Board Of Education - November 18, 2025

001Call this comm order at 7:00. And Lauren, can I have a roll call? Sure thing. Dan Hill here. Carrie Steinbot here. Here. Laura Brickstone >> here. >> Andrew Carlson >> here. >> Richard Driver >> here. >> Tim Ben >> here. Okay, we're all here. Let's please stand for the country flag for which it stands nation liberty and justice for all. >> Then we have our student representatives and Lips. Would you mind reading the mission vision and model please? Oh, >> okay. From memory. >> Ensure academic achievement and person personal growth for all students through innovative and engaging educational opportunities. living as inclusive community of motivated learners who are inspired to change the world through exploration and collaboration. Excellence in education, enthusiasm for life, every student, every day. >> Okay. As I am now filling the

002role of president for board policy 2110, we will need to reorganized by filling the vice president position. May I have a nomination to fulfill the position of vice president for the board of education? >> I nominate Tim. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. Any oppose? >> Okay. Motion has passed. >> Congratulations. >> Okay. Um, who's presenting the board governance? >> I will. So, um, at for your organization, the Illinois Association of School Boards, um, school boards can be recognized for excellence in governance. And so, for the second time in a row, your our board has been recognized as a board that practices excellent governance and does a an all-around great job. So, at the joint annual conference, you will be recognized as as you will be at some I think a spring division

003meeting in 2026 where you will receive your plaque and member pins. And if you're interested, there are ribbons at the joint annual conference as well for you to um take advantage of when you check in. Um so, I just want to read really quickly. Uh this is from the Illinois Association of School Boards. Dear board, members of the board of education, congratulations. Your board of education is one of 42 to earn the Illinois Association of School Board's 2025 school board governance recognition designation. The recognition is designed to acknowledge those school boards that have engaged in activities and model behaviors that lead to excellence in local school governance in support of quality public education. So they we commend you for your hard work and distinction as a school board governance recognition. Thank you. during schoolboard national

004school board month. >> All right. Our next thing on the agenda is um videos from our principles. >> I've got that. >> Um I'm assuming first or does that >> I'll place the videos. >> Yes. >> Yeah. I think I'll be first. >> So just as background, we um had a request find out what it's like to be a principal in district 65. So, we thought it might be fun to do a video and so we'll start with LBS. People often see the energy and joy of elementary school and assume it is all sunshine and story time. But for me, this moment, every handshake, every smile is part of something bigger. It's how we create safety, predictability, and connection for kids. And when they feel safe, they are ready to learn. We meet regularly to

005look at student data, staff feedback, instructional strategies. uh whether we're discussing an IEP goal or schoolwide enrichment um or instructional approaches, things that are going on at every grade level, we are constantly adjusting our practices to make sure that every student has access to highquality, meaningful learning. These moments might look casual, but they are intentional. I'm monitoring the school's temperature, who needs support, which classes are thriving, where we can do better, and every walkthrough gives me insight into how our strategic goals are being lived out in real time. When I sit with a spreadsheet, I'm not just crunching numbers. I'm tracking the story of a child's progress. Data helps us make decisions that are targeted, not just reactive. It's how we align our resources and adjust instruction to ensure no student falls behind or gets

006overlooked. Part of leading a school is partnering with parents. Whether it's celebrating a win or navigating a concern, I treat every conversation as an opportunity to build trust. Because when families feel heard, students feel supported, that's where the real growth happens. Supporting teachers is one of the most critical parts of my role. I'm here to coach, to clarify, to ensure that what we do in classrooms reflects the best of what we know about how children learn. Leadership doesn't sit apart from instruction. It lives inside it. This board, my calendar here, it tells the story of a week, but what it really shows is priorities. Every hour is blocked to reflect a decision about what matters, students, staff, systems. My job is to keep all of those pieces moving together towards one clear goal. Every student,

007every day you will see that our principles both took different approaches. It's available here. Uh our second video is LBMS. morning and start the day. All right, about 7:00. One of the first things I do most days is to check our uh Red Rover system. That's a system that assigns subs to any teachers that need to be absent on a given day. Um I'm pleased to report that today we do not have any vacant positions, so we're fully covered. Uh that means I can go to the bluff of last and that is the place where teachers check in the morning kind of just daily announcements, things that are important, who's out, who's covering who. Uh so we'll get that updated. Good morning, ladies. How are you? >> Good. >> What time is it? >> 8:16.

008Good. What time does the school day start? >> 8:15. >> You guys are awesome. You're here early. Good morning, guys. >> Kind of. It's a day in the life. It's what I do every day. I gota I got to record a video. What do you think? >> Notice these guys on bikes are wearing their helmets. We got a couple others that have just arrived in the morning. What time is it? >> Are we on top today? I love it. >> This is This is This is lunch supervision today. That's what we're doing now >> on Instagram. No, but you could be on a board meeting. What's for lunch today, ladies and gentlemen? >> Hey. All right. >> Okay. So, but this is for our board of education. So, let's Can you think I'm putting you

009on the spot? What is one thing that you love about life? >> I love all the teachers are so nice and everyone is so kind. >> Oh, all right. All right. >> All right. How we doing? >> You're in it right now. >> How you doing? >> What period are we going to? All right. >> Kind of thinking about how it's going to work for my subject, >> right? Because you've got two different areas. You've got your required time that you're calling kids in and then your drop in where kids can check in with you, but you can also call kids. So, I think just realizing that that's going to be the more flexible. You could have some kids coming in with questions for you, others if you want to specifically talk to. Um, it's

010day day two of Flex and we're just talking about kind of how it went. EMTT is uh been this is your third week already, >> I think. So, Flannry in for Hillary Moore who had a baby a few weeks ago. So, he's been a great addition to our staff. We're thrilled to have him. >> Happy to be here. >> So, classroom observations obviously a big part of the job. Um, that comes in different forms. Sometimes it's a formal an informal. Uh today is very much an informal just popping in and seeing how things are going in PE class setting. >> Basketball game tonight. Time to take a deep breath with an email, respond to what we can, look at the calendar for tomorrow, make sure that we're prepped for things that are going to be

011coming our way in the morning, and then do it all over again tomorrow. You're still here. It's over. Go home. >> Very busy. Thankful to both of you for doing that. I know it's not always the most comfortable thing to film yourself doing what you do every single day, but our principles work really hard and I'm glad we got an opportunity to see a little bit of that. So, any questions? >> No, it was super great. >> Yeah. >> Awesome. >> Fun to see. >> We make that in your >> We're like flat family like you. >> Yeah. All right. Thanks, guys. Uh so, we're going to move on to public comment and we welcome comments from our staff, parents, and constituents. The board, that's me, will determine the format and ground rules for comments

012in the best interest of the audience and agenda. So, comments are limited to three minutes if there's anybody here. Perfect. Thanks. All right, let's move on. We'll have another opportunity at the end. Okay. Um, PTO Ray is going to give an update hopefully on pumpkin badge. Hi everybody. I'm Ray Dobash. I'm one of the co-presidents of the PTO this year and Pumpkin Bash was extremely successful. We had a lot of people. The check-in line kept refilling for the first good 45 minutes and so everybody was nice and patient while we checked people in and figured out tickets and wristbands. So many teachers there. Lisa was there. I saw her briefly and I was like, I have to go check more people. Um, so it was a good problem to have that we had that lots

013and lots of people around. The haunted forest was also a huge success. I went through it and we'll never do that again. Thank you very much. But it is great for the kids who love it and it's a great um leg buff tradition. So I think we brought in more money than we've um ever brought in before and so now we've had quite a few years of a fairly similar event and um and it seems to be pretty successful. So that's also good for our planning for the future that we can do something very similar again next year. The next morning was Pumpkin Chase bright and early and it was also extremely successful, very wellrun, lots of attendees. There's even a man who walked the whole 5K with his walker and um it was pretty

014um inspirational to to watch and see as I was just standing there filling filling up water cups. I was like, "Wow, I feel quite lazy." So it was a it was a great day and again raised um raised a lot of money that we are um have already turned around and have started spending and will continue to spend. One of the ways we've been doing that is our um student enrichment uh chair is busy working with the enrichment team especially at the elementary school um enrichment team is providing uh an experience for each of the grade levels this year and PTO is helping with some of the funding of those things and so some of those are ongoing and some of them are planned and so that's one of the things that we've had going

015on. Our teacher appreciation team has been busy at work in October. They recognized this custodial staff for National Custodial Workers Day. Um they recognize the principles for principal appreciation month. Provided conference meals, which are always appreciated, you know, kind of those big things that we do every year to make sure our teachers are fed during those long long days of conferences. Um they also celebrated World Teachers Day. They recognized the school psychiatrists during National School Psychiatrist Week. And then they'll be thanking um the staff again with a small treat before uh before Thanksgiving. There's a parent sponsored coffee coming up that will happen right after Thanksgiving break where um the teachers will all get coffee. We ask for donations from parents and then we bring the teachers coffee um in the middle of the day

016for their whatever their special request is. And so that's always um always a fun day. uh they teacher appreciation team will also be doing small holiday gifts and things for the teachers and then the PTO as a organization again we will help um gather money from people we encourage people to donate to the PTO and then we take the money and um and then divide it up for the staff that are every staff member in 65 except for the classroom teachers at the elementary school then get money that the parents parents donate. It's really an easier way for parents to be able to know that they can give money back to all the adults that touch their kids' lives every day. But, you know, it's really hard as a parent to say, "Well, how do

017I do this for the pair professionals and all the specialist teachers and the wellness teacher and the band teacher and then this and the that and um so it kind of helps um helps parents and then everybody gets we make sure that everybody gets something. So, that'll be coming up. And then when the teachers get back from Christmas, we'll stock the fridge for that teacher institute day to make sure that they are well hydrated and have some snacks when they have to come back to school in January because that's always a that's always a tricky transition for all of us. Um, other things that are upcoming, we are going to help sponsor the Jesse Weinberger event that has been rescheduled until December. We have been selling Thanksgiving ties and so we'll be delivering or having

018people pick those up at the end of um right before Thanksgiving break and there'll be classroom parties at the elementary school winter parties right before school gets out. So our room parents will be helping out with that and uh classroom and parent volunteers will be able to come into the into the building which is always a really fun day. And then earlier that week or probably the week before, first grade has their tradition square which is always a fun um a fun event and parents get to come in and help out and present some of their family traditions and first graders get a chance to learn about it. So, lots going on, lots of fun things and we really just appreciate um all the support that we get from both the administrators in the building

019and from here the district and from all the parents who you know volunteer, donate money, all those things that then we can take and turn around and give back to the to the kiddos and the and the staff. So, thank you very much. Okay, we have a new face from Alliance, Greg Watson. >> Good evening everyone. Um, first want to introduce myself, Greg Watson. I'm the new alliance president. I took over with Michael Brickstone uh early in October. Um, been in Lake Bluff for almost 11 years now. I have two boys, Bruce and William, first or excuse me, second and fourth grade. Um, I've loved every moment of being here. I, uh, I coach youth basketball. I coach lacrosse. Um, just just a man about town. Um, so, pleasure to be here. Thank you for

020having me. As far as the alliance goes, we are just wrapping up our fall grant cycle. Informally, we'll close Friday. Uh, we'll meet next or right after Thanksgiving with Fisa, Kelly, and Nate. talk about the grants, come to some decisions about, you know, what's makes sense for for the schools, teachers, students. Um, and then we'll the board will vote on them. Our next meeting is December 2nd, Tuesday. So, go through that and then we have our first hopefully only art auction coming up. Hopefully, we sell everything that's in stock. Um, but the story behind the art auction is the I believe the school, the middle school was gifted a bunch of signed prints years ago. They were sold to the Alliance for a dollar. They went into storage and have been in storage for probably

021somewhere between 15 and 20 years in total. So, the Alliance now is in a position to host an art auction that's going to be Saturday, December 6th at the Gallery in Lake Forest. We are going to use those funds in some capacity to benefit the AV budget for the middle school to to fund the um the musical. Originally, it was a a request for microphones for the wireless mics, but knowing that there's a larger budget out there, we really want to be respectful and and do something that is, you know, contributing to the overall goal of having a a premier AV program. So, um, other than that, no formal announcement yet on the Sunrise Rocks concert. I anticipate it will happen. Um, that is a three-headed monster between the uh Zack Porter Foundation, the alliance,

022and always going in to benefit uh Bluffers and >> thank you. >> Welcome. >> Thank you. >> Please pass our thanks to Michael. do that, too. >> Um, I jokingly said that every month I'm just going to get a little clip about my own life at my president's report, but I won't bore you all. I will take the time to thank Ann for all of her shoes. Don't judge me on reverse video, but you have to appreciate that. Well, and thank you. >> Me, too. Me, too. And actually, I since we're out of time, I would just like to extend uh my gratitude to everybody for your support, for your love, and for your super generous Door Dash card. Um, makes life a little bit easier right now, and that's awesome. Thank you. >> All

023right. Um, please do want to throw the report. >> Yeah. Yeah. Very quickly, um, just a reminder, we had emails go out uh this morning. I think we had a little glitch. We were trying to send out the gum survey late last week and we realized we had a glitch, but they should all be out now. Um, asking families to fill out this survey on climate or uh school pride and quality service. So, please take a moment and do that. Our staff will be doing it and our students as well. Um, as you know, that's our annual um, benchmark on how we're doing with families. So, please take a minute to fill that out. >> We can move on to our other discussions and presentations. We will start with the building parking lot use request.

