Board of Education Meeting: September 23, 2025.

001Call the meeting to order. Please rise. Today we're going to uh recognize a Sycamore Spartan who will be leading us in the pledge. [Music] United States of America. and to the for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you Mrs. Bali. Yeah, that was really cute idea. So thanks guys. Um Kelly, would you call the role? Michael Devito here. Christian Coppel here. Beth Marie Evans here. Alex Grados here. Paul Regary here. Heather Tomlinson here. Alan Santu present. Former is present. As a reminder, our board governs by policy aligned with state law. Our policies are not just guidelines. They're legal and ethical obligations that ensure transparency, accountability, and consistent leadership. When policies no longer meet the needs of the district, it's our responsibility to amend them within the bounds

002of the law to better serve our community. We're going to go to item 3.01, student and staff recognition. So, we've got with us in the audience uh several members of the uh district team uh who we'd like to recognize. So, I want to start with um financial excellence and the association of school business officials. So, with us here, we've got uh the business office staff, Ally Bag, Michelle Knox, uh Kathy Meings, Lorie Stover, Rachel Patton, and Nicole Stucker. Uh the Association of School Business Officials International or ASBO uh announces or announced that the Sycamore School District had been awarded the prestigious certificate of excellence in financial reporting. This honor recognizes school districts that uphold the highest standard of financial reporting and transparency. The school district earned the certificate of excellence for its exemplary annual comprehensive

003annual financial report or ACFR for the fiscal year ending in June 30th, 2024. For over a half a century, ASBO's International Certificate of Excellence in Financial Reporting has been the gold standard for promoting and recognizing excellence in financial transparency. Clear and accurate financial reporting is crucial for engaging school communities and building their trust. Districts that earn the COE have demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to these principles. Participation in the COE program highlights a school district's dedication to financial accountability and Sycamore has participated and been awarded the COE for over 20 years. Submitted ACFRS are rigor rigorously reviewed by a panel of experienced financial professionals who provide constructive feedback to further enhance the quality of future reports. Districts that meet the program's stringent requirements are awarded the certificate of excellence, a distinction that supports bond writing and

004continued bond disclosure processes. Let's give a big round of applause to our business office. [Applause] Also here with us today, we've got our custodial staff. As we welcome students and staff back for a new school year, it'd be nice to take a moment to recognize and thank the custodial and maintenance staff with us here today. Dne, Marty, Beltricia, Nick, Raphael, Winter, Sebastian, Lori, Heather. We've got here I'm pulling up. Over the summer months, uh, they had worked tirelessly to ensure every building across the district is kept clean, safe, and ready for learning. From deep cleaning classrooms and common areas to making necessary repairs and improvements to setting up spaces for the year ahead, their commitment and hard work have been essential in creating a positive and welcoming environment for our students and staff. We're truly

005grateful for the pride each individual takes in their works and for the dedication to our schools. Because of the effort, we began the school year knowing that our buildings were wellprepared to support teaching and learning. Their behind-the-scenes contribution make a lasting impact on our district every day. Thank you to Scott Wyinners for leading this crew as well. Let's give them a big round of applause. [Applause] Right now, a pencil just fell from the ceiling somewhere as I read this. Right. So, uh, next group we'd like to recognize is our Little Spartans group. So, I am so proud to share that our Little Spartans preschool for All program has been awarded the gold circle of quality by Accelerate Illinois. This is the highest rating in the state and one earned by fewer than 11% of programs.

006Little Spartans currently educates 144 of our youngest learners. This honor reflects the dedication of our staff, excellence in instruction, strong family partnerships, and providing outstanding learning experiences for our community's children. We've got some people in the audience today. Um, I'm not I can't put a face with a name, but I understand if you're part of that little Spartans team, if you wouldn't mind standing or just giving a wave so we can acknowledge your hard work. Thank you. [Applause] Correct. It is. Let's see here. A few other notable uh recognition points I just want to pull up here from our board reports. Tommy Weame selected by the business department as the student of the week. Miss Keka stated Tommy had been dedicated to coding for the past three years and starting back in the middle school

007continues to grow as a creative and thoughtful programmer. So that's from the student and staff recognition at Sycamore High School up here from the middle school. Uh shout out to the uh staff here. It looks like uh SMS had showcased a whole series of um SMS students in a board uh basically of kind acts that they had done. So it was a nice image that was included for a lot of people to see. Um they had a a portrait of a Spartan spotlight uh that Mr. Drenin had been busy calling uh spotlight winners for. Um so big thanks to Mr. Drenin for creating a positive environment uh as well as for Miss Studio who helped uh produce that bulletin. This is everything for our student and staff spotlight. Thank you again to everyone recognized. Really

008appreciate you. Just give another round of applause. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you very much. Thank you for all your hard work. [Music] Thank you for coming. Item four is the consent agenda. Items 4.01 through 4.15. Like to entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Items 4.01 through 4.15 are minutes of the regular meeting of August 26, 2025. Minutes of executive session, August 26, 2025. Bills payable, financial report, personnel report, gifts and donations report, school library grant application, resolution directing the superintendent to prepare the budget, the 2025 administrator and teacher compensation report, the 2025 through 2026 graduation date, requests for early graduation, Illinois high school theater festival field trip, press issue 119 policy updates, waste and recycling bid, and the amendment of director employment contracts for 2025 through 2026. At

009this time, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? Items 4.01 through 4.15. So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Seeing no discussion, Kelly, would you call the role? Sant. Yes. Cppel. Yes. Evans, yes. Grios, yes. Reg? Yes. Tomlinson, yes. Dito, yes. Motion carries. The next item on the agenda is to approve the NIA consent agenda as presented. Items 5.01 through 5.04. I'll entertain a motion to approve the NIA consent agenda as presented. Uh they consist of NIA treasures report, NIA bills payable, NIA personnel report, NIA contractor vendor agreement. At this time, is there a motion to approve the NIA consent agenda as presented items 5.01 through 5.04? So moved. Second. It's been seconded. Any discussion? Seeing no discussion. Kelly, would you call the role? Apple? Yes. Evans? Yes.

010Tom Woodson? Yes. Samu? Yes. Dito? Yes. Carry. The next item on the agenda, item 6.01, public hearing for the fiscical year 26 district 427 budget. The board of education must hold a public hearing for the adoption of the budget. The purpose of this hearing is to take written or verbal testimony from anyone wishing to speak regarding the fiscal year 26 district budget. We now open the public hearing on the fiscical year 26 district 427 budget. Anyone wishing to speak, please come forward. State your name. Limit your remarks to three minutes. These comments are budget, right? We will be having a public comment as well. Okay. shot if uh yeah so these would be specific to the budget particularly but then the public comment will be more general in yes sir would you like to speak

011to the budget if you'd please state your name and uh step up to the podium I'm not I I was wondering I have a formal request would that be after the public comment or uh so would you like to submit written material regarding the budget or is it is not pertain to the budget. Oh, okay. Yep. So, I would say hang out for public comment. That'll be coming right up, of course. Any other comments to address regarding the budget? Any other submission of written materials? Budget. Seeing no further speakers and no written materials submitted, the hearing is now closed. Next item on the agenda is our audience to visitors. Thank you for being here tonight. Guided by board policy 2230 and the Illinois opens meeting open meetings act. This is a business meeting held in

012the public. The seven of us seated here are your neighbors volunteers entrusted by you to care for our schools. We're truly grateful that you've chosen to spend a portion of your evening with us. To balance participation with the board's agenda, we've reserved up to 30 minutes for public comment. Each speaker is kindly asked to limit remarks to three minutes. Unused time may not be transferred to another person. Any extension would require 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 routed through the appropriate administrative channels for follow-up consistent with our chain of command procedures. If you'd like to speak, please raise your hand, wait to be called. Thank you

013for lending your voice and helping us model effective self-government for our students. This time, would anyone like to address the board? If you please step forward and state your name. [Music] Hello board and my fellow citizens. My name is Ron Milner and I have been a resident of Sycamore for 18 years. I live at 2439 Dustin Drive and my wife have lived here for like I said 18 years. Um there are several things I want to address real quickly. First, I was at the superintendent search at the the high school a week or so ago and I learned a lot and I would like the board to look for these qualifications in a superintendent. Number one, Sycamore is kind of like an insular community, meaning that if you haven't lived here for a long time,

014you're not considered part of the community. And I found that out at the meeting last week when I raised these questions and I said, you know, why is the community the way it is? They said, Ron, unless you were born and raised here, you're not considered a true citizen of Sycamore. That hurt. Um, so I would like the new superintendent to address that. The second thing I want the superintendent to do is to create something like what was created in the federal government with the doge team DOE where they go through this district and they whittle out any waste or or inefficiencies because I believe every district I've gone to and I've gone all over the state they have these efficiencies. The last thing I want to address is, and again, I'm kind of like

