Board of Education Meeting 04 07 2026

001respond to comments or attempt to answer any questions during the public comment period. Would anyone care to make any public comments at this point? Yes, sir. >> Gordon Hill, 1066 Ames Court, Antioch, Illinois. >> Good evening. My name is Gordon Hill and this is my wife, Colleen. We here as the parents of Lean Hill, an honor student and multisport athlete at Union High School. We understand you are voting to approve the resation of Shan Connor as head basketball coach tonight. While we noted in our communication yesterday that this is a necessary step, this resation does not involve our grievance. The departure is not a substitute for accountability. The findings relate to us on March 18th were flawed because they ignored a clear motive for retaliation. As detailed in her initial grief, this began when coach

002learned Liam was exploring Lake Force Academy. On December 10th, the coach explicitly texted us that his biggest pet peeve since arriving at KAC is kids leaving the program. We're not going into every detail tonight. We'll save those for appeal. However, we ask the board to please do your due diligence now. Review the evidence, review the security footage for January 21st and the documented recollection of what was said. The student mentioned the January 14th whistle lower event and the student the coach confronted Liam about just seven days later are the same. How can that be ignored? How can the superintendent missed the direct evidence of retaliation? The student mentioned in the chair working whistle report. Oh, sorry. An investigation isn't complete if it's based on a curated summary. The district has already documented coach's lack of

003cander regarding his attempt to block her son from volunteering to the program. It was proven untruthful there. He was proven untruthful there. Why is his words being accepted at fact at all? Finally, look at the news regarding um University of Tennessee today. Athletes um escaping toxic coaching. Those athletes have a transfer portal. High school kids don't. They rely on you to ensure the leaders in the building. build them up rather than tear them down. Basketball was a core part of Liam, who Liam was. Now he no longer wants to play a sport he once loved. We are here today in the hopes that these actions will help our son gain his why and help him reclaim his identity. We ask that the resation resignation include a permanent non-retired provision for any coaching or volunteering roles

004in the district. A documented lack of cander must have permanent consequences there. This is about more than just our son. It's about the integrity of the district and the safety of every student athlete that follows. They deserve a culture that builds them up rather than one tears them down. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else here to make any public comments this evening? >> My name is Colleen Hill. I live at 1066 A Court and my husband just spoke but my again my name is Colleen Hill. We have a daughter who's a senior and then twin boys that are sophomores and as a fellow educator of nearly 30 years. I first want to acknowledge that teaching and coaching these days is not easy and teaching and coaching postco is you know hard to even describe.

005Students, parents, building administration, district admin, the state, we have a lot of people that we're answering to um in our positions as teachers and coaches each day. With this in mind, I want to give a very special thanks to Liam's teachers, his guidance counselor, Kayla Travers, and the social worker, Nadia Curry, who have shown him a tremendous amount of care over the last four months. Gordy referenced a little bit, but our child is not the same child that he was on December 7. It's actually heartbreaking. a boy who had really big dreams about high level schools and the possibility of playing a sport in college the other day mentioned I'm not even sure if I'm going to go to college. This is one of the top students in our build in our building. A student

006who doesn't even know if he wants to play any sports anymore. He how he was dragged down over the last few months is just un unescribable. He's a shell of who he was. Dr. stack at the beginning of the meeting, you read the district's stance on bullying and harassment and you emphasize the expectation that people need to work together to fulfill the district's mission and I appreciate that and I urge the board just like we would tell our kids if you see something say something and that has to extend to our staff as well. There are staff members who are well aware of inappropriate treatment that is occurring um in sports at any high school or has And I urge urge urge you as a board to really encourage and demand and give staff a

007safe place to report their colleagues to when things are not okay. As an educator, I know firsthand how that we have the ability to make a difference in the life of a child. And most of us probably even cited that in our interviews. You know, whether we are new teachers or we've been teaching for years. The last four months have reminded me just what a powerful difference educators can make in the life of a child. That difference can be positive and life changing and that difference can be negative and life changing as well. >> Thank you. >> Would anyone else care to make any public comments? If not, the next item on our agenda, the presentations and we have Miss Self with our special education department. All right, good evening everyone. So, have a pleasure

008tonight to give an update on the special education programming and here with me tonight is ana our district transition coordinator. Justinville will be here but Andrew and I will give you an update on special education. So our agenda for the evening is we're going to give you an update on the special ed program look at highlights from the course of this year and future planning as well as then give up on our 504. So, starting with our high school program, as you know, the special education department is committed to ensuring that all of our students, grades 9 through 12, are able to access a free and appropriate public education in both of our buildings and receive as much access to the general education curriculum environment wherever possible. Um, in particular this year, two things that

009we're very very excited about um are the expansion and creation of what we call our study skills 100 course as well as some unique P that we've done. So, looking Study Skills 100. U the coding of the numbers is kind of how they identify the type of student receiving a service and the level of that service. Study Skills 103 is a course that we've historically offered at both Annapolis and Lincoln Community High School for students with emotional disabilities and it serves as a place to kind of act as a grounding center, a home room, a place to receive uh some of their customized counseling services and to build some of their executive functioning skills. Um over the the course of the last year or two, we've been looking at is there a way to apply

010some of those um practices to those students who um participate in our LOP programming, which is our learning opportunities program, which is a programming that is targeting students with more significant intellectual disabilities. Lakes Community High School teachers were willing to serve as a pilot over the course of the last semester. Um it started being developed first semester, implemented second semester where we space where um students have more of a dedicated study skills time where teachers are really managing some of those executive functioning communication skills. Being able to take the time to tie in some of that community and independent living piece and then also it's allowing us to provide some of our related services which is speech, social work, occupational therapy, physical therapy without pulling from one of our content courses. Um we find that

011those students often times are having to miss some of their content time to address those and Building this into the schedule has allowed us to better coordinate that. We are very excited to implement this next year at both buildings as a full period course. And so we restructured some things to make sure that that can fit into their schedules and really target a population of students who needs that individual attention. Um that same group of students, you'll see that both of our our primary goals for this year are that LP. Um this was Mr. Somerville's project. We worked very closely with our uh coaching corner this past year to develop professional development that is targeted at our general education teachers um and our pair professionals specifically in those elective courses so that students who require

012significant support are still able to go into the uh general education classes and receive modified uh options. uh have clear communication about how they're going to receive their services in those environments and really make sure that our general education teachers and our pair of professionals who follow those students have a clear sense of what their roles are and how they can work together. And so um again, Lakes has been a great pilot for that and we're hoping to be able to expand that even further in the coming year. So those are the two good pieces happening with 912. Looking at our transition services, um a reminder to the team that transition services refers to everything that what we're doing to students in their readiness for life after high school that is outside of the academic

013component. Um, from a special perspective, we look at transition in four key areas. Students ability to access future education and training, their employability, independent and self-care skills, as well as their community access, personal leisure and transportation. on the 912 front because we start these services as early as age 14 and a half. So almost all of our high school students with IBS are receiving these types of services. We completed our is the required indicator 14 collection this year in the summer of 2025. This comes up every few years and what it is is we are expected to report to the state how a previous graduating class is performing after they've left us. And so we actually went through and contacted every student with a disability from the class of 2023 I believe and have to

014collect data on were they pursuing education, were they employed, had they remained in the community and we report all of that to the state. Um the information that we get is largely in the aggregate and gets kind of sent to the state. So I don't have specifics for you but as someone who conducted a number of the calls and emails and things like that, I am really proud to report that our students are active and they are finding jobs and they are are are pursuing education when they leave us. We had 20 plus students attend a late county tech campus tour this year. So that definitely connects to some of our portrait graduate pathway work. And then we are in the process of completing our conversion from what is called a division of rehabilitation staff

