Board Of Education Meeting October 17 2016

001Okay, we'd like to resume the October 17, 2016, U-46 Board of Education meeting. I would like to acknowledge that Eric Lohr has joined us at the board table. And Ms. Ellis and Mr. Costello are joining us on the phone. Could everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and... stay standing for a moment of silence. 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. We would like to take a moment of silence tonight to remember Denise Albert, an elementary lunch lead supervisor who passed away on Thursday, October 13th. Denise worked at Fox Meadow Elementary School for the past 15 years. She was loved by students and staff alike. Denise will be greatly missed. We will keep

002Denise's family and friends, especially her son Brian, a U-46 graduate of South Elgin High School, in our thoughts and prayers. We would also like to take another moment tonight to remember Staff Sergeant Adam Thomas. who passed away on Tuesday, October 4th. Sergeant Thomas, a U-46 Larkin High School graduate and Green Beret, died on active duty while in Afghanistan. He was a brave and dedicated soldier who has been remembered fondly by the Larkin community as an excellent student, athlete, and exceptional person. Sergeant Thomas will be greatly missed. We will keep Sergeant Thomas's family and friends in our thoughts and prayers. Thank you. Okay, the first item on our agenda is the strategic plan report. Mr. Sanders. Thank you, Madam President, members of the Board of Education. If I could ask the team from the Dream Academy

003to step forward. You might want to bring some of the seats from up here at the front to bring them along with you so that the board can see all of you who are here. So as they're stepping forward, Dr. Terry Lozier, Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Education, will give you, basically introduce the full team that's presenting tonight. As they're stepping forward in the board's packet, you'll see the PowerPoint that we'll also display here in just a minute. I wanted to point out that our new format for strategic plan reports, formerly called District Improvement Plan Reports, what we intend to do in future meetings is to provide the board with an overview of some of the work that's being done underneath this new strategic plan. Specific to tonight's, we have a presentation on the Dream Academy,

004our new alternative high school. It aligns to strategic plan priority number two, which is we will coordinate our efforts to provide a nurturing and safe learning experience and a flexible approach in meeting the academic, social, and emotional needs of each student. In addition to student achievement, where we are, of course, ever striving to ensure that we meet the needs of students academically as well. I also want to note that this aligns to Board Policy 6.284, which has the superintendent or CEO develop, maintain, and supervise a program for students at risk of academic failure or dropping out of school. With that, Dr. Terry Lozier, and I'll let you introduce the audience. Not the audience, but this big team you've got. It beats up most of the audience. Good evening, board members, and we are very happy

005that you have invited us here tonight so that we can give you an update on the Dream Academy. I am going to introduce the people down the row, but I'm also going to ask you guys to restate your name when you speak so that they can remember who you are. So on the very far end, I have Sarah Mary Borden, who is a teacher at the Dream Academy. Next to her is Lourdes Baker, who is the principal at the Dream Academy. I have Montserrat Perez, a student from the Dream Academy, followed by Nicole Sanchez, a student. Directly next to me is Mr. Aaron Butler, who is the Assistant Principal Dean. Then I have Josh Zbinden. I always have a hard time. Zbinden, who is also a teacher at the Dream Academy, and Rhiannon Hunter, who

006is a teacher from the Dream Academy. So what we'd like to do tonight is update you on the alternative programs that specifically serve our struggling middle school and high school students. And just to let you know that the program is still housed in this building on the far side that used to be called Gifford Street High School, but we have changed its name. And I'll let Dr. Baker tell you a little bit more about that. Sorry, sometime later in the evening we will have a special request for you guys, so I hope that you'll be available. So, am I supposed to be flipping slides? Perfect. I'm five. There we go. Okay, so as I said a few minutes ago, the Dream Academy was formerly known as Gifford Street High School. And the former Gifford Street

007High School primarily was a credit recovery school. We now allow and have credit recovery at all of our five comprehensive schools, so we no longer needed to just have a place where students went for credit recovery. There was also a prior history of... a high number of fights as well as out of school suspensions. People were sentenced to Gifford Street High School and not really given a choice to attend Gifford Street High School and you're going to see that that's a little bit different and there were low attendance rates. If you look at the graph in the very bottom left hand right hand corner you're going to see that we have data showing our middle school and our high school 2-5 report. And what this report indicates is that in 2010-2011, 72% of the students

008that we sent to Gifford Street High School were on our 2-5 list. What a 2-5 list is a number of students who are failing two or more classes and have been absent five or more days. Now typically students, excuse me. who are on the 2-5 list are asked to go to Gifford Street so that they won't be on a 2-5 list anymore. But what happened is that we had more students at Gifford Street on a 2-5 list than we actually had from the comprehensive high school. So when we started looking at the data, we realized that what Gifford Street was trying to accomplish was not actually working. So Mr. Sanders gave me the charge of looking at the data and seeing what we could do to change our alternative programs. And the very first thing

009I did was hire Lourdes and Erin. And I hope Lourdes has a chance to give you her story a little bit later. But we were looking for people who really had restorative... practices as a framework for what they were attempting to do. We had a call to committee, and the call to committee had 21 representatives from middle school and high school that also represented the English language learners, specialized student care, core content, counselors, social workers, administrators. We had community members from Hanover Township as well as Christ Community Church. The assistant superintendent from the Kane County Regional Office of Education, Dee Oliver, sat on the team with us, as did the Kane County Regional Office of Education coordinator of alternative education programs. And so we had quite a robust group helping us to determine what our

010alternative programming would look like. We researched best practices in alternative education and then a group of us also visited two alternative schools in Aurora as well as an alternative program in Rockford. And fortunately, when we teamed up with the Kane County Regional Office, they told us about a program that the state offers that's called an Alternative Learning Opportunities Program. And what that does is it allows school districts to recoup their general state aid for students who are attending alternative programs. In the past, under the Gifford Street Program, we were not... getting general state aid for anybody who attended there because there was a different grant and it was called the TAYOP, which is a truancy alternative opportunities program. And the students at Gifford Street were more than just truant. They were having some real difficulties

011in education. I am going to let Lourdes then tell you a little bit more about the staff and how we got to where we are now. Thank you for having us here. It's an honor and a privilege to be the principal of the Dream Academy. I'm Lourdes Baker. Last spring and over the summer we had over 100 interviews that we conducted, Mr. Butler and I. We wanted to make sure that we really made a very wise decision because we were affecting the lives of students. And so we went on a search, interviewed a lot of people, and we selected what we believe is the finest group. that can serve our student population at the Dream Academy. And we worked with ETA to rewrite the job description. We wanted to make sure that our teachers had

012the proper training to be able to work with students that had trauma in their lives, that had difficulty in the regular classroom setting. So we wanted to make sure that they were very well trained. that they knew their content area and that they had knowledge of the Common Core Standards. So I believe that I have the best staff in U-46, but I'm biased to that. So the other thing we have done is that we... Our day starts at 7.40 for staff, and our students don't arrive until 9 o'clock. So this gives the opportunity for our teachers to work together, and I'm going to let them talk to you a little bit about what that entails during this time, what restorative justice we do, what the circles that we do with staff. So, Mr. Seabine. I

013want to talk to you guys about circles. Circles are a great shape and we use them often in school. We have two different kinds. The one that we use a lot is community building. And it's as simple as getting around with a group of people and asking questions that are open-ended, that are going to inspire and want someone to speak a little bit more. And these questions have relevancy, usually to the material you're going to go through the day or something that you had gone through or spoke to your class about. The thing is we do this with students and we do it with staff. We often share. We encourage each other to share openly, to explore if there's something that's going on that we just need to get out in the open to talk

014about. We've had great insight with just teachers, and we've had great insights on how to approach our students in better ways. We also use these circles for restorative. If you ever run into a situation where things just didn't work the best way, it's really great to sit around with someone who's going to mediate between. And when we do this, we have a speaking piece so that one person can speak. You don't have others speaking over the top. And you really have a guided mediator who wants to get to the issue of what's going on. This encourages honesty. This encourages openness. It creates a very safe environment so you don't have two people butting heads. You have open conversation. These circles are amazing. These circles change the way I like to work, the way I want

