001power stands nation justice >> Jackson >> Mason >> president >> Mora Walker Nelson. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Any participation? We have public participation tonight. Mr. President, live to the office. MacArthur will give their school improvement. All right. Well, thanks for showing us up on the screen and we'll be ready to roll in just a minute. Can you introduce your team? That's one of our slides. We're waiting for you. So, we are the Macar generals. Our fivear val one slide, Joe. Thank you. This is slide two if you can. This is our values of our school that we repeat over the intercom every day. We always hold each other accountable, hold our staff and scholars accountable to these values. I'm going to let them introduce introduce themselves instead of being introduced to them. Take it away.
002Ashley Johnson principal Nikita Wfield instructional coach Jordan Murphy the school social worker sixth grade math teacher >> we have some special guests in the room if you can I'm sorry I'm out of order next slide um there there's all the people on the the room you can go one more slide Joe so um we always whenever we've but last two years and every year we talk about our stoming plan we try to ground our work in some words um how she and and I were talking about this not too long ago about where this quote. You've all heard the Dr. King quote, the time that all was right to do, right? Well, we didn't know where it was from. So, we spent some time a couple weeks ago doing a little research on this. And
003this is the paragraph of the speech or the paragraph he wrote while he was sitting in um in jail when he was writing those those letters from um I can't think of Birmingham. And so the quote goes, "Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of in can't say that word. Say it for me." >> Inevit. >> That's what I meant. Yeah. He comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of the dedicated individuals. Doubtless hard work time an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. So he must help time and realize that the time is always right to do right. That's going to be the theme we're going to talk about as we go through our slides today and our school improvement plan. So, next
004slide, please. So, we're going to start the presentation today is we have a student council um with us this evening. Ladies, if all of you would please stand. Um I'd like to start by introducing Miss Jessica Guzman who is our multilingual resource teacher and also our student council um sponsor. Hi, Miss. So this excuse me approached me like I two months ago and said would you come to one of our our student council meetings and talked to the students about how we get things accomplished proposals that go to the school board. So I had an opportunity to talk with the four elected officials and they had some questions and we walked through okay you want to do this this is how this works and so on and they had some questions and we knew we
005were coming in January so I invited them to come join us. So each of them has prepared a very short introduction of who they are and then they have some questions that they might want to ask. But we've also provided you with some questions to ask them that they are prepared to respond to. They don't have to ask every student every question that'll take quite some time. If you feel like asking maybe one question to one of our to our student council members, they can do that. So would miss Madame President please step to the front please and introduce yourself. Okay. She she also just came here from a volleyball game. So she locked that game early so she can be at the board presentation tonight. Hello, my name is Council and I participated in
006volleyball and basketball just needed to have some kind of represent such as what should what the standard should be and how to thank you as Barnes, our vice president. He's going to come up next. >> Hi, I'm Payton Barnes. I'm used to vice president for myself and my >> Thank you. And Mon is our secretary. She's going to come introduce herself next. I found it actually. >> Thank you, Michael. And then last but not least, our treasure, Riley Barnes. >> My name is Riley Barnes. I'm the treasure of our student council. I participate in cheerleading student ambassadors part of the 87. I'm also part of national society and I participate in community. Um I I decided to run for dinner because I I wanted to help make sure that all the money that my school
007spends can be helping our students life better. >> Can I have all four ladies step up to the front to the podium? I know you were as maybe asking question. Do you have any questions for our schoolboard members before we move on? Feel free to ask away. >> Well, Asia, Payeyton, Michaela, and Riley, thank you very much for being here tonight. And well, you're you're quite welcome. And uh going along the lines of what you're saying about how important the school is today. We were at school and uh it was a cold day but Mr. B and I were monitoring attendance during the day. Our student attendance overall was very good. Our teacher attendance overall was very good. And uh that's just a credit to all the young people. And I know you're here to
008talk about Carthage, but on behalf of the board, we want to thank you for doing everything you can because if our schools weren't a welcoming place, you'd really see it on the daily field. The kids wouldn't come to school, but the kids could use school because the the parents and the families know how important education is in district. And thank you for helping Mr. Pachowski and Dr. Gray and everyone who's here to make MacArthur an even better place. So, thank you. And if while Mr. Pchowski and his team does the presentation at the end, we'll come back. There's an opportunity if you think of something you'll have a chance to ask that question. But I'm always available to come over and be part of the two or talk to come here if we have to.
009That would be great. >> So thank you for your introduction and wow young people are involved in a lot of things. I love it. >> For down there. Exactly. >> So, one of the things I hope they get to see in once we finish our presentations, the way a board meeting happens with all the voting and all that because that's something that's taking place. They're starting to learn about that through student council. That's an important part of the of the education process of seeing what the school board looks like. So, that's why we've asked them to come join us this month. So, we thank you for welcoming. Thank you, ladies. Thanks. Next slide, please. >> Okay. >> So, circles is something that we've been doing across the district. So, what I'd like to do, I'd
010like us to uh start with a circle. If everyone will stand and form circle, it's kind of hard to not have something in front of you. So, it's okay if we kind of loop around. We can kind of go on the >> photos today. >> And I'm gonna go to the next slide too. >> The importance of a circle is that everyone is on an equal playing ground. Everyone has their voice heard. Everyone has a chance to speak. Uh, so kind of rules of a circle, um, is you can always pass. So, we're going to use a talking stick that I made for my squad of teachers that I work with. We call the Laffy Taffy. So, we always use this as our talking stick. Um, when you have the talking stick, it is your
011time to share. Um, please make sure you listen and you're respectful. When you have the talking piece, um, it's your turn to talk and share whatever you need to share. We are going to start off very basic and we're going to go around and share. Uh if you were a pizza topping, what would you be? And again, you can always pass. So, you'll get the talking stick. If you choose to pass, go ahead and pass. We want to make sure that no one's standing in front of each other. It looks like we're doing a good job. We want everyone to be seen and we want everyone to be heard. Um so, I will go ahead and pass the talking. Stick to Cara to start. What pizza topping would you be? Pineapple. Give it to >>
012uh I would eat pepper. >> That would be cheese cuz I'm all cheesing. I would also eat cheese, >> black olives, ham, >> cheese, >> spicy, >> spinach, garlic mixt. on top. >> Want to switch it up. I want to be the press the foundations for >> how do you go after that? >> Cheese. I want to cough. Uhuh. Mushrooms. I know. >> Meat cheese. >> Pepperoni. >> Hot peppers. >> Um, red pepper flakes. So, when we do our circles, um, we do something fun and light at the beginning of the school year. At the end of our meeting, we'll end with a circle as well, kind of demonstrating more of a in-depth circle that hopefully we're kind of getting to that point in the school year that we are doing some more in depth.
