001Okay. You are here to notify that there will be a committee of a whole meeting of the board of education, school district number 40 at 6 p.m. on Monday, February 9th, 2026 at Washington Elementary School, 1550 41st Street in Lington, Illinois. Uh in Can I get a roll call, please? Marjorie Adamson >> here. >> Jeta Smith >> here. Ramona Dixon >> here. >> Jason Frell >> here. Lindsay Hines. >> Jeff Mayus >> here. Laura Severson >> here. >> Abigail Greenley >> here. >> Brun Mel here. >> The approval of the minutes uh to approve the minutes of the committee the whole meeting of January 12th, 2026. Motion second. All >> in favor. uh public comment participation. >> Okay, so next up, school spotlight, Washington Elementary. Take it away. >> All right. Hello. Good evening. >>
002So, we have like so many good things going on at Washington right now that I literally could spend until like 10 o'clock tonight tell you all about them. but instead we're just going to highlight um a few fun um a few of the good things happening. So, we've done so many student events. We've done a lot of family events and then our staff likes to have a lot of fun during our PD meetings and stuff too, just get a lot of things accomplished. But today, I want to talk to you about um four things, four of our huge things. Some community dinners, a toy shop that we did at Christmas time, a grown-up shop, and then some of our ML English classes. So, I have a couple people in the audience that if you guys
003would come on up. >> So, first up, um, our community dinners. I'm gonna let this loan kind of talk a little bit about that as they spearheaded this campaign. Um, so with the government shutdown in the fall and seeing all of the SNAP benefits on hold and families struggling, I grew up with a single mom who relied on those. And so I really wanted to do something, but I didn't have the space for like a a common ground for people to come. So that's when I contacted Mrs. Banks and I had the ability to do cooking and get volunteers and help kind of set it up. and we used the cafeteria as kind of the space where people could come and eat. And that's kind of where that idea came. And our first one we
004had served 60 to 70 people. Um, and then the second one we did a spaghetti that night. So we had donations. Um, go ahead. Sorry. So Riverbend Food Bank donated more spaghetti ingredients than we could have ever used. 50 50 pounds of meat >> of meat alone. And I we still have spaghetti noodles uh that we're trying to give away. But and then um my husband's employment, McCarthy Bush, um donated $1,000. And then we recently had another local company donate $500 to do more. >> Our second one we did was Nacho Night, which I think was or >> uh No, it was it was like zombie Joe. Sloppy Jo. That's I'm like, "Oh, what's that?" >> It was sloppy joe's and then the taco bar and nacho night, which was by far the most popular.
005We had like 120 something people we served. And then in the last one was a mac and cheese bar. And they're not just our families that we served. We actually had community members from the community. And from Rock Island, we had an older couple that heard about it on Facebook and came over and just came and sat and talked to people. I mean, it was it was fantastic to just kind of sit and and see everybody that was coming in, a lot of the families, but it was it was fantastic. So, we're going to look to do a few more that we can um coming up with some of the donation that we got um >> Well, we also had um a local farm donate, too. >> Yes. And we did the first night we
006had fresh produce gave away that river was a riverbend that gave to um United Way. I mean, we had onions and cantaloupe and strawberries and oranges and it was just it was amazing. Um, and it was just amazing to see the the grateful faces that were here. Uh, our next event that we did, which was amazing, and this amazing shy little girl back here, um, Arya came up with this idea. Would you like me to just talk about it? Do you want to tell? So Arya came to me with poster and all to get this idea of doing a toy shop where we invite our parents to come in and shop for Christmas gifts for their kids. So we had put the word out that we were looking for new or very gently used toys
007any age um for parents to come in and we would set it up. We contacted specific parents first and then we opened it up. Um, we had Do you want to talk about it now? Go for it. So, if you see the pictures, Arya's like showing off how many we had so many donations of a brand new literally still in the box from Amazon being delivered to school to very gently used kitchen sets, um, toddler like infant toys all the way up to, um, high school like connect type of STEM toys. um laid it all out by age groups out here in the gym and parents came in and literally shopped for their kids. And then this was during one of our PB days. So our teachers spent some going to ruin it. Um our
008teachers came and had uh a wrapping station set up. So everything was wrapped, boxed, gifted, put in a bag ready for the parents to take home so the kids couldn't see. um what they did. And then that night, because this was a Wednesday, we had a dinner, a community dinner that night. So then we opened it up to any of the parents that were there with what whatever was left over that they could come in. So that was amazing. And out of this toy shop idea, Ari and I got to talk. Oops, put them in the wrong. Oh, I didn't. Okay. I did have pictures of our grown-up shop. We did a vice versa. We did a grown-up shop where we had um mostly people from within the within the school. And then some community
009members donated things that that they had at home that haven't been used, especially like candles and lotions and things that you know you get a lot of and that you know you're not either going to burn them or whatever. Everything was in new condition or very new condition. um light new condition and we held that shop in the old library. So we'd set up there were purses like really nice purses and books and candles and lots of Christmas decorations um all kinds of things. Then we took the kids and we brought the kids in and they were able to pick out one or two items for mom or dad. There's like Christmas socks and things for moms, things for dads. Um we wrapped all those, sent those home with the kids, too. So that was
010an amazing outreach and all thanks to Miss Arya for that. It's fantastic. >> Okay. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. >> One of the other things that we added at school are ML English classes. I'm going to turn it over to Melissa because this was one of her fantastic ideas and it it was a team effort certainly to get it get it going. Um it's an idea that we've thought about for for many years here at Washington. I was fortunate enough to be a teacher here at Washington uh for about seven years. Um and in my current role, I work for WQPTBS as their educational outreach director and I am so lucky uh to be still connected to many schools in the Quad Cities, probably most of all Washington. So, uh, this idea of providing