015to connect with my students. We've gone from not just content, but content and connection. Circles are great. And if you want the handheld, if you turn the handheld on, you can sit there and hold the handheld. Absolutely. Hello. Okay. Hi. My name is Sarah Mary Borden, and I'm a teacher at the Dream Academy, and I worked for six years at Streamwood High School. I'm a graduate of U46 in Streamwood High School, too. And I was asked to tell you guys why it's working, why what we're doing at the Dream Academy is working. And I want to sit here, and I want to tell you it's because We have low ratios. I want to tell you that we have the best teachers, like Lord has said. I want to tell you about all the wonderful lessons

016that we're creating to reach all different types of learners. I want to tell you all those great things. But the truth is, is that our staff and all the way from Terry and her vision, and I don't know if you guys know this, but when I went to Streamwood, when I was a student, Terry was never my teacher, but I knew of her because she had passion. She taught a lot of my friends. So anything she does, she has something called resilience, which is one of our three pillars at the Dream Academy. And we have responsibility, respect, and resilience. And because of that vision and because of that purpose, that started from there. We, as a staff, we all, when you think about resilience, it's based on failure, right? You have to fail to be

017able to. succeed. And not only do all of our staff members have that, but our students have chosen to be there. And they know failure. They know what it's like to not feel good about what they're doing in school. And so they choose to come to the Dream Academy and they choose to have a second chance. And then all of our staff members in our administration are supporting them and getting to know them through circles and through taking the time because of those low ratios and because of the innovative. lessons that we're building to reach all types of learners. So as a team, the reason why it's working is because we're all in it for the success of all of our students. So thank you so much for having us. And Rhiannon is going to

018talk about student connection. Hi, I'm Rhiannon Hunter. I'm the art teacher at the Dream Academy. I wanted to focus on student-teacher relationships, our academic success pods, and parent-teacher communication and involvement. Our restorative justice circles really are important. They really are opening grounds to make those stronger connections between our students. I believe that having the circles grounds us. It gives us that chance to appear human. Without that, I don't think that we'd have the respect and the rapport from our students to talk about. to talk about our academic success that we need them to have. At the Dream Academy, we really do value social-emotional learning needs, and we put them first before academics, because if you can't straighten out whatever issues and whatever traumas that are going on in your head, there's no way you can

019focus on your academic needs. So based on our strengthening of the circles, as Josh mentioned, we're able to... develop those relationships where we can get the data on our students in these academic success pots. The purpose of that is for teachers that focus on 20 students and with those 20 students we get to know them very well. We focus on their college career goals, their their test scores, their apex classes, social emotional learning, and parent-teacher contact in grades. And once we're able to get all that data we formulate student success strategies that is our our ultimate goal to have this positive connection with the parents positive communication because so many times our students our parents are receiving the calls that are not as so positive so we want to make sure that we're strengthening this

020communication constantly communicating and saying hey come down to the school and see this show or get together with us to do this It's a good environment for your students. We want to tell you what's working, and we also want to work with you to find out what it is that we can do to better the academic success of your students. And it's through these three things that we really hope to make the Dream Academy a successful place where academic learning is really possible. Thank you. So every student that comes to the dream Academy has an individual success plan and so we focus on the area of like Rhiannon said social emotional and academic goals so It's an interview process. The family comes in. We explain to the parents, to the family, what the program is

021about, what we have to offer. And ultimately, it's the student that chooses whether they want to stay with us. Now, a student can come to us, and we have open... enrollment where we do intakes every Thursday of every week and we could have students join us weekly which we have. We currently serve 126 students in all the programs that we have at Dream Academy and 86 of them are at the high school. And so some of the social emotional goals that they have decided that they've selected for themselves is that they're going to, you know, it's part of it building their confidence and improving their self-esteem because some of the students that we have. were not attending the comprehensive high school. They felt that they were being, you know, bullied. That was their perception. And

022so we try to make sure that they're comfortable when they're with us, that they feel that they're being taken care of, that they're loved, because they are. Because we're very passionate about them and their success. So I'm going to have the girls talk to you a little bit about their experience at the Dream Academy. My name is Nicole Sanchez. The Dream Academy has been a huge opportunity and has given me a second chance of achieving my personal dreams. So it's not ironic that it's called the Dream Academy. First of all, I have the opportunity to catch up on my credits that I would not have if I were at my old school. The Dream Academy is nothing compared to any of the schools I have attended. The most obvious difference is the late start, which

023to be honest, as a student, is the biggest selling point to come here. But it isn't just an excuse to sleep in. Legit. I am more alert and less distracted because it isn't so early in the morning. For instance, I work after school and sometimes I'll get home until after dark. The late start helps me to be able to support myself and continue my education. Another thing about this school is the small amount of students per class. The smaller class sizes make it difficult to slack off and make choices that will be negative for us in the future. Thank you. Hi, my name is Monse Perez. Smaller class sizes at the Dream Academy have helped me feel comfortable, which helps me be motivated to do my best. This is important because when I do not

024feel comfortable, I don't do my work. Another big difference are the teachers. They do not accept excuses and they want you to exceed your own expectations. They also have hope and don't quit on us. I personally trust my teachers. Because as students we can tell when teachers actually like doing what they do and care for us. Here we can tell that all the teachers are passionate to see us succeed, which makes me trust them. So when I have questions in class or even outside of class, I now don't hesitate to ask. With their help I am beginning to believe in myself that I will graduate and go to college. This is a confidence that I would not have found within myself if I didn't have the opportunity to join Dream Academy. Thank you. Thank you,

025ladies. So at the Dream Academy, we house different programs. We have the Dream Academy High School, the Dream Academy Middle School, which serves seventh and eighth graders. We have the Regional Safe Schools Program, which is for those students that have been put up for expulsion. We serve middle and high school. And we also have the RSSP Co-op. Those students come from eight to 11 and they have a job. And these students are, that program is for students that need... 10 or less credits and they weren't being successful at their home school. The goal is for them to come and you know get their solid foundation so they can go back to their home school. By law they can only stay with us two years. But if their parents and the student decides that this is

026the best setting for them, then they can write a letter to the state of Illinois and they can petition to stay longer than that if they want to stay and finish with us. We also have a transition program that our transition specialists will follow them for two semesters so that they can, to make sure that they're being successful. We have some testimonials here that I'm not going to read to you, but these are other testimonials from some students thanking us for the opportunity to have them at the Dream Academy. We would like to invite you to an open house, which is November 7th. Breakfast will be served from 8.15 through 8.50. And there's an informational meeting, which will be from 9 to 10.30. Okay, again, my name is Aaron Butler. I'm the assistant principal dean

027of students at the Dream Academy. And our students, our principal's advisory council with these two ladies are on, will be hosting that open house. So if you get a chance to come, you'll get to see and meet our students firsthand and ask them questions and have conversations. I get to wrap up the PowerPoint with talking about the comprehensive high schools and the educational options that U46 has. And as you see on the screen there, Three of them are in-house within the district, and then you have Ombudsman, which is a private company that provides kind of an off-site storefront education there. And as you see, Dream Academy and New Beginnings are what is housed in our hallway, the third floor in this building currently. And everybody here has shown and expressed great wisdom and knowledge and

028excitement for what goes on in our building. So if you look at the last slide where it talks about student attendance and the Dream Academy evaluation metrics, student attendance has gone from 70% this time last year to 93.7%. That's not just because we have a new population of students. It's because we have a staff. And if you look right there at the vision and it talks about dreams into realities, that is a huge reason why our attendance has spiked so high. And not to mention, Ms. Baker and I expect 100%. So 93.7 is we're slacking a little bit, but we'll get there. On the family engagement, when we interviewed all the families and the students this summer, you see parents' eyes light up when they see that there's people. in our district beyond just our

029comprehensive high schools that care for them. There's another option. There's another opportunity. So when we look at family engagement, it's actually been very easy to get our families involved. So we had an open house that was, we had over 50% attendance rate. And that's, that was a month into school after the parents had met us. So they knew who our staff was, but they came in and they wanted to see kind of where it has been going. We also. We have just over 70% of our parents coming in for parent-teacher conferences. And for a lot of those parents, they're getting positive phone calls. Our positive phone calls far away our negative phone calls. And the parents are excited to see and hear their students' success. Because we have students that now have success of, I'm

