Regular Meeting of the Board of Education - September 15, 2025

001Hi everyone, my name is Michael Miller-Cornejo. I have the privilege of directing and choreographing Belvedere High School's Fall Musical 6, the teen edition, along with Mr. Miller-Cornejo as the music director and Michaela Miracle as our technical director. We've been in two weeks of rehearsal, entering our third week, and 6, the musical, is about the lives of Henry's wife, retelling through pop concert performances. So, the cast is very excited to perform opening number XY's for you. And we hope you like this taste. And our show dates are October 6th through the 18th. So we hope to see you then. Survive. About to get over. Great job. Okay, it is now 6.07, and we are out of closed executive session. And we will reconvene the regular meeting of the Board of Education with a pledge to the

002American flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for Roll call, please. Mr. Wieselmeyer. Here. Mr. Herrera. Here. Mr. Hemke. Here. Mrs. Helps. Mr. Mueller. Here. Mr. Piggy. Here. Mrs. Young. Here. Okay, before we start the regular meeting of the board, as a reminder, all board members are expected to follow our approved meeting norms and board protocol. Are there any items on the agenda any members of the board would like to amend or move? I want to take out the personal. On the consent agenda. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

003Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay Board of Education on September 15th, 2025 as presented. Roll call, please. Discussion? All right, roll call. Mr. Piggy. Aye. Mr. Hamke. Aye. Mr. Dieselmeyer. Aye. Mr. Mueller. Aye. Mrs. Young. Aye. Mr. Herrera. Aye. Okay. Board Policy 4.10 requires the Board of Education to approve the final annual budget by September 30th each year. In accordance with that policy, we will now hold the public hearing regarding District 100's final 2025

004through 2026 budget. At this time, I will turn the floor over to Mrs. Armstrong, who will provide both the board and the public with information about the budget. Mrs. Armstrong? Thank you. So the budget presented for FY26 is a deficit budget as we anticipated that it would be. It is looking at our ongoing expenses. The biggest challenge the district's facing is reduced revenues coming in. As we went and stayed in Tier 1 funding, we also took about a $1.8 million hit on Tier 1 funding with Chicago Public Schools coming back into that tier. So that did reduce our revenues coming in. We continue to face uncertainty with the federal funding that's coming from the Fed level. as well as with mandatory categorical aid still being prorated at the state level. So, for some examples of

005those are transportation claims. Reimbursement from the state are only being funded at 73% for regular transportation and 61% for special education. Categoricals and these funding challenges are important to note because when these requirements and mandates to have these programs and offer them and they're underfunded whether they're at the federal level or the state level, it falls on the district to make up those funding sources. In a tax districts such as we are, we are also capped at what we can put out in our tax levy. So making up those missed contributions becomes even more difficult, nor do we want to be putting that entire burden on our taxpayers. We continue to abate all of our sales tax revenue, which was a promise we made this community, and we have upheld that agreement that 100% One

006of the proceeds from sales tax revenue generated for the school facility sales tax does go to abate those referendum debts that we had from the 2005 and 2008 funding bonds when we built based on future growth projections at that time. Those have now been all... consolidated and restructured to get rid of the big balloon payments that was part of what we did when we issued the health life safety bonds this year so those are also included in the budget as far as your fund 90 and your fund 60 which is your health life safety and your capital projects funds those will always deficit spend because you move those monies into the fund balance of those appropriate funds last year. So we increased those revenues going into those funds last year. Now for the next three

007years we will deficit spend because those are sitting kind of in the savings account for those funds. So it is typical to see those deficits there. Our primary increase in expenses is the salary and benefits line items that are coming through. Those are all from collective bargaining agreements and also from the strategic goals of retaining and recruiting highly qualified staff. We want to continue that process. However, our salary and benefits since FY23 have increased over $25.4 million, but revenues for that same period has only gone up. 13 million, I believe, at that point. So that just kind of shows the outpacing of, you know, what we're having to spend. That doesn't include, when I'm talking about increased expenditures, that's just salary and benefits that have gone up the 25 point or 24.5 million. Your inflation

008your supplies everything else is going up So our purchase services are going up but I indicate salary benefits because that 34% increase over three years is Significant and that is what is driving most of our deficits, but any Question we will have another on the roll call item. We'll have The adoption at this point. I think we would open it up for Thank you, Mrs. Armstrong, for providing that information. At this time, I will ask if there are any questions or comments from the public regarding District 100 final 2025-2026 budget. Okay, hearing none, the public hearing on the District 100 final 2025-2026 budget is now closed. We will move forward to the next item on the agenda. We will now have our district celebrations, and I would like to turn this portion over to Dr.

009Sheldon. Well, we are really, really excited to have Melissa Erickson here from the Community Foundation. The Boone County Community Foundation has served an integral role in bringing the Dolly Parton Imagination Library Program here to the district. Dolly Parton's imagination library is a free monthly book gifting program that mails high-quality age-appropriate books directly to children birth to age five regardless of family income Erickson do you want to speak a little bit about it you I've heard you several times I know you will speak to it more eloquently than me service clubs and service clubs going in to provide and how it works is that you have sponsors who then raise the funds to be able to provide the books so every children from birth to five living here in Boone County receive a book monthly once

010they're registered and so we just really appreciate the partnership working with Dr. Baldwin and also I'd like to recognize two District 100 Foundation of Excellence who also provided a grant to help bring this here to Boone County. So we have Other, Belvedere Rotary, who's been a club here for 103 years, they put forth a large portion as well to get some of that funding going. Everyone from the IOU Club to North Moon Education Foundation and a variety of others. So really it is a true celebration and it really is a community effort. And getting books into the hands of... Army of Gifts Residence is what it's all about and we just really appreciate it and celebrate with all of you. So thank you so much. And if anyone were listening and wanted to secure some

011books for their children, how would they go about that? Yep, so you can go, if you want to register, if you have children who are from birth to age five and you want to register, you can go to imaginationlibrary.com and then just select Boone County, Illinois, and then it will walk you through that process. We also have, I have some stuff here with me. I have some bookmarks and different things that have that QR code on it. You can also contact the Boone County Community Foundation or visit our website. The QR codes are on there. Also, so we house the, we hold the funding, and it is a restricted fund that we have created specifically for the Valley Park Imagination Library. So if anyone's interested in supporting that, well, all the information is on our

012website. Thank you so much for being here. Early literacy is one of the strongest predictors of a child's future success in school and in life, said Dr. Joy Bauman, early childhood principal. By putting books into the hands of our youngest learners, we are investing in the future of our community. Dr. Bauman really played a critical role in taking the steps to bring the Dolly Parton Imagination Library here. as did so many people in our community. We are just so, so excited here in the district. We have really been working hard to have our youngest learners have the best possible start. We know that that will make a difference every year moving forward for them. incredibly important. Good start makes a difference in literacy and in all academics. So we're so excited to have Melissa here

013with us this evening and Dr. Baumann and if you could come up and take a picture with Dolly Parton and anyone else wanting their picture with Dolly Parton is welcome to do so. Janine directs the pictures. Thank you, Melissa. Thank you. Oh, trust me. Thank you so much. And Ms. Erickson might be taken off, but I bet if you catch her in the hallway, you can get your picture with Dolly. Why is she still here? And if Dr. Baumann would come back up again, we also would like to recognize Dr. Baumann and the entire early childhood program in their first year with an audit. We were recognized with the Gold Circle of Quality. On behalf of the Illinois State Board of Education, they are pleased to recognize the circle of quality that District 100's Preschool

014for All Expansion Program has achieved in Accelerate Illinois, the state's quality recognition and improvement system for early learning and development programs. Accelerate unifies all state's early learning programs under a common set of standards across multiple settings to provide families with important information about quality early learning programs in our community. Accelerate Illinois is anchored by a set of standards that focuses on early learning and development and places high priority on instructional excellence, family services, staff qualifications, professional development, and program administration. Central to its design is the recognition of the multiple forms of evidence to meet the universal standards. Evidence is obtained through monitoring visits. conducted through National Lewis University's contract with the Illinois State Board of Education. Based on our most recent monitoring results, Washington Academy and Caledonia Elementary School have both achieved the gold circle

015of quality. And again, to have achieved this in our first audit year is an absolutely extraordinary accomplishment. So much time and work went into that. We are so proud of our early childhood team and so excited to have this rating. So congratulations. Thank you. And we also have so many students to recognize as well. College Board's 2025 National Recognition Award. The College Board recognized 15 current Belvedere High School students and 15 Belvedere North High School students as part of the Big Future National Recognition Program. These students were eligible for recognition based on their GPA of a B-plus or higher and their performance on the PSAT exam. top 10% in their school, and or on AP exams completed during their 9th and 10th grade years. There are three award categories, First Generation Recognition Award, Rural and

016Small Town Recognition Award, and the School Recognition Award. I'm going to read through these names. I'm not going to say each individual award, but please know that all of these students were recognized for School Recognition or for First Generation Recognition. or for the Rural and Small Town Recognition Award. So much to be proud of. If you are here today from BHS, come on and stand up. Are you here from BHS? Come on up. I'm going to read your names. Come on up. All right. Thank you. We have Edgar Alfaro, Jocelyn Sinodo, Brianna Dillian, Victor Flores, Addison Foreman, Matthew Lesajowski. I'm so sorry, Matthew. Are you Matthew? Oh, thank goodness. All right. Rory Miller, Roberto Ochoa, Melanie Paccio, Joshua Perez, Ellie Rohde, Caden Schrantz, Keegan Sweeney, Andrew Wooten, Jackson Wooten. That's what I was going to

