001Good evening everybody. It's six o'clock. So I'd like to kick off this business meeting of Urbana School District 116. Uh roll call please. >> Members Cheryl, member Hixon, member Maribou >> here. >> Member Jones. Member Langondorf here. Vice President Baxley >> here. >> President Palowski >> here. Uh we have a quorum. Note that members uh Cheryl and Jones will be arriving but probably about 15 minutes late. Um are there any additions, corrections, modifications tonight's agenda? Hearing none, uh there is no call for an executive session following tonight's meeting. So at this time, the chair would uh take a motion to approve tonight's agenda as published. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved and seconded. All in favor say I. I. >> Any opposed? Motion passes. It is now time for citizen statements. If anybody here
002wishes to make a statement before the board, please fill out a golden rush sheet in the back of the room and hand it to our recording secretary, Lori Johnson. Have we received any this evening? Uh, calling once, calling twice. All right, moving on to our student ambassador report. >> All right, good evening everyone. Um, this is our report. Um so starting off we had a meeting um with the new quest food directors. Um we discussed some things that we had um discussed with Emily just to um fill them in on some of the things that we talked about um and that we were trying to work on. Um they provided us with a sheet with um many different menu options um that they plan to implement um over the next few months. Um and we
003are really excited about that. Um and they have also created a student feedback survey um that we will send out to students um soon to kind of get some of their feedback um on the food um and just kind of some of the options that they would like uh to see inside of the lunchroom. Um so we hope to send that out um possibly next week um or in two weeks. Um and we are working together with student council and student equity um with the uh food concerns. Um and we are also working with JJ at Tiger Academy um to um to provide equitable portions to Tiger Academy students as well. Okay, last Saturday, Urbana Science Olympiad, they went to Chicago and they attended an invitational. They got second place in their division. Like some
004of my friends are in science Olympiad and I heard it was like a really great experience and they got dinner after too. It's a really good practice for regionals that's coming up soon. So yeah. And then this week juniors are well juniors now seniors next year are like picking their classes and then the 10th graders will and then the ninth graders will after that [snorts] and we picked this in our um like English classes. So we started today >> um we have worked with Mr. Waller um and the um cheer coaches uh Miss Brown and I cannot remember the second um co um director for cheer um but um girls basketball now has cheerleaders um for Compass games. Girls basketball um now has the JV cheerleaders stream for them um and varsity has the varsity
005um cheerleaders stream for them. Um we hope to make it a better atmosphere for everyone. Um and um hopefully motivate the um girls basketball team to do um you know to do better or not sorry not in that way but like to um yeah support encourage. Sorry. Um um but hopefully with these uh cheerleaders um they will feel um you know like they are supported. >> And then swim and dive they won their dual meet against Centennial 91 to 81. And then um Max Cooper um over the weekend I believe um he had signed to the University of Illinois um in Chicago for diving um and yes so we congratulate him for signing um with the U of I in Chicago um and we hope to see him do some great things there. Um, and
006then the All State improv contest um is um it's a um improv cast for theater. Um so one of our theater kids uh Brooklyn Evans um auditioned and was selected to the All State Improv cast. Um and it was a very selective cast. Um so we congratulate Brooklyn for making it into the uh theater cast. Um, and this is our report. Thank you. >> Uh, thank you. Is uh now time for board reports. Does anybody have a board report for this evening? >> Yeah. I I just wanted to congratulate our ambassadors. I think they've tackled a lot in such a short time and present very well and it's very informative. So, thank you for your hard work and for getting a lot of things accomplished this year. Um, yes, I do have a board report
007followup from last meeting regarding the superintendent's evaluation. And I spent the last two weeks looking over the document and working with John um to understand um the steps that are involved. And I was mostly concerned with and looking forward to um to feel comfortable that all the goals were were mentioned in the document and that there weren't any goals that were and there weren't any things in the document that weren't that wasn't a goal. So, I cross- refferenced all that, including the superintendent's um contract, and I feel very comfortable now. This was something that I didn't work on before, but it was a learning process the last two weeks. So, at least I know why these questions are going to be asked. I did work with John to eliminate one of the um what do
008you call those those choices for evaluation so that there's four that I think are are are reasonable and the direct reports will also have four. So, they will be comparable. We're looking at a timeline and I think Ben and I just worked on something, Paul, that would work. If the board um not the board, if the direct reports go out tomorrow and is that right, John, you're able to do that tomorrow? >> Okay. They will have till the 30th, they can return it on by the 30th. And then Ben said he would review it and go through the um answers with John if John's available between the 30th and and the 3. So by that time we could add that to the um evaluation that we'll send out to the board and the board will
009have from the 4th to the 12th and then we gives the board um that time that those eight days and then it gives me or and Ben or whoever an opportunity to review those answers so that we have it available to give to Dr. Ivory Tatum the 17th. Does those times work for everybody? >> It sounds good to me. >> Okay. >> Thank you. So, it can only be done because Ben's advantage. >> Well, thank you both for for stepping up and and doing it. There's a lot of leg work behind the scenes to get this accomplished and to John for your technical assistance as well >> and hopefully under the deadline. >> No, that's that's great. Does that work for everyone else? >> All right. All right. Thank you. Yeah, we have we have
010a time frame that that that that's compliant with our contracts. Awesome. Any other board reports this evening? Want to do a quick shout out of congratulations to the Bennett Park District who won a $600,000 award for the revitalization of King Park near King School. So, so yeah, that that's that's awesome. Congratulations to them. Uh, anyone else? All right. Uh, moving on. It's uh accommodations and recognitions. Um, following students were selected recognized as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Living the dream scholarship recipients at the Dr. King celebration at Cranert Center. Uh President Claude Shelby award for outstanding achievement went to Ley Malsha sorry >> Lavi uh Misha Whimma. Uh Herb Stevens memorial award for overcoming adversity is Joyce Malaki. Scholarship recipient is um Arelli D Gutierrez. Congrat. >> There's a picture of them on your screen.
011>> Oh, thank you. Oh, you would have mentioned in the report as well. Um, we have four administrative reports this evening. Uh, first one is our strategic plan update. >> Awesome. And so we are going to do a little roundroin here um and have our uh facilitators for the priority areas come up and present their areas. So if the board has specific questions about their process or the procedure um the logistical um uh areas of their action steps then those folks would be able to address those questions much better than I can. So I'm going to start us off just give a little background and um we had the opportunity to meet you can go to the next slide John we met with our um steering committee so we've had u monthly every other month
012we've met with our small groups um in October we had a program council meeting which includes all of our teacher leaders department chairs people who have specific roles on school improvement teams teams um and others who are in key leadership positions are part of program council. So they um were our first engagement of the year um talking about the goals and action steps and getting feedback from our uh teacher leaders. Um then we also have community small group meetings that meet at Urbana Middle School. We've had um two of those first semester. Um attendance on those have been kind of up and down. We've had some school events that have um conflicted. We've had bad weather. Um, but I think the people who have come have been very dedicated and are are passionate about the
013process and, um, I know we have a couple board members. So, uh, Jennifer and Sherry and Paul are all part of strategic small groups. Um, and they've been coming very regularly as well. Um, and then we have our steering team. So, our steering committee is kind of our accountability arm for the strategic plan. um they are the folks who helped craft it and um they spent a couple days with us um in the spring and April coming up with looking at our data, helping us write goals, helping us prioritize our mission and values. And those folks um have committed to being our um thought partners, but also the folks to hold us accountable to the work. Um, so we met with them the week after we came back from winter break, um, and gave them
014a first semester update on progress. We collected a little feedback, um, and then we'll have those folks back again in May to give them a, um, end of the school year. Well, it won't be quite the end of the school year. It'll be first week of May, but we'll be able to project some information for the end of the school year, but also give them a progress report. Um and we this is a group that is very representative of our community. We have some faith-based leaders, we have parents, we have staff members, um some of our direct community partners who we work with regularly are part of that group as well as board members. Um so it is a nice space to be able to um share what we're doing but also for them to
015ask us the really difficult questions about the work. So, um, we've kind of moved past the strategic plan phase and now we're in the strategic doing phase and we need those folks to, uh, really help, um, give us feedback, but also kind of hold our feet to the fire on what we say we're doing and that we are doing what we say we're going to do. So, um, this is also an opportunity for us to update the board. So, we said that we're going to keep the board a breast of our prog progress as well um in addition to the public and it's an opportunity to put up um our progress twice a year for the community to give us input whether you're part of a small group or not. Um I'm sure our facilitators
016if we have not received any emails but if we did receive emails or questions um we would be able to pass that on to our small groups. We'll be meeting with our small group program council team um the 29th. So that next engagement with our teacher leaders is coming up and we're excited to share with them um a little more detail because the first time our facilitators and directors met with those folks was very early in the school year um and the action steps had not been finalized. So our teacher leaders will be seeing that information next week. So, I'm going to jump right in and um our directors kind of know, they know their area. So, again, we're going to have them come up and we'll have one person kind of ready on deck.
017So, after the first person presents, then the next person will just kind of slide right up to the microphone so we can keep it moving because it is quite a bit of information to share. Of course, um as you have questions, I think it would be um to make the process move. I think if you have questions about a specific area, it would make sense to ask that person who's um there and presenting um while they're at the microphone and so we don't have to ask them to come back up at the end. So if you want to go back one, John, this is our fast facts. So um Katherine created this document for us just to kind of give us um yeartoear a little bit of our enrollment data. So, this has been updated
018since the last time you've seen it um as a board. So, we've updated that to reflect our data from 2025. So, I just wanted to say that. And then we're going to jump right into our first priority area, which is student growth and achievement. And um Chassity Becklas and Beth Flatt are going to start us off. Can go one more, John. There we go. turn green first. >> Do you want to take the first one? Because it is not either of us. >> Absolutely. But we wanted I didn't know if maybe they had asked you guys to do that for them. >> I'm happy to do it if you prefer. >> No, that's fine. So, um, board members have had this information. So, I don't think we're going to focus a lot of time on
019the actual goal or what the the language around that, but more so about the progress. So that's where we want to really focus. So if you could go to the next slide, John. So for student achievement, our goal is that all students will grow and excel and reach their full potential. And we have this broken out by all of our different subgroups. Um Bethl Lad will talk about our our student services group, which is our students with um IEPs and disabilities. Chassity will talk about this from the lens of culture and climate. And then um we'll invite Dr. we melt up to talk about this area as it rel uh in relation to our multilingual learners. So our first goal here is to strengthen tier one core instruction and as you know we've been talking
020to you and sharing some of the evidence around MAP um and I data. So the key strategies and the key um areas that we're going to look at uh delivering differentiated instruction and targeted interventions is look using our MAP data which is our um benchmark assessment every three years um every three three times a year and then the I data is the state assessment data and we can go on to we're going to do those uh both of these areas for that first area was really talking about um English language arts, but we're going to also kind of mirror the exact same goal to strengthen tier one instruction for um math as well. Um our first student group um that is our kind of our subgroup is black student achievement. So, by the end of
021May 2026, our black students will have foundational skills in reading um and will read fluently with and comprehend with grade level text. And there's a link in there you can see where our black students currently are performing. Um and that the goal is that they would increase by 8 percentile points each year. And the way that they're going to address that is again looking at our MAP data. Um we've already had two um MAP assessment benchmarks. We had one in the fall and September. We just completed another one in December. And we're going to specifically look at grades uh 3, six, and nine. Um those are grades that are assessed on the IR as well. And we're going to be looking at um MAP data again and I data that walkthrough data. I didn't mention
022that in the other for the all students goal. um that is where many of our directors um go in and out of classrooms to look for some of the instructional strategies that we're teaching. We've been teaching um we've been working with our administrators on um how to facilitate high leverage instructional strategies in the classroom and um we go in and see how that is um how how are those instructional strategies being used by some of our educators in the classrooms. Um the principles actually also do walkthroughs very regularly with Dr. Taylor. So when she's in the building, she goes around with them and they do um inclassroom walkthroughs. I know the school improvement teams. We do walkthroughs with the ISBY state the state folks who come a couple times a year. We walk in and
023out of classrooms. So that is a big evidence piece for us to actually be in the classroom setting. And so we have that same goal for our black students in math um to grow eight percentile points every year for the next five years. And we're also going to use our um map data to track that for our black students. And um the other part that we didn't I didn't mention for our um African-American students is really making sure that we're utilizing culturally responsive instructional strategies. Um, one of the things that you'll hear um, Chastity talk about is our sense of belonging and how important it is for our students to have the confidence to believe that they belong in school and that they can excel and utilizing those culturally responsive strategies um, in academic areas
024are just as just as important. So now I think we are ready for culture and climate which is chassity. >> All right. Good evening. Um, thank you to the board, Dr. Arvy Tatum for having me today. Um, most of what I I come to you again to do the discipline improvement plan later today. So, I hope that as I'm talking, you'll think and see some connection between what we're doing through the school improvement process, but also how we're tying that into our strategic plan um, and how we're supporting adults and students. And so when we're looking at our culture and climate, uh one of the key goals, one was by June 2026, we wanted to ensure that those interventions are in place for students who have um who experience behavioral challenges and we wanted to
025really decrease our discipline referrals for our black students. And so we talk a lot about exclusionary practices, discipline improvement plans that we have to submit to Isby. And so one of the um ways that we want as a system to ensure that we are getting students the support that they need is by having those what we call IPS so problem solving meetings on students putting interventions in place tracking data for our students to ensure that we are seeing progress. If we're not seeing progress, how do we go back to the table and implement more explicit instructional curriculum and support for students? They might receive social work or the teachers might be doing small groups, etc. to really um help our students not just academically but also social emotionally. The second part of that, which Beth
026also has this as a goal, but we want to look at that not just from the black student perspective, too, but um she'll talk more about our students with IEPs, too, because we were cited by um the state for that as well. But same kind of strategies and systems looking at IPS meetings. One of the things that we're doing to support school buildings leaders um and educators is I host a bi-weekly and a monthly depending on the school. Some are bi-weekly and some are monthly discipline plan meetings to review data with admin come up with professional development and create goals. And so you'll see that um as I talk about our discipline improvement plan as well. Some of the evidence we want to see um when we're thinking about our supports being in place by
027students is our MTSS dashboard in Panorama, we can view it from the school district perspective and also each building level perspective. So when I meeting with administrators or we're meeting as a leadership team, we'll often pull that panorama data or look at some Skyward data to determine what supports are in place for students. Um, and then I keep monthly agendas with notes with the admins about what our goals are, what we said we're going to do, what systems need to be in place to support all, and also to support them as educators. The second um, culture and climate goal is really thinking through um, that sense of belonging that Dr. Arbitatum mentioned. And so we know that students um are more encouraged, they have more positive outcomes when they have that sense of belonging. And
028so we give the Panorama survey to our students grades 6 through 12. Um and we want to have a positive report of sense of belonging to increase by 12%. Uh additionally, schools will increase their staff sense of belonging, too. So, it's not just one-sided about students, but we want our staff to have that sense of belonging so that we can increase what goes to um some of the other goals too where we want to keep our staff with us as long as possible. We want them to be happy here and show that value of the pride of being a tiger. And so, those are things that we're working on for both. And they will be uh the evidence of that is the percentage of increase that we have through the Panorama survey. There's a fall
029one and there's also a spring one. Um, some of the evidence too when we talk about my culture and climate team really talked about how do we increase sense of belonging uh at a district kind of a systems level and some of the things that we've come up with so far which we're still doing work to create. We sent out a survey for staff of like we asked them like what do you like to do with people that you work with? And so we feel like if we're more connected as people and we're doing more life together. Um and so we want to create like a staff site or directory of things that we can do each other. So some things are going to be family events, some are going to be like individuals and
030some will be teams. Um the high school has like a bowling team right now that are super competitive, but this gives them opportunities to work more closely together. And when people work more closely together, we create this collective self-e this collective efficacy and so that we're all working um for common goals as well. And so we also have schools through the school improvement process who have culture and climate teams and sometimes they'll call um do a spin-off of like a uh sunshine committee. And so they also think about the culture and climate of the buildings, what is needed to support adults and students as well. And then the last one for culture and climate is um we talked about how many students that we do have as true tier three students. So part of the
031process that we're trying to um identify is making sure that our tier three students are students who have maybe more of the highest needs behaviorally that they get the supports that they need. We know if we have 2,000 students in that tier three, they're not going to get that support. And so we're really trying to make our triangle um more um um our triangle a true triangle should I say where more students are um responding well to the tier one and then we have our 15% or so in tier 2 and then we really want to keep that tier um three as having below 10%. And so right now we're continuing to work on that NTSS process which we had a updated process. there was a committee Dr. Ivatum and Beth on this year and
032we wrote that out to um principles and leaders the beginning of this year and so really ensuring that people are following that process to truly identify who is tier three and what are the supports that we are doing to support those tier three students and that's where we can get more individualized and what supports that they need and what supports that we may need to bring in for them as well. So, we want to make sure that 60% of our students identified as needing that tier three have a plan in um Panorama that we can see that essentially travels with them. So, if they go off, if they're in the middle school, they go off to the high school, the staff will know what supports have been in place um for this student and can
033build on that or not replicate things that weren't working for that student as well. So, same way that we're going to see this is in the dashboard and the monthly agenda notes because that's a part of my conversation too with school admin. Who are your tier three students? What supports in are they in place? Um, and having conversations if they are tier three, if they don't have a plan, what are we doing? When is that meeting? Who's going to be at the table? And what supports do you need from us at district level as well? >> Can I ask a quick question? >> Sure. How are students evaluated uh in terms of what what tier of support they need and is that like an ongoing process? Do students like move between tiers during the year?
