March Board of Education Meeting

001foreign let me know when you're live now whenever you're seven o'clock Fair everyone [Music] uh I called to order the regular Board of Education meeting for district Prospect Heights District 23. at uh seven o'clock on March 8 2023 can I have a roll call please you're bad now Mr perdonis President Peters this is bobwinsky here okay okay uh can somebody signal to our stars of the show to come on in and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance good you can put in the front too a couple of rows yeah you're good good perfect I love it all right all right Stars whenever you're ready and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all that's great so tonight we're very excited to be joined by

002the Sullivan wrestling team no no no this I am confused this is the Sullivan uh Musical the the state the uh cast of the musical there are a whole bunch of them and there's another 25 or so set design and stage crew that we want to honor and recognize as well but we couldn't fit them in the room uh and you all have been very very busy can somebody share what you've been busy doing um we've been rehearsing and singing songs and learning like actions to our songs good for the musical that's called what Bella frozen Junior Frozen Junior now you have about three weeks before the performance how is it going are you the song Show Business that's Clara um by the way it is not three weeks away it's tomorrow oh the show

003is tomorrow and is anybody nervous excited a little of both yeah board members any questions for our actors what has been the best part about doing the musical this year this year uh I I it's all the songs and lines are that are creative creative and fun and we do fun activities between awesome Mikey what else um a lot of the times when you're with the cast you make a lot of new friends in the cast that you never knew that you had see lots of hands Mateo um you get to meet a lot of new people and have new experience with the show um a lot of the lines are really funny so this Frozen you speak of is this uh Shakespearean Place have I seen it before yeah yeah you know where is

004it from Disney you have to tell me more um little kids okay but Walt Disney and what's the story about how ice is made or yeah me yeah oh it's not like two sisters and then like like one is magical and then one is Matt and then yeah hence the name I mean all the adventures in between and all the adventures um well before uh we let you go I want to offer the board one more opportunity because you actually have a special treat for us so before we do that any other comments or questions from our board I was gonna ask if there's a favorite song that you have but maybe that's what we're hearing oh we got to hear the favorite songs yeah what's your favorite song me yeah uh Raiders are better

005than people your favorite song Closer by the minute um First Time in Forever me yeah um Do You Want to Build a Snowman okay I know that one yeah Mikey um is a fixer-upper oh yeah of course we've had no repeats everybody's differences what's your favorite song this is your second time all right what's your second favorite yeah go ahead okay okay all right it's a funny song it is a funny song yeah it's a funny song yeah it's part of the Broadway yeah are you ready [Music] Let It Go [Music] ES [Music] [Applause] [Music] good [Applause] Ness [Applause] and there were others uh that helped yes so we also have Miss loik was in charge of the sage crew Mr Anderson in charge of lights and sound and Miss gross in charge of set

006design s we thank you for coming out for supporting we have a little parting gift for you as well eat a good breakfast in the morning well we'll get a picture of them on stage okay here we go thank you thank you thank you so great thank you parents hey thank you Isaac there are uh there's just rehearsal performance tomorrow there'll be a performance uh in front of their classmates unfortunately or fortunately the show on Friday night is way sold out we have are going to pack the place so that's a great thing for us to be able to uh to put on but unfortunately there aren't other available tickets for Friday night so if you're interested feel free to stop by on Thursday Repeat Performance Saturday uh no just for you we'll be starting

007the movie yeah I mean if you want to be a part of Lily's Entourage I could give you a ticket I'd take Lily come on Lily I'm gonna sing some song moving on okay okay so next we have recognition of visitors and participation 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 form and give it to Mrs O'Donnell our recording secretary is form the show is over there so we have two here uh Jeff Bose and Jill they're gonna scoop together oh they're going to see okay and Jill Jill and um you want to start sure um so thank you for letting us come and speak tonight we

008just wanted to come on behalf of the and I want to get the name right visit citizens in support of District 23's referendum um we've been working for a number of weeks now kind of getting the word out kind of passing on what um was happening with the referendum and now being the citizens that are out there kind of spreading the word and um making sure that signs get put up and the postcards get sent out so we just wanted to come and make sure that we got on record that there is a large group of people out there and motivated and who really want to see this happen um from my perspective I am a teacher and uh the lesson that I've always learned and kind of one of my mantras is that I'm

009always trying to think about as I'm doing my job what's best for students while it might not always be the easiest thing for me or you know the thing that I want to do the most um that is really what drives me as an educator and I think you know all Educators would say that and feel that way so really as I look at the referendum that's what it is you know all the parts of the referendum are what's best for our students if you look at making our schools more safe and secure if you look at offering all-day kindergarten that just is going to be exponential in the growth that it's going to give to our students from that point on alleviating overcrowding or just making more spaces for the other Educators in the

010building who aren't necessarily the in classroom teachers but need those spaces as well the facilities themselves just making sure that they last a long time I'm fortunate to be at a school that has amazing facilities and I know oh just the ownership that students take when they feel like the facilities are there supporting them and aren't aging and are kind of staying up with the times along with improving the facilities a lot of those improvements lead to more Energy Efficiency which is going to save taxpayers money and I teach environmental science so in anything that also um promotes that is a win in my book uh a lot of the spaces that are going to get created at Eisenhower with this provide space for after school activities so now we're not only enhancing that daily

011classroom work but what students would get an experience outside of school and I know I'm kind of preaching to the choir here but um I just want to let you know we hear you and we agree with um really what's been put forth with this you know the last thing that I think any person living in the district should care about is our property values and you know we've got to make sure that people want to move into our district that we are protecting those property values and making it so that people aren't choosing the school district down the street because it has a more to offer than what we do so um if we don't do this you know we're going to be one of the only school districts around that wouldn't have full

012day kindergarten I think that that could lead voters and Lead home buyers other places so um ultimately kind of this idea going back to what is best for students you know normally I'm talking about my students at this time I'm talking about my kids as students and my kids friends as students and the other kids that were here so I just I really think this needs to happen um Jeff is going to speak to more of the history of what's happened in the district and um kind of how we got where we want to really see this happen if you guys still need a yard sign yes d23.org you go there and you can just request the yard sign they'll bring it out and put it in your yard so uh please go cool I

013have not seen one in your yard it will be um I know from being a previous board member that you know we've gone through so many you know ideas and how to squeeze the budget squeeze the most that we put and I don't know if there's any more squeezing to do within the budget that we have so in order to do some of these things fully kindergarten security and uh improving the facilities there needs to be an influx of funds and the referendum is the only way that we're going to do it I don't have any more kids in the district but I do know that property values they both suffer if we do not make improvements if we let the school district downgrade because of this so it's protecting the property values for everybody

014you know people who are retired don't have any kids and people that still have kids within the district so our organization we're out there we're doing what we can and we just wanted to express the fact that we are supporting the district um I've not seen a comprehensive plan like this from previously when we were on the board so very good job and moving it forward and I've never seen the support that we have with the parents that we have now so it's looking good as far as as I think I would Echo that yeah there's been a really good vibe um from everyone involved so yeah yeah thank you so much thank you for your doing all right anybody else to address the board and next we have communications it doesn't matter to me

015I'm okay you guys okay yeah that's fine absolutely okay so March is an extremely busy month in the world of recognition um and so this month there are a number of uh representatives from our staff that we want to single out and and thank them for their work are March's music in our schools month and so first we celebrate and recognize the positive impact that music education plays in the lives of our students in our community we extend our appreciation to all of our music educators Garth Anderson Karen lure Isabella giron Megan Murray and Sam Simpson we also thank our students and families for their dedication and commitment to our music programs National School Social Work month is also identified in the month of March recognizing the important role that these mental health professionals play

