April Board of Education Meeting

001Yeah, please. We're going to Live on Facebook. Okay. YouTube. Facebook. YouTube. Yeah. Sorry. Just different letters. The Google machine is working. That's all I know. The Google machine. As long as the snapping and the chatting and the instant is happening, we're good. Good evening. I call to order the board of education meeting for Prospect Heights School District 23 for April 10th, 2025 at 7:02 p.m. Roll call. Mrs. Bwinsky here. Mr. Gdanis present. Dr. Long here. Mrs. Mlan here. Mr. Nordmark here. Mrs. Peters present. Mr. Novak. Yes, sir. All right. Tonight we have joining us to lead the pledge students from two brand new intercolastic programs here at Sullivan. So if we could have all of our students come forward right into this center area. We'll all stand and lead you can lead us in the

002pledge. The flag is in the back of the room. And then stay up here and we'll ask you a few questions and then we'll allow some time for photos in case that's of interest. All right. You ready? I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So you guys can just turn around right where you're at. Is there perfect? We have questions. We have so many questions for you. Every year the board of education holds its meeting at each of the schools. So here tonight we're obviously at Sullivan and whenever we do that, we like to highlight something special at that school. And you guys and gals are the first people to participate in

003some new clubs this year. So raise your hand if you are a part of Flow and Grow. All right, let's start with that one. First of all, what is it? Yeah. Okay, so it's like a yogurt club. Oh, sweet. More about it. Okay. Um, can you show some [Music] No, you don't have to show some. And where did you learn these yoga moves? From our from the slow and dam you run it. And about how many people are in that club you know but more than three or four? Yes. That's really cool. How often do you eat? Uh we usually meet on I think Wednesdays. Just one of the days. What do you like about it? We set our brains out of our minds and think of nothing and just be calm. Wow. Does that

004all the time? People like Who else is in flow and grow? What else do you like about it? It's relaxing. Do you ever fall asleep doing it? house. I do. I do. What do you guys like about it? You said you wear that. [Music] Okay. People are nice to each other, kind of each other. And where does this where does this take place? Can you tell us? This is room. It gets transformed into a calm, very zen place. She play like strobe lights and lots of flashing and loud EDM music. No. Okay. And then when we get [Music] back up the fountain and the salt wall, no salt wall. Okay. That's really cool. And then the other club that's new this year is robotics. Raise your hand if you were in robotics. All right. Tell

005us a little bit about robotics. Um, it's where you like build a robot out of Lego pieces and then you program it with an iPad to do like movements and like one of them just like drops something. Okay. One of them can pick something up. How long have you guys been doing that? What's Is that something you've been doing since you were in kindergarten or you just started just this year as your first time? [Music] for that one. I knew that was a good answer. What programming language do you use? Okay. Then you do you go to competitions or do you do or is it just Okay. do that on purpose. Yeah. Well, we've had robotics programs at M uh at MacArthur for a number of years. We've had them at Sullivan before, but not

006for a number of years. So, it's new again this year. John, who's the sponsor of the program? Who who helps you with that? Oh, Mr. Ramirez. Mr. Ramirez, who works in our tech department, actually. Good. And where do you guys meet? Um, you met me at the library here in this library. Okay. And this is where the battle bots happen in front of everybody. Awesome. Can some folks who haven't shared yet tell us why you enjoy going to robotics? Okay. Anybody else? Just fun just to hang out after school. You can hang out with your friends. Yeah. Right. That's awesome. Embrace it. Yeah. Well, that's terrific. Anybody else want to share anything else they like about robotics? If you go on to MacArthur or when you go on to MacArthur, are you thinking you might

007want to join the robotics team there? You know how that this year they took second in the state of Illinois in our robot in the robotics competition? Yes. Yes. Now it's not Lego robotics at middle school, but it's same idea where they have to program and so you're learning how to do they don't fight. No, but they have to do all those tasks. Pick up, move things, accomplish tasks on the board. So, very similar to what you're learning now. That's awesome. How many of you are in fifth grade? Okay. Chance maybe next year to jump in. Any other questions from our board of ed? Thank you for coming out tonight. appreciate it very much. If you would be so kind as to kind of turn around and face your fans, take a and then we

008can allow some time if folks want to grab a photo of our fabulous pledge leaders. I want to thank Miss Sloan is here, one of the club sponsors, Mr. Ramirez as well, Mr. Labota. And there, Miss Mezier has certificates for you uh to thank you for coming out tonight. And parents, we thank you for making the trip out to help us to recognize our students for this really cool new program that you've all participating. You're making it happen. It was just an idea in Miss Sloick's head over the summer, like what if we did yoga? Do you think the kids would show up? I think the answer is yes. Love it. All right. Thank you all very much. Mr. Als, are you going to grab a quick photo out in the hall? Yes. We're going

009to give you your certificates out here in the hall. So, if you guys want to come this way with me. I didn't want. Huh? And we have to do that. At each regular and special open meeting, members of the public and district employees may comment on or ask questions. of the board of education. If you would like to address the board, please complete the pink form and give it to Miss Okado, uh, our recording secretary. Hearing none, we'll move on to communications. Uh, building a better G23 statement. Um, all right. Um, dear prospect tites, student and staff, thank you with pretty much just a thank you. Thank you for speaking out and making your voices heard on the referendum. Uh, according to preliminary results, voters opposed the referendum by a 55% to 45% margin. We

010are still waiting for some provisional and mailin ballots to be counted, but we don't expect the outcome of the referendum to change. We have heard you and we will be rearranging or re-engaging with you in the near future to develop a plan that meets the community's approval while solving the district's challenges. As you know, District 23 is challenged by the need to provide additional classrooms to fulfill the state's full day kindergarten mandate by 2027 and significant infrastructure and safety challenges at Eisenhower School. As we have always done, we will continue to work together and support each other to deliver the highest quality education to our students despite the challenges we face. We look forward to continuing this discussion as we work together to solve our infrastructure and space challenges. I have two other items that

011I'll share in communications while we're waiting for Miss Mezier to come in. Uh first is a reminder that registration for next school year is now open opened on April the 3rd. We ask everyone don't delay. Register today. Do it before May. Hey registration is open. So encouraging folks to uh to complete that. Also we have a a special program next Monday the 14th. Um it is a mental health matters uh virtual workshop being con uh provided in conjunction with uh our district. Uh it is a virtual meeting. There is a link that we it will be in the uh school scene newsletter as well as uh sent out to parents on uh Monday evening. This event starts at 6 p.m. question mark. Uh and again will be uh an opportunity yeah 6 p.m. will be

012an opportunity to uh learn a little bit about the importance of mental wellness and um the importance of parents being in tune with uh their students mental health needs. So that's a new uh offering for our families uh next month. And now without further ado, we have principal Tracy Mesier and members from the uh Sullivan School Improvement Team to present their annual update to the board regarding their school improvement plan. And they have a presentation. So we'll shift a little bit out of the way. Yeah. Uh [Music] Just like Hi everybody. I am so proud to be here tonight with members of our building leadership team um to share our state of school presentation. So I'm going to introduce everybody. We have Megan Slo, fourth grade teacher. Tammy Kasari, fifth grade teacher. Kelsey Pay, reading

013specialist. Christine Ganick is our instructional coach. And Susan Pendle is our another fifth grade teacher. These educators that are standing with me give their time outside of the classroom just to really ensure that our school runs effectively and our staff has clear communication about decision making at Sullivan. They're innovator innovators and teacher leaders and I want to thank them for their time and dedication to making our school a great place to learn and love. Creating this presentation though really was like a whole staff effort. Our entire staff brainstormed and created content for this presentation. So, we want to give them credit for that as well. We are so excited to share the amazing things going on in our building. Hi there. We've been expecting you. I'm Audrey and I'm one of the Sullivan SL. And

014I'm Harrison, also Sullivan. Welcome to Sullivan. We're so excited to have you join our team of investigators. Get ready to uncover all the amazing secrets and hidden gems this school has to offer. Come on. that was actually the best part. So, I'm going to share a brief overview of our school improvement building goals um which of course are aligned with the strategic plan. So, for student success, our student success goals focus both on the academic and social emotional growth of our kids. For academics, we really focused this year on student goal setting, improving core plus instruction and also differentiation in reading and math um through small groupoup instruction and flexible grouping. OurCCL programs already in place were strengthened by the addition of our Panther PAL mentoring program which kick kicked off this year. Um morning

