001Justice for all >> here. Here. Okay. Mr. B, is there anyone on there? There are no questions. >> Thank you, Mr. B. We ask that the board accept the written correspondence and present motion. Miss roll, please. Hi >> Jackson. >> Hi >> Jason. >> Hi. >> And uh we also ask that the board um except for Kayla Love and also the thank you card not reproduced from Pati. She's a retired administrative assistant to the proposal who passed away, but she sent us a very nice card because we sent an arrangement for and there's no public comment either online or here in the audience. So, we're ready to move on the business. Okay. We ask the board approve the minutes of regular board meeting of July 28th, 2025 and the close session meeting of June 23rd,
0022025. Get a motion Mason and Mr. Rollson. Hi Jackson. Hi Walker. I And then uh for reports for um old business on behalf as a superintendent, I do have just a brief thing to mention right here. Uh this past Monday, we had our institute and we recognized our service staff and we had staff that reached the 30 year mark and uh one of those individuals is actually here and so he is at training his 31st year as a board member. So he's now eligible 30-year PIN. What happened was pins were delayed. Lette, did they ever get what did when she told me about it, we talked and she called back and she said to the vendor, I think you need to do something to make this right because people are very excited service. That's these
003little pins that you see some of us wearing. Well, what this person did is they said, "Okay." and they created a shirt and it turns out people love this shirt and uh so this is the service pin sort of substitute this year and it says Berkeley School District 87 and it has kind of a symbol and on the side it has the number of years. So it here is 30 for Mr. High Tower. And I just want to say what an honor it is to have Mr. High Tower on our board. And uh to be clear, you have to finish your year, then you're eligible for the service. So he's actually in his 31st year on the board. If you think about that in terms of volunteering, I I volunteer as well, and this is
004something I've learned that a real volunteer, you're not really a volunteer. You volunteer and you have no kids or nothing that is going to be benefited by what you do. and uh I volunteer for baseball program and I've done my kids haven't years and I've just stayed with it and I have a four group that are like and you have not had children in this district but I want to tell you president how thankful I am that you take my policy give me counsel and I'm just so proud that you're getting your service pinned and you're still with us Mr. Congratulations. I'm aware of this. Thanks everybody. Appreciate it. Couldn't have done it without community. It's been a pleasure meeting. Thanks everybody. Keep moving forward and stop aging. Okay. Thanks D. Appreciate So the assistant
005motion is approved approve the accountable and present call >> I als I >> Walker and it's for your >> Sure. Any other? Okay. I have a motion to go into session. Just open Hi >> Jackson. for they We Oh, pass up some report and I'm going to pass the notes on to your administr outside of was at the back to school events and everything was great at uh North Lake and u um uh fire trucks, ambulance, police cars, kids all over the place, lots of fun, uh lots of, you know, excited uh scholars and parents to get their parents back and um just the district continues to do just great uh to get amazing events for the community. So, thank you for everyone that I'm okay. >> Okay. Senator Tibbit. >> Thank you, Mr. President.
006>> So, uh, for licensed personnel, we ask that the board accept the resignation of the following personnel. Nicole Palmer, social worker at Whittier, effective immediately. Hannah Mains, crosscategorical teacher at North Lake, effective immediately. Taylor Proax, inclusion teacher at MacArthur, effective immediately. and Julia Loftton districtwide substitute effective immediately. >> We got a motion. Jackson and Miss Waller. Roll call, please. >> Mora. >> Hi. >> Mason. >> Iard. >> Hi. >> Jackson. >> Hi. >> Walker. I motion carried. >> A licensed personnel resignation. We ask that the um board pass a res a resolution refusing to concur with teacher Lewis Ramos's resignation of Mr. Ramos resigned, but he did so within 30 days of the start of the year. That's the difference with this resignation versus the others. And there's a provision in the Illinois school code.
