Board of Education Meeting 09/08/2025

001ready with recording. Okay, it is now 7:04 and I'm calling to order are reconvening to open session and calling to order the regular board of education meeting for Indian Prairie School District 204 on Monday, September 8th, 2025. Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Miss Gint, >> here. >> Miss Danahghue >> here. >> Mr. Rising, >> here. >> Mr. Kurubus >> here. >> Miss Deming, >> present. Miss Jane >> here >> and Miss Fac >> here. >> We have a quorum. Miss Jane, will you lead us in the pledge? >> I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. The next regular board meeting will be held on Monday, September 22nd. It is now 7:05 and

002I am calling to order the public hearing for the 2025 2526 budget. There you are. >> Good evening members of the board of education. Tonight is the final step in adopting the legal budget for the 2526 school year. I presented the tenative budget at the August 8th board of education meeting which was a natural extension of the forecast and budget presentations made in February and May this year. The school district budget is a year-round process led by the business office but dependent on feedback and work of leaders throughout the district. I want to thank the board of education and district administration for their support throughout the budget process. Consistent with the requirements of the state board of education, the budget was posted on the district's website for 30 days and a public notice was published

003in the Neapville Sun and Daily Herald newspapers noting tonight's public hearing. The business office received no public feedback on the budget and as such tonight's budget is substantially the same as the budget presented last month. Tonight's brief presentation will be a summary of the 2526 budget and we'll review items previously covered with the board of education. Um, as always, our budget presentation is in line with board policy 4.10 and strategic plan priority number four. Um, tonight we're briefly going to cover the budget initiatives. We'll look briefly at the operating budget, our 2526 nonoperating budget, and then finally, I'll close with the next steps needed to formally adopt tonight's budget. We identified four budget priorities when we presented to the board last month. The first was that we would pass a sustainable and transparent budget. Um

004secondly, we would ensure program stability while managing revenue uncertainty. Uh third, we talked about investing in classroom technology and infrastructure and we covered how we are doing that with a one-time operating fund transfer into the local capital proper capital projects fund. Uh and again have to to have funds specifically dedicated for a multi-year technology initiative. And then finally, we talked about our priority of capital investment as this is going to be the first full year of our safer, stronger 204 capital program. Again, last month we looked at uh where we stand compared to our the state average as well as comparable districts on our operating expenditures per pupil. And as shown here, Indian Prairie continues to deliver high quality services at a cost per pupil well below the state average as well as our peer

005district. So we uh compare directly to eight unit school districts. These are the highest performing unit school districts in the state. We are the lowest when it when it comes to expenditures per pupil, but we perform just as well and often better than these districts in the classroom. You can also see we're approximately $3,000 per student of spending below the state average. Over 26,000 students. That represents over $80 million we are each year that we are spending less than the state average. Um, presented here is a summary of the 2026 tenative operating budget. Again, the full budget has been posted on the district's website for at least 30 days and is available u with this board packet as well. I just want to draw attention to the two numbers circled in red here. The first

006shows that we are projecting a small excess of just short of $211,000 across all operating funds. And we are projecting to estimate the end of this budget year with a fund balance that represents about 34% of district revenues. This is in line with board policy which um which prioritizes a fund balance of 25% of operating revenues. Um shown here is just a summary of our tenative um revenues. And as you can see, property taxes continues to be the largest and most stable source of revenues for the district, representing 77% of revenues for the for the operating fund. Our state and federal revenues reflect approved budgets at both the state and federal level. As you know, there's been some significant uncertainty at the at the federal level as as well as some concerns at the state

007level about the sustainability of funding as well. We continue to monitor uh what's going on at the state and federal revenue level to ensure that all that we receive all funding we're entitled to. Uh we're not aware of any uh funding freezes or or um delays in funding at this time, but we will continue to monitor it. That's also why it's critical that during this time we carry sufficient fund balance as well so that if there is some um delays or or issues with either those state or federal revenues, it does not result in a loss of programming. Shown here is a summary of our expenditures. And again, as a reminder to the board and the community, we are a people business. Over three4s of our expenditures, as shown here, go directly to salaries and

008employee benefits paid to our teachers, our classified staff as well as our administrators. Uh, additionally, in the purchase services, because we have an outsource model that represents a significant amount of of custodians, lunchroom staff, transportation providers, bus drivers, etc. that are working with our students on a daily basis. Uh we we covered a a couple times through those presentations some of the areas where we continue to see increases above the consumer price index. Uh that includes our transportation costs, costs related to employee health insurance, costs related to um electricity and just general utilities as well as a cost related to to our outsourced um services or out of district tuition for our highest need students. Shown here is just how our staffing plan um breaks out. And again, our total target FTE for this year

009was u about 3,233 employees. That represents a a small reduction about a 10ft reduction from the prior year. And that again reflects a planned step down reduction related to the federal ESSER funding that again we've brought to to the board and discussed um throughout this uh this budget period. And really that's a multi-year plan. So we started talking about phasing out those esser revenues you know almost two years ago at this time at this point uh we continue to have one of the highest pupil to administrator ratios in the state and you can see that with administrators representing just 3% of our total staff. Um ju just show moving on to our nonoperating budget. So again, this is not um these are funds that are not meant for the day-to-day operations of the district, but

010are really meant for the long-term um with a long-term focus and a long-term um investment in district's uh capital program. And we're showing both a local funds category as well as the referendum funds that relate directly to the safer, stronger 204 referendum. Uh the revenues and and the uh bond sources that are shown here are finalized. those relate to the bonds received um and and closed on July 15th. So those funds are now in the district's bank account and ready to fund projects. Uh this budget again runs from July 1st to June 30th. So this reflects some projects uh that have already taken place and and that we're going to discuss tonight during our capital summary as well as work that we're going to begin um this spring. Uh that includes the significant work on

011Nqua Valley and Wanzi Valley high schools. Um, as mentioned earlier with this budget, we're also asking the board to approve a $ 122.1 million transfer into the local capital funds and that will be used for technology um, infrastructure and technology support over the next three years. The second part of kind of the non-operating um, fund equation is our bond and interest fund. So whereas the capital is is how we are spending the non-operating funds, the the bond and interest fund is really how we're financing those expenditures. Uh tonight's budget includes all scheduled principal and interest payments for all outstanding bonds, including the bonds that that just closed in July. Um all bonds are issued with fixed rate interest payments. So the payments are known and and again are reflected to the dollar in this budget

012this evening. And I will continue to to emphasize that the bond and interest tax rate so that the rate needed to generate the property taxes shown here are consistent with the commitment we made during the safer stronger 204 referendum. the bond and interest rate will will be at or below 37 cents for all taxpayers throughout the district. So, with that, uh we're ready to to adopt tonight's budget. There is um we are asking for tonight's appro for approval later on in tonight's agenda. Uh once we receive that approval, the business office will work to complete all budget filings which are due by September 30th. That includes filing with both our counties, the ROE as well as the state board of education. And then uh just just kind of a reminder we're you know we complete

013one budget and then we're ready to kind of start the next cycle. We'll really start that in November with the tenative tax levy presentation uh followed by the tax levy approval in December and then uh I will be back in front of the board in late February as we start working on the 2627 budget and that did take me a minute to to >> okay >> figure out those years they >> we love seeing you Matt. Um >> thank you. Okay, we have no public comment um that was submitted tonight for for this topic and we're going to have um the ability to have discussion later in our action item. So I right now I need a motion and a second to close the public hearing. >> Make a motion to close the public hearing.

014>> Second. >> Michelle, will you please any discussion? Okay, we'll hold off till the action. I don't anyone has anything to say. Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Mr. Rising, >> yes. >> Miss Gent, >> yes. >> Miss Fasic, >> yes. >> Miss Deming, >> I. >> Mr. Kurubis, >> yes. >> Miss Dahghue, >> yes. >> And Miss Jane, >> yes. >> The motion passes. Tonight we have three board salutes. Miss Fazdick. >> District 204 students artwork displayed on 95th Street banners. The board salutes the Indian Prairie Visual Arts Program for its public art display created in partnership with the city of Neighborville. Artwork from 29 District 204 students selected at last year's fine arts festival was turned into colorful streetlight banners and are now displayed along 95th Street between Route 59 and

015Book Road. The banners will be on display through October. Congratulations to the students and their art teachers for sharing their creativity with our community. Miss J. >> District 204 seniors earn perfect ACT scores. The the board salutes several district 204 seniors for achieving a perfect score of 36 on the ACT. The students earning a perfect score include Matia Valley seniors, Shria Ayagari, Rachel Chen, Lakshina Gopal, Gopala Krishnan, Pragya Ayar, Samya Khan, Shrea Shikoli, Theo Marchand, Shama, Claire Nang, Shrihan Bashupula, Tiana Pra, Trey Prince, Ibrahim Sad, and Lucy Yuan. Nikqua Valley seniors Kundan Baliga Aditya Baiu Peter Carroll Nikil Dutya Rohit Fulior Sa Sajny Gawar Kristen Glenn Steven Heander Huang Dylan Gang Aditi Koshel Maxwell Mayor Advika Prashad Sam Sharma Vignesh Subraman Adva Ter, Jonathan Zhao, and Jason Zoo, and Wubanzi Valley senior Ishan V Sharma.

016Congratulations to all. >> Who has the third? >> I do. >> Okay. Mr. Kurubus, >> Illinois Affinity Group Network facilitator fellowship. The board salutes instructional specialist Tanya Monium for being selected as one of more than 40 facilitators participating in a fellowship with the Illinois Affinity Group Network. These affinity groups bring educators together to build supportive communities, examine current issues that impact the retention of educators of color, and offer recommendations to address those issues. Congratulations, Tanya. Well, let's give a hand of applause for all of these amazing really amazing to see all those perfect ACT scores. Um, all right. Is Sona here? >> Oh, okay. So, we will not have a report tonight from Matia. Um, and we'll move on to our spotlight which is Springbrook Elementary today presented by Mr. David Worse and Miss Dr.