015meetings and kindness 101 reflections and discussions in some of our classrooms. Our new ideas class has really benefited students in so many ways. Providing them in with instruction in executive functioning and digital citizenship. Um engaging them in leadership and community outreach opportunities, STEM exploration and genius hour research projects. And those two little um graphs up there just to look at our student growth. Those are from our winter I Ready um diagnostic tests. At winter you should be at the 50th percentile. is halfway through the year. As you can see, um our kids exceeded both at math and reading. All right. Engaging our staff in impactful professional development opportunities is an essential component of sustaining a positive and productive school culture. Effective professional development is embedded, ongoing, and tailored to the needs of our staff in

016order to support them in meeting the needs of our kids. This year we were able to expand our instructional round to allow our fourth grade teachers to observe their colleagues at Ross and allow our fifth grade teachers to observe their colleagues over at MacArthur. Those opportunities allowed for really great conversations about vertical alignment of curriculum. And then it also helped to strengthen the instructional practices and the professional relationships across buildings. Our new uh schedule structure allowed for increased team time which led to meaningful problem solving conversations, effective planning of instruction and clear communication among all team members. Embedding professional development, coaching conversations and team meetings during plan time and at staff and department meetings has strengthened our instruction across the building and grown our skills in differentiation in meeting the needs of our ML students

017and providing social emotional support to our atrisisk kids. As you know, building strong family community partnerships is a core value in district 23. In addition to our expanded and improved literacy night this year, we were really excited to have a family game night which was really well attended, was really fun and a great opportunity for staff and families to connect in a great in a fun environment. We're also planning a PALS on the Panther event in late May, which will be an opportunity for students to bring a family member and connect with staff over donuts, coffee, and conversation on the patio before school. Um, also, our partnerships with district 214 um have been really beneficial this year. We do have a partnership with the ed prep program which allows high school students interested in education

018to come in and learn from our amazing classroom teachers and gain some great experience. Um and then we also have a partnership with the life program at Kersy which allows students to come over once a week and practice their communication skills as they deliver mail and um do different projects around the school. And finally, our last goal, um, we have we have been able to continue our furniture replacement cycle. This year, we were able to, um, replace furniture in one GenEd classroom and then our strive and our sale classrooms. So, that was really wonderful. And we are continuing to work towards the completion of our library. It's all done except for the perimeter shelves. And it's just a great learning space for our kids. It's used constantly um throughout the day and it's been really

019wonderful. We were also this year able to update some office spaces for our support staff. Um so now I'm going to turn it over to the building leadership team so they could share um our efforts to foster the growth of our students and show off some of their work. All right. So Sullivan is dedicated to cultivating the skills and knowledge our students need to thrive. We're excited to give you a glimpse into the bright futures that they are building. Next, we will present evidence to go along with their sloop theme of how a portrait of a D23 graduate comes to life in our school. At Sullivan, students are academically prepared for high school. At Sullivan, we cultivate critical thinkers through challenging and engaging classroom experiences. In fifth grade, this translates to accelerated math for advanced

020learners. In fourth and fifth grade, personalized IRA pathways create learning paths tailored to individual needs. Additionally, teachers create thoughtfully designed activities that encourage students to explore complex concepts and develop deeper understanding. Following the fall IR diagnostic, we empower our students to take ownership of their learning through datadriven goal setting. Students analyze their individual results, identify areas for growth, and collaboratively develop personalized goals and actionable strategies. To see this process in action, watch our video featuring Miss Loa guiding a fifth grade student through their goal setting journey. [Music] evidence. So we'll keep all our data in here and anything that you want to celebrate. So we are going to graph our ready data and we'll do math at a later date. But today we're focusing on didn't happen during practice. [Music] What did someone say? Something

021I didn't hear it. Demo gods are at it. Yeah, I know. Maybe I'll just keep going for that. From the very start of the school year, our staff prioritizes the development of essential organizational skills, laying the foundation for students future success. We teach students practical strategies such as set of alarms such as showing the picture there for extracurricular activities or going to see their ML teacher. We also utilize agendas such as this for students to uh record their assignments and tests and maintain a well organized learning environment. I'm going to try to go back [Music] data in here and anything that you want to celebrate. So we are going to graph our eye ready data and we'll do math at a later date but today we're focusing on all right so summarize so mater goes

022through um how she performed on her diagnostic and they graph it and then they continue to graph her typical growth expected at the end of the year and her stretch growth expected at the end of the year and through that they look at the domains in reading and how she scored in each domain and then she picks a goal So by the end of the year, something she specifically wants to work on. And for the students, she picked vocabulary. So together, they came up with a plan of stuff she can do in school and at home to help reach. Right. Sullivan's students are communicators and collaborators. Students are encouraged to pursue passions and share what they learn with their peers. Fourth graders researched an influential person throughout history and communicated what they learned during their

023living wax museum. I was [Music] born here. In my childhood, I have less ADHD. Somebody wanted our presentation to be shorter. I guess one of our fifth grade students took communication to the next level. He noticed the wrong penguin was represented on the cover of the sixth grade ready math workbook. He wanted to take action. This fifth grader researched and provided evidence that a different penguin should be represented on the cover with the glacier. After collaborating and receiving feedback from his teacher, he communicated his findings with our readymath curriculum representatives. He was very excited as well as his classmates when he received a response. Students are given tools to successfully collaborate with their classmates. In this fifth grade classroom on the right, um students are engaging in a fishbowl discussion for their novel study. As

024a class, they practice with their readaloud, set expectations, and welcome other staff to observe and give them feedback. This activity provided an opportunity for all student voices to be heard. If you pop into any of our classrooms, you will see similar structures and collaboration. Solvid students are problem solvers and critical thinkers. Students become problem solvers and expand their critical thinking skills through learning activities such as math triad discussions, number talks, and lessons that encourage them to consider multiple points of view when making decisions. The two photos under our problem solvers are from our ideas class where students were challenged to build and test a bridge. The photos underneath the critical thinkers is from one of our fifth grade classes. Students are presented with reasons why people are for or against saying the pledge. Using these

025resources, students are able to make an important decision. Sivan students are well-rounded and actively involved. At Sullivan, we prioritize the development of well-rounded students. We recognize and celebrate the diverse interests and activities our students pursue both within and beyond the school day. To illustrate the graph of student engagement, we'd like to share the following statistics. 56% of our students enrich their musical skills in band or orchestra while 46% express their creativity through chorus or the musical. We also see strong participation in our extracurricular clubs with 46% of students involved. Beyond school, as shown in the graph, our students are actively engaged in sports and community organizations including Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Indian Princesses, and religious education. Sullivan students are flexible and creative thinkers. Building a flexible and creative thinker is crucial for students in today's

026rapidly changing world. At Sullivan, students have opportunities to show their understanding of concepts using their preferred style of learning. This educational framework is referred to as UDL or universal design for learning. This type of instruction allows student choice and equal opportunities for student success. Creative thinking with students can be fostered through a variety of engaging and interactive activities. Ideas class and steam club are just a couple of examples of opportunities where students use creative thinking to overcome a challenge or obstacle. Sen students are kind, caring and empathetic. The Sen ambassadors are dedicated to fostering a school culture where every student feels included, valued, and empowered. Our overarching goal this year is meaningful inclusion direct through initiatives centered on empathy, kindness, compassion, and acceptance. Our student leaders work to create a welcoming environment that celebrates individual

027identities and promotes a strong sense of belonging. The club ensures that all students have opportunities to connect, build lasting friendships and contribute to a supported school community by leading projects and activities in our school and classrooms that embrace diversity and unity. Our students are shaping a more inclusive school and developing leadership skills that will make a lasting impact in their futures and their district 23 community. In the first video on the left, you will see a news clip of Steve Hartman introducing a story about a young girl who is deaf. He further explains that over 40 people in the community got together to learn sign language so that um they could communicate with the little girl in the casserole. You need the whole community to learn sign language for a little 2-year-old girl. In this

028kindness 101 video lesson, um the students watch the video and then respond with a journal question or respond to a journal question. They had to think about what it means with um to the question, we are better together. Um and then it's followed with a brief discussion when you better together to like appreciate someone's like disabilities. I I thought about it and like we're not all different nations. We're on big nations. We're all made out of people and even if you people should treat them. So, one of our fourth graders goes above and beyond in his in in this area daily. He is a compassionate and thoughtful student. Always goes out of his way to support and befriend his peers with disabilities. He understands the challenges they face and makes a sincere effort to include

029them in activities, ensuring they never feel left out. Whether it's saying hi on the hallway or engaging in conversations, empathy and inclusive nature shines through in every interaction. Nice job, dude. Round [Music] Nice. Showing true caring, a fifth grader used her birthday money to buy personalized gifts for five sale buddies before Christmas break, even including handwritten notes about what she appreciated about each one of them. This was incredibly this incredibly kind gesture really touched everyone. Sullivan students are personally personally and socially responsible. The sale classroom at Sullivan participates in community- based education trips each month. They have been to many places this year, including grocery stores, restaurants, and leisure activities such as White Tiger Martial Arts Studio and the Marriott Theater. Opportunities to practice their social skills and apply things they have been working on

030in a realworld setting. For example, they can use their weekly recipe to plan and generate a grocery list that they use to shop for ingredients while also practicing money skills by planning how much money they will need for the trip. These are perfect opportunities for students to learn and engage in the community in a socially responsible way. One of our fourth grade classrooms is focusing on a life skill each week. They wanted to apply some of the life skills they've learned and share about their experience with bubble. We practiced a life skill that will help us be successful inside and outside of the classroom each week. Some of our favorite skills were introducing ourselves with handshakes and sending emails. Making our best and more. We feel professional and confident use these skills in our lives.

