001Good evening and welcome to the committee of the whole meeting on February 4th, 2026. Uh it is 5:30 p.m. and we are calling the meeting to order. Can we please call the role? >> Mrs. Hustler, >> here. >> Mrs. Assassive >> here. >> Mr. Brnahan >> here. >> Dr. Henry >> here. >> Mrs. Arvanites >> here. >> Mrs. Troutman. >> Mrs. Lewinsky. >> We have five board members present and two absent. Can we please rise for the pledge of allegiance? Seeing who's in the room, I'm assuming there are no public comments. Is that correct? Thank you. So, we'll skip public comment portion of the agenda and we'll jump right into our reports and presentations. We have one item on our agenda tonight and that is the strategic plan monitoring, student success, learning environment, financial and
002operational effectiveness, and community outreach and engagement, which just a reminder are four areas or pillars of our wonderful strategic plan. With that, I'll turn it over to Dr. Campbell to kick us off. >> Thank you, President Arvanites, and good evening to our board of education as well as our administrators that are in the room tonight. Uh we are really excited to be here with you tonight and to engage in conversations um around how we are monitoring progress um in a direct alignment to our strategic plan and the work that we're doing around that. Um as this board knows there are many opportunities um that we come together um throughout the school year to discuss the progress um that is being made across our district in alignment to our strategic plan. Tonight's work and time together
003and conversation is going to directly um align with how we are monitoring that progress. So, as has been stated by our board president, our current strategic plan, um there are a total of four priority areas that being student success, learning environment, financial and operational effectiveness, as well as community outreach and engagement. Tonight's time, we're going to really ground um our work and really looking at how we are monitoring um the progress that we're making this year in alignment to those four strategic priority areas and specifically in alignment to our strategic priority objectives. Um, as has been mentioned, there are some additional um, faces that are in the room, and that's because we're going to spend some time highlighting one of the structures um, that we utilize here across district 205 as our strategic plan administrative
004team um, is a meeting structure that we have in place to make sure that we are getting a holistic view um, of how we are progressing towards our strategic objectives. So, we're going to spend the bulk of our time um engaging in conversation, sharing directly with you artifacts around that work and the progress, the alignment, the progress that's being made and the continuous improvement and opportunities we have. Obviously, here in D205, we have really focused on our alignment across our entire organization. That alignment begins with the board of education and the governing board. And so after we spend time really diving into some artifacts and into things that we are closely examining as a team, we're also going to spend a little time just kind of elevating in the room how your direct board governance
005and decision making is supporting the administrative team to carry out and to meet the identified objectives outlined in our strategic plan. Last but not least, a part of our strategic plan is that we have um a dashboard that uh lives on our uh district website that really helps hold us accountable uh to you as well as to the broader community um around how progress is being monitored and as well as measured towards those strategic um those strategic objectives. Um, one of the reasons why we spend time talking specifically about our monitoring um, and the implementation is that research tells us that 90% of organizations do not implement their stated objectives. Um when the board adopted this strategic plan um way back in 2022, one of the directives that came from the board is making sure
006that this plan um was directly in alignment with the work that was happening across the district. We oftent times know that strate organizations spend time um engaging in developing a strategic plan that then might sit um on a uh bookshelf. But here in district 205, the team um along with the board has been extremely thoughtful and intentional about making sure that that strategic plan really guides our continuous improvement efforts. I wanted just to call out because we oftentimes share that in all of our presentations in the work and how the board has also communicated the their decision-making. Um and we also wanted to to just highlight that that's not even um only being recognized internally um but there are other leaders that have seen how we are approaching that work and our continuous improvement efforts
007and in alignment um to our strategic plan. So one quote that I want to um pull out Dr. Karen Sullivan uh she's the former superintendent of Indian Prairie. She currently serves as a district support specialist with DUP page um ROE. uh she's worked specifically uh with our cabinet team last year in our district transformation pro um project. Um and she has had multiple interactions with our team and with the work. And one thing that she said is that our team does an excellent job keeping um our strategic plan front and center with our staff, with the board and the community. And she said that like we've oftentimes see statistically that strategic plans are not always lived fully lived and that sometimes it can be seen as discrete events. Um but she really really um has
