Board of Education Meeting 11/03/2025

001on Monday, November 3rd, 2025. Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Mr. Kurubis, >> here. >> Mr. Rising, >> here. >> Miss Deming, >> present. >> Miss Donahghue >> here. >> Miss Fostic >> here. >> Miss Grover. >> We have a quorum. Miss Deming, will you lead us in the pledge? To the flag of the United States of America. SLmodification of the mandates of school code section 105 ILCS 5-10-17 right >> go ahead Turn it on. >> What happens? >> Tonight's public hearing is regarding a waiver of the school code mandate related to the publishing of the district's annual statement of affairs. The school code requires that a statement of the affairs of the district be published in the newspaper of general circulation prior to December 1st and a certified copy of the statement

002filed with the regional office of education no long later than December 15th of each year. The annual statement of affairs provides financial information for school districts such as salaries for non-certified staff, payment made to vendors over $1,000, and contracts awarded over $25,000. It also contains details on the district's size in terms of square footage, square miles, attendance centers, finances, included the total assessed valuation, tax rate, debt obligations, capital assets, and investments. The annual statement of affairs provides a snapshot of the district's financial health at the end of the fiscal year. For proposed waiverss of the school code mandates, they must be based upon meeting the intent of the rule or mandate in a more effective, efficient, or economical manner. The information contained within the statement of affairs is available on the district's business office website

003in parts of the comprehensive financial audit report in the school's report card in the annual audit of the district's finance records and also available through freedom of information act requests to comply with this waiver. We plan to make this report available when requested available in the district's central office as well being published on the district website. The public will become aware of the availability of this report through the district's community weekly newsletter. There are multiple requirements to request a waiver with ISBY, including required notices to the public, bargaining group leadership, and state legislators. Each requirement has been completed leading up to tonight's hearing. Tonight's hearing is the final step before submitting the waiver to the application to the Illinois State Board of Education for approval. The waiver we're seeking is for five years starting with

004the upcoming 2026 2027 school year and will save the district approximately $3,000 a year. >> Okay. Okay, there was no public comment submitted for this topic. So, um I need a motion and a second to close the public hearing. >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> Okay, Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Miss Deming, >> hi. >> Mr. Kurubus, >> yes. >> Miss Donahghue, >> yes. Miss Fosik, >> yes. >> Mr. Rising, >> yes. >> And Miss Grover, >> yes. >> Thank you. Okay, we have two board salutes tonight. Miss Grover. >> Wubanzi Valley High School teacher among recipients of 2025 University of Chicago Outstanding Educator Award. The board salutes Wanzi Valley math teacher and department leaison AJ Ruapoli who was among the recipients of the University of Chicago's outstanding educator award. Students accepted

005into the University of Chicago class of 2029 were invited to nominate educators who played a significant role in their education, made a positive impact in their lives and whose influence helped shape their path to success. AJ stood out among a field of incredible, capable, and inspiring educators. Congratulations to AJ. Miss B. Granger Middle School teacher inducted into the Illinois State College of Education Hall of Fame. The board salutes Granger Middle School bilingual teacher Matt Walsh, who was inducted into the Illinois State College of Education Hall of Fame. In collaboration with the multilingual learners program, Walsh helped launch a district-wide initiative supporting newcomer students and their families, strengthening communication and access to resources. His leadership established homeschool leaison roles, develop professional learning tools for staff, and continues to guide new educators. WS has also shared this

006impactful work statewide to inform policy and improve learning support for multilingual learners. Congratulations, Matt. Let's have an applause for these outstanding results. [applause] Okay, next we have our student representative report by Soha Panchal from Matia Valley High School. Good evening everyone. My name is So Panchcho and as you know I'm the executive board representative for Matia Valley High School and as always it's an honor for me to be here with you all today. First I would like to start off with our general updates. Homecoming was a huge success. We had over 2,000 students attend and we donated $4,000 to the Northern Illinois Food Bank as a part of donation from each ticket sold. The Aspiring Health Professionals Club held their first food drive on Wednesday, October 29th. We saved about 200 lives. And the parent

007teacher conference went very well as we hosted over 2,400 conferences. Next, I would like to move on to our athletics. The girls golf won DBC and qualified for the first time as team for state. and our fall programs was such a huge success. We had so much growth from our experiences, incredible leadership from our coaches, and wonderful support from our parents and community. Lastly, our fine arts Matia Valley art students and staff have artwork in the Chicagoland. The exhibition is held at Oiggo High School and the opening reception and award presentation will be on November 5th from 5 to 8:00 p.m. and is open to the public. Our theater department recently ran their children's show, Fairy Tale Misfits, and their first Mustang comedy show. Our Fall Play, McBTH, is coming up soon this weekend. And

008our orchestas team is hosting the Fox Valley Showcase the weekend of November 15th. That's a wrap for our board report this evening. And thank you all for your time. I look forward to updating you all on the great events of Matia Valley in the future. And as always, go Mustangs. >> Thank you. >> [applause] >> Okay, next we have one of our favorite things that we do these days. Um, our school spotlight and this um meeting is with Georgetown Elementary. So, we'll have a presentation from Jill Keller, Mary Kate Rick Group, and Eder Villa Gomez. I am so incredibly proud to be in my third year at Georgetown. leading alongside an incredibly skilled and dedicated group of staff members. Together, we've embarked on what we call our three-year roadmap, an ambitious plan with yearly benchmarks

009focused on academic growth and attainment, as well as an emphasis on community and school pride. This roadmap drives our strategic planning, which incorporates a strong focus on multi-tered systems of support and academic rigor along with social, emotional, and behavioral supports. To that end, we have made some strategic changes over the last few years and I'm excited to share our progress this evening. Presenting with me tonight are SSC Mary Kate Griu and school psychologist Peterville. As Jill mentioned, we are excited to share the progress we have made at Georgetown. A major driving force has been an emphasis on shared leadership. We are extremely proud of our instructional leadership team, which conducts surveys and observations, leads professional development, and supports schoolwide initiatives of all kinds. You can see our ILT presenting data from observations as well as

010sharing student engagement strategies with our staff on our school improvement day on October 21st. In addition to the work of our instructional leadership team, we have created a strong SEAL and MTSS team. both of which are supported by Eder, our social workers and interventionists. >> One of our biggest initiatives over the last few years has been to create a systemic approach to social social, emotional and academic needs. We began by evaluating our processes, our current interventions, and spending the first year really emphasizing a datadriven approach. So we changed everything from the way we t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t d

011d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d da review meetings as well as how we collect and analyze the progress monitoring data that we have. Our analysis really highlighted that we could better improve our supports for our students by emphasizing academic rigor and implementing systemic approaches to our academic supports. And the results of our work are evident in our current data. So from the fall of 2023 when we began this work to the fall of this school year, our tier three most intensive supports have shifted immensely. We began with 127 students receiving tier three reading support and now we have 46 students receiving the same

012level of support. So that's a 64% decrease over that period of time. Even more promising is the fact that uh our classrooms we are supporting 31 students with reading extension programs outside of our project arrow. Our math data is very similar moving from 53 students receiving those tier three supports in 2023 to 26 students today. And that's a 51% decrease. So in addition, we also have 16 second graders uh in math extension groups in an effort to better prepare them for accelerated math in the future. So by fundamentally adjusting our processes at Georgetown, we are better able to support our entire school and appropriately differentiate the level of support that every student needs to be successful. In addition to our academic support, we have emphasized school spirit and belonging at Georgetown. We consistently focus on

013our soaring values to show integrity, own our learning, accept responsibility, and respect ourselves and others. George the Hawk is a frequent visitor in our school and students are celebrated in various ways. From golden feather incentives to our Hawk Awards to choosing the song for our Friday morning DJ announcements. Together we've seen a positive change in our school culture. Our discipline referrals have fallen by over 15% each year since we began this work in 2023. We know that when students feel supported and cared for, real real learning can take place. >> I've been overwhelmed by the incredible dedication of our staff, supporting new initiatives, working tirelessly tirelessly to differentiate for student needs, and embracing curricular changes. Our data truly speaks for itself. Our Ready growth from the fall of last year to the spring shows an

014overwhelming shift in tiers. In just one year, we shifted the number of students receiving that tier three support from 25% to 16%. And students in tier 2 from 56% to just 28. In math, we saw even stronger gains, shifting our tier 1 or ongrade level students from just 13% in the fall to 50% by the spring. This translates into 150 students closing the gap to meet grade level standards in one school year. This data is reflected in our recently released school report card where our overall index score jumped by seven, our highest yet. Our ELA proficiency earned us 100% of possible points and our ELA growth is closer to exemplary than we've ever been. There are some challenges that our school community faces each and every day. However, we are raising the bar and our

015students are rising to meet that challenge. Our work is challenging, but collaboratively we're creating changes that impact academic achievement. We'd like to take a moment today to recognize a number of staff members who are joining us in the first few rows. Another example of the pride and dedication that we see daily. We work hard, laugh hard, celebrate our Georgetown pride, set goals, and come together to ensure that each Hawk can reach their full potential. Thank you for your continued support of our school community and I can't wait to see how high we can soar. >> Very impressive results. So, um, did you want to say something, Mr. Rising? >> Go ahead. Go ahead. >> Um, so when I saw these scores and just for context, um, in my professional life, I probably talked to about

01610 to 15 superintendent a week. They would kill for what you're showing the growth of your students uh on tier two and tier three. It's just absolutely remarkable. So, please kudos to your staff and all the work you're doing because just so people understand, tier one is regular classroom instruction, tier two is limited support and tier three is one-on-one. And and the the shift that you're seeing is just absolutely remarkable. So, congratulations to you. That's all I wanted to say. >> Yeah, I echo that. I mean truly impressive results and please help you know spread the word to all of our schools that might have similar need to look at um performance of some of their students and improvement. So thank you so much for all of your work. It's wonderful. >> Thank you. Thank

017you. [applause] >> Okay. We have no public comment tonight for our meeting and we will now move then to our consent agenda and superintendent report. We will start with the superintendent report. Dr. Tally, >> Miss Donahghue, members of the board of education and the Indian Prairie community. I must start my comments with sad news. Mr. Patrick Lee, who was a schoolwide facilitator, passed away on October 12th, 2025. Mr. Lee was hired in 2016 and spent most of his career at McCarti Elementary School. However, he did go to Fiser Middle School and then worked briefly at the start of this school year at Brookdale. Mr. Lee was loved by students and staff at his schools. He received a 2023 24 board of education inspire award. Mr. Lee was dedicated to our school system and most importantly

018our students. He was a champion of Indian Prairie. He would always greet you with a smile and was so positive about our school system. He was a gentleman. He will be missed. I ask that we take a moment of silence and remembrance of Mr. Lee. Thank you. On a rainy Sunday, October 19th, the annual half marathon 10K 5K race took place in downtown Neapville as part of the IPF fundraiser. It was wet and chilly that morning, but more than 600 people joined in the racewalk. I applaud all of you who ran walked with me. However, I have a bigger applause for the crowds that cheered us on. Those cheer squad stood in the rain cheering on all the participants as they walked by or ran past. I give a shout out to all of them.

019Thanks to those who donated to the runners. IP IPF was able to raise approximately $75,000 which will directly support schools and our students. Our strategic plan annual report was published last week. It came out on Thursday. This is our third annual report which provides updates on the third year of our strategic plan accomplishments. This annual report holds the school system accountable for the action items that were in our strategic plan. Our strategic plan is a five-year plan. Therefore, it's not expected that all actions will be accomplished. I feel as if we're moving in the right direction with where we are with the accomplishments. The action items are a work in progress with with more to come over the next couple of years as we complete this five-year journey. November has been designated as Native American

020Heritage Month. This year's proclamation um discusses that during Native American Heritage Month, we celebrate the countless contributions of native people past and present, honor their influence they have had on the advancement of our nation, and recommmit ourselves to upholding trust and treaty responsibilities, strengthening tribal sovereignty, and advancing tribal self-determination. Our schools will incorporate lessons related to Native Americans as part of their instructional program. And I'll now turn the meeting back over to Miss D. >> All right. I need now I need a motion for the approval of consent agenda items D through T. >> I'll make a motion that the board approve consent agenda items D through T as presented. Any discussion? Okay. Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Mr. Rising? >> Yes. >> Miss Deming? >> I. >> Miss Fazic? >> Yes.

