001e e e okay it is 7:02 and I am reconvening to open session and calling to order the regular Board of Education meeting for Indian Prairie District 204 on Monday June 10th 2024 Michelle will you please call the role Miss Donahue here Miss Jane here miss Deming present Mr kurubas here miss gin here Mr Rising here and Mr F and Miss F here we have a quorum Miss IC will you lead us in the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right we have some board salutes tonight I'll start with Mr kis 26 Illinois school counselor Association impact Awards the board salutes Granger middle school guidance counsel Anna the Manson Granger Middle School
002principal Alan Davenport and the wanzi valley counseling department for being honored with a 2024 Illinois school counselor Association impact award the award recognizes their exceptional dedication and outstanding contributions in supporting students congratul congratulations on a job well done Miss gent Nia Valley Freshman achieves rank of Eagle Scout the board salutes Nia Valley Freshman Jack Stevens for achieving the rank of Eagle Scout the highest advancement rank in scouting Jack made blankets and birthday bags for the Illinois Foster closet a nonprofit and Streamwood that provides Necessities for foster children to use in their homes the bags were filled with toys and clothes donated by Stevens and his family congratulations to jack on achieving the prestigious rank of Eagle Scout Miss Jane District 204 students Sam Labs designed showcase winners the board salutes St Elementary thir grade students
003Luke Farah and Char Charlie hesterberg for winning second place with the boat project and Shia Gupta and Finn vanam for placing third with their car with kite project in the 2024 Sam Labs design showcase additionally fry Elementary fifth grade students Yuen Dalal vihan V vaa Roni Kaa and advik dund were recognized for winning first place with their water gun target project and Olivia branti Sal Salma abum Mar sanvika Soni and Pisha Varma were honored for winning second place with their gumball machine project sounds fun Mr Rising District 204 teacher accepted into the Supreme Court summer Institute the board salutes Matia Valley social studies teacher Susan furer for being selected as one of the 60 teachers Nationwide to participate in the Summer's prestig prestigious summer Court summer Institute at Georgetown University The Institute which focuses on
004Law related and Civics education is co-sponsored by Street law Incorporated and the Supreme Court Historical Society congratulations Susan Miss vasic I have two tonight District 204 students named College sponsored National Merit Scholars the board salutes Matia Val Senor Randolph ha and N Val Senor Jay Menan who were recently named 2024 National Merit Scholars by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation these Awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship congratulations and Indian Prairie School District receives certificate of excellence in financial reporting the board salutes Indian Prairie School District for receiving the certificate of excellence in financial reporting from the association of school business officials International for the fiscal year ending 2023 the award represents a significant achievement and and reflects the district's commitment to
005transparency and high quality financial reporting this is the 17th consecutive year in which District 204 has earned aso's certificate of excellence in financial reporting congratulations to Mr Shipley and his team for their work in earning this prestigious recognition Miss dumming neille newcomers and neighbors Club scholarships the board salutes Matia Valley Senior Sophie Lynn and niav Valley Senior Ariana Mong for receiving scholarships from the Neighborville newcomers and neighbors Club these scholarships are funded through generous donations from the club's president Circle sponsor Steven Woody Woodring owner of Woody Buick GMC congratulations to Sophie and Ariana so I'd like to congratulate all of these accomplishments and achievements and some really fun and interesting projects too so thank [Applause] you next it is a pleasure to announce and present our Inspire Awards the mission of Indian Prairie district school
006district is to inspire all students to achieve their greatest potential tonight we will be presenting four District 204 Awards to recognize individuals and organizations who make meaningful and very lasting impact on our students of the Indian Prairie School District we'll start with Mr Rising okay uh our first award is the illuminate award which is given to a community member who or organization which is dedicated to supporting District 204 students and the community this year's recipient of the illuminate award is Amy Seaman um AB is a busy mother of three children all of whom who have attended St Elementary take down the role of mentor to new parents entering STC Elementary she is always there to answer questions Provide support and help families her extensive knowledge of the school including details about teachers staff events supplies
007pickup procedures and after school programs has been invaluable to numerous numerous parents Amy's dedication and love for the community and our community has not gone on notied she has welcomed families with open arms supported STC Elementary Tire L and has been a role model to countless new parents on behalf of the Indian School Indian Prairie School District Board of Education I'm thrilled to present you with the 2024 illuminated award congratulations Amy you want to introduce your daughter at least my daughter Anna she is going to be a sophomore at wanzi um and the other one is at a water polo game so they were not so we want to get a picture up here that's right oh yeah right now yeah and Miss Zan I just want to say not too long ago you were
008here supporting someone else I know your husband couldn't come tonight but he is with our daughter and yes who'll be principal of Longwood yes so we're very oh this take this one when you leave thank you [Applause] con next we'll have Miss Jane is Angela here would you stand sure okay um our second award is the impact award which is given to a staff member who has made significant difference in the lives of our students the recipient of the impact award is Angela celi a second grade teacher at maywatts elementary Angela is re renowned for her thoughtful and int intentional approach to education she goes above and beyond to connect with every student in her classroom recognizing and nurturing their unique interests and needs Mrs celi is a shining example of Universal Design for Learning
009she seemed l ly integrates social emotional and academic needs into teaching creating a classroom environment where every student feels capable appropriately challenged and excited to learn Angela's dedication and Innovative approach to education have made a lasting impact on her students in our community on behalf of the Indian Prairie School District Board of Education I am thrilled to present you with the 2024 impact award congratulations and and do you have your family I do would you like to introduce them I have my husband Joe and my daughter Kylie and my other daughter Sydney picture take congratulations [Applause] now we have miss miss basik our third award is the ignite award which is given to students who are emerging leaders and demonstrate exemplary qualities within a District 204 student organization the ignite award is presented to niav
010valy senior anv shav through her leadership in several organizations within District 204 including Youth and government Hindu yua and Elevate anv has shown a commitment to empowering other students in Civic engagement culture and Community which is truly commendable Omi Volunteers in many Community initiatives including food and clothing drives healthc Care organizations Highway cleanups and diversity equity and inclusion initiatives her dedication to service earned her the 2020 3 Martin Luther King Jr service award from the city of Aurora and the presidential gold volunteer service award in 2023 anv's leadership and dedication to our community is truly inspiring on behalf of the Indian Prairie School District Board of Education I am thrilled to present you with the 2024 ignite award congratulations toce my parents and my grandfather from India a how special that's wonderful like picture e
011[Applause] and our last award will be presented by Miss dumming have please Mr Lee's beautiful mother is joining oh gosh I now have the honor of presenting the most prestigious Award of the evening the Inspire award this award is given to an individual or entity that has demonstrated exemplary service to District 204 over a sustained period of time this year's recipient of the Inspire award is Patrick Lee fiser Middle School's Title One facilitator Patrick is being recognized for his exceptional dedication to supporting students within District 204 he has a passionate desire to help all students be their best selves through guidance respect and compassion he is a genuine advocate k for students in our district and his passion for connecting with students has made a huge impact on so many he brings an impactful male
012presence to the student body of Fisher and works very hard to connect and Inspire students to fulfill a lifestyle of respect and meaning Patrick's commitment to students extends far beyond the classroom he demonstrates genuine care and concern remembering personal details and making meaningful connections with students and their families his advocacy for students in our district will continue to uplift and Inspire for years to come thank you Patrick for your incredible dedication and service to our district you are an inspiration to our students our community and we are grateful for all you do on behalf of the Indian Prairie School District Board of Education I'm pleased to present you with the 204 Inspire award congratulations I can get it up I'm uh forgive me I am humbled and honored by this I never imagined it I
013just wanted to do God's work this is my mom she's a lifelong educator uh all of you I've communicated with you throughout the years uh all of you represent servant leadership the principal that I report to he's a dear friend uh that's why I'm inspired to do my best and uh these are some former uh students who I didn't know would be here uh known they are my why one gentleman I've known since second grade he's now he'll be a sophomore at wansi his sister I've known since first grade she'll be a a freshman at wans this young lady I've known since first grade her sister since she was in fourth grade all going over to a bon I was told totally blown away when I received your letter Dr tally uh all I can
014say is thank you I'm honored to be an employee of this District our daughter who's grown finished from kendle Crone and uh Nia back in 2012 uh this is my way of giving back to our wonderful community and to these beautiful stud students who inspire me and I will say that my dear friend Kathy P your former colleagues she and I have known each other since uh so I'm just speechless thank you okay come come around this way I don't want you yeah where there's not the cord would you like your students students students [Music] you guys [Applause] no never that is true boy it's hard to move on after all of that I know okay we now move to our consent agenda and superintendent report we will start with the superintendent report Dr T
015public comment oh we have no public comment Miss Don Who members of the board and Indian Prairie Community on Memorial Sunday we graduated more than 2,000 students at our three high schools during their commencement ceremonies each event was completed beautifully each school should be commended for their events planning and executing these events can be very difficult however the high schools seem to do them with ease and a plum I know though that behind the scenes and leading right up to the event a lot is happening that the general public has has a new idea I applaud the planners at the three high schools Miss monine Johnson at leonzi Mr Rodney Jones at Matia and Mr Michael UL at Nia well done to all of you for a great job and we wish all of our
