001All right. Hello. It is now 7 PM and I'm reconvening to open session and calling to order the regular board of education meeting for Indian Prairie School District 204 on Monday, April 7th, 2025. Michelle, will you please call the role? Miss Donahghue here. Mr. Kurubis here. Miss Jane here. Miss Gent here. Mr. Rising here. And Miss Fosdic here. Miss Gent, we have a quorum. Miss Gent, 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 under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. The next regular board meeting will be held on Monday, May 5th. We have two board salutes tonight. Um Miss Jane Wabanzi Valley Scholastic Bowl team wins state. The board salutes the Wanzi Valley Scholastic
002Bold team for winning first place at the Illinois High School Association 2A state championship. The team defeated Stevenson High School in the final match with a 450 to 410 win. This is the first state title in the team's history. Congratulations, Miss Guns. Dwage County Afroacademic, Cultural, Technological, and Scientific Olympics Student Achievements. The board salutes the district 204 students who received gold medals at the DuPage County 2025 Afroacademic, Cultural, Technological, and Scientific Olympics local competition, including Niqua Valley 9th graders Joshua Tony and Amamira Wheat, 11th grader Eddie Mason, and 12th grader Briana Aan Harris, as well as Wanzi Valley 11th grader Tiffany Tyus, who earned three gold medals. The competition featured 47 students from 20 area high schools competing in STEM, business, humanities, performing arts, and visual arts. 13 students earned gold medals across 16 categories
003and will advance to the national ACTSO competition in Charlotte, North Carolina this July. Congratulations to these students on this outstanding accomplishment. So, let's thank all of these accomplishments in our district and congratulate the people who earned them. So, thank you. Next up, we have a student representative report by Ben Gula from Nqua Valley High School. Good evening everyone. I hope you're all doing well. My name is Benula and I'm the school board representative for Nika Valley High School. As the end of the school year quickly approaches, this will be the final board update from NUA this year. So, let's get started. To review, NIA clubs and activities have reached many student successes. We've had 20 DECA and 40 BPA national qualifiers. Good luck in Sunnyside Orlando for both chapters. Our theater department placed third at
004state for the production of Young Frankenstein. And lastly, our youth and government chapter did amazing at Springfield, especially for two juniors, Venshica Shetty and Alex Wong, who won the state positions as a secretary of state and lieutenant governor. Now, I would like to recognize three teachers who have recently received recognition of their hard work and dedication to Niqua. Mr. David Rick drove his way to victory and received the driver education teacher of the year award for Illinois. And Miss Beth Canuth was recognized as the marketing educator of the year awarded by Illinois DECA. And lastly, Miss Laura Wallen is in the running for health educator of the year for Illinois. We are very proud and grateful to have these amazing teachers. Looking forward, we have a variety of events planned to end the school year
005on a strong note. Upcoming events for our seniors include senior spectacular, senior brunch, senior reflections, and much more. While these seniors enjoy these events, our freshman, sophomores, and juniors get to do state testing. We have been providing ACT readiness for the past flex blocks and access periods to help our students. Our student council will be hosting our spring blood drive on April 23rd. And lastly, we get to end the year with many student performances such as a spring musical and fine arts festival. We hope to see you there. Looking at this year in review, there have been many student and educator awards, achievements, and recognitions. Everyone at NIA has been proud to be a Wildcat, and it has been my pleasure to continue to update the board throughout this school year. I'm looking forward to
006where the end of the school year will take us and I hope you have all good a good rest of your evening and go Wildcats. So, Ben Ben, thank you so much for all of your reporting. Will you be back next year or No. Um, no, I will not. My friend Kylie Tran will be. Okay. Well, thank you so much for all of your informative um speeches. Wait, are you graduated? Um, I'm a junior. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Of course. Thank you. [Applause] Okay. Next up, we have our school spotlight and tonight it is Welch Elementary presented by Sarah Noak and Julie Vogel. Welcome. Thank you. Um well, thank you Dr. Tally and the board of education for the opportunity to be here tonight. Um, again, I'm Sarah Noak, the very
007proud principal of Welch, and I'm thrilled to have Julie Bogle, our student services coordinator, here with us this evening as we share a bit about what makes Welch so special. At Welch, this quote um couldn't be more true. As we were thinking about and talking about what we wanted to highlight, everything came down to the culture and the climate that we've created at Welch. Um though we're a large school, um we are definitely a family. We consistently show up for one another. We come together to create an environment um not just where everybody succeeds, but everybody really thrives in all areas. This is our um current year's Welch family photo. Um much like one might find in someone's home, our staff lounge is filled with a wall of all of our family photos from throughout
008the year um years, which is really special. It's fun um to look back and and to see how staff have changed and how we've evolved. But one thing is is consistent even the year that we were in masks is just you can see the joy and even though that's the first day and some might think that that joy looks different throughout the year um you really could you know call for an impromptu picture and that same joy and we just turned 25. Um, up until last year, we didn't have our own mission statement and that was something that the staff felt strongly about. Welch has changed throughout the years. Um and we felt it was important to come together and really collaborate on what what our vision was, what our mission was, what we wanted
009to do. Um so this was something that took several days to um kind of cultivate. There was a lot of conversation, a lot of collaboration, but it really encompasses everything that Welch strives to do. We believe the Welch community is a family where all belong. We believe that the Welch community is diverse but shares the common goal of doing what is best for everyone. We believe regardless of your story, everyone is deserving of respect, kindness, and grace. We believe that every student is someone's unique child who deserves to be validated and included. We believe our students can do hard things. We believe our staff makes everybody feel like somebody. And we believe that even on rainy days, we still find our rainbow. We are welcoming, encouraging, loving, collaborative, and hopeful. We are Welch. Um, so
010this was something and is something that we put on every internal document, every agenda, it's something that we revisit and reflect on frequently. And I'm certain that as Welch continues to change that this might change a little bit. So, all right. Speaking of change, some new thing this year is the kindness squad. The kindness squad was created out of an IPF grant that one of our YAL teachers, Sarah Alleo, submitted last year. Every Friday, the squad stands outside the school entrances and they greet students, they cheer, they give high fives. It makes our students smile, feel welcome, and gets them excited for another day and then another week of learning after that. It's really just a little thing that's gone really well. It's still it is uh Welch is a big building and one of
