Board of Education Meeting 01/26/2026

001It is now 7:01 and I'm calling to order the regular board of education meeting for Indian Prairie School District 204 on Monday, January 26, 2026. Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Miss Donahghue >> here. >> Miss Fostic. >> Miss Gent, >> here. >> Mr. Mr. Kubis >> here. >> Mr. Rising >> here. >> Miss Deming >> present. >> Miss Grover. >> We have a quorum. Miss Grover, will you lead us in the >> pledgece to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands nationy and justice for all. The next regular board meeting will be held on Monday, February 3rd. We have one board salute tonight, Miss Grover. District 204 spelling bee winners. The board salutes Shrii Ayagari, eighth grade student from Granger Middle School who captured the

002first place title at the 2026 Indian Prairie School District spelling be on Tuesday, January 20th. Suchin Jabshetti, seventh grade student from Skelean Middle School, took second place and KiaraQari, seventh grade student from Cone Middle School, won third place. 21 students from all seven middle schools in the district participated in the event. The top three students from district 204 will compete in the Scripps DuPage County Spelling B final on Thursday, February 19th in Addison. Congratulations to Shrui, Suchin, and Kiara. Let's give them a round of applause. [applause] All right. Next, we have our student representative report by Kylie Tran from Nqua Valley High School. Good evening. My name is Kylie Tran and I am proud to serve as the student representative for NA Valley this year. It is a new year for the Wildcats and we

003are heading into it strong. The beginning of second semester has been an exciting time for both incoming Wildcats and our current seniors who are eagerly awaiting their college decisions. I know I'm overwhelmed with emotion as I think about what the next four years look like for me. Earlier this month, our school gave a big Wildcat welcome to the incoming class of 2030, giving eighth graders a glimpse into everything Niqua has to offer. The evening began with a presentation in the auditorium led by our principal Dr. Fear, followed by time to explore the many activities at NIA. Student leaders from athletics and clubs hosted booths to promote their programs and demonstrate their Wildcat pride. Following the Crystal concert in December, our music department continues to shine with their annual Masterworks concert highlighting the dedication and talent

004of our music students. Last weekend, our theater department put the spotlight on freshmen in the freshman one acts. This show gives freshmen the opportunity to be mentored by upper classmen while upper classmen gain experience in directing their own acts. Last week, we also hosted the trades and TE fair in the LMC. It was an exciting opportunity for students to explore future pathways along with getting some goodies that everyone enjoyed. It is often that our school is always open. It feels like our school is always open with wrestling tournaments, swim meets, gymnastic meets, and basketball games happening every week. I supported our basketball teams at the most recent home games, and the energy in the gym was electric, especially for the boys varsity team who's been having a great season. We have many exciting events coming

005up, including the annual orchestra showcase, which I make a point to attend every year because the dancers never fail to amaze me. Another highlight is the variety show where students have the opportunity to show their talent on the big stage. I went last year and I couldn't take my eyes off the performances, so I'm excited to see what this year has in store. Finally, this week we'll be kicking off our wellness week, which will involve daily fitness activities, acai bowls, therapy dogs, and activities in our recharge room for students to participate in. Today, I actually dropped into the recharge room during my lunch period to play Just Dance. I'm always looking forward to sharing the next NA event, and I'm honored to be able to share it with you. Thank you for this. Thank you

006for your time this evening, and go Wild Cats. >> [applause] >> So, our school spotlight tonight is Nua Valley and Kylie will be up back up here. Doc, Dr. Fur and Carrie Cahill. Okay. Hi everyone. Good evening. Uh, thank you for giving us this opportunity tonight to shine a light on Nika Valley High School. My name is Dr. Lance Fear and it's my privilege to serve as principal. >> My name is Ken operations. >> And I'm Kylie. I'm a current senior in the class of 2026. >> Welcome back. Uh so we chose rather than a special event or a unique program, we chose a concept that we feel is really important to our school and that we try to build in to everything we do. Whether it's something fun or serious, academic or activity or

007athletic based, this idea of community is something that we want to build. We know it's important to our district and it's really important um to us. So that is a theme that we always have every year is whatever we plan and we do, how can we be sure to about how we are building community as we are doing the other goals with the events. >> Community is important to us foundation for so many of our ambitions. It helps us build strong relationships between our students and staff. Um it also creates confidence among the people that are part of it which makes a huge difference to our students. Community shapes the journeys um by empowering our students to make really good choices and all of these foster So what does community look like at NUA Valley?

008We think it's when students are engaging in service activities there that we're benefiting the community, when we can be present and out in our neighborhoods, when we can help our big school feel smaller, and when we can energize the resources we have to help the community and help our students. So, one of the ways in which we do that actually begins in the summer uh with something we call our Wildcat wagon. So, for the past four years, we visit each year anywhere from two to four elementary or middle schools. Uh we contact the school in the spring, ask if we can kind of park our Wildcat wagon there on a single day in the summer. We put some signs out in the neighborhoods for each of the schools in advance and we do some giveaways.

009We play some fun games. Probably one of the coolest things is just to see parents uh at that time rather than nervous. I think they're just excited about all the opportunities with high school and what it has to offer. They're excited uh for their students to be future NA Valley Wildcats. Uh and it's a really good opportunity for for us to address any questions the community has and just to see us in a different way than a school. We really go out into the community to try to see the people that are there. We think that's really important to be visible and to be a part of the community as well. So, a great way that we make our big school feel smaller is through individual and small opportunities for academic support. And one of

010these examples is every Wednesday we start the day with a program called access. And during this time, our faculty are able to help students in specific classes that they need they may need help on. Students can make an appointment or just show up in the morning. And I've definitely used this throughout my four years of high school and it's been really helpful when I have like a missing assignment because of club or activity that I might have missed school for. And then just asking my teachers for help if I need it. We also have lunchtime and after school programs that run throughout the year. We're always there to help. Another fun activity that we have is our Wildcat kickoff which typically happens the Friday before school starts. We invite our community to come out to

011the front circle of Niqua. We'll have food trucks, music, um some games for students. Uh Wildcat wear is open for uh people to purchase some apparel. Our margin wild cats perform along with our cheer team and our boosters and PTSA co-sponsor this event with us. >> Don't take definitely the most popular. [laughter] >> And community service is another significant part of our student activities program. Whether it's making blankets for families in need or creating lessons for younger children that are part of our we wild cats preschool. I've actually been part of both of these activities through interact volunteering club making blankets for people in West Virginia and it's a really great opportunity because I get to bond with my friends just making blankets with them and then just enjoying the time on the weekend with

012them. And then also the Wii Wildcat preschool, which has been one of my favorite classes at Niqua because it's given me an outlet to be creative in making lesson plans for little kids and the preschoolers just never fail to have a smile on their faces and they make me smile. Um, we also have our Wildcat Cafe which goes on during lunch periods and it's a great way to get something hot to drink, especially on the cold days we we've been having. It's like a mini at our school. >> Yeah, super fun. Um, you know, we also like to take advantage not only our school going into the community, but bringing the community back into our school. Kylie talked about earlier two events just in the past week. One is coming up is wellness week and

013our trades fair. In both cases, uh, our wellness week invites, uh, local providers to deal with mental health and other wellness challenges that can come in and really open students eyes and normalize some of those conversations that those not only can be careers that kids could pursue, but they're also these resources in the community that some of the things they might be feeling are what adults feel as well and is normal and to seek help is normal as well. Um, really uh, one of the cool things that's happening at our school is, uh, students are choosing not in great numbers, but a wider variety choices after high school. They want to know more about trades programs and the options and opportunities that are there for kids. Whether you think about hiring prospects or you think

014about salary, uh two things that kids think about, they are very interested and those prospects are very high right now. And when you compare them to the daunting uh costs of college, uh that becomes even more appealing to our families. Probably our biggest event is a week-long career fair that we do just prior to course selection. We have about uh more than a hundred different career experts come in. This is a five-day event. All lunch hours, five lunch hours, five days in a row. Uh we fill our LMC with career guests and students know, for example, what a job might be as you would read it in the newspaper or see it on TV or social media. What they don't know is what the daily job looks like. A great example is how many hours

015a lawyer typically spends in a courtroom. Most lawyers don't. It's not the shows they see on TV. amplify that to all the other professions that um kids see and experience and at least think they know about. They really get to know people. Um our community loves this. That was our first goal is to convince them the first year we did this, please come back. So we wanted them to have a great experience, not just for our kids and the response has been tremendous. Every year it's grown and I love to hear that the adults are like, I want to go back to school. They're seeing what students are asking them and they're seeing the environment at our school which we're of course really proud of. >> Finally, we are very excited for our community to

016be under one roof. The projects which we know you're very familiar with um are for our next generation of Wildcats. Our vision is for us to have an exciting and vibrant school that serves our students, staff, and the community with thoughtful designs, innovative programs, and our exceptional staff. And on behalf of the students, staff, and families, thank you so much for this opportunity to share the importance of community at NA Valley High School with you. >> Thank you so much. It's wonderful to hear all the things that you're doing because NUA is a very large school. So, it's like it's wonderful that you have done so many different things to welcome um students and to keep them part of the community. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um two things. Wildcat wagon. Uh I

017was at Cloud this year and I still have a picture on my uh my dresser in my office with regards to was taken that day. And then the job fair I think was really tremendous because it was such a a wide variety of jobs. Um there was a court stenographer who was there who really was it was eye opening about what they do uh in the courtroom and the machine they use. It's just truly fascinating and I think a lot of students had an opportunity to learn something that they may not have known about any number of jobs. So well done both for all of those events. >> Thank you. [applause] >> Right. We have no public comment tonight. Um next we have our consent agenda and superintendent report. will move now to our superintendent

018report. >> Thank you, Miss Donahghue. Members of the board of education and Indian Prairie community, I remind all families that registration is now open for our fourth annual mental health symposium. You can find information on our website. The event takes place March 7th at Matia High School. The Indian Prairie Education Foundation is preparing for its Inspire Breakfast fundraiser. The event will take place at White Eagle Golf Club on March 26 from 7 a.m. to 9:00 am. Tickets right now are on sale and there is an early bird discount until February the 12th. Either uh either attending the event or sponsoring the event supports IPF and the programs they provide to our students. The College Board recently awarded AP Honoral Distinction to high schools. Schools can receive either the bronze, silver, gold or platinum status. For

019the 2425 school year, which was last school year, our schools receive the following awards. Matia gold, Niqua Gold, and Wabanzi silver. There are three criteria by which the schools are evaluated. Those criteria are as follows. college culture, which is the percent of students in the graduating class who took an AP exam at one point in high school, regardless of their AP score. College credit, percent of students in the graduating class who scored a three or higher on any AP exam. And finally, college optimization percent of students in the graduating class who took five or more AP exams in high school where at least one exam was taken in ninth or tth grade. For all three of our high schools, they each were evaluated at the platinum level for college credit and college optimization. Matia and

020Niqua were evaluated at the gold level for college culture and Wanzi was at the silver level for college culture. A school's overall evaluation is based upon the lowest level obtained. Hence the reason u Matia and Nqua are gold and Wanzi is silver. I applaud the work that our staff are doing at those three schools to optimize opportunities for students and the advanced placement program. Well done to all three of them. Miss Donah who I'll now turn it back to you. >> All right. I need a motion for the approval of consent agenda items D through P. >> Make a motion the board of education approve consent agenda items D through P. >> Second. Any discussion? Okay. Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Mr. Rising? >> Yes. >> Miss Gint? >> Yes. >> Miss