016in our educational setting and we extend our appreciation to all of our social workers Abra zavadak Megan Rieger Rachel Curran and Stephanie piasecki March is also youth art month we recognize the importance and impact of art instruction and we thank Melinda Lyons at Eisenhower Rachel Matthews at Ross and Sullivan and Janet keown at MacArthur for their dedication and passion we invite all community members to visit the Prospect Heights Public Library to view the art displays uh our art that is on display on Thursday March 16th from 6 until 8 PM there is a special meet the artists reception but I believe the art is on display the entire month March is also middle level Education Month and so for us we recognize our MacArthur Middle School staff for their commitment to this special age group

017of students and we thank them for their work to support our Learners through what can often be a difficult time in our students lives foreign language month is recognized this month and we appreciate Athena colaris for her engaging instruction and introduction to the Spanish language at MacArthur as we celebrate foreign language instruction month and if that wasn't enough we are also excited to announce that school will be open next year and registration for that starts on April the 4th registration information will be sent home emailed home on March the 20th and the link will be open beginning on April the 4th we ask that families register by May 1st so that we have a time to section and schedule for all of our students uh lastly under Communications I would like to thank our parents

018students and staff who participated in the five Essentials survey we are very very close to hitting our goal of 25 percent some of our schools are over 25 and a couple of them are just under but we have uh really high participation this year which is exciting because it allows us then to gather data and receive reports from all three of those segments of our of our stakeholder population if we're under 20 percent then we don't receive the data or the report because there's too few respondents so this gives us the ability to compare responses from parents from students and staff on a number of important variables so we thank folks for participating in that setting that up as a competition between schools yeah we strategize in some ways to make sure that we got

019that um the next component that we'll be asking for input on is the Strategic plan survey that's a different survey I want to make make sure folks know it's not the same so if you completed five Essentials thank you this is a different survey it does ask different questions it really is looking for input into what the community would like to see in our schools over the next five years this is a process that we've been going through this year with a couple of different components to it now we're on the input phase we will have some parent focus groups scheduled we have student focus groups scheduled staff focus groups as well as student staff and parent surveys to gather that input of what the community wants to see out of our schools for the

020next five years so that will be launched this Friday in the school scene and then we'll be reminding folks of that over the next four weeks or so and those are our communication items thank you okay next we have committee reports and the first one is buildings and sites so uh at the last buildings and sites we started with a discussion of the um summer work at MacArthur for the HVAC phase two work M core it has we have in the pack no not there it's not this time it's next up the M core bid for um the purchase of various the pre-purchase of the equipment right yeah uh we reviewed a bid for new Landscaping service um and uh the the name of the company um but uh in investigating the companies you found

021that uh lots of good comments about lots of um kind of uh the little things that you know making suggestions when when things need to change or or should be looked at we talked about uh at Ross Sullivan in the gym we talked about the repair of the wall it was discovered that some mace masonry at the ceiling in the Ross Sullivan gym was crumbling and falling to the floor uh it's at the ceiling on the South Wall over the office I think this was right Mike was saying so that all the debris was removed so that it's not a danger immediate danger and um that will be addressed we looked at the Natural Gas contract that is up this year and Mike and Amy checked out new companies and currently pay 68 cents per

022therm and the new rate will be 49 cents per therm and the agreement is for three years and the electricity the contract for electricity will be expiring as well and that is to come later we talked about preliminary schedule of work for Windows sightings and door replacement um we're working with archon to develop a timeline for those things uh and um teachers and staff will be um included in the planning later after spring break we talked about the preliminary schedule of work for the Grodsky lower level improvements admin is working with our con to regarding the revised scope of the plans for the renovation and we looked at the overtime report for February and there were no anomalies there okay uh Finance did not meet this uh this past month does anybody have any comments

023on you can just give us a kind of an interim update and then we'll get back together um next month Amy was there anything in particular that you felt was working no just that we talked to uh or I shared just a little bit of an update on the bid Awards and the NS SEO update and then that'll be forthcoming next month as well so okay and next is NS SEO and the I guess the big news in nsseo that the board met yesterday in a special meeting to um vote on the candidate that was selected to replace Judy who is retiring so um the search firm conducted numerous interviews of and it's a CEO Administration and in program managers super Airy member district superintendents and assistant superintendents admin reps and put together a profile

024of what everybody was looking for in this person So based on their profile they posted the opening and it was a national search they had a number of applicants they did the first screening of applicants uh and then presented us with a slate of candidates we the board interviewed the candidates had a first round of interviews and narrowed it down to three and we interviewed those three and after a lengthy discussion uh that can't be candidate that was chosen is Dr Megan schnoor I think I'm saying her name right she's currently assistant superintendent for Educational Services in District 15. uh she has a bachelor's degree in special ed from ISU a masters from Northeastern and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from National U.S Lewis University she's served in various special ed capacities in districts

025205 and 158 and she actually started her career as a special ed teacher in 214. so she will work with Judy in the coming months to plan a transition and we'll start her position July 1st welcome to Dr Schnur uh then and that was the special meeting yesterday the act the regular meeting was last week and started as usual with shining stars one of the shining stars is a third grader who goes to minor who is from District 23. I'm sorry hi it's our student yeah yes um she she was he wasn't there but everybody did show a video a video yes so um but uh the the hype they were highlighting uh interventions that they were doing for um in regard to uh social and social emotional learning and that that was as usual

026they they had a presentation that it led into a presentation on that goal uh it's part of their continuous Improvement um so they were they were more examples of those interventions uh let's see uh Judy had she kind of usually she does a kind of an update of state and and federal um activities she kind of did a pictorial review of the past year um in nsso regarding lots of different activities and and programs uh the board changed voted on a change for the date of the June meeting to allow for an Associated to coordinated special education Leadership Academy Statewide conference and it's SEO won a grant to um to operate that that organization so they are running the conference [Music] we voted out of the proposed school calendar for next school year voted on

027a plan for esy for this summer uh they um didn't kind of an uh overview of the new and Associate website and we voted on a plan for the unreserved fund balance which from this past school year which I talked about before I think the big thing is that coming out of this uh nssio will contract with archon I believe to create to identify building needs and create a plan going forward so that we know where the unreserved funds are was that what was to say because I know last time it was kind of tabled for uh the business managers world right we met actually we had a meeting today but yes sorry I didn't expect to discuss to make sure that I was following your heart right there so and that's what was a

028great apartment yes um community relations so we weren't able to meet yet we're going to be meeting um later probably around spring break-ish time but there is so much good stuff happening if you know in the life of a school there's right it's the spring time as we're getting ready to um move through this fast-paced rush to slow down to the end of the year um so um as we just saw the Sullivan um Frozen Junior performance is coming fast um the PTO hosted an amazing family fun night on March 3rd it was a lot of fun and by all unless you've lost a bingo when you were five and you needed to cry about it because you didn't understand that not everyone got to Win It thing though but we got to be here

029I saw some shoes on Facebook somebody got carried out with no shoes it was a fun night like a pair of shoes it was like a one random show like I don't know but it really was a fun it was nice to all these guys together to have the kids running around and it was it was just a great um it was a great time I do know a little plug for them is pickup is uh Friday night for all of the Raffles that um people won so at Betsy Ross there will be a pickup from I think three to five or something for all the Raffle winners you didn't win a raffle I'm sorry um somebody with my raffle ticket number won some things I don't remember anyone putting tickets in so I'm not

030quite sure who who did that um but that's cool um unless Mrs Parisi wants to do crafts with me yeah um March 9th uh that's tomorrow is the kindergarten Family Fitness night and the MacArthur band concert there's an orchestra concert happening right now um March 10th Friday is the Sullivan Ellis Island simulation and as Don shared earlier they sold out oversold Frozen Junior performance um on Monday is the Sullivan band concert on March 15th is the iasb spring meeting that's um at wheel 21 21 um on Thursday the 16th is the Prospect Heights Library meet the artist reception um I want to give a little plug I know it's not on here but back to the music appreciator appreciation appreciator appreciation month um I know that uh Orchestra and band from Sullivan have been doing

