001Um, we'll call the meeting to order and sorry for the late start this evening. We had a very robust discussion in our finance meeting. So, it is Monday, June 23rd, 2025 at 8:16 p.m. And I'd like to call to order the meeting of the Lyall Community Unit School District 202 Board of Education. Sims, could we please have a roll call? Yes. Um, Miss D. Dominico, present. Miss Foster, present. Mr. Helderly, present. Mr. Naggler, present. Miss Novosel, present. Miss Sims is present. And Miss Almond, present. Thank you. Could we please uh stand for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance 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. The Lyall 202 mission statement is to provide
002our learning community with the essential education, skills, and experiences for future success. We'll keep those thoughts in mind as we meet this evening. Next on the agenda is our public comment and I believe Mr. Mr. Hmel Tom Hmel will speak Tom Hmel 2459 just just following up to saying thank you for the vote or the direction in the the finance committee with the tip. I know it's a tough vote. I agree what I think everybody is. We want economic development. I don't know if I just had as we I think we all had some concerns with the proposed tiff and you know as we've seen in this town tiffs don't always are not the guarantee. I mean we're probably one for three with tiffs in this town. The UTI one uh has worked and that's
003actually school district 203 if I'm not mistaken. So they're going to get the the new construction money not 202. And then the Navastar one's been just okay at best. than the downtown one obviously for variet variety of reasons has not worked out but again cuz I've been on that side and I know a lot of times people don't say thank you especially when it comes to tough votes but thank you I appreciate that. Okay, thank you for speaking Tom. Okay, next is our um item 5A is our action items. And I would like to um go through with 5B, our board policies. And I'd like to pull that with the board's consent and move that to the end of our agenda. So it would actually be moved to after so it would become 13 uh
004A5. So I think it be pardon me. So you're saying which one it would um the board board policies discussion in case we extend that. I would like to just move that so that we could do the AI discussion a little earlier. And since it will be a discussion and an action item, I would uh propose to move it to 13 uh A five. Okay. With the board's consent, do we have or anyone to clarify? Would that be after close session? Come back and discuss. Correct. Okay. Yes. Okay. If I could Everybody in agreement with it, could you? So move. Okay. Second. All in favor? I. Okay. Thank you. Okay. That brings us Are there any other action items under 5A that anybody wants to pull? Okay. That would be the presentation of 5A1 board
005meeting minutes. 5A2 payroll pay orders. 5 A3 vendor pay orders. 5 A4 personnel, 5 A4A certified employment, 5 A4B classified employment, 5 A4 C classified resignation, 5 A4D extra duty employment. 5 A4E extra duty resignation and 5 A4F is summer school employment. 5 A5 substitute teacher pay rate. 5 A6 working cash fund interest transfer resolution. 57 debt services fund interest transfer resolution and 588 fiscal year 2026 tenative budget. I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. So moved. Second. If we could please have a roll call. Okay. Um Mr. Helderly. I. Mr. Nigler. I. Um Miss Novosel. Hi. Miss Foster. I Miss D. Dominico. I Miss Sims is an I. And Miss Alman I. Thank you, Mrs. Sims. Uh, item six is our financial information. 6A, financial report, and 6B, treasury report.
006Receive no uh comments or questions. Uh, board have agreement with those. Okay. And then 57 is our discussion items. Um, and I believe we have our guest speaker this evening. So, I'm going to turn it over um to you for 5A 7, the use of artificial intelligence for student learning. Thank you for uh allowing us to share with you kind of how we're dipping our toe into AI at this point. Um as Mr. Dr. Sloiaak and I have talked in preparation, this is another topic that we go on easily for an hour and give demonstrations, have students talk. And so I had asked um Vinnie if you wouldn't mind just kind of giving a brief overview that it isn't about the depth and the more of you know what specifically we're doing but maybe take
007just a few examples and really have you understand from the teacher and the student perspective like how this year maybe looks different than two years ago as AI has really become a tool that we're really hoping to leverage in order to improve instruction. So at this point I will turn it over to you. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you guys so much um for having me here today. I'm I'm really excited to be able to share about the work that we've done um especially this past school year. Um just I'm Vinnie Sloak. I'm the uh instructional technology coach at the middle school. Just in case um but uh yeah, just so excited. Um our students and our teachers have been working so hard. So I'm excited to share uh with you guys what we've done. So um
008for this presentation um we'll first just uh I'm going to give a little um eagle-eyed view about our AI integration and kind of the thought that went behind it before we started doing anything with it. Um and then focusing more closely on our writing process and how we've leveraged AI to evolve what that looks like today. Uh Dr. Philippiac will speak a little bit more to our district-wide AI guidelines that came out of our AI task force and then we'll kind of preview next steps and kind of what we're looking at for this upcoming school year and where we kind of want to go um from there. So yeah, that's what we got. So um before we um integrate any kind of technology, I have this golden rule that any tech that we include has
009to be purposeful. It has to be thoughtful, strategic. we have to look at the needs of our students um and our academic goals first before we even consider any kind of technology use and then we take a step back to say okay um if this is where we want our kids to be then does technology play a role then as we want to um reach these academic goals. So that's my that's my number one thing first. So, prior to any AI integration, we first looked at what our our um biggest areas that we want to focus on for this school year. And two of the things that came up were our diverse EL population. As we all know, our student population has been evolving and changing. Um so, how can we accommodate uh these learners
010who are coming in as well as um supporting our students with their writing? That was something that came up with our teachers. Um so that was our first kind of um point of contact is let's look at what are we looking to do and then how can we leverage technology to help us get there. So that was our first starting point. So after we kind of made that determination we have pulled some AI tech tools and uh as far as our EL population goes um it was really cool. We've had um students moving in from Mexico from China who did not have any English acquisition at all. So, we were able to leverage some AI tech tools in order to translate resources, uh, level them appropriately to where these students are at and generate ancillary
011resources that go along with it, which is really exciting because our first goal for these students that don't know any English at all is that immersion where they're just trying to acquire basic English and assimilate to the culture that we have here, which can be quite the quite the task. But now with these AI tech tools that we have to be able to leverage them to now integrate these students so they have more of an idea, can grasp what the students are talking about in class, it's really exciting um and really cool to be able to have the students write in their native language. We use some other resources then to translate that into English, too. So that was really exciting. But um the bulk of this conversation will be about writing and how we've
012integrated it with writing. And we've done that a lot with uh through this program called class companion uh that we'll be talking a bit more about. So with uh class companion um this was um the tech tool that we landed on as far as how we wanted to leverage AI uh with our students and what would be studentf facing. So uh I pulled uh some junior high students. They gave me some feedback. These were the top three things that they came up with of what they liked the most about using this tool. class companion and then I'll go into a little bit more detail about it, but they liked how uh it coached the way that they could improve their writing. Uh they have multiple opportunities to submit and get feedback and it's also discreet,
013immediate, and it's on demand. It's whenever they're ready for it, which is really exciting. So, um first, it coaches uh ways uh for students to improve their work. So, this tool, Class Companion, doesn't generate any of the content for the kids. The students are going through the writing process on their own and then they're submitting it to this AI tool. Now, the AI is trained using a rubric that the teacher has designed. And I've worked with teachers and we've kind of sat together cuz it almost is a little bit of a different process than how we would generate a rubric typically because you need to be very clear and specific with what you're looking for. So, we've kind of had to do some fine-tuning. So as we go through that process, I sit with the
014teacher, we go through and then we're able to preview as we submit kind of exemplar student thing uh student items to get that feedback to ensure that the AI is giving what we're looking for that the students will be getting giving uh more accurate feedback. So that's usually our our first chain of command is that we go through we make sure the assignment is in good shape. We go through some tests and trials to make sure it's good and then we push it out to the students to allow them that opportunity. Um, as the student or as the teachers are creating the assignments, they can determine how many opportunities the students have to submit and resubmit. They can do it up to nine times. And this was one of the things that the students really
015liked about this process. Um, it was allowing them um to take bigger risks I feel like in their writing. That's one of our models that we've had this year as we were kind of working on I forgot to mention that the summer before just as it comes to like our pedigogy and everything and instructional practices, we worked together uh some junior high teachers met over the summer to design some um organizers and frameworks that we wanted our students to be able to follow. Um I had a teacher who was like, "Okay, my goal is that they're going to write three solid paragraphs consistently across the board." Our motto throughout this year though was always encouraging students to take a swing, take a risk and try something maybe unfamiliar. Um, and because they have these multiple
016submissions, it reduce some of that anxiety that comes with um, the writing process because it can be quite an intimidating experience. So, the fact that these students have multiple opportunities to submit and get feedback is really exciting. Um, and the feedback that Class Companion provides isn't just a three out of four. It goes through and it provides descriptive feedback and it's not just criticism. It tells them what they did positively and then provides areas for where they could improve their writing. It even will go through and underline certain sections of their paper that they can focus on. So, it gives them something that's a bit more concrete to land on. Um, any opportunity you can have to make something concrete and something as abstract as writing uh is great. So, it's super helpful for them
017as well. Um, and um it's discreet. So, uh, when you have a class of 25 students, right, and you have kids who maybe are more reluctant to get that help, um, they'll still be able to get it through class companion, you know, when 10 hands go up, it's only a matter of time before the bell's going to ring and the teacher might not be able to get to everybody, but when you we leverage a tool like this, everybody's able to get some kind of constructive feedback on their writing in order to improve it, which is which is really exciting. And I think one of the other things that that is so cool about what we've done with this is that um because it's been so um attainable for our students to be able to go
018through this writing process in just a matter of minutes. Um even on lower stakes writing, kids have advocated and asked for a class companion assignment to go along with it. So I had a teacher who um it was a low stakes. They just she just wanted them to go through write a reflection on what they learned, but it should be a solid well-written paragraph. And the students were like, "Well, can we just run it through Class Companion before it gets to you?" And she was like, "Yeah, why not?" Which is it's so exciting. It's just a testament to how this writing process has evolved because we have kids advocating for revision. And I don't know if you guys remember what it was like to go through the writing process as a student. Um, but it
019was quite an arduous experience. Um, often times taking days upon days, even weeks, right? You go through, you write your paper, you hand it in, the teacher goes through and grade it. Couple weeks later, you get it back. you make those changes, you submit it back. Um, and now it's all happening within a class period and it it it blows my mind every time. It's it's really crazy, but it's exciting and it's motivating. Um, so that teacher before who wanted the students to be able to just write three paragraphs um because of our our foundational structure um that we had put together in conjunction with tech tools like this to allow this feedback that teacher was able to accomplish that goal by the end of the first semester. So then the students were actually writing
020five paragraph essays um at least twice if I remember correctly, two times for sure before the end of the school year, which is really exciting. And this was like the first school year where I felt like so energized by the end of it because the kids were so motivated and excited and just like engaged and it was I don't know. We had a great school year and the kids were awesome and the teachers are great. So um I'm really proud of of the work that we've done with this. So, um, yeah, so we did meet as an AI task force too and, um, put together some guidelines that Dr. Phil, if you'd like to speak to that. This was actually an interesting project. I think we had about 15 representatives in total, some from each
021of the different elementary, junior high, high school. And I think one of the big lessons we learned is some things have changed and some things haven't. And it really comes down to academic integrity. And the rules haven't really changed. Your mom doesn't write your papers. Um, you don't get the world book and, you know, pretty much write what's in that book. I mean, if you're asked to generate something on your own, that's your words. That's your uh writing style. But if you do have an outside source or help, you need to at least reference it. And so as we worked through this, we found ourselves trying to write this perfect document, but in many ways it and then it reflects what we've been doing for probably since the beginnings of schools like we want to
