001budget hearing meeting. I'd like to call this meeting to order at 6:46 p.m. >> Lauren, could we have a roll call, please? >> Anne Hill here. Harry Steinbach >> here. >> Lauren Hir here. Laura Brickstone here. Andrew Carlson, he's running about 5 minutes late. >> Richard Driver here. >> Tim Penn >> here. >> All right. As we have a quorum, we can begin. Have to read the statement of purpose. >> Yeah. So, the statement of purpose for this budget hearing, the purpose of the meeting is to allow the public to comment on the 202526 school budget. People desiring to speak should be recognized by the president, state their name and address, and then make their comment. All right. Do we have anyone in the audience? We do not. So, let's turn it over to Mr.
002Khan. >> Okay. Uh this is the presentation of the final 2526th school year budget. The tenative budget was approved in June. It has been on file in the district office and on our website publicly available for the minimum of at least 30 days. And this is uh this is the last day we can approve the budget and then legally and then we can uh we will tomorrow I will send it into the county to get to as the 2526 budget is balanced. there's a small positive net change in fund balance. Um I always like to talk about operating funds, but now that we are this next year, we're leasing our we have a new lease for our copers and then we're also leasing a lot of tech devices, computers from Apple and the accounting of
003it is kind of funky. So it moves money between other sources and operating funds. So it looks like we have a net deficit um in operating fund but really that's just a fact and um that we're showing this small positive change come down. So we are balanced but revenue assumptions the tax levy it was a 3.3% increase 3.7% um total increase for operating funds the CPI was 3.4% 4%. So that's the increase existing property owners will see. Um there's a small recapture levy which is money that basically was not collected last year. We get a chance to recapture that and collect it this year. We're seeing some reductions in state revenue mostly categoricals like transportation and special education reimbursements. And then federal reductions in title one um is 15%. That was small this year. We're
004expecting to see a much bigger decrease in federal revenues next year as they cut the education um public education budgets. Corporate taxes are flat and those are coming back down to more normal levels. And then interest income have reduced about 10%. We're starting to see interest rates come down. Most of them our tax revenues already been invested. So we should be insulated from that for the remainder of this year but next year we'll see lower interest income. Uh net revenues are increasing 8% operating revenue by 1.1%. That's the net of all of those um changes that I mentioned earlier. The one thing I wanted to point out was that we're we are shifting money back to the transportation fund. We reduced revenue in that fund to lower our fund balance in that fund and now
005um we're moving it back. So education fund is see is pretty flat. It's a little slight decrease in transportation fund is increasing. Um the graph doesn't change very much from year to year. Most of our revenue comes from property taxes of 88% and then um state and federal are a small portion. the federal revenue is only 2% but on the margin if we lose $100,000 um it can impact some things that we've under other locals mostly um the corporate taxes and then food service and fees and things like that in terms of expenditure assumptions um next slide salaries are increasing 3.4%. We're still seeing um very large increases in the second year of our new collective bargaining agreement, but we did have many retirements last year. Um and so we've had a lot of older
006teachers retire and we hired a lot of new teachers who were are new to the profession um or have only a few years of experience. So we're seeing um none of that is uh helping on the expenditures. This is the second year that CBA and then support staff increases were approved as between four and 6% admin increases of four and then we increased our guest teacher and guest nursry rates this year. And then we had a great year great health insurance renewal. This is um unusual and not to be expected to be repeated. We had a decrease of almost a percent on our PO and a 3% decrease on our HMO. We renegotiated our prescription drug coverage this year basically and got a lot of the Blue Cross Blue Shield. We're switching it back to
007Blue Cross Blue Shield. They were really trying to win the business and booming very aggressively. So, um we're very happy with those increases and that is dumping our overall rates. uh just our contracts are we went back to RJB um who for our custodial who we've had very good uh results with they're doing a great job that contract was uh had a fairly big increase at 6% but then uh it's locked in for the next five years not to exceed 3% so that should help us in future transportation this is a new 5-year contract with Olen in the first year we actually saw a decrease in our rates so that's also a Good news for this year. We're still seeing significant software inflation and then our insurance rule this year. We are existing this year
008for True North as you know um as with no changes. We have all 18 member districts. Uh we do have five outplay students and who require more onetoone aid aids than in the past. So we're seeing an increase in our special education costs. We're maintaining our speech and language and coaching function north. The $18,000 building assessment is in the budget. I'm not sure if that's actually going to happen. We may defer that and not be spending that this year, but it is budgeted. And then uh we're spending $86,500 in communications costs this year, which includes $60,000 contract with our communications firm and then the remainder is our website, a calendar, and tri district newsletters. In terms of technology spending, um, it accounts for over 4% of our operating expenditures, uh, a little over $400,000 in
009salaries and benefits for 4 FTE. We've most we spend about two-300,000 on software and um, which includes both educational software and operational software. Much of our textbooks and things and resources that we have used in the past they mean now they're almost all licenses so they fall under software and as an annual expense. We are spending about 60,000 on a cyber uh security and network monitoring firm we just switched to and they're doing a great job for us and that is actually a big savings over what we spent prior. And then uh device leases for the classroom and staff devices and copiers are 150,000 or so next year. Um capital spending is flat at um where the the second half of the electronic door project is being finished up this year. We are looking at
010installing backup generators at the elementary school. So a little bit of that for June work is funded. Uh we're looking at hopefully we'll get approved to a new van at this meeting as for approval later and then some miscellaneous audio visual expenses. So this is kind of how that shakes out. There's the 3.4% increase in salaries. Benefits are pretty much flat as many pension and pay tax costs are are relative or proportional to salary. we have the decrease in um insurance and then everything else scales down. So net increases about four and a half%. And then this is just showing it by far and there to and then u again here's our praphraph of debt of um expenditures. We have about 12% of our debt is in debt service. Um if you include that service
011um then about twothirds of our costs are salaries and benefits. Excluding that service that's more like 75%. Purchase services are another 15% and purchase services are mostly transportation and um net custodial which are very intensive. So the the vast majority of our budget is people related as um every year and then there's only um very small portion is left over in terms of supplies and capital and dues and fees expenses. This is what our debt service looks like um in 2000. So levy year 2027 which is the levy that's approved in December of 2027 is uh for tax and extended in June 20 in June and September of 2028. That's the final payment for the debt service for our elementary schools. So we will have a big drop off in debt um in that in
012that year. And then the balance that's extending out through 2025 is just the debt that was issued to do the middle school. So we'll have a little bit and that's our non-referending debts. And so if the board wanted to issue that to take that place, I think there's about a 22 million. you wanted to maintain our existing debt levels, it would could raise about $22 million in debt service. If you wanted to go about halfway down and give some back to taxpayers, it would be between five and 10 million depending on the duration of the debt. Um, I believe, and I'll talk about this later when I present um the facility assessment, but we do have enough money in our budget and our existing reserves to fund any kind of maintenance capital that we need.
013So, this would have to be some big project that would be supported by the board and the community in order to do to go through the work of doing a referendum and going on asking for for more debt. Uh, and then just looking at our fund balances on the next slide, we are expecting to be at about 38% of operating expenditures next year, the end of the year, which is right in the middle of our window. of 30 to 50% expenditures. So in in this next year's budget, I am I did budget for the debt service cleanout. So we'll be moving $500,000 from the debt service fund balance to capital project fund balance which can be used that maintenance capital work. And then between the 30 and 40% um of operating expenditures is another $2
014million. There's like $2.5 million right now just sitting in phone balance that's available for capital projects. Um and then the rest of it can be paid out of our operating expenditures. Um we budget 300,000 or so um annual for that is take questions. Thank you, Dave. Does anybody have uh any questions for Mr. Khan or discussion? >> I just discussed a little bit and I kind of looked at just the operating >> and um so at a very high level and I think I think it's helpful just to kind of recap it. Um it looks like last year our operating revenues like exceeded our expenses a little bit like 486,000. So you know we were able to like I guess put that in the kitty or put that in the funds or something. But this
015year our oper our revenues only went up 227,000. It wasn't much of an increase in our taxes for all the reasons that you kind of pointed out or you know our income, but our expenses went up like 910,000. Um so using our kitty and using the um you know the revenue increase left us with that that 199 you know that we that we see there that um that we managed to cover. But um you know it was it's kind of tough when revenues are not you know they're not going up more than 227,000 a year because it's it's hard to and it's hard to keep a lid on the uh a lid any more than we have on the expenses. >> I think like we've talked about in the past a lot of that has
016to do with our collective bargaining agreement because most of it is salaries. Yeah. there's not much that we could address there. >> I mean, and again, some of that is it appears that expenses are higher. Um, but some of some of that revenue is actually sitting down in other sources. It's just the wave count for leases. So, >> yeah, I just looked at the operating >> so that is >> the operating revenue and operating expenses and not uh not the other sources or other users or anything. >> Right. So I I guess so I guess what I'm saying is that that's a little bit distorted just by the way we have to account for leases and then um also I tend to budget revenues conservatively expenses considerably. This is just the budget and we hope
017to at the end of the actual this school year have expenditure revenues over expenditures. >> And I did and on the expensive side it when you look at it by function it kind of stood out that the the um educational staff support was up 18%. Is that right? The general admin was up like 18%. um >> over last year's level. >> Well, we did raise, >> you know, what we pay support staff and pair of professionals and whatnot because we want to be able to retain good people, right? >> Yeah. No, it just it's it's we have to we have to be careful with it and watch it closely because it's it's one of the areas we can control. Um, >> it's not that unusual to have a really tight budget though. Am I right,
018Jay? >> No, I'm my budget I try to achieve a balanced budget of rem that would be equal revenues to expenditures. um you know regardless of what CPI is and what our salary commitments are you know we flex some of the other things that we can achieve a balanced budget >> I don't see the 18% >> I'm not sure >> I think it's four we increase sports 4% and then >> unless you pulled from >> Yeah I don't know I think it was in one of the one of um reports. >> Um but we did, you know, our dues and fees went up purchase services which I think is what a general admin you know that went up quite a bit. So I had Yeah. Now I see those two names. I mean there's more
019things than just salaries but if it's in there I can look and see what could be that stuff moved around you no I hope I hope your revenue estimates are are you know are conservative and we come out like last year with revenues more than more than expenses. I'd say that I feel much more comfortable with this year's budget. Last year was a very very tight budget year. It was the first year of our collective bar agreement and we did not have any retirements. So we were absorbing very large increases. This year given the changes in staffing and relatively consistent or high CPI. >> Okay. I'd be surprised if we can't predict everything, but um >> Well, and thank you very much for for putting up the um um the IT expenses. It's it's nice
020to see this see because they're kind of in this pocket and in that pocket. You know, it's nice to see them all in one place. So, we got a just a handle on what's the total. So every month we see, you know, this license and approval and that license approval and and you know, it's nice to see them all added together in one place. >> Yeah, I would look at the total numbers. I think that general administration has the copers in it so that more it comes back. You expense all of it and then you get other sources, >> right? No, I we know it's a lot. So I mean I wouldn't >> No, we can hang a number on it. you know, right around a million dollars for for the whole the whole thing.
021>> I think it's important to note too that just like Jay said, we work the rest of the year, you know, once the budget is set, we work the rest of the year to kind of come in under budget and look at look for places where we can save money and um so his conservative estimates help in terms of the the beginning, the starting line for us. Um, but Jason, all of our all of our admin meetings where we make decisions and is consistently kind of helping us along to make sure that we come in under budget and providing us with monthly reports on the areas where we can control um and supporting us to make the decisions that way. >> Yeah. No, Jay's made the point just because something's in the budget doesn't mean
022it's necessarily >> he reminds all of us. He's great at that that part of his job as as well as the other parts. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Jay. Does anybody else have any other questions or discussion items related to the budget? I think uh is there anyone in the public who would like to uh ask any questions or talk about the budget hearing? All right. Not seeing any, then may I have a motion to adjourn the September 30th budget hearing at 7:06 p.m. >> second. >> All in favor? >> I. Any opposed? >> No. Meeting is adjourned. >> Thank you. Let's get over to our regular meeting and start that. [Music] What is yours like? >> Okay. Good evening. Welcome to the Lake Bluff School District 65 Board of Education meeting. I would like
023to call this meeting to order at 7:07 p.m. Lauren, may I make a roll call, please? Laura Brickstone, >> present. >> Andrew Carlson, >> here. >> Richard Driver, >> here. >> Tim Pennet, >> here. >> Ian Hill, >> I'm here. >> Carrie Steinbuff, >> here. >> Lauren Hirs, here. >> Um, okay. We're all here. >> Join me in the pledge of allegiance. Oops. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. >> Nancy, do you have the vision? >> All right, Nancy will read our mission, vision, and motto. Mission: Ensure academic achievement and personal growth for all students through innovative and engaging educational opportunities. Vision: An inclusive community of motivated learners
024who are inspired to change the world through exploration and collaboration. Mod Excellence in education, enthusiasm for life, every student, every day. >> Thank you. >> Hey, guess what? We're back to public comment. Does anyone have anything they'd like to say at the moment? >> If not, we'll have another opportunity at the end of the meeting. And we are on to our reports then. And our first report this evening will be the PTO report. Ray and Megan, would you like to come up? Thanks for being here, guys. Thanks for having us. >> Hi, I'm Ray Dovash and this is Megan. >> I'm Megan H. Um, and we are uh co-presidenting this year for the uh district uh PTO petitions and we have had a great year and we're off to a great start. I think we
025have a couple of slides. >> I can do it if you need to. >> Nope, I got it. I think I was supposed to be doing okay because I'm challenged and I was like I don't want to be worried. >> You're learning more than we are. So, we've uh we've had a great back to school uh start so far. We've had a lot of volunteers. We've had a lot of participation and it's been really great. We kicked off um our first big event was the splash bash which was the Friday right after school started. So, it was Labor Day weekend. It was about 65 degrees. I had on a fallish winter coat and the kids were in the pool. It was great time. They had we had a DJ and pizza. We had a great
026turnout and um people that were there certainly had um had a great time and so it was still success even with the chilly night. We our teacher and staff appreciation team has been busy at work. We have a new team of four this year and they are just dynamic and excited to get moving. They stocked the fridge before school started, but not only did they stock the fridge and they came back and kept restocking and restocking and so we got really good feedback from all the teachers that they enjoyed that. And then we had um we had a hydration station at the Move for More event which was to raise um awareness and money for pediatric cancer. And so we sold enough lemonade and popsicles for a dollar a piece to raise $437 that then
027our 501c3 organization passed off to Cal's Angels, which is another 501c3 that um helps out with pediatric cancer. And uh so we're really excited to get to help them with our local uh families through that. So this is just kind of pictures of things that have happened so far this year. Uh we were at the back school events whether it was uh locker days or meet the teacher at sixth grade locker day. They did popsicles and the bobcat was there. Um, and then at the elementary school, we were selling spirit wear and things like that um for the back to school or meet the teacher event. There's some pictures up there of the teacher appreciation uh set up from the beginning of the year. The bus drivers got recognized. Also, the secretaries got uh bouquets
028of flowers at the beginning of the year. Um that was all from the teacher appreciation team. That's we did our first spirit wear sale. Um those deliveries should be coming out fairly soon. Um and those are back to school signs that were put up for new families and you know to take your picture on the first day of school. Um and that's our little hydration station. Um and then the other stuff that's out there is primarily kindergarten. Um they did summer meetups, playdates at the parks throughout the summer before back to school and tonight actually was the kindergarten ice cream social at the elementary. So I assume that went well. And then some of our upcoming PTO events, we have our ongoing fundraising efforts. We have our Charleston wrap sale that we just extended through
029Friday. So if you haven't bought any wrapping paper and need to buy wrapping paper, uh go to our website, you can find the link. they give 40% back to the PTO. So, it's a really great uh fund gets here for us. We're doing our spiritware sales, box tops, minted coupons. Our school directory is now live. We work with the um administration here to get all the information and then the school directory goes live. And we know that people use it because people asked us when is it going to be ready? So, that's exciting to have something that um Sarah Wex spends a lot of time, you know, in her kitchen or wherever she does it, you know, getting it all together. and it's really nice to know that people uh really use it. We are
030kicking off our fundraising or our collections for the Grateful Market this week um at the middle school and elementary school um and we'll start collecting. We're going to do a quick um donation drive for for those things and people will be able to donate if they don't want to drop off uh perishables. They'll be able to donate uh money and then we'll go shop for them. So, another easy option for that, too. Um, moving on, the curriculum enhancement bullet point is talking about, we're really excited. The enrichment team reached out to us at the elementary school and they had some um fun experiences and field trips that they wanted us to help with. So, some of our curriculum enhancement funds will go towards that for each grade level at LBS this year. Um, in addition,
031we're hoping we can still do some of our other fun things, um, if we have money left over there. Uh, and then obviously pumpkin chase is coming up really soon. So, get ready to run and sign up and buy tickets. Um, and then pumpkin bash is the night before at Artisian Park and the haunted forest will be back and there'll be games and the seventh grade um, >> MPA is um, putting together games. So, that's kind of cool. That's a new partnership. So, that'll be really fun. Um, and there there'll be a DJ for the first half an hour and then, um, Brad Kryer band is going to come play, too. So, it'll be fun for Celebrity Sightings and the uh, Funkin B. Got lots of fun things coming up. We're excited about >> That's
032fantastic. >> Thanks. >> We are so grateful for everything you do. And I mean, our staff looks forward. I mean, coming back to school, stocking the fridge is one of the highlights for sure. So, thank you for all the treats. They're really enthusiastic this year and together. It's wonderful that everyone appreciate that. >> Thanks for having >> Thanks guys and I'm super happy the director is online. >> Thank you. >> Uh next up, I do not think we have an alliance report tonight. I do not have a president's report. Dr. Lei, do you have a superintendent report? So, the only thing I want to report is that we are in the middle of board tours. So, we've taken our first two board tours um happening and I think we have one left. Uh and you
033will do a discussion at an October meeting to just talk about how that's been going, but it's been going really well. Um we did see our MPA class at work doing their um carnival games for the pumpkin bash. So, that's really exciting. Um and then the other piece of news is that we are on the lookout for a new student board rep. Um Jameson Scott has decided to retire after one year on the board which we appreciate his participation. Have sent out um applications to sixth and seventh grade at the middle school. We have a few applicants at this point. So if there are any board members who would like to sit with me and do a mini interview now that we have a competitive brace, uh let me know and we'll just do a
034little conversation. Maybe Laura would be great and we'll set up a time. um since we have more than one student who's interested. Nancy took the plunge the first year and is still with us. So, we're hoping she will be a mentor to our new uh student board rep as well. So, and that is all I have. >> Awesome. I'm excited to see how that turns out. Okay, on to discussions and presentations. Uh first up is our back to school recap with principles Bay and Blood. Nate, was that you and the Bobcat? >> Never. >> Um, so just a quick update. I feel like it is so hard to believe that we've only been back in school for one month. There's moments where it feels like a lot longer because of all the work that we've
035done. Um, so I want to celebrate that. Um, as far as staff, we do have 12 new hires or new staff at Lake Bluff Elementary School and they are fitting in so beautifully. Um, we're really excited. There's consistent celebrations from colleagues like, "Wow, these new hires are so incredible." Parents, I heard comments tonight at the ice cream social. Um, compliments about our new hires and just the energy and enthusiasm and knowledge that they bring to the team. So, lots to celebrate. Um, additionally with staff, we kicked off collaboration time and curriculum work and and planning during the school day. Um, teachers are busy building routines and communities throughout classrooms. There's a lot of learning happening throughout LBES. When it comes to our students, I think they are happy to be back at school. They are
036engaged in learning. We saw great examples of that today and with our other um, board member visits. And I am lucky to see it each and every day as I travel through our classrooms. a few traditions kind of old and new. Um, high- five Friday continues to be a great way for us to wrap up our week and celebrate how hard we've worked with high fives and music and special guests. Um, Fox families for students kicked off last Friday with our first cause assembly. So, that's when students across grade levels are assigned to an adult in the building to come up with a name for their Fox family, kind of a signal that they see each other in the hallway. um uh to just have another trusted adult and to build relationships across grade levels.
037So, it's an exciting time for that. Um and then we started a new tradition of birthday lunches this year. So, each grade level has a birthday lunchtime with um assistant principal TK and I. And while it's quite a bit to meet with every single grade level one time a month, so all the September birthday first graders ate lunch with us. I am loving it. you really get to just have some conversation and get to know them on another level and they have a lot to share and it's nice to be able to just listen and be present and eat lunch together with like so redirect them to what's happening in the classroom. So um we take a picture and then including including that in the board packet. So all that we're we're learning, we're starting
038off strong and we're striving for excellence every day. >> Thank you. So, forgive me. A few of my opening uh school year comments you may have previewed when we talked a little bit about bike safety uh during maybe the whole meeting that I presented at, but um I'm I'm happy to say we're off to a great start. We've done a lot of resetting and retaching of expectations. Kids have really uh taken to that and uh done a great job. Um the beginning of the year has been outstanding as far as weather's concerned. I mentioned biking. Uh we're pretty much at 100% compliance with kids wearing helmets, parking their bike at the bike racks, uh walking their bikes on and off school property, uh adhering to uh local ordinances and regulations as it relates to uh
039electric uh assist bikes and uh motorized bikes, that sort of thing. So please pleased with the way that's gone. Um I also want to mention our students are arriving on time at a rate we haven't seen before. And I hope that that continues. whether or not we can attribute some of that to our adjustment in the schedule. No longer are we starting the day with an advisory period, but in fact at 8:30 first period begins. And so uh perhaps there's a recognition of that and the importance of being on time at first period. I'm not sure and I don't really care what it is. We're thrilled uh that that parents especially given the construction that we've been dealing with. Um I've noticed I hope the last layer of asphalt going down on uh Sheridan Road
040this afternoon. No, you're not on the last one. There's more to go. >> Go a little more north than the south. >> All right. >> Well, there's more work to be done and we're looking forward to smooth roads ahead. >> A lot of reasons, but believe it or not, parents are still getting through on time. Uh getting kids to the building. Our buses have not been delayed all that much. People are planning ahead and so uh we're off and running there. Uh a lot of really positive feedback from students on some of the new courses that we've uh rolled out. Uh spent a lot of time observing in those classes. Um, as a reminder, uh, we have the, um, communications course in sixth grade, we have the MPA course in seventh grade, uh, and a
041writing intensive course in 8th grade. Um, our teachers that have taken on those, uh, courses have really done an outstanding job their planning and the preparation. Um, as our PTO reps mentioned already, uh, MPA is getting involved in pumpkin bash, uh, tying it into their statistics and probability lessons. Um, it's been pretty cool to see. So, lots to celebrate there. Um, uh, last Friday, oh geez, I should mention outdoor ed. It happened. We did that last week, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. It was a tremendous success. Once again, the weather was outstanding. Um, I really want to compliment all of our seventh grade students. They did a great job. Um, saw lots of really strong team building. Um, lots of great participation. Uh, really a lot of positive interactions. And I just remain grateful that we
042have a staff uh who is enthusiastic about going and doing these activities with kids outside of the classroom. Um we come home smelling like campfire smoke and I discovered that it might take more than one wash to get out but um but it was worth it. We had a great time. Uh on Friday also of last week uh all of our middle school parents should have received an invitation to sign up for a conference. Uh as a reminder, our uh fall conferences uh those are student led conferences similar to uh what we've traditionally done with parent teacher conferences. Uh in the winter, those conferences will be a repeat of what we did last year where we do more of a u well an opportunity for teachers and sorry an opportunity for parents that is uh
043to schedule a conference with any one of their students teachers. Those are done online in short uh 10-minute windows of time. U but we got a lot of positive feedback on that last year. So, we'll be doing that. Again, uh if you haven't received your email to uh sign up for a conference, please don't hesitate to reach out to your child's advisor. Um and then as long as I'm mentioning uh parent teacher conferences, one of the other things, one of the other elements to our uh revised and and updated schedule this year is that we are going to be introducing a flex block. Uh it's not exactly the same format as what we traditional remember or called our next block, but that's going to be coming and more information will be coming uh for the
044parents to review. Uh but essentially it's an opportunity for students to get what they need uh at the end of the day or actually kind of in the middle of the day, not the last period of the day, but we're looking forward to uh moving forward with that and we're utilizing some special software to allow uh teachers and students to connect and uh and meet during the uh during that period of time, you can say. So, off to a great start. >> Awesome. >> Thank you. Does anyone have any questions? >> Thanks, guys. >> All right. Next up is our strategic plan, student achievement, and growth update with Dr. Leavi. >> Okay. So, as a reminder, um this is an update again on the metrics we use with our strategic plan specifically. This is not
045um the final state report card that comes out on Halloween um every year. This is the one that where we have our preliminary data from AR. We merge it with our MAP data. We look at some other metrics and other surveys that we use to just kind of monitor how we're doing on our strategic plan. So, as a reminder, 2022 23 is our first year of the strategic plan. And when we looked at our metrics for ELA and math, we were almost exactly the same at about 79 or 80% of our students showing proficiency or growth on AR and MAP. And that was the first year that we used uh that metric for student achievement and growth. And remember, we look at the state standardized assessment first and then from the students that do not
046meet the proficiency goals on that assessment, we look at whether or not they met their growth targets. on MAP, we look at specifically ELA and math separately. And then from the students who haven't made either of those um points of growth or achievement, then we look to see whether or not they're a multilingual student, if they've made progress towards English proficiency, and if they are not one of those students, if they have an IEP, and whether or not they've met their goals in the areas of English language arts or math. So, we have again two pathways. We're looking at two different sets of data to determine how many of our students are demonstrating success in one of these areas. Also, we have our portrait of a learner and we'll talk a little bit more as
047as a reminder. This is the kind of northstar document that we put together prior to our strategic plan in a big communitywide effort with all three districts 65,67 and 115. We continue on the road of collaborating around how we can measure these competencies and some of that work is going to continue um again this year in a tri district format. We read our mission, vision and motto every meeting. So I don't think I need to read those to you. Um but you'll see some of those vision pieces reflected in our next steps and work. So again, our big goals, student achievement, learning environment, community partnerships, staff and educator excellence, and fiscal responsibility and resource management. So at for year 1, starting at that baseline of about 80%, we set our goal to be 83% of
048our students demonstrating growth and achievement. We reached our goal in ELA. We did not reach our goal in math. Um in for goals two and four which are student uh learning environment and staff excellence. We were looking at our community our sorry culture and climate survey uh we had data around 82.4% of our um staff feeling highly engaged and satisfied. We set our goal at 84% and we did not unfortunately meet that goal. And then in that at the end of that first year we were just collecting baseline data on family um satisfaction and student engagement. We had 38% of our students reporting high levels of satisfaction and engagement and about 64 and a half% of our families reporting high levels of school pride and quality service from the district. And then we're continuing to
049look at how we can measure community participation in district events. This continues to be a metric that's hard for us to kind of wrap our heads around like how to collect it in an efficient way. Really measuring what we mean by community and parent participation. Um but I think some of those some of those feedback loops are around the most attended events like curriculum nights um parent teacher conferences and we've made adjustments throughout to make sure that we keep getting high levels of participation. And then finally, um, for our goal five, obviously one of our big goals is you heard about tonight, which is making sure that we are living within our means and being good financial stewards of our taxpayers money and allocating resources where we want them to go for the betterment of
050instruction and learning. Um but one of our long-term goals is to ensure kind of a return on investment um in a system that would maybe measure satisfaction um and usage data with our investments that we have that we've prioritized over the last five years. In year two, we set our metrics from the end of year one. Um, and we were we separated our student achievement goal then into ELA and math and we were looking to increase um to 87%. So this is now at now now we have that data. So at the end of last year based on our data 92% of our students demonstrated growth and or achievement in ELA or MAP. So we went from year one at 80% we're now at 92% of our students there. We set our goal again from
05179% at the end of year 1 to 83% at year two. Now looking at year two data, we're at 84%. So we met that goal and a little bit extra um in math. For goals two and four, looking at the culture and climate, we were trying for 84%. We made a little growth, but we did not make our 84% goal. We were looking at 67% of families reporting school pride and quality service. we did not meet that goal. We made a little bit of an improvement from 64 and a half to 65%. Um, however, we did have a big jump in the number of families that filled out the survey. So, that I was very happy um to see. And then in terms of student uh engagement, we were hoping for 40% and unfortunately we
052went down to 26%. So, we'll talk about that in a bit, but I'm going to bring Tracy up to I think those are big things to celebrate and a lot of areas, but there are a couple more areas that I want to make sure we highlight and Trace is going to talk about those now. So, I'm really excited about the report that you see on the screen. Um, this report comes from ECRA, who is our data warehouse consultants, and they're the ones who um give us our annual growth scores and show how we're doing on our achievement data. Something new for this year is they built a consortium in the state of Illinois that looks at student growth in the area of English language learners. And so we submitted our access data over the last
053few years along with any other district in Illinois who wanted to participate in the consortium and they compared our scores to other um local school districts who were participating and gave us a growth score based on what our access data looked like. So for our first year of participation in this, you can see that we scored rather well in terms of how our students are performing um on the access test. So you'll you may recall that we did increase some of our staffing in the area of multilingual support. We brought in some consultants in order to kind of shore up what our services look like, ensure we're providing the right resources and materials to students. And so it was really great to see that we're seeing the benefit of all of the things that we're
054doing. Additionally, when we look at our multilingual student achievements, we also saw that we more than doubled our average um number of students who exit each year. So typically in the past, we would see three to four students ex exit each year. And in order to exit, the students need to um have a composite score of a 4.8 out of six. And so, um, last year we had eight students reach that 4.8 or above, um, score in order to, um, exit from their multilingual service within the district. >> I just do want to, could you talk a little bit about what the access test actually is? Sure. Because we don't talk a lot about what that it's an actually incredibly rigorous assessment. >> It is, and it's it's taken by students in grades K through
055eight. So any student who is identified as a multilingual student in the district in grades K through eight has to take this assessment annually until they exit from multilingual services. And so students as young as kindergarten are taking this test usually in January, end of January, beginning of February. So for our youngest learners, they haven't had a full year of school yet, but they're they're required to take this test. So, it looks at their um understanding of spoken language. Um they have to do some oral language activities where they're actually speaking into a microphone and answering questions and then a a raider gets that information and listens and scores that oral language piece. Um and then there um is reading and writing as well in some of the the older grade. So they're rated on
056a scale of 1 to six um in their language proficiency across each of those domains. And so we do get a score for each of the individual domains. So we could see where a student may be scored a little bit lower and where we need to target some support. Um it can be a little bit challenging because at just like I we don't get the scores until usually summer. Um so it is a bit delayed in terms of being able to use that data quickly in order to help support students. Um but it can also show us trends. So if many students are scoring lower in a certain area then we know we need to support all students in that area um and do some shoring up. So um yes annually January and February is
057usually takes us about three weeks to test all students. Some sections and some grades can be taken as a group, but some of it actually has to be done individually, especially at the lower grades. So, our multilingual teachers spend a lot of time doing that. They have to be specially trained to give the assessment. We can't just have anyone sit in and proctored like we can with some of our other assessments. They are the only ones who are able to actually um proctor that assessment. >> So, like what is this like test used for like for multilanguage kids? Like what do they like use it for? What do they use the data for? So it tests their um English language proficiency. So how well are they learning the English language listening, speaking, reading, and writing
058of the English language. >> Yeah. So over the years, we would hope that they would get closer to English proficiency as they're learning more and more from our multilingual teachers. >> But they also those students who aren't English proficient still take standardized tests. So like if their first language is like Spanish, okay, >> or any other language, >> but then once they pass the access test or they test out, >> then they no longer get um additional help. They don't have those that additional help. They are just considered English proficient and they go to class. So yeah, >> in English. >> All right. So, um this next piece up here is um part of the compliance monitoring um as part of the Individuals with Disabilities and Education Act. We are on um a six-year cycle.
059So every six years our district is required to have um parents of students with disabilities answer a set of questions about how we are doing as a district in um working with families to determine students who are um eligible for special education and related services. It asked families how well we are doing in bringing families in to talk about um evaluations, individualized education plans, and how much participation we're allowing families to have. Um, it also asks a lot of questions on whether or not parents and families feel like what we write in IEPs is meeting students needs, if they understand what's written in their child's individualized education program, and then what services are we offering that benefit students with individualized education plans. If you look through some of the questions that are on there, it
060even goes up through high school and transition. So, what services would the district offer? We did have high school or did have programs up to age 22. So, some of those don't apply to us. Um, so some of the responses are NA. Um, but you can see from our data that we have 95% of families in the agree agree strongly agree or very strongly agree categories. Um and so we we are very proud of the work that um our staff are doing. Um our collaboration with families. We have a very high participation rate in our IEP meetings. Um and so um these are really great scores which is really helpful because nobody will take this again for another six years. So this is our score for six years >> and we we do have kind
061of a it's a low participation rate only 20 but still 20 families filled out the survey monthly survey. The full report is in the board packet so is the um full echo report. So >> and and we just have to keep in mind too it's only families of students with IEPs. So we have probably about 100 and it fluctuates between 115 and about 135 students with individualized education plans. Um and so 20 out of that group is still well more than the 10% that we need in order to gather that data. So it is also I will brag the highest in our region. So >> not that we're no competitive at all. Um any questions? >> Okay. >> Thank you, Tracy. >> All right. So, looking ahead to set goals. So, we're beginning year three
062of our strategic plan and um so and thinking about our goals and incremental progress on especially ELA and math. Um we've been thinking a lot as a team of kind of how can we make a meaningful goal um that will keep us moving along the path um but not feeling discouraged if we miss it by a few percentage points because obviously we've had that happen. So, I'm proposing tonight um a set point of 80% for ELA math and our culture and climate survey. Not to lower the bar, but to more indicate a range where we feel like we're being successful and where we can still monitor growth towards that 100%. Obviously, we want 100% of kids meeting and and exceeding standards and growth. Um but when we look at um you know supporting our movement
063forward making sure that people are feeling successful sometimes of since we're so small a small group um can really influence and impact the percentage that we would achieve on these metrics. So the idea is sort of comes from an MTSS triangle. So a a good tier one kind of core program for a school district has 80% of kids being successful in that program. And so that's kind of where the metric is coming from. We we know we're always going to have students needing extra support. We know we're always going to have staff needing extra support. And so we would like to aim for that range, but continue to monitor the actual percentages that we're achieving from year to year. I think this is open for discussion and we should discuss that. The percentages you'll see
064proposed for families and students are a little bit lower considering we're pretty far away from 80%. Um, however, I do want to to say that over the last couple years as I've reported on family and student engagement specifically, we've had questions about whether or not this survey in particular gets at the things that we're looking to measure. And so, we've already started looking at maybe some different surveys who are that are coming specifically designed for school systems. The survey that we use right now for staff, culture, and climate is designed for business and has been modified to address education. um and those kinds of industries. They did they have designed the student and family engagement one for education, but there are some other surveys that districts in our area use that might use some more
065studentfriendly language um might address some other questions that are more relevant to what we would consider um impactful to student engagement. So, we can talk about that later on as we've looked at some of these surveys because we're also looking at cost obviously too and just kind of the whole um landscape of surveying. So, when we look at the action steps, I've added a couple things even from the the presentation that I put in the packet on Friday. Um, I think what we have committed to over the last couple of years is staying the course with some of the big initiatives that we've put on the plate for teachers. So, what you are seeing there are some of the same things that you've seen for the last couple of years. Guaranteed viable transparent curriculum. Um,
066that was a big investment in the release time and curriculum support that's happening with the reduction of teaching responsibilities to focus on ELA and math in grades K through five. We're only beginning really year two of that investment and so we want to stay the course with that. That obviously um is going to pay big dividends we feel in the future, but only in year two. That's still a big strategy for us. Um as you know, we're implementing new course options in math for grades four and five. um with some grouping happening. Um we are going to be continuing to provide support for students that are struggling in math with our math interventionist. That again is a relatively new position for us. That was an investment during COVID and we continue to believe that's a
067good investment as well as supporting teachers to provide intervention within the classroom in in a tier 2 fashion. Um if you look across towards ELA, the same focus on investment in resources and assessments that are aligned to the science of reading. As you know, we have an ELA pilot going on in third grade. We'll be bringing you a recommendation for potential expansion of that if we feel like we need it in the winter. Inclusive school work schools work goes across ELA, math, and actually all of our subject areas, preK8. We're looking at ways that we can accommodate and make sure that all of our students are successful with their peers as much as possible. And then finally, like you t we talked about in our last meeting, introducing uh the tiered support for advanced learners
068with the advanced learning services provided by our enrichment team. Um and then continuing to expand the schoolwide enrichment program in science and math for um preK through five. The two things on the side are kind of system support. So we have also already had a presentation from the CIC group. As you remember, Dr. Kane Osborne was here to talk about the audit that we'll be participating in. Since we have set our dates for the audit, um I've also been in touch with Crystal Connelly. Those of you who are on the strategic plan, Crystal was our facilitator two years ago. Um she's interested in kind of providing us some support with a midcourse, you know, um update to our strategic plan and she's interested in supporting the CIC process in the audit, participating with our teams
069and the teams that are coming to look at our buildings. So, I really think that having Crystal there along with the CIC group who's going to be auditing us for our essential question and kind of looking at how we're doing is going to give us some really meaningful midyear um and mid-strategic plan information as well as one more initiative that I want to bring to your attention. We'll bring um someone came here to present on it a little later, but we have been invited to participate in uh a central office transformation through a grant. Um the funding is was secured by um Illinois State and some other regional offices of education to to design a program to support central office and building alignment. So, basically working with district administrative teams to make sure that all
070of our systems are in line to support learning and instruction. Um, this is normally a grant that costs $5,000. We were invited to participate for free. Um, because I've been lucky enough to work with Dr. Pat Howerin, who's up here, and I didn't even know until tonight is in the Hall of Fame for Illinois State University. I didn't even know there was such a thing. Um but if there was a guy who would make the Hall of Fame, it would be Pat. Um so he is a former um superintendent of a high school in Morris, Illinois. Um and he works as a superintendent coach and a leadership coach. and he has been um working with districts as big as Springfield and Addison and as small as sort of very very small smaller than us districts
071in southern and central Illinois to go through this process of again looking at our alignment as a system and how we can make sure that from the board of education and district leadership teams through building level instructional leadership to teacher leadership instructional practice practices of teachers that all of those pieces are in alignment so that we can make sure that our students are learning and growing in the way that we want. So obviously in a district like ours where we don't have defined departments, a lot of our administrators kind of cross different areas. Um this is going to be really helpful for us already has been. We've had two sessions um to look at how our systems are built and designed either intentionally or unintentionally to inform what's happening in our classrooms. So those two
072pieces, um, the audit and the transformation work through the Illinois ROE, um, I think are going to be very helpful for us in this middle year of our strategic plan to see how we're doing, if we're on the right track, or if there's adjustments that we need to make for our last two years. When we look at our survey data, we'll start with student achievement. Nancy and I had a chance to talk before the meeting. I'd like her to weigh in a little bit. Um, but we usually talk about our kind of top five items and then the items that students rated the lowest. Again, this is a score of one to five. So, four to five is in that agree category. A three, something in the three zone would be neutral and then a
073score of one or two would be in the disagree or strongly disagree category. So, our top fives are pretty similar and really good things to celebrate. Our kids have friends. They feel like their teachers care about them, their health, and want them to be successful, and they think their principles are doing a great job. I love that that uh came out in the top five. Um, and the bottom five were exactly the same last year as they were the first year in the exact same order. Um, so we have two at the top who are kind of in the strongly disagree or disagree category. So, choice and activities in school and then having energy at the start of the school day. Um, and then the rest are kind of in that neutral neutral area of
074making decisions about how they learn in the classroom, whether or not they're asked to help create classroom rules and expectations, and whether or not they look forward to school every day. So, I'm going to let Nancy weigh in because when we when I presented her with that data, she definitely had some thought. >> Yeah, I think it's pretty accurate. Um, for the bottom five, well, for the activities you get to choose on, you don't get much of a say, but a good example like that got better, I guess. Um, in Miss McKeen's class in social studies, she had us fill out a form for like we did like I think six wars like we did World War I, World War II, Europe, and then World War II Pacific, and then Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq and
075Afghanistan. And you got to choose which one you did, and like you got to choose your partners. So, I thought that was good. So, you get a bit more choice and then a lot of energy at school day. I don't think anyone's going to have energy at 7:00 in the morning. And >> um get to make decisions about >> go back to the energy one because we dug in a little bit on that one. So, it's not just the early wake up time. How are you feeling about like after school? after school very tired and like school sports you know like coming back from field hockey which I do and then I come home and I have like what an hour and a half of homework no one wants to do that and like I
076feel like school should be for school and then after school should be for sports family and friends school has its school time and then after school is my time >> that we did and I think um for me that's something I would be bringing back to the admin team. We've talked I know that we've talked about homework before in this district before I arrived. We've talked about it since I arrived and there's um a lot of debate about homework and what actual impacts it has on student achievement. I would say in some cases it's really impactful for responsibility um for time management and um in some in some grades especially middle and up you can see an impact on actual retention of information or learning of new information but in elementary it really doesn't impact
077that as much. So I think it's always good for us to revisit and take a look at how much our students are doing at home outside the school day. I think we as adults talk about a work life balance and we want to make sure that we're not setting kids up for an unbalanced life uh while they're in school because uh many of us struggle uh with that as adults. So some of the things that I'm I'm glad you've mentioned some ways that you've seen some choice. I know that our principles are working with our teachers on how to provide that choice. Um in ter and so there's where that decision making and choice some of it is like being explicit of when when you do have a choice and making sure that students really
078internalize that. Um in terms of energy at the start of the school day I think some of us think that technology might have something to do with that. So obviously um we've made some adjustments this year to not send home technology um to kind of limit that piece. We will be bringing Jesse Weinberger back this year. Those of you who have been here, she's been with us every other year for the last six years, I think. Um, and we are also working with our community wellness task force to design some tag on events um to other highly attended events throughout our three districts 65,67 and 115 to help educate our community on how to keep our kids well. And so I think one the discussion we had at our last uh community wellness task force
079meeting was like parent engagement or just information sessions um might not be that attractive to people or if they are attractive parents are busy too right they're busy after work they're taking care of kids so really what our target is is to kind of create an opportunity for maybe community to come together and just learn more from kids from teachers from administ ministrators in maybe like we're equating it to maybe the citizens police academy more like a community wellness academy um where we can then maybe mobilize some community members to do some work within the community as well. So we're just trying different ways to get parents engaged on um healthy habits and any support we can provide to our to our students for feeling energized for school besides what we do within the classroom.
080Um, and then we do have kids engaged with creating a classroom charter um, at the elementary school. I think we want to make sure we're doing that all the way through the system, making sure that they have some ownership. But those are basically the questions that we're still grappling with in terms of student engagement for our staff. Um, you can see our top five are really high. We're very proud of strongly agree um numbers that we have and taking ownership for their attitude, embracing a growth mindset, um achieving their own potential, taking great pride in their work, um and then building a positive workplace culture. The bottom five are some of the same. um not really sure how business decisions um spending quality time with supervisors um establishing and reinforcing coaching relationships with supervisors meaningful
081recognition and then the right training. So the one I always what I want to always reinforce for all of these is there will always be a bottom five. Um but when we look at the numbers we have in improved some of those things a little bit and we're kind of inching towards that agree category in some of the bottom five. So as you know we've um instituted a technology committee which is now I think second year or third second year. um our finance uh committee as well are open-ended ask me anything finance sessions that Jay has been leading um to try to make sure that teachers and staff feel like they can be in on more of the business decisions in the district. Uh we have now solidified our building leadership teams in both of
082our buildings to help make instructional and building based decisions. We also have a district vision and guidance council that meets here at the district office which has staff represented from both buildings as well as the district and they will be leading our CIC process. So determining the questions kind of leading us through the audit obviously collaborative opportunities for teachers. We have done more public recognition. We've talked here about how we can recognize staff a little bit more. Give thanks. We continue to invest in which is the online recognition platform. Um, and then just continuing to build in more support and professional development for grade level or content where teachers are feeling like they need it. And then finally for our families, um, some great celebrations here. Front office staff are helpful. The school is clean
083and well-maintained. Kids feel welcome. Teachers treat parents and children with respect. That's great. Um when we look at bottom five again, we're still within that three range which is wonderful. Um cafeteria food increased and we even made some more injust adjustments for this year. So really proud of that work. Um so a superintendent still winds up in that bottom category. We'll talk a little bit about some more opportunities for that. Communicating with parents personally. I kind of see that as the number one one two being informed about their child's progress and then consistency and expectations. So when we look at reporting this is going to be a big focus for us. We've heard a lot of feedback over the last couple years that parents don't feel really informed about their own students progress. And so
084we're making a meaningful effort to be sending more work home, communicating in a streamlined way through Seessaw. And we are also going to be implementing a monthly survey. It's going to be quick. Three questions just asking parents to say how informed at this point in the school year do you feel about your child's progress? If you do, which areas do you feel informed by? And if you don't, how could you, you know, how could we make it better for you? Basically, and then there will be an open-ended box. So, once a month, we're going to be sending that out. Uh, we made some adjustments in our food service and ordering, especially at the middle school. We had another book club this summer. We had good participation on the online version. I'll continue to offer kind
085of community coffees. Um we've talked about other kind of town hall opportunities. So we'll continue to try to expand those for myself. Um and then we as you know had our district office and central office staff at back to school curriculum nights available for any questions that parents might have had. Um and then finally continuing to invest in that collaborative work time. So with that, any questions? We would just strategic plan. >> Thank you. >> I would say that um I thought that town hall meeting last year generated a a lot of um good ideas and and we followed through on quite a bit of it. I think that was very positive. >> Yeah. You know, I wonder I I I don't know if you think it's a, you know, the optics or the if
086it's going to create any kind of a perception problem if we say we were at like 92% in language arts question >> and then and then now we're saying, >> you know, but we'll be happy at 80%. I'd like we're not really happy at 80%. But, >> you know, does it come across that way? >> Good question. >> I was going to say just some of us work in the school that's had these goals that the first year you hit them barely, the second year you miss and then by the third year you're looking and it just seems so unattainable that it can be either deflating or feel like you're just teaching just to try to reach these goals. So, to me, I saw the 80. I think that's still a great number. we know
087what we've done in the past. We can compare it. But I think just to measure like the success of what we're trying to do, I think keeping it an attainable goal keeps, you know, teacher morale high, student morale high, administrator morale high. Whereas if you keep raising it, it gets to a point to where it can get very deflating. And then as a former teacher, it's it's like you sit there and you're listening to the strategic plan, it's almost going in one ear, not the other. It's like this is just impossible. Um and then or you go the exact opposite way and you just become neurotic and you're just trying to focus on that number and you know you're losing sleep and you're not focusing on good teaching. You're just worried about that number. So
088to me I think it's fine to say we want to go higher but just have an achievable goal that's like realistic and I still think a very positive goal. I think we want to make sure it's attainable so that people can feel that satisfaction while still holding ourselves to high standards. It's my my opinion. >> That's super valuable to understand not having an education. Absolutely. I had the same worry. Um, I understand why just because we reached 92, we can't now make the goal 92 or higher because we are a small district and a few number of students can change that percentage, right? Agree that we want it to be attainable and feel successful. Um, but then we also want to make sure we're challenging people and continuing them to grow, right? I don't I
089feel like I need to trust the experts at this stage because I don't know what that number is. You know, you have a lot of experience in this, Andrew, Dr. Le, you have a lot of experience in this. Um, I'm not upset with the number of 80 just for comparison sake. like if we made it 85, does that still seem attainable and successful and not too much pressure? >> I mean, if you look our if you look at kind of where we're at now, it's 85 would be very attainable for ELA and that um and certainly when we publish our results, when we put our results out there, we can say, you know, we met our goal of staying in the range and we got above whatever the goal was that we had set. I
090think the worry and I I would be fine with 85. I think that's attainable for ELA and math. Um I think culture and climate wise it's going to be a stretch for us and certainly a stretch for student and family engagement. >> Um yeah, I guess I see those Yeah. a little bit separate those as two separate things. >> Yeah. >> So you're still going to share with us our actual actual number. I mean I think that absolutely like I think >> it's really like a baseline. >> Yeah. I mean to me I get it that the 85 80 or 85 whatever it is is a good thing to have in mind to reach for but I think it's important for us as a board to still see the actual number so we have to
091detail it. >> I agree. >> I say just I think it's just that we'll say like safety but it's like we have 85 and then this year it's 90 and then next year it's 88 and it's like ah we failed. >> Yeah. where it's so like >> but I feel like we should take each year as its own year because I mean so many kids come with different learning. I I feel like you can't even base you can't say well it was 93 next year we better exceed it because I mean so many factors change each year. I would I don't mind the 80%. Four of them. I also don't mind the 80% for those two metrics. I agree with like the human X and the student surveys. Like it's always going to be awful
092to get up in the morning. That's never going to change the rest of your life. >> I agree. I also like should a school be judged on whether or not students feel energetic in the morning. >> Right. Well, that's what I was saying. Like for the student portion, like I don't want you to be unhappy about anything, but of all the options, those five I'm like, yes. I also don't want to get up early. I feel you. What school is gonna have those like kids who want to get up early? >> No, they haven't. >> I'm sure they exist. Um I I'm okay with the 80% as long as there's transparency about what what we're getting to because I agree there are going to be years where there are going to be crazy factors that
093impact it. >> So whether it's 80 or 85, that's more something I would leave up to you. But I don't think it's sustainable to like go to 90 and then say, "Okay, now 95 now." For me, it's just more how do we arbitrarily decide after 92% kind of what's realistic and attainable? Um, those are really high numbers. And remember, this is our metric. So, when our state report card comes out, we're going to it's going to look different than 92 and 84% because that only looks at >> I for this metric um again, I think it should be high. I think it should be high and it should be a stretch. Um, but I do like that idea of reaching for a range as opposed to a particular line. >> Okay, I agree. What? Sorry.
094Go ahead. >> As much as I complain about spending on PR, I think I think there's a PR element here. Um, I you know I I think we should be careful with the you know with the how we phrase it and like not that we'reending continuous improvement >> we're not you know we want to see continuous improvement um and as long as we're above you know such a number s what you know 85% or 80% you know we're pleased you know we we always want strive to do better. Um, but we know we're in a good range, >> you know. I mean, that's just like >> we're in the A range. We're not trying to be A+. We're not trying to be a, you know, >> well, we'd love to A minus is perfectly good,
095>> I think, for I I mean, when we look every year that I've done this calculation, I'm hoping for 100%. I'm hoping for 100% in a grade. I'm hoping for 100% at a school. I'm hoping for us as 100% as a district. When I saw that 92 after 79% only two years ago, that's huge and it it is a it is a great credit to all of our teachers and students and families that have put in the work and the same for math. Um and you know when we look at like for us and it's sort of like what are we using these metrics for? You know these are the metrics that we use for ourselves to measure our own success as an admin team and for our teachers as well. Um, but in reality
096when we look at the data, we're not looking at 92%. We're going through student by student in ELA and math looking at all the data that's available to us. And I can tell you as we were finishing up the metrics with access and IEP, we're looking at multiple goals within an educa an individualized education plan. We're looking at multiple indicators within an access test. Like we're looking at students who have very different and complex learning profiles. and we are down to each student and when we get to those data days we're like what does this student need? What does this student need? What happened here? And we're having all those discussions so that we can get all of the students to kind of mark that checkbox. So I think you're right. How do you frame
097it in a way that doesn't share it doesn't seem like we're lowering our expectations because we are not. And it is a lot about how do we keep our forward momentum going without losing like the excitement about what we're accomplishing too and not always feeling like we're kind of catching up or needing to have whole systemwide change or or really um abandon things that we know that have been working. So it's just a balance of right setting that really setting that goal for us to work towards but also keeping that >> but Angela makes a great point about effect on teacher morale >> you know >> even by the students too. >> Yeah. Right. I mean this is all riding on them. >> Yeah. >> Doing well. >> Well, yeah. Each of these is a
098snapshot. The only the only one that is kind of a measure over time is the IEP. Um but I happens you know each test happens one day of the school year in March before the year is over. MAP happens. You know, that's two measures we use, not three. Two of the three. But if you were to come in on a day for a board tour during MAP tests, you might not see the most excitement and enthusiasm. Uh because those get boring, right, after 27 times that they take that over the course of their nine years, you know, that they take a three time a year curriculum based measurement. So they're not the most exciting times in our school day, but we know how important they are. Um, so it's also again look leaning in. We've
099had this conversation to the leaning indicators like what are we doing to impact those numbers and how well are we doing those things >> too as opposed to just kind of that summitive like end of the year number. >> True. So what I think I'm hearing here is that everyone's okay with 80% being the marker or right obviously 80% the baseline. Yes. But that we want the message to be that we continue to encourage growth and want to see growth and achievement and >> I think we can look at developing some kind of a chart that will kind of show the range that we're aiming for and then a line graph within that to show the progress that we're making. Does that >> make sense? I like that idea. >> This is obviously 100% is
100a goal, >> but just kind of reaching past that, >> right? But we can't be disappointed when we get to 92% then because that's great, >> right? >> Yeah, >> I think we could do that. Any other questions on any other part of the >> Well, back to the the teacher and the student or family. >> Yeah. So, that's for ELA and >> that's for ELA and math. Yep. For So, for culture and climate for staff, student, and family. Yeah. those percentages I thought oh >> were >> what you proposed seems fair >> yeah I agree just because also you're >> we're not getting reporting from every single family >> I I will say I'm not sure and you mentioned this but I just in agreement with you I'm not sure that the survey we're
101giving kids is the best marker >> for um how the kids feel about being in our schools >> or we care about >> you know what I mean like I mean are we asking the right here how much homework do you have is that is it too much you know things like that like a we've talked about that I think the hard thing for me is just the whether or not it's developing reliable survey from year to year I would want to work with somebody if we wanted to design our own I would still want to work with a survey designer to make sure that like we're writing it in a way that gives us the right >> in hand we can't just like ask a bunch of leading questions awesome and also would want
102it but also would want it in a way where we can use the data where it comes back to us in a way that's usable not to be recommended by prescriptive enough but >> I do think there are products out there that can help us with this was our first stab at it so when I got here in 2020 um it had been a few years since we had done some work with maidland and that was kind of a different culture and climate measurement and so this was our first postcoavid stab at this kind of data. So now as a team we're kind of looking at some other products that may be more encompassing but help us with some other problem solving that we're have in the district in terms of data and data warehousing.
103So, and then of course Jay's with us to make sure that the cost isn't >> too much. So, triple I we'll have presentation >> down >> the vendor the vendor if anyone's has samples or >> check the labels. >> Okay. Well, keep us posted on those changes. Um but thank you really good information. >> I'm really proud of our team. >> Yeah. Yeah, it's uh I can't overstate it enough that those are awesome awesome percentages and growth markers and really really happy to see. >> Okay. Would you like to talk about the superintendent evaluation or would you like me to? >> Uh I can talk about it or you can if you Okay. So, um, as we're talking about evaluating ourselves as a system, obviously, um, the board's role is to hire and evaluate the
104superintendent and, um, the rest of us evaluate everyone else. Um, so I'm just getting myself into the system so that I can >> So, we will continue to use Super Eval again this year. >> Yes. Um, as it's been a good system for us. >> Yep. And So I I do want to highlight that we have actually been using super valve. This will be the sixth year. Um it's a nationally normed leadership assessment. And we've actually as a district done um presentations for other districts looking for a tool to evaluate their superintendent. And throughout those presentations, repeatedly I find out that some districts don't even spend the time to evaluate their superintendents, let alone the process that you guys have done, which is um a midcourse evaluation with qualitative feedback. So um on all these
105areas that I'm going to talk about in a minute, you all fill out um those indicators and give me sort of like narrative feedback. And then that process comes around again around March and April. And that's when you rate me on all of these categories and then provide sort of a final summit of evaluation. So um we all have annual goals. Those are based on the metrics I just presented. So those are in my evaluation as well as selecting competencies um to be evaluated. So those competencies expand into multiple indicators. So the big areas are the relationship with a board, um community relations, staff relationships, business and finance, and instructional leadership. And then under each of those areas, there's four to five indicators that drill down to specific skills within those areas. So I there's
106about 30 different areas that I'm rated on by each of the seven board members and then that is compiled into a final summitive rating um with narrative information by the end of the year. So I can read some of those. Again, it's sort of in terms of relationship with the board, the information I provide, the materials and background, answering board questions, involvement with policy development, and board professional development. in terms of community relations, uh, maintaining a positive image of the district, communication with the community, media relationships and approachability. In terms of staff relationships, internal staff communication, personnel matters, delegation of duties to other administrators or staff, recruitment of highly qualified um teachers and staff as well as visibility in terms of business and finance, budget development and maintenance, budget reports, management, managing our facilities and
107resources. And then finally, instructional leadership, professional knowledge, my own self-improvement, focus on students, developing good goals, developing our staff in terms of professional development and curriculum development. So, lots of different areas. It's a pretty comprehensive assessment and the feedback um has been meaningful to me in the past. So, I would appreciate just continuing with that process. >> Okay, wonderful. I think we'd feel the same. Yeah. Remind me when we did the midyear warning was it winter break after Thanksgiving like between Thanksgiving we did before winter break. >> Okay for spring break. >> So we will do that same. Yeah. And then the schedule again this year. I'll send an email to everybody and give you a time frame in which to do it and reminder of how to do it or instructions for those of
108us who are injured. Um and then the final evaluation is always presented at a board meeting as well and in a packet. Correct. For the community in the script. >> Yep. Wonderful. Any more on that? All right. Let's talk about the policy decision. >> Yeah. Not much to say on this one. It's our second read. We talked about all of them last meeting committee of the whole. The one big area that we had to make a decision about was whether or not you wanted to include language about what would happen if a board member were to not be living up to their oath of office. And uh the policy committee recommended including that language as it is included in our policies right now. So we just recommend uh adopting the press language that any thoughts
109or questions on that? Okay, let's move on to our action items for the evening. First one being the 2526 budget approval. May I have a motion to approve the 202526 budget as discussed at the budget hearing this evening? >> So move second. >> We had discussion of it. Do we need to have any more? >> Lauren, could we have a call vote, please? >> Laura Brickstone, >> yes. >> Annne Hill, >> yes. >> Andrew Carlson, >> yes. Carrie Steinbach, >> yes. >> Richard Driver, >> yes. >> Lauren Hirs, >> yes. >> Tim Penach, >> yes. >> All right, that motion passes. Thank you, Major Khan, for all your work on that. >> It's a lot of work to put the budget together. I just do want to thank that. >> Yes. Second is the approval
110of the resolution declaring the intention to issue $57,000 working cash fund bonds for the purpose of increasing the working cash fund of the district and directing that notice of such intention be published in the manner provided by law. May I have a motion to approve the resolution that was just read? >> So moved. >> Second. discussion on that. >> Um, yes. So, I just make sure I understand this in simple terms. So, I mean, as I understand it, we're going to borrow 500,000 and put it in one pocket and then we're going to take 500,000 from another pocket and pay it off. >> You are correct. >> And so then we'll end up with the 500,000 in the pocket we wanted. >> That's true. I mean, that's the concept >> because legally I can't spend
111the money that's in this pocket for the thing that I want to spend it on. So, I have to move it to this pocket in order to spend it. And that's the legal need to do it. >> Okay. Yeah. I just see like we we got >> those pockets pockets. >> They're not washing those pants with the pockets. >> No laundry. >> It seems like we have to go through a lot of hurdles to be able to do this. And I'm sure those are there for good reasons, but I just want to make clear that's the >> especially for those that may be listening from there. >> Yeah, good good clarification. Thank you. >> That's all we needed Tammy to say. >> You should have just said that one pocket to the other. >> Yeah.
112>> Remember when Tammy had a whole presentation? That's all we needed to say. >> Why didn't Yeah. >> Cut to the chase. >> Okay. So, may I have a motion to approve the resolution? That's just right. I know, but who? >> It was me and then Andrew. >> Okay. Wonderful. Lauren, could you call vote first? Tim Pennich? >> Yes. >> Lauren Hirs? Yes. Andrew Carlson? Yes. >> Ian Hill? >> Yes. >> Steinbach? Yes. >> Richard Driver? >> Yes. >> Laura Briggs? >> Yes. >> That motion passes. Thank you. Um, >> is it happening again? >> No. >> Yeah, it's your voice. >> Okay. 7 C. Approval of resolution calling a public hearing concerning the intent of the board of education of the district to sell $57,000 working cash bonds for the purpose of increasing the
113working cash fund of the district. >> This is the hearing. This is a public hearing that we'll need to do at our next meeting. >> Okay. >> Kind of like the budget hearing. It'll just be quick and it'll be at 7 o'clock because we have to have support here for that one. So, got it. Okay. So, may I have a motion to approve the resolution that was just read about the public hearing? >> So, moved. >> Second. >> Lauren, could you call vote, please? >> Lauren Hirs, yes. >> Richard Driver, >> yes. >> Hill, >> yes. >> Andrew Carlson, >> yes. >> Mary Stein, >> yes. >> Tim Penich, >> yes. >> Laura Briggs, >> yes. >> That motion passes. >> Okay. Next up is the purchase of the used cargo van. May I have
114a motion to approve the purchase of a used cargo van as presented at the August meeting? >> So move. >> Second. >> Anyone have any other questions about this? >> Lauren, could you call a vote, please? Siri Steinoff, >> yes. >> Laura Briggs, yes. >> Tim Penich, >> yes. >> Dan Hill, yes. >> Lauren Hirs, yes. Andrew Carlson, >> yes. >> Richard Driver, >> yes. >> Motion passes. Exciting. >> Okay. Approval of train three-year maintenance contract renewal. May I have a motion to approve the train three-year contract renewal as presented at the August meeting? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Lauren, could you call vote, please? Ian Hill, >> yes. >> Laura Bergstone, >> yes. >> Tim Penich, >> yes. >> Andrew Carlson, >> yes. >> Richard Driver, >> yes. Sherry Steinbach, yes. Lauren Herd,
115yes. That >> passes. EIS report approval. May I have a motion to approve the EIS report as just presented represented so we can really quickly. >> This is an annual uh report that is um this teacher and administer salaries done for TRS and submitted to Isby and the laws that it gets approved by the board to make sure everyone's by affairs. So this is annual. Okay. >> Finger packet. This is for the prior school year. >> Any questions on that? >> All right. May I have a motion to approve the EIS report? As now just presented. >> Some move. Second. >> Laura, could you call vote, please? >> Laura Brickstone? >> Yes. >> Richard Driver? >> Yes. >> Ian Hill? >> Yes. >> Andrew Carlson? >> Yes. >> Carrie Steinbach? >> Yes. >> Lauren Hirs?
116Yes. Tim Fench? >> Yes. >> That motion passes. Approval of press packet 119. May I have a motion to approve press packet 119 including the additional recommendation for policy 280 which is what we just discussed. >> So move second. >> Lauren, could you call vote please? >> Tim Penich, >> yes. >> Laura Brstone, >> yes. >> Anne Hill, >> yes. >> Andrew Carson, >> yes. >> Steak, >> yes. >> Richard Driver, >> yes. >> Lauren Hirs, yes. >> That motion passes. Uh, next up is the personnel report. which I will read aloud now. Non-licensed new hire William Wine, guest teacher, effective 827 2025 at 155 per day. Denise Salat, guest teacher, effective 925 2025 at the rate of 155 per day. Ryan Donafrio, guest teacher, effective 94 2025 at 155 per day. Sandra Noble, guest
117teacher, effective at 155 per day. Lette Hirs, guest teacher, effective 910 2025 at 155 per day. Suzanne Dobins, guest teacher, effective 910 2025 at 155 per day. Amanda Harding, guest teacher, effective 911 2022 at 155 per day. and Sarah Bostik, lunch supervisor at LDES effective 106 2025 at $55 per day. Land one resignation. Asha Brown, paraprofessional at LBES, effective 826205. Three licensed new hires. EMTT Flannry, long-term guest teacher, 6th grade social studies at LBMS, effective 10:15 2025, replacing Hillary Moore at an annual salary rate of $284 per day. Emily Lane, long-term guest teacher, LBEES nurse, part-time at LBES, effective October 1, 2025, replacing Jennifer Denhart at $250 per day. And Kerianne Rice, long-term guest teacher, LBEES nurse part-time at LBES, effective 1012025, replacing Jennifer Denhart at $250 per day. uh one FM sorry 2 FMLA
118one is Elena Grant math teacher LBMS from January 22 2026 to April 22 2026 and Michelle Grady LBS1 at LBES effective 922 2022 and is open-ended one leave of absence Jennifer Denhart LBES nurse at LBES Effective 1215 2025 to 1219 2025 unpaid FMLA extension. May I have a motion to approve the personnel report as just read? >> So move second. >> Lauren, could you call a vote, please? >> Uh Andrew Carlson, >> yes. >> Richard Driver, >> yes. >> Laura Brickstone, >> yes. >> Lauren Hirs, yes. