001order the regular Board of Education meeting for Indian Prairie School District 204 on Monday, March 23rd, 2026. Michelle, will you please call the roll? Ms. Donahue. Here. Ms. Grover. Here. Ms. Dimick. Present. Mr. Kroubas. Here. Ms. Gantz. Here. Ms. Vazquez. Here. And Mr. Rising. Here. We have a quorum. Mr. Rising, will you lead us in the pledge? >> [laughter] >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The next regular board meeting will be held on Monday, April 6th, 2026. We have three board salutes tonight. Ms. Vazquez. Clow Shaw Elementary earns Illinois PTA Reach for the Stars Membership Recognition. The board salutes Clow Shaw Elementary PTA for earning the Illinois PTA Reach
002for the Stars Membership Recognition in January and February. Their commitment to growing membership and engaging families makes a meaningful difference in their school community. Congratulations. Ms. Gantz. Microsoft User Specialist Certification. The board salutes the Metea and Waubonsie Valley business departments for their success in achieving Microsoft User Specialist Certifications earned by 47 Metea students and 39 Waubonsie students during the first semester. This significant accomplishment validates student skills, preparing them for success in the workplace, and boosting their confidence and career opportunities. Congratulations to the students and business departments on their achievements. Mr. Rising. Metea Valley newspaper named finalist for Pacemaker Award. The board salutes Adam Page and the Metea Valley online newspaper staff of the Stampede for being named as an online Pacemaker finalist by the National Scholastic Press Association. They are only one of 40 finalists
003across the nation and one of just two in Illinois. This award shows how hard the students have worked to tell stories of Metea Valley. This is the sixth time Metea Valley journalism students have been Pacemaker finalist, five times for their online newspaper, and once for their print magazine, The Stampede. Congratulations, Adam, the Stampede staff, and Go Go Mustangs. Let's have an applause for all of these wonderful accomplishments. >> [applause] >> Next, we have our student representative report by Anushka Sandeep from Waubonsie Valley High School. Hello, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here again. My name is Anushka Sandeep, and I am here today to represent Waubonsie Valley High School. As a warrior, I'm proud to report that our Waubonsie community continues to flourish and provide many outstanding opportunities for our students. Lots has happened over
004the past month. Our Waubonsie Valley chess team ended up second in state, and our Waubonsie Valley show choir finished up their season the first weekend in March with a top finish at Nationals. Come see them perform again at Vocal Pops on April 10th and April 11th. On the academic support day, our aspiring medical professionals and psychology club brought in speakers from the medical field to speak to our students at the Medical Professional Symposium. Our Scholastic Bowl was regional champions, and they'll compete compete at sectionals coming up soon. This past weekend, Waubonsie Valley sent 96 Youth and Government students to Springfield, and the warriors secured two top executive positions for the state. This has never been done by any other school. Science Olympiad hosted and then took first at regionals. They will compete at state in
005April. This week, the next phase of construction begins by adding a new elevator close to the auditorium. This new elevator will allow for the elevator in the atrium to be removed over the summer. Moving on to athletics, our girls basketball program finished 32 to 4 on the season and became IHSA regional and sectional champions. The girls basketball program over a 4-year period finished with an 119 to 19 record, two DVC conference championships, four IHSA regional championships, three IHSA sectional championships, and one IHSA super sectional and a fourth in state trophy. Senior Danielle M Porrecozzo, the Waubonsie Valley's accomplishments include Waubonsie Valley High School's all-time leading scorer with 2,979 points, passing Ashley Luke's record, four-time all-conference selection, a three-time conference player of the year, a two-time all-state selection, and a 2026 Gatorade Player of the Year.
