001to order our cusd 201 school board meeting april 23rd 2024 we'll start with roll call adina hoover here whitney rogers here jessica radonio carlos avia here angela steckety here kevin maron here leah canover here let's stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The chair will entertain a motion to enter closed session for the purpose of discussing personnel issues, keeping discipline, and review of closed session minutes. So moved. Second. Roll call. ms rogers yes mr meyrand yes ms conover yes ms decody yes mr avia yes ms hoover yes all those in favor any opposed any motion carries okay at this time um we'll move to public comment okay um
002and so welcome our presenters um I'm going to go over this briefly. We have a statement that we usually read for public comment. It's basically to keep comments within five minutes for each speaker, allowing others time to speak because our public comment time we try to limit to 30 minutes. And it's a time of engagement. The board will consider your comments and its decisions. For those comments or questions requiring a follow-up response, the board president or superintendent will follow up. So first we have Tom McDowell. Thank you guys. I appreciate you guys having us here and I appreciate some of the baseball families for showing up in support. And this is my first school board meeting. And I just want to say that I've watched several of the school board meetings over the years, especially
003during the COVID time. And I just want to say God bless you all. And thank you for your service. I know there was many of nights my wife and I sat there with popcorn in the comfort of our own home and enjoyed those meetings. I appreciate you all. I'm here tonight just to talk about the potential of a junior high baseball team. I know this has been a discussion previously and I know other families have tried to advocate for this in the past and I feel grateful that I just happened to kind of ask the question to a person over at the junior high recently and she was like well actually we're discussing it right now. so she encouraged me to come speak and so that's why I'm here I have two boys in district
004201 and I've lived in the district since 2012 thanks to Facebook today I was reminded that six years ago today my son went to his first baseball practice here in Westmont six years ago and boy he has grown since that time and also I've spent a lot of money on baseball since So my son both my sons one is in sixth grade and one is in fourth grade both are avid baseball players And both have expressed that they would love the opportunity to represent District 201 and Westmont schools on the baseball field as of right now It looks like that opportunity wouldn't happen until high school But it seems like there's a potential for this to start in sixth grade at the junior high The reason why I love my kids being in sports in
005Westmont is both of my kids, well, I'll just speak about my older kid. You know, he's not the most, he's not in love with school, I would say. You know, he's not one that comes home and asks what extra homework he can work on and if there's anything he can study. But last year he played on the basketball team for the junior high, and I had told my son that he would not be eligible to play for the basketball team because they have requirements with grades. Now, I told him that the requirement is you must have a C or higher to be able to play. Well, and that might not be true, but he believed me. And for the first time ever, my son was coming home from school, and he was doing homework on
006his own without me harassing him. And he was also going to school early and getting extra help from teachers. And I was very proud that his report card came home and he had, you know, one C and he had a couple B's and an A. And that really motivated him to invest more into his schoolwork. So any opportunity I can find for my son to play sports at the school and be motivated to get good grades, I'm all in. The other thing I want to mention really quickly is Westmont has a really expanded baseball program here through the Park District. There are so many families and kids playing baseball in Westmont and actually, you know... I can personally say that the level of baseball is getting better and better. Just this past weekend, we had
007four teams from Westmont travel to Iowa to play in a tournament against teams from three different states. And the Westmont teams went 13-4, with two teams getting second place, one team winning the championship, and we really had a great showing. I personally know a lot of the kids that are playing on this. that are in sixth grade currently and we have a really talented group. And I know all those families would love the opportunity to play baseball here at the junior high. I know there's potential cost issues and stipends and stuff like that and I want to let you know that our Westmont families would be willing to fundraise to help support this team. And as far as coaching, I know there could be a cost with coaching. And I personally, along with a few
008other gentlemen, one might be in this room now, would be willing to coach this team for free. I have a schedule at work where I can be flexible to be there for practices and games. And I also could commit for the next four years to do this if needed. So I just appreciate you guys considering this. And that's all I got. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. next on our list is Kapow. Hello thank you so much for having us here tonight I'm really excited to talk about the success of Kapow and Ascend since March 2nd where we held our first student held conference for Asian Americans and other people of color at Westmont High School. We had a lot of good feedback and encouragement from our community members, volunteers, high schools, and those who
009decided to keynote for us. High schools that include Taft High School's Vietnamese Club, Naperville Central, and Downers Grove North all shared their excitement for Ascend and their willingness to come back for 2015. As me and Haley are seniors, we are leaving Kapow. However, we don't want our culture and our strive to expand what we have here today to end. We are giving it off to Rhea and Zoe, who will be the next Kapow presidents, and I am so excited for their future plans with Ascending Kapow. So I'm going to give it over to them now. Hi, I'm Zoe. Okay, so... We are very interested in continuing this conference next year. I think it's very important that we are able to have this at Westmont. As we are a smaller school, it's important that we branch
010out to more than just inside of our community, but also to other schools and to be able to connect with each other. One of the things that we're very interested in continuing next year is expanding this overarching theme of networking and community that we had. This year our theme was building bridges, which I think was very fitting. It was really refreshing to be able to talk to so many students that had a very similar mindset and shared similar backgrounds. And we just like to continue that next year. And also we would just like to put a big emphasis on building student relationships as youth. It's very important to get together and unite for a common cause. Yeah, I know. I know we planned to start earlier because we want to make sure everyone that we
011can have involved is involved and because we realized that like even though it was a smaller group than we want but this year we realized that like it had a really important impact on everybody and everybody realized that it's such a fun event and we can talk to each other and communicate and really as the theme suggests build bridges. And for next year, I know we want to build on the foundation that we've laid down, and we're so glad that our previous leaders did such a good job. And we want to build upon that, and we want to get more people involved. And we want to keep some things the same, but we want to get more people involved, and we want to slightly change the themes to maybe get some of their clubs also
012involved in our project. So, yeah. Yeah, that's all we have. Thank you. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you so much for your support with permission I'd like to hand you guys just a little piece of information from it and a small gift from us. That's okay Very welcome. He's no speaker was amazing Thank you Next we'll have Norma Martinez. Good evening Thank you for to the board for everything you do for the school district I'm here to support the baseball team at the Westmont Junior High School as well. I have two boys there. One of them is leaving and he last year wanted to sign a petition to do this. And he's kind of sad that it's happening now that he's leaving and going to high school. But he's got more opportunities there. But
013I think it's helpful for them to, like he said, to keep their grades up and do better in school. It motivates some of the kids that don't have a lot of interest in studying. So I just wanted to say I'm fully supportive of that hopefully happening in the junior high. Thank you. Thank you. And Kelly Schnell. Thank you clearly I am here to support the Westmont baseball team having one in junior high Myself personally I have grown up in Westmont. I went to Miller myself for a few years I currently have two boys in the 201 district both play baseball my boys have played baseball with some of your kids as well and for me, I have a lot of passion behind this because I believe especially with the World nowadays everybody stuck on their
014phones and their video games and with baseball. I mean I coach myself my husband coaches and It gets these kids away from the screens and it builds that confidence and the discipline for the future. I know when I went to middle school, I played softball for Westview and we played Westbound Junior High back in the early 90s, so it was quite a long time ago. But I just really appreciate everybody taking the time and listening to us and hopefully we'll be able to have this. for the boys this coming fall and my boys are now currently first grade and fourth grade so they'll be looking forward to hopefully playing Westmont Junior High baseball along with staying with the Westmont Youth Baseball League in Westmont. Thank you. Thank you. We really appreciate you guys coming in
015and speak with us and sharing this. It's really useful and helpful and so we really thank you for taking your time out today. Okay, I am going to proceed with the consent agenda. The chair entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Personnel recommendations. Rebecca Board, Westmont Junior High School ELL teacher. Emily Huntley, coordinator of student services. Paul Sebedin, Westmont High School Spanish teacher. Christopher Gizorni, Westmont Junior High School SPED teacher. Approval of April 2024 expenditure report. ratification of March 2024 regular payroll so moved second this Hoover yes this Rogers yes mr. Marin yes this count over yes it's deputy yes mr. avia yes quick point of order I think that we they weren't fully done with public comment or if we would we have to wait until the very end Sorry about
016that. I don't have it here. Should we have them? Oh, yes. If you can just speak now and then if you can fill out a card with this information or another one. Well, I appreciate coming up here. Obviously, I'm here to support the junior high baseball effort. I've been coaching in Westmont for. about five years now ever since my son Tommy has been able to swing a bat. Currently the head coach for the 12U Express team. I coach one of the majors teams. I coach the All-Star team, and I will probably be coaching a football team when that comes around. What everybody has said is very accurate. I'd like to add just one part of this that I think is beneficial. We get separated by age group in baseball. I think it would be a
017great thing to have the junior high kids playing together grades 6 through 8 because it's not an opportunity that they normally get. My 12U group is primarily made up of Westmont Junior High School 6th graders. That would probably be the majority of the team. We do have some 7th graders moving into 8th that would be on there and a lot of the boys coming into the junior high, they've never had a chance to play together. this would be a great opportunity for them to do that and I hope you take that into consideration also. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll move to our information discussion. And we are on order number one, RFQ for our group A presentation for construction manager. Yeah, the district posted RFQ for a construction manager
018for future larger construction work. We had 13 submit RFQs and administration is presenting two incredible CMs to present to the board and the community. The first one is Pepper Construction, who is here tonight. Good evening. We really appreciate the opportunity to come in and present to the board. It's an exciting time in the district, and this team's amped up, and we've prepared about a 10 to 15-minute presentation. We're going to try to keep it as short and sweet as possible. We know you folks have a lot of things on your agenda, and we'll get you out of here as quickly as we can. My name is Lance Trich. I'd be the officer in charge if we were fortunate enough to be selected as your construction manager. A little bit about Pepper Construction. I'm going to
019focus really more on the team, just in the sense of time. So this team, super excited. We sat in a room for the last couple days and kind of went through our... you know, format and we realize, you know, this team alone has been involved in, you know, we have 83 combined years of K-12 experience. We've built, you know, 15 significant additions. We've been involved in, this team alone has been involved in 11 referendums, successful referendums. Majority of them are passed and been constructed over the last six years, but we still have a couple that we're working on, and Kirk and Jeff will talk about those. You folks want to know how many schools we've built. This team alone has built three brand new schools in the last six years, so we're really proud to