034>> Yeah. So, a couple of ways I'm sure that Beth can jump in here too. Um every school really has to have their um what we call them our decision rules. And so maybe a school will say if a student um in Panorama if a student gets seven referrals for maybe physical aggression or disruptive behavior that will trigger that student to come up as a it's like a you can save them as a kind of like a saved group. So you can monitor how that student and their progress is doing. Um it could be if students we have it for uh attendance as well. And so it's triggered by if they're not attending so much and then they get put into like a group for an attendance plan. So with behaviors it's really about schools
035and how they set up their decision rules. Some decision rules are just a little higher than others. Right? Theirs might be after kids um have disruptive behavior for five times because as a building they may be working on disruptive behavior as a system with adults and with students too. So it kind of depends. But in Panorama, you could always filter too of um they they give you like this. It kind of looks like a thermometer when you look at your dashboard of your school and it'll tell you how many students are in tier one, which means they're responding positively to whatever PBIS tier one system we have. And then there's like another shade of green. And then there's yellow and red. And so those are the students that we consistently look at. And when we
036click on the yellow and red, it'll give us a list of those students if they had any incident referrals, if they are falling behind in academics because the academic data also filters into that or if they have some sort of attendance plan. So we can kind of drill down and look at students by list or group and as also as individuals. >> Then maybe Beth can address the academic. Um so I think you know if we look at a well functioning uh school building you're going to have a problem solving team that is sitting there comprised of your administrators um your teacher leaders and you are regularly meeting and looking at the data that we are utilizing and pulling from Panorama and you're looking at your whole school you're looking at grade level you're looking
037at classrooms and you're identifying groups of students who are at the highest level of need in different areas like chassity talked about maybe attendance, maybe academic, maybe behavior, maybe a combination of all those three. And once you've identified those students, then that that team should be looking at groups of students who fall in the same category of need and need group supports. And that's really what you're looking at for your um tier 2 um supports. You also may be identifying places and spaces and classrooms within your building that need whole um support around the whole system. And then you're looking at your highest uh level of need in those specific areas to identify more individual supports within the the panorama system. Um you are um looking at a combination of things. We have data days
038uh two to three times a year in all of our uh buildings where they're looking at that data again as a whole building. Then by each of those levels they're identifying and then within that time frame between each of those data days they're setting team meetings and working either through grade level collaboration meetings or um problem solving meetings to identify supports for those students. And when Chassity talks about those um um uh triggers for um looking at things, we can't have the same data triggers across all the buildings because they have different populations, different needs, different um data in front of them. So, they're looking at their own uh decision-making rules based on the resources they have, who who's sitting in their seats, and what their needs are for that um quarter or amount of
039time um and moving forward um with what they um think is appropriate for their students to to gain some more success. It's similar across behavior as it is academics. And obviously, in all of those situations, you're looking across uh all of that for individual students. And I'm going to add one yeah one additional uh piece is progress monitoring. So we um we have very specific uh roles like our tier three intensive teachers who are progress monitoring um a certain group of students who would be considered at the very tip top of that triangle that tier um tier three kids. Um but our classroom teachers also do some progress monitoring. Our co-teers are progress monitoring. So there can be some fluidity across the groups. They can be a little more flexible. um you might be providing
040some intervention supports for a group of students who for that particular skill they are tier two but they may be excelling in other areas and so I think the progress monitoring piece is really um important so we have a progress monitoring tool that we use for math and then we have a progress monitoring tool that we use for literacy too >> and that tool varies by grade level too so we're not going to go too deep into that um because that would be a test of all of us right now But um >> can I interrupt? Yeah, >> cuz I'm going to correct myself because I'm still learning. Um number one, thank you both for jumping in. You did such a great job. But tears belong to the service we provide and not students. And
041so I want to correct myself and not say these are tier one students or two, but the services we provide are at a tiered level. >> So when I was talking about those initial all student goals, that would be considered tier one. That's our core instruction that every single one of our students receives. Um so those initial student achievement goals were how can we how can we improve our um core instruction so that everybody is getting what they need from our curriculum and strengthening that area is what we would call tier one. I also think um one of the things um in terms of those individualized plans for students that uh some teams have spent a great deal of time on is the scheduling um within our our buildings to make sure that we have
042the opportunity to have the right amount of time spent on core and um grade level content and then also time within the schedule to spend in those flexible groups for students either within a classroom or across grade levels. Um, and there's been just a lot of work on that as well. >> Any other questions for Chassity? [snorts] >> I'm gonna jump in on hers, too. I'm an expert in her field. >> Absolutely. >> So, the next um uh goal area focuses on our students with um special education services and individualized education plans. And um so our uh I'm can I'm going to go back. >> Sorry. [laughter] >> Um so our primary uh initial goal is obviously aligned with what we're doing for our students who do not receive services where we're working on improving
043their achievement. We know um that we have significant work to do in terms of outcomes for our students who receive services and their uh reading and math achievement is a huge portion of that. And so our overarching goal um in five years is significant growth in our um uh benchmarking assessment uh measures of academic progress or MAP which we do three times a year. And um then we have broken that down into the benchmark of six% growth this year in ELA and math, English language arts and math for our students who um have IEPs. And so our two key strategies that are noted here um really um are targeting uh our instruction in a couple of different ways. The first strategy focuses on making sure that our general education teachers and our special education teachers
044when they're in a space together um collaborating on students are really spending that time meaningfully um documenting that and have a structure that's in place for that. That is um something that we've just begun to start working on. Our next strategy is what we've spent a great deal of time working on this year in our department, which is um utilizing the um instructional strategies that were adopted last year um as a framework um for all of our students um but providing professional development to our elementary special education teams in terms of um utilizing and implementing these strategies through the lens of disability. And so um we spent our first uh staff development day focused on the strategy um from Marzano very well-known um researcher in education who's identified nine really high leverage strategies and we
045spent our first professional development day looking at um uh implementing um the the process of identifying similarities and differences for our students through the lens of disabilities. We spent um last week working on summarizing and notetaking as well as reinforcing effort and providing recognition and um what that strategy looks like, what it looks like for all students, and what it looks like um for students with disabilities, what it looks like if I'm a speech language pathologist implementing it, what it looks like if I'm a teacher. How I can support as a teaching assistant in implementing those strategies is what our professional development has focused on this year. our next staff development day, which is a heartbeat away in February, um we um asked for feedback from our um uh staff as to what they wanted
046to focus on. And while there were lots of different um uh answers across all of the remaining strategies, the two that were certainly um the highest ranking um are non-llinguistic representation as well as cooperative learning. So, we'll figure out if we can do both of those on February or if we need to divide that. Um, but that, um, has been, I think, really meaningful work for our team. We had 85, um, staff with us, um, on Friday. Um, and I was just really impressed, um, with the number on a Friday for a long weekend >> that these are the high um, leverage strategies that that every building had to adopt into their school improvement plan. So again, when we talk about alignment and having that collective efficacy, these are teachers, whether they teach general education,
047special education, talking about how we utilize these same strategies to support students. So I think that um that's powerful because again, we're trying to attack our student outcomes, but we're also trying to develop our educators in the same way that school buildings are doing it through PD, but also in our specialized services, too. And obviously on here when we think about evidence of um these strategies working, we'll be looking at our MAP scores. We're uh be looking at our behavioral data because there is such a significant connection between high quality instruction happening and um discipline data um going down and then obviously all the materials and work we put into the professional development um that we provide. That is our first goal and um primary area. And then our second one, as Chassity mentioned earlier,
048is decreasing our exclusionary practices for students who have IEPs. And so, I'm already going back to this one. I didn't want to leave it yet. when we met two weeks ago and um we shared this out with our um stakeholders, one of the um post-it notes that I found in my office um following that event was really um wanting to recognize and highlight the idea that we need to work on um evidence-based instruction in terms of reading and math and making sure that um we're utilizing quality instructional materials and um quality instructional strategies. And so since somebody had um wanted to point that out as a priority for us to not forget, I wanted to just talk about two um things before I moved on from this. Every single one of the strategies on here
049can and should be implemented in terms of reading instruction and math instruction. We also have spent a great deal of time implementing core um uh materials and instructional um programs that we know are actually high quality um and very important for our students who have IEPs as well. So, um we are um talking about what the process moving forward will be to continue to adopt some new and targeted um instructional materials for um reading and math that are just for students who receive special education services. So, that is one of our our next key strategies that we'll um be attacking um through our strategic plan. Now I'm ready to move on to talk about discipline and exclusionary practices. And um Chidity highlighted some of these um as things that um applied to the previous um
050goal related to exclusionary practices. But we as an administrative team and along with our UEA um team members spent a great deal of time um revising and developing what uh we call our discipline matrix. Um Joe and I did that work together with many administrators and UEA members. And what that did was create a um visual um tool for our administrators to lo use when they're making decisions about um excluding uh students through suspensions or expulsions. It um took into consideration um students developmentally from kindergarten to 12th grade. It put together common definitions for behaviors it um uh created a system of deciding which of these behaviors uh fall under what level a behavior might fall under that might lead to a decision about um exclusionary practices. And so we saw that as great work
051to align all of our buildings and um new and returning leaders around making sure decisions are made across buildings that um mean students have equitable access to staying in their classroom. We also um recognize that making decisions about um excluding students through suspensions means that we need a a really strong um tr decision tree in place and that one individual alone is not making decisions um and that there are people that they need to contact and talk through when decisions are being made about multiple day suspensions and suspensions for certain behaviors. So that was put in place. We've provided significant professional development to all of our administrators and um uh targeted uh instructional and professional development to our special education staff last year entirely related to behavior. Again, our evidence will be that data um
052discipline and our um instructional data because if we're making the appropriate decisions and our students are staying in class um their um MAP data and uh academic data should go up as well. Any questions for me? >> Thank you. >> Good evening everyone. Um I am tasked with the multilingual multilingual learners portion of this that I co-chair with um Guadalupe Riconei who couldn't be here this evening. So um you've seen this already in terms of our goals as it relates to both academic growth and achievement for our multilingual learners. Um what we mean when we say multilingual learners are students by definition for the state of Illinois who are um learning English as a second language or as a new language based on English language assessments um that the state deems as the standard for
053reaching English proficiency. It's also kind of an umbrella term for any student who's learning or growing up in more than one language and learning more than one language in school. And so you'll see that while the majority of our goals are focused on English language learners who are under the umbrella of multilingual learner, it does also encompass any student that's developing as a multilingual um in our programs and in our schools. So I won't spend much time on the goals because you've seen that already before. I'll spend more time on slide two, which is the key strategies and evidence. Um so the top three bullets as I I mentioned this in our last meeting uh with our stakeholder group is a really important piece when we talk about multilingual learners um we're not talking about
054a monolithic group of students. So what I mean by that is we have a very diverse linguistic um cultural ethnic um and all variety of ways we could go on to describe the the diversity within a particular group of students. So these three bullets actually encompass that diff uh diversity in terms of how we will approach serving students who are newcomers or recent arrival immigrant youth um in comparison to students who have been in the program or in the United States for a long time that we would consider uh long-term language learners. So those are students who have been enrolled in school or in our programs in the United States and even in Urbana schools for five years plus. um oftentimes 10 years plus students that are in high school that are still learning English
055as a new language academically. Um as well as a particular focus on all multilingual learners, not just students who are in our largest language groups. So another term I'm throwing lots of terms at you tonight is low incident language groups. So those would be students who speak languages that are not as well represented in our school district. Um, so we want to ensure across these three bullet points, across these three broader areas of student groups that we're differentiating our approach to meeting their needs. And so while some students were being more intentional with in our Spanish and French dual language programs um that is serving a particular group of students as it relates to these three areas and then students that are in other schools such as King School, Tom, any other Thomas Payne, so
056on and so forth that have multilingual learners, multilingual learners in their classrooms. And so a big piece for us with the evidence portion is professional development that is dedicated and intentional across the different types of students that we're serving. Uh structured focus on those instructional strategies as it relates to utilizing the time that we have built in to talk about how to best uh instruct students who are learning as language learners and academic content at the same time. continuing to increase and diversify the types of classes that we're offering, especially at the secondary level, the middle school and high school level. Uh that's actually been an ongoing process for the last few years. Uh and even this year and even this semester, we've added some more newcomer classes at the high school level that are
057more sections better more so than classes to provide more individualized and small groupoup support for recent arrival immigrant students. um really trying to be intentional in how we're utilizing data to monitor growth and to monitor achievement for students. So, a couple examples at the elementary level um as it relates to the data dashboards and the walls that are being utilized to monitor growth of language learners academically and their language development. At the secondary level, we're really taking a hard look at the number and percentage of students who are earning the seal of literacy by the end of high school. Each year I present that data to the board of education and we're seeing growing numbers every year which is a great uh data point as it relates to students learning um and achieving in two
058or more languages. But that's still an ongoing area that we want to increase both the overall number as well as the number of students who came to school learning English as a new language or second language. Increasing that number as well and this year will be the largest number yet based on what we're seeing in terms of students who are signing up and testing and their background. So, it's going to be another successful um initiative. And then the last couple ones that I'll mention, the progress proficiency on access is a underutilized I think uh data component that monitors and measures students English language development from year to year. School districts are are held accountable as a part of the accountability systems at the state level to ensure that there's an adequate number of students growing
059towards and moving towards reaching English proficiency. So we want to be more intentional in analyzing that data from year to year as well as at the secondary level especially grades. uh we tend to see that students who are learning in multiple languages overall uh especially we we've noticed it kind of es and flows but um if we see a large number of students that are failing classes at the secondary level who are also language learners or recent arrival immigrant youth that's a problem for us systematically that we need to address and provide more support for teachers to be able to provide more support for students to make sure that they're acquiring credits towards graduation right um and being ready for the next level, whether it's middle school to high school or high school to post-secary.
060And lastly, the Panorama students self assessment surveys have been utilized quite a bit as it relates to multilingual learners or immigrant students sense of belonging in our schools and wanting to make sure that they feel welcome and that our spaces are inclusive across uh student groups that we serve. So those are the the key areas that we're monitoring internally to ensure that we're moving the needle and moving forward with student learning language development and academic achievement both. I'll pause for a second. I didn't know if you wanted questions at the very end or per slide while you're >> per slide. Okay. >> Oh. >> Um I was wondering the key first key strategy says instructional practices listed below. Are those the same um strategies from Marzano that everybody else is using? >> We definitely that's
061a part of it. Um we wanted to be a little more intentional around language development, instructional strategies as it relates to bridging as it relates to language scaffolding um that's a little bit more individualized or unique to language learners but still within the umbrella of the Marzano strategies. Also, I think this listed below actually is referencing both the evidence that's down there, but also the bigger document that we have. I think we should have deleted listed below. Yeah, >> was a copy paste. >> Um, Shar, >> this might be a conversation for another night, but you brought up the point of um getting acquiring credits in order to graduate. And how does that work with a newcomer who's coming in at 17, 16, 17, 18 years old? >> It's a struggle. And so I'll talk
062a little bit about that since you since you brought it up because it's it's a struggle and it's something I'm excited to problem solve because I think we have a great opportunity between Urbana High School and Tiger Academy and adult education to be able to provide more uh class supports to acquiring credits for students who are in those situations which is has been very common the last really since I've been in the job and probably when Jennifer was in the position before me. Students oftentimes will move in 16 years old, 17 years old. They may or may not have been in school in high school in their previous country. Even if they were ha having the documentation to show what classes they've taken and what grades they got can sometimes be a struggle to get.