017Natal Natalie Hy Ross. Thanks. >> Good evening, school board. Thank you so much for inviting us to come tonight. We're very excited to share some neat things that Spring Brook's doing. Um when I was first asked to do this, uh some uh give a spotlight for Spring Brook, I emailed Dr. Hy Ross here and said, "Would you be willing to do this?" and I got yes with four exclamation points. So with more with no further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Ross to talk about how we motivate students to read at Spring Brook. >> The number of Americans who read for pleasure decreased 40% from 2003 to 2023, >> but not at Springbrook, home of the Huskys. That same study touts the benefits of reading for literacy, which we all know, but

018also for employment, health, and cultural understanding. We know that reading motivation is crucial. But we also have learned that intrinsic motivation doesn't work for longasting reading for pleasure. So, we're trying to at Springbrook not have all the junk. book talks work, especially genre book talks, >> thanks to our generous PTA, author, illustrator, and storytelling visits. And we also have learned that reading is a social activity. It's not something you do in isolation in a corner. And we're trying to capitalize on that with family reading nights, book clubs, and the Monarch Children's Choice Award. For the younger kids, they have the opportunity to have voice and choice about what wins for the whole state. We participate in two such awards. This is for the younger >> and the blue stem is for the older. We participate

019in the battle of the blue stems along with many of other schools and elementary at our district and many of you board members have attended our game show like event and it's very exciting for all the kids. The answer is always the book title from the blue stem list. >> We're going to highlight four of the social reading activities that we participate in at Springbrook. Themed readins. We have something we call snuggle up and read. We do it the day before winter break. Everyone's invited. You wear your PJs and it's a lot of fun. A couple years ago, we did a glow read. We kind of changed it up a little bit. Had black lights. The kids wore colorful clothing and white clothing and they came in and read in a glow room. And this

020past year we did camp read. So I will invite you to our camp read and I'll explain how we did it. Kids came in, they took a flashlight and they walked through this long tunnel all the way down the LMC and it's lit with tea lightss. At the end there's a campfire and they find a place they snuggle up and they read. This year's uh theme, I'm very excited about it. I think at the beginning of the school year, I'm like, I can't wait to talk about it. Mr. Bro said, it's in March. Let's let's just settle down here. So, I can't wait to tell you about it and hopefully some of you might would like to come and see it. Mr. Wor and I every year we steam up with books and we take

021a Monarch book. We first start by reading the book together. Then we give the kids a steam challenge. And thanks to my fellow LMC director, Michelle Childs, she gives us lots of good ideas for this. In this one, we took um some supplies, which I'll show you, and the kids made boats that had to hold a number of pieces, which we pretended were animals. Here are the supplies, got into groups, and they did this. It fits so perfectly with the portrait of the graduate, especially with creativity, innovation, problem solving, and that team teamwork. It's so exciting to see them um do that. Talk about books is something that we've been doing for many years. And the kids come in, they think about a book that they've read over the year. So something they think that

022other kids might be interested in. Then they sketch it out on paper and they have like a little spiel that they will read. Then they go outside on the sidewalk and they put it with chalk and then they man their station. They read their little spiel and the other kids walk around and this serves as their summer book list getting those kids involved. And lastly, our famous videos, Mr. Wurst. Oh, here we are. Oh my goodness. So cold outside. I'm so glad that we have our Why [Music] this one? [Laughter] That's every Friday we do that with the music the music teacher Dr. Ross and uh myself. >> This is a team effort. This is our part-time LMC assistant, Mrs. Rodriguez, and she is amazing >> and goes with all my crazy ideas. And also,

023we have so many volunteers that come and make Springwork what it is. Our PTA helps so much and we're so grateful for our whole team. And of course, thank you. Thank you for continuing to support our goal to motivate kids to read through our LMC's. >> Thank you guys. >> Thank you. >> Like you're motivating me to go home and read my book that I have. >> Thank you so much. Okay, we have no other public comment tonight. Um, so we're going to move on to our consent agenda and superintendent report. And we will start with our superintendent report. Dr. Tally. >> Thank you, Miss Donghue, members of the board of education and Indian Prairie community. Today marks the 14th day of school. In all my years of experience, and I have had quite a

024number of years, this has been the best opening I have seen. In talking with staff during my visits to schools during opening week, I heard multiple times what a smooth and positive opening we had. This smooth opening is due to many different departments and offices working collaboratively. Though one should be careful in naming offices because you cannot name them all. I do want to thank the following HR and our principles for hiring all the staff for our schools. This year we were able to start with all classroom positions filled. That's no small task when there's a hiring a teacher shortage. Transportation was in place with all bus routes filled this and bus drivers at the ready when substitutes were needed. This is the first time in years we have had all of our positions filled.

025Our on-time percentage during the first two weeks of school was 97.33%. Which is the highest it has been in the past four years. Support staff in place in higher numbers than in years past. We have more teaching assistance than we've had in the past. Um are we at full capacity? No. We are though at a much better higher rate than we've been in in the past five years. And today I know we were doing um new new employee orientation happening. A lot of construction was done this summer for the opening of our schools. More will be discussed later in the presentation, but I have to thank our facilities team for their great work. I could go on with my list, but it was great to see our students and staff again and see how quickly

026they got into routines. Many people said to me, "It's almost as if we didn't leave." We had a wonderful opening for this school year. It is not an easy task to do. You have to be planful, thoughtful in everything. And I'm just so glad how well it went. I applaud all three of our high schools for being in the top 50 in Illinois. As noted by US News and World Report, these schools work hard to ensure the success of the students and salute and I salute them for their successes. Finally, the US observes National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15th to October 15th by se celebrating the histories, cultures, and contributions of individuals whose ancestors came from Mexico, the Caribbean, Central, and South America, and Spain. Our schools in their own way will be celebrating

027this month and spotlighting the contributions made by those with Hispanic heritage. And I'll turn it back to you, Miss Donghue. >> Okay. I need a motion um for our consent agenda items D through G. >> Make a motion for approval of consent agenda items D through G. >> Any discussion? There was a lot of stuff in the consent agenda this year this time. Okay. So, Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Miss Dming, >> I. >> Miss Fosdic, >> yes. >> Mr. Rising. >> Yes. >> Mr. Kurubis, >> yes. >> Miss Gins, >> yes. >> Miss Donahghue, >> yes. >> And Miss J. >> Yes. >> The motion passes. >> I now need a motion to approve the budget as presented. >> Make a motion that the board of education approve the 2025 2026

028budget as presented. >> I second. >> Any discussion? Anyone have any comments or questions? We had a couple long meetings on the budget. So, >> yeah. I don't think anything that was shown to us was a big surprise this time. So, yeah. Okay. Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Mr. Rising? >> Yes. >> Miss Jane? >> Yes. >> Miss Donahghue? >> Yes. >> Miss Deming? >> I. >> Mr. Kurubus, >> yes. >> Miss Fosdic, >> yes. >> And Miss Kintz, >> yes. >> Motion passes. Okay, now we have I need a motion to approve a memorandum of understanding regarding the student personal care assistant in the Indian Prairie classified association. >> I move to approve the memorandum of understanding regarding the student personal care assistant with the Indian Prairie Classified Association. >> Second.

029>> Any discussion? You like to say a few words about why we're what this is or >> No. No. Okay. All right. Michelle, will you please call the role? >> Miss Jane? >> Yes. >> Miss Gent? >> Yes. >> Mr. Rising? >> Yes. >> Mr. Kurubis? >> Yes. >> Miss Deming? >> Hi. >> Miss Fostic? >> Yes. >> And Miss Donahghue? >> Yes. Motion passes. Okay. We will now have a presentation from Dr. Nicole Howard, Mr. Brad Hillman, Miss Laura Rosen Bloom, Dr. Barbie Chisum, and Dr. Nater Nar regarding the annual student behavior interventions review. >> I feel like this is like the Avengers. >> Oh, >> Dr. Sarah mom is at the table. >> All right. Good evening members of the board of education and Dr. Tally. Uh tonight we are going to discuss

030our work with the building administrators to ensure a safe and positive learning environment for all of our student as part of our efforts to inspire all of our students to achieve their greatest potential. The efforts that take place each day in every one of our buildings are guided by board policy 7190. Therefore, we have crafted the presentation to do a review of this policy along with showing specific student data that aligns to this policy. And finally, we will end the presentation by discussing the future direction of this work along with recommendations that the district and the buildings are considering. But before moving forward with our presentation, while there is always room for improvement, we truly believe that our data points a very positive picture for Indian Prairie. Our community sends to our schools amazing students

031who are focused on learning and taking advantage of the opportunities afforded to them by Indian Prairie. Our teachers and administrators work diligently to build positive relationships with students, provide positive structured environments for all students, and are focused on continual improvement. We are very fortunate to work with the outstanding teachers and administrators that we get to work with every day. Can you go back to slide two? Um, so what we're going to be doing here tonight, we're going to review our board policy 7190. We're going to update last year's direction and recommendations. We're going to provide statistical and data statistics and data relevant to the policy goals. And then finally, we're going to end with a review of recommendations for 25 and 26. Slide three. In addition to the items listed on this slide, board of

032ed policy 7190, student behavior states that the superintendent with input from parent teacher advisory committee shall prepare discipline rules implementing the district's discipline policies. These disciplinary rules shall be presented annually to the board for its review and approval. The committee met on March 13 of 2025 and the board approved the code of conduct at the April 21st board meeting for this year in accordance with board policy 7200. A review of suspension is to be provided to the board and this board was provided to the board on September 5th by Dr. Mum. Tonight's presentation is a supplemental presentation of the data that it re as it relates to the objectives outlined in this policy based on student behavior. The goals that are found in 7190 and objectives are to provide effective discipline practices that ensure safety

033and dignity of students and staff, maintain a positive weapons-free and drug-free learning environment, keep school property and the property of others secure, address the causes of student of a student's misbehavior, and lastly, teach students positive behavioral skills to become independent, self-disciplined citizens in the school community and society. Tonight, we will review the progress made towards each of these goals and objectives that happened during the 2425 school year. When we met with you the last time to discuss this, we had some recommendations and some directions that we wanted to take for the upcoming 2425 school year. So, we wanted to give you a little bit of a status update on where we are with that work. For victim rights and prot protections, we worked to provide resources to schools and staff at the building level to

034assist students while they were completing the threat assessment process and any of the bullying reporting processes. This was to ensure that we were addressing the needs of all parties as we work through the required processes. We also tracking the pro proactive interventions and efforts is still a work in progress. This one's actually a little bit more challenging for us and we are going to be working on that as we try to better integrate our work with a multi-tered system of support or MTSS. As we continue to improve our MTSS process, the increase of our restorative practices, and have been more complete data to understand infractions and outcomes, we will continue our efforts on reducing disparity found with inside of our student data. And then throughout the MTSS process and increasing our use of restorative practices,

035we are continuing to add to our tier 2 intervention. So that is something that is still ongoing and probably will continue for quite a while. The restorative practices training has continued and has been enhanced. And in order to have a better understanding of that, we're going to turn the presentation over to Dr. Jar. >> Good evening board and Dr. Tally. um I'd like to go over uh where we've been with restorative practices and where we're going and how we can start to measure what that looks like. So um first maybe a quick definition of restorative practices just to remind us that restorative practices are a way of doing school that emphasizes relationships, accountability, and high expectations. RP is built on the belief that strong communities are formed when people feel connected, when harm is addressed

036fairly, and when expectations are clear and consistent. It's about teacher credibility, fairness, and balancing care with challenge. Not just a program or a set of consequences, but a culture. And for years one through three and year one for restorative practices we did a needs assessment looked at where do we need to address restorative practices where has training t taken place and how we can all get on the share this the same page with restorative practices. In year two, we did a deep dive with our administrators. And then in year three, we worked with the board and with community members, um, with parent groups and started to share some of that restorative practices work and started to continue to build the capacity of all staff. But our focus today is going to be thinking of how

037we can start to measure what restorative practices looks like in the district. So, how do we measure restorative practices? We didn't want to add another survey. Uh instead we aligned our four RP big ideas to the five essentials survey. And this was run by our sustainability committee which we have a restorative practice sustainability committee which was fully behind the idea of using our current survey data to be able to align and measure restorative practices. So again we're using five essentials which is a state validated tool already given annually. Each big idea here that we are going to be measuring these four big ideas connects to the five essentials indicators. Belonging and relationships looking at trust, safety and peer support. Voice and agency looking at collaboration, family influence and shared responsibility. Accountability and repair looking at

038program coherence and teacher and parent trust. And shared expectations and culture looking at academic challenge and future orientation. These are the indicators that we'll use to capture um what is RP meant to create. So when we look at belonging and relationships, so we have two years of data there from the five essentials um that lets us know where we are with belonging and relationships. What is belonging and relationships? It's students feeling safe, respected, and supported by teachers and peers. This is the foundation of restorative practices. How it's measured is that five essentials questions on student teacher trust, peer support for academic work, and perceptions of safety. And then what do we see with this data? We see some small dips across each indicator pulled the composite down slightly. Still, most students feel most students report

