Urbana School District 116 Board of Education 09 02 25

001Oh, say Luke's running late. >> Okay. >> All right. All right. It's just after six o'clock, so let's begin the study session of our Bet School District 116. Roll call, please. >> Um, member Cheryl, member Hixon, >> present. >> Member Maribou >> here. >> Member Jones, member Langorf here. Vice President Baxley >> here. >> President Alowski >> here. We do have a quorum. I know member Jones is planning on on arriving a little bit late. Um, are there any additions, corrections, or modifications to tonight's agenda? Uh, hearing none. Um uh there will not be a call for an executive session after tonight's meeting. So now it will be time for citizen statements. If anybody here present wishes to make a statement before the board, uh please hand a golden rod sheet that's located in the

002back of the room uh to our recording secretary, Lori Johnson, uh going once, going twice. Uh no citizens wish to make a statement this evening. So the chair will entertain an approval of tonight's agenda as published. >> So move. >> Second. It's been moved to second. Any further questions, comments, discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? We have an agenda. Now, time for our student ambassador's report. Hi, this is our ambassador report for today. Um, so what's happened in the first couple weeks of school? There was quad day where lots of student groups came out and they showed school spirit. There were lots of clubs and sports and extracurriculars and there's food there and games and some community organizations. Um I know basically all the clubs and sports that were involved

003in um were there and so I think it was a very popular event and I think a lot of people showed out and it was very successful. Um on the next slide we have some pictures from the event. Um so yeah lots of students came out. I know lots of people were talking about it. So very successful event for the past few weeks of sports. So soccer got their first win against Poria High School. JV volleyball won against MacArthur and then the golf team got first on in the Oakwood tournament and fourth in the Lincoln tournament. Um so for looking forward the first football game was Friday night. It was very busy. Lots of students were there. Lots of students were on theme. It was very fun. Um and that will continue. Um, and then

004the Tiger Marching Band was in the Labor Day parade yesterday. They did a very good job. Uh, National Honor uh, society induction will be next week and the continuation of the UHS phone policy will happen. Um, as of right now, I think it's going very well. I've been um, almost all my classes, it's been introduced very well and lots less students are on their phones. Um, and then we have started sending out the student survey for student responses on UHS. um we'll continue to send those out, but as of right now, we have uh noticed lots of students saying that they have um lots of adults and teachers that they feel like they can trust and talk to in the building. So, I just thought that was something good that we should know. And we

005will be back in a future meeting with more on that. But, thank you guys. >> Sorry. Thank you. It is now uh time for board reports. I'd like to kick this off with a note of appreciation for Lori Johnson, whose birthday it is today, who works for us tirelessly. There's a little bit of appreciation from the board here. You can collect You can collect it after the meeting, but it's but but thank you so much for everything you do. Well, it's all right. Fine. >> Just picked up a little bit of a >> They're orange. So, >> happy birthday, Lori. >> Um continue with board reports. Um I guess I want to I guess bring up a note uh with there's a change to this this uh agenda this this time around. We're we're starting

006to report the foyer. It's the first time we've tried to kind of be transparent with the public with regards to what our what the foye request processing is is costing the district and I think the administration wants to give a little bit of an update on that. >> Yes. So, um, we need some direction from the board and, um, I know this has come up in recent conversations and so this was our first meeting of the year where we attempted to indicate FOYA costs. Um, as you'll note from the dates that are listed, we are always a month behind in when we receive the lawyer bills. So, this reflects July 1st through the 31st. um which is one of the reasons why um we were not able to list out the uh all of the

007foyas um received. As you'll note, we have the the one um larger uh requested um cost item for Matthew Swift and then Susan as the we've discussed this board members know that Susan Nicholas our other uh Robinson Schwarz attorney handles all of our other foyers. So currently the way they have been um listing that information on our lawyers bills, it was uh difficult for us to tease out out of the four or five other FOYA that Susan um worked with Lori on and with John on um the amount for each one. So instead of listing those four or five, we just lump them together. Moving forward, um we've had conversations with Matthew and Susan and they um from our August bills moving forward will now be able to tease out like if Susan works with

008Matthew on a particular FOYA, we'll be able to know exactly how much that amount will be and then we'll be able to list out all of the FOYA received and the amount associated with the legal costs for each one. Um, we couldn't do that for this first one because we were just trying to show you a structure of how we wanted to list them on the agenda moving forward. Um, and find out if this was an okay way to list them knowing August 1, we will have um either for Matthew or Susan, we will have all of them listed out with that amount because that that's how they'll show up on our on our um attorney bills moving forward. So was this a I mean the way that we have it with just listing the

009name of the attorney with associated with the foyas and then the amount is that an okay way to list it out because remember this is just the legal the time that our attorney spent working through those foyers. not the time for staff which was something else that I think when this discussion happened um with the board there was a discussion on not just how much the cost is to the district but also what's the cost and time and effort from John myself and from Lor Lori. So, we did we haven't really we did not have as of Friday a good way to represent that, but I know John's been talking with Matthew a little more and maybe he has a sample of um you know, if you guys we could show you what we were

010thinking and then you could tell us yay or nay, but let's address the foyer cost first. Is this an okay way to do this once we start listing them all out individually? I see head nods. Yes, Sherry. Yeah, I think that um these names are not a secret because um in the previous um previous agendas they're all listed. >> Oh, absolutely. >> And and exactly what the foy is about. So it's not like they're whistleblowers and we have to conceal their identity. Um I think yeah I don't know whether or not it's feasible for as you have a list of each one each foya if we could have a price for each one because there are some that probably may take only a small amount of time and other ones that might take incredible amount

011of time. So I mean that would be nice for us to to look at this agenda. Yes. So if you look at this month's agenda or the current agenda that we have in front of us we have a foyer from a McKenzie summer and then records retrieval. So, moving forward when we get the attorney bill, we would list both of those names and the amount of time that we're being charged for each one. Um, so it sounds like >> each foyer, >> if I could add then just to let you make make sure you're aware, those foyers will be a month behind then. >> Yeah. >> So, if they're completed today, they won't show until we get the bill. >> Right. Just make sure that >> and for the staff uh completion time that wasn't

012listed here because we hadn't been tracking that. So for the month listed for July, we didn't have that for staff time, but that'll also be a month behind. But that'll start coming and I can show you kind of a little sample here if this looks uh except I think you guys just said now let me make it a little bigger. You guys said each FOYA individually listed out which uh we've started doing a tracking system internally for time internally which is a little bit more of a burden on us but we're happy to do that to help give some clarity to the board and the public. So the way John has it listed here, is that a reasonable way that we could we would put it on the agendas moving forward? >> Noting that we

013would list each foyer separately >> separately, >> which we'll also have some a little bit more. We'll probably have right now we don't like number or tag foyas, but we'll probably start giving them each a unique identifier. >> It's hard for Excuse me. It's hard for us to understand and to what's involved because if we get a foyer from somebody who is either a business owner and wants to know every single purchase you made and we don't know if does that take you half an hour just to print it out or does it take you days in order to acquire all that information. So it's good to know that what's involved in a foyer. >> Yeah. And we'll be able to provide that moving forward. Anecdotally the commercial requests that come through for all the

014bills are usually pretty easy. It's a standard thing that we have on hand. It's more of the time is the foyas that are bundled multiple questions into a single foya which is legally allowed. >> Did I get you the direction you need? >> I think I saw a lot of head. Okay. So I think we are moving in the right direction. So thank you for that. >> Okay. Um >> and so the first one with staff time will probably come. This is September. So that'll come at the October meeting. Just so >> November. >> Yeah. Whenever we report just so you won't see it for three meetings. >> Uh continue with board reports. Does any board member wish to give a report this evening? >> I just wanted to tell our student ambassadors that I

015went to the football game on Friday and was served by in the concession stand by the Urbana Student Council and they did a great job. I told them that they did us proud. Um, they didn't get flapped, you know, they they really kept their cool and were very organized. Thought they did a great job. >> Awesome. Go ahead. >> Oh, I was going to ask, do you want me you do your yours and I was going to ask if you guys want me to do the tentative draft board agenda now or do it during my superintendent report time? Either one. Will we do this after report members have given their reports? >> I didn't know Sherry was getting ready to chime in there. >> Okay. I just um had an opportunity today to go to

016the middle school. I had a tour and I believe what they are implementing has been very effective. Having the eighth graders and the seventh grade separated. There were obviously less students in the hallways. Um, I want to show appreciation to the teachers who made sacrifices with moving classrooms because I know that they went to different parts of the of the building and um, you know, and it's all their effort I think is going to make big gains are going to have big gains because it's going to provide a better learning environment and um, I appreciate the fact that they're all into accepting new protocols and working together so that there are high expectations at the school. So, I want to thank um also uh Principal Karns for um um taking the time this morning to

017show me around. I did have the opportunity to go to the sixth grade center, but not during the day. I hope to get there, but I've been there in the evening, and I've I've also seen the excitement of families and and parents um and teachers um to start the new year. So, I'm I'm hoping that to get there so I can see how the students are doing in in the new improved learning environment there. And I didn't get a chance to say this before, but I wanted to thank Randy and you, Dr. Ivory Tatum, for getting it done on time. I know that there are some loose ends and everything, but we had a vision and just kept plugging along and and you made your deadlines and school started on time, so we really appreciate

018that. I also attended the quad day and it was a lot of fun and good turnout. It's good to know about all the different clubs that are available at the school. Um um there really are a lot of opportunities for for students there. And my last thing is the Tiger Market. We did receive an increase twothirds increase um for our amount that we get to spend at the food pantry. I mean the food bank. So we're up to $5,000 for the year. Last year we only had 3,000. So we kind of had to stretch um it a little bit and we didn't um stock the adult ed center as well as I wanted to. So we'll be able to do that. And I'd also like to invite, if you're listening, Mr. Mark Petty, who wrote

019a letter to the editor about our new sixth grade center, to come and visit the school. He I believe he lives in Arc Colola and they have 688 students in the district and 280 in the 7th through the 12th grade according to the um according to the Illinois report cards. So I can't imagine that in a lunchroom they have all 281 students eating at one time. So I think the environment that he probably sees there is much different than what we see in Urbana. So I hope he'll come and see our schools. >> Thank you. Any other board reports? >> Can I say something in response to Sherry? Thank you for recognizing all the teachers who had to pack and um because I think I feel like almost every single person in that building had

020to move >> and at the sixth grade center too. But I also want to give a shout out to the facilities team and our summer help because they literally had to move all those people um from room to room in the middle school and then all the classrooms that were moved over. And I know you kind of gave Randy a shout out, but I want to also mention Tyler McKenna and the um our movers who are summer help because it was a huge undertaking to move that many people in just a few weeks. So yeah, and to make it all happen in time for school to start was great. Yes. >> Thank you. One last call for board reports. >> I just got a message from um member Cheryl. He can't make it. I don't

021know if he sent it to you. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate it letting us know. All right. I think we can move on now to discussion of the uh basically a draft calendar for topics for our meetings. >> Yes. So I have been working on this and um I had to meet with our directors who come before you to make presentations. Um and then also taking your um you have a draft in front of you. Um, so I took the conversation we had on June 17th and then the conversation we had in early August and tried to plug all of those topics into a um reasonable um one that my goal is to keep our business meetings as business meetings and not have a lot of presentations um and have more of our presentations fall

022during the study session topics which is where they should be. Um and so this is just a draft. I'm going to walk through some of the areas that you mentioned that you wanted us to discuss just to show that I've kind of indicated them here and then there are a few that I think we're still trying to think through um how we're going to represent those on as a topic. So, um in June Sherry mentioned the cell phone policy where we're doing that tonight. Principal Guzman is here to talk about that. Um, we also had a Sherry mentioned about incoming kindergarteners. So, we're going to have um Kelly Allen come, our kindergarten transition coordinator, is coming September 16th to kind of give a report about the kindergarten transition. We may have to move that back

023a little bit because there is a um kids assessment that our teachers give at the beginning of the year which we gather a lot of information from. um they get so many days, I think it's 40 days at the beginning of the school year to complete that. So, depending on where we are with the completion of that report, we may move that back a little bit, but for right now, we have it as a September 16th um share out from Kelly Allen. Um Paul, we mentioned immigration services and so um I kept that in October where we had our multilingual department come and speak last year um to give our families time and just our community, our university community, everybody a chance to get in and get settled. Um and Lupe is going to take

024the lead on that in terms of um reaching out to some of the many services like we have the McKenley Center on campus, the refugee center, the welcome the just all of those groups to figure out uh what a presentation might look like around that. So we have that scheduled for October 28th. Um Ben mentioning school safety, I have that later in the year. So, if you turn to the back, um I have it with the at the April 7th um safety night. So, that's when we'll do our SRO annual report. Um we'll have our district crisis team report and then I'm kind of calling it Ben partnership presentation with Urbana Police. Um because you had talked about maybe fostering a broader relationship with the um UPD. We can do that earlier um if you'd

025like, but I kind of stuck it there because I thought, you know, we're already going to be talking about district safety and SRO's. Maybe that's a good place for it. But if you'd like us to do that earlier and not wait until April, I'm I'm on board with doing that. We have a school liaison, um one of the lieutenants, Matt Bane, who sits on our district crisis team. He's like my liaison that I reach out to whenever we have um anything that we need, you know, directly from the police. Um besides our SRO's, you know, I go to our SRO's for most things, but sometimes there are procedural things or um just those higher level questions that they can't answer. So, Matt Bane is our person and he comes to all of our monthly crisis

026meetings. Um, and he was more than happy to work with the chief on, you know, putting together something from their side to come that night. Okay. So, if you're okay with that being in April, that's where I have it right now. And, um, let's see. From August, of course, we talked about negotiations. That will happen in the springtime. Jennifer had brought up the refugee center, but I think we'll we'll plug that in when we talk about immigration services. Um, we're doing AVID tonight. That was another very specific request. Um there was discussion about anou with the park district um on how we use our auditorium. We haven't really done that yet, but um I know Randy and um Maryanne meet with the park district monthly for the pool meetings. So maybe you guys could bring

027that up when you're in one of those spaces with Corki and to ask him if if that's something that is of interest to the park district and um policy review. I know we go through our press policies, but I didn't know how to plug in um if there's specific policies that you um you know, we just can as things come up, we can plug them in as we go. or if there are specific ones if you guys want to give me a list of um some specific board policy review items. So, I didn't really plug those in. >> I think we as a board should look take an opportunity to look at our our gift acceptance policy. >> Okay. >> Because there was an there was a group that wanted to give um iPads to

028teachers, which sounds like an awesome thing. And that would fall under the >> the state legal limit with regards to what's acceptable for a gift for a teacher. but it's not allowed under our current board policy. And I hate to to deny, you know, a staff member access to an iPad just because we haven't updated our our our number in our in our policy in a while. So, I think we should take the opportunity to look at that. >> That's a really good one. Good. >> So, if you think if there are others that Oh, go ahead, Sherry. >> Um, I just would if you can um change the kindergarten transition report, that'd be great. I'm not going to be at the September 16th meeting. >> Oh, well, then I will move it. So um

029you know I'd like to be here. I will watch it but I won't. >> No we want you asked for that as a topic. So you should be here when we present it. So okay otherwise um we have our traditional things in here. You know in October we'll talk about the school report card. Um we have gone through with our exec team folks and directors. So John is going to come in October and talk about um some of our we plugged in some of our strategic plan topics. So, one of our strategic plan topics is our district-wide communication tool. John's doing having some meetings and doing some data collecting now with Katherine, so they'll come in October and talk about that. We have our standard curriculum and student learning presentations. We'll do our homeless report.