021Rober? >> Yes. >> Miss Donahghue? >> Yes. Deming and Mr. >> Yes, >> there's a lot of stuff on that consent agenda and uh congratulations Mr. Robinson for all the work here. So, all right. Uh next up, I needed a motion to approve the core resource and integrated uh extended text for use beginning in the 2627 school year. Make a motion that the board of education approve the core resources and integrated extended text for use beginning 2026 2027 school year as presented. >> There second Natasha. >> Oh, okay. Any discussion? Okay. Michelle, will you please call a roll? >> Mr. Rising? >> Yes. >> Miss Grover? >> Mr. Kubis? >> Yes. >> Miss Deming? >> Miss Donahue? >> Yes. >> Miss G? >> Yes. Motion passes. All right. See, we need a motion to approve

022the curriculum revisions to standard level and project arrow social studies courses for grades 6 through 8. >> Make a motion the board of education approve curriculum revisions and standard level and project social studies courses for grades 6 through 8 as presented. >> Any discussion? Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Mr. Rising. >> Yes. >> Miss Deming. >> Miss Donghue. >> Hi. Miss Grover, Mr. Kubis, >> yes. >> Miss, >> yes. >> Motion passes. Now we will have a presentation from Ron Johnson and Matt Shipley regarding support operations update. >> Evening members of the board of education. Uh, as mentioned, I'm here with Ron Johnson, our director of support operations to give the board an update on our transportation and food service programs. It's been about three years since we've been in front of

023the board. So, we're excited tonight to to both provide maybe a refresh or a general overview of both those programs as well as highlight some of the the exciting initiatives and good work we're doing in both areas. Uh, tonight's presentation hits on a variety of board policies related both to food service and transportation as well as strategic plan priority number four to optimize resources and operations. Um, so we're going to start by covering our our food service program. Um, we do have a spot to break in the middle if there's there's any questions specific to food service or we can keep on going. The board's preference and then we will cover our transportation program as well. >> Uh, thank you Matt. So, uh, my name is Ron Johnson. I'm the director of sport operations. So,

024they say I oversee meals and wheels, right? That's the joke that we always say. Um, when we talk about food service, the big thing is we talk about fresh food, fresh fresh food, fresh choices served daily with care. Um we partner with Organic Life. Um we are a contracted service. So they are a food service management company. Uh they're one of the largest uh food service management companies for K12 in the country. Um they provide us with real chefs in our kitchens. So at the high schools and middle schools, these are chefs that are certified chefs, whether they worked in some other culinary background. Uh what's nice is they can bring their experience and put those into our K12 menus. Uh, one thing to note is every photo that you see, uh, whether it's a

025food item, these are the real photos that are being served to our students uh, throughout our schools. And if I haven't addressed this with the board before or the community, our elementary schools are more of a catering operation. We have satellite sites that produce uh, food and then bring that to our elementary schools. They are provided with four different options on a different day. There's always a a meat entree and a non-meat entree. So, so it's like a vegetarian option. Um, the middle schools have full commercial kitchens and so do the high schools. Uh, what the organic life essentials are is they want to focus on del delicious fresh food made from farm fresh ingredients and chef crafted recipes. They provide exceptional service from staff who care about our students. And we're going to talk

026about our staffing levels here on one of the upcoming slides. They want to provide innovative programming with customizable options with seasonal menus and fun promotions. whether it's a uh you know a Valentine's Day cookie or Halloween cookie. Um they also provide operational excellence exc excellence through smart logistics compliance and efficiency. So we talk about our food service staffing. I'll talk about our two directors. Our two directors Jill and Bobby they are homegrown with D24. Their students one is currently in our buildings uh ready to graduate and uh Jill's students went through uh D204 school. So they understand the community. they understand the importance that they can provide to our students. We service u 34 schools, 192 employees across those schools. What's really good is we provide adults with disabilities opportunities within our kitchens based on

027their skill set. So we have 21 adults with disabilities working throughout our kitchens and what's nice is 14 of them have went through a D204 school all the way through our steps program. Um that provides us an inclusive opportunity with our community as well. When we talk about just some highlevel overview numbers when we look at our lowinccome eligibility, we have about just over 19% eligible for free uh meals. We have just over two and a half% that are eligible for reduced price meals and almost 22% total. So receiving what they call free or reduced price meals. Uh we serve breakfast at all of our schools. Um we'll look at some percentage increases over a series of years, but since 2016 2017 we've seen almost 6% increase in our part participation since Organic Life has

028has taken over our contract and we believe that is directly related to the type of food and the quality of food and the items that they're putting on their menu. Uh we serve over 9,500 daily lunches uh which is a 28.3% increase since 2016 2017. So 9,500 and on days where it's a more fan popular item we see over 10,000 meals served that day. So that that increase goes up. So, we're looking between 34 and 38% of our students receiving a a lunch each day. We are our operation is fully sustainable with no local supplemental funding, which means that our paid meals and the reimbursements that we get back from the USDA National Skilled Lunch Program fully funds our program. Not only the contract rates that we pay organic life, but our lunchroom supervisor staffing,

029the equipment that we're purchasing to put in our kitchens, and any of the supplies that we need to operate our food service operation. Um, That is that's important to note because it's fully self sustainable and we try to keep our meal prices which Mr. Shipley will talk about here shortly um in line with some industry standards. Some current ongoing initiatives, we're purchasing new equipment uh adding equipment to our operation to ensure freshness and quality of meals. We are replacing um kitchens to run more efficiently which will help John Robinson with his utility bills um and save some money that way. Uh we are providing local farm to school fresh fruits and vegetables. to talk about in the upcoming slide. Uh we are receiving student feedback feedback to put new monthly items bas uh items based

030on what they would like to see. Um as well as we're evaluating after school power snack pilot evaluation. Now organic life and I talked about this briefly over the past couple years, but there was a senior class inquiry class and they came here to present and one of our students actually had this as one of the projects that he wanted to see. So, I got to talk with them for a good half hour and uh and we're going to evaluate it. We're going to take a look at see where the funding can come from, the types of options that we can put put into this. And this would be an option for um an afterchool athlete or somebody in student activities if they wanted to receive a meal instead of something just from a vending

031machine. They'd be able to get, you know, a chicken wrap or a um a salad or something a little bit more that provides a little bit more power or protein for for the students when they're doing their after school activities. So looking at the graph over the years, if you look at the orange, that is our enrollment since 2016, 2017 through our current enrollment this year. And our breakfast participation, you see a you see a kind of a spike there during those co years where everything was free. Um so we were giving out breakfast for free and we saw a large participation increase during that time. So we see that as an anomaly and we look at the 2016 through the 2018 2019 school year and in the past three four school years of where

032we're at and if you look at our number of breakfast from the 2016 just over 800 and we're currently around 1,400 now. So that's that percentage increase I talked about on the previous slide uh or we're serving about 5.4%. And if we look at our lunches um same type of growth. So as our as our enrollment is declining we're actually serving more meals to students. So that part that percentage of students of higher serve is going up. So that's important to how the uh items that are being put on our menus are supporting our students based on what they would like to eat. Um there are some things that we have we we we can't put a a ribeye on the on the menu, right? There are some nutritional requirements that we have to put

033into play um as part of national school lunch program, but we try to put items that are on the menu that they would like to eat uh for lunch. You know, this isn't a dinner, right? This isn't a sit down meal. So we try to provide that experience for them. When we talk about just uh any type of violent critical incident, we wanted to make sure that our cafeteria workers are incorporated into our district's Alice training. If just as a refresher, Alice is just a um an optionbased response strategy that gives people options on how to respond given a certain situation if there's a violent critical incident. So, we wanted to make sure our cafeteria workers understood the the logistics behind that and the challenges of a cafeteria space. There is constant movement in that

034space with students coming in and out, adults coming in and out. The noise levels to receive information is very difficult as well as the opportunity to lock down or barricade the difficulties in an open space. Um, Ron Wilky and I provide that training to almost 200 food service workers right here at Still Middle School at the beginning of the school year. We call it the Ron Ron Show. Um, you know, he He's the more serious one. I try to be the funny guy and sometimes he tries to cross that and doesn't work out too well for him. But just kidding. Um, but it's an opportunity to bring in our food service and cafeteria workers, whether they're our contracted employees or or our lunchroom supervisors into how we would respond to any type of incident in

035our buildings. Just wanted to uh cover what is uh required to be in a full meal under the national school lunch program and also tie that to some of the discussions we've had as part of uh some budget updates and some some cha challenges or potential challenges we we see with some uncertainty in federal funding. So um just wanted to to acknowledge we are part of the national school lunch uh program and that's critical to our ability for this program to be self sustaining as Ron mentioned earlier. um as part of that that program that does have some pretty significant requirements on what we can offer uh for lunch and and it really boils down to offering uh the five components listed here. So all meals that are offered uh include a meat or meat

036alternative uh grain uh fresh fruit, fresh vegetable, and then a light or chocolate milk option as well. Um $639 $6.39 is is our all-in cost to offer that that full meal to students. Um But we charge about between $355 and $3 to 70 cents for for fee paying students. Then as Ron mentioned earlier, we we have about 22% of our population is also receiving uh free and reduced lunch meals. So I think what's um important to understand is is to be able to offer this as a self-sustaining program. We are relying on that federal reimbursement, not just for our free and reduced lunch students, but also as a as a supplement to to close the gap students as well. And so so again, as we we've talked over the the past year or so about

037some of the the um discussions at the federal level about free and reduced lunch uh eligibility um about changes to to various federal programs. Just wanted to to again highlight that it's not just about supporting our free and reduced lunch students as part of some of those changes, but it's about supporting the program. Um, so we do continue to to monitor the the prices we're charging, the the financial performance of the program. Um, as Ron mentioned already, we are able to make it a it's a self-sustaining program. We are reinvesting the the funds we receive into new equipment, new menu items, trying to innovate. Um but but being part of the national school lunch program and having that federal support is a very critical component that >> and another thing to note based on what

038Mr. Shipley was just saying is that our lunch prices we have to charge a certain amount to our paid students. It's called paid lunch equity and that there's a target rate of what we should be charging. We're about 15 to 20 cents below that target rate and still able to provide a little bit of a profit. uh as part of the National School Lunch Program, you're supposed to be as close to break even as you possibly can. If you think of our operation being over a little over $9 million all in um and we're less than $50,000 every year on a P&L. So that is absolutely difficult to to get to net zero, but that money must be reinvested directly into the food service program. We couldn't use it anywhere else. Um, when we talk

039about sometimes we get questions from our students, why does a slice of pizza, if I just wanted a slice of pepperoni pizza, cost the same or more than a full lunch? We go back to that number of $6.39. So, we receive some federal supplemental funding to offset the cost of a full reimburseable meal. NSLP, the National School Lunch Program, wants our students to receive a full balanced meal, not individual items. So that one singular slice of pizza is competing with the full meal that we receive funding for. Okay. Our contract with organic life is a per meal rate. And if we're going to offer alocard items, there's a whole another mathematical equation on that. But the gist of it is that slice of pizza, which is the main entree as part of a meal, is

040the most expensive part of our $3.70. So if you think about that, a fruit or vegetable, you get those for a dollar. $2 a milk per dollar. $2. The most expensive part of that meal is that main entree. So, a slice of pizza. If you got that slice of pizza as part of a meal, you get all these other options available to us. Plus, we received that federal funding and that cost of that meal to us is $6.39, not necessarily the 370. So, that individual piece of pizza will cost more because we are not allowed to supplement using the USDA funding for that. We I get that question quite a bit from parents when they say he got my student got a a piece of pizza and it cost 350. However, the entire lunch is