039feeling safe in classrooms and respected by teachers, even if belonging is felt a little less consistently in other spaces like hallways. Why this matters? Belonging is the starting point for all RP work and belonging is our theme this year. Voice and agency. What is voice and agency? Um it's people feeling their voices matter and that responsibilities shared across the school. How do we measure it using five essentials is that we're looking at the questions about staff collaboration, family influence on decision-making, and collective responsibility for students. What are we seeing with voice and agency? We're seeing that the composite inched up toward inched upward and remains in the strong range. Teachers report stronger collaboration with each other and families report feeling more influence in shaping school life. And why does this matter for RP? Because voice

040is at the heart of restorative culture. When families, students, and staff feel they can shape their school, they are more invested in sustaining its culture. Accountability and repair. What is it? Well, it's following through on commitments and repairing trust when harm is done. How do we measure it using the five essentials is we look on qu the questions that talk about program coherence and teacher parent trust. What we're seeing is a strong improvement. Program coherence jumped significantly and trust with families also rose. Teachers describe clear alignment across grades while families say they feel respected and supportive. This is restorative accountability in action. predictable systems combined with relationships that can withstand and repair harm. Shared expectations and culture. This is students experiencing both challenge and support. Teachers pressing them to work hard while also helping them

041plan for the future. We measure it looking at academic press, future orientation, and post-secary expectations. What we're seeing, we're seeing that this area um slipped most sharply. Um, academic press and future orientation both dipped and when combined into the com into the composite, the decline appears larger because five essentials uses a weighted model. Still, most students continue to say teachers expect them to put forth effort and talk with them about the future. It just isn't felt as strongly or as consistently as before. And why does this matter? Um, expectations didn't vanish. They just need to be experienced more consistently across our district. The work going forward isn't about scrapping what's in place, but about refining it. Pairing belonging with challenge. So, not only building those relationships, but then using those relationships to warmly demand more

042from our students and our families and delivering expectations in a way that are culturally responsive and focusing on leadership coherence so future readiness is emphasized across classrooms and schools. So as a recap, belonging and relationships are in the neutral range. Uh voice and agency in the strong range. Accountability and repair also in the strong range and moving upward. And shared expectations and culture is where we took the largest dip, but that's where we're looking to um grow this year. So we're seeing gains in voice, accountability and trust, stability and belonging, and that sharper decline in expectations. So this snapshot shows us where the culture is strengthening and where it needs attention. Looking ahead, uh we want to report annually to the board on these big four ideas through five essentials. We want to continue to

043strengthen the restorative practices that build belonging and relationships. Deepen our professional learning and culturally responsive instruction so expectations are delivered in affirming ways. And we want to focus on coherence and consistency so students feel that sense of belonging, but it's also paired with high expectations across classrooms and schools. Dr. Mo. So, not only does our district want to look at the learning culture from the five essentials and restorative practice, but we want to continue to complement that data with the analysis of infraction data. Infraction data is data that is reported at the state level through inschool suspension and out of school suspension. Those infractions include weapons, violence, drug and alcohol or sexual assault uh infractions. As you can see by the data, we've looked at the three-year trends and you can see that uh this

044this data represents students that have not received any of the inschool or out of school suspension infractions during the school year. We have maintained at every one of the grade spans in the upper 90s um students that have not had any of the infractions. You do see the current year data of students that did have an inschool or out of school suspension at the bottom of the slide. The importance of this data is to make sure that we're looking at the infractions that students do have both majors in school and out of school suspension and minors. And I'll come back at the end of the presentation and talk a little bit about the trends in the type of infractions that kind of complement the ability to look at what is happening in the learning environment.

045We want to now turn it over to Dr. Howard to talk about the the trends through the lens of the school um goals. >> Thank you, Dr. Mom. So, as Dr. Nar mentioned, restorative practices are central to our approach for building and maintaining a positive climate. In addition, we implement the strategies under the prevention and mitigation column you see there to create the conditions that discourage misbehavior from occurring in the first place. We try to instill expected positive behaviors through displaying them throughout the building, teaching them in classes, modeling them, incentivizing them, and reinforcing them. We connect students to mental health and supports. We monitor their online activity for signs that students may need support and intervention and provide them accordingly. And we train our staff to be trauma informed and to recognize signs that

046students may be in need of support. But despite these efforts, some students engage in behaviors that threaten the safety and dignity of the individuals and/or school environment. And our goal number one is to ensure the safety and dignity of those students and staff. And I'm going to spend some time talking about the safety aspect of this goal. The dark blue bar represents the percentage of students who engaged in behaviors that threatened the physical safety of students or environment and resulted in an in school or out of school suspension. These behaviors include acts of violence or physical aggression of any kind, sexual misconduct, and safety violations. The light blue bar represents the percent of students who did not engage in those behaviors. The good news is we saw a slight decrease across all levels. Combining this

047data with the information from the five essentials, which indicates 79% of our students feel safe outside and around the school area, 92% feel safe in classes, and 81% feel safe in the hallways. We can confidently say that we are reaching this goal. However, we do see issues in our bathrooms where 68% of our students feel um report feeling safe. Um this has been an area of concern for us and an area that we've been working on. Um we've put some measures in place. Last year, we began piloting a digital hall pass system. This system allows us to have tighter controls over students who leave the classrooms on a pass to go to the nurse or to the counselor or to the bathroom. It allows us to know where those students are and to ensure that

048those students arrived at the appropriate place within a given time frame. And if they did not, we're able to go out and find those students and make sure that they find the correct location. Um, we also had uh the student advisory board from Matia Valley pitch an idea for a program that could help with some of the incidents in the bathrooms related to vaping that the schools are still considering and thinking about implementing. I'm going to actually turn it over to Miss Rosen Bloom who's going to discuss the second part of this goal, dignity. >> Thank you. >> Uh good evening. Similar to what Dr. Howard just shared with you, the other part of goal one um relates to dignity of students and staff. If you look in the right hand column first, the category

049infractions include things such as disrespect, slurs, reckless conduct, etc. Um, in the previous years in our presentations, you've heard a lot about positive behavior intervention and supports. That's one of our main tools for prevention. um as well as this year and last year, you're hearing more and more about restorative practices as we're continuing to elevate both of those in terms of strategies to support students. You can see in our data um that that continues to be successful. um you can see that all three levels actually included even a few more students um that are meeting those expectations and that means that students that did receive in some type of exclusionary discipline was a very small percent. So overall this is another district objective that we are meeting. A second way to look at that as

050you saw in previous slides would be looking at the five essentials data. So, we chose six key statements in the five essentials to look at how students um are feeling. Just as a reminder, students that take the five essentials are our fourth through 12th graders and they take this after winter break. So, this data is really reflective of adults creating the conditions for students to feel like they're safe and treated with dignity. Again, the scores in these categories are also very high. Probably the area for the most growth, as you'll see, is students treating their peers with respect. Again, that's being addressed through our SEAL curriculum and our restorative practices. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Helman. >> The second goal, excuse me, the second goal is to maintain a positive, weapons-free, and

051drug-free learning environment. And as you can see in looking at the data, this has been a strength for Indian Prairie for several years. And there's very little to say about that other than the fact that we c this to continue moving forward. Goal three, um, keeping school property and the property of others safe is also a very positive strength for Indian Prairie. You see that it is down to zero. Um, that is really a reflection of two things. One is that the major major part of an infraction that takes place, we pull from the first thing that is listed and it might not be the first part that is listed inside of inside of a a situation or or a suspension or uh in school suspension. But the second part is that there's also rounding

052and you can only round to so many places in the digits. So again, this is a very strong strength for Indian Prairie. So goal four involves addressing the causes of students misbehavior. Um addressing the causes of misbehavior goes beyond just issuing the consequences like the ones we mentioned earlier of in school out of school suspension. We have our teams look at those underlying causes or the why behind that behavior so that the appropriate follow-up and interventions can take place. And this is especially true after a suspension when students have been separated from the school environment for a period of time. Now, one of the ways that we gauge whether we're being successful in addressing those inappropriate behaviors is by looking at the rate of recidivism. What percent of our students committed a second or a

053third offense? At each level, less than a third of the students who were suspended repeated those infractions. Um, and this is slightly lower than the year before, which was closer to a third. Um, so we feel that what we have in place is working for our students and of course we're always striving to get better. We would love to see no students repeat infractions. In fact, it would be a great day if students didn't do anything wrong or ever misbehave. But I don't think that's going to happen. So we're just going to it's a work in progress. We're going to continue to grow in our ability to address appropriately the misbehaviors that occur. to follow that it is because we know students do make mistakes. They are continuing to learn and to grow. So goal

054five is to teach students positive behavioral skills to become independent self-disciplined citizens in the school community and society. Schools do work hard to build that positive culture um within each of their buildings. And as you know this year our schoolwide theme is belonging. And we did kick off our institute day with Dr. Dr. Doug Bolton and he shared during his keynote how we can really increase that sense of belonging both for the adults or staff in our community as well as students and their families. And if you intend attended the mental health symposium, he was also our keynote speaker at that and staff had the same very positive reaction um to him and his stories and the messages that he shared. Um, in addition, we are very fortunate to have social emotional learning ambassadors at

055each of our schools. And one of the amazing things they created this year, I wanted to highlight for you, and that is the early childhood to 8th grade universal SEAL calendar. And I did include the link in your presentation, but I want to just highlight um this is an example that we have like it's similar the format for all of our grade levels. So it gives a unit one and so in this case I chose fourth grade kind of right in the middle there. Um but it's empathy and skills for learning and then it talks about the castle core competencies but what staff honestly we shared this at our administrator's retreat and it was the part where they all went wow oh this is great um because it puts everything in one place for our

056teachers. So, they've always had our SecondStep program lessons, but then they were also pulling the peace of mind book and then they were pulling their class meeting ideas and then they were pulling New Zeal. So, this is a calendar that they can follow that has all of those resources right here on hand for them and supports all of the work that we've been doing. So, it's just another way that we can really support um comprehensive instruction to all of our students and making it as easy as possible for our teachers. So, with all the work on the goals and the specifics of the five areas, we want to make sure that we look at the infractions and see the differences in the specific categories of the trends. Each year and every quarter, we actually do

057pull a report looking at the top 10 infractions that have been reported, whether they've been a major that led to an in school and out of school suspension or if it was just reported as a minor, which doesn't lead to a state reported infraction, but still an a behavior consequence within any of our buildings. Within those top 10, we had some consistencies from year to year. And so we compared in those top tens any of the the two any topic that repeated from one year to the next to see what was the trend based on all of the hard work and the focus of the goals. And you can see out of the eight that we had that were consistent, we saw a decrease in multiple ones. We saw a decrease in leaving without permission.