015the guy who is like the agitator in a washing machine. In order to clean your clothes, that agitators got to move back and forth. It hurts, but it gets the job done. And I looked at the school teachers that we have in this district, and I'm I'm a visualizing person. I have to visualize soon so I can see it. And I want everyone to take a look at this. The white dots represent the white teachers that we have here and the red dots represent the minority teachers. We have maintained a 97% white teacher rate for at least 15 years. Now I'm in the financial markets and I work with index funds and when you put together an index fund of 500 different stocks, you have health care, technology, consumer staples. In order for something like

016this to happen, somebody has to visually look at it and say, "We want these teachers." And I'm a big believer in diversity. When my daughter was a high school student here, she came home on her first day of high school, and she said, "Dad, I met my teachers, my my I'm so excited. I'm going to have so much fun in my senior year." And she said, "Guess what, Dad? I have an a minority teacher, a black teacher." And she said, "This is the first time that I've been in the school system that I've had a black teacher. That tore my heart out because I believe in diversity and I believe that if we don't go out and diverse this community, uh it's only going to get worse because we're not living in a bubble. It's

017a whole world out there. And the last thing I want to say is uh about 5 years ago, I went to a elementary school in Melrose Park and I was called in to read to the young students of three and four year olds. So when I get to the uh elementary school, I go to the principal's office to extend time for public comment. Yeah. just to take it briefly. So when I went there, yes. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? I when I went to the elementary school and I went to the principal's office, uh she called the teacher and said, "Uh, Mr. Miller is here and a young student came to take me to her class and it was a black student." So, as we're walking to her class, the student sees

018her best friend on the other side of the hall and her best friend is Latino. And when they see each other, their eyes locked. They get big smiles on their faces. They rush and they hug each other. That's the world I want to live in because as these kids grow up, we knock that out of them. And that's not a good thing for kids. I believe that kids don't care about color or race or anything. Get the best people. And you don't have to worry about race or color. When my customers deal with me, they know that you know what, I'm only interested in one thing. Making sure my clients make money. That's it. Thank you for the time. I appreciate it. And thank you for listening forward. We appreciate you. Is there anyone else

019from the audience who'd like to address the board at this time? If you please come to the podium and state your name. Uh, hello. My name is Griffin Calibres. I stand before you today with a formal request. I, as well as the mast of 500 of my peers and faculty and staff members, ask that I may walk the stage while dressed as the video game character known as Master Chief is everything I wanted to be when I grew up. He gave me hope. He gave me determination. He is from the video game series known as Halo for those who didn't know. Um, and I believe he represents everything that Sycamore and their Spartan mascot would like to be. He is fearless and resilient. He is selfless and his silent nature and faceless image have made

020him a popular and well-liked character throughout the uh the community that which plays the game. And I believe that my portrayal of the modern-day sparlike mascot could serve to bring the community together and allow the student body to project themselves onto a silent faceless image of resilience, fortitude and strength. I understand the tradition and decorum that is typical of a graduation ceremony and my desire is not to disrupt, disrespect or harm this formal event in any way. Rather, I believe my school with all its amazing, hardworking teachers and students deserves everyone's respect. I hope that my display adds some creative inspiration to the ceremony rather than take away from it. Sycamore High School is full of students who dare to be bold and who are wellpreared for their futures. But there are many students who

021harbor some type of fear or anxiety toward their next steps into the world. This momentous day can be seen as terrifying to many students who haven't fully figured out the next steps, their five-year plan, or even fully understand themselves yet. Sometimes in life, you need someone to prove that being bold isn't a bad thing. And that's why I would like to do this. I see this as a way to inspire my fellow graduates to be bold and if something scares them, you march on to it confidently. I took every step I thought to or believe to be necessary. I've made uh my respect to the principal, vice principal, my dean, several teachers and counselors. Kindly and respectfully, I have questioned them and approached them about this subject. And I rallied half of the student body

022and around 25 stu faculty for my cause. And my request was declined. And I was told the only way I could do this was if the school board of education deemed it possible for me. So I come here today and I ask would you all allow me to do this? Would you accept me? Is there a motion to extend public comment? So moved. Second. Been seconded. All in favor? Go ahead. I ask you all to look inside to the person who inspired you to dream or to hope and to believe. And I ask humbly all of you to allow me to do this and to inspire my peers and all those who come to the ceremony. Thank you very much. Thank you. Have you considered the effect it will have on forces? I'm sorry. What?

023Have you considered the effect it will have on the covenant forces? Yes, I have. I have. I applaud your bravery and uh addressing the board in this manner. So, thank you very much. We'll take your comments under adisement. All righty. Thank you. Have a good one. Is there anyone else who'd like to address the board at this time? Seeing no further comment, we'll move on to the next item of the agenda of superintendent reports. Item 8.01, 1 building and departmental updates administration. You have a report. Yes. So, we had uh CC5 board report, we had uh a report from the middle school, uh report from the high school, and then we had our transportation department report from the district level. Um if there's any questions, I know we have some people in the audience that

024either put those together or part of those teams. Yeah, first of all, thanks everybody. Those reports looked great. Nick, I actually had a question for you. On the EC5 report, they talk about staffing and sub shortages, some other things in the um emerging issues. I don't know if you have any initial thoughts. If you don't, tonight it makes more sense to do some research. I was wondering if you could give the board some advice on steps we could take to support um try to head off some of those future issues with subbing shortages. Yeah. And anyone from that team, jump in if you want. I I think it was specific to non-certified subs. Um which it historically has been more challenging to to find than certified. Um not that we don't have our own challenges

025with certified subs, but um nonert works a little different. It doesn't go through the regional office, so there's not this giant pool. It uh it's in-house. Um so it's just people that we can find. So I know our teams um really try and tap into um parents potentially of their students trying to find those. So um it is a different beast. Um it's hard I and again jump in ne anyone else but I know we've done a pretty good job of uh taking certain individuals kind of growing them into other positions but then that leaves a hole. So we've kind of moved people up um but then have to find subs for those. Um, one thing that we've talked about over the years and we've continued to change it as minimum wage changed is just

026sub rates. So, constantly looking at county rates and just how to be competitive. Um, not sure how much of an impact because it's more of a shortage of people. Um, but it clearly wouldn't hurt necessarily being appealing to people. Just don't know the impact it would have. Other questions or comments on the board reports? I appreciate in the EC5 report that we had our learning and teaching committee which we'll talk about a little later uh last Thursday and I it was good to see that there's some good cross communication and what we talked about learning and teaching committee reflects back in the EC5 report as far as the math curriculum uh going well um but that there's some challenges with time for the ELA uh curriculum and that professional development would be really be key

027for that to be successful which was something that we discussed and looking forward we'll have some more discussions questions at that at some future learning teaching committee meetings. Other comments, questions? Those were great reports. Thank you for putting them together. And a couple of comments. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. No, just one question on the transportation. Um I know we had quite a bit of discussion in the last few meetings that park and board and route. It looks like that was submitted to uh ID do but then rejected, right? those correct those judgment points weren't were not allowed. Um even with them it they it still did not qualify as a I thought that put over the threshold it didn't it it did but ID do still has the final say in that. So

028even though the points total that Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So I had some comments on each of the reports. So I'll just go through and if anybody has anything stop me. Um, so first transportation. Um, wow, it's really nice and detailed. Thank you for all that. Um, good to see the routes are covered. Kids are safe and calm. So nice sentiment there. A great connection to the portrait of a Spartan. I really appreciated that. Um they uh I had an opportunity to stop by the transportation department um just by coincidence uh the other day when I was in the admin building uh with Alex actually for a meeting and uh we're going to be doing um a ride along uh 107 uh so October 7th 6 a.m. place. He said be there. You know, I'm

029going to bring coffee. Uh and so if um that one, I believe Allan I talked to Allan about this. He said he's going to be there. But then there's another time 1:45 to 3 that same day that I'll also be there to see it coming back. Um so if anyone else from the board is interested that time slot so we can keep in mind open meetings act Zach. So if we do just twos um Lacy was kind enough to offer this and she did in this report and then took her up on that offer. Um, but if you guys want to do more of that or have any other insight, I know Heather had an opportunity to go over there, um, maybe a month ago, uh, and just see the operation and so it was

030pretty neat. Lacy did promise I could drive a school bus, so we holding her to that. No. Um, okay. So, just need a license. Yeah. Not on a private uh lot. See, kid. Um, so some some questions I had. Um, and I guess I would just put these out there and maybe it's something that like we could as a board think about. Um, I'm curious with like Traversa, um, when like when do what turns on Traversa and like what hits families later? How does that is there like a gap in the way that that works? I was a little confused on the Traversa programming note. So, that was something I don't know. I think at some point I don't know if anybody could touch on the transition software and in terms of like what that