011ESL or multilingual support for families is not a new idea certainly, but through the, uh, United Way Community and Schools Partnership that's a part of, uh, Washington, which which has been here for a few years and just continues to grow. Um, we talked about offering something for families. Um and we just started uh in January and uh it has been a success um because we've had about six or seven um parents and then they bring their children. We provide child care, we provide a meal um and we provide English support and in particular we've talked about school success. So giving parents vocabulary to talk to their kids about what's happening in math class for example, right? So, a real practical uh uh approach to to learning English. Um we're going to continue that through the
012rest of this school year, hopefully continue it beyond that in the future. Um what's great again is it's a partnership with WQPT. Um I'm also part of Western Illinois University. Um we bring in our amazing parent mentor program. Um some paras, uh multilingual specialist that works here at Washington has been a part of that too. So, it's just this incredible community uh resource that we've been able to start. So, um you know, I just I'm just really grateful that I get to be a part of it. Um I did want to add kind of a another shout out to Sierra from United Way and that community and schools program. just reflecting on when I was a teacher here. If you're not familiar with that, I don't know if you're going to talk more about, but
013the Canadian Schools for United Way um it's just like this amazing wraparound program, right? Providing um uh mobile medical care, a food pantry, just all of these supportive resources for families. And I thought that too when I was a teacher here at Washington um and some of those things were kind of around in the community, but to have it here at the school, I mean it would have been a game changer for me as a teacher and and because I, you know, like most teachers, we care about the students in front of us, but we care about their families. Um, and so just the the the incredible impact of a program like that that impacts the school day and any questions about clips. So we had like like Melissa said, we did child care here
014in the gym and Sierra through the United Way. She Sierra Yave is our on-site coordinator who was hired last year right around this time. So she's been here a full year. the things that she has done for this school and the things that she has been able to offer our families have been more than amazing. More than amazing. The the families that she has reached, but through her United Way funds, she she provided the meals and so we had um Olive Garden one night. We had I mean like really nice stuff too. So they were able the kids were able to play. They had a nice hot meal. They were able to take home any leftovers that we had. We had eight one night. Um, yeah. So, we're planning that again. But what you don't
015see in these pictures that you can't see from right there are the smiles on these parents' faces. Like amazing. Um, three of our parent mentor and then two of our parents were here to translate for the the parents as Melissa was up there talking about them. They were translating and and it was just it's so fun to just watch and listen to them learn and and I can't wait. The last night that we had it, 10 families showed up. We had people even come to the door that didn't sign up, but we're like, "If you sign up, come on in. Come on in." So, we're looking for that to grow. Um, we had a maroon show up. Mrs. Owens, our counselor, held a contest for students in grade four and five to create a poster
016for showing what Maroon Show up means to them. So, we had three there were over 25 submissions. Um, and these three ladies, we have AI and Jenny and Oh, um, Emily. Oh, that's what these are for. Yeah, sorry about that. We had Ashie and not Emily. Sorry, wasn't Jenny show up with the top three posters. Um, each of them then received a maroon show up t-shirt and then their posters are on display. But just such the creative ideas. And if you were at the um Christmas program, you heard me say at the when I would say it's for maroon show up because then they grow up and our brains blow up. That was one of the things that they were writing at the poster. So very very cool that Miss did. Our counselor and our
017coaching instructional coach do a coaching corner newsletter each week where they just have a curriculum corner. They have some give a listen to these podcasts and relate them to what like we're doing. There's always an SEAL corner um and then a wellness center for everybody themselves. And that was our January edition. It's very cool. We had a ukulele club that Miss Gitens um put on on Thursdays and the kids love that. She did it last year too and it's so fun to watch them play. Like who does that? And going along with our show up our attendance from 2023 to 24 we were at a 91.6. Then 2425 we're at 91.3. This year so far we're at 93.63. And that has a lot to do with Sierra and her case load that she works with
018which is kind of goes in here and I won't go into all these details but this is she started off with 30% as our baseline for chronic absenteeism. After the first grading period we were at 21 or first semester we were at 21%. The trend still continues downward. That's what amazing because her outreach from these parents of these students are are what matters. This is what all the supports that she has given. So this is called the title of our tier one supports that she has given for every student for attendance. Every month we have a student attendance incentive for every student. But then she also does incentives for just the kids that are on her case load which is about 20 20% of the students that we have in school. She's at 25 students
019right now on her 25 students on her case load. Um that other supports that we've given um our food pantry has served over 400 families total, not different but throughout the months that we've set it up and it's downstairs. Please take a look after. Go down there and see what that downstairs looks like right now because the before and after photos, if you see, it's crazy to even think that that was an unusable space because it is so used right now. But you can see what our food pantry and our clothing pantry, which was another big thing that we are serving our our parents with. Um, we have a hygiene product where we're getting donations for hygiene products for our babies and then school supplies which we will always have for students as well. And
020that's really about it. I mean, literally, I could talk all night long, but I will spare the details. Any any question? Go back to the last slide. I have our readers on. What are some of those strategies um that you you talked about a tier one that Sierra's doing with her table, but what are some of those things that she's doing? So the tier one she's reaching all students at Washington and those are just literally the monthly incentives like last month was the pizza party they had on a Friday night for any student who missed zero or one day um excused was a they were able to come with their families for pizza. I don't even remember. There was over >> it was a man >> 27. There were almost 300 people total that came.