020see on our... chart you know which team members were involved in each one of those projects hi good evening i'm nick cosec i'll be i would be your day-to-day contact through the whole process from pre-referendum to construction and to that closeout process to when we turn over those keys i'll be there to help keep those communication lines open between the design team us the district and ultimately the board to help you make those right decisions at the right times to keep things flowing appropriately I'm Kirk Bueke. I'd be the project manager on the job in charge of day-to-day operations, coordinating schedules, procurement, coordination amongst the trade partners, and communication with your school staffs and district staffs. And I couldn't be more excited to be a part of this project or potentially be a part of
021this project. I don't have a Westmont address. I am just a few blocks outside of your western border here in Downers Grove. So I do consider this area part of my community. We frequent all of these areas, my family and I, so to be able to contribute to this project and this community would be a tremendous honor and I'm looking forward to it and hopefully we can work together. I'm Jeff Dvorak, so I'd be the site superintendent. Basically boots on the ground guy, day-to-day operations, making sure that we're working with the district staff, enforcing the schedule. Most importantly is the safety piece. My wife is a teacher. I've got two kids in school, so I know for a fact that they're not thinking about construction when they leave in the morning. They're not thinking, I
022can't wait to see what Pepper's doing at the job today. I'm not thinking about that. That's my job to make sure they don't have to. So we want to make sure we eliminate those risks. We get a plan. We execute the plan. We make sure we work through those processes so that when the kids do come to school, the teachers, they can do their job and learn and teach. I had the liberty of working here about eight years ago, working with Jack and I on the high school job, big renovations at the high school, worked at the junior high and both elementary schools. So just love the dynamic you guys have in this district and would love to also be a part of maybe trying to do this again. Thank you. I'm Thomas Anderson, Vice
023President of Pre-Construction, so I'll be the lead providing estimating information to you guys. Anything you need dollars and cents wise, it'll be my job along with my team back at the office to get that to you guys. I work with 14 other estimators back at the office, so whatever pace you guys decide to work at, whether it's expedited and push through to get it done this year, or a little bit slower, more deliberate, we can supply you with plenty of bench strength or be small and nimble, whatever you guys need to fit your referendum pace you want to work at. A little hard to see, but we also have some support staff. Back in our office, we have Susan Heineken who handles our sustainability and she also handles our grant programs for chasing grants for
024our K-12 programs. Corey Zussman we'll talk a little bit more about later in the presentation. Our virtual construction safety we'll talk about later in our presentation. Ashley Stapleton heads up our diversity, equity, and inclusion group. We can customize a... planned specifically for this district to try to help get some local trades local contractors we should say involved in this project and then our last one was our mep coordinators we have those in house as well as you know I'm sure you have a lot of mechanical upgrades that are going to need to be done. We have those services in-house. It's all what the district needs. We don't use all those services on every project, but we have those at our fingertips, which is an advantage to all the clients that we work with. Again, the
025referendum projects. These are the projects that we wanted to highlight. We consider ourselves experts in the referendum process. We've done so many of them. We'd love to come in and jump into this program with you folks. Regardless of which architect it is, we're ready to hit the ground running and dive in and see what needs this district needs and see how we can be a great partner in making sure you get what you're looking for. Here on the screens and in your packets, we're showing you a referendum plan that we've used previously on a successful project along with E.O. Sullivan to make sure that that stays on track. You could see a potential schedule that gets you through to the August ballot support and then the November referendum. The second row of information shows you
026steps along the way and what teams are involved to help making those decisions. And then in the bottom of the gray boxes, we're showing what deliverables we can present to the board to help keep that on track for those proper decisions at the right times. You know, in this approach, we could see, you know, a scenario where we could have, you know, half of Tom's estimating team working on an addition and renovation approach and the other half of the team's working on a new building approach because you're going to want to see the pros and cons. You're going to want to understand, is it more economical to do an addition on one of our schools and demo one of the existing ones, or do we build new and consolidate? You know, those are all factors
027that this district's going to have to take into account. You want all the information. you know we frankly have the the horsepower to pull that information together whether it's for you know a november referendum or an april referendum or a 2026 referendum we're ready the next one is just another example of the same thing just showing another way to get to uh good schedule and to that april referendum if that's the board's choice So depending on how much time we're hopefully blessed with to help you guys with your referendum process, one of the things we like to do during pre-con is go a little bit deeper to show you exactly where the dollars might be spent on any one of your individual projects. So on the pie charts you're seeing here with the circles, on
028the inner circle is just kind of trades, construction dollars, where they might be spent for different aspects of the building. It could be the steel, it could be the glass. It could be mechanical, it could be electrical. But then the outer circle with the matching colors is where your long-term operational maintenance costs might be applied to over maybe 10 or 15 years if you decided to invest in certain systems. So at a moment's analysis during the referendum while you guys are deciding where you want to allocate your dollars, you can see long-term we spend a little bit more on LED lighting or we spend a little bit more on the mechanical system on day one. We'll start seeing benefits and cost savings in year seven already. by cheaper, more economical energy usage at that point.
029So just one of the things we like to show and make sure we're diving deeper into, and we would do this for new construction, we can do it for renovation, for whatever you guys decide to include in your referendum. So along with that, you know, there's one analysis, but we always need to be prepared to present you guys with the total price for what's going on and what you guys are asking for. So every time we would be asked to come to report to you guys, at a summary level, we're going to tell you where the total budget is for each individual school. And there's lots of decisions that's going to go into how those numbers get pulled together and what's included. But at a summary level, we just want to make sure you guys
030are always on track overall at 30,000 foot perspective where the project's sitting at. In the back of the screen that's up there. is just starting the the process of kind of breaking down the dollars and cents um there could be we break them up at pre-referendum into different levels so at level one you guys might choose for certain school or overall not to do anything and you need to know what's the operational and maintenance costs for the next 10 years because that's not free to keep these buildings running the way they are so maybe that's a 10 million dollar investment over 10 years but you're going to start comparing that potentially to if we do some renovations if we do some modernizations which means maybe you're moving some walls around changing curriculum changing functionality of
031spaces you might do some additions you might decide we need a whole new building we're going to get through we're going to Combine a couple of smaller schools into one new addition school. That's going to eat up a lot of your referendum dollars. But in order to make the decisions on any part of this, you're going to need to see the total picture. As Lance said, we've got the horsepower to bring you guys all the pricing information you need so that you can make informed decisions. It's going to bring the most value to your referendum effort. Another value we bring is our extensive quality program led by our in-house forensic architect, Corey Zussman. So we get involved in the project very early on with your design team and then eventually your trade partners. And we
032work through constructability reviews, try to identify potential issues that could come up down the road and to make sure that we're building these buildings in a manner that prevents us from having to come back and fix things later because no one wants that. So we do constructability reviews up front. We do pre-installation meetings with all the subcontractors to make sure that that flow gets down to their hands actually putting the work in place. And then that continues right into construction where our quality team is on site at a minimum on a weekly basis reviewing the work that's being put in place so that we can ensure that what we're turning over to you is a quality product. And we've got a proven track record. Our industry average is much higher than our competitors because we
033take and put so much effort into this program. So when we were working at Manning, we did a security vestibule there in addition on the school. And my clerk was saying, there's things in these older buildings, you're going to find stuff that maybe isn't part of the drawing. Something didn't look right. Somebody built something differently 100 years ago, whatever it may be. We come across a structural item in that addition. When we went to open up the wall, the wall was supposed to come down. We realized it was a bearing wall, which basically is holding up the roof. Obviously can't do that. We need to figure out what to do next. So we communicate with the architect, structural engineer, the school district. We came up with a plan a bunch of different ways. Obviously cost
034is number one, figuring out how to get that plan to be cost effective, but also keep the project moving so when you guys are ready to use that addition at the beginning of the school year, it's done. So working on all those things kind of ties into what Kirk was talking about, but all those things, getting in early, looking at these areas, getting a chance to dissect some of these areas, maybe open ceiling tiles. That kind of stuff saves a lot of time. later if we could find some stuff like that so always able to work through difficult situations and haven't come across one that we can't handle can you explain that rework rate what does that mean what do you like less rework or what do you mean Our rework rate? Yeah. That means
035that you had to come back and rework something that you already put in place. Kirk actually said our rework rate's higher. It's actually lower. I didn't want to correct him. So our rework rate's like 10 times, I think, 10 times lower than industry average because we have a dedicated quality guy. I shouldn't say quality guy. quality department and a director and you know he looks at the drawings like I said you know before we even bid him he's looking for constructability issues so we feel that that's one of the you know one of the differentiators between us and our competition at the end of the day it saves you money and gives you a better building You know, in communication being the utmost importance, I think I just want to stress that here. We have
036numerous ways to communicate out to you guys the progress of where we're at all the way through the process. You know, we could be here at every board meeting to present monthly reports, provide those updated photos, show you where we're at. Weekly owner meetings, phone calls. On the screen, you can see one tool that we use as a project dashboard. We can tailor this not only just for the board and internal, but we could also tailor it for a community aspect as well. The cool part about it is it's interactive and it's live. So it ties to our systems that we use. So it's constantly updated. So it's a live document. It's not static. So in that picture on the bottom left hand corner, that's actually me in my acting career. That's actually a video
037that we did for a neighboring district over in Hinsdale. I like doing videos like this. This basically was a video. It was a monthly update schedule. We were able to walk the project, take photos, and your community can see these photos. So instead of just seeing construction fences and trucks driving around, they get to see behind the construction walls and understand this referendum that they said yes. they can see how we're working on it if we're on schedule how things are looking really gets them more engaged and involved in the process we like that because it makes everybody more involved it makes for a fun project and everybody really enjoys seeing where their dollars are going so again we like doing stuff like that there's a lot of different options in that regard that they