022see what you know and what you can demonstrate. And so with AI being relatively new, it's super clear in terms of what's considered inappropriate. You know, it's maybe 10%. And then it's super clear as to when it's appropriate. And that felt like 10% but it was that 80% in between that we need to figure out and it's really going to be contingent on what the teacher is trying to measure. Feedback from a lot of the teaching staff said, "Boy, when I've kind of gone through reflecting on what I want students to do and what could be done by the computer, I kind of started to feel like what is the point of this? What am I trying to teach? What do I want them to demonstrate to me?" And so we're going to figure this
023out over time. But if we don't have something in writing and later we say you're suspended or you got an F because you cheated and the student says wait just cuz you I use Grammarly I got an F. Like you should have told me I can't use Grammarly. I didn't have Chat GPT write it for me. And so in every case it's going to be very clear for the teacher to say look this is what I want you to do. In this particular case, you can use chat to come up with a first draft, but then I want you to show me how you evaluated what was written. And maybe it was a very long document. How did you decide maybe to make it to the 50% of the most critical might well be the
024opposite like I want you to take a pen and paper and write this down. I want it all to be you because I want to see if you know how to spell versus have, you know, a squiggle under what you wrote and it's like, oh, right click. Okay, this is how you spell scissors. Um, and so we have to figure it out, but we need something in place. And so, uh, I don't know if the word is irony, but as we work through, we looked at other school districts, we looked at some other models, we did some internet search, and just for fun, I went into chat GPT and I said, "Write, uh, guidelines for the appropriate use of AI, and it came up with a lot of what you're seeing in our guidelines." And
025so that's where we as a group then I think appropriately said, "All right, let's split this up. What don't you agree with in what's written? Oh, I don't think that's true for the for us here. Oh, I think this is redundant. I don't think this is clear. Okay. Now, what isn't there that should be? And so, we added a few paragraphs. And so, we anticipate this to be a fluid document. It will change over time. It will change as we learn. It will change as the internet changes. Um, but this is our first draft of there's some school districts, and I'm not saying I agree with them, that are just saying nothing's changed. Our academic uh integrity policy is the same. It doesn't matter, you know, what the source, it's the same. But we felt
026like with everything where it is today, we needed to give a little bit more details. And so, as you read through it, if something was unclear, definitely let us know. If you felt like I think we need to add, definitely let us know. Um, we have a committee. We are planning to meet regularly for a variety of reasons. Number one, to be able to look at our policy to see if it's fair, clear, reasonable. um share some stories about what we're doing in our classrooms as success stories and probably the biggest thing is to talk about professional development. Like I have gone to no less than five PDs on this topic. Hopefully no one is watching. Maybe I should say there was one of them that was really good, but I won't say which one.
027Um I just I just felt like it wasn't what I was looking for. Like I feel like we're at that very beginning stage like this is cool. We might be able to do stuff. Um, and that's where people like Vinnie have been able to go and try 10 different things and go, "Boy, I don't like those eight, but these two are really good for what we're trying to do." And, and please don't misinterpret this presentation as this is what we're doing. I asked Vinnie to just select some things to talk about other than spending an enormous amount of time going to such level detail. And Vinnie's already started to partner with our new instructional coach at the high school. And so, I think they're going to gain some momentum. We're going to definitely try and
028support not only the junior high and high school, but also the elementary. I think one of the questions we got from the board is it might look different at elementary than junior high and high school. And absolutely. And more importantly, it'll probably look different of someone who speaks English naturally and someone who doesn't or someone who's in special ed or someone who's a struggling student versus a gifted student. Like there's so many variances, but we did at least want to share a little bit tonight as a sum of our success. There's much more beyond this. And we're hoping to get people excited enough that next year maybe have some students give some presentations, maybe make it a project that AI will work with them to come up with the presentation. Um there's a whole spectrum
029of where people are in their learning. But I do feel and what I've learned from other schools that we are at or a little bit further ahead than what we're seeing at a lot of our neighboring school districts. So this isn't the presentation. It's the presentation tonight. It's where we are today. Um, we'll continue to give you updates, I think, on an annual basis at a minimum and we'll look at these guidelines and again welcome your feedback. If you have specific recommendations, just cut and paste what I put and then uh provide them to me and then I'll make sure I get that to our committee. Anything to add about next steps? So, just as um we're looking at this upcoming school year, uh we'll of course just be planning on continuing the implementation that
030we've already done. I feel like as as a as a building, as a as a district, we feel like we're experiencing some success. So, we'd like to continue leveraging the programs that we have, but this it just feels like this technology is evolving so fast and so quickly that um who knows what new platforms are going to be coming out next year in the following years. So, just make sure that we're continuing to explore alternative programs that are out there. Um, things that might be filling our needs um beyond just what we're able to do right now, which is great. Um, and Google Gemini is just continually updating their their terms. Uh, Gemini is Google's version of ChatGpt, so that is that generative content. Um, and that's continuing to evolve, change, and update, too. So,
031making sure that we're up to date with that and communication with our stakeholders, like Dr. Flipc said making sure that we're providing professional development to our staff, but I also feel like making sure that communication is going home to families too. Um because I want to make sure that they're staying up to date too on everything that we're seeing. I don't expect everyone to be as invested as we are here in this room. But um they deserve to also know um what are these AI tools that are out there and how might they be, you know, in their students pockets and we just need to all just make sure that we're on the same page with it. So, and I'm I'm truly feeling for the first time in public education, differentiation is happening like never