015contract to a packed contract. And I could go on and on and on about all those Illinois state contracts do. At the end of the day, what it does is it ensures that we are still able to get our hands on every possible employment ready resource the state offers for our students with disabilities. For those in the 18 to 22-year-old group, many of you have visited our life skills academy, you know that that's my little my little gem that I love to share about. Um, some things that we're really excited that we did this year is um that we invited at parent teacher conference time because we happen to have no students who met our threshold for what constitutes a parent teacher conference. We were able to utilize that time to bring in the Grant

016High School transition staff and do a collaboration day. We have since actually held joint outings with Grant High School. So, we're very excited about that to kind of expand that world. Um, transition adventures is back, which is an extracurricular programming that we now have for transition. Um, previously we didn't have extracurricular programming. We now have evening events that we take students to. And we secured some new training sites for our vocational training program, which is where students go out and gain work experience in the community. Raymond, Chevy, and Kia have both come on board this year. And District 34, just across the street at Oakland Elementary, now offers both of the library and their cafeteria as opportunities for students to work. So, we're really pleased to be continuing to offer a variety of sites um

017in the community. And yes, the exit ceremony information is coming out. So in your report packet, I did include a lot of data to very is a lot of information on summarize a lot of just within this slide. So where are students are at? So you can see at any of 116 students with an IEP at lace we have 152. So a bit of a difference, but we we're seeing different needs in each of our buildings um for students who just need a little more support. LSA currently has 17 students at Seedall. We have 16 students. So this is grades nine through uh 9th grade through the age of 22. So I listed the different programs um that we have students at. So Sashmont, John Powers are grades like death heart of hearing and then

018the transition center. And then 30 of our students right now and this fluctuates throughout the year but we have 30 that are privately placed at a therapeutic day school. and list all the ones that we currently have students at for you. Our big thing is when we're looking at if a student is needing more support and therapeutic placement uh or more support than what we're able to provide in the district and we need to look at getting more intensive therapeutic support for them and we look out placement. There's always that future planning of how to bring them back into the building. Um we're we very much want them back into our community as much as possible. So we do, you know, give them the time they need to develop and grow with that intention of

019bringing them back. So this year we do have seven students right now between the two buildings that have a partial transition, meaning they've had between one and four classes that are coming back into the building and spending partial day with us and then partially in their day with the intention of eventually bringing them back full time. We have two students right now who we did bring back full-time this school year and then we have four on the horizon that we're looking to um bring in next school year. Then Allenale again this is very fluid. We have students who are DCFS placed residentially at Alenale and our number right now is at 34 students. We do not have any students who are who are non DCFS residentially placed. We did have a student who started up

020the year added residential placement and we have brought her back to a day um school. We're very excited to continue to support the students like bringing back to the trail. So, some highlights. We are very fortunate to have two educators, one of us tonight, who was nominated as educator of the year. So, next month for the Lake County Educator of the Year, we will have Miss Megan Garcia, who is a special ed teacher here at Lakes, and then Andrew, our LSA administrator. So, if you've met Megan, you know that she is one of the hardest working special education teachers. Um she is a huge advocate for students. Does a great job with supporting everyone in the classroom both with from her co-taught classes to her instructional and she is a member of the community. She's

021graduated from lakes like just all around she's an amazing human being and really excited to be able to nominate her. And then Andrew has really stepped up this year with support over. He does a wonderful job. You've all seen it at LSA. Just knocks out of the park over there. but really it just has been a huge instrumental support for us over this year as well. So, we're really excited. I get to talk about the fun ones. So, those next few bullet points there, um we're really I I say it not only as somebody in our special education department, but also somebody who came through this district as a student as well. It is really exciting to see over time how the culture surrounding inclusion of all students regardless of disabilities has continued to expand,

022grow, and improve dramatically. Um, a highlight of now the last few years has been the big game and the inclusion weeks being held at both schools where there's some really strong messaging about how regardless of unique circumstance, disability, etc., everybody belongs here. Um, and that doesn't necessarily I mean we have wonderful staff working that actually comes from this student body. And I'm very very impressed with the student body in both buildings. And the way that they turn out and choose for students is really really quite cool. Um, and now we're seeing that that's becoming not just something that happens within our district 117 community, but across Lake County. Um, this year we had students who were able to participate at Walkgan's low incidence disability field day, and that's a new event for us, and we

023were really excited to see that. Um, and then alongside a lot of that activities and programs, we're trying to ensure that students are learning that regardless of disability, everybody has something to contribute. And so, we had our very first community service outing. And the Life Skills Academy students actually went and they were the primary providers of one of the components of Raymond, Chevy, and SIA's shop with a cop. So, while the police department facilitates the traditional Walmart shopping component, our students were actually able to go and they provided the whole meal and did all the serving and the cleaning and things like that. And so, um, that's the bottom one with the snowman there. It was a really fun thing and students I think really got to embrace the sense of being a volunteer. Um,

024and we were excited to provide that opportunity. So within our 504s, um you know, our students with disabilities that may not need specially designed instruction, but do need the support of a reasonable accommodations or modifications to access general education curriculum may then get a 504 plan. So as you can see, our numbers at DNA have gone down. We are currently sitting at 129 students with the 504 plan and at Lakes, we're at 130. So successes we just want to collaborate or celebrate is you know we've had two amazing fire coordinators at one each building that have we're seeing longevity with them. They've been with us for several years and they're building really strong relationship with their parents and families in the theater schools. Our coordinators, both the 504 side and special ed side, articulate with

025the middle schools and meet with every family before they come into our building. And the coordinators will go through their plans and update them and make sure that whatever accommodations we have in place is appropriate for them the minute they walk in the door and they've built that relationship with the family before that their child sets foot into our buildings. So, that's been something that we've just seen as a huge success. Um, and the challenges is something that we've talked to about for years. It just is the continued struggle after with significant mental health and school avoidance and anxiety that students are experiencing and that may lead them to then need a fire plan and some supports. So just some forward future focus I mentioned the feeder school support partnership. We're just going to continue

026to work on that. It's great that again we still have we have the staff that we're building that longevity with the feed with our support and guidance for theater schools. It's really important to us that we articulating with them that they really have a strong sense of our services here in the building. So that when you know they know their students the best when we come in to then provide the placement for what it might look like next year they have understanding of what that might look like for that student and you know we get like I said that chance to just to build those relationships with the schools and the family. So just we want to continue to build those partnerships. Um in addition to that just we work we continuously throughout the year

027and over the summer to ensure that our course alignment in both the with the gened curriculum that our course our instructional classes are aligned to our general education curriculum just with modifications. So our students are getting to the greatest extent possible in those instructional classes the access to general ed setting and not just within the building like our our special ed teachers work very closely with our gen third gen and counterparts to ensure that there's that alignment but there's also a lot of work across the district between the buildings to try to have our instructional classes be as similar as possible but also meeting the needs of students in the class and making adjustments there. And then one slight adjustment this year for extended school year is because we have a larger number of students

028coming in to our district next year that are needing those extended school year services. We are educating we're inviting 15 students to be educated this summer. So we're running it through the month of June and we're going to have two classrooms. In the past we had one with one teacher and a few pair professionals. This upcoming year because of the size we are doing two teachers with two pair professionals. It will be hosted at Antioch and the students will be working with each other. We will not have just a lakes in Antioch classroom. We will have the students who are meeting with each other and just have a really great opportunity for them to work with one another from the different schools. All right. So, just to thank you, this board has always been extremely

029supportive of our special ed department and we just really thank you for allowing us to do the work that we do every day and just being there and visiting our classrooms and our programs and we just really appreciate you giving us that trust to support our students. >> Any questions? >> Any board members have any questions or comments? >> I thought the big game was just both just awesome. warmed my heart uh to see the enthusiasm and the support that the general student population gave cheering everybody regardless of whatever. It was just a really wonderful thing to see. >> I agree. I agree. Both both schools, all of the students, the energy that they brought to support all of our students is fantastic. It's it's great. And of course, the life skills Fantastic. >> I

030think what you guys are doing is phenomenal. Not just for the kids who are in our programs, for the greater community of kids around them and that exposure and that understanding and we're making better humans because of that. >> And you go first. >> No, I'll finish. >> Um to see the parents able to see their students um cheer on was so cool. There was somebody sitting in front of me and I knew their son and he was he scored several baskets and they were just like and all the kids were cheering and oh it's just so wonderful because I think often the parents don't get that affirmation that their kids are special too and and the other kids appreciate them. >> So that was really nice. You know Dr. I received an email that

031that the big game with the parent saying exactly that it's the first time my child really celebrated on a big stage and just what that meant to that parent. >> Yeah, they were taking pictures like they were rockar. >> It was nice to like take a picture with like with Mr. Pag. >> I think I can speak for the board and congratulate Andrew and Megan um and thank Andrew and Megan and the entire special education staff for the hard work progress they've made over the years and Andrew you know that life skills academy is also my favorite so I appreciate that and for those newer board members who haven't partake haven't had the opportunity to partake in some of the life skills academy visits and so forth once you're there you're hooked so please do

032but thank you very much great presentation Dr. Would you like to introduce the next? >> So, I'm a careerlong social studies educator. So, I've been looking forward to the presentation this evening from our social studies department all year long. And uh our social studies staff um at both buildings are really focused on the civic responsibility of our students um and ensuring they become knowledgeable contributing members of society. So, help me welcome Ann Ikeman and Grant Murray. Thank you. >> I guess Dr. Wallet took our introductions. Uh, this is the I believe the fifth year uh fifth consecutive year that Ann and I have been here. So, this is a a long-standing partnership that that we've had and uh our our departments work really well together and uh I I think it's hopefully going to come

033through in in our presentations. >> And Mr. Murray is a Michigan alumni. >> I'm not an alum. I'm not an alum. >> Be careful with that. >> Super fan. >> So, I thought I was going have to sing the Illinois fight song when you lost to Michigan in the final. But thankfully, we lost in the quarterfinal in the final four. So, I don't have to sing tonight. So, congratulations. Awesome. It would have been awesome. >> Sorry to interrupt. >> It's quite all right. >> All right. Uh well, we will start with some uh highlights from our year. Uh curricularly, uh we had a major shift this year. Uh Grant and I worked on it for the last couple of years, uh to prepare some changes, some pretty significant changes in our freshman required course, which

034is global studies. And this year, uh we turned it over to our teachers, uh who've been working really hard to implement that curriculum. Uh it's it's a little bit more of a world history focus. Um so it takes our students through uh chronology or chronologically uh through an over view of of really world history which is a huge undertaking. Uh but the primary reason that we made this shift uh was that we realized that we wanted our students uh to as freshmen to be prepared in terms of skills especially reading and writing skills to take on any of our courses as sophomores, juniors and seniors. Uh and in particular, we wanted to make sure that all of our freshman students had the opportunity to uh enroll in and succeed in any of our AP courses,

035which we have quite a few in our departments that we offer. Uh and so we um we made this decision after a lot of thought and research and uh we are appreciative of the support that the board uh has given. uh they've uh approved a number of curriculum hours that our teachers had both last summer and during the school year. Uh and we're excited uh for what they're doing. We know that it's a work in progress. Um but we're excited with with what we've seen so far. Uh and then our other big curriculum focus this year uh was working on ACT reading. Again, uh we feel really strongly in terms of promoting and um developing literacy skills uh within social studies. We think that that uh is something that is really critical not just to

036our discipline um but to uh helping students uh achieve and have opportunities and be uh well-rounded people. Um and so we have we started this work last year and we've continued it in a focus on uh exposing our teachers to a number of different reading strategies, literacy specific strategies. Uh giving them opportunities to work with their counterparts both within the building and across the district. uh than to find appropriate and natural places in their curriculum uh to specifically not just give students the opportunity to practice reading but to teach and to implement some strategies uh that will um help them develop those skills. Uh and obviously ACT is a part of that but it's not our singular goal but we have also incorporated ACT prep materials and in particular our junior team the US history

037uh has really worked hard all year um to make sure that that's a part of their curriculum. >> Yeah. Our students take the test tomorrow. >> Perfect timing. >> Yeah. >> Uh Dr. Waller mentioned our commitment to civic education and and uh uh we believe in the importance of that throughout all of our classes and also communicating and collaborating with other departments about civic uh civic knowledge and civic education. But one of the pieces that we take pride in is is the uh the community partnerships that we have and and teaching our students the importance of collaborate collaborating uh within a diverse community. Um and so um you see elements of that with the Veterans Day presentation that we put on every year in the district that rotates between the two buildings. This year we

038had the pleasure of hosting here at Lakes High School. Um with it also being an election year, we had the opportunity to train uh in last November actually. We trained uh uh in the fall we trained uh election judges, but we also trained again here in the spring uh or in the winter, I should say. I think it was January. Uh we were able to train 30 election judges uh from both schools, but then had the opportunity to to serve as election judges during the primary elections that took place. Both schools are active members of the Democracy School Network, which is a network that now includes over 70 schools across the state of Illinois that focus on the spread of civic education. Um, and uh, we have the opportunity to get our students out into

039the community with uh, things like our religious forum. And and I I I forget I forget about this because I think I become so accustomed to it, but every time you come into a school board meeting, there's usually a crowd of students that join. And part of the reason is because we emphasize that we're a government course that they need to go to a uh a a community meeting that that is hosted by elected officials uh such as yourself. And and not all of them choose to come to this meeting. Some of them uh what what's kind of cool that has developed is this was where they all came because I remember the first years that we did this and students were sitting on the floor and and we had no room for them. Um

040but they've now started to branch out. They attend village meetings and and other meetings as well. So, it's a great opportunity for them to get out and experience democracy. And so, that's something that's really important to us. >> One of my favorite things is to interview them before meetings about school boards. And I always ask them how much they think school board members are compensated. Ah, >> and the average answer I get is between $60,000 a year and $350,000 a year. >> That's great. >> But tonight, we had a correct response from admin. He said 0. >> Excellent. >> Knew that they were public servants. I like public servants. >> Excellent. Very good. Uh, and then as we're going to discuss here in a little bit, um, we have an incredible staff uh, of educators.

041Um, and uh, Andrew and Megan actually have have uh, big shoes to fill because we're going for two years in a row of the Lake County Educator of the Year. We have the pleasure at Lakes High School of having Lake County Educator of the Year and our our social studies department, Miss Christine Zucker. Um, but Christine is just one of of a number of incredible educators that we have. And what makes them so important to our district and to our department is how they have embraced teaching diverse students from diverse backgrounds, but also diverse learning experiences and diverse learning styles. Um, and and the uh emotional intelligence that they try to instill on their students. and we're we're going to focus on that a little bit here um with our next set of information. >>

042So, we did choose to highlight the work of our teachers uh based on some panorama data that we were able to look at and something uh a couple of things really jumped out at Grant and me uh regarding the work that our teachers do uh and they align with some portrait of a graduate component as well. And so uh embracing diversity when we looked at and this is uh data that is specific to social studies staff um across the district. Uh but we had uh social a staff 94% of our staff reported that they are extremely or uh exactly what the um descriptors are but you know the top two favorable responses. 94% of our social studies educators said that they would be comfortable incorporating new material from different backgrounds. Um that was actually one

043of the reasons that we did look at changing our global studies curriculum. we wanted to make sure that it truly represented a global studies curriculum. Uh and so uh with this new curriculum, there's opportunities to bring in um a good deal of history from Asia, a good deal of history from Africa. Um and just making sure that our students do get a true global perspective. Um our US history teachers do an incredible job. There are a lot of Illinois state mandates that ask them to incorporate material from any number of groups of people in our nation's history. And so our teachers are are really not only um skilled at that, but they're comfortable doing that. And that shows through to our students. Um 88% of our students or I'm sorry, 88% of our staff said

044that they would feel very comfortable teaching students from different religions. Uh that is also part of the work that our freshman team does with the religious forum. And then talking about race, um it's it's a difficult subject in in today's world. And a couple of years ago, Grant and I spent a good deal of time providing some targeted PD to our departments uh about how to facilitate some difficult conversations. And we're really happy and proud of the work that they've done um to embrace a lot of those strategies and 82% of them said that they are are comfortable engaging their students uh in those conversations and giving their students a safe place to um to learn and to talk. We're really proud of of the work they've done to embrace that diversity. >> One of

045the other things we've really tried to do with any curricular changes that we've made is is is trying to push our students um but but pushing them in a way that it that they embrace challenge and they embrace the hard, embrace difficulty and and know that it's it's possible to overcome challenges to succeed. And so um the data that's uh on our right hand side here uh about developing emotional intelligence is is really uh something that's that's proudful, prideful for us. Engaging students who are typically not motivated. Our teachers said that 88% of them reported back favorably that they felt comfortable engaging students who aren't typically motivated to learn in a in a traditional classroom. And then supporting student growth mindset, 82% reported favorably. Again, I'd love for that to be 100%. But I also

046appreciate that our teachers are understanding that that challenge is is good for our students and and and embracing the difficulties of learning is going to help them to to become stronger people. >> Uh just some are you up first? >> Sure. I I can I can keep going. >> I interrupt. >> So I already mentioned our veteran state assembly, but we just wanted to highlight some of the things that that that our departments are are involved in. Our Veterans Day assembly to me is a highlight every year of the social studies department. no matter which building it's being put on at uh the speaker, the student involvement, the student engagement in the assembly is just a highlight uh for me. And then as I said, uh we had the pleasure uh we have a great

047relationship with the the Lake County uh elections uh board and uh they contact us and say, "Hey, we want to come and train students." And and uh the students think that we have a lot to do with it and we really don't. Ann reserves a room. I reserve a mini bus or a bus and we get the kids to Antioch and we do it in the dance room. Uh, and they sit there for about three hours and they get trained to be election judges, but they've learned about that process. Uh, and and and I just again going back to what I said previously, I think it's important for us to to demonstrate that there's more uh than just what goes on in this building. >> And can you explain what's happening here? >> Yes, >>

048I can. Uh so that is just highlighting some of the great instructional work that our teachers uh do and opportunities that they create for our students and to engage in. Uh that is uh a lesson from one of our AP European history classes uh in which the students were studying absolutist monarchs from the 15600s in Europe. and they were tasked with creating something called a flat absolute and they had to represent these various uh absolutist monarchs uh on a piece of paper but then um this one is from Miss Craig uh but I know that she and uh Mr. work really closely together. So, I'm sure there's a similar picture out there from leaks. Um, but anyway, they had to create these flat absolutes in which they labeled various parts of the absolutist monarch's body

049uh to represent like how did they wield power and what were some of their thoughts and like what did they how did they use religion? So, things like that. >> Flat absolutes. Yeah, >> absolutely. Um so anyway, just a lot of great things happening within our classrooms as well as in the community. Um a lot of collaboration that that takes place among the students. A lot of critical thinking and creativity that they're given the opportunity to engage in as well as take a variety of AP courses. Um be courageous and accept some of those challenges. And yeah, so we're just really proud of the work that they do. >> For us as a department moving forward, uh we have we have two areas of focus. uh for today. Uh one is to continue to implement

050reading strategies that align with the ACT test. I know that that for our teachers, you start talking about standardized tests and it gets a little bit, you know, we're not teaching to a test, but we do believe in the importance of developing those reading comprehension strategies. And so, we're trying to incorporate those more not just in our junior US history class, but with our younger level students as well. And our teachers have done a really great job of of experimenting. And so we want to continue that to have that start to influence our instruction and our assessment a little bit more. >> Our second area of focus um is something that we have just started to work on this year but have uh sort of a three-year plan tenatively in place uh that we want

051to use data to inform our instruction and our assessment more than we have. Uh so our goal next year uh is that by the end of the school year uh we will have worked together twice at least twice um where our teachers will use unit summitive assessment data to design and implement two new instructional strategies. Um one of the things that Grant and I feel really strongly about is keeping our focus on instruction. Uh and so not getting too far away from that in any one year. We want to make sure we bring it back to what our teachers are really really good at and that is quality instruction. Um, so we want to just get better at being leaders uh to use the data to help them make wise instructional decisions. >> And as

052Jackie said, uh we we appreciate the support whether it's professional development that we've been able to offer our teachers, resources, um, and and whatever it may be. Uh, we're grateful for the support that the school district provides for us. So, thank you. Uh, and we're happy answer any questions anybody has questions. >> So I Oh, sorry. >> No, go ahead. >> Um I appreciate the civic mindedness that we're putting into our students. I recall being in high school and that was not Yes, that was a long time ago, but um I remember um not a lot of civic-mindedness coming out of high school back then. And so I could really appreciate that even going so far as election judging that kind of thing. It's huge. It's very huge to un that hey there's a big

053world out there and you're a part of it. Let's let's get involved. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Yeah. I I think that uh both schools commitment to the democracy school network has played a big part in that. has been a member of that network since 2012 and since 2015. Um, and and just that the the the focus on civic education has been really important for us. It's it's uh it's kind of become our thing and and that's uh we we we believe in the importance of it. >> It's huge. >> I will say as an an election judge, I run into kids from both schools every year and I was very happy to see them at the primaries and I will tell you I'm impressed with them. So, for giving them that opportunity. >> And

054I'll piggy back by saying, you know, I appreciate what the entire social studies department is doing, not only in the classroom, but outside the classroom in every aspect with their students. And just like in the special ed department, when you go to the veterans um presentation at each school and you see the student engagement and the respect that the students show all of our veterans, both present and past, it is that tugs at your heart. So, I appreciate what a great presentation and I'm going to tell you, Ann, you uh made Grant nervous. You looked at his watch. 10 minutes is just a guideline. >> He was watching his watch while you were talking. >> I want to make sure. Alan told us it was a really strict 10. So, I want to make sure

055>> I had my timer set and everything. >> Thank you very much. Appreciate How many government students are still here? I see some here. >> For everybody students that are here, thank you for staying. And just to let you know, this is a government meeting. It is not an open forum. But because I'm sitting at the head of the table, I can talk a little bit more. So I'm just going to tell you what the next section which is really we get into the hardcore business of our board of education meeting now. And the very first thing we do is the consent agenda. And this is where an opportunity for the board to approve or disapprove of a number of recommendations from our administration with one vote. one one one vote for the for all

056of them before we get to the hardcore things in the business office and those are routine things. So I just wanted to let you know that so when you go back to class whether it be tomorrow or Thursday and your teacher says did you learn about the consent agenda you can say I think so because you may not just from one sitting. Okay. So the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. All items listed under the consent agenda are adopted by one motion unless a member of the board of education or the superintendent requests that an item be removed and voted upon separately. Consent agenda items are matters that the board and the superintendent agree are routine in nature and should be voted on in one motion to conserve time. In tonight's consent

057agenda, we have the following items. We have the approval of the regular meeting minutes from March 19th. the approval of the close session meeting minutes of March 19th. We have approval of personnel hiring of administrators. We have hiring of certified staff. We have hiring of long-term substitute staff. We have increment positions being hired. We have inter interns being hired. We have volunteer positions and we also have reclassification. We also have resignations and we have retirements. Also, we have requests for folks that need extended leaves of absence. We also have in the business department or in the money department the approval of bills and payroll under funds 10 which is education, fund 20 which is building, fund 40 which is transportation, fund 50 which is the Illinois municipal retirement fund, social security fund and fund 8

058which is the tort fund kind of insurance. We also have under the consent agenda foyer requests. Foya is freedom of information act requests. We had f six and they've all been responded to. So at this point I would ask the members of the board of education or the superintendent if they'd like anything removed from the consent agenda prior to approval. No one. Okay. I would entertain a motion that we approve the consent agenda as presented. Who who made the motion? Motion by Mr. Pegney. >> Second by Miss Dixon. >> We'll do a roll call vote beginning with Miss Dixon. >> Yes. >> Miss Sips. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pagney? >> Yes. >> Miss Pritchard? >> Yes. >> Miss Jacobs? >> Yes. >> Wayne Sabet votes yes. That motion passes. >> All right. Now, I'm going

059to I'm going to ask um if Dr. would like to introduce one of the folks that was on the consent agenda tonight because it' be a special introduction. >> Yes, absolutely. There was a lot of things you voted on and one of the things you're going to um see tonight is one of the names that you voted on. Um Alison, you want to come on up? >> Um members of the board of education seems fitting on tonight which we heard the presentation um to introduce our newest addition to the state department. high school. Um I'll introduce Allison Schmidt who is going to be our new sp coordinator. Uh but again going back to earlier tonight talking about the big game. I think finally didn't stop smiling for several days. Um that next day I was

060texting my buddies and showing us videos and the world of education just how proud I was. And so we're very proud to have somebody new coming on just near the ship at Antioch. Before I do that though, I do want to publicly acknowledge Andrew and thank him for calming this waters a little bit as we tried to work through some leadership um issues at Annia Community High School. We're happy to have found a um an answer and that answer is Allison Schmidt. So this is Dr. Allison Schmidt. Very proud to introduce her. Currently she is the um uh principal of Laront School. She started I want to say 17 years ago, 18 years ago >> in education at Woodland as a structured learning uh teacher. Um we started the process at the beginning of March.

061She very quickly rose to the top of the list of candidates. We had a a number of qualified candidates to consider and it was clear based upon our interview process with two separate rooms of teachers and an admin and district admin that Allison wasn't going to be our choice do in large part you'll be able to see this over the course of her work with us here her genuine concern for students and staff and parents again being a principal at Lmont uh school she works with uh parents she works with staff she does heavy lifting already that is a full-time administrator. So, we're very fortunate to have her. The other thing that's an interesting fact is that in a couple of years, right? Couple years, she will be a Lakes parent. >> Wow. Very soon,

062he is bound to be an eighth grader soon. So, >> okay. >> We are. >> So, there's the principal lakes. >> So, we are very fortunate to have her in our community as well as our school community. This is Dr. ALISON. BUT I AM SO EXCITED AND HONORED. I am it is a community member to bring back something new to be part of of where my kids go is so exciting and I've been with Seed Doll for 10 years and to come learn something new and and give back to our kids is just sheer joy and excitement and a little scary because change is scary but I think it's going to be wonderful. So thank you >> Alison. Can I ask you real quick? I know we didn't plan this but uh can you tell

063us about Larmon because it's a pretty amazing system. I mean I can talk to you about Lar on Google page. Um so yeah so Laramont is one of the seedall schools. We are the medically fragile building. So we house threeyear-olds all the way through 22. We also house our transition program which is our 18 to 22 year olds. You guys have some similar program but we still have a good amount of 117 transition kids. Um and it is incredible. We opened up to all board members. So if you'd love to see it, please come take chewers and I'm there to the 30th of June. I'm happy to take it on a tour. Whoever fills my shoes will do it as well. It is it is something like you just don't know until you've seen it.

064>> Uh so it is um our class sizes are much smaller. About 85% of our kids are wheelchair bound. Um they are about 100% of my kids are non-verbal in traditional terms, but we do have a device. They are nonverbal doesn't mean quiet. They're very loud. Um they make it known how they're feeling. But it is it is something really special to serve the 1%. Um I've now had 17 years serving the 1% and I'm so excited to see the rest of the spectrum, especially because there's so much more than just that. Um, but I do encourage everyone to go see Larmon, especially since it sounds like the big game really touched a lot of hearts. Please come see your kids, your 117 kids. We will take you into classrooms. We can see your kids.

065Um, but that way you guys have a full spectrum of of what we can provide. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Thank you so much. I'M EXCITED. OKAY, THE next time our agenda is the business office, so I'll turn the floor to our associate superintendent. >> Great. So on the way in, I realize we don't have to approve anything in this section, but there's a whole lot of information. So here we go. Uh the first item, as always, we get uh our tax extension dollars from Lake County. So we received those on March 20th. So, if you click on that link there of the 2025 tax extension PDF, I just have a chart there where it breaks down the funds. And remember last November we passed the levy um where we had a projected

066extension of $47,383,200. Um, so that was what we thought we were going to get versus the next column of the actual extension of the 47 million 475 and since. So overall very very happy with those numbers. Um, it's about uh like a 3.6% increase from last year to this year's uh extension dollars. Um and additionally um you don't see this on here but I did uh put it in the description that this um we will also get seed doll IMRF money as we do every year which we just turn around them and pay them. And then also, you might recall, I think this is like year fiveish or so that we have the property tax advisory board, that recapture money uh from appeals and such that we get back and that's just under $264,000, which

067is actually a slight decrease of about 15,000, but that has grown significantly over the years. So just overall very happy with those extension numbers and we will start seeing um that revenue come in here in the next couple months. The next thing I'm going to turn over to Mr. Chris Malik um as he is our guru on health insurance. So >> voila. >> Yes. >> So this isformational as well um but it's bigformational. Um this week we're going to be allocating a million dollars into our reserves. We are part of the lakes region benefit cooperative. Um and that those six schools within that from the area they we get to pull some claims with them. It helps when we go out to market on rates. Um but as you all are probably aware insurance costs

068have been going up and with us this year the usage has been going up as well. So those reserves that we've had for several years have been depleted. Um and to be fair to the other schools in the district have some money in there. We want to be making sure that we have enough money in there. They typically ask for anywhere between 60 and 180 days of reserves. So, putting that million dollars in there should give us a decent amount of reserves in there and it should help us as we go to market for next year having a little bit more money in there. Um the usage being higher this year, you know, we've had some unfortunate events, but sometimes it's going to happen. We've had a lot of little little egos and little sequ

069I think that's a little bit of of the environment right now with rising costs. Uh we've seen RX costs go up. Uh we've seen just regular medical costs going up. So when that's compiled with that usage, you're going to see some of those reserves get depleted. Um not to talk about other districts in in the co-op necessarily, but this is a problem throughout Illinois. We've seen some of the message boards, whether it be business or HR, um having some of the same concerns about this. And some of the other districts in our area are feeling this pinch. So it's it's a million dollars going over there. Nothing you have to do as a board, but justformational and something we keep our eye on all the time because that's a big piece. You know, you look