021Just tons of pizza and and total chaos. Um so then and then this month it's a an item off of a cart. We'll do a Valentine's Day cart with treats on there. We're the same same attendance goals. Um with her case load students, she does weekly incentives with them. She does lunches with them um downstairs like private lunches. so that they, you know, don't have to all sit in the cafeteria together. Um there's phone calls home. There's she finds ways for them to get to school. We had a parent volunteer to go pick up three students um who are chronically absent, just couldn't get here. So this parent in the coldest days of winter would stop off and pick them up. So Sierra gasped them up and made sure that they were reimbured for that.
022Um just things any any type of reach out that we can do for parents like what what else can we do? get you bus passes, get you those types of things to consider. >> Yeah. Do >> you happen to know when the next uh community dinners date said? >> So, we know one that will be happening, but we don't know if we'll do one before then yet or not, but March 4th because John Deere Inspire is going to be coming in and doing the STEM night for us um right after well, not right after, but like 4:30 to 5:30. And then we were going to coordinate a community dinner right after that. We just got a text. >> Sure. Absolutely. >> Any other questions? >> Not a question, but I just want to say for
023our student there who came up with the idea of doing things for the um shop just a wonderful way just to bring it. Hopefully you got some of your friends and peers and stuff also maybe involved and excited and something that can continue. What grade are you in? >> Fifth. Okay. Okay. So hopefully you can get some of the the younger students excited about it so that way they can help continue it after you've gone on to to middle school. But thank you for doing that for your school. >> Just have to say one quick thing. I'm teaching JA class. I've done two sessions and they are a phenomenal class and I could not say enough good things about the class and the school. So fantastic job. We've got some awesome teachers and we have
024some awesome follow that with coming to these meetings both actively and passively for for a number of years now and and and hearing some of the great things that are doing in this school is as grass grassroots or more grassroots than than any presentation I've heard yet the the community dinners that you're facilitating. It's it's inspirational feeding people, especially given the inflationary nature of, you know, grocery bills this day. It's it's just it's wonderful. I made no of the the March 4th. I'm going to do everything I can to get there and get all of it. It's really really stuff. So, I I thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next up, we have the district Well, uh we are here to provide an update on our environment peace school tonight. So, Erin and I will
025go over uh the details of that goal and progress that we've made towards that goal and uh have any questions. >> So, I'll start out. So one of the goals under environment that we have is by summer 2028 all five categories of Illinois five essential survey will be rated strong and just to recall that framework focus on effective leaders ambitious instruction collaborative teachers involved families and supportive environments and uh can't help think of everything I heard uh Miss Banks talk about you know a lot of those essentials kind of just bleed through everything we do here just want super proud This is some pretty walking. And uh what we've done is uh we're building our leadership capacity because we know effective leaders not only set the pace for our school improvement, but they also drive
026um support for our teachers and really make everything come to uh come come to life in terms of what we're trying to do because what we've done this year is we still continue to work with Victor Simon with BLP Consulting. recall uh we're year three now with Victor and we're really kind of phasing out a lot of that support. I'll talk about that in a second. But what we had him do this year um we had a lot of new principles on boarding and adding in a different position. So we used his expertise to onboard those principles to build that leadership capacity and it's been very beneficial. The feedback that we've got from those uh principles has been very very positive. Uh so just some of the examples of what Victor was doing. He met
027first with district leadership to kind of align those expectations and then um just recently all new administrators again. He met with them. Um and as you know right now we have our five essential survey has been launched and he helped prepare those principles for preparation for that survey and getting them ready to go. So, it's been a really good experience to build that capacity because it's not a one and done when you think about uh the 5e as we've grown using it. Um, it really does take the education and the why and understanding behind to uh those five essentials to get to court. So, that is uh one area that we're proud to say we've done some investing. I'm really proud of this. um we've increased our staff learning not just with our administrators because
028our teachers as well and our capacity across the district. So the staff learning engagement as I mentioned before we were working with BLP consulting with Victor he'd come in he'd trained our admin started to train our teacher cohorts um and we were building that capacity not only with our principles like I said with our teachers and through that training um Bob Beam Steven Ethridge and I worked to basically put I don't want to say put uh BLP out of business but we started to build our own PD because we know being the 28th largest district in the state um we have a lot of uh turnover year to year just with retirements. Um and through that uh idea we wanted to make sure that we kept our capacity at a high understanding of the five
029essential framework. So what we've done this year is we've created staff PDS. for example, principal banks has delivered those PDs during like her um her Wednesday uh um uh PE time and just kind of keeping the language going, building sessions to to make sure having these sessions built to make sure that understanding that 5e framework is out there and why we use the 5e. And again, um when you look at our pay schools, it's part of that case format, which is each school improvement plan uh to continue that school improvement work. So that is uh really just a few of the topics we've covered so far just basically understanding the 5e which again you're like if you're a veteran staff that's gone through it and you were part of the initial implementation you're like I've
030heard this but again keeping the importance in front making sure that we are um keeping the spotlight on what we're doing with it and building that trust uh just how the five scored is a piece that we've gone over and Now uh once we get these results back not only helping our principles understand what they can do with it but helping the building leadership teams which are our teachers and say what are our next steps and what it will accomplish. So that is one big piece when you think about 2028 getting us there for the next few years. Um and it's been really good. >> Okay. So on to the second part of our uh our goal in the area of environment is to really look at discipline referrals and those minor discipline referrals and