032before. I feel like I have such an appreciation for that. Having now two kids of my own that are very different and having different needs and to turn in your work, the teacher goes home with the 20 plus papers. They need to give feedback and get it back to you on a timely basis. Like, you're getting the feedback now. I don't even remember what I had for lunch yesterday, let alone what I wrote. And so to be able to go in and being able to give my best shot and have somebody independent of the teacher be able to say work on more on this area, not give me the answer like this needs improvement. This you you did a good job here, but and so I can I can I can get this immediate feedback
033and by the end of when I'm working on this, I feel like I've made such progress rather than giving my third revision to the teacher who then has to slo it home in their backpack, grade it at night after dinner and then bring it back the next day. So I think that it we've always struggled with the struggling students getting to catch up to their peers, always teaching to the middle and then maybe holding back the kids who are maybe accelerated. And I think the computer for the first time has the ability to give timely feedback and exactly what you need so that you'll progress in a way that was so bottlenecked by the teachers on an individual basis in the past. So um we'll continue to share. I think every week we're learning new
034apps, new software, most of which are luckily are not very expensive at all. Um, Google has been great in terms of we want to keep it within our walls and they're ones that um, our data is our data and it doesn't get shared with anybody and it's not used to build a smarter model and so that we've been really lucky that Google's free been a great partner and are continuing to grow. Vinnie, having a English teacher in the family, there's a definite advantage on both sides of the writing uh process. But um thank you. This I I think I know Heather's got some questions. The we just recently, in fact, we're approving um two board policies tonight that relate to AI. And so, um you know, Dr. Philippiac will reflect on those. And in one
035of them, 6235 talks about having guidelines, talks about having a a process. And so uh and and we're also will be reviewing that every year which we had uh had put on our planning calendar. The other one is 7190 and it re requires use um just one thing that I would suggest um that we include under the prohibitive use and it's just an item saying using a writing service and or uh generative AI technology in place of original work is not allowed unless specifically authorized by staff. So that's the direct um you know section 10 from board policy 7190. So I think one of our one of our parts on this is that we need to monitor um board policy to make sure that's in instruction. So that would be helpful for us in our
036monitoring process to add that in. And a one big one big change we're making this year for the student handbooks is it's always been a struggle to have board policy. Student handbook is it different at each of the different buildings? And so Jen and the team have really made an effort this summer so that when at all possible, the handbook just points back to the policy because I I there's that we make changes here. Oh, did we remember to tell the buildings we better get the handbook? So the board policy kind of leaves everything else unless it's something outside of board policy. That's great. I think that'll be helpful for all the schools. Changes. It's not as exciting because now you have to hyperlink to the policy, but at least it's consistent. Good. Good. And
037Heather, I think you had some questions. Heather, can you tell us a little bit about your expertise just so you know is that uh the place from which you I said a lot of things um and you spoke to this of if you have feedback send it to me you'll take it back to the group. Um I guess I think this is wonderful that it sounds like the district and the teachers are embracing it versus kind of being resistant which is something that I've heard from colleague or not colleagues but friends of mine in other districts. So I think that's wonderful. um in terms of our the AI addendum to academic integrity which is I think really serious um when we talk start talking about academic integrity and um consequences for misuse of AI um
038I I do think one thing I would just say is that I think we it's a really good start and you are right it is from anything I've seen of other districts in the area's policies or I shouldn't say policies But um academic integrity as far as AI goes, it is pretty it's go it goes a lot further than other districts do in a good way. Um but it does use AI generally the term AI instead of specifying what we're referring to. And I think um my thought would be that we probably need to be clearer before it goes into handbooks of what type of AI we're referring to. Um, the example, not to be pedantic, but the example I would use is that like spellch check is AI. Okay. So, are we saying students
039can't use that? It's kind of what it kind of reads like that right now. So, I think that was my I said a lot of things, but a lot of notes, but that's really what it boils down to. If you could just cut and paste, you know, what's included in the board packet and then just, you know, highlight like I would I suggest you change this, expand this, that would be really helpful. Yeah, I mean sure I can do that. But I just that was my only comment to this because we say AI and it's like well what do we really mean? I think it's a evolving topic and I think this is um the addendum is a really great vehicle for education as well. So offering some examples of like what do we mean
040if I'm I can use chatbt. This is where students might say oh I'm violating academic integrity and that's plagiarism and I don't want to do that. I'm scared. But like I could use chatbt to help explain a topic in science class that I really don't understand while I'm studying that's okay. Did my teacher explicitly say it's okay? That's where I feel like examples could be really helpful in the in the um addendum. So that's the only thing I wanted to reinforce how passionate I am about. And I think one of the things that was in that um or one of the items that we discussed too was having kind of like a um stoplight system um that would include examples of like what would be a green light for like if you're studying for um
041a test on the outsiders and it's on the first three chapters to ask or consult chat GPT to say generate questions for me this so that I can review for for this assessment that I have coming up. you know that would be like green light like that's always appropriate for you to do and like the example that you said would maybe be a yellow light type thing of like maybe with the teacher's guidance then you can do something like that and then a red light would be like having chatpt generate something and then I'm going to copy paste that and turn that in. We shouldn't we should never be doing that. So that might be more of like a studentfriendly approach so that they have got a better understanding of that and then that um
042in conjunction with our professional development so that our staff knows too of this is your kind of language that you can use with students to when they are able to use AI or when maybe it's not the best idea. So and there was two terms that resonated with me in your email. You said generative AI and then there was a different term assistive AI. assistive still learning the vernacular. Yeah. So, and then the different types of assisted AI, which we're obviously not going to go into, and I don't think that's appropriate for this. I just think like there are some areas in it where it says like AI must be disclosed. Well, I use AI when I Google things cuz Google searches are AI powered now, right? And it's Gemini pops up. I don't want