024>> Yeah. Per board policy, whenever we have a request from a community member to use um, the facilities in any way, we bring it to the board for your approval. So, we've had a community member request to use um the Lakeoff Elementary parking lot on August 15th of 2026 for a community event um for around um 50 people just for parking. Um and we don't have any concerns with the requests. We would be requesting a waiver of liability and a certificate of insurance. So, we would make sure we had all that covered. But at this time, unless the board has any concerns, we're recommending that we allow the community member to use that. My only question is it won't impact teachers to set up their classrooms or it shouldn't because it'll be in a late

025afternoon. Any other questions? We do have a happy policy covering some right moving on to our true north update. intent to remain at the clock. >> Okay, so this is um this is a big week for the True North. Um we've been, as you know, doing a lot of work to get to this point. But in the packet tonight is a resolution that um districts are being asked to approve to resend intent to withdraw, intents to withdraw that were put in around May or June of this year. Um ours I'm recommending that we resend our intent to withdraw as we believe the cooperative is in a good place to move forward. Um as of today I believe 17 of the 18 districts will be back with us which is outstanding. Um we have amended the

026articles of agreement heavily. The red line is in the packet as well and it should reflect all of the things that we've been talking about. Um, all the way from finance and governance to programming and tuition, everything should be noted in there. Um, Tracy has continued to work on a sub subcommittee for planning uh, purposes. They've drilled way down on staffing. They've visited other programs now at this point and have designed a much more like fleshed out program model. So, we really at this point feel very confident that what we've been working on all summer and fall is is actually ready to become a reality. um the uh executive committee given that the articles are approved tomorrow and that that we vote to adopt all of this. The executive committee will convene on January 5th

027for the first time. Um one of our first projects will be actually to figure out how we might be able to get some districts in who are interested in joining the cooperative. Um we've had at least two reach out to ask if they can actually become members of Trinor. Um, we know I think at this point there will be an article in the Chicago Tribune later this week about turn north. Um, and the fact that we've gone through this process and come out the other side. Oh, was it was it today? Okay. I didn't even see it. Excellent. Um and uh with notwithstanding any volunteers, which I don't think there will be any, I will be serving as the first chair of the executive committee for turning. Um and Katherine Wang, who's the superintendent of

028Blanco, um will be vice chair. So um we're really very excited. We had a couple of questions from our board members. One was regarding collective bargaining and the role of the governing board and the executive committee in collective bargaining. We have eight 17 districts who all approach collective bargaining differently. Um and so that is going to be something that the executive committee is going to have to work out when we get to it in terms of who will be represented actually on the negotiating committees. Some districts have um board members represented and some don't. But in either case, we anticipate that the executive committee will be the one to do the heaviest amount of negotiating and bring the governing board a recommendation for any collective bargaining. Um the way bills will be paid will be

029similar to kind of how we do in July that the governing board eventually won't be meeting every month, but we'll be giving authorization for the executive committee to pay bills and then we'll be given the opportunity to discuss and fill anything out should they see uh a need to do that. So, I think that we all recognize how big of a change that we're making to the full cooperative and there will probably have to be adjustments as we um start operating. But I think we all feel very confident in our interim superintendent, Jim and Jimmy, who've done a ton of work already and uh are just ready to roll. So, um any questions on what we have to do tonight? I'm so shocked that this is like after that meeting I went to this is

030just >> amazing. Yeah. Thank you. It's very exciting. Tracing will be there tomorrow and we're going to make it a short and sweet uh straw poll non-binding commitment tomorrow night from every district. But uh we've been collecting the resolutions as they come in and we feel really confident. >> I can read it. >> Do you want me to read it later for me? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Or does anybody have any questions? >> Just to follow up on the governing model. Um so the not that the executive committee should wouldn't be trusted but um since the governing committee is uh made up of elected board members would they be getting those bills like every month uh to review or is that I I just if it if they're only meeting twice a year like and

031there's something that's like whoa why did we pay this we didn't want to >> so within school code there are thresholds um that we have to go back for reauthorization so we have authorization up to a point okay and I think that point is 10% over um the budget budgeted I guess so the governing board would be able to approve the entire budget and see everything that's in there and if we approach that 10% the executive committee would have to come back and get authorization from the governing board to be able to do that so yeah for sure >> thank meetings. >> I think we'll all see how it works out in practice, but I would say no meetings have been taken off the calendar yet for the governing board. So, Laura, don't cancel your

032plans just yet because I think we all know that we're going to need probably both working in tandem at least for a little while until we feel like we're up and >> thank you. >> The only question I had is about the withdrawal, like if going forward school schools choose to withdraw. I didn't see anything in here about the um twothirds vote. So, they're just allowed to withdraw. >> So, just so that we don't have >> No, no, that's a good question. Actually, the um procedure by school code, I believe, has changed also at this point. So, what's in there is a reflection of just whatever the law is. >> Okay. >> Um and that will >> kind of supersede whatever >> that we have in the bylaws, too. And we had a long discussion

033about do we want our own thing or do we want to follow what's in school code and what we're required to do and not put anything extra on. Okay. So that so this is what's also just in the school code. >> Okay. Great. Thank you. >> Yeah. The the thing that we have control over is the financial component right >> which was how it was a big impetus for changing the financial model. So yeah thank you question. So tonight we will be just voting on our rescending our yes to approve the resolution to rescend our intent to withdraw and then the articles of agreement are approved by the true press the governing board the leadership council it's probably so yes anybody else okay let's move on to your next presentation my safety work. Okay, so

034we're going to go through this. Some of this data you've already seen. Um, actually most of it you've probably already seen. Um, but we report on this a few times a year as the data come in. So, now that the state report card is officially out, we're going to go through kind of all the data that wraps up last school year. Our mission, vision, and motto, as you know, as Liz already reported on, is there. Um, and again, just as a reminder, we're really proud to say that we don't just look at one measure to determine how we're doing with student achievement and growth. Um, the state report card that measures I is one measure, but then we also look at our local measures as well. So again, we take into account the I the

035MAP assessments that we get three times a year, our access assessments which are for English language learners and then in IEPs which are for students who have specialized programs of education. Just as a quick review, we had metrics aligned with our strategic plan in the first year. Um and we had some specific goals. We wanted to move from our baseline of 80% to 83% in both ELA and math. And then we were taking baselines for student and parent engagement and uh participation. So at the end of that first year, we met our English language arts goal at 85%. And we did we just missed our math goal at 79%. Um we actually went down a little bit in that one. And then uh we missed our goal moving to 84% on the staff culture and

036climate and we went to 77 um%. So we set some goals moving from 85 to 87% in English language arts and moving from 79 to 83% and then wrapping up the second year we met both of our ELA and math schools. So at the end of last year, 92% of our students demonstrated growth and achievement in ELA on remember we look at the state assessment and MAP and 90% of our students demonstrated growth in math I math and then there's a few kids with their IEPs or access that are able to um attain that student that student growth as well. We missed our goal again on culture and climate and on um family satisfaction. So we were trying for 84%. We went up a bit to 79 from 77 but we missed that 84%. And

037then we missed our goal and went down up a little bit for families from 64 and a half to 65% but again missed that goal and we also went down in our student engagement. So looking at our third-year metric, so now we're in the third year. By the end of this year, as we discussed last time, we really would like to kind of broaden that definition of success to hit a range somewhere in between 80 to 100%. Because obviously when we're looking at 92 and 90%, we would just be looking at incremental growth. And we really um I really feel like it's important for us to recognize that um if we're in that 80 to 100% range and still trending up or maintaining that that's a good place for us to be given the size

038of our district and the impact that um only just a few students can have on those metrics. And again the same thing we'd be looking at 80 to 100% of our staff being highly engaged and satisfied. And then we made some incremental goals for the family and student achievement or student engagement metrics because we're not near that 80% yet. So we would like to see some growth towards that 80% this year. That being said, as we've talked about before, we are still looking at some other surveys because we might not be getting the most accurate results, especially on the student engagement survey based on the questions that the students have asked. So, we're looking at a survey that's really designed more for schools and has been designed with kids in mind. And so, looking at

039the questions are a little bit more kid-friendly. Um, same thing with climate and culture and for families. It's really designed more for schools where the human survey was really came from business and was adapted for schools. So, we've been reaching out to other districts who use some other surveys. The ones that we're looking at also could be used instead of five essentials. So, we would only have to give that one survey. parents would be able to engage in that hopefully and we would have metrics then that we could use for all three culture and climate, family and student engagement. That being said, we still want to make sure that we're moving forward. So, whatever um survey that we pick, um we still want to see that forward movement towards more improvement and satisfaction and engagement.

040Any questions before I move on on the strategic plan metrics? What ages of students take the human? >> The human is 4th through 8th through >> it's for five essentials fifth through eth. I think >> I would just like to add that I I like your idea of looking out for um a different survey. Um we've all seen these questions and they ask things like oh do you feel awake ready to learn? No kid's gonna answer yes. >> I'm not answer yes. >> I mean, we all toured the buildings with the principles this fall and I did not see unhappy kids. I did not see, you know, kids not engaged. And so I don't think, yes, we always want to strive to grow and and adult, but I don't think we're getting accurate at that

041point. We'll keep you posted um on whatever we're thinking and we'll ask for your feedback as well. Um just a real quick uh as we're looking at data, I think it's important to just remind ourselves that we are a small district and so when we break out our data um in all sorts of ways, we're really talking about small groups of kids. Sometimes only one teacher teaching a subject area or two teachers teaching a subject area. And so, um, again, the goal with all of this is to improve, continuous improvement. We know that we have areas where we're really, really proud of what's happening and we have areas where we really want to continue to grow. So, um, I just always want to be sensitive to that. We'll look first at AR. Again, the Illinois

042Assessment of Readiness is a standardized test. So that means that students in a grade are measured against the benchmarks in their grade level as opposed to MAP which means that that test is adaptive. Kids start at grade level but as they answer more difficult questions right they get harder questions and then as they answer easier questions wrong they might get easier questions. So they're not always asked grade level questions on maps. So they're really two different kinds of assessments. So, first looking at the Illinois assessment of readiness, you can go, anyone can go to Illinois reportcard.com. This is where all these screenshots are pulled and all of these links are live and you can click on any of these boxes and dig into this data more. So, when you go to Lake Bluff District 65,

043this is the first screen that you're going to see. Um, and there's lots of different tabs on the side, but this is basically kind of a big overall picture of our district. And then when you dig into academic progress, you can look at ELA and math. This is the ELA screen. So our schools were rated exemplary and commendable. Exemplary for the elementary school, commendable for the middle school. And that really has to do with these growth metrics on the side. Um these are these metrics that you're seeing here are for the district, but the schools each have their own growth metrics. And the growth metrics are really what drive the rating. Um so as you can see our growth this means the students who grow predictably from year to year on this particular assessment. And

044then if you dig into ELA achievement, this is where you see great breakdown by how many students are actually meeting and exceeding standards by grade. So the green is the percent of students that meet or exceed standards. So you can see from grade three, which is that third bar down, all the way through to grade eight, the longer students are with us, the better they do in English language arts. Um, we're really, really proud of this data with over 90% of our kids in eighth grade meeting or exceeding standards in English language arts. That's really excellent data. And then you'll see on the top, if you go here, you can also compare. You can dig down by demographic. So you could choose um for example uh students coming from low-income families. You could look at

045that. You could look at gender. Um all sorts of demographics. You can break down that data. And then if you go to math achievement, it's a little bit of a different picture. Um so again, that third bar down started about 55% all the way to around 69 70% in grade 8. So, we're not seeing the same kind of proficiency in math as we are in English language arts. One thing that I do want to dig in a little bit is that as you know, Illinois adjusted the criteria for meeting and exceeding standards this year. And what has happened is people have done some analysis on the questions that are asked to kids and kind of the rigor of those questions. And for whatever reason, the ELA questions were benchmarked around the 45th to 50th percentile.