031what kind of impact can we have as schools to really help positively affect um that minor behavior. So, um, we wanted to take a look at embedding capturing kids hearts at our two middle schools and the school the school staff were very excited about, um, bringing capturing kids hearts to both Wilson and to John Deere and then also Boytown. We heard a lot of very positive things about Boytown. It's used throughout the Quad Cities in different locations and our Aspire staff, Lincoln Irving and Willard staff were very passionate about trying um, Boytown this school year. So how we started out first with Boytown is last spring bringing training to the different staff so that they had a better understanding of how it would work. So these are kind of just our different training dates. We
032did a preview first. They were all on board. Um we did training with our elementarymentaries and just sprinkled those out based on availability. So staff all volunteered to come in and get that training over the summer months. and then we had additional followup for principles because the fidelity of implementing Boyistown we had to know what we were looking for um as we supported our teachers and then we've provided some supplemental training again in October from a capturing kids hearts lens we had two days of inservice at the beginning of the school year for both of those teams to really work with the trainers of capturing kids hearts and to learn that program >> and they've been on site um building and John you're facilitating follow up and that training building capacity with individual uh teacher
033leaders um uh to start to have we call experts with capturing kids harvest in those buildings that's going well >> so I think what we've really learned is that by embedding these programs we have to start you know we have to tune up the adults right? You got to teach everybody how to do these programs. And so when we look at our bold progress, um even though we were looking at that 10% of reduction, we really have so many other things that have happened that we wanted to share with you. So first and foremost, the planning preparation that has occurred in the buildings to make sure that this has launched successfully. um our counselors through all the elementaryaries that are using Boytown have been meeting frequently because our counselors uh delivered a lot of the
034tier one instruction from a social emotional lens and so they've been really intrical in modeling with administrators what that behavior should look like and then supporting teachers. The instructional implementation is just really looking at student skills. you know, how do we teach behavior so that uh the students are know what is expected of them? And so just having all those collaborative discussions among staff of what that really looks like and then the coaching piece. So, not only do our principles um have received extra training, the trainers from Boyisetown have come back to visit the programs and do some fidelity checks to see in action and provide feedback to the staff on different things that they could do to either, you know, increase their skill level or to find compliance with students. The preventative strategies is
035just really being very targeted and proactive with what we do as a staff to teach those expectations and providing a lot of positive reinforcement to students when they are doing the right thing. So the trainers came back just gave tips on you know the ratios of praise direction and just again really improving staff ability to do these programs with fidelity. We've seen some really nice positive united outcomes with compliance on task behavior and just really the understanding of those expected behaviors. >> Um, one of the things that was really nice, we were walking through Wilson and they one of the parts of capturing Kart is starting off good things, right? in one of the classes were in the student was leading the discussion and it was really powerful because it wasn't the teacher facilitating that
036discussion. So the implementation's building uh and so what does this mean for our goal progress? We are we're building those skills making it comfortable for those conversations to happen. At the same time um we we're getting survey data on what that implementation looks like. Areas uh are needing more work areas that are strong and reflecting on that and just to continue to look at um this is a not a year-to-year investment. We've got several years with both these um um companies to build that capacity and we're really excited. Um it is work in progress. It's taking time. Um and we are working to make sure that as we bring them in um obviously finding the availability and the schedule to not be disruptive to the uh flow and the learning is something conscious of. It's
037been really well. Yeah. So Lincoln Irving and Willard are still very passionate about continuing Boytown. Um with our package of Boytown, we have the ability to continue to provide intensive training to five addition five staff members that are willing to be like a train the trainer. So that's going to happen this spring so we can just continue to sustain from within. So that it's going very well in those buildings. Butworth also hopped on board because we said some extra seats. So their staff has also been working with the Boytown model. But again, a lot of these are just about building capacity within your staff and just continuing to provide the training to staff and just getting everybody to be very consistent in the in the method so that you can really have a positive impact
038with students because then students really know what to expect when all the staff are kind of doing it the same way. Any questions on that part? >> I I have questions. >> Yes. I know one elementary for the elementary but then the other program is junior high. Is there a reason for rationale or mind? I would say there's a lot of similarities, you know, posting classroom expectations, using um you know, positive uh just positive words with students and how you address certain behaviors. There is a lot of pieces to that. Um the one reason um with capturing kids hearts there was some work done earlier with John Deere and then we had the state funds that came in last year the school improvement grant that allowed us to do a multi-year contract but we felt
039like cash on kids hearts since they'd already had some work at the middle schools was a good place to start with that and then um with the elementary boystown was um what we started to look at uh with Lincoln Irving and Aspire Yeah. And so with Boytown, I would say it's more scripted and uh it's it's really scripted with uh behavioral expectations and student response. And we did know that in some of our buildings that were struggling a little bit more with behavior, they were really asking the teachers were asking for just kind of something to help support that that student behavior and to really help. and Willard and Lincoln arranging knowing that they're going to be joining. Um we're really on board with kind of just getting all the staff to be consistent with
040that expectation. Um and that aspired staff also participated because they have staff students that struggle a little bit more in the behavioral uh category. Then again, Butterworth kind of hopped on board. So all of the buildings were very motivated to receive the training and they saw some value for their student bodies. Um we've had some discussions about you know moving forward and um but we really continue to feel that we have to build that staff capacity. So our next um goal really is to continue to you know laser focus in on the buildings that are invested so that can get really good at doing the program and then also find some trainers within Molink Valley that are in those buildings then that bring it to other buildings once I guess we get better at it.