058Probably some impact from that hall pass system that we spoke of earlier. Having that accountability of making sure we are in the learning environment as much as possible and when we are leaving the learning environment we have accountability for where we are and where we are going. Seeing the decrease in insubordination disrespect and then disruption to the learning process or educational process. Again, really looking at that culture and climate through SEAL lessons of what is happening and respecting the learning environment when we are in there and what is our responsibility through setting that tone in the SEAL uh lesson to make sure we understand what everyone's roles and responsibilities are. We did see a decline in truency, but in in response, we almost saw an increase in tardy. in uh meeting with some of the

059principles and asking the question about why do you think that tardy data went up it was really looking at making sure we had consistent definitions of what tardy was in our data collection and that you know it wasn't necessarily I didn't get the feedback from um those principles that I had a chance to speak of of seeing a lot more students coming late to that learning environment but rather really being diligent about the way that we are documenting in this given year our past school year. So, it'll be interesting to me to see it this school year even within that first quarter and semester and see how it compares with more consistency in the definition and reporting of it. >> So then where are we going to be going for the 2526 school year? Um

060two broad categories deepen um restorative practices. We want to continue and enhance our RPE training. Track proactive interventions across school districts and then across the schools and then strengthen belonging, trust and shared expectations. Those are really how we think we get the most buyin from all of our students. And then we also want to make sure that we are building proactive systems. Integrate the early warning system into MTSS for earlier supports. for example, that truency piece that you saw or the tardy piece that you saw have a better gauge and a better handle on that so we can begin intervening earlier in the school year instead of letting the the habit build a little bit. We want to track cohorts over time to see long-term impact of our efforts. We want to expand tier 2

061interventions um into and make sure that we have tier 2 interventions that are going to directly speak to the issue that a student is having as opposed to being a little bit more generic. And then we also are going to be expanding digital supports in the form of securely and aware. And just for your just for your reference on that um securely aware it produce provides continuous monitoring of student online activity to help identify early signs of concern including potential threats, self harm, and other safety issues. It is it is designed to ensure that both students and staff have a safer digital environment. So, that'll be something that we're going to be a little bit more um aware of this year as well and see how we can be a little bit more proactive in

062addressing student concerns. In conclusion, we have buildings filled with wonderful and amazing students, educators, and administrators. Inside our schools on a daily basis, there are great relationships that are developing and growing. And as often as the case in any type of relationship, there are hiccups, misunderstandings, and sometimes even wrongs that are committed and experienced. We need people in all of our buildings and communities to practice grace, empathy, and and understanding as we work through those hiccups and misunderstandings. Additionally, we know that all students and parents and staff bring with them past experiences that influence how they perceive a situation or an interaction. and we are working to ensure that staff understand how everyone's past impacts their current reality. We are discussing the impact of trauma on students, the impact of previous educational experiences and expectations,

063and the impact of family values and teachings for students. This work is ongoing and will never end. We are very confident that all of our staff are committed to providing the best experience for students and their families and we are equally confident in our community support supporting their children and our school staff as we move forward this year. Again, we thank you for the opportunity to present to you this evening and at this time they will answer any questions that you have. >> Um, all right. I was going to start with our student advisory board. Um, do you have any comments or questions regarding um the presentation or the restorative practices or anything along those lines? >> You can come up over here. >> Yeah, go up here. Um, so one of the things that

064we were talking about today was with the infractions and with the sense of belonging, how that translates to a classroom level. So, as a student, some of the things that I've noticed particularly is from an admin administrative level, we have a lot of those conversations about um let's make sure that we're not on our phones, let's make sure that um the classwork is done consistently, that um grading is done consistently, let's make sure that no one is walking halls. when it comes to the actual teachers, when it comes to the actual deans assistants implementing it at an individual level, it doesn't seem to happen and it's not as consistent. So maybe are there any ways that we would be able to improve that um consistency and implementation because I think that's where um the problem

065really happens. >> Thank you for that uh that comment. So if I understand your question correctly, it's about you you see the systems in place for this to occur, but the breakdown sometimes happens at the the school level, at the teacher level even or the the staff in the schools implementing these policies on a consistent basis >> and that is something that we each have conversations with with our principles when we meet with them on a regular basis because it does become a challenge. Um, we do see sometimes that the school year may begin with everyone sort of enforcing and they're excited about it and then energy levels sort of wayne as the school year continues and that is something that we we also recognize. So, thank you for bringing that up and it is

066something that we continue to uh try to address. Um, and it would be great if the student advisory board could dig into that a little bit more and come back with some suggestions for us to think about. >> Yeah. And um one more thing that I was thinking about when it comes to the um infractions for some of the I guess lower levels you could call it. Is there anything in the five essential surveys that might have to do with cheating or AI use just because that's becoming increasingly relevant um this school year? Is that something that we'd maybe be able to add to those surveys? >> Good insights. Currently Oh, you want to speak to >> There currently isn't a question because I was just looking at the questions now. There is a question

067on um making sure my work is accurate uh and not uh it implies cheating >> but my work is my authentic work >> and that is a question within the five essentials but nothing that directly reference references AI right >> um we do have an opportunity to submit suggestions to the state and that could be one that we submit moving forward is to maybe edit that question or add additional questions specifically around AI in the use of AI, >> right? Because I feel like as a student, something that is becoming increasingly part of our culture that is not necessarily a good thing is the use of cheat like the use of AI and cheating within our school system and how that's becoming a lot more common and maybe that's how it's affecting um how we

068feel that teacher we we had that dip in >> how teachers um motivate people to have hard work. That's probably the reason for the dip. So if we were to get that insight in the five essential survey, I think that would be very helpful. >> Thanks. We appreciate you. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Very helpful. >> Thank you. >> All right, Miss Deming, do you have any questions or comments? >> Thanks on the spot. >> Sorry. Nice job. Well, you know, actually, one of my questions is is sort of a followup. Um, I think that we've ever since we've been introduced to restorative practices and we, you know, had an opportunity to go through see u certainly the the strong potential value and and the value there. We know that our teachers do

069such a wonderful job. We have great educators and there's so many things that they are uh trying to accomplish throughout their day. How does this um one I wonder where does this roll in from a professional development? I know some of this we've discussed before, but if I can get an update on that and then how do we help um educators incorporate this just within their so that it's it's it's just part of their day and and I have sat with educators before on a little bit of the restorative practices who've been very very involved and very um you know embraced it a great deal. But I think it might be helpful if we had a chance to share a little bit um remind us but also remind um our public how it's incorporated for

070our educators. >> So um that's a great question. One thing as we think of the sustainability of restorative practices and how we really get it to become part of our culture versus um you know hey everyone here are here's a training from the district. uh did you get the message you know stop writing kids up and we move on is um really allowing them to implement at the local level. So the vision and the training from the district level and allowing them to implement based on five essentials data based on the goals for the school the school improvement plan and from there they're able to say this part of restorative practices you remember when we did that training there there are many kind of facets to restoive practice so this is the one we really

071need to implement. So, we're going to dig deep, work with restorative practices trainers from the district, work with people, our equity ambassadors, ambassadors at the school level and start to kind of um put that piece in. And um I I do want to say and I don't I'm not in love with this reality, but pedagogy is is hard to shift, right? To change a curriculum is easy, but to change people's mindsets and really build a practice takes time and takes a lot of intentional work. And I believe that's what our um our buildings are doing and we want to continue to do that and continue to support them through our restorative practices trainers um and our sustainability committee. So that's some of those pieces. Um how do we get um teachers to really start to

072make that shift? I think um they're hearing all the right messaging. I think they're hearing all the right messaging. They're seeing the alignment uh through our MTSS work and through what we're doing. Um they're seeing the intersections between the and the trauma-informed. We use a lot of words about the things that we do in classrooms, but there's so much intersection and it's really about doing what's best for kids. Um, and I think, uh, at least I believe we're on the right track. One of the things that I really appreciate uh with five essentials and I'm I know that I'm certain that uh we had someone that um provide help provide input as as it was created but uh that it's so appropriate across grade level and we're not discussing or trying to measure the exact

073same things at each particular grade level but it's grade level appropriate. So what you shared is just a reminder of that because I hadn't seen some of the the questions in quite some time. So that's extremely beneficial to to recognize that it's truly grade level appropriate. Um I think those were primarily uh some of the things I appreciate the focus on those areas that we've saw that have had a little bit of uh decline. It'll be interesting to see what that looks like as we move forward and interested to see those progressions that occur, but um but very but very encouraging. So, thank you, >> Miss Bastik. >> Thank you for your continued work on this. Um I have congratulations in order for um voice and agency and accountability and repair going up because those

074indicating those relationships are being built and strengthened over time. Um and that seems like it's going to be paying positive dividends forward for foreseeable future. Um, I was wondering if you have any handle on based on your survey of what the biggest contributor to shared expectations and culture falling by the amount that it did. Um, and if you were able to pinpoint what that is, how that's being kind of modified going forward to try and recover that and build on it. So um all of the parts that measure that um took a dip. So from academic press to future orientation to postsecary expectations. And so some some of the questions that we saw um a dip in are things like teachers expect me to do my best. I think like some of the comments we

075heard earlier um teachers expect me to work hard in class. In this class students have to work hard to do well. um thing things like teachers expect students to attend college um the school communicates that college is expected staff encourage post-secary planning so those are the sort of questions where we took a dip and so um I I can't um I can't say for sure why but I can say that sometimes when you see implementation of restorative practices or this sort of work is that we are focusing on things like repairing harm and the accountability piece um and sometimes times when we are building relationships, one of one of the um maybe pitfalls is that we believe that maybe lowering the bar or lowering the bar for some um I'm I'm not saying that's the

076reason, but sometimes that is what happens with equity work in general is that you say, you know what, I'm working with you. I'm getting to know you. A lot of trauma-informed work and because of that, maybe let me lower the bar a little bit. And I think what we want to focus on and and talk with this restorative practice sustainability committee is how do we start to get that um that care but those high expectations paired together. So how do we really take advantage of the relationships that we know are there and the accountability and the voice and the agency that we know are there and start to pair it with those high expectations. So that's some of the insights. >> Can I add one thing to that? >> That's just me. Yeah, go ahead.

077>> Um to also keep in mind that this is aggregate data so it's the entire district. Um, so individual schools saw differences in those responses. And so as the assistant soups, one of the things that we also do is we work with the individual schools in their school improvement plans where they incorporate a lot of this data so that if they were a school that saw a dip, we can address that with that school. Um, and it could you could see differences too by levels. And so it's not necessarily something that happened evenly across all schools. So, it's harder to pinpoint because it may have been one reason for an elementary school and something totally different at the middle school level. >> And I will also just add after we meet with each of our

078principles and look at the five essentials together, they then work with their instructional leadership teams to also look at the results and through the school improvement planning to really determine what are those next steps. >> Thank you. I appreciate the very thorough answer. Um, and my last question is just a curiosity question. Um, as we were talking through the tardiness and the truency, um, is there any discussion of there being a relationship between those two? So, students are just trying to get to class in as a positive instead of just not missing class. Is there any relationship between those two or is that just a far-fetched? >> No, no, no. There's definitely relationship. I would say um, even last year where you saw we had a higher rate of truency. So this year when schools

079are doing a better job of locating students who are having a hard time finding their classes um locating those students and encouraging to get to class. So now it's a tardy instead of a truent. Um the digital hall pass I think had some do with that because we were making sure that students were in the spaces they were supposed to be and not just skipping class altogether or being in the hallway without a pass to begin with. >> Thank you very much Miss Jane. Dr. Howard answered part of my question was with the five essential data that we were analyzing, were we able to identify buildings that may need more support um around our restorative practices and um more targeted support which which um um was already answered. So that was one question. The other

080just more larger question I had for Dr. Nar was um were there any other metrics that were considered in addition to the five essentials to try to measure because because this work is is is so different than other things that we measure and in many ways it could be viewed as somewhat hard to um quantify or put in concrete terms. So, um just just if you could speak to that. >> So, there were other things considered. Um one was the the tracking of some of that restorative work. So, what does that look like? Do we have an appropriate system to be able to to track that? So, um how do we capture when a restorative conversation happens and not necessarily a detention or a suspension? Um, so that's something that I think through our MTSS