030Um, and we'll have a gear update. So, all of our grants, we've got those plugged in in different spaces to um share a report update on the grants. A new one that we added in December is my is our minority enrichment program update. We have a minority enrichment program coordinator at the high school for the first time in three years, four years. So, um I intentionally put that for December to give that person a whole semester to be able to come and talk about what they're doing at the high school. And I paired that with the Gear Up. If you remember, the gear up is that college and career ready um kind of STEM um grant that we have for the next seven years. So, we'll have that person come. We have a staff member

031who's paid out of the grant. So, we'll have her come. She works with um 7th, 8th, 6th through 12. Okay. 6 through 12. I kept the superintendent evaluation around the same time, that January, February timeline, so we can have that done by March 1st. Um, we have our transportation overview in February and we'll kind of give a report around that. I moved up the discipline improvement plan because it is due to ISBY by February 1st. So, we'll do that in January as well. Um, March is reserved for our reduction and force meetings and then if we have any I didn't have any additional presentations to plug into March, but I'm sure something will get added there. Um, and then a new thing this year is uh for our intensive schools. I don't know if you

032noticed DPW is listed here in February and then again at the end of the year. So there's a new requirement um from the state for any intensive schools. They have to present before the board three times a year. So she's already come and presented um earlier in August. And so we will have um Principal Jackson come back in February. and then um she'll come back May 5th. We will have our crisis kind of update in a on April 7th. Um we have our standard renewal contract renewals and all those things um for the business meetings. And then closing out the year, it'll be our typical unsung heroes, the syllabi literacy, student artwork, and then we get into those heavier school improvement updates um presentations. Right now, we have at least two times that we're going

033to try to come before the board to give you an update on the strategic plan. And um we'll do that first semester once and then we'll do it again in second semester. And I just noticed we didn't put that on there for December. So, I need to write that in there. And I think that is it. The only one that um Jennifer we did not get on and I know Angie maybe is gonna Oh, she's here. Um, we'll have some time maybe to talk about this a little bit more maybe with our attorneys, the conversation around the exit interviews. >> Um, we we Angie and I talked about that. we want to talk a little bit more with our because there's just so many um doing a board presentation around that with the the sharing

034of personal information or um so we just thought that was a one we need a little more guidance on before we plug it into >> Oh, I agree. I wasn't really meaning for that to be a board presentation. I just meant it was something for us to think about and wonder and work on. >> Wonderful. Well, that makes me feel a little better because we were trying to figure out how can we do this. So, yes, >> that's not what I meant. >> Yes. Okay. Well, I had it down here to ask a little more, get some clarifying information about that. So, that might be something you could come in maybe and have a one-on-one with Angie about, you know, as we go on. So, okay, good. Otherwise, I feel like we got most of

035the things that you guys mentioned to us. Is there anything that you've thought of since we talked? >> Yes. >> It's not additional. I just want to say that I did watch a webinar on the topic of um evaluating superintendent. >> Yes. >> And it's probably on I went to see now it's probably if it's not online yet it will be it's less than an hour and I would recommend that uh members watch that before the January meeting so get an idea of what's done in the state. >> Sure. You just go to the Illinois Association for School Boards and it's listed as one of their webinars. >> Great. I do want to say just from my colleagues um the evaluation tool that our board uses is much more um is is having the standards

036what what you guys put together in was that 2018ish >> 2017 but yeah >> is more than what some of my colleagues um have I think so it's good information. I don't know if that's why you mentioned that or not. >> Is it effective highly effective or very highly effective? >> Right. >> Okay. I'm going to have to watch that now. You keep my interest. >> Actually, we would appreciate any feedback that that you have on the on the on the instrument. So, >> yeah. And our new board members, this will be your first time using the tool. So, any feedback that you guys have would be really appreciated as well. So, >> I'm appreciative of this discussion. For the majority of my time on the board, we didn't really have like this overarching year-long

037view of what's going to come our way. uh which made it the last three months of meetings like all four plus hours long because we were trying to squeeze everything in at the end. >> So, it's it's really nice to have this uh I think better pacing >> and I said this last year and I'll say it again, this is subject to change at any time and we will have to add things that come up and we may have to move something just like we're going to move the kindergarten one to October and are you here for both October meetings? Okay, perfect. Um so, yeah. Okay, thank you, Paul. >> Okay, uh let's moving on to a policy review. First up is uh press plus 118. >> I'm doing a lot of talking tonight, so

038this will be quick. Um if you look at the first page of your packet, it really is outlining for you the major um reason for this policy review is the Title 9 reversion to um the 2020 regulations. So, um, as you know, uh, shortly after the inauguration of our new president, um, in January that we received information that we were going to be reverting away from the 2024 Title 9 regulations and back to the 2020 regulations. So, we've talked about that a little bit and most of the changes in the policies that you see in Press 118 are because of that. So, what they have to do is, you know, they'd already changed all the language to um to the 2024 Title 9 sex discrimination regulations that went into effect August 2024. Now, they had

039to go back into all of those areas of the um press and change it back to reflect uh 2020 language. So, that was a big reason for the review. Um the other is a new ensuring success in school law. So it is a new school code um for children and students who are parents, expectant parents or victims of domestic and or sexual violence. So there's some new um new policy around how are we getting those students support um making sure that we are getting supports to students that are having um increased mental health um needs or concerns. So there that was a a change in some of the policies. And then um John was excited to see because this was something he's going to be talking with the board about anyway is our guidance or

040our our guidelines for how we're implementing AI and um our artificial intelligence in our K12 um classrooms. And so he's been working with a small group of people and um specifically some teachers on some things that they've been trying out through the technology department. So um that is the other new policies that you'll see related in 118 and John's going to be coming forward to share more about that with the board um soon. So, I don't there weren't very many that I really wanted to spend specific time talking about other than as you'll go through the reason that's why I gave you that little blurb at the beginning is all of the changes that you're seeing are either about Title N about the um mental health needs for students and um basically about AI. So

041there weren't any um really uh concerning things that we needed to bring up and basically I think that is it unless people had um really specific ones. I know the suspension and expulsion one I was going to mention um the if you look at seven page six there's some new language around um suspension review hearings and expulsion hearings um making sure that we are uh doing whatever we can to support students individually and um considering the mitigating factors around why students are suspended or why we're considering expelling them. I know our new state superintendent, well, he's not new anymore, but Dr. Sanders, um, has really been talking to superintendent about expulsion. Um, and there's some new language around um, no longer being able to expel preK, K, and first graders. That was actually happening in

042districts. We I don't ever remember a time where we've brought forward a elementary or prek or first or second grade or kindergartener for expulsion, but um that basically is no longer something that in the state of Illinois that our state superintendent is allowing us to do. So I know that is something that is reflected in some of the new sus expulsion procedures. Um, let me see. That was one that I was gonna Those two were two that I was going to highlight. And I think those were the main ones. Um, does anybody have any specific questions about any of of specific policies that they'd like us to tease out a little more? >> Okay. Well, we won't be Jennifer. >> Jennifer. Yeah. Go ahead. >> Um, yeah, I was wondering um if we have any

043parents, we have so many experts at the U of I >> about um computer stuff. If we have some parents on that AI >> John does have a couple parents that >> I do and some are from the U of I. Yeah. >> Great. Great. And um then the one where it said guidance and school counseling services, it said the superintendent or designate shall annually >> which number of is it? Do you know? Oh god. I don't know. I I I wrote it from that press thing that was that I'm sorry. >> That's okay. >> Um, all school personnel and students 12 years age and older in writing of the availability of counseling without parent guardian consent under blah blah blah. And I mean I I I was just wondering how were how would that

044be even be handled? And it used to be that we couldn't suggest counseling. Yes. because we couldn't pay for it. And I just do they mean school counseling or >> they mean well we have counselors who at our middle schools and our high school and we have um social workers at the other places. So I read through that as well and the way I took that is we can like today we had to do a threat assessment on a student and so when you're in the middle of a threat assessment with a student and they're talking about whatever is caused you to have the threat assessment that's an opportunity where you can say to the student we have a social worker here that you can meet with. We um because by their rules we're allowed

045to meet with a student. I think three times for like 30 minutes before we have to have formal it be in a formal IEP or 504. So I took that to mean that it's telling the students we're not sending out a mass notification to every student under 12 saying, you know, you can meet with a counselor. I I see that to be driven more so through this new um every student succeeding law. like if we see students that are struggling and we're seeing the mental health needs that we can say to a student, hey, we have a counselor here or a social worker here that you can talk to or a clinical professional. Um, and then if the especially for the older students, they can meet with those people once or twice without it being

046formalized in a a formal IEP or something like that. So I I see that to be more need driven when we have a student who's struggling with mental health or or other needs in that way. We can say we have people here who can help you. >> I guess the f the fact that it said in writing it's it's not just telling the student and it's telling the parents. So do we have to make sure that the parents know that the students have the right to this? Well, this >> without the parents being >> I was going to say like we can tell the student that without it going to the parent. So, um yeah, students that are over 12 and that is mostly our middle school and high school students. So, this is more

047so for the secondary level um because that's the only level where we have counselors. Um that is saying to a student in writing, we have people here that can work with you. Um and making sure that that student knows that. Yeah. All >> right. Thank you. Any other questions on on Press Plus? Again, uh we'll be voting on approving these policy changes at our next meeting. >> So, if you think of something between now and then, let me know. >> All right. Uh moving on. Uh we have two public hearings tonight. These always happen whenever we're talking about our budget issues. So, we open the floor up for public the public to uh weigh in on our budget discussion. So, uh, I'm going to now open the floor. Uh, is there anybody wish to come

048forward and address the board with regards to our fiscal year 26 district budget? Going once, going twice, going three times. Right. Hearing is closed. And again, we're we're doing the same thing for the adult education budget. Uh, chair is now opening a public hearing for the fiscal year 26 adult education budget. Does anybody wish to come forward and address the board? uh about the adult education budget. Going once, going twice, three times. Hearing closed. Uh moving on to our study topics. Uh there been a high school cell phone guidelines. Uh does Mr. Guzman, you step away? >> Oh, okay. >> Um you know, we just we'll just move on to Avid then we'll we'll come back to 11.1. All right. Good evening board and Dr. Ire Tatum. Thank you for allowing me to come tonight

049to speak about AVID and how it's implemented um in Urbana School District. Um my name is Jesse Bradford. I'm the director of curriculum and student learning, but I'm also the AVID district director and this is my second year in this role and I'm really excited to present to you tonight because AVID is amazing and um I'm really excited to see it grow and to just inform you on how it's implemented and how it supports college and career readiness and student achievement. So, here we go. So this first picture is a AVID summer institute that we held in Chicago that was held in Chicago and we sent 44 people to AVID summer institute um which is amazing that we were able to do that. Um we sent people from Dr. Preston Williams Elementary um the sixth

050grade center Urbana Middle School Urbana High School central office staff and Tiger Academy. So we had a really good representation and a lot of new staff members that I got trained on AVID. So the essential question that I have is what is AVID and how is is it implemented um across the district um to support college and career readiness and student achievement. All right. So AVID's mission um is to close the opportunity gap by preparing all students for college and career readiness and success in a global society. So what is AVID? So that's what I'm here to talk about. Um AVID is a schoolwide system um which utilizes a framework that like I said promotes college and career readiness for all students. Um, fosters a safe, positive, inclusion, inclusive classroom culture. Creates student centric and

051high highly engaged classroom environments. Supports high expectations for teachers and students. Creates a rigorous learning environment and supports teachers in the use of research and evidence-based high yield instructional practices um that layer onto existing curriculum to enhance learning of any content. So, we're going to talk about Wicker in just a moment, but as you can see here, a lot of these support initiatives that are already being led in the district. So, our portrait of a graduate that focuses on college and career, you can see that aligns to that. Um, a safe, positive, inclusive classroom culture that supports um like our CHAMPS training that we're doing. Um, highly engaged classroom environments. We do that through Wicker. Um, and if you notice in the school improvement plans, um, teachers had to choose a high yield strategy and,

052um, AVID has them through Wicker. So, as you can see, AVID's just not another program. It's just really good strategies, um, that teachers can use in their classrooms. Um, AVID elevates tier one and tier 2 instruction. And as you know, with our data, um, we need to really strengthen our tier one and tier 2 instruction. And AVID can be implemented across all grade levels K through 12. So we have a AVID elementary at DPW. This is their first year implementing. They've also um hired an AVID coach to come in and support them um to lead AVID in their building specifically with fifth grade. Um and then we have AVID Secondary as I said um we have it at the sixth grade center. um and they're going to do AVID schoolwide which means all teachers um

053are implementing AVID. Um we also have AVID elective um at the sixth grade center. We have two AVID elective classes there at Urbana Middle School. Um it is not new. They've been implementing AVID I think for five years and um they also have AVID elective in seventh grade and eighth grade. And then moving on to the high school, um they are in their second year of implementation and they have AVID elective at 9th grade and this year we added it for 10th grade. And Tiger Academy also um has some AVID trained staff and they implement it um with within their curriculum and instruction. And um as you can see here um avid trained educators are closing opportunity gaps. And if you can see here, um, you can see just the rate of where, um, it