013um that circle. So, we're good with our circles. We can go ahead and have a seat and go back to where you were. >> Before we move on, I want to make sure everyone know that Miss Murphy is a level three trained to trainer for our restorative practices through Alli and her. You might have heard some of that work that we've been setting staff out for. So, in this room, myself, Dr. Qufield, and Jack Gray have been through levels one or two, but Miss Murphy has gone one step further. She's a level three which means she can train other people how oh and Cara too right car is a level three as well. >> She can train other people on how to do restorative circles and some of that. So she's on our professional development
014team that's um um presenting this coming next Thursday next Friday the 6 institute. >> Thank you. >> So on the screen is um it's showing it's explaining what our schooling goals are. We have four categories for ELA goal, math goal, social emotional learning, and um attendance goals for the year. And as we go throughout the presentation, you'll see where we are in terms of making our progress towards meeting those goals and being proficient in those particular areas. So, one of the things that uh Mr. and I realized is that since we've been in Var, we've been trying to get it to a place where everyone feels welcome and the sense of belonging just keeps coming up on our panorama data for staff and scholars. And so one of the things that we've been intentional about
015is how can we help people feel like they belong in a place that they spend most of their day. So last year at the end of the year, you know, we keep hearing things, hearing things. But what we decided to do is develop questions and those questions are on the screen and we had staff members to sign up for one-on-one meetings with either myself or Mr. G. and we talked with them about these questions and we met with about 35 staff members at the end of the year and we took what they said and kind of analyzed it over the summer and went into this school year with trying to respond to bringing fun back, finding ways to recognize staff and scholars, strengthening our discipline system and having our scholars take more agency over their
016learning. And so some of the things that um we've done is kind of displayed on the uh screen. Um just doing fun things. Our scholars, you see them working together. Um during Hispanic Heritage Month, we had dance offs on Friday. I know some of the district office people came over. You can see the picture. The fourth one at the top. Um our final dance off was one by our kitchen staff. So they kept hearing all the music and we're like it's okay that you go out there and be a part of the dance off but it was really fun during Hispanic Heritage Month and also um we wanted to make sure that we're honoring the cultures of scholars that are in our building and in the corner our lunchroom um our lunch monitors dressed as
017free black mice. So we've been trying to find ways to just help people to have fun where they're working. you know, when people feel like they have fun where they work, they're usually more productive and feel that sense of belonging. Um, we at the top where the flags are during Hispanic Heritage Month, we had all the flags um for some of the Spanish speaking countries displayed and so that gave them a sense of pride. Each one of our teachers has an advisory in the morning. this year they um named their advisory and they created flags like you see the art gremlins that's the art teachers uh advisory and so when we have schoolwide events they bring their flags together in the middle at the bottom you see the dominoes um it was they had the
018six seven on their shirts that was Miss Leinsk's uh fruit and there's different things we have for decorating the contest unit here that John. Um, but we do a lot of cool things as a school and you know, it used to be that we thought we couldn't bring our school together, but we've been creative in finding ways of bringing them all together at different uh for different uh reasons and occasions. And then we honor our scholars every six weeks. they get recognized for some of the awesome things that they do just be a good person and also um with their academics if they make their reading steps or their math uh minutes then they get honored. We have five star assemblies every six weeks. So maybe next next time we need to invite some of
019you all to come pin our scholars with their gold stars and our band scholars. So those are some of the things that we incorporated. We also surveyed our scholars to find out um we knew about the sports and the interest in bowling and soccer. That came as a response of them feeling like they belong. We also surveyed them in terms of what are some of the fun days that they wanted to participate in, what are some of the clubs that they wanted to offer. So when we opened up club sign up, we shared what the scholars said they wanted because we wanted them to their voice to be heard. I'm going to pause for a second. We're going to we're going to deviate from the plank for a second and take that quick second. Um
020about bringing fun back to school. Last the last couple Fridays we've had bear Fridays. It's a pair of playoff going and the Bears have been still in the playoffs. So last Friday um Caitlyn and Riley and the rest of the band greeted the entire school walking in the front door to what fight song? So the the band featured Miss Lesie off top the van they're down the fight song for the Chicago Bears for a favorite and me because she knows I'm a big fan. So she surprised me with this and as a kid they're walking in there walking in the front door. We have a video but it wasn't playing well. So we'll share that with you guys if you want to see the video of the kids walking in and walking. So I wanted
021to highlight our first. Thank you ladies. So as we continue to increase engagement and sense of belonging throughout our entire school, we have of course our professional learning communities which are affectionate affectionately known as PLC's. They happen every single Thursday within our building. And so during PC time each grade level meets um during a specified time and while they're meeting we have been talking about inquiry cycles. story was about 6 weeks. And so the team actually began to talk about a focus, something that they would like to work on with the scholars. And so the team came together, they created an action plan. They created surveys. They sent out surveys to the scholars. The scholars completed them. They came back and they analyzed the data. And based upon the data and what was received, the
022sixth grade team is working on scholar writing. So they're making sure that they have assignments that are crystal clear to assess our scholars in their writing. And then of course within that six week cycle, we come back, we review it, another survey goes out. Seventh grade has been working on executive functioning. Um that's extremely important skill for our middle school scholars. Eighth grade is working on scholar discourse. Not only eighth grade, but scholar discourse is one of our skills that we're working on throughout the entire district. And then also our XPS which means that's pretty much our exploratory um team, art teacher, PE, music, STEM, they are working on increasing and building scholar engagement doing those professional learning immunity cycles. And this image um is a picture from our Hispanic monthly celebration that kicked off
023our school year and this quote that simply says our culture is more than just a month. It's a And this is one of my favorite days to start the school year. Miss Murphy and Miss Jurg asked, "What do you think about doing a whole school rock paper scissors battle?" Yeah, let's And it ended up being it was going to take a week to get this done. It was done within 20 minutes. And we ended up in the middle of the ring. You can see we put up like a ring like a boxing match. We had an MC. I was the MC. We had a a hype dance who had the cards that ran around at ground one running around with the cards and he was hyping up the crowd and when we were done we
024had two students in the middle of the school with all 346 other students cheering them on by advisory. Um the young man in the blue you can see the back um he was the runner up and then in the middle the guy you can't really see his face but he's holding a very large trophy that we were gifted that we turned into an advisory trophy for the school year. It was a lot of fun. and it was done in like 30 minutes and it was it was a it was a fun day. All right, I get the next couple slides. This is now we're getting into some of the more academic sides of our school improvement plan. So, this is our our um assessment data going back 2022 2022 through 2025. You can see there
025is an increase back in 22. We were at 13.9% proficient and you can see that increase. Um next slide please. Um, this is English language arts. They're a big problem with this graph. I don't know why the red didn't show up. This is independent reading level assessments or you might have heard before as you've been hearing presentations. So each year the students are leveled at their current reading level. They do a little assessment where they read to their teachers. Um, ERA is saying that about four this was given in September. So this is the first time we gave this is our benchmark. So you can see those two numbers. Why the red's not showing up? I'm not sure. Next slide Joe. And that's where we currently are. So currently 60% of our scholars are reading
026at or above grade level as of January. We still have another five four and a half five months to go in the school year. Um one of the things Mr. Henson who was our ELA teacher wanted to be here tonight. He's not feeling well. So he did stay home. Um we talked about the difference in ARC fusion. I know I don't know how much you've heard about our fusion in the middle schools. So ARC is still our district curriculum district curricular resource but in middle school we have something called fusion. And one of the big changes was students are now expected to take home reading and be prepared to discuss it the next day in class. Arc itself you went home and you read independently but it wasn't something that was tied directly to the
027next day's instruction. Now they are taking chapter books home. How many books? Oh, seventh grade certainly taking two books home or just one one book. In eighth grade you're adding two or one they're taking home two different books. So right now the eighth grade is reading two books and they're comparing and contrasting those two books. Seventh grade is doing the same thing. They have a new book starting like next week. I think they have another book coming that we expect to say I'm going to read every night. They didn't do that. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Par who's going to take on the math part. >> Uh so you will see our past couple years for our math or not math our IR math. Uh upward trend still work in progress. We're
028at 18 18.4% right now. uh cur will be at the end of this year. Next slide. Uh our curriculum uh this is the first test we took back in September. We had 19% of our students proficient so on grade level and above. You can go to the next slide. Here we are right now up to 26%. So pretty consistent with our IR 7%. Uh if you go to the next slide, you will see our goal of 40 42.5%. So we have a ways to go but what we're doing to hopefully bring this up every week we do collaborate plants so all the teachers instructional coaches support staff me for a whole period review data talk over our practices and plan on top of that our special education teachers are also meeting with math coach every
029week for the next seven weeks to discuss small group instruction and how to I us be more prepared with a collaborative plan. And then one of our main focuses has been foundational skills because our kids are lacking that. So we're taking time out of our day every day just to work on those basic math skills to get them caught up. >> So the social emotional piece that we are working on, we have Panorama, which is our uh survey that we give three times a year. Uh we gave it in the fall, this is our fall data. We haven't done the winter one yet. that is coming up in the next few weeks. So, we'll be able to hopefully see some growth. Um the area that uh Mr. Powki mentioned earlier that we struggle with is