030an A and B student, not a CD student, because of the staff and how they say we want them to exceed their expectations. And it's really contagious. And every time we meet with parents, They're very appreciative. And let me tell you, from my position, I don't always get to make the positive phone calls, but it's how you treat and engage your parents along with the students that really builds that rapport. And our staff takes that to heart from the top down. The transition success rate, obviously this is the first year, so hopefully in a year we get to tell you what our success rate was at the end of this year, and we look forward to that opportunity. And that will also, that kind of links with... Mrs. Borden and some of our staff's responsibilities

031when a student transitions back to their home school we will keep an eye on them for up to two semesters to make sure that they are not falling back into the the rut that they were before they came to us because ultimately if we want programs to be successful we have to have them beyond just our walls and that would be for any building that we have in our district. Graduation rate we are shooting for a high percentage we have a small senior class So I think we're on eight to 10 right now within the Dream Academy. And that's because we chose to focus on the sophomore and juniors by age to start up the program. So that may take a little bit of time, but we will have eight kids. And that's our goal

032is to have all eight graduate. And we believe that will be true. College enrollment and job career. That's an aspect as our year goes on second semester. We will work with our counselor. We'll bring in ECC representations and other colleges to make sure our students fill out their FAFSA forms and are enrolling in college or a trade school of their choice. And we take great pride in the job careers. Not everybody is college bound and we respect that. And our staff has great versatility in helping those students. make connections in the community and beyond so they're successful outside of school. And it's really neat when you ask a kid what do they think they want to do and they aren't sure when they start and as they build more confidence like everybody up here has

033talked about, they start to dream and hence why we're called the Dream Academy. So that wraps up our presentation and obviously Ms. Lozier is here to answer any questions. I'd like to add a few quick things before we open up for board questions. First of all, the vision for the Dream Academy, which by the way stands for dedication, responsibility, education, attitude, and motivation. And it was a name that was picked by the students of the school, right? The first class of students from the Dream Academy. So last year when we knew that we were going to revamp the program and you guys allowed us that opportunity, the students were, you know, asked to come up with a name for the program and they came up with dream and they said this is the opportunity for

034second chances so you guys believe in us that we can achieve things so hence that's where the name came from So I just wanted to point out that in terms of vision, we've been having a lot of conversation and over the years around the former Gifford Street High School. And every year we've kept saying we need something different. Right. Dr. Lozier, every year we'd say we need something different. So when I hired Terry Lozier as the assistant superintendent over secondary. our first conversation was how can we make Gifford Street High School something different and when I just gave her that authority to think differently she brought to me Lourdes Baker I'm going to ask you to share your story in just a few minutes but All of this work really stems from a lot of

035behind the scenes work talking about trauma informed care and how we reach kids who are coming from a place of trauma, things in their life that we can't comprehend as adults or as people that may not have gone through the same circumstances. So we did a joint exercise of watching the movie Paper Tigers. I brought in a special guest speaker, Jim Sporleiter, who was the principal of a high school in Walla Walla, Washington. He came in and spoke to all administrators. And right around that same time, Dr. Loja brought me Lourdes Baker as the potential candidate. Dr. Arndt and I interviewed her, and when she shared her story, we knew she was the right principal. So I'm going to let you share that, and after that, then... I'll shut up. Thank you. So there was

036this beautiful little girl whose parents just loved her to death. But unfortunately, you know, they, well, not unfortunately, they are from Mexico. So they come to the United States not knowing the language. And so this young, you know, young girl of nine years old didn't know the English language. So she started elementary school in kindergarten. And you can imagine how embarrassing that is for a nine-year-old to be in kindergarten. But she needed to learn her one, two, threes and ABCs. So as, you know, she grew up, her parents were migrant workers. They had to go up north to work in the fields because, you know, my father only had a grade school education and so did my mom. So wonderful people. My dad's still alive. He's 98. My mother's still alive. She's 88. They had

037me when they were older. It was very hard for me to be in school because I still have an accent. The kids tell me I do. I don't hear it, but they say I do. So having to learn the language, not having the support at home. You know, they wanted the best for me, but they couldn't help me. They didn't know the language. So they encouraged me. They knew that I needed to do something. So I'm the first one in my family to graduate from high school. I'm the first one in my family to go to college, and I have a double master's in counseling, in administration, and I'm working towards my doctorate. So I tell you all this because children need hope. And so when I was interviewed for this position, this was the

038perfect job for me because somebody gave me the hope that I needed. Somebody invested in me. Somebody believed in me. And so I believe in my kids. I believe in my staff. And when I say that I do have the best staff, I do believe that in my heart. And I have kids that they come to us broken. We patched them up. We helped them through the healing process. They've been, you know, made fun of by their peers. They haven't been, their teachers didn't believe in them. My counselor didn't think I was college material. So I... That's one of the reasons why I got my counseling degree because I wanted to prove to her that I could do it I went back and became her boss I wasn't mean to her, but I wanted to

039make point right so we have to be careful with what we say to people because we never know what position they're gonna have and My girls here. I want to thank them for coming out to express their feelings about the Dream Academy. And I want to thank you for all the support that you've given us. And I just believe that maybe someday we'll have our own building so that we can help more kids because there's so many kids out there that need the help. And at this time, we can only house 140 students, and that's not enough. The need is great. And so we will continue to ask for your support to help us so that we can grow. and we can make more students be successful with your help and your support. So thank

040you for the opportunity to be here and talk to you about the program. Thank you. Do we have any questions? Sue? You mentioned that students choose to go to the Dream Academy. How are they given that choice at their high school there? So the homeschools refer them to our program. And once they come through the interview process, you know, they make the choice. They decide. So we explain to them these are the possibilities that we have in front of you. What we did this summer to... first to start the program, we went out and recruited students. So we looked, we pulled a report from, you know, Infinite Campus to see how many students had failed classes that weren't successful last year, how many of them had attendance issues, and we called those families. Mr. Butler

041and I personally called people, we scheduled appointments for them, and we invited them to come and be part of this new program, and that's how they came to us. And just one, this isn't a question, this is actually to commend you. I was really struck with your dedication and Mr. Butler's dedication to your students during high school graduation. Because as people know, we have five high school graduations on Memorial Day weekend. The first one's at 8 o'clock, the last one's at 8 p.m., and you are at all of them. Because you had students graduate from every high school, and I thank you for your dedication to your students. Thank you. Thank you. Cody? I just wanted to make a comment. I wanted to commend you all, and I really think that... the reformation of the

042former Gifford Street High School into the Dream Academy was really needed for our school district. So I'm looking forward to great things that come from this academy. And I hope that we can see, obviously, the graduation rates in the future and take a look at where the children are after they graduate. So I'm looking forward to seeing good things come from the Dream Academy. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Just a comment. Kudos on a great presentation. Thanks for bringing everybody out. Appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you. Sorry, I lost my voice Friday, so I might not sound too pretty. But I have to say I'm very touched by your story because I relate to it a lot. My parents were from Mexico. I was born here, so I had the chance to get

043the culture of America and the English language through TV. Donna, I have a question. Oh, wait. Just one second, Tracy. That's okay. Eric is asking one right now. Right, TB. So TB. And so Spanish was technically my first language, but I can't roll my R's and I can't speak it very fluently. And that's because I picked up English language very quickly. But despite that, my first years here actually in the district, kindergarten, I was a very, very bad boy. I was not a, I didn't have good behavior. I acted out a lot in class. I had a separate desk from everyone else. and that's because I didn't have the social skills to communicate with other kids my age. knowing that it's because of, and I really believe it's because of this district and the teachers

044that I'm the student I am today. Because I feel for the kids who don't have the role models or the leaders to look up to, to become the best and actually have dreams and follow those dreams through their opportunities. And it's always been my focus to follow and pursue every opportunity I can, because I know that my parents could not. And it's because of them that... I wanted to pursue them. So I thank the district, I thank the teachers, because if it wasn't for, sorry, if it wasn't for the district, the teachers, my friends, and everybody, I wouldn't be here. So thank you. Thank you. Tracy? Yes, hi. I'm not sure whether you all covered this because I didn't hear. part of the presentation very well until I realized that hey, I can go sit

