001All right, we're hot. [snorts] I love [snorts] this. Is there [snorts] a little bit? I have a marking I use on my work laptop. Yeah. All right. 7 o'clock. I'd like to call the meeting to order. Would you please rise for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Kelly, would [snorts] you call the role? Michael here. Christian here. Beth Marie Evans here. Alex here. Paul Ry here. Ros Jr. here. Alan presum. As a reminder, our board governs by policy aligned with state law. These policies are not just guidelines. They are legal and ethical obligations that ensure transparency, accountability, and consistent leadership. When policies no longer meet the
002district's needs, it's our responsibility to amend them within the bounds of the law to better serve our community. The board acts only as a whole in duly convened public meetings with a core present. Outside of this structure, no individual member has authority. Adherence to policy protects the district from risk and ensures that all decisions are fair, lawful, and aligned with our strategic goals. Our mission is to empower all learners to succeed in their world. Our vision is to provide an ideal learning experience where students and staff are engaged and want to come back the next day. Our board policies and actions should reflect that mission and vision. This time, like to take a moment for student and staff recognition. Thank you. Uh we are going to start with student recognition first. Um and two students
003that we'd like to recognize are Caleb Fruit and Evelyn Irwin. Caleb could not be here. Uh but Evelyn is able to be here and you can stand. Yeah. Uh whatever you're comfortable with, but I'm going to talk about you. So now everyone's watching. Um Caleb and Evelyn are both students from Sycamore High School. So we'd like to congratulate uh Sycamore High School math team on winning the I8 math contest. This is the 15th year in a row that our math team has won the conference championship, albeit multiple different conferences, but um several of the same teams. So, this is an amazing accomplishment uh for the district, for the math team, um the high school, uh Jason Kavanaaugh and his math program, but really the math program throughout um all the levels. Um, so we won
004every individual competition this year, but tonight we wanted to recognize both Caleb and Evelyn. Uh, what stands them uh kind of out from the rest is uh they earned perfect scores um in this competition. Uh so pretty pretty amazing work. So please join me in celebrating uh both Caleb and Evelyn, but especially Evelyn. [applause] Uh now for staff recognition. Um we would like to recognize uh Miss Lauren Peekham who's a second grade teacher at Southeast Elementary. Uh Lauren has a whole crew here tonight which is amazing. Um, I am going to read uh the recognition note I got from um from the nominating person as well as something I received from another parent um that she doesn't know I received. So, just to let the people above her know kind of um the great things
005that are going on. So, it's always I think Michael was on that as well. It's always fantastic when we can get those um emails. So, first from the parent denominated, I cannot say enough wonderful things about Mrs. Peekom. Wow. She has seriously presented second grade with joy, excitement, and care. Her ability to make the classroom fun and a place of growth is obvious through the daily photos and videos that parents receive. I feel so blessed our son has her this year and feel confident that he will make great prog progress while also having a blast. Um, and then the email I received that she's not aware of yet. Mrs. Beckham has an incredible ability to recognize students for who they are and tailor her approach to meet their needs. Her approach is thoughtful, patient, and
006respectful of each child's individual needs. We have been especially impressed by how she ensures her students feel capable, supported, and included regardless of their starting point or struggles. This encouragement and teaching style has allowed our daughter to feel more confident in herself as a learner and be happy to attend school for the first time. Pretty powerful. Mrs. Beckham has created an environment where the students feel safe to try, make mistakes and grow. She is truly an asset to your school district and a wonderful example of excellent teaching. Um I will just add in uh I have also experienced this as a parent in the district um as my uh son loves your class as well. So um please join me in recognizing and celebrating Miss Lauren Pepper. [applause] All right, our uh next item on