063And so unfortunately with state rules, you have to have that transcripts to show what classes you've taken in past to be able to issue credit, transfer credit in. So, we do have we have had a lot of students who are 16 or 17 with zero credits. And so, they're starting as freshmen, but they're definitely not freshman by age or maturity level. Uh, but they have a different unique set of needs also as it relates to the uh the immigration process to to to arrive here. And so what we've started just this semester, I kind of briefly mentioned it earlier, is a new section of um basically newcomer English classes here at Tiger Academy for part of their day. So, it's structured like a uh hybrid program of half their day is at Tiger Academy and
064a very small newcomer focused learning environment and the other half of their day is at high school also acquiring credits also being uh in classes with teachers who are licensed and endorsed in ESL and bilingual education. We have both of that at both spaces. And so we're we're trying some new things this year to try to create um more welcoming and and intentional spaces for those students. We sometimes struggle with students when they realize they're 16 and 17 and how long it's going to take. It becomes um frustrating and discouraging for them to stay in school because they know they might have to be 19, 20, 21 still taking high school credits at no fault of their own really, right? Um and so that trying to we we've seen that if we just say good
065have um here's your full eight period schedule at a high school. I hope it goes well and I hope it's hope you're successful is a really big ask for a lot of students at that age and in that circumstance. So we're still trying to find the right mix of classes and supports for them. And then we've had some students that have switched to adult education because it's more flexible also for their day. They're working a lot, right? they're older, they need to work financially. Um, and so trying to find the right program for students is is an ongoing task that we're that we're struggling with. But I'm really excited. I'm co-eing the newcomer English section here at Tiger Academy, which has been fun and was what I got into education for in the first place.
066But, um, we I we need to do more of that. >> And when do you meet? >> When do we meet with the students? Yeah. In the mornings. So they start their day here and then they transition over to Urbana High School for their afternoons. >> I'd like to come by and see it sometime. >> Absolutely. First period 8 o'clock. >> Well, we try 8 o'clock, but you know, high schoolers it oftent times 8:10, 8:15. So >> yes, anyone else? >> Thank you all for your support. Appreciate it. >> And I have the last student growth and achievement goal um related to college and career readiness. And I am subbing in for Jesse Guzman, our high school principal, who leads this group uh along with um Shauna Shear, our director of adult education, who also
067um they collaboratively have worked on this goal and the action steps. So I won't spend a lot of time talking about the goal. John, if you go to the next slide. Um we shared when we um presented the school report card data in November that um college graduation uh rate is extremely important. Um the team decided to focus on our four-year graduation rate. Um as you know from that presentation in November unfortunately our graduation rate our four-year graduation rate dropped from 83 to 80 but our five-year graduation rate increased from 80 to 83. and it really did involve um those uh reclassified freshman and sophomores who uh were impacted during um remote learning uh during the time of COVID. But now here we are and we um have a goal to increase our graduation rate
068by 2030 to 88.5%. However, we know we can't do that all in one year. So, we're going to focus on a 1% um increase for all students and a 2% increase for our black Hispanic students with IEPs and English learner groups. Um, unfortunately, our uh all of those subgroups um are a little below where we would like them to be in terms of their four-year graduation rate. And so, we're going to put a lot of supports in place for them to help them make that um 1% and 2% growth. So, how are we going to do that? So, um some of the key strategies are um AVID imple implementation. you know, we've talked to you about AVID um and what our AVID program is and um achieving via individual determination. So, we have an AVID
069elective class at the high school um for our ninth and tth graders. We are moving we are every year we're adding that up a grade. We also have an elective um at the sixth grade center and at the seventh and eighth grade at um freshman teaming. So, this is something that um Mr. Guzman has put in place and it is um in the process of being implemented this year. So several of these goals are related to freshman teaming and then of course increasing our college and career pathways with that goal at the bottom around our pace framework which is our um post-secary career expectations framework. So, um, we have a very specific goals that we've written for our AVID students and that if they're participating in AVID, which because AVID is a college and career
070readiness framework, a 100% of our AVID students will graduate within the four years, um, graduate on track and also be enrolled in some of those higher level um, honest honors um, like AP prep and more rigorous coursework. Um there's a new AVID secondary implementation tool for 9th and tth graders that AVID implemented um created and we are implementing. Um so the teams at the um sixth grade center, middle school, and the high school. And I know I'm not talking just about high school because this is a continuum. It's a pathway that we are really working really hard to start in sixth grade and go up through our high school students. Um but for this year um one of the things that um the teams at the high school are really looking at freshman teaming. So
071that next bullet that talks about 80% of the freshman on team will uh be on track to graduate. So, the freshman team really consists of it almost is like a um thinking about the middle school team model where that we have some identified freshmen who um because of grades, because of attendance, because of maybe behavioral concerns, maybe um they're not on track to get the enough credits to graduate, are on a team with very specific teachers. Um, and that is that model is a little different in high school to have a go-to a group of a small group of people who are working with you to help make sure that you're getting the supports that you need as a freshman. Um, the plan is that the eighth graders who are um eighth graders right now,
072when they come to the high school, that teaming model will be a little more solidified and our current ninth graders will then become part of the 10th grade team. Um, so we can keep that teaming model going for the students that need it the most. Um there's a goal around using Zello. So Zello is a career cluster survey tool. Um years ago it used to be called if you've heard of this with students uh career cruising where the students kind of go in into a survey which is adaptive and it asks some questions about you know how do they like to learn? Do they like to do things with their hands? and some really intuitive um adaptive questions that they answer through a survey um online survey tool. Um and it matches the students with
073careers that they would be best suited for. Um we're actually starting that all the way through um our sixth graders have started using Zello. And there are a lot of activities that our sixth graders, seventh and eighth um are using during advisory. So by the time they become ninth graders and they're part of this ninth grade team, our goal is that a 100% of our ninth graders will complete that career cluster and have a come into the high school already with a plan of what they want to do to be college or career successful in life. Um we also have a pace team and so our pace framework was developed um with a a core team of people at the high school. Amanda uh Ros Perez Roser has uh provided a lot of leadership to
074that. She's our um CTE, our career and technical education department chair and and her team um with administration have created a framework that really talks about how you accomplish um the careers um what are some accountability systems in place um for ensuring implementation occurs. So we have um elective classes where our students are getting in there and exploring some of those careers um of as in addition to our career classes. So you're going to see a slide during the superintendent report where um we the the CTE team and the art department went over to the middle school um to talk about the courses that they're going to be taking as ninth graders on outside of their core classes, their elective classes. So that students got to really experience that before what our student ambassadors were
075talking about before they choose the classes they want to take when they get to the high school. They had a chance to really um you'll see those pictures really go in and see what what does it mean to be in a digital photography class and what is the business class all about and um what do I what am I going to learn in marketing and what am I going to learn in some of the fax classes and the culinary classes. And so it was a it was great to see the eighth graders really excited about, wow, these are these are careers that um I'm interested in now as an eighth grader that now I get to explore when I get to the high school. So um that is really the biggest I think I know
076Jesse would say a whole lot more if he were here, but um that is the uh college and career readiness goal. I can take questions if people anything else to add. Okay. So, now we're going to leave student achievement. And as you can imagine, you guys have seen our data, so you know, student growth and achievement is the most comprehensive of all of our priority areas for a reason. We need to um really make sure that we're putting every effort into making sure that our students are growing academically. However, our plan isn't just centered around students. We also have to talk about how we're um taking care of our staff members. So, Angie's going to jump us into our goal um around staff development and retention. All right. Our goal is centered around retaining staff
077first and then recruiting highquality staff who genuinely care about the students we proudly serve in a public school within a small urban community. We've been very intentional. John, if you could switch the slides to the next one or somebody somebody could switch the slides. We've been very intentional about listing retention first as the highest priority um ever since we met as a small group at the I Hotel in the spring. So rebuilding staff um after a large district leadership change is challenging. We are on a continuous continuous upward trajectory and our plans are to retain more teachers annually by 1% from the previous year. Our ultimate goal would be to retain 90% or more of teachers each year. Um, so if you'll switch to the next one, next slide. Sorry, I wish I could just
078do it for you and not ask somebody to do it for me. >> I only have like four slides. Oh, okay. So um the key some of the key strategies that we talked about in our small group um it was to provide staff retention and listening tours. And so we started this a few years ago um where uh during my first year here we only went to the schools during kind of or we specifically went to the schools for the listening tours during contract negotiations. Um we started doing it on the off years too. During contract negotiations board members are there. Um during just the annual listening tours, um it's just HR and we're meeting with staff in a safe space so they can discuss concerns, wishes, hopes for what they'd like to be able
079to see in their in the district and in the specific school. Um this year we worked in our small group about a stay interview survey that's going to go out next week. Um and then that will lead to an in-person stay interview. I have plenty of exit interviews and exit surveys, but we want to be able to get to people before they choose to leave the district to talk about um what might make them stay. Um with the teacher vacancy grant and with last contract negotiations, we were able to award hardtofill teacher stipen positions and also really provide a significant amount of money for tuition and fee assistance to our staff. Whether or not it's our support staff wanting to go to school to be teachers or our current teaching staff wanting to pursue advanced
080degrees, we have a a pretty large present presence on our social media page where we're able to um celebrate and recognize staff. Um we're able to recognize when staff have babies um and when they are being recognized for staff excellence awards. um we're able to highlight new teachers to the district um and uh and share that with our families and other colleagues. So um part of our subgroup work in the spring also we talked about kind of a staff member of the month award. We since then changed the the title to be the staff excellence award um because staff member of the month kind of leads it to be just one person and the staff excellence award um has been um awarded to multiple people a month um where you're nominating um people are nominated
081by peers they're nominated by people in the community parents or students can nominate staff um we do a little tour where we go to the buildings and do kind of a surprise attack with the with the camera and and that ends up on our Facebook page. So, um, again, we are increasing kind of steadily and I know that 1% a year doesn't sound like a lot, but when you get with those higher numbers, it is a little bit more challenging to achieve, especially in a community with the university. We do have a lot of folks that come here um with spouses um who are attending and or they themselves are attending the university. And so, we do have that turnover um that that we're trying to fight as well. All right. The second part of
082our goal was to recruit staff um especially staff of color. We recognize that um that students often uh aren't um wanting to learn from people that they don't relate to or they don't necessarily like. Our recruitment goal is to continue to diversify our staff to reflect and represent the students we serve. Um, something to be proud of is we have the highest percentage of African-American teachers in our area along with a high percentage of staff of color. This is a huge kudos to our successful dual language programming, the development of the Li Yankee Ridge Multilingual School, and also the recruitment of um building leaders who are able to retain um teachers that better reflect our student body. some of our strategies that we have to recruit our staff as we um have partnerships with all
083of the state schools around us. We also um have partnerships with Northern Western. Um we're branching out to Indiana and Missouri this year for recruitment fairs. We have some additional teacher vacancy grant funds to add to our list to see if we can get any kind of bites from that area. Um, through the vacancy grant, we're also able to offer a bigger referral bonus. We feel like our current staff members are the best recruiting tools we have to get new teachers to our district. We have our Tiger tours. Our next one's coming up on February 20th where we're able to show um juniors, seniors, our student teachers around the disc district and to showcase the employment opportunities we have. Um, and so uh some evidence here just as vacancies. We had created kind of these
084slides in the fall. Um uh as of October 1st, 2024, so the previous school year at that time we had 69 open vacancies and then this year and last fall we had 48 open vacancies. And so um we're really trying to find highly qualified staff to fill those vacancies. Um and again our uh teachers of color represented 28% of all teachers. Um and then this year 29% of all teachers and that is really pretty good. Um so something we should be proud of. >> Questions for Angie? >> Any questions? Again, this might not be one discussed tonight, but I know that there have been some difficulties with students who have received a um a degree in another state to have Illinois recognize it. Is that going to be an issue with Missouri or Indiana? Um
085we have reciprocity with several states and so every everything um we everything's a case- byase basis but there are several folks that have graduated from other colleges and universities especially the state schools or they're more wellknown um the reciprocity is typically there um it it's worth it for us to take a you know a two-hour drive to I don't even think it's two hours to Teroot and we're going to Indiana State Beth would have been on board if we would have went to Indiana University. Um I don't know if she's still here, but uh anyways, we're we're just trying to see where we can get where we can get some some hits. We've had a really hard time breaking in to the H.B.CU um families. So, I've gone to a couple of on like virtual
086job fairs, but when when I'm contacting folks, just cold calling them or emailing them, it's hard because when you think about how many public school districts probably have a similar goal as ours to recruit um staff of color, I imagine that they are inundated like with requests for to come visit or to create this partnership. And so, um Dr. Dr. Mley at the high school connected me to a former student Cameron Emory um who works uh at an H.B.CU and is a alumni and so we're hoping to have those little ends to be able to um continue to diversify our staff. >> Yep. >> Anyone else? >> Thank you, Edie. >> Yep. >> Okay. Priority area three as they come up will be facilitated by Mrs. Webster, our director of family and community engagement, and
087Dr. Nance. Um, and they are going to cover priority area three, family and community as agency. Good evening everyone. We are excited to present our two areas. We have had a great time working with our small group and our larger groups and family liaison and education advocates. So, we've been trying to get as much input as possible. So, feel free to ask us questions. So our first goal is supporting family engagement. 3A. 3B is communicating with families. So goal 3A is by the end of the 2030 academic school year, we will increase overall family engagement at the four district required events by 50%. Those four required events are not required for family, but they're events that each school should have. So that's curriculum night at the beginning of the year, family reading night, math and
088science night, and social emotional learning night. Those are the four events that we ask for consistency purposes for all of our schools to have. Our key performance indicators by the end of 2026, 100% of our schools will consistently track evidence that district required family engagement activities and events. The reason we have this goal is that family engagement is really hard to measure with data. So the only way we could figure out to do this was to have everyone have the same attendance system. In the past, some schools were counting by families. Some people were counting by the number of people in families. So, their data was skewed and disagregated. So, we're trying to make sure that when we look at it, we're comparing the same thing. So, our data is looking much better now that
089we're all doing it the same way. So, under our key performance indicator 3A, by the end of 2026, never mind, we'll start that over. Um so under our key performance indicator at 3A um is by the end of 2026 district chronic absenteeism will decrease from 39% to 34%. And then we have we're going to support and develop our families to engage learning for all students. So some of our key strategies so far have been social media posts and newsletters focused on student learning through family engagement of trying to share information with families of how to engage with their children at home. As educators we automatically think of things but all families are not educators by trade. So we try to give them simple things of conversations to have with your children how to ask them
090what they learned because we all know if you ask your children what did you learn at school it's always a favorite nothing. So we have tried to provide different different prompts to help in different topics just to help families with conversations and the learning that's going on in the school of letting know these are the areas that we're working on. This is the curriculum that we're using to give them some talking points. We are also tracking attendance at the district required family engagement events asking everyone to do it the same way which in the past we weren't. We're having monthly discussions about attendance data and strategies to enhance attendance in school staff meetings. We are working on having neighborhood nights with Dr. Nance will talk about the next slides. Neighborhood nights. We want to take