045at my computer and watch it streaming for a change. And then I could hear better, but I might have missed this. But somewhere along the line I've heard that this program, the Dream Academy now requires heavy parental involvement. Is that accurate? So, yes, during the interview process, we do tell the parents that they're going to be required to attend at least one academic session because we do have academies for our parents in the evening. We're going to have four throughout the year, and we told them that they're required to attend at least one. Now, we are going to have topics of interest that are, you know. that very informational for them regarding financial aid, regarding scholarships, regarding colleges. So it's going to be beneficial for them to attend all four of them, but they're only

046required by the ALOP agreement to attend at least one. Okay, one. And so just out of curiosity and if parents, so what about students who can benefit? from the Dream Academy but don't have the parental support or involvement at home? Are they, would they not be allowed into the academy? No, so we have some students that are homeless. They're Project Access and we will never hold that against the students so they're given the opportunity as long as they're committed to be part and to, you know, have good attendance. That's the only requirement that, you know, I tell them I don't have, you know, we don't have time to deal with drama. So let's leave that out there. But, you know, if you're interested in pursuing your career and getting your high school diploma, then we're

047here to help you. Okay. And then one last question. I also think that I heard, because one of my questions was about, unlike in the Was it Paper Tigers movie where it was a four-year program for the students or the balance of their high school career? This is a one- or two-year program, and then they go back to their home school. I think I heard Mr. Butler say that you all follow the students for some period of time, but I missed the length of time. Can you repeat that? Sure. The students can be here anywhere from one to two years. And based on the state, after two years, they have to return back to a comprehensive high school unless they petition the state individually from a family individual basis. So if a student is, for

048example, a sophomore and they do two years here and they want to finish off and graduate from the Dream Academy, they will have to petition the state through a letter. based off of their parents and the students of why it's the best fit for them and then the state decides that they can go a third additional year as far as the transition which was the second part of your question we do watch the students for up to two semesters when they transition back to their home school so for example if a student is a sophomore and they finish their sophomore year and they're caught up and they want to go back to we'll just say streamwood for example we will then follow them for up to two semesters and do grade checks on them just

049to make sure that they are being successful in their transition. Okay, thank you. Any other questions? I just have a logistical comment for the people on the phone. Because I learned about this last time when I was calling in by phone. You can toggle between your phone and the computer, but there is a 10-second delay. So keep that in mind when you're asking questions on the phone, that if you're following your computer, it's about 10 seconds behind what is actually happening here. And also don't forget to mute your cell phone or your phone when you're listening to the computer, else there will be horrible feedback as I visited on all of you last time, which I'm sorry for. So just a word of advice to my colleagues. Thanks. Any other questions, comments? Okay, thank you.

050Can I just ask you, we have to give them a round of applause. Thank you very much for your time, everybody. Thank you for bringing us this presentation. Next item on our agenda is comments from the audience. Good evening and welcome to the Board of Education meeting. We are now at the public comment period of the meeting when the board listens to issues and concerns but does not respond to statements as stated in our board welcome flyer. We ask that you complete a request to speak card. Each speaker will be allotted up to three minutes. A tone will sound when your time is up. If you wish to have a written reply to your concern or question, please check the box on the card and a written reply will be mailed to you. Good evening

051and welcome to the meeting of the educational board of 1-46. We are during the portion of the meeting where the board welcomes a comment from the audience. During this time, the board will listen to your comment, but will not answer your question or comment. Thank you. Our first speaker is Phil Bensop. Whichever one you'd like. Just hold the microphone close to you. This is not an agenda. Hello everyone it was said quote starting tomorrow you 46 administration is changing its practice concerning students access to locker rooms of the opposite sex Students who identify as the opposite gender Regardless of biological sex will be able to use the locker room that corresponds with the gender which wish with which they identify At the same time as other students Unquote this was a lie The district amended

052policy 7.01 on 4-22-2013 unanimously under a different board and a different superintendent. Unique accommodations have been made case by case since that date. This is the same practice that occurs today. No change was made to the policy since 2013. Where was the outrage in 2013? Where was the endless public outcry in 2013? To all the Christian brethren who may not be here, I give you the words of Jesus himself from Matthew chapter 6. Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. He also said, and when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen

053by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. Finally, I say this. I am not gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, pansexual, intersex, or asexual. I simply support the idea that every single human being should have equal rights. We are U-46. Thank you. Our next speaker is Annette Scott. I'm not sure I'm pronouncing it right. Joseph Strom. Madam President, Mr. Sanders, members of the board, good evening. My name is Joseph Strom, and I am a senior and student council president at Larkin High School. Over the past few weeks, my peers and I have begun to notice an unfortunate turn of discourse in our district. I was asked to speak tonight so as to introduce several other students from high schools in this district who would like to speak up for their fellow students in

054regards to the bitter arguing over transgender student rights that we've heard. First and foremost, we the students of this district reject the disrespect, bigotry, and fear-mongering we have unfortunately come to hear too often at these meetings. We look up to the adults and leaders in the community, and so we expect better. No example worth following is ever to be found in the verbal bully. Board policy discussion and public comments in regard to those policies should always be rooted in respect, understanding, and civility. It pains me to have to explicitly state such basic ideals as those, but they are what we as students stand for and hope that all speakers will follow. Beyond speaking up for the values of common decency in discussion, we would like to also speak briefly in support of the board and

055your faithful adherence to inclusivity for all students. And that all really does mean all. We wish not to take up much of your time, as there are more pressing issues at hand, but seeing as much of the discussion on transgender rights in our schools has focused on students, we as students at these schools would like to speak from our own perspective. We will examine the facts of the matter, the basic morality of respecting the dignity of our peers, and the effects of public ritual in rhetoric and actions. We care deeply for our schools, our communities, and our friends. And so, as representatives of many of the students in U-46, we thank you, the board, for doing the right thing, even in the face of unrelenting hate or bullying. And to those who would seek to

056ostracize or demonize our transgender friends, we ask at the very least that you be willing to listen, to empathize, to maybe talk to someone struggling with their gender identity before passing judgment, and to, at the very least, speak with respect and decency if you'd still like to disagree. With that, we thank the board for your dedication to our education and hope to be quick in our representative student-led statements of positivity, support, and solidarity with the LGBTQ community. Thank you. Thank you. Eshwan? Joyce? It looks like A-I-S-H? Yeah. You? Okay. Good evening. My name is Aishwarya Joyce and I'm a senior at the Academy at Bartlett High School. I'd like to begin by thanking the board and the ladies and gentlemen of the board for their time here tonight. Tonight, I too am here to discuss

057the recent discussion that has surfaced regarding the accommodation of transgender students within our district. Now, a common argument that we've heard in the past few weeks, transcending most others, is that is regarding the alleged privacy issues that some believe have arisen as a result of the policy that U-46 has undertaken in regards to transgender students within U-46. Now, let me make one thing very clear. When one willingly uses a locker room, whether you are born your biological sex and identify with your biological sex, or whether you have a different gender identity than the one that you were born with, you are foregoing the right to privacy one would have had when changing in a single stall, locker, or bathroom. Now, in regards to the accommodation of the transgender community for bathroom and locker room usage,

058there are no documented cases of public safety risks in regards to cities with anti-discrimination rules for this community. In fact, the Director of Equality, North Carolina, has conclusively stated, that there have been no public safety issues, no increases in sexual assault rates in these other communities, once again. In fact, as a student, I can state with certainty that it is inaccurate and, quite frankly, offensive to claim transgender students to be some sort of predators. They are our peers, they are our friends, they are children just like yours. I thank the board for adopting policies respecting the dignity and basic rights of these students and of this community. We, the students, stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ community in our school district. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Daniel Strong. Good evening, members of

059the Board of Education. My name is Daniel Strom. I'm also a senior at Larkin High School. I was raised in an evangelical Christian family and still identify as an evangelical Christian. I grew up with two loving parents who instilled in me values that I carry with me every single day. My parents love to tell me the story of the Good Samaritan, a parable about a man who fell victim to robbers on the Jericho Road and was rescued by a Samaritan, a member of a despised minority in ancient Israel. The story forces one to grapple with the questions, who is my neighbor? What does it mean to do justice? And what does faith lived out look like? The past weeks have been deeply troubling for people of faith like myself, who believe that Christianity is lived