016graduates much success in their future the end of the school year is always Bittersweet as we say goodbye to our students and staff wishing them a wonderful summer we are very proud of what they've been able to accomplish the school year with our schools working in collaboration with parent groups to support our students several of our staff were spotlighted this year for their work two of our staff members Mr Al Davenport principal of Granger was recognized as the Illinois Middle School principal of the year and Dr Rachel mmud teacher at Georgetown was recognized as the Illinois teacher of the year we are proud of their accomplishments and the accomplishments of all of our teachers staff and students our success this year was due to everyone working together I have to thank our teachers our support
017staff our bus drivers our cafeteria workers our administrators our student support coordinators our parents our local businesses our community for their continued support of our students I celebrate our students for their hard work they did this year in learning and growing and developing our summer stem Camp is happening now at Granger students and grades Kad to are engaged in activities that are STEM related we are able to we were able to expand it to two weeks this year other grades will have their twoe camps later on this summer and now I'll turn it back to miss donu okay I need a motion for the approval of consent agenda items D through R make a motion that the Board of Education approv consent agenda items D through r as presented I second any discussion Michelle will
018you please call the RO Mr Rising yes Miss Deming I Mr karubas yes Miss gent yes Miss fosik yes Miss Donahue yes and Miss Jane yes motion passes next we move to our action item I need a motion to approve the first reading for board policy to colon 42 student advisory committee as presented I'm mve that the board approved the first reading for board policy 242 student advisory committee as presented second okay any discussion did you miss fosic did you maybe want to read that just for sure and just explain it just briefly uh yes it is a a proposal for um a new board policy solidifying our relationship with our student advisory committee and um helping to ensure that that continues going forward um so the policy reads as follows the Board of Education
019recognizes the importance of student voice in The District and shall support a student advisory committee of the board this educational experience concerning the operation of the district shall be open to high school students details regarding responsibilities participation and selection of committee members will be determined by District administration in collaboration with the Board of Education and participating students student advisory committee members may not vote or attend any closed board meeting I just want to say thanks I know yourself and Mr kruis worked um with the student Advisory Board quite a bit so thanks for your work on this thank you and I know it's just a first reading but yeah okay any discussion beyond what we just had Michelle will you please call the RO Miss fosic yes Mr kurubas yes Miss gent yes Miss Donahue
020yes Miss Deming I Miss Jane yes and Mr Rising yes the motion passes okay now we will have a presentation from Mr Shipley and Mr Paul Hanley Miss Donny Who members of the board while Mr Shipley and Mr Hanley are coming to the table I just want to provide a few words since December when the Board of Ed received the comprehensive facility study we've been examining ways in which to pay for the needed work that is required in all our buildings at the table we have Mr Shipley our chief School business officer and Mr Paul Hanley managing director beyond the base a firm we have been working with in our off in our efforts to decide how we might fund the needs that were determined by the facility study and they will talk about results
021from surveys and share information gathered from our community Mr ship uh good evening and uh thank you for the introduction Dr tally I will um emphasize that the work we've done so far to date is is with funding proposals so we are still open to feedback both from our community and our Board of Education uh I also as part of that just want to thank uh literally the thousands of community members that have reached out so far and provided input uh asked questions and provided good feedback uh if we do continue forward with this funding proposal we do um expect and hope for that continued Community engagement uh as well um and so with that I'm going to turn it over to Paul to um uh kind of overview our process and start sharing some
022of the results of the the feedback that we've received thus far thank you so much so we've done a lot of work over the last few months um and tonight is the culmination of all that work and all the research that was done uh in terms of what those results look like so here's a summary of of the four phases uh that are involved in this public engagement process first first three phases are funded by the district the last phase uh if a group of concerned citizens come together to advocate for a measure that's what that fourth phase is about um and as you can see there's just lots of different steps that that the district went through um tonight I'll quickly go over some of those steps and then you can see in phase
023three public opinion research um we have both a maale survey and a hybrid poll that was done I'll talk about the results of those as well as a hybrid poll that was done in the beginning of the process so way back in March um we decided right away to get a pulse of the community with regard to two possible funding proposals one was a $420 million Bond referendum the other was a 51 C limiting rate referendum um and so we put into the field a hybrid poll a hybrid poll is a combination of phone and text messages those text messages go take the participant to an online survey uh in addition to doing the hybrid polar right away is part of the public engagement process there were multiple uh informational mailers that went out this
024was the first one took the form of a letter and attachment uh after that a uh a newsletter was sent to every registered voter household which there are 4,381 households that were uh sent these materials uh there were social media posts that happened these are just a small sampling of the posts that were sent out uh on the district's website is a uh landing page that has information pre pre-referendum information um including a video uh detailed PQ uh and other information uh speaking of the informational video um there was one that was done uh and it's on the uh on the website this was this was promoted via digital advertising as well um during this process as as were um what we call uh animated banner ads you can see some of the examples up
025on the top right and so the goal is to what I call prime the pump before we do uh polling at the end end of the public engagement process so this was part of it in addition uh the district made presentations I think there were about 40 of them to school groups HOAs uh other communities about 500 attendees total um and the district plans to continue to uh do this public engagement effort during the sum and fall uh we then did a mail survey and which we'll talk about tonight mail surveys unlike a hybrid poll are not scientific so a hybrid pole uses what we call a random stratified sample so we're exactly matching the demographics of those who we think are going to vote for November of 2024 whereas a mail survey gets mailed
026to every registered voter household we're kind of at the mercy of who who participates and so one thing that you can't do for example is rotate questions um they're kind of you know they're stagnant and so we can't we can't eliminate things like uh First Response bias so if you had a list of various parts of the proposal the first one there would be a tendency to have a bias on that first one whereas the hybrid poll that I just mentioned before um rotates these questions so we eliminate First Response bias and after we did a mail survey we then went back into the field with a scientific hybrid pole this was the the third research tool that was used uh this time we tested a 37 C limiting rate referendum and and again the
027$420 million Bond referendum sure as as Paul mentioned we did uh talk to about 40 different Community groups uh myself Dr tally and and Dr Lee uh as as well as I I know we had board board members present for many of those meetings uh overall our we felt the feedback from that meetings was pretty positive and supportive uh we felt that the community members understood the the the major need we identified uh and generally supported um supported us and supported the concepts of The Proposal um with that said there were some common questions that we've we've listed there um you know and and I I do want to emphasize one one thing or one question that's on there that's actually actually the last question presented which is um you know we frequently heard well
028what happens if this referendum is not pursued uh one of the things in all the materials that we we sent out we didn't really cover what would happen if we didn't didn't pursue this and I think that is an opportunity if if we do go forward to to explain that a little better to our community um as as the board knows we've identified some significant facility needs that if we do not pursue a funding proposal for do need to be F funded in another way uh and so that would potentially be funding it through operating funds as you know we have no recurring source of revenue for capital projects and so ultimately funding some of these proposals or or some of these necessary projects through operating um does create other challenges and possible uh reductions
029of programming or or reductions of Ft on the operating side so that is one question that that we got that that we recognized that our materials maybe haven't covered as thoroughly as we'd like and we will start um as we evolved the presentation this summer uh doing a better job of communicating that with our with our community thank you okay so the the first item that I'm going to present is the are the results of the hybrid poll number one and two these were uh done by a firm uh public opinion uh strategies uh Virginia based firm they're the same firm that does the uh NBC Wall Street Journal poll so the first hybrid poll uh was of 350 voters again a random stratified sample had a margin of error of 5.24% uh means if
030this was done 100 times over 95% of the time you would get the same results plus or minus 5.2 24% and this was the ballot question that was tested and as you can see it's fairly lengthy and this was in this case the limiting rate the challenge with this language and this is exactly what they would see in The Ballot Box If This Were to appear on the ballot um are things like 0 51506 eight% so Jim Hobart who was the pollster that implemented this poll indicated that the reason he wanted to use the exact language is that it gives us the best read as to whether this has a chance or not uh versus a versus a you know very generic summarized version of it so his his goal was to present it exactly
031as they might see it in the ballot booth and so uh when it was tested we see 53% support 37% against when I first look at um response data I'm looking not just at the total number but then what we call intensity so we're looking at definitely yes versus definitely no in this case we have 26% definitely yes uh 29% definitely no and when it comes and when it comes to these results these are typically people that don't move so we have about 26% saying yes I would vote for this probably not going to change from that same with the definitely no about a third uh indicating they would not support it then we and then we have probably yes lean yes Etc typically we're looking for 30% or higher on the definitely yes so
032then approximately half of those pulled uh saw the bond measure again lengthy but not as not nearly as long as the limiting rate and mentioning the $420 million uh price take in this case we get 66% yes 24% no here we're reaching that 30% definitely yes um on the intensity and then 177% definitely no a large percentage of probably yes at 36% as well so fast forward go through this whole process of public Outreach Etc presentations mailers website digital advertising Etc um and what else happened you got a tax bill in the mail that's what happened and so this was timed after that which is actually good because if we were to not have done any research prior to that tax bill Landing they wouldn't be Real Results or at least they wouldn't be as
