001No, I got >> I got I just gave her this. I just write the time off. I don't know what it actually heartbeat that's security. She know I had to laugh at Christopher this morning because of course last week he was like learning on Friday it's so cold first they did and then this morning he walks out the door and it's 0 degrees no last night was trying to backage cancelled than I actually do >> cuz like nobody cares. I'll call to order the regular meeting of the board of education school district number 40 at 6 pm on Monday January 26th 2026 at the M Education Center 1900 52nd Avenue Molen Illinois. Um can I have a roll call please? >> Audrey Adamson >> here. >> Cha Smith here. >> Ramona Dixon >> here. >>
002Jason Ferrell here. Lindsay Hines >> here. >> Jeff Mayus >> here. >> Laura Severson >> here. >> Abigail Greenley >> here. >> Brun Mcola >> here. >> All right to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay, move on to approval of minutes. Um, I get a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of the board of education of January 12th, 2026. >> So moved. Second. >> Any discussion? >> All in favor? >> I I >> Okay. Uh, can I get a motion to approve the minutes of the closed session of the regular meeting of the board of education of January 12th, 2026? So moved. >> Second. Any discussion? Uh, all in favor? I. >> Uh,
003no communication, public comment. >> Okay. Uh, consent agenda. You recommend the motion that the board of education approve the actions contained in the consent agenda as presented. >> So move. >> Any discussion? >> Can I have a roll call, please? >> Lindsay Hines. >> I. >> Jeff Mayus. >> Hi. >> Laura Severson. >> Hi. >> Audrey Adamson. >> Hi. Ramona Dixon. >> Hi, >> Jason Frell. >> Hi, >> Jess Smith. >> Hi. >> Okay. District leadership tasteful progress update for the community category. Dr. S, please. >> We um did our monthly extended cabinet meeting and realize that we only have two more monthly meetings where we go through and do these progress updates just um February and March. And then in April, we close out these goals. So, it's really hard to believe. Uh, but
004we're here tonight to go over our seag goals. Yep. C for community. So, um, we wanted to give an update. We had two goals. Our first goal was to reduce chronic absenteeism. So, just by definition, chronic absenteeism in Illinois would be a student that misses over 18 school days in a school year if they were in attendance from start to finish. So, it was our hope to reduce that number by 10%. Um, these were the action steps that we wanted to take was to address um attendance by creating a campaign to strengthen monitoring systems and to set individual school attendance goals which would include increasing opportunities for family engagement. So what does that currently look like? Um from the beginning of the school year kicking off with registration, we've really ramped up parent communication about
005our expectations not only as a district but also um by the buildings. schools have specifically done targeted communications with specific families and then embedded incentives into those. Um the district along with buildings have been sending letters in many languages just to communicate out um what we expect for attendance and what those markers are. Um, if you are part of our Remind system monthly, we're sending out like a little attendance tip um, just to kind of help keep the momentum going and remind families about the the ways to increase and improve attendance. You may have noticed that we did a t-shirt campaign and with our new maroons show up logo and that spiritware was very wellreceived across the district and with all those proceeds will go back to support future promotions for attendance and incentives for
006our buildings and student services. Um Tesa and I attended the bilingual parent advisory council and many parents were present along with our parent mentors and we just talked a lot about our pay school and then also all the steps that we have been taking and the impacts that attendance can have on students long term and our parent mentors are a great voice for our school community. So they had a lot of great questions and they learned a little bit about the reason why it's important to tackle attendance. Additional things that we have done this school year is we've updated our expectations from a district level on how you track attendance guidance for building administrators along with their AAS on really cleaning up that process. We noticed last school year that we had a lot of
007codes that were maybe codes that existed in some buildings but not others. So, we just really tidied everything up and then also was really clear with tracking attendance so that we were doing it correctly across all buildings. Like I'd mentioned before, our buildings set individual attendance goals and they're continuing to focus on those specific groups and really target in where they could make a a march of difference. Again, we've also been working with community partners such as the Metro Link, YMCA, and Boys and Girls Club. And we really want to strengthen those partnerships as much as we can because we realize that before and after care is also another component to really positively impact attendance. So, here's a graph of some attendance data. The schools are there on the bottom. Last year is in blue.
008This year is in the red color. And you'll notice that most all of our schools have dipped down meaning that attendance is going down. Attendance is actually going up, which the absentee rate is going down. So if we take all those together for the district, as of December 25, our chronic absenteeism has been reduced by 16.2%. So we feel very encouraged that the efforts, the small efforts that we are making are having a marked impact. We know there's still a lot of work to be done, but this is very positive that we're trending in the right direction. So, the work will always continue. So, what are some of our next steps that we're focusing on? Again, we have met with the YMCA and our partners and we're going to continue to strengthen before and afterare
009programming. We really want to ensure that every elementary site has care on site before and after school. So the why um they've they've stepped up to the challenge and they're going to really help us out with that. We're going to continue to target interventions for families. They're really close to that target line. So on our school report card, if you miss over the 18 days, um it goes on our school report card. So we really if we focus on those groups where we can make a mark difference, we can really help show that improvement not only for our school report card, but just to benefit students um both in the classroom and for the life outcomes. We're going to continue to work with community partners to increase and promote incentives for positive attendance outcomes and
010just always ramp up communication and make sure that messaging is out there and starting with our youngest learners. Soon we'll be we'll be having kindergarten open house and it's just really important that we kick off um that messaging in a positive light to let our preschool families and our kindergarten families know how important attendance is. Thank you. Moving on to our second goal in the community category. This is really a district marketing and branding goal. So, as it is written, we set out to expand our district marketing, branding, social media engagement, realtor outreach with the launch of a new district tagline, enhanced promotion of career pathways, district fast facts, an updated community newsletter, a refreshed district website, and the addition of video reels to broaden our digital reach. And one project that is not listed
011here in this pay goal, but has been layered and woven throughout this entire school year has been our Lincoln Irving expansion project. And all of the work that we are doing, communicating with the families, creating marketing around that, working on our logo, which we're happy to show tonight. And so a lot of that has been uh layered over this goal as well. I have to give a big shout out to Candace Santress, our director of communications. She has really done a fantastic job this year. She and I have really been the point on this particular goal, but she has taken on a lot and I really appreciate it. So, thank you Candace. She does a great job. Um, what are the action items that have been completed so far? Our new district tagline maroon show
012up. We were surprised to learn that it has sort of expanded the bounds of an attendance campaign and really started to become a part of our fabric of our school district in general. And so we're really excited about that and how we can continue to grow that. Thanks to Craig and his edtech team for helping us refresh uh the homepage on our district website and we're working on mirroring the individual school pages to match that next. But we were happy to get rid of that solid bar at the top that kept cutting off people's heads on the pictures and then making our news sections more um expandable and a lot of other small little tweaks that just make the experience better for our families and for our community. Um our Lincoln Irving expansion project, our
013roadmap to a new school where we're really happy with that graphic. A big shout out to Heather uh White who is our graphic design partner this year. She has been phenomenal. We're really excited to be working with her. She has also helped us with our owl logo for the Ottawa Elementary School, which we are excited to show tonight. As I just mentioned, our career pathway promotional brochure has been on the to-do list for a number of years. This is a part of the work that the secondary team has been working on with Brian and Mr. Whitaker, Mr. Moore, U, Mr. beam coming together to really um expand our transition of 8th grade to 9th grade. What does that curriculum night look like? How can we take our ascend goal and utilize that to really enrich
014and expand those opportunities? And we're still in the middle of that. We're really excited about how that marketing uh and that promotional uh programming is coming together. It is a huge improvement from what it used to be and we were excited to see the great turnout at the um eighth grade transition night. Um Maroon showing up for their future and really that is just a work in progress and I'm really really excited and proud of the secondary team career pathway short videos and reels. This is ongoing. I know Candace is working on this but also got the high school students engaged in this which I thought was really cool. um the high school theater students have taken this on and they're going to be putting together some videos for our different career pathways. So, this
015is ongoing, but we're really excited to engage our students in this process and only being able to add to our various different ways that we engage with kids and families and community. So, more of that to come. And then our district purpose and community commitments. This was something that we took on right at the end of last year, but we were excited to utilize our graphic designer to really make that a professional forward- facing document. So, those are some of the things that we were able to get completed so far this year. We have a couple more things to go that we intend to finish up here uh before this second semester gets uh to the end. Um, we are going to be working on our district fast facts, which is really just a sort
016of a district one pager, if you will, or a a smaller district pamphlet that we can um update and find a way to communicate to our families that might be moving to the community about all of the great things happening in Molen, our awesome academic achievement growth, our programs, our fantastic staff, our extracurriculars. Um, we have so many great things going and great improvement happening and we want to do a good job making sure that our community knows that and get those updated district branding materials in the hands of realators on both sides of the river. So, that is on our docket yet this spring. Um, the refresh community newsletter, we are going to roll that out for the summer edition. We thought that is the addition that really turns the page, no pun intended,
017for us for the school year and we thought that would be a nice point to roll out the new addition. So that is still on the docket as well. Um our administrators were working on our portrait of a leader which is also one of our pay schools. We were able to get um feedback from all of the teachers and staff in all of the buildings and all of that was compiled and then our principles worked on that last week and so the next step will be able to put a graphic together and what will that look like to mirror our portrait of an educator and our portrait of a graduate. So we're really excited about that work and then lastly just ongoing real development for district promotion in general. So, those are some of the
018branding and marketing projects that um Candace and I are still working on yet this second semester. And that is all I have for the update. Let's see. >> One piece of feedback that I've heard over and over is to make sure that we have a Facebook event when we post something. So, some of the events do like I've noticed like the play usually has like an actual event created, but some of the things, you know, a flyer gets posted, but there's not an actual event. And I've heard from several people that that would be helpful to help them remember >> um if they can add it to their calendar. >> Thank you for that feedback. We can definitely tell that to the school uh Facebook or school social media account managers as well. That's good
019feedback. >> Great. And then on the absenteeism, is that 16% is that overall for overall attendance or for those targeted um families that are kind of at the cusp of the absenteeism? >> Overall overall. >> Yeah. So when looking at attendance overall, it's just dropped down. >> Okay. >> So we we if we compare numbers from last year to this year, at this point we're doing better. >> So 16% decline. >> Along those same lines with the attendance, I know that the state is looking at reversing the metric. This is so helpful though to see that even though you have to explain it to people to see that decline and I know we have just gotten in that like in the meat of being able to have these data conversations. So just a consideration for
020us to be able to still see it like this so we can continue to monitor that decline because on the positive side it's always in the 80s and 90s but we still you know miss a significant group of kids when we start looking at percentage attendance. I like it this way. Thank you guys for doing that. Maroons do show up. That is the like that that's the that's the kicker now. So congratulations and kudos to the team that came up with that. >> And we're excited when we get closer to the end of the year. We will wrap up attendance and we'll break it down even more specifically into groups so we can just give you a broader picture of what that work has looked like once we wrap up the end of the school
021year. So over the summer expect just kind of updates on that data because I think it is very telling and we can kind of dig in more to where really we have to focus our efforts. I think we know but we can be even more targeted as well. So thank you for that. I appreciate the I appreciate the board feedback. You know, sometimes when you talk about absenteeism, there are a lot of different thoughts and feelings about that. We can only control what we can control. But I'm so proud of the team for doing every single little thing that they can think of that we can do to try to help our families and to try to affect the situation positively, knowing that we do not have full control when our kids and how they're
022able to get to school every single day. But just the fact that they're making moving the needle in the ways that they are with these types of things, I'm really proud of it. Yeah, I was going to say just for my own civic pride, not just for the school district, but for the city of Molen and in general, you know, when I see the uh uh realer outreach and some of the other aspects that that that leadership is doing to spotlight Molen because we really are the Molen Cole Valley School District comparatively speaking from a regional mindset. uh is really a bright spot comparatively speaking and you know in in in the arena of uh economic development it is high competition especially when oftent times things are a little bit more slanted to the Iowa
023side of things and showcasing who we are and what we have as one of the the the leaders in our education systems and our region is is is awesome and I would always be willing to help um from the marketing standpoint in any way I can to help showcase what we have. It's it's it's awesome. Especially the video content. >> Video content is so important to to push out and I know it's challenging. Uh it most certainly puts individuals uh more outside of their comfort zone when they're when when video is actually rolling, but it's uh it's it's commendable stuff. So, keep it up. Thank you so much. >> Let's take all the help we can get. One of these days make a video. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >>
024Okay. Moving on to number seven. Um, approval of second reading of updated board of education policies. The recommended motion of the board of education accepts for second reading the updated board of education policies as presented. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Any discussion? Hearing none. Can I have a roll call, please? >> Jeff Mayus. >> I. >> Laura Severson. >> Hi. >> RJ Adamson. >> Hi. >> Ramona Dixon. >> Hi. >> Jason Ferrell. >> Hi. >> Lindsay Hines. >> Hi. >> Cha Smith. >> Hi. Okay, moving on. Number eight, approval of second reading of updated board of education policies 480, accounting and audit and 4140, waiver of student fees. Recommended motion the board of education accepts for second reading the updated board of education policies as presented. >> So moved. >> Second, any discussion hearing?
025None. Can I have a roll call, please? Laura Severson. >> Hi. >> Audrey Adamson. >> Hi. >> Ramona Dixon. >> Hi. >> Jason Ferrell. >> Hi. >> Lindsay Hines. >> Hi. >> Jeff Mayus. >> Hi. Cha Smith. >> Hi. >> Okay. Reports, requests, and open discussion. Dr. Savage, >> we just have a couple of things. Um the first one, um I mentioned before, um we've been doing a lot of work, um on our owl logo for the Anavos Elementary School. And we have a working draft to show you here tonight that we're really excited about. So, this is where we are at. We've had a great um time working with teachers and staff from both Lincoln Irving and Willard. We've had a great opportunity to collect input from a lot of different stakeholders. Um and
026we're ready to add you to the list. So, we've got our color palette. We've got um the the Anavveros Elementary underneath. And this particular owl has had a lot of different iterations. We've gone back and forth from mean owl to tootsie pop owl to this very intense, serious but approachable owl uh in between. Um this particular owl is really where we are at in terms of our version today. I don't want to say that it is absolutely a final version and our our graphic designer just kind of gave some sample mockups of what things might look like. Um, thank you Craig for scrolling. Um, you can see again the color palette there. Both Lincoln Irving and Willard are in the blues and golds. So, we're sticking with that, but uh, in a more muted palette.
027Um, you can see the different versions of the owl head and the full owl. One thing that the staff mentioned when they saw this, which I thought was really neat, is the behavior matrix at Willard is rise and the behavior matrix at Lincoln Irving is soar. And so having the full wings in the logo was really important to them. Even though we can use any and all versions of this and different spiritware and signage and things like that. Um we would like to um and these are just samples. We wouldn't necessarily have the logo on the building, but these are just mockups of how things might look. We've tweaked the um font. We've tweaked where the honors elementary went. We've tweaked the the size of the wings and a lot of different things. So, I'm
028going to send this to you tonight and give you an opportunity to kind of give us a little more feedback. Um, we're hoping to really kind of finalize this maybe by the end of the week because we'd love to have this new logo ready to launch on the formal invitation for the groundbreaking ceremony. Um, we've got uh Candace is working with Leot on our groundbreaking ceremony invitation which is slated for March 25th at 2:15. That's intentionally a Wednesday afternoon um when kids are released so the staff of both schools and kids and families can be involved in that at the Lincoln Irving School site campus. So, um, we're hoping that we are near, um, the final ends of iterations, but wondering if you have any feedback. >> Fantastic. Looks great. >> Has, uh, it been
029discussed at all as to exactly what to name the owl? >> Um, I have not heard any discussions. Um, that's a really good question. Um, I don't think anybody has asked that question yet. At least >> they're gonna want to name it, right? I mean, >> Bob would be fitting, I would think. But >> Jeff, I don't know. >> Um, >> that's a really interesting question. We might have to ask the kids that one >> choice. >> Other feedback. Great. Are we moving in the right direction? >> Yeah, for sure. >> Absolutely. >> Verun Abby, >> I love it. That's very nice. >> That makes me happy. I know Run, you were on the naming committee with Mr. Manis and so I think it's really cool to get to this point and start to see
030these things come to fruition. So, um if if you guys are are happy and say we're moving in the right direction, that makes me happy. So, I will email this to you. Um, it is really not yet. I mean, we're in a public meeting, but we're not really blasting this out yet until we want to make sure that we've got all the final iterations. So, think about this. If you have something you'd like us to tweak or propose to our designer to tweak, we'd like to get that wrapped up in the next couple of days. Um, and then it is our goal to send that to um, Candace so she can begin to work that into the groundbreaking um, invitation. Our next communication to Lincoln Irving and Willard families will be coming out in the
031next couple of weeks. Um, and I would like to include that in that communication as well. So, thank you, Craig. Um, I just have two other things. Um, at your table, I did uh provide just a very generic um daily schedule for the couple of days in March when I Isby uh is going to be here. We're very excited about this. Um the fact that Molen was chosen to host their uh state board of education meeting is something we're really excited about, but there'll be lots of opportunities for board engagement if you wish. Um and that includes our student board of education members already. Um Tara is going to plan to post all three days as board events, so we will be covered. Um, but I wanted to make sure you had these dates and
032kind of had a feel for the times in the event you needed to schedule if you wished to be here. Um, really on Monday afternoon, the service team is going to come and be setting up. Pretty much everything is going to be happening in this room in Riverside and in the diner. So, most everything will be happening here apart from the school tours. And again, all board members are welcome to be a part of that. Uh we're going to be doing a school presentation. We'd love to have board members involved in that. Typically, um board president gives a really long big speech. >> Working on it already. >> But we're really proud of this visit. Um we're working on getting our five essentials graphics up in this room. And the Molen Board of Education is
033coming up on the back of this wall. So, it has been quite motivating for us to uh finish getting this building uh ready as well. So I wanted to make sure you have these dates. Uh the main events are of course Tuesday and Wednesday uh where the board uh will host its meetings, their committees of the whole and then the leadership lunch will be in the diner. I'm not quite sure how that's all going to be set up, but uh when their service rep came, she just thought this was the perfect location for everything. So um we will uh touch base as we get closer, but those are the dates if you need to work around your schedule for anything. And certainly you don't have to, certainly optional, but um um we'd love to have
034you. And then lastly, you probably saw in your email um um ISB is hosting its next quarterly division meeting. Um Rock Island High School will be hosting on March 3rd and we're happy to get any of you registered and that includes our student board of education members. This is a great opportunity for board members across the region and superintendent um to get together. I know Mr. Pharaoh is a part of that organization. Do you know um any details about the event yet? >> Uh just I mean exactly what this says, we're going to have a speaker come and talk about collective bargaining. So it's a great chance if for newer board members who aren't used to that to come and kind of have some in-depth um and refresher for anybody who is going to be
035in that process in the next year. Um so that's usually a great dinner, usually a great time. And I know they're going to be uh it says on the back, but there's going to be some board member awards too that they're going to do. They usually do those annual. So for uh the governance recognition, if you've done some training online, things like that, they usually give you that kind of stuff, too. So it's just a good time to be there. It's a couple hours out of your night and it's a great chance to see another high school in our area. Anytime I can go see what Rock Island's doing, it's kind of cool to see that new building. So >> it's a nice opportunity to attend one where we wouldn't have to travel as well.
036Um, so if you would like to attend, please let me know or Tara know and we'd be happy to get you registered. And that is all I have. >> Thank you. All right. Student Board of Education member report. >> Um, so just a couple updates with clubs. Uh, Interact Club is took a little hiatus after the hunger drive since that was super busy, but we're starting back up with some new service projects um for second semester. Women and STEM club. Last week we dissected squid. I led a squid dissection for some of our members. So, that was definitely a fun event. And then we had our girls basketball senior night last Thursday. It was great to see all the seniors accomplishments honored. And shout out to senior Adeline Voss who hit500 career points. Um, very
037impressive. And then just something going on at the high school. We've had all new Smartboards put in every single room. So, >> I don't have much to say either. A few things that I wanted to spotlight is history club recently went on a field trip to the arsenal where we kind of learned the fundamentals of researching in a sort of historical record. So that was really fun. We got to work with primary documents and some secondary documents. So that was really cool. And then another thing I want to highlight is winter track has started. Track is like a huge sport at high school. It attracts many athletes. So, it's it's exciting to see that starting. >> All right. Thank you. Uh, now we'll go into board of education member open discussion. Uh, we'll start with
038the superintendent evaluation timeline and Mr. D, if you'd like to at that point in the school year that we're gearing up for the superintendent evaluation. Um what I have in front of you is the tenative timeline that we have drafted for your consideration to keep us on track to keep you on track up to the point where um the board president actually conducts a superintendent evaluation. This also mirrors closely what we do with our administrators in terms of other administrators in the district in terms of their evaluations. Um few years back we started to use the platform super evout. Um that has been um wellreceived by previous boards. Obviously, current board members have utilized this platform as well. Send an email to our two newest board members detailing um how you can access um and
039log into that. Again, um those of you that haven't been around and logged in lately, which I'm sure most of you haven't until now, um you can obviously request a password reset if you need to reset that password. those if you can't find your welcome invite, we can certainly um get that uh through the instructions I sent you and I'm happy to help you if you have um issues logging in or getting into the um platform itself. So, basically what this is is um just kind of keeps us on track moving towards like I said before um tonight's just kind of theformational piece to put this in front and have some transparency with the evaluation timeline. In addition, then um gives us a little time for you to get in kind of look around. There's
040a great help video. If you need a reminder, you can hit the help tab. There's help videos. And then specifically the um board uh self-evaluation uh tutorial video is extremely helpful. I think it's pretty um accurate in terms of how you can um in input your individual feedback which then is collected into the greater um evaluation that Chuck will put together and then meet with Dr. Savage eventually and that just keeps us on track. The other piece that is embedded in here is the superintendent um directing me to send out a Google form which gets uh feedback on um in the areas of the superintendent strengths, areas for growth and then provide some comments which is also used for the overall evaluation. So we get some input there and then of course your individual board
041input is collected into the overall. It also then gets us into um the close session area where um you will get a review of the overall evaluation plan and then it gives a little bit of a timeline here um uh some flexibility for uh uh chat and Rachel to meet and do the actual evaluation. So any questions on this or concerns or any anything at this point? So we'll just keep you on track through that then. >> Thank you. >> Thanks John. Um then you guys should all have kind of the the basic agenda for the March 9th uh ISB um professional development that we got for hosting the um the meeting here. So if you guys just want to kind of go over this if there's anything that you would like to see maybe
042added to the agenda or anything like that that we can get in front of Katie so she can know maybe if we're looking for something to be tweaked a little bit. uh like I said just kind of go over it, let myself or Dr. Savage know and we can get anything kind of pushed through. But otherwise, that's the only things that I have. Just want to say that last Friday and with the remote learning and all that coming up quick, this was probably the first time in a while it felt it was just streamlined. No issues. that I didn't see any comments from parents saying their kids went to school and I showed up and they weren't there. It was communication was really really well done and I feel like you know the remote learning
043had a good system in place. So just as a parent of kids in multiple levels it was nice to see a Japan I um attended I guess a seminar workshop with the mayor. Um it was around just support from a community standpoint from our pastorial leaders in the in the community with all the social emotional mental health needs and things like that. Um that's an untapped u kind of ter territory sometimes for schools. So kind of wore both hats for island and molen. Um but there's lots of opportunity there for partnership. So as we think about like I know you guys talked about your the boys and girls club. a lot of sometimes those individuals that we're targeting for like that chronic absenteeism, they're chronic absent because of something else. So, if we could just
044really um look at the possibility of connecting our psyches social workers and that support staff to those community entities, I think they could, you know, help this whole initiatives around the room show up. So, that was good. And then um an update boss ed I sit on the boss ed committee but I never bring anything here because Dr. Savage sits there the sack I believe they cover a lot of stuff so I don't bring anything so if you all want updates I can provide them but um everything is pretty good right now with um what we've seen is like a turnaround in the in the services and the service model that's being um provided. So um uh Dr. Roerberg who's overseeing the program is doing an excellent job and we're all on the same page
045about you know like continuing her contract. So we're in the same conversations with the evaluation um as we are with superintendent with her her contract. >> Um does anybody have anything else? If there's nothing else I would entertain a motion to adjurnn second. >> Any discussion? All in favor >> I meeting