054is closing the opportunity gaps. And we know that that's a big initiative in our district is to close the opportunity gap. And AVID is a great way to do it. And so AVID is centered around um, college and career readiness framework. As you can see here, it's really centered around four domains. So the first one is it focuses on instruction. It also fos focuses on systems. Well, so what systems do schools have in place um leadership leadership um I'd like to say that all the schools that are implementing AVID, all of their leadership um building administrators have been trained and so that's really exciting because you need leadership to support AVID. And then the culture um what does your culture look like to support college and career readiness? So, it's based off of those four

055four domains, but um as you can see in here, um in the triangle, it talks about what students need. And we know that students need rigorous academic um preparedness and opportunity knowledge. And then what do educators do? We talk about this all the time with our educators insist on rigor. And we have to provide students with rigor. We have to break down the barriers and identify those um align the work with school improvement like I said the initiatives that we have here and then we have to advocate for our students and all of this is built around as you can see the outside triangle we talk about this all the time and that's relational capacity and so what students need as I just stated students need rigorous academic preparedness opportunity knowledge and we need to

056build our student agency and AVID does this. And then how does it help our educators? What does AVID do for our our teachers? As I said, they insist on rigor. So, making sure that every student is challenged, engaged, and develops a great ownership of their of their learning. That's really key. Um, breaking down those barriers. So actively identifying and work to eliminate um structural and perceptual barriers that limit students access to relevant and challenging learning experiences, aligning the work. So like I said, how do we align that to policies, practices, and beliefs and our shared vision for college, career, and life? And how do we advocate for our students? That's the one big piece of AVID that I love is how we advocate for students. That's a big piece of AVID. And as I talked

057about relational capacity, um, AVID is is is key is big on building relational capacity. I actually did a PD this summer on relational capacity um to teachers across the district. How can um because as we know students really don't learn from from teachers that they don't don't like, don't trust. And so that relational capacity is huge. And so um how we connect relational capacity to build respect, trust and um au authenticity by teaching. So um it really focuses on those four relational capacity skills. And then um so I talked about wicker um wicker is um how we build rigor inside the classrooms. And so we do this by implementing wicker strategies. So wicker when you talk about wicker is how can you um provide strategies for writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization, and reading. And so there's

058specific strategies for those five things that teachers can implement um in their classrooms while teaching. Um, I'm going to do an upcoming P. I did a wicker le uh PD this summer, but I'm also going to continue that um in the fall um for teachers of I'm going to call it how to how to wickerize your lessons. Um, and so that builds engagement and rigor. So, it's really important um that our teachers know how to use Wicker. And I know that um Urbana High School has focus focused on this last year. They're continuing to focus on it this year. Anybody who's implementing AVID implements Wicker. So, um it's just it's good good teaching, good strategies to use inside the classroom. And so, like I said, um DPW is our first school who's implementing AVID Elementary.

059And, um really what AVID Elementary focuses on is developing that growth mindset um with students um in grades grades K through five. um really building that student agency um introducing them to wicker strategies. You can take any that's what I love about wicker. You can take any wicker strategy and adapt it to any grade level um to provide that rier and engagement. And then it really works on partnerships and then horizontal and vertical alignment of how to build those skills starting in kindergarten all the way to fifth grade. Um and it's embedded throughout the school day. And then secondary it looks a little bit different. So we really started AVID at Urbana with the elective classes. So um AVID elective like I said we have it two AVID elective classes at the sixth grade center.

060We have two at seventh grade, one at 8th grade and then one at 9th and 10th grade. So, the AVID elective class really focuses attention for students facing inequities, but it's really for those students that need to be pushed um to excel in honors courses. I think there's kind of a misunderstanding of what AVID elective is, but it's really to to support those students um to take rigorous courses and to help them prepare how to be successful in rigorous courses. And so, um, we in AVID elective, we teach students a lot of skills focused around our wicker strategies, but also preparing them for college and career readiness. And teachers do that. We call them wags. They're called weeks at a glance. And um, they're specific lessons that um, our AVID elective teachers used use in

061the classroom. So, I did AVID walkthroughs today. And in our ad electives, a lot of discussions were like how to be organized. I think that's such an essential skill um that our students need to be successful. And so um they were talking some classes were talking today about how to be organized and they teach them organizational skills. Um another one was through um like time management. Time management is crucial um for our students to be successful. How to manage their time. Um, and another class was talking about using their AVID planners um, for organization um, and really teaching them and modeling um, on how to use their planners. Um, at the high school we did walkthroughs today. They were really talking about homework and how to support that, how students can um, keep updated on

062their grade checks. Um, so there's just a lot and I should have brought it, but I will send it to you. But I can send you like what the weeks at a glance look like for each grade level, but it teaches specific skills um for our students to be college and career readiness. It also builds that family um inside the AVID elective um invit like students exploring college and career readiness. What are their interests? taking them on avid field trips to colleges, bringing in guest speakers, having them do community service projects. So, really just getting them prepared at the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade level to go into high school to take those rigorous courses and to help them explore what they want to do after high school. So, um you have to be invited

063in to the AVID elective class through a selection and recruitment process. Um and so we're working on that. We're working on building that and building numbers on our AVID elective classes. And then um sixth grade center is implementing AVID schoolwide, which means all teachers are doing AVID schoolwide. And so that's what AVID looks like across our district. There's there's an uh sample week in the AVID elective of like what it it looks like. So like um since we didn't have school on Monday and tutorials have not started yet um they were working on the AVID curriculum but usually two days a week are built into tutorials um which is a huge part. It's a study skill. It's really teaching students on how to address a problem or a question that they have in a class

064and then how to come to a solution. But the students do it together and so it really teaches them how to be collaborative and how to and inquiry skills. Um if you ask them that's not their favorite because it's really hard. Um but you we have really focused on that last year how to strengthen the tutorials and our students are getting really good at it. Um and so I'm excited to continue that process this year um with our students. I don't wouldn't say that they're really excited, but um they do a really nice job. And then um Fridays we call choice days. So teachers can implement, like I said, binder evaluation. So they do binder checks to check for organization, grade checks, field trips, um guest speakers, and then like a lot of like that

065community building with a lot of team collaboration and activities. there. That's what I was talking about, the AVID tutorials. Um, the students lead it. We don't have um adult AVID tutors um because AVID really recommends doing peer tutors and it's really good for our students to learn how to work in a group, how to speak, how to think. Um so we are going with peer tutors and last year was the first year that we did peer tutors and it went really really really really well. Um, and so, um, we're going to continue that, but it's just really they have they have to fill out the the TRF. It's called the tutorial request form. Each student does on a point of confusion that they have in class. And then they come up and there's a there's

066a process that they fill out, but the students, as you can see in this group, really help them and ask questions to help them get to their point of confusion and answer it. And it's all studentled. Um it's an incredible process and it prepares our students on how to um when they're in these rigorous classes how to problem solve um in these classes. So I love that we have AVID tutorials two days a week. And so at each building we have a site team. So the site team has a site team plan with goals that are aligned to the school improvement plan. So each each site team plan looks different at each building depending on their needs and that's what they work off of their goals. They set goals usually three um and they set

067goals to work on with the AVID process that they're building. So each each team has a site coordinator and then um they really work on schoolwide change and how to implement AVID. And so that site team is so important. It's so crucial. Um and they they meet um they have to be AVID trained. So they have to attend summer institute and keep up with their professional development um to help to help lead that um across their buildings. So what happens even if you're not teaching an AVID elective but you are AVID trained you should be implementing these AVID strategies in your classroom. And so um what does that mean? We call it avidizing your classroom. That means teacher facilitated learning, college readiness environment, the inquiry, the thought process especially at a higher level uh of

068thinking and how to do um rigorous reading and writing strategies um for our students. And so um in closure um I was going to this is an avid strategy. It's it's a 3 to one activity. Um, and you can share out if you want, but what are three things mentioned today in the presentation maybe that stuck out to you? Two things maybe that you learned about AVID or one thing that you're wondering about. So, this is a strategy um that we would use. It's an inquiry strategy um that we would use with students maybe to close out a lesson. So, I'm presenting to this to you now. So, if somebody wants to maybe share out a three, a two, or a one, >> please use your mic. Jennifer, would you use your mic, please? >>

069You have you have to teach me how to do this. Um, you have classes that are AVID elective classes and so that's one thing. and that teachers who are not teaching in the AVID elective class use AVID strategies throughout the class. >> That is correct. I would let's give her snaps for Jennifer for sharing out. Thank you. Anybody else want to share um a three, a two, or a one? >> One thing that I'm wondering about is there is there an opportunity for us to go and visit an ABIT class? >> Absolutely. Um I can send you um schedules um because uh we do AVID walkthroughs um monthly walkthroughs. Our site coordinators do it, our principles should be doing it. And then we have an AVID district team that consists of um Dr. Avery Tatum,

070myself, Miss Deacon, and then we have an AVID coach um Jesse Knight that comes in once a week to work with our AVID elective teachers and our AVID trained teachers. So, I can send you a schedule of like when our AVID elective classes are and um maybe those who uh are AVID trained. So, you could you could um go in and visit. I highly recommend it. >> Give them like another week or two to get routines and everything set. Yes. >> Um could I ask a question also? Um, I was wondering the AVID classes, are they only at the M did are they at the middle school level or the middle school and the high school? >> The AVID elective classes. >> So, they're at the sixth grade center, the middle school and the high

071school. >> And the high school. Yes. So, >> um, since to graduate you need, you know, so many credits and there's so many credits and that, where do those credits fit in? So, um, it fits in as an elective class, but that's one of the things that we really want to to grow and focus on because, you know, as they begin to become juniors and seniors, they really have to make a choice. And we don't want AVID elective to be a choice for them. We want them to be it to be an elective class that they choose um, every time because right now we only have a freshman, sophomore um, and then next year we're looking to add a junior class and then the year after that a senior class. And so, um, we're looking

072to build that, um, at the high school. >> And it used to be that, you know, like sort of organization skills and things like that. We started kind of in elementary school. >> You can definitely start it in elementary school. Yes. >> And, um, so this is just improving on those skills, I I take it, or >> really really focused. And I did notice, did I see in the report that at the middle school or the sixth grade center, you were focusing on those um middle level kids. Did I see that in there? >> That's that's our goal. So our goal is to prepare students for rigorous courses when they get into high school. And so usually when you start an AVID elective in sixth grade, you continue to be an AVID elective um until

073you graduate um high school. So, but sixth, seventh and eighth grade, but it is those those students you usually that aren't confident to take those rigorous courses, but are so capable of taking those rigorous courses and so to put them in avid elective to boost their confidence on how when they number one encourage them to take those rigorous courses and two how to support them when they do take those rigorous courses. That's really our goal of our AVID elective. I'll I'll finish off your activity. I learned that you do peer tutoring, which I think is really awesome. I remember like doing well in college in math, but I didn't really understand it until I became a math tutor myself and had to try to explain it to somebody else and really think, okay, well, how

074does this actually work? So, I that's a great opportunity and it opens up a whole other part of your brain to to really understand things at a deeper level. The thing I am wondering about is uh what specific metrics are we looking at the high school to kind of show that the investments we're making in AVID are paying off? I mean, are there specific goals with regards to like uh breadth of students who are taking and passing AP classes? I mean, what specifically are we looking at as >> So, that's a great question and that's like I said, this is only my I'm going into my second year, but those are things that we should be looking at. Number one, the our AVID enrollment for our elective classes and looking I was just looking at

075this the other day. Um, the students who are enrolled in an AVID elective classes should be taking a rigorous course. So looking at that um to see how many students that are in AVID elective for 9th and tth grade and making sure that they are enrolled in a rigorous course. Um so we're looking at those numbers currently and um once they get like to the senior level, we look at how many um went to college went to college, how much scholarship money because that's a big focus their junior year is looking at how to apply for scholarships, what scholarships are out there. Um so there's senior data that we have to collect when they get to be seniors that we have to turn into AVID and look at. So there are there is data that

076we look at um specifically more towards like senior year but currently we look at like our AVID numbers how because that should really model your class size numbers. So really around like 24 anywhere from 20 to 24 students like so we're looking at who's in AVID and how they're doing. We have um a process too of grade checks um but we also hold a high standard for them attendance behavior um and if those students aren't following those or meeting those then we meet with them like on a contract and we involve the parents and we provide a support system for them. >> Anyone else? So when those students who were in AVID in in the sixth grade center in the middle school and they're going into high school, they would meet with guidance counselors and

077pick out their classes. >> Correct. >> Um and so those counselors would know that they had been in AVID classes and then would be um telling them about the more rigorous classes that they should be taking and but it's not required of them. Is that how it would work? >> We want it to be required of them. That's what we're working on. >> Oh. >> Um, and our AVID counselor, our counselors are AVID trained, too. So, we train our AVID counselors of like what to look for and what students to look for. And students can't should not be able to drop from an AVID elective without going through a process. Um, we don't want students to drop out of AVID elective. We want them to continue through it. So, we wanted to make it really

078hard for them to drop out of AVID elective. Number one, we don't want them to. We wanted them to see the mean the meaningfulness of being in it. Um, but we we want to make the process hard for them to drop out of AVID. >> So, the goal would be as sixth graders and middle schoolers that we're building their confidence enough >> that by the time they're at the high school, they know their potential. They know they I can take an AP prep class. I can be in these higher level classes. >> It's okay for me to be smart around my friends and things like that. >> I can go to college or I can pick a really good career path, right? and we we give them avenues to explore that and um that's a

079big focus at the high school is exploring that college and career readiness through the AVID elective. I wish all students would take it. It's so good for all students. >> Great. Any other questions? >> How long did you say it was it's been implemented the actual program? Two years. >> No, so it started at Urbana Middle School. I think this is their fifth year of implementation um with AVID elective, but um like I said, this is only my second year coming in and we're just really looking at strengthening the process. Um and my goal is to add more AVID elective classes and to fill those seats because um we have so many students that I think that are un I'm going to be honest with you that aren't identified that should be an AVID. And

