001If I can ask our Lakes ambassadors to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. The mission statement of Community High School District 117 is to ignite passion and discovery in every student. Mr. Wall, would you do roll call, please? Ms. Dixon? Yes. Ms. Pritchard? Oh, yeah. Mr. Zaucha? Present. Mr. Pagni? He is opening night in Waukegan, so he will be absent this evening. Ms. Jacobs? Here. Ms. Dixon? Here. Ms. Carroll? Ms. Carroll is with her father in Florida for the But we have a quorum with five members present. Thank you. I'll begin with a statement. Bullying, harassment, racism, sexism, and hate speech
002have no place in Community High School District 117 is committed to creating a rich, equitable, and respectful learning environment for all. We believe in our mission statement, which is ignite passion and discovery in every student. We will continue to develop ways to extend the thinking, learning, and opportunities for all of our students, our staff, and our families. To that end, it is critically important that we are explicit in stating that bullying, harassment, racism, sexism, and hate speech of any and all kinds are not acceptable and have no place in our district. Please work with us to discourage, report, and address these hurtful behaviors. First item on the agenda is public comments. The opportunity to speak to the board is provided for members of the public who have a comment to make about the business of
003the board. The board appreciates hearing from stakeholders and values your thoughts and opinions. The board strives to make the best decisions for the district, and public input is very helpful. The board must protect the stability and decorum of this meeting. Please be respectful of the duties of the board and the democratic process in your comments tonight. Please state your name and address, and address your comments to the board. Please limit your comments to 3 minutes. Please be factual and courteous, and the board requests that you not make statements that are personally disrespectful or condescending to members of the board or to our staff. To the extent that there may be multiple speakers addressing a single issue, I reserve the right to limit the number of speakers making public comment of a repetitive nature and/or limit
004the amount of time for public comment. The board does not respond to comments or attempt to answer questions during the public comment period. Would anyone care to make any public comments this evening? No one? Okay, then the next item on the agenda is our presentations, and we're going to begin with the English Department. Hold the applause to a minimum, everybody. Hi. Uh I'm Nicole in the English Department over at Antioch. And I'm Nicole Kind, and I'm I'm the English Department here here at Lakes. All right. So, um diving in, we have a couple of our goals that have been renewed. One was renewed from last year. The one that uh is on the bottom is something that we use in response to some data that we've been looking at. We've renewed our commitment with No
005Red Ink, and again to that data that we were looking at, we are making a pretty considerable reading push in our schools. SSR, which stands for silent sustained reading or sustained silent reading, rather. Uh there's an increase in that in both schools, and we also have an ACT reading push in both schools. For those of you unfamiliar, ACT reading is a completely different test than ACT English. So, that's what we're really focusing on. Reading strategies are refined and renewed, and here we go. So, uh with our strategic plan, the idea, the goal was to integrate instructional supports into practice to improve student performance, and the metric were those kids that were sophomores last year, right? Last year. Yes. The sophomores last year, and then measuring uh their growth from last year to this year. Our
006goal or our latest result is 56%. So, we were shooting for a 60% uh goal, I think. And then, but we landed at 50 56%. Below that, you can see a graph that demonstrates No Red Ink usage. So, topics mastered is this first tab, and so just by looking at the bars, you can see how much we've grown since August of this year. And that is uh again, a commitment both schools are are under. Can I interrupt? Yeah. Cuz I think you're cheating your goal. Cuz I think our It would be based on last year's SAT. Mhm. It was 24.5. 24.5. These were sophomores that didn't make their growth the year before, and the goal was 55. And you got 56%. Is that right, Dr. Wall? Yeah, I think we did. Yeah, because you can
007see it in green, it says 24 25 SY topics. So, the goal was 56%. So, by 1% you guys passed. All right. So, I want to make sure you get credit for that. Thank you. Again, hold the applause. Thank you, Dr. Wall. Thank you. >> why the goal is so low, it's cuz these were students that historically have not met their growth, so it was a uh group that we needed to accelerate. So, great job. Yeah, thank you. Ben. Up there. Up there. Go ahead, Ms. Kind. I'm glad I made this in really large font, cuz I can't see so far back, and I didn't bring my reading glasses. Um so, over the summer, we actually looked at reading numbers. Our English scores, as you could see uh from the last slide, were our students
008achieved our English scores and met, right? At like 58, 68%. But then looking at our reading scores on the ACT, these are our numbers. 30% of our students met in the area of key ideas and details, 35% of our students met with the craft and structure questions, and then 39% of our students met with the integration of knowledge and ideas. So, our reading scores were significantly lower than those of our English scores. Those are two separate tests that are measured. And because of that, we decided that we were going to focus this year on reading. If you know anything about national reading scores, they have been down actually since pre-pandemic numbers. So, we figured that our time was well spent looking at reading, especially because it impacts our students in every area of schooling. So,
009that is where or why we kind of focused on reading. Do you have Okay, you have it. So, the first thing that Nicole talked about was our increase in sustained silent reading. This is just a little bit of data from Zimmer in 2022. Sustained silent reading is an instructional strategy aimed to promote reading for pleasure among students. Now, you might be wondering why we want our students to be reading for pleasure? Well, because the only way to get students to read more is to actually like reading. Right? And so, if we kind of dedicate some time in our classes to have our students choosing what they're reading, their fluency increases, their word acquisition increases, right? There's so many benefits to having our students just read more that we have kind of made that push school-wide.