033accurate as we'd like them to be so again in this case there were 300 registered voters who participated a margin of error of 5.66% uh this time we tested a limiting rate of 378 per so 37% limiting rate again same uh use of proceeds as we tested before lengthy question in this time we get 40 40% yes 44% no where we see 23% definitely yes uh 34% definitely no uh 16% probably yes so this is again on the limiting rate and then we start to break it down so how did various people react to this proposal so here we have it broken down by party affiliation so uh 33% support from glp 19% from independence 61% from Democrats so it's very rare this is kind of an outlier it's rare that we see this so
034usually it's Democrats at maybe 40 uh Independence 55% kind of higher and then Democrats usually high 60s Maybe maybe low 70s in support so the outliers are just are The Independents and I don't I don't know the answer to why that's happening other than you may have Independents that are leaning fiscally conservative and upset about their tax bill that they had just received in the mail so then we look at um gender in the reaction to the proposal and what we see here is that men 55 and old there's usually a little bit of push back with any kind of tax related referenda but in this case there's really strong push back with uh 69% indicating uh they would not support it men 55 and older um but you know the the good news Takeaway
035on this is that if you look at the age 65 and oler we're actually at 41% support um 37% against uh and now we look at do they have have a school-aged child in the home and if they do do they support it so uh in this case um total yes is 52% um typically we want to see that in the high 60s to lower 70s in terms of a support from parents um where you're getting a large percentage of support are those who have a child not yet uh in kindergarten um at 73% support but then when we look at the K through 6 and those who have a middle schooler or high schooler we're only at 42% for K through 6 and 47% for the middle schoolers and high schoolers um and again
036usually you would see that at kind of the high 60s or low 70s so why the change so right after on the on this poll either on the phone or on their text message and they're filling it out on their cell phone um we ask what why are you yes or why are you no why are you indicating that and when you look at it the NOS are saying tax increase uh tax is high enough too high so you can see there that so tax increase 30% of those saying no say tax increase the next one is tax tax is too high uh use current funds more wisely property taxes so there's this huge right we usually see yes taxes but this was kind of a double whammy in terms of the the intensity of
037mentioning tax increase and on the why would you vote Yes as you can see number one Safety and Security um which is pretty common in polls that we do we've done in recent years and through you know for decades um then we have good better educ ation School needs the funds for the kids on the bond ballot measure again we tested 420 million same use of proceeds the difference being in terms of the use of proceeds the difference being that with the limiting rate um it does mention hiring uh teachers and counselors whereas in the bond it does not because with a bond ballot measure you cannot hire additional teachers in you can't use you can't use it for operating needs basically so it's basically bricks and mortar in this case um we see 43%
038support 34% against uh the good news is that on the definitely yes we're at 35% on the definitely no we're at 29% um and so look again let's break it down in terms of how did in this let's start with party affiliation so we see a little bit of a bump in GOP support a little bit of a bump in independent support but again not what we would normally see and then uh 69% uh from Democrats again starting starting to see what we would normally see um in the open-ended Safety and Security Rose to the top once again uh and then on the open-ended for why they would vote no high tax is already a tax increase so then on the limiting rate for those who heard the limiting rate question we ask would you
039be more likely or less likely to vote Yes in favor of this measure if you learn that because the district is paying off outstanding debt the limiting rate proposal would not result in a net tax rate increase or would it make no difference to you and so in this case we have half saying no difference then we have 28% indic they would be much more likely to support it and 13% indicating somewhat more likely and on the right hand side just indicated indicates those who are most likely to be more likely to support it based on hearing this information so we have those who have a not yet a child uh in kindergarten uh women 55 plus Democrats and those age 65 and older on the bond those who heard the bond question again it
040was mentioned that um so I'll just read it would you be more likely or less likely to vote Yes in favor as measure if you learn that issuing these bonds would not require a tax rate increase for Debt Service or would it make no difference to you uh in this case we get a little more intensity in terms of much more likely at 33% uh somewhat likely 25% and then we're down to 40% on the no difference um and again on the right hand side you can see the demographics tied to those who that mattered most to women 55 plus moms women in general age 65 and older women 18 to 54 uh and then those 45 to 54 um so one of the most important questions that we ever ask is grade the district
041and why does that matter because trust of institution matters a lot so if voters don't trust you and they don't think that you have high performing schools it's very difficult to ever pass any kind of tax related referenda so in it's sometimes it's kind of sad to think about that when a let's say a let's say a rural District really struggles with grades and trying to hire teachers and things like that um they have a really hard time trying to pass tax related referenda because there's they're not getting good grades and there's not that trust here these are really good grades so so in fact these think about how big your district is and then I want you to think about WIA 36 WIA 36 is a really high performing School District that gets really
042good grades but guess what they're almost identical to this so you have this huge District but but with really good grades from this appeared both on the on the mail survey um and the polling that was done same thing when we ask about would you say that Indian prair School District 204 is better than about the same in other parts of the state again you get this pretty large 68% better 26% about the same 5% not as good 1% don't know so again it's a it's a really strong a really strong positive result and then the challeng is so after that then in the polling it it asks well what about the facilities how would you grade those and what you're seeing here is well what you want to see typically is that they're in
043they're realizing that they're they're in need of help and here they're kind of saying well 23% a 29% b 14 they're actually kind of high normally you might see that lower because they understand that these facilities are in need uh again we asked a question or we ask a question that's kind of what I call a trust question so um we ask uh how confident will you say you are that Indian Prairie 204 is managing taxpayer money wisely you're never going to get a super high very confident percentage um but when we add up the 16% for very confident and the 48% somewhat confident we're at this 60% plus number that is actually a very good number relative to all the polls that we do so again they are giving you they're grading the district
044extremely well and and at least from this marker they they are trusting you with the monies so then we look at parts of the package and number one was addressing Safety and Security upgrades followed by hiring more mental health professionals to help students facing mental health challenges third was hiring additional teachers to reduce class sizes say the one thing that we didn't we can't mention in the ballot question would be class sizes so you can say you can add teachers but we can't say and to reduce class sizes it's not permitted um then kind of some of the basics which again we so my rule of thumb is that voters want to want to protect what they already own and so when you see things like roofs and out you know replacing outdated uh mechanical
045electrical Plumbing you think wow that pulled really well well it pulls really well every time because again they want to protect what they already own um next one creating a maintenance and capital Improvement schedule uh so again some of these go back some of these are tied to a limiting rate increase mental health professionals hiring teachers that that would be a limiting rate increase only Safety and Security would be both both a limiting rate in a bond um roofs outdated mechanical would be both a bond and a limiting rate but then we get to creating a maintenance and capital Improvement schedule that would be a limiting rate not not a bond um making the most significant improvements to wanzi Hill Gregory Nia now we start to now it starts to go down a little bit
046um renovating elementary schools renovating middle schools again lower than we saw some of the others and what's happening is they it's it's all of a sudden like parts of the pie right so well I don't have an elementary school student or my kid isn't in middle school so that's where you're seeing a little bit of of the support breaking off so now we we look at what we call the initial read and then the informed ballot so again when it came to the limiting rate 37 cents there was 40% support and then after they hear more about it at the end of the poll we're at 45% and what we do see is a little bit more intensity so we move from 23 % definitely yes to that above 30 so 31% definitely yes um
047in just a slight movement in the definitely no that definitely no is kind of staying staying where it is then on the bond again it was $420 million um 43% support they hear more about it we move they move to 52% support uh it stays at 35% definitely yes on both see a little bit of reduction in the definitely no um we definitely see a increase in the probably yes and then and then that undecided Lenas as well is at 9% so then um the last thing I want to mention is just the mail survey uh again it's not scientific gets mailed to every register voter household uh in this case 40,000 households we had uh 2,257 people uh respond so about a 6% response rate and we are continuing to get them back so
048they're just going to keep coming it back right and so we'll keep updating um District staff on what what they're saying um but it's not going to move the needle that much in terms of the additional ones coming in uh 53% of those who completed the survey did it filling out the snail mail version and then 47% took advantage of the QR code on the front took it online uh most of those who participated uh were likely voters um 61% of those participating in the mail survey indicated they knew a lot or some about the proposal usually we want that to be about 70% but for a district your size it's really hard to get to 70 70% um almost 70% um indicated that they were satisfied with the amount of information they received so
04930% very satisfied 39% somewhat satisfied and again we get this really strong grade the district so you're at 70% A or B I just did a poll for another school district that's a large district for example and weon say where in a really good District 15% on the a that 34% a you don't realize how good that is um so so you should be happy with with that result uh again we test parts of the package like we did in the uh hybrid pole and we're seeing again at the top Safety and Security and roof outdated in inefficient mechanical reduce class sizes uh make most of the improvements or making most of the improvements to wanzi Hill Gregory we'll have the greatest of uh Each of which have the greatest facility needs so again very
050similar very similar to the other uh the other polling that was done and again as you can see at the at the top no matter how you slice and dice the data Safety and Security is at the top in this case we get to 68% support for the limiting rate 37 limiting rate 25% against intensities at 39% definitely yes uh 15% compared to 15% def definitely no so it's favoring intensity is favoring that definitely yes and you're like why is this why is it so high it's before they got their tax bills many of them it's not scientific they heard about no net tax rate increase before they filled in the question before they answered the question so they're hearing like the good stuff at least comes to the tax rate no tax rate increase