080so that's really that's a district goal of ours is to look at the recruitment and retention process. Um that's a big goal. We were just talking about that today. How do we recruit more students to be an AVID elective because I think there's a lot of students sitting out there that should be avid elective that we haven't identified and how do we retain those students? How do we keep them an AVID elective? So, Lola, it is year five, but we've had we've had new administration come in. And so, um I think we all have um realized that we probably should be further along in five years, um at Urbana Middle School than we currently are. Um but I think we have put some really intentional supports in place in the last two years to help

081us um move further along. Um, so I think unfortunately there just been so many other challenges happening at S. It has not allowed the AVID structure to really take hold and really have the benefits that we really hoped it would have. But I think now we're seeing that. I think more parents are talking about it. Staff members are having their AVID nights. Um, Jesse went around with the counselors to talk to all the fifth grade classes. >> Um, and at the sixth grade AVID night, there were a ton of parents there. So just seeing it growing um in the last year or two is really great. I think we were just we were doing it but um we weren't really seeing like to Paul's point, we weren't seeing the benefits in terms of student learning

082in terms of our students getting to the high school and taking more rigorous courses. You know, was it impacting our graduation rate? Were we seeing more students go to college because they've been an AVID? And so I think now we have a more systemic program from for 6 through 12 that we will be seeing those benefits. Um so I know saying five years >> we honestly we should be further along than we are but I think there have just been a lot of there's been new principles new new teachers. You know our eighth grade aid elective teacher was phenomenal at she moved out of state and so we've had you know we've just had those kind of changes. We get people trained >> and then they move to go somewhere else. And so, um, hopefully

083we have a really good team now. I think 612. >> Um, Jesse's phenomenal. Um, she's provided so much leadership and her knowledge of AVID. Um, and I think we have trained administrators at the high school now. >> Um, so they were uh they came to us from AVID demonstration sites at their previous district. So, they brought a lot of knowledge with them about AVID. So, we're just seeing it start to filter into everything that we're doing where it isn't just that oneoff thing where nobody really understood what it was and people thought it was a reme a remedial program where is as far from that >> as you could possibly get. So, >> and that was my question. This was pertaining to high school um because I did have a AP student that was in

084high school and it was very easy for him to say I'm just not getting it and I'm just giving up. So, I'm just really glad to hear that there's been, >> you know, >> that is a great example. That's what we don't want. And we want students to be in this AVID elected to help support them >> get through those those AP classes, those honors classes, those rigorous courses, right? >> Um to to have those skills to be able to be successful in those those courses. >> I really appreciate that. That was that was pretty much what the question was because it was so easy for him to say, "Oh, I'm not doing this." So, >> my goal is to have a wait list for AVID elective to to where students that's what they want

085to choose for their elective and we have a weight list for our AVID elective classes because I want students to say I want to be in there and that's that's my that's that's our overall goal really is to to build to build that up because it's such great skills. >> Um, as a parent though, um, AVID's been around since my kid has been going um through middle school, >> but it was not really promoted. Yep. >> It wasn't talked about. It's unfamiliar. He is now in high school. He takes AP classes as well. And it's still not being talked about enough. >> So, I think being more informative with parents >> um and giving them the knowledge as as well so they can speak with the students about it so that they have a choice

086instead of thinking that it's just a boring class. Yes, that is part of um our I love that you mentioned that because that is that is part there's a lot of parents I think that don't know about it or have a misconception about it. The same with our students. So that's part of our um AVID recruitment plan um that we have included in there is how do we inform parents um of of AVID elective and how do we inform students um because that that was a part that we saw that was missing or just needed be needed to to be an area for us to grow. So, we're thinking of like um our AVID elective students like doing promotional videos and then um especially for our incoming sixth graders, but also at the high school

087finding a way to connect this information to give this information to all students because that's not being communicated. Um so, that's something that we have recognized. How do we communicate that to parents? How do we communicate that um with with current students and change that misconception? Yep, you nailed it. >> Anyone else? >> I'd like to see um the numbers >> for what we what has happened over the last five years. So, because if if kids had if it's been there for five years, we you know, and then we could do a comparison. And so, I think it's important for you to do the numbers for now. Mhm. >> You know how how many AVID kids did take the higher level courses, how many kids the AVID kids did go to college, how many kids

088and then see as how that changes. >> Yeah, we have to track that information and turn it into AVID. So, we can share that with you. >> Anyone else? >> Um, I would just like to agree with what was said previously. I don't think as a student I've heard much about it. Um, and I don't honestly really know much about it or the classes. So, um, but it is something I would like to more to know more about. Um, so I think it could be better um, like shown to the students and talked about so we know about it more. >> Yep. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that perspective. >> And thank you. Anyone else? All right. Thank you so much for this great pres. >> Thank you everybody. >> Uh, it's now time for

089study topic 11.1 Rena High School cell phone guidelines. All right, I think the mic's on now, so apologies. Um, I stepped away um and you guys went through the public comments really quickly, quicker than I anticipated, so apologies for that. Um, I have Miss Hines joining me um this evening. She is one of my assistant principles at UHS who is over student engagement um discipline at the high school. And so um since we're here to talk about cell phones, it's natural that she joins me for this conversation. Um so we'll jump into it. See here. Oh, back. Nope. Back. Back. There we go. Okay. All right. So, um, uh, recognizing the need for, um, a cell phone policy update. So, teachers actually started the conversation with the administrative team last semester, um, which I actually

090really applaud because that tells me that the staff is comfortable enough to come talk to us about a need in the building, something that they're seeing, um, that they would like to see a change with. And so as a staff, we collaborated on the issue. Um, and with that, we talked about what exactly it was that they were seeing, what was the the primary issue. And it just comes down to the lack of student engagement in the classroom, right? Where we are seeing cell phones becoming a distraction um uh to learning. And that is the heart of what we needed to correct with that. Um, simply because we see that we have clear achievement gaps. we see that we are not where we need to be with our student growth. And so this is something

091that on a joint venture um we went through um the last half of last semester with to look at okay what exactly we need to do to update the cell phone policy. And so together at a few staff meetings we reviewed several policies from several surrounding districts that recently um upgraded their policies. Um, so we looked at Champagne, we looked at Decar, we looked at Springfield, we looked at Bloomington, and we actually had them pulled here from the staff meeting. We looked at all of them to see what they did and to see how they strengthened the cell phone policy. And so together as a staff, we really pulled out the most important pieces of it. And then um we did ultimately land on a new policy that we took back to the staff um

092worked with them, also took it to the student ambassadors at the time, student council leadership at the time um to really get their take on it, their voice on it. And then um we started really looking at um rolling it out this summer, which we put in some of our summer communication. Um and really at the heart of it is we're really looking at focusing and valuing instructional time and also with that with students being in high school teaching students how to monitor and use their technology as well. So this is u the policy science. Okay. Um and so when we wrote the policy we wanted to make sure that it provided um wiggle room. so to speak. So, um, so I don't think I mean I'll read it. It is the expectation that students

093will not use electronic devices in the classroom. Um, cell phones, earbuds, etc. Students are expected to power down or silence their phones and place them away for the period in their pockets, book bags. Um, some of our teachers do have designated spaces and places in their um, classrooms where they do um, have kids put them in like um, it's kind of like a big box and each one is individual. Um, they have keys. So there's a security measure or two so that students have don't have to feel angst about their phone walking away. Um teachers teachers will remind students of the cell phone policy which is listed in their syllabus. So all of the teachers were expected to have it in their syllabus and reinforced with a daily reminder at the start of each period.

094Students will be allowed to use their devices during passing periods and lunch. Um and then we did have a caveat that we put in and teacher discretion may be used to allow individual students use for educational purposes. Um we also discussed for example um we have had students in the past that do use their cell phones to monitor some health um considerations such as um blood sugar. So we wanted to make sure that we gave teachers the power to say hey you know what this is a really good tool for what we're doing today. let's all use our cell phones if it's necessary or if a student maybe doesn't have access to their Chromebook for whatever reason, then it provides an opportunity for that teacher to still connect with the student and make sure that

095they have access to their learning. So, it's not simply a everybody put it in there and be done. Um, because we do know that that we do have teachers that use technology and have navigated it quite well with phones. And so, um, the one other piece that we also wanted to make sure is because teachers were like, "Okay, and so what do we do if and when a student chooses not to follow the policy?" And so, what we made sure to do was have a leveled system um for a multitude of reasons. So, the first is a warning from the teacher. Hey, Jessica, put please put your phone away. Remember our policy in my classroom. Um, the second offense is, you know, a phone call home from the teacher so that they're automatically building that

096communication with the family and before it becomes a larger issue. Mrs. Hines, I really want to help Jessica focus on her learning and her phone has has become a distraction. I've talked to her about it, you know, at least once and unfortunately it's still a struggle. Can you please help me help her? Um and then the third offense um is another phone call home by the teacher and a referral is written which goes to the dean and then the teacher should be calling home and communicating home um especially because of the referral which is part of that process. Um in instances where we end up having repeated, you know, misconduct with phones, we have um some other measures in place, but um it says that exceed those mentioned previous um include but are not limited

097to additional restrictive consequences and or the loss of cell phone privileges in the building. So, we wanted to make sure that our students because this is new, it's hard. Um, I think that all of us have some level of I don't know if I want to say addiction. Um, but you know that security that we feel with that phone on our hip or in our hand. And so we recognized that this was going to take time and I appreciated that our teachers recognized that too. Okay. Do the first one. Okay. And so just an update on how things are going. um and why we've kind of done some things the way we've done them with the cell phone. I kind of hit this one, but it was very important to us that students had a

098chance to reset. This is new. We wanted to make sure that we provided an opportunity for the kid and the excuse me, the student and the teacher to say, you know what, sorry, Mrs. Science, that's my bad. Put the phone away. I hear you. Without it being a further issue, without it taking up class time, without it, you know, we're just we're gonna Hey, put the phone away. we're gonna move on. Um, so that was a big piece because like I said, it's it's hard. You know, they use it they use their phones for so many things um that we really thought it was important to give them a chance to to to save face, bounce back, reset. >> And this polishing ensures consistently um across all instructional spaces because we really did spend a

099lot of time opening days um to really work with our staff on we gave the clear structure. we have the policy in place and so rolling out with um CHAMPS the district initiative on classroom management that our staff received six hours all teaching staff K through 12 receive that and so what we did was um with the stoic framework from CHAMPS we have the structure we have the new policy that is really rooted in um you know you know this is step one step two step three but it also is heavily rooted in relational capacity and Abbott strategy of okay teachers is really working with our students, understanding that, you know, this is the expectation in class, teaching our students. And so it goes to the stoic framework again, the structure. So now it's teaching

100the students, teaching the students what is acceptable, what's not acceptable in the classroom because this is a skill that they're going to need for life. I'm just going to be real um with using cell phones, right? When is the time to use it? When is not the time to use it um for that and they need to learn that measure because um when I've gone through classrooms this year, I've done several walk walkthroughs. I've seen not as many cell phones out. I've seen a lot of teachers actually taking the time to teach the expectations for cell phones and I've seen a lot of cell phones in use that are used for educational purposes. Just the other day I popped in the orchestra room. They were using their phones with an app to calibrate their um

101instruments. And so that was an an appropriate use for their cell phone and then it went away once they once they got that right. And so it's teaching our students the appropriate use of it because again to me that's a critical skill for our students to have for life. Um and so but with the clear expectation to help teachers that here's step one, step two, step three, and if they continue to break the rule, then we have measures put in place where they will not have access to their cell phone. And um so so that's something that we're consistently we don't have any students yet that are uh at that point, but when the time comes, we have a plan in place um for that. And so, um, we also really are appreciating the, um,

102ability for staff to have open conversations with families if and when that need arises because as Mr. Guzman was saying with all the training that we're receiving and really building that capacity with the student and their family. Um, one thing I've noticed moving from a middle school to a high school is the difference in the amount of communication from teachers to families. um as a former middle school teacher myself. Um but I think this is a it's a smart way to open conversations with families and it's not hey your kids not following my rule. It's I want to help your student succeed and I need your help because this is what's going on. Because a lot of times we will have kids you can't I'm talking to my mom and and you know they can

103end up in my office and I'll be dog gone. They show me the phone and yeah their mom is texting them like crazy even though mom knows they're in school. So it also helps us to bridge that conversation with families as well. Um and to date we have only had three uh actual referrals. So, three instances where students have gotten to that point where they have been reminded or warned numerous times. And so, I I feel that it's not perfect. Um, you know, their cell phones and and their kids, but I I think that our staff is appreciating that we heard them and that we worked together and collaborated together to create a policy that really helps build our students understanding of appropriate usage and appropriate times. And I did uh talk to our UAA

104building reps. They have had no feedback to date, nothing negative, nothing that has gone wrong um with the cell phone policy. And I've gotten some student feedback. And there is some grumbling a little bit um because some of our teachers um they're not used to it. But at this point, I'm okay with that until our students get used to the new stricter policy. Um because again, we're in school to learn. >> Sorry, that that's it. Okay. board members, any any or ambassadors, any comments or questions? >> Um, I've definitely noticed a lot less cell phones in classes or just a lot more structured, you know, don't have your phone on now and at the end of class we have 10 free minutes, you can pull your phone out. Um, which I do think that's a

105lot more beneficial. And I do know of some classes that do have the boxes and I think that can be really nice just cuz I think it can be, you know, kind of tempting like if there's not much going on. Um, so I've definitely noticed a um increase in it, but I do agree it's not too too strict where it's, you know, everyone's there's no leniency for it and um I think teachers have been pretty understanding with it so far, which has been really nice. >> Yeah. >> Awesome. >> I agree with what Mia said and also I think teachers are like really enforcing it. I think like previous years they were like lenient and they still are lenient but like specifically like in like instruction time or like weren't supposed to be working they

106really focus on not having phones out and also like they're consistent every single day which I think helps with because if every single day you're have the same expectation it's easier to meet that. >> Thank you Dr. Ivy Tatum for that CHAMPS training for our staff. That stoic framework really does help with that structure and teaching um students basic behavior expectations. >> How much push back are you getting from parents if any? >> Not really. Just some questions regarding being able to use it for medical purposes um like an a student with an IEP, a student with a 504 and we were able to work around that work for alternatives or if it genuinely needed to be in there, then we wrote it in. >> Okay. Thanks. I'm wondering about the um the the two