046So that means that from grade three all the way to grade 8, all those questions that were asked to kids were about the 50th percentile pretty like consistently. Those are the bottom, you see that bottom red line? Those are the new questions on the ELA assessment. The solid blue line are the questions for the new math assessment. those questions were not really as consistently benchmarked. So what you'll see here is that the math rigger varies anywhere from the 50th 55th percentile all the way to the 69th percentile in grade 8, which means that those questions get harder uh as the grades go up. So the questions are third graders are asked are around like easier questions more like 50th percentile questions but when you get to eighth grade that average level question is really at

047the 69th percentile. So what we're seeing across the state is a little bit more inconsistency in the math. So ELA is on the left. You can see over there that meeting the new benchmark, you kind of have the same pattern from the left, the old benchmarks and the new benchmarks. That same pattern with maybe a few more kids meeting in eighth grade, but you can see on the on the math you have less kids across the state meeting standards in those later grades because the questions are harder. We don't know why it was designed that way. Um but that downward trend is pretty um evident across the state. So another way to put it um same runner and there's different size hurdles, right? So um grade eight ELA in order to be proficient they just

048need to answer questions above the 48th percentile. In order to be proficient in math they got to get up to the 69th percentile. So she's harder to be verbish than Matt and that's just measuring how those questions are written. Does that make sense? >> Another thing that we talk about a lot are achievement gaps. Um when we look at different groups of students. So again you can dig into this on um on that left side. You can look at achievement gap data and you can dig down to all different kinds of comparisons. These are kind of our biggest groups. So nonl lowincome students and lowincome students. Our data are on the left and the state data are on the right. So you can see um our gaps are a little bit bigger in some cases

049than the state. Um but you can also see that our groups both sets of groups are performing above the state as well. So where again I've talked about this every year. We would like to close the achievement gap but we don't want to close it by lowering that bar on the top. We want to move all of our kids up and that's our challenge. So those are our ELA that's our ELA achievement gap data. You can also look at a performance scatter plot. So, when you go to scatter plots, you can see where we land um in overall or you can dig down to demographics as well. There's lots of different ways that you can like lay this scatter plot out, but you'll see that's where we are. Um in the red triangle is our

050district on the x- axis. Is that right? >> Very smart. >> Why? Thank you. math teachers uh is our proficient percentage and then enrollment is across the bottom. So you can look at the size district, you can look at the percentage of EELs, you can look at the percentage of low-income students, you can kind of plot these out however you want and you can see where we fall. You can, I believe, also do this by grade. So that's our ELA data, our achievement or gap data in math. We're looking at kind of the same trend, some big gaps. Just as a reminder for students in the subgroup of having an IEP, those are students who are specifically have an IEP because they are not working at grade level. So there students in that group will

051always be um at a in a place where they're struggling and getting more support and as soon as they don't and they're meeting standards, they are out of that group. So does that make sense? So again, we're trying to keep all of our groups higher than that state average and close the gap as best that we can, but we're not quite there yet. And this is our scatter plot and map as well. Any questions on the achievement gate data before I move on to fitness surface? Oh, I did. Sorry. On the I don't know what page it was. It would have been one of the first two slides with the Keep going that. Yeah, those two slides. >> Do you do you know it looks like third grade is the one that's like struggling both.

052Is there do you have any insights into why that is? Is it because they're >> their first year? >> Is there Okay. >> I mean, doesn't necessarily mean that they're not going to be proficient, but a lot of times >> there's a learning curve to take you. >> Yes. Okay. >> Yeah. Um, and like we've talked about before, preparing a student for the test, it can take lots of different forms, right? So, sometimes we do test preparation or we talk about how to take tests effectively. And these tests are given on the computer. Um, and there is a lot that goes into taking the test correctly. So, if a student doesn't scroll through the entire passage or the student can't use the tools on the side, a map, that's teaching a student how to take

053the test effectively. If they don't take it effectively or if it's confusing to them, that might influence their score as well. Um, but then obviously there's teaching the content of the test and teaching to the standards. That's the way we want to prepare them for the test. But I can't say having watched a lot of kids try to maneuver some of these tests that just taking it sometimes is a challenge. Um, and as you know, we're pulling back on using technology. So, um, I'm not sure how that's going to impact that. You know, we try to create a balance of like preparing them for like what it means to take the test, but we also don't want to create a great sense of anxiety. We know that some kids the more we talk about the

054test, the more anxious they get. Um, we have some parents because these tests aren't really like they're not in their record. They don't really do anything for the individual student. They're really just a measure for us. We have some parents that are kind of like don't worry, you know, do the best you can. So, it's not really a high stakes assessment for individual students, although it's a high stakes assessment for us. So, conveying that can be help, too, which is why we're glad that this is the only one we looked at. Thank you. >> Any insight from the from you guys on how it is to take the AR test? >> Um, it's very long. >> And sometimes like you're just sitting there and it's just like this computer screen and you're just like, I

055can't do this. It's just >> fun. >> Yeah. That's how you feel. Um, well, when you're just kind of like thinking about a problem and it's on the iPad or the computer, so it just like kind of makes it harder. Like I feel like I would do better on it if it was like paper. >> Yeah. Yeah, they can be challenging and they are long and we have some students that have even more time than the time that's allotted for the actual test. So, it can get to be a very very long day. Um, also the timing of the test matters. We've played around with the right test window. This last time we did it prior to spring break. Um, we've tried one test in one day. We've tried two tests in one day. Nancy

056says no, you can one day. But the other thing is the longer we drag out the assessments, the more the special schedules have been and more disruptive that the assessments will be. So, it's kind of a challenge on lots of fronts. Digging down into the five essentials, this is the state's uh culture and climate survey. Again, this is given to students, parents, and teachers, but we don't get parent results unless we have 20%. We've only hit that threshold once in the last six years and it was time. >> Um I think it was right. >> Yeah. Um so there are lots of different questions. Um again, we usually just get student and teacher responses. Um, and it's all kind of um, aggregated into this uh, graphic that's on each of the school pages. There is

057not a district five essential score. Five essentials is only for schools. So, you can't look up the district. You can only look up the schools. So, this is the elementary uh, school data. Um, you can dig down into mo the highest scoring categories and then the most improved. So in the upper left, those are the highest performance categories and then the most improved categories. And then we have the lowest performing and the the ones that decreased the most. So I just dug into so you could have an idea of what these mean. Um these are the ones that decreased. So peer support for student for academic work. This is a student question. So all three indicators that went down at elementary were questions that were only asked of students. So within that peer support for

058academic work, these are the kinds of questions they were asked. Uh students report that their classroom peers think doing homework is important and then they rate it agree strong kinds of things. Um students report that their classroom peers feel it is important to pay attention in class. So this is basically students reporting on their classmates. Um, another one that went down was academic engagement. So, students, another student metric. Um, students reporting the topics are interesting and challenging. I usually look forward to class. I work hard and do my best. And then finally, the other one was English instruction. Students report doing the following things in English class. And these are ones that went down a bit. >> So, sorry. So, they report doing these things. How does it go down? Because they're not rewriting a

059paper essay. >> So, it's more like they might have been disagreeing that they're doing that in class or strongly disappearing that they're doing those things in class. >> Means strong >> just means that they might not remember doing it. uh at the middle school. Uh again, we have our graphic for middle school, our most uh our highest performing measures, our student measures, and the most improved measures were student metrics. So, students at middle school feeling pretty good about how things are going at middle school. Um our metrics that were lowest performing or the ones that decreased were the most were all teacher measures. So, looking into the ones that decreased the most, quality professional development. So there's some questions that are included there um about being focused uh enough time to think about and try

060and evaluate new ideas um being connected to the school's improvement plan um productive opportunities to engage with their colleagues. School commitment. So teachers will ask questions like I usually look forward to working. I wouldn't want to work in any other school. Um feeling loyalty. Now I want to say this one went from strong to neutral. It didn't go into a weak area, but it did go down. And then this was another one that went in from the green to the yellow teacher report teacher to teacher trust going down. So these are um how teachers are relating to each other within school. For each of these measures as well as a humanax survey, we have committees of teachers that look through these data points, look through these questions, actively solicit more information from the staff and

061more ideas for how they can improve these things. We really like the climate and culture to be driven um by the teachers uh and to hear from them what we need to do differently collectively as a team um to make sure that we can have a good climate culture for our staff. So before I even go into this, I want to say in January, I think February, I'm going to have both um building administrative teams present their school improvement plan. So, you're going to see more about each of these things in February once we've had a chance to try some of the strategies and track some of our progress. Um, but some of our big action steps for improvement. So, you know, we're in the second year of working on our guaranteed transparent Bible curriculum.

062Our year this year is focused on common formative assessment. So Jackie's been working every week with our teams to get smaller interim assessments done collectively so that we can bring that work back, look at the student data and adjust our instruction. You know, we have a new schedule at the middle school which includes an intervention block for tier 2 and tier three that should help all of our students that are struggling in either well really any subject, but math and is a priority there. Um, we will be working on kind of flushing out our portrait of a classroom by designing an instructional framework. And all that means is highlighting really effective strategies that we would like to see happening in the classroom. So, what kind of instructional strategies and learning experiences do we want our

063kids to be having so that we can make sure that we have all of those characteristics of an active, engaged, careerless classroom? We'll be working with teachers on that. And as you know, we're pulling back on the tech within the classroom, making sure it's more purposeful, intentional, and used for creativity. Uh for all students, we continue on our inclusive schools work. All of our teachers have been engaged in inclusive schools professional development, supporting kids of all types of learners in our classrooms. And then uh our continued partnership with our community. So, as you know, we're asking our parents four times this year, how informed do they feel about their child's progress because we really want to make sure our parents are partnered with us. We have a high school readiness partnership happening with district 67

064and 115 to really align what we're doing towards that fortune of a learner. And then we have a lot of support from our PTO to actually continue to get people filling out these surveys so that we can keep the engine going and make sure that we're monitoring how we're doing. Any questions? >> I do want to say our teachers are working really hard. Our kids are working really hard. Like I'm so glad you're all able to see inside the buildings because that's what it looks like every day. Um, and so as our principal said, we're constantly working to make sure that we have the most effective things happening in the classroom. >> You you had a um another uh attachment that >> I did. I did. Thank you for finding me. The other attachment was

065from ECRA, a longitudinal proficiency analysis. So what this is is they took our data from the last three years and moved it all to the new criteria for the for the um so we're not this is comparing actual data on the new criteria for the last three years and what you can see in ELA which is what we just demonstrated is that we've had lots of good growth in English language arts that has been our focus as you know we've had parents kind of come out and be concerned about whether or not we're transitioning Well, um, in terms of our resources, the boxes here indicate cohorts. So, moving on the diagonal, we're looking to pick up more students the longer they're with us. That's the diagonals. So, the only times that we didn't really pick

066up students were one year from grade four to five and one year from grade five to six. Other than that, we saw great gains every year in English language arts. That's all on the same criteria. We did not see the same thing in math. So again, some of this might be attributed to those criteria being kind of wonky, especially in those upper grades as it gets those questions get harder, but we just have work to do in math for sure. Um, so both of our school improvement plans are very focused on the area of math, specifically numeracy. um number fluency, basic facts, making sure kids have automaticity when it comes to knowing um just kind of quickly their facts so that we can move on to more conceptual um processes. But the state numeracy plan

067is coming out is it coming out this year >> for next school year. So it's I think they have a draft and then once we get that from the state we'll be looking and at our resource we'll be looking to see if what we're so the state came out with a literacy plan a couple years ago and now they're doing a numeracy plan. So basically the state's giving us some guidance because across the state we're seeing this and so they're talking about you know kind of like the science of reading they're going into the research around teaching math. what do we need to do to adjust? All all the subject areas kind of go through some eras like different eras of instructional techniques or um strategies that we think are working or maybe we've learned

068that are not working. So, we'll align ourselves to that new plan by the state and then take a look at our resources and make sure that what we're using is correct. Um but more importantly, what we're doing in the classroom with the resources is correct. Um the resource that we have and have had in math as elementary is one that most districts around us use bridges. Um there isn't anything out there that I know of just yet that we would want to move to. So really the most important work is getting those common formative assessments together and really looking at our instructional strategies and interventions. And if you if you look at these page two and four, I mean, they're good snapshots in the in the because we couldn't it's kind of hard to you