031Yay! Sullivan students are growthminded and resilient. We foster a learning environment where students are empowered to take risks and view setbacks as opportunities for growth. We teach them that problem solving and persistence lead to success. And here is an example of one of our uh extremely growthminded and resilient NL students. My name is Hannah and I'm in fifth grade. I moved to district 23 when I was in fourth grade. So now, what are you most proud of learning since you moved here? I came to the kids and my brother. What is your favorite book series you like to read? Her father in Ukrainian English. Oh, both. Very nice. I have seen that you've made some amazing growth in IR reading and diagnostic. How did you make that growth? Like last year I was just not

032understand anything and just looking around. But this year I was looking carefully carefully and I tried to understand it. I tried my best and great with my mom at home. That's great. What does growth mindset mean to you? A growth mindset means that I can learn more. I know a lot now, but there was something that I don't know yet. Thank you. Wow, we've had such an amazing year at Sullivan's discovering so much. We hope you've enjoyed uncovering all the amazing things this school has to offer. Some of our fantastic Selen staff are here to answer any questions you might have. Thank you for your time. What questions do you have? [Music] Kind of covered it all. You did a an extremely eloquent job. It was amazing just all the different things that these kids

033are unbelievably mature like ridiculously well spoken. I uh very impressive. I am curious how if they're teaching hockey in the gym why their hockey numbers are so low. I would expect much better. Well, they're in fourth and fifth grade, so in time black be better. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate Uh, and before we move on from communications, we just like to take a minute to thank Kevin Novak, who is serving in his final board meeting in District 23, uh, for now. Run again in the future, perhaps. Uh but Kevin's served the community for a number of years. He's been president for the last two. And uh I always remind folks that this is a voluntary position uh that is elected by the community. So a lot of time behind the scenes, not only at the

034meetings, but supporting uh the efforts of the district more broadly goes into the work that all of our board members do. And I just want to acknowledge Kevin for his time and thank him for his work. Our tradition that uh we have as board members step off is we have uh a budget allocation of $500 that board members are able to designate to a particular program or a particular event. Um and Kevin uh graciously wanted to do something for our uh teacher retirement recognition ceremony that'll happen in May to uh contribute towards the celebration of our of our teaching staff. So we thank you very much for that and just again want to thank Kevin for all your years of service here in district 23. Um okay I was looking Oh yeah I snuck that

035one in. Ross. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, the Ross um Ross Ambassadors fundraiser. I forgot I dropped that. Oh, Penny's uh the Penny Wars for um Ronald McDonald House. Thank you. I apologize. Uh each of the schools coordinates a service project. So the students in the Ross Ambassador program identified the Ronald McDonald House as a cause that they wanted to support. They will be doing uh the advertising and the collecting of uh pennies and loose change uh at the beginning of May. I want to say it's the first 28th through May 2nd. 28th through May 2nd. Um, so we'll be seeing that in and around all the schools. Wanted to give them a shout out as well. Sorry. Uh, all right. So, moving on to committee reports. Uh, buildings and sites. We didn't have a meeting

036this month, but um but we got kind of just some information in in the mail. Carol, did you have anything you wanted to comment upon? I I I will move on to finance. Mr. the North definitely had a good meeting a few weeks ago. Guess it's really paid. We talked about food service. We're going out to RFP. Sounds like you sort of have two front runners, but maybe you'll have more uh coming up on that. Uh we also talked about the proposed MSSEO budget. We're going to talk a little bit about that tonight, I believe. In the back end, uh we've got seal coating, striping, and concrete bid updates. So, uh, looking forward to continuing those projects that are needed around the district. And then, uh, we went into a little bit of the EBC

037insurance renewal for 2526. Uh, while the costs are going up, there was a slight decrease, we'll call it negotiated. So, we'll see uh, those final pieces get put into the budget here. And uh then we just went through the the monthly reporting package and few ancillary conversations standards meeting questions. NSSO met last. Um the meeting started out with an acknowledgement of um an Litz um who has been a long time an old board member from district 211. She's been a board member there for 28 years and she is retiring. So um but she was acknowledged for uh all the years on NSSO. She also those who have been at the delegate assembly at conference and has also served as uh the resolution chair for that group. So she's been around and has been a strong

038leader and huge contributor on many fronts as a board board member. So she was acknowledged and um with some flowers and a gift and uh some kind words from several uh shining stars. There were two students at from Kirk that were the shining stars. Um, one was a 12th grader from district 205. Uh, who had been there a few years and was they they presented how he uh went from being kind of prompt dependent where the staff had to kind of get him started with tasks or help him complete tasks and how he uh now initiates those on his own and what he did to kind of get through that. Uh and there was another uh student from Kirk Connections which is more of a life skills uh employment skills program uh and what he

039is doing in that group. uh Brian Williams who is princ current principal of Kirk and um the two associate principles gave a presentation on the continuous improvement goal. Uh the focus areas there were uh IEP best practices, uh math instruction, communication, and um uh ACC devices, the um their their communication devices. They're, you know, picturebased or voice based uh and classroom essentials. The presentation was uh focused mainly on math instruction uh where they uh have um they use real life scenarios to help students understand and use the math concepts with those u those tools. Uh let's see uh the graduation dates were announced for the various programs at Ember Ridge Minard and uh the Kirk connections. um resources. Uh there was an update and a presentation on a program that NSSO has called Aspiring Leadership

040Academy where they um encourage and identify uh staff [Music] who want to improve their leadership skills for you know long for the future of NSO or their career. But the idea is to kind of cultivate that leadership in house and that program is going strong. Didn't write down how many people are participating but it's it's a good number. Uh and uh Brad reviewed the monthly uh review the staffing current staffing levels. We do that monthly and they're uh business update. Uh Gavin uh gave a presentation on the budget which we will be talking about later tonight. Uh there was a public hearing for the amended 2024 25 budget and uh the proposed budget for 2526. Uh there were there was no comment for that. Uh and we voted to transmit it to the districts which

041we have. Uh the board approved the ESY budget for the um coming 2025 program and there was an update on the medical and dental insurance rates. Well, I I See for 20 for next year the HMO will be 3.2% increase PO 6.9% increase and then there was um Dr. Schnore gave an update on the um strategic plan process. The board met on March 31st, the Monday before the board meeting as a committee of the whole to talk just about uh the strategic plan and some of the different ideas about how about the structure, current structure and how things should change and how to address some of the things that came out of um out of all the interviews and and meetings with the member districts, one of the uh major issues is was uh communication

042and transparency and uh increased collaboration between member districts and NSCO. So, the board has talked quite a bit about how how that should be addressed going forward. Dr. Schno looked at the um several other co-ops and how they address those issues and how they are structured compared to us. uh and that was part of the discussion as well. There are kind of um two two of the I don't know that they're competing issues, but there were two ideas that that were kind of floated. One was to create a superintendent a board of the member district superintendent and meg. The other idea was to have have more of a um superintendent's council that would inform the the the rep that the districts were all a part of the member districts and Meg and they would inform

043uh their representatives as issues came And so where and that's kind of where things fall right now, but there is no um there's I think there's still input to be made with the superintendent and with um governing board members as well. Uh so I that's kind of where Yeah. So, and then superintendents are meeting again tomorrow. Yeah, we met this morning. I thought it was I know my calendar. We are meeting tomorrow, but for a different meeting. Okay. All right. Okay. Uh so I I believe in June we're we're supposed to have this nailed down. That's the because there are potential modifications to the bylaws to reflect a new governance structure, whatever that ends up looking like. So that's that's what's going on in terms of process. We're trying to clarify and get consensus around