007the agenda is our consent agenda. All right, the first item on the agenda uh and I'll read through these, but our recommended action is a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented, items 4.01 through 4.20. Those items include minutes of the special meeting December 15, 2025. Minutes of executive session December 15, 2025. Minutes of the regular meeting December 16, 2025. Minutes of executive session December 16th, 2025. Minutes of the special meeting, uh, December 19th, 2025. Minutes of executive session, December 19th, 2025. Minutes of the special meeting, January 9th, 2026. Minutes of executive session, January 9th, 2026. Minutes of special meeting January 12th, 2026. Minutes of executive session January 12th, 2026. Minutes of the special meeting January 20th, 2026. Minutes of the executive session January 20th, 2026. Bills payable, financial reports, non-rine contracts, and purchases
008in excess of 35,000. contracts and purchases subject to the state law bidding procedure personnel report uh including resignations, retirements, terminations, leaves of absence and employment gifts and donations report. Land cash audit semiannual review of executive session minutes July 2025 through December 2025 destruction of closed meeting audio recordings from February 24th February 2024 through June 2024. The I'll restate the motion uh to approve consent agendas consent agenda as presented items 4.01 01 through 4.20. So moved. Second. All right. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing no discussion. Kelly, would you call the role? Yes. Hi. Russell, I. Sant. Yes. CP. Yes. Evans? Yes. Motion carried. The next item on the agenda is the NIA consent agenda. There's a mo I'll be soliciting a motion to approve the NIA consent agenda as presented. Items 5.01 01 through 5.04,
009including NIA treasures report, NIA bills payable, NIA personnel report, and NIA contract vendor agreement report. Is there a motion to approve the NIA consent agenda as presented? Items 5.01 through 5.04. So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Kelly, would you I'm sorry. Is there any discussion? Seeing no discussion, Kelly, would you call the RO? Hi. Russell uh Zu yes Evans yes Dito yes motion car all right next item on the agenda is audience to visitors good evening and welcome to the regular meeting of the Sycamore community unit school district 427 board of education guided by our board policy 2230 and the Illinois open meetings act this is a business meeting held in public of us seated here are your neighbors volunteers entrusted by you to care for our schools and We're truly grateful you've chosen to
010spend a portion of your evening with us. To balance participation with the board's predetermined agenda, we've reserved up to 30 minutes for public comment. Here, each speaker is kindly asked to limit remarks to three minutes. Unused time may not be transferred to another person. Any extension requires a majority vote of the board. When you're recognized, please approach the podium. State your name. Share your thoughts. The board will listen without debate this evening. Questions or concerns when called for will be rooted through the appropriate administrative channels for followup consistent with our chain of command procedures. If you'd like to speak, please raise your hand, wait to be called. Thank you for lending your voice and helping us model effective self-government for our students. Would anyone like to address the board at this time? Mr. Please, can
011you please state your name and at uh state your name? My name is Ron Milner and I live at 2439 Dustin Drive in Sycamore. I'm an 18year resident of this town. My family loves living here and um what brings me out tonight on this cold night something very serious as a homeowner. Um, I pay my property taxes every year and my property taxes average about $9,700, which to me is obscene. Now, 16 years ago, I got this in the mail that's put out by this district. It's called the torch. And it's literally what they're doing to my my equity in my home. It's being torched. So, I made this up in 2016. The vast majority of our budget is for payroll and benefits. 77% of the budget back in 2016. 23% went to operations. The
012total budget was $45 million at the time for one high school, one middle school, and five elementary schools. And I thought that was a lot. Flash forward to this year, 2026. The budget now is $72 million. Million. And again, the vast majority goes to salaries and benefits. 56 million. And that money once it's gone, it's gone. I can spend my money a lot better than any school district. And I have. And I think that this needs to be addressed because this is happening all over the state. People are leaving Chicago. I think we lost 83,000 citizens in the state of Illinois and 50% say they would leave today if they could. So I would ask the board to look for different avenues of revenue to help these taxpayers because I have a neighbor who's 80