008seen the work that has done been done here and and really honors that work and commends that work and says there's opportunity for that work to be shared. So this is just a really positive moment um just to share with our board and with our community that that work that we're doing here is is also um being seen across um other spaces. So our administrative uh strategic planning committee it actually was formulated at the start of our strategic plan. Um part of the work that we uh did is that here in D205 we were very um fortunate to have um elicited a lot of feedback and gathered data from our broader community and stakeholder groups um parents uh staff members, community members. Um and the original um design of that administrative strategic planning committee was
009to take all that data, to take all of that information, that stakeholder feedback and then to develop to curate it and and to create what we now know is our journey of excellence framework. um that strategic planning committee worked um to make sense and to make meaning of that and to really make sure that in the development of our strategic plan we are honoring the voices of the stakeholders and the feedback in terms of the priority areas uh that our community has elevated in that then that same group began to make recommendations in terms of how um that work is going to be monitored over time. We have now we know that we are now in our third year of our strategic plan implementation and in this uh time we we're really making sure that
010we're not uh just uh making uh suggestions about how we monitor but we are actually coming together and we're actually monitoring the progress and the implementation. Uh we are very fortunate here to uh serve in a unit district from our um early childhood center uh through our transition center. And so it was really important that we had um a very diverse representation um of administrators across our district. And so here you can see uh that our current SPAT uh which is uh affectionately um is our acronym acronym for strategic planning administrative team um is comprised of those uh four priority areas and then the various leaders this particular school year that have committed to really leaning in and monitoring progress that's being made districtwide. So it's really really a powerful structure in that it expands
011beyond just district administrators, but it's inclusive of school administrators who are actually on the ground leading this work within their teams. And to be able to take a step back and be reflective to say how is our districtwide priorities, objectives are living in the various spaces across grade bands as well as across various departments within our district. um as a whole. So that work has really continued to evolve um and emerge into some very very specific work. Um and today in the room we just invited um a few of those team members to come and to engage with the board to kind of share and and really we're going to be replicating some of the work um that's done during that structure during our um SPAT meeting. Um, one a few of those things that
012we uh that is inclusive of our monitoring is reviewing our strategic dashboard and making sure that our actual actions align to the objectives that we are intending to accomplish within the year. We also constantly review and reflect um in the implementation process from a district as well as a school level to really elevate the successes as well as if there are opportunities for adjustments um in that space. It's really important because now we have a collective brain trust of individuals that's representative across our entire district that then we're able to think about how does this work directly align to the work that we do when we bring our entire district leadership team together. And then of course we are constantly in that cycle of planning, of reviewing, of doing and then making adjustments. And so
013this SPAT team is also um utilized to really review annually and discuss um how we are making progress in district-wide priority objectives for that upcoming year. And that work is done um in in late March, early April so that then teams and departments have a very clear understanding of what those district-wide priorities are and then they're able to base and align their department as well as their schools um school improvement plans to that work. And so one of the things that this is just showing is that we're creating um a very collaborative um and accountable ecosystem where individuals across our entire district um is takes direct responsibility for that strategic plan. And I think that is what directly allows our plan and what has allowed our plan to be so successful and it really being
014a living guide to our continuous efforts here at uh D205. So, on tonight, you're going to hear us um directly show um and demonstrate um what our yearly district-wide priority objectives are and how those objectives um are being lived in various spaces. And so, just here, I know the board know these very well. We oftentimes come back to them. Athena, I put this slide in just for you. um is to just again remind us that each year we prioritize very specific um priority objectives. Of course um we are very thoughtful about how some priority objectives um are not just one year that they are multi-year objectives. And so you will kind of hear um some of the teams and some of the examples tonight talk a little bit about how we are making progress within