044what that governance structure looks like so that we can modify the the uh bylaws with with that. And the strategic plan that NSSO did identified a restructuring of governance as their first goal. Uh enhanced and improved uh interaction with staff recruitment, retention, professional development. And then the third focus or third goal area was uh facilities and finance longrange planning. Those three goals our board saw and were approved I want to say in January um as the guiding uh guideposts where what we're trying to get to now is what does that look like? How do you accomplish those goals? What are the incremental steps? whether it needs to be a formal board uh OMA board or whether it's a consulting kind of a council is is the are the two competing uh solutions. How does that

045get decided? Well, at the end of the day, what'll happen, and this is part of the larger hopeful uh improvements or enhancements to NSSO's governance, there's identified is the need for local the for each member district to give more frequent direction for voting as a representative. So the way that we do the budget for example, we get a preview of it. We have our discussions, we can ask our questions and then our board votes to say, Carol, yes, when you go to the meeting, vote vote yes for that budget. So we would do the same thing regarding the governance structure bylaws. We would have those presented. These are the suggested or the recommended changes. We have our discussion and reflection. We'll give Carol uh as our representative the directed uh vote so that then Carol

046knows what one of the gaps that's missing is as a representative of our board. Carol's always done a phenomenal job of bringing information back and forth. It's where where structurally we get into trouble is when as an individual board member when Carol votes or whoever our representative votes are they obligating their local district to increase cost increase staffing increase whatever usually in the financial world but it's staffing and it's policy as well without the direction from the entire board. And so that structure is what we're trying to to help improve. Uh not that there's people are doing things incorrectly or wrong, but it's it's more that we want collectively we want member districts to really be participating members in the governance of the organization that we created as a co-op rather than receive information after

047the fact. And so it's the budget is what it is. It's a question of do we come together at the start of that process and say this is what we hope to accomplish with this or do we get it at the end of that process and say well here's the budget approve it or don't and and what I think the goal collectively is for more engaged participation from member districts early on so that we're participating and collaborating toward the fac toward for the plan for the for the district for the co-op long term. No, no, that that's a really good summary of kind of the the issues that probably we're trying to solve. I was asking a way more pedantic and interesting question. How do we technically like is it a rewriting of the bylaws

048that we then vote on? Is it a rewriting of the bylaw that then Carol votes on as part of their board? like what's the what's the actual process that has to occur to make it all when we do the budget you know and review it here and we say yeah you're but but to create that new board right we can assume the new board yeah it's a rewriting of the bylaw the bylaws to say board a superintendent council it's a superintendent board it's a directed vote board I mean part of it's it's focused It's it's focused around superintendent, but really it's Chris knows I you know I'm I can't really [Music] hopefully you know I bring nothing of value like Chris knows. So part of it is part of it is how you word and

049restructure those bylaws to say a district representative or if you say the superintendence, right? So that's what we're working through in terms of the specific solution being written in bylaws that then we would preview. You all would vote as a directed vote for our representative at NSSO's meeting in June or July. Okay. And then like the two different options that Carol presented like I mean is there one of the which one of the one that seems like that we prefer is having the superintendent board right as well there would be yeah one it would be a board that uh that as no governing board is is calling into into But this other one is a um they're calling it a superintendent council and it's there's less yeah there's less formality with that. So um one

050feels like it's north side it's a question really at the end of the day it's about the formality of that advisory group. Is it an open meetings act with voting uh or direction capability or is it advising and recommending that then the governing board can choose to follow or not? So and there are pros and cons obviously to both to both designs. I think at the end of the day we want to move in that direction and whether it's too fast too much too fast to completely overhaul governance structure in year one. You know that's kind of what we talked about this morning is that that's kind of what it seems to feel like right now is it it may be moving too fast for some. So if we make an incremental step with an

051advisory role and you articulate that moving forward, you know, you can obviously always continue to modify and update the program or the process or the policies or the bylaws. So we could move forward, see how that goes and then make recommendations for change in the future. Are most of the number of districts kind of aligned on on this or is there a lot more work to do? I think there's more work to do and I think that that's part of you know we don't want to rush into anything. There's no reason to rush into anything. So that's why we appreciated our feedback was have the meeting maybe the whole meeting that was held in March. Uh there is another working meeting that Meg has. Meg receive direction from the governing board. She'll provide those options

052and schedules to be discussed at your May meeting. And if at that May meeting there's consensus among the governing board, then we'll get that for our review in May and action in June. And so then you guys So then you meet with Don and Chris prior to the main meeting to make in terms of the direction for you to take. Well, we give our input. Yeah. To get your get input. Thank you. Okay. Does June seem aggressive to get this done? I think it'll be July. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and they were thinking that we would have something in place in July that's whatever it's in place would start the challenge is then there's no typically there's not a July meeting for NSSO so then that would push it to August which may be too

053close to the school year so maybe they have a special meeting right there's lots of those opportunities okay I think it depends on how how quickly consensus is reached in that next meeting after Peg makes the recommendations. Thank you. Is he? Yeah. Um, moving on to the consent agenda. Uh, only one item. Spencer, do you wish to separate out item D as a or abstain? I'll just abstain. Well, yeah. Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? Um, yes. Mr. Gordon, yes. Dr. Long, stay. Mr. Nordmark, yes. Mrs. Peters, yes. Mr. Uh, yes. I didn't I didn't want to. I wasn't going to do it right on purpose. Why start now? All right. I had the financials this month. I was just Everything seemed like it always does. So good. Nothing

054seemed out of place. Yes. I can move to approve the financial statements. Second. Yes. Mr. Gordon. Yes. Dr. Long. Yes. Mr. Nordmark. Yes. Mrs. Peters. Mr. Novak. Yes. All right. Uh, a lot of time and energy in our curriculum process. It's the cornerstone uh of what we do uh with kids, the materials and the methodology. And so uh Dr. Curtis and some reps from the math committee are here to uh present for us. [Music] All right. I'm going to give a disclaimer that um we don't have any cute videos of kids that kind of stuff. So, I'm going to start there. Sorry about that. Um all right. So, as you know, um we had our math curriculum review committee this year. Um so, we always start our presentations just kind of reviewing the fact that

055we have six-year curriculum review cycles in the district. So each curriculum comes up um every six years. Uh so this year you can see in blue at the top that we have two curriculum reviews. We're starting with that in a few minutes. We'll move on to our library media center curriculum. Um and then you'll see that on this document which is available on our website. You'll see which ones come up next as we go through our six-year plan. All right. And this year we had three goals in our committee which our committee went uh progressed I guess a little differently this year than in other years. So our first goal is to finalize a decision for our six-year curriculum adoption for MAP. Um this year that went a little bit differently uh because as a

056district we decided right away in our first meeting that we were going to stick with I'm ready and ready math as a district. So, because we had that decision right off the bat, um we decided that we were going to spend our time as wisely as possible and investigate partnerships and diving in deeper to our instruction and how we can improve our math instruction in the district. So we decided to do that with partnerships by having uh some partnerships and having them help us identify some of those some of those um strategies as well as um collaborating on those distra on those strategies once they were determined um and which approaches we should take and we'll get into those more in a minute. Here's our timeline which centers around all of those things that we

057just talked about. um to highlight one of those in particular. We talked about this one earlier in the school year. Um this is our NCMI um partnership. That's that partnership we talked about in the fall between uh 214 and all of our feeder districts um at the middle school level. And we've been doing that since the beginning of the year. We have one meeting left which is coming up shortly. Um Brad is one of our teachers at the middle school and he is he has been going to those all year. Um and it's been a pretty beneficial partnership. Um I'm going to I might actually if you don't mind I might put you on the spot when we talk about that in a second. All right. Um so going back to our first meeting of

058the year when we talked about um when we talked about I read and decided we were going to stick with it. Um the first thing we did there was just look at some of our data and when we look at that here was one of the things that we focused on. This is our data over the past few years when we look at mathematics in the district. And as you can see from uh 2019 going into the data we had before this year started. You can see in blue here this is our district and in red this is the state average. And this compares our percentage of students that meet or exceed on the IR benchmark in math and so you can see that overall our achievement compared to the state average very high um

059at the same time you can also see that in some of the pandemic years while other districts stayed pretty stagnant we continue to increase. So based on some of those pieces as well as some other data I'm going to show you on the next slide. Um this was some this was some of the reason behind sticking with it. Um also we looked at a couple of our major subgroups that we're always concerned about in the district. Um first our IEP students. That subgroup increased by 1% which may not seem like a lot but at the same time a state average for IEP students decreased by 2% during that same time period. When we look at our multilingual students meeting and exceeding on standards, um our district increased by 9%. Um which is pretty significant in