091learning into the neighborhoods. We do have our four required district activities in the buildings, but we also want to take learning and activities in the neighborhoods to make it more comfortable for our families of again to engage people in their comfort area. We are working on having attendance review meetings in schools. We have student engagement attendance advocates that primarily focus on attendance for their entire day, but the job is far too difficult and too vast for them to handle by themselves. So, we want to include their building administrators and other staff members in the building to support them in those efforts. And we are working on Tiger Perks initiatives to reward families for participation in school activities. So um for the evidence piece of this so social media posts on um Facebook and Instagram um
092we'll also do attendance videos which will be shared on social media and via the family focus which is our district-wide family engagement newsletter. Um the family focused newsletters will also include comparison of district-wide attendance data between last school year, so 2024 25 and this school year 2526. So um I know Miss Webster mentioned that we are uh planning some neighborhood nights. Um, so this will be kind of a unique and creative way as she mentioned to get out into the community and actually reach families where they are because a lot of the times um, you know, we know that transportation can be an issue. We know that um, even you know, timing if we're having something at a school building shortly after school has ended, parents are worried about getting back home for whatever the
093reason may be um, in a timely manner. And so if we bring the events to them, um then we're in their area and we're eliminating some of those barriers and worries. So um evidence continued under 3A. Um attendance data for district required family engagement events for this year compared to the last um school year. Uh potential areas for these neighborhood nights. Um by the way, they'll take place in the spring. So we're looking at once the weather gets nicer um so uh April uh into May. Um, so the neighborhood nights would be at Salt and Light area for like the Pho Road Road corridor. Um, Ambux Park on University Avenue to hit kind of those um modular home areas uh north of 74. Um, Liberty Estates which is um uh well that's actually north of
09474, excuse me. So Ambuks Park is on the other side um of 74 when you're coming off um kind of right of Casey's and then Crystal Lake Park. Um, so that's hitting that King area, but then also um touching on um I believe if you're looking at like uh what's the other area? Well, it be um as a um area too and uh some UHS students. >> Yep. And Leo families as well. Thank you. So um sample attendance monitoring form. Um there is there is a um attendance monitoring form that um you can preview uh or not here. Uh but uh there's a simple attendance monitoring form. I did think that was a link. Um but we can uh take a look at that uh later if need be. Um or if anybody wants to
095see that at some point, we can revisit that. So um so yeah, that is what we're looking at doing. And in addition, um we're also looking at a a communitywide campaign. So, we're engaging in what's called Every Student Every Day uh campaign. Um I'm excited. >> We're excited. You can tell. >> We're excited. Okay. >> All right. So, we're excited. Um so, we are we're doing um the uh Every Student Everyday campaign u with Champagne County Community Coalition. Um and this is to raise awareness and address student absenteeism. So, you may have seen some of the beautiful pictures of community leaders, school leaders, um, wearing those shirts that say every student every day. Again, just really pushing the message out there that we need need students in school. So, in order for them to achieve,
096they must be here. Um, but we're also working on uh revisiting a song. So, there is a song um that's like a short jingle that goes with this campaign. Um, I'll have the pleasure of remaking that song and um singing it with some children. um from our district. So, I'm really excited about uh getting the opportunity to do that. And again, just making it fun and making it something that um belongs to our district and is unique um in in our messaging. >> Any questions for us? >> Thank you very much. First of all, I I'm sorry. I'm Okay. Thank you. Uh first of all, I did uh watch a Champagne School Board meeting and I noticed that they all got t-shirts. I was just wondering if that was available for us as well. >>
097You know what? I'm I hope that Tracy Parsons is watching this, Sherry, because I did [laughter] email him and I asked him just that and he has not responded. So, I we are aware of that, but um I have >> I took a nice picture of everyone. >> It is a nice picture. Wouldn't that look nice with their band? I agree with you. >> Unity. Okay. Uh, I know that Katherine's gonna probably address this later as far as far as communication, but is there an issue with parents being able to access whether or not a telephone, a computer, a um internet, is that a is that a stumbling block for any of our parents? >> For some, I'm sorry. >> Go ahead. For some of our families, we were just we had a meeting on
098Friday during our professional development day and we talked about how some families use Wi-Fi and another one of our family liaison said that when she figured out that the parent did not have a phone number but had Wi-Fi, she used WhatsApp. So, we do have those issues, but we've talked to our family engagement advocates. We've talked to our family liaison about having conversations with families because there are lots of ways to communicate. So it is a barrier but we are working on having when we looking at we look at gaps of asking of which families have you not heard from and then we do home visits or find ways to contact them and that's how the family liaison at Yankee Ridge found that out. >> Wondering if that was an issue and how big of
099an issue it was. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> I have a question. Oh, somebody else. >> No, you go ahead. >> Uh I was just um curious about the Tiger Perks initiative. Have you uh >> let me tell you, Luke, this is what we're working on. So, we are right now in the infancy stages because as a committee, we've got about a faithful 10 and we've been sending it out and we had it at our last strategic plan meeting and we're trying to get people to help us with points. So, right now we have a list of activities, but we're trying to make an agreement on the number of points. For in for example, attending parent teacher conferences, how many points? Attending a PTA meeting, how many points? Joining PTA, how many points? attending
100um academic events. How many points? So it so it will give it'll be a scan system with John, our lovely um tech guru is working on that. He has a scanner and each parent already has an ID so he will put them on laminated cards and when families come for events, they can scan it. But we're also working on for families who can't come to school for multiple reasons, work schedules, etc. We have a list of activities that families can do at home. So they would have to enter that information in those are the parts that are not worked out. totally transparent, but we want to make sure that when people are getting rewarded for the things they do and we're trying to make it fun. So, if anybody would like to donate to Tiger
101Perks, we will happily accept watching or not, uh we are working on those things. So, we're also working on aside from points of what do you win, how many points, but it's really just a way of saying thank you for being engaged. Of course, the gifts are not going to be extravagant unless you guys blow up our inboxes with donations. We'll take them, but we want it to be just a way of saying thank you. So, it's really just a system like imperks at Meyer. It is a way to get tiger perks in Urbana. >> And I think one of the one of the things we've seen is that our families come out when our students are performing and doing things in school like assemblies and performances. But this goal is also around engaging in
102the learning and I think that is um kind of what we thought maybe to incentivize with the tiger perks like attending a parent teacher conference, attending the curriculum night which is focused on what your students are learning in school. We love that parents want to come and see them sing and step and go to band concerts and things like that. But we also need as many families as we can participating in conferences and showing up for those attendance review meetings and being an active engaged partner in the learning part. And so we thought the tiger perks was a great way to incentivize that. Yes, we reward you for going to the choir concert. That is super important. But we want you to get way more points if you go to parent teacher conferences and if
103you come to curriculum 9 and things associated around student learning >> is just follow up. Is there a So, yeah, going to a concert or athletic event is reinforcing in its own way. Is is there some kind of are there many activities that are academically reinforcing? you know, have STEM night. There are some I I recall going to them and there are some activities there, but >> are there I I don't necessarily want to say academic competitions, but are there other types of events that could be that are in place that that parents would want to come see their kids perform some academic feat? >> Each school has different activities. We have the four district required, but some schools have more than others. So some of the things that you were mentioning are more so
104at the secondary level at more middle school, high school, but we do have some of those activities at the elementary schools as well. So then it some of those activities will be based on the school. So we'll just have to be careful of how we list it because some schools may not have that option, but we've got some. So like the STEM night, we do have a math and science night. So, we're honestly going to try to keep the tiger perks based on something that everyone could attend because if I'm at school A and we have science olympiad and dance and drama and a spelling bee, but if she's at school B and they don't, we don't want it to look like this school isn't and this school is because there are a number of
105reasons why schools do different things. So, we're going to keep it general of and maybe schools can figure out a different way to reward those families, but we want to make it on the district required event so that it levels the playing field. Miss Lley, you had a question? >> Yes. This for either one of you. What type of um neighborhood um nights um activities are you planning for the spring? Because I think that's a great idea. I see a lot of kids, you know, just around town with nothing to do and I think it's so important. >> Sure. Um so we've we've tossed around a lot of different ideas. Um but a lot of it is going to be centered around academics. So, it's going to be like math infused, but it's going to
106be math games with like some sort of manipulatives and um but it's it's going to be like I said, it's fun stuff. Lots of colorful signage, you know, music. We're talking about, you know, getting someone come out, DJ, like um you know, maybe some snackage, you know. So, it it we really wanted to be like a like an academic block party in a sense, you know, to bring people out so when they hear the music, oh, what's that? and then they're coming out, you know, and they see, you know, lights or they see, you know, a bunch of kids having fun playing games, then they're like, "Well, let me go get my niece or let me go get, you know, so we want it to be something that really draws the neighborhood in." Um, and
107it is it's going to be like a, like I said, academic block party, basically. >> That sounds really good because I was thinking too, once you get the kids involved, I think the parents will follow. >> For sure. >> Yeah. So, we definitely need that. And hey, help me out. >> All right. >> Thank you, ladies. All right. Thank you both. >> And then the additional part of uh family and community agency is communication. So John's going to kind of drive from his seat, but Katherine's going to come up and talk a little bit about our new communication tool, which you've heard a little about already. So our area was uh communication with families and so we started out uh we did a lot of surveying of people uh we got a lot of information
108back and uh all the community feedbacks from people and throughout all of that uh There was kind of a couple things that came out from everybody. One was that they just wanted one communication tool. They've got three kids and four sports and two clubs and they somehow have 20 things that uh they're getting messages from all through the day. and that they also wanted kind of simplistic uh communication that was referenceable uh and that came through them and was really clear. So uh for our strategies uh we uh went out and we're looking for that tool. Uh we already presented on Parent Square at another meeting so we're not going to delve into it. Uh but we ended up on parent square uh which was a great tool for everybody. Uh so far with the
109pilot schools we've had very positive feedback. Uh and then the other goal that we had is uh reaching more families and getting uh greater communication uh into the district and to all the families. So this is we have a few numbers there at the bottom. these sorry just a reference point these numbers are from a couple of weeks ago I logged in today and we have more families than this so they're not today's numbers >> yeah uh so this is compared to with school messenger it there was no app so compared to zero with school messenger uh when we first did this presentation uh at the uh strategic planning uh session a week ago and thank you for the board members I think the three of you who came and all set in different places
110thank you for attending uh but uh so 13 have already signed up for the app uh which is great uh and then now you can also log into parent square so again this is compared to zero in school messenger uh about a third of our families uh over 1,800 families have like logged into the website where you can do lots of things like set your communications preferences. Uh, and even if you're not doing the app or not logging into the website, uh, you are still getting communication all of the same ways that you were through school messenger, uh, text, email. Uh, and in fact, a lot of people had blocked us or in school messenger, you had to opt in to text and you could block us from email. So, everybody's getting a fresh start
111with parent square. So, uh, if you'd blocked us before, uh, you're suddenly probably receiving communications and a lot of people who didn't know they'd blocked us excited to be getting those now. Oh, sorry. Oh, here. Hold on. Uh, so we do have a short video which I will show you, uh, that has the parent square uh, info that Parents get >> congratulations. If you are watching this video, it means that your school is using Parent Square. [music] You may be asking yourself, what is Parent Square? Parent Square is a safe, [music] secure, and modern approach to communication and collaboration between school and home. It is a central hub for all district, school, grade level, class, and group notifications about your children. Better still, school communication comes right to your fingertips [music] in a way that
112is convenient to you. Whether it be email, text, or app notification. You will also receive texts or [music] voice calls for urgent alerts and reminders. You should have received an invitation from Parent Square via email or text asking [music] you to activate your account. You can also request another activation invitation with the email or phone number that [music] you provided to your child's school at parentsquare.com or on the app. If you don't remember the information on file at your [music] child's school, please fill out your join your school form to send a request to your child's school to add you to Parents Square today. Parent Square [music] also has easytouse apps for iOS and Android phones that can be downloaded from the Apple App [music] Store or Google Play Store. Once logged in, you'll see
113your custom parent square feed. This page shows all information related to your children, including any schoolwide, grade level, class, or [music] group specific information. No more need to search through emails, schools, or multiple websites to find important [music] information. Prefer text messages over email? No problem. From your account [music] page, you can update your notification preferences so information is coming how and [music] when you'd like it. Language settings can also be changed so information is coming in your preferred language. Parent Square is great at increasing [music] collaboration and helps you get involved in your school communities. You will automatically receive information from the school office and your kids [music] classes and any groups you or your kids belong to. You may also join a public group within [music] the school. You can participate with just
114a >> So, we're going to stop it there and I'll let Katherine talk about the timeline. >> So, just to be clear, um families who have logged on to Parent Square um are getting the information. If a family has not yet logged into Parents Square, they're still receiving the information from their principal, from the district the same way they were receiving it before, um, we're encouraging everyone to log in because you can select how you're getting the information, the language you're getting the information from. Um, and you can also search through because Parent Square is going to keep all of the information in a feed for the entire school year and then it's archived at the end. So if you are going back to look for something, you can search it and it's all right
115there. you don't have to go find that email that was sent in August and now it's January and you can't remember what it was and you lost a link or you accidentally deleted it. Um so families are being contacted whether or not they've s they've clicked to activate their account. Um we're just trying to track how many people are activating it or using the app. Um so for our process, I'm not going to read all of these. We started last summer and evaluated a few different platforms. um had focus groups with um and received feedback from teachers, administrators, um families and staff. In August, uh we started a pilot in November with four schools kind of across the different levels. Um, we used Yankee Ridge as the elementary school just to kind of um, see
116how the translation feature worked um, to make sure that it was going to translate accurately or at least better than school messenger was because that was not necessarily reliable if we used their auto translate feature. And then in January once we got back from winter break, all principles started using Parent Square um for their building level communication. And then anything that goes out like from the district level is also being used uh through parent square. And then in August of 2026, so this coming August, it will be districtwide. So teachers, coaches, um anyone who communicates with families really should be using the Parent Square app. And in order to hopefully implement this successfully, we're doing lots of training. Um John and I have gone to a few staff meetings to talk to teachers, we've had
117positive feedback from the ones that we've gone through, helping them sign in, making sure they can sign in, making sure they understand the platform, um how to use it, providing them different ways to learn the platform, whether it's through us or through short videos. Parents Square has a really good library of um short, you know, three minute videos on like how do I do this, how do I do that. Um so we're really trying to oversaturate with information to our staff to make sure that they're aware of of what the expectation is but also that they feel comfortable using it. And so uh this is just kind of some of our early impact uh metrics. So before implementing uh parent square uh there were 10% of families who did not have an email on file.