011the challenges we have is to ensure that all of our students feel seen and valued. And we do this through providing an opportunity to build rapport and relationships between students and teachers during a weekly connection time. We look beyond just the classroom to make this happen by creating opportunities for teachers and students to play games, read together, shoot hoops, or just hang out and chat. Teachers identify students for this connection time each week and has helped the kids that really are reluctant to come to school or struggle sometimes to feel more comfortable and confident in the school environment. Um, one of the things that the Welch White Tigers do really well is play. And this is something that is essential for everybody, not just for student learning, but really for everyone's overall growth. Um, as
012we know, it sparks creativity. It helps with problem solving and teaches social skills like teamwork and communication. It reduces stress. It boosts energy allowing everybody to be more available to learning. Um so for years, Welch has participated in the National Day of Play. Um we did this well before COVID and once once COVID happened, things shifted a little bit. Um, so we've been looking for different ways to kind of bring that back and ensure that those skills are still a main piece of our students and our staff's day. It's something that everybody looks forward to. Um, these are bins of um different games and activities that our PTA um helped fund and create. And it is amazing. I thought that the kids would really like um you know the kinetic sand and the magnet tiles
013and things like that. There is a line every day for hungry hungry hippo. I mean it is it's just amazing. And it's not just the kids but the teachers too. So through this opportunity that play they're able to build relationships and socialize with different peers and their teachers and just see different sides and relax. So, as Julie was saying, it really does help build that community um and help them just feel more connected, not just um within their classroom, but within their within their grade level. So, this has been a really nice addition this year. Yes, we celebrate and highlight our incredibly diverse student population in authentic ways every day. For example, let's hear from some of our EL students. Oh no, sorry. This is my fault. I used Canva instead of Google because I
014thought it would be cuter and I'm paying for it. Welch, we speak more than 50 different languages. [Music] Good, better, [Applause] best. We love Welch. So cute. So, every Friday, a group of bilingual students that speak the same language will gather in our office and they will begin our announcements with a welcome greeting in their language, which they will then translate to English. And it's been really empowering for those kids and the other students are so excited to hear what it is every Friday. Sorry. Sorry. And they try to learn those new words and phrases. It's just been a little again another little thing that's made a big change in the school. Absolutely. I'm sorry. I pushed the wrong button. Okay. And then our last um piece of pride and celebration um Welch is celebrating
01525 years of awesome this year. Um we invited our entire inaugural staff, administrators, teachers, crossing guards, lunch supervisors um back to the building in October. um back in the fall of 1999, they had taken a panoramic photo with the entire student population and all of the staff and we were fortunate we had over 25 um staff members that returned from that first year. Um Rod Mack was one of them and it was really just an incredible day and it's so cheesy but we always say like once a white tiger always a white tiger and seeing these people come back they haven't been in the building for years a lot of them and just feeling the excitement and seeing the love between the colleagues and seeing the excitement from the students was really like it was
016a feel-ood day for everybody. it it's one of the one of the things that makes Welch so special. But we were able to recreate that um that picture. So this is all 600 plus white tiger students, 100 plus staff, 25 inaugural staff. Um it did not go as smoothly as we had anticipated if you can imagine but um it's something really special and something that we will look back on in 25 years from now. So turned out great. It turned out great. Congratulations on the 25 years and boy did your emphasis on community and kindness come across. I mean it's like I want to go to Welch. So thank you so much for sharing all of your fun that's going on in the school there. Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. Yep. It is
017now time for public comment and 60 minutes is allowed. Each person is limited to three minutes. When addressing the board, we ask that you respect the confidentiality and safety of our school students and school district personnel. We also ask that those addressing the board be cognizant that this is an open meeting and is available to all age groups and as such ask that you consider who the audience members are this evening and keep comments age appropriate. Public comment represents the voice and opinion of the speaker. There will be no feedback from the board members during the meeting but followup will be provided by administrator as appropriate. Although this is not required, it is helpful for the board to know whether the comments and concerns we hear are being raised by residents. So, we ask that
018you state if you live in the district and if you currently have children in our schools. We have one speaker tonight, Jack [Applause] Pi. Good evening, members of the board. I'm a current student at Matia Valley High School. So, I do live in the district and and no kids here. Yeah, no kids. Uh my name is Jack Pie and I'm here to speak about the contract between District 204 and Organic Life LLC. While Organic Life may be a reliable food provider, the contract in place has had consequences that restrict student opportunities, particularly when it comes to creativity, fundraising, business education, and volunteerism. At Neighborville North High School, there was once a student-run cafe that serves smoothies and drinks during the mornings and lunch periods. The cafe wasn't just about the food. It was about a
019realworld learning experience, teaching students about entrepreneurship, responsibility, and collaboration. Unfortunately, the cafe was shut down due to 203 contract with Organic Life, which labeled it as a competitor and was taken over by Organic Life LLC. Students who have tried to run fundraising in district 204 during lunch or before school for clubs, events, or even sports have been similarly blocked under the same clause in the organic life contract, again labeled as competitors. This is a direct barrier to student growth. I am going to submit a foyer to request the to request and obtain the full contract in any amendments because I believe students and families deserve transparency. I urge the board to consider how contracts like these impact student engagement, business, learning, and creativity when future agreements are negotiated. I hope the board makes space for
020soon- driven initiatives that benefit our schools and our community. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Okay, we now move to our consent agenda and superintendent report. We will start with the superintendent report. Dr. Tally. Thank you, Miss Donigghue. Members of the board of education and Indian Prairie community, it is that time of the year when you can register for the annual IPF walk run. Emphasize the word walk. The the event will take place on October 19th. This year will be the 12th annual event. It is the most important fundraiser for IPF and the funds help to support our schools with half the funds going directly to the schools and other funds supporting events such as fine arts festival, robotics and young hearts for life. Registration is open now for people to sign up for the event.
021I am looking forward to the runw walk walk and know that many of our schools and staff participate in the program. Last year I was not able to participate due to being ill ill. So I'm looking forward to this year's um walk. The goal is to raise $100,000 and that goal is achievable with your help. So do you have to run for this event? No. No. You can what? You can do what? You can walk. Yeah. Okay. Just make sure everyone understands that. Um April is Arab uh American History Month. This in in this month we celebrate the ArabAmerican story and the contributions that ArabAmericans have made to our country and the world. Our schools and in other and in our schools in their own way are recognizing the role of Arabameans in our lives.