015that objective just this year. But there is still much more opportunity be to be done as it relates to that objective. So I've done a lot of talking um and now this is where we're going to really dive into uh the meat of our time together. Um and so what the board members will experience is that we will um actually engage in some rotations uh where you will be um talking with uh leaders and facilitators that are both representative of all of the leaders in the room are part of our strategic uh planning um administrative team. um and they're going to just kind of share with you um some of the um artifacts and the work that we actually um closely analyzed and reviewed during our uh midyear strategic planning meeting. Um and what you
016the common experience um that you will hear is one like how are we closely aligning our work to our strategic priorities? um are we attending to the work that we said we were going to do as it is outlined in our strategic plan. We're going to highlight um some of the progress that has been made. Um and then we're also going to outline some of the next steps and what we feel are some of the opportunities. Um once each of the admin teams share um your their artifacts and kind of talk through that work um before we rotate there will be time at your uh particular tables just to kind of ask some questions um and then at the end we will come back together and just do a brief um overview of what has
017been discussed. Okay. So, at that time, I'm going to um ask for each I'm sorry, I'm going back the wrong way. Okay. I don't know what happened. But at this time, I'm going to now turn it over to the leaders at the team uh to share their work. Okay, thank you so very much for engaging in that first um session. We're now board members. You can sit tight and I'm going to ask my administrative team uh to rotate clockwise. Um my finance and ops, you will come over here. Miss Daniels, you will go to Athena and Brian. And then Kevin and Kalissa will move over to Dr. Kelly. Dr. Kelly Henry. As soon as everyone gets settled, we will Okay, can you all press the Thank you. Go back one. Okay, we're going to come
018back together um now that we have completed all of our rotations. And I just wanted to um briefly provide an opportunity for us to um elevate um in the space um just a very brief um recap of uh the artifact that was uh provided in the priority area. And if there um was a um comment or a reflection um that a board member would uh like to provide for that priority area. So I'm going to start off with student success. So um could someone please grab the microphone from student success and just voice over um the priority objectives and the artifact um that was shared. So, we had the opportunity to share trends from um our school level reflections and the data to monitor progress of our instructional priorities by sharing an artifact from our
019middle of the year ELA and math setbacks. And then we had the opportunity to hear from one of our principles around how she activated and empowered her teacher leadership team to reflect on the instructional priorities as it relates to math. use data to reflect on progress and then also to name next steps and so um it was really a nice opportunity just to hear from a principal leader of how she's experiencing that monitoring of progress. >> Excellent. Thank you. Is there a board member that uh would like to just share a reflection or a question um that was asked uh related to this priority area? Would you like to say something with SASF? >> Okay, wonderful. Anyone else? No. You know, I just think what something that stood out was and this is kind of
020going I'm going to kind of just talk about the whole meeting, the substance of our meeting today. Um, especially for those of us who've been around for a little bit, a little while as board members, just seeing and and thinking back to where we were in year 1, five years ago, and what had been um the status or the state of the district at the time, if I could use that phrase. Um, and then seeing this shift into this intentional shift that really focuses on student success, learning environment, what they're experiencing every day, developing teachers uh, and staff, right? Getting people on board, understanding that uh, practice makes perfect, I guess, but perfect's always far away. that just the tremendous lift and the amount of leadership that it takes to do this work and how
021evident that was in not just your presentation but what we're really seeing um through our students lives and experiences in our school buildings. So whether it's their engagement in um you know the environment after school, their academic success, if it's just new books that they're reading or new experiences that they're having, this was just one kind of magnifying glass on and we talked about math and some of the shifting that's going on there and and some of the successes and looking at data and what is it telling us and what does it mean for kids. It's just tremendous and so appreciative to see that work and such a quick a very fast um turnaround if I can call it that. You know, five years is not a long time. Uh it's actually very quick when
022it comes to educational change. So I commend all the leaders in this room and and uh all those who continue to work on doing what's right by our children and students and making sure that we every day is an effective day. So thank you. Thank you so much for that um learning environment just a brief voice over. So uh in our group we talked um a little bit about how we are um partnering with uh different schools to not only um drive down chronic absenteeism at the school level but also to do uh some intentional work around the classroom learning environment um through the use of our interactive pedagogy rubric and um our high quality curricular materials um and really just what that looks like and how uh some of the outcomes have been um
