the device and how much you could do with it. And kind of analogously thinking of a playground for kids, we said have this whole field with all this equipment. But through that, through co now where we are and seeing what's manageable and seeing how teachers, parents, and kids responded, we say, "Wait a minute.

146There's so much more compassion, safety, and saying here's a safe, curated part of the playground with equipment that we can support, we can monitor, we can afford, than saying you just have everything." And we and many school districts, not just here, but around the country, are facing the same thing of saying, "Wait a minute, how do we bring everything into a manageable ecosystem? If we have hundreds of programs we use, how do our approaches support that with professional development? How do we support that with budget as from a cyber security lens? The way students and staff are accessing their accounts and they have all this data out there. How are we ensuring there aren't hundreds of programs tracking our kids and staff and we really have a curated approach. Basically, it's like saying how do

147we go from getting all our groceries at Woodman's to Trader Joe's where we kind of have that understanding of all right. I I have nothing wrong with Woodman. My mom loves Woodman's. She gets lost in Woodman's. She calls me and tells me about all the fun things she finds at Woodman's. I try to find my way out of that conversation. I can't. >> But I know Woodman's either. >> I know. See, that's the problem. Uh but for us, it's about really having that ecosystem. And we actually have a graphic that we're going to share with staff. It's be a public facing piece. It's Planet D23 that really gets at saying, hey, how do we simplify what we use and who we are? Just like I said with the digital piece, it's everywhere. Amy's stuff, the

148business office is all digital. Greg's stuff all digital. Yes, we made paper copies of IEPs. We use embrace as a digital platform to track that, right? So everything's digital. So for planet D23, we have our core. These are our core programs for data, for accounts, and for functionality. That's powers school, Google, and Apple. Now outside of that we have our outer our first inner layer which is communication. We have seesaw school is our learning management systems but then we also have clever as a dashboard for our safe programs and instant IQ for the support we need and creation of accounts we have our outer layer this is our curriculum this is I ready tci anything that goes through the curriculum adoption process that Dr. And then finally we have things orbiting that are engagement apps,

149design apps, department specific things. Already this is quite a bit we support from a budgetary standpoint, professional development standpoint and the trusted learning environment really gets the compassion of saying how do we give students and staff a curated experience so we can speak a similar language and have something that's the same. Next slide. >> Chris. Yeah, that slide is great. Like I like the layers of that. But when you talk about TL, does it go to the level of like infrastructure and like talking about like our routers, our switches, right? Like network security or is it really start like a is it really more focused on instruction? >> It's it's more focused on how you get there and make data privacy transparent. So they don't necessarily care how many switches or routers we have or

150that they're the newest ones. What they care about is how we procure them is transparent. The vendors we work with understand our privacy practices and have cyber security practices in place there because it's budget agnostic in the sense that it recognizes we as a district might not have as many funds as someone down the street. But we better use a safe process and we better vet our vendors so that way what we procure and get is done in the safest most sound way possible. So that's the difference. Christian next one slide. So before I dive into the exact TL components, one important thing I have to say is as we talk about anything programmatic, our adherence to our core curriculum is such a priority for us and we have with Dr. Curtis that cycle where

151we look at we investigate we put a committee together to look at core curriculum and we take that very seriously because that takes time on our part. We're very conscious of best practices and it is a big budgetary commitment. And one of the things with the TLE is making sure that as we look at other programs outside of that, we have a really rigorous vetting process to make sure it fits in our and this is a slide we have on our website. It's something we share with staff any adoption process. It talks about the relevant state and federal laws in regards to data privacy for kids and staff. And we have an approval process as well that not only checks if something is safe, but that fits with what our vision for learning best practices

152are. Next slide, please. So, five seals for the TLE. This is one we've already earned for leadership. This is all about district and building leaders understanding data privacy, understanding the processes and procedures, and making sure they communicate transparently on it and actively support. Now, with the trusted learning environment application, some things are just showing that you have pieces in place. Like, it was important to show that I'm our data privacy officer and we f that rule. It was also important to show that we put on our website what those policies and procedures are and we make that clear and transparent. But something else for every district and ours is included is how do we make that fun? Because a policy procedure is only as good as people's knowledge of it and acting on it. So

153one of the things we do is you know we collect iPads for breaks. That keeps students safe, families safe, it keeps the device safe. It's meant to be a break for kids so we can model them how to be safe online. Part of that's not having the device, but part of it is when staff collect it and give it back to them, they run through a curriculum of best practices modeling safety. How you sign in, how you sign out, trusted resources. Our tech integration specialist, Miss Sutter, gets around and helps with collection and lessons before and after. Now, this is where the AI guidelines come in. The AI guidelines Don and I talked a lot about is the presentation about the guidelines about the trusted learning environment. But the trusted learning environment is the hierarchal

154umbrella under which AI guidelines fit and with the AI guidelines it is part of the digital ecosystem where it's not that we glorify that but we really want to say how do we have the structure in place where those fit. So, Senate bill, state senate bill 1920 outlined the requirements for us to have guidelines by the summer and it also outline guidelines that are in our policy or I should say pieces of our guidelines working toward policy. Christian, next slide. So, Brian, it's as if you knew what was coming because we did use notebook LM uh both to show how strong AI can be but also to show limitations. So part of our guidelines talks about using artificial intelligence in trusted resources we already have and resources for which we have agreements. So notebook LM

155is a Google tool. We have Google education plus we have a SAPA agreement that's an online privacy and safety agreement with Google. So that's the safest place our staff can use artificial intelligence. Notebook LM is a language model tool that can pull together content you put in there and create things like a podcast. It created this infographic. So I put in there our guidelines. It correctly summarized the guiding principles. Our use of AI has to be purpose driven. We need balance. We have to uphold integrity in terms of the assessments and student learning and how they interact with it staff. And we have to say high. Uh Don will shake his head at this, but high is human intelligence with the artificial intelligence. So we can't forget to say hi anytime we do a project

156because the human is actually central to using artificial intelligence. Now we do talk about in the guidelines that it's great to spark creativity. It can help with the brainstorm. It can help when generating questions like Dr. M team shared. It's also great supporting staff and teachers maybe with some prompting and some lesson planning. But there are definitely ways that it is if it's used to plagiarize or if it has academic integrity issues. One of our guideline pieces and it's also under acceptable use policy. You never enter person identifiable information in AI no matter where it is. Even if it's in our safe Google environment, you don't enter personally identify. Now, we did use notebook LM next slide to actually create a video. Uh, we did not alter the video. This came strictly from the content

157we put in. We didn't guide any. >> Okay, let's just >> So, I'll let this very fun announcer narrator tell you about our guidelines. Dive right in. It honestly feels like one day AI was just this thing we talked about and then boom, the next day it's everywhere. It's in our emails. It's making art and now it's officially walking through the schoolhouse doors. And that of course brings up a huge question for pretty much everyone, parents, teachers, and especially students. I mean, if this incredibly powerful new tool is in the hands of our kids, what's the playbook? What's okay? What's off limits? And who's even making these rules? Well, it turns out some people are already way ahead of the game. We're going to take a look at the playbook from Prospect Heights School District

15823 in Illinois. They didn't just sit around and wait for someone else to figure it out. They went ahead and created their own comprehensive guide for this new world. And here's the thing, their first instinct wasn't to just ban AI. They saw it less as a threat and more as a powerful new tool. And like any tool, it needs a really clear user manual, especially before you hand it over to students. You know, this image of the scales, it perfectly sums up their entire strategy. It is all about balance. The whole mission is to use the amazing potential of AI to help kids learn while at the same time being super careful about the very real risks that come with it. So to get that balance right, they didn't just write up a list of

159dos and don'ts. No, they started with a philosophy, a foundation built on seven core principles that guide every single decision they make about AI. And here it is, their whole framework. You can see it covers everything from the basic purpose of using AI in the first place to compliance with rules and making sure humans maintain agency. This is not a knee-jerk reaction. It's a really thoughtout proactive strategy. Let's dig into a couple of the really big ones to see how they work. Okay, first up, agency. This one is huge. The district is making it crystal clear that AI is a co-pilot, not the pilot. Teachers and students are always in the driver's seat. They're the ones making the final calls and ultimately they're the ones responsible for the work. And here's that word again, balance.