021>> Miss Donahghue? >> Yes. >> Miss Grover? >> Yes. >> And Mr. Kus? >> Yes. >> The motion passes. All right. I need a motion to approve the recognizing of October 2025 as National Principal Month. I move that the board approves the recognition of October 2025 as National Principles Month. >> Second. Any discussion? I'm going to read it. >> Getting a little choked up. I'm sorry. And though the month has passed, um our recognition of our administrators is year long and forever because of the work that they do. So from the state of Illinois, I will read the proclamation. Whereas school principles play an integral role in nurturing a positive student centered culture in elementary, middle, and high school across the state of Illinois. And whereas school principles are responsible for attracting and retaining the

022best teachers and support staff to ensure that each child receives equitable educational opportunities and services to reach their potential. And whereas it is the primary responsibility of the state of Illinois to provide adequate and equitable resources for schools so that all students have access to a quality education and foundation for a successful future. And whereas the Illinois Principal Association, which represents over 6,900 educational leaders statewide, believes that educators experiences and voices are essential to crafting effective educational policy. And whereas the Illinois Principles Association is committed to developing, supporting, and advocating for innovative educational leaders through highquality professional development, networking opportunities, and legislative advocacy. And whereas school leaders face many obstacles in supporting and educating our young people. And it is through their perseverance, passion, and hopefilled leadership that Illinois continues to produce quality, career ready

023students. And whereas we must continue to encourage, support, and recognize our school principles who have a positive impact on Illinois students and the educational system in the land of Lincoln. Therefore, I JD Pritsker, Governor of the State of Illinois, do hereby proclaim October 19th through the 25th, 2025 as Principal Week and October 24, 2025 as Principal's Day in Illinois to recognize principles in and the Illinois Principal Association for all they do to help our children learn and succeed. And I'll just say one last thing from my vantage point as being a principal. uh the role is so important in directing and ensuring the success of our schools. Um it is important to have the right people in those positions and we're very fortunate in Indian Prairie to have such great outstanding administrators. I I want

024to add um our the board also recognized the importance of all the principles and the key role that they play in the success of our students and our district and many thanks and as you shared we want to recognize them every day of the year. It's not just during the month of October. So, thank you very much. So, Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Miss Fostic? >> Yes. >> Miss Grover? >> Yes. >> Miss Demi, >> I. Miss Donahghue. >> Yes. >> Mr. Rising. >> Yes. >> And Mr. Kurubis. >> Yes. >> The motion passes. I now need a motion to approve the 2025 Consortium of State School Boards Association National Conference Expense preapproval as presented. >> I move that we approve the 2026 Consortium State School Board's expense as presented. Expenses as

025presented. Second. >> Any discussion? This is um approving uh two board members to attend the National Conference for School Boards and our efforts to continue to educate ourselves and learn new um techniques and ideas to bring back to our district. So, um Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Miss Deming. >> Hi. >> Mrs. Fostic? >> Yes. >> Miss Donahghue? >> Yes. >> Mr. Kurubis? >> Yes. Mr. Rising. >> Yes. >> And Miss Grover. >> Yes. >> The motion passes. >> I need a motion to approve the application for the waiver/modification of the mandates of school code section 105 LCS5/10-17. Make a motion that the board of education approve the application for waiver modification of the mandates of school code section 105 LCS5 10-17 as presented. >> Second. >> Any discussion? Michelle, will you

026please call the role? >> Mr. Rising? >> Yes. >> Miss Grover? >> Yes. >> Miss Donahghue? >> Yes. >> Miss Demi? Hi. >> Mr. Kurubis. >> Yes. >> And Miss Fost? >> Yes. The motion passes. Yeah. Now we'll have a presentation from Dr. Purcell, Don Pankut, Eric Floodberg regarding high school course update. Good evening, Dr. Tally and Board of Education. Thank you for the time um this evening to uh share some exciting work that a couple of our curriculum teams have uh been engaged in. Uh and so we want to kind of jump into it. Um so uh this is uh both of these updates are for courses that we are asking for. These are not new courses us. These are renewals. Um and these would go into effect in the 2627 school year. This

027goes along with board policy uh 640 and 6 uh 210 around curriculum development and um and resource adoption. uh aligns very closely to strategic plan priority one um including um providing all students with high quality curricular and instruct curriculum instruction to meet and exceed state standards uh andor demonstrate greater than predicted growth on standardized assessments. The two courses we're here to speak with you tonight are uh US history uh and French three. Um this is these are two great curriculum teams that have come together representatives from all the schools. Um I have a couple of them here to talk US history with you tonight. Um Don Don Pancco the department chair for Matia Valley. Uh Eric Fenberg a uh a special education co-teer uh at uh at Wanzi Valley and both want to uh have

028a a really special part of of what we want to talk about and want to share with you this evening. So uh they are representing a larger group of teachers that have engaged in this work. team has been been at it for over a year. Uh because this is a big project for us, right? This is something that touches all kids. Um and as uh the board knows and we'll get into further depth is is multi-prong, right? So this is a a lot of state mandates and a lot of really big things that we want to do for kids are involved in this. So they've uh really dug into the work and and I'm uh very grateful for all of them. Um the the general process is just level set and this is we talk

029about uh whenever I had a chance to talk with with this group is uh the general process for these course updates is that these are prioritized uh by our curriculum instruction team um in collaboration with building leaderships, department chairs and assistant principles for curriculum instruction. Uh these come in at uh in accordance with the five-year curriculum timeline um that we shared we update annually to the board. The last time we did that was last summer. Um these are aligned to a variety of priorities which all played a very big role uh particularly in the US history work with and and all of our work. Uh alignment to state standards and mandates, alignment between schools um student achievement outcomes and alignment to the board of education strategic plan and the equity plan. uh this review process

030is is uh while each uh each project has its own nuances and and uh has its own personality, it generally follow the same process where we start at uh with a reviewing our needs. And that's really that fiveyear curriculum plan u and and really figuring out what it is that these need and then digging in with the teams and and really assessing the work and where do we need to where are we and where do we want to go and then digging in designing developing that and where does where does how are we going to proceed with this work. uh we're right about finishing that point with both of these projects and we're uh looking for uh to to share with you uh the work that we've been doing uh uh answer any questions that

031that the board may have um you know talk about approval uh if that's if the board chooses and then move towards piloting and implementation. Uh what we will always do after that and we're doing with other classes now is that there's a review cycle that comes into that. So, uh, for instance, we were just here with with algebra about a year ago. That team just met last week and they were going through assessment data and how are things going and timelines and making sure all those things are working and making minor tweaks. You know, we always make a really good plan, but like I get any big plan that you make um in your personal or professional life, that plan always needs a little bit of fine-tuning once you once you've done it once. So

032uh so that's all part of the process as well as we dig in uh to the US history the US history work um the uh US history as I think the board knows uh meets a graduation requirement for is uh for new prairie um and the state um fairly large revisions were made this goound. It's been about 10 years since we got into this work. Some of that as you know got delayed through co and we got back on this fiveyear plan and this uh when this came up, uh really wanted to align this to both the uh the updates in state law, uh the very very many mandates that I was able to share with the board which are also public uh through uh the ASB website um and and really those updates included

033addressing all those state mandates, infusion of the inquiry standards, uh integrating Indian prairie guidance on cultural responsive instruction, really the things around being authentic and empowering and inclusive We had a chance to come and share uh some along with Dr. Nar about a month or a month and a half ago about what that looks like and and this was a both of these projects were great examples of of how we honor that work uh from the from the very beginning of our curriculum process. uh and also Porsche Porch graduate as I uh as I shared with you last time I was here uh when we were sharing the equity plan uh those documents the cultural responsive instruction portion of a graduate state standards and mandates um are all literally on the table justice table here

034um and literally on the table when we start those conversations and and uh the last time we uh met which we were getting ready to to bring this out and share it with the board. We brought them back to the table, literally put them back on the table again and said, "Okay, how are we doing?" Like this is these are our these are our cornerstone documents and if we now that we're getting closer to memorializing some of this work, let's let's do a check on ourselves and really kind of see how we're doing and it's really been a guiding document uh throughout the throughout this work. Um Don can talk a little bit about um this work and how kind of it connects to some of the things that we're doing. >> Yeah. So a

035large part of this has um been implementing the inquiry standards that came out actually originally through the national council of social studies that but then became a state standard. Um and we've been able to integrate these all the way down to the middle schools and that and then also in the human geography. So this is actually like the third time that they would be exposed to those inquiry standards. each time it gets a little bit more complex and with a different type of compelling question and different ways of of kind of presenting that summary of information. Uh and then the other piece that's kind of important is uh there's a lot of writing in social studies. So that claim evidence reasoning that they get in ELA, it's with us too. So um there's no escape

036and but honestly it it pays off because there's so much uh interdisciplinary work between it. It it really does help with both the reading and the writing skills as we go. So, um, this this will allow us to basically bring the next step of US history on board with all that. >> Yeah, that claim, evidence, reasoning is language you've heard from me before. That's what we talked about when we talked about biology, right? That claim, evidence, reasoning. Um, we actually we uh will be here in the spring talking about our English 9 work. We really using uh the same rubrics in our human geography, our English 9. great for our kids uh to have common language and common expectations, high standards across the board, but they know what those standards are and how to meet

037them. Really, the US history uses those same things, but we wrote them all as progressions. So, the expectation is that you're further along in all of those things when you when you're a US history student than you were when you're a human geography student. As we look at uh US history, there's really two ways you can kind of think about studying US history. One is chronologically where you start you start with Columbus coming across and then kind of keep going until until you're done, right? And and go through and and that that way it works. And one of the things one of the challenges we have with that methodology is um every year history gets a little bit longer, right? So, uh becomes harder and harder to kind of get to everything um and it

038becomes very difficult to kind of choose what is what are we not going to do, right? this has to be part of the decision making. Um, so the the other uh other way that we look at this is what's called thematically. So allows us to really look at predominant themes of US history and the four that are laid out here in front of you and then look at those through time and then how do these develop and how do they how do they go together gives us a why for what we choose to study and what we choose not. can't do every war general and event that happened in in all of US history, but allows us a framework to make some of those decisions and figure out what those things are. Each of these

039units uh which are titled the promise of America, American capitalism, American global leadership, and American identity uh really are very broad and allow us to to examine this through time. Um, and in each of these units, as Don was talking about, there's an in a major inquiry that we do that really gets at students. Uh, sometimes it'll be taking a couple of primary documents and doing some compare and contrast and drawing some conclusions. Sometimes it'll be taking something an event that happened at the chronologically at the beginning of that theme and at the end of that theme and sort of how how do we get from a from A to B and doing some research by building up towards towards uh really some pretty significant writing. As you get to that last unit, we talk

040about America's identity. This unit aims to guide students to study movements and cultural shifts that led groups who sought to redefine and claim the promise of America when it was not realized for them. So really looking at that promise of America, we look at the first unit and say, "All right, how are we done? Let's do some reflection and talk about how's how have we gotten there? How have we not?" Right? That's a pretty deep question for a for a 15 16 year old uh young person. And uh but we're, you know, we want to build up through through these first three themes to give them an idea of what that looks like. Eric's going to talk a little bit more about uh this approach and and really some of the positives the team saw.