013years old and I hate seeing my neighbor get out there in the snow shoveling things and [clears throat] paying these high taxes. Taxes are killing us. we get nothing in return for it. And um I'm I'm gonna address this situation over and over again. And I have to say this, next month is Black History Month, and we're going to have a nice conversation about that. And I'm going to be as fairminded as I can, but um that needs to be addressed as well because when I look at what's going on in the school district, it's pretty disturbing. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you. All right. Is there anyone else in the audience who'd like to address the board at this time? Seeing no one else, we'll move on to the next item
014on the agenda, the superintendent reports. Got a couple of reports, triple, I'm sorry, three reports here. Um, a lot of detail. Thank Thanks, Nick, for putting these together with your team. Really appreciate it. any questions or comments on any or all of the reports? Um, I did appreciate the the program that they're seeking after for the developmentally disabled people to be able to work. So, that was in um I don't have the report pulled up right now. That was in Meg Thurman's report. I forget the acronym, but that looks like a really positive thing. Me go down to comments on the reports. I mean, I I love the special education. I love the early childhood report. Um I like how they went through and um gave a shout out to each class, each classroom and
015what they're doing there. Um it's incredible. And then also the u the shout out for um I hope I'm not butchering this, Mrs. Yaki and Mrs. Horton. Incredible work that they're doing as well. You know, we meet quite a bit as an LTC committee, learning and teaching committee, talking a lot about the academic uh progress that we've made K through 12. We don't always talk about early education. So, that was really nice to see those numbers there. Really excelling. Uh a little bit of a growing population, which is wonderful. Lots of really good momentum there. It's really happy to see that and something that I think we'll we'll keep in mind as we work towards on the LTC side just kind of keeping that in mind as well because I think we don't always focus
016as much in that area as well. Really good to see. I'll just make one comment too. Really a lot of detail here. Great reporting. really appreciate uh the insight into some of the departmental uh budgetary pieces laid out at least what's forthcoming for uh it looked like student services and then I I also noticed with the communication report I really like the uh um schoolboard 101 and I I noticed I saw the picture on Facebook too and they all look so serious. I was like okay that's the that's the perception is it's really serious and as you've all gathered we're just a really fun group here. It's just there's a lot of like jubilee in the air and so [snorts] um anyway so [cough] I'm excited to see what that looks like. It was a
017it was a lot of fun when they were in here um shooting that video and um not really knowing what a school board is but trying to figure it out and working together. So that was a lot of fun to have them kind of at the end of the school day. They all came in so we got to visit with them. They start walking in and tweet then we're cut it off. It's too much. That's right. All right. We also talked a little bit about the communications group in the past and kind of the overall overarching strategy and I [snorts] really like the the little Spartans promo video because I think that's that's a really great use of the the committee or the uh department and really showcasing what we're trying to do and how
018we operate. I thought that was that was really nice to see. Hadn't seen that before. Yeah, [snorts] I did find the program I was referring to so I can be a little more it's an educational program that would work collaborately with the Institute of Community of Integrations Think College and that that would be a workforce to help those that have developmental disabilities be able to find jobs. And so I appreciated the information about that because that is important. Any other comments on superintendent reports? Nick, I did I thought you did great in that video, but you were really outshined by that student you were with [laughter] Lydia. Oh gosh. Yeah, Olive was something else. Thank you. Y was a superstar. So board reports uh foyer report. There were some foyers. Looks like We responded to
019a few. [clears throat] Just a few. Yeah. Uh let's see. And then [clears throat] on to board district non-d district reports. Uh learning and teaching. We had a learning and teaching committee meeting last Tuesday the 20th. Really fruitful. Mike Rice and his team uh provided a lot of insight on a few areas. Um you can see the over the overview in the I guess the overview document. Uh the minutes will come out at the next LTC meeting and they're voted upon and approved. Main highlights as you may have seen uh zero hours Spanish for middle school was a discussion topic. There is a recommended action we'll see down below. There was a lot of discussion related to the pilot program for ELA specifically on K through uh yeah K through five. I was missing up