160The district gets that these AI tools are trained on human data, which let's be honest, can be full of biases. So, they're committed to checking the tools for those risks and just as importantly, teaching students how to be smart, critical thinkers about the information AI gives them. So, with that foundation in place, let's get to the fun part, the toolkit. How are students and staff actually supposed to use AI as a positive thing, something that helps them learn? For students, the possibilities here are pretty awesome. They can use AI as a brainstorming buddy to get over writer's block or as a language tutor that's there for them 24/7 or even as a tool to make their own custom study guides for a test. It's all about making their learning better, not taking a shortcut. And

161it's a total game changer for teachers, too. Just imagine being able to instantly whip up three different versions of a lesson plan for students at different learning levels or drafting a parent newsletter in seconds. This is all about giving teachers their time back so they can focus on what they do best, actually teaching. All right, so we've talked about all the cool stuff you can do, but what about the things you can't? You got to have some guardrails, right? The district was really clear about where they draw the red lines to keep everyone safe and to make sure learning is fair. This right here nails the difference between a tool and a cheat sheet. Using AI to help you brainstorm and outline your essay, totally fine. Great use of the tool. But just copying and

162pasting what the AI wrote and slapping your name on it? Nope. That's plagiarism, plain and simple. It's all about being honest and giving credit where it's due. Now, this one is a little more subtle, but it's so important. AI can definitely make a teacher's job easier, but it can never ever replace their professional judgment or that human connection they have with a student. The rules are clear. A human teacher always has to be in the loop, especially for grading to catch any bias and really understand where a student is on their learning journey. Okay, so we've got the big ideas and the rules, but what does this all actually look like on a random Tuesday morning in District 23? How does this playbook work in the real world? Which brings us to probably the most

163practical question of all. It's one thing to talk about AI, but what programs are kids and teachers actually logging into? The district is super specific here. They're using AI features inside tools they already know and trust, like Google and Canva. And here's the most important part. Every single tool has to have a strict data privacy agreement. They're absolutely committed to making sure no students personal info ever gets fed into these AI systems. I mean, a tool is only as good as the person using it, right? So, a huge piece of this puzzle is education. How does the district make sure students actually become responsible, critical, and safe users of this new tech? Well, they build it right into the curriculum, and they start early. I'm talking kindergarten. Learning about digital citizenship and AI isn't some

164extra thing they do. It's a core part of their library and tech classes, and it gets more advanced as the kids get older. They're not just handing them a tool, they're teaching them how to use it the right way. So, Prospect Heights District 23 has a clear, thoughtful plan for the AI we have today. But this technology is moving at light speed. Their playbook is meant to be a living document ready to change. Which leaves us all with the real question. As AI keeps evolving in ways we can't even imagine, how will our schools and really our whole society manage to keep up? artificial intelligence and the limitations and artificial intelligence is not unlike um my undergraduate degree in college was great ideas in western thought so was analyzing a lot of classical texts as

165dorky as it sounds there would be a big difference between different translations of texts and artificial intelligence is the same as we feed it information, how it perceives it and how it analyzes it can be different. So I say that because as we then jump back into the trusted learning environment that better guides our practices moving forward that's really about the processes, procedures and practice practices that keep us all safe that allow us to be in a good budgetary spot and have sustainable practices that are applicable across departments and buildings for which artificial intelligence is an influence. So jumping from artificial intelligence and one more thing I'll say about the guidelines we Other districts actually coincidentally use teachai.org. They had a great toolkit for talking about artificial intelligence in a way that gives you a

166platform to dynamically expand it. These things can and will change. So the irony is that was saying all the great things we did. It didn't mention that we in our guidelines gave credit to those whom influence challenging as the but that's what makes the trusted learning environment so crucial important for us is that's really our northstar best practices four other seals for trusted learning environment we have applied for the business seal we should hear soon that's really about the process for vetting programs for purchase procurement and safety been a great partner in looking at some of our contractual language and looking at the deals we have with partners to ensure that third parties are understanding our safety pieces and have safety pieces in place as well. But it's also making sure that our staff are

167educated regularly on that process for themselves. Some of the things I have here, we educate all new staff at new staff orientation in August about those state and federal pieces and how programs are requested and how we approve them. And we have a formal procedure for requesting a digital resource where they have to go through a program to score an app or program. We have to see if the data privacy agreement is available. And then we have an approval team that consists of members of our technology connect committee, instructional coach, respective building principal, tech team where we look and see if that program does meet safety needs but also critical needs. Next slide. Data security is one of the seals for which we will apply in late winter or spring. So definitely next year. But

168and our cohorts working together so we can give each other feedback on pieces. Data security is all about how we protect data at rest and in transmission but also roles and processes. Dr. Sro has been a great partner because it's really our special ed department that has the access to some of the most data. So how do we respect what they need while also not giving more than anybody needs? This is really about roles and processes. We have things we share with families during testing time about keeping information That's a time where students are definitely having data put out there as they do their best and important data comes back to us. And again, what we post on our website helps us to meet some important requirements. Next slide. Professional development is all about how