060that area, too. So, um just some some great data points uh to look at as to why we decided to stick with that. All right. Um then once we made that decision, where were we going to go from there? And uh the first thing we decided was there's some great partnerships out there. We talked in the fall. We had already decided we were going to do this. Um and so how could we align this with some of the things that we were going to do in our committee as well. Um we partnered with our um our local region of education and and Carrie Clement who's their instructional coach coordinator. She came in and partnered with us. She uh visited different schools in the district, observed some uh math in the classroom to see how things

061were going and if she saw any gaps, some some things that were strengths and just just really did an assessment of our math programs. Just a little snippet, but she did get to visit. And then she also met with some of the teams um some of our grade level teams um to just get their feedback on ready math and things that they may see as gaps. Um so that was another partner. And then also Readymath, we had a a consultant from I Ready come in and work with our committee and talk about some routines and some things that we need to make sure are our strong foundation in all of our grade levels and all of our classrooms. So, those were our three major partnerships. All right. Next, I'm going to go ahead and turn

062it over to some of our representatives that helped out with our committee this year. We're encouraging everyone to intentionally build in opportunities for discussions about math before, during, and after our lessons. This helps students develop their math vocabulary and really show what they understand. When students discuss math with each other, it creates a comfortable space for sharing ideas and builds their confidence. One way I've increased discourse is by including number talks in my math routines. Even though I'm not on the math committee, I was asked to share my experience because these practices have worked very well in my classroom. Brad will share more about number talks on the next slide. All right, I'm going to talk about establishing consistent routines and how that pays off. Ready provides valuable math routines designed to support student success.

063Moving forward, we will continue to support new staff by providing training on these routines, offering ongoing professional development for current staff to deepen their understanding, and encourage frequent team discussions, focus on how these routines can impact student learning and achievement. And as Megan mentioned, she's here today. She's here today with us, but she also came to our meetings to our committee meetings virtually and we had a video of her doing some member talks in the classroom that we showed to our uh committee members. So, she she came there as well. So, and through this process, we identified that we've had a lot of new staff come in and since we adopted readym at the beginning, right when the co pandemic hit, that a lot of these new teachers did not have um concrete and professional

064training on the specific program and the specific routines. So, kind of going back and establishing those routines when we hire. All right. Um, some more key takeaways. Brad, take it away. So, number talks is something that it was brought up first uh I mean, I've heard of it before, but it was brought up in our uh math curriculum meeting, but then uh at the MCMI uh partnership with 214, uh they really had a huge focus on it and that's when I really saw what might be the value in my classroom. Uh so, I wanted to bring it into my classroom and I was very weary. um actually with partnering with our uh school's instructional coach, Kelly Rockway. Uh myself and Diane Moon actually went to another school in district 21 to see number talks in

065action. We got to watch uh your videos, which are my current sixth graders, by the way. Very exciting. Um and uh and I decided I was ready to try bringing into the classroom. And uh I mean immediately I started seeing an impact with my students. um the the desire to talk, the excitement for going into a math classroom, no matter what type of student they were, um and starting to hear from my quieter students, uh students with IEPs, uh my ML students who I swear I didn't even know that they could speak. Um are speaking out, sharing their ideas. Um and it's really creating a culture in the classroom already with only have I been doing it for I don't even think two months yet. Um and uh you know there the the kids are

066using gestures and and that discussion technique uh throughout the class not just during the number talks. Um I do want to do another quick shout out um because not just number talks but yesterday and today um I brought in another activity from MCMI into the classroom u which seemed to be a great success and the kids want to do again. Um so I'm really excited because it was a very it was a huge productive struggle activity. um that we got to do which was was awesome. Um and I've been talking about the math routines. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about the ready math routine. They've identified three components into successful math instruction. The first one is try it. Then there's discuss it and connect it. In the try it phase of instruction, students

067make sense of the problem and try to identify a strategy to solve the problem. The discussive base fosters collaboration as students share their thinking as partners and collectively analyze the different strategies and approaches to solving these problems. Finally, the connected. It encourages students to make connections between strategies, reflect on their learning, and then apply their understanding to new challenges. All right. Before I move on, you kind of started already, but is there anything else you wanted to add about our partnership with MCMI? Um I you know I'll be honest I'm very critical of um of these types of things where where we go out and you know my hope is to get one thing you know maybe one thing a day. Um and I've just been amazed with how much takeaway I've gotten from from

068the partnership. um getting to talk with the high schools, getting the feedback. By the way, um just, you know, being from from the middle school and formerly of 8th grade, this year I just moved to sixth grade, but uh one of the big takeaways that um you should all know about is that Hersy and Wheeling when they said the things that they need from the math curriculums, uh need from the math teaching at the schools, they said, "Don't worry, MacArthur. you keep doing what you're doing. It's the other schools we need to worry about. And I'm not joking. I'm not one spoke. Um they really did. Um and it was just it was such like a proud moment. Um to know that our students are succeeding there. Um and that the the behaviors, the culture,

069the the willingness to to you know struggle and keep trying is there in our students. Um and that's exactly what the committee has been trying to to work on. um what MCMI is trying to get us to create that culture not just in in uh 23 but in all of the theater districts. Um so I I've been really impressed. I can't wait for the last one on the 22nd. Um it's you know I'm I'm happy I won't have to write sub plans after that. stuff. You know, I know that you're still presenting, but just a little more just having your former students at URI now, but like that program is really important to 214 too, right? And that and so it's really cool to hear that it's, you know, that it seems like it's going

070well and you're getting a lot out of it because, you know, 214 board members come to Hershey parent meetings and talk they bring this up as something that's really important to them to make sure that they have more consistency, right, from the theater district. So that's awesome to hear that you're really having a positive experience in that program. You can tell that it's really important to 214 as well. Yeah. And and my kids are 214 also had a public group. So So it's just nice to see that kind of come together. Uh and to piggyback on that um positive to what Brian just said, negative to your subplan issue is we are in talks to continue it another year or two. So throw that out to us. after this experience I am actually awful you

071know I know I mean I know that you know the overall we're doing well but I think that we when your kids go in there and and play you can just see that there's a difference right in where the different schools are at and I think it just makes so much sense for all the peer districts and for 214 to try to be better aligned right because I think that you have such a wide disparity in in where kids are at when they're coming in at 214 and and I would also say it's it's the where they're at, but it's also how prepared they are to take next steps. Um, you know, and in math, yeah, that's it's the foundation, but it's also the culture. It's um it's things like math talks and and being

072able to continue that from the younger ages and you know trying to bring that into the high school classrooms and the culture of the the being able to share being able to be wrong and you know having having comfortable I'm going to use the the I word for it but the comfortable discourse with it um and that productive struggle um that I think that that's almost the bigger takeaway than just um just the the nuts and bolts facts is is just the the cultures in our classroom um and how we how we can help each other and how the students can help each other grow and it seems to me that it's not just math. I mean that cultivates a mindset for wherever you are and it's positive. Yeah. And I think I think those

073are a couple of the the focuses here too. um you know we we talk about it that partnership is really middle schools and high and the high school right but at the same time because of this committee and I I hope this is happening in other districts too is bringing the elementary schools on board too and aligning it like Brad was saying earlier on getting that culture started sooner so that kids are used to having that discourse at a younger age um and you mentioned other subjects as well um we were actually talking about that earlier this morning um the more safe kids feel in having those conversations and starting that discourse at a younger age better for all subjects. All right. I should have said spoiler alert earlier, but um we did decide to

074recommend Ready Math and I Ready for our curriculum. Um so moving on from there um when we get down to the instructional materials and costs it's broken down into four different areas. Um the first one being I ready classroom mathematics. So when we talk about I ready mathematics we are talking about the path that students are on. This includes their individual personalized path. Um Sullivan brought this up earlier uh during their presentation. Each student has their own personalized path. Another part of this estimate is also the diagnostic that kids take three times a year. So they start with a diagnostic that places them into their individualized path. And each kid has their own path um that heads them out for a third of the year until they take their next diagnostic which is which is

075a fantastic feature of this program. Um and that's what's included in this part. This part over here is this is the readymath materials. This includes um really two different features. So there's the digital feature for students and then there is uh the um the print feature. So one piece here to make this a little bit more affordable for our district is at the middle school we are moving to digital licenses only for our students. Elementary we are doing digital and print. Um over here for the teacher toolbox, this is teacher access to the online PD as well as teacher access um to project things to the um online materials to project for their students and to those types of things. Um over here we have this is reading this is not mathematics. Um we had