060out in love and compassion, especially to a vulnerable. For one, it is important to note that though I am a person of faith, I recognize that our government is not. We live in a pluralistic democracy, not a one-size-fits-all theocracy. That's a fundamentally good thing. My right to be an evangelical is protected by someone else's right to be a Muslim or a non-believer. To try to use theology, and bad theology at that, to justify public policy decisions is corrosive to the spirit of separation of church and state that is the very foundation of religious liberty. Laws that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity exist to protect the rights of marginalized groups of people. They cannot be discarded because someone's interpretation of scripture leads them to disagree with that person's lifestyle. You

061cannot deny the human rights of your fellow citizens because you disagree with them. In the end, what I find most troubling about this whole ordeal is how so many people have either promoted or fallen into fear. As Aishwarya so brilliantly pointed out, there is absolutely nothing to fear from transgender students. There is sexual assault in this world, but it's not coming from young kids made in the image of God who are just trying to find themselves. When we humiliate and degrade, spread lies and promote public policy whose sole purpose is to tell kids, kids who already feel alone and unloved that they don't belong, that they are some nefarious other, that they are a threat to public safety and the right to privacy, we betray our values. Is the marginalization of a minority the best

062use of the state's time and resources? Is the fanning of fear how one should live out their faith in public? Who is our neighbor? These are questions I leave you with tonight. You are in my prayers. Thank you, and we stand in solidarity with the LGBT community. Thank you. Our last speaker is Ivana Bozic. Good evening. My name is Ivana Bozic, and as a senior at Bartlett's Academy, I can say that I'm so proud of what the Dream Academy has done so far, and I see... Great, great potential there toward growth. I think we really are getting closer to meeting our mission statement of all means all. But we have work left to do. When we say that all means all, that definition has to encompass our transgender community. Because unfortunately, transgender students today don't

063feel safe at school. They don't feel that their environment is supportive. And when the climate especially when those in positions of power, those elected to represent and protect them, spew hate speech toward them. This negative school climate leads to increased rates of depression and even increased suicidal feelings. Due to the discrimination and the stigmatization that will plague their lives, transgender students, 45% of transgender students, will attempt suicide. I'm not here to silence anybody. I'm only here to bring about the point that language such as yours has a body count. And the bullying and the discrimination that they face in their lives shouldn't be coming from adults. It should not be coming from elected officials. What if these were your children that had to endure hate speech coming from dozens of adults on numerous occasions? What

064if they were your own two daughters whose human rights were being violated? We look up to you as a board, and everybody in a position of power has a choice. The choice to give in to fear-mongering and bigotry, and the choice to promote tolerance and love for all. And I stand in solidarity with those in positions of power that have already chosen to denounce bigotry and promote respect and dignity for all human beings. I stand in solidarity. We, the students of U-46, stand in solidarity with our LGBT community. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, the next item on the agenda is other business. Do any board members have any comments? Yeah, I think it was Sue Kerr and Cody and Tony. And I were all at the opening game for Bartlett High School and the dedication

065of their new field. It was a good game. Good in the sense that it was good to be there. It was a blowout. Kudos to Bartlett's team. And the score was 42 to 7. Anything else? I'll beat Phil to this since he's just got here. Phil and I have a town hall next week, Wednesday, October 26th at 7 o'clock at Hoosier Grove Barn at the Steward Park District. All are welcome. The theme is exploring alternative education models, but we have all sorts of, you know, any topic is welcome. Okay. I know we've all been going to National Honor Society. ceremonies too which have been very exciting I almost forgot about those because I wasn't here in person last time but yeah we have been there but those are great yes they were any others I

066have a few things first of all we you 46 hosted its first ever marching band competition thanks to Elgin high school hosted it but all of our high school bands participated that really was quite a great event unfortunately i had to miss it but uh sure wish i could have been there i know donna smith and i also attended along with some staff members the boys and girls club gala this last friday evening which was a pretty incredible event finally i just want to make the board aware that the alignment collaborative for education that's the group that is working to support u46 and meeting its strategic goals working with our local communities working with government agencies, businesses, and others. We're really starting to delve into the Illinois Workforce Readiness Act and the possibility of transforming

067our high schools into career pathways and what that might look like. So we'll be looking forward to continuing that discussion and the work and bringing that forward to the board, hopefully at a future meeting. Okay. Anything else? Eric? A few weeks ago we had our first CEO Student Advisory Council meeting. It went really well. Mr. Sanders actually ended up leaving early, which made it even better. I'm just kidding. I thought you were losing your voice. What happened? I'm just kidding. So the first meeting I had the chance to bring up discussion on the transgender controversy. So I wanted to bring up a few points that I didn't touch on at the last board meeting that I thought were something to bring up. So the majority were in favor of transgender students having access to the

068locker room that they identify with, although I will recognize that there was a small minority that were concerned with what the parents wanted and their concerns for their kids. Now, they did say that they think that it would be weird at first, but they would still be open to it. I think change is something that usually takes time to adapt. but they were more than willing to welcome it for these students so that they're comfortable and they're happy at school. And we had one student share her experience playing on a hockey team where they actually have a transgender student player. And now this student has changed with them, has showered with them, and overall the team has never had any problems with the student, and then overall they work really well together. So I thought

069that was a really unique story to mention, especially... as a student to bring out their experience with a transgender student. And they also recognize that parents want to be proactive, that they want to avoid the possibility of any sexual attacks on students and their safety as well as security in school. Although that they said they were comfortable with students, they felt that they didn't want transgender students to feel alienated because they were being put into a stall in the locker room, which I thought was remarkable to see students. push for if transgender students were comfortable changing openly because then they'd have to be open to that judgment from other students if they are changing in the locker room they identify with or if they prefer to change and install separated from the rest of the

070student population. So they feel that the school and the administration should ask politely and friendly to the transgender students what they would like to do and what they feel comfortable with. And they also brought up the point that gay students and lesbian students still go to the locker room of their sex, and there's been no accounts that students are aware of where they have attacked the same-sex students in their locker room, which was something that I thought would be something good to bring up, considering that some concerns are for transgender students attacking other students. And they also brought up the point that if they are considered transgender, would that mean that they've gone through the change, the sexual change surgery that would not have per se that body part in the locker room that does

071not belong in that body part? So that was something that they also brought up. And that's the general sense of that meeting. I was happy to have the input from students from across the district. Unfortunately, the attendance for the meeting was a little short. We had many events going on that day, which made it difficult for students to attend. But overall, I had a really great representation from the district. So I just wanted to share that all with the board and also the public. So thank you. Any other updates? Okay. Next item on the agenda is minutes of board committee meetings. On the agenda for tonight's meeting, we have the September 19, 2016 Board of Education Legislation Committee meeting minutes for the board's consideration and acceptance. Okay. Could I have a motion to approve to

072accept the 9-19-2016 Board of Education Legislation Committee meeting? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Roll call please. Mr. Custode? Yes. Ms. O'Neill-Hellis? Ms. O'Neill-Hellis? Mr. Holt? Yes. Ms. Gert? Yes. Ms. Dolan? Yes. Mrs. Ward? Yes. Madam President? Yes. Okay, um for your request Mr. Sanders before the border 13 Freedom of Information Act requests that the board that the administration responded to on behalf of the board those are Publicly available and will also be added to our district's website in the coming days Okay, are there any questions on the player requests? Okay hearing none. Do we want? Yeah, I think it's a good idea Tracy are you there? Hi there. It's Tony in the boardroom. It sounds like we lost you. Yes, it disconnected. Well, we apologize. We voted on the legislation committee minutes. Would you like

073to give your vote? Yes. Is it a yes? Yeah. Thank you. Yep. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. Mr. Sanders. On the consent agenda, we have personnel report and workers' compensation cases, minutes of the board meeting September 26, 2016, contract for curriculum and instruction with Elgin Community College, contract for specialized student services, central area interpreter referral services, termination of Dominic Bartucci, level one tech information services, and termination of Maria Marquez, noon hour supervisor at Huff Elementary School. Are there any items that any board member would like removed from the agenda? Okay, hearing none, could I have a motion to approve the consent agenda of October 17, 2016? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Ms. O'Neill, Ellis? Yes. Thank you. Mr. Holt? Yes. Ms. Gert? Yes.