030a sense of belonging. We struggle with that with staff and students. So, we did some surveys even amongst the students and that's where we added um soccer and bowling for our sports this year, which is super exciting. And we added some more clubs. We have 10 clubs um each session with 165 participants. We're adding more assemblies, more circles like you saw. So in the advisories, kids have more of a sense of belonging like this is my advisory. We are doing more um competitions amongst the advisories to kind of get kids to work together in their advisory. I love a little competition. It always makes me work better with a team that you know we're trying to beat someone else. So we've definitely been trying to get that going a lot more amongst the advisories to
031build some community in a smaller setting. So, uh, try out totals for each sport this year. Boys soccer we have 56 students try out. Girls basketball 22, boys basketball 43, cheer 40, girls volleyball 66, and bowling about 83. Excuse me. >> Number climbing every day. Bowling hasn't started yet. Starts in a couple like a week and a half now. Every time we turn around, another slip comes in. Kids are really excited about bowling. Um, what's not what's not showing here is boys volleyball, which hasn't started yet, and girls soccer, which is a new sport. So, we're hoping to get more students involved. Our clubs also, we sent out surveys asking what do kids want? What do kids what do they want to see? So, we definitely uh started targeting a little bit of our clubs
032more towards what kids would like to see. And then here's just some pictures of our um additional programs. Marching in the parade, uh spirit day of winning the next slide. And here are some of our sports. We have one of our own great uh soccer coaches for the boys here. So, um yeah, we've just been trying to have a lot of fun our students and bring fun back into school. >> A special history to show up. Next slide, Joe. Oh yes, we got it all on the shelf visit us this year who came who mysteriously appeared on the final before break but leading up to that clues were left around the building. Um Dr. Gray and Mr. Vanic from Sunnyside um I was their photographer. We went out we took all these obscure pictures of
033like just parts of their bodies sticking out of lockers and every day we released a little more information. We had a big assembly the day before break and they actually came on stage and revealed themselves as the elf sunsh. That was a pretty fun time. >> That was a good time. Um, going into attendance, this is the current district. Um, this is last year's district, state, and school data for chronic absenteeism. Next page is our current data as of today. We This is the number of students we have in each of those categories. It is a everyday battle. We are, you know, this last week or so, Mrs. Murphy, myself, and some other staff members. We're in people's houses trying to get them to come to school, deal with some of that school avoidance. Um,
034Dr. Misanic, I know she might have presented to the board a couple weeks ago about a school avoidance workshop. So, Miss Murphy and Miss Jerk from MacArthur both went to that workshop. They're actually presenting ways to to get students to come to school and to avoid that whole issue of not taking school in day and they're sharing with us what works and what doesn't work in terms of that page. The next slide. >> I want to say thank you. We want to say thank you to the boards for to the entire district for giving us the opportunity to have professional development. It's very important as a professional to continue to learn. The largest room in the world is room for improvement. And so we want to thank you. These are just a few to name
035of professional development sessions that many of us have attended and we are so grateful to have attended the innovative school summit, a PLC plus virtual institute. As you can see, we use PC's every week throughout our entire school district. Ali her restorative practices. You heard about that. Calling all coaches is so important and impactful for the coaches to be of better and more effective support for our current teachers. School avoidance. I think we just shared that. Dual language, nourishing your new teachers, um leveraging language, our accelerated meeting, and then national association of black school educators. So, thank you and we appreciate every single opportunity for professional development and we welcome you. >> I'm sure we probably missed a lot. Sure, Mr. Americ. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, we're going to do one last circle to
036close out. So, if we're going to add to that sort of standing circle, this one we're going to get a little bit deeper. Um, it's we're going to close out with the quote that we started with. Um, but I really want us to focus on the time is always right to do right. So, in no more than three words, what does this quote make you think or feel? Reminder, you can always pass. So, if you're kind of like, oop, this is out of my comfort zone or I can't think of something right now, just say pass it. Pass the talking piece around. Do I get time to think? I'll I'll go this way. You can always pass. You want to pass, you can pass. >> Oh, the time is now. >> I like that. That's
037nice. >> No judgment. No, no judgment. That's right. Don't judge >> because you quit. Um to always keep uh children at the center and do what's right for them. We're here to do what's right for the children. I'll pass >> for the future on making a difference. >> Always do the right thing and don't put it off to la every day for our children and our This is just like when kids ask some people use it like microphones but use the microphone. My one word is urgency. >> Time is always right to be listening to three words out of there. But uh I love tireless human progress. It makes me think of it. Just do it. >> Do your part. Do your part. We got this. Doing nothing is not okay. All right. Impact. making
038an impact on >> uh just being intentional. >> It's my passion. Um I just think of the current climate that we're in everywhere to this. So, thank you all for doing that. One last thing I'd like us to do to close this out is close your eyes. Take three deep breaths in and out. and thank you for participating in our circle. >> Thanks. >> Any questions? Let's see if we can do one question. Okay. All right. So, Asia, Payton, Michaela, and O'Reilly again for the board members. Good to see you. And it's a very important life skill to be public speaking. So, thank you for the news today. Just as it is when we go to bail, I want to share. All of those things are ways to kind of push you in front of
039other people. So nice and loud. We have some questions here. So Mr. High Tower, how about this one? >> Second. If you could improve one thing about school, what is this? That's all right. We're taking notes. Yeah. >> Um I believe if there's something that could change or small I think something like what do you understand about this lesson? >> Yes. like the survey to speak their understanding of this topic like based on how many students say that they're small. And you know what ladies that question? Are you providing the tools you need make your program you doing uh be successful? You need the support from the board. Don't be splash. Tell us what you need to do your leadership and we'll try to get it through. I think what you guys are doing is
040very important for the improvement of the district. So thank you once again. >> Yeah, this is wonderful. ladies real quick. I wrote down small groups, independent time with teachers, wrap up at the end of each lesson for checking for understanding and then that would inform small groups. What wonderful feedback? Thank you very much. Any other questions from the board? Was there a particular area that you guys, you know, mainly say we check back and see if I understand the class subject or area people are struggling with class whatever my teacher said is probably understand what she's having with >> Mr. Jackson. I know Miss late, but that's okay. We got question. We'll come back to you. just make sure you >> No question. This team can represent us right away. You did really good. Thank
041you. >> So, thank you very much and I'll stay in touch with your administration team and what Mr. High said. Make sure you got what you need. Thank you for the ideas and thank you for coming today to our meetings. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having us tonight. >> Few more minutes again. Kids can stay. Yes. Any public comment? >> There's none. Okay. Consideration of all. All right. We ask the board approve the minutes of the regular board meeting of December 15th, 2025 and of the close session minutes for November 17th, 2025 as presented. >> A motion and Jackower. >> Hi, >> Jackson. >> Hi. >> Mason. >> Hi. >> Mora, >> I motion carried. >> And then for reporting the superintendent, no old business. No old business. >> Yes. The suggested motion is
042that the board of education approve the accounts and claims payable as presented and there are no questions this month. >> Mosa and Mr. Jackson. Roll call, please. >> Missa, >> I Mason, >> hi >> Jackson. >> Hi. >> He work. >> Motion carried. And also the building rental usage report is provided for your information and there's no other old business. >> No business other business. >> No other business. >> Again, why don't you go into close session? Miss Mo and Miss Roll call, please. >> Hi. How >> Laura? >> Hi Jackson. I >> Mason motion car short and close session once we get around fine otherwise thanks for into Tell them. reports. It's Mason. >> Uh I do have our meeting recap from Pace. Uh for the record, I am submitting those. That's it. Okay.
043As well, >> you want really quickly along this so that Mrs. Mason and I we kind of public relations and I know it wasn't really for Mrs. tomorrow. But you may recall that Mr. Moley, the superintendent advisor reached out. Would anybody be willing to attend and Mrs. Mason enough to attend? >> Yes. >> Uh with me, the it was basically an opportunity for the entire provisor community together about what we can do to help continually improve our provisor community. Would you agree with that? >> Definitely. It was very uh enlightening and it was really awesome to see the uh provisor township superintendent and uh fellow board members uh come together and congregate and just come up with some ideas and suggestions on how we can move forward and improve our communication as a whole. >>
044And that was the audience superintendent and uh elected board members. and it's sort of a subcommittee if you will of public relations because it's sort of related to that and uh thank you again for doing that. >> You're welcome. I appreciate that. Uh so uh for uh my agenda uh first item is we have licensed personnel employments. We ask that the board employ the following licensed personnel effective January 26, 2026 penny all paperwork and that's Gabriela Montalango, kindergarten teacher at Jefferson School. Um, one add Miss Monttoando is a success story, right? Mention that. >> Oh, Miss Lango was a district 87 student. uh she came to us as a um teacher assistant and I do remember our conversation when I was ongoing and heard she was sharing things and we talked about her I said
045well you should be a teacher you know I said she was like oh maybe not right now but so she became a teacher assistant and then she reached out and she said something to go back wanted to become a teacher so she got her masters became a teacher we didn't have any positions that started this school year. So, she became districtwide sub and she was a great job recommending her as a teacher. She's a former student. She went to New York school. She's on. >> There she unmuted herself. >> Hi. >> Can you hear us? >> I could hear you. Can you hear me? >> Troubleshoot right now. She could hear us. >> Well, maybe send her a message if you can or email. Tell her the board's very proud of her. Yep, she did
046hear you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So, we ask employabango all you get a motion. Mr. Jackson, Mr. Espinosa, roll call, please. >> Chavez. >> Hi. >> Tower. >> Hi. >> Jackson. >> Hi. >> Mason. >> Hi. >> Mora. >> Hi. >> Espinosa. >> Hi. >> Motion carried. Licensed personnel leave of absence. We ask that the board approve the licensed personnel staff leave of absence requests as present for Melanie Swims, Leah Steinman, and Carolyn Zinska. I got a motion. >> Mr. Jackson, Miss Small call, please. >> Espenson. >> I Mora. >> Hi. >> Mason. >> Hi. >> Jackson. >> High Tower. >> Hi. >> Chavez. >> Hi. >> Motion carries. >> Educational support staff employments. We ask that the board employ the following personnel pending all employee paperwork. Albert's amendments. >> A motion. >> Mr.