023gathered. gathered at each of the buildings. So, we're using a tool this year called Classroom Mosaic to better understand um a little bit more about um what's actually happening in classrooms from a learning environment perspective and from a learning environment o uh perspective overall uh to make sure that we're able to target student supports in the right way. >> Excellent. I'm going to just move on and then if board members would like to at the end kind of I really appreciate um President Arvaniti's synthesis financial and operational effectiveness we we know that there were two artifacts shared can you just briefly >> one of those artifacts uh spoke to and it supports uh securing highquality purpose-driven educators as we know that we're trying to maximize our greatest resource which is our human resource uh we
024want want to make sure that um we're continuing uh to work towards um stronger systems and processes for um uh for interviewing and hiring. So, we've been working collaboratively with our uh lead principles and human resources staff to uh streamline both the technical steps and aspects of of interviewing and and screening and hiring, but also um procedural aspects that are even more important in terms of who's included, what are we grounding our um our look fors around and and after building out an education educator profile um aligned to the journey of excellence um we've developed some high impact pack um interview questions as well as look fors um as we seek the best candidates um in our district. >> Thank you. >> And the second part of uh of the financial and operational effectiveness uh
025artifacts focused around uh the maximizing of of our financial resources through our purchasing and procurement procedures. uh we're undertaking an RFP process uh that is going to be uh utilized for for many things going forward but this one focused on our copier RFP uh which is taking place uh it is being submitted on Friday and we'll be engaging in a uh enhanced wellthoughtout process of evaluating every single um every single proposal uh to not just take into account uh the price but also take into account the quality and the longevity of the equipment. Thank you. Community outreach and engagement. >> So, one of the things that we talked about tonight was how we have a lot of tools as a district to communicate with um our families and the the D205 community as a whole.
026Uh, one of them that we dove into is our social media and how we measure it and monitor that and how it shows in in various areas um, including our five essentials with engaged communities and how we look at not just the impressions and what we're putting out there, but are people actively engaging? Are we driving that two-way communication? And are we ensuring that all of this great work that we've spoken about tonight is really shared with our community in a thoughtful and meaningful and strategic way. >> Excellent. I'm I'm going to give an opportunity if there's any um things that board members would like to highlight regarding uh those three other priority areas before moving on. I just wanted to um comment on through several of the conversations we had like how great it
027is through this process for leaders and educators to be able to learn from each other to share their successes and not reinvent the wheel. But if they're having a challenge that's similar to another building, they might be able to, you know, learn something from somebody that's doing something great in that building and share that out and um just share their successes with their peers as well. So, I just think that's such an important thing across our build, across our organization. So, it was good to hear. >> Thank you. >> Uh first, I want to say thank all of you guys for doing this. It's a lot of hard work that you guys have put in and it and it really shows. Um, and I wanted to say like even the RFP presentation here, it is
028very detailed. A lot of work goes into this. I mean, is very thorough and but this just shows like the and it's not you're not going to see like articles and magazines written in this one as you would maybe like test scores or things like that, but it really shows like the top to bottom, the importance of of looking at a district from top to bottom, the the big picture to to the medium and the small picture. And I think that shows with what you guys presented today. So, thank you. Can I just highlight one more piece because I don't want to let this group go without saying this. I just was so appreciative of that focus that we have. I know you your data was focused more on attendance, but I think it's really
029about creating engaging learning environments that kids want to be in. And it goes back to what this team is doing over here. Um, and that that synergy between the two. um that I think is is really fundamentally important to good education. So, I just wanted to call it out. Thank you for the focus on student engagement. >> Yeah. >> In warm, welcoming learning environments. >> Yeah. And and I really want to thank you so much for saying that and the um focus that the work that we um just a really small snippet of work that we showcased tonight uh could not be possible without the direct support and direction of the board of education. And I think that it is really important also to underscore just this system alignment is really critical. And so, um,