041Thank you for having us today. Um, we like Dr. Purcell said, we've met for about over a year now. Um, we were at the table figuring out whether or not the correct theme was to go with thematic or chronological was the was the best attack for us. And we kind of landed on kind of a combo of both where we are going to be teaching through the four themes, but it's going to be a chronological spine through with with each one of those themes then. So the first theme uh or the first unit is promise of America. It's the political identity. Overall we will begin the year covering information from the revolutionary war and the formation of the United States talking about mainly our founding ideals. So looking at 1776 um and then we'll end

042right around civil rights movement post World War II in 1965. Once we get to unit two then uh American capitalism or the economic identity starting really at 1870s to 1900s that would then take us to 1970 to the present. And I think this is one of the things that we really looked at because the school year kind of runs short and we start running out of time. By going to this model we're able to talk about more relevant information for students that they at least are have been alive for. So that right there was a huge benefit for us. also going to allow for discussion um and us concentrate on some of the goals that we also had. Unit three then American global leadership which is the global identity uh Spanishame war 1898 to 1902

043then that would also then end at 911 the word tear so 2001 to the present and then unit four American identity and who shapes American identity and that's would be reconstruction era so 1860s civil war and then ending at immigration and identity of the global age so really 1980s to present One of the things that we really like about this, the feedback we got from students from the way that we do US history now is that really we don't get to anything that happened in my grandparents lifetime until after spring break, right? And what what we really like about this that there's something that feels relevant that they have some like touchstone to that I can sort of visualize um that's going to happen. So really that engagement piece of how this how these things

044that have happened centuries and centuries ago kind of lead through and got us to where we are today. Um is uh we're really excited about the instructional possibilities for engagement and really making connections really is what history is all about making these connections over time. So very very excited about the work we're doing um and and the team that we put together to kind of put that all together. Um flip over to our other uh project which is French three. As the board may recall, I've been here last couple of uh springs talking about French one and French two. Um that uh this is work that has happened over over time. Uh again, uh in the review cycle with both of those classes, right, that in that stage, uh French one's about done reviewing. They're

045they're they're feeling really good and they're just kind of ready to implement for a long time. A French was just here last week and they were doing some tweaking and the pacing was just needed a little massage and and which is great. You know, they tried it and then they came back and said, "Hey, here's some adjustments you want to make." And it was it was exactly what we want. And um so as you may recall, these are tied to what's called the actual standards. These are the national standards for world language really come around uh the four pieces of of language learning which is reading, writing, speaking and listening. You may recall also we tie all of these world language classes to the AP themes. Not because all world language students are AP students,

046but it allows us to kind of have just something that we're pinned to, right? And for those students that are AP students, gives them a lot of kind of background knowledge in that piece and and and we wanted to pin to something and there's a couple different places this made us. So the units that we'll be looking at that are relationships, talent and cities, news and media, human rights and politics, diversity and social change. Those are all tied to uh different AP themes that that come along in that class as you get to that. Um additionally uh to the work and the curriculum changes and updates that we have. Um we are looking for some new resources to support that work. Uh the French class um the book that we have been using for French

047one and French two the team really likes. They like the um as you they recall the things that they really liked about that one um a lot of authentic uh speaking and listening that was embedded in the resource and also they really liked and they continue to really appreciate uh how the the book really features French cultures that are beyond parents, right? So they they look at Haiti and other French cultures from around the globe. um they really like that kind of world view of uh of what French culture and French speaking uh places uh have in common. So uh so the the team is very excited to continue on with that series. The the book is called uh is a level three. It's published by Vista and the the total for uh both of

048these is for uh is for books for all of our children and uh for sixyear digital licenses. Right. So both of them would have that and so that that's what the price for the first US history book um we looked at uh several several several options um and they were reviewed by the team and we started in March um and uh come around and and really kind of came to uh universally getting behind uh the resource that's here which is called US history interactive the high school 2025 version uh published by Savas. Um that price again is the is the books and the sixyear digital licenses. Um the um the the team really likes the digital pieces have a lot of primary resources which are are huge for our US history study and to have

049those embedded in that we're not not having to go someplace else and in do all go search find all those and have the teaching notes to go along with that is is a really good piece. Um, Don, I think you had a little >> Well, and just the the value of the of having this as both a a print and a digital resource that what we can do with it in terms of like thinking like a historian and reading like a historian, there's a variety of things that we can work off of with it. Um, and because it's a digital resource and we're doing this thematic approach, it allows us to kind of reorganize a textbook in some ways. And that's um that's a tool that's going to just make it a million times easier

050for us. So, I think um the kids will benefit from it because they're not having to flip all the way through the books in a variety of different spots and we'll be able to kind of create our own version of like a playlist of these are the documents that we really want you to go into because we're going to practice these skills with these documents. >> I talk a little bit about um kind of the adaptability, the resource and the accessibility of this and how it's really been uh what we liked about it, it's utility for all kids. So we were able to dive in um with the representatives and we were kind of blown away just because the current textbook that we have does not allow for that the interactive piece. So for us

051to be able to actually go in with the search option and everything else and create this playlist that can align with our four units of study I thought was pretty amazing. Um why I think it's really going to benefit not obviously all students but really students um in our special education I think that's going to be huge because um case managers, social workers, um SLPs, they're going to really be able to utilize this resource to help reinforce some of the skills that these students are hearing one time in the US history class, but then also then being able to be reinforced so the other professionals will have access to this online platform and then help them reinforce those uh reinforce those skills for the students. I think that's just a huge benefit for for the

052student. >> And uh some of the features of this resource that the team really liked is that they were able to level the readings uh depending on uh so you can still access the content skills while you're developing as a reader. Uh it had I think it was 150 languages um that it could be taken into. So we really would help with our multilingual learners. Uh so we're very excited about that. Um and then this that talks really well about is um often students that are having most struggle in access accessing material need an adult um to be able to kind of help kind of guide them through. So being able to have those teachers notes embedded and the the accessibility of those way to kind of access those in a way um that other

053resources that we review just didn't do for us. uh we're very very excited about the the part of kind of being this being a tool that's uh good for help all students reach reach their greatest potential really kind of shown through with this resource compared to some so we're very excited um the u and truthfully one of the reasons we came and you may uh typically the rhythm of this is we come and have this conversation in the spring uh one of the reasons we're coming a little bit earlier one this US history team's been at it for a while We want to kind of get them uh solidified. But the other piece is we want to give this team it's a big one of our bigger uh professional learning teams, right? So there's a

054lot of teachers, right? Both regular special ed, we want to give a lot of time for that onboarding piece that when when I come to you in April and it gets approved in May, it gets pretty tight sometimes, right? So this is such a big group. um we wanted to get out in front of that and allow for some time really through all of second semester to start phasing in that onboarding so we can put lots of kind of local leadership in get that going. So uh so we appreciate the time tonight to to allow us to do that. Um next steps um that the you know we wanted to bring this to you tonight uh hopefully we'll have some questions and we have some there are conversations over between now and the next regular

055scheduled meeting. Um and then uh the resources will be available for review. Those are in the curriculum instruction office um that uh there's such a big digital component to this that we would ask everyone wants to put that just just come in and make an appointment. Anyone on our team can help you. We need to get you logged in. Right. So, uh you're really not putting a Chromebook in the lobby. Right. So, um, and then obviously once, uh, if if that all passes through next, uh, next meeting, uh, we'll start with, uh, the Savage representatives and their team and start doing some ongoing professional development collaboration as soon as, um, as soon as December. Uh, so we wanted to, um, thank you for your time and open up to any questions you may have. >>

056Miss Grover, do you have questions? Um, I do. First of all, I like the thematic and chronological order. I think that's great because it lends itself to critical thinking and linking the past to the future. So, I really like that. Um, I was going to ask about um primary resources and obtaining, but it sounds like you already cover that in the book. The question I have is I know a lot of kids take US history for summer school. So, will this be you can take this when it eventually gets finalized in the summer? >> Yeah, great question. So uh so we will uh we want to finish this first right and then look at how do we you know kind of adapt this into the summer school option right because obviously it's not exactly the

057same right and then how does this kind of impact some of our other US history graduation requirements as well we were here last year talking about AP US history and then our American society class but yes so that AP US history uh I'm sorry the US history online class will make revisions after these are sort Okay. Thanks, M Dunning. >> Thank you. You addressed one of the questions that I'd had regarding the uh tenure, the length of time that we were allowing um for review. So, thank you for um for doing that. That that's understandable to try and ensure that they have almost a full semester to be able to to review. So, um or or to be able to go through the process of um taking a look and seeing how it works. So,

058thank you for for that. Um slide six is you talked about the um plain evidence reasoning that has been such such a strong part of critical thinking for our students. And you mentioned that um we're seeing some of the opportunities at the middle school level so that by by the time they get to high school that they're it's not new. Are we that um Cer at the middle school level too and are some of the is the thought process that this thematic type of um rearrangement on the US history some of the conversations that occurring at the middle school will begin to look like that also from a social studies standpoint. >> Yeah. So, uh, I'll tell you the middle school does a very nice job of having an inquiry based approach, right? And and

059embedding both in social sciences and in science that claim, evidence, reasoning, uh, framework into their written responses and so that is something that has been ongoing uh, you know, but I think Dr. Chisel will be here to talk to you about some updates to social studies um, you know, in in due time. But, um, but there really do a really nice job of building those skills up. >> Okay. >> Um and uh what we do is we try to pick them up and and and take it from there. >> Thank you, >> Miss Fazda. >> Thank you. I don't really have any questions other than to add that uh as a parent, it's also helpful to have access to another way to see teachers notes or things. So, um, even if you have a student

060who isn't technically in special education, they just need some extra help, it's really great to have an additional resource that parents can more easily access and as you said, get through that playlist rather than trying to look everything up, right, to help their own students. So, um, looks great. Thank you, >> Mr. Kurubus. Uh I have a kind of a question on generally how we do our curriculum reviews that I've um want to ask a couple questions on. And really it's this page uh 11. We um you know policy says that we should be getting input from teachers, administrators, parents and students. Um, and we have historically provided kind of this input period at the at the end where we're asking for input from parents, students, um, and the public. Um, I kind of maybe

061challenge administration to think about involving the parents and students earlier or inviting them to having an opportunity for them to. Um obviously, you know, we don't have like a curriculum committee um that's structured. Uh but I think it it you know being the parent um you know we've got some active student board um structure that's that's been forming. I think uh having some inviting you know more to the table earlier might help us with the process. Obviously you guys are the subject matter experts on this but um I think part of the reason why, you know, we don't get a lot of public comments on our um, you know, curriculum reviews and instructional material is that we do it at the finish line. Um, but if we had kind of more involvement, I think that

062might help refine um, things a little bit better. So, I don't have an answer. I'm just dropping it now. I'm challenging to think about that. Um, The second piece would kind of be the communication aspect to it. So now on this um you know we're going to request um open it for public comment um and then make the material available. So um how um are we communicating that out to the teachers, the students and the public? I guess um I would just be looking for more ways to to make that available. Not everybody watches the board meetings and knows exactly where to email or who to call, >> right? Let me look online. There's like 25 people watching this. >> So I I would look for um you know ways I think this is an

063easy way to work on our communication aspect to get it make it more robust. Thanks >> Mr. Rising. And just to the last point as far as involvement, I mean there are certain things that are mandated to us by the state of what we teach the kids and and that's why Dr. Purcell, I appreciate you putting in there the the the actual uh school code of where those that those things that were mandated to teach. So, I appreciate that because I was able to look it up, read some of the context around that particular standard, understanding how that relates to the additional units of study that we're putting into place for US history. So, I appreciate all that, but again, to Mr. Kubis' point, if we involve people, it's it's just a matter of giving

064them that that right, like here's what the state says we have to do. Here's how we're putting that into place. Here's how this curriculum piece fits into that. You know, it's it's kind of black and white, cut and dry, right? So, I I don't think anybody wants to put more burden on our curriculum teams because we trust the work you guys do. Um, and know that there's a lot of things that you have to follow. There's not there's not a lot of wiggle room. It's kind of, you know, we're we're told what to teach and and we try to pick the best resources for our students that are going to >> allow our teachers to teach in the best way, but all also raise the bar for our students to learn it in the best

065way possible. So, um I appreciate all the work you did and yeah, just food for thought. So, thanks. >> Thank you for your work and um this looks like important updates for our courses. So, thank you very much for pursuing that and also eventually if it passes rolling it out to everyone. So, um but it sounds like some great changes are underway. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay, we'll now have a presentation from Dr. Sarah Mum regarding the student report card. Thank you to the board of education and Dr. Tally for having me tonight to talk about the school report card and our achievement celebrations as well as areas to enhance. Uh the purpose of the presentation is to definitely go over the key elements of the school report card data points. Uh

066it was released on October 30th of this past month and look at our academic achievement. It it links to our strategic plan and a lot of the data points from our uh school report card were part of our annual update to that strategic plan as well. Uh it definitely links to our graduate profile in multiple ways. One of the ways is while our students are taking those standardized assessments, both the ACT, the IA, the DM, they're collecting, assessing, and analyzing evidence in order to really reason effectively and find those answers. At the same time, staff administration are looking, collecting, assessing, and analyzing the data to look for the trends in achievement and look for areas for improvement. Part of the curriculum review process as well is looking at this data to really concern what should

067come next in that curriculum uh process as well as professional development. A couple key updates from the state level first because a lot of the Indian Prairie trends mirror that of the updates from the state. Uh we are seeing across the state ELA proficiency and math proficiency as well as participation in advanced placement um coursework on the rise and they are above prepandemic levels. And so that was a huge celebration that we heard in the statewide conference. At the same time, we are seeing math growth on the increase but at a much slower rate. Uh based on that, the state is embarking on releasing the numerousy plan. The first draft has come out uh to educators to look at and and it kind of guides you to different aspects to review your curriculum, review your

068professional development and your structures. And that final plan will be out later this school year. Another success was the eighth grade passing algebra remaining fairly consistent across the state. While they are around that 38% on average across the state, Indian Prairie has stayed uh pretty consistent right around 50%. And we'll talk about what that indicator means in just a little bit. The chronic absenteeism is on the decline for the third year in a row across the state. However, the state would like to see it underneath the 25% which is the average on the state. And so they are uh starting a chronic absenteeism task force and looking for educators across the state to be part of that task force. Uh and they're dedicated to really seeing that decline hopefully consistently over the next couple years.