038could also do so and that's uh included on the there's like qr code on the on the placemat He'd appreciate if you looked that up. He's trying to get his likes up. It is something they put on YouTube so everybody can see, even if they don't live in the district. You guys can pick what people see and what they don't see. That's the mission of what the dashboard is. Yeah, we can do multiple layers. You could have different information for you guys, different information for the school staff, different information for the community. If it's something that you like, we can make it a platform that works for you guys. Communication, obviously, is key these days. Yes. So with that, I'd like to open it up to any questions. We tried to go as quick as
039we could. You're good. We could have gone for another half hour. You've given us the opportunity. I appreciate it. I think that was one of my questions is about the communication piece. And so I'm happy that you included that. So are you guys seeing any issues with getting construction materials? Any delays? Yeah. Has the supply chain kind of eased up? Yeah, it has a little bit, for sure. I mean, during COVID and after COVID for the couple years, it was real bad. But, you know, it just requires more pre-planning now. I mean, literally, we're pre-purchasing. Our biggest problem is HVAC equipment and electrical equipment. Really? Huh. We hadn't heard of that. Figure that out. I mean, if you're going to build a new building, you better order the transformer like a year and a half
040before you need it. We're going through that right now in Manhattan. It took us a year to get ours. Yeah, they're switch gears, transformers, the big equipment. The grains was building. But those are things that no matter what your floor plan is, usually our engineers can identify the equipment that we need. So at least we can get that purchased and then we can tweak design around it. But identifying those long lead items early on and working that into our plan is something worth it. just become habit to us now yeah you just have to you just have to be more you just got to work harder or work smarter because consider those items and right at least though the regular materials are not so bad okay it's really down to really the hvc and electrical
041are the two worst things you're going to have some you know maybe some high-end material that's not common but like kurt said you're gonna you're gonna plan for that that's a great question thank you Are you guys involved with, and this may not be for you, but do you get involved in spaces like you're planning, like giving different options on new construction versus renovating? Do you also help with spacing and planning for students and what spaces we can use and how? that planning process goes? Yeah, that's really more of the architect. The architect's really the one that does more of the space planning. And then from there, we're the ones that'll, I mean, we definitely have input on it. We can tell them what's more cost effective, this scenario versus this scenario, but we're by
042no means designers. We're builders. We'll bring lessons learned from our other and definitely I'll be providing the financial side of those decisions So as they're working with options a through B or C or D for you guys working through that stuff I'll have a corresponding price that I go with each one of those You guys will work up schedule impacts things like that Logistics safety all the stuff you guys need to make a complete holistic decision. Not just what's the best for the dollars? What's just best for the teachers? You guys have to be responsible for everything We'll come prepared to give you all that information. We included some slides in the back of our presentation that we just knew we wouldn't have time to get to, but we wanted to put them in there
043just in the event that we get a chance to peruse some of that. I have a question about one of those slides, actually, so you are going to get to one of them. It works. What do you mean by maximize participation? What is the participation part? So when you're trying to establish DEI goals on your project, there's multiple ways that you can do that. One is by hiring MBE, WBE firms, and then the other part is the participation. And that's the actual crews that are working on the job. So we look at both. to try to achieve, because it's really all part of it. I mean, not necessarily just who the owner of the company is, but we're putting the trades to work. And that's the intent of the program, is getting people, is increasing
044our diversity amongst our projects. So, I mean, at Pepper, we pretty much do that on all of our projects anymore. It's just kind of standard. We have a database that we work with. All the local contractors, we put out all of our bids on a weekly basis so they know what's coming up. And we bring them in, we talk them through the jobs, get them comfortable. So it's really kind of two parts, I guess, to answer your question. One is the goals that you establish for your purchasing of contracts like HVAC, electrical, concrete. And then the other one is the field. Does that make sense? It does. The reason I'm asking the question is because I latched onto something. One of you said something about the concept of trying to work wherever possible with local
045contractors and just thinking about how that works looks and how that works um or we're a pretty small community but i'm sure we have people in the trades that are local and that's how good sorry i didn't mean to cut you out no please i'm going to say one of those tools we can use is uh we can set a radius from our database to find all those local contractors and make sure that we're targeting them, we're contacting them, making them aware of your projects so that we try to keep that participation up. And that's honestly one of the programs of our DEA plan is we'd have engagements, sessions where we'd come to either one of the schools, district office, whatever, and we'd have information sessions. We'd invite everybody in because half the battle is
046the contractors just need to get comfortable with the job. So if we walk them through the job. And then they start to feel comfortable with it. They're more apt to bid it versus just us sending them a set of drawings and knowing nothing about it. So we've had really good success that way with trying to get local contractors to bid the work. Speaking about the bidding process for that, is it common to award points on the bid for local or WBE or something like that, or is that independent? Yeah, unfortunately, you know, we're governed by the Illinois procurement law. You know a district would have to try to mandate that as their own protocol within their within their District and we've had a couple districts talk about it, but I mean that's not the common
047practice. No, it's not It's a lump sum sealed bid right, you know, right kind of what they call it essentially rip and read Yep, you and low qualified better, but but there's ways the you know, I mean we did it We did it at Oak Park River Forest. I mean, I mean we made you see what we did there It's significant but a fair amount of it in all honesty was the field component, but we did we had We had MBE, WBE firms that bid that work. And it was all because of the engagement of getting them involved on the front end. And our database has actually grown significantly in the last few years. We have DEI lunch and learns probably once a month. Is it once a month? I feel like it's more than
048that. So we're constantly bringing in new contractors and meeting new contractors. Thank you. Leah, you've got to have something. I have been pointed out. I'd love to know. Called out. What is your impression of our current buildings based on what you know of them? We've remodeled a lot in the high school, right? We've remodeled quite a bit in the junior high. I think they're great buildings. I think everything needs to be updated over time. So, you know, you guys have already done the security vestibules, started getting ahead of that game. But some districts we go into, they don't have any of that yet. So you guys are already ahead of the game on a lot of that stuff. So it's really just what you're looking to do more. you know, without getting above the ceiling
049in more of the areas, but older buildings have their challenges, but that's the point of the remodels over time. So, yeah, I think they're great buildings. I think you've got a lot of potential to do more, right? That's the point of this exercise. So we're excited to be a part of that, hopefully. Jeff and I have recent experience at Neighborhood District 86, Hinsdale. If you're familiar with Hinsdale Central High School, when we first stepped foot in that high school. shocking how It was where it sat, you know, the community it sat in. So, you know, you could take an old building and make it really look nice. You can change spaces and be shocked at what we can do to take these old spaces and quickly turn them into modern learning facilities. And the way
050we can add on to these buildings and make them flow, you know, seamlessly throughout your existing building, you know, totally change your layout of your building. Nothing's off the table. We drink big and we can pull it off. I think, obviously, I think Manning's the oldest of your elementary schools. That's probably the one that needs the hardest look at to see if it's really worth the renovation component. And then Miller is the one that's got some land, so that one could be primed for an addition renovation option. I have a quick question about this. I'm sorry to put it on you because you're here, but I'm a little confused about roles in this whole process when I think about the architect, construction manager, and the consultant, and who does what, when, and where. Everyone has
051shown us a planning that looks pretty darn similar, and obviously you can't all do everything, right? Each component of that triumvirate has a role, is your part. One of the things I saw in your presentation was, being able to talk about like the dollar invested in the long the lifetime value of of that whether it's energy efficiencies or or other things right um in my mind you all would get your a company like yours would get involved um once we know that construction is going to happen but this has a component of thinking through and explaining, not explaining, but rationalizing maybe, decisions early on and how they play out over time. Is that the role of you or the architect that would do that? Or is it in conjunction? Or how does that look? It's
052both. It's both. We'd be working hand in hand with the architect. So, I mean, obviously, you know, we've heard it before, you want to dream big. So, I mean, that's the architect's job is to come in and look at. And his job is to tell us what it's going to cost. Yeah. And build it. And build it. Quickly tell you accurately how much it's going to cost. But at the same time, you know, in like even for pre-referendum services, you still need a construction manager to work with the architect because the architects, you know, they're focused on. providing you design options we're focused on you know what's it going to cost how long is it going to take to build is it efficient you know we provide a lot of back and forth feedback do
053you sorry to interrupt you do you do you also cost out the long term uh cost of status quo yes that's part of the analysis for what you guys need okay thank you it's our job to to challenge and to um feedback to the architect and everybody else to make sure if we need to stretch dollars instead of walling with dollars for certain design aspects but that's your decisions to make and we're just here to support with the information that you need to make your decision thank you the other thing too is there there are services that you know that we've talked about and services we provide that the architect can provide as well so there's definitely some overlap so I can understand your question you know we kind of we do a lot As
054long as we have you here, I'd just like an expert's opinion. If you had to build a building for approximately 600 kids, I know there's a range. What do you think that range is? A new building for 600 kids. What's the range? I'm not asking for an exact dollar amount. Jeff and I are actually building a junior high school for Manhattan, Illinois, down by Joliet. And it's about 600 kids. So our construction contract for that is $45 million. roughly for that. And that's 129,000 square feet? 123,000 square feet. So it's in Manhattan, so it's a little more spread out. You don't have the open acreage for that type of a building. Yours would probably be a little more vertical. So it might cost a little bit more than that, but we're building a very similar
055type of building, and that's the range we're at now for brand new construction. Without putting words in your mouth, can we say 40 to 60 is a number? I think that's a fair number, yeah. It's a range, not a number. It's two numbers, actually. It's a big range. Are there any more questions? I won't call anybody else. I have all your names memorized. I'm sure we'll reach out if we have any more questions for you, but we appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you guys. We so appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead. We can't do the handbook, can we? That's what I was going to ask. Is there a way to do the handbook? Let's do the handbook reading. Let's do the handbook so we can get these guys out of here. Adam, your
056look, your stare down. Come on. Come on, Dean. Thank you very much. Adam Kordeluski, assistant principal at Westmont High School, chairman of the handbook committee. I just want to take this time to kind of review our proposed amendments for the 2024-2025 handbooks from the elementary, junior high, and high school levels. A little bit about the process that we did earlier this month. The principal sent out... requests for any amendments that staff would have to the handbooks and sought their input collected it all we've been met as a committee the committee composed of representation from every level of the district we had principals from each school And we had parent representation, we had student representation from the junior high and the high schools, as well as teacher representation from the district as well, and district office.