041370. And I always say take the entire lunch whether he likes it or not and donate because we have food sharing bins at at every school. Put the fruit or the vegetable in the food sharing bin for somebody else to eat and just get your piece of pizza. So when we look at our menu items and receiving feedback from our students, we have what's called an online menu system through Nutri Slice and we put a bunch of nutritional value information, uh allergen information, filters. Um but we focus on the health, nutrition, taste, student preference, and industry options available. What can we provide our students that meet the nutritional requirements that we must adhere to when we're putting uh food on students plates? All of our items are on our to meet those meal pattern requirements

042uh for each students. And recently there's some been changes with uh milk and grains and uh protein. All of our menu items will support those changes in and legislation. Um that's what's good about organic life. They can pivot and turn on a dime and provide high quality meals with making sure that we're in compliance with those laws. Um how we receive student feedback, some of it is face to face, some some of it's an email, but some a lot of it comes to the menu itself. there's a there's a platform where they can go on and rate the food or provide comments, we will review those comments with organic life um and make adjustments. So if you know hot dogs are a popular item, we review the popular item. Do we need to menu that

043more? It's let's say an elementary building. So we we are constantly looking at what is popular when we offer that as a single item and should we offer it as a daily item? um continuously monitoring. But sometimes we have students that have some type of they have a diet that you know whether it's a lifestyle choice or whether it's a medical um and personal preferences and we try to support that diet with the vast and we're going to go through some of the slides with the vast majority of our menu items to support as much as we can for some of our for all of our students. So here's just some photos of the food that we're we're serving. Um, one of the newer items that came into play was the fresh Belgian waffles. That

044first slide when we that was one of our organic life. They are making fresh Belgian waffles every Wednesday. They started doing it on Thursday and I said that doesn't make you got to change the waffle Wednesday because that makes sense, right? Um, so now it's on Wednesdays. So they do that on Wednesdays and you get fresh blueberry toppings. You can get fresh strawberry, banana, whipped cream. All this meets the national school lunch. So this is helping grow our participation for breakfast, right? Um, a lot of these are are vegetarian uh compliant with students that that that won't eat meat or can't eat meat as part of their diet. Um, but what's nice about this is, as I stated, this was taken off the serving line, put on a white plate just so that we can

045get a good picture. And this is exactly what the students are eating. Uh, pepperoni pizza. They are rolling the dough. They are putting the sauce, putting the cheese, putting the toppings, putting it in a legit pizza oven and pulling it out, slicing it and serving it to students. This is nothing that is pre-made, nothing that's processed or highly processed and going into our students plates. And a lot of this has come from our students themselves. They have asked for some of these items to be um menu. So, a plant-based burger is available every day at our middle and high schools, and we will menu that also on cheeseburger burger day at the elementaryaries. We also put the plant-based burger as well at the elementaryaries on those days, so they have options. Uh, one of the

046more popular items with that Chicago style hot dog with onion rings. It was pretty good, Matt. That's when we went to the remember, and it was very good. Um, I was at Gregory when they did the bacon cheeseburger and that bacon came from a local farm, which we'll talk about how we receive our items and some of the funding from USDA local farm to school, but it it was amazing. I mean, there's there's not too much that we can't put on our menus or or provide our students in our kitchens. They're full commercial kitchens. And like I said, some of the chefs that we have at our kitchens have worked at restaurants or in a culinary industry. So, some of our daily meatless meatless options, uh, we will menu these various times throughout the month

047on our menus or at the high schools or middle schools, they're provided daily. Um, so when students say they don't know what to eat, I I say I know because there's a lot of options. When we talk about our local farm to school, so local is defined by 400 miles. And that's, you know, local, right? That's a few hours of driving. So, we could pretty much get apples from Michigan. We can get Paris from Michigan. We get stuff from Wisconsin, some cheese from Wisconsin, whether it's cheddar or mozzarella. We're getting stuff from Iowa. We're getting stuff from Indiana. Pretty much within the Great Lakes region, we can we can pull from those farms. Um we received $318,000 to use directly towards the purchase of local farm to school. Uh we focused on fruits and vegetables.

048Um apples, cucumbers, peppers, yogurts, green beans, lettuce, onions, squash, cheese, many seasonal items. um whether it's the fall, whether it's the spring, and what items are available to us. Uh something exciting that I'm not sure if you were aware of or have seen before, but as part of the Wanzi Valley project, we have taken over um the district itself, and I've been heavily involved in the schematic design and designing a kitchen, the backend kitchen and the servery on uh in the space that they that the architects have dedicated to us. So, we worked with Organic Life and we worked with the company equipment manufacturer called Deltter uh to design a kitchen that is very efficient. The flow in the back end provides um minimal overlap and and utilizing the same equipment, the equipment list that

049we currently have in some of our other high schools. So standardizing our equipment list so that John Robinson's maintenance folks can come in and know exactly what they're working on, not having multiple pieces of equipment. It's more efficient that way. Uh the front of house, we want our staffing to maintain uh certain stations. So, we have a stir fry station, a deli station, a pizza station, a burger station, multiple stations. And one of the things that we are uh adding to this is a full service coffee bar. So, what's going to be nice is it's going to be, you know, cold brew and, you know, drip coffee and you're going to the students are going to be a staff's going to be able to go there and uh you're going to see a full service

050coffee bar with danishes, you know, not almost like a Starbucks or a Dunkin Donuts. This is something that we're adding because the space allowed for it and we'll show some renderings of that space, too. Um we were asked to also design the uh concession stand uh for the for the school as well. So we did we added that into our So this is what we started with uh putting this all on pencil and paper at first adding the equipment and then coming up with some of the 3D renderings that we're going to see on the next few pages. This took up a lot of my summer and spring. This was fun. Dr. walked in and saw maps all over my and schematic designs all over my office as we were trying to get the fit

051right. So, we did uh some Revit files so we can actually see what the 3D will look like the view. Do do our staff have enough um space to operate? Does the students have enough space to come in and out? Um here's that coffee bar that I talked about. That's going to be a standalone off to the side. We're have some alleart items there. Um where like I said, it's it's be cold brew and hot drip and now This is where the students when we when we presented this to some of the students at Wanzi is, you know, we can't have everything that's high in sugar. We still have we still can't provide that. It has to be smart snack compliant. So, there'll be, you know, sauces and and and things that we can add

052to it, but we won't be adding anything that's in high in sugar. Um, this is a look at the concession stand. So, it's going to be, you know, it's going to have its drink coolers. It's going to have it warmer so they can serve pizza out of it. It's going to have their popcorn machine, nacho machine, chili, and a hot dog roller. They're going to serve hot dogs. And then on the back side of that, it's a full service um prep kitchen. So, they're going to be able to have a three compartmental sink, some refrigeration uh and dishwash stations. So, this is after we work after we worked all that, we provided that to White uh our architects and they were able to put that in the design concept that they settled on uh on

053Wubanzi. And this is what exactly what the kitchen should look like once we install and the servery. So on the right side over here in the top right picture, that's for the coffee bar and that's what it should look like. This is the dining and what it would look like looking from the dining and this is what the students will see in this lower left um as well as the upper left so you can stay in the loop. We post most of those photos and new menu items and promotional things that we're doing on a on a daily or weekly basis um or a seasonal basis. Um this is our uh Instagram link. We we encourage you to follow us and see exactly what and this is where you can provide feedback too. We do

054have somebody monitoring that. You may not get a response but if you provide uh oh we would like to see you know cowboy uh that you know they can look at that put that on the menu. >> This time we could take a break for food service questions or we could move forward transportation. So I think what we'll do is we'll just open it up to everyone to ask their questions on food service. So does anyone have any comments or questions? Take the first one on slide seven. You made the point. I just want to emphasize it that uh a testament that the program is working is the increased use of it. So, I've been on the board long enough that we used to hear a lot of complaints about what was being served or

055thrown away. Um, and so sometimes the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. And we see that they're actually using it more and not a lot of complaints have risen to the board level. you all are doing your jobs great um and it comes out in students use the program you made the point I'm reinforcing it great job my other point is kind of dealing with the changes in the program over the time and this is more of a comment than a question but you know we've recently had a change in the uh national school lunch program and a change to the food pyramid But taking just a slice of the the changes in the milk over the years. When I went to school, we had these little triangle milks that had like strawberry

056flavor. Um that's not offered currently. Um but you can see over the decades we've went from whole milk only from you know the 50s 60s and 70s and then we switched to 1% and then skim milk and then no fat and to see it come kind of full circle is interesting where now we are adding whole milk back to the the offering. So it's kind of a testament to the the changes in society and what is healthy and not healthy. Um so kind of to see it come back is is an interesting observation that uh what we consider healthy now might not be healthy you know a decade from now but to see the changes in just that one slice of the meals is interesting. I just had uh a couple of comments and then

057one question. Uh just like uh board member Kuribus uh nice very nice on the um seeing those percentages grow go up. I had that down as well. And I did have a question um on the milk. So I know that we've gone to the whole um whole milk. Are we do the nutritional standards provide just for whole milk or the other milks taken off the plate as far as flavor. >> So, so the new legislation that passed adds whole milk. So, right now we have the 2% uh white and chocolate so that can stay on the menu. This gives us in to maintain compliance with national school lunch program. We can now add whole milk if we wanted to where before you couldn't. U so now that adds other options of milk choices. Um, every

058once in a while we do have strawberry, just not every day. [laughter] >> So the strawberry and chocolate canned. >> Just text me. I'll eat the strawberry. [laughter] >> So we we every day there's chocolate and white milk available. 2% chocolate and white milk available right now. This allows us to add the whole milk option or even non-dairy. So oat, almond, um, those are usually accommodated by medical accommodations. If there's some type of medical or an allergy, uh, we can provide those. This allows us to be able to do that if we have a volume of requests and still maintain compliance with National School Lunch Program. When you talk about the food pyramid, there was a shift in the new pyramid from protein and grain. So, it used to be very grainheavy. Now, it shifted

059to very protein heavy and move the grain to the bottom. All of our menus have those uh specified requirements, the number of grams for grain and protein. So, we're in compliance. is just that um I guess that priority has shifted where it's now protein heavy versus grain heavy. >> And then um I did have a quick question um slide 14 as you indicated that we received the um the additional funding is that a grant and is that an annual do we have we received it one time? Do we have to reapply or >> it's uh so it is expired as at the end of January. So no no longer available. used all of the funding um uh for the past last school year and this school year up until January 2026. So that has expired.