006That is all for Waubonsie Valley's sport report. Thank you all so much, and go warriors. Thank you. >> [applause] >> So, tonight our spotlight school is Gregory Middle School, presented by Patrick Valley, Jen Witkop, and Kate Atkins. Thank you. Thank you for having us here tonight. It's It's really neat just to hear A, that presentation um on a personal note, my daughter is doing some basketball tonight, and the young lady that she mentioned is one of her coaches just down the road. So, it's kind of cool to see the expanse that 204 has. Um we're here tonight to talk a little bit about Gregory Middle School and just a small snapshot of all the really, really neat things that are happening. Um so, we're going to take some time. I'm here tonight with uh Kate
007Atkins and Jen Witkop, our two assistant principals. Um and we're going to talk a little bit about uh when we operate in our school, we try to do everything through one uh of three lenses. Uh first and foremost, we want to make sure that we're making decisions that are impactful to our students. Um and then we want to make sure that we are uh looping in and bringing uh our parents into some of our shared leadership leadership decisions, and then we want to make sure that we're building the capacity and empowering our staff to work alongside of us. So, uh we have a theme this year for for a few years, our theme has been riding together. Um and we've expanded that to riding as one this year, and and one is an acronym for
008student ownership, uh navigating challenges, and ultimately leading to excelling through uh their efforts. Um we've done some new programs this year, or we've brought back some programs this year that we've had uh to really bring those voices from um all three of these lenses, from our students, from our parents, and from our staff forward. Uh so, we have that collective voice um as we grow our community, as we grow our network of of Gregory uh stakeholders. Talk We're going to talk a little bit about uh just again, a small snap snapshot of what each of those three things are. And uh we'll start with what we're currently working on. Um so, we do have a student advisory group. We've brought that back from some years past. Um it is a a work in progress. We
009have put out nomination forms earlier in the year, and we have a group uh with a representative from each of our grade level teams. Uh we meet almost monthly, uh depending on the chaos or the season at school. Um but really, what we're trying to do again is we have such a formidable time with these kids, and we really want to make sure that we are empowering them and giving them tools uh to be leaders of their peers and be leaders in their community. Um from our parents' perspective, we have a parent advisory group. Uh started with uh the thought of of sharing some of our SIP goals, and uh we get caught in a trap sometimes of talking of school-ese and and school lingo, and making sure that when we are communicating with our
010parents, they're well aware of what we're doing. So, we really started looking at our SIP goals. That has led into our five essential survey and having some time to really break that down. Um not only what that survey looks like, but I I think everyone wants to know, well, what do you guys do with this information? So, we've been able to share uh some of the things that we've have in place based on the feedback that we received from last year. Um and then it's a small group, uh purposeful, uh but really with the intent to get to grow that in the years to come. Um and then when we look at our staff, again, we want to make sure that our our staff are that first point of contact with our kids, um and
011then that we're making school engaging for our kids. I I'm not naive to think that everyone springs out of bed at the age of 12, 13, and 14 years old uh to to run to school, but I think that we do have a lot of really excited kids because of the the really cool things that teachers are doing. And those cool things they're doing, wrapped up inside of there is is some really, really great teaching. So, want to make sure that we're focusing on on building their capacity to being engaging teachers. Uh when we break those things down, uh really looking at our students. I'm I'm not going to go through each of those bullet points, but really looking at eight main characteristics of what it means to be a leader. And we want to
012essentially take a train-the-trainer model. We want to make sure that these students can embody these characteristics and then really pushing them and sometimes it's pushing them out of their comfort zone to go and be those leaders amongst their peers. An example of what this looks like, one of these is communication. We did an experiment where I asked the students to they could pick any topic they wanted to, but they had to talk for 2 minutes straight to a partner and then that partner did a couple of different things. The first time they were I I pulled them aside and I said, "I want you to constantly interrupt. I want you to ask questions. I want you to try to get them off task and I want you to just to be talking right back to
013them." The second time they did it, they they were tapping and moving around and and fidgeting and and we talked about active listening and and being engaged in the conversation and what that meant and what that meant to be in the classroom and what that looks like for your peers and for your teachers. And there's some lessons that go with each of those bullet points. So, really empowering them in the hopes that when they can go back to their classrooms, they can say, "Hey, let's let's make sure we're keeping our hands still so so Miss Atkins can deliver this lesson." Each of those, like I said, they they have a focused lesson and then the kids are tasked with really going back out and doing that work. Our parent group, we got together. There's about
01410 to 14 parents. Again, mixed grade levels from across the board and couple things we did, we really started to look at our SIP goals, what they were from last year and what our focus is for this year and how to engage our parents, how to make just some authentic opportunities for our parents to get into our schools. It looks a little bit different. I think sometimes when parents when their sixth graders are the first ones into a middle school, they have a this perception of what it was like at the elementaries and we want to make sure that we're welcoming them and providing them for providing them opportunities. So, this is one avenue that we're able to do that. We broke down the five essential survey again. This parent group that we have came
015from feedback from our five essentials. Our student advisory group was some feedback that we got from our five essentials. So, we I I we wanted to show tangible ways that their feedback was heard and that we were bringing that to life within the the walls of Gregory. And again, our focus is to really expand that and grow that in ways that we can have more than just 14 that come in and and get to have their voice heard and be part of those conversations. And then the third piece we have is our staff. Our staff is absolutely amazing. Like I said, our acronym as we ride for one is really focusing. Our kids hear this every every morning. They hear it in our announcements. We encourage them to take ownership in their learning. Students don't
016always know what that means. They don't always know what it means to advocate for themselves and to to ask teachers for different avenues to show their proficiency or display their knowledge. So, we want to make sure that our kids have those opportunities and talk them through what that looks like to have meaningful conversations with adults. We want to make sure that they are navigating challenges through perseverance. I think sometimes we we have the world at our fingertips and it's really easy to solve some problems, but I think those those are not the problems we want our kids to be able to solve. We want them to be able to dig a little bit deeper and be persistent and obviously when we put those things together, we want them to really excel. And we're really starting
017to see that through some of the lessons that our teachers are teaching. If you happen to come through Gregory at any given time, I can think in the past few weeks we've had not just monitoring heart rates, but we were monitoring heart rates through some actively supervised and very safe running down the hallway where we were able to take some some heart rates pre and post. We've had kids that were up and down the stairs doing physics lessons. We've had I've been warned of smells from dissecting eyeballs and fish and burning tortilla chips all in the name of science. Was invited into our library to see one of our teachers completely dressed to the era of the American Revolution and a very active debate with two of our kids and about 150 other students cheering