069can't sap oranges of just the IRA. But >> um yeah, bears what you show because on two it's you know every year we got a little better. So it's continuous improvement there. that the math we kind of are stuck around 60% you know 40% then >> that assessment >> you know that that are um below proficiency um you know and one of the some of the article that you've sent us with the text to your weekly reports I really bought into the fact that you know if somebody's um in this case kind of below grade level early on it's very difficult to you know later on to to get them. So could you just review for us and >> yes >> the um certainly in the audience that's listening kind of what what we're doing

070doing what we've implemented now in like first through third grade to look at those that are struggling those that and without whether we got testing or not we kind of >> you know we know who who are the ones that need extra help. So, um, one thing I want to say that I think I'm really proud of is that we have, um, invested in a math interventionist, which we did not have prior to CO. Um, and that person, Mary Yarro, has been working with all of our grade levels, but we continue to look at her case load and where the best place is for her to be focusing her attention. Um Jackie's been working with all the grades on back fluency and number sense including data collection and trying to communicate with families that are

071what students are struggling with so that we can partner. Um and those like I said are tied to both of our school improvement plans. Um, there's been a lot of sharing of resources around Fact Fluency that are not technology related because we don't want kids just on an iPad. We got a lot of feedback from parents that they don't love all the games and things like that that we had been using. Um, and so we're really trying to go low tech and give lots of different opportunities for kids to practice their their fact fluency. Um the teams when they work with Jackie are now building into their lesson plans reteing and extension weeks after every unit. So they'll compact the learning for the unit into the amount of time that they would spend on the

072unit and then they build in a week to really differentiate for the students. So if there are students that need reteing, they get that. If there are students that need extension because they already learned it, they're getting that. Um, and at least three of our teams are doing that regularly after each unit. So, that's really good time. Um, I do want to say there's a difference between enrichment and intervention. So, our enrichment team has been working with the students that are above grade level and trying to keep extending and enriching them. And our intervention teams are really the ones that are working with the students who are struggling. Um, and our teams are working with the students that are struggling. So our grade level teams when they do a week of enrichment first and and

073intervention then they're really targeting the students that are struggling after the unit assessment. So we're just trying to dig down into the content that they learn in class and making sure they've mastered it even after they've taken that final assessment which is something that we haven't really focused on in the last couple of years. The other thing that I hear a lot about the textbook program that we use bridges has a part of it that spirals content and spiraling content means that you'll learn it one year but then you'll keep seeing it again in practice and repetition. And there's a portion of the program that does that nicely for teachers. And unfortunately, it takes a lot of time. And some teachers have gotten away from doing the practice of spiraling and reviewing and doing those

074things over and over again that they've learned in other grades. And we're getting back to that practice of making sure that we're going back and reviewing the content that they've learned before either in that year or years past. So, it's difficult because math is different than ELA in the sense that it's not linear. Just because a student continues to do math doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to always improve because they study different topics. It's sort of like once you become a reader, your reading gets better, more rigorous, and as you read more complex text, but you're kind of working on the same process of reading the whole time. Math is different. If they miss a skill or if they're um missing a portion of their content, that's going to impact them for a long

075time. and our teachers have a hard time sometimes when a student misses something and they need to move on. Where do you find that time to, you know, intervene and keep reteing until the students mastered the skills? So, it's identifying that core content, making sure that students are mastering it, reteing it until they have mastered it, and partnering with parents so they can help us with that. And yeah, I mean I think the the parental involvement is just is so important especially at the underg uh support doing everything we can with that advised especially what can we do to help and teachers give them give them some ideas. >> Yeah. And I think a lot of our parents when they're clear on what we need from them are happy to engage with that. Although it's

076it can be busy and hard to help to help your kids. But um this is yeah especially an area focus. What I don't want to have happen is us all of our focus over to math and and forget about English language arts like this both are a focus for our classroom teachers and obviously at middle school our content area provides. So, um, yeah. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions for our discussion about the middle school world language department? >> Okay, this is just an introduction. We're not going to have a whole lot to talk about. I just want to make the board aware that we're beginning a conversation around world language at um, middle school. We have our French teacher who is Madame Sustak who is going to be retiring in a couple of

077years and we need to be planning for the future of that program. Um French is not a language that's offered in every middle school. It's it's a position that's kind of hard to to recruit and hire for. And so what we want to make sure that we're doing is we're keeping an eye on what our community wants um and really making sure that our schedule reflects what the community is asking for. So, we've been very lucky to have such a strong advocate for the French program and an amazing teacher and we just want to make sure that we're taking some time to reflect before we have a new cohort of students. Um, we want to make sure that we have solid plans for the future of the program. So, we will be bringing up the

078board a recommendation before staffing in February, March, but right now we're collecting data. So, we'll be bringing you some trends on French versus Spanish enrollment. Um, we're going to be bringing some data from parent surveys we've already administered. So, last spring we administered a big curriculum survey. We have some data from that. We will also, just as an athlete, be sending out a survey to third through fifth grade parents to find out more about what our elementary parents are thinking in terms of which language they're interested in having their students um start in the middle school. And then we're reaching out to the high school for some trend data around what happens when a student goes to Lake Forest High School, how many of them serve a new language, what opportunities are there um for

079that, and then the potential impacts of moving to the park program at the middle school. So, no decisions have been made yet. The survey is going to go out this week, >> Tomorrow, uh so for third or fifth grade families, and it's just us gathering data so that we can be more informed of when we plan for the future. What question. Okay, thank you. Looking forward to that presentation. Um there's a lot of Jay coming up. So start with our annual statement of >> Okay, this one will be fast. Um the annual affairs is in your packet. This is a report that we're required to do annually. Needs to be posted on our website. It's already up there and published in the newspaper. This is the first year we don't have to submit it to

080ISBY. They streamline the report a little bit, but it's just there for your information. No approval. >> Thank you. Any questions? Okay, we can move on to our facility assessment. Okay, we had a facility assessment done by White & Company who are the who are our architect of record in 2018 and then they updated it this this last year um since it was getting a little old and this assessment is used by us for our capital planning purposes. They walk around on buildings. They It's like a good collection. You Oh, you have the uh the nice color glossy reports in front of you. >> Did you print those? I I have it from white paint for us. I'm sure we paid for it. We didn't do it on our cops. >> Sorry. New York. Um,

081they review all of our equipment and give us like look at its useful life and give us kind of a timeline of when we need to what we need to look at priority for investment to make keep our buildings maintained and operating um, safely and comfortably. Um, and so they also it's also just a nice view of what we have. So they kind of go through and list you know these are all your systems. This is um this is what you have for each thing. It's broken into electrical and mechanical major categories. And um so they've identified uh our buildings are in great condition. You know, for two buildings, they're both relatively new and newly remodeled. Um there's very few things that need immediate attention in the first zero to two years. Most of the

082stuff is fair condition 3 to five years and then um the rest of the stuff is kind of good you know six to 10 years out. They identified a total of about $4.5 million worth of capital investment out there and um these are in today's dollars. So if something is listed, it's 10 years out, it's obviously going to cost more than 10 years to get the we believe that we have sufficient room with our in our annual operating budget and current reserves to be able to meet these needs and um what was attached to questions. These are just suggestions. This is not stuff that has to be done. There are some things on here that we may or may not we may choose to do or may not choose to do. Um but this is

083to avoid any kind of surprises and no improvement was needed here. It's just really for you to see the results in so whenever capital usually I'm going to be referring to this report. So this is sort of what you use to like build out the budget for the capital, >> right? Andy and I look at kind of the report and see what systems are in the greatest need and then you know we have to plan out because we can only do a little bit at a time plan out what's the priority what's most important and what we can address and when and then >> and then we use it to do our capital for 5 to 10%. >> Okay. Um chair I didn't quite understand the process and maybe it was in the it was

084in the motion that we vote on we submit this to the state. >> No that is the health life safety survey. Um that is completely different. The the confusion is just that we had that we had the architect review the facility at the same time. Since they were already coming out to do our health life safety survey. We said, "Hey, while you're out here doing that, can you also update our facility assessment?" And then because they were doing that, it saved us some money on on the update of the assessment. So the health life safety survey, which I was on the agenda next, is required by the state. It's done every 10 years. And anything identified in that survey, we are required to remedy within a certain time frame. >> So is that included in

085here? >> No, that this is just for our information for capital plan purposes. We don't need to approve it. We don't need to submit it. Um, >> okay. That's why I was confused. I thought you were going to submit when you were talking about submitting the the uh white report. I thought this was what you were going to submit and somehow >> there those are two separate items. Uh, we just did them at the same time. So, I can see where there might be some confusion as to the overlap. But, because I we did approve the one contract to do both, but the health life safety survey is a state requirement and that type of is just for our program. Okay, thanks Sarah for being >> s. >> Yeah, so questions. Thank you, Dick. I

086will segue into the health safety survey. Every 10 years, we are required to do a healthy safety survey of our buildings. Uh actually, we did not do one at the elementary school 10 years ago because it was uh brand new at the time or relatively new. So this we have this is the first survey of the elementary school. So they did find a few things at elementary um and then at the middle school there were a few things really you know so in the packet it's just a they go through and describe the conditions and the the building and then they find um they found some what they would say v code violations. So these are things that we are legally required to remedy to keep the buildings safe and they put them in different

087categories. There's A, B, and C. Category A must be remedied within one year and category B within five years. And um if there is a category C, it's there is no requirement. It's just a recommendation. So we did not put any category C or items on the report. Actually, as they went through and identified things, we Andy and Naz remedied a lot of them. So a lot of these things are very minor and rather than have them on report and submitted, we just went and fixed them. So these remaining ones are just a few of the bigger ones, but really all of these are pretty minor in nature and and not very significant in cost. And these will be I think they have some cost estimates there. We'll be tackling these over the next year

088on our own operating budget. There's some maps in here to show you exactly where those violations were, but the um takeaway is that our buildings are in great condition and very safe and they really didn't find very much. >> Since this doesn't happen for another 10 years, how are these violations like check them? Do they come back? >> Uh well, every year the um the state does walk through our buildings and does a facility audit. So >> they would have these they would have the results of our assessment because we do submit this to the state. And so when they come through they will check to achieve. And so this the board this this does require the board to approve to make sure that you've seen it and then you submit it to work. All

089right. Any other questions? I was waiting for this tonight. >> All right. So, Kevin Quinnland is going to help me with the tax levy presentation this year. >> Can't wait. >> I know you got a little tired of hearing me, so probably mix it up a little bit. >> I have the honor and the privilege to talk about arguably arguably the most dry conversation, >> but it can argue arguably be the most important thing that a CSBO does at a district. So, the tax levy is extremely important. Um, I'm going to be going over like a levy 101, go over some key terms and definitions that you as a board member should be familiar with, and um, Jay is going to go into the more nuts and bolts of everything. So, I'm going to tee

090it all for him. And some of the terms may seem confusing at first, but as we get throughout the presentation, it should all wrap up nicely. Um the board is required to pass a tentative bud or tentative levy at least 20 days prior to the final levy and we're doing the final levy on the December 16th board meeting. Um before that there's a term taxation hearing at 6:45 and so we do that every year as a district. Um it's not required but out of transparency we are you do it to be extra transparent and um if you have any questions I would be more than happy to pass this over to Jay during the converation because he is our resident expert in the tax levy and um I don't want to give you wrong information

091because I'm just learning this and starting it. Um the reason I'm doing this is I'm in the CSBO program to one day be like Jay. I don't know if I'm regretting that decision yet, but we'll find out very shortly. So, um, Jay's going to be controlling the slides. So, as you can see here, this is one of our graphs or pie charts. Jay's really into really big into charts, which is good. It's very helpful um to see how the revenue for the district is um brought in. So, as you can see, the property taxes are a huge part of the um revenue. It's about 88% this year. Usually hovers around 90%, so there's not very much fluctuation there. Um, and it is the most important source of our funding. All right, so we're going to

092start off with some key terms. Um, in Illinois or in Lake County, there's about 231 different um taxing districts. Those include school districts, municipalities, libraries, um park districts. All of those entities are required to um pass or submit their own tax levy. Um when you get your tax bill, the school districts usually represent about twothird of the tax bill. Um here in Lakeoff for Lake school district, it's about 40%. Um so when we're looking at the levy, levy and tax extension, those are actually two different terms. A lot of times people use them interchangeably, but we want to make it clear that those are not the same thing. So the tax levy, that's what we're doing now. That is the uh request by a government entity to be raised um from property taxes. So this