074Ms. Noland? Yes. Mrs. Ward? Yes. Mr. Costello? Yes. Madam President? Yes. Discussion and action, Mr. Sanders. Under discussion and action, our first item is approval of the ESSO tentative agreement. Here to give an overview is Dr. Jeff King, but I'm not sure, Madam President, did you want to do a motion and a second first before? Yes. Yeah. Could I have a motion to approve the ESSO tentative agreement? So moved second okay, so with the motion in second Again, this is our contract with with our education support services organization also known as so dr. King included in your packet was brief summary of some of the tentative language changes in the contract. Some of the sections that were negotiated was the workday, flexible spending accounts, health insurance and retirement, association leave, relief assignments, seniority, the workday,

075uniform stipends, classifications, health insurance. IMRF, the retirement pension, and the wages in the contract. And again, after the Board of Votes, then I believe then the tentative language agreements will be posted. We would hope probably, it typically takes about a month for a draft of the final contract to be completed. Once that is completed, then that'll also be posted on the website. Okay, are there any questions? I just have a statement. Before I begin, I'd like to thank the members of the bargaining team from the administration. I have no doubt that you went out there and represented the will of the majority of the board members. With that being said, I cannot vote for this contract, and let me tell you why. The main reason I will be opposing this contract is because any contract

076that has raises above a cost of living increase is unsustainable without statewide structural reforms. This contract is locking taxpayers into four years of pay increases and speculating on savings from other portions of the contract. Contractual increases are the single greatest constraints we have in our budget. These increases take resources out of the classroom and put the burden back on taxpayers to make up the difference. Let me punctuate that this vote is not against the hardworking people who work for our school district. I happen to know many of these people do a great job and this year I would be inclined to support a one-year raise. What I object to is locking taxpayers and students into the remaining three years of that contract since we do not know what our financial situation will be. Since the

077contractual increases and current collective bargaining process are not pro taxpayer We should be encouraging the state legislature to pass pro taxpayer structural reforms first and foremost limiting the power that these public sector unions have over the taxpayer by reforming the collective bargaining process Secondly, empowering our employees by allowing them the choice to decide whether or not they want to join a union. This will allow individuals the power to negotiate for their pay and not be lumped into a collective. It will protect district employees' civil liberties and empower taxpayers by weeding out employers who are not performing. Finally, The taxpayers need property tax relief through a property tax freeze, and this cannot happen with contractual obligations that include annual raises above a cost of living increase. We have been very vocal for supporting equitable school funding

078down in Springfield, so I hope in the upcoming veto session and the 100th General Assembly next year, we will be equally as vocal for structural reforms. So put simply, I do not agree with the four-year contractual obligation, which has annual raises above a cost of living increase. and we should be lobbying the state legislature to reform the collective bargaining process with common sense reforms that will empower taxpayers and district employees. Any other questions, comments? A quick comment. I also want to thank the work that you did, Jeff King, also with your team, and I appreciate how hard it must be to go back and forth, back and forth, and agree on this and then come back again, and I thank you for doing that. But I do agree with Mr. Holt, and we'll be voting

079no also. Any other questions, comments? Okay. I would just ask Jeff if you would thank our administrative bargaining team and also ESSO's bargaining team for taking the time and working hard to get through some really tough subjects and areas and coming up with a fair contract for both our staff and our taxpayers. Thank you. Any other? Okay, roll call, please. Mr. Holt? No. Ms. Kerr? Yes. Ms. Noland? Yes. Mrs. Ward? No. Mr. Costello? Yes. Ms. O'Neill-Ellis? Yes. Madam President? Yes. Five to approve. Okay, itemized bills. Mr. Sanders? For the board, itemized bills totaling $8,104,730.06. And, Dale, we're not just here to respond to any board questions that you might have. Okay. Could I have a motion to approve the itemized bills October 17, 2016 in the amount of $8,104,736? Seconded. So moved. Any discussion or

080questions? Okay, roll call, please. Ms. Kerr? Yes. Ms. Noland? Yes. Mrs. Ward? Yes. Mr. Costello? Yes. Ms. O'Neill-Ellis? Yeah. Mr. Holt? Yes. Madam President? Yes. Pro 7-0. Next item, other business, employee matters. Under other business, we have an employee matter to bring forward to the board. Administration recommends the resolution regarding the suspension and dismissal of tenured teacher C. Yes. Okay, I'll revise that then. Administration recommends the resolution regarding the suspension and dismissal of tenured teacher Kevin Kwan. Okay, can I have a motion to approve the resolution authorizing dismissal of Kevin Kwan? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Roll call please. Ms. Noland? Yes. Mrs. Ward? Yes. Mr. Costello? Yes. Ms. O'Neill-Ellis? Yes. Mr. Holt? Yes. Ms. Kerr? Yes. Madam President? Yes. Approved 7-0. Okay, other business, individual student matters. Under individual student matters before the board

081is student B. The administration recommends the expulsion of student B for two semesters. That would be the remainder of the first semester of this year and the second semester of 2016-2017. While serving the expulsion, the administration recommends student B have the opportunity to enroll in an alternative education program. Okay, could I have a motion to expel student B for two semesters? for the rest of this semester and the second semester of the 2016-17 school year while serving the expulsion, student B will have an opportunity to enroll in an alternative education program. So moved. Second. Any discussion? I'm going to make a comment and I'm going to say it doesn't have necessarily to do with student B, C, or D, but I would like to say that I am... very uncomfortable with random searches as a

082practice constitutionally. I just want to say that for the record. Okay. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Ms. Noland? Yes. Mrs. Ward? Yes. Mr. Costello? Yes. Ms. O'Neill-Ellis? Yes. Mr. Holt? Yes. Ms. Kerr? Yes. Madam President? Yes. 7-0. Also before the board is student C. Administration recommends that the board expel student C for a period of two semesters, including the remainder of the first semester of this year and the second semester of 2016-2017. While serving the expulsion, student C will have the opportunity to enroll in alternative education programs. Could I have a motion? to approve the recommendation of administration to expel student C for two semesters, the remainder of this semester and the second semester of the 2016-17 school year while serving the expulsion student C will have the opportunity to enroll in an alternative

083education program. So moved. Second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Mrs. Ward? Yes. Mr. Costello? Yes. Ms. O'Neill-Ellis? Yeah. Mr. Holtz? Yes. Ms. Kerr? Yes. Ms. Nolik? Yes. Madam President? Yes. 7-0. Also before the board is Student D. The administration recommends the expulsion of Student D for a period of two semesters. including the remainder of the first semester of this school year and the second semester of this school year while serving the expulsion students who will have the opportunity to enroll in alternative education programs. I have a motion to expel student D for the remainder of the school year for two semesters. the remainder of this semester and the second semester of 2016-17 school year while serving the expulsion student d will have the opportunity to enroll in an alternative education program so moved second any

084discussion roll call please mr costello yes miss o'neill alice yeah Mr.. Holt yes, miss Kirk yes, there's Nolan's yes, mrs.. Ward yes, madam president yes Bruce in the zero Okay, other business approval of closed session minutes and the spoil disposal of closed session recordings Could I have a motion to? approve the closed session minutes for the following meetings April 11th and 25th May 2nd and 16th June 2nd 6th 20th and 25th July 18th and August 1st so move I wait it of 2016 It is requested that the need for confidentiality still exists as to all or part of the closed session minutes and therefore all closed session minutes with the exception of the minutes already released including audio recordings remain confidential. addition the audio recordings more than 18 months old having been put into writing

085and approved may be destroyed with the exception of the January 25th 2014 recordings the recordings included are from November 17 2014 through April 13 2015 and matter of person for the record is some motion is you're just giving the question right thank you i said that in the beginning right could i have any motion so moved right oh you had done that before sorry i'll second and second any discussion uh yes just a quick comment um so i've stated in the past that i'd like us to have a conversation about whether we destroyed those recordings and I don't think we've really delved into that. And so I'm not comfortable destroying more recordings and I will be voting no on this. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Costello? No. Ms. O'Neill-Ellis? Yes. Mr. Holt? No.