017ask. And can you tell us your name so we can officially know who you are? My name is Jocelyn Sonoda. All right. Congratulations, Jocelyn and Keegan. Fantastic work. Mr. Herrera has the really challenging job of finding all these cards in there. It starts with a C. Jocelyn Sonoda. There you go. Congratulations. And if you are here from, we can applaud again, that's fantastic. If you are here from Belvedere North High School, come on up and I'm going to read your names. All right. We have Hannah Bartlett, Jonas Blair, Thomas Decker, Ray DeWall, Lauren Elliott, Isaac Irwin, Lucas Hemke, Austin Lindell, Ellen Lobley, Kaylee Lovell, Benjamin Myers. Eric Poon, Zachary Rediger, Keely Richardson, and Bridget Schoenwolf. Congratulations. And as you go through, will you tell us your names so we can recognize who you are? Thomas

018Decker. Hannah Bartlett. Awesome. Zach Rediger. Lucas Emke. Benjamin Myers. Eric Poon. Jonas Blair. Isaac Erwin. And Ray Bozal. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. We're proud of you. Thank you. All right. Mr. Frisma, do you want to stand up here with these students? Yeah. I thought I saw Mr. Rosado out there, too. Ms. Sherman's here, too. Who's here? Oh, Ms. Sherman's back there, too. Get on up here. Yeah. All right. And Belvedere North administration, come on back up here. For the first time in Belvedere North high school history. Belvedere North High School has earned high national and metro area rankings in the 2025-2026 Best High Schools, which U.S. News released on August 19, 2025. By earning a national ranking in the top 40%, Belvedere North High School achieved status as a U.S.

019News Best High School and gained eligibility to display that logo, Best High School Award Badge. Congratulations. All right. And I want to invite all of you, because also for the first time in history, Belvedere High School and Belvedere North High School will be presenting a crosstown performance of a musical. It will be the musical Frozen, and it will be in February. Perfect for Frozen, right? So we are very excited to welcome that, and I encourage you to make sure you come and see that first-ever Crosstown musical performance. And we also have our board shout-outs, and I see we have Dr. Philip Vermillion out in the audience. Come on up, Dr. Vermillion. Dr. Vermillion from Belvedere North High School. The documents that we turn into for payments, reimbursements, refunds, etc. are always absolute perfection that he

020turns in to us. He keeps track of things incredibly well. He documents everything. He's got to be one of the most organized. teachers we have had. We are just so grateful for all the work he puts into everything. He is a model teacher for best practices when it comes to paperwork sent to central office. I'm going to go ahead and say even more than that. Even more than that, Dr. Vermillion is a model for best practices. It makes a big difference, and in a situation like yours, you're doing a lot of work that comes to central office. Taking that extra time really values the full of the staff that we serve, and you are appreciated. Thank you so much for everything that you do, Dr. Vermillion. We appreciate you. Keep up all the great work.

021Yes. All right. Thank you. And thank you, everyone, for being here and being a part of those celebrations. There were a lot of them tonight, but there were some good ones. So thank you. Yes, congratulations, everyone. Thank you for being here. At this time, I would like to invite any board member who has anything or anyone they would like to highlight or give a shout-out to. So please do so at this time. I had the opportunity to... Visit a couple schools in the district a couple weeks ago I went to Perry and I mean I'm issue schools and got to speak to the staff members and talk to the students So thank you. Dr. Shug for letting me tag along with you in those those mornings So I'm excited to do that and I'm looking

022forward to doing more of it. It's fantastic. I they appreciate seeing you there. Mr. Peggy And then one more, too. I went to the IASB Super Saturday event on Saturday. It was a chance for new board members to interact and learn about governance and advocacy. There was about 100 of us in the room, new board members from all over the state. So it was a good chance. I spent the whole morning and afternoon with them on Saturday. So I got a lot out of that. So it was a good morning. Probably a really quick six hours, too. Thank you, Mr. Pig. Anybody else? We have a process, and then we usually read it at the next board meeting. All right. Thank you so much. I hate to turn away a shout-out, but thank you. Okay.

023At this time, I would like to welcome our students back with their student council reports to share what is going on in our schools. First up is Ruby Ortega from Barbadier High School. I'm Ruby Ortega. I'm here to do the September being dressed in Popsicle report. So for Washington Academy, Mr. Oloka has to report that Washington Academy was excited to kick off another amazing school year. The start of the year has been full of positive energy and we are looking forward to building on this momentum. We are especially excited to celebrate our upcoming Hispanic Heritage Event on September 25th from 4 to 6 p.m. We hope to see you there. Mehan Elementary School principal Smith said, at student drop off our kindergarten families have the opportunity to select a book and math games for their

024children or for their child to take home, setting the tone for a year of fun and learning. Setting the tone for fun and learning here. Students have also been enjoying a new play workstation outside of recess and providing more opportunities for active and inclusive play. To support a positive school environment, students participated in PVIS stations through the building to review expectation, rules, and routines. We're excited for all that the 2025... and 26 schools in Aspen store. South Middle School, Mr. Comer reported that SMS is off to a terrific start. We have nearly 80% of our sixth graders attend our first ever web orientation before school began, which helps tremendously with how smooth the first week of school has been for our sixth graders. 7th and 8th graders are also off to a great start. Clubs

025and sports are in full swing, offering a rare array of additional opportunities for students. We are also excited for the 2025-2026 school year. At Boveter High School, Mr. Lewis says, VHS is excited for the 2025-2026 school year. Already, we have had the seniors summarize our first day assembly and separate... kickoff assemblies and book club advisory sessions. Students were reviewed, expectations, emergency procedures and how to read their grade reports and sign up for win sessions. Go Bucs. And at Elbrus High School, they said that we had a positive a good positive start to the school year. We are also starting the year with a record number of students. 65 students, five over our usual maximum of 60. 25 students are new to Everest this year and we are looking forward to a great year. Thank you.

026Thank you, Ruby. Up next, we have Belvedere North High School. Is anybody here from Belvedere North High School? All right. Come on, Jim. Thank you. We will now have our board committee report starting with the business services on September 2nd. Mr. Hempke, do you have anything you would like to highlight or share from the business services committee minutes? Well, community solar will be on roll call later. And, yeah, nothing. Nothing in particular in addition to that. It was exceptional. Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Hemke or Mrs. Armstrong? What did they come up with on percentage in the solar? There was a 10% reduction. Any other questions for Mr. Hemke? Okay, moving on to educational services on September 3rd. Mr. Mueller, do you have anything you would like to highlight or share from the

027Educational Services Committee minutes? Not really. There wasn't much. Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Mueller or Dr. Carson or Dr. Johnson? CNN will move on to Parent Teacher Advisory Committee on September 12th. Minutes are reflected. Dr. Shug, do you have anything you would like to highlight or share from the parent-teacher advisory? Only that it was a really terrific meeting. It's been hard to get attendees at our parent-teacher advisory committee meetings, and we changed the time and combined it with our PTO boosters group that was gathering regularly, and we... About tripled our attendance, so it was really fantastic to have a group there that provided I think some really good feedback on some really important issues So I really appreciate Mr.. Mandera seeking out a different way to look at how we can get parent

028involvement in that group and Parents if you're out there listening we We would love to add you to that group. It's a really helpful team of people And we really do want and seek your feedback Does anyone have any questions for dr. Shun? Thank you. Dr.. Shard At this time, members of the public and employees of District 100 may make public comments. As a reminder, any person appearing before the board is expected to address the board only at the appropriate time and follow the directives of the board president to maintain order and decorum, identify oneself, limit comments to three minutes, and conduct oneself with respect towards others and abide by board policy 8.1.30. Visitors to and conduct on school property. At this time, Matt Zickert, please come up. Two things, just to show you that

029I'm not always mean after a long time. Two things I wanted to mention right off the top is after three years, Dr. Schott finally got an oil license and waits on her car. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Zicker. On a more serious note, we had a person of great value at Belvedere School District pass away last week. Someone you're sitting up there and knowing, the chief, Ken Anderson. We don't have people like that in Belvedere. We still have some like that now, but losing people like that is a big loss to the community. He met a lot of kids in schools. He did a lot, whether you're a baseball player, whether you're a health student, whether you're a PE student or a football player, whatever. The Chief made a big difference in a lot of

030people's lives over the year. He was a BHS graduate, too. So I think he will be sorely missed. Now getting down to my other topics. The NAEP, which is the National Association of Educational Progress, came out with a report. 30% of U.S. students and seniors don't have basic reading skills at a 30-year-plus low. It hasn't been that low in over 30 years. 45% of high school seniors don't have basic math skills. That's the lowest it's been in the last 20 years. So I think sometimes when I talk about education and things like that, we need to be aware of stuff like that. The two areas of the country that are the lowest are the Midwest and the South. And we, unfortunately, are in the Midwest. What you're going to see coming up when we talk