043it to, right? So, it's not so much what we're doing. And I think the red, green, yellow is great. It's I think my comment was just being careful about the wording in something as significant as an academic integrity addendum. Thanks. Yeah. And just building upon what Heather shared and I agree with you. I've heard of examples where there's confusion in students on like what is acceptable AI. So the plan would be to be very clear about like this is the platform that we're allowing on this assignment so that people don't say oh I use this one in science class and then they go to use it in English class and that you know it's bringing them down a different path or you know they think it's okay to use AI and they use something out
044there that's you know completing a function that's not what you guys want it to. Okay. Yeah. It would be more um explicitly stated over what would be appropriate, what's inappropriate. um with specific assignments and um yeah I think it would be clearly um explained to the students would be the goal and I would think more importantly if it wasn't clear we would not be able later to give you an F or have some sort of ramifications if we weren't clear and so trying to develop when it's clear and when it's that 10% for sure you can't 10% yeah that makes a lot of sense it's just going to take some time to get the 80% and I would hope we'd or I got you with a student. If we were in that 80% and we
045really weren't clear as to what we expected, we're still just learning it oursself. Like you pointed out, I I am so reliant on Grammarly now. I can't imagine a life without Grammarly looking at what I do each and every day. I don't know if you currently use it, but it literally just is in the background and it says, you know, these are some suggestions. And so I'm like, wow, that is so much better than I wrote. haven't invested in the premium yet, but I I'm so close because it and I don't consider that to be cheating. I do think it's a system similar to back in the old days with, you know, spellch check and it checking to say, you know, that's not how you spell fill in the blank. Other feedback, I'll say this
046isn't again the one and done. This is kind of talking about where we are and hopefully next time we'll have our other coach with us to kind of share some of the things that have also been happening at the high school. The one thing I' I'd be interested in you give the example where they write something AI says oh you can improve it this way at what point do you just say well AI told me I should write it this way and how would you gauge if the student really learned how to write better versus AI just telling what to do as a crutch also AI only has an opinion of what that should be but is it the correct opinion because it came up with an algorithm says it should be like this because
047my LLM is full of these examples versus the teacher going well no you really want to write it this way. So, it's where the teacher's experience is this is also an acceptable way to write something. And not to say that the AI is wrong or the teacher is wrong. This there's multiple right ways to write something. So, I'm just curious as you instols like this in there which are great because we're all going to be using them going forward. it's going to be ubiquitous everywhere, you know, that but you need to have that lesson at the end of how to write something, you know, that is can be well understood and is articulated well and um I'd be interested how you get to that gauge because in theory every student using AI should get an
048A because it it guided you to the perfect right perfect paragraph. Let's see if I'm this is what I think you're going to say. Let's see if I'm right. I mean, in theory, you would show a student how to do it the right way and then you assist the student and kind of let them do more on their own and then in the end they should be able to do it on their own. But I do think a lot of the reports that you've utilized, AI is great to be able to talk about. When I looked at Keith's paper, these were some of the things he struggled with. This is the type of thing I had him work on. It took him three tries to get to the I mean that's that I do believe
049is the type of reports that we get from AI to show not just the end product but the journey to get there. Yeah, absolutely. So there is a report that comes with it that has like a um it will have the student submissions and how their writing has evolved throughout that process. So um I think a couple things um just with your question is that while the AI is guiding the students to the right answer of course there is a limited opportunity limited amount of attempts and I've seen students like okay should I really submit this like they they really take it seriously which is great um but it is a limited amount so at least it's not this perpetual loop that the students get stuck in there is an end point to it where
050they have to has have their final submission um I think to as we rolled this out. I was pushing into classes and kind of co-f facilitating with the teachers. And one of the things that we made sure to try to emphasize to the kids is that this is a tool and this is just one um additional resource that you can use. This was like the kids' first opportunity to go and get feedback and we have to um we said think like a writer. Like if this is something that you think could improve your paper then you should try to integrate it. I mean it's also not perfect as we know. It's not a perfect system. There's been I there was a student who came to me and showed me their computer and it said, "Well,
051it's telling me to that I need to use um quotes and italics for the title of a book." And I'm like, "Well, that's not right. It's you need to use italics only." That's that's it. So, you as the writer then need to lean on your knowledge and make that decision to say, "Well, actually, you know what? I'm not going to follow that advice." So, it's all just feedback for them to start nudging them and moving them in the right direction. um but they at the end of the day are the ones who's submitting the work just like the teacher is the one who needs to assess it because they're the ones putting it in the grade book. So I think that's definitely part of our um when we're training the students on how to use
052this tool. It's that you are um you need to make sure that whatever you're pulling from this you are using with discretion and you're using thoughtfully. Um and I think that kind of critical thinking is going to be invaluable moving forward. So, I assume there's some math AI tools as well in here. There we've talked a bit about KIGO as a math tool. Um, I think that's one of the the big differences between um these large language models like chatpt and Google Gemini is that they are not calculators. And I have played around with that before with our math teachers. And it will get numbers wrong or it will just output 10,000. And it's like, well, that's not the answer. So, how do you get there? and it'll show all the correct steps. Then it's
053like, okay, so what's the answer? And it'll say 10,000. It's like, no, that's not right. So, um, but again, that's that that critical part of it that we'd have to train students. But there are some tools. Um, and I love your point about like AI. Like AI is everywhere. AI is your Roomba is AI. Google Forms is an AI, too, cuz you're telling the robot what the answer is. A that's artificial intelligence. So, um, I lost my point. I lost my train of thought. It seems as though math is still in its infancy in terms of what we see the value to students. So, we didn't even get into the teacher side of things. Vinnie had also talked a lot about how it's helping teachers develop lesson plans, how it's being able to assess things,