057So we met earlier last week and reviewed the handbook and made any adjustments that we needed to make, and now we are proposing the first reading for review to the board and administration. I would like to start at the elementary level. You should have a link in your doc for Manning and Miller. Couple of notes that I'd like to mention. On page three, Miller and Manning would like to adjust the wording on their beginning of the day to eliminate confusion and make sure that students are arriving on time for instruction. So they adjusted some of the language over there. to support beginning of the school day. Then on page six, we would like to make an amendment that students arriving late to school must be accompanied by a parent or guardian into the building and
058be signed in to be allowed to class. Multiple unexcused tardies will result in parent-student intervention meeting with the school's attendance team. Our medical staff has also added Pertinent language that they feel necessary for the handbooks at all levels And that'll be a majority of that right there and then a couple corrections that we need to make from year to year Are there any questions on the elementary handbook just to confirm the times that are on the elementary one are? Applicable for Miller not Manning Miller and Manning. Yeah, I know it says on there same verbage is applied to Manning but just Because we've changed the arrival time at Manning for like three years in a row It's yet for Manning's arrival times. They'll put that in there. Okay, I just wanted to confirm it. Thank
059you If we continue to junior high The junior high on page 22 would like information about the Homer Club that's available for students It's available Monday Tuesday and Thursday and Friday from 315 to 415 and this is students and completing their homework And there will be a bus at 415 to provide transportation home I want to make sure that that was available and informing the parents and students there on page 16 I'm not going to review the whole thing, but there's a school-wide progressive discipline policy that's being put in place for consistency amongst students and staff also in your junior high you'll see that the medical staff the nursing team has added a language to support their needs and then minor corrections were needed up-to-date staff and dates are applied okay if we carry on
060to the high school Our media center staff has updated their language to represent all that the media staff has to offer. Instead of just books, I think they'll change the language to items and generalize to the many things that they do lend our students. Calculators, Chromebooks, art supplies, things like that. So that's updated there for you. On page 18, we kind of altered our detention schedules to be able to suit the individual needs for our students. So we made some adjustments over there. On page 72, we addressed absences from school and participation in after school activities. It was the language that was specific to athletics and now it includes all activities and clubs. So students that are competing. any events after school whether it be academic or athletic will now be hold to an attendance
061standard so that was updated there's some of the key highlights and any questions regarding the high school handbook feel free to reach out anytime if there's any questions that you have and be happy to answer them for you and if you have anything then I'll be available at the second reading as well thank you thank you thank you I want to thank Adam and Mike I do want to say one thing to the board we I would like you just to know be so you're not surprised by this there's one attendance policy that we're considering creating that we would of course bring to the board but that would impact the policy for next year so it's still in the creation phase so attendance policy I'm sorry go ahead yeah no no just is there any
062more on like To, I think, address chronic absenteeism and unexcused absences, like different levels of engagement and everything. Is that something that will be added for this handbook? Perhaps, but not by the time we're going to approve this handbook. What I'm saying, it might be an additional amendment. After the fact. Yeah, I got it. just don't want to surprise you that's what I'm saying like right now no good so Adam and Mike have done a great job of steering this but we may have one additional amendment that will come about for attendance I'm sorry I wanted to add also there are state mandates that will be added as well and that language comes directly from the state right and we'll be putting the handbooks regularly yearly yeah thank you thank you thank you thank you
063Again, I'd like to thank our community and the board for bearing with the changes in the agenda. But I'd just like to just appreciate our presenters and people that come. So just working around our timing. We're basically going to our discussion item number eight, RFQ for Construction Manager Presentation Group B. That's a way to win. Are you ready for this? Yes. Is this USB? All right. You're just trying to get rid of them. Right. I'll put it at the hotel. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Kevin. Nice to meet you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Oh, these are nice. Whitney Rogers. Same here. Carlos. You want to get rid of these? Thank you. Pretty cool. We don't cut corners. Can I see?
064Use that line a lot. Can I see? It promises you to say that. Marketing department. No, it's that guy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. How are you? Ready? Ready. Oh, wait. Dave's way up. Wow. My kids, these dudes are all over the place. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Good evening, my name is Bill Farley with Nicholas and associates with me tonight is Joe Papa Nicholas vice president and chief k12 operator for the school for the company and Dave Torres who is also our senior project manager. I want to run over just a little bit of background about who Nicholas is, but first just want to thank you for the opportunity to come here tonight to talk to the board. Appreciate the board
065and the administration having us in. We also appreciate the opportunity for the community to watch us as well and hear about Nicholas & Associates. Nicholas & Associates is a second generation company started 45 years ago by Joe's father. The second generation has now taken over the organization. As you can see, all four siblings are part of Nicholas and Associates. Been in business over 45 years. Have done about $2.5 billion worth of school construction work since 2010. We do about $150 million annually. And more importantly, and most importantly, affected the learning environments of over 190,000 students during that time. We pride ourselves on the work we do because it enhances the instructional and educational environment for students throughout suburban Chicago, and it's a big part of what we do. So I'm going to turn it over
066to Dave next. He's going to talk a little bit about some of the work we've done recently, referendum work and pre-referendum work. Thanks, Bill. Again, my name is Dave Torres. I'm a senior project manager at Nicholas & Associates. I've been with Nicholas for the last 10 years and really focused solely on K-12 and public construction. I also want to thank you for your time this evening and just for giving us the opportunity to present and share a little bit about ourselves and our experience as construction managers and talk specifically tonight about our pre-referendum experience. We've got a few slides here that I'm going to kind of just cruise right through because I've left all the good stuff for Joe to talk through the nuts and bolts. Are we linked up to this? There are a
067few slides behind. Oh, there are jumps. Yeah, so basically as Bill kind of explained K-12 and public instruction really is our bread and butter. It's what we love to do and we've provided you know just a general client list for you on page four and took the opportunity to highlight several of the districts in which we've completed or facilitated the pre-referendum work. I'm not going to go into all of these specifically because that would take a long time. But these projects have ranged anywhere from $30 to $150 million. We're recently coming off some rather large referendum efforts for Glenview 34 as well as Palatine 15 and Arlington Heights 25. Those have been very complex, multi-phased projects, so we do have experience. Across the board as it relates to new construction, new schools, additions, infrastructure overhauls,
068HVAC system replacements, as well as outdoor turf and classroom fit and finish overhauls as well. On this next slide, I want to take just a couple of minutes to highlight something that's important to us. We firmly believe that communication is obviously key across the board, but part of our success has been bringing the right team to the table. We understand in your selection of a CM that you have to feel comfortable with the team, and over the years we've built great relationships with clients as such. We've had the opportunity to bring a few of them on board over the years. And so the few that are listed here have come essentially from district administrations and each of them have also been actively involved in referendums at their respective districts. So they just bring a unique
069perspective and resource that we can use and we have used not only on the pre-referendum side, but as we go through pre-construction and even in construction, having that insight has just been so helpful for us as we manage projects across the board. So just that's a very high level of some of our experience. So I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Joe here. Sure. I'll quickly kind of go through what pre-referendum services are. I could spend an hour or two on it, but I'll make it brief. Basically, we're the check and balance for the team. So we're sort of the captain of the ship. We're going to collaborate with the team. We're going to assess the district needs. We're ultimately going to play a big part in determining what the ask is.
070So it all starts with a preliminary baseline budget assessment and understanding the design criteria. Palatine 15 is a good example that Dave just mentioned. We're in the process of implementing that right now, so that's 12 additions, 16 months, $115 million. So the upfront work that was involved in establishing that, you have to understand the phasing, site logistics, when are we going to bid the work, how are we going to bid, all these things play into the cost of the project. And it's just such a critical component to determining what the ask is, working with the referendum consultant. the design team, how's it being designed? What time of year are we gonna start? If we're starting in the fall, are we gonna implement structural steel versus base reload bearing? There's all these different nuances that go
071into the cost of construction. So that's one of the big things. Community engagement and outreach, that's another one. We're there, we're a partner of the team. Any questions that come up with regards to what's the impact to the community, what's the impact to the site, the students, staff, all of those different types of things. But with that, I'll sort of open it up and Q&A. We're here to help clarify anything or any questions we have. A lot of information. We also got into the actual construction phase and pre-construction phase, sort of some of the deliverables, just to kind of paint the picture post-referendum, what that would look like. Can you speak to, like, from your experience, the timing you've had, like, from your time of involvement, that pre-referendum phase to, I guess, post-referendum? What's the
072span of time you've dealt with from the shortest to? Some have been a couple months of pre-referendum and $70-80 million worth of work is delivered 14 months later. Others go years. Some have gone four years. So two, three years of planning, go out for referendum, and then implement the game plan. So that's what all, it just takes time to plan, to just, you have to put the game plan together. I always, people are sick of me saying this, but it's stick to the process. We have a process. We have a structure. We've done it and implemented it dozens and dozens of time. When you skip steps, that's when districts are exposed and things have a tendency to not go as planned. Create a timeline, design milestones, budget milestones, all of that, and just stick to
073the plan, because it works. What's a commonly missed step in the process when people, I'm not, what's a common missed step? Missed step is allowing design to, allowing the design to progress without raising your hand to say, I think we should talk about this. And sometimes, well. If you stick to the process, this won't happen, but if you don't question the design as it's happening, and you just kind of go along with it, and you allow a job to go out to bid, and then you have the bid opening and expectations are met, that's probably one of the bigger mistakes. Who makes that misstep? The CM? The instruction manager, absolutely, yeah. I mean, every team member has a role and responsibility to the school district. Every one of us. We have a contractual obligation to
074the district. And ours is to maintain the budget and establish a final control estimate. So as we establish these design issuances, so from preliminary design criteria that goes into a referendum. Okay, that's sort of, that's one phase to it. And then post-referendum, there's design development stage, there's schematic design, there's construction documents, and then ultimately a final control estimate. So there's six or seven budget checks along the way that a CM, here's CM. Should be issuing a formal budget check for everybody to review and then except before before the design continues But if you skip those steps and your CM doesn't do the proper assessment And then there's more risk. So so like who we do or I guess our team or who is there person that you have in mind that it's like our main
075contact who They would be the senior project manager and then my side I'm involved all the way through Bidding so and then I'm always here for support as well I mean, I think that's one of the things that kind of separates our company from others. There's direct ownership involved in all of our projects so Decisions need to be made in real time to keep things moving How do you go? Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. I was just going to say that, I mean, the two of us would be actively involved from the very beginning in the process, you know, attending design meetings and just being involved and engaged as quickly as possible because the sooner that we understand, you know, the full extent of the scope and we can, you know, get to know your