047Jackson roll please. >> Hover. >> Hi. >> Chavez. >> Hi. >> Espenos. >> Hi. >> Mora. >> Hi. >> Jackson. >> Hi. >> Mason. >> Hi. >> Motion carries. >> Educational support staff leave of absence. We ask that the board approve the educational support staff leave of absence requests as presented for Marcela Ramirez, Susanna Diaz, Yaselin Ortiz Monroy, Candy Korea, Deborah Mitchell, and Adriana Marillo Garcia. Get a motion and miss more. Roll call, please. >> Chavis, >> hi. >> Mason, >> hi. >> War. >> Hi, >> Espinosa. I >> I Tower. >> I >> Jackson. >> Hi. >> Motion carried. >> And Trobia Education Professional Development Services Consulting Agreement. The backup is in your packet. And uh Mrs. Simmerman uh has worked on to work out an arrangement for consulting with appropriate education to help
048provide additional services for our special education teachers and fellow would you like to say? >> Sure. So um if you remember when we I um presented our data and we really drilled down to our cohort data with regard to special education and um know noticed that our fourth, fifth and sixth grade students in special education had not been making progress um or enough progress. I reached out to Jennifer Jasinski, who was our former Ready Math coach, to um make that uh to see if she was available to provide coaching and support for our um special education teachers. And so we developed a plan together. So, I've been facilitating those meetings, coaching, coordination for special education staff and scholars um to really make sure that their um needs were met as part of that special education
049task force that Dr. Sullivan has started. And so, she is meeting with our teachers every week. Um she's there a whole day in each of our buildings. She does um planning coordination. We've targeted what standards the students need support in through our data and then she is helping the teachers plan work with their general education math teachers as well and we're then working with our crosscat teachers and providing targeted support. So she co-ees with them as well and then she provides feedback um to them on their individual teaching. So it's pretty intense. So they she is there all day and then she meets with the instructional coaches and helps um talks with the instructional coaches in the in between days that she is not there, what coaching and support they can provide and then also
050meets with our principles and um talks about how they can provide support as well to the special education teachers. And so as a priority um for me to step in and because of the immediate needs that were impacting our students um and our educators um I stepped in to ensure that continuity. >> Sorry about does she do um whole lesson knowledge? >> She does. She does all of it. And then she's been she'll be working with the gened um math teacher and the special ed inclusion teacher to talk about how they can co-plan and what their relationship looks like and what that delivery model looks like also in the classroom. So I have been working with them to make sure that that continuity service and support is timely and >> this will be entirely reinfor.
051>> Yes. So we ask that the board of education approve an appropriate education professional development services consulting agreement as presented. We have a motion. No, >> Mr. Jackson. Roll call, please. >> PZ. >> Iard. >> Hi. >> Jackson. >> Hi. >> Mason. >> Hi. >> Mora. >> Hi. >> Espinosa. >> Hi. >> Motion here. And then also at your place you have a a colored copy which has a little more information about the new new position director of special education for teaching and learning and I'm going to install and the background here as discussed in the November and December board of education meetings. Our student scholars with disabilities have an experience in consistent academic growth. data gathered through state assessments in the district school improvement plans and as Kelly talked about special education focus group
052suggests the need for an additional director level position to focus on the best practices with implementing curriculum and building the capacities of special education teachers with their teaching and learning capacities. The intention of this position, as with all director positions, as we spoke about last month, is that the director will spend a majority of their time in the schools providing job embedded professional development and coaching. There is a need for our students with disabilities, many of whom are also multimodal learners, to have access to teachers and teacher assistance with the necessary teaching expertise to help ensure that our programming and practices are effective for all of our students, including our students with disabilities who are general education students first. So we ask that the board of education approve the new position of director of special
053education for teaching and learning as presented. I get a motion and miss roll call please. >> Hi >> Mora. >> Hi >> Mason. >> Hi >> Jackson. >> Hi >> Tower. >> Hi >> Chavez. >> Hi she question. Um obviously you didn't ask questions for approval. I'm assuming that's addressing the shared parallel place. >> Um I don't know if it was just your concern or the entire board had concerns involving making sure that all of our directors were spending the majority of their time in the in the classrooms if that's what you're referring to. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. We've talked about that. We agree. >> Yes. And we we took your lead on as well. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Uh let me see fundraiser. We uh ask that the board approve
054the fundraisers as presented for a linear box stops for education and for sunny side little Caesars. And we ask that the board approve them as proceed. We have a motion. Miss Mole and Mr. Jackson. Roll call, please. Hi. Tower. Hi. >> Jackson. No. Mason. Hi. Mora. Hi. Espinosa. Hi. Chavez. Hi. Motion carried. And then for my uh report, I wanted to mention that we are working on our second draft of the school calendar for next year. And I'm working with the BDA to get their input on it. And uh as soon as I get that, my goal was when I brought it up was to get it out to them in December, which what was able to do and then uh have discussions back and forth during the month of January and into February. and
055the plan was to get it approved at the February board meeting. So, as soon as I get their feedback on draft two, we'll see where we're at and share that with the community. But, uh, for the most part, we're we're in pretty good shape with that. That's there's one thing though that we don't know for certain yet. And that is we don't know if election day next year is going to require us to have a day off in November. Right now, it's not that way. So on the advice of our attorney, we're going to move forward as if it is not required day off. The belief is right now, the thought is it will be a day off from school or in other words, schools should have to be closed for a presidential election, but
056next year is not a presidential election, but it is a congressional election. So I'll keep you posted on this so the union knows if that does come out then we would have to add a day at the end of our wake up >> next year or this year. >> Next year next year. >> So next November November of what will be 26. >> So this year but next school year >> next school year. >> Okay. So that's one thing. The other thing that we are talking about but uh I have we haven't made a recommendation on is that other districts have four institute dates we have three and there's been discussion about us having a fourth and uh first thing I asked them to do is to consider that because one of the problems that
057we have right now I can't see a way of fitting that in and what I want to try to get at the way we We have our calendar right now. We're going to if we have to use emergency days like we did the other day with the need, we can use up to five of those in the weather related or emergency related and they don't require us to come back and make it up. So right now calendar set draft number two to end on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. And so if we had to come back, it would be coming back on the Tuesday after Memorial Day. The likelihood of having good attendance on that day, it's probably not very high. But the other thing is what are the kids going to get out
058of coming back for that one day. So it could be next year's not the year to do it. But I wanted to bring it up to them to consider because um Kelly, you and I have talked about that there are um advantages to having another institute be >> Yes, most definitely. Especially at the beginning of the year, I think one of the things that we run into is, you know, we do a welcome back. we on that first institute day. We recognize, you know, um new staff and things like that, but there's so much that we're trying to get the year ready to get us off to a great start and it leaves when we, you know, institute day ends at 1:30 and our we get our principles back to the building with and our
059staff by 10:30. That's a very short window for them to talk about um getting new staff acclimated to any new procedures um besides what they learn at new instit at new teacher orientation but just building specific topics. And one of the things that I think would help is if we have an additional day so that there's time for the curriculum department to talk with all of our teachers for a small portion of time around anything that's new in the teaching and learning department because I just send out here's updates for the new year for teaching and learning because there's not any time in that first day. And I think that's really important to get the teaching and learning portion of our school year set. I think it would also afford an opportunity for our special
060education teachers to meet with the classroom teachers around what's in the students IEPs, what accommodations do they need, and have some one-on-one conversations with the teachers so they really understand what kinds of needs might be in the classes of those students, as well as having our nurses be able to meet and talk about any medical needs. um with that with those students that we serve as well. And so many um buildings or districts have two days, some have three, but two to get a lot of those um just to make so we sure have a smooth start. Teachers know the direction we're going, what's going on, any news mandates. Like there's a lot of things that pop up in July, new laws, and it's like you have to start them on the first before kids