031amazing with bringing a symphony orchestra in and Friday the 17th they're taking the kids to see like uh an orchestra concert performance so that the kids can actually see like music which I think is so great to get them exposed to musicians that are doing this for fun so um March 22nd is the building of better d23 information session at MacArthur um the last one March 23rd is the bpac event at Ike um and then what we've all been waiting for March 27th through 31st is spring break I don't know if we've all been waiting for that but it's coming I also know it was State Testing is started the iar is coming fast and um the Science assessment for Fifth and 8th graders is also on the books um April 4th is election day

032and registration opens so while you vote also register your kids get a two for one um April 5th is first grade literacy night April 7th is no school April 10th is no school but it's a teacher Institute day April 13th is kindergarten literacy night and April 14th is PTO kids night out that I'm sure there will be more information shared about that soon so lots of fun stuff happening in the next 30 days and we're rounding out to the end of the school year exciting stuff any questions yeah that's really cool April 4th is election day okay and registration and school registration because we will have school next year we will have school it's important I like the flyer the yeah it's a good flyer next is the consent agenda so Michelle was diligent about

033splitting out the consent agenda recognizing that we may not be able to get to items G and H um because we will I believe we need Jim present for that because he was the only other person who was or was the fourth person who was there um but the other portion of the agenda items a through F include minutes from the regular meeting an executive session on February 8th the special meeting and executive session on February 26th the Personnel report and the tuition reimbursement report items a through f items G through H are the regular meeting and executive session on January 11th so [Music] friend needs a and you can out right okay so or you can abstain abstain yeah yeah so we just don't have enough to approve G and H right now okay

034so we would only go items a through f so is this consent agenda one a through f is what I'm marketing he just can't do a and b okay so there's a recommended motion where is that sorry um the first one is just a so the rest of us don't sorry I just don't see the motion so motion to approve items A and B of the consent agenda as presented second okay moved by Kevin secondary by Brian roll call please yes Mrs mclaney yes abstain yes okay motion passed four zero and one extension right then we could combine the others yeah so I moved to approve C through f as on the consent agenda as represented second okay moved by Becky seconded by Kevin roll call please yes to cleaning yes Mr nordvark yes Mr

035Novak yep mrski yes the past five zero okay next is the financial report before we move to that okay I just want to take a minute and congratulate Dr Craig Curtis who with that approval uh will become our next assistant superintendent for teaching and learning here in District 23. congratulations Craig is a friendly thing [Applause] there's a lot of 11 years has just Ross's principle filling the shoes of Dr Amy Zaire who will be on the Salt Creek we're very excited to have Craig with us we also had a pretty extensive interview process and involved staff and administrative team in vetting our candidates and selecting Dr Curtis congratulations Craig we're excited to have you on the team thank you very much and I am honored to accept the position so I couldn't be more excited

036and I just wanted to thank you guys my staff and parents and also the administrative team for everything that they've done because I feel as if my success is due to those around me and I just wanted to thank everyone for their support along the way so thank you very much for having trust in me for this position and I'm very excited for um the places we will go and hopefully I can take over right where Amy left off because she is absolutely phenomenal and we won't miss her so much congratulations Craig [Applause] so uh next is financial report and I think the Brynn go ahead the financial report reviews yeah um so for the month for the most part I would say it's a regular visits I think there was the uh the one

037expense one of the larger ones was the equipment for um yard work for the most part I think that was the big the big ticket item process and then the rest of it pretty straightforward you know supplies things of that nature regular doing good business materials all right motion to approve d by Prince second is my brain roll call please Mr cardanis yes Mrs mcclaney yes yes was that your first month first one and we had multiple conversations so thank you for your patience and learning great I think it's it's a great way to learn yeah it's great okay next is uh superintendent's report all right uh we're gonna readjust because we have a our partners with us from the Catalyst for educational change Shelly Taylor's with us to share the report uh there is

038a presentation so we'll adjust our feeding I'm sorry there's like ice cold air coming down [Laughter] [Music] you're right so you're more than enough if we played that game which one are you have to move right yes come close just to situate this this report this is the second in a series of uh special projects that were completed this year as again a part of our strategic plan process to plan for the next few years we took some time to gather data around two specific areas last month I presented on the Safety and Security scan that was done we worked with our locals law enforcement First Responders as well as that committee to gather feedback gather some data and generate some recommendations that will then lead to the Strategic plan planning process we're excited to

039have Shelley with us today Shelly's been with us since the start of this process a year ago almost when we first started talking about entering into the work the board is aware we've had Equity goals we were one of the districts um main charges was not to jump into equity in word only but to make sure that if we're going to set goals around Equity that there'd be more than lip service but that they really be actionable and um I think that that has driven a lot of what we've tried to do it's easy to put out a statement and say yes we're about Equity uh yes we're about Excellence yes we're about inclusion and then not really back that up uh what's more difficult is really to dive into the work and gather data

040so Shelly will walk you through the report that they generated from a number of points of data and I just again want to thank Shelly and donzell the partners who worked with our district and our Equity task force to gather all of this and present the information to us awesome um hi everyone Shelly Taylor I know some of you is wonderful and I did actually recognize some of the students as well because good news is students also gave boys to the report I know you have the full 17-page report and I promise for you tonight with like reading 17 pages to you which is why I have some slides who's Christian is thank you okay good sorry so um we I just have some slides just as some guide but I really want this to

041be a dialogue I know ultimately you probably just want to say okay synthesize what is it like what did you learn what do we need to hear so that's where I'm going to kind of guide us tonight with knowing that backing it up is 17 pages of entertaining reading for your pleasure later all in there no worries it's there um okay go ahead and um please thanks so just the overall uh purpose is Don mentioned and cec's process is very similar in that we take the idea around equity and Excellence pretty seriously and that this isn't something that you just kind of haphazardly walk into but rather really looking at indicators of Equitable programming and processes to really meet the needs of all students is really what our overarching so um we really focus on

042current successes and we really like to take asset base so you're going to see throughout the report indicate indicators of where we definitely saw some great strides and some great successes and then of course the climate and tone amongst all that were part of the process and really then leads us to where the opportunities for improvement so that was really what we focus on very similar I even heard tonight in some of the other presentation pieces that were talked about during your meeting same idea around focus groups survey and can you go to the next slide for me so we can actually see the data on it so we did have 10 focus groups um many couple people were a part of that that I've noticed in the room um which had just over 100

043participants you can see the breakdown of who were in um involved in those there was also a school Community questionnaire some of you may have filled that out you may recall that all of the questions and the focus groups um information come from a taxonomy where it really looks at layers within a school system I bet you didn't know this but school systems are complex foreign of course you know this right I mean there's so many layers and so any you're talking about equity and Excellence it's like where are we talking and which part are we talking about and I sometimes call it sometimes you start pulling one thread and it's like okay but then it's here and it's here and it's all over the place so we did use a taxonomy that looks at

044five specific layers and levels within a system that can then start to help answer where do we start on this journey of equity where where we have some strong assets and where might we want to continue to push on so the report is designed that way I think it's like page three or four it kind of describes each of those particular levels but do know if you did fill out the questionnaire or were part of the focus groups that's where all of those questions came from and then once we took all of that information we started to align it into some key recommendations for you all and like where where we see could be some opportunity so that's what I'm going to share with you tonight but I'm going to pause a little bit before

045I jump into that does anyone want any more clarity on the process or how we kind of went about that anything that you want me to clarify before I go and start jumping into recommendations I don't want to go too fast okay all right um so yeah go ahead thanks all right so the report is divided into and we always do this we divide it into two sections one would be what we call Priority recommendations and the priority recommendations are really designed at the district leadership level so these are things that we can see become the larger bedrocks for a system to really be in charge of moving so these would become your school board recommendations as well as your District's leadership recommendations and so from all of our process we came up with four

046for you three and then there'll be one more on another slide we don't need to get there yet I'll go over them but first starting with um and by the way in the report if you want to know it's page seven has a lot of text okay so I narrowed the text for you but page seven really has them there so first would be those Equity related standards I heard Don mention at the very beginning of team I already I can already tell from having the pleasure of listening and spending time with your community that you do have priorities that you are looking at working on your Equity Journey so really for you all at the the district level and the board level to set key principles and values once you know what those are