031about scores and accountability is the new cut scores. So basically what they did is they lowered the bar, which I'm not arguing for or against. I'm just saying when we see more people are going to be proficient. That's because there's every school district, for the most part, is going to see more people more proficient because the bar got lowered. So I think what we need to look at is not necessarily how many more we have proficient, but look at how do we compare to the rest of the state. That would be a more fair judgment of how we actually performed or didn't perform based on that. The last time I was up here, I talked about school designations, and Dr. Johnson brought up some things that were valid. about, you know, we've gone back and

032forth and there's a lot of categories, there's usually ten on that. But the one thing I wanted to reiterate when we talk about making commendable or not making commendable, making commendable or not making it isn't you're close to passing or not passing, so to speak. We're talking about moving back and forth. We're talking about moving back and forth between the bottom 10% of the state. That's the category we're talking about moving back and forth. In conclusion, we talked about accountability and things like that, especially as Mrs. Armstrong talked about the budget. We did things like the rebranding to 35K and stuff like that. I think we wasted a million dollars when we didn't do the track and tennis courts when we should have. If you think the federal government is going to give us more

033money in the future, we're wrong. And look at the last time we had a deficit budget. Look at how many years ago as best as we had one and how many deficit budgets we've had in the last 20-some years. And look at why I think we need to do spending priorities and look at what we need to spend, prioritize it, because now we're at that point for deficit spending. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Zickert. At this time, I'd like to welcome Lisa Whitcomb forward. So in a few minutes you're going to approve the consent agenda. And I'm not going to ask you not to approve it, so it's not about that. But there's a mentoring bonus that's on there for a number of central office employees. And I don't know what the criteria was for

034selecting the individuals who received that, nor do I need to know, right? There was some thought given to specially recognizing people who are doing things above and beyond in the area of mentoring. I would just say... Don't stop there. I hope that as an administration with the support of the board that you will go further and remember that in buildings teachers like Jen Nash, Sarah Garvey, Rob, Corey and Becky, Rebecca Wetzelhoff, Amy Zachary, Phillip Vermillion, paras like Robin Angelico, Kelly Cornette, Amber Fultz, Teresa Bach building level administrators like Katherine Hornbeck, James Friedsma, Kelly Connor, Billy Lewis, Ben Comier are all mentoring daily too. They're not just mentoring to their peers, they're mentoring to their students. So if we're going to find a lane to identify individuals who should be acknowledged and financially compensated, don't stop

035with the highest paid individuals in the district. Find a way to recognize and reward the frontline soldiers so that it isn't just those making the decisions who are having the opportunity to be individually recognized in the report, because if you go to the report you'll see each individual, including an employee who's been with the district less than 90 days, who has in some way found a way to merit such a reward, anywhere from $1,500 to in some cases $3,000. Let's not forget teachers and parents and office professionals. and individuals in building level administration as well. I would encourage you to say, where are those names, or when will we see those names? Thank you, Mrs. Whitcomb. Are there anyone else that would like to make public comment to the board? Okay. Hearing none, do I

036have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda items number 2 to 17 as presented? I'd like to take out number 3. Okay. We're still in a worse... Yes, you are in the right spot. Totally, you are. Okay. Number Yunk requested to have item number three, personnel report removed from the consent agenda. Further discussion? Any other requests? Yeah, number 10. Okay. What's item number? 10? Okay. Okay. Member Piggy requested to have item number 10 removed. Any other requests? Okay. Do I have a motion and a second to approve all consent agenda items not requested to be polled, which is number 2, 4 to 9, 11 through 17? I move to approve. I'll second. Okay. Member Hemke made a motion. Member Young seconded the motion to approve all consent agenda items not requested to

037be polled, which is items number 2, 4 through 9, 11 through 17, as presented. Discussion? At this time, I would like to acknowledge the following donations. Muffins and two packs of iced coffee from Tori Zitzouz for Seth Whitman ABC Program. Also, $150 from Allie Beck Authors for Seth Whitman ABC Program. Roll call, please. Mr. Hemke. Aye. Mrs. Young. Aye. Mr. Dieselmeyer. Aye. Mr. Piggy. Aye. Mr. Mueller. Aye. Mr. Herrera. Aye. Okay, motion passes. Do I have a motion and a second to approve Agenda Item No. 3, 2026, Personnel Report as Presented? I move. Okay. Second. Okay. Member Hemke made the motion. Member Desa-Meyer seconded the motion to approve Consent Agenda Item Number 3 as presented. Discussion, please. Okay. See you then. Roll call. Mr. Hemke. Aye. Mr. Desa-Meyer. Aye. Mrs. Young. Abstain. Mr. Hemke. I'm

038sorry, Mr. Piggy. Aye. Mr. Mueller. Aye. Mr. Herrera. Aye. Passes. Do I have a motion and a second to approve consent agenda item number 10, 2026 graduation date as presented? I'll make the motion. I'll second. Okay. Member DeSmyer made the motion. Member Hemke seconded the motion to approve consent agenda item number 10. 2026 graduation date as presented discussion I had a couple questions can you talk about the process of this or how we got to this point one from high schools to like the BMO Center yeah sure so we get some mixed feedback so if you go back in time before this is my tenth year here in the school district we go back far enough in history we had graduation ceremonies at the BMO Then we moved over to Rock Valley College and had

039ceremonies there up until COVID hit. And then that was when we moved to our fields to have them outdoors. And then there was some interest in keeping them there. People like having them at the school sites. If you've been to any of those ceremonies over the last few years, though, there's the constant threat of weather, whether it be heat or rain or wind or whatever the case may be. And so we got some feedback that we want to have a committee take a look at where is it that we're having our graduation ceremony. And so pulled together a committee. There are some slides in the summary that give you an overview of that. We had a committee that was composed of people that were directly involved with running graduation. So at each of the school

040sites, we had staff who helped coordinate graduation, our principals. We had several students that were there, some parents. Some of our staff who do kind of the behind the scenes set up and tear down work. The people that are all connected to the ceremony. Excuse me, and then we took a look at five different venues So we did take a look at keeping in our at our stadiums like we did last year's moving it back to Rock Valley the BMO Center We looked a little bit at Coronado that didn't get a real hard look though just because of the size the capacity there and then NIU Convocation Center was another place and so we came up with eight different criteria That were used to evaluate it So the student experience, the kind of atmosphere of

041it for our graduates, the family and guest experience, a big part of that was how many family members and guests can each of the venues accommodate, as well as accessibility types of considerations. Weather considerations, as I brought up before, logistics and operations around set up and tear down, the cost of it, capacity. its availability, and then parking. So those were the eight different criteria. And then we rated each of those after we spent some time discussing them. We pulled together some data about each of them, some information about each one of those, had some open discussion, and then did a rating. And we actually had two different meetings because the NIU Convocation Center got brought up in the first meeting, so that's why we held the second meeting. And there was a tie in the

042ratings between NIU and BMO. And so then we just did a straight hand boat and BMO came out suggesting I had a jerk boat. We did have some discussion and we had proposed a time. We got some feedback at the Ed Services Committee with some concerns about the times. And so we're going to do a survey for all 12th grade students, their parents, and then high school staff to get their feedback on which time slots would be the preference. And we'll go with the winner of that feedback. Okay. Do you have any other specific questions I didn't address? Yeah, is this a one-time contract, or will this be brought back up again next year? This will be a one-year contract that we'd be signing with them. Part of it is, too, we're kind of late

043in the game, really, in many ways, for securing a date. So we have very limited date options at all the venues other than our own fields that we looked at. So we would be looking at a new contract for the following year, but the intent would be is that we would... have our graduation ceremonies moving forward at the BMO Center. Okay. And one more question for you. Is this a total cost? What does that pay for? Is it just kind of just to put it on? So there's, I mean, a lot of it is the staffing. And that's a big reason why our staff were really interested in having either NIU or... BMO is when we host it, we have to staff it, right? So people that are ushering, that are taking tickets, that are

044doing any kind of security, right? Those are all D100 staff. And so sometimes our teachers who would like to be participating in the ceremony have to work at the event. On top of all the setup, teardown, all that, and then the rental of the location itself, what most of those costs are. Okay. The cost, the NIU center was within just a few thousand dollars difference in terms of price, so I think they're pretty competitive in terms of their pricing. Sure. Other questions? No, that's it. I appreciate it. Sure. Nice trades, Tony. I'll say as a person that used to coordinate graduation, I've done it at the BMO Center and I've done it at Rock Valley before. And as a parent who had a kid that graduated at BMO and at Rock Valley, I'm very excited

045it's going back. I mean, it opens it up to your family. Kids were restricted to maybe four guests could come. I mean, if you could have more people than that in your family, so your immediate family, I mean, that's just mom, dad. You couldn't have grandparents. You couldn't have, you know. Right. So it definitely gives our students a better opportunity to have their. Support system with them and I think that's important So you see about mid to late April people trying to get ticket. Yeah, it's very very hard. Yeah So now is it already secured for May 17th? So I hit we have Tenant of contract in place. I'm just waiting for your approval tonight to sign that. Okay. So you're not going to survey? I thought you said you were going to survey. For

046the times. Oh, for the times. Okay. I'd like to just put out there, too, that I'm glad it's going to a Sunday. We've had years in the past where some of our students couldn't attend because of sporting events or other things on Saturdays. So I'm very glad it's going back to a Sunday as well, too. It includes all of our kids then. My take on it. Sounds good. Dr. Carson, I know you mentioned it's a difference of a few thousand dollars or so when we staff it ourselves at the stadiums versus this. Do you have the eternal cost? I just want to make sure we're... The difference, I think you were saying a couple thousand dollars, was between NIU and BMO. It's vastly cheaper to do it at our building sites. Maybe I just misinterpreted

047whatever. Yes. No, I'm sorry. Between the two big venues. Okay, thank you. Yes. One was about $27,000. The other one was about $31,000. Thank you. Any other questions for Dr. Carson? No, just thank you for your work on this. Oh, my pleasure. And organizing your team here in the committee and getting this going. I appreciate it. Roll call, please. Mr. Dieselmeyer. Aye. Mr. Hempke. Aye. Mr. Mueller. Aye. Mrs. Young. Aye. Mr. Piggy. Aye. And Mr. Herrera. Aye. Next on our agenda are our roll call items. We are going to, well. The IASB Delegate Assembly. At this time, there is... Are there any board members who would like to volunteer to serve as the IASB Delegate Assembly representative for District 100? In the past, Holly, I think, in the recent past, served in that capacity, right?