010It also pairs really nicely with our push to having no no phones in classrooms. So, anytime students are done with a test, done with a quiz, done with whatever they're working on, they have a book that they can take out and read. So, it really helps, you know, multifaceted levels there. So, they're reading a I'm sorry. So, They're reading a book of their choice. They This helps counter or counteract in decline in leisure reading trends, and then it positively impacts academic and professional success. And if you look down at the bottom, the number of books that have been checked out from both of our ILCs this year is over 3,000. So, a huge increase that we've seen, and that's just as of right this moment. So, the second thing that we were looking at was
011creating ACT reading passages to help increase the number of opportunities our students had to see those types of reading passages. So, for our January Institute Day, both our departments came together and we have created at least five different reading passages for our freshmen, sophomores, and juniors to practice at different times throughout this semester before the AC the April ACT. And so, in order to increase their reading stamina, they get to practice reading those reading passages with the ACT question stems, and then we are hoping to track that data and then help inform our instruction as to where our students maybe need a little bit more help. You know, maybe it is words in context or, you know, finding the main idea or making an inference based on what they're reading. So, we're looking to do
012that. Our juniors specifically have reading passages for every week up until the April ACT. So, we've we've increased the number of passages that they are seeing. And then Oh, that's you. Yep. And then as Emily was just talking about, the focus is on these three things. So, when we ask kids to read these kinds of passages, we're asking them to find main ideas, supporting details, words in context. Because from a couple of different meetings that Emily and I have attended, they said that there are going to be like five topics, five questions that are going to follow these follow these passages up. And then one of them's going to be on main ideas, two on supporting details, two on words in context. So, those are the things that we're really focusing on when we're doing
013this practice in the classroom. You'll also see next to each of those things, main ideas, supporting details, words in context, a stem. A lot of the questions that are going to that the kids are going to see on the ACT have those stems directly linked to the passages that they're reading. So, we're getting them used to that verbiage so that they can then just kind of be ready for whatever the question actually is. Something else we've incorporated this year at the department level, starting in August, we started teaching different reading strategies or just reminding our staff about different reading strategies that they can use in their classroom. The first one in August we looked at reciprocal teaching. The second one we looked at just teaching different engagement strategies so that our teachers when they are
014talking about reading, doing different things to help engage our students in in thought and just really look and focus at what they are reading, how they're reading. And then at each of our department meetings, we have our teachers themselves present things that they've done in their classes to boost engagement, to boost reading strategies, and then anything along those lines so that we can help teach each other. And then therefore, work with our students. And looking towards the future, our conversations this year have been centered a lot around AI and how we're approaching it. So, we kind of broke it down in three different ways, right? So, academically, this is what we're thinking about. We want our kids to engage in the cognitive struggle. Like, don't let AI do the thinking for you, you know? We
015We try to really emphasize that. When we talk about culture, we're not trying to be the police over our kids either. We're not trying to make this adversarial environment in our classrooms. We're trying to teach them how to use it appropriately, how to use it with, you know, some intent. And then real-world applications, we know that employers, once they leave our schools, employers are saying, "How do you use AI?" And we're trying to cultivate some kind of responsibility and some kind of, again, real-world application that our kids can then use to hopefully get themselves a little bit farther past college or just past our schools if that's where they go. So, the first thing we're actually going to look at with AI in an upcoming district department meeting, we're going to have Saba come and
016talk to talk to us about creating a feedback gem specifically to help our students get actual feedback as opposed to having, you know, AI write things for them, but give them purposeful feedback that we've created so that they can use that and continue the thinking process with it. Okay. What questions do you have for us? Thank you. Any questions from the board? Just a comment. I like the idea of using AI for real-life scenarios like resumes and other things. I think that will help prepare kids for the real world world and jobs. Yeah. Sandy, I know you have questions. I think we have to ask them now. Yes, AND WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, THE THINGS THAT YOU struggle with, the main idea and stuff, that's just all the way through. The kids don't um It's hard.
017Sometimes like even as a teacher and I'm reading these multiple choice questions, I'm like, wait, they got faster at answering. I could have done this one. This one. So, it's really hard cuz it sometimes the in the kids can justify the wrong answer. Yeah. Many times Yeah. they're totally correct. So, that's the hard part about the reading is sometimes what they choose for the right answer, a student could justify their answer as well and they don't give you that reading. So, I'm not surprised that sometimes reading the kids don't do as well. Yeah. Yeah. So, where do we think that the disconnect came? And and I'm asking this in a as a parent from like kids that were in grade school in 2000s. You know, maybe from 2006 to They pushed reading like no tomorrow
018in those at those grade levels here in Antioch, which is great. Then this is not not a judgment. Where did that disconnect come? Cuz I feel like as soon as they got into middle school, everybody was doing well at that point in their life and for reading, especially in our district, they did well. I don't always want to keep going back to COVID because what It's actually a pre-dates COVID. Like the numbers have been decreasing since 2019. >> Where is it coming? I mean, if I look at it, it's a lot of technology. >> Okay. And and it's that instant gratification. The fact that stamina is what we're trying to build. That again, it's really hard in a world of look at this, look at this, look at this, look at this. So, that's Yeah,
019it's not it's not as Right? You have to come up with the ideas. I mean, I was arguing with my own child yesterday. Like, it's boring. I don't care. Yeah. It's going to be less boring the more you do it, right? Because then you need to just get into the habit of it and build that stamina. Well, and it's also to carry it outside of high school and then, you know, college because that does present an issue, you know? Right there, you got to read. You have to understand. But I think for a long time there also wasn't a great basis of of literature out there for kids, right? There was like sure, books for younger kids and there was adult books. I mean, I remember the stuff that I was reading that I should