069Uh two of the big successes that they highlighted as well is the high school graduation rates and the ninth grade students on track were the highest that the state has seen in the last couple years. The icons that are on the slide there will be what you see when you log on to any school district or school across uh the school report card. You will see the different tiles that you can drill down into and those are the uh data points that we're going to take a look at for the key multiple measures. Uh the state did change a few things on the report card this year. If you're used to going in one way, it isn't there this year. So you can't uh any longer go in and the trends in learning based on

070a specific test. In the past, you could go in and look for the IR test and then look at the IR trends in math and ELA. They have combined those now and you search by ELA proficiency, ELA growth, math proficiency or math growth. And then you can toggle between ACT, DLM, and AR. So, it gives you a better global perspective of students throughout their educational career within proficiency and within growth. They also have two new indicators on the school report card for every school uh and school district. It is the first year for reporting high school student growth rates. We previously have had student growth rates uh K12 or K8, but this year we do have high school. The state uh firmly states that student growth is test agnostic and that they can compare AR

071growth into PSAT growth into ACT growth. It is not part of the high school summitive designation at this point because it is the first year really looking at that growth measure, but it is new on the school report card. And then an exciting one is the IE continuing reporting. It looks at students continued progress after they complete four years of education in high school into a transition program up to age 22. And so it continues to look at their academic learning growth even beyond their four initial years in high school. A big change in the state of Illinois and for all schools this year was the difference between proficiency and growth. Proficiency is really where learners are right now in this moment in time on this assessment where growth is a measure that's been comparable

072from past years and on to future years. uh with the change in state benchmarks which we'll talk about in just a minute. The only comparable uh mo point on the school report card is the student growth measure because the proficiency benchmarks have changed. Proficiency or student growth measures are created in two different ways on the school report card. The first one is a cohort growth. This compares where a student was in a previous year's test compared to their same peers that were at that level on this year's test. For example, if I was in fourth grade and I scored in the approaching level in fourth grade, it compared how I did to my other approaching peers this year in fifth grade. That is our cohort growth and that is comparable because it uses that raw

073score of growth from year to year to year. That is something we can look back years and look at our gains and continue to look at future years. Baseline growth does something very similar, but it compares that growth of how I did from one test to the next year compared to how students did in 2019, which is the baseline year that they chose to compare to. The importance of this is because they did decide to change uh the the state benchmarks for proficiency. And so that proficiency really isn't comparable to past proficiency scores because of the that the state did in changing them. So, we really encourage educators and parents to look at that student growth measure to see what uh the student has gained in this year from one test to the next test

074within their students report card. And that hasn't been something that necessarily parents or educators have put a lot of time in looking at. But again, it is that comparable piece uh that we can look back and compare to last year. The other thing on the school report card uh is the the summitive designations. There are five summitive designations that are awarded to schools every year at this time. Exemplary, commendable, targeted, comprehensive, and intensive support. Exemplary indicates that you are in the top 10% of schools across the state and you have no underperforming student groups. A student group would consist of at least 20 students within that category. You also have a graduation rate of 67% or higher to be inexlary. It is based on looking at a yeartoyear top 10% and so that benchmark does

075shift from year to year to get into the exemplary level. This is the last year for the summitative designation process. They are revamping it and we'll have a new process starting in August 2026. I get the pleasure of going Thursday to hear the new plan and start vetting the process through uh some of the feedback tours that they're doing this fall. Commendable is uh you are overall not in the top 10% but you do not have any underperforming student groups and your uh graduation rate does remain above 67%. targeted. You will have one or more uh performing groups in the lowest 5% of of schools across the state. And when you have a targeted cycle, you will start a four-year process no matter what your next year's designation status is. And so you start with

076a planning year and then you will have a four-year cycle to improve that uh that subgroup, but also learning across your entire school and reach that commendable level. Comprehensive support means that you have a overall performance in the bottom 5% statewide and that your graduation rate has fallen below that 67%. And then intensive support is when you previously have been comprehensive or targeted and yet you still have either overall performance or a subgroup that is still in that targeted or comprehensive support level. There's two uh structures that have multiple measures to define that summitive designation with various weightings. Uh although the K8 and the 912 do have the same overall percents in the two categories, they do have slightly different measures in each of the categories. In the academic indicators, it is 75% uh K12

077that make up that uh section and 25% in the school quality and student success indicators. For K8, the academic indicators include both proficiency and growth scores as well as English learners pro progress to proficiency. If you do not have a subgroup of English learner pro u English language learners or multilang multilingual learners then that percent will be distributed across the other measures within that academic indicators category. What that English langu oh my gosh I cannot say that tonight. What that English learner progress to proficiency is is the moment that you enter into multilingual education. It sets a trajectory to where you need to be exiting in five years. And each year it monitors how close you are towards that goal and gives you a score on how close you are in closing the gap to

078exiting the program. Uh again, all of those make up the 75% of that summitive designation. The 25% for KA uh K8 is chronic absenteeism and the climate survey. Currently, our climate survey is the five essentials and it looks at student participation. It doesn't look at the student ratings uh that they take on the survey, just the participation level on the survey. The high school is slightly different. Uh they do not include the growth score as I mentioned quite yet in the academic indicators. They only look at proficiency in the three content areas and they do have the English learner progress to proficiency indicator as well. But then they add in that graduation rate which is so essential at the high school level for school quality and student success indicators. They also add in the ninth

079grade on track to graduate as that third and final piece within the 25% of that category. Overall, when you look at any uh school on the school report card or subgroup, you will see the icon that is on the screen now with the overall index score. It takes every point within all of those indicators that we just looked at and divi and divides it by the percent of the waiting to give you a total index score. That index score then is compared to see if you are in that top 10% or if you have a subgroup in the lower 5% or overall performance in the 5%. Again, to have an indicator uh or an index score within a subgroup, you have to have at least 20 students within that category. Our current Indian Prairie school

080designations are six exe exemplary schools. I need to flip to make sure I don't miss them. I'm not keeping up with my notes flipping. Our exemplary schools include Peterson, Fry, May Watts, Kendall, Patterson, and Builta. We have 23 commendable schools within the district and we have two targeted schools, Lawnwood, and Owen. Previously, Brookdale was uh indicated as targeted, but the last two years they have been in the commendable range. A couple updates on our targeted improvement schools. As I mentioned, Brookdale was previously targeted for African-American subgroup, but through their work through the targeted school improvement over the course of the last three years, they saw great gains across the school and with the subgroup and have been in commendable the last two years with the summitive designation. Owen, this will be their first year in

081uh targeted support and this will be their planning year. They will we've already met with the staff and they are establishing uh writing the plan and that plan will be uh shared as an update later in the spring with the board. They were targeted for improvement in one subgroup category and that was lowincome students and really um all the areas in their academic and uh student climate were in commendable except looking at the math growth area. Lawnwood Elementary School was previously targeted two years ago and has been in that targeted assistance. They previously were targeted in three subgroups, African-American students, lowincome and students with disabilities. Last year they were in the commendable level and then this year they were targeted for two subgroups, African-American students and then students in the lowincome subcategory. This doesn't mean

082that they start their plan over. They continue the plan that they are on and they may have the ability to revise uh revise their goals or enhance their goals. But the goal of that targeted support is just to look at overall within the school. What are we doing to enhance that programming to support not only the subgroup of course but all instructional practices across the school. This spring as the state embarked on looking at those benchmarks for proficiency, they gave us a couple uh student examples from across the the state and we wanted to take the opportunity to share some local Indian prairie examples of why the benchmarks really needed to shift. And so we came back from their examples and looked for a couple student scenarios to show the discrepancy that our past proficiency

083levels had on not telling the most accurate story about our student learning. So this is an example of a student that graduated Indian Prairie two years ago. While here at Indian Prairie, they were a GPA of 3.9, completed five AP classes with extracurriculars, and now as a sophomore in college, taking 15 to 18 hours uh each semester with a 4.0, but yet when they took the ACT, they were in the not proficient range in both ELA and math. That showing a discrepancy between actual progress and what the state exams were saying their learning progress was. Another example of that is a current middle school student in Indian Prairie. They uh successfully entered the project arrow program in fourth grade have p uh p participated in extracurricular sports upon entering middle school and are a current

084seventh grader in both project arrow and math excel with straight A's but yet on the AR were indicated as not proficient in both content areas. Again, examples like this really pushed the state to look at the proficiency levels. The state realized that their uh proficiency benchmarks were not telling the whole story of students across the state of Illinois. And we see that with just a couple examples here in Indian Prairie. A couple other reasons that the state did look at shifting and right sizing their benchmarks were the comparison to the national assessment, the NAPE assessment. when they compared the Illinois assessment to all the other assessments across the nation, Illinois had the most rigorous assessment in comparison to the other states. To get a proficient on the national assessment, you had to score in the

085the exceeds expectation uh level on the state of Illinois exam to be just in the proficient level. The other issues that they found with our past proficiency levels are the misalignment of the different categories based on the different assessments. With the three assessments that the state of Illinois had, they had multiple uh cut scores. They had different labels for each of the levels. Um and then they had different categories. The AR had five categories. The ISA had four proficiency categories and the SAT, which now we have switched to ACT, had four. This became very confusing for educators, families, and students to see progress across the assessments. The final reason that the state really looked at the realignment for benchmarks was the science benchmark to determine the cut scores was taken during 2021 which if we

086reflect probably not the best year to determine what learning progress of Illinois's uh students really look like and so that that was probably um not a good benchmark year for us to to determine based on that. The state of Illinois set out about 18 months ago to review all of the benchmarks for all of the state assessments. They presented at 12 educational conferences, did listening tours across the state, both virtually and nine in person. They brought over a hundred educators uh down to Springfield to write performance level descriptors, which are rubrics that take every state standard and write if you want to perform at any level on the IR or ACT, here are the expectations for each level. And then they brought 147 teachers down to do an item analysis of all past tests of

087I AR. And all of this work has really led to the new benchmarks that will be consistent for all assessments in the state of Illinois. For every assessment, you will see only the four levels below, approaching, proficient, and above. This will make it very easy from third grade all the way through your high school career to know how your learning is progressing through those categories. The other things that they did with the benchmarks is they did slightly lower the bottom level of proficiency for both ELA and math in order to encompass more of the learning progression and and more accurately reflect students learning within ELA and math. Um what you might see from that is an increase of anywhere from 10 to 12 percentage points from last year to this year. And that's why that

088proficiency rate really isn't comparable because some of the the growth in proficiency might be due just to the right sizing of the the proficiency level and some would be due to the hard uh work of our educators and our students in the growth of academics with science. They did increase the bottom level of the proficiency benchmark and therefore you might see a a tighter range of those that are uh proficient or above proficient in science. you might see a 5 to 8 percent point lower if you compare from this year to last year. And again, that's why it really isn't the the year to compare proficiency from one year to the next. Overall, when we looked at our overall district composits, we did not see a reduction of science. Our science scores were higher uh