051before they have to answer would you vote Yes or no uh so I'm saying it's juice to the positive and you say well geez does that happen every time surprisingly no in the state of Illinois over the last 32 years when we have done male surveys they've usually skewed to the negative okay so the only time it didn't happen was nutrier High School District when we did the mail survey exactly matched the final result which I think it was 65% support and then recently with greylake 46 the the mail surve results were 10 percentage points too friendly compared to the final results so I think it was 64% support on the mail survey and then in the act at The Ballot Box it was 54% but every other one what we've done over the years
052it's always been more negative okay so this so a school district come to me and say like geez it's only at 48 % support and they'll say like be happy because these mail service usually skew to the negative and so in this one when I first saw it I was like wow this is this is really good even if it was even if it was like graylake 46 where you where your heavy you know 10 percentage points you'd still be at 58% support so but again I don't I think many of the folks participating one they engaged with the piece and knew the whole net tax no net tax rate increase um and also not factoring in the the recent tax bills that were received in the mail so again this was just what I
053just mentioned about nutrier in gra like 46 so after all that in summary we do we public opinion strategies does hybrid poll number one in March they tested a 51 C limiting rate um and we're at 53% when they first heard the ballot they hurt a little bit more and they're at 58 on the bond they were first at 66% yes they hurt a little bit more and they were at 60% yes why did it go down we don't know but a 66% yes right off the bat is really high so we don't we're not surprised that it didn't sustain at 66% or high so then after that the other thing that we don't mention here is that when we tested that 50 Cent 1 cent limiting rate at the end of that at the
054end of that poll we asked hey if we reduce this by 30% and there was no tax rate increase no net tax rate increase would you support it in 66% said yes so that's we're like wow okay so maybe we can do a limiting rate we just need to reduce it to an amount such that there is no net tax rate increase that amount is 37 cents so that's why in the mail survey in the information that we sent out was tied to a 37 Cent limiting rate um and so then as you saw in the mail survey with that 37 C limiting rate we had 68% Yes again but it's not scientific you know there it's not a random certifi sample um all these various reasons why it may have been Juiced to the
055positive and then lastly they get their tax bills put this hybrid poll number two in the in the field from May 30th to June 2nd again we basing it on the 37 Cent limiting rate we get a day into this polling and the pollster calls me and says guess what these results are more feeling more negative than we saw before I think we we should test the 40 $420 million Bond referendum as well I said I I agree with you but let me contact the district so District says yes let's let's test all of it so again that's why we're testing that $420 million Bond referendum again uh and as you can see we're at we're at uh 45% yes on the informed ballot for the limiting rate and we're at 52% yes on the
056on the bond um with that I'd be happy to answer any questions you have specific to the polling or the public engagement process um my NE next slide is just a kind of like you know what are the next steps and tonight's board meeting um if you decide to to pursue this you further refine the ballot question um in August uh you would adopt What's called the election resolution if you were to pursue this and if you do pursue it then with approval from your attorney you can still share general information about the proposal share the ballot question um make presentations like you know if you can't say vote Yes it's got to be very factual um you update your website um and then in addition uh the formation of a citizen Finance advisory committee
057in the fall that is like a blue ribbon committee to help overse if this is on the ballot and it does pass folks want to know that you're using the monies as you promised and so that's what this assistant Finance advisory committee would help do okay thank you before we um before I survey or pursue questions with everyone I wanted to um thank the community Advisory Group that also worked with us um and could you share some information about what that group said after they saw this data cuz that's another set of information for the board uh Dr Telly I don't know if you wanted to comment on that or I'll leave it to you I'll just simply say I want to Echo that we want to thank them for their engagement with us um
058we had a meeting four meetings with them um and our last meeting was last week and so we' so again it was a it was a fantastic group super engaged they actually showed up in force um and they definitely um were not wall flowers they shared what they felt which was good that's what we wanted um my goal with citizen task forces is don't make it a rubber stamp of the district have people on this committee that are going to push back and ask tough questions and give you a real read on whether they think it has a chance or not and if not how would you modify it so anyways we went through multiple meetings with them they helped us kind of craft this their all recommendations go through the superintendent um and so
059we asked them uh should the district Place anything on the ballot after you heard all what you guys just heard um and they said yeah you should put something on the ballot and then we said should it be a limiting rate or a bond you've heard the pros and cons we've talked about at multiple meetings what do you think you've seen the results and uh we had slightly leaning limiting rate and then so it was like 107 or 10 limiting rate seven Bond so kind of split and we kind of chuckled and I said oh thanks a lot you know like okay um and then we asked them should we modify the if if a limiting rate is pursued should the package be modified so the amount and the composition of the use of proceeds
060and most said no there a couple that said you know maybe you could reduce it because we just got this tax bill and maybe you asked for Less to reduce the tax impact um but most said kind of keep it the same and then we asked the same question for the bond and when we asked about the bond somebody mentioned you know you got to stick stick with what you said right right you guys have done a ton of homework um you've whittel it down already to address your absolute highest priority needs why why on Earth would you even go further now when you're kind of at your base case um and so that's how they ended there was no no further discussion after that but it was they were fantastic and I greatly appreciated
061their participation thank you start with Miss Jane thank you gave us a lot to think about um I will um just start off with a process question and I'll use slide 62 as my reference um why did we not take a random stratified sample approach for the mailers in hybrid Pole to so what was what's the reasoning or what are the benefits I guess of not taking that approach in the case of fber B to it was a random certified samp oh it was okay y so the mail survey there are Consultants out there that say oh yeah it's uh it is scientific because we uh for whatever reason they give um and I say that's no a mail survey you send it out to every registered voter household uh you're not individual but household
062uh and you're at the mercy of who sends it back and so we can't control it now there are you could get it back and you could wait it and you know try and compare it with the demographics of those who will show up for November um and try and get to an answer that way but it's just it's not clean and as I mentioned there are things like you can't you can't rotate the questions they're they're there are reasons why it's not scientific and so I never like overpromise the results as a predictor of whether you have a chance or not on the male survey um but you mentioned that at least with nutrier and um u46 that the second hybrid pole was closer to what you saw in so in theut nutrier um
063it had uh the male survey indicated 65% support the hybrid poll we did for them indicated 65% support and the final result was 65% it like never happens okay so it was on the money that was that was an outlier then in the case of greylake 46 so CCSD 46 uh the male survey was 10 percentage points too friendly so it was like 64% I think um was the support level we're like okay and to me I'm thinking wow it's usually airs it usually airs to the negative so I'm thinking is it going to be higher than 64% % and in the end it was 54% so it was 10 percentage points too high but every single male survey we ever did prior to that it was always more negative than the final result at
064The Ballot Box and um were was the messaging different um from hybrid from hybrid one to hybrid 2 in terms of like how we were explaining the reasoning behind both the limiting and the bond so so hybrid pole one nobody knew anything about it it was just put into the field and it was that higher amount so 51 um and so they didn't really hear much about it and then prior to the mail survey we did all the public Outreach they had mailers to every single home there was the landing page there was the digital advertising there was the video there were 40 presentation right there was all this what I call priming the pump before the mail survey and then so we primed the pump and then the intent was just to do the
065hybrid pull again but just focus on the 37 Cent and but again as as the pollster was kind of beginning the survey after the first night of polling he indicated we might want to test the bond again okay um um I was also curious with a couple of um numbers here let me find my slide apologize I should have written that down actually like to try to find a m see if I can do that the the it it was the bar graph that I'm looking for where we saw some of the results between uh parents who had um soon to be kindergarteners versus Elementary versus Middle School was that 29 sorry oh sorry I guess no 29 yeah yes I was a bit surprised by the number for K through six and I was
066wondering if you had any insight on what might be at play here I was I was thinking if you're thinking your kid's going to be here for a longer time you might be more likely to favor um favor this so yeah it's usually it's usually high 60s or low 70s similar to what you see with the you know not not a a child but they're not in kindergarten yet and so yeah we were again I called the pollster and said what up here this is not normal and he said what up is that they just got a tax bill okay and so um even the even here even you're getting pushed back from the parent which the I guess what surprised me is that I mentioned WKA 36 before uh you know we we've worked
067with Palatine 15 norshire 112 I mean some of these districts have also experienced really high assess valuation and so in the case of wineka I mean there were properties that were 30 40% higher in terms of their assess value yet you know the dust settled folks understood the need um by election day they had supported it handly not just a it wasn't a 50% plus one vote it was these are pretty strong results for these various school districts and so in with other districts you've had similar timing situation where the the poll was given after they received their tax bill y okay um and just out of curiosity on slide nine um I don't oh here it is okay here we go what do you mean by Impressions because we have um over under two
068million am I the Right One no I'm not what is it close social media is n oh on the yeah yeah yeah is that night n yeah no it was during public engagement so um it's you're seeing either a short snippet video or you're seeing an animated Banner ad is appearing in front of you so let's say you're I don't know you're on LL Beans website right and on your computer you're seeing a little Banner ad that's an impression you're going to Facebook you're seeing this Banner ad right so these three these banner ads that you see there the three blue bars those actually were animated such that every uh one and a half seconds or something they would they would flip to the next one so they'd start with improve Safety and Security reduce