047here's our key values that then we Benchmark everything against so if we believe this how do we make sure that all of our decisions all of our practices then line up against that um that's really one of the best recommendations when you're ready to make some of those strong statements that can be out there which then of course then lead to the last one which I'm going to say is you have to have measurable outcomes um if you don't know this Dei so diversity equity and inclusion is like an eight billion dollar industry right now there's a lot of ways you can spend money on Dei the question is if it was just that we had good ideas and good intentions we should have seen change but that's not really happening right now I mean

048we've seen a lot happen and then it's there's a lot that still needs to happen in our country not just in education but in a lot of different Industries and the recommendation is really the things that get measured get done and so if you put some benchmarks and measurable outcomes this will tie to your strategic plan out there then you know you're going to start to invest in those particular pieces that are going to move that but it has to really be around what are your principles what are your values where are you going to Benchmark those and how are you going to have measurable outcomes these line up very nicely to strategic planning one thing I do want to just bring out there and I know we have probably all I've seen in the

049news the sensationalization of sometimes when these types of topics come up one thing to remember is that to really reduce blame on people or any type of person around when we talk about Equity issues that in fact it's issues and schools in itself are inherently inequitable and so it's really systematic pieces that we need to be focused on and not so much about the people so avoiding any kind of blame okay so that's the big one right I think you guys know that just kind of double Downing on it um the second one then is continue your initiatives they they were clear we heard them throughout all of the stakeholders we talked to um we could see evidence of that in the survey um responses that came back so continue your current efforts but to

050also deepen advance and expand them um one thing to keep in mind is sometimes there's a um a misunderstanding that Equity means race there's actually 16 dimensions of identity and we need to move Beyond just this surface level of some of those pieces but really kind of div dig deep into all of the dimensions of identity um and so you could hear that like oh yeah we have a very diverse Community that's great that's one but now let's get down a little bit deeper and get to know each other throughout all 16 um um to also make sure that there's culturally and linguistically responsive teaching practices that mirror that again not just that surface piece but kind of digging in a little bit deeper and of course expanding the SEL and mental health for students

051um this by the way is something that is just pervasive across the country um we're just in a different world and students definitely have needs that need to be addressed um the third one then is prioritizing belonging um belonging is such an important aspect of this where everyone sees themselves as part of the environment making sure that every single School building has that supportive environment I can tell you just as a visitor you can walk into a building and you can feel whether it's warm and welcoming just from the time you step the foot in the door this is true for any person that walks in do all parents students and Community feel the they belong here or do they feel there's some invisible walls that are up and then of course I will say

052that there are and as we did hear of microaggressions within the school communities um and and this was across all including students certainly were reported there not uncommon in our society right now so I do need to bring that forward it's there which means okay then let's just make sure we do something about that and and we call it out okay before we get to the last one because these are here on the slide so then one want me to clarify anything or want to even does it spark dialogue between all of you as well not just questions for me could you expand on the last item yeah so um there were across the different interest groups that we spoke to so we spoke to all stakeholders um there were comments made and keep in

053mind that the questions are designed specifically not to um have they're not leading questions we're not trying to guide people to tell us things we want to hear but rather especially when the question around do you feel safe both physically and emotionally when you're at school or in the school setting it's interesting because all interest groups brought up some type of things that don't make them feel comfortable um and so when we talk about that and I don't use the term microaggression like a negative or contrived way but it's really more of like people felt in some way that they weren't always respected they were not always taken um into consideration either they're all 16 dimensions of their identity we're not taken into consideration and we'll get into some of the levels later students in

054particular reported uh bullying and harassment that's what I would immediately jump to when I read microaggressions yeah but you're saying it's also potentially just lack of respect for certain aspects of how they expect to be treated yeah and even lack of even understanding things so there were some reporting of comments made by others that they felt were um not cruel not meaning to be cruel but really uninformed that were in some ways not very sensitive to who they are so again not that people and and I will tell you for the majority of all of the stakeholders love this community feel very you know supported by folks and it was all in very positive ways but there were definitely across every single stakeholder so those and I will tell you they it wasn't night like

055it was huge but I'm going to tell you any is a problem because that can start to create you know liens in other ways the other thing too is sometimes even when there are some pockets of it um the efforts around equity and SEO and belonging feel contrived like okay that works for some but everyone's ignoring the issues over here so it can sometimes backfire a little bit if you do have little pockets that are exist in the community like was that helpful okay anyone else I thought and you may get to this in your presentation but the um charged with the percentages and breaking them out in the different stakeholders to me some of them were shocking yeah and so you know I I'm really glad that we've done this yeah and one of

056the things I want you to know is that the survey um questions you own like you have that so Chris I'm sure took painstaking time we we all owe Chris a big thank you but it was purposeful because then if you want to run those same questions so back to remember I said set measurable outcomes if you want to start to see some change you have at least some beginning pre-data to start to say okay where did we go from here I just want to say you qualify that I you know by Shocking I don't mean like you know things are terrible oh they're just they weren't what I would have expected yeah yeah and um and and sometimes again and sometimes I'm a little surprised too to see some of them sometimes higher than

057I would have thought or lower than you know like it sometimes you're not really sure what's really interesting and what I really look at when you get a chance to look at the data is I usually look at is there a significant gap between certain interest groups right that's also very interesting data um so it's like oh wow maybe and again that's where communication often is there a miscommunication or are we misunderstanding definitions of things are we not understanding what's happening here um I think that brings some really interesting Rich dialogue too yeah thanks for pointing that out okay we're ready to go to the fourth one minute um so the fourth one I will tell you I think is um a really important one to actually fully achieve what likely will become priorities or

058high interest which is to really Advance modern learning increasing these opportunities what I found really fascinating with your data set was the definition of Challenge and challenging curriculum um it was still pretty narrow into traditional programming that challenge means that an honors class or an advanced class versus challenge being a cross for everybody which definitely signals quite a traditional curriculum and an academic experience versus where we have students and we'll say too when we ask some of the questions around students discovering their passions and goals um that was interesting um like what do you mean well you know and then it often turned to and we'll get to this your amazing after school programming um or it became I heard um like the the what is it the Statue of Liberty like they became projects

059right they became projects or field trips but they weren't actually the learning components um this I think is a challenge for all American public education right now is to how do we go from the traditional programming to something that fits more of that modern piece I do think for you all as a school board to really think about it will take the agreement at this level to unlock that box of traditional education and so I do think it's going to be some interesting dialogue here to say to what degree is this part of our belief system and where we can educate all kids in the same manner and all have challenge and not necessarily put them into you belong here you belong here you belong here into these little increments which again this is why

060I've mentioned before our school systems are inherently inequitable they were designed to sort and select so we shouldn't be shocked that we're having trouble getting out of sorting and selecting like that's why they were there in the first place so you know part of that is then to say it is going to require a push on the modern learning what does that really mean and what does that really look like that's not a ship just in here yes for sure but why bring this forward is because it does come with your directives right and it does come with your support and often schools if you take a look at any school system or school that has tried to push in in a modern Direction and somehow what took it down was not the full community

061board teachers and administrators all being together understanding that those who have been able to move that forward they're all together with that and it's part of yes we know we need to do this okay questions those are the big priority recommendations right so to get those High equity and excellence in your school system through those from what we heard would be the priorities now we're going to go into the levels each of the taxonomy in each of my slides will explain a little bit about the level and then I'll give you um specifics these recommendations in the report really become then how do the buildings at the building level make this happen based on the taxonomy so the first level of the taxonomy is just physical integration how are we all broadening our lenses and