076we had adopted the reading portion of what this is. So this is the individual path for reading. We adopted that a few years ago as well. Um but it was in the middle of our adoption. Uh it it was cheaper when you do it along with this. At the same time, because we have our six-year adoption, it makes more sense for us right now to align it with our ELA with our ELA adoption. So these are all six years. This is for three years. um so that it now aligns with our ELA in case at that point we decide to do something else or if we decide we can't afford this anymore or need to make some changes with this program. Um so this is all what's included um in our costs. Um and then

077down here we have a summary and overall we are looking at around $350,000 for this program. So if you have financial questions for us now wait till the end of your presentation. Okay. So I just so the motion is to practice not to exceed 350. So actually I didn't revamp this. I did have them take one little thing off. It's actually like 340. is like I also asked Don if he could loan us 62 cents which you I was just going to give it to you. Yeah. Um so and then in your memo when you break out the cost by school um there's a significant difference between that and this the $50,000. What what is the $50,000 difference? Does that Cuz I was like, oh, I'm just not sure what the difference is. Um I

078would have to take I I would have to take a look. The I I'm I'm not sure. I might have I know this is accurate up to now. Um I believe actually that I might have done it's possible that I had gotten a later quote than that. Oh, after we uploaded the It's possible. Yes, that is possible. This is This is the accurate. It's 349. Okay. And you don't know why it's it out 50,000 more recently. Well, I gave them the exact course. If it's if that's what it is, then it's because I gave them the exact numbers of our students at that time. Okay. It was an IRA estimate based on our former numbers that they have. And then Amy, just when you, you know, put your numbers together and try to project out

079for the next few years since we're in such a tight budget, is this pretty much in alignment with what we were planning that we're going to be spending over? It is. So we typically budget about $160,000 a year for curriculum adoptions. So that does fit into that. I I do think that like that, you know, that a couple things that we should do, you know, for this in the future is that, you know, $350,000 is an eye popping number, right? Um but when you think about it being over a six-year period for 1,400 kids, right? It's $40 per student per year ballpark, right? And that's for, you know, the the I Ready, you know, with with the testing that we're doing multiple times a year with the curriculum and then with hard copies for all

080the kids K through five. But I mean, I think it's important to present it that way. And then I think kind of to Barry Lyn's point right that we you know so so this was 300,000 last year science was about 200 ELA right is 300 is a big number that we used er funds for right 3 years ago and then I I I think it makes sense to kind of see as a whole kind of like where we're at because I think it ends up being about $120 per kid for school but just but just making sure that we we we see we kind of see where that spend is and to make sure that with what we're selecting that we are staying in line right with where Amy's budgeting cuz I think to see

081that whole picture maybe at the end of this it it makes sense just for the board and the community to say like hey here's how we're kind of tracking this as a whole also I mean the other what what Craig started with in terms of that schedule of you know there's two reasons why we created the six-year cycle. One is because you can't ask teachers to learn a new curriculum every year. Uh so we do pace that from a professional development standpoint, from a implementation overload kind of a standpoint, we try to split that out, but then yes, budgetarily we go into every year with an allocation that drives in in large part drives the options that are out there for us. We don't even look at some products that are more expensive than this.

082And then lastly, that bundling for six years actually brings our cost down. But yeah, to your point, all of the curriculum that's adopted every year, right, combines to be about $150 per kid, their science materials, their math materials, their ELA books, those kinds of things. Uh so we can certainly give you that breakdown by how much each one is looking at, but that's the process that we use in terms of scheduling that out over years knowing that we have a year with no adoption um built in. So it's just a different way of structuring the payments. Right. Can you help me with that? The 90,000 for the reading. I wasn't totally following how we're kind of off cycle with that. So again, like you had mentioned with ESSER funds, with our ESSER funds, we had

083purchased the reading program uh the reading side of I Ready uh during the pandemic. Um for three for three years only. Yes, for three years only. Okay. To align us then with math when this was up to see if we wanted to keep it. Um, again, at that point, it also makes it cheaper because it's in alignment with the curriculum adoption we already have. Um, at the same time, I know this is the opposite of what I just said, but there's also the other part that makes sense too is to have it align with our ELA adoption. So, if we decide to go away from that, we can cut ties with our ELA adoption if we need to. it, I'm being completely honest, yes, it would cost a lot more. It would put us over

084the 350, but it would also make sense. We could get a cheaper rate if we do do this for 6 years. Um, but that's a decision right now. We think it's in our best interest uh and preferred to align with our ELA adoption. So, this so it's not a new adoption per se, but it's an instructional cost that's coming out of our curriculum adoption line item. So, under the big umbrella of curriculum adoption, I wanted Craig to share that three-year contract for the reading component. Okay. But so, when we did the ELA stuff in for the 2021, it was most of it most of it was for six years, but this component was only for three, right? Because Okay. And then we had additional essers dollars and we were looking for remote independent you know

085the pathway kind of work and had esser funds to spend on that but didn't have beyond a threeyear agreement worth of money to spend and then so if we're saying that the 300,000 rental versus a 350 was due to more students needing material And if we're approving this to not exceed 350, if we have increased student enrollment over the next few years, this is actually going to go be going up. Are we It comes out of a different line item in our budget where we have curricular materials, supplementary curricular materials every year as we, you know, books are lost or destroyed or you pick up 12 new fourth graders and you have to buy just that, right? That comes that eb and flow of additional materials actually comes out of the building principles budgets. So,

086not out of our curriculum adoption umbrella. If you add up all the individual per school costs, it actually gives you the treatment, not the 300,000 that's in there. Oh, I just did. I did it, too. Oh, right. I agree. That's right. So, I guess that total in the memo was just a typo. was modeling taking a risk being vulnerable. Yes. You get a chance like just to further to further go into what you were talking about the extra books. That's another piece. I mean, you're not wrong. We could put that into the quote, but it's going to save us money because we don't want those extra books in this quote every year for the six years. So, that was something we had discussed, but it wouldn't make sense in our quote. We'd be losing money

087on that. Okay. Do we get money back if our enrollment goes down? No. That's why you have to be more conservative in your quote so that you don't have 40 books sitting on the shelf every year because they'll send you the workbooks every year or 40 licenses that aren't used. So, we try to keep this as conservative as we can without overburdening the buildings, right? It's kind of that where do we where do we project the numbers to be to the best of our ability now for the six-year adoption and then fund the rest the ups and downs through the building because they do go you're you're bound to the numbers you tell it and I think the two pieces with that are number one we did look at that and we are slowly projected

088to go up plus we can reuse the books from year to year so that's a plus um and then the other uh the other piece with that is if that were the case, I probably would have lowered the numbers so that each year we're just doing what we were just talking about with Mary Lane, just purchasing those extras. Even if that means we're purchasing some extras this year, it would still make sense because it would save us money in the long run. Okay. All right. So, we kind of talked through most of this as we were talking here. Um the only the only piece Don did hit on this slightly but we are planning to to uh purchase this over 3 years uh with fun with our funding from this account. Um the only other

089piece and we did hit on it but um as part of this we always do back these larger ones because reading and mathematics are larger costs. We're aware of that and we can plan for that a bit. So, we always back those up to our less expensive adoptions or years that we are off cycle. So, um that is something that is planned in that six-year adoption plan. Um and then this is a list of our reps that are on the committee and Megan of course as well. Um so, thank you to all of our members of our committee. Um, thank you to Brad, Megan, and Christine for joining us this evening, as well as Tracy back there, too. She is one of our members. So, thank you very much. And thank you guys for supporting

090our adoption. Any additional questions? I know we had some. Anything else on that before we shift gears to our other curricular area? Yes. be awarded for the nicest slide. I told him I said, "Anybody else want to send us something here?" Otherwise, we not part of the plan. about the math just in terms of like what we've been having those discussions with 214 and the feeder schools is ready math used by other feed theaters like are what percentage of like the other districts we talked to are actually using the same program we are I could you know I could I actually am meeting with the assistant soups tomorrow and I have a document that shows that so I can get you that answer. I'm not sure off the top of my head. Uh but I

091could definitely get you that answer. I one focus though, one focus at these meetings isn't it it's not on the actual program we're using. It's on the philosophy and the alignment besides that. So that you know we we we teach the standards not the curriculum. All of our curricula they're aligned to the standards. So it shouldn't matter as long as our thinking behind mathematics is aligned. And so so that's our focus in those meetings as opposed to what curriculum we're actually using. If that if that makes sense. So it's part of this meeting is not possible discrepancies of where different feeders are coming in. So we do discuss things when we the teachers um you you'll meet the high schools will kind of break up into different groups with the feeder schools that feed into