022And before I send the meeting back to the board of ed, I would like to request that the board of education approve the appointment of Dr. Christine Igo as the new assistant superintendent for student services effective July 1st 2025. Dr. Iggo will be replacing Dr. Christine Sepio who is retiring. Dr. Igo is coming back to Indian Prairie School District so you can come back home again. Um she once served as an assistant principal for our district. Other roles she has had include special education administrator and literacy coach in Planefield, assistant superintendent for student services for Neapville district 203, and most recently chief academic officer with St. Charles Community Unit School District 303. Dr. Iggo spoke about her desire to create positive relationship with schools and school administrators. She also talked about building upon our district's
023current inclusiveness for students. She is excited about the opportunity to get to know the teachers, students, staff, and administrators and working collaboratively with them. And Miss Donnie, who I will now turn the meeting back to you. I need a motion to approve Christine Igo as assistant superintendent for student services as presented. Make a motion that the board of education approve Dr. Christine Igo as assistant superintendent for student services as presented. I second. Any discussion? Okay. Michelle, will you please call the role? Mr. Rising? Yes. Miss Jane? Yes. Miss Donahghue? Yes. Miss Fazdic? Yes. Mr. Kurubis? Yes. And Miss Gint? Yes. The motion passes. Congratulations, Christine. Thank you very much. I really appreciate the opportunity to call. Did you bring anyone with you tonight? I did not. Unfortunately, my children are grown and in college and
024not around. My husband had a meeting, but Well, congratulations. We're happy to have you as part of our um team here. Well, thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Next, we um I need a motion to approve Leslie Mitchell as principal at Hill Middle School as presented. I move that the board approve Leslie Mitchell as principal of Hill Middle School as presented. Second. Is there any discussion? Okay. Michelle, will you please call the role? Miss Fazdik, yes. Miss Gint, yes. Mr. Kurubis, yes. Miss Donahghue, yes. Mr. Rising, yes. And Miss Jane, yes. The motion passes. We congratulate Lesie. All right. Next, we move to our consent agenda items. I need a motion for the approval and consent of consent consent agenda items F through Y. I move that the board
025of education approve consent agenda items F through Y as presented. I second. Any discussion? I would just like to comment that on item Q, we are approving the contract extension for our food service which relates directly to one of the public comments. And I will say that Mr. uh Ron Johnson is meeting with that young man right now and talking with him. Perfect. We are a timely board. Wow, that is fast. What public comment can do. All right, Michelle, will you please um call the role? Miss Gent, yes. Miss Jane, yes. Miss Fazik, yes. Miss Donahghue, yes. Mr. Rising, yes. And Miss Kurubus, yes. The motion passes. Next, we move to our action items. I need a motion and a second to approve the resolution approving proposed amendments to the DWC intergovernmental agreement as presented.
026Make a motion that the board of education approve the resolution approving proposed amendments to the DWC intergovernmental agreement as presented. I second. Is there any discussion? Well, this is just reorganization of the special needs organizations that serve us. Correct, Dr. Telly? That is correct. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Michelle, will you please call the role? Mr. Rising, yes. Miss Jane, yes. Mr. Kurubis, yes. Miss Gent, yes. Miss Donahghue, yes. And Miss Fostic? Yes. The motion passes. I now need a motion and a second to approve the textbook and accompanying digital resources for the use beginning in the 2025 2026 school year as presented. I move that the board of education approve the textbook and accompanying digital resources for use beginning in the 2025 2026 school year as presented. I second. Is there any discussion? Brief inquiry. We
027had uh this material prior in a meeting was presented. Yes. And uh we did we get any public comment or feedback on the material? We did not. Thanks. All right, Michelle, will you please call the role? Miss Gent, yes. Miss Jane, yes. Mr. Kurubis, yes. Miss Fosdic, yes. Miss Donahghue, yes. And Mr. Rising, yes. The motion passes. I now need a motion and a second to approve the high school course updates as presented. I move that the board of education approve the high school course updates as presented. Second. Any discussion? This information was also previously presented and there was any public comment. No. Okay. All right. Michelle, will you please call the role? Miss Jane? Yes. Mr. Rising? Yes. Miss Gent? Yes. Mr. Kurubis? Yes. Miss Fostic? Yes. And Miss Donahghue? Yes. The motion passes.
028We will now have a presentation from Rodney Mack, William Gray, and Brian Grinstead regarding the technology spring update. We should change this up. Thank you. Good evening. Um, thank you, Dr. Tally, members of the board, uh, for our opportunity to give you a, uh, spring update of technology. We know this is the one you always look forward to. This and the one in the fall. See, got it on tape, too. Um, normally this one we always are talking about something big that we have coming up. Again, if you remember last year, we moved the the phone went with the security thing. So, we kind of are are off a year on that, but we really kind of came up with something we think um all the work we've done the last couple years to really
029put us in this um you I don't call it a 247 environment, but that where we are at with all of our services, if you ever get notices of things being off and stuff like that, um we're really ready to put out a you know, a complete plan for everything that happens once anything goes on or off. So part of this is we're going to look at um our network setup and connections. Uh we're going to give an understanding of the systems and services. Also what failure points and our responses to those. Um we're going to take a look at what redundancy would look like and the feasibility of doing that and then some of the future planning and considerations we're going to be putting forward uh to finish up this year and into next
030fall. Um we've always looked at really three main services um from the tech field outside of everything we do education wise. So you always have the phone, uh the network or the connectivity. Uh internet has become a real big one. For those three services, we always rely on two main service providers. Power and here in Neighborville, we have Neighborville and we have KMed for the Aurora schools. And then our internet service providers, um which we have two of which we'll be talking about tonight. But those are really we're really reliant on those two bottom boxes to keep everything else operational. Um, one of the big things that we've done the last couple years too, if you look up there, um, we don't have our service names. We're just trying to say which platforms we're using
031or not platforms we're using, but what the products are about 80% of these in the last 5 years have moved to a cloud-based service. That that's intentional. We did that for a reason. Um, we become reliant then more on internet and other resources, but from our Google workspace that everything that's really where the students spend almost 90% of all their work. um our human resource systems, even the new ones, we're we're bringing in the last year's business operations system that moved, the phone system, we brought in our website, our communications, all of those have moved off ho off offsite. Same thing with our student information library moved last summer, data warehouse last summer, our even our help desk and all of the resources that students ask or receive and and get information for is all
032online now. Um email is also not in house. It used to be if we lost power here, you couldn't check your email. So, all of these services now live out in the cloud to where you'll see why internet power are are two main things that we need up and running. So, what you see up there is our basic understanding of our network topology. Um, what we've done over the last couple years is simplified it to make it more efficient and faster. That looks simple, right? It Yeah, it to me it looks simple. So basically there there are two main components here. There's the WAN or the wide area connections and what that does is that connects uh each individual facility to be able to talk to the other facilities. And then there's the internet which
033allows us to get out to uh do our day-to-day uh applications that over 90% now live over in the internet. So what you see here is we've simplified it to create two different routes. So we have two groups. Half the buildings are going out one internet line and half the buildings are going out another internet line. On average our internet usage is between two to three gigs. Um and both internet pipes give us 10 gigs a piece. The nice thing and the reason why we have so much internet there is in the event of a failure, all schools will automatically fall over to the one that's working and it goes back and forth. So basically with these two groups, they have a each group has its own priority location that it's supposed to go to