062integrating and including everybody so first is really increase efforts to build that integrated experience for students and Community we heard just great examples I would say heritage night was the one that came up across the board so it would really be increasing those types of efforts to build those experiences and what that really does is it starts to remove invisible walls between stakeholders and also it can integrate all of those 16 dimensions of identity so how do you kind of take an example of Heritage night but really how do we make that part of just how everyone experiences schooling in this District fully ensure full integration diversity inclusion within those specialized courses and extracurricular activities so how can that happen I think you guys have done a really nice job thus far but there still

063are some disparities right so then where do we start to address where some of those disparities are and consider reframing the language and tone around programming and placement I will tell you repeatedly I heard this from folks when they make comments is um it's the language around um perception um for example um oh my kid didn't wasn't low enough to qualify so therefore I'm not getting um again these become that's just one example right of people in your system putting themselves in those boxes right and I will tell the students said it repeatedly too I heard them repeatedly say things like oh I'm in advanced classes or we are like if you're in low or like they were using terminology that I think could be reframed to even give them their own image of themselves

064as belonging and I think sometimes that happens and we don't even realize that that we ourselves are using a language that feels deficit versus asset-based so I think there's ways to kind of listen for that and kind of move that because I will say that did come up quite a bit when we were listening to the focus groups groups okay that's level one level two then we move on to then social emotional engagement this is that welcoming climate safety restorative practices um this is where I will say this is Kevin where that student bullying and harassment came up so definitely address the student to student conflict that existed and a couple of the sessions even when we said if you were Princess you could be the superintendent what would be the first thing you would

065fix like and they did say bullying so which tells you it's there now how do they Define it that's going to be part of the wondering right and I know that even came up the difference between is it harassment or is it bullying um and again we could say is it inside outside the problem is if it's here that this is their community and so really having kids talk through what does that really mean how do we address those pieces um fully implement the social emotional curriculum to meet the elevated emotional and mental health needs of students post covid I think it's just continuing down that I will say everybody hands down that second step Second Step Second Step Second Step even I thought I told Don I was like you guys have had that

066he's like this is our first year I was like well hey great job so all I have to say is great job because it was it was absolutely repeated but we also heard that there's a little still more work to be done so that it's really getting into solving some of the issues versus some of the surface level pieces um and then ensure more consistency and discipline across all schools and classrooms this was in fact one of the lower if you look at the data it was definitely skewed one of the lowest in terms of having that um fully implemented so I think it's again consistency and I will just hone in on the word discipline and that last bullet point discipline is a teaching stance it's Miss every misbehavior is a wonderful opportunity to

067teach and learn it's not oh you did something wrong you should be punished these are not the same Concepts and I think that that then is where there needs to be a little more and I bet consistency and why it scored a little low um is often there's a misunderstanding in the in the mindset of all adults on what that means um when we're talking about that and the other thing too is restorative disciplinary practices does require a full cycle of if you make a wrong you make it right and did I give time to make my wrong or right and those who have been impacted we need to address that sometimes in schools we just haven't enough time to make all that happen so making sure that that does really become part of that

068okay before I move on any questions not to create a rabbit hole yes um but with the student to student conflict yep did you did you run into or across data where there was student staff conflict um we didn't we didn't put Probe on that one okay um so um and I didn't hear that the only when we get into instructional pieces students did comment on the instructional pieces in terms of like whether teachers had high expectations for them and how they sort of looked at them instructionally but not anything in that harassment bullying area got it and it wasn't reported so I mean because keep in mind our questions are pretty open like do you feel safe so they could have reported anything at that point it wasn't like it's not a leading question

069do you feel sick with your teachers you know so we don't do that kind of a thing and I didn't even say do you feel like you're being bullied like and we don't use we purposely don't use the term bully and so if you were a part of um some of the sessions it's funny sometimes people go I don't know what you mean like what do you mean and I'm like okay that's good you don't know what I mean like sometimes it's like great but I don't want to give people what it is because we're waiting to hear what they bring forward so they didn't students didn't bring that forward at all to your boyfriend could the discrepancy on a student's perception of of how discipline is maybe not right maybe that's exactly it could

070be yeah yeah okay anyone else okay let's go on the the discipline thing it just felt like the teachers felt like that it was not being implemented consistently but that was the biggest number and I feel like that that's an area that we need to make sure that we better understand and and I don't know this to be true because this would require you to go back to ask some follow-up questions but have when I've worked with some staff and why I pointed out the difference between discipline and I use the term punishment is sometimes even within staff there is a misunderstanding of discipline versus punishment sometimes what ends up happening why there's inconsistencies is um a teacher sends a student down to the office the Deep whoever to deal with an infraction and then

071the student is returned and there's no understanding of what happened sometimes there's assumptions being made on what did or didn't happen um and so sometimes the teachers feel there's an inconsistency I don't know what happened I don't know and sometimes it's a miscommunication of what went on and or a misunderstanding of what they wanted the outcome to be so if there was like I wanted the student to get a referral or get a after school whatever you know but somebody else was left to handle that that there may be a disconnect there so sometimes it's it's kind of bringing that together as well I also think you have a different like you have layers of generations of teacher that handle things differently right so I was curious on the data when I looked at that

072like from a staff standpoint you might have three generations minimum and they've grown up educating different ways along the way so yeah interpretations all overboard I think yeah I think too right like the type of right the type of teacher like how many like I handle it all in my classroom so I feel like it like it I think it's just that really like it also depends on did I send them to the office expecting them to get the hammer not understanding that the resource sort of process takes time or multiple reiterations right or not maybe not even knowing what's going on with that kid that the social worker I was able to provide information for and and so part of that then becomes how do you interrupt that because um and also ensure that

073everyone understands those pieces um now I will tell you it is best practice to use more responsive restorative discipline practices again you can punish and punish and punish all day long we also have Senate Bill 100 that says you can't just suspend and you can't do those things so legally you can't also just overly punish in some way so you're going to have to put some of those things legally in place anyway I will tell you I know that from being a classroom teacher myself it's the thing that works especially I've been an edbd 8th grade classroom I mean you can punish all day long they will they will fight you right back um you know you gotta come at it a different way it's not effective and it feels good maybe and back to

074to what degree are we allowing that teaching to happen it's hard to say I know especially with some middle school students Because by the way middle school students are are designed to block the system like that's how they come and again you have to just sometimes they'd be like okay thank you for allowing me to teach you something you today and how to be a good person you know but like sometimes you just don't want to say that but right it does take a lot to kind of get there but it is a mindset so sometimes the the perception that there's inconsistency is sometimes really also a difference in philosophy and a difference in understanding of what's happening so I think that that is definitely a rich area to kind of dive into luckily this

075is actually one of our largest committees this year is that we are we have a huge committee that is talking just about not only the behaviors observed but also um what are some of the responses to those behaviors whether the classroom managed or um office managed and the different levels so all of the schools have team members as part of this team and then um even before that before the behaviors happen What are some of the preventative measures so that you know we stop this as much as possible and then when the behaviors or misbehaviors occur we have um a more consistent response and these also model for students to how to treat student to student which then also is a sub of then the bullying and the hurray like if I have a better

076model of how I handle like if I made it wrong and I have to make it right and I talk about how I've impacted someone else and I do something about it then hopefully I can transfer that also and when I interact on the playground or you know whenever that might be as well okay is there a like a raw data so I mean just like the ones that worked is there a data set that breaks stuff down more like by school we did not collect it purposely by school um you you could so like I said you have could be broken down by school I don't like to I isolate certain groups you know in this initial one that makes people feel uncomfortable but I think that was probably your next step in terms

077of let's see if we really want to pick a couple ID ideas here or things we're most concerned about I think maybe you would want to start looking at exactly where those might be um and I don't know have you done PBIS in the past where you kind of know exactly where the infractions are and you know so sometimes you can get down to month by month what are the specific outbursts that are happening at the time you can even get that detailed applications yeah location and all of that right February February okay let's go on to level three so level three this now moves into the academics the learning components um and so notice in this taxonomy when we talk about Equity remember I mentioned school systems are complex the the first two levels