092them and we'll have conversations around things but it's about um your strategies and um those types of things as opposed to the curriculum you're teaching. Greg, did you want to? Yeah, if I could just chime in. Um, first I I I will say that um as far as kind of and I think you you definitely pivot the the bigger picture is more the philosophy and that I I think that the deep philosophy of of I read mathematics um really follows along. I mean maybe different verbiage and and you know some some the you know little things but are different but the philosophy is very much aligned with the the truth framework that they talk about at the MCMI um uh you know group. So, so that's definitely the thing. And and then as far as

093like missing pieces of of instruction or or um the the the standards, um that's kind of what I was speaking to with what uh Hershey and Wheeling were saying is that's not an issue with with 23 that they're facing. So when they were really having those kind of like we need you to get this taught little talks with the districts it was they they really were like we don't need you as part of this. Um it was um it was really kind of neat. So we were able to kind of dive into that true framework that they were talking about um a little bit deeper during some of those discussions. Um, so, so I Ready is covering everything that they need for high school. Um, as any of them would, but it's it's how we're

094doing it. But I can definitely give you those more exact numbers, too, just to answer your position. I don't I don't think any of the other features are using to tell you the truth. Yeah. May maybe one, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It just I think it would be interesting just to see you know who are the vendors that the other commuters are using and if we know ballpark right what does it you know you know is is what we're paying per student per year you know out in line with what other districts are right or sound like you may sound like that this is actually one of the more economical programs right and and the the other you know it's not it's obviously not about cost savings per say, but the the purposeful decision to

095spend a little bit more so that our elementary kids have paper pencil was a conscious choice again that you know we don't want kids only interacting at the elementary level on that on the iPad. I mean we really like the dynamic of kids working in their on their paper pencil and sh turning around and sharing it with others. So, you know, there are there are economies built into it. Craig did the part of the reason the moving target is because keeps negotiating discounts and why don't you throw in the teacher materials for free. You know, uh they do some we pay for professional development out of this and so they'll give us more or less depending on uh the how much you spend overall. Uh, I will say going back to when I was assistant

096soup, our line item for curriculum was 120 a year. We up that to 140 and then to 160 because not only it's not just math materials, but all of the textbook materials and subscriptions are just crazy expensive. So that yeah I mean Eureka math is another really po popular program that we had investigated in the past. This is a more economical version. But I think what really drove the discussion was that kind of as as Christine said, you know, we want to embed those practices over time. And if the program is working and our data showed that it was working, like we don't need to upset the apple carton and throw a whole new curriculum at folks. Let's refine what we're doing. let's work on the strategies and practices and not spend the time and

097energy on okay here's a whole new textbook just for the sake of the textbook so I think that was a smart choice for the committee all right shifting gears a bit here um I'll start with a spoiler alert this time that no real money for this one. Okay, so kind of kicking things off with the same pattern here. Um for this one, you've already seen this, so I'm not really going to highlight this one. We're going to we're going to skip over it. Um the goals of this committee. Uh we wanted to kick things off by reviewing the standards. Um then we were going to um review our program needs and that included um that included one one big piece of that was collaboration around those standards. So how can we share the responsibility of

098those standards with the whole school? How can we we we see our libraries as kind of the hub of the school um and the center of a lot of fun activities. So, how can we share some of the goals of these standards with classroom teachers, with a new ideas class, second through fifth grade and those types of places? And then, uh, once we have those things, um, take a look at the standards and adopt our curriculum and have a curriculum. Here's a look at our timeline focused around those things. I'm just going to highlight the middle two. Um, I talked about the collaboration a bit. Um, our team is not just um the library media specialists in the district. It's also our instructional coaches, it's also our principles, it's also some classroom teachers at each

099grade level along the way because we want to focus on that collaboration. Um, we also feel like because it's the hub of our school, we want to make sure we focus on not just um the instruction, but what else goes on there and how do we bring other pieces into it. So, we're going to highlight some of those as we go here. Um, first of all, we talked about the standards. There's three real sets of instruction going on here. There's the eyes standards to sum that up. Those are the standards around the library. Okay, so that's the first piece. Then we have digital citizenship. So, that's how are kids safe online. And then we have the ISTY standards, which are standards developed around technology and education. So, we looked at all three of those. Now,

100I mentioned that our library media centers are the hub of our school and we want everyone to see them that way. So, this slide kind of focuses on we've been working on making them more of the hubs of our buildings and making sure that they they get that respect that they need and people want to use them as the hub of our buildings. So over the past number of years um at least five years we've been focusing on um some of our furniture replacement in the building and we wanted these to be those places. So we've been working on that. Of course in our district we know that those things happen in phases. We can't do them all at once. So this is just kind of a summary of if they're the hub of our

101building, we need to make sure that we respect them and that we do put money into them along the way. So, we have done that um with Amy's help and the principal's help and making sure that um that we acquire new furniture and that we make sure we update them along the way. So, um we have done that at two of the buildings. We have a proposal for a third and then we've been working on Eisenhower 2 as part of our referendum. So, hopefully we'll get to the others, but um we we'll see where those go. Um next, just taking a look at our books. Most people when they think of a library they think of books but um there's actually two pieces of those more than two pieces of books but um there's two

102pieces two different types of books. We have our physical books then we have our digital books. So this is just kind of a cool slide. It shows exactly what's available in each of our libraries. Um so based on the school and then total um in our district right now uh we actually just had a grant go through. So, this might go up to uh I don't know 91,500 shortly. Um but we have just over 91,000 books available in our district cataloges right now. Um in addition to that, we also have um a subscription through um I don't know if you know what braille stands for. She knows what she doesn't she doesn't want to tell you because I put her on. Um what was that? the style. Okay, there we go. All of the Illinois

103libraries have this partnership that you can check books out from, too. So, we have more available to our kids and our teachers, but um those are the ones that are available here. I'm asking for you for your staff. All right. Next, some more supporting resources for our library media centers. These are some other places where we have books available um and some partners that we use. Um, one I'm going to highlight really quick, Common Sense Media. That's um that's a website that's available to us for our um digital citizenship and there's some great lessons on there that we can use. Thought I'd highlight that one for you. I think we do. Um, we talked about collaboration um a ton in our committee meetings. So, as we go through this, I'm not going to focus on

104everything, but each school focused in our committee meetings on at least one um more than one, I know for sure, but at least one project that they were going to work on as a team. So, with their library media specialist, they were going to partner maybe with a grade level. Um, we only put one project per building, but they worked on more than this. Um, so for example, um, we're at Sullivan. Let's pick on them. Um, one project at Sullivan for reading, they're going to work on a reading stamina project. Um, it's going to be an incentive competition for fourth and fifth grade. Um, not sure. Is that the one with the poster poster? So, you probably saw the green poster on the way in with the fifth grade teachers at the bottom. Um, that's

105for that that's coming up right around the corner here. So, um, something to get the whole school motivated around reading and using this as a center of a school like we talked about. Um, next up, we talked about our standards, but um, when we got finished, we we're still in the process of this, but we're working on our curriculum maps. And at the end, we decided we're going to focus on the eyes standards. Um at the same time we talked about those three different pieces that we need to put inale ISTY and digital citizenship. The Iale standards are I would say just about all-encompassing. So they include some technology standards. I would say probably 80% of the ISTY things are included in the I sales standards. They're just different types of standards. Um and then

106digital citizenship. a lot of the digital citizenship pieces are also in there. So, we decided that our library media specialists and their standards they're going to focus on are these. At the same time, we know we still need to get to the other ones, too. And that's where some of that collaboration comes in. So, we work with that to make sure that we're still covering all of those pieces. Um, and and that's where our curriculum map's going to come in to make sure that we're focusing on those and which lessons and when. And here's a look at our committee representatives around the district um who took part in our committees. All right. And we have a few of our committee reps here. We have Mary Beth over at MacArthur. We have Tammy here at Sullivan.