076design team and understand kind of what we're going to be looking at, you know, to establish that initial budget assessment, you know, that's something that we're going to be actively involved in from the very beginning. And that's a big part of it is if you don't start out with the appropriate baseline budget assessment, you're going to be fighting it the whole way. So it really starts with this early planning, understand the need, make sure the design criteria that's being developed satisfies the need, and establish cost, establish those early expectations. And if they're... If the CM does their job early on, the rest of it's enjoyable. So that's the way it should be. How does the communication process work with a project, depending on however long it takes? Sure. I mean, there's a couple of different
077ways that we can look at it from a communications standpoint. When construction starts or after we've completed, you know, the pre-referendum, it passes, we've gone through pre-construction, we bid, you know, we facilitate weekly construction meetings, and that's our way of keeping the administration up to date with... This is where we're at real time providing outlook schedules, updates on any lead times for materials. It's just a way to keep everyone accountable, us, design team, you know, you all. And as far as communications go, you know, I had mentioned earlier that we've got some unique members on staff, specifically. We've got a couple that are communications people. And so, you know, we've handled it a couple of different ways. You know, we've had them reach out directly to districts themselves to make a point of contact with
078whoever you have in charge of their communications to develop any board reports. You know, we'll be here to present if you need for updates along the way. We've done communications in the form of subcommittee meetings in some districts. which has been very helpful because it just keeps the board informed of where we're at. So there's a lot of different possibilities and we've got options, but it really has come down to the district's preference in terms of how the communication is either put out to the public or just keeping the board informed. We've got a lot of options. Thank you. You can be here as much as you want us to be. Yeah, well, I don't know. No, no, no. I don't want to go all night. Just directionally, what is the percentage of work that
079you guys do that is focused on school districts versus other types of construction management? 97% public K-12. So we're the CM of record for 30-plus school districts. Many have been clients for 20 plus years before anybody even knew what construction management was so now the last 10 12 years has become a popular delivery method mm-hmm everybody's kind of Sick of just ripping up ripping open an envelope and seeing who the low GC is they you know there's value to relationships There's value to all of that there's value to having a CM on board at the early onset of a project Before the design commences to get that to get that feedback in the group. And it's a huge component. The more eyes on a set of drawings during the design, the less unforeseen types of
080situations arise post-bid opening during construction. And speaking of the bidding process, how do you, without getting into too much detail, how do you make sure that the pool of bidders is as big as possible? We've been doing this now 40, 45 years, somewhere in there, and automatically we have a massive pool of contractors. I mean, we've been doing the right thing for so many years in the public arena. We get great competitive coverage. So we'll take a project, we'll break it up into prime bid packages. all the way from excavation through electrical. So our pool of contractors that have been doing K-12 work for all these years, they help with the budgeting all the way through, which is another big advantage where we just don't square foot things. We utilize their expertise through the budget
081process and then ultimately they all bid it. So you're talking 70, 80 contractors automatically that will submit on all the projects that we manage. And then we'll work with the district if there's some contractors that have success in the area or in the district. We definitely reach out. And when you take all those things into consideration, you look at our bid tab. We have all these multiple prime bid packages, and we have 50, 60, 70 contractors submitting bids. And that's just a proven track record. Thank you. But you have to put effort in. You have to reach out. Okay. You can give me ranges on this. For a building of 600, a brand new building, what's the range, would you think? Well, I mean, right now, we just budgeted 25% CDs. Two brand new schools
082are going to go concurrently. We break ground in September. We're going to bid them this summer. Right now, ground up, brand new sites, and then we also have to go back and abate and knock down the existing school on the same property. Those are at 560 all in. Okay for 600 kids approximation well 600 well how many square feet I mean it's right now new construction based on three weeks ago and recently opened bids It's around that 560 for for new construction. How many square feet are we talking? We'll do some that's 300 between the two they're gonna bid to get 300,000 square feet, so It's 172 million Those two? 168, yeah. So, I mean, the last new school was right in 2020, right before the pandemic came, and that was just under 400 a
083square foot all in. So the cost of construction since 2020 is just, well, 30, 40% more. Can you, if, what's the approximate, I know there's different variables, but could you, Break ground let's say there's a building you have to take down and build a building could you start the project in May and have it doors open a Year and a half later of like 100% Yep, 100% new Lincoln school in Skokie 69 was that exact schedule we broke ground in April May it was delivered the following August And then we went back, abated existing Lincoln, tore it down, and there was some new parking lot area in that footprint of the existing, and that naturally followed. But the new school was up and running the following August. And then the district moved in that summer,
084the following summer, from existing to now. You know the two architects who are our finalists. You work with both of them or just one of them? Both of them. Yep on new new facilities renovations additions everything is there any Is there a big advantage to having worked with an architectural firm from your perspective as a CM? 100%. Yeah, there's no learning curve. There's no learning curve. It's not just us. It's all these contractors. So the 70, 80 contractors that move around with us as well as others, they know the details. Every architect has kind of their thing on how they present things, how they show things in the drawings. So all that matters. So when you open up a set of drawings, you know exactly what the intent is, you know what they're trying to
085show, all of that. So yes, there's a huge advantage. And even on the construction side, they know how we build, and they understand how we manage jobs too, so it just helps the process overall so that, like Joe said, it's more enjoyable than combative. It could be combative, but the importance of... They know how we operate, so the structure I keep referring to in the process, they know our process. So there's high expectations. Everybody has their role, and we're going to stick to the process, and we're going to hit dates that have been established, and if there has to be hard conversations, we're going to have them. But there's a professional respect that we all have. You can't over communicate. That's the big thing. Everybody has to get together, work together, and talk and communicate.
086And usually it's successful. We're all about real-time communication with all these architects. We've got all their cell phones. We're up late at night with them sometimes having conversations. So we know the importance of schedule and just getting these jobs done on time. And just the support when you get into the construction phase and there's questions that come up or whatever it is. If there's a change, time is of the essence. We're not going to be waiting for weeks and weeks and weeks. There just needs to be some focus and some attention and keep it moving. Thank you. That was a long response. No. Are you familiar with our buildings or kind of still in a question? I was going to ask you. Go, go. Do it, Leah. Do it. I was going to ask it
087better. Go ahead. What is your general impression of our current facilities? No. From listening to board meetings. I know you're south building your pre-k and early childhood and Add building are over there and you've had to move add over to over there because of the work or because of enrollment at Manny and And then you have the other elementary school name just went right on my head I mean Miller Miller excuse me. Thank you Miller and then the two The two the junior high in the high school. I know your elementary school is as big as your high school, which is unique I know that from listening to your conversations that there are there's a lot of dated equipment and there's a desire to upgrade mechanical and a lot of the finishes in the building
088and you're weighing the options of whether a new school is necessary or not. So having not been through them, sometimes when we do these, we do, there are walkthroughs. We haven't had that opportunity yet. Obviously school's in session, but we could answer that question even better if we got to peek under the hood. A lot of the questions that are being asked are a lot of the similar type of questions that we've... dealt with with some of our other clients as they're considering you know the overall scope of work and how to approach the projects you know do you replace or do you model and that's always the big question and construction costs being what they are now you know sometimes it makes more sense to renovate and to remodel and sometimes it just makes
089more sense to to build new so you know we love being a part of those conversations and evaluating facilities you know with the design team just to help make the best decision or help you make the best decision. I'm a retired school business official, so I... held the same role Anthony did. Anthony probably does it very much better than I do. But I went through the same thing you went through. I had seven referendums our school district went through in 26 years. So I understand what you're wrestling with. I understand when you start, you know, a good question for your architect will be, you know, sometimes when you are renovating more than 50% of a building, you have to start looking at those costs about whether... a new building is in order or not and
090uh you definitely would you know the cost to upgrade older buildings obviously can can increase as well uh just because of the state of the building so i know you're you're all wrestling with all those with those options right now and i've been there so i can appreciate it all right you good I think that's it. I just have to ask this. I thought it was going to be an approximation. But let's just say that you built four new science labs. What would that cost approximately? Give me a dollar number please because I'm not gonna I could do the math maybe but Stand alone like science center for laughs actually actually this is another referendum Buffalo Grove district 102 We're actually implementing nine nine nine science Existing building, full gut. Full gut. Full gut. And
091basically just create nine brand new science rooms. We do have a link in there. Yeah, there's a link. It was a $9 million job, so. You said $9 million? Hard costs. So say, I don't know, for the sake of conversation, it's 1,000 square feet of classroom. They're probably a little bigger than that. It's probably 600 a foot all in. I mean, somewhere in there by the time you're done. I mean, mechanical the whole nine yards. So you're pushing my math here. So you're saying if it's $600 a foot, $600,000 a lab? If you're doing a whole new space, new mechanicals, new everything, the whole nine yards, I mean, it's basically you're looking at $900,000 a classroom. you know, potentially somewhere in there. Science are unique obviously. We have science labs that have not really been
092touched since the 1970s. So I mean the general rule of thumb for heavy renovation, meaning all new mechanical, new electrical, 100% new, you know, you could assume a hard cost to start out is four to 450 a square foot. Okay. Then you have, you should probably carry a little bit of contingency for something you might come across. Then you have the CM fee structure. Then you have the AE fee. So you have all these other costs above and beyond the hard costs. And by the time you add it all up, you know, you're, you know, you could be at 600 a foot. For everything all in that's another I mean I always like to present things from the very From the onset of the planning pre-ref. I always present things as an all-in look Hard
093cost no matter how many sites how many schools whatever the scope of work is it comes to a hard cost value And then we apply the CM fee structure a e fee other other costs associated with the project whether it be new utilities whatever it is Any and all costs, maybe a furniture, maybe technology, whatever it is. And it's an all-in look. And then you manage, and it's a living document, you manage that all-in picture all the way through the bid opening. All the way through. It should never change. It should be transparent. You should always have previous stocks to reference to see how things are tracking. So, sounds like a lot of money. Mean it is but you know you have to be realistic as well. I mean so we I mean We're literally
094building them right now. They bid a few months ago. So Thank you No other questions. Thank you. And well, we appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you I forgot this question. What's 78 the year they were established? All right you do that too? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Going back in order now right? Yes. Full circle. Are you going back? You're going to go through a discussion later. I can do whatever you guys. We can finish our discussions and then go back. Wait, I can I could speed through these I was just saying let's finish the discussions before we do the board because it's a lot of voting and the procedural Yeah, okay Number three, working cash interest. So historically, the District and Board of Education approves working cash interest transfer