041So that is my next question like do these two organizations have like a tool or metric by which we can measure ourselves because I know you you know had started a goal and I appreciate you're piloting two programs where we have the funds at our fingertips and then that improving that capacity within our staffs. Um, but are there tools and metrics and look at that company provides for their program that we could then go back and maybe um adjust the goal to the measures that are more tied to those. >> Yes. And that's what we've really learned is their metric looks at the fidelity of implementation. So through walkthroughs, it's are the expectations posted? Are the teachers providing um the correct positive, you know, coaching to students? are they modeling uh and so that consistency
042from teacher to teacher and so yes that our principles been trained on that fidelity tool on the checklist to make sure it's being implemented properly so I think that's really what we've learned is we can't really look at a raw number to see if it's had a positive effect we need to really look at is the program being implementedly that's really our big learning from this is again it's based on you know are all staff consistent with how they do these programs and I manufacturing kit hearts is very similar. >> We have a implementation survey that was just collected. They had a norm data and we went through all those metrics uh Bob being Dan Quang and Tom Ferguson to kind of see how their norms shape up to where we are. So yes, we
043have a great comparison. Um you know, like you said, there's some areas that hey, we got to work on and there's some areas we're doing really well. So, it's that constant uh looking at the data, making adjustments, and then just being figuring out where we need to pivot within um in terms of PE and helping staff. >> Again, thank you. I appreciate that my just as a board member who is familiar with this kind of tool for the metric. I appreciate that you give us the goal format that we, you know, discover. I also want you to know that it's okay to neglect Yes to teach educators about tools resources as you become more familiar with knowing this sometimes it's about just the goal and I g as educators just stick with the goal and
044it's not the goal right >> yeah that >> especially with this >> and there's just so many different ways to measure positive student outcome by not just looking at a referral because in this case you know our staff and now are focusing differently than they were before and So, it's just been really enlightening to kind of just watch this transform and we're excited about more that we can do with Boytown and Capturing the Arts. We think we've just hit the pinnacle of play. >> Yeah. And and the goal itself has sparked conversation. I was over in a building a couple weeks ago carrying a Wednesday discussion about their referral data and they were talking about it and it was really interesting when they got in the weeds on why the data looked a certain way
045and it it's just um those are the conversations we're having to help shape our systems to adapt and adjust uh to our families students. Um it it would be great like we will have metric data with both of these over time to show progress in both programs. So >> more questions. >> Thank you everybody. Thank you. >> I get a motion to adjourn. >> All in favor of following the whole meeting on Monday, February 9th, 2026 at the Washington 15. >> Carter Adamson >> here. >> J Smith here. >> Ramona Dixon >> here. Jason Perrell >> here. >> Lindsay Hines. >> Jeff Mayus >> here. >> Severson >> here. >> Abigail Greenley >> here. >> United States of America to the stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice. minutes to approve the minutes
046of the committee comment second. Any discussion? All in favor? Hi. >> Hi. >> Hey. Communication, public comment, participation. Uh, Kindle or Dator Clo. All right. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Uh, so you have five minutes. We typically don't respond to any questions or ask any questions, but somebody will follow these after. I've been a student in the district since kindergarten. We'd like to preface this by saying that we just got news and the custodian has noted this. Mr. Moore called my dad. However, he could not get the message to us until two minutes before the meeting started. Uh however, we were still told that it was beneficial to speak. However, we're only finding this out after expressed interest in saying something. And this has been happening since I started. Upon starting at home, I noticed
047an issue with the lack of security in the girls bathroom. This occurred at my previous school val. However, being at the high school, it seems multiple bathroom stalls missing locks. I went around after school today and found pictures of all the inconsistencies with the locks. The folder contains as many as I could find. Obviously, not using these pictures were taken during a time when I'm not only are the stalls missing locks, but many are incorrectly attached. Therefore, a light pushing the door open. This render some unusable, leading me to find a different option. For example, one of the bathrooms had at least four out of 12 stalls missing a lock or incorrectly installed lock. Three of which were on one side of the bathroom. Therefore, if a student were to try and use that side
048and the other three stalls are taken, the student would then have to push through bathroom, for example, during lunch or passing period, push through the people there and try to find one on the other side. I've heard from multiple students that this makes them uncomfortable and it's been an ongoing issue. In fact, two years ago, I had a student tell me that they asked their parents to pull them out of school whenever they needed to go to the bathroom and felt so unsafe using the bathrooms. While I understand that the bathrooms are being remodeled this coming summer, this doesn't excuse us not getting locked for the time being. I also understand that some students choose to deface or vandalize property, but again, that shouldn't be coming as a cost to students that are not participating.