007If somebody resigns within 30 days of the start of the school year, we can ask is to hold that teacher's license. I don't know if they actually do it, but I think it's the right thing to do because our students scholars need teachers. It's not so much that somebody leaves. That does happen. People leave for all kinds of reasons, but when it happens with that close to the start of the year, it makes it really hard for our teachers to have a highly qualified teacher and our kids deserve that. So, I would like to um read the resolution really quickly and then we can vote on it. So um the res this resignation has to do with uh the person Lewis Ramos who was a science teacher employed at MacArthur Middle School. He gave his
008resignation to the district on August 1st which is uh within the 30 days notice as required by the Illinois School Code and our school term began on August 18th. So that that's my issue with this resolution. Uh the board is committed to developing um the children in developing our staff. Our school district uh is here for the instruction of students. The school code provides us the opportunity to do this. And if the state superintendent or their design finds that a teacher resign during the school term without the concurrence of the board to accept another teaching assignment, the state superintendent is being asked to suspend that teacher's license. And I wanted to make that clear. What happened here? Some of the other resignations, for example, he was a social worker. That person went to work in
009a hospital. This is somebody who left our district to go work somebody somewhere else in another teaching position, but left us in this circumstance. So, um, we ask that the board refuse to concur with the resignation of Lewis Ramos as discussed and then, um, um, I will I will read it if it's okay. So, uh, we resolve, uh, that we need someone to move this resolution. Okay, we got a motion. We have a motion and a suggestion and then we uh, go ahead and vote. Okay. Roll call. Roll calls. >> Hi. >> Walker. Hi. Mora. Hi. Mason. >> Hi. >> Jackson. >> Higher. >> Hi. >> Quick question. Let's say I resign. Say I'm going into banking. Then a month later I jump back in the teacher. How do you go? >> How would I
010know? I probably wouldn't have >> until until we get the faith law request because now we get that in Illinois. If you take another teaching position, I think it's even in a private school. If you had taught before, we'll get the faith law request. Would you mind saying what that is for everybody? >> Uh faith law verifies that anywhere you've ever worked with children, there was no sexual misconduct. So, anywhere you've ever worked, even if it was a camp or anything like that, we're required to ask teachers to fill out a form and we have to send that form to all of your previous um employers. And they are required to send it back to us within 20 20 days. And so if we caught that, we would then call our attorney and talk about
011that resignation because at the time we were led to believe they weren't going to another school. Okay. Um but that's a good question. Uh licensed personnel employments. We ask that the board employ the following licensed personnel effective August 18th pending all paperwork. Sarah Miller, prek social worker, Jefferson and Whittier. Patrick Callahan, science teacher, North Lake. Jeremy Jensen, math teacher, MacArthur. Natalie Clemen, inclusion teacher, MacArthur. Katherine Ludisher, math teacher, North Lake. Ryan Brownlow, ELA teacher, MacArthur. Mary Espazito, third grade teacher, Riley. Camilo Isopo Novi, cross categorical teacher, MacArthur. John Robinson, math teacher, MacArthur. Angela Sebastian cross categorical teacher MacArthur Emily Camry social worker Whittier Marquee Collins licensed district-wide substitute and correction of lane and step James Blake ELA teacher MacArthur and approved at the July meeting uh we were still missing the lane and step that
012was for Ann Galer STEM teacher at North Lake and Anna Korea bilingual teacher at Jefferson as presented >> in a motion Second, Miss Walker. The roll call, please. >> Jackson. >> Hi. >> Walker. >> Hi. >> Mossa. >> Hi. >> Howard. >> Hi. >> Mason. >> Hi. >> Mora. >> Hi. Motion carried. >> Intent to retire. We ask that the board accept the intent to retire letter of the following personnel. Valerie Paputus. >> A motion. M. >> Walker. M. >> Jazz. Roll call. Please. >> Hi. >> Howard. >> Hi. >> M. Hi >> Jackson. >> Hi >> Walker. >> Hi Mason. >> Hi >> Mora. Hi. Motion carried. >> We ask that the board approve the license personnel leave request as presented for Joan Imana. >> Motion. >> More and Mr. Jackson roll please. >>
013Second. They said August 3725. [Music] should be August 27th, 2025 as presented. Thank you. >> Good catch. >> So, let's try that again. >> It will be extended briement leave from Joan Himma, reading specialist at Jefferson, August 18, 2025 through August 202025. extended will begin August 21 through August 27th, 2025 as presented in the letter dated August 6th. We ask that the board approved the license personnel leave request for Miss Joan imminer. [Music] Motion carries. We ask that the board approve the educational support staff leave of absence requests as presented for Kenya Guzman Sandival, Jasmine Martinez, Lisa Gross, Maria Martinez, Melas, and Ivy Carris. >> Motion and Miss Espinosa. Roll call, please. >> Walker. Hi. Mason. >> Hi. >> Espinosa. >> Hi. >> Mora. >> Hi. >> Jackson. >> Hi. >> Eis. >> Hi. And
014the next one is an example of growing our own again. Uh we ask that the board accept the reassignment of Gabriella Montalango from crosscategorical teacher assistant to districtwide subwide substitute. Mr. Jackson roll please >> hi >> Jackson. Hi >> Mason. Walker that she carried. >> Former North Lake student by the way. >> You remember her? >> And her son and my son are best friends. >> Oh my god. A good She's a good woman. She's a good >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. >> Roll within. There we go. Get the ground running. >> Educational support staff employment. We ask that the board employ the following personnel pending all employment paperwork. Adelina Miranda, Lesie Rodriguez Santiago, Sandy Bell Haro, Yaselin Ortiz Monroy, and Daniela Cervantes Hernandez. >> Get a motion. The second and Miss Waller. Roll call, please.