061come. Well, there's not a lot of windows. We've had two of those in the last two years, and it's like 45 minute training. Well, I got from 10:30 to 1:30 and they've got all these things that they're trying to get organized, evaluations, telling them they're being evaluated. There's a lot of things that happen to get us off to a smooth start. And so, I really think that that would be something we need to consider is adding an addition. We were just talking about there's no recommendation also the cost as well because the teachers would work with additional day >> where I left it for the discussion was or are they interested in >> right >> because it would require the teachers to work in one day and as I said I really don't see a
062place where we can fit in especially if we're going to have to lose a day with the election but it could be it's not something we do for next year it could be something that we plan and um see if it's but right now I just wanted to mention we came up because I've asked for feedback on the calendar and that has come up not only from the teachers but also from the administrators because it's common >> for people that for districts to that four but um just because everybody is doing it doesn't mean we have to do it I just wanted to let you know those are the things we're talking >> any other questions out you administration and the facilities team a big shout out for the planning and communication with we had
063very very cold temperatures and to protect our students what we had big shout out to everybody facility did a good job going out and make sure platforms were clean and the buildings was comfortable what we did before they start off so thank you for that your communication with Mr. Tower, thank you. I I don't think people realize that because we feed two high schools, how much collaboration we do to make sure that we can have good communication uh with two different districts. But I appreciate the feedback always because well, so one of the things we're working on now is you've noticed I'm starting to send out when we do have school just to try to be better at that because we don't want any doubt. We don't want to have a child ever show up
064to school on a day of going to school. We want to be very clear about that. And uh thank you. I appreciate that very much and appreciate the board always allowing me not only to communicate but you get through that because trust me that matters to me because it helps us because you live in a community and we all know we want to be in school but we want to make sure it's safe. And John, big shout out. I I was here uh most of the day yesterday as I was on Friday and uh to see the team that we have that do the snow removal and salt and the shoveling you know we think that's but it's not it's not easy there's a there's a lot when you think about that and uh just
065I say well done thank you Uh then uh I wanted to mention this that we also talked last month a little bit about our fund balances and so uh Missy's Dashic has done the executive summary and again you're you're not going to see a lot of numbers here as we talked about but percentages are a good way for us to discuss this and she gave a tool which there's a lot of a lot of information in there But what I would like you to do is focus on the the bolded parts of what those topics are. So Army walk us through the uh maybe start with the uh understanding of the fund balances. So in front of you is memo and um it starts with the understanding of the fund balance and just by divi
066it just starts by defining fund balance as the cumulative difference between revenues expenditures over time and reflecting the district's overall financial health as a at a specific point in time. And while it may appear to be unrestricted cash, it has certain restrictions that are legal requirements. Um, so that's basically the understanding part. Um, >> and then government oversight. Government oversight explains how fund balances are classified into different categories and um some which guide the spending of restricted categorical grants, federal grants that service obligations, uh prepaid insurance, other legally or contracted um committed uses. public act 1030394. We we saw a presentation last month about that and that required districts to evaluate whether a reserve reduction plan is necessary. If we have too much fund balance um we were our calculations that we had to submit
067to Cook County as well. We do not have too much fund balance. Um there's a >> on the second page here's area of gold rating >> and you'll see we were at most recently 103% and notice a little bit below that the asterisk is me allows us to be at 250%. And I want to talk about that amount because that is strategic how we're at that amount. And you may recall that this year we had the provider, excuse me, the Cook County Treasurer had a delayment in uh paying out a tax. We were able to keep meeting our payroll and all of our expenses because we had that 1003% amount. And so you want to have some people will call it a rainy day and and we kind of want to be right around there
068because that allows for things to come up. For example, we might recall, and I'm knocking on wood, the North Lake basement, excuse me, not basement, room one is still doing well, right? >> Yes. >> Teresa, >> and they check it all the time. But that is an example. Oh my gosh, what if we had to tear that up? You have to you have to plan for that. So, in terms of the fund balances and why, uh, Irene was really happy to put this together is these are great questions. Uh, why do we have a little bit more than it appears that we need and that's because you never know what you're going to need and we have to make sure that we can provide for what our children need. You always you go to the
069person and >> so because what passes my attention when I look at this if I look at fiscal 23 24 25 a substantial increase between years 23 to 24 considering that we had our project finished what fiscal year 22 or 23 >> that ended the year before. So, it just catches my attention how the increase, you know, I see you do a three-year average, but uh, you know, over a two-year period, we've come up, you know, 6 million. >> Yeah. In the um Oops. I'm sorry. >> Yeah. So, I I see the increase taking place between the two uh the brief mission. >> Yes. some of the um revenue which is part of how fund balance is calculated. Some of the revenue that was posted in fiscal year 25 the property taxes >> they were
070posted on June 30th which means they just made the cut off. >> Okay. So that would have normally made >> yes and that and as long with the interest payments if you look at the on the next page I don't know if you're looking at the next page there's a spreadsheet um on the final page that talks about how much interest earnings and it gives you a breakdown of the different expenditures and different revenue >> because if I understand it they're government but how you recognize the expense Mhm. >> But you don't recognize revenue till it's collective. Is that right? >> We recognize the revenue when it is due to us. >> Okay. It's a receivable. >> Okay. >> And the same with the expenditures. >> Quick summary. >> Okay. Okay. Got it. And then
071Irene would like you to keep this and we'll refer to it from time to time. And then Irene, I know for time you did want to go over the percentages. >> Oh, I just wanted to give you a a quick overview with the pie charts that the ending fund balances the percentages remain the same from year to year. So >> I just wanted to >> Okay, you on that. >> Go ahead. >> And if you have more questions, let me know. >> Yep. >> Okay. Thanks. And then uh this coming uh actually next week, week from this Friday, we're going to be holding a reunification drill at the end of our inst. And uh I would also like the consent of the board that uh I want to thank Mr. daily because we we do
072have a few places for evacuation if we needed to evacuate our children, but we don't talk about that in open session because we we hate to think about it, but it could be somebody, oh, that's where they're going to go. So, we have to be very careful about that. We get about our security cameras, all kinds of things we're very careful what we say about, but Mr. DY has been working with our community and I like the consent of the board uh to be able to sign on behalf of the board an agreement with a local place where we would be able to take some of our north side children where they would not have to be able to cross north. So um John without saying the name of the place would you like to
073talk about the work you've been doing on it? Yeah. So, I've had a couple of conversations and then I I went to the location uh and met with the individual in charge there um and just kind of gave them an overview with regards to what you know we would potentially need their their uh their building for terms of being able to unify our scholars. Um and hopefully it's going to just be a a great you know working relationship you know with them. um so that the American partnership with them and we hope to never ever use it. It's the idea if we ever had to we have a place to go at that time is when we will communicate to parents or anyone who needs to know where you want to speak. >> Yes. So
074I like consent of the board and then on behalf of the board of a motion Jackson roll call please. >> Travis. >> Hi >> Jackson. >> Hi >> Mason. >> Hi >> Mora. >> Hi Espinosa. >> Hi. >> And I'd like to thank the board for everything and that's all I have tonight. You sure? You sure? Thank you. All right. Hello. >> Alrighty. So, um I want to just give an update on the support for special education staff. So, I have been uh facilitating meetings and coordinating some coaching support for our special education. We talked a little bit about that with Entropia, but I also wanted to um talk a little bit further about some of the other work that I have been doing um to address the immediate needs um that are impacting our