054how it's developing rubrics in order to grade things. And I'm like, that's exciting, but I think they my opinion with the board would rather hear how it directly helps students, not necessarily teachers. Yeah. And I I got my point back. So, and we are just as we're kind of clarifying and differentiating between different forms of AI that we have. We do have a program called IXL that also um our students um it's not necessarily in the gened classroom. It's on either end of the spectrum. So, our students who are kind of moving beyond what I Ready is capable of as well as our students who are maybe need a little bit more support. Um but that's are all another kind of AI that we have where we'll go through and assess students skills and then
055suggest um different pathways for them to go down with um zeroing in on specific mathematical skills. So it's not necessarily as um coachable as what we're seeing with like a program like Class Companion, but um KIGO maybe sometime in the future. Otherwise, I'm sure by next school year there's going to be some other class companion maybe offshoot that's specifically with math, but yeah, not as of yet. I just have one um question for clarification in your instructor guidelines and discretion. Is that each individual instructor makes a decision or is that common among like let's say the seventh grade course team? um or are different teachers in the seventh grade, you know, ELA course team making different decisions about the use of the AI? You know, I think it would be um really as we kind
056of navigate this process, my intuition is that it would be more so like a case-byase basis. And I mean, we're small enough district where there's one seventh grade science teacher, so she can make that determination of if it's appropriate or if it's not. But in our classes where there's um multiple teachers, like especially in our English department, um I feel like those teachers would need to collaborate to make sure that they're on the same page because as we all know that consistency is so important um and our students thrive when things are consistent and fair. Um so yeah, I would say that it would be a team decision. um or at least to allow um I I have this vision of the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade and beyond teams being able to kind of
057look at that traffic light system to say what do we feel like is appropriate, what do we feel like is not appropriate, be able to kind of define that for ourselves and then all be able to a 6 through 12 type experience where we can kind of share out because I do agree at the elementary level those are these foundational skills that what I feel like a chat PT could do automatically, but those are the building blocks for everything else that our kids need to be able to do. So, um I feel like it's more of a 6 through 12 um definition of that traffic lane, but that's just my two cents. Anybody else have anything? Vinnie, thank you very much. Um I I assume some of the tools you described are part of that
058innovative instructional practices that you're sharing nationally and is that has that been done? Is that upcoming? Is that So, that's what Yes. So, Kelly Nelson and I are co-presenting for the at the National Council of Teachers of English, which we're super excited about. Talk about to like take a swing and take a risk. Like, we were so inspired this year that we really wanted to put ourselves out there. We're so proud of the work that our kids have been doing, and we felt like we needed to spread the word about all of the hard work that Lyle 202 has been doing on this. And our proposal was accepted, which was like crazy. So, um, Kelly and I, um, will be meeting to kind of develop that presentation a bit more, but that'll be this November
059that we'll be speaking in, uh, Denver National Converse. They gave us a full hourlong slot to talk about our student experience, teacher experience, and our AI task force for how we were able to kind of tackle this and and it's just this is one school district's approach. We think it's been really great, but um, yeah, we're excited to share out with our congratulations. We just hope your time slot is not right before lunch. That's always But congratulations on that and thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. Anybody else have any? All right. Thank you so much. You're welcome to stay. Uh but you don't have to. Okay. So, item 7B on our agenda is the Freedom of Information requests. Um those have been responded to. Uh item 7 C is public comment followup.
060There was none this from last month. 7D is a superintendence report. Um somewhat of a short superintendent report this month, but a lot of professional development, curriculum and development uh in terms of this summer and then um we're pleased to share it appears that the installation of the units uh HBAC units at the junior high are going as expected. Summer will go quicker than we think though, I'm sure. And for some parents, it probably not quick enough. Okay, thank you. Uh, next is the board self-evaluation. That's 7E. And, uh, if you want to pull up the item on that, uh, this was of course based on our recent, uh, self-governance session with IESB with a with Arlana and we came up with uh, a few thoughts. uh thoughts are nothing we have to accept. Uh
061you know, we want to be sure that this captures what we wanted to do, but it is something that we we're committed to discuss um in our open meeting and talk about. Um so we have the three bullets there. Uh I'm I'm just going to kind of glance through and you know I want to get all of your thoughts on this, but um reviewing policy uh I think it tonight is a good example of that. making sure that what we know is in 7190 now is is reflected in instructions and I Keith I I believe um Keith offered to share the audit report with us so that we could look at that and that's something that we could look at I would suggest in the monitoring um tool committee and uh leveraging the vision 202
062to continue uh creating purposeful community feedback Once that's compiled, I know Jen is still working on that. There's a lot uh going into that. So, we'll be reviewing that. And then the first item, the first bullet is the one that we've struggled with year after year. Um I know last year we uh Dr. Philippiac offered, you know, send out invitations to meet and uh I I think this is something that in my opinion and and obviously I want yours. I I think to meet with the administrators before we know what we want would not be a good use of their time. So I would suggest that the monitoring tool committee meet and talk about what are some thoughts that we would share with the board and then share with administration. That's that's my take on
063it. But I want to get anybody else's, especially the monitoring tool committee members to see cuz I think I know Dan, you and I had some ideas last year, but then we couldn't quite get the everybody on the committee to the meeting. So, um, if we want to resurrect that, yes, I think we'll revisit what we had a year ago. I I just think we other priorities came up, so we just really never finished the conversation. So, I think we just meet and review that. Um uh if anybody has any ideas, just send me ideas of what you'd like to track. We'll start with that. Um take look at your notes from a year agoish and um just add to that and we'll compile it on the at least a start to start the conversation.