015>> I hi >> Walker. Hi, >> Jackson. >> Hi, >> Mason. >> Hi, >> Mora. Hi, Missa. >> Hi. >> Motion car. >> Yes. And I share two of those are former district 87 students as well. >> All right. >> We ask that the board accept the resignation of the following personnel. Arena Corona lunch monitor North Lake effective immediately and Wilbert Lee, special education teacher assistant at MacArthur effective immediately. >> Motion and Miss Waller. Roll call, please. Hi, >> Senos. >> Hi, >> Jackson. >> Hi, >> Mason. >> I >> Hi, Tower. >> Hi, >> Walker. >> Hi. Motion carried. >> We ask that the board accept the following fundraisers as presented for the Jefferson MacArthur Sunnyside PTO and uh they had the back to school bash. This was planned right before the bash. So,
016I wanted to come back and kind of do it retroactively. So, we're following our procedures. North Side PTO is also requesting to host three events, one at each school, and uh that's a back- to-school dance, a glow party at Riley and Arctic Animals Party at Whittier. The PTO is asking permission for a concession stand and uh some concessions and then also field day activities as presented. Okay, the motion small and the second motion. Roll call, please. >> Jackson, >> hi. >> Mason, >> hi. >> Tower, >> hi. >> Mora, hi. >> Walker, hi. >> Esposa, >> I motion carried. >> And then for my oral report, there's just a few things briefly. One is um I think this is good news. Our district and the state has been experiencing a decline in enrollment. So, back
017in about 2017, we had about 750 more kids than we have now. But that's been the case throughout the entire state. The enrollment has been declining, but our enrollment this year is pretty much spot-on to where we were last year at this time of the year. So that means that we are stabilizing and I think that's a credit to a lot of things for that to happen. So for us right now, we are at as of last week, but I know this has already changed, we're at 2,000 students right now. Last year we ended uh it was a little over 2100. We are going to be at that number or higher again this year. But that matters for us because we have worked hard to address a lot of things when it comes to students
018feeling that they belong that they feel connected our community connections. We know during COVID there were a lot of issues where where people were leaving public schools, but we I think it's a credit to our staff, credit to our principles, credit to our administrative team and our board and our families that we are continuing to build a strong connection and that's our goal for in our school improvement, our connected communities. So, I want to mention that and also that's kind of related to school finance. So, Mrs. Miss Dashik and I want to say a few things about school finance real quick. We have some districts near us that are into some very serious uh financial trouble. And uh what do I mean by that? That means deficit spending. And I like to just explain what
019that is really quick. So we have reserves here in our district. And whenever your operating budget needs to dip into the reserves to pay your expenses, that's considered deficit spending. So, it's not unusual to do that, and we may, and I say may, we may have to do some of that this year. But what if we do have to do that, it's going to be a very negligible amount and it will not require a deficit reduction plan. Irene, could you explain how some districts are facing financial concerns right now? >> There are several several that are facing that plan. of debts. You know, they're going to be another one about today million. [Music] We are not going to get to it. We're going to do our best to watch our funds, watch our funding, watch
020what we're spending in this year, specifically want make sure that our purchasing things that we need at least um where we are with federal funds with our taxes sure that all of our departments are dealing [Music] and successful and so government need the New York Times >> and we know um one of the things that we talked about was federal funding and that has been opening up a little bit. I'm glad to see you to talk to you about that. So, thank you for doing that phone call with me that one time we did I think back in I don't know July or August whenever that was. >> Was that late July? >> Late July. Uh because then it was right after you had that call that the federal government changed their position. So, well
021done. >> It was our call. >> But I want you to know because we've been watching Title Two. It still hadn't been funded. But then you saw Kelly right that it it did get funded >> because that was zero but now it's been funded. That's kind of what Irene is talking about because if it's not funded we still have to do professional development. So we have to figure out how we're still going to do it. So we want to mention that now because we're working on our plans and one of our plans right now that we talked about was any federal funds we are looking to expend before the deadline. That was what we were that September thr September 1st they have to be all the poss are in and we're doing that. It used
022to be we were not worried about that because you could carry over let's say 10% of your grant but because times are uncertain we don't want to rely on that. That's why what you said what we need we're going to spend it on and we're not going to assume the money is still going to be there. That's why we're that's like one thing we're doing right now. And then we're continuing to watch all of our expenses. Enrollment matters, too, because we get it's called evidence-based funding, but it's basically general state aid. So, we get aid from the state. And Irene, you were sharing some of this with me. So, for example, um with our evidence-based funding, we are considered tier 2. Tier, there's a level that you get to, I think it's basically 85%. We're