075students and our educators with regards to special education. Um as you know, my priority is always ensuring continuity of services and timely support for our students. And when we see barriers to learning or staff needing assistance, believe it's our collective responsibility as district leaders to respond. And so I have um been meeting with Dr. Kennedy Dixon. Some of you may know her. She works at West 40 to and she um I arranged a coaching support for our special education teachers um over and our pair of professionals over the course of this year. So, I have been meeting with her to hear how the coaching is going and um how our staff has been receiving that support. So, we've met one-on-one to talk about what that's been looking like and how that's been going as well
076as I'm in the process of finalizing an additional contract. So, that first part was for the five schools that were in school status. Additionally, I have now met with her and in the process of finalizing an additional contract with her to support MacArthur school their inclusion and special education teachers. Uh her focus there is also going to be on um providing coaching, collaboration and working on um accommodations when they are pushing into classrooms, but also the accommodations in our self-contained classrooms as well. And so I'll be meeting regularly with Dr. Vixon to um set up the scheduling for her and then seeing and assessing um where we are with the five schools that were supposed to be receiving the coaching support. But this time she has been working with two of our schools. So we
077may need to expand our contract to make sure that the other schools have also received some of those services. And institute day is right around the corner. It is on February 6. We are plann I should say is warm up to new ideas. And so we will be um continuing our work on visible learning. the work that we started around John Hadtie's um visible learning and making sure that our staff is continuing to be um intentional in their lesson design around teacher clarity. So when the girls said their their feedback this afternoon from or this earlier this evening about um making sure that we understand what we're learning and why it's relevant and knowing when I need support or if I need more clarity that is actually the um title of the coaching of the
078session that we are working on with our teachers is teacher clarity and ensuring our students know what they're learning, why they're learning it and how they know when they've learned it. So, empowerment and continuing to build agency in our students. We'll also be um continuing the restorative practices work around circles that you've heard so much about. Um we will also be have continuing um either refresher training or new training for new staff on our threat threat assessment um processes. Dr. uh Spataphor has arranged that for our staff as well and we have staff presenting on a variety of topics. Choice sessions was something that we gotten feedback from on our evaluations. So I am working on we're continuing to drum up business so to speak. We need a few more presenters. So um I think
079I had a few more come in over the weekend. So I think we have maybe um eight of our staff presenting as of right now. So, from various topics to how to write an IEP to um how to have fun and build stack community with inflatables, the famous Dr. Pites is going to do that. And um let's see what else we have. Executive functioning and school avoidance that um Mrs. Murphy and Mrs. Jurich are going to do from the training they just had last week on school avoidance. So, we have several fun topics um that I hope our teachers will really enjoy. Then after that, we'll do the reunification piece. So, it should be a great day. So, we'll look forward to reporting in March how it went. I want out to see us if
080you're have time on Friday. It'll be a fun day. You have any questions for me? >> I think it's Um summary of budget, the statement of position and the student activity reports for the period ending December 31st, 2025 have been provided for your review. Uh the first item is so each year the Illinois school code requires authorization from the board to prepare the budget in tenative forum. So the suggested motion is that the board of education designate the superintendent and the assistant superintendent for finance and operations to prepare the 2026 2027 budget intentive form. >> Motion and Mr. Jackson roll call please. >> Hi Mora. >> Hi >> Mason. >> Hi >> Jackson. >> Hi Tower. >> Hi. >> Chavez. >> Hi. >> Motion carried. Uh annually the district offers a student accident insurance to
081its families. The coverage and premium information are in the board packet and a link will be a available on the district website for families. There is no changes from the prior year. The suggested motion is that the board of education authorize the Berkeley school district finance office to offer the student accident insurance provided by Zebids Redfield and Associates Inc. to district 87 families for the 2026 277 school year as presented. >> I got a motion. >> Jackson roll call please. >> Hi Tyler. >> Hi. >> Jackson Mason. >> Hi. >> Mora. >> Hi. >> Espinosa. >> Hi. >> Chavez. >> Hi. >> Motion carried. Our next item is an authorization to lock in utility rates when our utility pricing expires or is soon to be expiring. Uh since utility pricing is market driven and time-sensitive
082based on current conditions, our consultants recommendations are we're requesting authorization for the superintendent or designate to lock in utility rates and then what is the district's best when it's the best interest for the district to do so? Um when a and then action is needed between board member between board meetings, I'm sorry. So, and then um once the once we agreed to that, the agreement would be brought back for a formal ratification at the next regular board meeting to ensure transparency and board oversight. So the suggested motion is that the board of education authorize the superintendent or designate to execute a utility supply agreement to secure fixed utility rates for the district when such action is determined to be in the best interest of the district and further authorize that the exec executed agreement be
083presented to the board for ratification at the next regular board meeting after execution. Get mot >> Jackson. >> High Tower. >> Hi, >> Chavez. >> Hi. >> Motion carried. >> Hey, my oral report. Last year, the board approved um some design services for Whittier and Jefferson gym and cafeteria upgrades. Um it took a little while but today Joe Burn Sebastian Robles and I met with B team to finalize the plans and bid documentation will be available next Thursday and then we will follow up hopefully at the next board meeting with the bid um with the proposals and then I also received an update from the Cook County Treasurer's office today. They expect to distribute the remaining balance of collections by February 3rd. first installments of 2025 bills are going to be mailed or anticipated to
084be mailed on March 2nd and then going forward the um tax revenues will be distributed within 30 days of receipt. property tax refunds haven't been issued yet at all um due to the Tyler system technology system issue and it's expected that we resolved within the next three weeks and then once that's issued refunds will be sent out. Um there'll be approximately 56,000 refunds sent out totaling $163 million. And then once these refunds are issued, they'll offset future distributions for the districts. And then on January 14th, I hosted the proviso township treasury board meeting here. The presentation is included in your packet if you'd like to look at it. Uh the township will submit an amended budget for this year related to software implementation costs for for one of the new districts. Those costs will not
085be uh passed on to the member district. So that's going to be fully on them, but they do have to amend their budget. And then the township will also be adding a 403b option for their employees this year. They never had any kind of pension then. Um also, uh the CPI rate for next year's levy has decreased slightly from 2.9% to 2.7%. We use the December 31st, CPI number as our web. Oh, today I also received preliminary health insurance rate increases. These are preliminaries. Um there'll be additional information coming, but right now they're 19.8% for the PO, 18.4% for the HMO plan, and 4% for dental. They're largely driven by the prescription drug costs and they're telling us that it's over overall declines in population health. So these um I'm going to be using these
086numbers tenatively for my budget until we hear differently for a final number and then um that's all I have. >> Thank you. Any questions? >> Our vacancies and have eight certified vacancies and aids enforcement. uh February 12th we'll kick off the education for women at the beginning fair station one with a virtual co and then we will be attending nurse throughout February and March um one or two in April and then I ask the opportunity here also the annual HR conference for HR administrators at schools will be this Thursday and Friday of this year. I will be one of the presenters with a few colleagues who were presenting on um job descriptions and equity and job descriptions. Also in April attend Mrs. Han uh from the regional office woman leadership conference again and a colleague
087will be presenting a session when myself and a fellow colleague will be presenting session. Then last but not least, um the HR office is very excited that this year for open enrollment for our benefits, we're going to be moving until we have electronic version for open enrollment. All of these years we've done burn copies and so this year we've been wanting to move forward to it. But during the year when we haven't added all new systems and so we decided this year is the year. So we're going to be moving to open enrollment for the staff. will be able to select their benefits um electronically on their own. Uh or you know it's approved it will come to that either assistant and myself and make sure everything is correct and then we'll you know push
088approved but we rolled it out to the staff where as to do a small kick off their 1095 warrants for their taxes. uh we rolled out the system so that they can kind of go into the systems and they can download those forms uh starting after the W4 regarding release. So they are given a preview of the system but in February, March and April, we'll be going around to the schools to kind of explain corporate the open enrollment process, what it'll look like, what they'll have to do to open up for enrollment and uh so she's very excited. I'm very excited and sent a lot of treats because it was a lot of open. So we're very excited um you know for this opportunity and to do both open and meeting for next time. I'll