049To add, the newly done bathrooms, such as the ones in the Bartlett and lock rooms at the PE Center, are taken care of by the students and locks are still intact. I'd like to reiterate this is not an issue in terms of the removal of the bathroom entrance door months ago, but rather the stalls themselves. I ask that you please ask the custodial department to put locks on all the stall doors and ensure that these are done correctly in the time. I don't know when the custodian noticed the freshman I've also seen at Wilson Middle School. There's no reason that I should hold the door shut or ask a friend to hold the door. And in in the folder, one of these pictures shows a massive gap between the door and the lock about yay
050big and during high activities such as lunch period. Missing locks lead to us having to wait for a stall by lock which it's difficult enough to find a stall during period especially in small but it's even worse when they won't lock and dozens of people. Thank you. recommend a motion board of education approve the actions saying in the consent agenda as presented >> second discussion hearing none >> Jason Perrell >> hi >> Jeff Mayus >> I severson >> hi >> Adamson hi >> Dixon Chad Smith I >> six approval of board of education meetings for the 206 2027 2027 202 recommend motion board of education approve the board of education meetings calendars for the 2026 2027 278 school years as present >> so move >> second any discussion can I roll please >> Jeff Venus
051>> hi >> Laura Severson >> hi >> Adamson hi >> Dixon hi >> per hi >> J Smith >> hi approval of first reading is updated Board of Education policies section three. Recommend a motion of the board of education accepts for first reading the updated board of education policies as presented. >> Second discussion hearing none. Can I roll? >> Jeff Mayis. >> Hi >> Laura Stevenson. >> Hi >> Marty Adamson. >> Hi Dixon. >> Hi >> Jason Perrell. >> Hi Chet Desmond Smith. >> Hi. Moving on to reports or requests discussions. >> First of all, I want to thank the district leadership team for all of your great work um helping out with our high schools this year and especially for our monthly updates education. Really appreciated that and thought that it was a a
052pleasant addition to our process. So, thank you to everybody. Um, as we know, one of our student board of education members, Miss Abigail Greenley, is a senior and will be graduating in a few short months. And with that, I wanted to take a few moments to get your feedback on our draft application process and timeline for refilling your student board of education seat. You should have a handout at your tables and I'd like just a few minutes to go through that so that we can get some input on what we are thinking and make sure that we are on the right track. So, you should have uh hand out there in front of you. Typically, we try to get in a groove of having a sophomore and a senior. So, we are able to have
053a nice uh transition between students and a nice quality length of service for our students as well. Um this month in February, uh uh what I would like to do moving forward uh in the month of February leading up to a senior student board of education members graduation superintendent and our board secretary um will prepare the following. An introductory cover sheet introducing the vacant student board of education seat and the other following information. Qualifications for the position, time commitment and responsibilities and an application process and timeline. On or about March 1st, the cover sheet and application materials will be digitally sent to all members of the Molen High School freshman class. Molen High School administrators will also promote the opportunity to freshmen while the window of application is open through normal student marketing and communication
054channels. Applications would be submitted on or about March 30th. So, leave that window open for about a month. By the end of the first week of April, a committee would be formed made up of members such as a board member, the other student board of education member, high school administrator, board recording secretary, and superintendent. These are just suggestions. Um, this committee would review the applications and select finalists or finalists to be interviewed if if that were the case and then recommend to the board of education approval at the first or second board of education meeting in April with the start date of the second board meeting in August. We would have a press release and be able to celebrate that student um at that time. But that would also allow the month of May uh
055a couple of meetings for that student to be able to attend in the audience before the end of the school year so that if they wanted to they would be able to um see board meetings and learn a little bit more about the process as an audience member. So this was just a a first go at formalizing the process and I'm wondering if you have any input for us or if you'd like to um think on that. Any questions? >> Yeah, I'm sorry. Is this is this different than the way it's been done? >> Well, truth be told, we had uh two student board members um right before the pandemic, right? Really when I started and then it was the pandemic and it sort of went by the wayside like nearly everything else. And then
056once we started moving forward with the process, um we didn't have this formalized process in place. And so this is really our first um official two student official student members getting back into um having two formal seats on the board permanently. Um, so what I would like to do is to sort of memorialize a process so that we have an implicit forward and I think the sophomore and senior um, spots give a great opportunity like I said for a nice quality length of service and a smooth transition. Um, so that's kind of the reason for formalizing it a little bit. We really haven't had that. >> Good question. The question that I've got is um this process and timeline works for now for this next board member, but then so when uh Bur graduates then
057we've got one board member now we we already have to go away from that sophomore senior model. So what's the process look like after this next? In this case, we'll have to do it two years in a row >> and then we should get back on track after that. >> So, >> because you're gonna be a senior, right, Mar? >> Yeah. >> So, we'll have to do it two years in a row and then we will be able to get back on track. Um, and bringing in >> it'll always be off the senior, but then we have junior, sophomore, senior, junior. I I think I think the the next member >> but then there's the the question of it it might not be able to be included as a senior be sometimes >> it gets
058a little >> different and and one of the things to look at there could be a junior and particular opportunity but that would be logistically >> okay. So, which grades should we send the application to? I will check. I think it should be a privilege as an upper class because I think that freshmen going into South career here at whereas and Abigail even going way back to um some of the previous board members they had they had experience be student and I'm just thinking about Kendall and her bringing her situ you know the situation speaking for all students if we sorry um get situation here. If they are known like upper classman that could be introduced throughout then the student might feel more comfortable going up. Yeah. >> Because I know my sisters, you know