048Do we know? Is she interested in doing that again? So I spoke to Holly, and she said she'd be interested if there are no other... members volunteering or raising their hands for it, she would take it. But again, if we have interested folks that would like to, at this time, volunteer for that, then we'd like to discuss that. I actually am interested. I didn't want to step on Holly's toes. Okay. That's quite all right. It's open. So it's open. So take that into consideration. Any other board members interested in volunteering? It's a really good opportunity. The best way I did it in a prior life in another school district, and the best way I could describe it is it's good old-fashioned grassroots politics. You're voting on a floor on all different kinds of resolutions, and

049there's debate, and it's time debate, and so you really get to hear all the different views on a given topic. You vote on behalf of our district. And so it's really pretty cool. Because they mentioned it at the event I went to on Saturday. It came up a few times. And so it sparked my interest. But again, if Holly already signed up for it, I don't want to step on her toes. Otherwise, this interests me. All right. Thank you. And just to piggyback off of what a member of DCMI were saying, great experience. And you're going to get these days, they'll have, live voting clicking devices so the results are pretty accurate in terms of what you're voting on, but real time, if you will. So real time, so you have a gauge of what

050the, all the delegates, how they're voting, percentages and such. So I think that'll be a great experience to be in. All right. If there are no other board members looking to volunteer, do I have a motion and a second to approve Member Piggy to serve as the IASB Delegate Assembly Representative for District 100? I'll make the motion. I'll second. Okay. Member Dieselmeyer made the motion. Member Young seconded the motion to approve Member Piggy to serve as the IASB Delegate. Representative for District 100, discussion. Roll call, please. Mr. Dieselmeyer. Aye. Mrs. Young. Aye. Mr. Piggy. Aye. Mr. Hemke. Aye. Mr. Mueller. Aye. And Mr. Herrera. Aye. Okay, motion passes. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the 2025-2026 school district scorecard as presented? Do I have a second? I second. Okay. Member Peggy

051made the motion. Member Hemke seconded the motion to approve the 2025-2026 school district scorecard as presented. Discussion? Dr. Carson, do you want to? Sure. So I wanted to walk you through. All right, so there's two scorecards. The first one is in smart sheets that Janine has on the screen in front of you. That really has been tracking our strategic plan since we adopted it several years ago. It provides you with a real broad overview of all five of the goal areas, the strategies that are connected to each of those five goal areas. You can scroll down a little bit, please, Janine. There you go. And then below that is kind of a performance dashboard that shows you how we're performing by goal. It's the top left there. Our KPIs, are we on or exceeding our

052targets or are we not meeting them? To the right of that, all the vertical bar graphs there are showing us our milestones. So we have action plans developed for each of our... our goals and our strategies, and that shows how many of our milestones or steps we've completed, are in progress or incomplete. If you scroll a little bit further, Janine, then it gives a breakdown of our KPIs by strategy over on the left there. And then over on the right, throughout the year, each of the goal leads take some time to reflect on how we're progressing, taking a look at our data, at our capacity, at our planning. and rates our likelihood of success. And so there's four color ratings. There's the green, amber green, amber red, or red. And so all those on there

053are either green or amber green, meaning we feel like we're likely to meet our goals. And then below that, if you scroll down, Janine, it gives an overview of all the KPIs that we're tracking across our strategic plan by each of the goal areas. The goal one... KPIs are not yet updated. We're waiting for the state report card to be released, all of our data from IAR and ACT and all of that. But that's what the whole rest of that scorecard is, is each of the KPIs connected to each of the goals and how we're performing over time. And that's what we have been presenting the last three years as our scorecard. And we got some feedback from our services committee if there would be a way for us as administrators to link together. So

054what are the steps that we're doing to work towards reaching those KPIs? So, Jeanne, if you could switch over to the other document. That's what this document is designed to do. And this is really just a one-year snapshot. This is what are our top priorities. There's two areas in each of the five goals, so there's 10 altogether, some math there. So it identifies, so like the very top one is for us to work on improving our math performance as measured on our state assessments. And then the next middle column there shows you the strategies that we're going to use to improve our math outcomes. And then the far right is that link to those KPIs that are on the district scorecard. And so that's just how it's organized. I'm not going to read all ten

055rows to you, but if you have any questions about that, that's just to give you a clear sense of what is it that we're doing as a leadership team and our school teams to work towards those goals. And then just so you're aware of the process, then next month we'll be bringing back the school scorecards. So this is our district-level scorecards in our schools with our leadership teams. We've been working to develop school scorecards, and you'll have a chance to review those and approve those. next month and what i would hope you'd see is some clear alignment that if you look at our strategic plan uh all the goals in uh the strategies that we're using are aligned to that strategic plan on our district scorecard and hopefully next month you'd see some clear alignment

056into our school scorecards any questions or dr show let's take questions first okay just just wanted to make a couple comments so um Dr. Johnson, Dr. Carson, I really appreciate you creating that center section. We talked about that at Ed Services, as you said. And, you know, for me personally, I've always had a gap in my mind. We've had the objectives on the one hand, and we've had the KPIs, how we're measuring it. But the what, you know, what are we doing, how are we going to get there, was really unclear to me. And so by having that center section, it's clear to me now the actions that we're really taking. And then in some follow-up discussions, you're tracking those in smart sheets on a regular basis. So you've got a tight process in place.

057And I just want to say I really appreciate the work that was done to put that together. Any other questions for Dr. Carson? On the scorecard itself, when we're looking at the KPI graphs, what? What is the y-axis? Whatever the measure is. When it's a proficiency, if it's 3%, what does that mean? This means only 3%? Which one are you looking at? Going down to the graphs. Like if I look at EL math proficiency. Or overall math proficiency, either one. Correct. Yes, that's 3.1% of students who are EL students were proficient. That's what that means. Are meeting proficiency standards established by across the different... metrics that we are using. This is a district-wide one. So the state has a math proficiency, which is K-12, as opposed to looking in isolation like a 5th grade IAR

058or 8th grade IAR or high school SAT. So they give us a district-wide proficiency level. So this would indicate that we're not doing really great overall? Okay. Like on almost almost all of them and the and how is the target? Line established good question. So yeah, there's a few lines that you can see on there though The kind of light blue is our projected status quo So when we got this truth the strategic plan three years ago This was kind of we kept going the direction we've been going where we expect to go five years from now The gray lines are target and what we worked on identifying at least for the academic areas was at that time where was the state average and what would it take for us to close the gap in

059the state average and so that's what that that's what populated the target line and then the dark blue line is our actuals and as i indicated before for goal one uh we're a year behind right now once we get the state data released at the end of october this will all be updated with last year's data. So you're really looking at two years ago data on those. 24-25 is not updated yet, is what you're saying? Correct. And then in other areas, those were metrics that we came up with, KPIs that we came up with when we adopted the strategic plan, and they were approved by the school board at that time for major incidents, intervention plans, or five essential scores. And so important to note here, too, Dr. Johnson later on in the meeting, and

060Mr. Zickert referred to this, we are going to see significant bumps this year because the proficiency standards were adjusted. And what you're seeing here is very low, and it is low, especially when you look at the EL and the special ed populations, which we've been targeting here as a district, have all been adjusted up. And again, Dr. Johnson will talk a little bit about the rationale for that. And you actually heard... Wendy last month talk about those adjusted proficiency standards. So I think that'll give a little bit more context to what you're seeing there. But this is definitely the area that we want to be targeting is that math area where we've seen some really challenges here and across the country. I'm going to add one thing to that too. Jean, can you scroll up

061a little bit to the benchmarks? So in addition to, no, sorry, down a little bit. There you go, perfect. In addition to looking at state average that was mentioned before, it's something we certainly can use as a barometer. Also, we have how we're doing compared to benchmark districts. So Dr. Shug, when she arrived, had us identify a handful of other school districts who are very similar to us demographically. And so I think that'll give another sense of, yeah, we all grew, but did we kind of stay with our benchmark districts or did we gain ground? Did we lose ground? I think that'll help give a clear picture. So that's data to come. Or that's a comparison that you're going to be, yeah. We have to be able to see their data to be able to