089let you have any questions. >> Any questions? Moving right along. >> You heard about it a couple times, right? that we rate PE among school avoidance and I got to do that with our social workers and counselors that actually affects just 7% of our student population and most people might not assume this because I actually went into education myself but I was a little kid who cried every single day and did not want to go to school myself. So that is the students that we are talking about that have those underlying anxieties that we don't necessarily always understand why and there is something that is really hard to to to get them into the school day and sometimes it's just easier to welcome people although it becomes a really slippery slope. So this professional development
090for us really kind of opened our eyes to what are some of those underlying causes? What are some of the things that we could be doing? And I want to tell you even though I was sitting in the room with some of our brightest experts from social markets, I think all of us realize that there are some things that we could do a little bit differently moving forward. So I'm excited about the things that we've learned and the things that we put into practice about how we can change the way that we move things forward. But the even more powerful part is some of the ways that we can talk to our adult parents. It is such an isolating place to be when you just can't figure out how to get your kids there. And
091I see it such a different way now to be on the other side of my parent I can't imagine my parents were even dealing with this when I was a child. So very excited about that. And then as mentioned earlier we have um both our social counsel be presenting this at institute today. Uh, also in institute Dave, we've got um, again we wrote this to our restorative practices team that's going to be presenting on academic. So even though we kind of did something earlier that's a little bit more of that lightarted space circles are powerful and a great capacity that we can use them. So we want our teachers to see how you can take that same concept and build it into the program. So the curriculum that we're using already. So how can we
092implement that into our ready? How can we use that in our eastern science? How can we use that in our farming company? So, we're going to take it, we're going to embed it, we're going to use the programs and tools that we already have. We're not just going to continue to pull videos off the internet. Sometimes that's helpful, but we're going to be videotaping our classrooms, our kids, and our teachers to already have. So, we're hoping that helps us to continue to see how this works in our spaces. Um, and then when the real fun comes in, Mr. Bird and I are gearing up for IR, our Illinois assessment readiness and ISA, which is a recognized science assessment. Um, no huge changes that I have seen so far. We just have the release of the
093manuals for this year. No huge changes um with that. So hopefully smooth sailing um with the new platform that I think came last year for us. But um hopefully all goes well with our testing and as we move forward with that to raise through eight and we also are partnering with that we to support that from them for this year and in exciting news our embrace long-term camp Duncan this year we have found a new partnership will be moving forward very soon um we're looking at white pines which is located in Oregon Illinois but some of the exciting things about that did offer horseback riding which me and heard some of our teachers here from experience. I said it was amazing. Be there for maybe even experience going there themselves. A little bit more like
094we've got some country line dancing on the schedule potentially and uh some I don't know some southern style country fun. We'll we'll see what it brings. But I'm looking forward to it. Our teachers all spent time. We looked at four different options together. I met with the teams on both sides of the district and we best agree. We're looking at dates a little bit different than we normally would in May temporarily this year uh 10th March only because of the advanced timeline the end was later. So we did put out a poll to both sides of the district and just did interest surveys to families. We did have positive response from the sides that did already say that they were going. We even asked like if you weren't going to send your child what would
095be the reasons why we didn't really get many I mean maybe knows and then we should the typical response. It's just that uncomfortable setting my child on a new trip. So nothing normal responses. So we're looking forward to new question. >> What was that? >> Illinois. >> I believe this is Oregon, Illinois. It was about an hour and 34 minutes when I wasted I said west and it is a west all around mysterious. >> Okay. >> It's so different. >> My daughter loved it. >> Really? >> Yes. >> Change the >> Mr. D. >> All right. So, uh, as you guys know, we've been dealing with the the snow and ice and the frigid temperatures, um, you know, very recently. Um, so our maintenance and custom over winter break, um, at North Lake Middle School,
096we've got two vinyl comb, you know, the BCT 12inch floor tiles. Um, we still have those in the two science rooms. Um, one of the things that I noticed when I first started that really just had such a large buildup of wax on the floor is that it was kind of creating some pitting the finish and it just really didn't look good. Um, so we got a different product to use to remove the wax. Um, and the custodial team over there spent a couple of days stripped all that wax off and then reapplied wax finish. and it's a a night, you know, difference in regards to how the floor looks. Um, so with that being said, we're going to do that for spring break and the other science room as well. Um, so we were
097happy to see those results. Um, in line with the the cold weather, um, very happy to report that we did not have any major issues across the district. Um, and a big thank you to our maintenance team for that. They worked uh basically 36 hours straight um amongst you know the the two different maintenance guys we had um just to ensure that we had continuous coverage uh doing building checks do all the classrooms buildings uh checking on the boilers and all the different units that we have. Um so kudos to them for keeping us keeping us up running uh during that clos that we had. Um, as we kind of touched on, um, a couple of weeks ago, we completed our first communication real actually doing the exercise, um, with our central office staff. Um,
098they all performed different jobs and, um, you know, everything in regards to, you know, having to run that reunification drill. Um, so it was nice to see some people kind of get out of their comfort zone a little bit and take on some of the different roles that you know we would have in place um for everybody if they're strategy. >> Um, and then as Dr. set up February 6 much larger scale mitigation exercise next door. Uh at the last board meeting I brought to you guys about the gym floor issues next door with Arthur. Um some good news and some bad news. Um good news is that we had our plumber out and he inspected all of the drain lines that go underneath the floor and he said that those are all in good
099working order and that we don't have any leaks. That's where the bad news comes in is that we have to do some further investigation as to where this moisture is coming from. Um I've had a couple of different conversations with mold and they are kind of gathering the team or a smaller team together of the contractors that were involved with installing the gym floor and doing the concrete foundation. Um because the plumber thinks that there might be a ground floor issue coming up through the concrete. Um, and with the normally that would be a problem because we have a vapor barrier between the concrete floor or the concrete base and the wood floor. However, we have some penetrations in that vapor barrier for the drain covers themselves, volleyball posts, those are all penetrations that vapor
100barrier. So, sometimes you might get some moisture that comes up through there. Uh, so we're trying to work through those. Um, depending on what the general consensus is, it may become a larger summer project and having rules on the floor and really trying to figure out what's going on with that. But I'll have some more information guys uh in regards to that. Uh, this is just a gym for not concentrated in the short gym that's got package or no. So, it's kind of concentrated right by the locker rooms. >> Um, there's a drinking fountain right there and the floor there. Um, it is kind of it's heed up and and pretty unlevel in some spots. Right now, there's a carpet runner over it just to try and prevent any tripping hazards. Um, but we are
101starting to see some cupping in the floor going out towards the port. Um, so the floor right now, it's not worse than it was initially found and reported. So, that's a good is not getting any worse. Um, so there's a positive aspect to that, but we still need to figure out what caused it and what we can do to prevent it from happening. You mentioned a sil me. Did we have a a tank remov? >> Yeah, we found a lot of things that underneath when we started digging. I'm just wondering if that's some kind of tank in an area where >> that was you know something tank >> yeah it's possible that was like an old like fuel source so there's >> um for the building yeah I don't think that I I could be
102wrong I don't think that has anything to to do with this but I mean they during the construction project they brought in a whole bunch of you know stone different levels of stone um just to try and keep that groundwater, you know, below and at bay. Um but the the gym floor itself is slightly below grade. So I think that's what, you know, some of the issue that we might be having is, but um yeah, it's it's kind of a mystery what we're going to try and figure out is that what's what's causing us to join. Um and then the last thing on my list for you guys is that we recently had our uh Westy health life safety visit. Um Teresa, myself and Dr. Sullivan walked with the district with the three different inspectors.