118Uh like I said text was optin in the old system and 52% of families were not uh receiving text and 17.6% 6% of families had blocked uh district messages. A lot of those were kind of during uh COVID and 2020. There were some times where we had a lot blocked there. So moving forward, our other goal is that over the next uh coming five years, uh every year we're going to reduce those numbers who were missing information for uh by half each year uh until we get down to half of half of half of half is 116th uh as many people. So we're very excited about starting that moving forward. And so, uh, moving on, uh, we're happy about the improved communication tools. Uh, it is a lot nicer. The translation is contextual translation, so
119it does a lot better instead of just doing word by word. If you say something like, "Thanks for writing shotgun with us." It's not going to translate that into something that will be confusing to parents. Uh, and then we're also looking forward to being able to get more information out to more more people. The staff training, we're about halfway through, I think, uh, has been going very well. Lots of really good questions and people excited about using it in new and interesting ways we hadn't even thought about. So, we're going to keep monitoring uh, usage data and uh, look forward to this process. And we have one more surprise I cannot wait to tell you about, but that's going to be in our second presentation for tonight. So, do you guys have any questions? >>
120Go ahead, Jennifer. >> I you said that the um data is saved each, you know, for the whole year. So would the data be saved for the whole time that the the it would be catal saved and cataloged for the whole time the child was in school in Urbana? So he started in kindergarten and could a parent go back and find a an email she'd sent to a third grade teacher or will it be starting again each year? >> The logs are all saved on the back end. So if we have to do something for compliance or we need to go look at something someone said to somebody. Uh but as a parent uh your posts you only see the last year of posts. >> Okay. >> The posts are not the emails. Teachers are
121still allowed to email parents but the posts are kind of like the school newsletters or classroom newsletters. >> Okay. So it is not communication between the teacher and the parent. >> There are different functions within parent square. So um if you're going to communicate with the like if a teacher wants to communicate with their whole class, they can do a post which I I refer to it as like your Facebook feed where you can scroll through and see everyone can see that. If they want to communicate with just one of their students families, they can do like a direct message which is more like a text message. Like that's how the example I give. It's like I want to just text you. So, I'm going to use my phone to text you and no one
122else is going to see that conversation unless we share it, you know. Um, but if I want to communicate with all of you, I might make a post and then everyone is going to see that and and be able to to have that information. >> And so, each of those different communication things >> um are saved for that one whole school year. >> So, >> but at the end of that school year, they disappear. >> They are archived. They don't disappear. They're archived. So, a family only has the current school year's information. And that's just to help them maybe not be confused if they're going to a different building, maybe they don't need the information. And then if they search for it, it's easier to find. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And the messages, since you
123brought that up, uh teachers are also very excited about that. uh being able to send direct messages to parents, text type messages, uh but they don't the parents don't get the teacher's personal cell number and they can message the teacher back through that app, but they can also set uh office hours and out of office. So, they're not getting messages from parents to their personal cell phone number at 2 in the morning. It all comes through a controlled system. >> Great. Thank you. Go ahead. >> Is this a replacement for like class dojo in the elementary school level? >> Yeah. Uh yes, that is the the goal because we have families who say we have kids at different levels or in different buildings and everyone's using something different and then they don't have a single
124platform to use. So now if a family has multiple kids, you know, one in elementary, one at the sixth grade center, they have one one uh platform to be able to find all of the information for their kids. >> Yeah. And just to expand upon that a little bit, this isn't a classroom management tool and it's not a LMS learning management system. It's a communication tool. So classroom dojo, the messaging part, yes, uh messages will be coming through that. But if you are a hopefully elementary teacher and you have your dojo monsters, maybe you guys don't have in high school, but you can still use the dojo monsters in class and have the kids go click their dojo monster and get a star or like whatever else the dojo monsters get. That's still fine. >>
125Anyone else? >> Well, I know that my kid is not in elementary school no more in dojo. I get emails and messages all the time saying you're a child and something about his class, but he's not even at that school. So, I think switching it to just one platform is a good idea because you're continuously getting things from a different platform that your child doesn't even attend. >> Yeah. Anyone else? >> Thank you. >> Okay. And last but not least, uh systems and operations. So, Maryann and uh Randy are already here. We're going to just let them stay where they are to do their presentation. First up is Randy. Improving facilities. Good evening. Um I'm going to talk about the uh framework and next steps for uh district facility needs assessment. Um our first step
126will be to initiate and complete a district-wide assessment um of the building's needs. Um the district will conduct a comprehensive uh facilities needs assessment to evaluate the current conditions, functionality, long-term viability of all the buildings. The assistant uh the assessment will identify immediate concerns, midterm improvements, and long range planning needs across the district. Um the goal is to be clear data driven um understanding of where we are today and where we need to be in the future. Uh the next step we will do will be uh gather input from building administrators and the staff. Um information will be collected through structured meetings and uh with building administrators and key staff members. I've already met with the building administrators. So I still need to set up something with the uh staff members. Um and these conversations
127will be focused on like daily operations uh what the challenges are uh safety and security needs, space limitations, uh program needs and uh maintenance and modernization concerns um which was like one of the post-its that I had at the last meeting um talking about the flooring at a couple of the buildings and uh so that'll be something that we definitely bring up um as well as the uh another post that was about um better learning environment through uh seating uh stuff like flexible seating, stuff like that. Will um we we've been looking into some of that. Um the next step will be review progress uh on previous facilities priorities. uh uh evidence shows that uh the previous priority areas uh particularly security improvements and ADA compliance have been largely uh uh addressed and met. Um
128we will uh continue to uh uh document success, identify remaining gaps and uh shift focus towards the next generation of facility needs. Um next we'll be engaging the board. facilities committee um have regular updates and discussions uh like to would be held with the board facilities committee um and we'll collaborate on uh uh providing oversight and guidance uh ensure transpar transparency uh align facilities planning with district goals and accessible resources and then the um board input will be critical in shaping these priorities and long- term term direction. Uh another step would be a focus areas for assessment. Um the uh um assessments we're going to key on will be uh energy efficiency um opportunities to reduce energy consumption and uh uh cost savings. And then uh welcoming and functioning buildings, functional buildings, uh improved entrances,
129common areas, better flow, visibility, um better usage, usability for students, staff and visitors, and uh like some um updated branding to uh help identify where uh appropriate. Um another step will be establish clear priorities and rankings. Um and that'll be like with uh high priority uh like safety um operational issues that require immediate attention uh medium priority important improvements um and then low priority would be like a long-term or the cosmetic improvements uh that can be done over a long time. some of those low priority ones will probably get done sooner than maybe some of the high priority or medium priority just because they're a a cheaper fix and kind of get more bang for the buck I guess. Um and they can you know be done quickly. So uh see next uh determine implementation
130capacity. The district will evaluate whether the full scope of the plan can be completed in-house or um if support from an outside consultant is needed. Um and we will require on a staff uh capacity and expertise. Um the project uh how difficult the project is. uh timeline requirements, cost effectiveness, um and if outside assistance, the required recommendations will be brought forward to the board for your consideration. Um and then we need to establish a timeline. Um and this be a realistic and achievable timeline. um and uh doing the information gathering and assessment phases, the board review and feedback uh prioritizing and planning and the implementation phases. Uh in this time I will ensure the process remains organized, transparent and actionable and that is all I have. Any questions? >> Board members any questions? >> No.
131Thank you, Randy. >> Good evening. So, when I met with my group to go over the um resource allocations, we were really focusing on making them equitable. And one thing that we noticed with in my first year of being CFO for Urbana was that we would allocate building budgets based on number of students and there was a multiplier for low income. And I thought that that was a really great opportunity for growth because we had the low income but we were also missing some other student groups that we see predominantly in our schools. Um and a lot of our schools have different needs. That was one of my post-its, too, is how is this really going to impact the schools because they're all diverse and each school has different needs based off of the type
132of school that it is. Like Yankee Ridge has a high low income or high low income but a very high ELLL um population as DPW has a smaller low or I'm off on that. A small ELLL population but a very high um low income. So my group and I decided that we wanted to make it more equitable and incrementally increase the resources that we have to align to these student groups and specific needs. So we are saying by the end of um FY30 that we would incrementally implement a timeline to address all those different student groups. So we established a finance committee. I think many years ago there's been a finance committee, but it's been kind of just when there's like a big project coming and with conversation with Dr. Ivory Tatum, we decided that
133it would be a good opportunity to focus on projects like these with our um strategic plan and then anytime that I need to have more uh conversations with like twoon twos with board members. So, we um are having four finance committee meetings this year. We are gathering resources that looked at the impact of student groups for resource allocation. So we used evidence-based funding documents and a big part of that was the resource allocation review rubric and um properties of effective resource allocation systems which we use a lot with our um school designations through ISBY. They talk about student groups and so we're kind of using a similar framework for that. And so we're then we created a timeline in um our last finance committee meeting that the implementation for lowinccome was implemented this year. Next
134year we'll implement ELLL and then looking at IEPs and then homeless in our final year. So it's a slow where it kind of doesn't impact schools that they're used to getting a high um building budget and then it drastically changes. We're wanting to kind of slow roll it out so nobody's um negatively impacted by this. board members. Any questions? >> Thank you, Marian. >> Okay, I that was our last priority area. I know that was a lot of information, but again, we are committed to making sure that our board members when you're in the community and when you're talking with your constituents that you can share some of the um areas of improvement for our strategic plan and growth um as well as the public who is watching. So, this is a great opportunity for
135all of our stakeholders to get this information. Um so, I know it was a lot of of info. We appreciate your time and attention and um we'll be back again to give you an update at the end of the school year. Thank you. >> Um our second [clears throat] administrative report this evening is our district discipline improvement plan uh 26 report. Uh chastity. All right, I'm back talking about everybody's favorite topic. Um, it's 8 o'clock at night, so I will try to be to the point and please feel free to stop me and ask any questions. And so last year, um, I was here um, with the board as well asking for our discipline improvement plan to be approved in order for me to submit to Isby. And so I wanted to just frame what
136the work that we do and why we do it is because I'm sure many of you have heard of Senate Bill 100. And so Senate Bill 100 was really um started by students of Chicago public schools recognizing that their peers were being excluded from school um via suspension very often. um lots of times again mostly black students, black males in particular. And so they worked with some adults to get this bill passed. So IL in Illinois, student bill 100 basically um says that schools are not to exclude students unless there is substantial threat to other students, adult to the safety of others. So this is why ISBY also takes the time to gather all of the schools data in Illinois and they um rank them and sometimes if you fall in the c in the
137ranking then you are considered a school who uses exclusionary practices too much and then what they ask of you then is to basically give a um a detailed report of how you're going to rectify your exclusionary practices. is submitted. Of course, you're supposed to be implementing that report, too. Um, and they continue to work and keep track of how you are doing. Any questions about this before I move on? Okay, perfect. And so I wanted to thank um the team from last year because part of my proposal is to keep the same plan because we've made some good gains and we just want to really hone in on some other things. And so I put the team from last year, we got together and what was really important is that we had administrators, deans, and
138at our elementary schools, we have what we call PBIS leaders. And so people who really um support the whole building with some um practices and schoolwide systems. And then instead of bringing that whole team together this year, what I really did was hone it in on some secondary. Um and you'll see why really in the data I've shared before that secondary in the secondary levels uh is where we see um the uptick in our exclusionary practices as well. And so I made sure to because I meet with them monthly anyway, um have conversations with them, talk to deans, um we've done some PD with deans and um and SRS's, student relations um supervisors and um and the admin too on this list have been a part of our continuing restorative practices training that we started
139in the summer and we've continued. So, we just had a meeting on Friday um which went well, too. So, shout out to everybody who had um a voice in this plan. And again, once we all have a voice and we're the members who are coming up with a plan, I believe that's why the plan um works. So, here's some background information. And I won't go over everything. Um, but as Beth kind of stated in some of our strategic plan and I brought out in our culture and climate plans too, there were inconsistencies in the way that buildings were um, responding to student behaviors, right? You might have one building that is like low, I'm sorry, that is low in exclusionary practices, ISS, so we call that inschool suspension and also OSS out of school suspension.
140And then you have some buildings who um may have more support, but they're higher in their exclusionary practices. And so coming in with that joint student discipline committee with the UEA that Beth was talking about um changing the matrix, implementing the discipline um continuum. So if a student does this one time, it's a level one and that is managed by a teacher. Then if they repeat that and then it goes to a level two and it may be managed by a social worker or somebody on the team just depending on the school makeup and then level um fours really are the ones that should be office managed by administrator who has the um say to give in school suspension or out of school suspension as a consequence. And so that work was done. Um it
141was due to uh the union also our staff not feeling safe in schools and seeing that disruption of um and that intick of student behaviors especially after COVID um etc. And so that happened in 2023 2024. Then last year we revised the procedures of suspensions as we talked about. We really looked at what those definitions mean. And so one of the words that we took away which we know was not culturally responsive um was disrespect. And so now it says like disruptive behavior with a clear definition of what that means. And then there are other behavior or sorry there are other um behaviors that we kind of identified and make sure everybody was on the same page because we know that behaviors can also be received as subjective and we want to try to take
142some of that subjectivity out of it as well. Um then we implemented culture and climate goals in our school improvement plans and um of course starting those monthly and bi-weekly check-ins with our schools who still needed support implementing systems looking at data regularly to target um some of the needs for the building and to support staff and students. Then this year uh I know we've talked about this a lot but we've implemented uh CHAMPS training. And so CHAMAPS is really when we think about PBIS, that schoolwide system of behaviors, CHAMPS is the classroom management behavior. So a teacher really thinking through how would I respond if students are are doing this way? If they don't come to class with their um resources, what is my procedure for that? It's also how do we come up
143with community agreements that are in more um collaborative and friendly language instead of the don't do this. You know, in this class we don't yell at each other or in this class we choose nice words. And so really thinking through what are our classroom management systems that we can utilize in the classroom that keep kids in there and that we can refer to often in order to support students and um kind of redirect their behavior as well. And so that training happened for all uh certified teachers. And then I did some additional training with non-certified staff. Um we had safe and civil schools here and that happened in the right on our opening days. Um and so they're also coming back in this June and our consultant with safe and civil schools was just here
144in November working with our administrators as well. And so really doing that work of how do we really support um teachers and so CHAMPS is how we support kids and part of CHAMPS is using the stoic framework to support our adults. And so the stoic framework is all about what structures have we provided, what teaching, what um what um what observations have we given? So inspecting what we expect, what feedback and supports we give our adults and how do we also correct fluently when needed. Uh and so we've really been working with uh lots of schools on that framework as well. And not just in the in the aspect of discipline, but how do we roll out anything really looking at did we hit all those components of the stoic framework in order to see
145successful implementation versus just telling somebody to do something and then we walk away. So it's a way for us to really look through where we may have um have errors or holes if we haven't really completed that full process of the stoic framework. And as our shared restorative practices training has been going on for the secondary um SRS's, deans, and APS all year as well. And this was all a part of our discipline improvement plan last year. So I did want to share some data. Um this was last year, end of last year's data on all of our schools. And if you look at the very last column that says year-to date is inschool suspensions os out of school suspensions. So you have the data there you can see where some of our schools um
146were higher. What I would say too um pay attention to like number of students because sometimes we really do dig into that conversation as well. If there are like 20 kids in a school of 500, then how are we supporting and creating that tiered services for those 20 kids? Um, or is it something larger on a systems level that we need to adjust for our tiered services and or for our school for schoolwide? I'll leave this here and see if you have any questions before I go to some more data. So, if you want to what I want to say if you want to keep in mind our secondary levels and where they kind of left off last year and then we'll kind of talk through some current data and where we're going as well.