070at a school district salaries are a huge piece and benefits are the other big expense. So we're aware of all that and we really appreciate the partners that we work with in that co-op. Um and they do a good job of we've been we've been meeting more regularly um because as this you know issue isn't going away, we want to make sure that we're staying on top of it. We have very good partners in that co-op as well. >> And additionally, we're right now, as Chris mentioned, we're meeting and we're constantly meeting with the co-op about uh our funds. But as you know, we usually come in May. That's hopefully the plan, if not June, as far as coming to you with new insurance rates and what that means for the following year. So, as

071you've seen that before, we're working through that to see what what uh options we have. for the benefit of our newer board members, could you better explain the co-op, our insurance co-op, how it really works? >> Um, yeah. So, if if we were to go just as district 117, um, you know, you're looking at roughly 270 members plus some families. Um, when you go to market with that size, you're you're going to be subject a little bit to some pricing sensitivities. When you're able to pull that with 41s, one of our members grants a member, you you take a little bit more size, you know, the co-op calls it belly buttons. You take more belly buttons to market, you're a little bit more competitive in pricing. Um what we also do is we pool um

072basically a 100,000 to 275,000 give or take on the year. Um so if district 117 had a really bad year, an unfortunate year where a lot of our employees or families had some unfortunate events, we wouldn't hit is hard. We're able to mitigate that risk and spread it across all the districts. And just like Evans is a very small district, it's 40 40 members in our co-op. You know, if he forbid they were hit with anything, 30 members of of their staff were hit with something, they wouldn't necessarily have all of that risk in one year. So, it makes us more competitive with pricing. It also spreads that risk out. >> Okay, moving on. >> Okay, so actually the next three items are all readings. I mentioned these contracts during the facilities and finance committee

073meeting we had in early March. So the first one here is the security services contract. Uh we went out to bid and had four different companies um submit bids on March 12th. You see their uh names there, Andy Frame, uh Patrol Protect Secure, Permar, and then Credential Defense Solutions. Um basically I had them an hourly rate and we looked at um hours um as far as wanting 16 total um security staff in both buildings. So eight in each building. That's what we want to have. Uh we've been below that. We've asked for you might recall seven to eight. You can't get there. Um so we've said we want eight and we put in the bid specifications that if you can't get eight, we have the right to go and find other and security to make

074sure we get eight to make sure we get to the number we want. Um, but they uh submitted their hourly rates and their pricing and you can see that per is the lowest that they even split it into 2510 $2510 for the lead and 2375 for that hourly rate. Um, I said in the bid specs that you can either separate it out or do a combined rate. um it just depended on the company. But either way, you can see that per is the lowest with those um with those hourly rates. Now, comparing what we have this year, this is actually slightly less as far as um what we're paying out now um with overall calculations comparing apples to apples and hourly, this would be about a $25,000 decrease overall. And one thing we're doing too

075that we're hoping to see some um some a decrease in the spending here is we're going to have a flex person in our buildings that instead of Monday Friday it's like Tuesday through Saturday um to hopefully help cover those weekend events so we're not paying so much overtime. So that's one thing we we've done um uh with with the bid spec specifications. So, this is a three-year contract if I didn't mention that and it'll start July 1st. So, that security. The next one is a little bit more complicated. This is the single small group transportation contract. Um, this is transportation that takes our small either single students or small group students, so maybe three to five to different off-site locations. So some of the locations um that Jackie and Andrew Andrew provided in their um

076presentation also the bike skills academy students and their work site locations and then our homeless homeless students. So you can see there then that there's four different companies that submitted um their calculations. Um and as I mentioned on our board update, they were vast and different. Um but I went through the calculations and I said you can you can submit your calculations based on what would I see in a bill? How do you bill me? whether it's some companies do it differently, whether it's a just a flat rate for a minimum um time that they're in the vehicle. So, let's say two hours or sometimes it's mileage or sometimes it's a combination of both. And then I said you can combine routes if you want depending on the situation. And we know that that's something

077that that Jackie and I, Andrew, others would talk through with any company because while it might be great that we can put two students in a the same vehicle to um a seedall location, maybe you don't want those two same two students in the vehicle. So, it's just going through different things like that. But they were given certain um route information um for those offsite locations um work sites and everything from this year um and some a little bit tweaking with our work sites but overall given this information saying please provide these uh calculations. So um while um security will be permar because it's the lowest most responsive meaning they they're the lowest the middle plus they have met all bid requirements. You might remember in the past for those of you are here that

078for transportation that's not necessarily the case. It does not have to be the lowest. You can take a look at of course number one safety should always be safety but then overall what's the that we're going to provide to our students that we are comfortable with. So, while the first company there ever driven is the lowest um we wanted to also take a look at some different factors that played into um our bid specifications and why we're making the recommendation for actually to go to first student. I have them listed there, but one of the bid specs and again I think you might recall if you were here with our regular regular education transportation contract that we're hyperfocused on making sure that we had a facility that was close to us. And so that big

079specification was that we wanted that company to be within 15 minutes or 15 miles of our bound to our school boundaries. Um that company does not um they just have a different module or different model. I'm not saying that it's it's bad and they're definitely That's something that we're not used to. Along with um another thing that is different is they don't have their own vehicle fleets. So you might know that you're out in the community and you see Safeway, you see Topline, you see Lakeside, some of those different vehicles, their vehicles, they go out and find drivers and those drivers are using their personal vehicles. So it's like we described as we talked about as an Uber service kind of thing. Um so between having something close um as far as facility. Um when

080I talked to some of the references, they were kind of in that same boat that they didn't have some districts around them and so their weight times sometimes were not good, especially if something happened with an emergency or driver called in or whatever it might be. So again, going back to not having a site um and was a concern that Jackie and I and Andrew, her team, our team talked about um along with uh another another thing here that came up was just some some communication issues between family, students, and staff. So while again I understand that ever driven is the lowest and that's a significant difference uh we do feel that the recommend the recommendation will be at the May board meeting will be for first students that's a three-year contract um because they

081will provide a safe uh transportation experience for our staff and our families >> and for the benefit of the board members this trans Transportation is required by law. It's not a luxury that we just provide because they're public students and they have to go off site. We have to provide transportation. >> My concerns on the first one with the low bid also was insurance >> who carries it. Is it the company or is it the indiv? >> They did provide a certificate of insurance. So they did provide that. Um and I even asked for higher specifications or amounts and they were able to get that. Um but I think still concerning I know with talking with references um some of the different school districts they have families that just wouldn't get in person >> especially

082with the classification of the student. >> Right. Right. It's again providing that safe comfortable experience for students and parents. So that will be coming again in May. Okay, next one is the grounds custodial and maintenance contract. So again talked about HS and this contract um back at the finance facilities meeting. Um this is something a contract that we can secure through a cooperative purchasing organization called Equalis. So, we worked with HS and their staff, Ken and I, uh, the director of facilities, met with them several times to go through what we're currently paying our staff, what that all means again with our custodials, maintenance, and grounds. And we do have some other uh, front desk security, some monitors in our buildings, and then of course our district manager for the account and her assistant. So,

083right now we have 40.5 FTE. That's a lot for HS that provides um, services. So with um sitting down having those conversations, talking about our needs um the services they provide um I think some things that we well not think we are adding to the contract is that we will add three and a half additional custodial to the contract along with the use of what's called flow path. So that's basically a software program that what we're using now we haven't been very happy with and This is something that um is theirs that we can utilize for like work orders and equipment inventory and equipment maintenance and we can use this um that would cost uh roughly $15,000 per year that they will not charge us. We will also get next year $78,000 worth of new

084equipment. And then also just like I discussed with the security um contract, we're going to shift some Monday, Wednesday to Tuesday, Saturday to hope help help hope hopefully help with some of that overtime. So um even with those I would call them perks, I think they're definitely additions and positive for district 117. Um we're looking at a savings of about $217,000 uh in a year. So very happy with that. Um so this is will be a three-year contract. You can see it's broken down into one, two, and three. Those are three% increases. And then you will have an option to extend um for two more years. And those additional years would be based on CPI not to exceed 5% just like we do with our >> So that's first reading HS. Okay. And then lastly