023not there yet. So we are considered to be a district that is funded less than what is adequate. So we receive money from the state for that. But that formula takes into account student enrollment. So when our enrollment is stabilizing or going up, we'll we should be receiving more funds for that as well next year. So that's good news. And also our achievement goes up when our students are not only enrolled in the district but coming to school. And that's another thing that we're working on. So, uh, Miss Dashik and I will talk more about finances throughout the year, but we want to just mention that as a start today. Irene, anything else you want to talk about? just as we've been you know looking at grants looking at what can be utilize um any
024so the grants will allow us for multi-year um we try to do that so that see we remove every year we can get into multi-year agreement the grants will allow that we try to do that to try and insulate potentially any cost we're trying to project that forward just in case off mention working on the plan. So would you just say it's a big part of the plan as well? >> Okay. So all the teams working together. >> Yes. >> Okay. So go to let me start with the summary state activities activity report library that it is a requirement that we have to have it's a request to approve our architects architects and engineers to prepare a 10-year life savings survey and submission. This includes walking through the building for correct action plan with estimated
025cost identifying into three different categories recommended and ensuring that the board for review and approval and the submission. The total amount of $18,100 and suggested motion is that the board of education approve the proposal architected engineers to conduct a 10 plan and submission for her visit 100. A motion walker and Mr. Jackson roll please >> hi >> Jackson. Hi >> Mora Walker. >> Hi. Motion carried. >> In front of you are slides from the provided conf [Music] will be issued. So that means our taxition will be delayed. Um however with the addition of three new districts of the township 105 106 and 107 the council's office position to accept the districts that need the fund because right now they fund our shortterm investments for the long term that we just came in we don't we
026did a cash flow analysis that's our bonds are due and that our biggest concern was the lack of property taxes and right now um we may have to borrow from another fund. We may have to we have to look at the catch at that time. Hopefully the taxes will be out by then and we'll be fine. But we do have about $3 million in taxes that need to be paid in December. see how that goes. We're also looking at that Dr. mentioned that we're all collaborating and we're all very nice about the budget all the department budgets and any kind of savings opportunities. If they're working with funders, yes, we're looking at looking at the professional development opportunities, you know, where we're going to go there. Transportation is one of those things that we don't
027have a lot of say in the transportation thoughts are they what they are and we have for our students. the um operations maintenance department is has their ultimate plan for cost savings with time to talk a little bit about and subscri >> so that was part of the conversation and reach out if you're doing right Thank you. We beat the control cost. We'll go back to a couple things about the all the grand that was the convers. So, uh, let's keep doing what we doing. It was very important and it's really good. The district in a pretty good shape. Even though we're going to move monies around, stay stay afloat. That's okay. Let's make sure you manage the district this funds as best we can. Okay, that was the conversation. I want you to focus.
028Okay. Okay. Trying you in. I want you to talk about as well. Okay. Sure. So, um we have been working with trying to look at any recurring uh removals like for our digital platforms. We try to um where we can have multi-year time to those and Joe did a fantastic job working with our vendors to look at what are the costs as we went into those. Um so we tried because we had the resources this year our school improvement grant. So, we were able to do that. Um, and that afforded us really an opportunity for almost all of them, especially our ones that are a little more costly. Pledge for our ELA curriculum, for example, that's probably the one that is our most um that that's most expensive. So, we were able to do a
029threeear for that and several other digital. And the other thing that we try to think ahead is looking at our where our ELA data where our student growth has been to project. So our students are level and where their levels have been going in terms of their reading data. We try to project where they might be in the next year to two years in getting additional libraries to meet those needs. Um and we have students that are using it now. We've added some additional ones using this program. So we'll have some additional books here and next year. So that was able to do some of that for us as well. So our kids will use them this year as well that ahead the same thing for professional development. So our longterm professional development goals where
030are the pieces that we can build upon and then continue to grow those areas and have those resources available to us as additional funding right now. So those step about where we the funds we currently have and know where we're going to go and not knowing necessarily what's ahead. So the materials that we purchasing right now sustain us through the next couple of years of our system title one our title two has been populated. Um, so that was about $84,000 back added into our title grant. So I did work on my grant for the weekend. So that is ready to be approved for the 25 26 school year. So that was good news. um title three also those funds became available that was about 72,000 started that grant some additional funds back in our weren't
031expecting so when we did when I did our local budget those were some contingencies that we had built in some things that were that are not by the local budget but local about is now those out of local. So there's tweeting in that lens as well every right now. tell you what god. So I think we're we're about we're title we're about where we started last year last year right now and we open talking openly to the public about funding. We talk about what we're doing cost savings. It's very important this community. This is community buying this because we know we're going to have some tough times ahead. So in order to do this to make it be effective this group in the audience, we're going to make it happen. Issue 87 has on a