020the grades all night that night. Uh K through five, but some additional conversations uh 6 through 12. um no recommended action, but you will see that there's a first reading of the K through5 pilot and Mike Mike [clears throat] Rice will probably talk a little bit about to that. And then also we had um a real brief discussion related to um some dashboard discussions that Mike's been working on the team. Um really good progress, but more to come there as well. And I do see it looks like uh there's two recommended actions at the bottom of that report for the board's review. So yes, correct. And then we will have a follow-up meeting on February 10th. Nice. Sounds like we're staying the course though. Lots of good discussion. Yeah, I'm sure Mike can will speak
021more to that, but yeah, it was it was moving in a positive direction. I think let's wait till we get to the first reading. Yeah. Thanks for putting this together. My pleasure. Thank you, too, for your work. Appreciate it. Uh, all right. Okay. Business services. Any updates? I know there hasn't been a meeting. So, yeah, no update at this time. Policy committee updates. No update. Parent teacher advisory update? No updates. We weren't in the torch, but posted uh board goals progress. Um I believe it's posted on the board goals update. Nick, anything to add from that? Looks like we're progressing. Good stuff. All right. And there's no Spartan Senate update. I don't think I saw one. They didn't meet. Okay. All right. CF will be having grant night on February 23rd. So, I plan to
022be at that meeting and then hopefully can bring a report back regarding that and what they have going on for fundraisers and the likes. And I was able to be at SCF last night. I know I know you couldn't make it. So, so one one big update or just event coming up is February 20th. um is the trivia night. Um unfortunately it's really hard to find like an open night this this time of year. So um North Grove I think that's funf fair night and then Southeast is uh talent show night. Um so a couple conflicting events but um still it's hard to find and that's a great event trivia um at the regal center again. So I heard the people officiating that are a little touch and go. I don't know who makes those
023trivia questions. Gosh. That's right. Yeah. [clears throat] Not me this year. Oh, it's not. See, it was too hard to [laughter] someone with these ear questions. Um, do you have a time for that? What time that will be? Um, so doors open at 6, event starts at 7. Um, and then probably wrap up around 900 9:30. Okay. All right. Any other updates from board reports, comments? No. Okay. Old business. Our second time looking at the calendar, district calendar, second reading. Um, at this time, I'm going to solicit a motion. Is there a motion to approve the district calendar on second reading as proposed? So moved. Grados. Second. Moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Just to make everyone aware, all the meetings are starting at six. Am I correct? Oh, sorry. This is for the
024district calendar. Oh, the district calendar. Okay. Oh, good. Good clarifier. The only main change to the I think we talked about this on first reading, but really the only main change is that the early dismissals or there's no longer any two-hour out. They're all half days. Yes. Everything else is pretty much in line as Yeah. Yep. same number of those overall um of early dismissal, but then instead of having multiple dismissal times, trying to get it down to it's either a full day or a half day, not also a two-hour early dismissal, you know, for parents. Hopefully it helps. Great. Any other discussion? Motion. There's a second. Uh all in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. First item of new business for action is the approval of the superintendent employment contract. I'm going to solicit a
025motion to approve the superintendent employment contract as proposed. So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? I'm really excited to welcome hopefully our music. Great discussion. Yeah. Just take a minute if that's okay. please um to there's hopefully a lot of people watching at home, a lot of people here. I really appreciate that. Um this process kicked off a couple of months ago. Uh we engaged with the consultant. They helped us do a lot of workshops to get a lot of stakeholder feedback, eight or 10 something like that. And we got a lot of feedback. We had a lot of really good candidates. Um the slate they brought us was really impressive. We had a round of interviews, narrowed it down, and then we got more stakeholders back in. they did some interviews
026in front of our candidates or candidates did some interviews in front of them rather. Um, and the person that I assume we're going to go with, you know, that I would and and really like uh the stakeholders really gave her excellent marks and um I'm just really happy with the process, really excited. I love this town. I'm a homeowner. I'm a father. My son's going to go to these schools and I just think this is such an exciting moment for us. Any other comments, discussion? It's been a long journey, but I think we're we're happy where we landed. We're excited to have you, Kristen, and it we appreciate or I appreciate the board's collaboration on this. I know it's been a lot of time, a lot of work, a lot of time away from home
027um to get us here, but I think in the long run, we've um we've accomplished great things. I want to just echo that sentiment. Um, this process, uh, from start to finish, we wanted to engage the community building out that leadership profile. I think the board, um, this is, this is the most important decision that a board of education can make for students and for stakeholders. And we didn't take this lightly. Um, I am beyond excited with the direction that this district is going. Um, and I'm so happy with the way that we went through this process and and where we landed. So, um, I just want to reiterate the sentiment of of my fellow board members and saying that we're very excited to cast this vote. So, um, any other discussion comments before we
028call a vote? The only thing I'll add, so echo all that very much. So, we also have a very dedicated staff who filled a gap that we had for a long period of time and I want to recognize everyone and looking forward to you all working together and meeting each other. Thank you, Alan. That's very good. Yes. Thank you, Nick. Especially Nick. I want to just thank Nick because Nick really stand stood in the gap. I can't think of any better way to put it. I appreciate that for the district and we appreciate enough about me. Let's make this about someone else right now. I appreciate I appreciate it though. This is not my night. Kelly, uh, would you call the role? Yes. Evans, yes. Grados, yes. Hi. Yes. Motion carried. Welcome. Congratulations. [applause] [applause]
029the basket. Absolutely. A little swag for you that might have. So, got a welcome basket for you. Yes. Yes. Welcome. Welcome. And thank you. That's very sweet. So excited for this opportunity to uh be here and meet you all uh and be part of your community. I look forward to future conversations. Thank you so much for this opportunity to uh lead your district and I look forward to uh future conversations. So, thank you so much for being here and for the support this evening. This means a lot. [applause] [sighs] [laughter] Dr. Kristen Campbell. Uh there uh there'll be a formal statement issued. Yeah. All right. The next item on the agenda is the revised board meeting calendar. So before I host a motion on this, just some comments on the dates. Let's see how seven
030people can coordinate schedules. So just give a little um context with our uh transition as we're looking at a March 1 start date for our new superintendent. uh our board is looking to adjust accordingly so that way we can maximize that new time and create the most possible opportunity [cough] uh for advisement uh and for action. And so the proposed calendar restructuring um I think accounts for that. Um so just that I know you guys have had an opportunity to review this. Hopefully check your calendars. Um, I understand there's some shifts, uh, and then some of this just goes out further into April of 2027. Also notable is the proposed meeting time change to 6:00 p.m. instead of 700 p.m. You know, an idea. So, comments on it. Makes sense to me to move things,
031especially since we're going to have a March 1 start date, which I think is excellent. So yeah, we want to push out a little bit so that we can get rolling as a team. Dates all look good for everybody. Yeah. The only comment I would make is just an addition really February 10th. Um an LTC meeting would be scheduled. LTC February 10th. Yeah. Okay. I guess six o'clock. Anybody opposed to that? February 10th LTC. Does that work? Okay, we'll add it on. All right. Any other discussion? No. Well, we need to approve the bill sort of preemptively because we're meeting later in we're meeting at a different time in March. We're meeting earlier in the month. So, I don't know if we'll need to give Nicole the authorization to like approve them with some parameters
032or if we'll be okay because typically we approve the bills for the month we're in at during that month. Right. This tonight we approved what? January's bills. And since we're not meeting till March 3rd, will that be enough time or should we do something about that? March 3rd will be fine. I'm just worried about waiting again until um April 28th to pay bills. That might be a little long. um yeah for lenders to get their payment. So I would suggest we add something on the March 3rd that we preemptively authorize some payment of the bills the 28th if needed. Could the March 31st workshop include because that would be a board workshop board bills on that? Yeah. Would that work, Alex? Yeah. I just have to become a special meeting instead of a workshop only.