031workflow looks like for families. Is that something that's a pretty easy transition or So currently right now we use Versa Trans. Um that's that's just on the administrative side. So families don't necessarily see anything on their side now. Um with Trans Versa, it's owned by the same company, Tyler Technologies. So, it'll be a very seamless process on the administrative side. Um, but then there's features that we're able to push out to our families. Um, Lacy would be more wellversed in that, but um, they could they and they can't right now track their students. They can see when they go on and off, right? Um, correct. Yes. Does this new software allow you to like track and route or is that did I read that? I was just doing some Google with Google. Um there were

032maybe some security issues with that aspect of it that we hadn't used um with Versatrans. Um but we did used to have students scan on and off the buses. Um we did stop doing that just because um there were just some things that we were working through um at the time. So we just decided it was probably best to just pause that. Plus, we knew we were going to be transitioning to this different software, the sister software. Um, so that is something that we can talk about um doing again. Right now, you can see what time the bus is actually picking up the kids. You can't specifically see if your kid is scanning on because we don't scan on and scan off. Um, but you can see when the bus is arriving and then when

033the bus is um arriving at the school and then same thing in the afternoon. Okay. Yep. the transfer. So, two other things on this and then I'll skip to the next one. Sorry, I don't want to hold this up too much. Um the I know Lacy had mentioned if and when and I know the reimbursement for routes that are not um when routes don't qualify for ID do reimbursement, it creates a situation where we have to assess if we're going to continue to offer those route routes or not. Um, and I think Lacy addressed the idea of like we should develop some criteria so we can equitably sort of I guess discern which routes offer which we don't. So I'm I guess I'm hopeful that she may have some input on that or an idea

034because I know and I recognize that this grant process is new and I think I applaud her and the transportation department for taking that on. Um, and we certainly shouldn't let that be the sole basis as she had specified. So, I'm I just I guess would just echo her sentiment that I think we should probably as a board have on our radar. Uh, maybe a future agenda item to just hear about what we can do to like equitably decide which routes run and which don't. Um, so that's something to again just think about. I don't know if there's any on future agenda items. I think it it might also be worth exploring um that that new path that is built that's going to be going right by the fire department to South Prairie. Uh regarding

035that route that is impacted by that report from IDAT that we got there is a patch of land that connects I think Georgin to uh a route that is owned by Ideal I believe. Yeah. Who would be ideal? Yeah. I wonder who owns that property. Maybe that would be something that we could look at. Well, and that goes to like Arlo Investments owns the slice of land in between North Grove and Heron Creek. And I know that that's long been like a position. They just hold that tiny little sliver of land for what I assume is prospective sale purposes or something to that effect. But I don't know if there's I don't know what the lift looks like to get like an imminent domain easement to be able to put a path there. um because

036that may be something to but again yeah to your point like that may be a good future agenda item like while we look at these grants looking at ways that we could potentially you know invest in paths or cooperate with the park district. Yeah I think the other big asset that we have is how well we work with our um Sigma Police Department and so Lacy works really closely with them on um obtaining crossing guards for those areas that um don't qualify. Um but then we can utilize a crossing guard to help us out. And so um she works really closely with them as well too. So that's something that um we can always have them work with us on these ideas that we have for that area too. I know she's already spoke with

037the Sycamore PD about that park and boarding staff also. So we can share those um findings with you guys. Maybe Nick and I were just talking at maybe a BSE meeting. Would that be Yeah, that would be appropriate to run it through that committee. Well, the other piece on transportation was the note about fleet capacity and special education transportation needs. So, I was parsing through the last 12 months of board bills and I was trying to see just like what are the last 12 month costs on special ed and what we sub out, what we're doing inhouse. And it's interesting because like Lacy identified here, like that's definitely something that we have to really be keeping front of mind as as our special education needs grow, we continue to like increase screenings and ultimately offer

038those services. Um I don't know if it's better to try and build out our in-house capacity or if we should be looking at um you know subcontracting. So I guess I would turn again to Lacy for her guidance on that. And it's great to see she's got that on future focus too. So probably something that, you know, I'd be curious to hear what her opinion is on so that way the board can help support that and act on it. So those were my comments on transportation. Um EC5, I was glad to hear that the leaf expansion piece uh was well found. That's great. Um that that worked out well and the classroom sizes were stabilized. So, um, educ being up, I'm interested in knowing what data EC5 team thinks would be useful for the board

039to see. I know that data days are coming up. Um, so I I don't know. I've never had an opportunity to sit in on the data days before. I've only heard about them. Um, but I imagine there's like a great cross-section of of data and information that's guiding decisions that are being used as like the basis of measurement for the EC team across schools. And like I was messing around with school report card um just because you can customize some of the reports and like there are some schools that I mean there's there is disparity there's like a a gap it seems like and so I imagine like the day-to-day maybe uncover some of that but I'm optimistic about educ team I'm hopeful that they may be able to point to some like key data

040points or KPIs that may be useful in future reports that be like, "Oh, this would be a really good useful way to again like try and see lateral data across schools that you can't maybe see at the school report card level or maybe don't pick up in MAP testing or the I testing or whatever the state standardized testing is for EC. I don't I think it's MAP, right? Um that might be a good discussion for us to have at the learning at the learning and teaching." Yeah. So, I was thinking maybe so Okay. Uh, and I also noticed the sub shortages piece, which thanks for clearing that up. Um, the middle school, uh, was great to hear about map having been finished up. Um, love the club and sports set culture. Um, didn't know if

041there was any gaps on participation. Was curious. I know that at the middle school level like extracurriculars become so prevalent and so it was interesting to see because I know that um Mark had noted I think most of the actions and events uh were related to sports and clubs. So knowing a little more about um you know again what that participation rate looks like and maybe if that tracks to some achievement and again if as we start talking about like what are some of our differentiators I know for like intramural and inter mural maybe there's an opportunity there. So again I thought that was neat um and a great uh note to point out. Uh, and then the last piece, Sycamore High School. One of our board goals related to um pass rates, which I

042know was I think cross district, but particularly focused on the high school. Uh, yeah, it's high school specific. And then there was another cross district metric. Um, but the freshman on track rate is one I know that you can see with the school report card. And that's something that's like really like a key emphasis point. I think for a while we've been pretty good by state comparisons but I didn't know if there was any particular target that we had in sight or if there was anything again as it ties to like extracurriculars if there's any data that supports you know enhanced extracurricular offerings or more um vocational offerings leads to better freshman on track rates. So it's just kind of a point of inquiry. Um also uh let me see there was one other piece

043thought it was graduation um Spartan Senate meetings uh I don't know are we still what's no I thought the direction I know we yeah we had changed we gave was that they would report to the board the findings that Spartan sent instead of having a board member go to Spartan sent but that was when we were still kind of in flux. Yeah. and we were working on should we have a student board rep should we not um now our policy allows that but just due to timing we haven't done it yet this year so maybe in the interim someone could go to Spartan Senate until we get a student board rep I'm not sure I guess I would be curious your thoughts or the rest of the board's thoughts and if they thought those reports

044were valuable I liked hearing what was going on at the sport and senate meetings how we hear it is yeah yeah one thing that might be a good bridge until we get to the point of having a student board member and and this used to occur is um but probably preandemic is the uh senior class president that kind of led those meetings would come and report to the board after those meetings. Yeah. At the very beginning and would just fill you in on like how Alex used to do I guess as a board member. We'd have a student um kind of empower them to come up and report what's being talked about at Spartan Senate. Even if there's a recording, you know, I know we talked about inerson logistics versus recording logistics, like if that

045if there's appetite for that, if Spartans I saw it made it to the report, so like if there's interest in them sharing some of the workings and details of what their happenings are, I think carving out some time would be useful. If you want me to talk to Brian and I know that was one of the challenges at times is um they would have a a night activity. So there were certain nights where they couldn't come, but if we were willing to do a video on those nights and then in person when they could, then there's no reason they couldn't record it ahead of time. If there's an appetite, yeah, we talked about it would be a good I mean it's a valuable skill to know how to make a report or a PowerPoint or

046something. So have the Spartan Senate students collaborate on creating some sort of report and then someone comes and gives it to us, presents it to us at a board meeting if if possible and if not possible just send us like the report and memo form and we'll take a look at it if if there's interest there was at the time. But then that senior graduated so I would have to know does the new senior have the same interest? And if it's not a senior, maybe someone on the Spartan Senate, I mean, comprised of what, like five, six students, one of them might be interested. I don't think it should have to be the senior president. Whoever is interested would be, in my opinion, the best. Yeah. Even a rotation because the previous senior class president