062see how we did compared to them, and we'll have that in late October. So will the school year 24-25 numbers, they will be adjusted to the new standard? Yes. Or next year they will be? We'll have to adjust. The data that we receive, okay. Yeah. And the target, you said the trajectory or the target. it tries to get us to the state average by the end of this chart? Yeah, the challenge was that was the target. That was the average that was in place three years ago, right? So if the state is moved, we'll still have a gap. Yeah, okay. Yep, just trying to understand. And have we only been using the scorecard since school year 22-23? Correct. Okay, so that's pretty... is still infant, pretty toddler-many. Next month, right? I believe so. That's our

063workshop on this next month? Well, we think so, so we're going to talk about that in a little bit. But yes, very likely that will be our workshop next week. I wanted to just highlight in goal three, which is the goal in which I am the strategy lead, and... Janine and I work on goal three. Goal three is family and community partnerships, and there the strategy is to actively engage families and the community as vital partners in the educational experience. And under that, there's two strategy areas. The first is to improve two-way family and community communication using strategic and streamlined tools. And the second is to expand opportunities for parent and community partnerships. in the work that we're doing for the communication audit and now implementing the communication plan and now we're going to be

064doing the family engagement survey. These two strategy areas overlap and we are doing a lot of the same things to address both areas What I wanted to ask the board is if you were comfortable if I merge those two strategy areas So that when we're listing our milestones, they are all falling in one spot as opposed to right now. It's a duplicates because again a lot of the milestones a lot of the activities that we're doing are the same under both of those strategies so if the board is okay with that I would consolidate that we'd still keep all the KPIs that are under there we just have one flow of the milestones for that that just is an easier workflow for Janine and I basically So is there any objection to that as we

065look at approving this scorecard tonight? No. Hooray. Yay. That's fantastic. That'll help us be a little bit more efficient. Any other questions for Dave on the scorecard? Or, I'm sorry, for Dr. Carson on the scorecard? Dr. Carson does incredible work on operationalizing these pieces, and the team does fantastic work, too. And I appreciate the questions tonight, and we will definitely dig in deeper at our board workshop in terms of really understanding that data. Any other further discussion or questions for Dr. Carson? Seeing none, roll call, please. Mr. Piggy. Aye. Mr. Hefke. Aye. Mr. Mueller. Aye. Mrs. Young. Aye. Mr. Giesemeyer. Aye. Mr. Pereira. Aye. Okay, motion passes. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the elementary school time study as presented? I'll make a motion. Okay. Second. Okay. Member Young made the

066motion. Member Peggy seconded the motion to approve the elementary school time study as presented. Discussion? Dr. Johnson, do you want to highlight? Sure. We just wanted to take an opportunity to do a comprehensive review of how we allocate minutes at the elementary level. So in 2018, the state moved away from number of minutes and some of their specific guidelines that we had once had. And so obviously with COVID response, plus we've just adopted the new literacy. Kind of did a 2.0 on our math curriculum. There's been a lot of changes since 2018 and we really just want to gather a team to sit down and say what do our elementary students need and what does our time allocation look like throughout the day? Our staff has been asking for this for a while just to

067have some commonality across six buildings. Any questions for Dr. Johnson? Okay, CNN, roll call please. Mrs. Young. Aye. Mr. Piggy. Aye. Mr. Mueller. Aye. Mr. Hempe. Aye. Mr. Giesemeyer. Aye. Mr. Herrera. Aye. Okay, motion passes. Do I have a motion and a second to approve next AMP as the community solar farm provider as presented? So moved. Do we have a second? I'll second. Okay. Member Piggy made the motion and Member Young seconded the motion to approve next AMP. as a community solar farm provider discussion. Do you want to hear from Nania? I would actually like to move to defer for more discussion at the next business services to table this discussion. We've received just some last-minute, 11th-hour information. This has been a very quick process for a very long contract, and I think that it

068warrants some further due diligence and discussion. So motion to table. Motion to table. Do I have a second to that motion? I'll second that. Okay. Any discussion on that motion? Okay. We have a motion from Member Hemke to table. The next AMP as a community solar farm provider, seconded by Member Young. Discussion? Just take the roll call. Roll call. Okay. Roll call. Mr. Hempke. Aye. Mrs. Young. Aye. Mr. Mueller. Aye. Mr. Nusselmeyer. Aye. Mr. Piggy. Aye. Mr. Herrera. Aye. So it is tabled. So it is tabled, yep. So motion passes as being tabled. Future discussion at... Business Services? Business Services. Okay. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the rescindment of the August 18, 2025, approval of employee number 091525-8, I'm sorry, 8, recognition, and remain employed for the 2025-2026 school year.

069As if no resignation had occurred, provided, however, beginning on August 18, 2025 and ending on January 9, 2026, employee number 091525-8 shall be allowed to utilize their available paid sick leave days and not report to work. I'll make a motion. I second. Okay. Member Young made the motion. Member Hemke seconded the motion to approve the rescindment of the August 18, 2025 approval of employee 091525-8's recognition, resignation, and remain employed for the 2025-2026 school year, as if no resignation had occurred, provided, however, beginning on August 18. 2025 and ending on January 9th, 2026. Employee number 091525-H will be allowed to utilize their available paid leave days and not report to work. Discussion? Roll call, please. Mrs. Young. Aye. Mr. Hempke. Aye. Mr. Dusselmeyer. Aye. Mr. Mueller. Aye. Mr. Piggy. Aye. Mr. Herrera. Aye. Motion passes. Do

070I have a motion and a second to approve District 100's final annual 2025 through 2026 budget as presented? Move to approve the budget. Do we have a second? Okay. Member Hemke made the motion, and Member Piggy seconded the motion to approve District 100's final annual 2025 through 2026 budget as presented. Discussion? Safe to say no one's crazy about a deficit budget, for sure. But also understand the challenges that we had in putting the budget together for the year So we are spending some reserves in several cases and You know, I definitely look forward to the discussion around what do we do for the following school year? Because we certainly don't want to be in the habit of having a deficit budget year upon year so I definitely look forward to to that and I'm sure

071we'll have some tough decisions to make when we get to that point as well. Yeah, I agree. Thankfully, we have a reserve to be able to support it this year, but that's not sustainable, and it's not the way we want to keep moving forward. So it brings it into the light, and we will need to be discussing it throughout the year so that we don't have the same thing next year. Yeah, and Mrs. Armstrong, as you pointed out, the funding situation is becoming more and more challenging and could get a lot more challenging as we go forward. So we've definitely got some work to do. I do want to share really quickly that we have put some things in place to try to not realize this type of deficit. I have to budget what is

072actually there. But we have made significant changes to some of our benefit programs in hopes of saving $2 million in pharmaceutical costs and stop-loss insurance. So this is not coming forward with me not trying something. I hope that we're not going to realize that type of deficit budget. Is hard to make adjustments to revenues when you levy in December for two years later And so I can't adjust the revenues that are coming in this year as the tax levy But as we look at the tax levy for next year, which will be in December We'll have to be looking at where we're allocating The funds within the tax cap funds where we allotted but again, we're still a tax pack tax kept disturbed, so there's not a whole lot of flexibility we can do there.

073I do want to commend Ms. Armstrong. This is an incredible challenge. We knew that there were going to be challenges coming into this budget, and we knew that revenues had decreased. We were anticipating that. We knew that we had significant costs in terms of salaries and benefits, but other costs that were less anticipated, like some of the increases we experienced in insurance. And I know navigating that is challenging and bringing forward a deficit budget is not what anyone wants to do. It will definitely begin the process of us taking a really hard look at this moving into this following year. I'm also confident in a lot of the strategies that Ms. Armstrong is referencing in regards to how we can hope to not realize that deficit spend as well. Any other further questions for Ms.

074Armstrong? Seeing none, roll call, please. Mr. Hemphie. Aye. Mr. Piggy? Aye. Mr. Dieselmeyer? Aye. Mrs. Young? Aye. Mr. Mueller? Aye. Mr. Herrera? Aye. Okay, motion passes. The following items have been added for discussion, or we'd be coming up for further review and or possible action in the future. Background information has been provided, and the Board may ask questions and or request clarification at this time. Vision. All right. When we adopted our strategic plan, it has a mission statement, it's got goals, it's got values, but one of the things that it doesn't have is a vision statement. It has profiles of various, of our students, of our staff, but again, it doesn't really have a vision that, as an administrative team, as we work to operationalize this strategic plan, has felt like... something that's been missing,

075something that can sort of unify us in terms of thought as we look to really implement those parts of the strategic plan. So we did some work as an administrative team to pull together some of those items that we felt best represented those core values that we saw in the strategic plan. And we wanted to bring that forward to the board this evening. for consideration as we look to have a deeper dive conversation about strategic planning and what that means to see if a vision statement of this nature seems to resonate with the board, if there's more work we'd like to do with that, and what other things you might want us to consider as we look to move forward. The vision statement we pulled, and again, you can see it in the language of

076the core values. You can see it in the mission statement values. You can see it as well in the goals, is District 100, student first, which actually pulls back to a previous vision statement of the district, inclusive and community strong, where every child thrives every day. Again, the thinking here to pull together some of those key ideas that we have in the strategic plan. So I put that out there to you in hopes of seeing if that feels like something that resonates, something you'd like to see us do some more work on, something you'd like to see us bring back to you. Thoughts, comments, questions, feedback? I like the community component of it, community strong. Indicative that our students are involved in the community, care about the community they live in, participate, engaged, right? So