034and if that location somehow becomes offline, it automatically flips over in seconds. The green line that you see in between the two uh core switches there, that is a kind of like the wide area network except it only communicates to the two data centers. We use that link for data replication between the two data centers as you can see in the the link the the like looks like a tire basically. And the reason it's set that way is because that uh connection is actually a multi-point to multi-point connection which le lets us connect directly to a particular building instead of going back to the data center and then turn it around and going back out to that building which helps for some of the services we use internally so that it doesn't have to make
035multiple trips. It can go directly to where it needs to go. And all of these this these two failure points they happen automatically as well. It's not we don't have to react when something goes down. It can tell that if it's route is closed as normal route. It'll reroute itself out the other internet. Yes. So again as we go back through this we look at why those cloud-based services and why that internet replication which is this is the first year of that. That's one of those key things we did with all the routing changes and the network work that um BJ's working on the last two years was to really make sure that that's almost seamless. No one would even notice if an internet went out. And then as we go through, these are the
036only services that we still have that are self-hosted or on-site. Um our file shares, which anything that's non- Googlele related, so word documents, things like that. um our transportation software. Uh we'll have an update on that. Security cameras, our door access controls, and our building intercoms. Those are three things right now that all still do live. Um when we talk about building automation inhouse, those will be some things that we're going to talk about possible changes. So, this is kind of just a brief overview of a little bit diving down into individual buildings. So managed provider equipment would be like your Comcast router at home. It's the our AT&T or our Comcast um basically router in each building. So that's the one comes in. Then it comes into going into the head-in closet or the
037MDF which is where the main switch closets are. And from there, each building has one at one to two at the elementary schools, seven to eight at the middle schools, and up to 15 or 20 at each high school where each sub closet goes out. Um, you're limited by the length of runs for cat 5 and network cables. So, the further the bigger the building, the more closets you have. Basically, it's just limitation of networking at this level. Now, we're talking about getting down to minor disruptions. single phone. Um, with the new phone system, we're under um contract warranty with them. So, if a phone breaks, they give us a new phone. Um, swing a switch failure, we can go out and just swi uh switch out a switch or reable some stuff in in
038a fairly short order with things on hand, send the original switch in for warranty and just kind of cycling it through and then down to wireless in the building because with everyone's laptops and Chromebooks, wireless is no longer optional. Mostly more rooms are served by more than one access point. As you get more devices than one access point, you'll see some slowness, maybe some edge failures of the furthest away, but for the most part, there's overlap in every room with multiple access points. If one were to go down, and there's only one within an hour, we can get a someone out and put a hot um hot swap um access point up. And then from here, we're kind of looking at major point of failures. Um, if we lose your Comcast router at home, your
039house has no internet. Kind of same thing here. If we lose service from AT&T, um, like I said, if Comcast is still up, we're still good because we fail back over. Um, but if you're losing the box in the school, you don't have anything to get out to fail over. Kind of just like at home. Um, at that point, just like at home, you've got your phone for a hot spot. You we can run some over. We have some at the district office. Middle schools have some on hand. we can get certain people up. It's not going to get everyone up, but critical things we can still able to do um just at home. So, if you lose your main main uh provider out in the building, you're going to be down and working off
040hotspots or your phones. The other major issue is power, whether it be Neighborville or KMED. You know, power lights go out, not much else is working. There are some um UPS's that'll keep a few things up for a few minutes, but for the most part at that point in time, you really are out. Um access points are down. So even if you had a provider getting that connectivity to get back out, you're pretty much going to be the same point you were before with phones and hotspots and such. Uh so as we look at that and think, you know, we still can have outages with internet um and and power. One of the main things that we looked at the last couple years was the communication that we need to keep up. Uh that's been
041a focus of ours again with the phone solution um the work with uh the communications team Lisa and her and her group with the new website um and the tool we call it 204 connect which is really the mass communications that the text and all of that and staff email. Um, one nice thing with our new phone solution is it does um you can download the app um that will automatically sync so that if any phone call comes into your someone calls my district phone, it rings on my cell phone. Doesn't it shows me that it's a district phone call? Um we can do that same type of a a uh um soft client on a laptop as well. So if internet goes out at a building and we get them hotspots, the middles and
042high school have them. You can have the office secretaries can log in on a laptop and have their soft phone. Phones will still come in. and no one would be wise that that the actual uh things are down. Uh that same thing works for 204 connect communications. We have just a a couple screen shares there. Again, just like a um I would say 99% of the time we don't use our phone app for this, but it's there for emergencies. Um a principal can go in and set the message. They can, you know, send it to text message. They can send it to email. They have groups. It can be just staff. They can have what um certain grade levels, whoever they need to talk to, certain buses. uh that the one on the right that's
043the alert. They could also update their website right away from their cell phone. They could put that up and that's one of those screens. If you ever remember at the beginning of the year where we don't let anyone go past until they click okay, you can actually put a link that says, you know, power and phones are down. Please use email and they can't go anywhere else on the website unless they click okay. And then you can make that disappear in 30 minutes. There's really nice features to it. Again, just some smaller screenshots there. You can see they can select to send just to their teachers to staff. Those laundry lists of everything from every bus and every um group that they have in their normal is available on their phone. Um us at the
044district level see that where we can also help out and send communication to any building as as a building principal would. The other nice thing too is uh with the email being um offsite as well, I mean everyone used to always have the email on their phone anyways, but now with it being in the cloud, even if we lose internet or power, our email is still coming through a cell signal. Um, we don't expect everybody to have that on. Administration, yes, many do, but again, we don't encourage anyone, you know, don't tell them they have to work after hours and that, but in emergencies, most people can access their email through that, too. Again, to send out critical messages or get critical updates if there's ever power outages. So, the way our power is currently
045set up at our main data centers is uh you'll have our network resources, our servers, our switches, and they'll be hooked into a UPS or an uninterrupted power supply. Um those things only last for about 30 to 60 seconds, but and they're only meant to last for that long until the main generator kicks in. Once the main generator kicks in, it'll keep the main data center equipment up. So that for instance, if we lose power here, um all the schools can continue with their day-to-day stuff, it's only us here that really lose access to things uh because the generator is only on the main data center. It's not in the IDFs or the uh extra closets. And currently those setups are only at a handful of buildings, but mainly definitely Matia and this location, which