086Ms. Kurt? Yes. Ms. Noland? Yes. Madam President? Yes. It's approved for... You didn't ask me, but I assume... No. Okay, the next item is investments report for the first quarter. Included in your packet is the investment report that we provide to you each quarter. Currently, we have approximately $270 million invested. Our current yield is about .636. And the interest yielded to date is about $191,000. Please keep in mind, as the graphs indicate in the enclosure, that most of our investments are under a year in length, hence the interest rate being as low as it is. Any questions that you have to answer? What is the maximum? maturity that we can extend the investments out to? I can tell you currently our max is we have some stuff that's out there for two years. Off the

087top of my head, I don't think there's anything in policy that restricts how far we can go. I can go back and double check. Yeah, I don't think so. But given the nature of our business, typically we wouldn't have much beyond a year. It's a very small amount. Just because I'm going through this right now, we did go from 90 days to three years and then laddering them for the first, second, and third year, depending on cash flow needs, capital projects, of course, contingencies and whatnot. And we're able to get it over a point. So what other agencies have we looked at besides PMA for this kind of services? We've done some through Chase as well. But even with some of our working cash bonds are some of that that makes up the part that's

088two years out. Yeah. Because basically we do cash flow analysis up to a couple years out. Thank you. I just had one question about the savings deposit accounts. You say they're insured through FDIC, which is a quarter of a million. And then the rest is insured through a letter of credit from the Federal Home Loan Bank? Right, which is typical. Actually, our bank is asking us to do the same thing right now, is to secure a part of our required deposits with a letter of credit instead of collateral. Okay. Any other questions? Okay, thank you. Thank you, Dr. King. Other business CAC update? Good evening, Melissa Owens with the Citizen Advisory Council. I'm coming to you tonight with two upcoming programs or meetings that we're having. Next week on October 25th, the Specialized Student Services

089Committee will be co-hosting with the Gale-Borden Library a program entitled... holiday harmony strategies to guide families through the holidays. So Amy Ashland from Streamwood Behavioral Health System will be presenting this program. Again, this is on October 25th at 6.30 p.m. at the library. This will discuss ways to reduce stress during the holidays, including working through changes in routine, new situations, and sensory overload. Obviously, since the Specialized Student Services Committee is presenting this or co-hosting it, the target audience is families of children with special needs. Now, that is a... broad encompassing target area. And certainly I want to make sure that families that have an interest in this program are aware that this is not specifically for a select special need. So this is an open session. Any family is welcome to attend. We will be

090talking about strategies for perhaps some certain special needs, but I think that this is an all-encompassing program that many families can actually get some benefit out of. And then on November 10th will be our next general meeting. This meeting will be at 7 o'clock p.m. at South Elgin High School. So again, we are at a different facility than what we normally have our general meetings at. So I want to make sure that everybody knows of that location change. That meeting we will have guest speakers Benjamin Boer and Teresa Ramos from Advance Illinois. Advance Illinois is a statewide organization that supports a more straightforward funding solution for all Illinois public schools. They also advocate for a strong public education system in Illinois. The program that we're going to be having that night will focus on what

091it means that Illinois ranks among the lowest in the nation in terms of state funding and funding equity and how that impacts U-46. So right now I'm working with Mary Fergus in the communications department to kind of get that messaging finalized. So we'll start seeing some more messaging going out to the general public on that. Do I have any questions? Any questions? Okay, thank you. Next item is work session, bids and proposals. Mr. Sanders. Our first item is a bid for plan operations lockdown hardware phase two. As Mr. Sparks, Director of Business Services, Mr. Heiderscheidt, Director of School Safety and Culture, and Mr. Allen, plan operations come forward, I'll remind the board that this is, again, phase two. We presented earlier this year on the notion of increasing our lockdown hardware within schools. This year

092we... are getting close to completing our elementary schools but uh with that i'll hand it over to mr spark uh good evening our first proposal this evening is for plant operations the lockdown hardware phase two administration recommends the award of the low bid meeting specification to anderson lot company for a total contract sum of six hundred nine thousand five hundred dollars this expense is recharged to the education fund this cost is included in the 2016-17 school budget Sorry, are there any questions? You may have covered this before, but why is it the education fund that we're taking the hardware for? You guys want to speak to it? Well, part of this goes into the general fund. So the general fund is the education fund for the school district. So anything that is not specifically tied

093to a fund goes into the education fund. And where are we in this project? I know we're is this completing all the elementaries or? Man, we're near complete phase one, which is all the elementaries. Okay, thanks And we all have these fancy really big keys Easily picked out of the crowd over ringing many keys right during an emergency. It's a easy key to grab Thank you. Yes. Yes, sir Any other question? Our next under work session is a contract multi-tiered systems of support for AIMSweb. Joining Mr. Sparks at the dais is Richard Schroed, Director of Code Community Instruction. Mr. Sparks. Our next proposal is for multi-tier systems of support, AIMS web progress monitoring system. The administration recommends the Board of Education approve a one-year renewal of the AIMS progress monitoring system in the amount of

094$82,550 and professional development in the amount of $9,000 for a total sum of $91,550 as submitted by Pearson Learning Assessments. This expenditure is charged to the Title I and Title II grant funds. This cost is included in the budget for the 2016-17 school year. Are there any questions? Do we do any evaluation of the effectiveness of this? I'm really glad you asked. AIMSweb is a progress monitoring tool. So when kids are in intervention, it's what we use to monitor their progress, hence the name. We've had some conversations with teachers at all levels about the appropriateness of the tool, and we're reviewing that moving forward until next year. Obviously, we have to maintain a progress monitoring tool, but we're really taking a look at whether this is the most appropriate tool, and we're bringing together... teachers

095and administrators to talk about that and give us feedback for next year. So this might not be the tool that we present to you next year. We wanted, because it is the tool we've used, we wanted to continue for one more year while we assess. Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Yeah, and I remember that we voted on this about the same time last year in the same ballpark. Did the price go up at all? I'm sorry, I didn't ask this beforehand. I do know that we added a more comprehensive professional development portion because one of the pushbacks that we had from teachers was that they were struggling to implement it well, and so we invested using Title I and Title II dollars in the professional development. aligned to the product so i know that

096we added that cost okay and we did increase the quantity um slightly based on the number of students that are receiving interventions okay thank you any other questions okay thank you thank you next item board policy update do you want policy update Do you want to go ahead and we met about this, but we had to change. So do you want to go ahead? Yeah, so I wanted to change notice of a request review closed session audio recording shall be given to the CEO and or his designee three to five business days in advance to when possible, reasonable notice will be given either three to five business days or more than three to five business days. I'm okay with either one. And if that change can be added, I'm okay with the rest of it.

097The point being, I didn't want to have to nail us down to three to five days. And last time I gave a request, I think I gave more than a week's notice. And I'm willing to give as much notice as I can and to be reasonable. But there might be a time when we need quick access. And I'm sympathetic to... Mr. Rodriguez and the demands on your time, but I would not like to have to codify that three to five business days in policy. Because it's more of a procedure. And I'm sorry that we didn't catch it sooner. I remember discussing this in the committee meetings. And we all, correct me if I'm wrong, I think Sue was there too. And I think we agreed, you know, putting the in parentheses when possible after the

098three to five business days in advance was enough. And, you know, us using our best judgment, obviously, like Jeanette said, and giving staff enough time. you know, she had a good point in that there may be an occasion where you're within two days but you really need to listen to it and you might need to ask. So I think the rest of the committee was in agreement with the when possible, we just overlooked that when we got down to the final draft. Any other? This is on the second page, the bottom with the paragraph beginning, unless the Board of Education. I think we took that directly out of the Open Meetings Act, and I think the last few words are a little confusing because it refers to this act, but I think we need to