078are really about that belonging and the social emotional pieces now we're getting into the learning component so this is really access to learning opportunities support and human and social capital so in these um probes the recommendations we have here is really equalizing the sectioning and placement process for learning programs and opportunities where any disparities exist so really kind of expanding access to remove un any unintentional in inequities and I'm just going to tell you this one is really hard with schools back to schools were originally designed to sort and select anyway so it's really hard sometimes to start to remove those but that's where I will tell you it's any sort of directive on what we believe in in trying to offer learning opportunities for kids is going to be really important and it often

079starts here in this in this room again address teacher mindset and variances as it relates to the beliefs on students abilities and aptitudes just like with discipline or punishment to what degree do all of our staff understand and truly believe on the abilities and aptitudes of students ensuring that teachers and that's the wrong word they're actively help all students to reach those expectations um there's great studies out there that show if you you know put a group of kids together and tell a teacher oh you've got the gifted class that the teacher actually treats that class in a very different way than if you say oh you've got a different type of class the low class like again notice how I'm using these terms these are terms that get tossed around they can be debilitating

080for the mindset of the adults and the students so really kind of thinking to what degree that's really there and identify solutions to help eliminate any barriers no matter how small which limit opportunities for all students to participate in those extracurricular offerings um I will tell you hands down everyone talked about how much they love those I know that that's hard to do but it seems like a really great um offering and it also what's really nice about after school activities is you can have Cross grade you can have cross Pawn you can have kids doing like it sort of allows for that believe it or not more of that modern learning that we've talked about in that fourth recommendation priority recommendation so really to what degree can you kind of double down on that

081to those kids today yeah correct and and I will tell you that's um and I know this sounds scary but that is one of the interesting things if you look at more Innovation is to really mix ages of kids in learning experiences there's nothing that says they have to stay in their little like it's a second grade this is third like there's no magic there that's just how the system was built originally because it was efficient um if that's not our goal now we could look at other ways of doing that but again that like I said that's that's some big stuff and it can happen if a system wants that that means you have to have everybody with you or again offering those types of things where they're getting those experiences not even just

082after school but it could be also during the school day to your point though this is system not District correct and this is how we report to the government this is the entire system yeah hard to some of those requirements it is it is um and there you do have local I mean the good news is in Illinois you do have quite a bit of local control there are certain things you have to meet and then there's other there's other things you need you have some flexibility on I will tell you you have to have everybody with you though if your community is not with you if you know the school board is not with you admin's not with you you know teachers are not with you you're going to have a hard time you're

083going to go right back to default right which is often where school systems get trapped okay level four then uh moves us into instructional Excellence um this again is really how people are experiencing your current level of instruction in classrooms so uh the three um recommendations here are expand and ensure consistency and adaptive instructional practices that are intended to close those knowledge gaps and non-cognitive gaps so SEL or executive functioning or whatever that hinder academics success so we heard that there are bright spots going on um what we did here is that it's not as consistent so um a lot of it was well depending on the teacher you get or depending on which class or what depending on whatever so it's sort of like there are bright spots but how do you build more

084of that consistency so everyone is experiencing that um improve the degree to which parents experience high level partnership around learning and skill building with faculty just so you know there was a ton of great comments around the communication between school and home for sure this is really taking this a little bit further is parents really should be integrated into the process of side-by-side partnership how are parents working with I often look at it as um you know we're co-parenting right I mean we kind of are co-parenting here right like it is it is a side by side which means that we need to view each other as that um and then of course reduce the variance between teacher classroom instructional experiences through those professional learnings and collaboration so back to eliminating differences from classroom to

085classroom by really increasing the consistency and approach and quality of the student experience okay our last level is the highest level of this modern learning type piece which is to have those engage in inspired learners um to be quite honest student voice and aspirations and students self-directing their learning even kindergartners can do what I want you to know um and it is amazing how when you say maybe we should ask the kids what they think about what they want or what they think about these things it's amazing what you end up with so extend learning really beyond the school walls uh heard again lots of great comments about field trips or special type experiences but how do you really reach beyond that to bring that culture of District 23 into the classrooms students really learning

086through their interests skills and aspirations while widening the classroom it doesn't just have to be just what's here in this book called The Curriculum guide but where else are we expect extending their learning capitalize on the current student leadership successes hands down I will tell you I do not always get the amazing comments on these probes when I say to what extent where do students have leadership and I was floor at how much you guys have so you all should be really quite proud um and so capitalize on that um my recommendation here would be establish policies or practices that guarantee each and every student will experience leadership and decision making as part of their school journey I mean it's there the question is is every kid getting it that's my question for you all

087and increasing the enrichment programs in collaboration with those beyond the school staff to provide more personalized and inspired learning for all students there's nothing better than bringing and I'm using this term specifically elders into and part of learning for students to expand their cultural experience and I'm going to tell you you have a rich Community the question is how do you how do you make that happen it's not that you necessarily have to and I know there's a a lot of conversation in the state around hiring more diverse workforces maybe you can't find that but you've got you've got teachers all around this community um and so how do we kind of work together to bring that in and really kind of um capitalize on those pieces again there's nothing better than seeing the inside

088out and having kids and different Generations work together around learning it's amazing what kinds of things can happen okay so that I have one more slide those are all of the recommendations minus I want to just mention a couple things and I think you guys already believe in this because I heard you mention this implementation is key I always say all good ideas and education die on implementing that that was a great idea oh we just didn't implement it right um is pretty much what is the is that hamster wheel you hear about in education so a couple key things you have so many assets keep it asset based Leverage What is going well to keep doing that Improvement um collaborative you have to do it together so really get that Collective action and continue

089to listen and learn from one another and then prioritize pick a few key things you can start on now codify that and most especially I'm going to say it again what gets measured gets done and I mean that in a positive way so back to let's start to see this change happen let's see how many like can we get every single kid with a leadership opportunity like those exciting numbers those are the types of measurements and accountability that get everybody really excited okay questions you can follow up with the 17 Pages the language but I hopefully made it come to life yeah it's wonderful okay thank you very much appreciate it we have um at our upcoming Institute a an opportunity where we'll sort of reflect with staff about the Safety and Security audit as

090well as this equity and Excellence audit as a part of our strategic plan so all of the data that we're Gathering and the feedback and recommendations we don't want them to be seen as add-ons or after the fact we're going to have our strategic plan oh and then we're also going to do some Equity stuff we want that all well integrated into what we're looking at for the next five years so thanks again to Shelley for uh and her team for pulling this together and to all of the people who participated in the survey and focus groups all right you gotta move it move these tables now just scooch our tables left and down food videos there we go is the temperature the next item on the agenda is an informational update at the conclusion

091of each trimester the administrative team reviews the Strategic plan and kind of give us an update gives an update to the uh progress toward our plan goals so that is the report that was included and then we also provided your place a 18-month look ahead it's one of the crazy Parts about the governance level I think you know when we're still so stuck in the day-to-day and yet our our charge is to be mindful of July of 2024 and what's on the plate and how do we get there so uh provide this again just as a kind of a template of what we do in the areas of strategic planning financial planning curriculum planning Labor Relations and Facilities uh just a brief update also on our building a better d23 campaign uh Amy and I

092presented at the Prospect Heights city council meeting on February 27th that is running on public access station for those that are able to see that and that will continue we had two more informational sessions this week on March the 6th one at 10 A.M and one at 6 p.m and as was mentioned earlier we have one more at 6 p.m on March the 22nd how's attendance at the last two uh a handful yeah a handful at each what was the type of feedback you received uh the morning was more mixed the afternoon the evening one was pretty supportive overall in your packet was uh or in your folder is a sample of one of the communication pieces that the uh committee the Community Committee had provided and um you should have received at home the

093tri-fold mailing that um was sent out we're working on the Community connections newsletter that is uh to be printed the end of this week and hit mailboxes sometime next and then there will be one more communication uh regarding the reminder of voting um and highlighting the referendum plan to hit homes that week of spring break right before the election next we have an action item this is the window of time where we're required to uh if there are any reductions of force or any recommendations for non-renewal that we need to bring that forward so that we have we the timeline so there is a recommendation for non-renewal in the packet of one of our faculty identified in exhibit one are there any questions or discussion okay can I have a motion then a second move