089than that benchmark even when it moved to the higher rate. So let's look at the specific measures on the school report card. Um and and so you won't see the the typical graphs of proficiency over time for multiple reasons of that I just shared. You see just the moment in time of proficiency and then this will be the start of our year that we will start the comparison over again. But you will see the comparison of past years on other multiple measures that I share tonight. So if you look at 35 English language arts, you can see that Indian Prairie at third, fourth, and fifth grade remains above the state level with third grade at 61%, fourth grade at 66, and fifth grade at 72. The nice part about the newer reports on um the

090both the launchpad that comes out of Pearson with the AR and on the school report card, it gives us a nice breakdown and I appreciate it. It really links to a lot of what um the the curriculum department was just talking about. It gives us the ability to look and and see how are we doing and where do we need to go and and reading for information is one area that is an area that we would like to enhance. And so I appreciated listening to the conversation about all that can be done in that social science uh curriculum coming up because that is an area that we want to focus on looking at some of the data in ELA. In 68 uh ELA we see that Indian Prairie remains above the state as well with

091sixth grade at 70% proficient, seventh grade at 71 and eighth grade at 78 proficient. And again that reading for information is an area that we are seeing growth but continue to want to see continued growth as well. When we flip to math at the third through fifth grade level, we remain above the state level with third grade at 70%, fourth grade at 65, and fifth grade at 62. We look specifically then at the areas and we find that reasoning as well as finding that supporting content is an area that we want to continue to enhance. when we go back and investigate uh kind of to mirror that state trend of math moving a little slower than ELA, we're really finding that our ELA or our math program at the elementary started right around that COVID

092time. While it was a curriculum that we've had prior to COVID, it was the first couple years uh that it was require a required tool was during the pandemic. And when we look back and reflect at the type of training that happened, it was sporadic. It was online and it wasn't as indepth with the tools and hands-on experiences that we wanted. Since 2023, the curriculum office has kind of reset that process. Uh while the tool again has been around for a while and so we think why aren't we making quicker gains, the professional development and the fidelity of implementation was reset just a couple years ago with three series process of launch, fidelity and implementation and then review of assessment. And we are just at the point now by the end of this year that

093all the educators will get through that third and final process. And so in talking with um Joan and Laura in the curriculum department, there is a lot of progression and hope that we will see faster growth in math once we get through that really intensive cycle. Um, at the same time, we know because of the the tougher start of adopting and and requiring that tool during COVID, we are making up in the third through fifth grade for probably some gaps in experiences and knowledge base that some of the students are coming into those upper grades with that they just didn't get during the initial use of the program in K2. And so filling those gaps for a couple years um while we're also completing the the fidelity of implementation is taking a bit of time.

094The sixth grade uh sixth through eighth grade math continues above the state level as well with 55% at sixth grade, 60% at seventh grade, and 58% at eighth grade. Again, looking at that reasoning piece and trying to figure out uh a little bit of that supporting content. I loved in the the curriculum presentation as well that that reasoning and evidence while we do it in our writing it's so important to also embed it in our math and we don't think about finding evidence to support our rationale in math as much but this is a reason why we need to to be able to look back at that math problem and our answers in math and find the supporting evidence and content to it and so I think there's a lot of connections uh to the

095presentation earlier to ways that we can enhance and improve based on the analysis of this data. The one comparable that I mentioned earlier is the student growth cohort. This again shows how we compare to uh how we did last year compared to students in that similar category to this year. You can see we've had some slight increases in both ELA and math in our student growth percentile. And with student growth since it is a percentile even those tenths are success stories in proficiency when we look at it we look for larger growth numbers but when we see even tense or you know a one point whatever that does mean a bit more when it is that percentile piece. Other data points that are essential on the school report card are ACT. Last year was the

096first required year of ACT when the state shifted from SAT and made SAT optional to ACT. You can see our mean score is above the state mean score. We're at 22.9 where the state is at 18.8. That median score is at 23 and that gives us a US ranking of about 75th percentile with that ACT score. That was the overall composite. The state on the school report card takes those uh average scores and looks at our um median score and then puts it into the categories from their benchmarking and says what percent of our students are proficient or above proficient in comparison to the state. Currently, Indian Prairie has 76.6 in ACT ELA proficient compared to the state average of 51.7. And our average disc district ELA uh ACT score is a 22.4. And then

097we broke it down to math as well. And you can see that proficiency following that trend again that we see in the state and the lower level. We're seeing gains for sure in both contents, but our math is a little bit slower with the 69.4% of proficiency in the ACT math with a and the state is at the 39 with our average district ACT score higher than our ELA1 at 23.6. Other report card measures that we use for a variety of reasons um to look at strategic plan objectives um and then we also just monitor uh for different um action plans within individual buildings as well. The first one is student mobility. uh for the past two years going on three years now, our mobility rate has been above the state average. And so we

098look at also the school measures broken down by ethnicity and race to see where our most mobile populations are and then really work with our building principles to see how are we connecting the students and look at that mobility trend within the buildings. Our chronic absenteeism is on the decline which does mirror as I said uh the state of Illinois. You can see that we are at about 15.8% and across the the district we have had 21 I believe of our buildings that had the chronic absenteeism decline this past year. and those that did not decline that had a slight increase. The biggest increase was around 2% points. And so again, not a not a huge increase for even those that um went up, but a big success to see 21 of our schools did

099decrease in chronic absenteeism. And so the efforts of our schools really putting in that commitment of getting our students on campus in the classrooms for learning experiences is really paying off. and we want to continue to work with those schools that did see a decline this year. Just to clarify that um that chronic absenteeism does include excused and unexcused absences. And so we get that question a lot from parents. It does include those vacation days, excused and unexcused, and counts any any student that has missed 10% or more of our school days. Next, uh we have our advanced placement or AP data. Uh this is a huge celebration. When I made this chart, it it really blew me away. And being able to see over 4,000 students this year that participated in AP courses is

100impressive as a district. And then to see the the next data point of 8600 AP exams taken. And that is a a quick, you know, quick math. That's at least two two for every student and some taking three. That is is truly a celebration. And 89% of all of the exams taken or all of the students that took a test, 89% of them have a level three or higher on at least one of their exams. And that is a great celebration for all the hard work of our AP teachers, our AP students, and our parents and our families. Uh you will see our total score, our total number of tests that had a level three or above was at 35 um 3,572 level three or higher um tests. That that alone is impressive. And that

101was the the data point I just said. a student uh the percent of students that had at least one um level three was 89%. The final measures that are just worth uh noting because they are discussed a lot within our strategic plan is eighth grade passing algebra. This does not mean that 50% of our students that take it pass it. It just or that it just simply means that 50% of our students are taking algebra and passing. Um the is at 30.8% and so we have a lot of students going into that algebra in eighth grade which leads them into a different track moving forward. Um our graduation rate is at 95.1 which is slightly um down from last year we were at 96. Uh over the last three years, four years actually. Um in

10222 we were at 95. In 23 we were at 95. Last year we went slightly up to 96 and then this year we came back to 95. So I've stayed fairly stagnant within our graduation rate but something that we want to look at for sure. And then our uh ninth graders on track remains fairly consistent right at that 95%. And that is a um growth that I know in one of the first uh presentations that I was here with the behavior team we do run that quarterly now and look for students in our nth grade and how many credits they are taking and what grades they are having in those credits. And so really early intervention uh where we can run that report of ninth graders on track coming out of 8th grade, first quarter,

103nth grade semester, third quarter. And so we are very uh aware of you know who and how many credits are being attained all through that that 8th grade to 9th grade into sophomore year transition. It is a lot of data and that touches like the tip of what's on the school report card. I I think I have spent hours and hours diving into the excitement of school report card. Uh what questions might you have? >> Right. Thank you very much. I'm going to start with Mr. Rising because he has been intimately involved in this topic. Um, as a district over the last year, we've lobbied for changes that we're happy to see have been made and >> actually two and a half years ago. I like to think the changes were made because of my

104pushing the Illinois State Board of Education for two and a half years. Um, I just have a comment and on slide seven. Uh so I just want to first start out my comments. I I I actually do have a question at the very end. Uh but my comments regarding proficiency and misinformation that's out there. Um, in fact, there was even an article today in the Tribune that the title of the article was totally misrepresentative of of what is going on right now with these with proficiency. It said that the state was lower lowering the standards. And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. So I just want to address that quickly because there's a difference between standards and proficiency and growth. And just for a context of history around this um in 2013 all

105our kids were testing. Brief history 2013 our kids were doing the ISAT test. In 2013 is when they changed the cut scores on the ISAT. At one point our district on the ISAT all our kids were like 80 90% proficient and the state's like okay this is ridiculous. So they lowered the cut scores and then in 2015 we got a new test which was the park test. In 2019 oh no by the way they changed cut scores then. And in 2019, we have the I A test which we've been on since. Uh and for the past six years, we have been on that test. And as you showed in ELA, we have one of the highest cut scores in the country of any proficiency test. Um in math, we're top three. So what proficiency means

106is and you identified this on this slide which I thought was great. It's basically how they test on one particular day on one particular test. Proficiency is not grade level. It never has been grade level. And there's a lot of misinformation out there that proficiency is grade level. It's not. It's how a kid tests one day on a certain test and just and if they aren't proficient, it doesn't mean they're failing their grade level. And and I'll give you a personal example. My student who graduated in was that student that you showed that had a 3.8 grad grade point average, was in three AP courses, and was not proficient. and now she's a senior in college about to graduate this year. So, and then we get to the standards. Standards is what kids learn every

107day in school. No one is changing the standards. No one is lowering the standards. The only thing that's being adjusted is the proficiency cut scores to be more representative of how our students are doing in school. Um, and one of the most important things, and if you could just go to that slide 16, um, because this kind of shows where we rank as far as our state to the rest of the country in our cut scores. It's normalizing our cut scores on proficiency as it relates to what our kids know. Um, so I'm excited for this. And the other important thing, so there's standards, what the kids learn, proficiency, how they test one day, and then the growth. The growth is very important. And I'm glad the state made this move back in 2013 to

108look at growth because growth really kind of gives you a benchmark of a parent of how they're kind of doing against other kids. And as a parent, if I see my kids growth scores, yeah, I'm looking at their proficiency scores. I'm not stressing out about the proficiency scores because I know what grades they're getting. I know that they're getting, you know, A's, B's, or C's in their classes. If they're proficient, I'm not stressed out about it. I'll ask a teacher a question. But if I'm not seeing growth as a parent, then I'm saying, "Okay, should I be concerned? My kids's not growing along with their peers, where can I help them?" Right? So there's a lot of things and I wish we could maybe you can do a presentation on this for our community because

109it it's in our communication department because there's a lot of misinformation about standards proficiency and growth. Um and I wish you know more people understood that because it gets misrepresented so much. Sorry I had to go on my tangent my soap box. Uh the one question I did have regarding the ACT slides that you showed towards the end. Um uh are so I guess that's slide 25 and 26. Uh I have a question for you because I found this very interesting again trying to rationalize in my brain proficiency as it relates to the score. On one hand, you have an ELA score, a proficiency score of 76.6 and a test score of 22.4. On the next slide, our kids are lower proficiency in math on the ACT and yet they score higher on the ACT

110in math. Can you rationalize that for me in any way possible? >> We've had a lot of discussion among our uh collaborative on this because it is not unique to Indian Prairie. We are seeing others that are having average a higher average math ACT score, but their proficiency is is still a little bit lower than their ELA. And looking at the B looking at the new cuts scores for ACT, it shouldn't come out that way. And so we've been having some conversations both as our consortium and then posed that to the state. And the has come back from the state in the explanation of their proficiency range. You have it, what's the best way to explain it? You have a lot of students right at that proficiency level, which to me would increase the proficiency