077I certainly like that aspect of it as well. I like that it can also be interpreted as student communities. And it's combined with inclusive. And so I think inclusive and student communities. So yeah, I like that as well. I really like the succinctness of it and that it really captures. It doesn't go into anything related to the other elements of supporting the student. It just says the student and these are the things that we value. I really like it. Vision statements tend to be much more useful when they're short. Easy to remember, easy to, in your elevator speech. Less is more. Less is more. Yeah, and that got away from us in a lot of ways in the strategic plan as a whole. There was a lot we wanted to get done, and so, yeah,

078that's exactly what we're going for. Other thoughts, comments, feedback? Do we feel like this is representative? Would you like us to do some more work with it? It'll be interesting to see what students think of that. I think so as well, and the staff as a whole as well. Some student feedback. Nothing that flags us. All right. All right. I feel really good about that. Thank you. I really like it. All right. We will take it back for some student and some staff feedback, and then we will bring it back to you in the coming months, hopefully for some approval. Thank you very much. How will you get that student and staff feedback? We will do it in a couple different ways. We will do a survey because that gives us the broadest feedback, but

079also I will have the opportunity to meet with our students. I'm not sure. October 21st. And when I meet with them, I will ask them in a smaller focus group session for their feedback as well. Okay, great. And that will be high school students that I'll be talking to, at least in that particular focus group. All right. All right, fantastic. Board workshops. So we asked you to give us your feedback on those board workshops, and you did. And from that, we generated a list and a potential timeline, and I just wanted to make sure we felt okay with that. So we would we combined some of these was a strategic plan district and scorecard goals for the principals We combined that into October again We're thinking we would convene this at 430 prior to the

080start of the regular board meeting And then we tried to space them out to give you a little bit of time off. So we weren't meeting every month Then in December, doing the Illinois report cards, summative designations, and the benchmark data that we were talking about today, those identified benchmark districts, we'll be able to see how we performed compared to those other districts. February, doing a deep dive into budget, which should be about the perfect time as we're starting to work at building that other budget, and we'll have a better idea where we're at with that deficit spend. Early childhood program and CTE program in April. And then the bilingual program and the special education program in June. And then August with our board retreat seemed like the right time to talk about board governance

081and vision. Thoughts, comments, feedback on that? Does that look like a reasonable schedule? Those are good topics. Yeah, I'm excited. Fantastic. Anything else you guys would like to add, see, kind of going forward to? I think it would be good for us to include somewhere on there some of the things that we, on a standard schedule, include in consent. Okay. Like personnel and some of the things that we're approving in the personnel on a regular basis. Such as stipends and things like that how they're derived how they're determined how we determine how many of those stipend positions we need You know, how are we intelligent with without with it in? In doing it appropriately without letting it get out of control, and how do we control that, monitor it, things like that. So consent agenda

082items as a whole, so looking at that personnel report. Yep. Personnel report investment report grants report you know those they can come on different workshop sessions or Big topic right away without anything else with That was going to be my comment, is that because in budget, I think you also need to include, that's going to be the conversation that leads into levy when we start talking about budget. So trying to put all of those things in February is going to be impossible for us to cover in a 45-minute to hour and a half. All right. To really get any value. I mean, I can talk to you for that long. Oh, yeah. I didn't mean entire budget. Yeah, I can come talk to you about that. I just meant some of the things that are

083on the consent. Well, the one above it is for the budget. Everybody that asks for a budget. workshop. Yeah, I think it's better. We had them stacked on top of each other. You're talking about the routine type monthly expenses and things like that? Yeah. So maybe we'll try for that in March. Those are back-to-back months. Or we could try to do that over the summer. March is a bear. Yeah, I was going to say March is rough for personnel in July. I mean, I only have so many months. We could... summer. We'll say summer. Yeah, whenever. Okay. All right. And again, if there's questions before summer... Please. I mean, I can't really speak to the personnel report, but please don't wait until summer. I can explain what the grant report and investment reports and things

084like that are at any point. And I do want to, I can't do a shout out, but I'm going to do a shout out right now, is that Brian actually came in and met with me for almost three hours last week. And we went through budget and answered a lot of questions that weren't budget that tied to how budget was done. And so that was extremely... I would say helpful. I hope he found it helpful. I will give a shout-out. I will echo that shout-out to Joanne. I appreciated the interest and the time to do that. So if anybody wants to do that, I mean, preferably I don't want to do Fridays at three hours, but I'm happy to meet with people and make it a priority. Because I don't want you routinely just approving

085things that you don't understand, especially when we're having the... budget situations that we're in, I want to make sure that people understand what's on there that you're approving. So, Barbie has a first line knowledge of it as being something. Brian bought a couple books, so he's going to be the expert. No, I gave him those books. Oh, there you go. And they are books that are available at Triple I. So, I will be purchasing a couple more to put in there. I've had a couple actual budget. managers here, district employees that are very curious about learning. I mean, I think that the more people that can get to understand this, the more people will understand the difficulties and the struggles we're facing. So I am happy to talk to anyone who will want to engage

086in a conversation. I just want to throw out there too that, I mean, if we don't have time to do it before a board meeting, I personally am willing to meet a different night of the week after 4.30. Well, and we do have that second board meeting of the month is built into those calendars. That would be a time we could do some of these if we needed to as well. That would be the first Thursday of the month, correct? I believe it's the first Thursday, yes. But we do know we have got some facilities master plan pieces that we might need to utilize that second meeting for as well. I mean, and another thing we could do is do a blurb at these regular board meetings too. I mean, we could do a... Personnel

087report this is what's in it. This is what it's about you know sort of thing during the regular board meetings, too But we'll work on that Let me know if you have any other topics, and then we'll plan to kick off our first one on October and see how it goes Does that seem that work? Yeah? Thanks for putting this together and I'd encourage the board members to, in the comments section, you know, if there's anything specific that you would like addressed and make sure is addressed, add it in the comments section. I think it's... Yeah, that would be perfect. Just to help lead the presenter. And as always, don't forget, if you do have a question, do reach out to Dr. Sharga or Joanne with those questions to get addressed. You know, you get

088those questions addressed ahead of time. They have a better understanding of what it is that you're looking at and what it is that you're approving. We always appreciate that. And you can bring everything to me, and I will send you to whoever you need to go to. But please, yeah, never hesitate to ask. So the other part of this question was we talked about potentially rotating the board meetings and originally talked about quarterly. I had a chance to talk to Mr. Bell a little bit about what that might look like in terms of recording those meetings and how easy or difficult that might be. And we kind of settled on we thought maybe we could roll out three in this first year. Mr. Bell, do you want to talk a little bit about? Yeah, basically

089it's a whole teardown of the system we have here. And then when we come back here, putting it back here. And then also logistics on where exactly the buildings want to go. It can be done. We can move it around. We'll get it done. Just let us know where you would like it to be. Well, we thought maybe for the first one we'd do one of the high schools. We actually were talking about doing BHS for the first one because the PAC is set up for recording, and it might give us an opportunity to, those of you that haven't been to BHS or haven't seen the PAC, we'll do a little tour. And I'm sort of thinking we try to do them on the opposite months of when we have board workshop dates so that...

090We don't have to work on that setup and also do the board workshop on those days. I really like the idea of having board meetings at some of our facilities and making the board more visible. I think it gives a chance for whichever facility we're at to highlight and showcase what they're doing. I just think it's a real positive so that we're not always here in kind of this admin setting. All right. I would echo that, right? Because how often do we have the opportunity, based on our schedules, to get in some of the other buildings, you know? So this gives us a great time, you know, having the board meetings there, being visible, and if the folks from the buildings are there. the opportunity to interact with those folks there. And I'm glad to

091hear that Tyler, that we're able to just pick up and move some of this stuff there. I'm not sure that's what he said. But nonetheless, it sounds like we can get it done. So we can make it happen. Tyler's just smiling. Whatever. I'd be curious to see how that looks at your end. To be able to move everything. Like, that place in, like, B, at North, where the forms are? Yep, yep, yep. Like, that should be a pick-up-and-drop, isn't it? Well... You still got to mic everyone up, right? So you have to get the microphones in front of you. But, yes, it can be done. We've done it at North in the past. We've done it at Perry. We've done it at BHS. We've done it at BHS, so... you're going to come up with

092a remarkably efficient process. No doubt. And this is a benefit to all the smart panels that you have going around. So I think let's try to plan for BHS in November as our first one and see how that goes. And then we'll... Feel okay? Yes. All right. All right. Somebody tell BHS they're coming. All right. Very good. And then we thought maybe that would be an opportunity for that high school to highlight anything they wanted to during that celebrations portion as well. So give them an opportunity to showcase their school a little bit too. I want to clarify. We're not expecting building tours during this. This is just the board meeting, correct? The board meeting, but I think we'll have, if people want to come a little bit early and do a tour, if the

093building principal's available, I'll help. I think we can coordinate that easily. Because we won't have a board workshop, so it allows us to do a tour. Correct. So if you wanted to come early and see the school. I just want to coordinate with facilities as well. Oh, yes. Do that. So they'll be there. They'll all be so excited. They will be. They will be. It's an opportunity to showcase their building. It'll be a fantastic opportunity. I can see the smiles. Me too. Me too. It'll be good. It really will be good. It really will be nice. I'm not saying it's not. It's a self-talk. And so let's look at anything else on board workshops or meeting locations. All right. If you want to look at, so if you'll recall, last month we looked at the

094policy series, or actually two months ago now, looked at the policy series and made some changes to some of those policies. based on our review of those sections 1, 2, and 3. One of the policies that we identified in need of revision was policy 130, and that was the school district's philosophy, which hadn't been updated in a while to reflect anything about our new mission statement or our core values, but it did have some, I think, overarching statements that still were relevant and related to those pieces. So what... What I did was go and rework that to include some of our information from our strategic plan and our core values and our mission statement to reflect that in the school district's philosophy without having it be so specific or narrow that we'd have to update

095it every five years to have them, again, be sort of an overarching, broad view. and looking to get your feedback on that before I bring it back to the policy committee. So if you want to take a couple minutes to read through that. Extracurricular and co-curricular programs are added in there, part of which you added back to show, or others maybe perhaps? Yes. Part of being vital, enriching students' learning experiences? Yep, absolutely. And it was captured in the original as well, but yes, something definitely. felt like was part of the philosophy for the district. Any other thoughts or feedback? This will go back to the policy committee in October, so they'll have the opportunity for thoughts and feedback. We'll come back to you for a first read, then come back again for a second read.