147I'm sorry, somebody had a question. >> Um, what's the um rationale for doing an out of school versus an inschool suspension? That's a great question and complicated. Oh, okay. Luke, um, put me on the spot. I would say that what So, I just had a meeting with a school this afternoon and what I would say that sometimes it's the severity of the the behavior of a student and so and that also depends on maybe the culture and climate, the mindset of the adults involved as well. um for positive purp positive purposes, but also sometimes we get triggered as adults too. And um and sometimes I think that those decisions that we make as adults impact kids more than they do supporting kids. And so if a student was to come and maybe curse me out,
148right? Some would deem that as oh, you curse out a teacher, you're out, right? Although SB 100 says that that's not a substantial threat. um like calling a name, not like you threatening a teacher, but I think that we are in a a difficult culture and climate space where we are um working to navigate like adult triggers, but also how do we support our students and how do we bring them into spaces where they do feel that sense of belonging where they don't want to interrupt learning, disrespect the adults that are around them or um that they want to come and learn how to manage and self-regulate. And so I think a lot of it is is disregulation because we don't have some systems and or supports in place to handle that. And then you
149know I've been in principal before you have 200 or more other kids that you have to continue to support and the adults as well. And so I can't say there's a great answer for that. I would say it really is depending on the school, the culture, what they believe about exclusionary practices too and how we choose to respond in those moments. But most of the times I would see the um the incidents or the out of school suspensions for like disrespecting adult, disrespectful behavior, physical aggression. >> Can I add to part B to that everything that she just said? And um we have some students that have some extremely challenging needs and behaviors. And so sometimes um having them be because we know out of school suspension is not remediating any behavior. However, um not
150for the student, it's inconveniencing the the adult who is finding something else for that student to do while they're at home. Um, but there are times when we need to have a plan and we need to have our teams come together to be able to talk about that behavior. Especially for some of our students um that have IEPs, we might need to have bring the parents in and have a meeting right away. Um, we need to put some supports in place before that student comes back because evidently what is ever whatever is happening in the classroom is not working for them. Um, and so there are times when we need those students to be home for a day or two so we can have a plan for when they come back. >> Uh, just one
151other question. What what's an like what would be an example of an inschool suspension? What would it look like? What would the student be doing for an inschool suspension? And I I imagine that varies depending on the level, but I just curious. Yeah, I can talk about secondary if that's helpful because our secondary spaces do have um in school suspension spaces which we call um restore or um what's the other one? Thank you. Refocus. See the children help me out. Thank you. [laughter] Maybe they should answer this. Um but sometimes kids are are sent there for a period. Sometimes it's a couple of periods. the administrators really there try to not do more than um a full day unless it was an egregious behavior or they'll do one day out of school suspension one day
152in so in school suspension which is part of the work that we're going to start at the end of this year for next year too of what that looks like as a system levels to be more restorative but now they'll be um they'll get work from their teacher they'll be in that in school suspension place with an educator and um they'll complete that work in space So, we know that they're there in the building, but it's still exclusionary from their um classrooms and their peers and their access to their instruction from their teacher. >> Um, does this data correspond with the Illinois report card from last year or is this one more um more um expressive than the than the report card that we got last year? as far as the out of school in
153school. So the Illinois report card doesn't really talk about in school suspensions and out of school. So this is this is more comprehensive right here. Um and then I'll show some other data as well. The Illinois school school report card really talks about culture and climate the survey from students. Um but it doesn't give hard numbers like this especially by building. This is this is an internal what we have to submit to the state. >> So we do have district level in school and out of school but yeah what what we're sharing is kind of that deeper dive by building. >> Yep. >> Okay. All right. So this was last how we ended the end of last year. Um and so I showed this chart last year as well. This is an updated version. So
154you'll see the years um that we have been uh h we have been cited by ISBY so Illinois State Board for having racial disproportionality rate. So, this just isn't about our exclusionary practice for all of our students. Um, which I do talk about our exclusionary practices in general, but specifically for our black students and our students with IEPs and more so for our black males. And so, you can see from 2023 to 2024, we have decreased a bit. So, that's a bit of a celebration. Um I think that was because of the combined work that we did as a group and we want to keep decreasing that. There were years where we were higher in um in 5.38, so in 2018. And as you'll see, uh we've been ranked for a while. And so one
155of the goals that I have in culture and climate and really working with schools is to create systems that sustain um just good good strategies and systems for kids. Doesn't matter who the administrator is or who's coming in and out, but we really just have systems that are working well for students. One of the things I put at the bottom was, yay, we were not um eligible to for the expulsion rate. And so again, that's a celebration um because we had that in 2023 and 2024. Um and so, sorry, before the year before, that's an error. And as you can see to the column that says total students of color too, and we've talked about this a little bit, but as our demographics have shifted within our community too and back to our retention and
156recruitment goals as well, having um the staff who reflect reflect you having culturally responsive teaching practices that we've talked about um with many staff and specifically in the special education department because we A lot of our students who are identified are black males, black females as well. And so really trying to arm all of those groups of educators too with the best strategies in order to support our students to keep them in their school spaces, small group learning classrooms and in the school as much as possible because when kids are not present, we are losing um they're losing access to instruction. And so some of the the academic goals that we may see due to chronic absenteeism or not having access to instruction does make an impact in our student outcomes. One more data slide.
157Oh no. So this was just talking about what disproportionality means. And so you're at higher risk. um say that there are five African-American children who received uh at least one behavior incident over 15 versus other children who got um there were 10 over 30. This just identifies what a disproportionality may look like. And then it gives us a risk ratio. And so when we talk about the risk ratio being above 3.0, O that's when we're really need to think about what systems and what we're doing um in order to support staff, what systems we're putting in place as a district at the school level in order to support kids. And so right now we're at 2.4 is what I showed. Um but how do we continue to decrease that as well? So no matter who
158you are and when you come to our schools, you are not disproportionately at risk to be excluded because you're a black male for instance. Did they stop working you to the next one? Sorry, maybe it died on me. Is it moving for you? Oh, it's not working here. It's not working on this computer. Oh, okay. Now it's there. Now it's there. I don't know what's happening. I'm sorry. >> Um, so yeah, we can keep it here. Oh, not here. Back to the data slide. Just the intermission keep is okay. Right. I need Well, one of the things I'll say about the current data slide whenever it gets up there, um, we just showed this data to our secondary at our restorative practices meeting. So we have a consultant who's been coming in and working with
159the same group all year. And so one of the things that we are uh passionate about is framing of why we're doing this. Why does this matter? Right? Really showing data to maybe some of our staff who may not see this data regularly because they're student relations supervisors. But we also want to arm them with the um passion and the understanding that we believe in their roles as well and they could be a powerful uh resource and us supporting students. They can have restorative chats with students if they see them disregulated or upset or um in the hallway or sometimes when students walk out of classrooms. those student relations supervisors are the first ones who see that behavior because they're in the hallways and monitoring or you know they're making sweeps and they see students
160in the bathroom. And so what we're really trying to do too in addition to the deans and the APs who oversee discipline data um and some of the principles come too is really talk about how do we have restorative conversations with students. What does that look like? Um, next month we're moving into restorative circles and then from there we're talking about how do we then arm some of our um, educators with restorative practices as well. So that just say for elementary there's something that happens on the at um lunchtime at recess every single day, right? And a class comes in, they're disregulated, they're upset about something. How do we teach teachers how to have a quick restorative circle with kids so that they are able to regulate um and then get back to instruction as
161well? So no kids have to go out. We are teaching kids how to resolve conflict, have conversation and most importantly listen to one another too and if that um if that harm has been caused, how do we repair it? So really getting students and staff to understand that we want to educate and um train students who care about their community as well. And part of that is on us to teach them and model that as well. So here's some data that we shared. Um and the purpose of this again is to talk about are we on track to doing better by the end of the year? Are we on track to um exceeding what we did last year based off that first chart I showed you all? how are we doing and what are some
162of our hot spots? And I think putting this in front this of course was a great conversation starter when we put in front of um our staff. So this is just semester 1 with 77 days of instruction. And what we did was break it down by of course enrollment, how many incidents of ISS and OSS, again we group them together because all of it is exclusionary. and then how many students are receiving those types of consequences. And then just a little breakdown for um them to think about that means just for instance at UHS there's about three kids or more being excluded a day right and so how do we think about that number long term and kind of stop us in our tracks to say from now until the end of the year. So
163that's the work that I'm doing with every school that is in yellow um for and an additional school too um which has done great work at decreasing. So DPW I would say is a highlight, a celebration where we've worked really hard last year and this year to put some systems in place that administration team um and do some things that this is the school I meet bi-weekly with where we are making some gains in reduction um around the um consequences that we give students. So shout out to them for that. Um but another school I'm work I'm working with um to really talk about how do you see this? What do you need? What are some resources PD? And how can we make a goal from now until the end of the year to make
164sure that we don't exceed these goals? What are some buffers that we can put in place in our schools um to help support kids staying in school? And if they have to get ISS, to your point, Luke, what does that look like? Can ISS be more restorative and talking about the and conflict resolution versus doing work on a Chromebook or some papers all day maybe at the elementary school and then returning back to class where again we haven't explicitly taught redirected or spent time with that student to help them self-manage or whatever um the skill is or compacy that they needed support with. Any questions about this one? Oh, okay. I was shocked and surprised. Okay. Nope. Still not working for me. Um, this is a slide. It's in yours, but it would just I
165just wanted you to see how many. On the left is suspensions out of school per building and on the right suspensions in school. This was just um as of last week as well. We can keep going. Next one. All right. So, last year, um, these are the same objectives we had last year when I pulled all of those groups and and educators together to come up with our discipline improvement plan. And so, really, it was to talk about root causes and um, and why we have this disproportionality and exclusionary practices. and then thinking about restorative practices. Um how we implement that to reduce exclusionary practices. So in our uh discipline improvement plan, what you'll notice is there are there's a tier one strategy, tier two strategy, tier three. I believe there has to be all
166of those in order for a successful system to be implemented. And so I won't read all this again, but this is the same plan from last year. Um, and what we want to focus on this year in our tier one strategy is really reducing the number of suspensions. So it's like that second bullet point under the success success criteria. And we want to also increase in student engagement and positive behavior referrals. And so I do not like going to schools all the time talking about all the negative, but it's like what are we doing positive to celebrate students? What are the celebrations look like? What are we focused on? I always start with look how many students you have who the PB the tier one is working for. They come to school, they're happy to
167be here. How do we celebrate that? And so this is twofold that we really want to work on from now and this will um this will be coupled into their next year's school improvement plan. And so any student sorry any school that was on that slide that kind of was highlighted in yellow um the expectations for them next year they will have their culture and climate goal specifically about reducing exclusionary practices. um and and more specifically the how in that what system needs to be set up what PD needs to be given what supports do we need to give our students and so they are already aware of that and they've already start thinking about that so when they have their draft goals um that are due to us might by May 5th these are
168things that they're already thinking about Yavan and I can get together and already start really thinking about um the PD that we're going to try to capture for students and staff too because some of it is we are really trying to think about as a school district disruptive behavior and physical aggression are two uh u behaviors that we know are just rampant across our district. How do we unpack what disruptive behavior looks like and the lens of cultural responsiveness to that as well power struggles implicit bias but then how do we also work with our students on that conflict resolution. Uh we have the SEAL curriculum that rolled out last year. Last year. This year. Thank you. This year. And so we know we're going to see positive impacts of that, but how do we
169ensure that for that tiered service of two, how do we go deeper with some of our students and some of our buildings that may need more of that work as well? Um and so that those are the two from our tier one that we really want to focus on. If we can go to the next one, our tier 2 strategies are more about those interventions in place and um the MTSS meetings. Uh I think that we take for granted maybe how important those meetings are when we have about kids and how we can support and what levels of supports we have even if we identify that we don't have something there's a gap. I think that's a great conversation because then who do we reach out to to try to help us fill that gap,
170right? We're all trying to brainstorm and come up with ideas to support our kids. Um, and what else I'll name here too, how do we get more people involved in that? We know there are there are certain educators who have case loads of kids and what we're trying to do also is make sure that the the kids aren't a case load. for example, if it's a social worker, students are um learning the skills to then potentially again be off of the case load. So, we don't want lifelong students who are receiving tier 2 services, right? How do we really strengthen what we're giving students um our explicit teaching and instruction and or support in order to then now you have those skills and go and implement so that we can also support other students who
171may they're just going through a moment in life. Hard things happen and sometimes we see behaviors when those hard things happen as well. One more. Sorry, John. And so our tier three strategy Oh, it works now. Randy is like, I don't know. Thank you, Randy. Okay, our tier three, um, this goes back to our culture and climate goals, too. And so, we do want to see improved academic and behavioral outcomes. And so [snorts] one of the things last year when I was really working uh closely with the middle school, I would come to every single IPS meeting that was about behavior is were we actually doing what we said we would do. So if um Dr. Ivan Tatum has been referred and she needs to work on regulation and we put a plan in place,
172let's say we say we're coming back in six weeks. Well, how many times did that what we call a champion meet with that person to help them with those regulation skills? What was the progress? Did we track it? Um, and then how do we include the other team members that the kid student might see, etc. But we can expect change behavior without some instruction. And so I think that while we do have some barriers sometimes with time or ensuring that our staff have time to um really teach those explicit skills that our students need, we have to do it if we want to see changed income. I mean changed um outcomes because if we don't then those are the instances where we continue to go to exclusionary practices, right? the student is still behaving the
173same way because we haven't done anything to support that student and our the end result is just like us banging our head on the wall, right? And so those are the things that we want to really want to work on especially with our tier three student or sorry our tier three services and this is something too that will involve more um specialized educators like social workers um case managers. how do we collaborate with them to deans as well who could um also create behavior plans for students, but they don't necessarily have to have an IEP to have a behavior plan. Again, if that is something that we create for a student and it works for them and then they can get off of the behavior plan as well. So all of those tiers, the work
174that I'm asking schools to do is hone in more on that MTSS services, honing in more on making sure we have um explicit instruction, really thinking about how we're celebrating kids. And so those things will come up again in the upcoming school improvement um school improvement goals for next year because we are making progress and we want to continue that progress and really narrow focus. So, we don't want all new goals. And I So, I am asking the board, can we keep the same plan? And then the work that we'll do is continue to hone in on the things that are really supporting students and adults. Um, and I'm going to continue [clears throat] those meetings that I have with administrators. Uh, and we're going to focus on those reduction exclusionary practices and tiered supports
175for students. And then after the board approves, I submit to ISBY. And that's when we continue to work the plan. Um especially in our culture and climate goals, the PD that we're planning for schools for administrators. Um and we'll continue that work. We already have some of it planned out where, like I said, our consultant from safe and civil schools coming back in June 1st, 2nd, and third. So he's going to have one day with administrators, one full day with administrators. Then he'll have one full day with secondary educators and a full day with elementary educators as well. Really honing back in on classroom management plans, stoic framework, how do we support our students? Um, and one thing I want to name about the work that he does is all of this in is in
176order for students to get quality instruction, right? And so it's how do we minimize um disruptions or barriers for students and teachers in order to receive instruction. And so that's the way we kind of try to reframe it or think of it. It's not just about the power struggle or managing students, but it's about how do we manage our environment so students can uh learn best. Okay, [sighs] any questions? Um, so board members, the plan is up uh later on in our agenda for approval. So, um, if you have any questions, I guess now would be really a time uh to do the do it. >> Um, I'm wondering is the what the definition of um being excluded? >> Okay. So, um, the Colombia school in Champagne has a program for students. Now, are those
177kids counted as excluded or are they counted as being in school? >> I think Dr. Iver feel free. I think they're count as being in school. >> That's a self-contained um You're right. It's a self-contained program. >> They're away from their home school. They're in a noninccluded environment. So if they get sent home for the day then yes that would be considered an out of school suspension for them. >> Is that what you're asking? >> No. No I'm asking >> You mean like the program where they go for like least least restrictive they're in the least they are not in a least restrictive environment at all. Those students are in a self-contained with >> Right. Right. they're in there in a self-contained and I'm wondering when we send in our data to the state. Does
178the state count those children as being excluded from the >> No, exclusionary practices is when you're excluding a student from their ability to learn and their building and the curriculum because it seems as if the environ at the end there um are we providing the best environment for this student and you know do some students need a smaller >> and less chaotic environment ernment just because of who they are. >> Um that's one question and then the other question is um the students who are um splitting their time between the high school and Tiger Academy are they while they're at Tiger Academy are they excluded from there? They are not because they are assigned to that building >> and they have access to learning and access to their instruction. >> Okay. Okay. >> And for
179the first question um the you said our students who are going where I'm sorry what was the first question? >> Um the first question was about basically a smaller >> Oh yes >> a a smaller environment. >> Yeah. And we do see that that that works for students. Some students need that. Um, some students are So, Tiger Academy also accommodates that for some of our students. I think right now we don't have um enough space access to those smaller environments. Some of our classroom sizes are lower this year than they have been in the past, right? And so that helps some significantly. But when we talk about a student who may be um very anxious and not doing well in front, you know, in large settings, do we have a space for them to necessarily
180go? No, we have Tiger Academy, but that's only to capacity too, right? And we still have to consider is that the appropriate setting for that student because then they're um around other peers that they may be comfortable with or they may not be comfortable with too. And so it really depends that's really more of a case by case as well. It it seemed when you looked at the numbers that where you had um and maybe I'm misinterpreting them >> um but when where you had fewer suspensions >> you had a a smaller percentage of different you had smaller percentage of students. It it it seemed like where you had lots of suspensions >> that you didn't necessarily have more students >> getting suspended. So the must be more some students are getting suspended more than
181once. >> Well, I'll say this too when we think about Yankee Ridge Middle School. So they have like 500 plus kids, right? >> Their suspensions are the lowest right in the district. um uh them and Leo and I think that that number one they were a new school. They spent a lot of time last year on culture and climate. >> Their administration um really really really really tries not to sus to exclude students um ISS or OSS. Uh they spend a lot of time on sense of belonging as well. So their kids and their families come to a lot of family engagement nights. And so that's one elementary school that has actually more students where they have way less suspensions. I would say at the high school um as students grow, they get bigger. Um
182I think behaviors can be perceived as bigger too, right? Or more threatening. And so I think that sometimes the way that we respond as adults or we think developmentally um something like they should know better, right? And so then we kind of respond accordingly too. But there's a whole lot of research on that too. The adultification of our students in particular our black students as well. And so in our minds as adults sometimes we think students are more developed than they really are. And so when they're not able to regulate as a high schooler, that looks very differently, but it's still the same school skill that's lacking from when that student was in second grade because maybe we didn't provide that need. Does that make sense? >> Well, it's not great, but >> go ahead,
183Sherry. >> I don't necessarily have a question. I have a observation and a comment. I'm really glad you're doing this work because what we see, we don't see unless we're in the schools and observing, but a lot of times we don't see the issues until a f a student is recommended for expulsion. >> And sometimes it's it's because the student has done something pretty egregious. >> Um either put somebody else in harm or themselves in harm, has followed has not followed the specific rule and has been destructive. But sometimes we see students who have had a pattern of that behavior and sometimes we see students who's maybe hasn't had a [cough and clears throat] pa a behavior at all as well. And it's good for those students who have had a pattern of some kind
184and we see difficult issues in their past few years. A lot of times we we want to know well what has been done and I think this is this what you're creating is something that you can say specifically this is what we've tried and instead of saying we've had check-ins. Yeah. >> You know because that's just a a general when how often what do they entail. So it'd be really wonderful to have that information. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I'm really glad you brought up the fact that, you know, it could be the size of the student where we perceive them to be older than what they are because I've been around a lot of >> young people that actually fit that category. And I absolutely think that that's something that hasn't
185been talked about enough that, you know, they >> appear to be a certain age that they're not. So >> they are kids and I I'm just really glad that's being brought up now. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? Again, this is up for a vote later this evening. >> All right. All right. Thank you. >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you. Our third administrative report for the evening is on Urbana High School's automated system update. This is Randy. >> Okay. Um I am uh requesting board approval to replace the existing building automation system, the BAS at the Urbana High School due to system uh being obsolete, the age of the system and increasing failures. The current BAS at Urbana High School is over 20 years old um and has been obsolete for several
186years. The system relies on outdated communication methods between the network managers and the temperature control and building automation equipment. As a result, the system is no longer reliable and beginning to experience more frequent failures that impact temperature control, comfort, um and operational efficiency within the building. Uh as the system continues to age, the replacement parts are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain and failures are more disruptive and costly to address. Uh continued reliance on this obsolete system presents a growing risk to the building operations, student and staff comfort and energy efficiency. Uh by remaining with the uh current provider uh technical solution services TSS um we are able to strategically replace controllers and related equipment while maintaining the systems compatibility. Uh this approach will allow us to modernize the system in phases uh reduce downtime and
187avoid the higher cost associated with complete system change over to a different vendor. uh facilities department recommends moving forward with the replacement of the obsolete building automation system at Urbana High School and respectfully request the board approval at a uh cost of $113,700 to TSS with a installation contingency of 10%. >> Thank you, Randy. Board members, any questions? Just just for clarification, I um for the public's uh also information since this was a uh a technical services request, this doesn't fall under the normal bidding rules that would apply for things like um food service or for uh custodial services. Is that correct, Randy? >> Yeah. Yes. >> Okay. So, so, so the bidding rules in Illinois for for for for things like for services there there's two categories of them that uh you say it's
188for like custodial services or for food services they have to be you have to do a bid out you get the bid document together but for things like uh legal services or infoch services or something that that requires specialy training >> emergency >> yeah it's more of an emergency something is broken and we have to fix it >> so basically yes So there there's there's reasons why this wasn't like bit out. I just letting the public public know that. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Randy. >> Thank you. >> Um Randy, um so the school was closed for two days. Is that was that is that the high school was closed for two days because one day? >> Okay. And that was because the you couldn't regulate the temperature or there was >> part of it.