020not have been reading because there was nothing in between. But now there are wonderful series that people can pick up that kind of are are cross and there's there's options, but there's so many other things that are distracting that we're trying to get them back into reading things. And I agree with that writing part and literature purchase not a lot of new material. Not any new decent grade reading that is part of this age group's interest. But now there's great things, right? I know what these are some of mine. We make them read. And then there is and I'm sure I know the answer. Are we sharing what we're doing in our English department with the feeder schools so they can prepare themselves We are. for high school? Yeah, we have articulation at least once,
021sometimes twice a year. Um Vicki Getzlow is the new curriculum director. Getzlow? Yes. Getzlow? Right. I talked to her frequently cuz they were looking for a new reading program. And so we've talked about novels as opposed to excerpts and reading more. So at our articulation earlier this year we talked a lot about what we're seeing, what they're seeing and how we can work together to make that better. So we can presume We've been talking a lot with odds just about like It's it's a whole novel. It can be short. Just let's go through the whole thing. Let's just do the whole thing instead of the snippets and the vignettes that they they've been kind of focused on. And we can be listening to a whole book. Right. Like they the kids have to be able
022to read on their own and it doesn't have to be long, right? You got to start somewhere, right? But it has to be they have to be doing the reading on their own. So we can presume that as the feeder schools send their kids to us there's going to be a continuity that the kids are going to be used to and it's not going to be new, strange and more difficult for them. Correct. We hope. We're hoping. It is right. That's our goal. Yeah. Yeah, we hope, but right now that is the reality. I know it's not in our hands, but it certainly would be helpful. Yeah, I know. Yes. Good. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next presentation is from our math department. I record. Hi,
023I'm Megan. Um I'm from Antioch. I'm Vicki Abrahams from Lakes. So we also wanted to start with our smart goal and our smart goal is also a continuation from last year. Um when the state changed from the SAT to the ACT, the math department went through some changes as we had to adjust how we were training our students to take the test. Um the ACT has changed again and so now we've gone from five answer chance five answer choices down to four. They've shortened the amount of questions, so our teachers are actively working on finding ways to support our students in their success on the ACT. Um we're doing this with a lot of programs including IXL which we continued from last year and we've now implemented in our math one through three classes. Last
024year was just our juniors. Um we've also been working with Desmos which is the built-in calculator that is available for our students on the ACT so that they can have their Texas Instruments, but they also have a digital it's on the computer when they take it and you can like plug in the equation and it spits out the answer and so we're trying to train our students on how to do that as well. Um We've included Mastery Manager so that our students can get used to taking tests on the computer. Math is so much done on paper that we need to provide those opportunities for our students. Um and then we've used a bunch of programs as well. Mathematics, That's Me, Calc Me, Delta Math and AP Classroom just to get our students used to
025the rigor that is showing up on the ACT. Um we wanted to share for IXL that we've had over 500,000 questions answered and this was about a month ago when Vicki and I started to put this data together. Um but it shows how many skills we practiced, um skills that have become proficient and then skills that have mastered. The way IXL works is that they have to get to a smart score of 80 and it takes so many questions to get there and if they get questions wrong, they have to do more questions to get to that 80. So um it's very intuitive to how the students are doing. Um so we're really proud of the fact that our students have really committed to this and we're using it in all of our integrated classes.
026For our summer curriculum work we focused on integrated math three all three levels. So looking at our math three honors, math three and our math three support class. Um kind of going back to looking at with that content team realigning it to the way that the new ACT is structured. Um looking at opportunities where can we look at um plugging in questions in warm-ups or practice times within stations, um things like that and building in a little bit of time to allow teachers to kind of refocus too on the skills that our students need that might have been from a previous math course. So one of the things that our students have given us feedback on from their practice one in January is they're like, "We're good with the, you know, questions 30 through 45,
027but it's the questions one through 10, stuff they haven't seen since sixth grade, seventh grade." So I know both buildings have put a lot of emphasis on that with their junior classes this year um and we've had lots of great discussions with that. Um with that obviously we've had new unit maps done. Pacing has been changed. Um we've allowed for five days we call it of teachers can use throughout the semester, second semester for any kind of ACT pre-skills topics, anything that they want to use which has been really nice and the kids have we've seen grades change because of that. Um we've also spent a lot of time on our AP Precalculus, so Antioch is teaching it this year and Lakes will be teaching it next year. So they did a lot of work
028on creating the unit maps, the learning targets, writing a final for it. Um we've had the teachers meeting together during uh joint late start days and institute time to talk about what are we exposing, what are we feeling already, what are the changes that we're seeing um so that way when both buildings roll it out next year, we have that. Um and then like Megan said the IXL that was a big thing this summer too because we could previously only push it out to our juniors. So now I'm looking back at our integrated math one, two and three courses and then um a lot of our teachers in our Precalculus and Precalculus honors courses are also using it cuz they have freshman, sophomores or juniors in their classes. So kind of like pushing beyond that
029and like how can we use it um really diving into the program and the facets that it has where it has a spring spotlight which highlights skills in uh IXL that talk about like are attached to specific um score bands. And really looking at, "Okay, if we started with an 18 to a 20 or a 20 to a 22 depending on the course and the level, where should we also be allowing our kids or assigning skills of previous topics in addition to supporting um finding stuff that supports the current topics?" Um we've had a three big initiatives in our department this year. The first one is the ACT prep which we've talked about. So looking at like we said um those classes and looking at really how do we build from math one to two
030to three. So the vertical alignment piece of it was important for us. Um this year we created a like a we call it like a pretest and a posttest. We gave our kids a pretest in November and they'll posttest in March. Um we did it through Mastery Manager so we wanted our kids to see real ACT questions again online cuz like Megan said doing math on paper the kids prefer to do and like noting up the pictures. So it is a little bit of a different it's a learning curve for them um to learn how to read it. Teaching them also how to transpose the question correctly to their scratch paper if they need to kind of note it up. So working on that. Um and then we got to we had took the November