059who I am. I'll talk to me about things. That's only because familiar with me. I don't quite find myself as much unless I know as um I think being class respect as a little sometimes especially freshman. So I hope there's an opportunity then junior senior um pattern then to maybe put more communication out people know who education they are and I like what can they help you with things like that meeting in my mind I also did not think about that rotation here And then I was just sitting here like that like wait a second. So, I do think probably the junior senior roation cleaner and that it's a two-year commitment, you know, rather than potentially a three-year commitment, which could be hard for students to have as well as the two opportunities. Are there
060different ways of the engagement between those student members? So on that I >> and I think that so I say I think that that also gives uh whatever high school administrator be the selection committee that group um you know they're looking at a sophomore that's kind of in the running to be the junior member. um they've had a little bit more time potentially interact you know with a with a freshman three quarters into their high school career kind of trying to figure out if they think they're a good fit that the administration has >> that is true >> so I think this just kind of gives gives a little bit more time you know for the potential of new student board member to have matured their role as a student and to be kind of
061you know known to people and and total administration. Maybe there's an opportunity like um sophomores who might be interested or to like maybe it's connected through like the um your group at the high school for instance to um students who meet like be a mentorship kind of thing like I guess maybe a way for students to learn that they're interested so or like maybe a way for sophomores to board to like a sophomore leader that's been identified. I don't know how that would fit in the great idea. >> So I think to answer your question the population would just be the soft manageable >> right >> I also think that process one's going to be serving the member but one's asking perspective >> how they want that >> to contemporation materials. Should we consider adding
062recommendations from current staff community some something just to tie in I'm sure whoever's app is not going to have any trouble getting those but just might be nice to get a different perspective for the involvement to consider. Yes, I believe the application um is available on the ISB website. So, I was going to just utilize, you know, put together the ISB student board of education member um application. I'm almost certain that's in there, but if not, I think that's in there. That's what I thought. >> And I also agree with the junior senior kind of makes it seem a lot more fluid and also no classes get skipped that way. we had a senior or like that junior class that kind of gets doesn't have this opportunity. So I do >> that's a good point.
063>> It'll all work out. >> Thank you for your input. I appreciate that. Um speaking of ISB, as a reminder, coming up in just three weeks on March 3rd, um is the next ISB Blackhawk event being hosted at Rock Island High School. Um, so far I have registration requests from Chad, Audrey, Jason, and Ramona. Um, and myself. If anybody else would like to attend, please let us know so that we can get you registered. Um, anybody else at this time? >> I wonder if other also if either of you are in also let me know. Um, also from ISB, Katie Boliva will be attending our March 9th meeting. This was the agenda that chat shared last week. She'll be attending our March 9th meeting, um, which as a reminder has been moved to bysentennial. She'll
064be providing professional development session for the board on communication and community engagement strategies. Um, this session was being provided to the board complimentary for hosting our ISB event uh this past September, which Jason was able to lead for us. March is a very busy month. As a reminder, on the 10th and 11th, the state board of education will be here in Molen. I'm excited slash nervous. Uh we've got a lot to do before then. Our district has been chosen as a host site this year out of over 800 districts uh to be the location for their monthly board of education meeting. This is a multi-day event. Uh board members are welcome to be uh on site for both days, but if you can only get away for one, really Wednesday, March 11th is really the
065most interactive day. It appears that Tuesday, March 10th is mostly just their meetings that they'll be hosting at the district office. So it would be more observation and being in the audience of those meetings, which would be interesting. Yes. But most of our district interaction pieces will be taking place on Wednesday, March 11th. Um we'd love to have any of you available. Um on March 11th, uh we will have uh school tours. We'll be providing a district highlight presentation uh for the state board of education and also hosting a leadership lunchon at approximately 12:30, which we'd love to have all of you there. happy to bust you two out of school if we can get you over to the district office as well. Um, and even if you can only come for the lunch, I
066think that'll be a really wonderful opportunity. Um, we'll be sending an RSVP out for the lunch soon as well as a lunch choice so that we can get that going. Um, and I believe Tara will be posting those events as a board activity so that we are covered. Any questions on that? >> No, just answer. Okay, very good. >> Yes. >> Which one of all these exciting evidence happen in our school wizard receiving? >> Oh, >> none. No. >> What you want specifically? >> None. >> Oh, um I think that's in April. Springfield. >> Okay. Happens. Okay. I thought it was maybe >> Thank you. Thank you. That's Thank you. that is in Springfield. There is um a superintendent from each of the 21 regions and I believe they host that event in Springfield. Thank
067that J. Um and lastly, I want to provide a quick celebration regarding some exciting student achievement news. Our winter MAP scores have been uh coming in for reading and math and the growth scores um is are just really off the charts. Um I'd like to turn it over to Dr. Pribble. we've been digging into the data, our deputy superintendent and head of curriculum uh to be able to provide us some exciting highlights. >> Yeah. Um so our mapping success program that we do um is uh something that we started going for years now. Um so during our winter and spring testing windows, any classroom that uh students hit their goal at 70% population or higher hitting their individual goal for either math or reading, we have a desk, it's called mapping success destination growth. And