033We just have to put that on the agenda. Yep. All right. Great. I think one thing just to have on on our radar, too, is that BSLTC, there's going to be a lot of personnel discussions and um any recommendations that come out of that. Uh it would be nice if maybe we could add that to the workshop, too, versus waiting until April 28th for board action and then or board approval and then starting to post potential new positions, you know, at the end of April, early May for the following year. that really sets us back um from a competitive market standpoint. I guess 31st, but that would be ailarated if we add it to the agenda for March 31st. You're saying just a personnel report, right? Well, any like potential recommendations from the BSLTC personnel
034report I'm not as concerned about. Just like if any added positions are recommended to the board and we're waiting for the board to approve that coming out of BS BSLTC um combination meeting, then it would be nice to get the board um approval on March 31st versus April 28th just to get positions posted if that's the case. Yeah. A lot of hypotheticals, I know. But do you think it would take like will we have enough time to do a workshop then too if we do those two things? I I don't imagine board bills will take more than they're just consent. Yeah, they're just consent. It's just like if it goes through the BSC LTC and that's Cole's recommendation or the group's recommendation to the board and the board's good with it. Yeah, great. Shouldn't take
035So timing wise, it shouldn't be an issue. I wouldn't think so unless there's a lot of questions, but we could hopefully do that. So then what we'll do is we'll move workshop over to the regular board meeting category and just it'll be a regular board meeting but it's going to just have those two agenda items and we'll do a workshop. So is that work? Okay. Um all right. So, having included those revisions, um, is there a motion to approve the revised board meeting calendar, uh, incorporating a February 10th LTC focused topic meeting and the other I think is just already I don't think we need to amend the we're we're switching the workshop to a regular meeting. Oh, okay. So, then and to switch the workshop to a regular meeting. So, is there is there
036a motion for that? Do we have a motion? So, move. Second. Moved and second. Kelly, you got that? Um, actually, if I could have you repeat that. I Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So, uh motion I'll restate to incorporate Well, it would be to approve the 2026 to 2027 district calendar. Is it? So it started with a motion to approve the revised board meeting calendar to include the February 10th LTC subcommittee meeting and to make March 31st I'm sorry to include a March 31st regular board meeting. [snorts] Got it. Okay, got a motion. Is there a second? Yes, I see. Got a second. Any discussion? Does that Does that work for you guys? That's That's maybe I'll come. Yeah. Okay. Just want to make sure we're on the same page. Yeah. Good. Any other discussion? So,
037cadence wise, I see that looking like two meetings. So, regular board meeting followed by a workshop, just for the record. So, it'll sit twice. And Kelly, I'll send you a revised document to reflect that. But that will be the same day. Same day. Okay. Starting at 6. Okay. All right. Motion second. We had discussion. Any other discussion? No other discussion? All right. Uh, all in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Motion passes. Uh, next item on the agenda is the approval of middle school zero hour Spanish uh section. Uh the LTC recommended action uh was to approve the middle school zero hour Spanish proposal as presented with the included rationale. Um is there a motion to approve the middle school zero hour Spanish proposal as presented? So moved. Second. Seconded. Any discussion? Does Mike have
038anything? Mike, do you have anything to add or share? Questions. I think it's a great idea. Don't want to take up too much time. No, the memo looks good. Park and Justin and their team work really hard on it. I think it's awesome to give that opportunity to our middle school students we can kind of get them started the better and just being able to kind of listen to them and offer those things is a great direction to move. So, I'm all in favor of it as well. [clears throat] Great. I'll just add that during the discussion there was a it sound like there was a lot of student interest in it from the eighth graders um and and good teacher input from both the middle school and high school from a coordination perspective. All
039right, any other discussion? Seeing no further discussion, Kelly, would you call the role? Sam, yes. C. Yes. Russell, yes. Motion carries. All right. Next item on the agenda is the elementary K5 ELA resource adoption amplify CKLA third edition first reading. No actions being requested at this time. This is just information for first reading for your viewing pleasure. Saw a lot of detail here. Thank you so much for putting that all together. I know a lot went into that. um not looking to facilitate a huge conversation because I know we've been going into some granularity on this at the subcommittee level and it's uh there's been some detail uh produced from the L&T presentations uh and the memo from the LTC subcommittee. Uh so a lot of information there for public consumption but any questions on
040the information as you're seeing it? All right, good stuff. first question. I just want to just real quick one. Um, so we do have the uh quotation for the K through five. We didn't have a chance to review that at the LTC yet. Um, but I think Nicole, that that's in the forecast files that we've been working off of. Okay. So, that's that's not a new expenses. It's already worked through. Great. I guess I'll just add um I don't have any questions now, but I I'm meeting with Mike to take a look at the program. Um I was just curious how it is. It's it's up for public inspection right now. So, if anyone in the community wants to come take a look at it pursuant I can't think of the board policy number, but
041there's a board policy where um there has to be a 30-day window for anyone in the community to inspect um new curricula before they're adopted. And I I'm I'd be happy to do that. I What day did we set? Is it this Friday? Friday. [snorts] This Friday. I'm sorry. This upcoming Friday. Yeah. So, if anyone else Well, I guess one other board member is interested, you're welcome to come. [clears throat and cough] All right. Yeah. 6210. And I will speak a little bit if it's okay just on this part. Um, the reason why this is kind of in front of you as a first reading, it's really just to make sure you had an opportunity to review it. Um, this team and I have to give to Henry Sheen and Raleigh Tucker who led it.