069class size without a net tax rate increase and you they would animate um and then you could if you clicked on it it would click through to the landing page on the website I see I I guess overall um it's hard for me to reconcile hybrid poll 2 with all the other Data before that I our in-person interaction seemed to be so much more positive of those small groups that I was a part of in the presentation um and so I'm I'm trying to um make sense of how much of this is affected by the tax bill that they received um and um yeah so that's kind of what's going through my mind um it's been going through my mind for the last uh yeah same thing I just you see the really positive results
070in the mail survey and I kept tracking it and at least the online online ones like every day I'd kind of go back and go okay let's see and they were just consistently positive and then to all of a sudden have a hybrid poll that was like not so positive was um to me surprising yeah and to reconcile that with the high trust and all the data that you showed with the high trust in in the district uh that's also what we feel when we're when we're going out and we're meeting with the community members so um we did we did have a task force member indicate that at um you know some of their informal meetings um with friends and family and such you know some heard very positive but then after that tax
071bill some heard very negative that was kind of the buzz of of of their social network okay well thank you for your work thank youate Miss vasic thank you for all this information um it seems like it should be straightforward but it's not um one of my questions here is just for better understanding on my own part and perhaps on some other community members here um for on slide 62 that I have here um what percentage of of our district voters um should we anticipate to be informed voters in a standard situation um we have an uninformed informed B valid choices here on this you on the research summary but in in any in your experience what percentage of Voters would you expect to be informed uh with a proposal before them it's I think
072less so the larger the district okay so if you're a small rural district and they all talk and they all know each other and they all right they're very engaged and it's so then it's very top of mind for a larger District like this it's difficult it's so it's so think about a poll it's rare that you would get 10 minutes with somebody to just talk about this and that's what a poll is right right you you hear 10 minutes of this stuff and then you go hey by the way would you would you support it now nobody's going to get 10 minutes no normally right and then get bam you support it so um that's why usually we look at the uninformed ballot is kind of The Benchmark of what you're probably going to
073see okay um unless you unless you just do a really great effort after after the fact okay thank you and then for my on slide um for informed ballot am I assuming correctly here that that means that the people who were pulled for this were shown the full ballot language that looks like it says it's increasing for the limiting rate even though it's increasing it from zero so it's a no so the informed ballot the informed ballot means that um I don't have 49 up here but um they heard the original question then they heard other stuff like this will not require a net tax rate increase but did they see the actual ballot language that's the question like the legally required ballot language that includes the word increased yes they did okay thank you
074that was the clarification I needed for that thank you no more Mr Kus uh thank you for your presentation this is the largest slide deck I've ever read for school board meeting we're thinking if we added one more slide it'd be a movie yes yes I'm glad you went through it as quick as you can um I consider myself an informed voter at this point um I think we all need to recognize the kind of our board memb oath that we take where we respect taxpayers interests and uh protect the district's assets um along with acting as an advocate on behalf of the students in the school Comm community so let's pass what we're doing here through at least that lens um on one level I want to hear some of your thoughts on the
075uh I I call it the the dog that didn't bark um where uh we sent out all these surveys but a lot of people didn't respond and so those could be you know for against or disinterested um so we're hearing and we're analyzing the 6% of the responses or what do we get back from well that means 94% didn't participate and we only sent a part to you know that to certain groups so what is your quick opinion on you know the dog that didn't bark the the the responses we didn't get so again I can only my remarks are based on 32 years of doing these that's good enough yes um so when some if somebody asked me like what why don't you just do the mail survey and skip the hybrid poll and
076I say because I completely trust the hybrid poll because it's scientific because it's using a random random stratified sample so you're exactly matching the demographic so gender age party affiliation what Precinct they live in we call it Perfect Replacement um and if we can get enough of these completed then and you feel comfortable with the margin of error I trust that data more more than I trust the male survey again the male survey is even though it's more people participating 2,000 plus um it's not scientific and it doesn't follow all the protocol for it to be scientific and so um the the other thing to think about so sometimes people say well geez you only did 350 or 300 in this random stratified sample how's it possible well when you do a Statewide survey it's
077like 600 and you do a national survey it's a thousand so think about that a thousand predicting the entire country here we're predicting 300 on whatever number of Voters you have so um I you know again I I and I trust the previous results of this pollster work so if he was always off right I'd be like yeah okay we're not going to use you anymore but he's usually really pretty tight to the results and so when he came unfortunately or fortunately whatever you know however you feel about taxes um you know air to the it was it was more negative than I thought it would be and so for those who would hope that this would pass it was kind of a bummer okay and then uh you asked for for like a spectrum
078of answers yes probably yes U but that's not the answer that's at ballot time so it's going to force people to pick one or the other what's some of the rationale for providing more than just a yes or no answer so um doing that allows us to figure out again that intensity factor so um when we think about um we say there's that definitely yes V the definitely know and then there's that in in between it helps us to think about who's that who's that swing voter the swing voter is what we call a person that said probably yes probably no or undecided that's a swing voter so we call it a soft yes soft no undecided and allowing us to figure out the swing voter um helps us figure out who's on the fence
079who are we not properly communicating with or who's who who you know is it women's 65 and older is it men 55 we in the DAT is there it tells us exactly kind of who's on the fence which is helpful so as we turn around and go well okay if we put this on the ballot who do we have to properly educate about or inform about this proposal to have a fighting chance okay um I want to kind of flesh out some of the inform voter on uninformed voter I liked where we were going with that okay um because I think we all kind of process it differently and there's it's it's a little bit of a spectrum like some people seek out the information some people don't want the information um you know they
080want peac mail information or they want like a causal relationship if I if I vote for this what happens and so uh CU they might I I I'm informed of this but how's that impact my bill so I think it's you know it's pretty much a more of a a spectrum than just informed uninformed um and kind of we you know we hear what we understand a little bit and um you know I think generally you I try to assume like the the lowest level of awareness for um somebody who's going to be voting on this um you know they haven't been to the website that uh and they haven't received all the you know tweets or texts and and so person's going to be walking in there and getting that ballot question for the
081first time um and you're we're kind of asking them to understand real estate taxes and assessments and levies and fair market value and all this stuff and it's already complex and opaque and um you know it's easy to fly over people's heads and say what are we doing here um so what I like to do is I just you know in analyzing it I say is somebody with kind of a clean slate reading one of these referendums and if I go kind of word by word so when I look at the limiting rate question looks like it's going to increase okay well by how much 37 well that sounds small how does that impact my property and what's not included in that ballot measure is the the three other Provisions that are included in there
082which then will show oh it impacts Me by 30 by $93 for every $100,000 and then you can of the voter can do the math in their head and say well that's easy I yes or no on that okay I'm good so even though there's a lot of words there you can kind of skim through increased 37 and then well how's that impact me the subparts will get me there um you put up the bond question and it becomes a little bit more suspect if you do the same analysis you know 420 million pops out at me it says wow what are you spending the 420 million on but then you're able to go back up and say okay improve the schools improve security and that goes back to what I think you were saying
083about people can easily get behind um something like that take care of the roof take care of the HVAC um but the way that it's read is is very difficult for the general um voter to understand um so how does that impact my taxes well they're they're not going to be informed of that at the boat at the voting booth um so I think we're talking about informed uninformed but they're only getting extreme finite information at the voting booth just the question and they can only answer yes or no um so I think that's the challenge is try and there's not an easy answer to it we've been doing the communication to try to inform them of why we need to consider this um but it's an it's an uphill batter battle either way I
084think um sometimes you know the uninformed or little informed um voter might be in support of this or not I think if we put it in the yes or no um category and presented both of those I think um that would more accurately reflect I think what the the situation is going to be Mr Shipley I'm concerned a little bit about the the relationship between the needs of the district and the numbers being presented um the 37% the 420 million are is that going to meet all of the needs of the facilities the in both scenarios we're looking at a um that $420 Million number or that being the amount that would be dedicated towards facilities with the limiting rate because it does continue on and there there's some protection against in um inflation because
085that's it that is indexed to inflation each year that's where the limiting rate has the opportunity to also address some of our operating needs as well uh specific to the 420 million uh when you look at our Master facility plan there there are things that it does not address that are in that plan I would say it gets four out of the five of our major priorities accomplished uh to addresses Safety and Security IT addresses uh major infrastructure needs IT addresses the needs for comprehensive work at wanzi Hill Gregory um it allows for the transition of freshman to the main campus at Nia and so it accomplishes um operating efficiencies as well and cleans up some of our um inefficiencies on the operating side so the one area that Master facility plan it doesn't quite