032positive trend to make it happen. Saying it's what John hit the road. >> Hit the ground. Hit the ground running. that you're going to run. Okay. So, we all working together. Make sure you bring it to bring it to the board. Everything is not be changing. I just want to quickly I put together just a quick slideshow. I thought visual might be better. Um so the state is changing their accountability system and their benchmarks for accountability called better systems for better outcomes. And I wanted to kind of give you a quick um just overview because we're going to they're going to be moving to that and changing um to this new system as we start getting our data, our new Illinois report card. All that's going to come into play in the next about six
033weeks. So they just released this um August 13th and so I want to make sure that you all um got this information. So they've been working on this new system for about a year about 18 months actually. Um been the problem has been in Illinois is that we needed to rightsize as Tony Sanders said our proficiency levels on our state assessments. So for years state of Illinois has been giving the wrong message to our students, families and educators because our proficiency rates and our state assessments do not match up to the realities in our classrooms. So what I mean by that is our profession benchmarks for um our state assessment are among the most restrictive. So ELA is among the most restrictive in the country. The result of that is that we mislabeled high achieving
034college ready students as not proficient. In fourth grade, for example, we have the most difficultto-reach benchmarks in the nation according to the National Assessment for Educators Progress, the name assessment. Um, and for every other grade and and subject, our efficiency benchmarks are among the top four restrictive. And so when you and our SAT so when we chose to do the SAT Illinois said their benchmarks so when they said what's proficient in the state of Illinois we said the college um board said this is what's proficient but state of Illinois said it's 60 points higher than the college board for SAT and 10 points higher in math. So, we've had some mismatching across the state of Illinois for a long time. And we've known this as educators and we're like, wait, we have all these students
035in AUP, you know, advanced placement courses. We have all of um kids getting these scores on SAT, but yet they're not passing our state assessment in ELA and math. Now, in science, we've had the reverse. we were forced to make the the state was forced to make um decisions around what was considered deficient in 2021 which was the height of COVID. Not a lot of our students participated and so um is the federal government um denied is request to um change for more time to determine the proficiency scores. So they went for CO. So then they were too low. So, Dr. Sanders has been trying to balance this out and get it realigned for us in the state um for the last 18 months, like two years as state superintendent. So, it's been part of
036this key focus. So, what does that tell us? Deficiency grades have reflected what our students are doing in the state of Illinois. We have about twothirds of our students enrolling in colleges. But if you look at the blue, that's 11th um grade English, 11 math, and then science. So you see 30% roughly are proficient in ELA and 11% of proficient in really high in science. But look at the percentage in green of our students that are enrolling in college. So he set out to balance this. And so the other thing is that all of those assessments are given another performance level. Some of them say proficient, low proficient, approaching. So the other piece was aligning all what these definitions mean by performance levels and proficiencies. So when you get your students um performance levels, it's
037going to all be aligned to the same language moving forward. So for parents, that will help us. So why do those matters? It helps give us as if be to track how the schools um identify schools for additional support, track progress, proficiency over time. For our schools, it helps us improve teaching and learning. And for families, it helps families understand students are doing and we want aligned system across all the assessments um for all schools in the state of Illinois and for all assessments. So it will give us it'll still give us um so what is that proficiency what does proficiency impact it impacts the results that you get on your individual student reports it also impacts the data that's on the Illinois school report card it impacts our accountability designations whether we're commendable whether
038we're targeted um exemplary it also impacts students identified for acceleration um for AP courses, accelerated math, um, accelerated courses. So, it has the real world consequences. So, they looked at as part of this process. These are some examples from actual students. I just put a couple of them. For example, a student in Neighborville High School, 3.9 GPA, 7 AP courses, two industry certifications, their basketball competitive band, marching, volunteering. However, on the SAT, they got a 490 and 530, but by our um proficiency um benchmarks in Illinois, they're labeled not proficient. There's another student from Liberty High School there. When you think about those first categories that I read off, you would think, gosh, they're a pretty proficient student. That's an ideal student. You would think they're they're what we're looking for, right? But they're not
039proficient by how we defined it. Yes. >> A lot of the girls my daughter's basketball team are going to college business now and they're not even care. They're going to break point average. >> Yep. They are. It depends on the um so depending on the school that you go to, many of them are are going back to needing ACT and SAT scores. So they went away from it for several years and now many of them are going back to that as a requirement to admissions. So it depends on the school, it depends on the state, depends on >> Yeah. >> place. >> Yes. Exactly. That's right. So and same thing with Liberty High School student here. And one of the things that you know Dr. understanders. You know, one of the things he pointed out