111percent, but they're saying it's a bubble right on that that level, and you have a another bubble right below the proficiency. >> Okay? So those two bubbles kind of equal out your average score. They lower your average score a bit, >> but don't give you your like your your bubbles are making your score seem lower in ELA than it is. And then your bubbles for math like your bubble is here and here and the line is here. And so your average gets a little bit higher, but you have less proficiency. >> And the proficiency is related to the ACT test itself. So >> yes, >> in some ways I can understand that because in math >> you either could get a question right or you get a question wrong. In ELA there's a lot more

112things that maybe you're measuring and so therefore I could see the score going down a little bit while the proficiency is still high because you're measuring more things on the ACT when it comes to ELA. Okay. Thanks. gave us this visual of where your kind of clusters are falling. And when your clusters are closer together in ELA, it's making sense, but your clusters are a little bit further apart in math. >> Thank you, >> Miss Dumming. >> Thank you. Lots of data and um very very impressive to have such few opportunities be before to be before of us and to be for us and get settled uh to be a lone person in presentation. So, >> a little lonely here. >> So, thank you. Um nice job with it. Slide I just have a couple

113of questions. Um slide 27. I just had a question. Um one of my questions was on mobility. Is that does that represent changing within schools or totally in and out of district? >> In and out of district. Okay. Uh we keep that like the mobility in and out of district. What What we debated even in our um technology and research and assessment department meeting today is when you technically withdraw a student because sometimes we withdraw a student and then they reenroll and that can count towards mobility. So if a student we know leaves for a bit of time let's say 20 days our our current procedure not policy is to withdraw them at 15 even We know they may return at 20 and so we had some discussion today about those procedures and we know

114that some of that is you know might be impacting that mobility rate. Um actually two other questions. One um on this uh let's see I think it's um it basically what I wanted to know what did what have we found I can't find out where it is um chronic absenteeism I can't remember which slide it is but anyway um I think 26 which What what have we found have been some of the um strengths and things that have really worked for us to see that absenteeism rate come down? Any any ideas? And has it been mostly um I just can't remember. Mostly at one particular level or has it been across all three levels? >> I haven't specifically done analysis by level. I can definitely do that and and look back when I did the

115individual um school. There were a couple at each level that had increased. The the 21 there were successes at every every grad span. There wasn't one grad span that didn't have somebody that that um decreased. Um so there isn't one, you know, set trend. Okay. >> Uh in talking to a couple of the principles after I ran this just to say like you had a significant decrease. What were some things that you did? Um I think you know even listening to Georgetown today finding that culture of motivation among the staff and that bleeds into the students or that um you know having the the commitment of um attendance awards um attendance you know incentives in some of the elementaryaries as well as different structures within three high schools uh and looking at alternative ways to

116connect students in learning. um have been just anecdotal things that I have collected. I haven't necessarily done a distinct study of all of them. >> I I I love that. I remember we had one presentation that mentioned um you know a student who high school student who was responsible for getting their their younger sibling off to school and so they were tardy every first period. So what we changed when they you know what when they started when that what that looked like and that helped to to address. Um and then just my last question um with Longwood just can you help a little bit more? Um you know how we get that that 2-year difference and just still being still being on the strategic plan. How do we why do we get when we're still

117on the plan? Why does that why do we still get deemed um for that second year when we're still on the plan. I >> they still give Yeah, they still give you a summitive designation yearly regardless. Um they don't extend your plan. You still stay on your original kind of set of targeted support plan. Um and ultimately when uh Dr. Tally and I were looking at at the end of your plan, there is one year that you are designated that you need to be commendable. And so it it doesn't I I don't want to say it doesn't matter because it the data does matter and we want to make sure we're continuing to to push to see growth. But I do concur what I I believe your sentiment is is we're in the midst of

118the plan and making changes. And while you're making that change, sometimes you see some growth and sometimes you see a little dip. And that that's part of the cycle of of learning and change. And ultimately that plan concludes in two years. And that's the powerful year where our our intensive effort should show. And so it is frustrating and and disheartening at times to have that designation fluctuate in the midst of a plan. >> Your verbal your verbalization was much more eloquent than mine. Uh do we begin to and you may have mentioned this. So do we now start again on a separate plan is what? So, >> no, no. So, let me I just want to go back to what what uh Dr. Mum was was mentioning. A school could conceivably every year after it's

119it's identified as being targeted, a school could be commendable, commendable, commendable, but then that last year it could be identified as being targeted and then therefore it goes to comprehensive. And so what is very different about the designation of our schools now versus when it was under No Child Left Behind, under No Child Left Behind, you had to have once you had two years in a row, you were off the list. >> Okay? >> It's this is not the situation. And so, um, what's important is is that a school whenever it's targeted, so as Dr. Mum mentioned, um, Brookdale was targeted for African-American students. At the year that it's supposed to come off, as long as it is commendable for African-American students, it's off the list. If on the other hand it is targeted for

120African-American students, it will go to comprehensive. Longwood was identified in three areas. Lowincome African-American students and students with disabilities. As long as in the final year that it comes off, it's commendable in those three areas, it will be fine. But if it's if it's targeted in any one of those three areas, then the school is comprehensive. >> Okay? So, we just look at that final year. It's not we're they're not they they don't have to do they don't stay on the plan that they already had in place and then have to look at another plan. >> They're they're they are always it is it's a plan, do study, act. So they've planned, they've done, they're studying it, and now they're going to rewrite and review and look at those areas about which they have been

121targeted and what are they going to put in place to address those issues. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Thank you, >> Miss Fazda. >> Thank you for all of this. Um, I have one question that's just a point of clarification. Um it is particularly addressed on slide 31 about eighth grade students passing algebra one in our district that's excel math right so that's not this that's not the regular eighth grade track class that's one level up so and it so 50% of our students are passing 50% of our students are taking algebra 1 or 50% of our students are passing algebra 1 in addition to that while while you're Yeah, because I wrote it down. I I checked it three times and wrote it down. Um% It indicates that the percent of eighth grade students

122that enroll and take algebra one are okay. Um and does this truly only reflect eth grade students or does it reflect students taking this level of math in middle school? So, sixth grade PA math students are taking algebra 1. This is only eighth grade. >> Eighth grade only. Sixth graders will count when they become eighth graders. >> Okay. >> They had taken it as sixth graders. >> It counts when they take it when they become the eighth grader. So, even if they took it in sixth grade, it won't count until they become an eighth grader. >> It's an interesting measure because most kids are taking algebra one. >> I took it two years ago. Yes. >> Got it. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Most kids are taking algebra 1 in nth grade. So >> like

123that's the beauty of this measure is and that that's why like the state it is a celebration to have the state right around that 30 38% that's what they look for and a huge celebration for the amount of students that take it as early as 8th grade in Indian Prairie because we have accelerated so that they can take it because you're right the expectation is that you do take algebra 1 as a freshman in ninth grade. And so we do have a considerable amount of students that are taking it as eighth grade or before even. >> Hence the reason why I asked the state representative to work on changing our law that allows our eighth grade our students in middle school who take algebra and geometry can now earn high school credit. >> GPA high

124school credit I'm more focused on not GPA. They're measuring. >> Yeah. [clears throat] >> Um my other question I guess is just from my understanding. I you know I asked some questions on my first read of this. I had a second read. I had no presentation. Um for the climate survey. So, from where I'm sitting, it looks like the climate survey is a measure of how good your teachers are at making their students take a survey >> rather than anything else. >> Like, h how Okay. So, so why does that I I don't understand why that counts in the grading of your school. Is that just like how good your teachers are at making your students do anything X? Like, is is that I don't understand I guess the purpose if they're not actually recording

125the responses themselves if that's not what they're evaluating. >> Do we do as a district look at five essentials data and the actual responses considerably in the fall? We look at the parents responses, we look at the students, we look at the the staff responses >> and so we do an analysis of that outside of the the school report measures >> and there's value in that. >> Yeah, absolutely. And we we write action plans on it. Um, however, you are correct when it comes to summitive designation it is strictly participation which Then um definitely the feedback we have given in the revamp of the summit of designation of it is it and even the way they calculate it we have debated a bit with the state because they for five essentials they ask to exempt

126students that can't read the English survey but those exemptions count against you in summitive designation >> and so that has definitely been something that on this Thursday I'm reiterating at the feedback. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something that there was some other secret to this that I just was over my head or something, but Okay. >> And we did submit, I think, um, a total of four appeals to the state this year. Three of them were the climate survey data. >> Thanks for your advocacy. >> A misalignment of a a student, one student data was misplaced in the wrong school. Okay. >> Oh, wow. >> Three were we debated on the exemptions for the climate surveys. >> Thank you, Miss Grover. Thank you. Um slide eight. When it says

127for exemplary commendable, it says overall performance in the top 10% of all schools. Are we being compared to unit district schools in Illinois or is it all the 800 schools? >> All schools. Okay. So, we have to be in the top 10% of like 800 schools. Okay. And then the next slide, slide nine. So I can can you explain this pie chart in relationship to a school? So take longwood. You said it was targeted. So are they taking the scores of all the students and then you put it and you value that at 25% and value the math growth and so that's how you get the and then you put that in where Longw fits in with the other 800 schools and that's how you get your targeted. If you take this pie chart and

128they essentially make your index score out of this pie chart by taking they'll give you like for English language arts growth. They will give you a number that you get in growth. Let's say I made 56 uh percentile growth. They will take that 56 times 25% and they will give me an index number from that. They'll add all of my index numbers together for my school and then I'm going to just flip to that. um chart at the very top of the little school building. Okay, that is the index score that then they compare across all the schools and they say what is the top 10% index scores that's the cuto off for exemplary and the bottom five percent that's the below that is the the targeted piece and so they take that points value

129for each of those pie chart pieces times the waiting give you the index score and then they rate that. The nice part about this icon, when you go to the school report card, you can click on the overall index score and it will pull up a chart that will show you the the comparison. It'll show your line compared to the dotted line of exemplary, the dotted line of commendable, and where each one of these indicators falls for your school. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Mr. Kurubus. >> Oh, I great presentation, great knowledge. I appreciate what uh you know, your ability to digest this and give it to us in a you know way that we can um digest it. Um I to me it was it's way too much information. I feel like it went

130from being a report card to this like deep dive of, you know, cellular kind of level. And I can't imagine any other area of the government that would require um this level of detail to try to have some reporting and accountability. I I struggle to see how some of this is, you know, is useful to us at some level. Um, I feel like we're spinning our wheels trying to meet requirements and, you know, dance through hoops on is this commendable or not? And, you know, how's that helping the kids? How's that helping the class? Um, so I feel like, you know, we've got a lot of mandates here that we're trying to meet. How's it helping us improve education at the local level? And even looking forward, looks like we're having an expanded um high

131school uh course requirement in the report card coming up in the next couple years that's going to require in this report card to include all of our course listings um including at the regular level, the AP level, courses that are taken by English lang language learners, courses that are taken by students with disabilities, and then breaking those down by um race, gender, ethnicity, Um, and so it's going to just keep getting more of a report card growing and growing. Uh, so I um, you know, I know it's it's getting worse and worse from my perspective. Um, they don't do this in medical, they don't do this in healthcare, they don't do it. And so I I think it started out with good intentions, but I think we have um we've gone way diminishing returns and

132we're not getting much for it. So that's that's my 30,000 foot view. I don't expect a response, but that's that's where I'm at. Thanks. >> I will just say one thing. it will get um more complicated because the state is changing how they designate and so uh you will have either exemplary you will have approaching and so all of that will be happening come uh next school year >> and there's tons of problems we went from ACT to SAT and so you're long and so it just keeps getting worse and worse I don't see how this is helping the general public or districts improve student performance thanks Um, so on Miss Grover's point about uh Longwood, they're targeted, but they're targeted because they have uh two groups that were um having problematic uh growth, right?