060The state board of education did request renewal and they received it, but they're they're shifting the allocated amounts to the school district to uh beef. So now you can buy beef through there as opposed to fresh fruits and vegetables. Um so we're evaluating if we need to do that or not. Um it wasn't a grant you had to apply for and receive approval. It was funding that the USDA made available. We qualified for certain amounts and we just kept requesting more and we we started off I believe it's 168,000 and we tried to double that as much as we could. Just keep adding those fresh fruits and vegetables because kids really liked them. Especially in the stir fry type items because we were adding fresh fruits and vegetables to that. Um nothing's ever frozen with

061organic life. They don't just pull out like a can of frozen, you know, peaches. It is fresh peaches that if you looked in the back end that chefs and they're they're slicing and cupping. Watermelon's another one. Mango's another one. Nothing's frozen or out of a can, which is real nice for our students. >> Thank you. >> So, I have a question. What time is breakfast? >> So, depending on the level, um breakfast at the high schools can go from 6:45 to the start of the school day. Uh we're typically preparing at 6:30, 6:45 for the breakfast at the high schools. At the middle schools, um this is where it gets a little how many students are bust because they're getting there closer to that bell time. Um and depending on the school, we work with

062the administration on how to get students a breakfast, especially in the free and reduced population where that might be their breakfast for the day. Um and then the ele so that would be between 7:45 and 8:05. And then at the elementaryaries, it's uh 9:00 to 9:15. So that's good to know because there are a lot of clubs in the high school level or even middle school that are before school. >> So the kids can eat breakfast >> waffle Wednesday. I mean >> at the high school this the first time we did it the line was out the door. They couldn't produce as fast. So it was it was like whoa. We were not expecting that. That was on a Thursday. I said you go Wednesday you know with the with some of the delayed starts

063you may get. Um but they started the kitchens early on Wednesday now and they're producing those and we bought extra waffle machines. So now instead of one there's a couple but it's just to support that menu and and the students and what they would like to eat. >> So my other question question and comment because you were talking about how we have the two district managers and there are people who were D24 students who were employed and then we were talking about the program where this student had mentioned after schools um snacks. So I was thinking we have a culinary program in high school. Do we have a collaboration with organic life? >> We do. [clears throat] Okay. And can you speak to that? >> Yeah. So the the the owner of organic life will

064sometimes come into our culinary classes and bring some of the chefs in and work. So uh what was it last year or the year before at um Matia, right? When they when they was it Matia >> pizza man. >> That's right. They brought in the he's called the pizza professor um and they were on a pizza unit and this was I believe it was you guys you and Jr. did the kitchen renovation for them. Right. So we brought them in and they worked directly with those students showing them how to roll a dough, how to apply sauce, how to put cheese. Were you there? Yeah. It was amazing. I mean, this is where the hot honey really came into play with our menus because students were like, "This is amazing." So now we have hot

065honey on our menus, whether we put it on pizza or a chicken sandwich. Um, we were early in on the hot honey >> Yeah. trend. >> Yes. They uh they they've worked with us. I know. I think one of the things we continue some of the pathways work I thinkership >> and they'll come in and and even entrepreneur so business classes he'll come and talk about just starting with an idea to what it is right now and he'll talk about how he grew the business from working out of a back end of a culinary kitchen in a small space and starting small and growing into one of the nation's largest food service provider for K12 so it's good to get that insight with somebody who started small and is now grown aggregate organically >> uh

066very very big. >> Well, thank you. >> Thank you, Mark. All right. Um I want to thank you guys, too. I have to say seeing the pictures of the food makes total sense now why my daughter gets breakfast every morning now. Something she started this year. Um I just had a couple questions. the afterchool power snack pilot program. I'm I'm so excited about that. I think we we probably all are for our student athletes and um performers. Um where is it going to be at? Could you speak to that just a little bit more? >> So, because the student that pitched it was from Matia, we were going to start there. Okay. >> We were going to start there and just come up with different options to find pricing points. What should we include in

067that? Um he uh this student had some really good ideas. He actually had it very laid out if he we had if this was our protein options, if this was our fruit option, if this was our uh drink option, I guess there's there's supplements you can add to just water that provide um nutrition and energy that doesn't, you know, race your heart. It's it's it's a builder. So, we're looking into those types of things. And then, >> you know, what what would that cost look like and what would students support or what would families be able to support? And then outside of that, because it's not National School Lunch Program eligible for that, um, what would our free and reduced population do? Will we just say, "Hey, look, this is something that we would like

068to do as a district. We are running a little bit of a profit. Do we just, you know, scale back the equipment purchases and do this?" Um, does, you know, IPF stand in or some of the, um, booster clubs step in and provide some of that funding because it's not just for athletes, right? It could be for any performer, any student activity that just needs that extra boost after school instead of getting something from the vending machine or bringing it from home >> or holding it in their backpack from lunch. So, that's kind of what we're focusing at. So, that's where we were thinking we would start. Okay. Um hopefully coming in the spring, we would have some options and some ideas and just see how it goes. We wouldn't charge at first, but we

069would we would, you know, test test the market and then we would, you know, price test see where that sensor to that possibly. Okay. Okay. And ultimately, if it was something that was continued, would it just be at the three high schools then? >> That's where it would go. That's most of the, you know, larger teams, but it doesn't mean it couldn't go down to the middle schools. Um, middle schools have full commercial kitchens. We would figure out a way on how students would order so that we just know so we're just not overpreparing food and leading the food waste. We would have them order one of the four option packs that we have available and find a way for them to pick it up. Whether it's, you know, an after school supervisor just, you

070know, oh, you ordered this, here you go. You know, however that would look. That's what we're still we're still working on the logistics on even though all the infrastructure is there for us to do it. It's just the actual logistics to preparing, ordering, and and providing that. >> Okay. No, I think that that's very exciting. And I want to thank you for addressing um a question I was going to be asking about um where leftover items from full meals would go. So there's food sharing bins. Are they shared with other students throughout that day? And ultimately, if there's still stuff in there, where does that go? >> So we run on a very tight production schedule because we don't want to lead to more food waste, right? >> So the food sharing bin is one

071of those. So most kids will eat the main entree, the hot dog, the pizza, the taco, the quesadilla, whatever it may, they're going to eat that. They just don't want to eat the fruit or vegetable. So when we get to a point because you have to take a fruit or vegetable in order to be a reimburseable compliant meal. >> So what we started to do years ago was a sharing bin. >> We then decided hey that's still not working. Kids are just taking it throwing it away leaving the food waste. >> Um touching base on that most of our food waste is not from the kitchen itself. It's from you know student bringing food from home and then just throw it away. So >> um that's that's one thing to note. >> So we work

072on a very tight production level. It's I mean It's a science. We are constantly reviewing that weekly with organic life. They're reviewing it because they don't want to have high food costs >> where they're not getting the revenue from it either. Right. >> Um we worked with the USDA two years ago to change some of the regulations. So if a student comes up and says, "I don't want a fruit or vegetable." We say, "Here's a packaged bag of carrots. Put it in the food sharing bin." We are safe food certified. We can reintroduce that after if nobody takes it and resell it again. So now it's even eliminating that piece of the if there was two apples left, we can make sure it meets all the food safety standards and then reintroduce that into inventory,

073reducing our food costs without food waste. >> That's great. >> That is wonderful. No, thank you. And if you do need parent volunteers to test out the coffee bar when it is up and running, I will selflessly say you could ask me. I I I see I see the sacrifice that you're putting yourself in. [laughter] I mean, I quality control food every single day. It's probably why I put on 20 pounds since [laughter] I've started working here, but I know the sacrifice that that you're you're putting yourself. >> Thank you both. >> Uh two quick comments and a question. Uh first of all, thank you for incorporating 21 adults with disabilities in our staff. I think that's wonderful that we're doing and majority of those have been 204 students at one time. >> Uh amazing

074work on Wanzi project. I mean it looks phenomenal. Uh and they rightfully deserve it for for what they've uh what they've been accustomed to there. And then uh my only last question is uh I'm willing to pay the real cost of the meal, but I'd love to have lunch at all three of the high schools. at the end of the year. So, you have to pay the real cost. >> Line it up. Yeah. No, line it up. >> Dr. Telly Dr. Telly pays full meal prices. >> I I've already picked up my items. Yeah. [laughter] >> He as he asks for extra sauce strawberry milk day. >> All right. You ready to move on to transportation? I'll have um so many of the things I wrote down have been covered by uh other comments, but

075I did um want to say thank you also for the Alice training and I know you're going to cover that with the transportation people too. Um, I don't think that that's something people think a lot about, but it's like a huge uh area in our schools and I'm really happy to hear that um our staff all got the opportunity to go through that or um the food staff. Um, also thank you for the pricing explanation. Um, because you're right, that's a question that comes up all the time and it really is confusing to people about why they could have to buy a piece of pizza that might cost more than the meal or whatever. So, um, thank you for repeating and telling that story again. And, um, I also I was at the presentation by

076those students uh, the other um day and I talked to that student that had the proposal for the afterchool program to support athletes and performers and things. I am absolutely thrilled that you picked up on that and I bet he is thrilled too. Is he participating in Okay. Yeah, because he really um gave a great pitch when I talked to him and it was obvious >> like a passion uh topic for him and really uh unique that we really should look at. And I I'm just thrilled to hear that that um that project on that independent study program really, you know, went further than just his idea. Yeah. >> Yeah. Him and I actually made a good connection. He plays soccer. My son plays soccer. They play in the same club. He's obviously a lot

077older than my son, but um but it was just a nice connection to kind of build where he's coming from with how this idea become became important to him. It was nice to see that. >> Yeah, I mean that the whole I mean all the projects I spoke to were impressive and um really something that they all were passionate about pursuing or whatever and it's just really nice to see one of them actually like immediately turn into wow we're going to look into that. So yeah, so thank you. All right, we'll move on to transportation. >> Okay, so uh now we're on the transportation. And so the other part of my job, um, we're going to just look at some basic overview stats, what the budget looks like. Mr. Shipley will cover that. Um, we're

078going to look at some safety and reliability, uh, innovations and initiatives that we currently have. We'll give an update on our, uh, district serious safety hazard evaluations. And then we're going to talk about some wheelchair accessible activity buses for the high schools. Um just just a reminder refresher uh what who is eligible for transportation service in Indian Prairie School District. This is driven by uh state law for funding and as well as board policy. So the easiest one is if you live more than one and a half miles away from the school that you attend uh you'll receive transportation. The second one is is if you live under one and a half miles from the school that you attend and there's a serious safety hazard evaluation and approved by the Illinois Department of Transportation. This

079has very strict standards and criteria for us to be able to say that a serious safety hazard. This isn't just us feeling that there's a hazard. There's very strict criteria and an evaluation gets determined based on uh the measurements and data that we collect. There's the third one. Uh this one's fairly new within the past six, seven years, six, seven. Um about the I don't know why I said it, but yeah. Okay, my head. Um a pattern of criminal activity. um resident student with special needs receiving transportation as related service defined by uh students IEP or a 504. Um and then uh non-resident students that are eligible for McKini Vento uh uh services. So our partners uh we have two main partners, one of them being First Student. First Student is one of the leading

080transportation service providers in the nation. Uh we have three in district uh in our district boundary uh dispatch locations. We are a we have a lot of our main arterial roads um but they are very congested so spreading out our our fleet and able to service our students and our routes uh really makes us real efficient. Um we have a newer vehicle fleet which we'll talk about. We are fully staffed operation for the first time in a while whether it's the office staff, bus drivers or uh bus aids. Um they have a strong focus on safety. They have a strong care for uh student experience while they're being transported. Um they do foster teamwork and partnerships very technologically driven and then they have an industryleading vehicle maintenance program. The second uh provider that we utilize

081uh more on an alternative basis with minivans uh Richley Vans they are a small family-owned business but they are the largest in Illinois. Uh they safely provide for the welfare of the students they transport vast industry knowledge. The owner of the company um is typically on panels for state and federal uh transportation student transportation uh initiatives. uh they provide a high level of professionalism, comprehensive fleet maintenance program, and they're committed to delivering safe and reliable student transportation service. So, speaking to Alice for bus staff now, so Ron and I again with the Ron Ron show traveled to Matia and um provided Alice training for our bus staff. So, each environment has its own set of strategies and option based responses based on the environment they're in. So, we talked about the cafeteria, now we're talking