107warnings. The two warnings, do they have to be within one class since nobody knows? >> I gave this kid a warning and then Sherry gave this kid a warning. >> Yeah, it it's within the classroom. Um you know, again, that's you know, for teachers, not only to to do that with that structure, but it's again, you know, that building that relational capacity with the students. It's all about how you do it as well, right? And so it just gives the students those multiple opportunities. Now, as we start to see the referrals come in, you know, when we get that, then that's really where we track, okay, this is happening across the board. And then ultimately, um, we they will have to give up the cell phone when they come in the building. >> And it's

108also nice because we can track that data as well. So that if let's say Jessica's only having that issue in her math class, that gives the place for the dean to start that conversation. Hey, I noticed that you're not having a cell phone issue anywhere else in your day but math. What's going on? How can we support what's really going on in math? And um I will say it opens the door for yes for kids to be vulnerable, but um to frame it from a a a an avenue of support. Why are you having difficulty in this class? Are there is there somebody bothering you? You know, do you struggle in math? like so it's um and I have seen some of our deans having those conversations and it's again building more and more capacity

109to help us then communicate with teachers and families how we can we support your student. I was getting questions during the summer. They were anticipating that a polic parents were anticipating that a policy was going to come out and they wanted to know when when is it going to come out? How we're trying to improve communication for all of our um programs here in the district? How did you start communicating with parents? >> As soon as the roller happened, so I think around July 25th, I started rolling that out to families in some summer updates. Um I did it in three or four of the summer updates. Um >> so emails. Okay. >> Yep. emails. >> Um, >> are there more tardies because of it? >> Um, I would I would have to double check

110those numbers. We did start our tardies earlier >> this year than we have in our previous two that I've been there. And that was um strategic as well. Um, but I I have found that >> um because stu most students aren't communicating throughout their class period, they're not making the plan. Hey, let's meet over here to have a conversation about X, Y, and Z that came through our Snapchat or our Insta or whatever other app they're using. And they are still sociable in the hallways. Yes, they have phones out. And what I've also noticed is when kids are using their phones in the hallway, yes, of course, some of them are texting, but a lot of them are listening to music. >> Um, which I think is a a natural coping mechanism for for for

111many of us. Um, but I've actually seen more responsiveness in the halls and um, I would like to hope that that's part of that reason. >> Okay. And um, you might have said this, I might have missed it, but what happens when there's a referral? >> It depends on the level. The first time it typically is a conversation with the the dean um, what's going on and then um, a consequence could be assigned detention. um we re really want to uh move away from you know exclusionary practices time up you know in our RU or a suspension and so that's why it it's ultimately going to lead to um them having to give it up and um and I'll say it use a yonder pouch um we did purchase some they're they're ready to go

112um for when students get to that level >> any other questions thank you so much >> I just want to say It's long overdue and I'm really glad that somebody's doing something about it because it was time and change is hard. But yep, if you don't make the change, you don't know. >> Yep. Absolutely. And you know, we'll see how the how the school year goes and if if we need to go stricter um for future years, then that's the direction we'll go. >> Yep. >> And we do the deans and I do meet um bi-weekly and so I am getting reports from each of them. maybe each with each of them bi-weekly. And that is one of the things that we always discuss. How are you getting more of these referrals? What types of

113communication are you getting from families when you are calling? What's you know the support look like from the the family end? And thus far, knock on wood, I don't know if this would, but we have had families thanking us. >> So, it's it's a good feeling. >> Yeah. >> Right. One last call. >> All right. Thanks again. Right. >> Thank you. >> We have four administrative reports this evening. Uh first up is a memorandum of understanding between the school district and the park district first about Splash. Uh Tanya Deakon is going to present for us. >> Good evening. Thank you for allowing me some time tonight to review the memorandum of understanding. I don't know how much you watch grant funding this past year. It's been a real interesting ride for things as far as

114um how we can roll out which grants when. It is exciting that title two came through a couple weeks ago that funds a lot of our professional development and so that one has now arrived. So we're very excited. On the meeting tonight looking at the memorandum of understanding. A year ago, I met with the park district to talk with them about a grant opportunity. We have a grant that's called the afterchool program grant. We've had it every year for several years, but they opened it up to non-public school facilities to apply for it as well. So, I had asked them if we could work together to create this grant and be able to roll it out knowing that funding was going to be getting tight. We don't have our ESSER funds anymore. the amount of

115title is kind of being chipped away as well. So, they agreed they wanted to partner that way. We both also see huge value in giving our kids opportunities after school, especially at the uh six, seven, and eight grade levels, keeping them engaged, getting them involved. So, the park district, we took our model from years ago when we were handling the grant and we reworked it so that it looks similar to what you've seen in the past for those of you that have been on the board for a while. It outlines the financials. What I appreciate about the grant is on page two, there's a section that talks about the program goals and objectives. And we've committed to each of those goals. The first one we would go ahead and we have already have our data

116from MAP testing, MClass, and HMH. So, we can use that information to determine are we making growth with our students academically. We also want to make sure we're trying to contribute to the success of improving our attendance rates. And part of that is they have to be in school during the day to be at the program. So we need to make sure the program is engaging as well that they will want to continue to be there a few hours after school. The third talks about fostering positive relationships. That is something on our panorama survey that we complete with all of our students. And so we'll use that data as well to see are they building those relationships? do they see themselves wanting to be at school? Who are they connecting with? The fourth goal talks

117about enrichment time. This is where we have the fun classes. The park district brings in a lot of those for us. Last year, we also partnered with ACT. It's an afterchool program organization and they provided us tools to be able to do a steam unit alongside the units that were taking place from the U of I and from the park district. So, we had some variety with those different pieces. they want to continue parts of that as well. Goal number five is at the close of each session, we need to check and see how is the attendance looking and what are the needs that we might need to switch up a bit as we head into the next session. And goal six is programming staff will provide professional development to support um effective implementation. Um

118basically they will have some staff from the park district that will help in sessions. The ask from them was if we would be able to hire certified staff here in the district to assist with classroom if there's behavior or little things that come up or just to support them as they're working with our students. What we've come down to at this point, it sounds like a lot when you hear $116,800. The grant itself goes for and Dr. Preston Williams and Martin Luther King. So, we have three schools that that money goes out towards. we have to look at we they wanted we started with the dream of having four sessions six weeks each four days a week that was that was double the budget so we had to step back for a little bit and

119what it's looking like right now is we would start October 27th which is a little bit late but that's something we're working on as well if we can start to do anything a little bit ahead of time um but we have three sessions October 27th through December 12th uh January 26 through March 5th and then March 23rd through April 30th. We tried to work around all the natural breaks that are in a school year calendar so that we can try to retain as many students as we can within the programming. Um I have not heard yet about the school district after school programming grant. We do tend to use that one more so in the summertime historically, but that's something we have to look at too if we want to make sure that we're trying

120to get a program into all of the school buildings. This is just one step. Do you have any questions about this or the programming or >> or members ambassadors? Any questions about the programming? >> Um so, uh this says that um the grant will pay up to $75,000. Yes. >> And we're going to actually have $86,000. >> So, I mean, obviously that means uh we're kicking in. If I don't have the money, then we have to stop with parts that we have to go. That's why we need to meet every six weeks, if not a little more often, just to make sure our numbers are falling into place the way that we need them to. >> A nice problem to have would be is if we have a couple hundred students staying after school to

121participate in the program, and we'd have to figure out another way to be able to make sure we keep extending that service. >> Okay. And this was a discretionary grant that was scheduled to end, right? This is a grant that's been available off and on and honestly we applied over a year ago and it was rolled out in November but that they put a challenge to it so everybody had to stop. It was intended to be for last year. >> So this year is now when it's rolled out I want to say was it January or February when they announced that they were going to unfreeze it and then we had another pause around May but then by June they told us we could go ahead and get rolling with that one. So, it's been

122an interesting year. >> Yeah. I just meant um some grants like the um the one Tiger Academy had, they they say, "Okay, you you get it >> in 2020 and you can reapply for two years and but after the those three years are up, >> you don't get it." Was this what that was originally? >> Not a discretionary grant. >> That was a TW. This one is a competitive grant. >> That's what I meant. Yep. Competitive grant. Yes. The one that we are we have the opportunity for each year is not competitive. They come back to us with the money and then we allocate it usually for summer, but this was competitive for non-public school organizations >> and so we partnered. >> Okay. >> So, the Splash program meets every day after school. Is that

123correct? Historically, it's been Monday through Thursday after school until 5:30 each night. They have dinner at 4:30 each of those evenings. Okay. >> Uh problem I don't know if it's problem or an opportunity. Um when we take a look at Mondays, because Mondays are when our buildings have their faculty meetings and one of the things that I hear a lot about is they want me to make sure we get as many volunteers as we can to supervise the kids during that time frame so staff can go to the meetings. And so when we were looking at the costs and where was it we did not want to eliminate the program that was the one thing that was the number one. Uh, so what were we going to do to be able to financially afford it?

124So we decided we would and I talked with the principles, Principal Karns, >> um, principal Carr, um, Principal Guzman and I haven't talked yet for his afterchool program, but they, um, they really felt strongly about getting their staff into their Monday meetings. And with all of the PD we've done this year and the new pieces that are finally coming together, I do think it is really important that the staff are there with those sessions. So the only elementary school is Dr. King. Is that correct? >> And Williams DPW. >> Oh, Williams too. Okay. Is there a bigger need than this for afterchool care for our students? And >> in those areas there tends to be Yes. higher poverty level. >> Yeah. So what are they doing between now and October? I mean >> that's an

125excellent question and anything that you ideas that you want to bring this way? It's it's been a challenge, but we have a meeting tomorrow to discuss this further and determine what can we do to start it sooner. >> Okay, good luck. >> Yes, thank you. >> And this will be coming uh for theou be coming back to us for a vote at our next meeting. >> Yes. Okay. >> Y >> So, so yeah, please come prepared to to vote and if you have any questions, I guess between now and then to reach out to administration. >> Any anybody else have questions or comments? >> Thank you. Thank you, Tanya. >> Uh, next administrative report is our sixth day student enrollment report. >> And it really isn't a report, more so a one pager. You should

126have I'm looking for my copy. Oh, here it is. You should have a one sheeter that just has um numbers on it. And this is a spreadsheet that we have been using. Every year we add a year and we drop off a year. So prior to adding 2025, we had data from 207 2007. Um we've been using this as long as I've been in the district. So over 20 years. Um one thing I shared with Paul um as an idea of something I wanted to broach with you guys tonight is times have changed since we started doing the six day enrollment. I think years ago it was a way to see um how we were reg registering students, where students were enrolled, just kind of what everyone classically, you all probably did the same thing

127when you looked at this form to see, you know, which building had more students and which building had less and where we lost and where we gained. Well, when we started doing this, and I don't know when we started it, I could go back and probably find the original spreadsheet, but it's been over 20 years for sure. um times since then, we have a lot more um school code guidance and a lot more rules and rags around dropping students, around when we can drop students. Um and so I would like to propose I'm sharing it tonight because it was it's something we've always done and I didn't have guidance from the board to not continue to do it. Um, we do not drop students who are kind of like a um, no show up, like

128they have been registered, they're still active in our system, but we're not allowed to drop them until after their 10th day, after our 10th day of school. So, um, when you look at this data and look at our differences from last year to this year, um, it looks like we have 126 new students, um, mostly at the secondary level. Unfortunately, also at the secondary level is where we have the most students who have not shown up for school yet. So, um and until the 10th day of school, we're not allowed to do anything except call, email, um go out and do home visits. Um we are required by the school code to do whatever we can to try to contact families. Um unfortunately, there are families who they were with us last year. they may

129have moved somewhere else and they don't know, oh, I actually have to go to the school and withdraw or I actually have to go and tell them that I we're not coming back. And so, um, we're not allowed to do anything in terms of, um, removing those students from their classes or dropping them until after they've been they've not shown up for school at least 10 days consecutively. So, our 10th day of school was actually on Friday. So, um they have all of our uh uh office staff and our principles received emails from me um after the sixth day, probably Monday or Tuesday of last week saying, "Hey, here are all your kiddos that we don't see attendance for, but they're in Skyward. They're registered. They're showing up as active. We need to do whatever

130we can to figure out where these kiddos have gone." And so, for the last few days, that's what they've been doing is they've been reaching out via email. Um, unfortunately I was at the sixth grade center when they were calling a family and there was no parent guide the parent guardian number one phone number didn't work. Parent guardian number two phone number didn't work. Grandma's phone number didn't work and we finally found an uncle who doesn't even live in state who happened to answer the phone who was listed as an emergency contact. So, it really is a challenge. um we're required by the code to actually note and when when I come back and do the uh fall housing report is when I get to share with you guys um after our our um fall

131housing data is turned in at the very end of September like October 1st, September 30th. So by that point we have a really good idea of where everyone has gone. We know if um we know how many students went to private school, we know how many students went to uni. we know how many students went to um Ranul or Champagne or who moved out of state because those record requests start coming in. Um there are a lot of districts like Chicago public schools that don't even start until today. So, so we probably won't start getting record requests from CPS until another week or two. So, um, so I I I'm giving you the data for what we have right now, but just know that, um, when we come back and do the fall housing report,

132that this will look a little different. The positive thing is that we're not showing negative numbers. We do have a, um, an increase of at least 126 students districtwide um, and 97 at the secondary level and 29 at the um, K5 level. So, that's that's a positive because our our growth has been pretty stagnant and just kind of flat in the last couple years. Um, but again, I wouldn't put a lot of, you know, um, making decisions or going around really talking to principles or schools yet about their numbers until we're able to come back and really give you better data, um, just cleaner data around what our real growth number really is. Um, and in the future, you know, I said to Paul, I'd like to just recommend we don't even look at the

133sixth grade date, sixth day enrollment report anymore. Um, I'm happy to come back and do like a 10th day enrollment when we know we've dropped some students and then we can come back and do the fall housing again um in early October like we usually do. So, are there any questions about um I think these are the numbers that we basically predicted. Um, you know, we give our principles projections. That's what Maryannne uses to make her budget decisions. Um, we kind of project the number of students we're going to have at every level. I think our projections were really where they needed to be. Um, and we just kind of have to wait now for another week or two to see how many students we drop. And on the flip side, another reason why this