040in this conversation or this um webinar was thank goodness that these students didn't listen to us in the state of Illinois and say you're not proficient and and how many other students did think maybe they weren't proficient and didn't go on to secondary post high school because of not feeling like maybe they weren't as successful as students. So, you know, we're giving mislabeled misinformation to our students. Um, so there's some real world consequences for having these proficiency levels be mismatched. This is one of the most interesting things that I never knew is that I talked about being most restrictive. So, this chart shows the estimated score that a student on the national assessment of educational progress, the name scores. when you hear in the news like name scores came out the name scores came out
041this is all the states see where that blue arrow is so that is Illinois that's what an Illinois student needs to be to score proficient on our local assessment so the name proficient there is 250 where that gray box is to be Illinois you have to score proficient you are above the gray box so we are the most difficult um for E most restrictive ELA and math proficiency. So above what is considered that the N for every other state we have the hardest scores above every other state. >> Um but um so I thought that that was really I just didn't even know that so I was listening to this but I thought that was really interesting. um which again so the goal is to give us a better and more um accurately ensure what
042our students are able to do. So this is how that the performance levels is going to change. The top one is where they currently are for ISA and for SAT. So um right now it's means and exceeds ISA is an efficient exemplary developing urgency emerging and then SAT or partially approaching needs. So that's very confusing for families especially and for teachers to know it's apples, it's oranges, it's pineapples, like who knows? Um, and so under the unified performance levels, they're all going to be the same. Low proficient, protein proficient, proficient, and above proficient. And so the other piece that's going to happen is they recalibrated all of those proficiency benchmarks. So if you see in the old ELA it was 750 for grades three through eight. Now they've recalibrated this. They did this with the
043center of um assessment and for a study of the last 18 months. And so all of our scores for ELA and math have now changed. They have um been recalibrated and so have science. that will be applied to the IR tests that our students took last spring. So, we've gotten our preliminary scores, we've looked at them, um we got them in June, and now these new cut scores are going to be applied to them. And that will happen when everything comes out in October. And that's how we'll receive our new summit designations. will be using these cut scores and this information um and through this new designation. That's the rationale for why they realigned all of these did all of this work drought and make this system more balanced and aligned for our give us
044give them a message that is in alignment really college career readiness standards based on the um SAT ACT and um really those standards. So go to the next slide. This is going to give it the prediction. Here's the 2024 and then 2025 with the re recommended um benchmarks. When we did our data, our preliminary scores, it's about a 10% um increase in proficiency overall and by each grade level for us and about an 8% decrease in science. So it's about true with exactly what they're predicting. um from this information. So that's kind of where we're at. Everything will be released in October along with the worker data and our summited designations. But I wanted to give you kind of an overboard because it just overview. It was just released a couple weeks ago and we'll
045continue to learn more and talk more with our staff. And then this what I'm going to do is the um document together. So we'll start out to our so that they have a good what things questions for me. It's a lot of information in a short amount of time. We'll continue to talk through this as we learn more. >> That was that was about it. The one about >> I had one more thing. We had a fantastic new staff orientation. I just want to thank um the leadership at MacArthur and at Sunnyside for always being gracious and we just kind of take over their buildings and so I always appreciate that um so much because I know that that can be really hard trying to get ready for school as well. Um, I also wanted
046to thank our um, John and his team, Teresa Gargano, and they did a wonderful job getting everything we needed set up. And kudos to our nutritional services, Steve Ky, and Mara Shelton. They did a amazing job making sure, fresh, warm, breakfast, and treated our staff, our new staff very well. and really helpful to me and to all of our curricul. And I cannot say enough about the wonderful, amazing new staff we have joining Berkeley 87. They were fantastic. We had a great week together. I so enjoyed getting to know all of them. So did an amazing job as well getting all of them up and running and into orientation as quickly as possible. So really great. So thank you everyone. Okay. >> Yeah. Both ways. >> Thank you. >> It's you got report. >> You
047know, it's the report looks the best that it looked in a long time >> because certified staff vacancies is always in the teens and tonight it's in the single digits. I'm going to report out eight, but it's really six because two will be approved in September. So really, we have six vacancies uh for certified staff at this time. And you know, even though it's six, that is a really great number because last year I think it was like 18 21. So I am happy to say six with all of our principles and us coming together hard work. So, we still want to keep working on them, but that's a great number. Six certified staff and if I could really say, one is bilingual, one is the late resignation in science that we had and four