133African-Americans and lowincome, but the entire school wasn't targeted. I mean, it's targeted category, but because of the the performance of those two groups, right? Yeah. Um, I agree. I mean, I think that this is complicated and I think I have always been frustrated with how they come up with these labels on the schools and and it's important like we do it's almost a game. We have to work to make sure our schools get in the right category because parents will see that that's how people choose their houses and where they want to live. And so it's an important measure and unfortunately we we have to go along with it. We can't rebel or something. So um I agree like Miss Fazdik brought up the survey. I mean also attendance 20% I mean I absolutely agree

134attendance is incredibly important for students and chronically absent that means you are gone at least one day every two weeks and it's like that makes your learning path so much more difficult and I understand that there are some families that can take their children out and uh have special tutors or you other support mechanisms to keep their children caught up. But I mean, and I'm happy to hear 20ome of our schools improved, but we're still over 15% chronically absent. And that um is something I think we got to continue to to focus on. And it it does count right now for a big percentage in elementary schools. Um but so I was interested in your comment. I didn't realize until tonight that they were going to change how they uh designated school. So, do we

135have insight already on what that looks like? And are some of those troubling points going to change? Some are changing. Um but but looking at the draft plan, I I think there's some other troubling points possibly. Okay. Um they they do have a good a stronger focus on growth and proficiency and then taking some of those subset like climate uh absenteeism and looking at like not making that a piece that creates your score but could elevate your score but can't pull down your score as much. >> I mean like absenteeism too. It's like you're almost getting the double whammy. If you're not in school, you're going to have a tougher time performing and you're already grading them on growth and achievement and um proficiency. So, it's um I don't know, it's very problematic. You did

136mention that with high school that they were measuring growth rates. How do they measure that? they um share that it is test agnostic and that they look at how I did on my eighth grade I AR and whatever category I'm in because they have the consistent benchmarks now. So let's say in eighth grade I got a um approaching and then it compares how I did on my PSAT and compared to all others that were in that approaching category, how did I do compared to them on my next test which was my PSAT and did I, you know, grow faster than them? Did I grow slower than those in that same category on my previous IR in working with high school staff? And again, the consortium folks were not quite bought into if it is completely

137test agnostic. Um, that that's why I'm glad to see it's not quite yet on the summitive designation because I we just want to see it overtime. uh it is a little bit more of a comfort level when it is you know a pre-ACT test to the ACT or you know a pre SAT test to the SAT to go from I AR into kind of that ACT series is is yet to be seen >> and so what do they do with students who maybe were homeschooled and didn't take the IR or whatever >> yeah they don't have individual scores until they take that first just like with uh I third fourth you don't have a girl score until fourth grade even though you take it in third grade because that's your first entry and then your

138girl score comes in fourth grade. If you don't have the third grade I AR for some reason you take your first I A in fourth grade. You don't get a G score till fifth grade. And so you have to have two uh tests within that assessment series before you get a girl score. on on slide 21 we um talked about the third through fifth grade math I believe and it was concerning that it seems like it goes in the like it's higher in third grade and then it go is that what it was yeah and it's like what what are we doing to look at that I mean that's kind of troubling and then it seems in middle school there's like a gradual uptrend and all the other scores, but that one it's like, okay,

139we're really good in third grade, but then we get kind of not so good in fifth grade. I think that is a short term in in talking uh you know with the curriculum department I do think that's a a shortterm concern because of the kind of sporadicness of the implementation and trying to get that full series of implementation and accountability to the program implemented that currently our fourth and fifth grade teachers are looking at trying to fill some gaps of foundational pieces that they might have missed during that inconsistency of program use in in first and second grade. >> Well, thank you. It's a lot of information and um a lot of families do look at this um and dig in and look at schools and uh their children's scores. So, thank you very much

140for your presentation tonight. >> One success I did want to mention back to the the preview of the next plan. Um, one frustration has been that it's been a moving target to be exemplary or commendable and that that moves based on the percent every year of and and it is projected hopefully moving forward that it will be a benchmark that's set that you can plan to how you're going to get and attain it. And so I think that hopefully if that stays um that would be a success moving forward that they will set that that benchmark. But we know there's a lot of still in listening tours that that will be something that we are advocating for. Set the benchmark, set the criteria so we can all work for it and it's not something that

141continually moves and we don't know what the the cut score to get into those categories are until it's released like set it, let us know and so we can plan for it. >> I mean that sounds much more positive. Um I yeah I mean like I said we we do like to see our schools get rated exemplary and commendable and and so it's always like every year waiting for those um scores for our schools and uh so all right >> I will I I will just u say something that Mr. Rising has quoted me on multiple times. Test scores in and of themselves are not the reason that you choose a school. You choose a school based upon how your children are doing in that building. And uh school a you may you may half

142the people may love being in that building and another half may not. It is how what is the education program your child is your child succeeding and doing well in that building? And that's what we have to remember. Um, yes, I know real estate agents will say one thing over another, but I go back to say, is your child achieving in that school? That's the that's the measure of success. >> Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> We have some students left in the room. Do you guys need anything signed before we move on to our next topic or Yes. Okay. Yeah. All right. Everybody go sign stuff. >> Yeah. Do we have someone? >> Okay. Okay. >> Think people They do. >> 100 You're welcome. Okay. All right. Well,

143we are now on our legislative advocacy and board of education updates, and I'm going to ask Miss Dming to take the the lead. >> Okay. This will hopefully be quick. I sent everyone uh resent everyone a copy of the constitutional amendments and resolution. So you would have it at the top of your email. I did not receive any correspondence from anyone asking regarding any questions. But run down 1 through 10 on the constitutional amendments. As I indicated those came through us came to us through the B board of directors will be voting on those at the delegate assembly. They must receive a twothirds vote. Uh I do know um obviously board member Rising's very familiar with those and I believe board member Fosdic had a chance to sit in on that particular committee as far

144as forwarding these particular amendments. The board uh has reviewed reviewed and approved these recommendations. So they have been sent to us all with to adopt. Did anybody have any questions on item one membership that had a variety of and just FYI, I've if anybody needs further comm further information of the reasoning behind it, I've got a bunch of pages on that, too. And I think they they pretty and they pretty much you know the additions that they did. I think the reasonings they pretty much um indicated but certainly um board member Rising you or board member Postik would have additional information that I may not have. Item two also recommended do adopt delegate assembly annual conference just a couple of areas where they made some deletions and um minimal addition. I um that was the

145one where they it looked like they would allow like you to vote but not be at the meeting like via email and stuff. Is that correct? >> Yes. >> Um >> it said by or by any means recommended by the resolutions committee and approved by the board of directors. >> I don't know. I guess I I was questioning whether that would be something I would want to support. I mean I think having people present in that room as a delegate um means something and um I guess I'm worried if they allow the option of you can just um email in your your vote. I don't know. I just I guess I was trying to figure out why why they would be doing this and would it be to our advant advantage or disadvantage >> the

146name board member Rise? >> So the board of directors at the state level had this discussion. I had a problem with it for the same reason that you're thinking about it because they are moving towards phoning your vote basically. Um, and I do kind of have a problem with that. It's I mean they're moving towards that direction, right? Their their their rationale is that they want more boards participating, but I feel it should be in person. >> Are they feeling that those that all boards aren't present at the conference or that? >> Yes. And and the interesting part about it is when I asked the numbers, I'm sorry, Alison. Um when I asked the numbers, the number of delegates that were in the room was even lower than the boards that were at the conference,

147which was even significantly lower than the number of boards in the state. So now you don't have people showing up to the delegate assembly and you don't have people even coming to the conference and now you want to make it everybody can just make it easier for everybody and and again I I am not trying to prevent any board from having a say in these things because I think it is very important for all boards to have a voice but if you can't bother to even show up and be there. And then when I hear a lot of boards don't even have these discussions in their board meetings like we are around the delegate as some they just send somebody and say go vote however you want to vote. Um yeah so >> you had

148these review committee calls last winter so this is like digging be deep pretty far back into the discussions. Um, but I know that one of the points that was brought up because each member of this committee was grouped and responsible for a different section. So, this was not my section. Um, but not all boards pay for their members to go and that was one of the sticking points. If people have to spend their own money and their own time to go, that it's a it's a prohibitive factor at times or people aren't going to ch choose to spend easily. I mean, how much does it cost for each of us to go to stay, right? Or drive up for the day. Um, and that was part of the intention behind that that I do support.

149Um, we're blessed that we're our district is able to send us to go for that professional development and learning, but that isn't true of all boards. So increasing participation in through other means by removing some of the barrier I think was some of that intention behind that decision. Now, some of it might just be make it easier for everybody, too, right? Nobody has to go. >> And I agree with you. Remove the barriers. I totally agree with you. Remove the barriers. At the end of the day, is this going to be a big thing? I doubt it. You know, it's it's it's >> I like to think that most sports of education in this state and even the ones I talked to that you wouldn't think that we would agree and in very rural areas,

150they they all aligned on on a lot of the same issues that we do. It's just um you know, I like the people being there in person. But >> we allow absentee voting in much >> I know. >> I mean, as a school board member, you can't vote remotely or whatever. You have to be here, right? I mean, I I just worry because we did have a lot of issues with IASB where we were getting overwhelmed by downstate small districts um having a much bigger voice in the organization and then um the bigger districts like if you added up how many students were covered by some of the larger districts versus the ones downstate and who was holding all the offices, who was on the resolution committee, who was the directors, it was all downstate.

151And in fact, I think possibly Alva this year is going to be the first officer that's coming from a decently sized district. It must have been like under a thousand students and you saw all of and I just thought this is another way of us like not having that. Yeah. So I it raised concerns to me for many different reasons. >> Well, what I would say is um and I should have prefaced the statement with the fact that we're just going to review this evening. We're going to vote on the 17th. So um this one we may want to um give some there's obviously some additional consideration that we want to give to this one. keep in mind as we prepare our processes on what we want to do as a board. Item three around

152elections again there were um some deletions here and a couple of additions um talking about making um nomination consistent within with any Illinois Association of School Board of Directors governance rules. Anything board member rising or ozdic that you number four terms of office previously terms of office for officers shall were one year they've um suggested two years or until their successes are elected and qualified and offices shall be assumed at the close of the annual meeting of the delegate assembly. Each officer may serve no more than one twoyear term. It's this one is interesting to me because you have a vice president at the state level, you have a president at the state level, and you have a past president at the state level. Historically, when somebody has been elected vice president, a year later

153they usually get elected president and then a year after that they're a past president. Now you're going to have a vice president for two years potentially them moving to president for two years and then potentially if they run again. But again, in these rural districts, majority of those board members are serving at least a decade. Um, so it it's it's very it's not conducive to suburban school board members who don't serve as long terms to serve at an officer level because they're just they don't stay elected that long as you see in in a lot of rural areas. So that is a long time to be on the board of directors at the state level, but I can also understand the rationale of it at the same time. So >> well, it kind of keeps

154people out of the succession line too for four years or whatever. I don't know. I'm >> I had questions about this one too. >> So it says shall the term of office officer shall be two years or until their successors are elected and qualified. That's do do we see enough persons willing to be willing to run? Usually when typically when they're when the president moves on to past president, more oftentimes than not, it's the vice president that ends up running for president. This year, there was one other person that ran for president, but that person wasn't even a board of director. They they came from a a district in the suburban area that just decided they wanted to run for president. This year there were four people that ran for vice president. So, um yeah,

155I mean it it there is a potential it could open it up more, but I don't know. I >> mean, if it was it was two years, it would open it up more. Well, the term they they can be two years, but they can only serve one term, >> one two-year term, and then um and they can serve only one consecutive term. >> Typically, the nominating committee has always put the vice president into the president position. >> So, they're there for four years, >> right? Well, >> then six years because they're two years past president. >> Six years as past president. Okay. Can I go back to one of the other earlier ones too? You know that we were talking about the voting one. Um, so my question is it seems to be that they

156will decide if this is an adoption they will decide the protocol the procedure because they haven't come up with the procedure as yet. Correct. And so like email may not work because internet connection or will they check to see my email? Are they am I going to get doubled? Um maybe they'll get my yes vote twice. So if we do adopt it, we're saying yes to go ahead, but we don't know the procedure. So we're not that's another >> procedure is not there. They're they're just exploring the option and it still has to it still has to go through the resolution committee and then it still has to go through the board of directors for final approval. So there's multiple stages that's going to have to get approved that process. But >> so like that's

157why I would probably vote yes for it because I do understand the equity part of it, but it's like let's see what they're going to propose for the procedure rather than just like shutting it down without even seeing the plan. I just want to mention that >> to to complete the terms of office discussion. I think the change at the state level aligns with the local level. So locally we elect officers for two years. So let's do the same at the state level. I think that's the Russia. >> Do all do all boards elect for two years? Is that Well, but does it all school? >> Okay. >> But it's a six months after the election though, so it's not going to line up exactly with you know, you get elected in April and this

158happens in November >> at the end of the um well, you get nominated and then officially approved, >> right? >> It's not going to line up exactly. So that's why I think they bumped up that until >> successor is appointed. And when we had the discussion of the board of directors, I think I can mention this. It it it really came down to you're you're you're better prepared to serve as president when you can serve two years as a vice president observe for a little longer. And I think there was more of a success planning and and you know understanding the role more and being more effective in the role. So from that standpoint I also understand how that can be very beneficial. >> Um article five board of directors composition. This was to include

159um past immediate past president of association, a member of the active member from each division or designated alternate and the president of the Chicago board of education are are his or her design when the Chicago Board of Education is an active member. Any can you share any um additional thought process on this one? This was I I had questions on this one. >> I have to look into this one. I can't remember off the top of my head >> because I just wondered are they in are they an active part? Um I don't know whether I don't I've never I don't know that I've seen anybody from >> CPS. >> Yeah. Uh there is actually a uh a board of director like myself from CPS this year that that shows up to all the meetings.