018them on. So, really really cool ways. I can sit and talk to you about the American Revolution, but when when a teacher walks in in a wig and a long coat, kids really buy into that. So, our teachers are doing some really really cool things to bring some experiential learning to our students and it's it's really paying off and and what we're seeing from the data that we're collecting and we're hoping to see that as our A I A R is kicked off this week. But again, that just a small snapshot. If you guys have any questions, we're we're here to answer those. If you ever want to stop by, we will make sure our halls are continuing to be safe and there's no students that are running through, but we welcome visitors at any
019other time. So, it sounds like some very exciting things going on. I love like multiple times in your talk you talked about conversation and different levels between students, parents, and staff and I really feel like that is our that is disappearing quickly especially with our students because it's not something they have to use as frequently as maybe we did growing up. So, I think that that is wonderful and it sounds very exciting. My kids both went to Gregory. So, I wish they were still there to experience this, but maybe some of us will stop by sometime. Absolutely. Yeah. So, thank you very much. Thank you guys. It is now time for public comment and 60 minutes is allowed for public comment. Each person is limited to 3 minutes. When addressing the board, we ask that
020you respect the confidentiality and safety of our students and school district personnel. We also ask that those addressing the board be cognizant that this is an open meeting and is available to all age groups and as such we ask that you consider who the audience members are this evening and keep comments age-appropriate. Public comment represents the voice and opinion of the speaker. There will be no feedback from the board members during the meeting, but follow-up will be provided by an administrator as appropriate. Although this is not required, it is helpful for our board to know whether the comments and concerns we hear are being raised by residents. So, we ask that you state if you live in the district and if you currently have children in our schools. We have one speaker tonight. It's Kristen
021Stein Greber. Good evening. My name is Kristen Stein Greber and I'm a parent of a third grade son and a first grade daughter at Longwood Elementary School. In addition to being a parent, I'm a Girl Scout troop leader and serving girls both at Longwood and Brookdale. I coach a third grade boys basketball team in our community as well. I work with many children, not just my own and I care deeply about their well-being and their success. I'm here tonight to advocate for all students who deserve a safe, structured, and supportive learning environment. I appreciate the efforts being made and the opportunity for dialogue at recent coffee with the principal events. However, I have left those conversations with continued questions. When I raised concerns about behavioral challenges, I was told that more resources is not always
022the answer. I respect that, but I am asking for transparency. What has not been tried, what is working, and what is not? Because from what I see and what I hear from my children and other families, something is not working. Behavioral disruptions are consistently impacting students who are ready to learn. My children tell me their lunchtime is often shortened due to issues with lining up and they come home hungry. I raised this concern, but never received follow-up on what actions were taken and whether the issue was resolved. The lack of communication is concerning. More broadly, the students who are doing the right thing are losing out. Too much attention is spent managing disruptions while students follow the rules receive less reinforcement. They deserve to feel supported and prioritized as well. As a parent of a
023child with an IEP and another beginning a 504 plan, I understand the importance of support systems. >> [snorts] >> My children need an environment where they can focus and succeed and right now that environment feels compromised. I also live next to the school and the language I hear from the students during recess and after school is unacceptable. I recognize staff efforts, but it's clear more needs to be done. So, I ask here, what changes have been implemented over the past 3 years at Longwood and what measurable results have come from them? Are there additional staff making meaning meaningful impacts on reducing disruptions and how is that being measured? And how are these outcomes being communicated to families? I encourage the district to consider an anonymous staff survey. Teachers are on the front lines and they
024know what's working and what isn't. Honest feedback could reveal clear actionable solutions. I would like to see additional behavioral programs including outside speakers or specialists who can reinforce respect, accountability, and positive behavior. I'm not here to point out all the problems. I'm here to partner. I'm a parent, a troop leader, and a coach and I'm invested in the success of all the children in the community. But we need urgency and we need transparency. We don't need more acknowledgement of the problem. We need action and we need it now. Because our children only get one elementary school experience and we cannot afford to wait. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Kristen. We now move to our consent agenda and superintendent report. We will begin with the superintendent report, Dr. Tally. Thank you, Ms. Donahue, members
025of the Board of Education and our Indian Prairie community. I start my comments with good news. One of our own, Dr. Nicole Howard, assistant superintendent for high schools, will receive an award this Wednesday. At the American Multi-Ethnic Council AMEC Congressional Global Award that will be presented on Wednesday in Washington D.C. Dr. Howard will receive the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson Senior Award for Excellence. The AMEC was started 15 years ago by Congressman Danny Davis of Illinois. The AMC award celebrate diversity and unity. So, we're very happy for her receiving that award. Uh, recently, the district conducted a comprehensive serious safety hazard evaluation for specific areas within the attachment boundaries, the attendance boundaries of Gregory Middle and Clow Elementary Schools. Utilizing the Illinois Department of Transportation IDOT serious safety hazard study framework, we assessed local walking routes,
026evaluating factors such as vehicular traffic speed and volume, crossing conditions, and student age. Based on the comprehensive assessment, it has been determined that the evaluated areas for both Gregory and Clow meet the required IDOT criteria to be designated as serious safety hazards, and there will be no changes to transportation service for Gregory or Clow for the upcoming school year. All supporting documents, evaluation maps, and official applications for the Gregory and Clow areas have been completed and submitted to the Illinois Department of Transportation. We are currently pend- um, we are currently pending IDOT's final review and approval. Upon approval, the district will officially be authorized to provide state reimbursable transportation services to the eligible students residing within those newly confirmed hazard zones. And additionally, finally, currently, the Illinois Assessment of Reading uh of Readiness IAR is
027being administered to students in grades 3 through 8. It's important that students are in schools while these assessments are being administered. Students take the assessments in math, English language arts, and science. Assessments are happening now and will continue in the month of April. Please check with your child's school if you have any questions. And finally, I wish for all of our students and families and staff a safe and restful spring break. Ms. Donahue, back to you. All right, I now need a motion for the approval of consent agenda items D through J. Make a motion for the approval of consent agenda items D through J as presented. Second. Is there any discussion? Okay, Michelle, will you please call the roll? Mr. Rising. Yes. Ms. Gantz. Yes. Ms. Donahue. Yes. Ms. Grover. Ms. Vazdek. Yes. Mr.