081work that conversation will come back up again organically to start to say how do we collect better data on all of these pieces. Um, and then of course there was the discussion of like just another survey. Let's put together another survey whether it be pan panorama or one that we create to be able to capture that. Um, but we thought you know the the five essentials something that exists people take time on it. they actually take some care versus sending something out that maybe um wouldn't get that same amount of time and care. And we have students, parents um and teachers that all take that um survey. So that's one of the reasons we agreed to it and the sustainability committee um jumped on that. But we do hope to maybe look at other metrics

082like we talked about there um tracking some of those proactive pieces and seeing what that looks like. >> Thank you so much. This has been data that I've been looking forward to um after participating in some of the restorative practices training and it's it's it's really neat to see um maybe some of the intentional impact but also unintentional impact this work has. Um and as you mentioned, changing culture is a long-term goal. You know, it doesn't happen overnight. So, thank you everybody for your work. >> Mr. crew of this >> uh page four. I like which just references the board policy kind of over time I've seen the board policy change. It was started out kind of a student discipline and now it's moved on from student behavior. Um but our data collection never really

083changed. It's kind of the same data. We've expanded it over the years. So, I love how the presentation mirrors those goals and then tries to fit the data into those goals. So, that was very instructive for me um because otherwise just reporting on um you know, weapons um which thankfully wasn't a big issue. But reporting on that data, you know, in a vacuum doesn't make much sense. But look, this was our goal. We made our goal. Um and here's the data to back it up. So, that was very informative. I love how that was presented. Um, and then page 23. So, a lot of the data was presented, if I could find it, as percentages, which is very instructive, but then there's also kind of the hard numbers. How many students? And so to kind

084of give an idea on the high school suspensions for for uh 20 24 2025, we had 360 students with a suspension. 108 had two suspensions. So you look at our whole district with 25 26,000 students um you know 360 had a suspension problem. So, I think that also puts it in in perspective saying um you know, how do we reach out to these kids and make sure they don't become repeat offenders? Um and so there was a success there and so you could keep whittling it down. So that was was a nice benefit. And then page 26, I'll back up to 25 first. We touched on tardiness. Um, and this is something I've observed antidotally in other districts in our area that tardiness is a problem kind of throughout and growing. Um, I was at

085a soccer game where they announced at the beginning, at half and at the end that if as a reminder to all the students that if you are tardy, you will get a suspension. So they were so extreme that they have as one of their ways to communicate that out to the community, they were doing it at their sporting events which they might have a different numbers and they have a different community but you can see how um some of the extremes are out there on how other districts are having to handle it. And then on page 26, what I like on this one are the track the proactive interventions and track the cohorts. track the cohorts is to me is beneficial. It's not really presented here. Is okay the student had a suspension this year.

086Do they have one next year? You know, did we or you know, did they have two next year? So, are we are we showing improvement? Um and that's kind of the long-term impact. Are we doing our job in are we reaching the the student? Um, so if there's a way to present that that's that's meaningful that first you got to track it before you can present it. Um, and I'm sure you're doing it in some way. But, uh, I look forward to seeing, uh, you know, a formal system in place for that. And then the proactive track the proactive interventions. Um, I think if we're talking I know we're doing a lot of things. Um, but in order to kind of know what we're doing that's working, you got to track all the great things

087we're doing. Otherwise, you have um you know, you're doing stuff, but you might be spinning your wheels. You might be wasting your time. There might be too much on the teacher's plate, you know. So, what are we doing? Is it working? Do we need to stop doing it? Do we need to do more on this? And I think we need to talk about going back to the weapons. Look, we're we're doing things that are, you know, having positive impact on that by saying don't do this and nobody's doing it. Are there other ways where we can advance that? So I think uh getting more information on tracking the proactive interventions I think will help the system totally uh throughout. Thanks >> thank you all for the wonderful presentation. I think that we can all agree

088the the theme that we are seeing is things trending in the right direction for the most part. And I know we spoke on this last year, the individual, how important it is to look at the individual, not just what they've done, but the why. And so I love that we're continuing that work. Um, I just had a couple questions kind of piggybacking on Miss Jane's question with how the data is collected besides the five essentials, which is wonderful. Um, is there direct data that you collect from families that have actually been involved in the restorative practices? You know, feedback or anything of that nature. >> At our level, I would say it's informal. >> Okay. >> As parents is our administrators are working with the parents and talking things through, they would collect that informal

089feedback. But I we don't have >> that makes sense. Right. You don't send a little postcard home asking Yes. Or a survey comments. Yes. Please. Yeah, leave it in the comment box. No, that makes total sense. And then the only other thing I wanted to say was, um, on slide 16, um, one of the things I thought, you know, I thought a lot of things were wonderful, but I 92% feeling safe in classes. I really do just want to call out staff for doing such an amazing job that that many kids feel safe in their classes and for all the work that you guys are doing that they feel safe with their fellow students. Um, and I actually did have a question for uh Mr. Hillman. There was such a significant decrease in suspensions from

0902324 to 2425 where it's almost, you know, completely eradicated. Can you speak to do we know why is it just the practices and work that we've been speaking about? >> I think it's a culminating of a lot of factors. Um one of which is again reinforcing the idea that our students are best served here with us >> and we want our students in class as much as possible. >> Yeah. >> So we do a lot of different things to be able to work with families, work with students to be able to address that and that happens at all three levels. >> Um in the report that you have from Dr. Mom, you'll also notice that there are a lot of suspensions either in school or out of school where you will see that it's 0.2

091of a day, >> point four of a day, okay? >> 35 of a day. Because instead of looking at it from the standpoint of we want to punish you, it's simply that you need to go home and just gather yourself, reset, and then when you come back, we can work with you and we can get you integrated back into the into the school versus no what you did. You need to be punished and here's the >> seven days that you're going to get for that, right? >> Um for a lot of things, the event really isn't warranted that big of a of a response, but unfortunately we you see them. Um, we do have those, but we really do try to keep kids in school because we think that that's where they belong with us

092and we think we do great work with them. >> Yes. No, I think that's great, too. And I I do think that speaks to um the, you know, the disruption in class becoming less of an issue, too, is when you're not taking kids out and putting them, you know, back in with that much frequency. So, yes, thank you guys for all the work you continue to do. Um, and a huge thank you to the staff that implements all of this. Mr. Rising, >> I'm sorry, I'm really stuffed up right now. Um, so first of all, I just want to compliment you. The the direction and recommendations I think are spot on what you guys are looking at. Um, the year-to-year comparison that was a slide before that at the end. Uh, I like that we

093do that year-to-year comparison. >> Uh, the only thing I would ask maybe is if we could see farther out trends uh you know especially since listen since co every district across the country is facing discipline issues and I and I talked to many of those districts and and uh they're not moving the needle like we are and and and when you look at our data compared to other districts data yes we always need to make improvements constantly make improvements but when you take suspensions across all our grade levels and average amount that 96% of our kids don't get suspensions. I mean, that's huge. And and I would even challenge those numbers because I actually think it's less than that because I think that's the number of suspensions, not the number of students. Might want to

094take a look at that number. Uh but so, but there's always work to be done. Uh, I loved it that students ask questions because what struck struck me is uh, and I'm going to age myself from a David Bowie song in the early 70s, changes. If you ever heard the song changes by David Bowie, there's a line in there about adults making assumptions about children and what they're going through. Um, sometimes adults trying to solve student issues isn't the best way to do things. It's actually asking students how to help them >> and where to meet them where they're at. uh and then I think that led to the beginning of the presentations where we looked at those four areas of RP and maybe while we're seeing some of the dips and the lower scores

095on belonging relationships and shared expectation and culture where those are the two lowest um I think right now it's a societal issue that we're all facing these challenges of belonging, relationships, expectations and culture. Uh I would say it's not just students that are feeling an issue with trust, safety, peer support, being respected, uh cared and valued for. I would also say it's the teachers. Um it's equal. It goes on both sides, right? So how do we change that? And I have seen buildings, regardless of the demographics of the buildings, I've seen the buildings have an incredible culture with the leadership, with the staff, and it's it's a two-way street. Respect for teachers and students, students and teachers. Um, you know, I think that's how we solve those two areas is by looking at that culture

096aspect at the school level. uh because I've seen some incredible numbers. I mean, I you know, Fiser, I'm sure he saw the the the work that's been done there. U so um keep it up. I think we're on the right track. I think we've got the pieces and we're measuring the right things and I excited to see what we see next time. So, thanks. >> So, thank you all for all the work that you do in this area. I mean our academic results are built on this this platform like without this being in place we kids can't learn and um so it's it's such a fundamental um skill and importance for us to hear and see what's going on here. Um, I still I wanted to go back to side 13 because when I ahead

097of time when I was looking at the presentation, I think I sent in my question, I was like and we talked about it a bit here, but um my concern is when I looked at that last bullet and it said raise academic challenge, it kind of like blew my mind. It's like I have an overwhelming worry sometimes that we put too much academic pressure on our students and I'm like where is this coming from? because I certainly don't want to see more kids pushed to more AP classes or, you know, just have this goal in mind that they have to go to Harvard and study medicine or whatever. And I worry that that is happening in our district a lot. Um, and so it helped to hear some of the comments, but I still am

098a little worried about what this actually meant and that this was coming out of the five essentials survey. I mean, did anyone have that kind of reaction to this or >> I I think for me, I think about a little bit about what Dr. Najar said, but sometimes when we're working so hard on belonging, >> right, that we're like, oh, we just want them to feel comfortable and right that it's going to be okay. But part of it is just saying, I believe in you. So, it's not saying like, oh, you're not doing enough. you need to keep, you know, we need to keep challenging you. It's more I believe in you and I know you can do this and putting work in front of them that they do find challenging and stimulating and and

099part of this kids reporting that they're not necessarily feeling like they're challenged enough. Um but the other thing we talked about was we do look at that by school because you're right not all schools students are reporting that and so that school would not right see that as a next step. Again this is looking more globally across all schools and think about that's elementary, middle school and high school. Um but each school would really look at and think about and see their results about whether that really is an action step or not. Well, yeah. It also makes me think of, you know, I guess are we asking the right questions? Does Five essentials need to evolve? Because as we're trying to get more CTE experiences and work job experiences for students, but then we're measuring

100are you being pushed uh and spoken to about college. So, I think we we have to maybe just ensure that those measurements align and I believe they do. I I would say a way I could read it um optimistically is is again saying that many students are academically challenged and are intrinsically challenging themselves but then are we those other students where we really are focusing on that social emotional behavior support are we ensuring to pair that with academic challenge right and not say that you know since we're working on this piece then we lower the bar for you so that's how I would read it optimistically and then also think of you know are we measuring the right things as we're starting to um expand the opportunities that we're giving students. >> Okay. The other

101thing I thought would be helpful if Dr. Nar if you just said a couple words about restorative practice, what that is because sometimes people get this view that that means there's no punishment or there's no repercussions for a behavior that is um inappropriate. I you know I think the the way we want to think of restorative practices is accountability is still there. Accountability is not going anywhere but I think it's um a deeper sense of accountability. So it's being accountable to your behaviors but then also learning from those behaviors. So that's on the back end of RP right when a behavior happens. But a lot of the RP work it's interesting because in some of those slides do you mind going to Dr. Howard's slide where she had a lot of those pieces listed in

102in the beginning. Yeah. A lot of those things we see there on the left side fall under the restorative practices umbrella because it's like what sort of proactive pieces can we put in place and are we doing with students around teaching expectations, positive behaviors and supports, taking care of their um social emotional behavior um and their mental health supports to ensure that they can thrive and that those behaviors don't happen. So restorative practices, the way we define it in our district is 80% proactive and all the proactive work that we have to build relationships, expectations, um a culture of learning. And then that 20% is when harm happens, how do we repair that harm? It doesn't mean that that accountability is not there. And we've never messaged to anybody um that uh restorative practices means

103students um don't get suspended. We still have a handbook. We still go by that handbook. Um, but when a student is suspended or there there's some sort of harm, how do we now work with that student? How do we get them to reintegrate back into that classroom? How's it feel? I don't know if anyone any of you ever had a detention or suspension. I'm sure you never did. Um, because he walked out. But it it you can you know when you when you come back into that classroom, how does it feel for you? And why is there recidivism sometimes within suspension? Because now how do you fix that um belonging? And how do you fix it with the other students because there was harm done to them and there was maybe trauma experienced by them.