064We'll bring it back to the board for discussion um and see what's realistic for us to ask the administration to do. And I think we we would need to set a date a future date for the uh monitoring tool committee. And um was anybody able to look at the webinars that were shared? Um we talked about the webinars a year ago. Um and then I mentioned that at with to our Arlana and she shared those webinars again. So maybe we could the members of the monitoring tool committee can make sure we look at that and so we could um set up um a future meeting, you know, this summer sometime. So that those are my thoughts. Anybody else have any thoughts on that sound like does it sound like a plan to cover all of
065it? Okay, great. So, just to clarify, you're inviting notes to the committee on thoughts that people have about what we'd like to see and then you're going to meet then. Okay. And you know, it it anyone is invited to attend if you want to attend the committee meeting. Um but um it will set that would be great to have some feedback on what do we see as high focus items. And I think also keeping in mind that is beyond what is already provided to us in the school improvement plans and on the ISBE website for the IRC. Yeah. Um you know if looking at that there is a as we say a plethora of data um available especially on the IRC uh website and I'm not sure everybody is totally familiar with what's there. Um
066so those are be good ideas. So you we'll get information out in the near future about it. Sound good? Okay. Item eight is our committee reports. Um we've got uh facility master planning did not meet. Finance met. Finance did meet earlier today in this very room. And I'd have to say this might be the first finance committee meeting that I would describe as a barn burner. Uh there was an extensive discussion on the tiff. Uh, and we will hear more in the future about that. Okay. Very good. And policy. I think we're meeting a little bit later. We'll be meeting later on that. Yep. Okay. And vision 202 did not meet. And again, that report I'm Jen is coming in the room, but I'm sure that'll be coming out later this summer. So, we've got
067our nine is our board representatives report. 9A home and school did not meet. 9B ISB a delegate to board did not did not meet. So I don't think did we no anything? Uh no I think the only thing there is I'll this month we'll be starting for our recognition to fill out a a long form with that and then submitting that. So Pam and I will be working on that. Um I can't remember if they've got a date for the next meeting for I don't think so yet. I don't that's not yet. Of course, there's always the weekend before Thanksgiving for the triple eye meeting. Oh, yeah. That did come out that they've got that out already. That did come out already. So, I um I talked to Marilyn and said we'd we'd do a
068reminder maybe the end of August. It seemed early to try to plan for November, but uh or tomorrow. It seems early to plan for tomorrow. All right. Intergovernmental did not meet, but I think there's several of us uh uh walking in the parade. So, um, we've got all the details for that and Heather, I'll get you your shirt. So, I think I'll send out a reminder on that where to meet, when to meet, got the bags ready. Lend uh, the lend report is in there. Lyall Education Foundation did meet. That report was submitted if anybody had any questions. Sassid, um, the agenda for the governing board meeting is in there. Indeed. Okay. and any agenda items for uh future board meetings. I had asked about this over um an email, but I know there's been
069some changes in some of our athletic offerings and there's been a lot of conversation in the community about it. Is there an opportunity for uh the athletics director to come to a future board meeting and just kind of share some of their vision? Are you specifically talking about football or? Yeah, I but I also think maybe just as long as they're here just additional overview of the program in general like if there's other things we have going on or junior high, high school, both. What were you uh Let's go with both. Let's go with Is everybody What's everybody's thoughts on that before we Is that something everybody would be interested in? I mean, I I don't know. And if it's just one board member, I can maybe schedule a meeting with you and Tom and
070me and we can go over your types of questions. It's totally up to you. Just I'm kind of ambivalent. Okay. We have a presentation. I just not sure, you know, if we maybe what we could do, Kate, is share some of the specifics, what we'd like to hear for for Tom, what what you'd be asking Tom to present and then um we can make a decision from there, whether all the board Yeah, I I had when we received those emails about the changes in the football program, I asked if he could come to a future board meeting and talk about his plans for the future. And then just overall, is this an attrition from the athletic program? Is there things we need to do younger is I know at the vision 202 meeting they talked
071about what are opportunities there's an opportunity for inter murals and I'm talking about sports in general is this is this a reflection of sports do we feel like there's not enough opportunities this is an attrition kids choosing club over high school just a little bit information that's a pretty big change I mean a few years ago we had uh you know a lot of the community events happen around that and we had you know a very different kind of cadence to it. So, just kind of looking to see what the changes are. Yeah, if you can write something up. I know as Hammond mentioned, Tom's going to say to me, what do they want me to bring? And so, the board can give me some sense of direction as to what you would want. But
072specifically to football, um Tom had wrote a lengthy email about what the coaches have done to try and get an interest at a younger age. But as you know, or maybe you don't know, um, at the junior high level, we used to have football and then at some point it just became Burr Ridge and Lyall were the only two that even offered football. And so we were just playing each other back and forth and so finally we eliminated junior high because we didn't have people to play. And then we haven't had a JV team for a while. We've just had the um varsity team. But the problem was our players just were not as old as the teams we were playing against. We constantly were losing because we had a so few players and sometimes
073they would get injured, not able to play. And then we had so few few varsity players who were playing varsity players on other teams. It just was not a successful program. And so very few students signed up at the varsity level. We talked to the parents. We tried to get as many students as possible to have an interest. And we just did not have enough students for a varsity team. team and so the decision was to have a JV team. So we've only had one team for the last few years, I believe. But now instead of having a varsity team and having JV students play on it, now we have JV students with a few varsity players play on it. But again, that isn't to say Tom can't meet with you. That was I think