169we embed this in multiple layers of learning for staff and how we make it recurring annual. We just had cyber security awareness month where we worked with our partners at Memphis to make sure everybody did their training and we covered very specific things. As you know, we have many online learning campaigns and fishing tests always around a curriculum of skills so teachers not only can recognize unexpected communication but understand what communication is expected. Next slide. Chris, who is the who is the like the biggest culprit at the admin level? That's easy. >> You know, I will say this. >> They are really good. >> It's not PHI protective. >> They are really good. >> But there is one person who likes to vocally say out loud that he's tempted to click and drives up my

170anxiety. So, I'm not going to say who that is, but there's someone who definitely knows when I'm around and puts out to the whole universe that he would really want to click. >> It's a he though, so that's a good >> It is a heat. That narrows it down. We actually just applied for this seal, so should find out within the next 30 days. Uh, this one is all about what teachers do. It's all about how teachers share best practices with students and families about data privacy, safety, and security. It also gets to our curriculum. Like the very nice robotic uh non-human narrator said, our LMC, which they had their curriculum adoption last year, their update, and our specials class, including Mrs. Travis's ideas class, do a lot digital citizenship. That's a core part of

171the curriculum piece. You might have seen this very fun communication come home before November break. That also includes something about tech best practices, privacy, and safety. We're maximizing those opportunities to make sure we can remind parents not just about data privacy here, but also at home. Next slide. So, what's next for us? We have one of the seals. We have two applications in. My cohort and I are working on the other two. In terms of some other projects with artificial intelligence, we're working with our partners at the Student Data Privacy Consortium. That is a professional group that actually helps with the data privacy agreements. They're leading the charge on exploring how AI tools may change data privacy agreements in the future. We also continue to work with the learning technology center. We had uh Eric

172Muckinstrom, their cyber security expert, come to a special professional development on cyber security and best practices for the admin team. We continue to work here on a mindset of not just understanding what's unexpected, but making sure people understand what's expected. And with the trusted learning environment, the biggest thing we can elucidate for staff is that all the practices we have around anything digital are formalized. There are procedures, there are process, and nothing happens. and really understanding how that's curated to keep everybody safe. I do have to share a moment of rejection because I was very excited in the summer uh as was Don when I told him many times to have this idea of the twix with our communication because as we teach safety it's two communications people should expect everything else they should be

173skeptical of we have our every other Friday 411 school and principal communications those are the two main safe ways we communicate and share information trying to help people understand I reached out to Twix and I told them I said, "We're doing something really fun." I did. Yes, I Come on, Chris. That shouldn't surprise you. And I said, "We're doing something really fun institute day. I'm going to share this poster. It's going to be such a great way for them to think about it. Do you do any sponsorships? Do you send anything?" Um, they thought it was a great idea, but they could not even spare a few Twix bars to send. So, I was shot down by Twix, which was very depressing. So, if somebody were going to go for a Snickers, Twix would wouldn't

174help me out. But one other thing we're doing too to help just staff streamline things for staff. Uh Mr. Hyro Ramirez, our district device manager, has created a lifesaver. It's an icon that's going to be in all laptops in early January. And what it is is a status health bar of have you updated? Have you rebooted your computer in a while? Important links to instant IQ, our website, gamifi reflections. We can put other things in there. But part of the safety piece for staff with TLE is just streamlining everything so it's clear clear and transparent. That was a lot questions about TLE artificial intelligence or how I get denied by >> how do we uh how do we start community? I guess I can imagine that this is an area where the community going to

175have a lot of interest or kind of really understanding how much we're using it in classrooms, what kids are getting exposed to, you know, because I I feel like we kind of hear about it when kids bring it home, right? and are using it in their homework. But it it almost feels like that we we need to, you know, we almost need to have like an annual like kind of AI update for the community to kind of talk about how we're using it, right? And almost a progression of, you know, do we really start, you know, when do we really start using it and how, you know, and how does it evolve, right, from maybe starting whenever, right? kindergarten, second or third grade up to, you know, kids are using it to build presentations, right?