160So they >> okay >> they did appoint somebody at the CPS board level um that now attends the board of directors meetings and and they're they're trying to get more involved >> maybe with the election maybe with their um yeah >> being elected that >> Yeah. And I think it's the elected ones that are pushing a lot more of it. So um yeah so that's >> thank you. Uh article seven committees a nominating committee consist consisting of a chair who shall be the immediate past president and four additional persons who are members of the of active members and serve on the board of directors as far as the nominating committee is concerned. So those were the additions. Um >> and that's kind of the way it's always been. They just clarified it a little better.

161They just added that language in there. That's that's usually who it's been comprised of. >> Have a article seven divisions. Um this talked about members of the governing committee or governing board uh and training that they needed to be required to take after being elected to enhance their knowledge of their authority, roles and responsibilities. Nice job. Nice job. >> Okay. Article nine resolutions. [laughter] Um this basically talked about uh resolutions for proposals, resolutions for position statements. And as you recall, position statements are now um sort of took the place of prior what we termed as resolutions. But um upon a majority vote of the active members school board, the active members that make up an association division, the association's board of direction, or the resolutions committee, the vote must be submitted along with the resolution

162um as has been uh in the past. in any resolution which is not submitted in the manner described herein shall not be considered by the delegate assembly what was this for clarification on the actual process uh >> I don't know that there was anything >> just well at a very high level it was to firm up the language of what qualifies as a resolution when what doesn't what the timeline is what you know I mean they're they're just firming it up a lot more because there was a lot of things in the recent past that have there's been a lot thrown at the tree to see what sticks so to speak. So they were just making the process a lot more structured. >> Okay. and they they there were a few under here um annual

163review they basically were tightening that up as far as um time frame again and any making sure in accordance with any established rules by the resolution committee. So there are variety of things here and as you indicated not allowing um the late resolutions they >> Yep. >> removing so making sure that people >> do it in a timely fashion 11 miscellaneous. Um, basically declaring emergencies. And this was may basically stating that the board of directors may suspend or modify a provision or provisions of the constitution during an emergency declared by the governor of the state of Illinois or the president of the United States. uh to comply with such emermergency declaration declaration and purposes of the association. >> This came came out of co basically. >> Okay. and said we are going to align with

164what the state says we should do. >> And then the final one is basically amendments um just saying upon majority vote of the active member school board, the active members that make up the association's division or the association's board of directors. uh and just saying that the vote must be submitted along again with the proposed amendment to the constitution much like we're talking about as far as the resolutions concerned. >> Y Natasha Okay. All right. So those were um all suggested from the board of directors for a recommended do adopt and I will share um as with the one resolution and I'll we'll talk about that as and um also with the candidacies I'll share a sheet where everyone can kind of figure out where they where they fit in on each particular adopter what

165their proposal is. Yeah. Don't Yeah. The candidates want to all be in agreement on the candidates like you said the the resolution the constitutional amendments. They did ask that we have an alternate that we nominate maybe on our next meeting an alternate delegate who can be whoever but they asked us to do that. >> I saw Yep. I saw I did see that. Um any did anybody have any questions um regarding um Tracy or Ala for board member rising? Um those are the two that are nominated for presidency and vice presidency. >> So I did hear there was going to be somebody that's going to ask to be nominated as president from the floor. Um I that's not me. >> I would learn vice. Okay. [laughter] We move from vice president to president. >> You

166all looked at me like is that we all we all did. [laughter] >> Um you know I I mean I actually considered running from the floor last year for vice president before I was director. Uh but I'm like I'll wait and follow the process that this is usually gone through. So, um, you know, and you all know I applied to be vice president, so uh, but I support both these candidates. I mean, they're they're both good. >> Tracy is from a small very small district. >> Yeah, I think they have under a thousand kids total in their district. >> Yeah, I'm I'm just going to go back to my comments about IASB. We have to be viligent diligent about looking and watching to make sure that our voice is heard. and we've besides the predominance

167of very small downstate districts and some of the positions that were being put forward as resolutions and things that um that we didn't align with in the past. Um, I'm glad that they've changed that whole process a bit um for resolutions, but even the frustration with looking at possibly nominating an officer and this chain of like getting through different subgroups that are again predominantly heavy downstates, very small districts that kind of hold the power in those groups. to possibly nominate one of our own to be an officer was literally impossible. And it's like, so I'm looking for any way to make that change. And I worry about some, you know, sometimes some of the things that are being proposed that it's just perpetuating that situation. >> I I can assure you that in my six

168short months and two meetings with the board of directors, >> I have put them on notice as such of that While there is a common theme of all boards need to be represented, >> I'm also making them understand how a lot of suburban districts have felt as of recent. So, >> um that is becoming clear. I I think you'll also be getting a strategic plan survey that IB is doing a strategic plan and I would make those comments known if you feel that way as well. Um when they're looking at a strategic plan. Well, I also just got asked if I would participate on a large group um >> sub subgroup or something um just of other presidents, board presidents to try and talk about our specific issues. But it's like I think that that

169continues to be something we have to carefully watch because what has gone on in the past has been problematic for us. And I've had those conversations, per private conversations with Kimberly Small, the executive director. I've had that with Sarah Miller, who's in charge of um the lobbying group. Um so they understand um and they are cognizant of it as far as the staff goes for ISB as well. So >> yeah, is there any other >> the last just the last one is the resolution. There was only um surprisingly there was only one resolution brought forward this time and this is from um Sycamore and there is an enactment of Senate Bill 191 which is going to require uh school buses to be provided with lap and shoulder belts and that is um that requirement I

170think is by 2031. one I believe by 20 or 31 and [laughter] >> I should have just looked around said yeah what is it thank you so and and so basically this particular sycamore put forward this resolution asking for um for a grant to be amanable or to be considered and for them to put forward that they would see this take uh place by 2034 just because uh there's so many again smaller districts where this could really create a large difficulty. Belts can be anywhere from 7 to 18,000 per bus and therefore um asking and looking for particular for grant um extended time frame. And so the this the committee did um recommend to adopt. >> Yeah, it's already law. They're just asking for the permission to go off for grants, right? Essentially, >> they

171want grants to be created. >> That that's what they're that's what they're asking for and then a little extent time frame just because um it's going to put them can put some districts certainly, >> you know, some very small districts under um financial difficulty. one to meet the time frame and then um as they look at the amount of money per >> well and I'm guessing they have their own bus fleet too so that could be significant cost >> for those that do have their bus fleet >> how about fully fund transportation >> grants mean the government doesn't have enough money so we're going to piece it out >> can we can we do a resolution on fully funding the mandated articles >> they should be lobbying for that honestly They should. >> Yeah. >>

172Good job, Susan. >> So, I I have a question, Susan. You said you need all of us to say yes on something. >> No, I wasn't say No, I'm going to I I will put forward um a sheet so that you can everybody can indicate. Just review what your thoughts are because we'll take a vote um on the at the next meeting. Okay. >> In order to direct me on how we want to decide to vote on each of these. >> Okay. And then can someone help me understand IASB in general? And what I mean by that is these are proposition like these are proposals. These are they're not law. So even if we say yes or no, I mean some of the things have we vote yes on and it goes nowhere. Um right.

173And so I'm trying to figure out what is it why what's the impact that IB has or what have we seen in the past? Is it that they are lo like they lobby for something? Yes. >> Um and if so, what have they lobbied for that >> in the past like five years that you guys know that has helped any district or anything that comes out like >> Yeah. The literally every year and I could get you a list of things but the whole lobbying team which I think there's three or four of them at the state level and now there's one at the federal level that IB has um which is Christian Fitzgerald. Okay. >> Um all of these >> guiding proposals or things that you say it it it guides them of how

174to lobby for IASB and all the schoolboard members as a whole. >> Okay. But like Dr. Tally went to Springfield to to for the algebra thing. I mean he didn't go as part of ISB. He went by himself. No, but he was probably asked on behalf of ISA or Okay, he wasn't. So, >> so that's what I'm wondering. What does ISB do I guess for you? >> Well, they they did one in the past couple years about the ELLL support like um for students or whatever like different um ways of handling them or whatever. I I don't I didn't really >> There is an advocacy group you can become part of too for ISB. They meet once a once a quarter. Um but I can get you a list. >> Yeah, I'd like to see

175because you know um I mean because to me I see I now we don't have the same proposal but I used to see the same things over and over again and it doesn't become law. So it's like why are we kind of beating the same drum? >> Well, they they do have lobbyists and so we're trying to direct them what we want them to spend their time lobbying. >> But isn't that Luda? Isn't that what Luda is? or >> Luda is another lobbying group. IASB it >> oftentimes if there's an education bill oftentimes, not all the time, but >> the legislators will go to especially if they know it's going to impact school districts or or school boards, they will go to IASB or IASA and ask their what their groups feel of a certain

176bill. So, usually that input to the legislators is pretty impactful unless the legislators just want to go rogue and do whatever they want to do. Um but oftentimes they do listen to groups like IASB, IASA, LUDA, LED, um you know, EDA, I mean there's a bunch of lobbying groups out there. >> Yeah. I mean, previously when you were on the board before, we used to get some pretty >> substantial things like we want guns in schools or whatever. And so, you know, do you want IASB lobbying that we want teachers to be able to have guns? Um, and so we would >> our our vote was to support or not support IASB, you know, putting that voice forward, >> right? >> Yeah. for in one example, I um they've been advocating um for Congresswoman um

177Underwood to help sponsor a bill and I I I'll forward a um a letter some correspondence, but um helped to to co-sponsor a bill to fund at 40% which used to be for dis for students with disabilities and now it's gone down to about 10%. And so they're advocating to help for instance advocating for asking her to help co-sponsor this particular bill. >> I guess my question is and maybe it was an outlier but Dr. Tally like went by himself and I'm just like why you know my question is we can approach Congresswoman Underwood as a school district ourselves and say hey >> can you do this for us? >> Oh in fact IB encourages and supports us doing that. They said that every board should talk to their local legislators and lobby themselves how

178that's going to impact their district. We've talked about this on our board as well. Um, you know, so yes, I highly encourage that we do that on things that either positively or negatively impact us like Dr. Jatitali just brought up the credit for high school for algebra. So >> I mean we also Dr. Tally and Mr. Johnson. We're also involved with the bus mechanic thing or whatever where bus drivers, we don't want them to have to be bus mechanics too, >> right? >> Yeah. We are not our voices in silence just because of that. >> Glad everybody has Dr. Tally. >> Okay. >> Turn to Dr. Tally. >> All right. Okay. Anything else on legislative or we had our division meeting this past week and if anyone would like to to borrow this book, I

179got it from the >> the speaker was great. [laughter] >> It was one of the better speakers in a while. >> Yes. So, we got awarded one book from the IASB with a note saying it was worth $25 and that we are only allowed to collect $100 at the most per year of donations. So anyways, if anyone wants that, I have it available. With that, I need a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Second. Is there a second? >> All in favor? I I