031results and at our district institute day in January we looked at how our kids did in the skills. Um and we said, "Okay, like what could we do differently or where do we need to go?" If it was a skill specifically attached to math three or math two. Um so really really to kind of calibrate and look at what we are what we're where we're going and what we did already. Uh we're also very proud of our teachers and the work that they're doing to try and make math as accessible as possible, but also as interesting as possible. And so we have a lot of our teachers that are doing some problem-based learning. Um rather than becoming the sage on the stage and holding all of the information, we're flipping that back on the students
032and providing them with a problem or an application and saying, "Okay, you ask me the questions. What do you need to figure this out?" Um we've had zombies attacking the school and we've had bridges being built and we've had all of these things where they need to figure out the questions in order to figure out the math. Um and so that's been really putting the students in the driver's seat and it's so encouraging to see rather than a teacher standing up front and just lecturing and students taking notes. Um we're also again using Desmos because it's a great way for them to discover the rules of math visually without again the teacher standing up and looking at it and it gets the kids back on their computers in order to look at the math. Um
033Vicki talked about like the transcribing to the paper. The amount of times that students just make mistakes because they, you know, looked down too quickly and a four turned into a 14. So we're really trying to integrate that visual learning with also the application that they're doing. Um and we've had a lot of teachers that have started to plan with AI. So I've been doing this lesson for 12 years. How can I spice it up or how can I introduce it differently or how can I get my kids creatively thinking about this or this lesson is really boring. Can we do something different with it that makes it have more of an application? Um so that's been great starting points that have brought our teams together to order to make math more interesting for our
034students and less of a punishment in the day. Um and then we're we're through a lot of changes, too, with some updated courses. So, our semester probability stats class is turning into a year-long data science because we've been working with our college and career friends at school and looking to see what colleges are looking for and data science is becoming that newer um trajectory for our students, and so we want to be able to prepare them. Um we are working on building out our EL program, and so providing a strategic math class that supports them um as they are newcomers with new language. It's one thing to have to learn English, it's another thing to have to learn the language of math, and so we're trying to support them in a small environment. Um we
035have strategic learning which helps our gen ed students that are in math one. Um and we've restructured that model so that we partner with our English department, and they have 2 days of English, 2 days of math, and 1 day of executive functioning. Um by doing this, we've allowed more electives into their schedule, and so it helps them really have some buy-in to the school. Um and like Vicki said, AP precalc started at Antioch, and it's going to be picked up at Lakes as well. Um and we're always really excited to have an AP opportunity for them. And then one of the things Megan and I have really focused on this year is just building community relations. Um so, we have our District 117 math fair, which is awesome. Um we had over 100 um
036elementary school students come and play games, and a lot of parents were like, "How did I not know about this for 5 years?" And we're like, "Well, I don't know. Like, we sent it out." But um but they love it, and this year we had a nice addition to it. So, our um at Lakes, our students in science club asked if they could participate in it also. So, they set up a bunch of tables where the kids got to do experiments and catapult and launch, and so it was really cool to see that grow as more of a STEM fair, too. So, we're hoping that over the course of a couple years that we'll continue to grow that get more kids interested in just those hands-on pieces and playing the games and working really on
037their number sense cuz that's one of the things with the elementary schools that we really want to focus on. Um and we have a lot Our kids, it's all voluntary for them to run the games, so that's awesome that we see a ton of high school kids there running the games, and it's just such like a like a flutter in my heart when I see them sitting next to an elementary school student like doing addition with them and drawing it in different ways and just knowing that they have the ability to explain it to another student that might be way younger to them is just such a valuable experience for them. Um articulation, Megan and I always have a great turnout for articulation. Um we've built really good good relationships with all the eighth grade
038teachers, are in constant communication with them, which has been awesome. And that's led to a lot of the middle school visits to the high school. So, this year we've had some of the middle schools come and actually say like, "We want to see your co-taught math one class, or we want to see your support class, what you guys are doing." But then not just seeing it, but then having the follow-up conversation with the teachers is really cool to hear where they're sharing resources now, and I know Milburn was here a couple weeks ago, and they were so excited about a reflection sheet. And of course, they're like, "Can we have them all?" I'm like, "Okay, well, here's the template we have, you know." And sharing information and sharing stuff with them. So, that's been a
039really cool both ways um that they share ideas with us, and then we share ideas with them. So, that's been a positive experience for both buildings. Any questions? Well, I think my questions were answered because I asked them before, but I heard the answers, so I'm going to turn the floor over to Sandy. Hi, Sandy. Um I I it's always really interesting. When you redo the integrated one and two, do you talk to cuz I know some of the middle schools now have very wisely switched from the algebra one geometry track to the integrated one and two the kids coming here. Mhm. So, do you share with them the changes that you're making? Yes. >> Yep. So, each summer after whatever course we did, like we did math three this year, if there was um
040schools that taught math three, like Milburn or Milburn, okay, there's nobody with math three. But after we did math two, we always share the updated curriculum math with them. Yeah. Yeah, we share a variety of resources like our finals and other things so that they can keep them on the same level of rigor. And and they have to take your finals for semester exams, right? To in order for a student to receive credit for integrated one or two, they have to take the finals that the high school gives. Is that correct? Yes, a version of it. Yes. A version of it. Yeah. It's not the same. Not the exact same one. >> Right. No, it's really great. It's it's hard because math is so easy. It's it's so data-driven, and it it's so easy to