047was very involved in other activities. So having them him come to every board meeting would have been a lift. So he would have preferred to sort of rotate it among the Spartan Senate. Sounds like it's which to me makes the most sense. So yeah, I think have them come high school figures taking taking notes. So I think she's on it already. Yeah, if they if they wanted Yeah, that'd be sure. But I guess I'm just I don't want to say it needs to be this person, needs to be the individual who comes to report. I would let admin Oh, yeah. determine. It'd be It's welcome if there's appetite. I think it and then I'll report to you guys maybe in a weekly update what I find out. Sure. Uh that's all I have. So just

048a few things. Um thank you guys for preparing these reports. I spent a lot of time with them. I really appreciate it. I know a lot of lot of good stuff here. Um item 8.02. Well, any other comments on board reports? Okay. No, I just I know we kind of we work through them relatively quickly, but I I know I personally and I think we all really enjoy reading them. There's a lot of good background that sometimes we have follow-ups on and it's it's it's nice to see. Yeah, very much so. Makes a little work for Nick, but sorry. You're good. Um, item 8.02, six day enrollment. Um, understand you have a report. Yeah. So, we did a little different format, put it in memo form for you. Um, we used tables. Uh, some of

049you are visual winners, I'm sure. So, we included the tables as well. Um but just tried to summarize um pretty on par for where we've been the last few years. Enrollment staying pretty steady. Um some growth in certain areas um or declines. I guess some of that uh attributed to the boundary study redistricting that happened a couple years ago. Um but just some things we're kind of keeping an eye on is with growth of Little Spartans and where South Prairie's at. We're getting pretty full. N can attest to that. Um there's not really classroom space left uh there right now um because of our little learners. Uh the other one is Southeast. It's kind of strange. Houses just keep and some of you can speak to this. They keep popping up like crazy. Um but

050we haven't seen an increase yet in enrollment there. Um so wait to see kind of what happens happens there in the next few years and if that that leads to growth. Uh and then we'll have to kind of explore what's going on. But high school stayed pretty steady. Middle school for the most part stayed pretty steady. Uh yeah. Any questions on that? Does the six day enrollment those the bar chart column chart does that include EC students? Um so like if it does that would essentially mean our enrollment at a K12 level is going slightly down because we didn't always have EC, right? Let me see it. I don't have it pulled up here, but usually um Little Spartans is designated. So if it only says South Prairie without a designation of EC, then it

051would not be What's the number, Alex? 144 kids are in DC. But what's the on the bar graph? What's it say? Enroll number 3,710. Yeah. Yeah. He's talking about the the overall district enrollment numbers 3,710. Yeah. Sorry, I was trying to pull it up and I axed out. pull it back out because then there's 3,710 that includes EC. Yeah. Comment about that. So EC has always been around. It's just changed due to state law. So Alex, I can't see you. Yeah. No, I um so um early childhood is kind of morphed depending on state laws in our district. So we were only an EC program who served special education originally and we have legally done that for numerous numerous years. Um and then um so I've been here five years. So now probably nine years

052ago we were told that we had to have blended education. So that was introduced and we moved our numbers to having blended um enrollments. Um thanks. You're welcome. So we had blended learning environments. Um and then obviously once we took the grant we've explained it even more. Um, so my six day count, just so also you understand this, I'm 10 higher than the six day count already today. Um, and I will probably be another 10 higher by the end of October and another 20 from that six day count by Christmas. So that's our problem in Eric South Prairie is that EC six day count all the other places normally that's their standard for the year and that's like my beginning point. Um so that's just the only thing like just to give you a piece

053of information that that's the hard part for my six day count is like my starting point and I grow as the year goes on. But for early childhood we've always had it. We've just changed per the guidance from the state of Illinois. Does that help? And I think that's something we talked about at the April, maybe April, uh, one of those first BSC's when we were talking about staffing. Um, ne had shared kind of where we're at, but what she projected it to be um, based on that growth throughout the year, which always occurs. Yeah. And this year we're seeing a higher um, growth from our early intervention population. Um, so early intervention is fed to us um, by the state of Illinois and we evaluate all the students who are receiving early intervention in

054our school district. I guess from 2016 through now have you would you say that the population of EC's grown like isn't it grown sort of drastically or has it always been around 100 to 150? No. So if you look at our charts like when I came to this position five years ago was postcoid but we were in the 70s on our six day count 78ish around. I don't I have the numbers in front of you feel like I'm playing trivia. Um it's I think it was like 78. Um, so like we have grown. We start last year and this year we were pretty consistent in the 140s. Um, but I do predict just how the amount of three-year-olds will take in this year that we'll start higher than that next year. We also have the

055legal component of making sure our class ratios stay 70. Pardon the interjection here. I and this may not be Alex's point at all, but I think Alex is I think Alex is just drawing attention to the fact that if you look at our total district enrollment, it's 37.80 10 years ago compared to 3710 right now. So it seems like we've changed about 70 students. But I think his point is our EC program has grown so much, which is a good thing, but that actually means our K12 numbers have gone down by like 200ish students instead of the 80 students that it looks like because we've kind of added we haven't added the grades, but we've added so many students in those grades. So, I think you're just pointing out right that that our K12 numbers

056have actually diminished by around 200 over a decade. Sorry. No, no, that's okay. No, I appreciate the I just Yeah, I don't know if that's what you were Yeah, that's what I was getting at. So, is there Well, I'm just I don't know if we know why that is, but would it be possible to like look into do we project that to continue? Because I just think it's kind of an outlier in the county or among peer districts that it's our enrollment is at least at a K12 level sort of trending downward. Yeah. So, if you look at that the bar graph, I guess that top one on the third attachment or whatever, and you look at 1920 where we we reached a max, that senior class was the largest class that's ever come through

057here. I think it was like 350 um students if I recall. Kate, I guess you weren't here yet. Um Mark, maybe you remember, but um or Greg, but it was around 350 students. Um that's an outlier for sure. Um so that class graduated but then also COVID hit and at that time if you guys remember there was a huge dip and uh slowly we've been getting students back since then to kind of climb back to where we are still down students from that outlier class that happened at the exact same time of the pandemic and our kindergarten classes typically were coming in about 250. We're lucky if they're around 200 now um over those postcoid years. So there's a lot smaller classes that were coming in where the large classes were leading us to. So

058is there are there I guess maybe a better word asked it or general is are there any areas of concern with that information or is it okay like if it keeps trending down is that bad good neither. I'm just curious like it it just it just seems a little interesting to me because the other districts aren't doing it. We are. I don't know why, but like is that could it be detrimental to the district? Is it beneficial to the district because we have same amount of money and less students to spread it amongst I don't just curious. I I just think there's a lot that probably goes into answering that. Um and just to me this isn't drastic. Like if it drastic then I think yeah we're talking about staffing at that point. Um I

059think when it's this small of a number spread out over all the grade levels um it doesn't necessarily impact staffing or any or facilities um but obviously if there was huge either gain or loss then we'd be having those discussions. Gotcha. Yeah. I'm just not sure what's considered drastic. So yeah if it looks relatively constant we're we're basically which it does. So we have some big cohorts coming through as well. We have pretty large fourth grade class. Mhm. So, and I'm sure kindergarten might be up next year with 144 EC students and more coming. I mean, potentially 30 more. Yeah, we just kind of have half of them stay and then half of them go to kindergarten and that's a hard part for them. Some and we send some on. I think what's tough about,

060you know, we're looking at a 10 years here. We could maybe pull even um from further back, but if you look at just those from 201920 before, anything on that bar graph is going to have that largest cohort to ever come through. So, we'd have to go back before to see if those before that cohort entered to see if those numbers are comparable to to maybe the last five or six years. Useful information to have just to kind of see are any of the school that so North Groves population has gone down. Sounds like South Prairie is pretty high when you include the EC. Are any of these close to capacity or underutilized? Is that a number we should look at at some point? Maybe not today, but that might be something we want to

061look at just to understand how are at least the elementarymentaries how full are those? Yeah, I kind of smile at that question. And Michael, just from being the longest tenure board member, when you bring the architects in to have that conversation, there's like three different numbers. And are we at capacity by the state? Are we at capacity based on architects or how we use the space? Okay. Um, so three very different answers that are confusing every time I think we have the conversation. Um, and when you think of before North Grove, how we use that space. So when you think about before North Grove, all these enrollments were way higher. um not even close, but we had teachers on carts, we had people sharing space. Um it looked much different than it than it looks

062now. Um Amy, you can probably speak to this as a specialist teacher potentially, but um our space, we are in our current model, we are using our space, I think, um to its fullest. Um but that doesn't mean there's there's not some other things we could do. North Grove, that number went down a little bit with redistricting, obviously. Um but yeah, we've we've been able to fit more of the buildings. Yeah. Okay. So there's not schools of like empty classrooms and some that are just full of the gills. We don't have There was before um before we did redistricting. I would say South Prairie even with the growth of um Little Spartans still had quite a few classrooms open. Um and North Grove had to use different spaces um that they maybe don't have to