134report also is has been a hard one over the years is just like I just said CPS started school, a lot of our schools in the in Illinois that start after Labor Day, we also have families who are in our community despite our efforts in sending emails and despite the news and the news gazette and everybody in our community saying it's back to school time, we still will have families walk in this week who say, "Oh, I didn't realize school has started and because that Labor Day is sometimes a trigger like oh it's Labor Day school must have started. So um on the flip side while we may drop a few students we also are going to pick up a few students this week and so um I think after we have another week or

135two to see where we get record requests and find out more about where students who haven't shown up might be. Um, this is kind of where we are right now as of the as of last Monday. Tuesday, Monday was our sixth day. Um, but we'll have much better data for you in the fall housing and um, a 10th day report. So, are there questions or areas of concern that anyone wants to I know um, I heard someone mention Yankee Ridge earlier and Yankee Ridge is pretty much right where we thought they'd be. um they ended the year with about 520 and so um they may have um a few more students. Now it says a difference of 51 but remember when they started the year they were under 500 and then January after the um

136we had some immigration shifts um we registered a lot of new students at Yankee Ridge from January through March. So that that is where some of that surplus came from. Um sixth grade center is right where we thought we thought we'd have 319 actually. So 307 is um a good place to be. I think the last time I checked their numbers they were about 325, but that also included some students who haven't shown up yet. Um it's great to see some pluses at the high school, but again um the high school had a long list of students who have not shown up yet and we you know we are kind of trying to figure out where they might be. So >> I think I'm more concerned about the class sizes >> and I know that

137that will be coming late later but to start yet but to start the school year with a very full class is probably as challenging. So I'm I'm more concerned about that than >> right now school. >> So um I know out you'll get that report. They do we do a August September combo but as of right now we don't have any classes that are right at or beyond the class size adjustment level which is fantastic. So, um we don't have any class size adjustment TAS that are um in use right now because um we they're really balanced for the for currently. >> Yeah. What was the number of um students when we did all that redistricting um stuff? the we received graphs that showed the optimal number for students at a school and the number

138>> that we shouldn't go over. What was that the number we shouldn't go over >> it was different per building? >> I was going to say it depends on the building >> for for I know that. Yeah. But for Yankee Ridge, >> so Yankee Ridge has 28 classrooms. And so when you think about um that compared to a building like King that has 15 for example, right? >> Um that is why you see 526 because they can handle they can handle more they have more classrooms. So they have more, you know, they have 20 students per class. So that's why their number is a little bigger. Um, I don't have that chart in front of me, but I could we could pull out the redistricting report. But again, based on the projections from our our

139uh demographer, I think we are still pretty spot on. John, would you say based on the numbers that we had from RSP? >> Okay. >> it's all been really consistent. And so, again, we haven't run all the 26 numbers because we were waiting for drops today. Yep. So, but we can report a little more later on 26 numbers. >> So, I'm glad you asked about that. So, when we do the fall housing report, we can show that chart from the um yeah, from the redistricting report to I know last year we were pretty spot-on with what um what RSP gave us in terms of their demographics. Um, and I mean I don't see any reason to think we wouldn't be there again this year, but we have to wait and see till we do all

140the drops. >> Going back to the question as to whether or not we should continue with the six day report. I it doesn't really matter to me. I like having the historic numbers in general. Um, so whatever, you know, if whether it's a 10-day report or the fall housing report, as long as it stays consistent and we've got a historical reading of how the buildings have been filled over the past x years, that's, you know, all I would really care about as a board member, but choosing arbitrarily the sixth day doesn't really matter much to me. >> Okay, anybody else? All right. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Right. Um, moving on. Our next administrative report is 12.3, our fiscal year 26th budget discussion. Maryanne, >> thank you. I know you guys are really just ready

141to go for it, too. So, all right. Will you be my clicker for me? Are you >> okay? So, tonight I'm going to be presenting the final budget for fiscal year 2026. And just as a little disclaimer, the budget is built on well-informed assumptions using best available data and financial trends. So for this uh presentation, we'll walk through a review of FY25 performance for the ED fund. Um key budget assumptions and highlights for FY26, a breakdown of ED fund revenue and expenditures, a summary of all fund balances, and finally, we'll have some time for discussion and questions. So as of June 30th, 2025, which is when the fiscal year ended, our revenues exceeded budgeted expectations by approximately half a million. This was largely due to increase of EBF funding that we received and um our

142geothermal credits. On the expenditure side, we went over budget by just about a million. And a significant factor for this was the Profina tax settlement. it was not anticipated in the FY20 budget and we ended up having about 3.7 million of the 5.3 come out of the ED fund. Um despite that with the timing of property tax payments and the conclusion of the proven settlement, the ED fund is in a strong position starting FY26 with a balance of approximately 17.8 million. And you'll see on your guys's um budget summaries, we just took off that proina piece. The tiff um three will no longer be there. Uh so let's look at some of the revenue assumptions for FY26. Property taxes, which make up about 70% of our total revenue, is based on a 2.9 CPI increase

143and an estimated 7 million of new construction. And this should bring in about 1.8 8 million um of additional funds into the ED fund and we're continuing to assume a 99% um collection rate. The district will receive an additional 32,000 in vocational funding from TIFF 4 this year. However, TIFF 4 will expire in December. So, this will be the final year for that specific revenue source. However, we will be seeing the increase in the EAV due to that tiff expiring. Um, so you'll be seeing a balloon levy in December because we're going to want to make sure that we capture that additional EAV. The state has approved its FY26 budget and that included um increased allocations for EBF. And since our district is remaining tier one, we are anticipating an additional 933,000 and EBF funds.

144And all of those funds currently go straight to the ED fund. We are budgeting a um $100,000 decrease for corporate personal property replacement taxes, which is uh CPPRT after seeing inflated CPPRT um in FY22 and 23, 24 and 25 drastically decreased. And so we're just kind of adjusting what our anticipated revenue is going to be for FY26. We've also budgeted uh 950,000 in a one-time energy incentive um related to the solar projects at Thomas Payne and the sixth grade center. This is an increase of a 100,000 from last year. We budgeted 850,000 for these incentives. Um but it is a one-year only. So next year you will be seeing that about a million dollars coming off. On the expenditure side, salary and benefit increases are based on the collective bargaining agreement and board approvals, which

145totals about 2.88 million, which included about 160,000 for medical insurance. After consulting with our electricity broker and reviewing past data, we're projecting about a $60,000 increase for utilities. And sorry, I'm making sure I'm watching both things. Uh and then with the district's share of the indoor aquatic center or the UIC, the operating loss is going to be 299,000, which is 43,000 higher than last year. This agreement runs through April 2027. And so this is just our portion. The park district also has their portion of it, too. Um they have a new uh director, Rachel, um who's been in place since May, so we're going to continue to work with her on how to make on strategies to mitigate these ongoing losses. Um debt service is showing three payments for this is fund 30 for um

146budgeted in FY26. One of these was paid on time and it was paid on July 1st, which has historically been made in the prior fiscal year. So, moving forward, you'll see just the two payments instead of the three on your um on your budget summaries, but due to the Brevina payments and some unknowns, we paid on July 1st this year. And so, you'll see a little bit more of a cost on that. The transportation rates increase 4% um through our agreement with first student. Transportation is a mandated categorical which means that we must provide it and the state has to reimburse us but we don't control what the state's reimbursement rate is. Um facility sales tax receipts are projected at 4.7 million in revenue and 3.8 8 million of this is transferred into debt service

147for payments on the bonds that we have. So we have series 2010, 2021, and 2024. In FY25, the district issued approximately 23 million in construction bonds for the sixth grade center as well as an additional 3.5 million in working cash bonds. And those working cash bonds are what supports our technology and summer capital projects. The tort fund is seeing an increased expenditure due to higher insurance premiums and legal fees. Um, and then we're also budgeting approximately 146,000 for life safety projects in FY26. Here is your summary to kind of it breaks it down by your um fund balance, the projected budgeted revenues, your expenditures, whether or not there was a surplus or deficit, and then your projected fund balance for the end of FY26. This is also in your handouts as well. And then uh

148on this slide you'll see the highlights of our revenue sources. Um this is basically just highlighting the fact that most of our revenue in the ad fund comes from local resources which would be like property taxes. Um, and then our state funds are about 25%. And then this slide breaks down your um expenditures for the ED fund and where the majority of those things are going. and I will be bringing the final budget for your approval on September 16th. And I know I gave you a lot of information there. So, do you have any questions? >> Gor members, any questions? Go ahead. >> Um, in when you gave us the tenative budget summary in June, >> June 3. Y >> um it was 62,54 602 62 million50 don't I wish it was 62,000 62,54,62 and

149then this time is 62,755941. >> Okay. >> And I was wondering why it was so much more. It's um I71,000 dollars more. And the reason I was asking is I I when we had the meeting in August, >> it was mentioned in conjunction with um salary increases for substitute teachers for that when we have um we haven't hired a teacher yet, but they're a new teacher. we figure they're going to be a new teacher, young teacher that we generally um put in $65,000 as the um pay. >> Okay. And um but that just rang a bell with me. And um I went back and looked at all of the sixth grade center um graphs that we were given and it said that only it said that new teachers were um coming in at $60,000 instead

150of $65,000. So if those nine new teachers, I mean that would be $45,000. >> Yeah. >> More. So the I mean just the sixth grade center alone, that's a fair amount of money. But if you looked at all of the teachers, >> I was just wondering did that change? Did the number change? >> I can speak to this a little bit. I think it was May we were given the $60,000 number for the sixth grade center teachers. >> I think the best response to you in in this context is you're it's it's all a good guess, right? So you're taking the information that you have at a moment in time and making a projection based off of it. >> Um in May we had less data that was as it wasn't as accurate. So now

151I mean the numbers here is still a very educated guess. That's why that was the first thing I led with. It's you're taking information um salaries I looked on August 19th and then I looked to double check something on like August 23rd and the data had already changed based off of people coming in and out and just updating >> the system. So, um, these numbers are going to be more accurate because in May I didn't have as much information. >> Okay. But I guess what I'm asking is if you don't know what teacher is coming in to that spot, what is what is the number you plug in there? >> Well, you know, we're going to hire a teacher, >> so what is the number you're going to plug in there? So, um, that was

152a conversation that Marian Maryanne and I had in the last couple weeks. And so, there was a recent meeting where I remember Dr. Iber Tatum saying that we had that I think she said and she said it as a question. She didn't say it as a statement. Um, I remember her kind of saying, you know, we budget six, do we budget 65,000 for a teacher? And so Carol Bakers last year, I can't remember if that year we had been budgeting 50 or 55,000 for vacant teacher positions. And so um we increased that to the 60,000 just because we need to increase as time goes along. And then when I was speaking with Maryanne, I said, you know what, I kind of want to increase that a little bit more just because we don't know who

153we're hiring and I don't want to fall short, especially with medical costs. um we've had some different um incentives in terms of matching year-over-year on the salary scale and so that was adopted in the last contract negotiations and so I kind of wanted to have a safeguard that's what what she and I talked about and so that's another reason why the number has changed and we can't predict who we are hiring but we want to make sure that we have budgeted an amount if we come in with hiring more experienced teachers >> okay so the number did change over from May to June. >> I don't I mean >> from May to August. Yeah. >> Me saying, "Do we do 65?" I remember >> I remember I remember you kind of and I didn't chime

154in because I didn't figure it was my place, but I wanted to chime in now since I've been involved in these conversations because it was just kind of a >> a statement. It wasn't a factual thing. It was just a >> like, hey, I think this is what we budget for that. >> And allowing for more is good. It's better to be conservative, which is the approach that we've always taken over >> the years is to be as conservative as we can be. Um, >> which is also what I think what Maryann has done. >> Yep. >> Yeah. I mean, the preliminary budget was about a 2% deficit in the in the operation ed in the ed fund and this is a little the refined is a little less than >> than it's a little

155more than 1% now. has shrunk a little bit and that and I think we're still being conservative. I mean I think that's part of why um is still showing up as 43,000 as a deficit. So I'm I'm not horribly concerned about that. We've had we've entered most of the um the years I've been on the board with a bigger projected deficit. Things usually come in a little better than that because we're so conservative in approach both with regards to our expenses and our revenue. >> All right. Any other questions? >> All right. Thank you very much, Mary. This will this will be again an action ite on our next agenda. >> I was wondering if the transportation costs co include the cost for getting kids to and from the middle school in the sixth grade

156center or is that just the transportation to school for everybody? It is the 4% increase is what is projected. We have not included any additional routes um from last year. So this is the I so I don't know if I'm understanding the question. >> So that does not include the cost for the activity bus. >> It doesn't include the cost for the activity bus. So we'll be giving that >> to add in the gas we pay for it. Other than that it is this is just yellow buses and empty. >> The activity bus would come out of and m right. >> Okay. Okay. And I was wondering if the cost for Tiger Academy is in here. >> It is >> um >> for the portions that are not covered in the grant >> for Okay.

157Because I thought that we didn't get the grant this this year. >> We didn't. But we've said multiple times um knowing that the grants were going away, we'd planned all along to bring in a Tiger Academy, those four staff members into the district budget, which is why we were doing some of the shifting at the high school level in terms of looking at those courses that we um we moved some teachers from the high school who were able to go into vacancies that we had at the middle school. So that saved us um those four positions. Um, so we were able to bring the Tiger Academy for staff members into the district budget >> knowing that the grants were going away this year. >> Right. And I what I would like I was and that

158is that was a discretionary grant where if you get the grant, you know, in three years you're not going to have the grant. And so I think when we have those discretionary grants, I would like to request because Dr. we melt did tell us every single pre presentation this grant is going away but when we were thinking about expensive purchases and things like that that was not top of my mind and so I think that's an important thing for us to know and to keep top of mind when we're making our decisions because we knew that before we voted on the on the sixth grade center for for example We knew that was going to happen. And so, um, I just think I'm wondering if this if central office couldn't make a list of the

159discretionary grants that we have and when they're going away and let us have a list of those so that we can like I can keep them in my folder. >> Sure. >> So that >> Well, good thing we don't have anymore. So, the only grants that we have now are our state grants, our federal grants, and we don't have any >> all the discretionary grants that we would have had to pay for staff, our um those were only here at Tiger Academy, and we don't we don't have them anymore. >> Okay. >> So, we have our state grants, we have our title and federal grants. Um, is that right, Marian? I don't think we have any. We have a couple small little community. >> Well, we have a couple of those city of Urbana >>

160small um >> programming grants where you pay a stipen for something or but they're not paying for people's salaries. >> That's what you're talking about, right? Just grants that are paying for people's salaries. So, the only grants that are paying for people's salaries are either our um title grants and I think that would be it. Our title >> I think. Yeah, because title two I think is not >> title two is all PD. So the only grants that pay for salaries are >> title and those are federal funds. So we don't have any more of those currently. Doesn't mean we won't continue to write them when they become available. Um but finding grants that are going to pay for salaries right now in the grant climate that we're in are pretty far and few between.