028Carubis. Yes. And Ms. Demmy. I. The motion passes. I now need a motion and a second to approve the geometry, geometry essentials, and honors geometry curriculum revisions as presented. I move that the Board of Education approve the geometry, geometry essentials, and honors geometry curriculum revisions as presented. Second. Any discussion? Okay, Michelle, will you please call the roll? Ms. Gantz. Yes. Ms. Grover. Ms. Vazdek. Yes. Ms. Donahue. Yes. Mr. Rising. Yes. Ms. Demmy. I. And Mr. Carubis. Yes. The motion passes. I need a motion now to and a second to approve high school geometry core and digital resource as presented. I move that the Board approve the high school geometry core and digital resource as presented. Second. Michelle, will you call the roll? It's that. Could you call us together? No. >> [laughter] >> You can
029give it to Natasha if you want. Ms. Vazdek. Yes. Ms. Grover. Yes. Ms. Gantz. Yes. Mr. Rising. Yes. Ms. Donahue. Yes. Ms. Demmy. I. And Mr. Carubis. Yes. The motion passes. I need a motion and a second to approve the District Management Group Prism proposal. I move that the Board of Education approve the District Management Group Prism proposal as presented. I second. Any discussion? Okay, Michelle, will you please call the roll? Ms. Gantz. Yes. Ms. Vazdek. Yes. Ms. Donahue. Yes. Mr. Carubis. Yes. Mr. Rising. Yes. Ms. Grover. Yes. Ms. Vazdek. Ms. Vazdek has two. Yes, two. Susan. She gets two. Ms. Demmy. I. That's why I was missing. I abstain. The motion passes. We will now have our presentation from Mr. Brian Giovanini regarding the middle school course updates. Good evening, Board of Education Dr.
030Tally. Thank you Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. Uh, tonight we are going to be talking about two topics. The first one is an update to a course at the Board of Education approved in the fall, our new Design and Discovery class, which is taking the place of our seventh grade study skills class that is available for our students to take next year, as well as a post-secondary and expectations uh career expectations framework update, some things that we're doing at each level to prepare our students for post-secondary planning. Our presentation tonight aligns with 640 curriculum development, 6 uh 210, and 660 curriculum content. Tonight, uh as with any course, anything that we do is in alignment with our building administration regarding courses. Uh, all of our priorities align to state standards, mandates, Board
031of Education goals, strategic plan, equity plan, as well as alignment between our schools, and ensuring we have a high expectations for our students in all of our courses. The Design and Discovery class that we're bringing tonight is a um court semester-based course for our seventh grade students. Uh, from the fall, we talked about three really important concepts that we wanted to make sure were embedded in that course. The first one was entrepreneurship and innovation, career awareness, as well as as keeping some of the core concepts from our study skills class, which were social-emotional learning, executive function, and study skills. This was the course description that we brought to you in the fall. And as you can see from that course description, it embeds those three key competencies, as well as has a really strong emphasis
032on our portrait of a graduate competencies that are a really key component of this class as we move forward. So, tonight's this conversation is really about the resource that we're going to be bringing to um the Board for adoption in April. This course is a called Mix Ink EDU. It is a middle school entrepreneurship curriculum designed for middle school students. Uh, this resource comes with a number of great resources for our teachers as well as students, and also includes all the training that is required for our teachers. Uh, this course is not only available at other school districts across the state of Illinois, but is also a national program as well. Mix Ink does have elementary school as well as high school programs, but tonight we are looking specifically at the middle school curriculum for
033our Design and Discovery class in seventh grade. There is an annual cost uh for this course, which is just around $35,000, which includes all the resources as well as teacher training for teachers to be successful. The course and curriculum really kind of boils down to this framework. Uh, the intent of this is as we look at middle schoolers, we want them to be successful. The idea is really to reduce, reuse, and recycle for innovation with a social impact um through their innovation lens in what they're doing. So, what students do through this experience, they work in teams, identify a problem of strong interest to them, create a solution and prototype, get feedback on it, iterate, improve upon it, and then ultimately pitch their idea. The other thing that's really strong and important about this class,
034it provides opportunities for our community to be involved and get feedback to our students. Also, gives some great opportunities for our students to pitch ideas, to present, as well as connect with professionals in the industry as they build out ideas that are of strong interest to them. As I mentioned earlier, uh Mix Ink does have some really great resources for career awareness in addition to another resource that I'm going to talk about later tonight in the presentation. But all those are a part of what we're doing. The Mix Ink can also be used in our sixth grade class or some of the resources that we are embedded into that class as well. And all those social-emotional, executive functioning uh competencies importance that we talked about in being a part of that class, we're building some
035weekly rituals for our students so that they are top of mind for our students and are being intentionally integrated by our teachers and providing supports for our students to be successful in not only this class, but as well as other classes at the middle school level. So, this kind of uh an overview of our Mix Ink EDU for Design and Discovery in seventh grade. The second part of uh tonight's presentation is about our PACE framework. This is a 6th grade, um, statewide experience for our students to really help and guide them in planning for post secondary and careers via after high school. Through this PACE framework, which was from the post secondary and workforce readiness act, also called PWR, which was adopted in 2016 and then later updated in 2022, there's a handful of things