176In middle school, >> there are a lot of wheels in motion with that and it's a very relevant question. I actually just had the tech directors in this week as we were talking about kind of what's on our plate with artificial intelligence and everything else. And some of those wheels are you have some communities asking about screen time in general, right? You have some communities asking about the devices in general, the device use and supporting that you definitely have some asking about an artificial intelligence. You have some asking about privacy and data. That's one of the reasons why trusted learning environment is such an important framework is that goes over those best practices of transparency. Now with that, we also had um I'll call it a forum we hosted here in the spring with the

177theater districts and 214 to talk about the progression of artificial intelligence. There very much so far is a clear delineation between us theater districts and high school and Doesn't that make sense with the department based nature of the maturity? But I think as we've had those as we've had more professional development and as the state had Senate Bill 1920 with what we need to do with the guidelines, we're now in a really good spot and a confident spot to jump out and do that. I have our instructional coaches in January. We're attending um Tony Frontiers PD just to build a little bit more of our background knowledge with someone we also use for standardsbased practicing clarity. But after that we're actually going to talk about do we a parent, do you look at a survey?

178What is that best way to involve the community? Because one of the challenges here is AI is a phenomenon and it's not just something that impacts our instruction. It's something that people need to also understand how it impacts them personally. Just as it could be a great way to summarize learning for a worksheet, they're also some of the community questions and the environmental impacts. And one of the things the tech directors were emailing about today is the cost of some tech supplies that are going way up because these data centers are buying all this RAM which is then not making it available for the things we need which then from a budgetary angle does us no favors. So there are societal impacts for the phenomenon and we want to teach people how to kind of

179have that understanding of how they make sense of it how they reconcile. >> You're going to be rolling the guidelines out officially. Yep. >> So, kind of as as Laura and Dina had shared earlier, you know, we've had under that umbrella safe tools some limited dabbling in because we haven't had any guidelines. We're rolling the guidelines out officially at our institute day on the 6th. >> Correct. Um, and then as part of that are what are the tools that we're going to be opening up for kids to use and in what ways are we supposed to be informing parents? What is the expectation for letting them know what device what tools we have etc. So that's coming within the next little bit. Ironically, the state we passed, you guys may remember, we passed this policy

180a couple of cycles ago that said we're required to have this AI guidelines developed. At the same time, the state was supposed to release their guidelines. Um, and it's all supposed to be in place by July 1. The state just told us this week that they are starting their uh task force to look at this in July. >> We must have the same project planner as Cook County. >> Got it. >> So like a lot of things, you know, we have our local responsibility because we have kids and staff using tools today and they need to doing that in a safe way. So, we're developing and that's why I really applaud Chris for the collaborative piece of this because we don't want to isol do this in isolation. So, sort of creating our own local

181guidelines, then the state will come out with guidelines and we'll have to backtrack and either match or change or modify um to meet those. But yes, >> we haven't heard what those requirements are yet because the state hasn't put that out. But locally, that idea of creating this this ecosystem >> where you know the tools that we give kids and staff and the networks that we put them on are vetted and trusted >> and safe within that within that environment. Then you can give kids and staff the flexibility to say, "Try it. See what AI will spit back out when you put that in." >> But they have to know those guard rails and guidelines first. >> Yes. >> Yeah. You know, so I think just the other part of it too is dealing with

182this at work myself, right? Or just every day it's like, "Oh, I used, you know, I I use cloud code for that. I want to be able to use model, I want to be able to use that. And so the part of it is you almost have to have like an intake process, right? And say like you cannot go and use this stuff on your own, right? But if you have an idea for something you want to do, >> right, to be able to kind of, you know, to put that because to do exactly what Don's saying, right, which is that >> you just can't start you can't you just can't start browsing, right, to different models, right? That you have to be flowing through and only using, you know, district approved models or software.

183>> Well, and that's where the trusted learning environment comes in. It all starts that process for approval, right? It's like, hey, you might have the best intentions of using any program or service, but what information are we putting in? Have we vetted it? Can we support it? Can we afford it? Is it sustainable? Because no matter what happens with artificial intelligence, we have to have a model that supports collaborative instructional planning and what we think is best for kids. And We have different staff all with good intentions going different directions. We can't support that. So that's why it really is getting down to that ecosystem of how can we align all our best practices which includes artificial intelligence to meet every needs. >> This is a great job. >> Great. >> Thank you very much.

184>> Okay. No more presentation. Uh our next item is an action item. It is awarding of the job order contract to FH Passion for the MacArthur Middle School's windows, siding, and door replacements. Uh this evening, we're requesting approval of the base bid in the amount of 2,192,768 and direction on the deductive alternate number three as proposed. Pricing on alternates one and two will be held until the Eisenhower bids are open in order to allow ample time for the board to discuss and reach a decision. So in the packet there are >> two motions. The first I think it's the first one is just the base bid >> which includes the 1996 windows. >> So we would be doing the 1996 windows in the base. >> The second is we feel we should pull that out.