046are our main two data centers. High schools have generators, but not all of our stuff are always connected uh to that as they were originally more for, you know, emergency light generators. Tech kind of came years later after Wanzi was built. So, um those those are really only at our two main centers. So, how do we create a redundant service? Um so, what we would need to do is we would need to bring in a secondary service. For instance, right now we're with AT&T. We would have to bring in a company like Comcast to come in and to try to make it as redundant as possible. We would also have to install this link at the other side of the building hoping that it comes from a different direction because, you know, one of our
047big outages was when a truck ran over a pole and tore all the fiber on there. Well, if those two pairs of fiber are on the same pole and that truck takes that pole down, there's really nothing else we can do at that point. So, we could do something like that and hope that it's coming from a different location. Um, but with power, we need to make sure that it has its own UPS and a and a generator to keep it up and running. Same thing, uh, power redundancy. In order to accomplish this, uh, basically we have to have UPS's at all our MDF and IDF closets, uh, as well as backup generators installed in every one of our buildings. Um, and then wiring ran from each of those closets back to that generator. Uh,
048could get pretty pricey. And there's that would just give us the power to keep the equipment up but not necessarily save us from a truck knocking the pole over with all the fiber connected to it. Yeah. If everybody remembers that I think it was two summers ago the dump truck drove down the road with the the dump up and it on 34 and it cut Neighborville's ours and not just districts I mean every business as well. West Aurora, I mean for miles and miles because they cut the main fiber of both Comcast, AT&T, they all go down the same line. So some things we can't avoid if people keep their dump trucks in. But here we'll look at the feasibility of this. So here's feasibility just talk about you know broad brushstrokes for redundant power
049and costs. UPS is, you know, talking almost a million dollars and just like everything in electronics in it. It has a useful life in it. So, it becomes a reoccurring cost. Um, on top of the UPS's, you need those in order because the generator takes a moment to fire up. So, even for that, you know, five minutes to fire up, you're at a million dollars. You're at the generator site for another $5 million. And in that yearly maintenance, because generators need to be maintained, UPSC need to be checked. They have batteries, you're talking about just over $100,000 a year for maintenance. Getting up to the price of maintaining a Bugatti, but without all the fun that comes with that. Um, and you know, then redundant services cost the same thing as BJ was talking about
050on the WAN cost. And really to get that redundancy in there on the just in case you we're talking almost adding, you know, $360,000 just to the cost of just in case a dump truck takes out one line. If it takes out both lines, the redundancy really wouldn't have helped us at all anyway. So that's kind of where we're at. And kind of, you know, broad six to seven outages a year is what we kind of experienced. But most of them, we're fortunate in the area that we live in. We don't really have power that often. comment in April keep us up but less than a few minutes. So we're talking about spending the above things to try to save a site being down for a couple of minutes and I think the largest outage
051we had we said was last about four hours at one location and that was a construction crew tapping into uh Kameed's line for some fireworks. Um but Kameed had it restored in about four hours. In those situations we can like you said have hotspots available. we can run out if we need to do just some base services until the power is repaired. I mean, for for part of that just I mean, I did a price point just to say, you know, say we had done all the work in the beginning and in a in a four-year period I've been here, we've had one four-h hour outage, it would have cost about $485,000 for each hour to keep one site up. It was during the summer and only the principal and the secretary were there and
052we brought them hotspots. And again, even then, the hotspots did what we needed. they could get into the student information system and finish scheduling. Timing was bad because the schedules were due the next day, but it we were able to have that solution without having to expense such a large expense for something that's, you know, happens a handful of times a year. It's troubling when it happens, but because you never know when it's going back on, but it's they they don't last very long. So, some of the future plannings that we're looking at, um, we are looking at doing work moving, um, our file storage to cloud services, whether that be one drive, uh, Google um, drive shares, so that everything is in the cloud and we're not relying on ever having to come back
053and pull files. Um, working with Ron and moving the busing server to the cloud. Again, that's the one that's still in house right now that we do need to have access to. Um, if there was ever an outage here and we needed to get to the buses, um, the bus information, that's one that we really do have to work on. um looking at supporting the generator work. Again, I talked with um John Robinson about if there was anything in the master facility plan with generators just to make sure that there are in some buildings where they're looking at generators just to say let's make sure MDFs and IDFs are included if we're doing those. Not not to buy one specifically for tech purposes, but just to say let's make sure again we don't spend money
054twice if if it is something that we're going to we're going to take advantage of wherever generator work is going to be happening. Uh one of the big things we think we're going to be doing is retrain and practice um the mobile communication platforms. Again, all administrators have been trained in that 204 connect and know how to do it. But every time I say, "If your bus 3's running late, just pull your phone out and do this." And I can tell them, they're like 99% of the time they're doing it at a nice slow pace on a computer because they know it and they want to check. I can quickly pick out the right bus from a but again, I I have a little bit more experience doing that that it is that how do
055we train them just like we do everything else until they they don't need to send them from their phone. But um being able to know how those communications work is something we're going to be looking forward to um doing this in this coming year. And then also looking at working with users, secretaries, other building people so that they're aware of what these outages mean and what things could they use and need from us. What things can we have ready to go? Again, planning for those few 30 minute outages that we might have. We did have Cone lost power at the start of the day. One day this year was the only time that was really like people scrambling. I was driving by and uh one of BJ's guys was already driving to meet me with
056we already knew pull attendance records. So, we already had them ready for paper knowing that they said power was going to be on, but we have to have attendance done. And it's just one of those that we have the plans. Um how do we keep and and really find out what other people think they need to uh to be ready for any type of outage we might have, which in all honesty, it really should be very very limited with with the setups that we have now. Questions? Okay, Miss Fazec, do you have any My only question is really basic. Do our phones work if the power goes out? Our landline phones through our cell phone app, they do. Yeah, you need you need power for your actual device to continue to work. The phones are
057powered by the switches and the IDFs and MDFs. So, power goes out. The switches are out. So, the phones So, the landlines go out. Yes. Yes. Okay. But you, a lot of the secretaries that I've worked with already have the app on their phone for that purpose. Okay. Is that something we would consider requiring? We would we would that's what we're going to do the training to get them so they can pull out their laptop and do the soft on here. We don't want to expect everybody to use a personal cell phone if they're if they're not in that administration group, but we would say now flip open your laptop because that will still work if they have the hotspots. These things will still hold a battery charged and they can log into that soft