030board members, um, when you all are making decisions, when you all are, um, really closely analyzing how we allocate our resources, um, to support the student experience, um, that that direction directly aligns um, to the strategic plan and to the goals that you all have set out for me as superintendent and how those goals um, are then directly aligned to what's happening at the school level uh department level because we all agree that we are here to really support and uplift and ensure that every student um it grows to their potential and has a a positive experience. Um so with that being said, I think that it it often times, you know, our our community um see the board come together uh in these uh spaces and in a boardroom and and make decisions. Um,
031but I think sometimes it's it's great to just say how those dots are connected and how the decisions and the supports um that you have provided to administration still allows us to kind of have that consistent coherent through line down to the student experience. And so I'm I'm not going to read through all of these, but um clearly there have been very um intentional um steps. You heard about how we are utilizing observational data um to continue to inform school level professional learning. Um that could not have happened um without the board um uh allocation of resources um to you utilize uh tools like next path um for example um as well as uh your willingness for us to come and and share what re what research is is said around best practices and making
032sure that we're finding and elevating high quality curricular resources and your support around that. Um, and that has been consistent throughout um, our EC12 experience over the last few years. Um we heard a lot um tonight even in terms of how um one of the things this board continues to really um ground itself in is making sure that there is a strong financial stewardship um over the taxpayers um investments in in ensuring that we continue to maintain and sustain um strong programming, strong facilities um as well as high quality staff. Um and so you all um as a board team has continued uh to lead us and guide us uh in those efforts. Um as well as making sure that as representations of our community and the voices and the perspectives uh that exist in
033our community. making sure that you all are accessible and having conversations, being out, uh showing up, um walking buildings, going to uh board tours, talking to staff members, um and being at various um events that also allow uh for that two-way communication. So we we just thought that it was really important um to just highlight again how uh we are connecting uh the work um from the board level all the way down to the classroom experience. And so um thank you for that. Last I'm sorry I clicked past that really quickly. Um we just wanted to just share um again how we uh publicly continue to um thank you um articulate progress um and momentum and success um as well as areas that we're continuing to focus on in relation to our strategic plan and
034uh that will be our strategic planning dashboard. Miss Tanya Daniels, would you like to speak to that briefly? >> Sure. you just said it very well. Uh I will reiterate that um the the work that was shared with you tonight as well as all of the work directly in alignment with our strategic plan priority areas for 2526 and each year uh are shared on our uh district 205 strategic planning dashboard which can be found on our website under strategic plan and then you click on the strategic planning dashboard gray icon in the top right. Um all of the data that is being monitored to measure success in each of these areas is also um underneath the the the strategic planning dashboard and those are updated generally in alignment with if you recall one of the
035first slides where Dr. Campbell talked about how often we are presenting this data to you. As we receive this data, it is updated on uh the dashboard, but just a reminder that all of the work that we were doing we are doing to in alignment with our strategic plan is available on our strategic planning dashboard on the website. >> That concludes the presentation uh from the administration. I will turn it back over to um our board president. Thank you. Well, thank you. And again, well, let me just start with board members. Is there anything else that any any other thoughts or closing? Beth, >> I just wanted to add one thing. You were talking about the decisions made at the board table and you know, how that some of that um um you know, just
036the alignment of those decisions across the district. But it's just I really appreciate as a board member getting to hear about how some of those things are being implemented and are impacting students and Next Path is one of them. Not something I'd ever been exposed to before, but being able to hear about how important that is and how it's helping educators and leaders to help students was really great to hear. So, it's just a nice opportunity for us to hear about um some of those decisions we're making at the board table as well. So, thank you Anything else? Okay. I will say in summary, it's clear that there's a lot of work going on around here, a lot of effective work, and a true appreciation from the board to you all for your uh loyalty,
037your commitment, and uh your collaboration and really partnering with us to to move along this journey. So, thank you all. Uh we know it's not easy, but we appreciate every ounce of your efforts and commitment to the district and our community. With that, I will move on in Mari agenda. We don't I don't think we have any uh board communications. Do we board members want to share anything from the outside? No. All right. Then we have two upcoming meetings. We have an uh February 24th, 2026. We have a regular board of education meeting at 7 p.m. March 4th, 2026, we have a finance and operations meeting at 5:30 p.m. Both meetings take place here at district 205 center in room 21516 and 17. Uh with that, we're looking at 708. This meeting is adjourned. Thank
038you.