086address is uh some of the the work towards learning environments so uh we don't quite get over the line with with addressing for example our um classroom Mo modernizations and and uh LMC work U so that's not um that would not be funded as part of this our Our Hope would be with a limiting rate proposal that that works done kind of in a second phase so um you know 8 to 10 years away but with a bond proposal that does have a finite life that those would be some items that are not addressed how did we come up with the 37 so did we take our facilities assessment and needs and uh back into the percentage sure so the the 37 cents and the $420 million Bond rates the bond amount that's presented here
087those are both the amounts that approximate the no tax increase amounts so with the limiting rate that's a that's a kind of one: one relationship with the current uh rate that's being paid by District taxpayers towards the currently outstanding debt uh with the bond number that's a little bit more of a complicated uh calculation and it makes some assumptions about interest rates and when the bonds will be issued and things like that but we would be able to issue about $420 Million worth of bonds uh in a way that would would mimic that the current repayment schedule and that 37% rate um we did um as part of this process uh evaluate a a funding proposal that I think is is what you're getting at board member kuub is where we started with the needs
088and said what would the ask be to address all the needs and that is the limiting rate amount that um uh Paul presented earlier that's about 51 cents so uh so it was the 51 Cent limiting rate um so that's about uh I think that generates about 30 5 million a year as opposed to $25 million a year that would be the amount that would be needed to fully address our Master facility plan within the uh 10-year plan that was uh initially um shown when we adopted that plan in in December thank you that is where I was leading to so the um the have we explored offering both a bond and a limiting rate increase instead of just one or the other have we explored doing both uh we we've not explored both I
089think the feedback from our um citizens committee was really to um focus on the the proposals we did present I think there was a feeling that if there was a uh proposal that could do everything uh it would be sort of that limiting rate with the the higher rate and that um again that that didn't um uh perform as well with our first hybrid poll and I think we had some um concerns about that when we worked with our task force as well um Paul I don't know if you have any um sometimes they kind of compete against each other so you have a you have not just one question but now two questions and you have folks who then split off and say you know what I'll do the bricks and mortar I don't
090want the I don't want the operating side or you know what I would like to reduce class size but I I don't I'm not doing the bricks and mortar so that's the risk of the the bigger risk um is to lose so when you lose you lose trust and the more that you lose that trust gets lower and lower until it becomes extremely difficult to pass something so I always say you know people come and say hey let's just throw something on the ballot and if it loses no big deal because then we'll come back and it'll pass the next time we'll lower it no it's about building trust for the long term and so you know my my process has always been focused on respecting the taxpayer um sometimes meeting in the middle sometimes
091even lower um and that way you build long-term trust so this might not be your only ask ever right so I always think about that like what the other thing is that you know am I happy when it's 51% plus one vote no I'm happy when it's you know 70% right high 60s because because about a third of them are always going to vote no right so if you're in the 60s you kind of got everybody right um and if we can get to that then I feel like you've had something that's really successful versus just a 50% plus one vote and barely squeak by it right so it's kind of respecting the taxpayer oh that's powerful thanks um can you tease out this 0.51 and the 37 a little bit did we how did
092we or did we pull those against each other you mentioned kind of reduce it by yeah so we originally um we originally were going to test 51 verse 37 on their own so we would split the sample and test 5137 and and and we kind of left I told the task force you know I think I think we're going to we're going to do this right and then the pollster said they're going to be very similar the results they're not going to really understand the difference and so let's do something that's different let's let's actually yes let's test the bond issue it's it's different enough so let's see if if it's you know if it's that much different how will they react to it and so we did that but I said however I want
093to somehow get that limiting rate such that it's if they hear about it being reduced and there's no there's no net tax rate increase will will that sway them to be more p uh supportive and so at the end of that the half that heard the the 51 cents at the end we said and if we reduce this by approximately 30% and there was no net tax rate increase would you support it and it went to 66% support I'm like okay well that's a kind of a indicator that maybe this 37% is 37 cents is the way to go that's the the challenge is that we want 56 to 58% support in a survey based on 32 years of polling and when we're not there we start going well okay this this package you needs
094to be modified or there's got to be a all hands on deck to educate this voter base about what the consequences are of of it not passing that's an interesting data point because the uninformed voter and the ballot question isn't really going to tease that out I mean they're going to get 0. 51 it's not going to explain anything about net reduction or they're going to get 37 not explain how it is net neutral or a 30% reduction from 0.51 y but but you're missing a you're missing the part about a campaign so they're driving around town and there's 2500 yard signs that say without a tax rate increase at the bottom of them right it says Safety and Security and what have you um what you're not seeing as you know voter information pieces
095that go out that are approved by your attorney that have the ballot question next to the ballot question has a little pull out box and it explains that language and what and and how is it possible that could there could be no net tax rate increase um so I think I think we're at a point where we've primed the pump we've pulled but I don't I think you're I think the efforts uh there's still many efforts still to be had moving forward to educate that voter and I agree there are a lot of Voters that all they is the ballot question right um but a lot of them come election day they become hyper sensitive kind of like when you're buying a car you don't see the car anywhere until you're ready to buy a
096car and then the model you want you see it everywhere when you're going to vote you know right now they're kind of especially now in the summer but they're kind of tuned out but I can trust you when it comes to election day and they start have all of a sudden you can see it on on the campaign websites or on the District website the usage will just Skyrocket right before early voting starts and they'll Skyrocket right before election day and so it's when they want to hear about it right now unfortunately it's hard to get their attention but trust me when it comes to election day and it it's a tax they're going to want to know what this is all about is uh the second installment of the real estate tax bill sufficiently
097different in time between the November election September September election yeah no I'm just saying September to November no no the the the next you know the next increment of the bill is September and so do we have enough time from September to November where they're not going to remember any bills no you don't have to answer that um so we're just having a discussion tonight we're not asking for any votes we're not taking any position positions um you know I thank you for your time helped me fleshed out some of of you know the intricacies of this and even with my long tenure of being on the school board and 50 years in the district um I'm still wrestling with some of these issues um as well so thanks you miss [Music] dumming great um
098thank you so much as many my board my cboard members have asked uh some very insightful questions so appreciate it uh can you share why uh statistically would you do a male survey when we talk about the fact that it's not scientific and uh sure share a little bit about that with us please the mail survey uh is the most red piece is the mo most the most red pce okay so based on our based on our research both focus groups and Survey research when we talk when when we look at what did they read did they read like the letter that came first did they read a newsletter did they look at the Social Media stuff did they go to the website you know what they interacted most with was that was that mail
099survey and that's why we keep doing it it's not scientific but it's a way to inform the public and to at least get a general undertone of the electorate the other thing is that a lot of districts don't have 35,000 likely voters which you need to do a scientific hybrid poll and so we're forced to kind of do the mail survey but I would recommend even like with your District that has a lot of Voters to still do it because it's it's not a random stratified sample it's every single household gets to weigh in basically so if they want to if they so choose to they get to weigh in and we found that while not not all of them are responding to it and filling it out a lot of them are interacting with
100the piece um slide 22 and this is just an example it's it's not it's um we didn't have to go here but when we talk about um can you share a little bit and and maybe excuse me you got a little close to it when we talk about intensity versus the overall so we talk about like the definitely knows or the definitely guesses versus the entire yes or the entire no um when you have to make make a final decision where do you where do you give more weight to which side intensity the intensity intensity yes so if we had for example if we had 58% support but the majority of it was probably yes I wouldn't feel as comfortable with that right because it's it's kind of a this kind of wishy-washy yes um
101voters who are definitely yes are staying there voters who are are probably yes is a good chance they could they're looking for a reason to vote no and they could peel off from the from the probably yes to to a no position it's rare that a definitely and then on the opposite side of that it's rare that a definitely yes or a definitely no would ever move to a def to a yes position um one of the things that there were a couple of slides that as a board and I think as a District that I felt really really good about slide 54 voters feeling confident uh that that we are you know handling resources properly um I felt really good about that uh and then the one but there was one that uh let's
102see was that the resources um no 50% 4 was the um how oh no 54 was I apologize um how the level of satisfaction with the amount of information so there we saw 70% wait a minute I'm trying to which one am I at you're you're on you're on the mail survey where we asked them how satisfied are you with the amount of information correct set level of satisfaction with the yeah so um 69% so on the male side where we see 69% and then how when we're trying to compare that on the with the pole um with the with the hybrid um is there a way to possibly do any equation you know equating of what type of information is there any way to do that to to equate here on the mail side
103they feel that they have enough information or are they had a great amount is it just because of being able to actually read the piece I think it's I think it's those who were so a lot of the folks who participate in male serveries are what I call Super voters so they vote in every election okay and they're super engaged and we're seeing that um and but and when I say super engaged doesn't mean that they're necessarily favorable right so some people think oh these male surveys it's just they're all going to be people that like the district that's why they filled it out and that's really not what we usually see as I mentioned before it usually skews to the negative okay well that's and that's really good to know I mean that um