068um uh I'm excited this year because we just printed off the certificates. I actually did a time lapse of Stephen and I sorting certificates. Um, we had 82 classrooms out of 150 in elementary hitting that goal. Um, but I want to share some stats with that. NWA, the reason why we love that data is not only do we do it three times a year, it helps us adjust our instruction, it's a nationally normed test, right? And they just reormed in 2025 to account for what we saw between 2020 and 2025 with COVID. So, um, so expected growth is 50%. Right? Right. So a regular classroom the time frame that we test we want to see a 50% of our students hitting or um exceeding the growth targets. And then there's a number a percentage of
069total growth for those individual classrooms. So in uh district-wide K8 we had 64.3% of our students. That's 5,020 students that take the test in math that hit their growth target. Of those 64% the total growth achieved was over 100. It was 138.1%. Ideally if we get to 150% we're probably not looking at about a year and a half of growth. That makes sense statistically and I have anything to show you. But in reading K8 62.7% of our students hit their target 147.2 total growth. So that's really doing well closing gaps. Elementary. I'm I'm very proud of for math the all 10 elementary for math students 69.6% 146.8% growth and in reading which we've been working on 61.3% of our students and 132% total growth. Um so last year at this time we took 82 math
070certificates round to teachers we got another 82 this round and we winner but here's the story. 11 in reading last year in elementary we have um believe 57 57 so not only are we seeing improvements we are defying odds and going above the norms and I believe that's because our intentionality it's our focus on um using the data um you know we really prioritize that and making sure that we're giving our teachers u the instructional tools to maximize out what those kids need in the moment so I would invite any of want to go uh maybe this week to deliver the certificates. Um we've got a stack uh we can schedule that. Um around your schedule, but um it's really fun to go in those classrooms and get those certificates out. So if you have
071any availability um end of this week, we're got so many honestly probably be in the next week. Um we would we would love to I'd love to come along with us. So thank you. the the classrooms of the teachers that piloted the new reading curriculum saw really fantastic growth as well. >> Yeah. Yeah. Our reading our reading I mean and the thing about that is um that the the pilot both pilots both curriculums we saw grow. Um but you know I I give the shout out to I'm going to give a shout out big shout out to 68 um our middle school reading teachers. 1826 students tested their reading kids hitting the target was 65.2 but the collected growth altogether was 215.7%. So you could say wow total growth was over in that time frame
072we doubled and that's what we need to do right we have to close gaps and and that's what we're doing. So it's exciting and the next step for us um is to really translate that into our IR um testing which you're working um so exciting stuff. Thank you Dr. Please do reach out to me. I can certainly break away my uh my work later especially with that process really really yeah I can send schedule just let you guys know we're going to student board of education member >> so I just have a couple things at the high school last week our French classes got to make something where learn more about French history culture. So I thought that was a great opportunity missing our French teachers to take advantage of to do something different during
073the school day um rather than just sitting and learning. So nice hands on activity and then we um at the high school are having another night uh Wednesday this Wednesday. So I volunteered at the last school on families are able to drive up in a box of food that we bring out to their car. So super easy and convenient and that's something market room that we have that has you know food pantry pantry some other supplies in there. And then athletically um girls basketball exciting down nine points at halftime but did effectively so congrats to them. and um our MHS contemporaries also hosted our mini contemporaries clinic um where students with district can sign up for that. So it's very exciting to see and then tomorrow night we have um plays basketball. >> Yeah, I
074wanted to celebrate two sort of activities at the school. um test boat qualified for state which they had this weekend actually Friday and Saturday. So I'm wishing them the best of luck. I guess I'm wishing myself the best of luck too. >> And academic team had their conference last weekend where they placed third. So they had a really strong finish. Um obviously a big event sad coming up in two weeks and I wanted to thank student commerce. They do a lot of great things in the school project that they do. And athletically, boys basketball a few more match weeks. So, knock out I hope that they can do this off with it's been alluded to, but congratulations Dr. Savage um on her superintendent of distinction with the black operation of the ISA goes to show
075that we we have a superintendent that that does a very good job and we can be proud to know that you're here elsewhere. Very lucky to have you and every time one of these things happen feels pretty awesome. It really makes us feel very good about them. So congratulations to you. >> Speaking of superintendent uh super superintendent evaluations we talked about it. >> So really today I just want to make sure that get access to super eval. Just make sure that that's right. You'll be getting a notification once Dr. Savage completes her self evaluation. and then you can go in and do do yours and then we'll continue to discuss this. We'll have a close session in our next meeting kind of go through some things on conversation. Uh yeah, so just uh make sure
076to take it seriously. It's it's a the biggest part of our job. Not that I don't think anybody will, but um super tool is really really big part of what we need to do so. So yeah, that's coming. We'll continue to talk about it. Uh, does anybody have any >> February 20th, the Franklin activity stops going for elementary and although I get talk about this at the next meeting too, but Marth and two other board members and my daughter will be participating Polar Plunge. So if anybody wants to watch us provide stuff and donate to the fantastic cause for you to reach out to either myself or Mr. Do you know who's a teacher or illustrator this bill is she's helping that Anybody else? All right. Number nine. Close session to consider the appointment of
077compensation discipline performance or disposal of specific employees. Second discussion. All in favor? I Did I get >> any discussion? All in favor? >> I. >> Okay. Moving on to action. Recommended motion. The board of education approve the appointment of Jamie Tro position of Jamie Adams, elementary principal effective for the 2026 2027 school year. Discussion hearing none Dixon. >> Hi, Jason Perrell. >> Jeff, >> I s motion carries. Congratulations. And now entertain a motion to any discussion hearing none. All in favor?