093is what we're asking for. It is um a request that has to be done before the last Tuesday in December. And in Illinois, the taxes are paid in a rear. So for the 2025 tax levy, um these are not collected until 2026. They can only be used for the operating funds and it excludes the debt service. Um when we're talking about the extension, the extension is what is actually build to us. Um it's usually ends up being lower than what the levy is. And Jay's going to go into more detail on that later, but um and then like I mentioned earlier, we have the truth and taxation hearing that we do every year. that you only have it's only required if your um levy is more greater than 105% of the prior years extension. Um

094that happened a lot during co during those co years but like I said we continue to have those treatment taxation hearings. On the next slide we're going into the EAV which is equalized assessed value. So um the tax levy calculation is based on two key parameters and it's the EAV and the CPI. The EAV stands for equalized assessed value. Property in Illinois is assessed at one-third of the market value everywhere except Cook County. Uh we call it equalized assessed value because all property values are assessed by individual townships, township treasures. And then after that, the county treasures look at each individual township and apply as an equalization factor to adjust for any bias by the township assistance. We're also interested in looking at taxable EAV um which is after tax exemptions. So exemptions reduce the

095taxable value of a property. This uh that reduces it to the EAV is about 97%. So about 3% of the total EAV is reduced by exemptions. And when we're talking about exemptions, we're talking about like school districts, um places of worship, like churches. Usually those are um 100% exempt and other ones like hospitals are usually about 80%. Um there's senior exemptions, homestead exemption exemptions. In terms of CPI, we're just looking at the consumer price index. It is a measure of annual inflationary um impact on the basket of goods for the levy. We're looking at December to December. So we're looking at December 2023 to December 2024. Um Jay feel free to hop in if I am missing anything. Um great and we could go to the next slide. So a fund is a group of

096self balance balancing accounts. when we are doing the tax levy, we have to extend it by fund. And so, um, when you are looking at your board packets and you're getting the bills, you may notice that some of the funds start with a 10. The first numbers start with a 10 or a 20 or a 40. So, those are all separate funds. So, the 10 fund is like an education or general fund. The 20 is operations and management. 40 is transportation. So, when you're looking at those, you can see right off the top what fund it's coming from. And we are not allowed to just um uh transfer funds from one to another. So say we have extra money in the transportation fund, we can't say like, oh, let's give this person a raise and

097use it in the general fund. It doesn't work that way. So um the funds have to be kept between or separately and um we have to track all the expenses and revenues by funds. Each fund has an annual tax rate and then some funds do have a maximum tax rate. PEL PEL is the property tax extension limitation law. So this law was instituted in 1991 and it limits the annual tax increase on existing property to the lower of the prior year's ex prior year CPI or 5%. Um a lot of people do refer to this as a tax cap. It's not technically capping your taxes. It's really just limiting their increase. So, if you do hear that, a tax cap, it's you could kind of use it, but that's not actually what what it's doing.

098Um, it's just there to design to keep the tax revenue constant, tested for inflation, and to slow the growth of property tax revenue to taxing districts when property values were increasing at a greater rate than inflation. um not all taxing bodies are limited to PTEL. So like the Lake Bluff um village of Lake Bluff is not limited to that but here at the school district we are I think on the next page the next page shows you a little bit of a history of PEL. So, like I said, it was um established in 1991 for the collard counties, which is like around um Cook County up at the top. And if you see the kind of diagonal lines, those are the counties that are subject to pel. If it's a white, that means that those

099counties are not subject to pel. If it has a blue dot, those are counties that are subject to pel now that were approved by referendum. And then the pinkish are the counties that tried to pass the PTEL but um at referendum but it failed. >> There's going to be a quiz about this later. >> Just kidding. We're not going to do Jeopardy Jeopardy 2.0. >> So another key parameter um to determine the revenue of a taxing district it will receive is the new property. So taxes from new property represent incremental revenue to the district. Um new property refers to the assessed value of real estate that has been newly developed or has undergone significant improvements thereby increasing its assessed value given during a tax year. So any additions to people's homes, any new homes, any

100new um construction, new buildings that are going in. um like a few years ago when the target went in there was a that year was much higher for new property than years in the past. The debt service extension also known as DUB that's the level of debt service for which a district can issue bonds without a referendum. the level of debt service a district had when first subject to pel so like back in 1991 they take a look at that year um for example in 2016 when the renovations happened here at the middle school we didn't have to go out and do a referendum to issue more debt we were able to use this big debt service extension base the tax cycle timeline is quite lengthy it's actually about four to five years so when

101we're Looking at this, we're going to look at the CPI, which is 2.9% and it's for December 2023 to December 2024. Uh for the EAV, that's the 2025 EAV on January 1st, but those are looking at uh the past 3ear sales from 2022, 2023, and 2024. So, we're at the tax levy filed in December 2025. That's at the the part that we're at right now. Um, final tax rates are established in the spring. Taxes are collected in June and September of 2026. I like Jay moving his arrow along his screen for everyone to follow. Um, we defer our taxes. So, technically when we get that June payment in 2026, that's technically still this fiscal year that we're in, but we defer it. So, those taxes are collected in June and September. But if you see

102this little arrow, you could see that we're actually using those funds for district or fiscal year 2027. So yes, um it does impact the fund balance. So technically like we're getting that month, we're getting the cash in June, but it doesn't show on our fund balance in June because we're deferring it to the following year. And finally, for my portion, this is just a history of the CPI. Um, as you can see right at the bottom, we're at 2.9% which is on average really. I think only two times it has gone above the 5% and that was during COVID. So, we're pretty much back on track. Um, and that is it for my portion. So, nobody had any questions. So, Jay, you are >> sure it'll be fast year after year. >> Yeah. >> Okay.

103So, uh just thinking about taxes and our taxes are used for two main purposes. Uh the first purpose is debt and that's a small portion of the taxes. The tax, as Kevin said, the tax the debt taxes for debt payments are not part of the levy request. the county automatically extends the uh amount of debt service necessary to pay any outstanding debts that we have on the books. Um, and they what they do is they extend the principal and interest amounts plus 1% to for loss and collections. And this is the amount that has accumulated in our fund balance over time including the interest on that. And that's what we're why we're going to sell those bonds later. and uh we'll approve the the bond sale later in the meeting and clean out that excess

104money. Um and then if we want to issue any new debt, um most debt requires a referendum, but we were able to issue debt under the DUB because we used it in 2016. Um we we have used up all of our DUB, so we don't have access to that until we pay off that debt. And then total debt is limited by statute to 6.9% of DAV. For elementary and high school districts, K12 unit districts, it's 13 million. This is a look at our debt service. Uh so this had the yellow bars are the debt service extension base. This debt was issued in 2015. Um it was refunded re last year in 2024. So it says 2024 series. We refunded it for savings. Um and then you can see the 2027 tax le tax year is

105the last year that we will be levying or extending taxes to pay uh the debt service on the elementary school. So from 27 to 28 uh the average homeowner will see about a $450 reduction in tax bill as that debt service gets paid off. Uh the bulk of our taxes are used for operations. These are subject to pile and the only way you can uh extend levy more or extend more taxes than pal limits you to is by referendum. So you could do an operating referendum and ask for an increase in your operating funds. Uh these are again levied by fund and some of these funds have their own limits. So pal limits the total extension and then some funds have their own limit which would limit you the ability to uh extend taxes in

106that particular fund. looking at who pays the taxes. Um once you figure out what your total taxes are, they are allocated or to individual properties based on EAB. Lake Love is uh mostly residential, almost 90% residences. The next biggest bucket is commercial property and every property represents a tiny slice of this tax pie. So, we take the total tax bill and we allocate it out to individual property owners based on their share of Eden. Um, the way we calculate taxes, uh, it's pretty simple. We take last year's tax extension, what would build the taxpayers on existing property. We grow it by the consumer price index to get this year to get the next year's taxes. And that's basically it. So we're keeping taxes about the same adjusted for inflation. Uh so existing property we again

107we take last year's taxes on the existing property, we grow them and then that gives us the taxes on existing property for the next year and then we also are able to tax new property. So new property often brings new students. So, it kind of makes sense that we want to kind of maintain funding at the same rate adjusted for inflation while allowing um you to increase taxes to be provided for new students. >> Good question. >> Yes. >> It looks like if it is like increasing greatly, but when you let's say hit that 5% cap, >> how much is that really like per person or per household increase? That would depend on the size of the household. For a median home in Lake Bluff, which is $600,000, um this a 5% increase would probably

108be about $2250. >> Um so yeah, it looks I'm >> Your pies are a little >> The pies are exaggerated for a fact so that you can see. Yeah. So it doesn't go that much >> because it is what I meant to to uh >> that's why I have because I I remember you saying it's not what it seems similar to what Kevin said. It's not the same. It's not like >> you can't interchange those two percent you're going up by 5%. You're >> like sorry an individual is not getting a 5% increase. It's >> it depends. >> Right. Right. >> And actually that's a good thank you for the study. So >> what that means because of the calculation is that no individual or no existing property owner the total taxes on existing property

109can never go up by more than CPI or 5%. So um because that's the calculation. So our total tax like this is the taxes last year on existing property. This is the taxes next year on existing property. that total can only be increased by CPI and that and then it's limited by by a percentage. So if CPI is seven, it's capital five. >> Okay. >> Um and so the way we allocate these taxes to individual property owners, the way we build it is by using the tax rate. And so the tax rate is actually an output, not an input. uh from the last slide what we do is we calculate what the tax bill will be by growing last year's taxes by 3%. So that's known and then we divide that amount by the EAV

110to get the tax rate. So it's dollars of taxes divided by profit value is dollars per property value. So uh if EAV goes way up then your tax rate is going to have to go way down to compensate. So if property values go up by 10%, a lot of people think, "Oh no, my taxes are going to go up by 10%." But in reality, the total taxes can only go up by CPI, so the tax rate is going to have to go down. Uh so actually the increase in total in average EAV has nothing to do with property owners tax. What is important is the relative increase in assessment. So if I'm a property owner, the total the average increase doesn't mean anything. Property could go up 10%. I'm still going to see CPI if

111I'm not in. But if my relative change is different, I may the tax pie could get redistributed. So P1 does not limit individual tax bills. The CPI is 2.9%. That doesn't mean as an individual I can't see more than 2.9%. means the district will not receive more than 2.9%. But um if you know if my property value increases more than average then my slice of the pie is going to get bigger and the taxes are going to be redistributed and I'm going to get a bigger share. So my taxes are going to go up by more. My value incre decrease or increases less than average and I'm going to see less. And so, you know, because you we don't have much commercial property here, but if we had a big commercial um taxpayer leave, you

112know, close up shop, all those taxes, the school district would be held made whole, but all those taxes would be redistributed to the residences to other taxpayers. Um oops and the night the I forgot to mention before that even we are highly residential which means that we don't have a lot of big taxpayers. So the the top 10 or the top five uh top 10% no the top 10 taxpayers are less than 5% of our total tax or total. So there's no one really large taxpayer. If you look at the 10 largest taxpayers, they only account for 42% of their EA. So if we lose a taxpayer or if they have often times large taxpayers have the resources to appeal their investment or their their um assessments and if they get big reductions, it does

113get redistributed, but we don't have lots of large taxpayers. So we have pretty stable tax base. Um so thinking about new property uh the increase in EAV for new property is very important because uh as we said up here the tax is calculated on existing property but then it's applied to all. So we we calculate the tax rate based on existing property. We take the existing EAV the exist existing extension grow by CPI divide by existing EAV and that that's the tax rate and then we apply that to all the new property. So uh as new property goes up that's all new money coming to the district because it's just the tax rate times the EA for new property as EV goes up. So as we get more new property we get more new taxes.