095from working cash fund to education fund. Generally, again, it's just interest generated throughout the year, and you can't do any expenditures in the working cash fund. So historically, the district's always transferred over to the education fund, which is the largest fund that does the expenditures. This was already factored into the budget. so this is just essentially just transferring funds but that's all again already factored into the budget that was approved and the dollar amount is as of april 23rd the working cash fund generated 33 545 dollars of interest okay any questions about that next capital projects transfer so our district's on a cash basis which means and i explained this a little bit more in september where revenue is generated and received in one fiscal year and some of the time expenditures are the following
096year. And that's really based on many factors, but the auditors determine that. Again, depending on many factors such as when bills are paid, when items are arrived, when construction worked or finished, it's determined by the auditors and their policies and law. So last year or a couple years ago, Ann transferred over $2 million from the O&M fund to Cap Out Projects. That would cover any excess dollars that the working cash bonds wouldn't have paid for the HVAC project. The auditors this past year factored in the high school roof project as some of that cost, which was taken from the O&M fund and not capital projects. So again, the revenue is in one year, but taken out the second year. So I factored that into this year's budget. I was off $8,000 in our favor. But
097again, we just need to transfer over to offset that cost. But again, it's already factored into the budget. and also the AFR from prior year. So you'll see a revenue stream last year and the expenditures for this year. So it's just offsetting that. Something to note, now that we have new auditors, it is, you know, a conversation will come up to see if, you know, we want to continue this as, you know, one year revenues come in and the next year expenditures come out and there needs to be transfers back and forth. Revenue expenditures end June 30th and that is it. So anything after June 30th is the next fiscal year. There's pros and cons to it, but right now I don't see a sense of changing anything. It's just, again, this is just a
098procedure that all districts have to face. So again, this is factored into the budget for this fiscal year. So in order to actually do the transfer, there would need to be a resolution and then the auditors approved it, they're fully aware of it. And the rough cost is, and also in conjunction with the expenditures, I'm also transferring over interest that was generated in Capital Projects Fund to ONF. Roughly last year, the Capital Projects Fund generated a little over $200,000 of interest. And as of April 23rd, the capital projects fund generated $63,000 of interest. And again, it's past practice and best practice to transfer those funds out of capital projects into O&M if you're not doing major construction work out of the capital projects plan, which we're not. And we isolated the working cash bonds to
099fund 61. So this excludes that interest. So we cannot touch that 61 interest. This is solely. fund 60 capital projects so in total at roughly 1.4 million from capital to onm again everything has been budgeted and the auditor's approved last fiscal year and this year's budget any questions so the resolution for the both transfers will be may 14th there are no other questions we'll move to the 2024-2025 student fees Any update and any questions from last board meeting? Again, there will be no increase in student fees. We are, the only fee that we would be increasing is lunch by 25 cents per meal and milk, and that was dictated by ISBE. That isn't the decision from the district, that's just a recommendation from ISBE that. has a threshold of this is the recommendation to increase
100rates that increase. But overall, no increase for other student fees. There won't be any payment plans next year. But again, just have family, just I want families to be aware, just we're here to answer any questions, any calls. We'll make time for families to come in if they have any questions or concern about their fees. Questions or comments? Move to number six, Crown Castle contract. Any... Further questions regarding Crown Castle and the contract. No So just a quick you said the next escalation is 2025 but the expiration is For for the current one or the new one the new contract, right? Yes, so the so this contract would run to 2061 and then again we would have a you know, once the board approves it tonight there would be a $10,000 signing bonus given to
101the district and then We negotiated 15% revenue share which wasn't in the old contract and then also Any additional again any additional tenants the district will will get that Share and that wasn't the case last contract the monthly Revenue that we will receive if nothing changes and there's no additional tenants will be the same at 2553 so two thousand five hundred fifty three dollars every month Any further questions about Verifant? Again, this is in place of FaithSol. This is a software that almost every other district's using to help with the process of FaithSol for the district office and administration, but also the new employee. I don't think you need any questions. And the cost of that is $500 per year. No other comments? Sounds good. All right. Now going back. So going back to kind
102of the beginning of our agenda letter C, it's something that previous boards have elected to do to, I guess it's a check on the board, and it's sort of speak on officers and allowing for new officers or just making the decision to continue or change positions. And giving, I see a big part of it is giving board members grace and that this is a lot of work. We don't get paid for this, but willing to help each other out and change if we need to yearly. It's something that we would not discuss now, but I'll ask the board if they are in agreement to discussing the next agenda, I mean, the next school board meeting about changing the terms, because I think it's a little haphazard. I would want a discussion on our agenda about
103changing our terms for officers for two years. So we can discuss that. We're not making a decision now or next meeting, but just have some pros and cons for that. So you want to discuss that tonight or you want to discuss that at the next meeting? If it's okay, I want to add that to the discussion item for the next meeting. So with that being said. We'll start with our election of officers. And at this time, the chair entertains nominations for the Board of Education member president. I nominate Adina Hoover. Second. Any other nominations? The chair entertains a motion to name Adina Hoover as the Board of Education president for a one-year term. So moved. Second. Roll call. Mr. Marin? Yes. Ms. Canover? Yes. Ms. Deckeety? Yes. Mr. Avia? Yes. Ms. Hoover? Yes. Ms. Rogers?
104Yes. Motion carries. The chair entertain nominations for the Board of Education Vice President. I nominate Leah Canover. Second. Roll call. Oh, sorry. No. You don't have to second yet. The chair entertain a motion to name Leah Canover as Vice President of the Board of Education for a one-year term. So moved. Second. Roll call. Miss Decadee. Yes. Miss Canover. Yes. Am I supposed to abstain? Mr. Avia. Yes. Miss Hoover. Yes. Miss Rogers. Yes. Mr. Marin. Yes. I so badly wanted to abstain after that comment. Chair, entertain a nomination for the Board of Education Secretary. I nominate. And for secretary. I second that nomination. Any other nominations? The chair entertain a motion to name Angela Steckety as secretary for a one-year term. So moved. Second. Roll call. Ms. Canover. Yes. Ms. Steckety. Yes. Mr. Avia. Yes. Ms.
105Hoover. Yes. Ms. Rogers. Yes. Mr. Mayor. Yes. Motion carries. Congratulations. So at this time we'll move to appointment of board committees and we have a list of where we are, what we signed up for, but I'll read our comment section. For many years the Board of Education has maintained committees to work with the administration examining certain key elements in the CUSD 201 operation. The committees have been finance, policy, strategic planning, facilities, and public relations. As designed, the committees have been actively involved in several important areas. The administration has appreciated this type of board involvement. It has been custom of the new Board of Education to rearrange the committee structures and seating arrangements, et cetera, at this time. So is this something that has to be said or we can pass this around? Pass this around,
106you can sign up. So I'll pass this around as we go. Any questions or comments about this? So we'll move to number three, establishment of board meeting dates, times, and places. So I'll start at this point with any questions or statements we've been considering. Board meeting dates, and this is a time we usually set our calendar. And before... We vote on which, I just vote like in board members' comments or feedback on the times. And basically setting up, we're trying to be a little bit more deliberate in our meetings and setting times and expectations. We have work to be done. We're trying to endeavor on basically, you know, things that we talked about and consider today in construction management, basically looking at our facilities. So there's a lot of planning with that that's coming ahead.
107So I'll just start, I'll open the floor just with comments regarding timing, the number of meetings we have, going from our standard of what we have now, which is about 17 a year, Proposal to have 12 12. Thank you Jumping Should we talk about time first? Yes. Yes. Yes. Then yes My my question on time is if we start the 630 time Will we be adjusting letting the public know that we will start open session later or so we can fulfill all our closed session time before the meeting starts like saying right now it's we'll start no later than what is it seven o'clock 6 30. currently it's 6 30 or 6 45 something like so would we push it to like 7 15. we currently say it'll immediately foul right but i thought we
108established at some point start as early as 6 30. as early as 6 30 correct like that the statement like that will we be moving The time like that with the same window? I think so, yes. To 7. So we can start open session as early as 7 p.m. Correct me if I'm wrong, but... We have been trying to consolidate the meetings so people can meet on one night, like the 5.30 meeting we had tonight. Yes. We anticipate we'll need more of those, and starting them at 5 is too early, right? So we moved close back to 6.30. So we could do some 5.30 to 6.30 meetings and consolidate. The other consideration is to try to really... We have not had a second closed session this year. So... let's say we would do our very
109best to complete close from 630 to 7 and start the meetings at 7 on An occasion where something was really pressing and we needed additional closed session. We could come back for the second closed session that's not our Goal, but let's just say that there was something very pressing that we needed to do We could exercise the option of having the closed session that we haven't used this year. So ideally It would be the opportunity for a 530 to 630 committee meeting, which we're anticipating that we're going to need some of those for certain. Number one. Number two, it consolidates the number of meeting times for the board members. We're trying to be considerate of board member time. So if you have, instead of having an additional Monday or Tuesday or another meeting time, it's
110clean by just saying, you know, that those days we have potential. 5.30 to 6.30, 6.30 to 7.00 closed, 7 o'clock meeting, only if needed an additional closed session. There's the possibility we might need a couple of those, but we'll try to not have that happen. So that's the one thing about the meeting time. If I just say this to the board, we serve at your discretion on this. I mean, I'm not saying this, I mean it. It's good to see everybody, it's good to be in contact. The 17 meetings is fine from an administrative standpoint. That's what the board's preference is. Most districts that we've examined do 12 meetings a year. And we think we can get the business done in 12 meetings. But that is a board decision. 17, 12, what's the best going
111to serve our board and our needs at this time? Like I said, seeing you more often, I mean this, is a good thing. We can get the business done in 12. It's up to the board to decide. I think one I've gone back and forth with this one. One of my questions with the 12 is that I'll say with having the 17 board meetings, it's a Tuesday and I think I'm comfortable in having those set. A question, especially this year, which is sometimes a little like haphazard for me is the need to have special meetings. So are we going to in turn insert meetings that need to be special and then get back essentially get back to 17 meetings? Will we have that? And I know it's like asking you to bring out your crystal
112ball, but I think about that caveat. We are saying we're going to commit to 12 and get business done. Oh no, another special meeting. And we're trying to pull each other back in. Well, and to that point, we had 17 meetings scheduled this year, but how many IASB meetings did we have? We planned another three special meetings, I think, probably. So we really did 20 meetings. Yes, but I think When we, like what you were saying, Adina, I don't know that we had any like emergency or you can correct me, but the only special meetings we had were like retreat or evaluation meetings. We didn't have to have like, to my knowledge this year, a special meeting. to get some people approved. That's one of the reasons in the past we've had those. And here's
113where that goes to, right? If we do calendar E, which is the 17 meetings at 6.30, we don't have... It is at B, I think. That's B. B is 17. Sorry, 17 at 6.30. We have all of those meetings booked on our calendars on Tuesdays. We don't do any doodle polls. We don't do any meetings on any other day of the week. If we have an IASB... We do it on that day thing, right we send out to our Lana. These are the four days that we have available Make one of them work instead of a Monday night Randomly that we might miss but we also I think this was this Facilities thing happening right before the board meeting has been working out really well But we also do that for the for the committee
114meetings around those Tuesdays. So it's like probably more likely that we actually have 530 to 630 committee meetings. And then maybe if we have to have a board meeting that night, it's a consent agenda situation. It's like a, it's a quick approve on those extra like five meetings. Does that make sense? I would rather have those meetings on my calendar and know that that's like my, that's my. Policy meeting night. That's my facility meeting night combine it with the board meetings the way that we've done these last couple of times which in my opinions worked super well and Has been super easy and has not required any doodle polls But then it's also on the calendar and if some of those meetings end up being super super short Wonderful, and I know in my head.