041improve. Um and some of the programs that support math are so easy. I I s- The language arts and reading people you have quite a challenge in front of you cuz the other thing that I forgot to mention was the passages they have the kids read for those tests that you guys take are awful. They're not anything that the kids want to know about, and so You don't want to learn about bugs? Yeah, but it is on purpose. It's on purpose. They're not testing They're not testing reading, they're testing stamina. Yeah. Use the word of your stamina. It's so different, you know, in in math, you can make it They're testing the math skills. Yeah. And unfortunately, the ACT does go back to like simpler math, and the kids haven't done simpler math for so
042long. Cuz I used to teach um the sixth graders, they used to take the gifted They could take that gifted exam. So, I would teach it, and I would think, "Wow, this is right what these kids are learning." But when you get into the high school precalc and stuff, Yeah. >> Right. We have to remind our students very frequently to not overthink Right. when they take their test. Yeah. So, I think that's like part of that January when we do the um the practice ACT in both buildings in January. The data from that is just fascinating. Megan and I have access to it, and we can look at where that class is, the skills. Um and but the student feedback is the critical piece. Right. So, just hearing them say, "Oh, can we do some
043more stuff with fractions?" Sure, you know. And then finding avenues to um finding avenues to be able to to do that. That's cool. Yeah, I always like you guys' presentation. And again, I apologize um I don't know how you can go and tell the people who make those tests up, "Could you give the kids something to read that would be interesting that they would be interested in?" Cuz they can find main ideas, and they can do all that other stuff in the the support. But it has to be something they want to know about. We tried. We We all had the opportunity to go to the ACT Summit um together, and I heard many an English teacher be like, "Could you have it be something cool like skateboarding or Fortnite or anything that's relatable to
044the kids?" Yeah. Aren't you glad I gave Sandy the floor first? Yeah. A- Any other questions from board members? I like that you are using um strategies to teach them how they students how to apply the math. When I was taught math, it was like, "You're just going to learn this, and whether you're going to know it or not." >> Yeah. Um we had a teacher that made us sing if we didn't factor our polynomials right. So, that was fun. Like the one teacher that we had. But it wasn't like she taught us why we needed to learn how to factor our polynomials correctly. Yes. So, I really really appreciate that you're bringing um the real-life applications to why we need that. >> Yes. It's a very key component of our curriculum that we're very
045proud of. Other questions? Thank you both very much all of you very much for your presentation. Great. We're going to move on to the agenda. Uh how many government students do we have here? Good. How many have been here before? Just one that's leaving. So, for the government students, I'm going to break away just a little bit. In good governing, no matter what body of government it is, we don't interact with the audience. But this is the school, and you're here because of a class session here. Your class Your teacher sent you here. So, I might on occasion tell you what we're doing so you understand it better, and that's where we're going to start with right now. So, before you do that, Dr. I mean, our president's on topic. Uh I want to tell
046you that I surveyed the participants here. I asked them how much they think the school board members are compensated annually for this. The first answer I got, correct me if I'm wrong, was $28,000. The gentleman in the third row guessed $100,000. And then a smaller woman in the second row, when the middle, she said $68,000. School board members make? That's what they're guessing. I asked if anybody wanted to go lower than $28,000, they all said no. It's got to be higher. And I told them the correct answer was zero, and that you are public servants, so that happens. And and you see a lot of zeros in math, don't you? So, thanks for the wrong answers. We wish they were right, but they're all wrong. So, the next item on our agenda is to call
047the consent agenda, and the consent agenda for your government students is is an item on the agenda where we make one motion, and we have one vote that covers a myriad of things. It covers a lot of things. I'll mention what it covers, but we don't go through each one of those individually to vote on because they're pretty much routine, and we do it every month, every year, for decades and decades, and the state the laws allow us to do that. So, I start with a little statement which says, "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
048routine in nature and should be voted on with one motion to conserve time. Tonight's agenda consent agenda items would include the approval of the regular meeting minutes from January 15th, the approval of the closed session meeting minutes from January 15th, the approval of the personnel report. Also on the consent agenda, turning pages here, you can see there's a lot of things here. Would be the approval of volunteer positions, the approval of retirements, the approval of resignations, the approval of separations of employment, the approval of requests for extended leave of absences. Also on the consent agenda would be the approval of the bills in fund 10, which is the education fund, in fund 20, which is the building fund, in fund 40, which is the transportation fund, and in fund 50, which is the Illinois Municipal
049Retirement Fund or Social Security Fund. Also on the consent agenda are the requests for public access to records called FOIA. We had four requests and they were responded to, but we have to approve those. So, I would ask at this point if any member of the board or the superintendent would like anything removed from the consent agenda. I would like something removed and I'm going to throw Sandy under the bus and I would like to pull off the approval of the personnel report and I will excuse myself. But before we do that, with that pulled off, I would entertain a motion that we approve the consent agenda as amended. I just amended it. So moved. We have a motion by Ms. Dixon. Second. Seconded by Ms. Pritchard. We'll do a roll call vote. We'll begin
050with Ms. Jacobs. Yes. Ms. Simpson. Yes. Ms. Dixon. >> Yes. Ms. Pritchard. Yeah. Wayne Savage votes yes. Now I will leave the room. I move to the motion that we approve the personnel report as presented. So moved. Second. Ms. Simpson. Yes. Ms. Dixon. Yes. Ms. Simpson. Yes. Yes. Ms. Pritchard said yes. All right. Now we go to on the agenda and go to the business office. Okay, this evening I actually have only one item, which is a capital projects update, but that has multiple pieces to this update. Uh so, the first thing um you might see that uh there was a a payment for just under 144,000 to Hartway. That is our final payment for the uh phase one of the mechanicals uh the rooftops um over here. So, that's the final payment, so that's
051done. So, you see that's 100% paid and complete. Uh the second thing that you would have seen as far as payment in the board was the um payment uh for F.E. Moran for just under 1.7 million dollars. Um you might have noticed that then on the spreadsheet that we have a projected cost of you see there the total of a little over 3.6 million dollars, but if you take a a look at the total, that's definitely more than 3.6 million. I added the rooftop units for phase two in there, which is just under the 3 million, um because uh we originally were not going to pay um the rooftop units in fiscal year 26. You may recall in years past that even if we did get equipment before, depending on the timing, um those payments