114Um, so the the things that I look at that determine what we're going to receive mostly are CPI and new property. the change in average property value doesn't really impact um either individual unit property owners tax bills or the district's um tax rel um and we also because we don't really know what the tax rate is going to be. It's just an estimate. They're estimating what the EAV is, but I won't know that until um April when everything's tallied and I won't know what the new property is until April when everything's tallied. So, I'm going to overestimate when I ask for the money. the county will only extend taxes up to the level amount. So if you ask for an amount and then the formula is calculated and you could have asked for more, you

115can only get what you asked for. And what that means is that you'd be missing out on new property. So all those new property owners would get a break and um would be kind of riding the coattails of the existing property owners. So, as a general rule, anyone any district under PEL will overestimate what it asks for just to make sure because it's always going to be reduced down to the PEL amount. And that is why, as Kevin said at the beginning, the tax extension is usually less than the tax levy because we're always asking to ask for more than they expect to get and then it's just going to be reduced to what we're legally allowing. >> So, we cover oursel by asking for more, but they're never going to overdose. >> They're never

116going to overpass, right? So, some districts add 10% and then when they publish it looks like they're going to increase taxes by 10 with this big amount, but then it's always going to be reduced. I try to be a little more um judicial with their judicious with my estimates and I do overestimate the new property, but at a reasonable amount I'm sure underestimated. Yeah. So, hopefully that will continue. No questions on that. Let me go straight into here with the recommendation for next year. Um, so these are the parameters. As I said, the two uh the parameters we look at are CPI, EAV, and new property EAV with the new property and CPI being the most important. Uh, the December 24 change in CPI was 2.9%. Uh last year it was 3.4%. So we're seeing

117um it remain around 3%. And this is a number that I know because it's one year it's pretty long tax timeline. As of last December, I knew what the increase is going to be for this year. So that time existing property uh EAV is estimated to go up by 9.6% next year. It was 9.4% last year. So Lake Golf is seeing some big increases in assessments. But again, don't worry. That doesn't mean your taxes are going up by 10%. It just means that your property values are going up by 10%. Looking at new property, um this year's new property is high by historical standards. The only time we saw a higher amount was in 2016 when they completed a vulnerable development. This uh increase is composed there's 35 pin property index numbers um that make

118up this new property number. 90% of that 6 million is only eight properties and half of it is two properties and these are the apartments at the 525 West Washington um which account for 3 million brand new property. I have uh called up the township and asked about it because I don't believe this number. I'm crossing my fingers that it's that it's accurate. Those apartments have been there for a long time. I don't know if they did for renovations, remodeling. >> What's the address? >> Uh 525 West Washington. It's kind of shock bark when you go around to get on 41 if you were going to go straight instead into the >> I thought I'll lose maybe >> somebody might have bought them. Um and but still that's and then got reassessed. So just how

119it's classified as new property versus existing property makes a big difference for us. Um and the taxpayer is whatever the the taxes are based on need. So um so this is great news for the district. you know, we've been historically averaging two% or $2 million or so in a new property. Uh lately, it's been a lot less, one and a half. um it's at six and it's I'm going to ask for that because we don't and then I don't get it but so there's no risk in the levy but I just >> we don't want I ask >> I don't want as >> you're better off asking 36 and if they change it if you ask they this is what they published and Lake County is actually very good with their estimates so um Cook

120County is really good with their estimates I'm happy to be in Lake County it's a lot easier for me they've they shut up numbers and they're always really within individual. So, uh so that's kind of these what I do is I use these numbers to calculate how much we're legally uh able to ask for. So this would say we are loving as much as we possibly can. But I like to come at from the other angle too and say I'm not every year just going to ask for as much as I can. I want to make sure I really need that money. So I do long-term projections to look at kind of the history of our fund balance over time and projection into the future to see, you know, what if we don't levy the

121max or what if we do levy it. And I mean that informs kind of what our ability is to to change our level. So for my long-term uh projections, I'm using 2.9%. That's a known number um from last year. Next year I'm expecting 3%. That is the trend through September. He did not publish October numbers. I don't know if they ever will, but um it's been, you know, we've been trending towards 3% all u all all year, and I think it could actually even be higher than that. And then conservatively, years out years three through 5%. I'm expecting two uh 2% growth in CPI. Again, um and this is this number really controls how much money we bring in. I'm being conservative again and forecasting $ 1.5 million of new property in the out years

122after this year. Um a collection rate of 98 and a half% which is what we've seen in the last several years which has been um lower than kind of previous history but then we get to recapture some of that money that we don't collect in the first go around um in subsequent years. Everything else I'm growing at about 2%. Keep bringing my interest rates down. is short-term interest rates are decreasing and then kind of holding everything else that um we have a CBA with no expected with known increases and expected retirements for the next three years and then the any out two out years beyond our CBA. I'm just making some assumptions. I'm assuming 3% increases for all other staff constant FTE and then kind of market growth um trends and insurance increases and with

123all that oh sorry and then just our contracts we have long-term contracts in place for custodial and transportation uh and then special education transportation and and um tuition is really variable and hard to predict. So, I'm just kind of threw in 5% for those. I've been growing everything else at CPI. And then for capital, I'm planning on 275,000 a year in fund 20. And then using our $5,000 fund balance, $500,000 fund balance that we're going to can get access to through the debt service issuance to take care of any capital projects. Uh and then no, you know, just basically steady state, no big shocks from legislation or development. Doing that, this is what our fund balance looks like. The blue bars are our revenue. The red bars are expenditures. Um the budget should be over

124here. The cash columns are the budget and then these are the out years that are projected and find your projections. uh the the dotted lines are our fund balance policy 50% and 30%. So by fund balance policy we want are the board wants us to maintain a fund balance within that range. And so as you can see we're kind of right in the middle of that range right now. And if we do levy as much as we can given my assumed parameters, we can comfortably kind of maintain our phone bills within those parameters almost four years which is great. So we're in very good shape. Um I wouldn't you know recommend underlevying like this is uh levying what we are able to levy will keep us uh in within that range. there is a downward

125trend and really the the basics of our finances are that we're very heavily um salary and benefit based. We're a people business. We've got a long-term contract that promises increases that are higher than CPI. Uh insurance increases are higher than CPI generally and most everything else exists by at least CPI. So to extend taxes less than CPI um would put the district in a situation where fund balance would be declining quickly and it would be very hard to recover from. So my recommendation as always to um let us see that's what I'm recommending this year. Uh we are required by law just to um post and talk about our cash reserves at the end of last year. So, by fund, this is how it looks. We had $20 million in cash as of June 30th,

126as Kevin pointed out. That's because we defer our taxes. So, we collect all of our taxes in June or half of our taxes in June, but we don't use that money until the following fiscal year. So, um it doesn't show up in our fund balance. Our fund balances, the fund balance was only 8.4 million, but we had 20 million in cash. That's because we defer the we're not going to we didn't use it last year. We're using it all this year. we've got to survive from September all the way through the end of the year with the cash that we collected in June, September. And then this is also required. Um this just looks at fund 10 20 and 40. So we had 17 million in our biggest operating funds and so that ratio needs

127to be less than two and a half. Um and if it's not then the board needs to have an action plan to reduce it. I would say we were overt taxing people and kind of hoarding that money. If we had so much money sitting in the bank and we weren't any weren't spending it, but we're again we're at less than one. So very prudent with our tax dollars. We take in what we need and spend it on next year. Um so this is what it looks like in total. Uh we are looking so last year we had 3.4% 4% CPI this year is 2.9 this is what a 10% growth in ED will look like 87 871 million of total equalized assessed value taxable equalized assessed value in the township or in the school district

128new property of 6 million so we're seeing a 2% increase a 2.9% increase uh related to CPI the impact of that $6 million in new property adds $136,000 to our tax extension. That's8%. I rounded it up to an even 1% to make sure that we're going to collect all that new property, which gets us to 19,715,000, a net increase of 3.9% in operating taxes. Means our tax is going down significantly. It's going down 6%. That's because our property value is going up much more than our tax rate has been than the CPI is going. So our EAV goes up more than our CPI, our tax has come down to compensate. So our top is going down 6%. Our debt service extension is just based on what the debt we have outstanding. That's going down a

129little bit slightly. And so our net increase, our net ask is $22 million. And that is a 3.4% increase in that over the last year and a 6.2% reduction in tax rate. this uh app this this extension including our debt service is about $135 per town for a median home. So median home value is 600,000 um a 600 a home an owner of a $600,000 home would see actually a increase of $145 in operating taxes and a decrease of $10 in debt service tax in the spring that increase about $54. and that later uh when you approve it there's a resolution purchase and this will be published in the newspaper and then uh between 14 and 7 days before the tax hearing then we will have the um top treatment taxation hearing in September because

130we're only asking for 3.4% 4% it's not required but insurance >> that is that is it >> any questions can you explain and I know you've done this before but so if we don't go for a full the full levy that we're allowed now how going forward how we can't get that >> yeah so um kind of has the calculation is pretty well that was a different situation. So calculation was pretty simple. You take last year's extension and you grow up by CPI to get this year's extension. So what we get this year in taxes is dependent upon last year and what we get next the following year is dependent upon this year. So if we were to take we were to extend lower amount of operating taxes then that amount would get grown by

131CPI and so that reduction would compound year after year after year. So we might reduce our taxes by $100,000 this year, but then next year that 100,000 was grown by CPI, so it' be $10,000 next year at 120. So it would continue to lose more of that revenue and wouldn't be able to get it back. So just the nature of the ptail formula where your taxes are dependent on the priority year um is really so it makes it inadvisable to lower your operating taxes. Now they did pass laws recently that allow you to recoup that but it does um to prevent those things from happening but it does take time and you're always going to be losing a little bit more than you actually are in that one year. So if the board were ever

132to want to give property owners some tax relief, it would be better to pay the the debt service levy and pay that out of operations than it would be to reduce the operating levy because that that would not impact the following the amount you could levy if then that year you'd see a big increase. So, if you did a one-year reduction, then the next time you go back to where you would have been, you you're going to be seeing a big increase. >> So, good news for Lake Bluff taxpayers is that as of 2027, all that debt's coming off our books and there'll be a big significant tax reduction and and that significant tax reduction is not going to end up operational. >> Great question. Um, I'm going to So 2027 will be the taxes

133we pay in 2027 or that'll be that'll be the tax that you pay in 2027. >> So um, will we finish paying off the debt? So that that last tax payment for the middle for the elementary school will be made in December of 2028. And the taxes that are extended at the 20 in the 2027 tax levy are collected in July and September of 2028. And those taxes will be used to pay off the debt in December of 2020 term. So it's the the 27 tax levy that will be approved in December of 27 and that will be impacting the tax bills of 20 of June and September of 2020. >> So that's two and a half years. Yes. then that will be the last payment and then the following year in June and September

1342029 um taxes will go down and the only thing we'll have left on the books is our debt service extended taxes for the middle school it's about $450,000. They did do a um the high school did a survey >> um and one of their questions was about taxes and it came out like 77% of district 65 respondents and I don't know how many that was there was 300 total respondents from you know 15 and 67 and 55 I don't know how many respond >> well in fact if there's about 79 thou 7,000 just under 8,000 PE residents of the Lake Bluff School District between Nolwood and Bluff. >> So households would probably be a fraction of that depending on how much households, >> but that's a small percentage. >> You know, 77% said property taxes

135were too high even compared to 58% in in Lake Forest. Um so um I appreciate what you said about you don't ex you know make the full levy you know then then that's you know um say it's 100,000 then next year it's 102,000 less um but at the same time I I somehow you know it seems if if if we any way possible at all we can you know not assess the full amount and and I don't know what would be the impact on like this year's operation if we got $100,000 less >> impact on the fund balance does >> or next year that be that'd be in next year's budget >> I guess I'd start by saying that Lake is a much smaller community than Lake Forest with a smaller tax base so that

136supports a school district So the tax base in Lake Forest is is significantly it's like $2.5 billion. It's significantly bigger than Lake Bluff's $800 million tax base. And so taxes are going to be the tax burden is going to be higher on families because there's less EAV to support the school district than there is forced. We actually um on a on a dollars per student basis we need and a dollar per ad basis we are lower than before. So it's not really a fair comparison. Um having said that you know if we do yeah I think if we do reduce our as I said earlier like everything is growing you know our expenditures are growing by more than CPI and we're limited in terms of how much we can ask in tax revenue to CPI

137we get a little bit of money from new property but to consistently I mean to to reduce our taxes we probably would reduce our fund balance directly because the budgets that I or the forecasts that I'm making are sort of are based on balance budgets. So it would you need either a dollar for dollar reduce your expenditures um or you'd reduce your fund balance. If we if we reduce taxes by 100,000, we would have to find 100,000 out of next year's budget, >> right? >> And the fact of the matter is that I think you know twothirds of our expenditures, you know, our actually it's threequarters of our expenditures including that not including debt that service threequarters of our operating expenditures are personnel and so it's very difficult like those costs are kind of fixed

138and a lot of them are involved in contracts. If you look at the amount of of um budget that we have to play with, there's a very small margin that we have to be able to reduce just kind of uh structurally the way the budget is built, we need to grow our revenue with our expenditures and if we don't then we'll reduce our time and there's not there's not much we can play with. There's not much you can start with. >> As Tim's question earlier, like if we reduce our operating expenditures, we're not just reducing it for that year. We're operating levy. We're reducing it compounding every year. >> We'd be have to reduce the budget >> that that 100,000 we would take out of the budget would be done. >> One year we'd have