115I thought about You wouldn't miss getting feedback and timing earlier time those type of things I just like with the times I can always be flexible on it I would have to just you know outside of the board scheduling you know but it's not a problem there's some flexibility with that In regards to the set days, of course, you know, I think, like Leah mentioned, you know, I think that's something, you know, that works for everybody. I think just being able to access it, knowing in addition to, if we do go down to the 12, having anything additional on our calendars is beneficial or aligning with. you know, like this evening, you know, beforehand. And the individuals could just essentially, you know, plan as needed. At least I know, you know, speaking from my perspective,
116you know, like tonight was, I was able to just kind of, you know, readjust my schedule today and it worked out. So my point on that is we booked the 17. with the with the 630 630 start time and if we have to do any other and and we commit or try to commit our committees to be on the boys right prior to board meetings and we Operate is if we are having one meeting a month. So yeah, so if there's any training or a year Right. We operate as if we're having one meeting month. We figure this out Okay, we have one agenda meeting a month Okay, so we figure it out for one year and we essentially make next year's calendar to be 12 to be this one year And it allows us
117this freedom this year with what we have going on to have some more meetings scheduled on everybody's calendar for the whole year At least that day is like if we got to do a thing on a Tuesday And it's every other Tuesday. I know my board members have that on their calendars, right? With the intention that next year we're at 12. With the committee meeting still in line. So we plan it. We actively work towards it over the next year. So just to caveat with our, so with setting these, we're setting and telling community that we are meeting, even though in our head we're saying we're having 12. main meetings, we still telling the public that your board members will be here meeting regardless on those days, even though we're not. Well, but so, and
118right. If it's a, if it's a board retreat, we tell the community that we're meeting anyway. Yeah. Right. So if we swap one of those meetings, I'm saying swap, it's not a swap. It's still a, if we board meeting, if one of the, if the agenda of one of those meetings is a board retreat, That's not any different than what we're doing now. It's just not a special meeting. We don't have to call it a special meeting because it's scheduled. And on our agenda tonight is a board retreat. So it sounds like if we're successful with what you're saying, there should be at least one of those other five board meetings. I did my math right, right? I know we're all like. One of those five meetings should last. 30 seconds. Right. 30 minutes. Pledge
119of Allegiance. Approval of minutes. It's purely procedural. At least one of those five meetings before the end of the year better be that way. Yes. Right. Better be that way. Which I want to point out is better than we can say for this year. No, for sure. We had one meeting that was, it wasn't that long ago, in fact. But we've had special meetings. It's allowing for almost like a transition. It is essentially, that is essentially what I'm saying. That's what I'm trying to drive at. As long as we are truly working towards getting this, because one of the things that really caught my attention in the memo was that, I don't know if I heard most, but many other school districts, like us, do 12 meetings a year. and that really got my attention
120only because not because I want to be like other school districts but I do want us know and everything that we do to not be the special necessary for just because this is the way we've already always done you know our school districts different not for this it doesn't need to be and so I I mean I would like us working hard towards yes 12 meetings Jess, let me go back. Jess was in contact with me. So, yeah, she's also in favor of more consolidated meetings, like 12, the 12 meetings. That's where she's at. One of it stated that she would not be, like, upset if the board didn't do that, but she's. in favor of getting to that. And I feel like this board, including our horn, but I use the analogy of Anthony
121and streamlining and cleaning up. Yes. That's what we're doing with our board and our board work and getting to a streamlined workflow. We had superintendent evaluations, you know, all these different things we're doing. are the way that we evaluate and look at data for schools. We're getting this aligned where it's a sustained working group. So like you said, I'll reiterate. We've done a ton of work over the years. We've done a ton of work. The reality of the situation is next year we have a big year. There's no world where next year is not a big year. There just isn't. It doesn't exist. And if I get a doodle poll every other week, I'm going to lose my mind. Okay? I'm going to lose my mind if we get a doodle poll and I've got
122to fill it out for the next two and a half months to find the one day that four and a half of us can come to. Okay? I realize I'm like, that I'm making that big. But as opposed to... It's just scheduled, and it happens on one of these nights. So what I hear you saying, Leah, correct me if I'm wrong, but that we try to stick to those 17 dates, and we connect any additional committee meetings to those dates. Committee meetings, special meetings, every extra break that we have to do. The things that have caused the doodle polls. Yes. And then if that would happen, let's say we have like a strategic meeting or some kind of a retreat or something of that nature, We would just truncate the regular meeting and use that
123time for committee meetings. It ideally is already truncated. Ideally, what we've done is we've already pulled out the five dates, the five extra dates, and those are our five options for the year. Those on the calendar are five board meetings that are, by design, 30-minute meetings. unless it's a retreat unless it's I'm saying no not unless it they are by design a 30-minute meeting and then when something comes up we go oh you know we're gonna need a special meeting we're gonna need an extra we say well that 30 minute meeting now just on this day half it just became two hours it just became whatever it is I understand but so yeah that's a 30-minute meeting means we start at 630 with what An open meeting, possibly? We start the same. We do any
124closed session, truly, in 30 minutes. So it's probably an hour. We do any closed session business because things are going to come up. It's a district, a school district, that we have to discuss some things. And then we have our, and we have space, so, you know, we talked about just amongst ourselves that what can we do to consolidate financials and approvals and things like that if we did pick the 12-meeting calendar. But now we do have, we don't have to, we're not so tied by that because we have these short meetings that. This is a date. It's on a calendar. We have it done. It gives ourselves grace, I want to say, too, that, yes, four people can come, and we are allowed to miss meetings. So those are the ones that if you
125can't control it, those are the ones that we would in an ideal situation that all seven of us are not necessarily here. But I think it's going to, as a reminder to me, that this is going to take the work of planning with Shannon, who's done a lot. Thank you for all the work you've done with looking at dates. But saying, like, these are meetings that we know we're going to plan to do. What's coming up? What do we have to do? This is done. We have to do our audit. This happens in this month. It happens on that day that we know it's the 12th. It's a little bit longer. Approve 17. Operate as if we approve 12. organized just I think you guys would see behind the scenes five that are gonna be
126just short minimal meetings and then when it comes up you're like yes tell whoever's training that you have the choice of this month on this day this month on this day so it's not for everyone to see that it's actually only 12 do you see us enveloping the PR meetings into those states yeah yeah I think a committee meeting should have been prior to, like, I'm sold. Committee meeting at 5.30 prior to a board meeting. It was harder when we started at 6, but if we start at 6.30, it's easier. We are going to do our best to try to keep it to 17 times next year where the board meets. Total. That includes committees. Everything. There could be a possibility, as Carlos said, that a meeting or two could be a very quick one.
127Right. And I think there's going to be, to be, you know, transparent, there are going to be committee meetings that are not on Tuesdays. I understand that. We have so many different things. We're trying not to make it happen, but it might have to happen. It might have to, right. But at least it would be on the calendar. So like everybody said, we know in advance. And that's the work of each committee too because they're going to take a look at those and say, yeah, this is enough. These are when our meetings will happen and say, hey, we need another meeting in between this and this. That has to be given to our committee too. We just had this conversation at the last public relations meeting that we don't need to do them every month.
128But there was a time when we did. And in the future, there might be another time when we do. And if that means that now it's not 17, now it's 18, because we need an extra public relations meeting on a Wednesday or whatever, I mean, look. We have goals. We have goals, and it's got to be at least incrementally better than, I don't mean this to sound critical, I think they were all necessary. I'm not saying that they weren't, but based on the way we've run it. But if we run it differently, then it wouldn't be so scattershot. It feels that way. I think one of the most appealing things would be Tuesday night is board night. Yep. Period. End of story. And not some Thursday, not something, not some because, you know. And not
129just Tuesday night, but these 17. Yes. That's what I mean. That's exactly what I mean. I mean. I know it's only 17, but it feels like every Tuesday night, you know. And so I think that, yeah. And I'm not, I wasn't really on board with 17. I was, I wanted, when I first saw it, I said 12, let's, you know, figure it out. But I get the idea of design for 12 and then add five. Design for 12. Design as if you were designing to run with 12. And then where you have gaps, add the other five in. So Shannon did a lot of work, too. She's looking, like, being able to say every fourth Tuesday when we're trying to do 12. But essentially, like you said, we look at those two as we start.