042me for that memo, but they've they're light years ahead of me and we are so great I'm so grateful for them. So, they've done so much in the sport, but through their leadership, our team was actually ready to kind of vote a little earlier than we had expected because we have an upcoming full day professional development day in February. We really wanted to kind of just put this in front of you and make sure there weren't any major concerns so we could really use that time effectively. Um, not asking for like, oh yeah, we're going to vote yes or anything, but just that's why we wanted to bring it forward a little bit ahead of time. Um, so we could plan that out and just kind of know, okay, we're we're heading in the right
043direction. Um, it's been a lot of work. It's going to be a lot of work still moving on. It's a huge paradigm shift, especially for our K5 teachers to move from from a balanced literacy approach to structure. Um, you'll see in the documents that you have kind of a lot of the support that we have planned. There'll be even more. So, if you do have a chance to review those and you have questions, definitely reach out to me or the next board meeting or Andrea or Molly, I'm sure, would be happy to work with you as well. But just thanks for letting us bring it ahead of schedule. On paper, it does look costly, but I guess I'll reserve Yeah. any judgment until I actually get to see it, see what we're getting and then
044I can but I do I guess I should as one board member I do have a bit of concern about the cost of the curriculum by having it on first reading. We have our next LTC meeting. [cough] I guess I keep pitching that one but at February 10th we're going to review the K through five potentially more as well as 6 through 12. So, one of the intentions, one of the things that we talked about, Mike and I, was putting that for first reading for everyone to have a chance to review it, get a get a chance to see and look, and if you have any additional questions, I'm sure there'll be a lot more thorough discussion, in-depth discussion then. But if those come forth, if you want to send those to me or to
045Mike, we can make sure that those get covered or please attend to anyone obviously. Um, we can have some more discussion and learn a lot more about all the hard work that's been done. And this work, this started in 2023. even before that there's been so much pre-work that went into it committee work and then it's been going on for quite some time. So this would be year three of this being in motion. So um okay any other comments? Okie do. We'll move on to the next item on the agenda. Approval of the updated superintendent evaluation protocol document. So, uh, at this time, I'll solicit a motion for the approval of the updated superintendent evaluation protocol. [snorts] So, moved. Seconded. Moved and seconded. Any discussion. Alan, do you want I can take it. Sure. Go
046right ahead. Okay. Um, so this came from Alan and I. sort of a quasi committee, I guess, that we've been reviewing the superintendent evaluation protocol and instrument um last year and then this year. This this will be the first time we've actually adopted it. There were just a couple tweaks that we suggested the board um make. The main tweak is having the board's having the board evaluate the superintendent's adherence to the essential duties and responsibilities outlined in their um job description. That was something that legal and board policy suggests we should do. So that's that's why that's there. That's that's about all I have. Do you have anything to add, Alan? Yeah. No, I mean it it's not a lot of change. Format and structure is still the same. It's just just adding a a
047small section to it, but pretty straightforward and and things that make a lot of sense to to have on the on on the reviews section. It was last approved actually March 18th, I think, of 2025 public. Yeah. So, we have a we have the process set that we review each each on an annual annual basis, right? So, this is just in that cycle [clears throat] just continuous improvement if you will on an annual basis. Great. Doing what we said we were going to do. Any other discussion? No. Okay. Seeing no discussion, uh, all in favor? Any opposed? All right. We're at the end of our regular agenda. Uh, this time we will, uh, go into executive session. Is there a motion? I move to adjourn the close session for the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance,
048or dismissal of specific employees. Um, if specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park, recreational, [snorts] or educational setting or specific volunteers of the public body or legal council for the public body, including hearing testimony on complaint lodged against an employee, a specific individual who serves as an independent contractor in a park, recreational, or educational setting, or volunteer of the public body, or against legal counsel for the public public body to determine its validity. Collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employee or the representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees and litigation when an action against affecting honor behalf of the public body has been filed and is pending before a court pursuant to 5CS 122 C1 2 and 11. There's a motion. Is there
049a second? Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Kelly, would you call the role? Hi. Russell, yes. Evans, [snorts] yes. Bye.