104So that's really the piece that we're working on is saying and I mean I I would challenge and say that there's more data that we need to collect on this because it's not restorative practices isn't just about seeing suspensions go away or even suspension numbers go down but maybe about the quality and the care when a suspension happens how students are learning. So maybe a student is suspended two or three times, but they look back when they're 19 or 20 and say, "The way that I was treated really was a pivotal point in my life versus they didn't give me a suspension because they just had a restorative conversation." So I would say that's how we define restorative practices is that proactive work, all of those things that where they're in the prevention and mitigation

105and what that looks like, what does teacher credibility look like, what do high expectations look like? And then 20% of it is how do we restore harm once harm happens? Yeah. No, our whole board went through restorative practice training the initial set of training and I think that helped all of us understand that. So I asked that question more for the audience and for us so that they they understand that too. So thank you. That actually makes sense cuz as someone that may or may not have gotten a lot of trouble when I was younger, it wasn't until that teacher that took care in me to understand what I was going through. And until then, I probably wouldn't have made those changes that I did. So that kind of speaks to again it's not eliminating

106the punishment, it's understanding the root cause and trying to help that student through that. So >> thanks for that Dr. >> and thank you for sharing that it's that it's 360. It's not just on someone who made an incorrect choice but also you know it's also helping to restore the person or persons that have been impacted and that's really really important and important for all of Thank you all very much. Really appreciate all your work and effort. So, thank you. >> Okay, we will now have a presentation from Mr. Matt Shipley and Mr. John Robinson regarding the 2025 202 26 building operations update. [Music] All right. Um, good evening members of the board of education. We are excited this evening to present an update on our master facility plan. Uh tonight's presentation is in line

107is most in line with board policy 4.150, but we're going to touch on other areas covered by other board policies as well, most notably um 4.160 and 4.170 as well. Uh we believe our work um encompasses all of our strategic plan priorities. Um and I'll just point out before we get started that um you know, we talked several months ago about the board's endorsement of vision 2030. Uh so I will make a connection to vision 2030 goal number four. Uh if you remember, one of the the elements of vision 2030 is trying to find a consistent source of capital funding from the state budget standpoint. Um without that consistent source, all the work we're going to talk about um this evening is funded locally and uh again primarily funded by our successful safer stronger 204

108referendum. Uh with me presenting tonight is our director of building operations, John Robinson. I also have at the table with me tonight Peter from Bully Anders. They're the construction manager. um recently approved by the board a few months ago to do the work at Nua Valley. And so we're excited for Peter to talk specifically about some of the community engagement and student engagement opportunities um we expect to provide our our students and our community throughout that work. Um Peter was lucky enough to to win the coin flip, if you will, to to be in front of us, but I want to be clear that um we're holding some of these same expectations and standards for all our um all our partners as well. Um, and again, we have uh just Peter presenting tonight. Uh, I

109didn't think we could fit everybody at the table, but after seeing the last presentation, we probably more. Uh, but I do just want to recognize uh uh we have representatives from Turner Towns and Hiri, our owners representatives here this evening. Uh, our architects Whitening Company. Uh, Pepper Construction who is doing the construction work. Wanzi is here um as well. Uh we'll be covering projects that were uh done by STR architects as well as performance services um as well tonight. And then I want to give one final uh shout out and I'll take Dr. Tally's words of wisdom from earlier. you always forget somebody. But um I do want to highlight we've had a great team um that's been with the district for for many years who are um you know now really excited to see

110this vision become reality. And that's our construction managers of Rich Surl and Ken Schwallow as well as our partners with Airark who've really seen their role with the district evolve over the past summer or two as we uh you know as they provide assistance throughout all this work as well. Uh so the agenda for this evening is to cover the work we recently completed uh this summer as well as some of those projects that are ongoing into the fall. Uh then we will turn it over to to Peter to talk through some of the community and engagement initiatives you can expect to see rolling out starting this year with with some of the larger projects we covered back in June at Wanzi Na and Berquette. Um we'll come back talk about our proposed work in

1112026 again in addition to the work we've already covered with the board back in June. Um, and then I'll just kind of update um provide some additional updates and context on where we are um with with budget and accountability. Again, we I know we've had um several conversations at the board level about the importance of community engagement, about transparency and and ensuring that we're all on the same page with where we are from a a budget standpoint. So, I'm going to share um ju just a little bit of perspective on how we're managing the these projects as well as some additional um updates there as well. Um with that, just a quick summary before I turn it over to J.R. are uh we did do um $40 million worth of capital improvements as part of

112this summer's work. Um that budget number does include the work that's ongoing into this fall. Um our significant projects included our secure vestibules and other safety enhancements uh work at the Wubanzi Valley Auditorium which uh really kicked off the Wanzi uh program. um some LED lighting retrofits and we talked during the operating budget about how important uh finding sources of energy savings and and operational efficiencies are. And then we continued our elementary flooring and playground replacement work. Uh additional smaller projects included asphalt and paving improvements, a roof replacement, um updates to our fax labs at NA Valley. So that was the last of our three high schools to have that uh renovation work completed. and then uh continue to to do HVAC and other chiller improvements which again is is both an infrastructure as well

113as an energy efficiency uh improvement. Again, all our projects are currently on time and and on budget. We do have projects continuing to the fall, but that was part of the the plan for those specific projects and that work has has been designed to to ensure minimum um uh minimum impact on the student experience in the school day. Uh this summary slide really shows the work uh we've done kind of by the five five priorities identified in the master facility plan. Uh all work that we've done is work that is consistent and and documented within our master facility plan. So as a reminder that is uh you know that that involved reviewing every single facility in this district all four million plus square feet to really identify our priorities. And so all the work that

114we're doing is rooted in that document. Um, I know at times it may seem like like one building is getting favored over another or one area of town is maybe seeing more activity than another, but I think it's important for our board and community to know that this work is consistent with the master facility plan and and we have an intention to improve all 30 plus district facilities. Um, so with that said, I'll turn over to J.R. to share some of our specific projects from this summer. >> Well, thanks Matt. Board of Education, Dr. Tally, good evening. Well, we thought $20 million the past two summers was uh easy, so we thought we'd double it. Get the pleasure of uh talking through some of the projects that we did. I just did I kicked something

115out. >> What happened to >> All right. Technology uh initiatives coming soon, right? All right, we are back. So, I get to talk about some of the projects we did this summer. Pretty excited about it. Um, one of the larger ones we did was enhancing the security at the entrances of 11 of our elementary schools. I'll try to speak slowly because if you watch the slides, it'll scroll through a lot of the buildings. Um, this work entailed expanding the vestibules as you can see. We also added a drop off area so parents or visitors or delivery people that need to bring something to the school can get into the vestibule not having to get in the school and drop off the stuff they need to and then leave. Um, there are new doors, locks, card

116readers, release buttons, cameras. Uh, there's a transaction window for the person at the front desk and that person also has the ability to see outside so they can see any irregularities outside the building. The auditorium, um, we have some scrolling pictures of this as well. Um, lot of renovations. Um, we've pretty much gutted the entire space. Um, we're now putting it back together. So, new sound system, lighting, acoustical upgrades, there'll be new seating, ADA upgrades, ticket booths, curtains, rigging, a shell, um just the whole the whole project. Um right now it's on schedule to reopen uh for the dedication um at winter prison concert and then once that's through we will take the auditorium back and we will have it finished by the start of school year 26 playgrounds. This is something we've seen the

117last three summers. Um we did four additional playgrounds this year. Um like in the past we've improved the drainage um new uh wood fiber, new mulch. Um as the p as in the past we engage the community and the school to help uh design and build this with surveys and lots of meetings. The great part for me is that if they don't like it at the end, they can they can't blame me. I didn't pick the colors. Um uh landscaping improvements as you can see around there. We will line the playgrounds with new trees this fall. Um that will provide some beauty and some uh some shade as they grow. And we added signage cameras for security flooring. This is another uh project we've been working on the past several years. This summer we completed

118six schools of flooring. Now you'll see that we do six schools and there's gym and NPR replacements. We do one or the other. So if we we try to do uh the gym and NPR and a stage one year so that the next year we can move all the furniture and stuff in there and do that so we can reverse it. So that that's what we did this summer. Um as always we added a beautiful logo to the uh the school. We put one in the gym and we put one in the the uh entrance of the school. We did three projects of paving. Uh the major lot at Niqua, the teachers lot at McCarti, and uh the front lot at Welch. We also added we also replace the concrete in front of Cone in

119front of door two. Um it wasn't it's it sits in the shade. It never gets sun. It's not didn't drain very well and can cause some hazards in the winter time. So, we replaced it uh with proper uh um pitch and so it drains properly. So, hopefully we'll we'll keep our our people safer this year. We did one roof um stack like most of our older elementary schools had a shingled roof. Um it was 35 years old. We took it off and put a steel slope roof on it. It's a 40-y old roof. And uh there's there's the roof. So, as part of our energy efficiency program, we are looking at replacing all of our lighting in the district with LEDs. Uh, we have started that process. We are um finishing up 12 buildings as

120we speak um right now and we will get to all of them by the start of the 26 27 school year. These have automatic sensors to shut the lights off when nobody's in. These uh here are LED lights. um they dim. So if you know they do provide a true white color, they're very bright, but if people want them dim, they have the ability to dim them zero to 100%. And um they also have a sensor that as light comes in from the outside, it's called daylight harvesting. It will dim the lights as the light increases from the outside. So it keeps the light levels at a consistent level and it saves the district money, which I like. So with that, I want to turn this over to Peter uh for a few minutes as

121he's going to speak to the engagement opportunities with our partners in our district. >> Good evening. Um as Ben and J said, I'm Peter Keune with Bullying Andrews. Um and I oversee our education group. So excited to be your construction management partner for uh for years to come, specifically on Equa Valley. Um really, you know, from a community engagement standpoint, how can we keep the community um informed um and have a transparent process throughout this entire um referendum program and construction additions and renovations throughout the district. So, we will create uh what we call a project dashboard. You see the image here on the right. Um that really is project specific. Um who are our contacts on the job site from a supervision standpoint, project management standpoint, etc. if there's any questions, concerns, um what

122are what are the renovations going to look like from a drawing standpoint. Um community engagement in terms of outreach opportunities. We'll post all that information there. Progress photos, um even live drone footage um to see the progress um and also capture time-lapse video from the start of the project through completion and really just provide a one-stop shop for the community to access through your district website about what is going on on all these projects. to really keep the the community informed and uh the transparency throughout the entire project. And we'll have QR codes on all of our site fencing that you'll be able to scan this. Any any community member could scan that and have direct access to this uh this project dashboard. Um next is really how do we engage the community um the