063use and can have more common spaces now. But I would say it's pretty well balanced now. There's no schools sitting with a lot of empty classrooms, if any, I should say. Any other comments on sixth day enrollment? Thank you very much. Appreciate it. The next item on the agenda is the foyer report. There were some foyas, some interesting ones. There's a lot. Another one from W. Yeah, wild stuffs. Uh, any comments on the foyer report? I can't see it. But is anyone else having the issue with diligent where it ticks them out of all the attachments? I might add a question, but I can't. If you go click the home screen this and click PDF version that I don't think I had a question about this, but download it. Where? Tap right here. Yep. And

064download the current PDF and then you'll be able to click the links in there. Okay. We just move on. No. Any other comments? Just say Nicole's been busy and she's done awesome. Yeah, you're Thank you. All right, we'll move on to 9.02 or district non-district committee reports, teaching and learning. Yeah, we had a meeting on Thursday the 18th. Uh it was a really good discussion. Molly Tucker and Phoebe Valentine came and talked about MTSS as well as Educ. kind of had some homework and some more discussions about how might we review edgy climber in greater detail in the future. So kind of right up your alley Mike what you had Michael you had brought up um got some feedback after the meeting that there was it was I thought also really good discussion it's kind

065of a long format discussion of learning and teaching and the initiatives that we have what's working well what's not what might we do differently um so really positive certainly encourage those to come uh who are interested we have another meeting November 11th where we intend to speak to our pilot process, how pilots run, but then more importantly perhaps um how the current pilots are running, how they're going, um and just kind of an update on the math uh bridges and other math curriculums that are in play this year being implemented. Uh we did also review the uh consolidated district plan, which you'll see down below. We're going to talk about that a little later. The committee did review it, discuss it, and is recommending to the board to approve it for us to use um

066to request grant dollars for um lose my mind, but I can't think of the name, but uh the title funds. Um let's see. We're going to use that document. There's a long format document. You might have seen it's 22 pages long or so. It really outlines and it's a nice process that Mike Rice put together that really talks to really how the district approaches learning and teaching and the thought is what we talked about at the committee meeting is using that document as kind of a way to track how things are changing over time. So we'll look at that document each year and as it's modified at least for our review we'll kind of redline it so we can see what are we doing differently maybe what we're not doing any longer what are we

067adding and then it's a nice year-to-year understanding of how things kind of from a at a broader level are uh participating but if you have any questions we'll get to the consolidated district plan but it is the recommendation of the committee for the board uh to re and approve that great are you guys going to be touching on the different apps that we use uh to interact with parents and students. So we have a future focus or a focus topic spotlight topic every meeting. This last meeting was MTSS and Educ Climber. Next will be the pilot process. U we talked about AI being the one afterwards, how it's implemented, what do we use? That certainly could be a topic. It wasn't. We were putting together a list of things that we want to have at

068subsequent future meetings that haven't come up. But if we think there's value in that, I'd be happy to take that back to the committee and we can we can use that as a potential and kind of prioritize that when we want to discuss it. But you think there's value in in adding that to the discussion? I mean, I I've heard a lot of parents having difficulty with just with onboarding with the new like when they come into the district and they have various different things to look at. Yeah. Be nice if we had one to look like a one-sizefits-all. I'm sure it would be nice. I don't know if it's possible or not, but uh we can take it back as a discussion topic and uh Phoebe is going to be or Dr. Valentine's going

069to be uh presenting at the January, February, March, January, February date to be determined exactly, but maybe that'll be something we can add on as well. Great. Thank you. Sure. Sorry to put you anytime. Okay. Any other comments on the teaching learning report? All right. Is there a motion to suspend the rules to go back to item 9.01 regarding the foyer report? So moved. Second and seconded. All in favor? I. All right. We're on the foyer report. All right. So I had a really quick question about this. When we get a request, do we ask if it's commercial or non-commercial? Because the response like we have more flexibility with a commercial request. It's a little you have 21 days. Yeah. more time. No, I don't ask. Okay. Yeah, they're typically done in 5 days. I

070mean, I guess the commercial one wasn't I know CT mills is a commercial one, so I just wanted to point out that if you need more time, if it's like, oh my gosh, they're all coming. You can ask for a fiveday extension, which I do many times. So, okay. Yep. That's all. Anything else? Um, foyer reports now that it's operation operational. Okay. Item 9.03. 3 business services committee update. Is there an update? Brief update. The business services committee currently has a vacancy in the seat we reserved for a faculty or staff member. Uh applications went out. Interviews are being scheduled. Expect to have a replacement seated by the October 14th meeting. In the meantime, I've been collaborating with the assistant super business services Nicole Stugger on the upcoming agenda just making sure that it's going

071to be productive for everybody. Uh and to recap just from our last BSC discussion in one line because we're going to uh talk about the budget here in a little bit. We had a hearing on the budget. Um we discussed along with assistant super stucker that the budget we're approving tonight puts us on track to begin our plan to sustainably rebuild the fund balance. Thank you. Any comments on business services committee update? Just a clarifying point. You I believe at the first the business services committee meeting did endorse the budget at our first reading, right? Yes, that's correct. Yeah. So, the the for everyone here who hasn't attended all the meetings in a row, the budget was presented to business services. Then after that, it was presented to the entire board. And then now for

072a third time, it's being presented here tonight. Excellent. All right. Policy committee update. The policy committee met um gosh, I can't remember the exact date. Do either of you happen to know? Okay. We met somewhat recently within a month or two and we discussed press 119 which was approved on consent because there were no substantive changes. All the changes were just either referencing new case law or updating the footnotes. Um and then we discussed some local policies which will be coming up later in the agenda. So if there are any questions about those policies with the local revisions the committee made, I would entertain those at that time. Is there any questions though about the policy committee's most recent meeting? Happy to answer them. Okay. I guess one other thing that's not on the agenda

073from that policy committee meeting is we discussed the use of using some sort of a generative AI tool to have staff query the policy manual essentially um so that if there's a question about policy or we could do it with the administrative procedures once that project's complete it could they could ask a question it would scan the policy manual and come back to them with an answer to their question for example how do I dispose of a printer that cost initi $15,000. Um run the through the policy manual, give an answer to that. So I that that's just something we're we're looking into. Do you have any updates on that or Yeah. Okay. No, I I I made one that I could I'd be happy to share. I'm not sure how to share a gem,

074though. So maybe we could coordinate that, but if that would be useful for you guys, I'd be happy to share what I came up with. Yeah, let's take a look at it. All right. I'll just note too on policy we and I guess more or less for the other subcommittee reports um thanks to Kelly's uh nifty footwork with Diligent, we are able to post our minutes uh in draft form. So if you wanted to see prior to them being formally approved, you could go into the SYC427 diligent portal, click minutes, you'd see a watermark that says draft because they haven't been formally approved, but you could see everything that was discussed. Um, well, I enjoyed the I think the meeting actually was it was pretty good. You guys uh started at 6 and No, I

075started at 700, ended at 8:06, but you know, hour and six minutes distilled down into probably a 45se secondond read. So, it's really um you know, well done. So, thank you. And I think there was some um new fancy tech tools used in doing that as I understand it. So, uh, kudos to Kelly again and her work discovering that. I guess there's one other thing I would add. Pursuant or in accordance with the public comment made, it did relate to a policy. So, I have added um that policy. Um, let's see which one is it. the discussion of policy 7160 to our next policy committee meeting in accordance with the policy that that stipulates that if there's a policy concern brought forth to the board, the policy committee will review it. So in order to

076follow that policy, we will review the concern related to student dress. Very good. Anything else on policy committee? Riveting stuff. All right. parent teacher advisory and behavioral intervention. Any updates? It'll be till Dece December 9th. December 9th. I think the leadership team is still working on getting to where they need to be with the uh student handbooks. So, we're just waiting. I'll be curious, too. I know the suspension report we synthesize in our board docs now. And so it' be interesting to see what level of like of trend axis we'll have having that data lined up in maybe a order rather than seeing it kind of month by month seeing it over a period of time. So I imagine there will be some some neat trends we could identify from that. So maybe something I

077don't know something to discuss for sure. Yeah. Thank you for sending out the email Christian. I appreciate it even though I didn't get a chance to reply back but I appreciated the update on the committee. Of course. Um, board goals progress update just as a standing item. Uh, I understand we've got our final board goals um, document listed. I know Lauren worked very hard on that with communications, Nick, just so I don't Yeah. Right. And I I don't want to overcommit what has what the work has been done yet or not. Is it do you know where we stand in terms of it where it lives on the website? Yeah, it is uh right on the main page. If you scroll to the bottom where there's the four squares, our mission and vision, our core