082about a moving classroom, a bus, right? Um, we talked about what's the best course of action when you have passengers on the vehicle. Uh, useful tips for implementing Alice protocols on a school bus. If the there's a violent intruder that is on the bus and the bus is moving, what you should what you can do uh what to do if if if a violent intruder is trying to board a bus and what to do if an intruder is attempting to stop the bus. So, we talked about some of the uh option based strategies uh that our drivers can utilize. Uh good thing is some of these strategies they were already aware of because first student partners with the TSA on how to incorporate some of the safety uh initiatives on buses during transportation if there's

083a violent critical incident. So we just incorporate our Alice responses so that everybody's on the same on the same page using same terminology. Some fast facts. So, okay. Uh, some fast facts. We, uh, about 237 drivers with first student, uh, 16,750 students transported. Uh, Rich Lee does about 22 to 30 drivers. This is more of our Mckin Vento population, and that is a very transient population. So, it could be 22 one day and 32 weeks later. I mean, that's how fast it changes. Um, just looking at our on-time network. So, if we look at our on-time network from last year, 93.9%. Very good. We have a goal of 95%. Uh if you just add five minutes, this is how important five minutes is to our network, 97.6%. Um so giving them a threshold of five

084more minutes has that much of an impact on the operation. Uh we are currently looking at 96.1% and again giving us five extra minutes gives us 98.4. So if you think about that, that's that's pretty high rating. It's and right now we're we're exceeding our goal and we'll touch base on a graph here in a little bit to talk a little bit about that. Um, our annual budget this year is almost 3 $31 million and we have a funding split between state funding and property t local property taxes. >> I just want to spend a minute or two talking about that u funding split after talking about our food service operation which is self- sustaining. Um, unfortunately we have a little different story when we look at our transportation um expense over the past several

085years. So uh traditionally in in Illinois uh the the funding for transportation is is be shared between um the local school district and the state. And uh the graph here which starts kind of with some precoid numbers and then then moves into current year um shows that back in 2018 that was about a 5050 split. So our total transportation expense was about $20 million and the state picked up a little bit more than half that. So then we had about a $10 million amount that was being covered by our local taxpayers. Um, again, a little bit of uh a little bit of um uh kind of oneoff during the the COVID years where the state actually picked up a little bit more up to 65% in fiscal year 2021. But since then, that state percentage

086that's being covered has has gone down. That's basically the state's contributions staying flat as the expenses go up. And so now when we get to fiscal year 2025 and 2026, uh, local funds are covering close to 18 to 20 million of that transportation expense. And so what we've seen is that our transportation expense has has increased about 10% a year for the last four years, but the percent that's covered by local funds is increased about 20%. Um so so what's really happened here and this is this has been sort of a statewide and nationwide um phenomenon is that uh as as transportation had to deal with driver shortages minimum wage increases um the rising fuel expenses um gasoline expenses over the past several years even that the just the cost of building a bus has

087increased significantly over the years those costs have gotten passed on to local districts. Um, it's also why as as as a organization operation, we've we've prioritized um efficiency and routing and and technology integration that Ron will cover later. So, so really we feel like like we're doing everything we can to manage these expenses and it could actually be a little even higher if we weren't doing some of those initiatives. Um, one of the things just uh as we look toward towards the budget and we we start talking about about what the state budget could look like this year, this really become a talking point for the first time um really really that I can remember about these this categorical corration actually as we've uh started to bring it up with legislators I've been surprised that

088a lot of legislators aren't even aware of this challenge um I think I was at a um a lend meeting in September with with a couple board members even where we had that discussion uh you know there's been so much focus on the state level with evidence-based funding and prioritizing that EDF funding uh since 2017 that I think this has kind of left behind a little bit and I think uh both our district um but but really districts throughout DuPage County throughout the Ker counties throughout the state are really bringing this forward as an issue. I think it'll be interesting to see as we start looking at the state budget u uh this this spring starting with the the budget address in February if some of our feedback starting to be heard and how how

089state money is being allocated. Um we're we're hopeful that some of this trend is starting to to to ease a little bit. We've uh The board has already approved our contract for next year which included just a 5% increase. Um so again still still above what the consumer price index is but but starting to slow down some of those those near 10% increases. Um next just wanted to show that we do um analyze our operation um and benchmark it against other districts. Uh and and if you can see here's here's 12 other unit districts, our comparable districts and other districts in the area. Um we are operating about in the that band, but you'll see kind of a wide range in in transportation expense for for pupil. Um, one of the the the main uh

090challenges in sort of doing this analysis is comparing in-house districts. Uh, so districts that are operating the transportation inhouse as opposed to contracting with a third party provider as we do. Um, so we do have the averages here where you can see in general contracting is um a little bit more um efficient or or lower cost for people at a district level. Uh but I I'd also point out, you know, that doesn't tell the the full story either. There are districts that um operate partially in house and partially contract out partially. Uh you know, it's hard to to know looking at annual uh financial reports what some districts are including in those numbers. Uh also point out there can be pretty significant year-to-year fluctuations between districts based on timing of capital purchases or bus purchases,

091things like that. Uh there is one district uh I know specifically on here that that runs in house uh and is one of our neighbors. They're showing a little lower than us here um over the past year, but they've recently announced they're investing $15 million in a new bus facility center. So once those numbers start getting picked up, I think you'll see um see the numbers maybe trend a little differently and maybe maybe we'll be a little bit below that district. Um so overall, just wanted to point out we are we are monitoring this. We do continue to evaluate um not just our our providers but also what the um potential opportunities to bring a portion of the operation in house and at this time we we still feel that that we're operating in in

092the most cost effective ways possible while also ensuring we have reliable transportation. Again, a thing we look at is we know when we get on days like today where uh there's concern about temperature outside or or potential snow, um transportation becomes a key lynch pin to to that decision whether school as well. So, um you know, we're also monitoring that reliability and that on time performance in addition to how perform uh one of the kind of bow on the package that we look at is a key performance indicator of bus on time performance. So everything we do kind of goes to this number, right? So this is a historical of the past three years. If I gave you the three years per year previous to these three, you the graph would be it look like

093a spider web. Okay, we continuously get better every year. Um, which is a good thing. Look at our startup compared to this year versus even just the last two years. August and September are always going to they they've historically been uh we were running 30 to 40 to 50 drivers short. um roadways go down, whether it's a construction project, uh driver familiarity with the routes as they change. By midepptember, end of September, drivers start getting familiar and that's where we start to see the climb in our end time network. Um last year was the first time that we finished close to our goal. Um this year we plan on beating our goal. Um, so if you look at just the 93.75% that we started off in August and then jumping up above our goal in

094September and then maintaining that throughout so far, that's exactly what we want to see. That I mean, if you think of transportation, it is a huge jigsaw puzzle that has many moving pieces and sometimes those pieces change without us knowing. So I bet many of you didn't know how many times you used Book Road until you couldn't. All right. And that's going to be gone for a little while. And then we're about to find out how how critical North Aurora North Aurora Road is as we get to Matia when they take that overpass. And we saw that as they were taking Liberty, New York, different types of railroad crossings. Montgomery down by Normantown. These are all key infrastructure that we utilize in the roadways that we now have to reroute it reroute around and be

095able to adjust on the fly. Um sometimes it's planned and we know about it and sometimes we drive into it and we're like we have to adjust and it does affect that number short term while we adjust. Um the good thing is we build we've been able to build good partnerships with the road districts and the city of Aurora city of Neapville um their their engineering group so that they are being preemptive in the communication so that we can adjust our routing earlier which is why you see some of those numbers better this year than they have in the past. Um there we go. All right. Let's talk about some safety and in innovation and how our district has been recognized over the past few years. Um first student was uh recognized as a national

096transportation location of the year. Uh they received that award. This is award that is given uh to the location providing superior service, reliability and safety to their clients. Um, not only that, as a separate award, which is usually given to two different locations, um, our location manager, Miss Linda Andress, was awarded the regional location manager of the year. Um, that is, uh, given to managers of a location that have exemplary leadership and professionalism to the location, staff, drivers, and the clients they serve. Um both of these awards are recognized nationally within the first student uh environment and they show a true operational partnership that we have with first student that provides safe and reliable transportation for D204 students. So that is something definitely that we recognize and spotlight. Um internally we have been recognized on

097a national level u for being a tech super user uh being innovative in our incident response planning. Uh we have been awarded a Tyler Technologies Excellent Award for performance innovation uh equity and access and connecting our community and operational efficiency. And then just last year we were spotlighted on a Fox 32 news station when we added stop arm cameras to our school buses to ensure that students are safe as they're loading and unloading our school buses. And we'll talk a little bit about these and how how this kind of encompasses all of our innovative work uh for transportation safety and reliability. Um, as many of you know, we have we've put tablets on all of our buses. We have been the first in our area. We've been doing this for seven years. Well, many districts

098are still catching up and just putting them on now. So, it's good that we've been able to work through that. We are constantly being called asking for tips and, you know, troubleshooting ideas. Uh, the good thing about these tablets is it provide turnbyturn navigation and it automatically reroute based on road closures or road uh congestion due to accidents or whatnot. Um, it maintains our route integrity, which is important, especially on our special ed routes for students that become familiar with routine and how a bus travels instead of turning left or right. Whether a student is absent that day, we can maintain that route integrity so it doesn't escalate any types of students. Um, we can send messages directly from our dispatch center uh to a driver. Let's say we instead of calling it over the

099radio because radio traffic is real heavy, we can just send a message, we need you to cover uh route two, the first three stops. they can add those on the fly to the tablet and it reroutes them and maintains uh route efficiency and integrity. Um we don't have to have worry about if we have a driver covering a route holding a route sheet while they're trying to drive a you know 40 40 foot vehicle with some students on it, right? They can just type it into a tablet and listen to the navigation and go on their way. Um the good thing is this also has some student information. So, if a student is coming on on the bus and they're supposed to have seven students at the bus stop and now there's eight, they can

100question that, you know, who are you? Why are you here? They can look it up. They can they're trained now to call in dispatch asking for that student information uh instead of just letting a student that they don't recognize or or aware of coming on the bus. We don't know what what the intent is or are they just a brand new student who was told to come to the bus, but we can figure that out uh utilizing this tablet. Um, and this is our built-in GPS for the AVL or automatic vehicle location. And this data is what's transferred to my stop and how we connect. And we'll talk about that here on another slide. Connect our community. Um, we upgraded the camera system last year. So now we can produce video that has low resolution

101and high resolution uh in the event of the type of incident that we're investigating. Um, all of our student transportation vehicles have a video management system on them that record audio and video and it's a continuous hitting our server hitting a server, not our server specific. Um, gives us clear views in some hard to see areas. Uh, what's nice about this is each one of these cameras now have its own dedicated microphone. So, let's say an incident happens in the back of a bus, we can pull that audio instead um and and see what was said or what wasn't said. Uh, so it helps us with the investigation uh and reviewing. Um, and we can actually download this a little bit faster than pulling a hard drive, bringing it into dispatch center, processing it, uh,

102through encrypted software. We can do this remotely now, which is it it's been helpful in getting our principles in our administrative team uh, bus video to review faster and more timely for an incident. Uh, another good thing about this is is that there's an event button. So, let's say there's uh an argument or a fight on the bus, the driver can just hit a button. It will automatically download uh the video and then when we get the request from the principal, it's already available so we can share it with them. Um, as I stated, we put some stop arm, we put an exterior view, a stop arm camera, which allows um the driver to hit that event button in the event of a stop arm violation and then call it in the dispatch and then