123Indian Prairie community, the Neighborville community and surrounding community on the project and we really do that within two ways. Um, one will be raising project awareness prior to going out to bid. We'll want to partner with the community, local um, commerce groups. Also reach out to the surrounding building partners um, building department partners, you know, at city of Neighborville, etc. get uh registered contractors that are uh local um and then also um reach out to assist agencies for to maximize our participation from an MWBE standpoint. And then we will host a vendor fair prior to going out to bid um really raise project awareness and really try to maximize our overall participation from a local subcontractor standpoint. um because we've seen it the best is that uh we get the most bang for our buck

124um when you're we're involving really the local community um on the renovations and additions that will be happening within the district. And then once we do start construction, really partnering our subcontractors with local workforce, so tradesmen and trades women that live in the local community, um they'll appreciate working within their community. um increase their drive or decrease their drive times to to project sites and really once again maximize our overall uh local participation on the project from a uh you know boots on the ground work on the job site standpoint. And then really what I like the most is really how do we utilize the project as a learning opportunity. We're going to be literally swinging hammers making hopefully minimizing our noise next to adjacent classrooms um you know for several months several years in

125some of these cases. So how do we utilize the product as a learning tool and really m maximize our impact to the students um that we're ultimately building for. Um so I recently met with Brian Gio Banini the director of innovation um and and created some ideas of how can we utilize the project as learning tool first that is um you know involving the the curriculum um and you have a lot of CTE classes also architect engineering construction classes how can we utilize that project going into STEM going into the classroom um and really creating some team- based challenges utilizing the project that's going to right next door uh into the curriculum. So, we'll be doing that um in the 26 27 school year. Also, um interns and project tours. So, we like to offer

126internships on every project that we're doing. Um, starting at the high school level, um, and really work with the administration, create a list of people that are students that are interested in the architect, engineering, construction backgrounds, um, and then try to utilize them as an intern, um, throughout the the project. Um you'll see that picture that Jared just passed through. That's Kids Matters actually is a is a local program in Neighborville that we had out at Downer's Grove this past summer for springboard program. So very similar to that, try to um incorporate this project into their curriculum. And then the behind the fence experience is really the last thing. Um bringing students into the job site, obviously keeping them safe and utilizing experience throughout the entire course of construction. Um, and there's a short video

127there. I won't show it today, but if any board member is interested in doing that, how we recently partnered with Downers Grove 58 and utilized the behind the fence program to make the most uh impact to their local students. >> Thank you, Peter. So in addition to the comprehensive work starting this year at Wubansi Valley, Nika Valley and Berquette, we're going to be constructing secured vestules at 11 additional buildings. Four elementary schools, six middle schools in Wansi Valley, >> Matia, >> I'm sorry, Matia Valley. Duh. We expect this summer's projects to be a little more complex as five of the middle schools um going to require that the main office be re relocated as shown in this picture. So the left side is the existing building. You see on the left where they the arrow

128is. They walk in. There's really no this a small vestibule. There's two classrooms right next to it. They got to walk all the way to the middle of the building to get into the office. Not very secure. So on the right you'll see that we're going to expand that vestibule like we did at the elementary schools. We're going to flip the two classrooms over to the where the office is now and create a new vestibule there. So quite a bit of work needs to be done in the summer. Um we're uh we're ready for it. It should be great. Um before I get there, just the the remaining um the vestibules that are are scheduled for 2027 and that's six elementary schools and those elementary schools are the ones that we're looking at possible additional

129educational space. So we're we're waiting on those figure that out and then they're going to include the schools with the comprehensive improvements Wanty Valley NA Bquette and Hill and then also this building here that will finish the vestibules. Another energy efficiency project that we're looking at is solar power limitations in the past have been our roofs. As we've replaced the roofs over the past few years, we have several schools that have the new steel slope roofs like stack, which have 40 plus years of life in them. So, we're looking at um u a solar project and we got an RFP going out soon and we'll be reviewing that for viability. We're also looking at battery storage with this project as well. This is this is an exciting project. So, all three high schools are going

130to get artificial turf fields. Um, yeah, pretty exciting. Uh, Matia and Niko will also get a track replacement. Um, I'll show you a picture of one in a minute. Wanty Valley just had their track replaced a couple summers ago, but we are doing a comprehensive stadium improvement um which will include um a new uh scoreboard, uh upgraded bathrooms, a concession stand, new bleachers to get the home side correct. So, uh we're excited about that. This is what Nqua Valley would kind of look like. Um, that's a rendering that we we're working on right now. It looks a little odd. You see on the left side, it looks blank. That's going to be um track surface. That's for the field events. On the right side will be field turf. Um, we'll do that at all three

131schools. Matia does not have that now. It will. That's where they put stuff like the blocking dummies outside the field so it keeps the field lasting longer and it it separates that kind of equipment. Uh the track itself, it's not shown there, but it will be a NA Valley Blue track. So, it's going to be pretty cool. Finally, this is my favorite slide even though it doesn't show any pictures. With this slide, we will complete the flooring projects at all elementary schools. We will complete the playgrounds at all elementary schools. All that in four years. And we will have completed the LED conversion in all the schools by end of next year. In addition, we're going to start the architectural work for Hill Middle School's renovations and additional infrastructure work that like we've been doing

132the past several years will continue. And with that, I'll turn it over to Matt. So, >> just wanted to to close again a little uh a little bit this evening with just a budget um update. It just kind of to to show where we are at from a budget standpoint. Uh this is the the same slide we showed the um board back in June that shows kind of our safer, stronger 204 capital program broken into nine separate projects. Uh and so what you see here is both the the amount of the project that's being funded by referendum dollars as well as the total project budget of 466 million. Uh you know I'll point out that the remaining costs or that the remaining that 46 million that I I call those kind of capital adjacent or

133capital related funds. So that's not um those aren't funds that are coming out of the operating um fund. This is exclusively funded by our capital uh program and by by the referendum. Uh but there are additional uh revenues that come with that including investment earnings, bond premiums, and and some other matching grants and and uh matching local funding. Um but we do want to reiterate we've we're we're monitoring this this large program by by nine separate projects. And so again, from an accountability standpoint, we are tracking nine separate programs sep or nine separate projects separately. Uh we have the large ones that that we've talked about already with Wanzi and Niqua. Um but we do also have sort of the the other infrastructure projects as well that we're moving forward on. We also have projects

134that we haven't started yet. Uh primarily the Hill and Gregory middle schools. Um so what that kind of means is that at any time we're going to have different components of different projects. We're going to have um in sort of different phases. And so um shown here are really kind of the at a high level the phases of architectural design. Um, we do have an appendix to this uh to this deck that has u a little bit more detail on what each of these phases u mean. But again, as you can see from the the what we've shown this evening, we already have some some of the works completed. We have some projects that currently are in that construction phase. We've got some projects that are that are um finalizing that construction documents and getting

135ready to be bid. And then again, we we have projects that are really still at the schematic level or we're basing basing our budgets, basing our estimates based on that master facility plan. And so as we work through this u as a district, we've taken the approach that we're going to budget conservatively. We're including contingency and cost escalation at all stages. But then, you know, we're the earlier we're are in the process, the more dollars you're going to see dedicated to contingency and cost escalation. Um, a good example from the the prior slide on this really quick is looking at the budgets of Hill versus Gregory. So, as you know, those are those are two similar buildings. Uh, they're both in need of comprehensive work. We have similar plans at both buildings. U both buildings

136have uh again extensive work including a small addition in each building. But you'll see Gregory's budgets a little bit more. And so, you know, someone could say, well, well, you know, why why is Gregory getting an extra 10 or 12 million from Hill? But the reality is that's because we're planning on doing the Gregory work a couple years later. And so that's that impact of that cost escalation kind of shown um shown directly um on the budget numbers. And so um you know someone would say well Gregory's getting more because we're spending more. I would argue Hills getting the money getting it earlier, right? So um you know uh which one would you rather be? Right. Um, and then again, the the the point of having that those contingency dollars being conservative means hopefully we're

137um releasing additional funds into the project as we move through the process. Uh, and this is something we've kind of always consistently done with our construction projects. So, uh, you know, even even with our summer work, we're generally bringing money back into the program at the end because we haven't spent all the contingency. Uh the second the second example is sometimes we use that contingency mid mid project or towards the end when we know we're not going to need it all to expand the scope. So a lot of times with paving projects for example we when we see that we're not going to need all that contingency that becomes the dollars that that seed a lot of the landscaping work associated with it. And so um again we know we have board members that are

138very concerned with our landscaping program and our our tree planting and things like that. Uh that's where a lot of those dollars are coming from is by releasing that contingency uh throughout that project. Um just wanted to to show this graph. Again, this is this is new data and I and I included for all nine uh programs this this similar uh this similar pie chart for uh in the appendex, but this is where we currently are with Wubanzi Valley and the $144 million budget. Um so this shows what we've kind of spent already. Uh again that that's the auditorium work and some of this the the the prep work really for for the work upcoming in the spring. Um it shows a significant portion is now in in sort of that conceptual design stage. Uh

139so about 54 55 million is now now fairly far along. And so we've had an opportunity to have not just our architects estimate a cost but our owners representatives, our construction management team have all also had a chance to sort of uh review budgets and and estimate cost as well. And so we feel pretty good about that number. Um you know that then phase two and three that's coming down in um a little bit further down. So that's still sort of in that design development schematic design phase. We're not quite as far along. Um and so as a result there's still some cost escalation. There's still some contingency dollars associated with that. And you can see that results to on Wubanzi as of you know as of uh this month or or today we're still

140carrying a significant contingency balance of about $14 million. So again, wanted to wanted to share that with the board and the community just to show, you know, how we're kind of thinking and and approaching the the budget as we work through a a multi- multi-RO multi-year capital program. Um shown um shown here then is kind of the the cost summary for the current phase of Wanzi Valley. So again, being able to now now take a phase that's fairly far along in the process and and really break it out into some of the detailed um categories. These categories are standard. Um this is this is kind of construction management um lingo or or kind of standard across the industry. So now we're also going to be able to to kind of um compare project to to

141project or or be able to um easily compare what we're what we're hearing from from both our architect team as well as our construction management team. Um and then again you can also still see that there's contingency involved with that and then it's still a budget placeholder for our future phases which gets to the total. Um so finally uh you know I know we've we've brought a lot to the board over past um you know uh 10 months or so as we've we've gone from passing that referendum to really making this um this happen. And so I just want to provide what what we see as kind of the next touch points for the board over over the next um you know 12 to 18 months or so. Um so first from the design standpoint

142um we do still have two major um parts of our capital program that we've not engaged design contracts for yet. U and that would be the work at Hill and Gregory Middle Schools. So, we do expect to come to the board soon, uh, hopefully next month with a architect contract to to approve and start the work on on Hill Middle School. Again, if we bring that in October of 2025, the goal is that that work then um kind of starts as as the work at NA and Wanzi's winding down, we'll be in a position to start our our our heavy construction work at Hill. And then similarly, we we would expect the design contract for Gregory to come come the following year in 2026 with that work kind of getting scaled up as as the

143work at Hill is winding down on the actual construction. Uh again, we are we are really close to having things out on the street ready for bid and so we do expect bid approvals for upcoming summer summer work coming really really starting in November and probably going through March. So, we will have um probably be hitting the board up pretty heavy here over the next several months with um approvals for for all the comprehensive work we're looking at doing at Wanzi, Nika, and Berquette as well as the other summer 2026 projects JR covered earlier. Um we do expect to submit um to to begin a practice of submitting a semiannual uh report to the board. I know that's something that that a couple board members have requested. Um, so we would look for for this