096So you don't have to make any decisions today, but I just want to make sure you took a minute to take a look at it, and if you have any feedback, you can give that to me tonight or you can give it to me in the coming weeks as well. I'll just tell you one thing. I like the continuous improvement, embracing innovation, reflection, and growth. One thing that we embrace in our learning as an organization is making mistakes. And if there's a way to somehow incorporate that we embrace learning. from mistakes or we embrace learning fast. I don't know. It's just, I don't know how it would work into this, but it's good for students to know they don't always have to be perfect because... In perfection, you don't learn as much as when you

097make mistakes. I love that, and I think that's definitely aligned to the work we're really trying to do as a district is to embrace things that are challenging, embrace some of that risk-taking and the learning as an iterative process. Or foster growth from mistakes, I guess, however you want to. Yeah, encourage risk-taking and learning from mistakes. I like that. Okay, that's great. That is a great ad. We can definitely get that in there. The other thing I like to support is critical thinking as well. It's the ability to think and be your own thought leader. And I don't know that I saw that in here anywhere, but to be... Just my own personal thoughts on something that I feel like a district is important for us to help to foster in the students that were

098developing Thank you The wonderful mistakes could that go under continuous improvement? Yeah, I think it could I will I'll play around with it a little bit and see but I think that maybe is a nice connection. Yeah Thanks, dr. Shug. I look I really like this great. Yeah Fantastic. Well, I had a lot of support from our strategic plan and CHAT GPT. So making the most of all our resources. There's some really good modernization here to the language. Our productive struggles. Productive struggles, I love that. Productive struggles, yeah. So Barbara and I, we're going to see this two or three more times then. Yes, you will see it. Yes, you will. You will see it in October here at the policy meeting and then again in November back here again. Okay. And when it would

099come for a second and final read. Okay. Great feedback. Thank you. Thank you. That's really helpful. All right. That is the end of the discussion items. Okay. Then we will hand it over again back to Dr. Sharp for administrative reports. All right, we have superintendent comments and I'll make it brief. That's the strategic plan. All right, we welcomed our staff back here at the end of August, had our first day of school. You may or may not be aware that Well, first of all, thank you to everybody who was able to attend that staff welcome. It was really fantastic. opportunity to see everyone and I think just great energy to start the school year. We are so lucky. We have such a great staff and getting the kids back has been fantastic and the rolling

100out of the new cell phone policy has, I think, made some real impact on classrooms and hallways and the learning and engagement based on the initial feedback we've received. So we welcome back our students K-12. And our early childhood students have a slightly more delayed start. So they started on August 25th. And the reason that they do that is our early childhood staff goes to support our kindergarten teachers as they initially transition those early childhood students into those kindergarten classrooms. That's been a change that we've done here in the last few years that's been tremendously successful in terms of helping ease that transition for some of our youngest learners. On the next slide, Juan Cervantes was awarded the Chicago Bears Latino Heritage Youth Leader Award. This is really very exciting. And the Chicago Bears... came

101to recognize him. He was given tickets to the upcoming Bears game where he's going to be an honorary captain. I mean, really a unique, fantastic honor. And if you have the opportunity to watch him on the news, I mean, it's just really an extraordinary honor. And he was so well-spoken and so grateful and such an exceptional student and a leader at BHS. So really excited to recognize him. Also in really exciting news, we had Belvedere North's first apple. The board approved them beginning an apple orchard. It was started in the spring of 2024, and we're hoping to produce 25 bushels of apples next year for the food classes. Just, again, a really exciting collaborative project that we are super happy to see come to fruition. So just a few highlights. So many things happening over

102this past month. I just want to cut in real quick. Yeah. On that first day of school, I really liked Jorge's speech. That was a really great speech, and it was good to hear. It was good to hear. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jemaine. Appreciate that. Well, I think you're absolutely right, Mr. Peggy. It was nice. I think, again, the staff really likes to see. Inspirational. An inspirational speech from the board president. Definitely. So, nicely done. Well, thank you. That was a good one. That was a good one. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Strategic plan updates. We've talked a lot about the strategic plan already this evening, and you saw you had the opportunity to see that scorecard, so we're going to hit these highlights quickly. Goal one,

103Dr. Carson. I'll just point out that we now have our literacy curriculum in kids' hands. Teachers are using it, so that's very exciting. We have a section at each school of SSI for our ninth graders that are coming in, all sorts of new PD and... progress monitoring tools in place for special ed in our early childhood programs. On top of getting their recognition is having an improvement plan that they're already working to put in place. And goal two, did you have anything to add, Ms. Fremont? All right, goal two, Dr. Johnson? Yes, just really exciting with the start of the school year. So I'm so proud of our staff. Each year they create that positive culture and that sense of... In those first few weeks, regardless if it's a kindergartner or an 11th grader, they

104really do a lot to make sure that each student feels connected and just a lot of effort goes into that. So just really excited about those first 20 days strategies that they're using. We finished MAP testing so we are now getting students that need some extra support. We're getting them in with interventions and progress monitoring. And then I know on one of the latest Friday board reports you saw some of the pictures of the new foods classroom, which is great. It will give our students experience in what they would see in the workforce. So very excited over that. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. Goal three, this again, we've been talking about this already this evening, but continuing our work on rolling out our new brand. And Ms. Hadley and I have been working on the implementation

105of those next steps around the communication audit and the communication plan, which is really looking at our internal and our external guidance for communications. So you will see that coming out here in the next month or so. Goal four, Dr. Ady. Just a couple things. I know it's early, but so far we're well ahead of last year with filling teacher and para subs. So we're trending in the right direction. That's really psyched about that. One of the other things that we are starting to do, and one of my favorite things, is we're starting to schedule our new staff rounding. So I'll be going out to all the different schools and setting up times to meet with all of our new staff. And it's a way for me to get feedback of what's working, what could

106be improved. But also it's a way for me to make sure that they feel supported. Is there anything that they need that we can help them with? And so we do that in the fall, and then we do that again in the spring. And it's just a great way to connect with people and make them feel supported and for us to get some feedback that we can use as well. Excited about that. We're scheduling them now, but we'll actually start to go out to the schools in October. In October and November, we'll be doing that. You do that personally with all new staff? Well, we extend the invitation. There are some that don't take advantage of it, but the vast majority of them do. So, yeah, I mean, the vast majority of them do. It's

107an opportunity. Yep, it's an opportunity. I think they really appreciate it, and I think sometimes they're surprised to see us come out there and talk to them. But it's one of the things I really enjoy doing a lot. It's important. And goal five, which we've also talked a lot about tonight, Mrs. Armstrong. Yep. So... The years one through three, of course, are going along strong. Design phase, we are actually going to close on the property on State Street this Thursday. But the design work we met this morning with UW and have kind of laid out what that floor plan will look like and how we're moving. So that is moving along pretty quickly so that we can hopefully get that Everest expansion happening. We are still in the very preliminary conversations about the phase two.

108Tech has been really busy with the SIS update, getting everything converted and trying to get that information over to them. So Tyler and his team have been doing awesome at that stuff. And you obviously had the budget hearing tonight. Last Friday, the audit exit interview was conducted. Auditors, you know, had... Nothing, no findings in our audit at this point. You know, of course, we had a lot of conversations about the perceived budget that was coming forward and where we were last year. They, of course, don't want to see us spending all our fund balance, but they said that our plans are very solid in trying to address them, and they did not see anything of substantial concern. So the audit will be presented to the board next month at the October meeting. And as I

109said, they did not indicate anything. They actually did commend us on the internal controls we have in place with the use of Skyward and now moving even more of our transactions into that. They actually did not come on site at all other than for the exit interview. They were able to find all of our documents and all of our bank reconciliations and everything in Skyward. So very positive audit outlook. And safety audit, as you know, is underway. Any questions about strategic plan? All right. Dr. Johnson, do you want to go ahead and talk through the performance levels and updates there since those were mentioned earlier this evening? It's nice to have some information to the board on that. All right. Janine, are you able to, or can we just do it through here? Okay, no

110worries, no worries. Otherwise, if everybody just wants to click in. So yes, I just wanted to give the board an update on performance levels and proficiency benchmarks because Illinois State Board of Education has updated that and I'm going to go through with you all what that means and what that means for us as a district. So the first slide goes through what is happening. So ISBE has adopted new performance levels. What was happening before with prior performance levels is that we were mislabeling many students, indicating that they were less academically successful and prepared for college than they actually were. So these new levels are meant to correct this long-standing misalignment. So it goes through that Illinois' misaligned performance levels often mislabeled students, so we were identifying sometimes the wrong students for additional supports or acceleration.