103our road supervisors can download that and then share it with local law enforcement. This is a view of one of our students unloading a bus while a vehicle is blowing past it. Um, what our community and what we like to drill into our community is a stop arm on a bus is no different than a red light or a stop a stop sign that you would have to stop and go at. Um, the difference is is this this has students walking, unloading, unloading. So, you got to be a little bit more careful as you as you go through this. That's outside of the penalties and violations that come with it. We are talking student safety and providing them an environment that they should feel safe when they're getting on and off the bus. We do

104have information specific to stop arm violations on our transportation section of our website that talks about what a stop arm violation is, how to navigate them, how to report them, because if if a community member reports them, we have a form that they can send to us. We'll pull the video and share that with the local law enforcement, which we have done multiple times. Um, we have what's also called live view. So we can if if let's say there's a student having a medical emergency on the bus, we can live view in real time monitor and provide support to law enforcement, emergency management, the bus driver while seeing exactly what's happening. So the bus driver can tend to the student till the paramedics arrive. Um this provides accurate and timely event response in the- moment

105support and remote visual oversight as needed. So we usually have one of our safety location managers in the event of an accident or a e a medical emergency they will pull this up immediately and start monitoring to make sure that they have the appropriate support for the drivers uh GPS and my stop. So we talked about our connected community and inclusiveness into our operations. So we have a lot of technology that supports the school district and the you know the administrators. This also supports our parents and our students. So they can see if a bus is running a few minutes late they will get notifications. We can communicate to parents through this app. Uh if we are aware of a bus running late or a reroute, um it's free to use. So there's no there's

106no fee for it and it provides very timely information on location of the bus and an ETA to the U student stop. So let's talk about our fleet uh age. Um we pretty much have 280 first student vehicles that are sitting in the three dispatch center. The average eight age of the fleet is six years old. We have 125 that are, you know, three to four years old. Um, which is providing that in that that newer bus fleet with all the the current safety enhancements that are on school buses. Um, which helps with lower operating and maintenance costs, which is why we can negotiate that 5% and hopefully a lower one coming in the next school year. Um, fewer breakdowns, more reliability for our students, and it's u fewer emissions. So, talking about serious safety

107now. So how is this defined? So this is going to kind of encompass some of the work that we've been doing over the past several years since about 20 2018 2018. Um you know sometimes we get questioned is this a budgetary response. Are we looking at serious safety hazards to reduce our cost? And the answer is always no. We are looking to get to where we should be at transporting our students. Who's eligible for transportation? That's why we started with that slide on the five criteria that makes a student eligible for transportation services. So, we're working to get back to that basis so we can provide transportation service to students who are eligible for it. Um, so what is a serious safety hazard? It's a situation that results from a combination of factors. And how

108do you determine the existence of a serious saf safety hazard? You have to go out and look. None of this is done in an office on a computer. You have to go out and evaluate the measurements. You have to take measurements. Uh, you have to see the conditions uh in person. And that's all cataloged. And I do uh I I try to do my best to catalog that on a map so when we're communicating with the community whether they are going to continue transportation service or have it eliminated they can ex see exactly what was cataloged and ask questions based on that. Um all the criteria that we must adhere to is uh required of us by law. We we can't just make up our own set of uh circumstances or criteria that we can

109use to determine whether it's a serious safety hazard that exists or not. Um, it's a point value system. So, do the point values add up to create a serious safety hazard or do they not? Which makes it not eligible for a serious safety hazard. Um, if there's 12 hazard points for a single hazard or 20 hazard points for a combination hazard, that's what will qualify for a serious safety hazard. There are certain factors that are present in most such as speed and volume of traffic and how the students are exposed to that. Um, the age of the pupil is considered. So how old is the student? So older age reflects in more both mental and physical maturity and the ability to deal with different u hazardous situations. Uh this is where the majority of the

110points go to is for the age of the student. Um there are some factors that are present in all four types of hazards. We're going to talk about those four types of hazards here in a second. Um but not necessarily apply. So like if the presence of a traffic signal is considered for crossing a roadway or uh railroads, it may not be for walking along a roadway or on a roadway. Um we don't have any of these, but there is what I touched based on as part of the five uh eligibility uh requirements is that there is a serious safety hazard for a course or pattern or criminal activity. That is nothing that we determine exists. We work with the local law enforcement and the Illinois State Police. they we request them to determine if

111one exists and there's certain criteria that must be met for that. Um we just provide them information and the request itself and then once we get back their determination we would submit that to ISBY for approval that doesn't go to IDOT. So let's talk about the four types of serious safety hazards. One is walking along a roadway. So that means there is no path for a student to walk on or or a walkway um whether it's gravel or concrete or pave you know asphalt. Um if if it's more than 10 feet wide from the edge of the roadway to the start of the path that a student can walk on it it's there's enough gap from the roadway you can't even evaluate it. And then if there's a um curb or a ditch they want

112you if it's more than eight feet then you can't evaluate. So, we're looking at shoulders uh or easements that are less than 8t if there's a curb or less than 10 feet if there's a shoulder. And then the section must be 0.2 miles or further. So, let's look at a walking on a roadway. So, I get this question a lot when I'm looking at it. So, walking on a roadway simply the easiest form of it is there is nothing but grass for a student to walk on. They got to walk on the pavement in the same area that's that vehicles are traveling. The other one is is the example on the right. There's a gravel path that is maintained that can create that that can be a a walking path. If it's two feet or

113wider, if it's less than two feet, it classifies as um walking on a roadway. But if it's two feet or more, we would evaluate that as walking along a roadway. So a type one hazard. I think you see something like this on Eola road down by Matia. So technically that is a walk path that we can evaluate. um crossing a roadway. Exactly that. We cross streets. Um you have to evaluate it where students have access to cross the street. So on the picture on the right, they would have to walk through grass or the easement in order to cross the street. That would not be allowed for us to evaluate. That would that would just you couldn't cross there. You'd have to evaluate it somewhere else. Uh the other types are crossing railroad tracks. We

114don't have any of these hazards. uh most of the most of our boundary especially the boundary changes kind of took any crossing of rail road railroad crossings away or they're more than 1.5 miles so they met that criteria eligibility uh combination hazard. So we look at one of those four that we just reviewed and if if a student's let's say crossing a roadway or crossing multiple roadways we would look at both those intersection if the combination is 20 points or more it would classify as a uh serious safety hazard and looking for approval from IDOT. And the last one is is in in temporary conditions. So like areas of housing development or let's say the book road section of roadway elicits new hazards that students would not be able to walk to school or walk

115to let's say Niqua. We would evaluate that on a temporary basis that they would continue to receive transportation uh until that project is completed. So looking at the criteria, we're looking at the age of the pupil pupils of the student. So, there's two categories. There's a kindergartener through 8th grade, and then there's high school 9th through 12. We're looking at the type of uh traffic control devices that's providing pedestrian protection, which is an allway stop sign, adult crossing guards, traffic signals, two-way stop control, so two stop, two-way stop sign, uh crossing protection, whether it's just a cross only, active protection, or just there's nothing. We look at the curb and the curb height, length of the hazardous section, roadway, shoulder, uh speed of traffic, volume of traffic, walkway, and width of the roadway. And as

116I previously say, all this is done in the field, taking real measurements and then mapping it out on a map. So we look at our current evaluations. We have 30 uh evaluations that we've already completed and verified that that a hazard boundary that was in existence currently existed and we have verified those. They continue. Um, we need to review three more of those that we have documentation and approval ID do to see if those conditions are still uh in place when they were originally approved. Um, we have 23 more that we need to complete and do a full evaluation. What this means is that students are receiving transportation on a serious safety hazard uh criteria, but we have no approval documentation on file. So, somebody put a hazard boundary in place, whether it was due

117to housing developments, and nobody went back and actually submitted the documents. So, now we're cleaning that piece up. Um, and then we've completed 12 of those. So, uh, this is the work that we've been doing over the past several years, uh, trying to get back in full compliance for the Illinois uh, ID do serious safety hazard eligibility. Um the good thing is is I uh Isby is aware of this and is supportive of us not just pulling the transportation but continuously working towards the evaluation. Unfortunately, it's me and as the length of this presentation shows, there's a lot for me to do every day. So I typically will chip away at this over several months and do bits and pieces until I can get dedicated time. So when we look at what we have completed,

118the 42 that we completed, here's the schools in the years that we have completed it and notified families of of uh any type of eligibility changes. And then when we what's remaining so currently I'm looking at the clown Gregory. So I'm hoping I can speed this up as taking measurements on larger scale. So we started with high school. So some of those measurements would still be applicable in the in the Gregory area. Let's say I can use those same exact measurements. I don't need to go out and double measure. And the same thing I'm doing Gregory and Cloud because we're within the same neighborhood and that boundary is with the same. So the measurements I'm taking for one I can use for the other. Uh many of those streets are are traveled the same way.

119Um going to try to finish up the middle schools uh next year and then we're going to focus on the remaining elementary boundaries that we don't have documentation for and hopefully finish it up by 2829 as a tenative timeline based on any projects that get added unless you know Matt and Jr. want to add some more kitchen designs to my plate. You know, that could speed up or slow down. [laughter] Just kidding. But no more kitchen. I thought we had one more. I'm excited about the other one. Um, so we do partner with local DOS and law enforcement jurisdiction. And here's that list. Um, at any point in time, I can email, pick up the phone and call, set up meetings with them. And the good thing is over the over the previous few years

120because they know we're doing this work, they will partner with us and help us. So if they have traffic data, they'll provide it. Um sometimes if there's an area that you know a family may say hey this is an area of high accident exposure we'll work with the police departments on hey how many accidents happened during this the time a student would be exposed to it and what type and if there was what type of accidents were those so that we can determine if it was a distracted driving was it a low impact rear end what type of accident was it and then we can make determination on if we're going to apply that to um any type of judgment. So, let's talk about uh three new vehicles to our fleet. We just received these

121coming uh over winter break. I got to come in and get these all prepped and they're sitting on the side lot here ready to go. These are activity buses. Each one of our high schools will receive these. They have a wheelchair lift on them with two wheelchair spots ready to go. Um this is going to help students that are in uh wheelchairs go out into the community for community based instruction. And what's nice about these is that we worked with our special uh student services department um and using the uh Illinois with Disability Education Act funding. So a grant that we received on a federal level to pay for these. So you know no local funds were used to pay for these. So that's going to be a good thing. So right now we're working

122we're going to be sending out some communication to our uh student services departments at the buildings on setting up training with our first student driver trainers on how to use these and how to operate them and how to properly secure students in wheelchairs. uh whom to contact. So, uh bus route questions and concern, we always say, "Hey, look, there's there's one of me and there's many parents." So, we want you to work through your school building and the administrative at the school office. So, if you have concerns or feedback, we say contact your school office. Um many of the many of the questions that parents may have could probably be addressed immediately by the school secretary or school principal. Um, one thing we don't want to happen, and we've done a lot of uh, community

123education and campaigning on this, is please do not address concerns at the bus stop, directly with students or directly with drivers. We implore you not to do that because it only leads to bad situations. Nobody is coming onto the bus to say thank you. They have a concern or they're escalated or or are not in a good mood and they want to make sure people know that at the bus stop is not the correct place to address that. We want to we want to reiterate that to the community. Um, and like I said, my stop, if you're worried about bus stop uh drivers arriving late, utilize the mytop app. If for some reason it's not working, pick up the phone and call dispatch and ask where the bus is and they'll be able to be