103Um they were very happy with the overall state of our buildings. Um and we did receive one building that had zero violations this year. Um and that was Riley. So, hats off to the Riley crew over there. Um, and uh, they'll be getting that same excited last year for having the violations. So, we'll probably get that in August to September. >> This is West 40, >> correct? >> It's just their yearly inspections. We walk through the buildings checking, you know, um making sure that they're not using any door wedges, >> extension floors, ceiling. >> Yeah. More so a safety safety perspective, but they also inspect all of our making sure that we're doing all of our fire in selections, sprinklers, extinguishers, um elevators, things like that. They like to see that we have all those
104documents right. >> Okay. But we did find a couple of door wedges. So the violations with things like that that people are in a habit of doing that you're not supposed to. They probably don't realize it's educating. >> Yeah. That that finishes my my report. >> Sure. Um, what I have for you guys is I just been continually doing my building inspections every month to prioritize things to see what we need for our buildings and keep it running as soon as possible. So, I just been creating a priority just for each building. So, therefore, we can start planning ahead of time for spring break and some regular projects that need to take place. That's all. >> Any questions facilities? Anyone questions? Your project budget items? Yeah, budget items. Okay. Excellent. Hi wasn't speaking to Here
105is something that's coming up. I'm very excited. Um on Friday actually uh Miss Zimmerman and I are going to uh visit Bington School District. They have this innovative program where they have um their kindergarten classes partnered with their high school students um and they invited different districts that come out to kind of see what what they do um and how they partner how they help other high school students help regard the students. We're able to go and see that on a Friday morning and hopefully see if this is something that we can then bring back to Berkeley model. Um I'm very excited about this not only obviously the kindergarten and finally but we work with two different high schools. So this is something that we can somehow partner with lighting fellowship and then also with
106fellowship. Um this brings an opportunity to our primary students but then also to our students after they graduate. So I'm hoping that we're going to grow. >> Yes, I forgot to add that to my own report. It's their career and technical um education department at Bington partners and their kindergarten kids come over and experience different projects through their career and technical education. So Dr. Ashkoff from Proviso will be joining us and Miss Hennean is going to go with us as well. >> Just want to thank the board for um our nurses. We are fully staffed now >> with our nurse team. So, we just want to say thank you for all that support, the glad that we have a full staff um for students and their needs. Um our nurses are looking forward to um
107doing more of their training on stop the bleed, which is like the kits that we have in our classrooms. Um stop the bleed at institute day. who start looking and introducing our staff to more methods um with those kits and then start working with some of our community partners starting to work with Elmer's Hospital um on providing uh different training and opportunities for our staff in the future. Um our preschool program has some field trips coming up that are exciting. Um they also are having um planning some family events. one is going to be centered around kind of digital um technology for parents to start at that young age appropriate um screen time parent controls. So they're going to be working with some of our local police departments and coming together with their families to
108start at that early age on, you know, using technology appropriately with families. They're also getting ready, believe it or not, for our spring screenings that are coming up anytime now students to start enrollment for next year. Uh for special education, um got some great feedback um from our par professional. They've been doing um specific u professional development just for them and their needs when we've had those early in service days. Um, so their feedback has been very positive that they're really enjoying having professional development that's tailored to that their roles in the district. And then we have several um uh teachers that have joined our special education cohort. So they are working right now on getting their endorsement for special education. And then for school safety um as Limmerman said, we have um our threat
109assessment teams um in development. There are several staff members that are mand mandated by the state to become members of a threat assessment team at each school um like nurses, things like that. So those people are being trained. Um but we also have um an opportunity now to have this um in person. We are training uh 10 members of our team become members of our threat assessment teams. This is really helpful that each school will have about six to seven team members at each school. So you have a wide variety of voice and lenses when you are doing a threat assessment at that building bubble. So we're very excited that we're going to have more members of um each school have more members of each team. There's also an opportunity on L2 tooth day for
110team members that might need a refresher. They might not have had training in a while. They can come kind of back and get some refreshment on some of their skills there. And then we also be working with police. We have a new officer um officer. He's going to be our liaison and our threat assessment. And so he needs to become trained as well. So he'll be participating with us as well to that training. And then I will be participating um in the school safety summit for Northern Illinois um this Thursday. Um we'll be working on communication um projects and working on enhancing our communication plan here for district >> question. >> Okay. If we are at the heart and soul of our teaching school year um as we get into February, uh we are wrapping
111up access testing. Access testing measures the growth and achievement of our multilingual scholars. And then over the next few days, we'll wrap up our math testing for both language arts and math. That measures the midterm growth between fall and winter for all of our scholars in both math and language arts. Um a couple exciting things. Um, we start bowling on uh Monday, which is going to be amazing. I know it's been a vision for so many of us in this room. So, our first practice uh is at Hillside Bowl at Monday at 3:30 in the afternoon. And then I know uh it's not around the corner, it's on the corner. We had graduation picture day for college. So, that's exciting. Notice >> so you have a successful bowling team like you have. >> Hope so.
112Anything to get the kids off the tic tac about 20 scheming ticks won't be >> a lot a lot of that stuff is lost with our children as doesn't. So it's unfortunate. That's great. >> No phones allowed. >> So, so with our rolling numbers, I'm not sure you had a chance to look this yet. We we found out we have about 19 kids who have turned in permission slips. Of those 19, three of them have played a sport in our school previous. So, this is another population of students who typically does enjoy basketball or volleyball or soccer. Looking for something else to be involved with. That was that was kind of cool to see that it was a different for kids football in the parents. They were very excited about it too. This is something
113that they were joining a sports team for school. So supposed to see that families are excited as well. >> He's still I was already on some place in the morning. >> Give your team a big shout out. Really enjoyed it. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Trying to get on agenda for the year presentation for the year. So >> I think >> and and so when we met out in the in the lobby, they didn't want to ask you questions. They were being really shy. They're like, "What's going on in close session? How did they pick us out? What happened?" So I talked about like how that works and what that is. They're like, "Oh, so so all the stuff that we get to see like some of it we can't know about like it's
114like so that conversation kind of what happens in that room after the meeting." They're like, "So how do proposals happen?" I would happen after meeting like they didn't get a chance to see that. So they have a a meeting tomorrow with Miss Guzman. I'm going to stop by and kind of give me thank you and we'll go. They welcome anytime was over. I mean be part of of postession there was they were kind of aimed >> that's how it happens all the time. That's the process. Thank you sir. Appreciate it. They get to see democracy in action fig. So you did a great job. Thank you. >> Okay Mr. P. Thank you. Uh as a few others said Dr. Myan and Dr. Modi were in the heart of testing season. So my note here is
115we try to implement seamless testing. So we have active testing and NWA and fin all these acronyms for different testing and it's a lot and it could be stressful for staff and stressful students but we strive to make it as seamless as possible with how we manage the systems and implement second. There are so many pieces of it that so many departments are um in control of. So, we try to do our part to make it easiest for our teachers and scholars. As um Nasha talked about, we Jefferson, we're going to be moving forward with some um bids for Jefferson and Whittier. And this is their spaces um their gym space and their cafeteria space. They don't have good audio equipment or they don't have good projection equipment. So, this will benefit their gym teachers
116um when they're presenting content in the classroom. It will help their cafeteria so they could have voice amplification with microphones so they could communicate with um everyone eating lunch. It will help with assemblies and parent events so we could more effectively display content and then communicate in the large spaces. So, we're excited to move forward with that. And then lastly, uh we have some evaluations for our e rate. Again, that would be a program where we get federal funding for infrastructure things related to infrastructure here in Berkeley school district. So, our focus there is reliable and robust networks to help support everything that we do in technology sense throughout the district. So, we are going to be evaluating new internet circuits and up enhanced speeds across the district. Um and then in a few weeks
117we'll be uh also evaluating some new medical equipment specifically focused for Jefferson here. >> Any questions? >> I have a question sir but not not for our middle school principles while they're here. um west in high school they have an east campus and a west campus and every semester they a student that most of the board meetings and he kind of missed the feedback um of what's happening in school at our board at their board meetings do you think that's the idea that we our district representative from each one of our schools >> I love the I think that sometimes we make so many decisions for our kids without actually involving the kids. And I think it's amazing to help them build those leaders themselves. But I love Dr. G's presentation because you brought kids,
118you know, but that's a, you know, I think that um showcasing our scholar and giving them those leaders opportunities >> provides them for bigger future. So I would love that. You know, I know we're presenting next month and uh the goal is not to see me or the staff. I I might see a kid and what they're doing for sure. >> Thanks for that question. That was >> we have several organizations already that are doing that within our school. It'd be a really easy transition to start doing that here. But I think we look beyond that too. Not just those kids who are in the leadership positions. Some of those voices that are not always heard, I think board meets and see that every voice does matter. But yes, we do definitely between ambassadors and
119student council some other things. be definitely transition equity. >> Do counsel. >> So what we brought today are four officers. There's about 20 other students that are representatives for the grade level. Every class has a representative. So the representatives bring the ideas from classrooms to the executive board and then they make some decisions. We're holding them Valentine's Day meets and they're pushing to do it in the evening. I don't know if I want to come back in the evening, right? They're they're selling it to me real hard in our time and do it instead. >> You and your team did a great job. Thank you. >> Any other old No ordinance or >> I just wanted to say really quickly um we've acknowledged throughout this meeting the cold temperatures and you know how hard it
120is to be out there um as adults and especially as kids. So, um I'm always going to have a little bit of a bias because I go to Whittier every day to drop off my daughter, but I'm sure it's happening across all the schools. Um the teachers being out there in the cold for 15 to 20 minutes at uh pickup and drop off. Um just wanted to say thank you. Um it goes a long way. Um, I run to the school and back into my car and I feel like I almost get frostbite and that's like two minutes and they're out there for very long time. So, just wanted to express my appreciation for that. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate that. >> Any other point. George. >> All right. >> Hi. >> Tower. >> Hi.
121>> Jackson. >> Hi. >> Mason. >> Hi. >> Mora. >> Hi. >> Espanosa. >> Hi. Motion. Car. >> Thanks everybody.