078values, our goals, portrait of a Spartan, we added it right there to uh there's an our goals section that has changed. And if you click on that, then you have all the different tiles by category um where you can click on them. And then uh it has a pullup screen that gives um the timeline the deliverable the timeline deliverable status and then deliverable update from administration. Um so then over time we'll continue to update those. Yeah, I think um and we were talking um when we had last developed these goals uh what that timeline looked like and what that feedback process looked like. I think there's interest from I think there's a good opportunity for us to um maybe change that process as we approach the next goal setting cycle. Um, so I'm hopeful that

079we can as we kind of get closer to the halfway point in the year, which will sit around January, that we'll probably revisit the progress of those goals. Um, but also revisit the process by which we set those goals so that way we can think maybe take a really inclusive approach, make sure we um, you know, hit on all our notes. So I think there's an opportunity there. I don't know if there's any other comment or interest on uh the goal setting and I have some feedback on the website. Sure. But um I I think it would be helpful to see which goals were most recently updated so that the board or a community member can go in and see the deliverable status if that's changed and then an update from admin when those have

080been added. So that I guess it it highlights what's had updates to it. So that the board as we review this, I I'd assume this is what the board will use to review the updates or maybe Lauren has something else crafted for the board. We can see what goals have been met, if they've been met um in line with their deadline, and then what the update is from admin on are. Well, and I you bring a good point up on the cadence of like our visiting of the goals, and I think like part of that goes to um you know, I guess the board's interest in and how we would do that, but like our um sort of like pseudo board calendar calls for those to be visited in January. So, it's like a mid-year

081checkpoint. Um so, I think I think that'd be a good opportunity, that agenda probably to to sit and understand exactly how or where what progress we're making as a board towards those or the board can do if anything to deviate from it. Does that feel still like a good cadence? Is that January meeting? Well, we do. There was the one um the one related to the HR, right? I understand there's probably some that are when would be the time to revise it because we got a request from admin to revise it because September 1st wasn't well out to be reasonable timeline. If we need to amend a goal, when would we and how would we go about doing that? See, that's the thing is like I don't know that we even want to amend it.

082I almost wonder if we should just acknowledge like its progress as it is and where it falls short where it isn't as far as like the time specific nature. Alex, I think is the point you were bringing up is like if we because we made some time commitments on these goals and if we if we feel like we haven't hit those time specific commitments prior to the one date, where does the board want to be involved in either amending it or acting on it? And I think at least the impression I got was that we would just acknowledge wherever our status was at that midyear checkpoint um rather than go through the the sooner point of amending it. But is is there appetite to deviate from that midyear checkpoint or what do you guys think?

083I think that the midyear checkpoint on the one hand is a good option. I don't think we're good. I don't I think we that's kind of like an easy option. we don't have to um keep track of a bunch of moving parts. That might be the best thing to do. The other thing I thought is to create these goals. Obviously, the whole board did it, but we had Allen and Alex do a lot of work as a committee and kind of shepherd the process. You know, I don't know. I don't want to task them with more work, but you know, they could be a committee and and try, you know, for this year to monitor the goals as a committee, right? and and take on that responsibility, have a conversation, figure out how they want

084it, and then come back to us and say, you know, here's a report two months from now because what you're saying, right? Well, this goal over here really needs to be talked about now, and they've realized that, identified it, and they've put it on the whole board's agenda, then talked about it. I mean, that's a much more involved kind of thing, and it's a lot more work. And I don't know that it accomplishes a whole lot more than just, all right, we're all going we're going to check in on all these in January. We assume everybody's working on them as needed. And yeah, that September 1st deadline obviously or whatever the September 1st date was in there. Obviously, we're not going to make that. Come January, we're going to realize that wasn't feasible. And that's

085all good. So, it's a nice idea. I mean, we can certainly do that. I do think there's opport I'll address it in a second. I think there is opportunity like Michael you're suggesting that next time we do um goals for the next year that yes we have the deliverable timeline but also the expectation on updates because some of these are a full year there's some ambiguity in that or maybe it's not as clear as it could be some are maybe at the end of each semester um which would also be helpful I think for us to be more explicit of this is when this is when updates should be assumed or should be done so that it's more clear to the administration openly as far as this year goes how we want to move forward

086with it. Um I guess I'm open to what personally open to whatever the the board would like to do. Uh I don't know if a lot of them you know Alex and I could just take a quick cursory look between now and the next meeting and see which ones need an update prior to that midyear check-in and we could see if there are ones that seem to make sense to do so. We could do that and then we could come back to that but it will be October by then. I mean it's I plan to have this board goals piece just maybe live here as a standing report for now. So I think if you know again any level of independent work that we do between now and October as long as we respect the

087open meetings act. Um take inquiry I suppose. Um, so you're saying it'll be on the agenda in October. Allan or Alex or anyone who looks at it or finds out, oh yeah, this should be addressed. We can, you know, put it on the, you know, put it either on the agenda from October for November in a more specific way or Okay, I think that's I think that's effective. It leaves it kind of open-ended so we've got some room. And then I agree. I don't know that I don't know that we need to formally amend it because that's a lot of work and it's, you know, it's okay. I think if we just say yeah that September 1 timeline obviously things change and you know come January we're not going to go oh no you know

088that would needed to be I think that kind of is like at the heart of how we're going to use board goals and like one of the biggest jobs of the board is to set goals for itself and for the district at large and I think that there's been a long-standing idea that like if you don't meet all your goals it's like so you we always meet all our goals. I am personally um a little uh excited at I think the um the truthful nature of acknowledging not meeting a goal and that it's not like the end of the world, you know, just like if you get an answer wrong on a homework test, homework assignment, like you learn from it, you have an explanation for it and you move on. So I I guess

089that's more what I was getting at is I think we should add sort of an explanation as to if we as a board agree that it's okay to not meet something why well yeah it's got yeah right like I think at the end of the day like we should have a synopsis of so we hold ourselves accountable right this is how this went especially as we start the next goal setting process you know like we're always growing so like we started the goal setting process in April no March so yeah so as we kind of gear for what I think will similarly be a March start time. You know, it'll be should be reflective at least in January. It's how we're doing. Any other comments on board goals? What do you think, Nick, about that?

090I mean, do you think it is does it create too much ambiguity to just say, "Well, yeah, we understand September 1st isn't going to be made, and so just make it at some point, and then it come January, we'll go, look, it's been made. Great." Or, "It hasn't yet." Or do you think that people would appreciate if we just, you know, some people are deadline oriented, some organizations are more deadline oriented. Do you think people would appreciate it if we said, you know, no, we'd like to formally amend the due date to, you know, whatever, insert month. I think it depends which one. That one specifically. Um I was under the impression it's getting pushed off until next year for implementation at the start of the year. Um Oh, sure. It wouldn't make sense to

091I I don't know how beneficial it would be to implement it in January when we've already started the process. of evaluation. So I viewed it as because obviously there was a lot going on, board didn't even adopt these goals until shortly before September 1st that we would use this year to um collaborate with administrators to develop those for implementation the following year. Um if if that was amendable to you guys. Yeah, I think everything about the success or failure of these goals sits in the board. And like ultimately I it was funny because even one of the other goals we were looking at was like it was a student achievement goal I think or his pass rate and it was like our pass rate goal is 90%. Last year's pass rate was 89.7%. 89.6%. So

092it's like you start to kind of think about and like theorize like is that a good goal when you set a goal that you're within 06% of meeting. I don't know maybe it is maybe it isn't but like again I not to celebrate in the board's failure but like we you know sometimes you just miss and we we picked a time uh that didn't work and as stand before you here as the community going hey this uh you know we're going to do better next time. So, and that's not on the admin, that's on us. I think it's a great plug for the committees, too, because that one in particular, we saw that information at the last learning teaching committee of the we have a goal 50% of our students mean their growth scores from

093from fall to spring. Last year, we were in the 60 or 70 percentile depending on which discipline. So, from a goal perspective, probably should have set that differently. uh didn't know that necessarily at that at the time when we set the goals. Now we have that information. So the I think and that'll be the case for pride and and teach you know there's there's all these will have those um but I think it's an opportunity for us as a board who participate the committee certainly who participates in the community who come as well to have a voice into that um and then also have a good vision into what are the right areas that we should be measuring. So I know we've been talking about different comm at different committee meetings dashboards we talked a

094little bit about uh metrics that you brought up from educ climber. I think there's a good opportunity for us as we collectively um see things a little bit more. So it gives us a better vision of where are those right areas to be setting goals. And so for the for the teachers and staff that come to the committee meetings it can also be really helpful to hear their voice as well. I think if if you guys think this would be possible, um it'd be great to potentially have those goals before we break for summer. Um and I know this this last year, right, you're kind of starting from scratch. It was a new process. There was a ton of work that went into that. Um and that's not to say these may not change completely