111So, Illinois had the toughest benchmarks in the country for math and English language arts. So what that meant is that students that were doing well in school were showing up on the assessments as not proficient. So it really was sending a mixed message, right? So you might have a report card where your student might be getting mainly A's and B's in their courses, but yet that state report would go home each year saying not proficient, not proficient. So very much sending some mixed messages. We do also have to administer the science assessment. That one, on the other hand, was too low, so it was making students look proficient when maybe they hadn't fully mastered those levels. The ones that we are most concerned about would be the ELA and the MAE. So the state has

112given many, many different examples, so I just pulled one for you. This is an East St. Louis senior who obviously did very well with a GPA, had dual credit courses. employment, learning opportunities, clubs, you name it. But the student was receiving not proficient for their performances on state assessments. The student received it for English language arts, and they also received it for math. So again, you're sending this message to students and parents that their child is not proficient or not ready for some extended opportunities in career and college levels beyond high school. The student is, like many that they showed examples of, is actually currently enrolled in a college and doing well. So again, the state in the past was sending some of those mixed messages to our students and families. You know, sorry to

113interrupt, but the impact is more than just the student and families. It has a huge impact on the administration and the staff. Like we probably spent a lot of money and energy trying to figure out what we're doing wrong and what should we be changing. So that is, yeah, it really expands. The impact of this expands much more than just misguiding students and teachers. It misguides us too. So this is really great. It's unfortunate it's so late, but it's great that they... Addressed it. Yes. This is a good thing. Yeah in our opinion Definitely for sure So this is a chart that shows that we had the most restrictive benchmarks for ELA and math. This is the NAEP assessment Again, it's a national assessment. So it's comparing that compared to some of our previous cut

114scores and it again just kind of shows what it takes The chart shows the estimated score on NAEP that a student would need to score proficient on their local state assessment. So, again, we have heard this from our own assessment partners that we use with MAP testing as something we do through third through eighth grade. Mr. Piggy, I think you and I had a conversation about this in the fall where students who take MAP in another state. would be proficient on their state exam, but the same score over here on our state exam was showing them as not proficient. So we've got a couple different assessment sources that have been telling us that. What is PR down here? Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico. Is that Puerto Rico? Yeah. notice that one down there so thank you

115so this is what our previous levels look like so in addition to the misalignment so I AR is third through eighth grade any of the is a which is a science assessment and then SAT it is now a CT because the state is switching that but that was our previous assessment so again you can even see within assessments that there are times where through 8th grade you might be seeing that you're not proficient because that would be the green and the dark green. But then potentially maybe on SAT you're going to show up meeting. I mean, it wasn't even aligned by assessment. So what's been happening is the engagement of stakeholders, and thank you to Wendy Taylor out there who has been a stakeholder for us, who have really started to look at this across

116an 18-month process. And the overall goal is better alignment for expectations. So what they were able to start with is they were able to say what type of score would it take. So they started with the top 11th graders taking ACT. What type of score would it take to get into college? And they used different variations of college options. So what type of score would it take to get there? The next slide, they also took a look at, well, what would it take for a score probability of actually passing the courses once you're there? And then the last major piece they looked at was workforce success. So what would it take, what score range would it take to really be successful across many different industries and occupations? So from there, they have realigned levels, and

117then there's links in there that show the cut scores, again, starting with ACT and then aligning it all the way down to the first time that we assess students, which is third grade. So they really took that alignment, so again, it's easier to project and plan. Go from there the next slide it just shows that what the old scores are it means stuff to our staff I use this presentation with our staff everybody knew the 750 Was the score that it took to be proficient and you can see now based off of norms and what they used that it is a little different for Each particular grade level, but again they started with a CT and the scores that they needed and worked their way back The next slide just shows the 24 to 25

118students that were considered proficient. So again, you can see science will likely see less students proficient. We knew that. But on the ELA and math, we'll likely see more. And they have been very, very clear. We cannot compare our percentages of 24 to 25. So if a school was 13% proficient, for example, in their math, And now under these new cut scores, they're showing like 35%. We can't be like, whoo, we just did that. So they're trying to say you've got to start your new baseline, which is fair. So the major key takeaways, you can see all the different reports that really show that what we know is that we are a system that leads the nation in terms of our education. But yet our proficiency data was not reflecting that. So the green bar

119was the percentage of students who enrolled in college within 12 months of graduating. But the blue bars show our actual proficiency rates. Again, other key takeaways is that we're working towards alignment, that the 18-month process was led by educators in the field. Thank you again, Wendy. And it's going to help us track progress better because we can predict alignment. The next slide shows what's next. It says for school districts, but it's really for our district. I'm assuming many other districts are doing the same thing. Right now we're working on bullet points one and two. As the year goes on, we're going to get into the performance level descriptors, which really tell us what mastery is all the way down to the standard by the grade level so that we can do a crosswalk with our

120curriculum to make sure that what we believe is mastery is what the state is measuring as mastery. And again, just reviewing our own standard operating procedures when it comes to advancement as well as intervention, because these are all new data points. So we may be showing more or less students in different categories, but we want to make sure that we're looking at the whole child and the whole picture. So some of those processes will be looked at as well. And then the last slide is just a significant amount of resources. So as we go around to the different teams that we work with, we're able to give them information right away. So the soonest, so you know this will reach parents, is really once everything comes out in October. The IAR, which is third through

121eighth grade, those reports from last year, the student report goes home. And so we will likely use one of the fact sheets here for parents just to explain that there's been some realignment and some adjustment to score. So that'll really be our first. engagement with parents on that because Right now a little bit of a high level and without their student score in front of them I don't know that it would be super meaningful at this point, but we are prepared for when those reports come up questions for dr. Johnson So overall, I think really good news. I think it's going to be really positive for the state. It'll be really positive for us. But it is going to be a little bit tricky now navigating what does that really mean. So as we said

122at the beginning of all of this, once we know what our benchmark districts are performing at, that's going to give us a much better idea of how we're performing as well. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. Other admin reports, you have in there your seniority report. That's just something that per board policy we need to share with you annually. You can certainly take a look at that. I would reference to you the six-day enrollment figures. We are overall down 103 students according to our six-day enrollment figures. However, we have seen increased numbers in kindergarten and in first grade. And when you look at that cohort data, our first graders to our second graders this year, we saw bumps almost across the board. So we still have some lower numbers moving through the system, but I think it's

123really positive that we have some higher numbers in kindergarten and in first grade over the previous years. So we'll continue to monitor that year to year, but down 103 students right now. Anything, Mrs. Armstrong, you wanted to highlight there? And just those are trends that we're seeing throughout the state, correct? Correct, yes. I mean, in fact, Belvedere does pretty well compared to many districts experiencing some pretty significant declines in enrollment. When we did our demographic study, we are projected to stay pretty stable, and we are hopeful that those projections may even be conservative in nature. As we know, we've got some big pieces in play, like the Stellantis plant, for example. that has the potential to impact us, but that's really, we look at our enrollment data and those projections based on residential areas, places

124where our families can actually move to, and that is really our challenge right now. We don't have a lot of single-family housing and not a lot of affordable housing to which people can move and become residents of the district. And that would be the only add that I would have, is that we need to continue to advocate in this area for workforce housing. And, you know, some people call it affordable housing. It's more predominantly now called workforce housing. That is just housing that when Stellantis reopens and when things happen, we don't want them going down 90 or down the corridor somewhere else. Let's get them into our district. But we've got to be advocates for the area. to get that workforce housing here, and we just don't have enough of it here. So if we

125can do anything as a district is to continue, let our voices be heard, this is crucial to the development of Boone County and what we need to get moving forward. That's a great point. We can certainly raise our voice and advocate for that with our community partners, local government. I'm becoming very legislature advocacy these days. It's a good thing. Do you know what the state's total attendance is? I don't know, but we will know when that Illinois report card data comes out. We'll be able to see how we compare. I was just curious. Statewide, what it's been for. I know we're seeing declines in enrollment in most areas in the state and in most areas in the country. But, yeah, we can give you a better report of that in about a month. Good question.

126Any other questions, thoughts, comments on admin reports? All right. That's all of them then. All right. Very good. Okay. Do I have a motion and a second to go back into closed executive session regarding section 2, heading C, exception sub number 1 of the Open Meetings Act to discuss the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees of the public body or legal counsel for the public body and legislation. No, I'm sorry, litigation. Let me make the motion. Okay. Second. Okay. Member Dieselmeyer made the motion. Member Mueller seconded the motion to go back into executive session. Roll call, please. Mr. Dieselmeyer. Aye. Mr. Mueller. Aye. Mr. Piggy. Aye. Mr. Hemke. Aye. Mrs. Young. Aye. Mr. Herrera. Aye.