048are special education. >> So, and we did find special education teachers. We did have some new people that we hired to special ed that resigned um right before school started. Otherwise, there would have been two special education teachers that we still needed. So, yes. So, I'm very happy about that. Now, support staff is 11 vacancies, but we have some custodians to hire maintenance and then uh we added uh two prek teacher assistants. And so, we're and then a teacher assistant is on leave. So, it's 11 vacancies, but support staff, we normally can find them. So, I'm sure that number will decrease. So, and then district-wide subs, we filled them um all tonight. So, no more district-wide subs. So, that's great with our vacancies. So, really happy about that. We will be hosting a flu shot
049clinic again. That's going to be October 15th and it'll be here. So, I'll share the information with our staff. Generally, they, you know, are asking me. So, we set it up uh last year when we had it to have it this year October 15th and uh we usually have about anywhere from 40 to 60 staff members that attend. So, that's really great. And then we've already um signed up for Illinois State fall career fair so that we can try to meet and catch some candidates who will be graduating in December. Last year, I think we hired two candidates from Illinois State Fall career fair and one was our former student who is now she'll be teaching at uh Whittier School. She's uh graduated last December, served in a um leave of absence position for us
050and that teacher was also retiring and so now she's a first grade teacher at Whitty. So hopefully we can find some special education candidates or science candidate. if we don't find one before then. So really excited. Any questions? >> Mr. Travis, if my calculation corrected out five in house new, right? Five teachers >> from Berkeley 87. >> Really? It's a little It's a maybe >> out tonight. >> Reported out tonight. Um yeah, four >> four. Anyway, >> great job. >> Jo, I know you have a problem as well. >> Sure do. >> Yeah. >> Great job. >> Nothing like anymore. >> Absolutely. Yeah. We keep we keep seeing them. We keep meeting them. Uh some of them are becoming teachers. Some of your teacher assistants went to school here. They are really excited about both
051campuses. One student told me she went to North Lake and Riley and she was excited. Another one went to Sunnyside MacArthur and they are so excited about what's going on. And then we've met some students who are from MacArthur and they have like this annual MacArthur reunion and I think someone was encouraging them to have it here and you know you should come to the new MacArthur and try to have it here and they was like that's a great idea. So a lot of students coming back but uh the teacher assistants they're going to school to be teachers and I'm like come on and teach. >> Come on. >> Yeah. Very exciting. >> Great job. I see the smile on your face. >> Very excited. >> Okay, let's ship around. >> I've been waiting for
052my opportunity. Um, as Mrs. Zimmerman reported, Tit got funded. So, that's a very big relief. Working on that. Um, is the start. It's going to be on both sides of the district again. It'll be on Tuesday nights at Whittier from 5:30 to 7:30 and it'll be on Wednesday nights at Jefferson from 5 to 7:30 and it's just about fully staffed. I think I only have about three positions left. So, very excited about that. um getting some going to get the BPM up and running and um we have I'm really excited because for the first time since I've been in this role um North Lake has two multilingual specialists so thank you um met with them they're very excited to be a part of our district and we're working on a plan to help our scholars
053with the same partner and across the district so we're up and running Thank you. >> Uh school year is off to a good start. Uh the focus has been just getting all of our students, our teachers, all of our building technology a good place to start the school year. So a lot of running around from school to school overall off a good start. As Dr. So you mentioned goal for connected community. So our new communication tool parent square is what we want to see here. So our principles have done a great job. Our assistant principal sending out some messages to better communicate with our families and I just looked into the system. So about half of our families should say half of our guardians. much more than half of our families install the parent square
054app. It's a super it's a free app. When you do it, you can ring to events. You can choose how to get your communication whether it's on demand or they call it daily digest. So one communication a day. Even if you got 10 communications from your school, you can give one daily diet that's a certain time to help kind of streamline how you want communication. With the app, you could auto translate all the communication to the language of your choice. You could message your teachers and have that one dialogue. So a lot of great features. Um so over half of our guardians have installed the app. We have sent out about 3,500 messages with parents square and that's in about one less than a week of school. Our teachers have and principles have done about
055350 posts. We have uploaded about 400 pictures or videos and about 800 families have interacted with post. So what an interaction means is they appreciated a post, they've RSVP to an event or they commented. So we're only about four days into education. We're you know school this school year and a lot of interaction and reiterate the catalyst for this is build stronger relationship and get your kids and our families hopefully make communication a little easier for our teachers and building the administrators and central office. So I think we're off to a good start but I think a ways to go still to maximize the potential of the school and again strengthen Good job. You're doing a great job. Thank you. Okay, Mr. D. >> So, it's been a been a little bit month for us.