104everyone that because it helps really get a sense a better sense it's not just people who like you said feel positive it's people it's not just people who feel positive about the District but there was a slide and I'm trying to find hold on for me um that talked about their confidence with us and our resource handling and I did feel very good that was that was reassuring this one right here so so 29 voters are confident School District thank you um overall to um the the um you know we pride ourselves as a board on really trying to be uh you know handle voter resource stakeholder resources and being fiduciary responsible and so while it's 63% I did feel I personally felt okay that's that's being recognized that's a definitely a solid number so
105that's that's that's not an out I mean you that's not a usual or that you see uh we like it to be yeah we like it to be 60% or higher okay and it's um it's very common first I'd say that it's rare that you'd ever get a really high percentage for very confident it just never happens it doesn't doesn't matter no M no matter what the public entity is it just to for for a taxpayer to say oh yes I'm very confident that they're handling my taxpayer money wisely got they just don't say it okay so we did well there um two last things um Matt I almost getting to um board member kba's comment that uh linked to that he made I would love to see as we move forward um an idea
106of where we might expect uh not necessarily A an exact timeline but if we were able to if we're able to see some of these if the board approves this to go on the um ballot and uh it's ultimately approved where those priorities might lend themselves as far as timing what we might see happen when um at least in the beginning yeah so um yeah great and and that is one uh one com kind of common question when we presented this to the community as well right um for a couple reasons I think uh first of all people people want that level of detail and they they do want to um know the projects that that are going to be at the highest priority potentially um and also there's this concept of well the the
107bonds are maturing in 2026 so I think uh you know there there's some folks who say well does this mean I got to wait until 2027 or 2028 and uh you know that we do have the ability and in how we would structure this under either proposal that we would begin work as soon as the summer of 2025 uh the highest priority items would be the Safety and Security items and so those would really be the focus of of Summer 2025 and summer 2026 uh we would also start work um as soon as the summer 2026 on the buildings we've identified as as being in the uh with the most significant need so that's um wanzi and then Hill and then we would also do the some start the work that would that we would
108like to do prior to the Freshman moving from the brette center to the main campus in Nia so those are sort of the the high priority items for those first two or three years uh both those sort of Summers and then work we can complete U during the school year as well uh but but we'll continue uh uh as we move forward with the proposal and as we potentially refine it you know we'll continue to to update that and provide more information I think one of the things we've been um a little reluctant to do is to to get overly into specifics just because we also know that they're evolving and they're changing so we want to be um you know we want to be respectful of the process and we are listening to the
109community community for input too so uh I know you know one of the feedbacks we've um I received during during this this this process about some of the other processes we've done as well you know it it felt like when you present so much information so much level of detail that you're not you've already made the decision right and and I think as Administration we want to be clear um we're listening to to all the feedback we receive um the polling data the surveys the community meetings all those are really uh going into our our thought process as we as we do look to to to evolve the proposal and and continue to make adjustments to those priorities and I think it's important for um us we're very respectful that we're listening to the community
110and we're listening to the process so we haven't made a decision as of yet um as well and that's why we appreciate tonight so that it helps us move towards Clarity on what we think is the right uh process for the district so um I'm good thank you Miss guns uh I want to thank you guys who've definitely given us a lot to think about and I want to thank my fellow board members for all the comments and questions that they've already given um I only have one question I know so far the presentations that you guys have been doing constantly for the last several months concentrate more on the 37 Cent limiting rate referendum given the fact that results as they are so now the $420 million Bond referendum is kind of on the
111table a little bit more too something more to think about will there be a mention of that and any presentations going forward or is it still going to be really focusing on that 37 Cent yeah that's a that's a really good question I think we're uh again this this state is is uh pretty new to us as well uh so I think we're um you know we're kind of considering that that pivot I I think the the important piece to mention is uh and again I think some of the Dilemma administration's having as well as the board is how um the the bond is is obviously pulled better but it doesn't include that direct investment in in in class size reductions and some of those mental health professionals right and um both those needs are
112polling fairly well and they're I think when we talk with our community I think they seem to uh register with a lot of our community members as well so we're seeing that as as part of the the presentations and that's mirroring our our polling data uh you know I will U mention that you know as part of the the capital work we do and whether we do that through a bond or a limiting rate proposal we do expect to see uh efficiencies again efficiencies with the The Freshman moving to um to the main campus in Nia the ability to decommission uh um a couple buildings uh terminate an operating lease that the the steps facil is currently using uh reinvest in in Energy Efficiency upgrades so there is an opportunity for the bond proposal to
113to create funds that that can be used in the classroom um it's not necessarily as as immediate of an impact as maybe we'd seen the limiting rate but but we do think that that that possibility is there and may be something we we do want to share with the the community as well again if they're um you know community members again to to what Paul said earlier about maybe wanting to uh to to move forward with a bond proposal but are still you know saying um you know really saying or saying that that class size reductions registering well how how do we do both well there there may be a path there so we do need to explore that thank you very much Mr Rising uh thank you both for the presentation um Paul you
114had mentioned WKA School District 36 um how they ranked High there are 1,600 students in their District uh just for comparison we talk about adequate funding with our community when not is at 200 6% of adequate funding 206% we're at 84% we're below 100% adequate funding um Miss Kens had mentioned the presentations I counted roughly about 40 were done I was probably at half of those um I would say the biggest surprise from our community members at showed up was how we were underfunded how we were 84% funding and 203 is at 119% funded they're way overfunded they're spending $43 million Al loone because they've got extra money um the second biggest thing is people were excited to hear that we are paying off all our debt um the other thing was um uh I
115think there was maybe a handful of people that were definite NOS I mean I think everybody that we talked to had vocally expressed that they were in support of this and the reason why is when we were able to explain to them how it was a non net tax increase the problem with all of the warning on all of these whether it's limiting rate or Bond it doesn't allow us to say that and it looks like a tax increase whether it's 51 cents 37 cents or it's $420 million um so a lot of that work is going to have to be done by the committee to educate people between August and November um you know something else we didn't mention Matt and I know we talk about this a lot and have talked about this
116and I think we need to remind people of this as well is that we've lowered their tax rate in the last 10 years as a school district um I don't think we'll be able to educate our community on how property taxes work on how the school district didn't raise their taxes as much as they thought we raised their taxes because we're limited to what we can raise their taxes um that was done by the assessor um but there's not a chance to educate people on that um as much as I wish we could you know I was around 20 years ago to last time we did this um and every other referendum that this district has had historically has been to benefit one area of our district um when we were building new buildings this
117is the first referendum in the history of this District that benefits everybody in this District it literally there's no one in the district that doesn't benefit from this um and because of that a lot of people approached me at those sessions and said maybe that 37 cents wasn't enough should we be asking more once they learned it was a no net tax increase and and I think we need to get that out more and Matt heard me mention this Dr Telly heard me mention this we are in a very unique position that virtually almost never happened when school districts have to go off for referendum that it is always a tax increase it is always more than what they're pain because our debt is expiring we can continue that tax and it's a no net
118tax increase and I feel like while we tried to get that out we need to continue to do a better job depending on where we go with this and what decision we make and if we go forward with any of these um but that's where my dilemma is my dilemma is the bonds or the limiting rate a and my dilemma as a board member as an individual it's where my decision is that puts us in the best situation long term for our district and when I'm looking at a bond while it's awesome and by the way M what what are the terms on that 420 million is that 20 years is that 30 years what roughly yeah there there that's assuming a 20-year term on those bonds now um once issued uh when we would
119have a period of about five years to issue the bonds after the referendum so it's um it's about a 20 to 25 year repay and what would that me US per year to be able to spend on just the facilities uh the that 420 million would be the spend so that would be that that that number that shows up is the the issuance of the bond okay so we would have that so then then the repayment amount is that 25 million a year that includes the the principal and the interest so then the repayment is the larger number but the the 420 would be that the amount available for for spend so while I think that's great and while it shows good and if you can just go to 62 because I'm eventually going to
120have a question on slide 62 um with the shows the highy bread stuff um while the bond is great my concern there is it's 20 years and we just came out of 20 years and if we do 20 years again guess what's going to happen in 20 years we're going to have building issues again and the bond is not even addressing our class sizes and class sizes was a number two thing of what people wanted to see in any type of funding proposal we look at security was number one class size was number two the bond doesn't get us there so then I look at the limiting rate and I say well this is great because it addresses the facilities IT addresses the class sizes IT addresses the counselors um we can put some of
121the that towards Staffing and that is indefinite it allows us to continue to because the number one question we got asked is you know how long is this going to last and when we said indefinite people were like whoa indefinite and we're like yeah but I think once it was explained like okay if we take out a 20-year Bond there could be a very high likelihood in 20 years our buildings are going to be having issues again we might have to come back to the community again so so that's why I say there's a dilemma that I go back and forth on on because ultimately as a board member I would like us to put us in the best position with no tax increase and I would eventually like us to be able to look