189Yeah. >> Okay. So this will make that improvement. >> Yes. Okay. >> Yeah. It was the middle third of the building where we didn't have any controls for that period of time. Um and that's the the 88 89 edition I think is what they call it. The um that's kind of what where we had the problems there. We had uh 11 rooms affected and uh the the pipes froze. >> All right. Thank you. Again, this is up for a vote later. >> Yeah. And and how long will it take to replace this? Um once we get it, they can um start on it right away and they can do it while students are in the building because it's all in the boiler rooms and kind of behind the scenes. It's they won't have to be
190in the classrooms too much. >> Yeah. I just heard it's supposed to get really really cold again. So >> yeah, the actually the system's kind of gotten better um since then. Um we were having to reset it like every other day. Now we're down to like every four days having to reset the system. Um but that could change at any point. So um just and I I have people going in to monitor the building um on the weekends and um we have uh ESS there in the evening. So if they they know that if there's a a problem there to contact us right away and I got my guys know they're all on standby. So we'll call them and get them in and um do what we can. Is that something normal that you would
191have to do is reset the system consistently or is that okay? >> No. Um John could always tell you to tell you too with technology stuff there's always like a little glitch and I can throw some stuff off, but this is more than just a little glitch. This is some communication issues with the um just old system. Thank your your guys for being available and for keeping us. >> Yeah, they put in a lot of overtime that day we had the the day we were off and then the day we had the >> frozen pipes. Was a long long couple days. >> 20 years is about the life cycle. >> That's pushing it. Yeah. Pushing us. >> Yeah. And we're over that. >> Gotcha. Anyone else? >> All right. Thanks so much, Randy. And our
192last administrative report on the evening is on the district's uh website's accessibility changes. You guys are so lucky you get to talk to us a second time. Uh so we're going to talk about uh some of the web accessibility changes that have happened over the last kind of decade uh and uh are affecting us a little bit more now and why. So do you want >> um so web accessibility is um making sure that we offer equal opportunity to access the information that we provide online. Um, so it could be things like color contrast, alt text for images, font. Um, there are certain requirements. It's web content accessibility guidelines, WCAG. Um, that all websites, government websites are required to um, abide by. It just requires us to make sure that our information is they call
193it poor, perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Um, robust is really attributing to assist of technologies, whether it's a screen reader or if someone is um, site impaired. Um, there's a myriad of things that that could fall under that. >> And just a little bit of history about this uh, and why kind of now is the time that you're hearing more about it. Uh, so they've been implementing this over the past 10 years. So in uh 2017 uh they started requiring all government uh websites, web content to be WCAG 2.0 compatible. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. Uh but then a number of years passed where it wasn't nobody really like knew like they knew about it but like it wasn't really enforced. Starting in 2021, which incidentally was the
194year I came here, uh the Office of Civil Rights started sending scanning websites across the nation and sending out notices that people needed to rectify their non-compliant websites. Uh so we got one of those uh notices of non-compliance. Uh and so in 2022, we worked with a group of interns from the University of Illinois to implement the WCAG 2.0 compliance on our district websites. Uh WCAG 2.1, which is the next version, uh they uh developed a few years ago and now they're going to be enforcing that for entities over 50,000 people starting in April 2026. Mercifully, that is not us. Uh, but all government entities uh starting in April of 2027 will have to be WCAG 2.1 compliant. And so, a little bit about what that means. Uh, just some of the things that we're
195required to do. Uh, for WCAG 2.0, uh, included on your websites, you have to have alt text for all images. So if you hover over them, it tells you what's in the image. Uh you have to have contrast standards where you can't have gray text on a white background or like there has to be enough contrast that people can see them. You have to be able to navigate with your keyboard, not just tabbing through uh or not with your mouse, but you have to be able to tab through the different things. Uh and then you have to have captions for videos. I don't know if you guys noticed, the parent square video had two separate captions. Uh, and now we also have captioning available on all of our board meetings, which is the majority of
196our videos because it's incorporated into YouTube. And then the refflow means that when you zoom in or out of something, it doesn't make the text scroll off the screen. Sorry. uh it kind of reformats it so that it's uh all together so you don't have to keep sidescrolling to read each sentence on the screen. Uh WCAG 2.1 keeps all of those same features that you know and love from 2.0 but also makes most of them a lot more stringent. Uh it also supports I'm actually a big fan of this one orientation changing. So if your phone changes side to side, the content will change to be viewable in either way. So the most important thing isn't actually those two standards, but in 2024, uh, the Department of Justice reviewed what qualified as web content and
197they determined that PDFs do qualify as web content. So that PDFs also posted on websites have to adhere to the current level of WCAG standards. Uh so that's a big thing that we're dealing with now. So uh moving forward, uh we have a plan to bring the district into compliance. uh as we're working on the PDFs, they're not currently scanning and telling us that uh from the Department of Justice that we need to rectify anything right now, but we are trying to stay ahead of that. Uh so the first step is to uh identify everything that we have. Uh and we are allowed to archive things that aren't current things. uh when we started looking through I think we were the only district around that had things going back 13 years or more. >> There
198are some documents that were on our website that we had almost been using it as like our library of documents which is not required and is not necessarily best practice especially when it comes to the the new guidelines while old documents are kind of grandfathered and you don't have to go back and make those accessible. We want to make sure that the current information is what families are finding and that that information is accessible in whichever way that they need it. >> Yeah. So, our current website uh is we've been hosting it this way for at least like six or eight years. It is kind of a cobbled together uh collection of we have a hosting company and we have some platform that we're using and then we have a lot of plugins to kind
199of build it all together and then we have some more stuff for security. Uh it's not really easy to do anything accessibly on there. It doesn't have any accessibility checkers. It's not really a fullfeatured integrated web platform. So uh expanding extending on our mandate from strategic planning of finding a unified communication tool for parent communication. We're also uh looking at uh web platform for the district and uh we're really excited to let you guys know uh that we have like found the parent square has a web hosting service that will let us combine all of our parent square uh home to school communication with all of our district uh web communication and building web communication tool and I'll show you a little bit more about uh the Parent Square smart sites in just a second.
200So, starting in February, we're going to be setting up the back end of that. It's not a super trivial process to get it set up. Uh and then do you want to talk about kind of the next few? >> So, um I think something to point out with this the smart sites is that it has so I'm not an accessibility expert. I've learned a lot. Um, I've done a lot of trainings and a lot of um different um to make myself more aware of the new requirements because they change often. Um, and Smart Sites has kind of a built-in um accessibility checker. It kind of checks what I do. It checks checks me and make sure that I'm making marking all the boxes for what needs to happen. Um, and they have a a lot
201of more support um that our current website just doesn't offer. um we don't have any of that in the current site and so if there is something that is missed um there's no kind of like checks and balances for that. Um so as John said next month we're going to be starting the back end and then um through the spring we'll kind of start migrating and see kind of looking at our current website what we want to have what we need to have is it structured the best way for families and for the accessibility guidelines. um and how we're presenting the documents that live on our website. I think there needs there's a lot of education to be had on the documents we put on there. Sometimes they're more meant as handouts. Like, you know,
202we never really converted over to we're handing this out in paper form versus now we're putting it on the website and it's not necessarily the same um type of document that you would have or the same format that you would have. And so that will take a few months I think kind of working on that. And then we hope to have through the summer kind of everything ready to go for fall so that in the fall families see kind of that new front-facing page. Um, >> and a little bit more on the PDFs uh as we've been identifying what PDFs it's going to be uh feasible to kind of convert and upcon convert to like the accessibility standards. Uh we've been looking at some different solutions. Uh again, mercifully, we're under that 50,000 cap, so
203we have a little bit more time to do that. Uh but we are working that. Some of the PDFs are fairly easy to convert it. As I walked in, I don't know if you guys got uh the PDF for the new account activity. Uh this one would be very, very difficult to make into an accessible PDF. It's handwritten and then scanned in, so you can't really get the text. Uh, and I have like a little bit. So, here's this looks like five of the same text, but when you go and look at them, uh, like the blank space matters. So, this top one just has a bunch of leading spaces here. So, if this was in a text reader, the text reader would say space space space 20 times before it got to your name.