107The shirt's a big giveaway. We have Christine here at Sullivan. And we have Ivana over at Eisenhower. And Tracy back there again. She likes them. All right. So thank and that Chris got that. Um so thank you to all of them for coming and representing us tonight. They've done a great job on our committee. So I appreciate their their help and support on that committee. And we also thank you guys for your support. Um any questions for myself or our team up here? How are kids reading like the digital books everywhere? Is it just stuff that's that's on their iPads or do they have special iPads? There's a program called just Okay. So just check it out from their own and then we have some other resources as well. So like one of them was

108a capstone public school where there's a lot of non-fiction and like that's very awesome for our grade levels and preschool kindergart we had one that you know would press the button and the story would be amazing voice go it's really nice and natural flowing and it really helps with your research and they're not so intimidated by research because again they can listen, they can see the words and they can just really those numbers that you put up for numbers is that unique books or um I think it does include does it include if there's like two diary kid those were both included right? Yes. Thank you very [Music] much. See you very much. Happy birthday. Thank you. Thank you again. Does somebody wish to make a motion to approve the understanding that it's an NTF3

109wishing motion? I make a motion. I motion to approve the adoption of I Ready by Curriculum Associates for the amount not to exceed $356,000. Maybe I should put on 56 just Did I say 356? Why would I have said that? You need to make [Music] $350,000 to interrupt my Was it the 56 cents that I think that's what I actually yes Mr. Yeah. Yes. Motion carries. All right. Next is the insurance renewal for 2526. It's also an action item. I think you provided you with the estimates. Again, we talked about this in finance. Yeah. Um we spoke uh kind of went over a little bit more detail um following the preliminary renewal meeting as well as the final renewal meeting which was held at the uh at the end of March. Um and so the

110current uh renewal reflects an increase in the PO of 7.9%. Uh an increase in the HMO of 2% and a 4% increase in the dental Any questions? Motion. You're all going to make mirrors. It is tradition. I motion to approve the I was wondering what the hell was going until we were informed. Motion to approve the annual renewal for medical and dental insurance through the district's participation in the educational benefits cooperative pool. Second tonight, yes. Dr. Long, yes. Mark. Yes. Mrs. Peters. Yes. Mr. Yes. Motion carries. The next item is also an action item. It is the bid for striping crack filling and concrete replacement services. Just to clarify stripping. We had some typos where we were bidding for stripping and I thought striking is what we really mean. It's much more entertaining. Um so

111on an annual basis we uh issue a solicitation for striping crack filling um sometimes steel coating uh and concrete replacement services. So, the uh recommendation is to award the bid to Patriot Pavement Maintenance uh in the amount of $33,500. Any questions? Well, just, you know, I know we talked about that in finance, but thank you for getting those bids and for negotiating that down to uh to lower than Motion to approve the bid for 2025 striping, crack filling, and concrete replacements to pay Patriot Pavement Maintenance in the amount of 33,500. Mr. Mr. Yes. Long. Yes. Mr. Yes. Mrs. Peters. Yes. Mr. Yes. Motion carries. Next item is also an action item. Um, thanks to Spencer who served on the calendar committee um and uh along with our PHA representatives. We are uh looking just to

112update the already approved draft for 2526 uh with three recommendations. The first being uh shifting a day of non-attendance from September 23rd to October the 2nd uh and then scheduling a our fall teacher institute day for Friday October the 3 uh so as to consolidate the number of disrupted uh or limit the number of disrupted weeks of instruction. Uh but along with that a recommendation also to make sure that we are actively communicating because we've got a couple of changes from the patterns that folks may be familiar with both staff and families. So uh we want to revise the calendar and then communicate those changes out. Yeah, I I'll just add I want to compliment the the faculty association. I mean just from a parent perspective and what I hear most often about days being

113randomly off all over the place was try to consolidate them and they were very open to hearing that calendar appropriately so experience that's awesome thank you totally minimizing the the fragment that's The second is I move to approve the revised 2025 2026 calendar as presented. Mrs. Yes. Yes. Yes. Mr. Yes. Mrs. Peters. Yes. Yes. Carries. Next item is an action item. It is the approval of the consolidated application. This is our title grant funding. Uh we Craig creates the draft of that. It is approved. uh the consolidated grant is approved by our board then submitted and then uh once it's submitted we will uh start working on the allocations and and assignment but we have to do the application first any questions there none motion to approve the consolidated grant application as presented Mrs. Bwinsky.

114Yes. Mr. Yes. Long. Yes. Mr. Nordmark. Yes. Mrs. Peters. Yeah. Mr. No. Yes. Motion carries. The next item is an information item. It is the proposed NSSO budget. Carol shared earlier the process. Um overall our uh student attendance is what drives a good amount of obviously our cost how how much uh how many services our students are going to receive. I want to thank Chris Broka for all of her work on the programming side uh and and making sure that our kids are well prepared and and their needs are met. Uh and Amy for working on the budget side of things. Uh the tenative budget here that we have uh presented again reflects that reduction in overall students. Um any questions or any other discussion items? When does that get finalized then? So we will

115bring it back for a vote in May, a directive vote for Carol and then Carol will go to the meeting in May at uh NSSO and or early June June, sorry, June um to vote as directed. You feel pretty confident in the current enrollment as much as you can be. Yep. Yeah, it's a reduction of one uh onetoone assistant. It's a reduction of one student and a reduction of a 0.1 behavior specialist because we support it. And so is that is the stride capabilities directly replacing the that decrease from the SSL? Um, it will it is we did bring back one student full-time from Timber Ridge this year, but that was to MacArthur. So, um, and then, uh, two other students that were looking at starting a slow transition. That's right. That was a week.

116Okay. I think, you know, I think the only other thing I'd say is that I would give this budget like a B. Uh, in that in that we rec and I think again it's in the strategic plan. We recognize that there's there are some elements of the budgeting process that need need some enhancement. As we've recognized, transportation costs are skyrocketing. the tuition amounts continue to increase more than 25% over the last couple of years. How we as a co-op interact with non-member districts, how much we're charging them uh for for services needs to be investigated. And then the long-term facility plan needs to be updated so that we have a clearer picture of how to budget for capital needs at NSSO. So um there's there's still work to be done in the area of facility

117and finance, but that's why it's one of the strategic plan goals. Can I add to that? I do um just in talking with the CSBO group, we've also discussed a number of times where when we budget, we really budget with an IP efficiency. There's a lot of negotiating that goes on with regard to contracts and purchases, larger scale purchases as well. Trying to encourage NSSO to think along those same lines and to be more active in negotiating those contracts has really been a push for the CSBO. That'll be a collaborative. I mean, that's one of the ways we can collaborate better. For example, when 214 goes out for paving at Prospect High School, the Timber Ridge campus is right there, right? So, is there a way for those organizations to to piggyback on and connect

118to reduce that cost for everybody? So I think again our goal is have more active participation in the discussions and in the planning to then benefit all with reduced costs, consolidated services, improved programming. All right. Um we also uh have in the packet an information item. We are excited in the month of May at our next board meeting to see our newest board member, Tracy Morsy, who uh won in a landslide in this last election. Uh as did Spencer and Becky. Um so I just shared kind of our timeline. Tracy was in last Friday. she'll be in tomorrow uh to to participate in our sort of orientation uh as we seat the next board kind of outline that and some of our uh traditional celebrations to welcome uh Tracy and to bid our friend of

119fond farewell. Uh so that information is also in the packet. Any questions about that? Congratulations. Yeah, congratulations to you and thank you for your service. Foyas, just a couple a bot bot a bot driven foya. Um I shared in the foyer foyer frenzy. This is like everything it's across the entire state. And so I shared in the Monday memo kind of the legislative approach. The concern is that if this is an automated bot driven process, it's going to suck up the time and energy that also disenfranchises residents who actually have a right to ask for information if it's buried within. This was only 11 Right. Uh luckily, but imagine if the bot is able to send 11 a day, 11 an hour and just inundate. So it's the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act

120coming in, you know, conflict with technology that doesn't keep up with the language of the the law and the spirit of the law are still kind of so while we're working on uh some legislative uh relief or or re readressing of the Freedom of Information Act, we happily reply to all of the foyas that we received from the Bach joyfully. I almost I would have said, "Yay, can I have another foyer?" Please, may I have another foyer? Yeah. Any questions about any of those? You see the responses that Amy provided. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Good luck keeping up with the and Lorie Ellison doing a ton of work. Yeah, the new form of denial. All right, moving on to old business. We have old business to discuss other than me getting old. All right,

121new business. Everything new. Wow. Do we have a new executive? Do we have We don't actually have any update. Uh I put that on there hoping but we haven't heard back yet. So still waiting. Then if I may just kind of before we close just say how much I've appreciated working with everyone. You guys are an amazing board. The camaraderie has been unbelievable. I think I've been here 10 years and um and throughout the experience I I've never had any any concern that everyone on this board has have ever been anything other than really with the goals oriented towards the students and the head staff has been unbelievable and I uh I will miss you all. I will possibly be able to do so many other things that happen right now. But um but I

122will miss you and I will miss kind of seeing the kids and and fortunately I think we're all going out next month for drinks and I think I'm coming into maybe serve food um you know next month at the party and um and just please kind of keep me in mind and uh pay me tomorrow and enjoy working with an amazing with that. Do we have a motion to make a sit as long as you want? It's kind of a short meeting. I make a motion to to adjourn for the night and my last board meeting as president and um district second. Second. All in favor? Any opposed? Hold one last time. [Music]