058app right there on the computer. I'm coming at this question for as a food allergy parent, someone with a food allergy. Um, and we we keep our landlines specifically for when the power goes out. And yeah, none of our phones are actually landlines. None of them are. We got rid of all of them. They're all cloud-based. Everything is a cloud-based, which again would work off a hotspot or anything else you But there's a back. Yeah, there's back. That's really what I wanted to know. Thank you for the clarification. Have the app. Yes, all administration does for sure. Okay, thank you. Mr. Rising, my first question unrelated. This is for the students. Can we make the Wi-Fi faster? No. I hear that a lot from students. Um, you don't have to answer that. Uh, so you're
059not proposing 20% of it. Yeah. I'm sorry. Unless you want to answer it. They just need a faster device. I don't We give them the device, too. So I don't want to Yeah. Um Okay. So I was a little confused at first with the presentation because I thought you were actually proposing real time redundancy for power and internet, but you're Okay. Um that makes me feel better because I know that it is extremely pricey. Um is a big lift with this. You know, I heard again I don't understand the difference between the MDF IDF necessarily, but I heard there's some cleanup in those areas that needs to happen as well. Is that kind of what I heard or that they communicate better? Okay. No, I I I think we're in a good spot. I I
060think the the the reason for this one was to say how we can be try to get as fully 24/7 as possible and how much money it would cost versus what we're doing now. And we feel confident that we're up uh a majority of the time. Okay. I mean, I I believe in my 16 years in a school district, the it's been like 99.9% of the time that those WAN links or those circuits at each of the buildings have been up. There's always a chance that we could lose a circuit here and there, but um I don't I don't think we need to really clean anything anything up there. And then as far as I think it was slide 10, um the things that are currently hosted inhouse or on site, uh I understand getting
061transportation up on the cloud, that's kind of a no-brainer. Um I understand the reason for having to file shares on our servers um to have access to some of that stuff. Is there a is there a reason to not want to transfer some of that stuff with the security cameras, the access controls, intercom systems? Like I would think we would want to have that still controlled on site just because there's a lot of security around that. I I think if we went to that was our only access, but since there's still keys and things out there that's kind of those would go hand in hand. A lot of those switch things are also run off um their POE, meaning if we were able to keep the switches up, a lot of those door strikes and
062door access and things would stay online. So again, it'd be a smaller area and that's part of that working with facilities if they're going to start putting generators or even UPS's and some of those to just kind of give us that control. Security footage, uh security cameras, I don't know if we ever would move that offsite, mainly because of the amount of data and traffic that we'd be sending security footage up to the cloud to watch back down. And a power outage is just not going to be recording those times. That's got to stay in on site. So unless it had its own, you know, individual UPS. Okay. Well, the cameras would go down during the camera. That's all I had. Thanks, Skunks. I do not have any questions for you guys, but I did
063genuinely want to say I actually I do very much enjoy your presentations. I mean I was not being facitious at the beginning be because how important technology is for the kids now learning with all of a lot of as we just approved a lot of the curriculum being digital and everything it's so important so I appreciated your explanations too because your wonderful pictures made a lot more sense to me after that and the fact that we have backups and backup of backups. I mean, you guys really are planning for everything and we can't help other human mistakes outside of here, but I appreciate all you're doing to keep it at least in the district in house working well. Mr. Kus, [Music] I was a little nervous because you had 29 pages, but then I remember
064that you were doing the presentation and you got it down to 20 minutes. So, that's pretty good. Um I always struggle with this one a little bit. Um like where does technology um stop? Why are we getting a presentation about technology? Um you know at some level a pen is technology. Uh and then you can see where the the presentation grows where you're talking about a switch and then you're talking about backup power. Now you're talking about, you know, a a line being over a street. And so it kind of just keeps broadening out. Um I think what is important to me is kind of our delivering of services to the end user. Like this is all behind the scene, behind the curtain stuff. Um you know, the end user really doesn't care about this.
065you know, I'm looking at the the map you drew on page five and I just glossed over at uh a couple of those lines there, but so I'm an end user. You know, does my does my phone work? Does my Wi-Fi work? Does my computer work? Um and the technology, the infrastructure, you know, the the building um envelope is is all related to kind of delivering those services. You what good is the technology if I got a leaky roof? what good is the technology if you know the bathroom isn't working. So it's all kind of interrelated. Um so I I would appreciate administration the district um not just focusing on the technology side of it but also incorporating some of these these other areas because they are important. you know I don't need like a
066plumbing diagram to appreciate um you know that that's a service we deliver but we are getting a certain level of detail here that's very impressive. Um but ultimately we want to we want to deliver a good quality work day and student day for you know for our our community. And if um you know if bathrooms are down or walls are caving in that also impacts uh you know whether the Chromebook's working or your you know bus is arriving on time. Um so that's just my broader view is that you know when does technology stop and when is it um part of the hardscape and the softscape aspect of it. Um, and I know you do on the other presentation you do hit more on the the software side because what is also important to me
067is the the web filtering um you know the monitoring and that's not in this presentation but that is kind of just important. it lays over the stuff. But um you know that's where um that's where the value is. I think you know you got to deliver the the data the the pipe but it's got to be in the right way to make sure it's educationally appropriate. It's part of our curriculum. It's part of our instructional material selections. All that stuff. Um, so, uh, you know, it's a lot to say, but I think I like the presentation, but I think we can expand it. And it's not just, you know, your office, it's more administration to say, you know, do we need another presentation? Um, you know, when when does this technology would be a natural
068handoff to say, okay, now we need to hear, you know, from the the building operation office to talk about some of these other things. So, that's my comments. That's it. No, I can appreciate that, too. And I will say, um, the the, uh, filter is due up this summer. So, in the fall, you're going to hear about the new filter. Is that price tag up there, too? [Laughter] All right. Next time. Yeah. Right, Miss James. I just appreciate over the years how you've been very thorough thorough with us in terms of informing us how the systems work where we needed to make changes and why where we're not making changes and why the cost associated with it and then the end the experience I think with anything technology we take it for granted as long
069as it works and then eyes are all on you when it doesn't work. And I think what you have done over the years is provided us with information and knowledge to understand how the systems work. And I think that's what you did today as we become more heavily reliant on the internet, not just individually in our lives, but as a district. uh this for me was very helpful in um in understanding how we are moving to more cloud-based systems and how we're supporting that usage. So again, I just found it very informative. I don't have any questions, but just thank you. So thank you. um having spent my career helping to design and support telecom networks, I can greatly appreciate the work you have done to make sure certain that we have redundancy and that
070we have simplified our um configuration. So um I think your cost benefit analysis that you have done to avoid some costs that um would be very pricey and probably small percentage um as a possible solution to something that might happen to our network is really helpful and important. Um so I really appreciate that. I think um you've done a great job trying to um explain some very complicated equipment and scenarios to the board and um and done a good job keeping our systems up and running. So, thank you so much. Okay, we will now have our presentation regarding the portrait of an educator update from Krie Beth Harry, Sharon Ruff, and Katie Pop. Katie here. Good evening board members. Thank you for providing us the opportunity to share with you the incredible work that we