094by Becky seconded by Mary Lynn roll call please Mr cardanis yes Mrs mcclaney yes or Mark yes Mr Novak yeah Mrs Peters yes yes motion carry 6-0 uh the next item up for discussion is the preliminary Staffing proposal for 2022-23 this 23 24. oh I'm sorry I have the wrong year down there no no I just said the wrong thing sorry this is a process that is ongoing actually starts in November when we get our initial enrollment data and that gives us a sense of where our projected enrollment is is going to go we run that through uh the needs for sectioning as well as program enhancements and uh so presented tonight for your consideration we would take action on the final plan in April um I'll just walk through the uh kind of high

095level of some of the the components of the plan we're looking at a reduction of two core teachers at MacArthur in sixth grade and reminder our Middle School block schedule requires that even number of sections so that we have the ability to maintain that kind of structure and that requires then six and eight sections so we're able to reduce two sections there and still fit within our class size guidelines overall our class sizes are going to be within uh the guideline ranges currently we're watching fourth grade it's high right now we will um have to identify once we start seeing the actual enrollment numbers come in we'll have to see what our move-ins and move outs look like um as we've done in the past we maintain a contingency for additional Staffing but at this

096time did not feel prudent to make that recommendation until after we start seeing the enrollment numbers uh start coming in what are our numbers for um it is is this the guideline at the bottom here that's what it looks like yeah so it is 24 to 27 yeah the guideline for six tape uh we're proposing two additional uh staff positions uh with uh title of ESL teacher the purpose for those would be to specifically Target services for newcomers um I haven't had the opportunity to talk to Jackie in the last few weeks about this but before winter break or at the midpoint of the year we had already received 35 newcomers and these are students who are new to schools in the United States and that's not a new thing for us but certainly that's

097a much higher number than we've had and so um I think it's it's also not seemingly going to be a a blip it's going to looks like it's going to become more of a consistent pattern at least for the near for the near future so part of the Gap we have in terms of service provision is direct literacy and English instruction for newcomers we're looking at these two positions one being split across K through five one being housed at MacArthur six through eight with responsibilities for direct instruction of our newcomer students coordination of access testing push in support for other English learner students development of professional development activities support for our bpac program as well as helping to streamline some of the translation services that we know we need to um do a better job

098at overall we're looking at those two FTE being a swap out for the two that are reduced core teachers at MacArthur uh We've as we've done a number of times in the past as we're looking at building our own capacity the uh internal strength of our team to provide behavioral coaching um has continued to grow and so we're looking at a reduction in purchase service and adding a 0.5 sale slash behavioral Coach position that would allow us to bring those services in the house we have a couple of increases to library AIDS the point for the NS SEO of services what are we spending for that this this school year well it's one of the line items go ahead I don't know how much it's a 0.3 FTE that we purchase from them so and

099we pay them so the difference well it's a point to FTE but our our purchase service through them is much higher than what we would pay for ourselves so it was it was in essence a wash in terms of dollar but I don't want to grab my head either okay is this increasing some an existing a person to do get somebody to full time yeah so we have somebody who's currently doing poaching for um the sale program so we could make that that's only a part-time position so we could increase that to a full-time and they get a whole what can that person do the work that we were purchasing from an association okay thank you uh Library instruction or Library AIDS um at Ross and Sullivan are currently at 0.25 FTE with increased demand

100and uh level of services being provided by our lrc teachers were asking for a 0.25 increase in both of those two positions we're looking at our school clerical support you would think with everything going digital uh that that would make things quicker it seems as if they just keep adding more and more reporting and monitoring to the plate so we're proposing an increase of 0.375 at Eisenhower Ross and Sullivan we are already providing the imrf benefits but this would require additional health and dental and life insurance provision by making those positions full-time that total increase would be a 1.125 so the people there right now are part-time correct they're 0.62 the uh well we'll post the positions that way the central office currently has an unused uh custodial position that we've sort of held again

101as a contingency we'd like to utilize that 0.3 increase it by 0.2 to provide a 0.5 clerical assistant really that supports um the three other offices Michelle does a fabulous job working as my executive assistant and um also then she helps Chris and Amy and Amy and our District Registrar helps and our bookkeeper helps and our accounts payable helps but that again draws people away from their primary purpose so this would be primarily somebody looking at our purchase orders processing of Grant paperwork and Reporting as well we're looking at another shift of services to an in-house person it would be no change in an FTE but we would be creating a special education specialist who will focus on the area of speech and language pathologist supervision and coordination of services uh that's currently something again

102we pay out of out of uh purchase service to nsseo we would be looking to bring those responsibilities in-house with no change to FTE and uh I did have an opportunity to meet with Joe Wade and uh Bill Chief bill caponegro from Prospect Heights we had a very good conversation I felt we were very much in alignment with the goal and the intended purpose of a school resource officer thinking about that primarily as again a resource and a service to the families in the school community at large that's a shared goal that that bill feels really strongly about I know he's working on those arrangements and agreements with some of the other schools on the other side of town um the process for that is about a six-month lead time so we're not talking about

103making any decisions uh in the near future other than um with the direction from the board we would begin to develop a memorandum of understanding that would articulate what those expectations are what the ownership responsibilities are what the costs would be we are looking again at a proportionate share of that based upon the officer's time in District as well as their hours and time outside of this when the schools are closed so I'd like to again keep that in as a a recommendation that we continue to investigate that there are again a pretty significant lead time on that on that process before we would get to anything specific we'd be looking at potentially the earliest would be like a January start date and at that point then we would be able to know specifically who

104and what the specific costs would be um so that right now is still in a sort of a theoretical development phase but with with approval we could move that forward do you know does he uh look to his current staff to identify somebody or does he look outside no so it would be an existing officer um someone who is familiar with the community they typically look at at officers between years two and five but because they're so short staffed as it is until they have an officer identified and in place to take the place of that individual they need them on patrol and doing other duties so we would get someone who has a little bit more experience who is better known in terms of the uh the chief and the the staff at the

105police department they would offer that up and Screen um a pool of candidates from within their ranks that then they would present to us and we would do the selection process and hiring as we would for any other staff member and again just to um yeah like I don't feel like this is something that's like part of our normal Staffing plan like this is a completely separate process a completely separate it is yeah I don't think it's like I don't think this should be part of this memo and part of the day what we're talking about here tonight okay yeah it I raised it only because we were talking Staffing but it's right it's not it's not presented as a staffing element I think we'd have to talk about funding stream we would have to

106talk about sustainability I mean I don't have a vote to determine whether we are 100 of like we're even your language here is that we're exploring this right there has not been a decision to say we are absolutely doing this correct correct the only thing I know you said you're keeping our eyes on this that fourth grade number is really like yeah that red to like I think we really needed like it's over our number I think it's it's important that we just really keep that yep it's right at the top and um it feels like it's even over right like it's a 25.6 and we say 25 like right yeah that's the only thing that's really like glaring to me is that like right and I know it's still preliminary it's still march but

107right when you have to make a decision there to oh we would make it in May or May or June once we I mean ideally we'll have our enrollment occur in the month of April into May if we Sullivan's usually Sullivan and Ross and Ike are usually in the lead in terms of parents being quick quick to register so we're pretty well we're pretty well enrolled there uh it's Mac that usually has to catch up a little bit with uh some reminders but uh challenge accepted yeah look who's here look who made it but we should know to answer your question we should then have pretty firm enrollment numbers by the beginning of May to be able to know if we're coming in at that Mark what we've done when we've reached sort of we're

108in that questionable range as we set a Target we say if the number Hits X number of students if we hit a hundred and uh 154 puts us in yeah if we hit 150 then we will add another section or something to that effect but we need to wait and see what those what those enrollment numbers actually come in at that's the only thing that's really cool no right that's why that's why that's why you made it right that's why I highlighted it in red it's a concern it's a concern right that is something just in the current plan is who is someone moving up with the fourth graders in the current plan for because right from fourth because like right now there's a flip right seven six to six seven right so what you're