095or just deliverables change or we come up with brand new goals. But now that we've gone through the process once, if we could have that going into summer, I think that puts us in a great spot to do some some work as an admin team and how that trickles down to maybe sit planning within each building, you know, as the board goals being the umbrella goals and um just put us in a better place, I think, to to start the year if that's possible. No, I think in like having started in like we started in March, I know on the goal setting and it was like it was funny when it was a comment a board member made. It was like, "Oh, I could make these a little longer." I think one of the goal

096setting sessions we had of the four or five was like a 4h hour. These are all open to the public, but like So, yeah, it it definitely is like we we're starting it felt like we were starting with a brand new sort of approach this past goal setting session. I think we're going into this with a little more experience now because we have that to reflect on. And so, I'm I'm optimistic that we'll be able to have those goals situated in advance of summer. So, call it a soft goal. watch I as we start committing to time specific deliverables Nick as we talk about us not meeting our time specific deliverable. Um so any other comments on board goals? No. Okay. Want to write in in the uh update for that one particular goal if

097we want to extend it. We're not necessarily amending the goal because I think amending the goal would say we're changing it and we're not. We're just changing the timeline where we're we're extending the due date, if you will. Sure. We don't have to decide today. Could be something we could talk to. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's certainly notable. Any other comments on board goals progress update? Okay. Item 9.07, superintendent search process update. Um, just in case, I'll just reiterate some already public information. HYA is um engaged in stakeholder feedback solicitation. Um Southeast Elementary, West Elementary, they talked to SEA CESA. Um they also talked to our custodial staff. Uh South Prairie um administration center. They went to building leadership. They had lunch with administration. They talked to the Sycamore Middle School staff. They had two

098different time slots. North Elementary staff uh two time slots. uh North Grove, the high school, the high school second time. They did an all staff session at the high school. Then they did a community member uh which was invite only uh that they aggregated. I had again no involvement in this. They were pretty clear when I showed up at one of the meetings. They're like, "Get out. We we want this. We don't want anybody feeling pressured." So I was like, "Okay, I'll leave." Um then they had a parent and guardian attendance stakeholder focus group. Uh then they sent out a survey uh in two languages to all of our stakeholders. Um they've been interviewing individual board members. Um they are going to as I understand it um now work on the leadership profile and then

099present to us what that leadership profile looks like on the 30th which we've called the special meeting for to review that information. Um they've also drafted an initial posting uh which is a requirement by Illinois law to disclose just sort of general parameters. Um but that posting will be revised to uh reflect that leadership profile. Uh then they'll engage a series of uh uh I guess narrowed candidate filtering based on our leadership profile. Uh we'll then as a board engage in multiple six-hour uh panel interview sessions that we've all already scheduled. Um so get ready. got I think it amounted to almost a full uh 24 hours of just titilating work. So uh Saturdays are committed, Friday nights are committed. So your board is working hard for you. Um so that uh will hopefully culminate

100to a decision um by early December, late November. Um and then subsequent uh negotiation with that party uh for arrival at an agreement. um which again uh the level of transparency to the negotiations of that agreement will be whatever it needs to be to ultimately optimize our ability to advocate for our stakeholders. Um so yeah, so that's what the HYA process looks like in uh general and all of that is outlined also uh in some less specificity uh from past agendas. So any questions on that update? I have did they meet with the admin team? Yes. And they met with transportation too. There was an opportunity to meet with transportation as I understand it based on the building leadership and lunch with administration windows. Okay. Yeah. Want to make sure those two areas are covered.

101Absolutely. Two. Well, I have a question and then sort of a concern. I'll start with the question. When will we be able to log in and see the candidates? Because we're supposed to at some point get access um to see the the dashboard. But I haven't heard should I don't know if that's an HYA question or if they've talked to you about that. No, I this is the first time hearing of a dashboard or a login. So another another password for me to remember. I will reach out to HY with that question then I guess. Uh yeah, I think that's fine. If there was a dashboard to be had and there's information to be reviewed, they'd know it. So I thought at their presentation they said all the information we get from them will be

102on that dashboard, but I could be mistaken. No, no. I the modality I'm fuzzy on. if there was a dashboard. I know we talk about a lot of dashboards. Yeah. So, I don't should be looking at something we're not. And then my concern I guess is I was looking at the job posting that HY put out and it says they want a submission completed by November 5th, which is fine, but they also want an electronic portfolio of no more than three pages with evidence of competencies and skill expectations specifically aligned to the position once the profile is complete on September 30th. So that gives applicants six days to go back to the application and then type out a three-page document based on the leadership profile, but they only have See, September 30th to November 5th.

103Yes. So you're think Oh, Octo Oh, yep. Yep. I'm sorry. Yeah, they have they have a whole month. Yeah. Be a fun Halloween. I guess I need to get out my my calendar planner or something. Sorry about that. No. So yeah, I'll just reach out about the um the login or does anyone know about has anyone logged in? I'm sure we'll learn a lot more next Tuesday, too. I'm sure that'll be part of the discussion of what's next. I would think Yeah, maybe we'll go back then. I just don't know if it's something we should be doing before we even go to that meeting or or what. No, I as I understand it, there's no advanced work required on our part at this point other than having done the hourlong intensive with them. Okay. Which

104all of you, I believe, have so far done. Yeah. Okay, great. Um, perfect. Okay, we will move on to the next item on the agenda, some old business. Item 10.01, approval of the amended 2025 2026 board of education meeting calendar. I know there was a lot of talk of our double header subcommittee meeting. So, I love that. It's like it's and in true baseball fashion, it may be a six to seven hour long. Yeah, yeah, we'll have to accommodate the schedule accordingly for going and teaching. It was a it was a long meeting, but I think we'll figure it out. there's some good good reason to coexist on that day and kind of have some discussion across board. Yeah, definitely. Any other comments on that? I'll solicit a motion to approve the amended 2025 2026

105board of education meeting calendar. So move second. He's been seconded. Any discussion? Seeing no discussion. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right, motion carries. All right, the uh main event item 10.02, the approval of the resolution regarding fiscal year 26, District 427's budget. Um I'll entertain a motion to approve the resolution regarding the fiscal year 26 427 budget as presented. So moved. Second and seconded. Any discussion? This looks to be in line. I know you mentioned Cole and Nicole, but this looks to be in line with what we've talked about at BSC meetings and we talked about the last meeting. There's there's not I didn't wasn't aware of any changes from that. Thanks very much for all your work. One question, Nicole, I had I didn't um think about was the evidence-based funding minimum

106prior tier. We don't have any speculative new tier funding for evidence-based funding that's reflected in this budget, right? Um there's a little extra amount that we got from last year. I don't know the amount off the top of my head. I want to say I know I'm putting you on the spot. I'm sorry. Um I think Are you asking is she accounting for an increase this year over last year? I was curious to know if we had Yeah. any idea of like speculative it's like 150,000. Okay. Gotcha. Nice. Good to see that model's working for us finally. That's all we have. Any other Yeah, we'll have a long debate about that. Um, any other questions, comments? Uh, seeing no questions or comments, uh, Kelly, would you call the role? Evans, yes. Ragnar, yes. Tomlinson, yes.

107Zantoot, yes. Cppel, yes. Motion carries. I would just like to comment. It looks like we were just sort of rubber stamping this budget, but it's been heavily reviewed at the business services committee and the board's had plenty of time to ask questions. It's not like this was just presented for the first time tonight to us. So, just wanted to get that out there. Thank you for all your work. Yes. Yeah. And thanks to Cole and Nicole for Thank you. posting that from tenative tenative tenative to tenative tenative to tenative to the budget to the BSC to the hearing to the budget again. It's been a journey, but we got here and with seven days to spare. All right, so item 11.01, uh, board review policy updates. This is first reading for these policies. I won't

108be soliciting a motion as we're reviewing these for first reading. Um, note the earlier comments of the policy chair. These changes are being presented again for first reading. Any additional comments from the board? I'll go through all would you? I I think I should probably go through all of the policies. I mean there's only what six five. Just do a quick rundown. Yeah. So 2150 we updated to clarify the superintendent's authority to appoint members to district committees. Now district committees recall are committees that board members do not serve on. They're they're administrative committees primarily and they are not subject to the opens meeting open meetings act. For example, the technology committee is one of them that we have, I believe, where it's it's staff members that discuss a a specific topic, but it doesn't have

109all board involvement. So, the committee thought, sure, yes, it was just clarifying that and reaffirming that the superintendent has the authority to appoint people to those committees. Um, secondly, we talked about 2240, which had some press 119 revisions. Now, we're talking about local revisions, and those were basically I I guess the easiest way to explain it is there were two paths we could take previously prior to these revisions. We could approve policies on first reading on the consent agenda or we do a first reading and a second reading. To me, that didn't make a ton of sense. It didn't give us the option to just have a first reading and adopt the same night. So, if it were to be on consent and pulled from consent, theoretically, you'd have to have a first reading and