139to reduce it the next year by growth and then by even more of a farm. So, >> and to to be honest, if we if we were to say to to reduce instead of going up 2.9%. We were to say we want a 2.5% increase, that would save the average taxpayer $18 tax. So, it's not to any individual homeowner would not really make a dent, but it would impact the district significantly. And you know the the big I guess the big benefit to home owners again is just looking out a couple of years and in a short amount of time we will have very we will a lot of debt service is going to come off their books and then you know they'll be feeling that relief. >> Yeah and I think that's useful for

140everyone to know. Yeah, I would say that like Forest High School, I think, you know, they as a board were concerned about their taxes for their residents and they did under levy or not le not extend taxes um the taxes that they could up for several years and not put them in the position where when they needed to do renovations on the building, they had to ask for a big referendum and and borrow money. So that's something also I'd rather I think it's easier on the taxpayers if you spread things out and do things over time gradually versus you know people will feel a lot more if it's uh if you ask for a lot of money at once. So they might not feel the small reductions that you make every year but they're sure

141going to feel that big referendum when you come and ask your money and got yourself involved. By the way, I I did just do kind of a little proforma on my own taxes and to see what it would be. Um, and you know, as as uh Kevin said, is it's like 40% of the total tax bills, but I could I could look at, you know, I could look at that say, okay, you know, um, here's my taxes this year. Here's was the 40%. you know, and you can look at it and see times 2.9% was that was going to be my increase. So, you know, I can take it's not too hard to calculate, you know, what we're really talking about and it's not a big it's not really a big number, >> provided that

142your assessment goes on. >> Well, yeah, I mean, for what 95% of the houses, they're not going to be changing, >> you know, dramatically from the previous year. And this is actually this is not a quadratal reassessment here. So the county is not looking over time. It's not looking at every property and reassessing it. They're looking at the sales data and and projecting an average increase and applying 19 years to then there's some of the outliers, but it can vary by neighborhood, but in a year like this, you're right, most properties will not see significant devolutions from the average. >> Thank you. Excellent. Any more questions? All right, we can move on to your state project we >> So, in this um facility assessment, they outline a significant amount of tuck pointing, which is a

143very boring thing that needs to be done in order to keep the brick facads of buildings from falling apart. Um, and it's something that we've had some estimates done. Uh I attached to the packet kind of the assessment of one of the contractors. His total was less than what some of the architects are are projecting, but it's still going to be a significant uh expenditure. And so I'd like to the state does offer these grants um $50,000 for doing maintenance projects. They're on a first come, first- serve basis, which is why um they're actually on a priority basis. And then after that priority, they first come, first serve, which is why I'm bringing this for approval tonight so I can get my application in because this is not a high priority item, but the state

144I know that the funds are there. So, I do expect to get some funds that will help um with some of the costs for the tuck pointing. So, I'd like to just break bite it off of $100,000 and try to get some grant funding matching that funding to the So, what we're asking for is this approval is not to do the plug pointing. This is just to ask for the grant and then um I will apply for the grant provided we get it. I could get reimbursed or I can get $50,000 to apply for us the first $100,000. >> Is that a yearly grant? >> It's an annual grant. We've gotten it for the last several years, probably three or four years. We've done everything from playgrounds to the generator project that's next. We got

145some >> another fabulous segue. Here we go >> to the last agenda item. >> Sorry. Do you have any questions on plan three? >> I was just going to say that the um I know option two it's more expensive but it's based on my professional experience which I don't like saying that but what I'm it's more durable repair and stuff and I think it better. >> So and we are going to involve our architects in that. So there are some things in option two, particularly the flashing on the on our cap uh caps like that for sure we're doing and we'll probably do some more than you know with the extra 10% of the wall or whatever. The only thing the architect said was that he thought maybe the metal lentils didn't need to be

146um exposed and resealed and we never thought that was depending if they're showing rust. >> Right. And so we need to get >> well he did he did it again. >> We we for sure don't want to do this we want to do it right the first time. >> Right. Right. >> And the fact that we can get some grant money to help work. So >> yeah. >> Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. >> Random question. How long does last like because different places? It depends. I'm different on the like the stuff on the parapet walls of the gym given the it's stone cath like those have deteriorated a lot more than the rest of the walls. So it can last 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. >> It's been generally a pretty long time. >> Pretty

147not something you do infrequently and not something that I don't think we've done in a really long time. So Okay. Well, last time I can't tell you the last time. One more time. Any more questions? >> No. >> Okay. I had a good second. Okay. So, >> yes. >> So, this is something that we've been contemplating for a while. Uh the board approved the application for a grant a year ago to um apply towards a generator project. Um the we and we also prioritize the generator at the elementary school because one it is there's a basically an ideal location for it. Um so it's an easier project to do and also the need is significantly higher. Right now we have emergency lighting at the elementary school that runs on these giant battery packs and we

148need to replace the batteries half of them every two years and it's very expensive. Uh currently their batteries are not holding a charge and we will if we don't put in a generator we would not probably need code of we would need to bring someone in to fix them. Uh Andy also informs me that the batteries that are um supporting our fire panel also are not paying a charge. So we would need to probably replace those. Um and so emergency lighting is really the biggest I guess safety concern. But then also there's just a lot of other needs, you know, as we've added things to the building, everything runs on electricity. Um, and from a not only a convenience standpoint, but a protection standpoint, like if the if it's cold and the boilers go down

149and there's no electricity, we have if um you know um when we lose electricity, sometimes we lose equipment because there's surges happening and circuit boards blow out and so we're replacing $10,000 circuit boards on anymore HVAC and core night. So, this would be help protect against that. And then uh you know, we've got cameras, we've got security systems, we have door access, all that stuff goes down uh when we lose Tom. So, the um many schools have emergency generators. Um and we are asking we would like to put one at in at the elementary school this next summer. Um you know, this project is $30,000. That's basically the engineering work to map the circuits and um size the generator, bid the generator, install it, you know, turn natural gas. Um the placement of the generator

150needs to be by where the gas comes in the building, which for the elementary school is behind the building, uh next to the golf course. So, and also those the batteries for the emergency lights are also right there. It's by the gym. It's kind of by the gym entrance on the plane. So, it's uh it's really right next to the room where it needs to go. The noise would be minimal because we do have to test the generator and keep and run it every, you know, once a week or once a month to make sure that it's running. Um, so >> yeah, >> at the middle school, it's a different situation. It the the gas comes into the building out by the admin entrance. So, additionally, we're good to put it. the noise I think

151the neighbor >> and also the emergency lights in these building see one in the back there those are battery operated individual lights so we don't have the same kind of emergent need or hazards associated with we so we would consider a generator for the middle school but there's a lot more involved with it and uh the need the immediate need is not as high and it still would benefit us from all the systems being on electricity the doors with the containers types of things. Um, but we're just looking at the bill and in order to do this project next summer, we needed to get started now because bidding time. So, need the approval to get started. The approval is not tonight. It's December, but we have some time, but we do need to get approval

152in December. >> Sounds like a necessity. You know, I I got some concerns about this project because I I mean, how often do we lose color? >> More often than you would think. >> I I would like to know. >> Um I mean, I've been in and you know, especially the teachers that are inconvenienced by it and appreciate, you know, the lights and things, but you know, we do have backup for those and that can be improved uh with the batteries. replace the batteries. We can fix those for at 300 I'm sorry 300,000 time two 600,000 that's a lot of money. Well I mean we are not we're just talking about the elementary school right now and if we did use power this is not a system that is going to allow us to hold

153school without power. So we'd still be sending everybody home teachers students. This is a system that is there to provide emergency lighting to help people safely evacuate the building. It's there to protect our expensive um technology, the IT infrastructure and boilers and things like that. So, it's it's a short-term thing like we don't we tend to if we lo do lose power, it's not for hours and hours on end. I leave the longest power out just been a couple of hours but it's generally it goes down and then comes back up within you know half hour or so. resorts. There's there is a convenience factor, but there's also just a safety factor. And really the I would say at the elementary school it was built uh in order and it was designed to achieve lead

154status and so they did a lot of things when they were building that building that were maybe experimental that were state-of-the-art at the time and >> didn't age well or or pan out. um you know like for example rooftop leads that we had to replace all in 2018 because they were not suited for this climate. This battery pack is kind of one of those things. Um it's really not a safe or effective way to run emergency lights and I we'd be sinking a lot more money into it. I'm not sure. >> How much I mean system >> because how long will the generator? >> Well, I mean once the the generator is our little technology when we put it in good forever. >> If we do go the route of the batteries, it sounds like

155those have to be replaced anyway. >> We would spend probably $10,000 under two years to replace the batteries and then I don't know how much it would cost to fix the system like to get it working. We have had somebody evaluate it and they didn't want to get too far into it because they were afraid to touch it very quickly. I just I don't think our guys have the expertise to manage it and it's something I'd like to get out of school. >> So we currently don't have a generator. So >> there are no generators, >> right? So like if power was to go out at night and it's longer than a half an hour we have boilers to run like nothing. >> Correct. >> Yeah. I mean and and to be fair we've had

156we've not had generators for ever and we haven't had an issue. But you know we if we if it is we do get a polar vortex or something and power goes off for an extended period we would not be able to cancel. significant difference. >> Well, and we already know where we'd have to spend tens of thousands of dollars at some point on the elementary school because right now we don't need code. We're going to have to do something to get us back on. It was actually it was left off of the healthy SAP survey just because did it and they had project required to prepare >> and tonight we're just voting to approve the grant. >> No. >> So the grant was approved I guess a year ago you approved the grant. So, okay,

157>> the grant, if we don't do this project, we do have to give the grant back. So, that's $50,000 to return. >> Um, but what we're what the approval actually nothing's being approved this year. In December, you'd be approving White's contract to do the engineering work for designing and bidding and sizing the generator. And then we would separately come back and if we the winning bid for the generator uh purchase installation is $200,000 then you we'd have to come back and approve that. The white contract actually is below the threshold for which we need approval but we're asking for approval because it's a bigger project. Got it. >> We did think about it and questions discuss. Yeah. I mean my experience in making, you know, decisions like this is I I mean I think first

158off a clear very clear statement of what the what the problem is. Um you know and I mean like the lights issue for example and the doors, you know, that's during the daytime that's not a problem. I mean there's only like one room I think where there's no windows at the elementary the music room doesn't doesn't consider how many statistically >> for safety >> but I mean the doors have they have key back up um I I guess what I'm saying is that I think if we can really define the problem and identify what the issues are um and what's driving us to make the change and then look at then once you say yes let's look at what the different options are the different alternatives um I mean we're only being presented one alternative

159you know we don't I don't I don't know what other alternatives there are >> yeah I mean if we have a board consensus to get more information of that magnitude um we could ask for that for sure I personally think there was it was pretty well laid out in the board packet. But agree or disagree. Um, and again, I don't know. I mean, one of my questions, and maybe you don't have that answer, would be how many other schools have generators. I would assume that that's something we share forward that most people have. >> I'm sure our architects have experience at different schools and could give us I mean, survey of schools or they could give us some some feel for it. I think it's not uncommon to say more and more schools are putting

160them in. >> Yeah. >> Because relative to the costs of losing power, it's pretty, you know, fairly inexpensive insurance policy. >> Yes. >> Stevenson has five backup generators and they actually have a power plant, the cash power plant. >> Are we comparing anyway? They've got, you know, crazy like they can game the electric market and when rates go up, they can generate their own power and stuff like that. But even with that, they do have five backup generators there for emergency purposes only. >> So, it's it's sort of the not the gold standard, but that's the that's the way most places do it. Like here we have battery individual battery lights and those work and we replace them when they go out. >> Um but at the elementary school it's we would have to like

161the way it's every sixth light or something is runs on the batteries. So it's not like they're >> I'm sorry I was getting late but I mean like does Lake Forest have a have a generator for each of their elementary schools? interesting if if we want to take you guys want more on this satisfied with what was presented and we can discuss the vote anybody on the spot >> anyone add to Jay's workload but if it's not too much trouble to provide some addition >> I can ask some local like a problem and we'll even just like what the batteries cost, >> right? >> I mean, at what point are we going to be equal to what the generator cost to put in? Like that's going to some things three years put into money. I

162mean, personally, if as a parent, if Real was out of power, and you told me my kids come to school, I'd be >> really annoyed. I personally >> well and like I said they if we lost power they wouldn't be able to come to school anyway >> right >> but if we lost power and then I would fight you first >> then we wouldn't be at school for parents >> that's what I was thinking >> you know the biggest the biggest uh people that are inconvenience with the power outage are the teachers and so I appreciate some input from the teachers as to if they think >> you know this kind of an investment would be justified It's it's more but besides like if the power goes out and it's cold and the pipes burst