204Uh, this one is kind of the same except it has six tabs instead of 20 spaces. This one is center justified. Uh, this one has a fixed indent margin, so those would just start reading. The one at the bottom is a picture of text, which happens a lot. uh it seems like it wouldn't but whenever you take a screenshot of something and cut and paste it into a slideshow or a presentation that is now like unscreen readable at all. So all of these you can highlight the text. So basically anything you can highlight a screen reader can read it. If you see something and you can't highlight it uh then that isn't readable to a screen reader. >> And this isn't just an Urbana problem. I'm part of multiple different school district groups across not
205just the state but across the country. This is a an issue that a lot of districts are are working through um and re-educating themselves on best practices and um reviewing their websites. I have um colleagues who have gone through full audits when they get flagged and that's really what we're trying to prevent. We don't want to get to the point where we're flagged and then we have someone coming to audit our all of our documents and um that's a big headache. So, we're really just trying to stay ahead of what the requirement is and meet their deadlines so that we are in compliance. >> Yeah. And so over the summer, once we have this tool, uh over the summer and the fall of next year, we're hoping to leverage some internal and potentially again uh
206university interns to kind of work on uh up converting these uh older documents. Uh, as with everything, we'll be providing training for staff on the smart sites and we'll be providing training for staff mostly director level who present a lot of things or admin assistants who post a lot of things on how to kind of scan to make sure their documents are accessible. So, at least future documents, uh, we won't have to work on this again. Oh, dang it. Sorry. So many buttons. Uh so real quick, this is kind of a little preview of what the smart sites looks like. Uh it meets by default all the WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards. It uh will tell you if your colors aren't uh high enough contrast. It has built-in line height, color spacing, font sizes, and alt
207tags. All the things that you need to make your site uh compatible. But this is kind of what it looks like on the left side. And it does uh integrate really well. There's a lot of synergies with the Parent Square app. So posts from Parent Square can go directly to the website and you can have website content integrated directly into Parent Square. So really a great uh opportunity for us to keep both of those. So do you guys have any questions? >> Go ahead, Jennifer. So, is this process the reason that some of the documents were taken off of the website, the board documents? >> Yes, we've been curating and looking at what we have and so the 13 previous years uh is not really a standard practice of what other districts do and there's
208really no way that we can go and update 13 years of documents. Uh, Katherine does an amazing job. Uh, but like there's a lot of demands on her every day and even with an army of interns, it's an overwhelming amount of documents to go back and look at. >> But did didn't you say that they wouldn't make you go back and do historical stuff? Um I have to admit I have used the documents from previous years when I'm preparing questions for the board >> because I you know I don't have a good memory and I think oh well when did that happen or whatever and I have gone back not not 13 years but a year and a half and um so it would be nice to have those accessible Because if I can't do
209it myself, I would have to what? Ask you to find it for me. >> It would be nice to have them all accessible. But there's so many documents going back. We can't make them all accessible. So, we have to make some choices here and there. >> And the new guidelines, we do have to clearly archive the old content to make it very in a different kind of area because it can't be on the front-facing. Um, okay. It has to be clearly labeled. >> Um, on the current site that we have >> it's challenge it it's kind of a challenge to kind of figure out how to do that which is why we started exploring. Like John said, the site that we have is kind of cobbled together in different pieces. Um, that was created before
210I I began in Urbana. Um, and there's no real um, checks and balances for accessibility on it right now. and I can provide you with some more links about all the standards and the whole uh government guidance from 2024 and you can look at it a little bit more. >> Yeah, you don't you don't have to do that. I I trust you about all that stuff. What I'm saying though is if it could be as you're going through this process, if it could be archived in such a way that people could access maybe two years or three years, I think that would be a good thing and it wouldn't have to be on the top page of of the website. just if >> that's something we can look into in the redesign and again review
211what's >> and I understand that this is a huge job. I mean, I'm not >> I'm glad you mentioned that because the HR I mean um Katherine's a department of one >> and for her to have a responsibility to do that. Um she's my neighbor in the office like she's my office neighbor and the demands of this position are growing every day and to to ask her to do that is really um unrealistic and I don't want to lose her from the district. Just putting that out there. >> [laughter] >> And a lot of the legacy documents are they really were PDFs of of like scans that there's just no way to possibly convert a lot of those documents to be u compliant with this with the current standards. >> Jennifer, what type of documents
212are you talking about? >> Um well, when we were discussing different topics, um I went back and I looked at some of the board meetings. Um, >> talk about minutes of meetings. Is that what you're talking about? Or presentations? >> Presentations. Okay. Presentations. And actually, I looked at the board the video of the board meeting. That's on >> board meeting videos will remain wherever they are right now. >> Oh, okay. >> And they will have the presentation and they're also all captioned, so we don't have to do anything extra with all those videos. So, those will be there for you. >> Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, that was that's that's helpful. It's just I did look back at um I I look back at a couple of Joe's presentations and when I was trying to figure
213out about when grants were ending and stuff like that and and was that presented and so um I'm I'm just saying it was useful to me as a board member. >> And I think prior to 2021 maybe was when they're on UPV. Those are still accessible on the up TV site. Uh >> they're accessible on our website as well. They should you should still be able to get all of the board videos through the board page. Those >> Yeah. But not the documents. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Isn't part of what we have to do and I and I think I know Katherine did a lot of research for this too. We're one of the few districts where you go into the board page and it takes you to a Google Drive. A lot of districts
214are using like a another way to host their board documents. >> Correct. And that is has caused some issues um with people accessing our documents. Um and how they're stored and how they're searchable and and how they're um able to be received. Um that that was something I noticed when I first started. That to me was not a typical practice. >> Yeah. And I have trouble with Google Drive. I have to admit I love it that Lori sends it to us in the email. And so I I know this is a hard job. I'm just saying that if it could be done just for a few years because I don't want to look back. >> Also, just to be clear, your email copies of all those documents are not going away. Email >> attachments are
215not uh regulated by the federal laws on web accessibility. >> So you can still email stuff to people. You don't have to make sure it's all accessible. So >> the documents that are required to be available which I think is we can again check on that. I think it's agendas and minutes going back a certain amount of time and certain documents from uh the finance department and HR department going back for a certain amount of time will be available. I just want to >> everything we're required to have available, we'll make sure is available. >> And some of those required documents have um if they're in PDF format, I have to go in and pull out the content and make um one kind of workaround to the PDF um accessibility is if you have it
216one way on your website that's accessible, then your PDF can be linked with it. then that's kind of creating double or triple work for me or I'm spending hours kind of copying text and and putting it into a new format. And so we really just kind of want to the key takeaway is does it really need to be a PDF? Does it really need to live on your website like answer the you know ask yourself a series of questions and then if the answer is still yes run your PDF through all of these checkers and make sure that it's correct. Um, but yes, everything that we're legally required to have posted is still posted and will still be posted >> of, of course. And I just I liked it that we had the historical stuff,
217but um because otherwise I have to call central office and say, gee, I'd like to find this. But I appreciate that this is really a hard task. Um, but since like I said, if you said that his you don't have to upgrade all historical documents, you could just put them in an archive somewhere. I don't know if that would also be a hard hard job. I don't know. >> Thanks. Any other questions? Sar, do you have >> Yeah, I just have a a comment putting my two cents. A lot of times we see presentations and I assume that they're made by who's ever going to present that day and and when there's a white uh lettering against a dark background, people with the stigmatisms really can't see that clearly. So, if you could just think
218about that when you're creating the new website, I'd appreciate that. >> That is part of the um new guidelines is is contrast and it's a lot of stuff that people don't think about every day. the the different rules or the needs of certain people if they're not the majority. And so, yes, that will be something um and how we lay it out and the colors that are used and um the way it's presented, all of those things. >> So, so I feel compelled to ask and I sorry to do this, but um what's the cost comparison I guess between our current hosting service and uh doing this? Well, we just kind of did a deep b dive on the budgeting of that today. It's more uh believe it or not, our like cobbled together web
219hosting uh WordPress like couple plugins here and there was uh kind of the cheaper option. I will say since you asked, we also had uh several security issues with our website earlier this year uh where it did get hacked a couple times and had like some redirects and links that we got notifications from other people uh that we had to do a lot of additional stuff. So, uh, it is about, it went from about 2,000ish a year up to about, uh, 6,000ish a year. Uh, but it's also like, it's not really a fair comparison. It's kind of going from nothing that we're just kind of holding together uh, with twine to actually something. Uh so and Katherine chuckled because she's been the one wrapping the twine most of the days. Uh so there are other
220costs I would say that are not uh monetary involved with maintaining the website, the number of hours we've spent on security and >> right those are monetary costs. I mean, we're we're getting something for that $4,000, which is uh >> you know, well, we're getting employee time back and and so Okay, just wanted a rough estimate. So, thank you. >> Anyone else? >> All right. Uh thank you very much. Uh we do have action items this evening. Starting off with our consent agenda, which I will read in its entirety. If anybody wishes to have uh an individual part of the of the consent agenda removed, uh we'll ask we'll ask for that at the end of the reading. 11.1 are our minutes from our December 16th business meeting and January 6th study session. 12.2 are
221December bills and checks. Um, ED fund bills for $1.5 million, operation maintenance fund bills for $135,000, bond and interest fund bills for $5.5 million, transportation fund bills for $340,000. Uh, working cash bonds for $43,000, school facility oxy tax for uh $25,000. tort for nearly $8,000, payroll salary and benefits for about $5.5 million and banned adult education for approximately $138,000. There is a list of personnel items uh that were published in a packet that are long, but that's typical for the beginning of a semester. Um administrative personnel item uh approval is also requested and um uh there's also uh request approval for a new activity count for the sixth grade center uh yearbook. Uh does anybody wish to remove one of these from the consent agenda? Hearing no objection, the chair would entertain a motion to
222approve the entire consent agenda as published and read. >> So moved. Second move second. Any further questions, comments, or discussion? Roll call, please. >> Could you tell me what the school facility occupancy tax is? I just don't know what it is. >> Go ahead. >> Yeah, it's it's one that we pay every couple weeks, too. I'd have to Google the exact um Who does it go to? >> Who does it go to? What What does it What is it for? That's all I want to know. >> That's a great question. Let me >> I just was curious. >> It's just part of our um county school facility occupation tax. So, um I'll have to get back to you. Let me look into that. I want to be make sure that I get it specific. You
223kind of threw me off. I was not ready for that one. >> Okay. Thank you. Any other uh further questions, comments, or discussion? >> Roll call, please. >> Member Cheryl, >> yes. >> Member Hixon, >> yes. >> Member Maru, >> yes. >> Member Jones, >> yes. >> Member Langdorf, yes. Vice President Baxley, >> yes. >> President Palowski, >> yes. >> Motion passes. Um, we do have individual action items as well. Starting off with 12.1 which are gifts. Uh Dr. Evelyn Underwood and Bishop King James Underwood donated $200 to the Evelyn Bernett Underwood Music Assistance Fund. Mary Fischer donated $300 to the Urbana High School volleyball team. Urbana Fraternal of Police Lodge 70 donated $500 to the Urbana High School to purchase mariachi uniforms. Quick Shop Urbana donated $300 to Urbana Early Childhood School. Champagne Orbana
224Elks Lodge 2497 donated $500 to the district to assist with purchasing food for kids who may not have food at home. They wanted to make sure kids do not go hungry. CU Church donated 23 coats to provide warmth for students that may be in need of a winter coat. Tim Harton Urbana donated congas and stand to the music to the district music department and uh Cindy and Michael Louie Urbana donated an obo and alto saxophone to be used at Urbana Middle or high school. Is there a motion to accept the gifts and send out appropriate thank yous? >> So moved. >> Second move second. Any further questions, comments or discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? Motion passes. >> 12.2 Two is a resolution abating the tax here to for levied for
225the year 2025 to pay debt service on general obligation refunding school bonds. This is a alternative revenue source series 20110C of school district number 116 Champagne County. So, this is uh something we do every year to um pay the pay our bonds >> to help with the so we don't have to levy for it. So, we abate it so we don't have to charge the taxpayers. >> Is there a motion for the floor? >> Some moved. >> Seconded. Any further questions, comments, or discussion? Roll call, please. Member Hixon, >> yes. >> Member Maribou, >> yes. >> Member Jones, >> yes. >> Member Langodorf, yes. Vice President Baxley, >> yes. >> President Palowski, >> yes. Uh 12.3 is a resolution abating the tax heritage for the year 25 to pay debt service on general obligation refunding
226school bonds. alternative revenue source Siri 20121C uh of school district number 116 Champion County, Illinois. This is the same thing but for the bonds that we purchased in 2021. Is there a motion for the floor? >> So move. >> Second. >> Any questions, comments, discussion? Roll call, please. >> Member Maribou? >> Yes. >> Member Jones? >> Yes. >> Member Langodorf? >> Yes. Vice President Baxley? >> Yes. >> President Palowski? >> Yes. Member Cheryl. >> Yes. >> Motion passes. And uh lastly, the >> it's the same. >> Member Hixon. I'm sorry. I think I got you this first time. I'm sorry. >> My apologies. >> Okay. >> It's it's unanimous. >> It's unanimous. Uh 12.4 Four is a similar resolution um levied for the year 2025 to pay debt service on general obligation bonds alternative revenue
227source series 2024A of our school district in Champagne County, Illinois. So it's the same thing but for the bonds we purchased um in 2024 um for mostly for the sixth grade center. Uh is there a motion for the floor? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Roll call, please. >> Okay, I'll get it right this time. Member Jones. >> Yes. Member Langondorf. Yes. Vice President Baxley, >> yes. >> President Palowski, >> yes. >> Member Cheryl, >> yes. >> Member Hixon, >> yes. Member Maru, >> yes. >> Okay. >> Motion passes. All seven. Uh 2012.5 is a district discipline improvement plan which was presented earlier this evening. Is there a motion for the floor to approve the district discipline improvement plan? >> So move. >> Second. >> Any further questions, comments, or discussion? Uh let's do a
228roll call. Member Langondorf. Yes. Vice President Baxley, >> yes. >> President Palowski, >> yes. >> Member Cheryl, >> yes. >> Member Hixon, >> yes. >> Member Marabou, >> yes. >> Member Jones, >> yes. >> Motion passes. Uh 12.6 is a facilities maintenance grant that was uh presented earlier this evening. >> No, sorry. Uh this is a maintenance grant uh for [clears throat] uh the energy efficiency project at King. Frank, a little context for us, Randy? >> Sure. maybe. Oh, it's on. Okay. Um, yep. Um, this is, uh, to inform the board of a proposed project at Martin Luther King School, uh, partially funded by the facilities maintenance grant to improve the energy efficiency and address the failing mechanical components. Um, this is a priority item from the 10-year survey, meaning it must be done within
229one within one year of the new survey. Um, so we have to do it this year. Uh, This project is scheduled or isn't scheduled but we hope to begin um uh June or early July and expected to be completed by uh early August to minimize disruption to the school operations. Uh the primary scope of the work includes replacing five variable frequency drives um at a total cost of 81,000. The existing rooftop variable frequency drives are not functioning properly and appear to have uh sustained weather related damage. Uh which leads us to believe that the current insulation and equipment were not properly weather uh rated um contributing to premature failure and uh inefficiencies. Um, an additional component to the project involves replacing uh all existing fiberglass insulation uh with new iso board insulation and insulating um
230or installing new aluminum jacketing. Uh it was also discovered that the duct penetrations were not properly flashed. Um this will be corrected as part of the project at a uh with the cost of this portion of the project being $23,000. Uh the final phase of the project includes replacing insulation and jacketing on each unit at a cost of $6,000. Uh the total cost of the project is $110,000. We will use the uh uh school maintenance grant um of $50,000. That's what we're going to apply this grant or apply the grant to would be this project. Uh so a total of out of pocket cost would be $60,000 uh to the district. Um, and these improvements will increase the system reliability, protect equipment from future weather damage, uh, improve energy efficiency, and extend the lifespan of
231critical mechanical uh, systems at Martin Luther King School. >> Thank you for that context, Randy. Is there a motion for the floor? >> Some moved. >> Second. Been moved and seconded. Are there any further questions, comments, or discussion on this item? Roll call, please. >> Vice President Baxley, >> yes. >> President Palowski, >> yes. >> Member Cheryl, >> yes. >> Member Hixon, >> yes. >> Member Maribou, >> yes. >> Member Jones, >> yes. >> Member Langorf, yes. >> Motion passes. Our last action item of the evening is the UHS automation system, which was presented earlier this evening by by Randy. Is there a motion for the floor? >> Some moved. >> Second. >> Been moved and seconded. Um, any questions, comments, discussion? Roll call, please. >> President Palowski, >> yes. >> Member Cheryl, >> yes.
232>> Member Hixon, >> yes. >> Member Maribou, >> yes. >> Member Jones, >> yes. >> Member Langorf, yes. Vice President Baxley, >> yes. >> Um, that's it for action items. There is a call for a future executive meeting at 2 o'clock at central office for the purpose of student discipline. January 23rd is Friday after Friday afternoon at 2 o'clock. Uh thank you for the four of you who are able to do that during the day. Um superintendent report. Okay. So this first slide is what I was referencing earlier. Um this was our first year um doing a kind of a career pathway event for the eighth graders who will be ninth graders next year to help them with the elective course um offerings before they have to choose their courses. So, um, as board members
233know, we did have some incidents last year where we had some low enrollment in some of the elective courses. Um and so to remediate that, the CTE uh teachers and the the CTE department and the art department um collaborated and they came over um three different times on um f um last week, three different periods of the day. And the students came down um on team with their teachers and walked through several different stations. So, um you as you can see, we had a welding station. We had several art classes that uh students could um experience and learn more about some of the business and technical classes. So, it would be way more meaningful now when these eighth graders sit down with their families. Um it was the day before 8th grade curriculum night, too.
234Um, so they did this event at the middle school and then the next day they um were able to go with their families to hear more about the courses uh that they were going to be signing up for. So this was a very successful event. I think it'll be something that uh we continue to do every year. Um the students were excited and very engaged. I think the uh staff members uh really planned some very creative hands-on activities um for the eighth graders to really uh really just have better decision making in the in in terms of the classes that they want to sign up for for next year. Next slide. Um theater standout. So, um I think our our uh uh student ambassadors talked about this, too, but we want to congratulate Brooklyn. Um
235this is a really big deal. Uh the fact that she was able to audition and um be selected to the All State Improv cast um for the Illinois High School Theater Festival. So, they um they it's like a weekend event. They audition in the morning and then they're selected and get to stay and participate in performances throughout the rest of the day and the evening. Um, so we congratulate her and um really excited that she was able to do this. I think the um theater teacher said they've only only ever had one other student who has had the opportunity to do this. So really exciting. >> And Polar Plunge. So, all of you who know teachers and have staff members that you're connected to, I am sure you're going to hear more about um the
236opportunity for you to donate and help them raise money for the um Special Olympics of Illinois. Um the UHS started doing their own um school uh polar plunge I think last year or year before last. Yeah. Um and so that that is back. So this is a great photo of um some uh summerb high school students who will do that um who did it last year rather and then um it will happen on February 27th at the high school. They use a big pool and the students just kind of jump in and out and the uh staff members that do it do the same. And so um any money that you donate will go to Special Olympics Illinois for the UHS team attendance. So um Mrs. Webster and Dr. Nance talked about this earlier in
237regard to the Every Student Every Day um campaign that was kicked off by the community coalition. And so they've created a logo. They have a really cute little jingle. Um I can't wait to hear uh Dr. Nance's u new version of the song that is out there. But the all of it is in fun, but also uh with a real purpose to um make sure that we're engaging our community around the importance of regular school attendance. Um it's a powerful way for our families, our schools, and our community to work together. We have been asking for our t-shirt Sherry. So, as a we got Mrs. Webster and I got a sweatshirt the day they came to take our picture because and we haven't seen anything since. And so we've been asking um we have we
238know our student engagement advocates um are eager and we all just are wanting to promote it and um be able to be unified with the folks in Champagne who are doing this. So if you at at the top there we've got um Mayor Williams is there in the middle um his um uh chief officer I Mr. White is next to him and then Chief Boone um from the police department. So we were we are kind of the representatives for ABAN and we're trying to make sure we get more folks um involved and representing us in this initiative as well. So that's it. >> I think there's a series of FOYAS that were published in agenda that were all processed as typical. Um the chair would then entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. >>
239Second. All in favor say I. >> I go home. >> All right. We'll see everybody in two weeks. >> Two weeks. Thank you. >> Yes.