144cadence to really be a a a fall report sometime in October and then a spring report um sometime in April. And so that would allow us to kind of um formalize some of the the information we're presenting tonight kind of after the the the heavy construction season. Then also be able to come back to the board in the spring, maybe after we've we've received a, you know, substantially all of our bid work, and then be able to to kind of provide that that next round of updates on where we are budget to actual once we've seen um seen bids that again hopefully have come in pretty close to to our estimates. And then again, just a reminder that a lot of our um ongoing information that's presented to the board ties directly to this this

145capital work. And so that's the approval of our monthly financial reports and budgets that are part of the financial um package. Uh approvals of our our bill listings. I believe this bill listing just approved this evening had about $9 million of construction work in it. So we are continuing to to bring those to the board regularly. And then uh we are going to continue to to review to update um our safer stronger 204 website. uh we would continue to encourage the board to to be visiting that website as well as um asking you to help uh outreach to the community as well because we do uh believe we're doing a lot of exciting things and we are excited to continue to share it with our community. So with that uh all three of us are

146open for questions. >> Thank you. We'll start with Mr. Kurubus. I think I'm going to start keeping track of how many um PDFs we get from each of the administrators because I think you were setting a record in this meeting tonight with two budgets and this presentation. So, I could see um thank you for supporting the board and informing us on what's going down. Um that's very nice. Um I love the progress. I love the information reporting. I know I've pushed um for some of this sooner than I think you guys would have liked to have done, but I think this is exactly what I was looking for. So, you've gone above and beyond and I appreciate that. Once again, I appreciate what's been posted up on the websites. I think that's uh very helpful

147and instructful and instructful to the community. Um, I like that we're getting some items done quicker that uh are getting out that the community will be able to see, not just people that are involved in the schools. They can see that we're getting a new um turf, new roofs. Um, you know, we talk about putting dollars into um the classroom and this and the but there isn't a lot of advocacy advocacy for the buildings. We've done that immensely over the last years and now we're finally getting to see the fruition of all that work. So, uh, you know, I don't think anybody likes to replace the roof on their house, but when they get it done, they're they're thankful that it is get gets done, and they don't like a leaky leaky roof either. So,

148um, this is great work. I I think we the level of communication is awesome. Um, I love what we're doing with the community outreach. Um, I'm very impressed with some of that, uh, stuff, uh, down to the level of the QR codes on the fences. I mean, that's uh you got some great ideas there because so if somebody's just walking by, what's this about? I mean, that's that's as accessible as you can be on this stuff. So, that's great. Um, and I have always struggled over the years on why we haven't been able to have as much solar panels as we um have. So, the getting the new roofs um before you you had it um made sense. So, you didn't have to take them off and put it back on and put the new

149roof on. So, I I'm glad we're getting to the point where that can happen. Uh what else was here? I like the future looking stuff. Uh I like the breakdown for the projects. I think uh I look forward to future reports to some future board. Thanks. >> Thank you, Miss Gunz. Thank you guys for another wonderful presentation. Um, and I am glad you brought up the trees because I know that's been a big concern with a few of the board members here. But, um, I I wanted to ask you, J.R., about something you touched on very quickly. The Wanzi Valley Auditorium, it will be open for Prism, but then did I hear you correctly when you said you would take it back to do more work on it? >> Yeah. So, um, we're kind of

150getting things done from the stage back, >> okay? >> And then it'll be ready for the prison concert and then after that we will take it back and we will work from the stage in. So, we got we still need to put rigging in and a new concert shell and >> it is a huge undertaking. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Curtains and paint and all kinds. So, it'll be closed again after that for the final touches for the next school year. Okay, that No, that's amazing. It is such a huge undertaking. >> Um, and I like board member Kurubis, I I do love um that we're moving to solar panels, LED lighting where we can. Um, you know, for obviously the environment, but also for cost effectiveness. Um, so I I did want to say

151also, um, I love that you guys over at Bullying Andrews are really going out of your way to keep the community informed, but get students actually involved and make this construction, you know, part of a lesson, part of So, it's a nice way of thinking that these kids are getting exposed to some stuff that they wouldn't be able to if we weren't getting all this construction done while while they're in school. So, I I really appreciate all of this. I think with every presentation, you know, the excitement just keeps building. And Mr. Shipley, thank you because I feel like you present to us all the time and I'm so grateful for all of the information that you always bring and the communication has been great. So, thank you all. Jame, >> I think uh my

152comments have already been stated. Uh but I will just say attracting local vendors is is such a great idea and the and the strategy that you've uh laid out for us in terms of how you plan on engaging our community um was a beyond what I was expecting. Um, and to find a way to have students feel a part of these projects, um, is is just such a great lesson that they can also learn. Um, everything everything is exciting and, uh, wonderful to see the pictures and the updates and the dashboard, um, the turfs even. Do we know when when that will be renovated? Yeah, it'll be it'll all start in the spring and they'll be ready for game one next year. >> Starting next year for all three for all three high schools, the

153artificial turfs. Okay, fantastic. Um, that's going to be really exciting. I know. Um, so thank you everybody for your work. It's excellent. Miss Dming, >> uh when you shared on page 12 the project dashboard, um will all of the Can we Are all of our contractors going to do the same thing? Okay. >> Yeah. Our uh again, we asked Bully uh to to present tonight. Uh, I don't know if Peter's not a Bears fan or or what, but uh, but but yeah, we're we're we're expecting similar um similar work, similar similar engagement on the Wanzi project from from Pepper and and again, we're we're looking for other opportunities to to roll this out on other areas of the the program as well. >> Perfect. Thank you. And I will echo um board member Jane's comments

154um on the MWB uh comment. I I really really appreciate that and that local aspect is so critical and so important because they uh they have a little more buy in when they're local as well. Um, as we go forward, I love the solar panels as well. As we go forward, will you be able to share with us what that impact is going to be for us um, financially? And >> yeah, so we, you know, as part, as part of the RFP process, we do a feasibility study uh, for for this program and just to make sure it makes sense. Uh so the estimate on these is that the payback um is about six to seven years. >> Okay. >> Saving about $25,000 a year per school um in electric in electric costs. Uh you

155know part of the you know it of course it it's funny how it works is as you know J.R. mentioned our our roofs are finally in a position where we can really look at this at at scale. Um so as that opportunity is kind of opening there there's some changes at the federal level which are kind of um >> um making it uh a little bit more restrictive. Uh there's the these five schools we identified we we believe are on on pace to to get this in before some certain federal incentives expire. Uh but but the reality is that may be an issue as we look to to expand the program. It's just just just the availability of some of those um credits may make it a little less viable at other um areas. The

156other the other challenge or or difference we have um you know the five schools noted are all KMED schools um schools in Aurora. So there's just some different opportunities on the KMED side of town as opposed to Neighborville. >> Well, thank you for taking advantage of those that are that we can do even if um you know progression throughout the district is a little going to be a little bit longer if at all. So thank you >> M De if I may add one thing. There's part of the RFP. We'll get a dashboard that'll show the actual usage and savings. >> Oh, nice. >> So, we'll be able to show that real time. >> Fantastic. That'll be cool to see. >> Matt, I so appreciate you sharing and talking about dollars that are potentially lefto

157um expand. And as we talk about continued conceptual designs on Wanzi, uh I have I was sharing with some people who graduated quite some time ago what was going on. And one of the first questions of course was great. What's happening with the third floor? And so of course I had to share unfortunately. So, just gonna throw that out there again as we continue to see potential uh you know whether or not there there might be uh conceptual designs later down the road whether we see that uh >> I thought I'd try thought I would try >> not enough money not enough money not enough money >> gotcha gotcha thank you for slide 27 that is excellent that is so beneficial for us. Um so much of you know we're JK had been a lot

158of the things they had talked about that's really really beneficial. So as we continue to go forward I will really I think all of us will look forward to seeing that much um more and more that's that that's wonderful transparency for the public the district for us to really see where everything is going. So thank you so much for that. Um, those are my comments and questions. Thank you, >> Mr. Rising. >> Uh, don't really have any questions. Just some thanks for Matt, Jr., Bully, all the partners that showed up. I appreciate you guys all being here. >> Um, love what Bully is going to do with our students. Um, I actually sit on the Kids Matter board, too. So, I I saw the work that you guys did with Kids Matter in Donner's Grove.

159Um, thanks Jr. for putting the middle school vestibules because I had seen that. So, I was excited to see that how that's going to look. Uh, and then I appreciate Dr. Tally and Matt uh providing that semi semianual report uh because I was kind of pushed for that a little bit. Uh, and then just last thing, I I met an Illinois superintendent and assistant superintendent uh who's on the forefront of solar stuff. So, I'll I'll share that with you with you guys offline, but it might not be a bad idea to reach out to them, too. So, thanks, >> Miss Bast. >> Um, I don't have a lot to say because most of it's been said by my fellow board members. Um, but I will say thank you to Matt and John for uh explaining

160why some schools are work is being done first here or second here, why the order of things was chosen. Um because I think oftentimes community members just want to know when their school is getting done, why it didn't go first or why it wasn't last. So uh thank you for those explanations. Um Peter, this must be like routine for you to talk about the engagement, the local focus, the student stuff, the internships. Um but I felt like with every layer that got added, the level of excitement at this table went up. We were all like, "This is amazing." Um, I feel like we've come a long way from when I was in kindergarten in another state and there was construction going on at our school and it was just a giant mystery like we never

161got to see what they were doing. Um, it was just um not at all part of our lives and the fact that even there are internship possibilities um for our students as I know something that we as a board have been really interested in growing for our students over time. So um great job on that. I'm really excited to continue to see that work. Um, and then finally, I really appreciated the upcoming board action slide. I appreciate having that direction going forward. So, thank you. So, yeah, it's hard to follow all of those comments because everything that I was writing down was covered multiple times here, but um, honestly, that whole student and local involvement was really kind of an unexpected pleasure that everybody um, shared and noticed. I'm a big solar fan. So, I

162loved hearing that we were pursuing that because I know quite a while ago we were trying to pursue it and it um it didn't happen for multiple reasons. But the whole involvement of the community, the students um I um I actually went to visit five schools one and two weeks before school started and I was having a heart attack. I'm like, "Oh my god, is this going to get done?" And all of them did um get finished and they were they were amazingly beautiful. And um the thing that was interesting is while I was at some of those schools, parents would show up or you know the principal just showing me around was just so thrilled like look at this flooring. I mean it just it is um an exciting moment in time for all

163of us that you know it it took a while for us to get here but it is um really palatable the sense of joy and excitement that one teacher I remember walking down the hallway they're like it's like a brand new school. I'm like, okay, who would have thought flooring would make people so excited? But yeah, it was um it was very nice to be on the receiving end of hearing all those comments. And I also wanted to say the lighting was remarkable. I mean, I um that pure white light that um dims and is I mean, I've been in those schools before and after that lighting was put in, it really does make a huge difference. So, and I know it's also cost savings. So, it's it's a double plus for for those actions.

164So, thank you all. This is a ton of work, but so rewarding and exciting for all of us that have been building up to this over many, many years. So, thank you so much. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Any legislative advocacy or board of education update items? >> Uh, just two things. I got I have two meetings this week. One with the uh evidence-based funding committee which is tomorrow for three hours >> and then uh on Thursday uh with ISB and IASB and I'll let you guys know what comes out of both of those. So thanks. >> All right, I need a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Okay. Second. All in favor? >> I Any opposed? All right. Thank you so much.