161So >> I would prek, sorry to interrupt, but prek the prek for all grant. Thank you. Yes. But that is also still a state that's not a discretionary grant. is a state grant that we >> Yes. >> If we didn't get the PreK for all program, we would be having a really conversation. Yes. That's >> that's not a that's the truth. >> Right. No, I was amazed at how much that 60,000 to 65,000. That's why I asked you at that meeting how much because and then I looked back, but that increased the operating costs quite a bit. So, um, I thought, gee, districtwide, that would have increased it quite quite a bit more. >> We'd want to ste sticker shock. Just wait till we sign our new UEA contract. It's going to, you know, have

162a huge impact on our 26 27 budget. It's I mean, looking at what Champagne is paying that they the Champagne passed their passed their their contract just this last week, and I believe the first year was 6%. >> Uh, whereas, you know, we ours is four and a half this year. And I love I mean I wish we could give six, seven, eight%. But um we're going to have to like >> and they capped it at six probably because they had to for TRS. >> Yeah. purposes. >> Oh, right. That's right. Yeah. They can't go beyond six, but they were basically they basically maxed out their contract. So we're going to have um heavily increased expenses next year. So enjoy this year while we have it. I think one thing to just share how what

163a task this is for Maryanne is part of what she does with HR is she's not just plugging that 60 or 65 number in she's looking at every single teacher who left every single teacher who took that person's place how much we are paying them and that is the number that you are looking at so we don't know that in June but we know that right now like we know every single person who resigned and left and what who their replacements are and what their replacements make. So, we're not making an educated guess about those things anymore. The only things that we're making guesses about would be vacancies and long-term subs. Um, but we've plugged in every every person who replaced someone with their real salary. So, it isn't a, you know, 60 to 65

164number. It is what they what we're actually paying them um and what their insurance costs might be. And so, she's able to take real numbers. That's why it's so hard to do this in June because it's all made up like in terms of we don't know who's leaving. We don't know who's coming back. We don't know who's going to leave in the summertime. But by this point, we know who's teaching. We know the butts and the seats. We know who the long-term subs are. >> Um we know where we have openings. Like we have teaching assistant openings all over the district. So we have a you know we have a um we have placeholders there because we don't have people filling those positions. But as soon as we hire someone then we put in their

165actual salary. So yeah. So I think this is a much more accurate >> definitely. Yeah. >> than what we would have given you in June because we've actually plugged in the actual salaries. So >> and if you ever want to meet and go through it with me, you're more than welcome to. >> I was just wondering about the >> Yeah. I mean any other questions? All right. Again, I'll be prepared to vote on this in in in our next meeting. Uh our last administrative report this evening. Thank you for your patience, Shauna, is the adult education budget. >> All right. Thank you for having me this evening. I'm going to go through our budget and also I have this is the time of year I usually do our kind of a brief overview of our

166outcomes and our goals for the coming year so that you all since we don't do a typical school improvement planning process. Um I give you an update at this time as well on that. But I'll be I will be quick because I know it's been a long meeting. Um I think you have all of this in front of you. um my outline. I just want to highlight a few things and then I'll take any questions about this portion. We also had quite a journey this summer. We were told that we were getting our federal monies at um in June. We were told that they had been allocated signed off on that they were going to come to us. And then on the last day of the fiscal year at the end of the day at

167like four o'clock that afternoon, June 30th, we were told, "No, sorry, you won't be getting them. they are on pause and under review, which was a little bit um harrowing because as you can see in relation to the money that we get from the Illinois Community College Board, which is our primary funding source, that was a pretty big chunk of money that almost $135,000 is a big portion of our budget. So, I had a lot of um sleepless nights, I guess you could say. Um but thankfully a few weeks ago that money was released to us um finally. So I was very excited that it happened before I came to present our budget. Um it is about a decrease of $1,800 from last year. Um and that's not based on anything we have or haven't

168done. And that is just a a result of whatever money the state has from the federal government that they then distribute to programs. Um and actually $1,800 less is is a win in a lot of ways compared to the cuts that we've had in previous years. You'll notice on there that we do not yet have the IE um the federal civics grant. However, we have been told that the state does have that money from the federal government and they will be releasing it to us. We just don't have the amount yet. So, I did not include it, but I am very hopeful that we will get that. Last year, we got about $52,000 from that grant. So, if we get that again this year, that will be very helpful. Um, and then our state basic,

169you can see the amount there. It's about $5,000 less than last year. Um, our performance money went up about $1,300 because, as you'll see in a little bit, our outcomes are increasing. and they do that performance um formula on a three-year rolling basis. So, as these years continue to pass and our higher outcomes are in the three-year window, that performance money will hopefully continue to increase. All of the other expense or sorry, revenue that you see below that is pretty much what it was last year. Um the only difference is that we are not partnering with the universitywide this year for the citizenship grant. They for um various reasons that aren't related to anything we did, it's just more political and things like that, they are managing that grant on their own this year um

170if if they are even able to have it at all. And that was about $7,500, but it really only paid for the instructor. It didn't it didn't pay for anything other than that program itself. So, it's not a loss to um our operations. Um and we we do have still a good relationship with them. So we are making referrals of our students who need the citizenship classes to them. Um oh sorry I didn't know I was sorry about that. Um are there any questions? You can see I have some deficit there. Again, as Paul said earlier, I also um budget very conservatively. Okay, maybe it's my paper on the thing. That was you that time. >> I am not touching it. Um >> okay. Um but if we get the civics money, that will help.

171And it will also help us be able to add a couple of teachers because our ESL class sizes right now are very large. Um, but right now we don't have that money so I did not include it. Are there any questions about the budget aspect before I go on to our programming? Um, you hear lots of things that are coming out of Washington and and such and the last thing I heard was based on not having English language um um classes that are for non citizens. I mean is is was there any followup on that or I would be concerned about that? >> Yes, that would be very concerning. Thank you for asking. We have not gotten official word from anyone that we are supposed to deny service to anyone because of their documentation status.

172Um, I do know of some programs in the state that have proactively um said that they have to check for documentation before they will allow enrollment in their classes in anticipation of the federal government putting that down or making funding contingent upon that. But our the Illinois Community College Board has not definitively said you need to require documentation before you provide service. And so therefore I am not proactively doing that. >> And that's where you get your um your information. That's where you get your directive. >> Yes. Absolutely. Yes. >> I thought state law require required that school districts not ask for immigration status. Is that just K12 PK through 12? It's not for adulthood. >> Correct. >> Oh >> that the Well, let me back up a little bit. the our rules are are

173guided by the Illinois Community College Board and the federal government could say, "We will give you these federal dollars contingent upon you only serving people with documentation status with these federal dollars." And the federal government has talked about that. Um, but there's lawsuits and everything going on right now that we have not been told from our funding source, which is the Illinois Community College Board. I have not been told or given a directive that I need to require documentation in order to serve students. So, I am I have chosen not to proactively do that um because it goes against our mission, frankly, and why we do the work that we do. So if the it comes to pass that the federal government says we have to do that then we'll figure out what we need

174to do. But until then we are moving forward as we always have. Any other questions about the budget aspect? >> Okay. Um just to give you a few quick program updates. These are the programs that we offer. Um, as I said earlier, the citizenship grant, we are no longer um the fiscal agent of that, but we are making referrals to that program when our students um qualify for the citizenship classes. We are making referrals to the University Y when they get their classes up and running. Um we do have we were approved for a new bridge class, a college and career um class, which is exciting because that is a class that is going to help particularly our younger students help them identify what career pathway they want to explore and potentially then move on

175to um once they finish their diploma. Um I also want to make a note that we have partnered with OSF for our clinicals for CNA. We are no longer We're going to hold classes there still and do our labs there, but we are developing a new partnership with Brookdale Assisted Living Center because as you probably know from the news, OSF is changing to behavioral health primarily. And so they won't have the the sorts of beds that our students CNA students will require to learn the skills they need that the state requires them to have. They won't learn that really through a behavioral health setting. So, we are in the process of developing a partnership with Brookdale to have our students go there and we're very excited about that. Um, and United Way helps us fund

176some of our CNA, as you could see in the budget. As Sherry mentioned earlier, we also have the Tiger Market, um, which is very exciting to hear. We'll have a little more funding this year. We also um offer our students bus tokens and we have a parenting class in partnership with CU early um for our students. Both students who are parents are a priority for that but also um students who aren't yet parents but are interested. It's a great class that our students very much enjoy. I just want to give you a couple quick things because this is really important in terms of understanding our data and this year being able to understand how great it looks. Um, our students count in our data set according to the state once they've hit seven and a

177half attendance hours, but they don't count in our outcome data until they hit 12 hours of attendance. Once they hit 12 hours of attendance, they count in our outcomes. And then, but the problem is they can't actually test for the outcome until they hit 40 hours. So, a lot of issues in adult ed with student retention can be challenging because you can have a lot of students come for 12 hours and then we can't find them or they stop attending. They never make it to 40 hours. So, they don't get to take their second test, but they still count in our outcome set. So, unlike K12 where you count students who take a test in the, you know, each spring or you take for MAP, you take the fall compared to the winter compared to

178the spring. um hours, they take the pre-EST and then they're counted regardless of whether or not they ever take a post- test. So, it can really affect our outcomes if we're not focusing on retention and keeping our students there for the 40 hours. Um, students can earn a a level gain by, like I said, increasing their score, a whole g a level gain on the reading test if they're um a high school diploma student or the Kasus test if they're an ESL student or if they're a CNA student and they get their license or if they earn a high school diploma. And the other really important factor for us in terms of funding is enrollment. And this is one huge celebration for us. Um, our enrollment went up significantly last year and that really has

179to do with we don't really recruit, but we do advertise, but also once students walked through our doors and started enrolling, we really did the team did a great job of of trying to make sure they stayed and and you know got to the 12 or 40 hours um eventually. So that's very exciting to have that number go back up almost to precoid levels. One thing that's very unusual in adult ed that all of my colleagues talk about is that it is so hard to increase enrollment and increase outcomes because again the more students you have the more opportunity you have to lose them in between that 12 and 39 hours. Um but last year we managed to do that. We managed to increase enrollment significantly and we surpassed or met all of our goals

180given to us by the Illinois Community College Board as you can see there. Um, in terms of the tests that I explained, the state goal was 41% and 50% of our students made a level gain. And a level gain is usually more than a grade level and it's after 40 hours. So if you think about that, how short of a time that really is that we have and how our students make a gain even in that short time, I think that speaks to the work that our staff do to really give them the skills that they need to start on a path towards better career and outcomes and college outcomes. Um post- test rate is there because again this they look at how many of our students stay long enough to post test. We just

181met that goal which I'm very happy with to increase enrollment so significantly and still hit that 65% is pretty outstanding. And again, I want to recognize my staff and all the work that they did. We had 41 high school graduates last year, which was fantastic. Um, we had 92 students complete either the CNA course or one of our bridge courses. And then our average attendance hours stayed about the same, which is another celebration because again more students but still keeping them there for the number of hours that they needed to be there. And then these are ro our goals for this current year. Most of these are set by the state. Um our enrollment is set by us. I just want to keep increasing it just a little bit. Um, but not get too big

182to where we can't continue to meet the needs of our students. Um, and then those other percentages for the post- test rate and this measurable skills gains, those are set by the state. Um, we want to continue our our bridge and IAPS enrollment, that's our CNA and our bridge um, programming and keep our average attendance hours about the same. I put it a little higher but relatively the st the same. Any questions? >> Was any questions or comments? >> When do your classes meet? >> So our high school diploma classes meet. They can choose a morning, afternoon or evening session. Morning and afternoon sessions are Monday through Thursday and evenings are Tuesday and Thursday. >> Time in the evening. >> 5 to 8 in the evenings. >> Okay. And then our ESL classes also kind

183of follow us the same sorts of sk sort of schedule >> with with adult students having jobs and coming in the evening. Is that a problem with starting at the 5:00 hour? >> It doesn't seem to be we have had a few students that say um they need to come in a little late because they have to drive across town right after they get off work. And we are we have gotten pretty strict about our attendance um rules, which is another reason why, you know, sometimes when you raise that accountability, students raise when you raise the bar, they'll raise to meet it. But we we tell them if you have a job or you have child care issues or anything like that, just let me know and we'll work with you. And so we do

184have students that are allowed to enter a little late if they have >> we've had that conversation where they're they're reliable to keep their jobs, but yes, we want them to keep their jobs. >> Yes. Absolutely. Yes. We don't want anybody to give up their job in order to come to us. We don't want that. No. >> Okay. >> Anyone else? >> I just want to say your numbers this year are absolutely outstanding. Amazing. Amazing work for you and your team. >> Thank you so much. >> I mean, I've Yeah, I'm blown away. >> Thank you. We are too. uh the team. It was so fun when we got together um in August and just to be able to recognize all of their hard work and celebrate the work that they did to get here

185to raise everything so much was just it was really it was fun to be with them and celebrate that. >> Congratulations. >> Before Shauna goes, I was going to recognize thank you Paul for saying that, but I was also going to say thank you for your leadership, Shauna. I know you had a strong vision for where you wanted to take the program, especially the high school diploma program. I don't think anybody here realizes how important the high school diploma program is just to Urbana. Like that 41 is huge. >> That they're not getting GEDs, they're getting real high school diplomas. And that is it's great for our students who just don't survive in a traditional setting and need something like adult ed for lots of different reasons. and just seeing the your your vision come

186to fruition in the numbers and you know one of my favorite sayings is a rising tide lifts all ships and you rose the bar and your staff rose with you and you can see it in the numbers so I want to thank you too for your vision as a leader >> thank you I appreciate that and um you know it's important for me to recognize the support that the district and the board gives us as well we are a very unique program in that we're part of a school district there's not many of us in the state and the only way we have been able to continue to operate is through the support of the district and the board. We're mostly funded by grants, but we do get a lot of help from the district.