085is capital projects update. Overall, it's it's fun watching I think it's fun watching the district office um and what's happening down there that you know might get a little bit loud. >> Oh, my office is on the other side. So, I guess maybe I'm not here as Chris, but it's going very very well. Stoie um as always is a great company to work with. You know, we've worked with them on several different projects. So, um, they're doing a wonderful job and we think that they'll be done sooner than what we anticipated. So, that's going very very well. Um, the baseball cage is still in its works. Um, they they'll be back out. It's just been now so wet, right? So, it's getting back out there hopefully by the end of the week, but then again,

086I think it's supposed to rain two more days. So, uh, we'll get there. And then um just to update I did put in the chart there um I updated um the total um for the rooftop units. So the phase two in that chart um it's a little misleading because that total is the total cost where remember we're paying only part of it in this fiscal year. So the other part will go next fiscal year. Um but explain all that in more detail when we get into remember next month will be the amended tenative amended budget that I will present and then we'll do a final so it's like kind of doing round two of the budget like we did for the in the fall for the original budget so uh I think I I did

087make one payment smaller payment I think it was a little over $11,000 for the district office so that's the only added So that's all I have. >> All right. No approvals. >> Any questions? I I was in in today uh because I talked to Ryan. Took a tour. He took me through. It's been really nice once it gets all done. >> It's amazing what knocking down some walls, taking out some classes. I mean, it's big. >> It looks so huge. >> Yeah. I think it's going to be really sharp looking. >> Yeah. >> So good. >> Thank you. The next item on the agenda is governance and we have student handbook. Is that Dr. >> W? I'll actually intro it and then give uh Jory and Mike and Jackie a chance to think if they

088want to weigh in because I know you're closer to these committees, but we have committees every year that meet at both schools with students and staff and our deans are key people on this and the principles lead a process where basically they kind of do what we do with policy where they review any kind of new legislation or laws in school code and they tweak our student handbook. I don't think there were major changes but we asked the board to approve this every year for the subsequent coming year. Mike, Jory, Jackie, who you want to add? >> No. Yeah, the assistant principles of student services do a great job and the deans lead these annual meetings. I think two, three times a year. >> Two, three. Parents included, students as well. And so, it's interesting,

089I guess, to see the, you know, the range of how people feel about things, you know. So, >> it was good. It's good to have that sort of team that Yeah, very little changes. >> Thank you. >> Next, >> the next one is the approval of the file final calendar. >> Let me make sure we didn't have to take action on that student. First read. >> So, we'll take action next meeting on the students. >> And the same thing for our calendar, right? >> No, I think they're doing that. >> Got to get caught up on the agenda here. Here we go. All right. So, this is just the projected uh calendar for this current year. The board's approving that our day count is what we projected and we project using one e-learning day. Here

090we are on April 7th. Uh we hopefully will not have any more inclement weather that will require any uh emergency or e-learning days. So, with that, I would recommend that the board approve the public school calendar for school year 2526 as presented. And with that recommendation, I would entertain a motion that the board approve the finals 20226 calendar as presented. >> So moved. >> First by Miss Pritchard, second by Mr. Pegney. Any questions or comments? >> Hearing none. We'll do a roll call vote beginning with Miss Sips. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pag, >> yes. >> Miss Pritchard, >> yes. >> Miss Jacobs, >> yes. >> Miss Dixon, >> yes. >> Sec. That motion passes. >> Joint annual conference. >> Yeah, this one is not an action. is just a prize that we do every year

091to notify that we are planning to attend the joint annual conference November 20 to 22 2026. We've also submitted a proposal to present the third year in a row. Very uh highly acclaimed presentation. We do not know if we've been selected yet. So I will update before we leave here. So anything else you want to share about the conference? >> Uh is it highly acclaimed? >> It's highly acclaimed and highly attended. We have videos to prove it. >> Kind of obnoxious. >> I've been looking for the clamations. >> We were on the cover of the ISB school board journal. Guess we call it clear life. >> The cover. I'm not sure if it was highly. >> I'll take it personally for not selective. By the way, >> Wayne's more modest than me. >> I thought

092he had a big house. >> Thank you. >> So with that, super. >> Super. >> So Mike and Jory, Antioch Lakes, who would like to go first? >> All right. Ready? Go. >> All right. So, for some athletic updates, all sports have season starts that are affected by the weather, snow, rain, and a shelter in place are all things that we have seen this year. Um, softball team is now six and one after beating Richmond Burton in the home opener last night and is currently ranked number four in class 3A. They opened the conference schedule with a game against Grant tonight. The boys lacrosse team is at a great start and is two and one after last night's loss to Kerry Grove. Okay, now for some activities and clubs updates. The Anniac Performing Arts program

093returned from the trip to New York over spring break. And judging by the post that I've seen by a lot of my peers, it looks like everyone's had a good time. Um, and there was only a minor delight on the trip home. And for our spring musical, Joseph and the amazing technicolor dream co, everything is coming together. set. All the lines are being memorized, costumes are being sewn, and a lot of the students are putting in some really great work into this production, and I'm really excited. It will be held on the 23rd, 24th, and 25th at 7 p.m. And then there will be a showing on the 26th, that Sunday at 2 p.m. We're also excited to announce that same week our first ever culture fest, which is hosted by our ACS democracy school

094committee, which is also in charge of stuff like election judge and um voter registration and the veterans day stuff. Um, and this event is coming up soon on April 24th, which is at 700 p.m. on that Friday showing or right before our 7 p.m. showing of Joseph. And the event will start at 5:00 p.m. or 5 to 6:00 p.m. So, hope to see you guys there maybe. And tickets for our May 9th prom at the Grand Geneva and this Friday, and the theme is the Great Gatsby. are looking forward to it. >> All right, >> I will let Nick take over and he will explain where the other two schoolers are. >> Oh, yeah. So, >> right away suspenseful. >> The varsity So, so for athletic updates, the varsity soccer team defeated Prairie Ridge 1

095Z on Monday night. Great start to the season. They're currently playing at Warren Township tonight. They look to win a tough tournament this sat this Thursday and Saturday against Lake Zurich Club North and Herszy High School. The boys varsity tennis team played at Crystal Lake Central on Monday and won the match 4-3 and for a solid first non-conference win of the season. The boys and girls track and field teams had numerous athletes compete at the Illinois Indoor Championships on March 28th. State qualifiers include Isabella Aya, Brenn Garnier, Kylie Smith, uh, excuse me if I pronounced his name wrong, Kaylee Mata, Evelyn Belchure, Will Mccure, Dylan Gates, Jordan Failen, Lily Selvic, Michaela Williams, Cooper Sun, and Vanessa Wild. Out of those qualifiers, Bin Garnier uh, got sixth place in the pole ball event. Kaylee Mata got

096seventh place in high jump. And William Mccur is now a state champion, beating his personal record at the championship. He cleared 16 ft in one inch and is now the second highest pole balter in Lakes history. >> Lakes lacrosse had a huge win last night over Mckenry and Mrs. Bowen came to watch. It was cold but it was nice seeing Miss Bowen stay till the end. >> As a current goalie and captain of the team, it was nice um nice to come out with a satisfying win. 14. Hopefully more board members can come out and support as well. Um the National Oh, for activities and club updates, the National Honor Society is hosting their second annual color run on April 11th, and all profits will be donated to the American Red Cross. We honored We

097also honored FCCLA with the state walk between second and third periods today. Annie Bergart, Jake Gilaspie, Ro Gaspie, and Lily Stefen along with coaches Mrs. O'Grady and Mrs. Weeda will be leaving right for the ACT on Wednesday to head to Springfield to complete to compete in the FCCLA state competition in the shakureri board preparation. >> All right. >> And then they eat it all. >> Lakes and Antioch students in AP environmental science are currently on a field trip to Spence Farms. Our other two student ambassadors, Lily Cadelka and John Ryuse, are headed there right now. We watched a movie about the work that is done on the farm. The documentary called Sustainable features Marty Travis and his family with whom uh my teacher Mr. Austin is very close with um operate a 160 acre farm.