056Um, we are going to be uh hosting the three vehicles uh for sale. We're going to do a seal bid for them. Uh we're going to have that uh begin September 2nd and September 38 for those heels have been plant starting tomorrow. Uh so we're going to need to go on paint those fields throughout the season. Uh be the facilities department transition to a new order platform to be more aligned with the technology department. Uh it's going to you know increase our communication with all staff you know side of things for us. Uh and it's also going to allow staff quicker response times and support us. Uh we're going to be uh transferring a couple of one building to another uh here in the next month or so. Um and then we have been working
057on a uh pretty big, you know, potential light energy savings project. I know that uh sorry that mentioned it. Um but basically for uh at Jefferson here building uh there's an opportunity for us to replace all the current light fixtures with LED fixtures. Um so it's going to be uh much more energy efficient for us. Um is also offering some pretty aggressive uh rebates incentives for us. Um just some you know quick rough numbers for us. Basically uh Woody Air Jefferson would cost the same you know pre- rebate uh and each of those buildings would have been $109,000 each for replaceers and then here the admin was going to be around 38,000. So that whole project would have been $256,000 with the energy rebates from COMED. Um roughly uh Jefferson and Whittier, those rebates total
058in the amount of $70,000 per building. So it would bring that project cost from 190,000 down to about $390,000 and then here drop the price from about 38 to 14. Um and then also there's a school maintenance project grant um available. So we're going to apply for that. It's a a 5050 you know matching funds grant um which could drop the overall cost of the project to uh $46,000 to do all the lighting across those three uh buildings. Um, so it'll go from, you know, $256,000 project to 46. That's a pretty big, you know, savings for us. Um, and then it would save roughly, uh, you know, $450,000 hours per year. Um, and then we would actually see our investment back in around a year, maybe a little less savings. Um, so after roughly, you
059know, five years or so, uh, we'd save about $275,000. Um, and then after 10 years about 550,000. Um, so it's like roughly $55,000 savings through a year that we could start, you know, taking advantage of. So That's all that's that's all I got for you guys. >> Well, that's we appreciate that. You are really hit the ground running. Thank you. You're taking out model series. >> Get the ground running. >> All right. Thanks, J. Anything else? >> All right. Moving right along. Dr. >> Um, so Mr. Char said, we do still have some openings. Um, we do have open So for a fuller nurse uh position, we have seen an increase this year in the number of students that have um medical needs um especially diabetes. Um but our nurses are prepared for that. We
060do now have applications as platforms that the nurses and teachers use for students with different types of needs. But working together with nurse team that decision so that children are taking care of especially in the needs that we have now. Um and for preschool um as we were with that grant able to have additional assistance um the schools and those classrooms got to be welcoming for all of our children and all their needs supporting that position. And then we have um some students um Bento I know some of you in this area are aware that some houses are flooded. Um but after kind of getting our students enrolled, we learned uh this last week that we have several families that have impacted by flooding and they have been displaced. They're working either with community resources
061or just other families or whatever. Um so we're just working together especially um to work on that. We haven't seen something to that degree. We had maybe a family that's displaced with the fires, but now we have several families that were connected by this once. We're just kind of coming together to pull together other resources for several impact people and like everyone was saying, working together on being fiscally responsible with our budgets and We worked um last year with um our consultant group who looked into our programming and also looked into our finances and um I met with bringing in Dr. and I to kind of summarize some of their findings and then we're going to be meeting again to pull those together to share those with you and then talk about some next steps
062and looking at more financial things that we looking at program special >> any safety concerns you see >> so safety wise it's been u I will say the bash was absolutely wonderful um that's why you have in front of you some safety we were able to work with our nurses. Miss Zimmerman was um taking over at the north side and I alter the south side. We wanted to make sure our families understood all the things we were doing for safety, understand our threat assessments, understand the training we're doing for our teachers and then the materials that we're doing for our children. And the parents loved it. Fact, they wanted to take the books that I for the teachers um because I wanted to show them the books we use and the stories we read and
063the puzzles and the games. they wanted to teach them. Um, but that's right. They wanted to know like how are we teaching our children to be safe? We showed them some of the supplies that we have in the classrooms and the materials that we're using and they were just very very you know had a lot of great questions and very interested in that topic. So that was just wonderful experience and the nurses then were also talking about safety and health and we're able to share with them little things here and keep them safe at home. So you guys have one in front of you. >> Any questions pretty much feedback on safety? Uh we had a really great first. Uh we had our fire drill ride on Friday went really well. Uh we're gonna um
064do our Alice drill this Friday. So two drills right away right off the bat. Um I want to commend I know uh we had a lot of new staffing talk about howospitable was their new teacher organization. Uh the food was just amazing. We had institute day and the food service just you could not even like a fivestar restaurant. It was just amazing. Uh they had cutting stations and you know it was it was great. Um and then I want to thank um Mrs. Mo you were there you were there at our back to school batch. It was really just well done. Gave out 200 backpacks to our scholars and all kinds of goodies this year. Um just excited about the new stat some fresh energy that we wanted for excited about that. And then um
065soccer triyouts as well. >> And then game um soccer triyouts for eighth grade tomorrow are at um 3:15 until 4:30. And then our first game uh is going to be on September 12 right here at Carlo. So they'll be hosting home games both and district. >> What time? >> Tomorrow. >> No, no, no. Uh September 12th. >> September 12th. Uh this first game start at 4:30. followed by the varsity fire department >> factory facilities. Did we have any rain heavy rain we had a couple weeks ago last week? Did anything hit back up north? >> Uh no, some of the remediation efforts put in over there working. Secretary, David, I mean, you guys have done a really good job. Thank you. I'm trying to open the schools online. The food that I don't question. Oh,
066yeah. Any other new business? No new business. So announcements board meetingmber 22. Thank you. >> I will not be here next month. >> Just letting everybody know. >> Will you get phone contact? If I can do anything while you follow. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Get a motion to adjourn. >> SO Mr. Ch. >> Roll call, please. >> I >> Jackson. >> Mason. >> Hi. >> Our Walker I motion carries. >> Thanks everyone. have a safe safe and bless day next week, right? >> Yes. >> Say Labor Day as well. Thank you, sir. You