052usually would come in the next fiscal year, so after July. Um but with talking with F.E. Moran and them coming in so early and then you're talking about an extensive amount of money here, they asked for payment. So, we met and um we agreed to make a payment here's for six of the eight units for again just under the 1.7 million dollars. So, what that means then is that I will have to make an amendment to the budget here before the end of the fiscal year. So, you'll see a tentative budget presented in May and then a tentative budget in June um like we do in the fall, right? And we'll just do that again, the whole publishing and everything. The reason why I have to do that is because in fund 20, so operations
053and maintenance, with this big payment uh right now again the 1.7 million dollars, that would put me over 10% of my budget expenditures for 2020. So, I need to amend that so then we don't get into trouble with the state basically. Um unfortunately, there's some other news with the uh rooftop units. You might have read it in the board update. I didn't get into the the details of it, but um you might recall we had eight rooftop units that go into uh that are part of phase two this summer. Um all eight were delivered, but two were damaged. They did not make it under a bridge. So, they were heavily damaged. So, um they have been reordered and hopefully Jory and her team have been informed. Uh thank you for your flexibility. They should be
054here um by the end of June. So, of course we won't be done. You're hoping to be done by then. Um but so that will delay us a little bit, but um talked to Jory, her team, uh athletics over at Antioch with Mike Maloney as far as flexibility and what that might be for cap uh camps and then just being here in the building. So, we appreciate everybody's flexibility, but um we'll be in Those are actually the rooftop units that control the HVAC in the small gym and the auditorium. So, those were the two that were damaged. So, unfortunately, that happened, but we just roll with the punches. So. For students in the audience, rooftop units are like the size of a train car and they're on the roof. And they're very, very expensive. So,
055that truck driver had a very bad day. I would not I just said I could not want to make that phone call. Uh moving on with just some updates, Lakes Baseball Cage is moving along. They're actually out there today because of of course it's great weather. They're prepping the area for concrete. Um then also we just found out this morning that um we did receive the school maintenance project grant. That's a grant that you can apply for through the state. So, we will receive $50,000 that will apply towards the temperature controls for these rooftop units that are coming. So, that was great news that we received this morning. And then just lastly, don't forget to mark your calendars uh finance and facilities committee meeting March 4th at 3:30. Just please note that we'll be here
056up here in the upper library um where we're at now because um we'll have files and things going on uh with movement down in the district office. So, that will be here and that will be um sent out the agenda and everything early next week. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? Okay. Moving on, we go to governance. Do you have a approval request for approval for overnight field trips? You bet. So, we have uh two overnight field trip requests. Uh first we have the ACHS field hockey team who is wanting to go to St. Louis for a tournament. And then secondly, the AP Enviro uh classes uh are actually wanting to go volunteer at a sustainable uh organic farm where they're going to learn about sustainability and modern farming uh farming
057is just in it's just southwest of Chicago. So, it is recommended to approve both overnight field trips as presented, please. With that recommendation, I would entertain a motion that the board approve the overnight field trips for ACHS Varsity Field Hockey classes to St. Louis, Missouri to partici- participate in the St. Louis Gateway Field Hockey Tournament on September 3rd, 2026 to September 7th, 2026 and LCHS AP Environmental Science classes to Spence Farms, Fairbury, Illinois to volunteer on a sustainable organic farm and learn about sustainability and modern farming farming, dates being April 7th, to April 8th, 2026. Motion. We have a motion by Ms. Jacobs, second by Ms. Pritchard. Any questions? Hearing none, we'll do a roll call beginning with Ms. Ibsen. Yes. Ms. Dixon. >> Yes. Ms. Pritchard. >> Oh, yeah. Ms. Jacobs. Yes. With six
058votes yes, that motion passes. Now, the approval of an intergovernmental agreement. Chair, so District 117, we've been building our partnerships with our feeder districts for some time now. This is one specific to early childhood education. Um and in this instance, we have some ACHS students involved in their early childhood education classes, where they go visit some of the area elementary schools, in this case Oakland and Hillcrest. Um a little bit about the program. It gives our education pathway students meaningful exposure to teaching beyond the preschool setting um as they are preparing for careers in working with children. They visit the elementary classrooms, they support students in authentic ways, they help distribute materials, they read with the students, they assist in small groups, um they observe how classrooms function on a day-to-day basis. So, basically, this
059allows our students to build confidence, professionalism, and also really just uh a deeper understanding and more realistic understanding of teaching. And so, this intergovernmental agreement formalizes our partnership with District 34 for our students to visit their schools and interact with their elementary students. Um so, we are seeking an approval just for that. Okay. With that recommendation, I would entertain a motion that the board approve the intergovernmental agreement between Community High School District 117 and Antioch Community Consolidated School District 34 regarding the teaching education pathway program. Motion. Motion by Ms. Jacobs. >> Second. Second by Ms. Dixon. Questions? Hearing none, we'll begin with a roll call vote. Ms. Dixon. Yes. Ms. Pritchard. Oh, yes. I love that one. >> Ms. Ibsen. Yes. With six votes yes, that motion passes. The next one is me. This needs
060to be renewed and voted on every 3 years, and we are not at that 3-year cycle, so the board does not need to vote on this. What the school code says is that we're supposed to remind you, to apprise you of our e-learning program. So, it's just to apprise the board and take any questions that you have. Uh I know it says we have to We have to approve resolution here. We're not approving a resolution, we're just approving the verification Okay. So, verification. All right. So, like I said, we'll have a vote later. Basically, it allows us to use e-learning in lieu of inclement weather days, so we don't have to not learn that day. We can do e-learning if there's a horrible snowstorm or dangerous cold, and then we don't have to add that
061at that day to the end of the year. So, with that, I would recommend that the board vote to approve our verification of the e-learning program as presented. And with that recommendation, I would entertain a motion that the board approve the e-learning verification resolution as presented this evening. So moved. Motion by Ms. Dixon. Second. Second by Ms. Jacobs. Any questions? I just wanted to make a comment. Pastor at our church was showing a picture of kids and how excited they were for a snow day, and how we're taking that away. I have to make that comment. We're taking away that excitement, please. She was talking about the Bozo show and watching it live on the screen to see if your school school for the day. And I think we're taking that fun away from the