124able to get to it. Um, we did add a slide today because of some of the work that we've been doing since uh uh it's called the cold cold start uh process. So, um, we didn't have school on Friday and but every six to eight hours due to cold weather, we have a cold start crew that comes in, starts, runs, feels buses. Um, they've been doing that since Friday all the way through, uh, this morning, 3:00 in the morning. Mr. Shipley got an opportunity to come and do that with us on Friday and see exactly what that looks like. So, we took some pictures we wanted to share with you because these are the efforts that our cold start crew, many of them are drivers, many of them are shop mechanics and technicians and our

125shop manager going out making sure the buses can run so we can have school. Um, the two pictures at the bottom were taken at 3:47ish this morning. I think I texted Matt and Dr. Tally this morning um of where Yeah, I think it was his alarm clock. I don't know. I'm just kidding. Um, but those were those were taken this morning. they're running and ready to go. And this is and I think I even said that we're ready um at that time of day and we run them and then the drivers come in and then the buses are warm and then we hit the road and go run our stops. Um so on a day like today where it's a little bit more chilly, um buses were warm and started and and we didn't have

126any operational issues getting them started this morning. So I just wanted to spotlight that because it's a it's a critical component on days where weather's a little bit more inclement and not sunny. And we are at that point. >> All right. Thank you. I think we'll go back to calling on people. Um, Miss G, do you want to go first? >> I just want to thank you again for this comprehensive presentation and I think I I hope people a lot of people are watching this at home. I do not know if they are or they will look later. But I I want them to always keep in mind the fact that you are doing this all by yourself, the evaluation process. So, as you know, they as I know you hear from plenty of people

127wondering, you know, why haven't you done this school yet? When are you going to get to this one? And so, thank you so much for kind of laying that out. And thank you also for mentioning the accidents. As we know, there are some intersections very close to schools that have a lot of accidents. And so, I think that leaves a lot of parents wondering why then is that not considered a serious safety hazard or as high, you know? So, thank you for mentioning the timing as an issue, too. Um, so again, I just I appreciate all the work that you put into this. I love all of the frankly upgrades, updates that have been done to all of the buses. The ones that are a little bit older, which it sounds like we don't really

128have all that many. Do they have all the same technology? >> They do. They do. >> That's awesome. I honestly all of that is great. And I did watch that Fox 32 feature. So, I'm so grateful for that, too, because I know in our neighborhood, and I'm sure in many others, there is always at least one person that will go right through that stop sign at a bus stop. So, thank you. And Mark's gonna ask you about my stop. So, I'm not gonna touch on that one at all, except to say I use it frequently and it works very well. And on days like this, it is a godsend where, you know, we can kind of send our daughter out at the very last minute, which she always tries to cut it really close anyway,

129but that helps me where I'm like, "No, it's a minute away. You got to get out of the house." So, thank you. That was honestly one of the best additions was the mytop app. >> Yeah, it was it was a good project. >> Yes. So, thank you. That was it. All right, Miss Dumming. >> I didn't have too many questions uh because I had shared them before. So, I appreciate the additional slides that you put in answering the questions that I had. Um I did want to um I I had forgotten to say earlier and so I wanted to say with this one um with the transportation the Alice training to to echo um President Donahghue is just so critical and so important. So thank you for that in both places. really really appreciate and

130um you know the the work that you do echoing um Katie it just it's a lot and I know that uh sometimes it's it's those those questions come but uh that that timeline of the evaluation I think is really really critical to help us uh have that laid out and hopefully can help uh the public understand where we are and what are the schools that are coming next and again the explanations regarding the timing of when uh those accidents happen is so so important. So thank you for that and thank you for the slide that showed the partnership with their partners uh in the uh in the community. Thank you. >> Thanks for rising. So, since Katie brought up I was going to ask about my stuff. Um, and I'm going back because I don't

131even I don't even recall how long we've had it in place now. But my question is, is it stable? Because I know there were a few years that it wasn't stable. Um, you can never be sure with technology, right? I know I know things happen, but um, do we have it in a good place? I mean, has it been reliable? I mean, we we have a pretty strong server team and and tech team here and um they've they've done strides of work to make sure that that that server is constantly running. There's more monitoring tools that there were five, six years ago on many of the servers. Um I have not had any issues with the servers themselves or the GPS data. Usually, it's just a a cloud issue with the data that's coming from

132the tablets, but then it usually flushes out and then we're back to square one. So, nothing that has been like a a systemwide concern for the past three or four years. >> I got to imagine parents love it with the cold weather or the kids love it with cold weather because they know exactly when their bus is getting there. Uh the camera system, uh love that we put the stop bar cameras on there. So important because drivers around here are not impatient at all. Um, the internal cameras within the bus themselves, uh, I'm assuming before the driver starts their route, they go through a checklist. Are those cameras on there that they check the internal cameras, check the start, stop bar cameras. Is that something they can do or is that >> So, for for

133specific reasons, the driver doesn't have access to the hard drive and that itself. Um, there is monitoring tools within the system that the app manages and gets alert of if a camera is not working or a hard drive isn't working or um a network device isn't working that's connecting it goes through you know the cell towers uh to bring data back into the system. Um so that's what they see on the shop side and they can repair fairly quickly. There's not too many times that we go to request bus video and it's just we can't get to it. It's not available. I mean I I on on the past probably four to five years we probably had it two or three times. >> Yeah. and it just had to do with the hard drive itself

134being, you know, malfunctioning that that time of day. >> Okay. And then slide 28, Matt Matt questions, Mr. Shipley questions. Uh just to start out I mean and I think I had shared this with you personally Matt um because I sit on the ISB evidence-based funding committee discussions uh with multiple people from legislators to administrators to I think I'm the only school board member there but um we have these discussions and you are correct the last meeting we had in December um the proration of these transportation funds that has happened significantly. Um because I think in one bud budget presentation you said this is the lowest that they've uh funded in like 15 years I believe. Um the state t that funding. I mean it's it's impacting everybody and um even Representative Davis who was

135on the call was unaware of this um and was asking questions about it. Uh the other conversation that took place was the increase in transportation costs that every district is facing. Thank you to our team to Ron to to to Matt for I know we work with our bus contractors to try to limit the increases we have seen and they've been nowhere near some of the increases some of the other districts have seen. My question on the proration though just looking at last year from this year. So last year they reimbured us 47%. This year they reimbursed us 43%. If you take that 4% difference um and apply that to $30 million. I mean that's about a $1.2 million gapish. Uh, is that just money we have to find in our budget? Because we can

136only levy so much locally. So, I mean, is that just money we're going to have to continuously find if the state continues to reduce this? >> Yes. So, it it is money that as we develop our property tax levy, we are capped with the total amount that we can levy across all funds. So, it does mean we have we have started to allocate more of our property tax levy to transportation as a result less the education uh and I don't have those numbers up up front but that's definitely something we can we can quickly provide that we demonstrate and and one thing to note is about the fund balance that we've built up over several years uh anticipating for this kind of dip in state funding so we are dipping into the transportation fund balance

137itself I remember when I was being hired it was a topic of conversation in my interview um and how we can talk about that. And I said one of the biggest things that I want to be able to bring to the table is the efficiency piece. I'll be able to look at routing and see how many drivers we're utilizing. Could we, you know, cut drivers and cost on the routing side of things? Uh, make it more efficient. And we've been able to do that. I remember that first August when first said, "Hey, we're 50 drivers short." And then when I looked at just our routing because I didn't get a chance to look over that first summer and I was like, "Oh, I got this." and we cut 37 or 38 drivers just in just

138routing and efficiency. So, we've been able to maintain that. Now, some of that lowhanging fruit is we've already exhausted it. Right. Right. Um so, now you're seeing true operational expenses. Um but because of those savings that we had, you know, from 2017, 2018, and a little bit before that, we do have some fund balance that we're able to utilize some cash in the bank. >> Thanks, Mr. Kerbus. Anytime you talk about safety, it's always the you use the maxim. You know, you only have to get it wrong once. And so I'm going to focus on the safety aspect of it. Kudos as been talked about prior that um it is running safely. So we haven't had major um problems. We've got railroad running right through our district. 59's very busy. 75th very busy. We have

139some of the highest traffic accidents um intersections in suburbs. So we're doing something right with that. So kudos to keeping it safe generally. Um, one particular area I want I want to explore is kind of with the driver qualifications and the vehicle inspection and maintenance. So, we have gotten newer vehicles. They should be, you know, safer, but they still require maintenance and inspection. Can you talk about that? >> Yeah. So, from a driver qualification, they have to meet certain standards, physical capabilities as well as mental. So they have to go through a series of training, a series of tests, uh physical tests and um um so that's like there's there's qualifications based on even if you can operate a vehicle. So there's that piece. Then the vehicle itself. So every six months it must go

140through a DOT safety lane regardless of the age. So it could be six months old or it could be two years old or 10 years old. It must go through a DOT safety lane. Every six months or if the mileage is higher, I can't remember the top. I believe it's like 6,000 miles. So if you if it's 6,000 miles and it's four months, you got to send it through the safety lane. Um so first student handles all that. They handle our white activity buses and every six months they get an inspection and anything that needs to be addressed gets addressed by the shop uh and passive inspection. So when you're talking about a safe vehicle, they're looking from braking systems to lighting to seating uh arrangements. They're they're looking at the entire vehicle to make

141sure it's roadw worthy and safe for passengers. Uh the drivers must go through also state tests, so passenger endorsement tests and school bus uh endorsement tests in order to be able to drive a school bus. So they have to have a CDL to drive uh anything more than 15 passengers on a school bus. So they must have that CDL, very similar to what a uh over the road tractor trailer driver would have. Then they have to get these other endorsements in order to drive a school bus. So when you talk about a safe driver, they've passed many state qualifications plus the first student training course which is a little bit added to that. So now you have behind the wheel training, you are with a a field training driver for a few weeks and then

142you start running a route or or being a standby driver and picking up routes. So, from a driver qualification and a vehicle safety standpoint, um I mean just looking at from the cold starts, they're they're they're still doing services and bringing vehicles in and changing oils and making sure tires are good and making sure there's, you know, steering linkages are are are all tight and nice to go. Um and then there's some legislative things that are on the horizon. Uh we talked about them when I was sitting in the audience at another board member, I believe Miss Deming was about uh seat belts. So seat belts are going to be required on buses manufactured after 2031. Um so then seat belts will be a new added safety feature here in the next few years. >>

143Thanks. The uh and then this is a more particular question. You mentioned it when you were talking about doing your evaluations um that you have this 30-year timeline on evaluations. Um and so that might impact whether um somebody, you know, gets might lose their service. >> Um and then we have Lake Michigan water coming down road. Does that work the other way where if somebody um is not bust because of they could walk but then the construction doesn't allow them to walk but you're not getting to an evaluation. >> How is that handled with with the busing opportunities for students? I know I'm asking you >> No, no. I I so the good thing about with that is we worked with the DWP page water commission and we worked with the uh city of Neapville's

144TED group when they pres when they told us this project was coming. Um so we started looking at the areas on Book Road and determining hey can you have temporary crosswalks at certain areas within the project that allow student access where there are no vehicles. So there's certain um local traffic only uh areas that are going to be open and closed on Book Road. Um, we're talking about some other projects on the horizon. The 87th Street Bridge right there, they're going to be working on that. Does that pres present any challenges at that intersection? Um, so we're working with the TED group and the DUP page water commission and just identifying if that does. When we do the evaluation, it's a point in time. So, it's the number of vehicles, it's the type of sidewalks,