187And without that help, we wouldn't be able to continue making the difference that you saw we make in those numbers. So, thank you so much to all of you for your support. >> Thank you, Sean. All right. Um, I think that's it for our administrative reports this evening. Uh, we do have a pair of action items left on our agenda. First up is 13.1. It's a resolution authorizing and directing the sale or disposal of personal property. This is um to basically dispose things in accordance with state law. Uh particular this is a variety of electronic devices and a wide variety of different books, textbooks, teachers manuals, and guides. Is there a motion to approve this resolution? >> So moved. >> Second. Been >> moved and seconded. Any questions, comments, or discussion? Roll call vote, please.

188>> Member Hixon, >> yes. >> Member Maribou, >> yes. >> Member Jones, >> yes. >> Member Langodorf, yes. Vice President Axley, >> yes. >> President Bowski, >> yes. Uh, motion passes. Uh, 13.2. Is a basically a item. Sorry, may I start over again? This is an action item on our agenda that was triggered by a complaint that was filed uh on June 6th with regards to a personal matter. Uh so what typically happens under board policy uh to column 105 in matters like this is that the district uh commissions of basically a finding of fact and recommendations which the board receives. Since this is a personal matter, this was discussed in close session on uh June 17th. And uh what happens with this particular motion is that if passed uh the board would accept um

189the findings in that report that was discussed on June 17th and then authorized the president of the board to send finding uh finding letters to the individual who filed the complaint. Now, uh on June 17th, we did meet in close session and uh a different complaint was filed on after the fact basically stating that um the board uh did not follow uh the open meetings act with regards to that closed session. We receive a a number of these types of complaints that are made to the journaling general's office uh throughout my time as president. I can't recall a single one of them that was found to be um where the district is found to to violate a state law, but I can't remember all of them. Maybe one >> voluntarily. >> Okay. Um so the

190board has what I'm asking all that is is is basically stated in a way not to break any sorts of privacy rules here. But the the open question is does the board wish to vote on this tonight or do you wish to defer until this the state attorney's general's office makes a finding of of a fact with regards to the complaint with uh that we did not meet appropriately on June 17th with regards to open meetings act. My personal uh feeling on this is that I and it's backed up by our our own lawyers is that the district did not violate any state laws on June 17th with regards to meeting and discussing uh this report and then not we did had we had no action following the the the uh the exact session. So

191and that is all borne out by the uh uh public meeting next from June 17th which we approved. So there was there was no no motion taken that night. That's what we're doing tonight is basically formally accepting the report that was discussed on June 17th. So all that said, does the board wish to accept the report tonight or do you wish to wait until after this second uh motion from that might take months. Uh so what happens on those reports is that we're basically informed by the attorney general's office that a complaint was filed. we have seven days to respond which we did and the attorney general's office informed the complaintant that uh the district had uh you know had replied they have another seven days to respond to our response and then at some

192point one two months down the road the general's office will will rule. So, I don't it's again it's up to the board as to whether or not to move forward with this or or to wait. >> Well, I I think that the issue is whether or not the call from executive session was done appropriately. Is that is that one of the issues that we're dealing with tonight? >> So, so that's the source of the complaint about the June 17th meeting. >> Yeah, but you did read the the legal notice that we're going >> So, right. So, so the question I think what confused the the person and I guess I haven't talked to this individual but the person who made the complaint >> was that as in this agenda right if you look on the

193first page >> it just says call for executive session >> now when we know we're having exec session we'll actually put like the actual statute for the individual cause whether it be personnel >> or contract or whatever that that's when we know we're having it but >> uh we leave this on the agenda in case something happens between when we publish the agenda and our meeting that would be a cause for us to meet. It's basically an open spot. And when that happens, and this has been verified multiple times by our attorneys, it is perfectly valid by according to state law to read that cause even though it's not published in the agenda >> and still meet. Okay. >> And that's what we we did all >> as much as it was justformational. I mean,

194that was the that was the gist of our our uh closed meeting wasformational. We didn't vote on anything that I don't think >> but boards can't act in close session. >> I mean we didn't come back and vote on anything. >> Correct. We did not return to public information that I don't think that I think we can move ahead. >> Okay. I Okay. So then um the chair would then entertain a motion to adopt findings of recommendations related to the complaint filed June 6th, 2025 under board policy 2105 and authorize President Powki and myself to issue finding letters. >> So move second. >> Been moved and seconded. Any further questions, comments, or discussions? >> A roll call vote would be in order. >> Okay. Member Maribou. >> Yes. >> Member Jones. Yes. >> Member Langdenorf.

195Yes. >> Vice President Baxley. >> Yes. >> President Palowski. >> Yes. >> Member Hixon. >> Yes. >> Motion passes. >> Uh moving on with our agenda. Um there is no call for future special or executive meetings. So we could have our superintendent report. >> I don't have this in the report, but I did want to give a little update on the naming committee. So I am having a um difficult time um recruiting members to participate. Um I am uh next going to be um I went through the facility committee listing and I'm going to be sending an email to um some of the parents who were wy parents who are currently at the sixth grade center and invite them to participate. Um I've had several people ask me questions. I don't know if people to

196you, Paul. But people have stopped me in the oddest places and like at the game and and um and so I've approached a few folks and asked them to consider um it would be great if we could have a combination of sixth grade center staff members um a couple former WY uh staff members andor parents. Um I do think it is um one of the reasons that this is challenging is that we and I and I know we need to do this for transparency and we've discussed it but the fact that it is going to be an open meeting people are concerned that um anything they say um you know we there were just some not so good great experiences with the facility committee and um people got emails unsolicited emails comments that people made

197were um put in Facebook and people just it was it was hard and so going back to some of those same people and saying hey would you be interested in being part of the naming committee um has been a challenge so I think there are a few folks that are considering it um I I did invite both both of the um uh people who sent in public information to the board one of those people has accepted one of them is still thinking about it um I have approached someone else to facilitate the committee and um I am not going to facilitate the committee and um so that person is thinking about it as well. So we are making a little bit of progress and I wish I had more to share. Um and I'm going

198to just send out another email this week and well I've been having personal conversations with people and not um not doing as much of this via email um because that way people can ask me questions. It's hard to have those kind of conversations back and forth through an email. So um I've been having more face-toface conversations around um unfortunately I can't tell people when they're going to meet and how long it will be and you know and those are the things that people want to know how many meetings will it be and how long will it take and I don't those are unknowns until we get a group together and we can see what you know what's the best time for people to meet but um I am still trying to plug along on it.

199>> How many confirmed members do you have already? one. >> Okay. And I have one person who is um going to has said yes, they will facilitate it and um so yes. So we have several who've asked questions and who are thinking about it. So I'm going to just keep following up. But I do have a new email group that I'm putting together and um I went through our facilities committee and there were a couple uh WY parents who I see in the car rider line. So I thought, you know what? I'm going to ask them. They have kids here at the sixth grade center. Um I think it would be great to have their perspective as a former WY parent, now a sixth grade center parent, if they might um be willing to participate.

200So we'll try that next. So I just want to give an update. >> Well, thank you for that. >> Yeah, sure. >> Yes. >> What happens if we don't get people? >> I mean, I don't know if there's a minimum. I was hoping to get, you know, a to me a nicesized committee is at least, you know, a couple couple people from um varying perspectives and, you know, we I like to have staff members and parents. Um so I'm thinking if we can get six to seven people together, that'd be great. That's probably a nice size group. So, I'm gonna hopefully keep moving forward until I can get at least six or seven people to say yes, not including board members because we already have a couple board members who are have agreed to be

201part of it. So, okay, good question, Lindsay. >> Yes. Following Lindsay's question, I guess um as I read the the policy, the policy was that if we're keeping the name the same, you don't really need to do anything. If you want to change the name, you have to bring a letter with 10 signatures to the board president and then the board president appoints a a committee. So, what is the name right now? >> Well, that's the problem, right? Because when we when we voted to close the building, the name it was, you know, WY Elementary School, >> it was it was Flossy Wy Elementary School, right? The whole name. So when we closed the building, then the name went >> the name closed with it. >> Closed with it. So right now it's by >>

202that didn't happen when we closed it as an elementary building before. >> What do you mean when we closed? We only closed it one time. Well, it did. It did. >> Oh, it was early childhood. >> It was early childhood in central office. >> Those were temporary close. >> That was a temporary for a year or two. This is forever more. >> We we back, you know, back when when this was happened, right, that the statement law required three public hearings and all of that. And we went through all that process. I'm not I'm not not confident that whole process was followed back in the 80s when >> we went through the full three public hearings um as our attorneys advised us to do and so by doing that we it was we officially closed

203it in the eyes of the state in the eyes of um the roe um the building was closed. >> I mean we we really should have had this committee formed a long time ago and that's that's that's really on me as much as anybody. So, we're doing it late and I make our apologies to the public for it. We just we'll just move forward with with what it is right now. Right now, the name on the building is, you know, the Urbana sixth grade center because it services the whole town is it's it's kind of follows a pattern of Urbana High School, Urbana Middle School, Urbana Early Childhood, >> Urbana Early Childhood, Urbana Middle Education. So, has anybody brought to the board a suggestion to change it to that? You know, with the 10 signatures,

204>> we haven't gotten 10 signatures officially. I've heard there's a petition out, but that hasn't been brought to the board. >> There's a petition out on Facebook, I believe, and it had like 237 signatures, but that was only on social media. >> We have two official letters that have been brought forward. I you know I just wish we could just compromise and go forward on this. If we could have the building like we've done with the with the I said this before with the Gene Burkholder with John Gar building and still called it the the early child I mean the sixth grade center but it's in the WY building and not not call it WY sixth grade center but it's the WY building and the sixth grade centers in the Urbana sixth grade center is

205in the in the WY building. >> I don't think that's fair to the people who don't agree. They should have a >> I'm just trying to compromise. I know you're trying to compromise, but there are people who feel very strongly that it >> and >> that the sixth grade center should have their own identity and be their own thing moving forward. >> Okay. >> So, which is why we need a committee because that's what committees do. >> In the end, it's the board that will make that decision. >> Absolutely. >> Yep. They will it will bring a recommendation for it >> and maybe I mean I'm not on social media a lot so I haven't seen the you're saying that there's a petition to change it to the sixth grade center. >> No no it's

206to rename it the the the WY sixth grade center. >> Oh. Oh to rename it to the WY sixth grade. Okay. >> Okay. That one I have seen that one actually. So, but I think then the people doing that petition should follow the rules, write a letter, have 10 people sign it, and bring it to the board and then we could kind of get back to our normal, you know, we could make it as >> policy driven as possible. >> The board has commissioned a committee. So, that's what I'm doing. Exactly. We've directed administration to form this committee already because basically there >> we may not have gotten 10 formal signed letters but I think I think the will of the public has been heard with regards to that they want a name for the

207building. There's two reasons to form this committee. One is you have a building that needs naming. The other is you have a person that needs honoring. >> Right? So what we're doing now is we have a building that needs to be named and you know there's a group of people who want to you know have the history of of that building reflected somehow in the name. So I think it's incumbent upon the board to seek direction from the committee with regards to what's uh you know how to name the building and also how to honor uh the person who the prior building had been named after. I think both both things can be handled by one committee and and that's how we're going to move forward. >> Shar, you gonna say something else? >> No.

208Okay. >> Okay. Um so I think we can move on. Um so I am excited to um share that we had our first um Friday night under the lights for football. Um, I want to thank all the just the community who came out in support. Um, I know we're still in that rebuilding phase. So, um, for year three to see that many people out. Um, we did have some elementary families who came out and, um, enjoyed a Friday night football game for the first time because it was designated as elementary uh, fun night. Um, I have some other ideas for um, football and basketball and other ways to um, get more of our um, urbanana community out to some of our spaces and and games. But I think this was a really first this was

209a great first um, just opportunity to kind of open it up for people who had never come to a football game. So, it was a lot of fun. It was a great night for football. The weather couldn't have been more perfect. um our team really looked like there it was a it was a real competitive game and um I think everyone who was there really enjoyed it. So, um, the next home game is September 12th at 700 p.m. So, Pho Road Road ahead, um, our city of the city of Urbana is hosting a, um, celebrate the neighborhood event, um, kind of a kickoff block party in the Sunny Crest parking lot, um, this Sunday from 1:00 to 5:00. Um this is a um I think an initiative that our new mayor really supports. Um and

210those of us who live um in the Pho road area um I think most I really support that we need to be doing something to really >> um bring life back to that that area of our community. So um the district will have a table. We have some administrators who signed up to be out and share resources with families. Um, and if you're in the able to come Sunday from 1:00 to 5:00, they'll be set up in the Sunny Crest parking lot. Um, Tiger Marching Band and the Labor Day parade. Here are some great photos. Um, this Monday, yesterday, uh, this, uh, CA Champagne County Labor Day parade, the Tiger Marching Band performed. Um, the CU marching showcase is on October 6 at 7. We have hosted it the past couple years, but this year,

211I believe it's is at Centennial, so we're not hosting this year. Um, but be it's Centennial, correct? Um, but please come out and support um TMBB when they're out there on October 6 with the Marching Maroons and the Marching Chargers. And our student ambassadors have already shared some great pics from Quad Day. So, I do want to give a shout out to the UHS PTSA who organized the um quad day event. Open house was also very well attended. Um lots of families went into the building and met with teachers and got a chance to walk around um and view schedules and just kind of have a real open um introduction to UHS. Um and as we've already shared, there are so many clubs and activities. There really is something for everyone um in our high

212school. So, we should be very thankful for that. Um, just being there and seeing the the mix and the diversity of the community, it really does bring forth our values of belonging and community integrity and pride. We got to see that firsthand. It was also really nice that also had their open house at the same time. So, there were a lot of families who started off um in S and then they left and went over to UHS for the quad day and openhouse uh celebration. So, it was just a really nice night to see our community um come together and um just in a in a moment of celebration to kick off the new year. So, great job to everyone who was involved in the planning. So, that's it for me. >> Thank you. Um

213again, the the foy report is in the published agenda. Uh the chair at this time would entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So, moved. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. >> We're done this evening. Thank you everyone. See you in two weeks.