062kids, so they'll be happy to have the rest of our school Any other questions or comments? Hearing none, we'll do a roll call vote beginning with Ms. Pritchard. Yes. >> Ms. Jacobs. Yes. Ms. Ibsen. Yes. Ms. Dixon. Yes. With six votes yes, that motion passes. Okay. We are up to The next one. Superintendent's report. So, I'd like to invite Ms. Bowman or Dr. Barry to kick us off with the student ambassador reports. Who wants to go first? All right. First, on athletic athletic updates, the ACHS boys wrestling just wrapped up a very successful season. First-year coach Sean Rydel helped guide seven wrestlers to the sectionals held at ACHS last Friday and Saturday. From that group, six advanced to the IHSA state tournament, which starts tomorrow and continues on to Saturday. Hayden Gomez, Josh Kiley, Key
063Chase Noland, Don Garcia, Colin Aquila, and Owen Shave will represent ACHS and rep wrestle amongst the best in the state of Illinois. Um we have three girls wrestlers who made it to the podium of the regionals 2 weeks ago and advanced to the sectional finals. London Wood, Sasha Johnson, and Josie Bow made it there, with Sasha advancing to the IHSA state tournament next weekend. The girls bowling state tournament will be held this weekend in Rockford. We will have junior Abby Lysak bowling for the Sequoits for the second year in a row. And the ACHS competitive cheer team had one of its strongest performances on the first day of the IHSA state competition and advanced to the second day, where they finished in ninth place. It felt good to be active on the last day of
064the season. And then for our athletics and athletics activities and clubs updates, our annual chorus at the NLCC choir festival was last Tuesday, and all the choirs from the conference visited in It was great to see and hear the incredible talents of all of those involved. And then with our ACHS ACHS chess team advancing to the IHSA state tournament in Peoria last weekend, we are pleased to announce they finished in 75th place amongst a very talented crowd of competitors. And then our Secret Sidekicks, we had a busy night tonight in the NLCC Buddy Ballers tournament at Grayslake North. They dominated in the first game, they beat Lakes in a 12-4 match. We are actively planning for our big game when the Sidekicks host the Waukegan team on March 12th. And then we are very proud
065to of our ACHS staff team, which placed second in the recent NLCC match. 2 weeks ago, we celebrated those Sequoits who are going to play competitive sports when they move on to college. Congrats to football players Owen Shave, who will go to Drake, and Lucas Curry, who will play at Kentucky Wesleyan. Zack Rubly will be playing baseball at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. And Hunter Bell Camp will be doing the same at Wartburg College. Carson Flaners will be running at North Central College. Kennedy Copeland will be joining the track and field team at Chicago State University. While Abby Fiesinger will be doing the same at Winona State University. Good luck to these Sequoit scholar athletes. And then congrats to our following students who were selected for the NLCC honor band. They performed last week. Margo
066Martinson, Ashley Johnson, Alex Fiesinger, Trevor Wendt, Charles Srichantra, Jonathan Swanson, Bailey Brunick, Ella Cleveland, Yasmin Sanchez, Hannah Anderson, Kaylee German, Dolan Schuler, Lars Barbo, Cal Gugel, Colin Duffy, Annika Olson, Brendan Cameron, and Autumn Glader. Good job. Um in early February, we had seven exceptional student athletes who have mastered the delicate balance of academic rigor and athletic grit sign to compete at the college level. We are proud to honor the discipline of their past 4 years and the lifelong memories they have created. Ethan Jabloski and Ian Ankney committed to Augustana University for baseball, uh as well as Tyler McCollum committed to UW-Platteville for baseball. Dylan Davis committed to North Central College for football. Talia DeWitt committed to Purdue University Northwest for flag football. And Mitch Gendel committed to Northern Kentucky University for swimming. Rena Stryker was
067recognized as an IADA All-State Honorable Mention recipient. This state distinction is in recognition of Rena's success in athletics, academics, and leadership at Lakes and in our community. She is invited to the state convention in March to receive her award. Girls basketball had an amazing night yesterday with an upset win against Grayslake North High School. Lakes was the 10 seed coming into the game, and Grayslake North was ranked as the 8 seed. Lakes pulled off the win 36 to 30, and they're scheduled to play Vernon Hills tomorrow at 7:00. For our other state competitions, Lakes dance team qualified for state and competed in Bloomington at the end of January. They had a beautiful performance and ended up ranking 21st in the 2A state division. Congratulations to all of our dancers. Uh LCHS cheer also made it
068into the state competition. Unfortunately, did not make it to day two. Jocelyn placed fourth at the Chicago uh Phillips sectional and qualified for the state wrestling tournament. She'll spend the next 2 weeks preparing for state, which will take place February 27th and February 28th in Bloomington. Last but not least, this winter season, we had a boys wrestling state qualifier, Michael Flatley. He's a junior here at Lakes. He got fourth at the Antioch sectional and moved on to the state tournament. He wrestled at 165 lb and will be wrestling tomorrow in the consolation bracket for third place after his loss earlier today. For our activities and clubs, we had singing Valentines. Uh Lakes choir performed uh singing Valentines on Thursday before the 4-day weekend. Um students bought them for their friends and significant others. Um, packages
069you can buy starting from like $3 for one class to $20 for a singing of all your classes. Yeah, so that led to some wholesome but also like funny surprises. It was a little bit awkward when they sang to you, but Um, Venture and Advance uh had a fly tying competition over the last 3 days where uh students designed and tied their own custom fishing flies and voted on. And they will be voted on by the whole PE department in the coming days. The winner gets a prize, which Mr. Gedvilas said it could be anything. Um, because last year it was a $5 Dunkin gift card, but the year before it was $75 to Panera Express. But um, I think it'll be fun to see what who wins the prize. Um, tickets for this year's
070spring musical Matilda are now available. The performances taking place over the next two weekends starting February 20th. Um, next week is LCHS Inclusion Week hosted by Eagle Pals. Events will be happening throughout the week including Aussie's birthday on February 26th, which is also the 117th day of the school year, and we'll wrap up on Friday with the big game against Grayslake North. And then on February 9th, NHS held a meeting where they made posters for the big game. Thank you. Miss Bowen, anything to add? No, that was fabulous. It's been a busy February already with only 28 days. Well, thank you. You summed up all of my announcements except the one, and that is we are looking to send out our invitations to community members tomorrow to participate in our Portrait of a Graduate community
071meetings. They are March 17th and April 14th, 5:30 to 8:30 with a light dinner. So, if you're watching at home and you really wanted to get in and you want to get in under the wire, shoot me an email. I see a couple of active community members in our audience today. So, if you are interested in being on our Strategic Planning Committee, March 17th and April 14th. Uh what this is is in the spring of 2023 we brought together a large community group for three nights. It was like between 75 and 80 people each night. And then we had two breakout nights. It was actually five different nights, and they developed our District 117 Portrait of a Graduate, which you'll see when you walk out of the library, you'll see it at the front door.