185read the second one. >> So our recommendation, >> our recommendation is the first one. It's either or either we do it >> include all the windows or we do it without the 1996. >> Okay. So the first includes all >> Yeah, the first one includes everything except for add alternates one and two. Motion want to discuss >> discuss after motion. So that's fine. You want to make a motion? >> I can't make a motion. I make a motion towards 2,192,68. Is there discussion? >> Mrs. Marcy, yes. Mrs. Mr. >> Yes. Yes, >> what could be seen as a perception of interest. >> Oh, very. >> All right. Next up, item D is the final tax levy and IMRF resolution for the 2025 tax year. Motion to approve the 202 discussion. >> Mrs. Mory, >> yes.

186>> Mrs. Mr. Dr. Long, >> yes. >> Mr. Next item is also an action item. It is the approval of extended day program or EDP fees for the 2026 27 year. Um we're recommending an increase of those fees in alignment with the December CPI. >> Motion to approve second. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Mr. >> Dr. Mr. Did I spell that correctly or did I spell it wrong? >> Nia is correct. >> Oh, I thought it was Narnia. >> It's not something else. >> And it's just an information item. >> It is because the board took action in November u approving the negotiation and execution of the document. So, um attached here is the executed uh electricity agreement. Any questions? >> Next is uh renewal of a contract with uh impact. They work with us in

187our printer and copers. Uh we are we're able to negotiate a renewal of that contract with um a reduction in our overall costs. Um tying that in uh with improve efficiencies and u and usage uh practices to be more effective and efficient. >> Yes, >> I I did have one question on this one. There seems like a lot of devices still like do we have we reduced the number of devices significantly? It just it feels like we have a lot less printing now than we did five years ago. >> You know, coincidentally, it's more we have more printing. Um, we have printers spread out. Not all the printers spread out are equally used. So, one of the things we're doing with them is modernizing our fleet based on needs. So, for example, the library color

188desktop units are more expensive is they're more similar to home units. So, they're more expensive per page than the big mass production copers. So, we're moving all color copying to the big mass production copers, which they call the copies impressions. It limits our cost as low as it can go per impression. And the cost they're going to give us on the color is less than we're paying in our current contract, which is a very nice win. We're also taking some of our, we call them towers that are in some of our old offices at MacArthur that are no longer used in that capacity and they're lightly used in general. Those are going to go to some of our elementary conference rooms. Is not every conference room has had the same printing solution. And then with

189this contract, we're increasing our yearly aotment of impressions to reduce overage costs because we have had overages the past few years and that adds on to the base monthly costs. >> It's not it's not an action item tonight. We needed to get uh any feedback from the board >> um because uh the new year pricing uh guarantee goes away in January. >> So we we knew we didn't have the procedural pro the procedure in place to to have a vote tonight because this is our first time reviewing it. But uh our vendor partners have said as long as we've had a conversation and It feels like the board is in agreement that they'll hold that pricing and and move forward with it. >> We'll bring it for final action. >> Seems like a win, right?

190>> Y >> with with the contracts being negotiated on the tech side and the cost of things. Having even a break even is a win. Having a reduction is definitely a win. And then the last two uh information items uh the memo from uh Dr. Curtis on curriculum and instruction really spans uh all things in teaching and learning department professional development curriculum adoptions. It's just presented uh we do this three times a year. One in the fall, one now and then one in the spring just to kind of give you an update of the work that's being done. So thanks to Dr. Curtis and uh for all of the committee work um and and curriculum planning that's going on and all the professional development as well. So that's all kind of covered in there. Any

191questions about that? He told me earlier he would be more than happy to answer >> atbody. >> Well, you could love to do that. We'd love to do that too. >> Good. >> Uh, and the last item is also an information item. It is um tied to our plan for sustainable financing. Um, we just want to give now just a touch point kind of a look ahead to what uh we are preparing for a series of presentations in January, February and March uh regarding our goal around sustainable financing both the understanding of the elements the assumptions that we're making and some of the decisions that uh we will need to make into the future. So, this was just sort of to give you sort of the road map of where we're going over the next

192few months and um give you just kind of that pick the view of where we're going. And then over the next three months, we'll be sharing much more and opening that discussion around past, present, and future financing. We have no old business, new business we talked about earlier, but first reading here of all the press policies. Is there any discussion on that for our next meeting? >> Multiple guests with that. I look for a motion to for executive session. >> Yeah. For matters of >> personel session. Yes. Mrs. Mr. >> Dr. Long, >> yes. >> Mr. Take a quick breath.