074what he had put in the lengthy email. But any kind of guidance you can give, I can meet with Tom and say, you know, can you put something together in terms of a presentation on these types of questions? Yeah, I think we we get a report of all the number of students in all activities, right? We I'm just trying to think of other questions that I might have for Tom and I references and I'm just thinking this email was pretty clear what their plan is, including the marching band and their plans for their ideas that that they had at that time. So, I I I was really impressed by the amount of work they did to try and generate interest in athletics and specifically for football. That was pretty comprehensive, more than I expected. But
075again, Katie, if you have some ideas, maybe share them with the board and then see if the board has any ideas to add to it and we can Am I the only one receiving feedback from community members on this? I I had questions, but they understood once I explained I mean about the varsity that I've had zero people contact me, not I would be more than happy to meet with anyone. Tom is really good about meeting with people and explaining the the feedback. So, if they would like, I would be glad to meet with them and I'm sure Tom would, too. I I've had several people ask me about the varsity football team and like some experience explaining what happened was there's just not enough participate participation at the varsity level and that the the
076ad is working on trying to generate the interest at the JV level, right? So that's where you grow the program and if you can keep that program going there and the students involved, we will have a varsity team in a couple years probably. So our graduating class this year was only 84. And so when you have that few students and it's competing sports and not everyone has an interest in football, I think your program goes through es and flows. And that's why we haven't had a JV for the last few years. And you take what 86 students, let's just say it's 50/50. You now have 43 men and 43. You need how many on a football team? Like 15 to 20. So you're taking asking half the the the men in the class to be
077on football. And I think Tom has gone above and beyond meeting with all students who were interested, see if they could get their friends, meeting with the parents. So there should be no surprises. The math is the math with this. But I do think there's a lot of discouragement when we only had one team last year, maybe the year before also where it was freshman through seniors playing and getting beat because the other teams were filled with juniors and seniors. I the the parents that asked or talked to me about it too were appreciative of the safety concerns of moving the younger kids up size-wise and experience-wise. Yeah. And Pam, I will say I've heard the same thing. Everyone I've never heard anyone agree that a, you know, a freshman should be playing against a
078senior for the most part. Yeah. I think that's universal. I think just a lot of questions about how we got here. What does the future look like? Is this impacting athletics? I I know of athletes looking at other opportunities at other schools just you know to further their athletic potential. So I just you know want to see what our opportunities are for the families who live here in Lyall to keep those kids here in Lyall and make sure we're offering the best that we can here in Lyall in that too. I know it's an extracurricular but in addition to our education I think it's a really fulfilling part of a lot of kids student experience when they're here in the district. It might be helpful in addition to what you said to also know if
079we have explored to see if junior highs have restarted their programs at all. Like to see if there's other school districts that decided, yeah, we actually do want teams now and have restarted because of interest in case we could restart that program and it would generate more students later on in high school. Um, I don't know that that's the case. I and I don't need an entire presentation. I would just be curious about that question. The u the junior high level athletic group meets on a regular basis. It's all the athletic directors and they talk about and so we would know if there was any changes in terms of junior highs wanting to add football to their program. Have we ever collected data on why students or families are not interested in the football program
080in terms of participation? That would be one of the things Tom might be able to share. That sounds like a metric we want to add for that discussion. Yeah. And I'm just football being like I is it all sports? Is it this? Because I've heard of other teams where they're concerned about numbers for next year having enough to generate a whole team. So I I don't know that it's isolated to not isolated to Lyle. I mean it impacts Lyall significantly because of our small school. But Tom said that he is hearing that there is definitely a decrease in the interest in football as a sport. But it all depends on the program. I mean, when you get to like a a big Neighborville and and the number of kids they can pull from it, you
081know, as a percentage, it's different. But I don't know. They probably have their ABS and C teams and maybe they don't have a C anymore. They just have an AB. I don't I can't speak at all to that. I just know Tom said it wasn't unique to us. We did start cross country at the school. I'm not sure that's the same season. I can't I know they alternate over at the junior high. Um, but that that might be a and I just I mean I think we've all seen the es and flows over the years. I mean at my own neighborhood soccer used to be huge and then for a while it was barely enough to have more than a couple teams play each other and then it was huge again. Swim teams the same
082way. like you just I think you just go through these time periods they have a group of kids who are very interested and sometimes they're a great team but we're at a point there's not a lot of interest in football but again for the amount of work that it sounds like Tom and the coach has done reaching out to the junior high level kids and conversation with students trying to get them to sign up for it um it's not for a lack of trying but let me know uh what you specifically want from Tom and I'll work with him to have a presentation and try and answer all of your questions more importantly I think if parents have a lot of questions we to continue to have those meetings with parents to answer their questions
083directly from Tom and the coach and not be reliant on board members or superintendent. Okay, sounds good. Uh let's see. Kind of lost lost space here. That's all right. Um we've covered that. So I guess we at this point um again I think we'll do policy afterward. You want policy with the consent item. Okay. So with that um item 11 I will entertain a motion tojourn to close session for discussion of the appointment performance discipline compensation or dismissal of employees and collective bargaining matters. So moved. Second. Roll call, please. With that you Kate. Yeah. Okay. Um Mr. Nigler. I. Miss Foster. Hi. Miss D. Dominico. Hi. Miss Novacel. Hi. Mr. Helderly. Hi. Miss Sims is an I. And Miss Alman. I. Thank you. We will adjourn to close session at 9:15. Thank you.