145is the traffic control devices. At any point in time, those conditions can change. So, we always leave. I mean, I I pride myself on being as responsive as I possibly can to community members that have questions about this. If if at any point in time they say, "Hey, look, you took transportation away. We are now saying a thousand more vehicles. Can you do another traffic evaluation and see if vehicle counts would change the outcome?" And we always say absolutely. We have the equipment to do that. We have the skill set to do that. And and we were there's no reason why we would say no. anytime we can provide information to local municipalities as well, whether it's through the Illinois Safe Routes to School Grant Program. Um, can we put some signage up? We'll we'll

146support anything that increases student safety as they're walking to school or even being bus, you know, if it's a bus stop issue. You know, we would like to place a bus stop in a certain area because the position of that bus would be safer than the infrastructure that's currently there. We will ask them to do certain things as well. And if they can fund it, they will. And if they can't, they tell us, hey, let's apply for this grant and see if it can go that way. And we work with them with with being the sponsor of that. So, there's it's a it's a snapshot ongoing. If a if a community member says, "Hey, think you can look at this again," we will. >> Thanks, M. Grover. >> Thank you for this. It's it's I

147think it's so helpful for parents to understand all this information. Um, from a parents perspective, I know sometimes parents will question and say, "My bus stop used to be here and now it's here. It's moved." So, can you just explain why suddenly it used to be in front of their house, now it's moved down the street? >> Yes. So, we get that question a lot, especially during August and September. So, we we will position bus stops based on the demographic of where students are living. So for many years, let's say the bus stop was at the crosswalk in front of your house, but now you're the only student and there's 10 other students seven houses down. So we try to centralize that for the number of students in that area so that everybody has kind

148of equal opportunity to that bus stop. We don't want to continuously place more bus stops on the route because that elongates the routes which then makes us less efficient which potentially could lead to more drivers and more vehicle. Um so we're trying to centralize this If you're a high school student, you may have to walk, you know, maybe a thousand feet instead of 200 feet. We try to focus on the age groups and certain parameters around that. How far can a, you know, an elementary student walk to a bus stop versus a high schooler. Um, but your bus stop may change because the student attending that bus stop may have changed or the routing pattern may have changed. We may be coming into the neighborhood in a different way because we paired that up with

149a driver coming from, you know, Matia into the neighborhood off a river, but now they're going to go to like a a Gregory route. So, they may be coming in differently and just positioning that bus stop where it makes it more efficient. >> But we're also looking at that from a safety, too. So, we're not going to put a student at a bus stop that is unsafe. So, we're using, you know, some common sense there as well. >> And and I know the other question parents always have is I measured my house using Google Maps. It's and it's one it's 1.4, not 1.5. So there's a couple pieces to that, right? So it's where you measuring it starting and ending. So if I just typed in an example for still middle school, well that's going

150to put you in the front of the school. Well, the map point we use is the where the buses drop off. So you have to measure to the back of the school and that's a few hundred feet, which could be could mean the difference of 1.49 and 1.51. So when we get those questions and we do infield measurement verification. So we have a data measurement instrument tool that utilizes um vehicle travel. So you have an odometer on your vehicle that connects to this device and we're measuring from exit of your property to the map point and we're getting as accurate as you can that you possibly can. And then we'll compare that to geo points on a map not necessarily Google maps using certain algorithms. The other question I have is I know um ISB

151sometimes has resolutions on Ebuses um and you know other other school districts some of them are having them. Has there been any discussion would it lower costs or what are your thoughts on that? >> So so electric buses what the good thing is is we we applied for a grant with first student three three four years ago um through the the Volkswagen grant and we awarded it. there is a lot of infrastructure planning and details that go behind that. So that's one. Second thing is we don't own the fleet. We can just request them like so hey. So the good thing is we requested one because we want to pilot it to see what that will look like based on a three- tier operation. Sometimes you know if it's an EC route we have middle

152of the day can it get us through the whole day without adding more vehicles to the fleet for charters in the afternoon. athletic teams or uh ex student activity clubs going to certain we want to make sure that bus can be utilized and not have to have an increase in spare buses of diesel buses. Uh one is coming in April. So we're going to get a 72 passenger ebus in April. Uh so that's pretty exciting. Um right now uh first student the location. So we have the charger that got delivered about a month ago. Uh they're working with um KMED to actually connect that and where they're going to put it and where um we have We have, you know, certain staging areas for the types of buses that we have. So, we have to

153put it in. We may have to adjust some staging. So, we're working on the the uh the map of that for our for our location on Shogurt Drive here. Um, but one's coming and we're going to see how it goes and if we can increase that. First student has an entire electrification department now um that's focused on this and if they can add more because it works for us. Um, I've always said I don't care what powers the bus as long as it's reliable >> and It save some cost on on versus fuel. That'd be wonderful. >> Just on the cost, electric buses still are about three times the cost. >> So, um we are relying on grant funding to to make that work and realistically to make it work in the future. >> Uh

154and kind of the first round of electrification, uh we really missed out on just because uh we were so the districts that you seen uh with a little bit more of an uptick of them so far been grant driven. Um again, one of our comparable districts has has adopted a few more using local funds, but again that's a toss and it's their fleet, so they can buy what they want, right? Um we have to work with a contractor to say, "Hey, we want this." And then there's a whole series of infrastructure that has to go behind that. Um so They're open to it. We're open to it. Like I said, I just need it to be safe and reliable. >> Yeah. >> I don't want students sitting on the side of the road because it's

155not working. >> My last question is we just had a Niqua presentation. They were talking about, you know, Berquette's going to be encompassed in the whole NUA. So, you're going to be having to reroute the whole Burquette and Nqua. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, we're we're anticipating some reduction in uh uh routes for for the for NA once this the freshman moved over to the main campus. Um, right now we have two route sets that service each each building, but once they're combined, we're anticipating probably anywhere from 10 to 15 routes coming off that we want. >> That would reduce costs. >> It would reduce cost. >> Thank you. >> Well, thank you and congratulations on the recognitions that you received. Welld deserved um safety for safety and innovation and operational improvements. I mean, when you

156look at the slides and the different changes that have been put in place, it's really pretty remarkable. Also, impressive on time um results. That's um hard to beat. And you have a very tough role as many people have recognized, not only with transportation, but also doing the food um and the hours that you have to pursue, like doing those rules. And the cold start, that was something new. I hadn't heard about before. Is that done only when it's a certain temperature or that? >> Yeah. So, so with diesel fuel, it gels up at a certain temperature point. So, we need to make sure that fuel is constantly moving, buses are moving, or else we'll have bigger problems because you have to replace all the fuel filters and drain lines. So, you're talking a whole set

157of issues. I'd have to call Dr. Tally and say, "Hey, uh, might not be going to school today." [laughter] Um, so the cold start plan, I mean, first We've done it as part of their operational. Um it's just we wanted to spotlight that work because um you know people are coming in early. Now the good thing is is we're not using drivers that are coming on the road. So if they're a part of a cold scar crew that comes in at 3:30, we're not making them now go on the road tired, right? So that's another safety aspect that that we're making sure that we take into consideration. >> Yeah. I guess I just never thought about that and I pictured the drivers would come in a freezing cold bus and trying to get it started.

158But um in a regular day, is the bus driver responsible for starting their bus? >> Yeah. So, they'll go out um let's say it's 25 degrees outside to unless we're sitting for winter break, we won't do cold start, we but like if it was winter break coming out in January where we're trying to restart school, um we would have done a series of maybe three or four days of cold starts. Um some of the buses don't start, maybe they need new batteries. All that would have happened prior to that first day of school. >> Okay. And then um to clarify, when you do a study, you said it's a point in time, but it's actually multiple point like you're not there just one time looking at the traffic and going away. You look at it

159over a series of days or weeks or whatever. >> Yeah. So we're not just taking like a one day count. We'll put a device out, take a full week's worth of data, look at traffic patterns on a Wednesday compared to a Monday, especially with like late arrivals and we take we'll take a you know the high of that week. So we don't just take the average, we'll take the max vehicles for that week for a given period of time while students are exposed. We use that one hour. So if if a elementary building starts at 9:00, we'll take vehicle counts from 8 to 9 o'clock in the morning. >> I also want to reemphasize that safety is our top priority in transportation, but we also have to be compliant with IDOT. And so that's why

160we're doing these studies. And the studies in some cases have resulted in routes being taken away and that results in a cost reduction. So when people go you're doing it for cost reduction. Now that's kind of the result of us working on compliance. Again compliance is also with safety in mind. So um sometimes we will go through periods where we are announcing some of the changes and we get a lot of letters from parents. So hopefully they'll go back and we can refer them to this meeting to watch for more information. Um but thank you for all of your work. I know this is a very very challenging and tough area and it's clear that you have an amazing amount of knowledge to help address uh famil family's concerns and issues when uh when changes

161come in front of them. So thank you. I I I just want to add a few things as superintendent. Um first of all, um the relationships that we have with organic life and first student are paramount. I thank Mr. Shipley and Mr. Johnson for what they do to foster that relationship to continue it. Uh we are the envy of many other school districts. I am aware of the fact of one school district uh outside of DuPage that was not able to start today um because of transportation issues. That district has continued to have transportation issues and we have not um uh the the work that we've done with organic life has been great because of the relationship we have. Both of those organizations enjoy their relationship with us. um we give them um cache because

162we are the fourth largest school district in the state of Illinois and um they enjoy the relationship that they have, the work that they've done with us um because of those two men who are sitting over there. Um uh the work that Ron is out, Mr. Johnson is out at 3:30 in the morning doing those cold starts. he doesn't have to do it, but he's working with and alongside of them. Um, and so we're very I'm very pleased about that and uh I cannot speak more highly of what they do uh and the relationships we have with those organizations. >> I just >> Thank you very much. Oh, did you have something? Yeah, I I just wanted Rhonda in two sentences because you had talked about President Donghue about compliance and and Ron I have

163asked you this question in the past. The state is looking at districts across the state to see if they are being compliant with their routes. If they come in and find that we aren't being compliant with our routes, what ends up happening? So, [laughter] >> so, so yes. So, school districts are audited by the state board of education on what they submit in their transportation claim. Part of that audit is I do serious state data approval documentation. If you don't have it, you have to have a corrective action plan to put it in place. >> And if they find that we're giving transportation and it >> two more sentence, by the way, it's another question. And if it doesn't qualify, they can actually come back and take money back from us because we >> they

164can they can adjust your claim to reflect which who should not be receiving transportation. >> Well, thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um, now we have legislative advocacy and board of education update. Does anyone have any items? >> Two things. Uh, tomorrow I have a meeting ISBE meeting that I sit on not the evidence based money the other one um talking with Tony Sanders and his cabinet we're discussing accountability is the legislative agenda that things that they're hearing about federal funding update and AI guidance work so anything I learn I will get the notes back to all of us and then on February 3rd we have our IASB page division dinner meeting >> I did sit I did sit in on um ISB advocacy meeting last week and um I am

165uh going to attend the Springfield advocacy day in March. Um I know um Miss Fastik is not able to attend tonight but also everybody should think about if they have any topics to propose for the conference next November and uh there was one suggestion already made that we'll share with the board and but if anyone else has any ideas we're usually always a presenter every year. All right no other items I need a motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. >> All in favor say I. >> Any oppose? Okay. Second.