072There are six competencies that we want to develop with all students before they graduate. So, now here we are 3 years later, and we're bringing the whole band back together to give us feedback on the things we're doing really well with to develop our students and things that we can be better at. So, if you're interested in joining here at the last minute, please shoot me an email, and uh we'll get you in the group. March 17th April 14th in the evening. That's all I have. Okay. At this point in the agenda, it's an opportunity for the board to give comments, and I'll start by first of all thanking our ambassadors for the sacrifices they make every month, and I understand you may have just received your ambassador shirts that you're wearing and I hope
073that you will take the opportunity to wear them in front of your classmates so that they can be as proud of you as we are. So, thank you for wearing your shirts. Um, board comments. What is this? Jackie. That's from our Buddy Ballers tournament that happens tonight. So, it's a t-shirt from That's too bad because students have our meeting unfortunately. Oh, no, those aren't that tonight. It's Friday. Okay, just kidding. That's Friday. Next Friday. Oh. They're the same color. They look the same. So, yellow is the color of inclusion. Um, and so Lakes is doing their Inclusion Week next week, and it culminates with a big game. So, our Eagle Pals will be playing the Grayslake North Knights at a all school assembly. It We did it last year for the first time. It was
074probably my most powerful memory. Do you guys remember it? Yes, it's absolutely incredible. You cheer for everyone. That's what inclusion is all about. Uh and Antioch is hosting their first Inclusion Week in March. March 2nd. And it will also have a big game of its own as well. So, board members are invited. If you can make it, we'll make sure we give you the information. >> It's already in there. Okay, perfect. What time? The times it's it's in the So, the We'll see you again tomorrow. Right, we'll see you tomorrow. Okay. At this point in the agenda, could you could you bring the new board members up to what the Eagle Pals is? Sure. So, the Eagle Pals are a club, and it is made up of our students that are typically from our Learning
075Opportunities program or have uh special special either physical or emotional needs, and there's a club where any student can join, and they partner and do events throughout the school year. They do activities. They also have area clubs they join with and play competitive games. There'll be soccer tournaments. There'll be basketball tournaments. So, tonight, which is why some of us are wearing yellow, and that's what the girls talked about, um tonight Grayslake North is hosting an NLCC kind of Buddy Ballers tournament is what it's called. We have Eagle Pals. Antioch has Sequoit Sidekicks. Each school, I think seven of the eight conference schools have clubs, and the students are playing athletically against each other, and I think the best part is you just cheer for everybody. That's fantastic. Did I summarize that well for those of
076you who have been to it? Thank you. It's great. Board members are government students? We are allowed by law to have some of this meeting behind closed doors. This is a public meeting, but we have the opportunity There are some issues that can be held in in private uh for various reasons. So, we're going to be going into that session now. Sometimes we have action after that, sometimes we don't. I don't believe we do tonight. >> But um I'm going to read it so you can understand what it is, and then we're going to close this portion of the meeting, and you're welcome to stay and wait till we adjourn the meeting, or you can go home. And you can say you sat through the entire meeting, not like some of your peers. And get
077pictures if you need proof. So, at this point, I would entertain a motion that the board enter into into the closed session for the purpose of discussing the following exceptions to the Open Meetings Act. These are exceptions. 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. However, a meeting to to consider an increase in compensation to a specific employee of a public
078body 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 5 ILCS 120/2C1. Also, student disciplinary cases, which falls under 5 ILCS 120/2C9. And just because I said all that doesn't mean that we're going to be discussing each and every one of those. We might be discussing just one thing. So, with that, I would entertain that motion. Motion by Miss Dixon. Second. Seconded by Miss Ibsen. We'll do a roll call vote beginning with Miss Jacobs. Miss Ibsen. Yes. Miss Dixon. Yes. Miss Pritchett. Yes. Mr. South Side Pritchett. We will now go into closed session. Thank you students for joining us and public as well. Thank you. >> Mhm. >> I would entertain
079a motion we come out of closed session. So moved. Motion by Ms. Dickson. Second. Seconded by Ms. Prichard. All in favor say I. I. I would entertain a motion that we adjourn the meeting. So moved. Motion by Ms. Prichard, seconded by Ms. Dickson. All in favor say I. >> I. Opposed? Motion passes. We are adjourned. >> invite the public to stay