130That's not something we do now. But we look at those 12. and hopefully like those are main and then look at those other five to say but essentially what I'm hearing from the board is that we will go with calendar the option B move accordingly mm-hmm if you and if you look at the way the village board has their like if you look at village board in there like yearly meetings all their committee meetings have the same one page it says village board meets like every other Tuesday or the second Tuesday of the third Tuesday of the month whatever and committee meetings rotate before the village board meeting This one on these dates this one on these dates this one on these dates and it says with the exception of like December 28th and November
131whatever but it's it is one page It's not even a calendar. It is just this is how we operate and it just has all the committee I was like, haha, and I think that would help for the public because there's still people saying oh These meetings are open to the public for committee meetings. Yes, you can show up and it's like a reminder. Hey, it's right here Tuesday night, board night. And I think, just a side note for future discussion, we should send at the beginning of the school year to all the PTOs and boosters and that. Here's the calendar of all our board meetings with the committee meetings in front just so your committee knows past the information. I'm going to go with the motion. The chair entertain a motion that the regular meetings
132of the community unit school district 201 board of education be held as identified on the notice schedule of regular meeting option B of the board of education of community unit school district 201 as presented. So moved. Second. Roll call. Ms. Deckeety. Yes. Ms. Dravia. Yes. Ms. Hoover. Yes. Ms. Rogers. Yes. Mr. Marin. Yes. Ms. Canover. Yes. I'm going to move to item four. The chair will entertain a motion to approve the appointment of Carlos Xavier as the community unit school district 201's Illinois Association of School Board Delegate. Any questions? Thank you for doing this. Thank you for doing this. Two years in a row. Thank you for doing this. But I mean, like, it's taken us a while to get to this, to be assigned ahead of time so we know what's going on. Pass
133this down. Motion and aye. Oh, so moved. Second. Roll call. Mr. Hevia. Yes. Ms. Hoover. Yes. Ms. Rogers. Yes. Mr. Maranth. Yes. Ms. Conover. Yes. Ms. Duckey. Yes. I was saying that's right, I forgot. Before I move on, did everyone check mark? And no, it's just a suggest. I think we should take strategic planning off of that. Because those have just become everybody meetings, which is arguably how they should be. Just future notes. So we are now back on task at agenda item H, action items. The chair entertain a motion to approve the 2024-2025 administrator annual contracts for the following administrators. Jada James, Lindsay Petersack, Michael Lipinski, Amy Quattrone, Laura Lopez, Adam Kordeluski, Tiffany Teresi, Carla Braun, Edith Corington, Kevin Weck, and Samantha Sinovich as presented. So moved. Second. Roll call. Ms. Rogers? Yes. Mr.
134Marin? Yes. Ms. Canover? Yes. Ms. Deckeety? Yes. Mr. Avia? Yes. Ms. Hoover? Yes. Motion carries. Number two, the chair will entertain a motion to approve the amendment to the 2023-2024 contract of Nadine Norris as presented. So moved. Second. Right? Yeah. Roll call. Mr. Marin? Yes. Ms. Canover? Yes. Ms. Decadee? Yes. Mr. Avia? Yes. Ms. Hoover? Yes. Ms. Rogers? Yes. Motion carries. Number three, the chair will entertain a motion to approve the retirement contract of Administrator Nadine Norris as presented. So moved. Second. Roll call. Ms. Canover? Yes. Ms. Decadee? Yes. Mr. Avia? Yes. Ms. Hoover? Yes. Ms. Rogers? Yes. Mr. Marin? Yes. Motion carries. The chair will entertain a motion to approve the multi-year contract of Anthony Rielly 2025 to 2027 as presented. So moved. Second. Roll call. Ms. Rogers. Yes. Ms. Steckety. Yes. Mr. Abia.
135Yes. Ms. Hoover. Yes. Mr. Marin. Yes. Count over. Yes. I got his away. All right. Motion carries. Yes. Number five, the chair entertain a motion to approve the non-certified salary increases for the 2024-2025 school year as presented. So moved. Second. Roll call. Ms. Steckety. Yes. Mr. Avia. Yes. Ms. Hoover. Yes. Ms. Rogers. Yes. Mr. Marin. Yes. Ms. Canover. Yes. motion carries number six the chair entertain a motion to approve the board action on closed session minutes as presented so move second roll call mr. avia yes miss Hoover yes miss Rogers yes mr. Marin yes miss can over yes miss Decadee yes motion carries Number seven, the chair entertain a motion to approve the destruction of verbatim closed session minutes from March 1st, 2022 through August 30th, 2022. So moved. Second. Roll call. Ms. Hoover. Yes.
136Ms. Rogers. Yes. Mr. Marin. Yes. Ms. Canover. Yes. Ms. Decadee. Yes. Mr. Avia. Yes. Motion carries. Number eight. The chair entertain a motion to approve the student fees for the 2024-2025 school year as presented. So moved. Second. Roll call. Ms. Rogers. Yes. Mr. Marin. Yes. Ms. Canover. Yes. Ms. Steckety. Yes. Mr. Avia. Yes. Ms. Hoover. Yes. Motion carries. Number nine. The chair entertain a motion to approve the contract with Verifant as presented. So moved. Second. Roll call. Mr. Marin. Yes. Ms. Canover. Yes. Ms. Decadee. Yes. Ms. Ravia. Yes. Ms. Hoover. Yes. Ms. Rogers. Yes. Motion carries. Number 10, the chair entertain a motion to approve the contract with Crown Castle as presented. So moved. Second. Roll call. Ms. Canover. Yes. Ms. Decadee. Yes. Ms. Ravia. Yes. Ms. Hoover. Yes. Ms. Rogers. Yes. Mr. Marin. Yes.
137Motion carries. Number 11, the chair will entertain a motion to approve the Westmont Junior High electives beginning with the 2024-2025 school year as presented. So moved. Second. Roll call. Ms. Steckety. Yes. Ms. Rabia. Yes. Ms. Hoover. Yes. Ms. Rogers. Yes. Mr. Marin. Yes. Ms. Conover. Yes. Motion carries. And number 12, the chair will entertain a motion to approve the 2024 summer school plans as presented. So moved. Second. Roll call. Ms. Rogers. Yes. Mr. Marin. Yes. Ms. Decadee. Yes. Mr. Avia. Yes. Ms. Hoover. Yes. Ms. Canover. Yes. Motion carries. Next, our superintendent report. We just finished testing season. I can't express how hard our students and teachers worked on this. They just really to another level with their effort and it's much appreciated. We put it in perspective, right? It's a test, but it does reflect
138how successful we've been in trying to get students to grow their learning. But whatever the scores are, I'll tell you this. The kids worked extremely hard and the teachers worked extremely hard. So much appreciated. Overall behavior in the buildings has been excellent. Of course, we're not perfect, but people who've been around for a decade plus don't remember this level of positivity in the behavior of our students. There's times when mistakes are made and they're young people, so sometimes they don't always make the best decisions. They're learning. but overall the student behavior is incredible and that's a testament to our community, to our staff, to our families, and to our students. We're very proud of them. So I don't know if any students are watching the board meeting, but it needs to be known. And it's
139truly, it's very special, but we don't want it to rest on our laurels. So those are two really important things I want to express to everybody. The last thing, and... Just we have we have so many students. We are really making a lot of progress with attendance But there's still we can still finish strong and we need to But overall our attendance data is strong, but there's still a month left to school and we really want to just come together as a community and encourage each other to be in school because there's only a few more weeks and then there's a well-deserved summer break. But between now and that time, we need students in school every day they can possibly be there. Right now we're trending for excellent attendance results, but it's the trend, it's
140not the final result, so we need to finish strong. The update board meeting time, the May 14th board meeting will have a start time of 6.30 with the facilities meeting at 5.30. Both meetings will take place at Village Hall. Yes, and again, this is hopefully taking some confusion away, but starting that trend of having our committee meetings beforehand and the community is invited. It's not the formal board meeting, so... participation is encouraged. And with that we'll go to board reports. I don't even know what day it is anymore. Thank you to everyone who helped, volunteered, sponsored the junior high musical. It was a blast. It was amazing. I didn't know what to expect from a junior high musical, but they did a great job. So thank you to all that. And However, I wanted to
141bring up, but I don't know if Kevin would want to speak to it better. We received an email in support of our, from our band boosters and the appreciation of all the band, us supporting the band because it was in a bad place after the pandemic. And they've been doing a great job. I've been watching wonderful performances. I mean. I went to the Fine Arts Night and it was nice seeing every school performing in that and they all performed together. So it was great. I know Kevin can speak more to all of it, but. Yeah, the band program is really strong. It's running great. Thank you very much. Because you're right, after the pandemic, it was really in a bad place and it's really strong now. So thank you to our leaders out there, Mr.
142Costell. Mr. Kapowski and Ms. Biederman. It's fantastic. We mentioned our facilities meeting. Yes. Again, meeting next month. I don't know any other committee meetings coming up. I guess I'm going to be there soon. Can I put an invite out here now? If anybody's watched this board meeting, you saw that we essentially interviewed two construction manager groups. We want to fix these buildings. We want to move into the future. We don't want to put band-aids on anything anymore. So if anybody would like to be involved on what that process looks like, please reach out to us. Our consulting firm will be putting a committee together soon, and we need input from all the community, whether you have children in the school or not, whether you have former children in the school. They've all graduated. Let us
143know what you'd like to see going on in our buildings. Come to the meeting so you can find out what is actually going on in the buildings because everything looks good from the outside. So, yeah, just open invite. Parents, kids, the teachers are doing wonderful things in and out of the buildings. We just need to get our buildings in order. Yes. All right. We don't have to return to closed session. So we go over known feature meetings and events. I'm kind of scared about May, but it's coming. Our Westmont High School Spring Concert will be April 24th at 7 p.m. at Westmont High School. Middle Grade Level Music Concert will be April 25th, 6 p.m. at Westmont High School. There's Westmont High School Honors Recital, April 29th at 7 p.m. We have a SIP day
144on May 1st, so it's a half day. BPAC meeting, May 7th, 6 p.m. at Manning. CUSD 201 Elementary PTO meeting, May 7th, 7 p.m. at Manning. The Manning Band and Chorus Concert will be May 9th, 6 p.m. at Westmont High School. As stated before, Facility Planning Committee meeting, May 14th, 5.30 here at Westmont Village Hall. And then following will be the CUSC 201 board meeting at 6.30 p.m. Westmount Village Hall. I don't have that right now. Is it the 22nd and 23rd? Can you believe that? High school is May 22nd and junior high is May 23rd. And with that, the chair will entertain a motion to adjourn the April 23rd, 2024 regular meeting of the Board of Education. So moved. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Meeting adjourned.