122at abating taxes at some point down the road once we can take care of this of the building issues and the staffing issues we have so um you know regarding slide 62 and and this is kind of going back to well I I guess Paul let me first ask you a question I mean in the hybrid one poll that was before the tax bill and the hybrid two poll that was after the tax bill do you think come November we could be somewhere in the middle there and because my fear is that the tax bill skewed these results so terribly um and I'm just wondering where the bounce back there is and and then what you know the the the citizens committee that we put together or that is created um from August to November
123I mean what is the likelihood that they can better inform people to where we can get to some of those hybrid one polls or may that not be possible I mean I guess I'm asking you a question that is totally your opinion but it's based on 32 years of research so um what are your thoughts my my thoughts are that you have a really big district and that you are permitted to send out informational pieces after the adoption of the election resolution and that you should do so because to try to yes you can you know hopefully a group of concerned citizens come together I always say there's like you know 10 super moms and sprinkle in some super dads and they can conquer the world and they do all the time but it's a
124really heavy lift for them when it's as many voters as you have and so it's super important to for the district with approval from the attorney to continue to educate the voter about about things like no net tax rate increase or if it's a bond uh you're not increasing the current Bond Levy um so so then I so then I guess my second question my follow-up question is and this goes back to some of what Mr kis was mentioning if we are going to struggle to educate our voters on that this is the 37 cents or the bond is a no net tax increase um you know again the bond just gets us facilities the the limiting rate gets us the Staffing and the building the facilities but if we if we're going to struggle
125to educate our voters and assuming a voter has no information when they go into that voting booth and they see 51 cents versus 37 cents versus 420 million what is going to be more palatable um because if I'm not an educated voter and I don't realize that the 37 cents and the 420 $420 million Bond as a no net tax increase I'm going to view them all as a tax increase um and then you start thinking what is what is the average voter going to see is is is 37 cents going to be more attractive to them or 51 cents versus a a big dollar amount of 420 million because to them it's all a tax increase which is not the situation so I I mean do you think for an uninformed voter that makes
126a difference the perent historically the bond outperforms the limiting rate when you look at uh years of limiting rates versus bonds Bond questions bond does more favorably yes why why why is that when you look if you look if you look back at if you look at historical voting records um of when you compare a limiting rate how they have performed versus a bond the bonds have outperformed the limiting rates why is that because the because the limiting rate questions in the state of Illinois are extremely complicated as you can see we we you know we haven't you know let's get to there you go that is a limiting rate full question right so that's you know thousand something words or what have you and then there's the there's the bond question right limiting rate
127bond okay thanks okay well so you can see from our questions that this we are taking this um very heavily uh we haven't done a referendum since 2006 when we looked at um building Matia um so it is something that we have to understand more of the data and um what options our community wants um it is it was good several of the board members mentioned the positive side like the rating of our district and how we are handling our finances is good great to see in refreshing for all of us I I think your comment about if we pursue this we want to make sure we pass because we want to make sure we're bringing a winning proposition to our community and I 100% agree with that I'm sure my board will say the
128same thing so um when I look at this I I things that really concerned me were the polling on those uh K through six and middle school high school parents not being very positive and you know K through six were pretty negative actually um and how how do you understand more about what is causing that because it seemed like that was surprising to you also um I also was concerned that we had 40 information sessions and had only 500 people show up and again it's right now maybe not a good time for them to to come and listen to this but um you know the level of interest just seemed low um for something that's significant for us um also the Mr Rising was talking about the limited rate and the no net you know
129tax increase I was Disturbed when I saw that one chart that said that having um information becoming informed that the limited rate was a no tax increase had like no impact or very little impact for half of them half of them indicated that it made no difference and then there was you know yeah 30 some odd percent that indicated so and I do think that most of our voters will go into the booth fairly uninformed but they will look at signs in the neighborhood and things um and some flyers and things so I'm worried about that um so you know we saw that class sizes and counseling pulled high in the surveys and also um when I look at slide 31 I kind of was focusing on that the other day it's like taxes tax
130increase uh use current funds more wisely but yeah we're really good at handling the money so there was a lot of dichotomy in some of the comments and the data results that I was trying to figure out and one of the things on the taxes that I saw a lot on social media when the tax U bills came out and uh a lot of comments were attributing these tax increases to possibly the school district because we're we are 80% of their tax bill so um you know I think they're looking at this saying you already just asked me for a whole bunch of more money and um so Matt I wanted to just ask you um to clarify our tax request our ly that we did this year which was maybe the last couple years
131a little bit higher than we have been but over the last five years what we've ranged in the area of three to 5% right yeah that that's correct uh this year year the the total tax bill was um about 4.5 to 4.6% increase in total uh and that is districtwide uh to to board member rising's comment our actual tax rate actually went down uh and it's the lowest it's been in uh 12 or 13 years I believe uh but the the challenges with the with the reassessment and with some of the significant increases we've seen in residential home values which is which is great and uh and you know we've definitely seen a very strong housing market throughout the community uh we we saw a shift of tax burden to our residents so we saw
132a shifting of tax burden away from commercial industrial properties uh that maybe only saw one or two or 3% increase onto residents and uh it is you know the the feedback we saw with this that this survey data is is consistent with what what we saw we have areas of our community that 8 n 10% increases on residential property and so that is uh you know that is significant that is something we don't control as a school district we control that total ask which again was in the range of 4 and a half per. right so when when community members are looking at their tax bill their increase is not being caused by the school district asking for a lot more money we ask for around what we've been asking for for for the last
133X number of years which is coincided well limited we can't go higher than 5% but it's also uh relates to the CPI usually right that that's that's all correct uh in this past year uh as you mentioned it was limited to 5% so it was actually lower than the Consumer Price Index number that that it traditionally would have been because that would have been the 2022 CPI which was 6.5% so with that so the other thing that I was concerned and so again back to winning like we want to if we pursue this we want to have it pass and when you did the polls which you know it did Scare Me 171 people pulled and that's like a huge indicator but I I realized it was very scientific um but I also know there's
134been a lot of pools and the politics and stuff that have been way off lately so I don't know if people are always franking and Hest with polls or whatever but um it said that it was had about five five and a half% plus or minus accuracy right and we're at 40 what 40 so I'm also assuming most people will be uninformed we will'll do some work to get them more informed but the mass the majority probably are not we're at 40% for The Limited rate and 43% for for the bond I think right is that right so with a plus or minus 5% accuracy in the polls is it doable to get this to either one of these to pass what your thoughts I think the Bond has a good chance of passing and
135I think the limiting rate will be a struggle okay and what you want to hear is like hey you have a chance with a limiting rate because the limiting rate makes the most sense yeah right it sets you up for much more success moving forward and but I'm just here to just the facts ma'am kind that's what we want we want to hear I mean again we go back to our community is asking for reduced class sizes and for more counselor which kind of sways more towards the limited rate right so you know it's again a lot of different data points that we're trying to figure out what and you know we want to do this right the first time and the limiting rate also allows you to protect what you just improved that's the
136other thing that really hasn't been mentioned much tonight so the limiting rate allows you because it continues as we mentioned before you know 25 years from now that HVAC system needs fixing again right so the limiting rate is in place allowing for that to happen right so that's the other benefit of that limiting rate yeah the bond is um relatively shortterm funding source so it's like eventually either we lose a lot of students or we have to go out for more money again sometime down the road so um one of the thing and 420 million is a a large bond isn't it one of the largest that has been in the state yes that would be the second largest Bond referendum in State history right we are the fourth largest District in the state though
137too so and not having a bond again or not referendum since 2006 are all kind of data points I want the public to have I think we do need to talk about what um impacts we would have if we don't do a referendum what would that look like and um you know we we I think we need that as part of our story and our decision making too so does anyone have any further questions okay all right thank you so much very helpful okay now we have legislative advocacy and any Board of Education updates does anyone have any items um for member timing and I are planning to meet to discuss a belief statement about student representation to submit to um iasb for their call for Resolutions at the end of the month so we're
138hoping to meet soon to work on that okay and then uh you also are looking for anyone's comments on the governance uh write up I have not I have shared it with you I have not Shar the entirety of the board as of yet okay I'm just going to review it and then we'll go forward because it's due in July yeah and you're going out of but since I will be gone yes it is um all but one section is totally complete as a draft as at this point for the Governor's Award right I've got uh I today I had a um iasb advocacy legislative kind of summary of the last session legislative session once I get the the PowerPoint slide from today I'll forward it on to the board members um tomorrow night I've
139got an executive board meeting with the DuPage County iasb group um that should be fun um and uh we we plan out the fall and the spring dinner and the presentations and that type of stuff so I'll I'll do a write up and have that to you guys by the end of the week for that meeting okay anything else I need a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second all those in favor yes any opposed okay for