110a second reading. And because admin reasonably, very recently requested that we have our policy meeting scheduled in advance if there is some sort of a relatively pressing um policy update. It it some it might be beneficial to discuss it and approve it on the same night. So, that just gives us that option. um 412 um was revised to update the policy with the business services committee's uh recommendations related to fund balance. Um we found that frankly having a 50% fund balance is unobtainable. It's not it's not a realistic expectation. Um the admin worked with the board to come up with a new number which is 25%. That's our goal. That's what I Isby um at least for the fund balance portion of the financial profile store would consider a perfect score. And then that's our

111ceiling of of 25% and our floor is 20%. Um going below 20% um is something we would like to avoid and that's what the business services committee has um directed admin to follow and the policy just reflects that. Similarly to 420, it was changed from 25 to 20% to match that floor because 420 just specifies what the floor is. In my opinion, it's a bit redundant to 412, but that's issue for another day. Um, then we finally we reviewed 7:30 and that was revised to allow admin to assign elementary students to schools other than what their address stipulates. Um, but if that's the case, the board will be notified of these of those reassignments. So, for instance, if we have a year where Northwell North Grove is swamped, um, they're they're over capacity or right

112at capacity and they have a student toteer ratio of 30 to, you know, one, it might make sense to move them to North if North has a student toteer ratio of 15 to1 to sort of balance out class sizes. This isn't something and Nick could should probably opine too is not something we plan on doing regular regularly but it just gives admin that flexibility and it affirms previous practice. Admin have previously done this it just wasn't in policy so the policy committee is tying um the policy to what's actually happened. Is that is that correct? Do you have any like we don't plan on doing that a lot right? No. And we talked about this a lot at BSC when uh we were talking about um just some some cohorts of students or sections at

113at certain schools that um were high numbers. So that's the only time it's been done when um we weren't able to pop a section. Michael, I know you're waiting for that. I was waiting for it. Yeah. Um because it's too late, you know, mid year we can't do that. So, if there's uh some sections we're watching and they're at capacity, then we'd potentially do that if we got to move in, but rarely happens. I guess at going back going way back to the um enrollment, do we have the capability to pop a section in all the buildings or some of them full where we couldn't do that? If we needed to use another room, is is there another room? I would have to talk to principles, but we've we've gotten pretty creative in the past.

114I think uh if we absolutely needed to. I think that the larger issue is staffing. um finding a staff member mid year. Well, like to recognize the board was in this situation where there's essentially three levers you can pull. If you can either add staff, right, pop a section, add f full-time equivalent. You can move a student from one school to another or you can have a really crowded class. And so like it's just a really bad situation to be in which is why like the six day enrollment is so relevant and like proper you know redistricting in a really responsible way so that way you don't find yourself in that situation because the three situations I described you either you have a student lose you have a student and a parent lose you have

115a student parent and a teacher lose um or a variation of all three. So it's just really bad and again like the board in the past was faced with this turning point and we ended up popping the section. So that way it just came out of the budget and we were able to protect the students learning ability and we were able to protect the teachers classroom size uh and the parents interests but it came at the expense of the budget. Um, so this again to like Alex's point, I think is really important because it gives more um more discretion to administration to be able to make those judgment calls without having to conform to what maybe policy says at the expense of our stakeholders. So, but yeah, Alex, underscoring the responsible use of it. Sure.

116Of course. Absolutely. Yeah. Just rereading that one one more time. Do we want to specify when the board notification is? Is it before it's done at the next meeting afterwards? Does it matter? I guess in my opinion it doesn't matter. So just what admin feel is appropriate. Um could be a weekly report. I guess would we specifying the time can I mean it's you know you could say in a timely manner right but if it's right well it might in an emergency situation maybe it has to be right and so that way if you if you stipulate it has to be before I think leaving it flexible is probably best I would hope that if all like all efforts would be made to do it in advance right so that way we could rest of

117the situation especially because I think it kind of cross references a couple of other policies. So, I think the like what happened last time, we'd be a be able to in advance. The the struggle is if we get a bunch of midyear moveins, um you know, we can't hold them off for 3 weeks before we get them into school till the next meeting. So, in that scenario, if it works for you guys, I think I would reach out to Michael for sure. We'd have a discussion about it and then provide you guys maybe an update in a weekly update unless there's a meeting, right? Unless we or call a special meeting. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, I would be curious, would we like to pro perhaps add to the end of that shall require board notification

118as soon as practicable or something to that effect? Would the board be interested in that? Are we okay with it as written? I know I I like a time time commitment, but I don't know. I I like specifically within X days or my we talked about that committee and the concern was just as Cole said if they have to do it um quickly there's there's a pressing need to call a special you know if it's this is coming up where we're consistently getting notified after the fact and the board feels like the decision made would have had you know should have maybe been different like maybe then we could you know what I try it on. I think the intention was to give the admin the reigns on that and just you know we'll get

119notified. But if that's not okay, I guess I'd like to know that so I can amend it. This is first reading. So yeah, why don't we hash this? Very rousing detailed first reading. Thank you for all the Sure. I Yeah, I asked the question only to understand if it was the intent that it's before or after the after the implementation. The intent would be just as soon as possible. No, I know what you're saying, but I wanted to make sure that we were clear on what the language meant. Sure. It's not very common, it sounds like, from what Nick's saying. And the intent would be to notify when possible ahead of time, which is great. I appreciate that. If we want if we're okay with going forward like that, I'm okay with that. If we

120want to try to put some wording to it. So, you're saying throw in as soon as possible into the wording. Is that what you're talking about? Something like that. Um, I know that it hurts still. Does it hurt to have it? I don't I don't think so. If it's not tied to like this meeting. No, no, no. Let's throw it in. Yeah. As soon as possible. As soon as possible. Just hope we don't have to. Kelly, did you would you like me to revise it and send it to you or you? Yeah. So, just add as soon as possible. Just add notification comma as soon as possible. Okay. Is that practical or practical is probably better. Yeah. As soon as practical practable. Practical. Yes. Any other comments on policy. Okay. Again, first reading. So, get

121to see how the sausage is made. Preview for your regular policy committee meetings. The trailer. riveting will but will there be a comma find out at second reading item 11.02 102 approval of the consolidated district plan. Um I will be soliciting a motion for approval of the consolidated district plan as proposed and in alignment with the learning and teaching committee's recommendation. Uh there is an opportunity for additional discussion. Um but first I'll solicit a motion. Is there a motion? Moved. Thank you. Second and second. Restating the motion. It is to approve the consolidated district plan as proposed. Seeing the motion and second, any discussion? Good things. Good things. We spent a great deal of time at a public meeting discussing this at the last teaching learning. Learning teaching. Thank you. Thank you. Mike, thank you

122for all your hard work. Any other discussion? Seeing no discussion, um, Kelly, would you call the role? Yes. Regary? Yes. Tomlinson? Yes. Zant, yes. Apple, yes. Evans, yes. Devito. Yes. Motion carries. All right. Uh item 12.01. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn to executive session under the Illinois Open Meetings Act uh 5 LCS120C 1 2 6 8 and 11 for the appointment and employment compensation discipline performance of specific employees collective negotiating matters of employees. Uh setting price of sale of district owned property security procedures litigation that is pending. Uh restating the motion. uh to adjourn to executive session under open meetings act 5 LCS 120 slash 2C1 6 8 and 11 so move second moved and seconded any discussion second I I I moved he second I'm going to rece Seeing the motion open meetings

123act 5 ILcs 120/2C 1 2 6 8 and 11. Uh Kelly, would you call the role? Gregory, yes. Evans, yes. All right. Thank you all for coming. There will be some more agenda items afterwards. die All right, it's uh 10:05 p.m. We're back from executive session. Item 13.01, uh approval of resolution for the sale of 245 West Exchange Street. While we are very grateful for the submission of interest in purchasing this building, statutory requirements restrict our ability to take action on this item uh in a positive way or in an affirming way since the minimum required bid was not met. Uh is there a motion to reject the bid uh as it did not qualify as proposed? So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Uh any discussion? Kelly, would you call the role? San, yes. Evans,

124yes. Item 13.02. I will not be soliciting a motion on this item. Approval of resolution to engage a broker for the sale of 245 West Exchange Street. Seeing no motion, we'll move on to the next item on the agenda. Item 13.03. Approval of resolution to publish bids for 245 West Exchange Street. Is there a motion to republish bids at a new minimum bid of $151,000? 1501. I'm sorry. 150. Uh, I'll restate the motion with a correction. Is there a motion to republish bids at the minimum bid of $150,000? So moved. Second. And seconded. Any discussion? Seeing no discussion, Kelly, would you call the role? Evans. Yes. Seeing no additional items on the agenda, this meeting stands adjourned. Thank you all. Thank you.