099explicitly say the Illinois Open Meetings Act. Yeah, that's a good point. Anything else? Okay, so could we make those two? Thank you. I'll make changes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next item, intergovernmental agreement. Our final item from administration tonight is the intergovernmental agreement with the City of Elgin for video integration. Here to present is John Heiderscheidt, director of school safety and culture. I guess I can move over to the taller seat. Thank you. Good evening. This is an intergovernmental agreement proposal requesting for your approval on something that's been talked about between the City of Elgin's Police Department and U-46 now for over a year. Our proposal is to have an intergovernmental agreement about the view of cameras and the cameras that we have installed now at U-46. We have a camera on the entry points

100at every school. We have systems that view the interior of the building at middle schools and a heartier view of the inside at high schools. And this request is in mind with incidents like Sandy Hook Columbine, the recent incident in Orlando, to bring us to a place where if we had to have a situation where an emergency police department was called to respond to a situation like that. They would have the tactical information that they need the best from our camera systems. They would be linked and be able to view our camera systems from their state-of-the-art real-time information network at the City of Elgin's Police Department. which, by the way, is one of the most advanced technology. Camera, video, the toys and tools that they have at the police department is really exceptional. So this

101would link our system to their system. And the parameters of the Senate Government Agreement are really honing in on when it's okay for them to view our cameras and for what purposes the cameras would be found in the memo and on Section 2. Also the fact that the police department would not be able to record this is not a recording or their record if you will. The record is our record. It's a U-46 record. These are our records, but they would be able to view them real time for a police related event that was involving a school or a worst situation that we can think of type event. Could you just quickly go through? The five different areas when the city of Elgin Police Department could gain access to our videos? Yes. For sake of

102transparency. So for sake of transparency, they would always have a connection, if you will, where the connection doesn't turn on and off. They would always have a connection. But the reasons for viewing would be clearly under our agreement when, number one, or I, the police department receives a call for police assistance from the school. they would be able to connect and look at the cameras while they're responding because we're assuming they're we're calling them for a criminal incident or something like that when that was occurring. The the two the double I would be the police department receives a call for police assistance from any person regarding a suspected criminal activity on or around the school property. So you note that doesn't have a limitation during the school day, but those are for incidents that would

103happen maybe when we're not at school at 3 o'clock in the morning or something like that's happening around a school where our cameras might be able to give them real-time intelligence information about what's happening or who's around. The three I would be an alarm of any kind. We have fire alarms, burglar alarms, and panic alarms at our schools. So when those are activated, we would expect that they can start looking at our cameras to find out what's going on in our buildings, who's coming and going, what's happening while they're responding. Four, a human IV, if you will, a human or natural hazard is reported or observed on or around a school. Our thinking could be anything in that regard as far as a tornado, seeing what's happening at the building, a fire or an earthquake

104or something like that, or a human-caused hazard of any kind. And finally, the V or the 5, to facilitate a tactical view of a particular building due to a police response to a potentially dangerous situation. So that would be the five areas where they would be able to watch and actually view but I just want to be very clear that that we don't turn this on and off it's it's always running and always connected. I mean this is an agreement that would just be for this school year so this is like a trial period to see what happens before we Because this expires at the end of this the 2016-2017 school year so so we put a year on it So we would expect that we would have a year to review and a review

105year to get comments So we didn't end it at this June we ended it a year time frame from this or we could yeah we put a year on there to have a real good time to review the Success or the failure of the program to see if it's being used appropriately um and uh and so yes there's a there's a time limit on it of one year we would come back to you after that year report back to you um on other the program and if we did ask for it i would imagine we'd ask for a longer stay if it was what what you intended for it to happen are there any questions yeah yes this seems like a great agreement, do you see any downside to this? I can't see any. Do

106you see any? So the downside would be is when people step outside the agreement and the intended use. If there was an instance that someone viewed a camera for a purpose that they wasn't outlined specifically, and I'm not saying a police officer took action based on what they saw outside the agreement. That would be a personnel thing and we can deal with that. I don't see an outcome outside this where it would be bad. I don't see one. It doesn't mean there isn't one, but I don't see one. I don't foresee one. Like I said, we took a good year to really think about this. This has been reviewed by the city, the police command staff, their legal team, our legal team, and we've hashed this around quite a bit. I don't see any additional

107cost in here. Are there any additional costs? It just sounds like we're reiterating what we're already in our budget. Is that correct? Yeah. Well, so the city is actually, this is part of their, the city of Elgin has a program where a resident could link into their real-time information center with the cameras on their home. That was the impetus behind this concept here, is that the city developed this with their real-time information center where, you know, a business could link up their cameras to their business. to the real time information center, the police department. So this is the this was the next step. While would this be a good idea for us in case police incident happened? There is no budget expense on our part. The city will consume. It's about $7000 or just over

108under for them to pay for the software to connect to our system. And it's also written in the agreement that they would burden the expense if there was a disconnect. So at the end of this year, if we chose to disconnect from this and we didn't want to do this anymore, the city would bear the cost for the disconnect of that software system. Do you foresee any of the other communities, Bartlett, Hanover Park, being interested in this as well, or do they not have the capability? So I foresee a yes, but they don't have the capability at this time. I believe that will grow. An agreement like this is intended to be for us so we can respond and be agile if the situation changes in the United States of America with any types of

109situations that could happen. So we're thinking 30 years, 50 years from now. We're not thinking just the here and now. I have a couple of questions. So it says. The city shall not create, number three, from just below where you were just reading. The city shall not create or retain any recordings from the cameras unless the superintendent of the district or the superintendent's designee consents to such retention. So under what circumstances would we consent to retention of recordings? So either on a FOIA request or on a request that an incident happened, a school incident happened. We have actually a procedure in place now. If the police department requested a view of our camera record, our video, they actually go through a referral form, which gets reviewed by our legal team, goes through our process, and

110the final consent is done by the CEO superintendent or a FOIA request. And we have that request, and we give it through that process. Okay. So I'm a little confused about that. I thought that no record was being created. So a record is being created on our side? And then we give it to the police if they request it. Is that what you mean? So I just how can there be a record if one is not being formed? So we have records we record our cameras for 30 days our camera systems are there is a record of our camera systems we keep them for 30 days of all of our camera systems the city this agreement for their view of this of our camera systems is a real-time only we're not giving them access to

111our recordings or ability to make a recording from our recordings. Okay, so along that line, so they have a real-time connection. So what stops them from viewing it constantly? I mean, other than they sign this agreement. Are there any controls in place that would stop them from just watching constantly? So if the police officer wanted to watch what happens in school and outside this agreement, they would be actually facing their own... personnel issues and their own boredom probably with watching kind of what goes on in schools. So like I said, I can't, I don't have the ability to control that, but the police department has a very vested interest in making sure that we live up to our agreement and it's used for its intended causes. Okay, and my final question is where, so it

112says that there are internal cameras in the middle schools, but external cameras for the high schools, I believe. So where are those internal cameras in elementary, I assume, also? So actually, no, we have external cameras at all schools. Okay. So the elementaries at this point only have internal cameras. We have capabilities of having external only. At the middle schools, we have internal cameras inside the building at certain locations. And at the high schools, we have internal cameras inside the building at more cameras than we would have at middle schools. So in general, like where are those cameras located? Hallways outside bathrooms where things can happen. Cafeterias, we'll have them in hallways where I've been identified by the team that, you know, this is a good hallway to have a camera view on. Other areas that

113might frequent. vandalism or other aspects that when at the time we reviewed the data we had at the time and made our best best placements of those cameras for those purposes. They don't cover everything and it's not CI channels, you know, whatever. It doesn't cover everything but they're put in our best. Most intelligent place placements for to help us see forensically what occurred we don't have staff that view these cameras That we don't have the staffing to do that. They're used mostly for forensic purposes Okay, thank you sure across our 53 schools and you may have may not have the count but how many cameras do we have across our system don't have the count to give you a general two to three doors on every elementary two to three doors on every middle school

114or four for external and probably five to six Chris on Exteriors at high schools. The high schools will probably have a range between 20 and 40 cameras on the inside. It's a range depending on the age of the system. And the middle schools, I believe it's about 8 to 20 cameras on the inside. Those are guesses. A lot. Yes, we have a lot of cameras. Any other questions? Okay, thank you. Thank you. excited miss public comment which there is none so not needed so could i have a motion to adjourn so moved second roll call please yes yes yes yes yes yes yes Night trace tonight