163then that that that's like that's the schools in need of >> but we've never had a situation like I mean we've never had power out for that length of time. I mean it's just you know the amounts of time we've had power out is just I think it's say it's 20 minutes and maybe twice a year. I don't I don't know. I don't know how often we lose file and for how long and so I don't know the scope of the problem we're trying to solve. >> Well, so it would be helpful for us if you do want us to collect more information that we ask specific questions that you'd like answered. Um I don't think this is a thing that the teachers are going to want to weigh in on. We're not asking about

164convenience. Um this is more facilities and maintenance. So and and if if we decide not to do it, that's fine. Um, but >> I just I think if the teacher see us spending 300,000 or 600,000 on a project they don't think is >> is worthwhile. I I think >> as a as a parent though kids go here >> as a parent right not >> teachers I mean it's a tax so I think I mean you had a valid point earlier it's a cost that but I don't know if that has to do with the teachers >> I think we should definitely get more information about what other can't have more information >> yeah Okay. >> Like which other schools have them comparable? >> And I I guess I will say we're right now we're only

165talking about the elementary school, right? >> And I do have a concern about our battery operated lights. Um I'm not sure they can be repaired >> and we have we repaired them once and the way we find out that they're not working is when we lose power. So >> um >> and that's a that's a code issue that >> and that's a code issue and it's a safety issue. And the really the solution to that the only other solution is a generator you know or to just disconnect everything and buy a small battery on mean the other thing is the size of the generator. So we will we would size the generator for not just the lights but all of those other systems as well. Um you know I mean including cooling for like our

166HVAC equipment or IT equipment like if we change the size of the generator say just for the lights a smaller generator is less costly as well. So that could reduce the cost of of the generator from 200,000 to 100,000 or something. But then it's just a question of the wisdom of putting going through the offer of putting in the generator and just putting those on protective systems. >> So maybe if possible we can say a couple of those scenarios kind of and I would maybe not defer teachers but maybe like Austin and safety and security because I think that's really big and then your plan or whatever. operational costs. You just let me see we we budget for that. I don't think it's a I think it's I personally think it's a necessity but >>

167and this also is recommended by >> correct >> they did an evaluation facilities >> I just want to be clear um specifically what are we looking for >> um probably more the paid cost analysis of batteries in the lights versus long-term versus a one time voltage generator and maybe more detail as to how it would directly affect our electricity safety and security and like our other items. >> Well, what systems are we protecting by having the generator, right? because >> we need to know what those are because if we have to replace all of those systems that's very costly to know what systems we're right >> and then also what other cost for other alternatives maybe >> the only piece of information I may not be able to get by Olympics board meeting is an

168evaluation of the system for repairing itself >> you said you >> you said they didn't want to touch it >> yeah we we had we've had it looked at two years ago And yeah, >> they suggested we replace all the battery because basically what happened Andy started after Steve retired and then we lost power and we had no emergency lights. So he's like, "When was the last time we had this battery system looked at because nothing was working." So I brought somebody in and he's like, "Oh, well, this is an unusual system and like the batteries haven't been changed for a while. you need to get on schedule and we need to replace all four battery or all batteries now and then um every two years you need to replace half of them and at

169the time I think the first year was 15,000 replace allies so I replace half every probably $15,000 every four years total but he need I mean they're just they're big boundaries they're high voltage boundaries so he was Yeah, we need professional change and environmental, you know, the history of auto edge should be able to give us that thing custom. They should be able to tell us when we've had these many allergies in the last 10 years or something about to particular and and then just if you know similar size schools um what they're doing >> okay well assuming that this scope is doable >> I'll get as much back because I do think we're on a time >> crunch to are lost and waste taking your time up with it. Um if that pieces everybody

170move on. >> Okay. So we'll move on to the 26 27 school. >> So we had three drafts that we developed with staff and faculty. We then put it out to the faculty to vote. So this is the calendar that staff have asked for. Um it is in line with the high school as we always do in terms of Thanksgiving, winter, and spring breaks. Um the first day is pretty much aligned to where we were this year. We kept conferences at the same weekends. That schedule has been working out really well. We have a month with no days off, which everyone loves. We're still not doing early release days. Yay. And our last day is on June 8th with five emergency days ending on June Love it. We'll be approving this. >> All right, we've

171made it to action with discussion. >> Okay, we're going to move into 10 A. We are going to ask approval to adopt the prime first resolution. This resolution is providing for the issue of not to exceed $5700,000 general obligation limited school bonds for the purpose of increasing the working cash fund of the district and authorizing the sale of said bonds to the purchaser thereof. I'm not going to reexlain it, but we talked about this last month in the month before. Anybody have any questions or discussion? Okay. So, may uh a motion to May have a motion to approve to adopt the parameters resolution. >> So, second Warren may have Laura Brickstone. >> Yes. >> Ian Hill. >> Yes. >> Ian Brew Carlson. >> Yes. >> Sinbach. >> Yes. >> Richard Driver. >> Yes. >> Warren

172Hirs. Yes. Tim Bennett. >> Yes. >> Right. This motion passes. Um, moving on to 10B, the True North resolution approval. So, we will read this resolution about a recision of intent to withdraw from True North Educational Cooperative 804. >> Okay. >> Where is the board of education of Lake Bluff School District 65 Board of Education currently is a member of the Shure North Education Cooperative 804 true north. And whereas the board of education adopted a resolution notice of intent to withdraw from True North June resolution as its June 24th, 2025 board meeting. And where is the June resolution set forth the board's direction to notify True North by the board's intent to withdraw its intent to engage in an evaluation of its special education program and to direct the superintendent to take action necessary to

173effectuate a lawful withdrawal and whereas the board of education has taken no further action to proceed withdrawal from North and whereas the board of education has reviewed plans for the reorganization of True North commission's 3 million of the member at this time. Now therefore, be it resolved by the board of education as follows. One, that the recital sent forth above are incorporated herein. Two, that the board of education hereby rescends its notice of intent to withdraw from the cooperative conditioned upon a this board's representative to the true north leadership council voting in favor of amending the true north articles of agreements to effectuate the reorganization of the cooperative substantially in the form as presented at the October leadership council meeting and b the leadership council's passage of the amendments to the articles of agreement. Number

174three, this resolution shall be in full force and effective immediately on its adopt. It should say 18th day of Oh, perfect. >> Okay. Adopted this 18th day of November 2025 by a roll call vote of the board as follows. >> So, we don't need a motion in a second. >> Make all the names or we might >> after losing. >> You can just read the names. >> Yeah. And then we'll >> All right. Tim Penn. >> Yes. We didn't need an actual motion or did we already? >> We didn't. >> Okay. Sorry. Yeah. >> Laura NH. Yes. Andrew Carlson. >> Yes. >> Ian Hill. >> Yes. >> Carrie Steinbach. >> Yes. >> Richard Driver. >> Yes. >> Laura Briggs. >> Yes. >> We had to make a motion. >> I'm going to make a vote.

175>> Yeah. >> I have a resolution. But go for it. We'll just cover it all. May I have a motion to adopt the recision of intent to withdraw from True North? >> So moved. Second. >> Oh, now I see. But we need to have a roll call. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Uh Laura Brickstone, >> yes. >> Richard Driver, >> yes. >> Okay. Carrie Steinbot, >> yes. Hill, >> yes. >> Andrew Carlson, Lauren Hirs, yes. Tim Bennett, >> yes. >> This motion is yes. We shall move on to approval of the 10-year health life safety survey. Any discussion? I speed that up. Does anybody want to talk about moving on? Approval of a 10-year healthline safety survey. Would anybody like to discuss this? Not hearing anything. We shall move on. May I have a motion

176to approve the 10 year health life safety survey as just presented? >> So move. >> Second. >> Warm. All votes. >> Lauren Hersh, yes. Richard Driver, >> yes. >> Ian Hill, >> yes. Andrew Carlson, yes. >> Terry Steinberg, yes. >> Tim Penich, yes. >> Flora Brastone, >> yes. >> This has been passed. >> We're going to table, right? >> All right. We're doing awesome. We are moving on to the approval of the state project meet for a refresher from 20 minutes ago. This is about the tough pointing. We are not voting on the tough pointing. We are voting on the grants application process for J to move forward. Any discussion? May I have a motion to approve the state project grants as just presented? >> Second. >> Kbach. >> Yes. >> Laura Brstone. Yes. >>

177Tim Venich. >> Yes. >> Dan Hill. >> Yes. >> Lauren. Yes. Andrew Carlson. Yes. >> Richard Driver. >> Yes. >> This motion has passed. We are moving on to the approval of estimates amount estimated amounts to be levied in taxes. This is based presentation. Any questions or discussion? Great. May I have a motion to approve the estimated amounts to be levy for taxes as just presented? So, um, it says to ask, >> sorry, sorry. >> Okay. Lauren Hill, yes. Laura Brstone, >> yes. >> Tim Benich, >> yes. >> Andrew Carlson, yes. >> Richard Driver, >> yes. >> Terry Simbach, Lauren Hirsh, yes. >> All right. Number I'm so sorry. Letter F. Approval of the 2627 school calendar made the motion. Any discussion? Okay. May I have a motion to approve the 2627 school calendar as

178just presented? So move. Lauren. >> Lauren Brstone. Yes. >> Richard Driver. >> Yes. >> Dan Hill, yes. Andrew Carlson, >> yes. >> Sagach, >> yes. >> Lauren Hers, yes. Ben, >> yes. >> This motion pass. To the personal report that I will read aloud. Okay. We are starting with our non-licensed new hires. Um, Amanda Beltran, guest teacher, effective 113 2025 at a salary rate of $155 per day. Christina Lowe, a guest teacher, um, effective date 113 2025, also at $155 a day. John Fer, a guest teacher starting effective date 115 2025 at $155 a day. And Abigail Vanetta is our new palms coach at Elbing events starting 1110 2025 at $2,500 a year. No resignations, no terminations. We have a couple new hires. Jenny Meyerhoff is a kindergarten long-term guest teacher at LBS effective 121

1792025 to 213 2025 replacing DJ Logan at $284 a day. You also have Joe Weinberger coming back to be a fifth grade long-term guest teacher at LMS. Effective date will be 21826 to 51826 and then is replacing Michael Millis at $284 a day. No FMLA and we have one retirement of Tom LMS that will be effective 626. Do any discussion? Great. May I have a motion to approve the personnel report as just presented? >> Second. Lauren. >> Uh Tim Penn. >> Yes. >> Laura Brstone. >> Yes. >> Sam Hill. >> Yes. Neighbor Carlson? Yes. Steinbach? Yes. >> Richard Driver? >> Yes. Her yes. >> Yes. Motion is passed. >> The consent agenda will be read aloud. Okay. Open session meeting minutes, October 21st, 2025, BMA hearing minutes, the October 21st, 2025 regular board of education

180meeting minutes, our treasurers report, our impress report, our bills report, and our PC card report. Um, is there any discussion on the consent agenda? And would anybody like anything pulled out of the consent agenda for a separate bill? >> I had one discussion, not contentious. I did see we we were sending five staff members and two admin to a conference. So I was curious about this especially since it was in Green Bay, Wisconsin in December. Um not exactly >> location >> not exactly fun but I looked it up and this is really a great conference. Um it's just exactly I think what we need. It's it's RTL and work comp >> RTI which is um >> uh >> respons >> re something >> responsive >> response to intervention and multi-tiered system of support. So it's

181really helping train and focus on those kids that really need the help. So I think that's great that we're sending um those people there and I hope we get some good reports and good ideas around it. >> It's a great topic. Yeah, thank you. >> I will not be attending. >> Well, since we present anything else, may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda for November 18, 2025 as presented by administration. >> So moved. >> Second. Perfect. Lauren, can you call? Andrew Carlson, >> yes. >> Richard Driver, >> yes. >> Laura Brickstone, >> yes. Lauren Bur, yes. Tim Bennett, >> yes. Sand Hill. >> Yes. >> Stewart. >> Yes. >> This motion is passed. Move on to a foyer request. We have one, but we we had one foyer request since our last

182regular board meeting. Details are in the board packet. This is section of our agenda. Since the report item and doesn't require approval. However, are there any questions from the administration before we move on? So, that's awesome. All right. We are moving to our public comment our second time tonight. We welcome all comments and still with us like no. So I will adjoin this meeting on November 18th at 9:38. >> I any oppose meeting is adjourned. Thank you guys.