098This film shows our transition to sustainable farming that supplies over 200 Chicago stores and restaurants and we covered sustainability agriculture in our previous units in AP. >> Wonderful. Jory Mike anything to add? >> No. I have a few quick items I'm going to take a little bit out of order. Uh first, Dr. Waller, you can help me with this by getting this wrong, but I just want to encourage our students at home to get a good night's sleep and a good breakfast. We got our ACT tomorrow, sir. >> And then, uh freshman take preCT 9, >> sophomores take preCT 10. >> Correct. >> Excellent. Anything else you want to add about tomorrow? Big day. Oh, I just think that our our staff and our students have worked incredibly hard all year long and and uh

099you heard Grant and Ann talk about the fact that yeah, we teach content, but like all students benefit from showing understanding and comprehension on skills that really transcend high school. And so that's why kids want to, you know, really give their best tomorrow. And I have every bit of confidence that our students will will give their best tomorrow. definitely appreciate um everything that all of the building leaders um Jory and her assistant principal team and Mike and his assistant principal team as well as all the staff who are proctoring um it's it's a heavy lift and so it's a a lot of work. I appreciate all of our staff for the hard work they do. >> Absolutely. My next item is I want to celebrate our staff members who are nominated for Lake County Educator

100of the Year. As we shared earlier, we had a couple here in the house. So, we're incredibly proud to announce them. Uh, thank you to Dr. Barry and Miss Bowen that ran the process at your schools to nominate these people. We basically looked at our portrait of graduate competencies and kind of reflected on exceptional service to the district and staff members that truly embody uh both. So, I'm going to read their uh category and their names and then we're going to cheer for them to be the countywide winners. So, our classroom high school teacher is Whitney Walsh from Antioch. Our classroom diverse learner teacher is Miss Megan Garcia from Lakes. We saw her earlier and heard all about her. She's tremendous. Our school administrator is Mr. Andrew Sicetta in the school administrator category. You saw

101him present earlier. Phenomenal. Student support personnel Taylor Travers from Annioch. We heard her name earlier in the meeting. Educational service personnel, Marta Castanada from HS, tremendous HS employee. And then in our early career educator category, Mr. Jake Mitchell from here at Lakes. excited to go to the uh big dinner with them in May and uh cheer them on as they are honored countywide. Uh second to last thing is we're one week away from our second community meeting for our portrait of a graduate. We had a great meeting uh two or three weeks ago with a large group of community members, parents, students to get feedback on these conferences of our portrait of a graduate. We did presentations with students. All of our student grasers were there presenting. So, thank you for the late night. And

102that committee had a lot of homework between that March 13th meeting and our meeting next Tuesday, which was to reflect on everything they heard from our students and come back with their experiences about which competencies uh they hear a lot about that we're doing well on and which ones we can do better on. So, that's going to be next Tuesday. So, we're really excited about next Tuesday. And finally, we would like to honor our student ambassadors. So, uh we would like to have them come up and take a photo with the board. You have guest that you can introduce and uh have photos of the board along with you. We have a plaque for you and we have a cord that you can wear at graduation. I just want to thank you so much because

103this is a big dedication of time. We joked about how schoolboard members do not get paid as much as students think. They get paid zero. You also do not get zero. So you might want to tell your friends that because they seem really confused. They might think you make a lot of money to be in this role. But we appreciate your perspective always reporting out on your schools and then the informal feedback you've given us between meetings and then certainly your participation going way back to January we met to have lunch about how you could help us give feedback on our portrait of graduate competency which continues to be an ongoing project into next Tuesday. So we're going to bring up one at a time introduce you give your plaque and record and take a

104picture. Sound good? And I'd like to thank each of you for the dedication that you've given, for the representation of your student bodies, uh for the time that you've given. You didn't have to give this time. I mean, you could have been doing something else. You could be doing homework. >> But and also please extend the thanks to the ambassadors that are missing tonight. You know, we certainly we certainly thank all of you for what you've done and it does make a difference. It makes a big difference and we appreciate the time, effort, and your energy and your knowledge and your support. So, thank you. >> Excellent. >> We'll start with Annioch, Dr. Barry, and then where do we want to take this morning? Maybe just kind of gather up here in front of the

105screen. Maybe we should come out. >> Come out in the middle. You want to come stand at a time? Get caught in the trap. >> Which is way first. I mean like us as a whole. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Oh yeah. >> Carrots. Get a picture of them. Your parents here. >> My mom and dad. >> Dad. >> Hi, Mom. >> Okay. Ready? One, two, three. >> Missing. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Awesome. You can make that word and get your name plates. Take your name plate. >> Oh, yeah. We'll we'll explain what that is. board members. Uh, you got the fridge magnet buddy. >> So, if you turn in the white one, keep the green one. That's where it right. >> Yes. >> So, thank you Stephie for putting this together. I

106know we have a lot of dates for you to attend optional events. >> I love it. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Where do I send this? >> Right at the top. The white one. Just check it right now. >> So, next item. Next item is board member comments. Now if you want to make that comment now you can. >> Zach was very nice. >> Just want to keep it much better informed. >> Any other board member comments? Anybody? >> Yes. >> I was in New York when you guys were in New York and I was at the Museum of Broadway uh at 9:30 checkin and uh she said, "Well, you got to get going real quick because there's a group of kids coming in." I said, "Maybe it's Unfortunately, it wasn't. I

107can see you guys. >> I know. I was walking around the streets and stuff. Um, but I hope you had a good time. >> New York's one of my favorite places. >> Really? >> It looked exciting from what I've seen from, you know, my friends. A lot of them did go on the trip and they really enjoyed it. >> Other comments from board members. >> Just thank you to all of you. It's really nice. >> Thank you. I can't This is the most exciting part. >> Thank you guys all. >> We thank you very much. This is it's it's very very um it's just awesome to see that you guys spend a little bit of time with us and and also learn about mouth process and then share what it's like being a student nowadays.

108We like that. Thank you. >> And we will see you at graduation. >> Oh yes. >> Any other comments? If not, next item on the agenda is the closed session. I would entertain a motion that the board enter into close session for the purpose of discussing the following exceptions for the open meetings act. The appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees, specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park, recreational, or educational setting or specific volunteers of the public body, or legal counsel for the public body, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee, a specific individual who serves as an independent contractor in a park, recreational, or educational setting, or a volunteer of the public body, or against legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity.

109However, a meeting to consider an increase in compensation to a specific employee of the public body that is subject to the local government wage increase transparency act may not be closed and shall be open to the public and posted and held in accordance with this act which is act 5CS 120C1. Also in close session will be student disciplinary cases which falls under five ILCS 120C9. I would entertain that motion. >> Motion by Mr. Pagney. >> Second by Miss Dixon. We'll do a roll call vote beginning with Miss Pritchard. >> Yes. >> Miss Jacobs. >> Yes. >> Miss Dixon. >> Yes. >> Miss Dips. >> Yes. >> Mr. Peggy. >> Yes. >> Wayne votes yes. That motion passes. We will not have action after close session other than adjournment. So we will now go into close

110session.