109also losing two sixth grade I'm sorry but this is just yeah so the process will be we would post anticipated vacancies internal candidates um can apply we consider and interview them first uh that typically creates sort of a shuffle down to know who's interested in moving from one grade level to another are there other places we need to find homes for um and then again typically in in April we would bring an updated okay now that the dominoes have shuffled uh here's what somebody moved from fifth grade to fourth grade so now we have a fifth grade vacancy or whatever it may be um and then after approval of the Staffing plan then we actually would begin to pursue getting final contracts on any new employees well we also have some retirees that are affecting

110these correct and so in just you know in the table right that you kind of have the 64 for this year and then the 65 for next year is that 65 is that counting the the esls yeah because I think the math I think he's got to fix the math on that thing I agree I think it's 63 I think it's 65 this year and then 63 next year but then but then I see oh you're right I did and then later on the esl's technically don't count as core they don't count as core but you're right I did not edit that field sorry 63 Total Core teachers gotcha okay thank you does that trickle down to your then retirement yeah all over the place so if we're saying all these positions need to be

111filled for next year but we're saying we're having two less um core teachers and then if we look at the summary down below I guess I was not following that so we're replacing all five of the retirees and the two core teachers from MacArthur that are being reduced in the Staffing plan were being replaced by two ESL teachers so it ends up being those end up being a wash the cost benefit as five retirees come through we see a total increase of FTE of 2.325 but because of the savings from a higher salary being replaced with a lower salary uh we turn those savings so to speak back into the programming and we actually see a total overall reduction of thirty four thousand dollars of the current Staffing plan to the next it's technically the

112none of the increases in FTE are actually our core or classroom teachers right it's I guess we we add the two esls and then we have the half sale but then it's Library AIDS clerical support custodial and so it's so and so like I I guess our teachers are technically saying the same we're just we're we're losing to core and adding two of the full-time esls right right okay because the core numbers are driven purely by sectioning a number of students all of the other support staff services are driven by student need program enhancement program need so they don't they aren't tied to if class sizes go up or down there they may be again in the case of our behavioral coach they may be in direct correlation to us being able to provide those

113Services in-house rather than doing it as a purchase service yeah so this is again an information item discussion item happy to chat through some of them in more detail um and uh we'll bring a more formal proposal back for an as an action item next month one of the things that we had last year was like a it was like that the table the trending table or chart I think that that would be useful too right because I did you have that was that broken down by like core versus support yeah I think that would be useful it showed all of the changes over time yeah yep I can update that because it just you know we you know I got the projected will change but like just the overall enrollment from 2020 until next

114year right that we're we're going from 1471 and just steadily decreasing right that we've lost we essentially have a reduction in 80 or over 80 kids over the last four years well thank you for having those children you've got a lot of juggling to do yes for for core right yeah that's why we'll uh that's why we're going to move forward with anticipated because it's going to take a while we have a lot of internal conversation yeah to happen in the next few weeks we hope to have all of those decisions internally made by um before spring break Just For Life planning I want to make sure that folks know what's going on and where they're hoping to be for next year and then like I said we'll finalize that after the April board meeting

115we'll meet you up on those offers then is there's the process of moving people if we needed to I mean this that also begins the process of external candidates as well so we'd start with internal the the process of honoring internal transfer requests interviewing and selecting from that pool first and then after spring break we would turn to external candidates okay okay thanks uh next item is an action item Mrs mcpartland you want to kick that off for um so as you are aware we conducted a bid for the renewal of our landscaping services this contract is a three-year contract beginning um in April um we received a number of bids and the low bidder was selected that's Hispano lawn maintenance and landscaping company they are a new vendor for the district and um their

116prices represented a savings of about ten thousand dollars a year so Mike has had a couple meetings already with Hispano and and walked the premises we've checked references and they're they're good to go so the total three-year bid is right around 73 000. it was the annual bid was 23 650 and that's a there's a three percent increase for years two and three any questions on that okay and they have a motion for this you know they just okay the Milo and I'm so sorry no um it was a three-year contract on that one 123 000 doesn't seem right unless there's they have a huge escalator in there foreign 456. right if they're 26.99 actually the base bit of 26.9 is a type because otherwise they should only be at 81 000 I mean they're

117still not the lowest bid but I don't know how formal this has to be for our records but there seems to be something wrong unless they have a huge escalation over years two and three sorry the base bid was 40 300. wow yeah they should that Hispano it being based out of Joliet is that a concern I know right they're even local I mean I understand it's it wasn't for me I mean we their references were really pretty solid yeah they had great references and they actually do work in Northern Illinois okay further further up than us so okay any other questions okay can I have a motion motion okay all right second and seconded by Brian roll call please yes Mr Novak yes meters yes yes motion past 6-0 in the last item on

118the superintendent support is an update on grants from doctors air just a quick overview of how the grants actually change what we budget for when we start out in the beginning um sometimes it becomes a little bit different as we go through um the school year and that has to do with they give us a a base amount which is used usually about 80 percent of what we will get in the future and then you know districts have to apply for these grants and sometimes they get them sometimes they don't apply and that all filters out to the rest of us if they don't apply and so that's why you can never really totally know the actual amount when you're budgeting budget planning for um the future but you kind of have a good estimate

119so um this is just a uh an update on how we have the original brand and what we have changed and we changed that through the process of amendments um only comment I had was I think um one of the cells is missing for the title III bilingual yeah it's like 60 000 and a couple other ones at bare minimum the one above it is not footed right in the amendment section it's short by about ten thousand twelve thousand dollars and it's just the total flip in the amendment to title two yeah I was looking I'm like there are blanks how did we only go up that amount you mean in the original in the original one so the original puts properly but the amendment okay right Amendment one for title two and then Amendment

120one for title three no I'm looking I'm wondering if we only footed the bottom numbers and missed the 14 but I I didn't check it I made a note we'll go back and yeah update that I think the other ones are right yeah that sounds a lot of grand right yeah it's a lot it is a lot and it's um they are not the easiest things to those there's lots of shoes for somebody to step into Craig uh will be wonderful at and we're gonna go through all of the different um red tape and Hoops that you have to jump through Amy you know what title for for a minute one also doesn't fit Oh I thought there might be one more yeah yeah don't worry about it guys we'll take a look at those

121okay any more questions okay so uh next we have a cool business everybody have old business to bring up okay then news news new business new business uh at the on the April 4th election we will have our new board identified although they're all are returning members as long as you get one vote so at least go and vote for yourself um we will need to wait until the uh election is certified which is typically 22 days after then we have until March May 15th to uh re seat the new board and go through the that process of closing out this two-year cycle and starting the next two-year cycle um we have uh April Saturday April 29th on the books as a board admin Workshop where we'll be collaborating around the Strategic plan I thought

122rather than schedule another another meeting that we would um tack on the re-organizational meeting that morning and then move right into the board admin strategic planning workshop which has to happen during a meeting anyway that that meeting I'm sorry I didn't have it in my calendar it's from 8 30 is that what you said um I would think 8 30 until 11 30 is probably perfect and then we've been discussing um like moving board meetings to different days so we'll close out the close out the the first processes closing out the existing board will elect a president pro tem open the next meeting and then at that meeting we'll set our meeting dates and times uh elect the officers and then um are set our calendar updates for the year so we'll have the opportunity

123to have that conversation at that time so folks should be thinking about what other evenings I guess working year schedules thank you yes and I'm thinking of just doing that here uh that meeting here yeah okay any other new business okay then uh we do have an executive session tonight uh so we need to adjourn to Executive session for the purpose of negotiations personnel negotiations and Personnel right superintendent okay um and there is no action following for the purposes of negotiations okay but whatever bye Becky seconded by Brent did you okay uh roll call please yes what's your password