036that are embedded into it. Um, I talked about the experiences information that outlined our 6-12. It also embeds opportunities for our students to earn college and career pathway endorsements for our high school students related to pathways and career clusters of interest for our students after a student completes a handful of things. The first is they have to do an individualized learning plan and I'll talk about how we do that here in a second. The second, there has to be two career exploration activities, as well as two team-based challenges, 6 hours of college credit and 60 hours of a work-based learning experience. The college credit can be AP, dual credit, and articulated credit. The 60 hours can be what we consider traditional internship. It could also be some type of simulated experience in high school setting,
037and I'll talk about some of those examples here in a little bit about what that looks like and how we have embedded some of those experiences directly into our courses, especially our capstone courses in CTE. This is just a framework the state has provided outlining that entire sequence for our students after they have met those benchmarks and going through all those they are able to earn that endorsement um, through their experience. The platform that we use through 8-12 is SchooLinks. SchooLinks is an amazing partner for us. Um, SchooLinks has taken the country by storm. Most of our school districts across the country are now using SchooLinks as their college and career platform. It embeds a number of different resources for our students to not only be uh, build career awareness, but it's also an amazing
038tool for high school planning as well as planning after high school, embedding a number of different resources within the platform that our students can engage with. It's also the place in which our students to submit transcripts, letter of recommendation requests. There's a number of things that they can do directly in the platform, so it is a one-stop shop for all college and career planning within that platform. And one of the ways I'm going to work backwards here at high school is the four-year plan. So, our students in SchooLinks make a four-year plan. Um, in ninth grade, what they do is they have all their classes added that they're currently taking. The systems are connected to Synergy, and then they can map out the other three years based on courses of interest, what they're what they
039want to take, career clusters, or any other classes based on that. The system is built with prerequisites and other things so that our students are making informed decisions about what's available to them uh, throughout the rest of their high school career. In high school, we also have our course catalog. So, if you've looked at the high school course catalog, it is all built into SchooLinks for our students to access in addition to our 21 pathways that we have available for students. Those 21 pathways not only outline the college or the courses within it, they also outline some of the clubs as well as careers that connect to that of interest to them. And then the last one is the endorsements that we now have state approved. Uh, we have engineering, education, media, information technology, digital
040media, and two in collaboration with TCD, which is EMT and nursing assistant. I'll walk through a few of them so you get a kind of sense of what that looks like for a student, how they earn it. Uh, the first one, engineering, uh, the six credit hours is actually articulated credit. Uh, so all of our Project Lead the Way classes can fulfill that. So, a student needs to take two of those in order to earn that 6.0 um, hours of college credit. The workplace learning experience, the 60 hours, is actually embedded into the capstone class. Uh, they are mimicking like engineers. They um, research do a a lot of research. They interact with professionals and they build out prototypes. If you've ever had an opportunity to see the capstone uh, showcase at the end of
041the year, they create amazing things based on what of interest to them, but they are designing from start to finish and doing a lot of research to prepare for that. Our second one is education. These are College of DuPage dual credit classes uh, in our education one and education two. And within both of those classes, there's 60 hours of experiences for our students where they are working with a partner in a another school in another school in our district to earn those 60 hours. And then uh, media is also a dual credit opportunity uh, through College of DuPage where our students have a number of opportunities. Um, you'll see students filming our basketball games, our fine arts activities in which they can earn a number of those activities within our school experiences. If you work
042backwards now in middle school, as I talked about earlier today, we're doing a lot of embedded career awareness at the eighth grade level. Our students take two assessments, uh, would you rather and find your path. The intent of that is to be completed in their Achieve class and the purpose why we do it then in December is as they start to plan for their high school classes, they have reflected, they've kind of identified some potential interest for them, and as they start to make those selections, they can make course selections based on things that they're interested in potential career paths. In elementary school, one of my favorite things, twice a year, we do a career week. The next one is coming up in May. We partner with this with Junior Achievement. It's a great opportunity
043for our elementary school students to get excited about a number of different careers. We've had professionals from STEM, culinary, business, engineering, and a number of different activities that are highly engaging. They are done virtually. The purpose of virtually is we can interact with a lot of classrooms in one 30-minute activity, so it's a less of a burden on our local professionals, but also gives them great experience for our students. They have a lot of fun. Uh, one time we had a yoga instructor and we had a number of classes doing yoga to learn about the physical dynamics of it all. Uh, we had a rocket scientist talking about us um, other things that they do on a daily basis and some of the things that happen, so it's a really great experience for our students
044to learn about that. So, as we look at how we are tracking all this, SchooLinks continues to be our partner. So, on this screen, you're going to see 0%, but everything right now is embedded in and uh, built into our SIS system so that we are tracking this in SchooLinks. We are just onboarding this now. This will be This will be the first year that we're actually using the system to calculate all this. Before, we were doing it by a hand, but as we expand for this and endorsements, we have to make sure that we have a a way in which we are tracking all this data. So, our schools are taking the lead on adding this information. Our CTE teams are taking the lead on trying to get this going in our buildings to
045make sure that our students are entering every team-based challenge, every career awareness, their internships, and then our courses are aligned based on the classes they take within SIS. If they meet all four of those, they kind of that percentage will change and then that student has earned that endorsement and we provide them a little certificate at the end of the year congratulating them on their hard work and acknowledging that work. And the other thing, uh, just a final thing that our CTE department is doing to really build out some career awareness for our students, we've having a goal of every student who walks through our CTE classes having an opportunity to earn one of three things. One being an industry recognized credential. We had that board salute earlier today recognizing Microsoft. We also do Adobe.
046We're looking at um, Autodesk and we also do some culinary uh, ServSafe. A dual credit class. Right now, we are working with College of DuPage on six additional CTE dual credit classes. Those are early talks, but uh, continued conversations provide more students college credit opportunities as well as that work-based learning uh, participation. Uh, historically, that has always been internship, but as we look at more additional opportunities, we now have the opportunity to embed some of those simulated experiences based on some updates from the state and what the what they have done in relation to uh, internship credit in related to work-based learning. So, thanks for giving me an opportunity to give you an overview on Mixed Ink for Design and Discovery as well as some PACE framework updates for our K-8 and 9-12 high schools.
047I'm more than happy to answer any questions. Mr. Rising. All right, I just have one question. I always laugh when I say that cuz it's a whole set. >> [laughter] >> Uh, I know this is focused on middle school, but then you also touched on college and career readiness. Um, my question is around SchooLinks because I know in the past and at the high school level, for a lot of that, we've used Naviance. Is this being used for a different purpose? Is this replacing uh, is this apples to oranges cuz this is middle school versus high school? If you could just explain that to me just cuz I want to understand overlapping of services. Great question. Naviance is a platform that we had for a really long time. Uh, SchooLinks is our replacement for that.
048Uh, SchooLinks embeds a few other additional opportunities for our students that kind of encompasses the whole college and career readiness platform. It is a really great partner for us to do all these things in addition to that career awareness that Naviance was traditionally used for. So, we're replacing Naviance? Yes, Naviance is no longer available for our students. Does I know Naviance had a really tight connection with many of the universities across company this country. Does SchooLinks have that equal established foundation? >> Absolutely, yes. SchooLinks has really great partnerships not only with colleges, but also industry as well. Okay. Uh, to really embed that whole not only the college part, but the college and career uh, experience. All right, thanks. Ms. Grover. Hi. Um, so I have a question on slide nine and I'm trying to
049understand this. Um I understand like the sale of biliteracy and then you get a seal on your graduation certificate. So, this this thing if I'm looking at a career pathway endorsement, how does that help a high school student? Great question. The currencies continued to evolve. The best way I can describe it is all of things that a student is doing along this path are really great experiences and great resume builders. So, if you are in So, it may not get you something specific in each one of these. However, working with a local professional starts to build your connections. Taking AP or dual credit articulated credit starts to give you a college transcript. Uh simulated business or internship experience is great uh for your resume to lead you to the next job and opportunity. And the
050career exploration activities is really broaden your horizon on what's out there, what's available to me, and what possibilities do I have after high school. All those in total are really great experiences we think for students and good stackable resume credentials. The one that is um does have something valuable is the education one. Students are automatically finalists for the uh Golden Apple Award in the state of Illinois if they earn that. So, they automatically become finalists for that. The county is working really hard to make the are they finding opportunities for other ways in which we can make this beneficial for students beyond just those things. There's nothing tangible right now, but we are having conversations across the county on how we can um provide more um more rewards for student ethic complete those. That's a
051great question. Common question we get it from the building as well. And when will this be implemented? >> This is already up and running. We're rolling. This is live. We've had uh last year we had 20 students in between me and education and we expect more as we have added additional endorsements this year to finalize um engineering with our project lead the We'll have a number of students in addition to this education media and then our partnership with TCD as well. So, we'll have uh handful more students this year earning it as well. And do you have to be a freshman to do this or can you do it at any level? As long as you meet all those criteria, you can you can finish it sophomore year technically. Okay. Uh if you did all
052that, but most of the time you're going to finish it as a junior or senior because you're going to need six hours of college credit as well as the internship. Most of those things are going to happen your junior or senior year. Mostly senior year. Thank you. Yep. Ms. Dunning. First, um I am very excited about the opportunity to see additional dual credit opportunities for our students with uh some of our uh well, specifically most uh College of DuPage because that has been um something that I've been interested in for many, many years. So, many students from other places, other districts in our area have had the opportunity for uh dual credit and college credit. Uh and so, having that expansion is really, really beneficial for our district. So, thank you for that. Um slide
053Slide four, I just had a comment. Uh the opportunity to see these the social emotional learning executive functioning and study skills. Uh this is just so vital for our students to have increased critical thinking skills and something that will stay with them long after they uh you know, leave middle school into high school and and and beyond. So, thank you for I love us love seeing us beginning to help to implement more and more critical thinking opportunities and especially um some of the teamwork that that they'll be doing in this particular area. Yeah, the the team was really intentional about that making sure that we had um weekly touch points for all these so that it was not a one and done, that it was weekly interactions with this and giving time students time to
054process and really implement these strategies is really important to the entire team in helping students be successful. Um let's see. Slide Oh, slide seven. I just I love the I I really like the idea that our students are going to begin to have opportunities to share their thoughts, do these presentations. Just wondered, does this initiative and have other schools are there any things that um like a non-complete cause there any thing or how do we protect our students if something you know, there's a fantastic idea that uh arises here. How do we how do we ensure we protect our students? >> Great question. Uh most most of the time that would happen at the high school level because at the middle school level it's a little shortened. It's only a semester and they're really just
055um Okay. reusing, recycling something. The idea is probably less likely to become. However, Mix Ink EDU does have some process in which that looks like. In middle school we're going to see the less of that from start to actually business implementation. They're going to be reusing something because they're going to have a smaller time frame as well as a smaller budget to get that off the ground and running. The high school experience that they offer does have a little bit more of that and Mix Ink has some great resources and outlines how that works for our students and how they take that to market. Okay. Um and oh, the the slide that we were just um slide nine where we had six hours of college credit. Are all the college credit opportunities that we have
056with COD or they in addition are there other opportunities as as well? >> AP also counts. So, every AP class and the one thing that is a little unique uh project lead the way is we have one College of DuPage uh College of DuPage class. The rest are articulated credit with Rochester University. Okay. Um those were all my comments and questions. Thank you. Mr. Kerouac. Slide slide seven. I was also interested in this one and kind of when you mentioned um bringing in uh career uh professionals into the classroom um remotely. Uh this reminded me of uh our Virtual Enterprise International class at the high school level. And there's probably some um way to link those together where we might not have uh outside career professional, but our VEI students can act as um the
057career professional because they're putting on some very impressive um business presentations. Um and vice versa where the middle school can pitch ideas to them and get some feedback from their you know, elders um instead of being as intimidated by somebody with a suit jacket or whatnot. So, I think there's you know, I looked at this and said this looks like a pre-VEI kind of class and so uh it >> Spot on. Yeah, yeah. So, the Nice job. Keep it going. Uh yeah, and it's a great uh VEI and project lead the way capstone are great uh partners to each other. Uh have a lot of this embedded into it, but kind of serve two different purposes, but this is a great class to start on board, very cross-disciplinary in in its approach and really getting
058students to be entrepreneurial thinkers. Great points. And I love the middle school high school. Ms. Fastiggi. Um I also was going to comment on the fact that it's a the pre-VEI experience, but even earlier, I don't know how how widespread it is across the elementary schools, but I know at Springbrook they have Shark Tank in fourth grade and it's wildly popular with the students. Um and this looks very similar um but as a class for the semester. So, I imagine we'll have some very interested students coming into that. >> the things that they produce in those fourth grade Shark Tanks are pretty impressive. They are they're really cool and they're fun to watch. Yeah, and they get really excited about it. Absolutely. Um can you explain to me what articulated credit is? Yeah, so our
059students um they don't automatically earn the credit. So, what our students have to do is once the year completes, we send a little letter to all the students who have completed uh the project lead the way class and they're able to uh submit for credit from Rochester University. There's a handful others within that we kind of promote that one for students to then earn that. It is on them then to share that with the university in which they're going, which they may or may not take. Most of them will take it in some type of elective, but it's on the student to do that next step to actually register for the credit. It is not directly aligned to our uh to our class. The students have to take initiative to do it. So, in a
060way more similar to an AP credit? A little bit. So, a student completes the class and then they have to submit their application with Rochester University to actually get uh okay. Okay. They were like enrolling, they're doing all those things through Rochester University. We are we are hands-off. We're just sharing the information on students who have completed it, but we are not doing anything in comparison to COD. Once they finish the class, if they register, we do it all in house. We are more hands-on. It is on the students >> the clarification. Um and then finally, you mentioned briefly that the Mix Ink can be used in sixth grade, too. How will that be shared with sixth grade teachers or introduced to them as a way to include >> what we're going to be using
061is the uh the career awareness parts and that'll be in the 6th grade study skills class. It won't be in most other 6th grade classes. It's just using some of the resources that we won't be able to use in the 7th grade class to make sure that we're um maximize our investment using it in a class that we can also benefit from from some of these resources. Okay, great. Thank you. Ms. Gantz. I want to agree with uh board member Demings assessments. I'm so excited to know that dual credit is going to be expanding, you know, more and more every year and um can't wait to actually hear more about the ones that are very early in development. I I just had um one question on slide 12. Um first of all, I really appreciated
062you going backwards, honestly, because I thought it was actually very neat to talk about where they kind of end up going and where it starts at that very simple level of career week. Is that done though at every elementary school? The career week. >> it to every elementary school. We do it at 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. um Monday, Tuesday, and Thursdays. One day it's 10:00 a.m., one day it's at 2:00 p.m. We have some teachers who are join every single one. Right. >> We have some that, you know, we have other stuff going on. We do promote it. >> Of course. Okay. >> Sometimes they have specials during that time or wind time. So, sometimes it we try to keep it outside the lunch times and make it accessible as as well as we
063can and try to promote it as well as we can. Okay, no, that's wonderful. Do we kind of reach out to like say COD since they're a partner um in academics with us so much? Do we ever have anyone from there come to those? Yeah, we had a chef from uh COD a couple years ago and it worked out really well. So, we are always open to great partnerships in a variety of ways, but uh COD is a great partner and be more than happy to invite them. That's wonderful. No, honestly, thank you for this presentation. It It's one of those that's just so fun to hear about, frankly, the changes, even if they're small changes um at the middle school level. I think it's it's going to be so beneficial that they get to
064almost get the high school experience a little bit earlier where they they get to have that thing they're passionate about and pursue it a little. So, thank you so much. Absolutely. Yeah, thank you. On um slide 12, the what is the 21 pathways? I mean, don't list them out or what what does that mean though? So, it's uh think of your 16 career clusters traditionally. The state has outlined has kind of combined some of them into seven endorsement areas. Mhm. Let's just say for example, one of them is um human services. So, that would be anything education, government related. We have outlined 21 different areas in which our classes have kind of sequenced to that pathway. >> Okay. We have an engineering one. We have an education one. We have a couple business ones that
065traditionally make sense. So, if a student is interested in that, we're shining a light like here are some classes that you can take that might be of interest to you. Okay. >> [clears throat] >> And um ISBE endorsement recognition, are is there more than seven that you can get? The state says there's seven areas. >> Uh-huh. You could have as many pathways to get to any one of those seven. So, for example, STEM has manufacturing and all engineering and all STEM kind of embedded in there. So, we have a couple will go through there. Information technology is just information technology. Business and uh incorporates a couple of them. There's um arts that incorporates media, all the digital media ones that we talked about today. So, there an endorsement area could have multiple pathways to get
066there. Okay, but seven is the full set that is available to be endorsed by ISBE. >> Yes, we will never get to all seven because one of them is um agriculture and we just don't have an agriculture program. Oh, yeah. We used to. We used to. Interesting. Okay, I I found this very fascinating. I'm going to Shark Tank in May, so I'm very excited about the fourth graders and I've done BEI stuff before, so I think this does like build up that whole momentum of getting students involved in things that they're excited about, that they view as um excit- exciting topics and uh the idea of entrepreneurship is something that I love like being able to introduce that at the youngest throughout our curriculum um until our students graduate. It's like a great skill for
067everyone. So, thank you very much for working on this and bringing us some great new new things. So, thank you. >> Thank you. All right, uh legislative advocacy and Board of Education update. I am going to um Springfield tomorrow with ISBE for advocacy day. I'm very excited because they have a bus. So, I don't have to uh don't have to drive, but can um network with some other people on the way down and on the way back. So, looking forward to that. Thank you Mr. Shipley and uh Ms. Berry for and uh Dr. Talley for helping to provide some information that will I think will be beneficial as I chat with their legislative and senatorial um representatives. So, yeah, I do. So, >> CASBO. >> Yeah, so Mr. Rising and I went to CASBO and
068um we were very strategic in what we attended, so we weren't in the same sessions. Um we attended uh leading division ti- leading divisive times, governance, AI, lots of AI ones. There were cell phones, federal legislation, like the upcoming laws and things like that, as well as the effects of social media. So, we will give a summary and write up a summary and um send it to you all in what we learned and what we found interesting. Thank you for going. I know that was like a long weekend and I understand you had travel traumas coming back, so thank you for driving home. >> [laughter] >> So, any other comments or updates? All right, I need a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay, thank you.