071have done on portrait of an educator. This task was outlined in the strategic plan priority two objective three and strategy three. It's it also encompasses the board policies listed. With me tonight uh are not only committee members for the portrait of an educator but also strong proponents of the importance of hiring right. Sharon Ruff, director of human resources and Katie Pop, IPA president, teacher and grow your own teacher alum. We'll be presenting to you an overview and update of our work, sharing our commitment and timelines, highlighting our accomplishments, and outlining our next steps. The development of the portrait of an educator compelled us to reflect and connect the work we're already doing and enhance it. The competencies we identified are solid and our process allowed us to create a consistent valuesdriven standard that supports our
072mission of inspiring all students to achieve their greatest potential. Building on the success of our portrait of a graduate, our goal was to define what effective teaching and leadership looks like in district 204. The process compelled us to reflect and celebrate the work we're already doing. We truly believe this comprehensive approach to recruitment and retention will lead to a workforce that allows students to see themselves represented in the adults around them. The portrait of an educator framework informs how we assess candidates from the outset and uses datadriven approaches to ensure that our hiring pro practices are equitable and reflect our vision. The district contracted with Battel for kids whom we worked with on the portrait of a graduate and began our work in September. We met three times throughout the fall for a full day
073session to discuss, reflect, challenge, and craft what we believed were core competencies for our educators. We truly believe that everyone is an educator. So, while our focus was on teachers, we also discussed how this applies to support staff and administration, too. One of our strengths is the commitment to growth and development in our current educators. Portrait of an educator enhances that strength. We have incredible support and leadership from administration, comprehensive instructional coaching, targeted mentoring programs, robust professional learning communities, long-standing affinity groups, purposeful learning, purposeful professional learning opportunities, and simply put, great educators. This was highlighted multiple times during the committee work and shifts the focus as we roll this out from presenting this as an initiative to continuing our purposeful work. We'd like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to our
074committee members, which were made up of administrators at the CEC and all levels, teachers, students, and community members. And without them, this work would not be possible. Our task in year one was to identify essential qualities and competencies for a portrait of a teacher. We've completed that task, but it's not just simply checking the box in our strategic plan. It's a foundational step for us to look at how we embed this into the work at various levels of our recruitment and retention strategies. Upon the completion of the work by the committee, we shared our work at a high level with administrators and asked them to participate in a few activities that allowed them the same opportunity to explore and reflect how to apply these competencies to the work that they're doing in the hiring process.
075So for example, we um provided them with prompts and allowed them to explore based on these five competencies um different uh questions for an interview and then allowed them to create a rubric by which to um judge those um those responses. So that's just an example of one of the activities we shared with them. Um we've used this trial um or we've also used this as a trial in some of our recent interviews. So we've uh put this to practice as well. We'll continue to assess and refine and apply in years two and three uh expanding it to more areas of recruitment and then into retention. This cycle of work uh which is the um practicing, assessing, refining uh mirrors that of what we would want our educators to be doing in their classrooms and
076offices and students as they continue to grow and develop. We'd like to share with you in more detail the five competencies that we selected and then um developed as our graphic which is displayed here for you. Here are our five core competencies with their associated definitions. It's not surprising that you'll see an overlap with the portrait of a graphic competency and it's natural that the competencies we aspire towards with our students would be expected and reflected in our teachers. What was important to the committee was that we developed the competencies and definitions in our voice, a clear and true reflection of what it means to be part of Indian Prairie School District 204. Our goal is to continue to build on our strength of solid teacher retention and refine our recruitment process to minimize time
077and cost of turnover. According to the US Department of Labor, the cost of a bad hire in education can be up to 30% of the employees first year salary. We'll use the completed portrait of an educator work to target these areas. are branding, application process, screening and interview processes, professional growth opportunities, and retention strategies. Throughout each area, we'll do a formal assessment by looking at data and trends. The portrait of an educator gives us the foundation and structure to do that work. Additionally, we'd like to explore job satisfaction and proactively address challenges so that we have a consistent valuesdriven standard that supports our mission to inspire all students to achieve their greatest potential. The portrait of an educator gives us a springboard to grow and develop both our existing and new staff members. So, thank
078you for your time. At this at this uh time, we'd like to open up the floor for questions. We'll start with Miss Jane. Thank you. Um I'll just go to slide six because I just have a couple questions here. In just out of curiosity, in identifying the qualities and competencies, what type of material was looked at um to to kind of identify and narrow the ones that you've identified? So, we were actually presented with a list of probably close to 70 different competencies. And so the committee as a whole went through and identified um what we felt were our strongest and narrowed it down and narrowed it down and actually had some really good conversations in the committee about what um what we felt was um the strongest and most relevant for us. Um as
079you'll see there is some overlap with our portrait of a graduate and we knew that that would be natural. Um but then um you know it was just it was just the collaboration of the committee that really determined what we felt was was the strongest and um there were some clear leaders and then there were some that that required a little bit more discussion and um debate. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. And I'm I was really happy to hear about future plans with regard to first of all I'm really happy to hear how you've been piloting the questions so far in interview process and and I'll be eager to hear in the coming year or so about how it's being implemented with the retention aspect of it more specifically. I I guess I'm not aware how
080are are educators evaluated? Is is there is there a rubric that mirrors like what what are what qualities and competencies are we how are we assessing our educators currently and then how do you see this portrait of an educator influencing how we might continue to evaluate our educators. So currently right now our staff is evaluated through the Danielson framework model and a lot of the competencies the five core ones that we addressed you see are spread throughout the entire evaluation process in the different attributes. Um while it doesn't specifically pick out those specific five competencies, that vocabulary is used there. And those five competencies um that vocabulary is used consistently in our teaching practices and in our reflective processes when we have our conversations with administrators discussing our craft. Okay, that's great to hear. I
081I'm very excited by this. Um, as an educator myself, I could, you know, a portrait like this could be really motivating if everything is aligned with it. You know, even the way we recognize our educators with awards and how it aligns with the portrait of an educator. I think all of that um is going to happen in the coming years and I'm really excited to see how it plays out. Thank you. No questions. Miss Gunce, I completely agree with uh board member Jane where it is very exciting to see this unfold. And actually building on on what she had been asking about when you're talking about the interview process, is it something that's being used with all interviews kind of going forward? Is it certain administrators using it, interviewing certain staff and kind of tweaking
082it and then before it is used for like every an interview if that makes sense to you, Carrie? It does. Yeah. And the intention is that it would be rolled out to all sort of classifications of positions. Right now the trial has been pretty limited. Okay. Um but it's been exciting to see and and there is um you know just just the alignment. Um while that was probably happening in the past, it wasn't structured. And so the alignment that we've been able to do has been also exciting for those on the interview committee to see um and the results have been interesting too just as we've we've gone through that and and seen where some of the candidates have fallen based on on their responses as they they um line up with the competencies. No,
083I think that honestly that's great and I love that. So, it'll just kind of see what works, what doesn't, and before it gets rolled out to everybody. But, no, that was my my only question. Thank you so much for that clarification. But it is it's so exciting to see this as we had heard about it earlier, seeing it actually come to fruition. So, thank you, Mr. Kurubus. I really like this. I don't exactly know why I do, though. I'm trying to figure that out. Um, that's where I that's that's most of my life right there. But what I think I like most about it is that it is a portrait. Um, but it also kind of lets me see I can see myself in here. And so we're talking about being adaptable as kind of
084a a guide, but then how does that apply to me? How do I be adaptable? um you know is that on a spectrum or there are different domains with it. So I enjoy that we're trying to take a snapshot trying to say you know this is what uh we want as an educator in 204 but then it's also how does it apply to me as an educator. Um so that's the value I think having winged it to to get there. So thank you. That's it. Mr. Rising, can you go back to slide six again because just because just because just because just because just because I like that. Um so first of all totally excited to hear that we're already putting some of this into practice and hiring and looking for some of those competencies
085or characteristics as it relates to this portrait of an educator. Um, I'm excited to see how we fine-tune this to use it for recruiting. I'm sure you will discover a lot and you probably have ideas, but you know, I'm sure you'll learn a lot as you attend more recruiting events and kind of talk about this and have those conversations. So, I'm excited to hear about that down the road. Uh, the professional growth part, kind of alluding to what Mr. Kruba said, "I'm also excited to see how that kind of develops and where we could really expand this as it relates to our teachers and professional development that we already have, but now we kind of fine-tune it around some of the portrait of educator." Where my question is is on the retention part. Um, I
086know that is down the road, but I'm just curious your initial thoughts of where this might help. I' especially like to hear from Katie uh maybe on that piece. U, but any of you is fine to to hear from, but I'm just curious where you maybe see this lending to that retention part. Um, and again, I know this is down the road, but just initial thoughts. I think the conversations that we typically have with teachers, the five cores that we picked are are conversations our teachers are having in their PLC's. So, it won't be surprising to them to see that this is what we've identified because they're doing this every day. I think it the retention part comes from where you're going to who you're partner with and who you're collaborating and working with. the
087newb teacher, the you know the first or second year who's working with the veteran who's the 22nd 22 years in to the profession. That's where you're going to see the retention because they're going to see how this applies, how it's applicable and how I can grow from learning from the veteran teachers using those using that verbiage. You see where the creativity comes in. You see how you have to be adaptable and change the lesson because it worked first period but it would have worked better if I tweak it. So I'm changing it for second period. So kind of seeing it in practice and having those professional conversations in PLC and on SIP days and on institute days is what is where it plays out. Cool. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation for the work
088on this. I appreciate the fact that I heard that you included students in this building process too. Um my first question is um something that Katie mentioned briefly for use and reflective practices like kind of what Justin was saying too. Um is this something that we expect to use with educators for self-evaluation throughout the year? I think evaluate uh teachers are using this every year. I mean or all the time every day. I mean you're again you're constantly adapting your lesson. you're constantly having to be creative in how you're implementing it. You're always reflecting on what worked, what didn't work. Um, so it's it's something that just is done naturally. I don't know that you always have like a set rules that you're following that this is when you do it and this is how
089it it's just something that you the longer you teach it comes more naturally. And the more you can instill that practice and mindset in the non-tenure teachers as they start to come through the ranks, the the more it just becomes natural. I think I I asked about that specifically because I think um even though I I'm sure that all of these things are being practiced and reflected and grown u regularly that intentional stepping back and looking at where can I grow in an area and one of these that we have collectively and cohesively decided is going to be really valuable for us as a district to say this is these are the educators we want. Um, it sometimes I I find for myself as an educator that intentional self-reflection on where can I put in
090some growth this year um helps us all. So, I just didn't know if that there are potential plans for that. Um, and then when you have the um the three-year process, have you decided what measurement tools you you'll use to say, "Yes, this this works. Our our descriptions on slide seven fully encompass what we want. How will you measure at year three? This is getting the outcome that we wanted to have. Does this is this really the final draft of what we want?" Those are great questions. So we did talk a little bit about that um as a committee and then uh as an administrative group a little bit further how we want to develop that. So just for example um with the interview questions that we created we also developed our own rubric. So
091we were we're kind of we were kind of building it a little bit as we go um just to see how it works. Um, and then once we're pretty comfortable with that, I think we'll establish something that is is more a standard um for that. But we're we're still kind of trying to figure that out. Um, I I think it's um really exciting because not only is this a tool that we can use, like Sharon was saying at at the at the outset with recruitment, but this is a tool that we're going to use um as teachers continue to grow and develop. And um I really appreciate your um pointing out that it it is a it these are areas that we would like teachers to do some self-reflection on. This is a a continuum
092and um we're just really excited about it. Oh, thank you for the work. So, thank you uh very much. I know the board has been asking about where we're at with this um like regularly and so we're excited to have this presented to us. I um when I saw the five areas um I thought, uh boy, those are the right ones. Like if I had a teacher, these are what I would like to have valued in that teacher and um skills that they would um represent. So, I I was very happy when I um I saw those and I appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into this with a large committee to coming up with these words and picking out of 70 different areas or whatever. I do think you nailed it with those five personally.
093Um and uh those are skills that I think we want to promote and value in our teachers and our staff. and um I thank you for the work and look forward to seeing this implemented across many different areas. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, our um last item is legislative advocacy and board of education update. Does anyone have any items? Nope. I I have an update. Okay. Um just for um with regards to the public comment tonight, uh I just want everyone to understand it is a federal requirement because we participate in the uh national school lunch program. We may not have the fundraising type of activity. um as the young man was speaking I was reminded sort of in my mind I could remember hearing this before in my prior lives and
094um luckily Ron Johnson was here and he spoke to the student and he reminds me that it is a it is a federal requirement because we're in the in that program. So just want everyone to know. All right then I need a motion and a second to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? Yes. Hi. Any opposed? We all want to stay here tonight. Okay. Thank you.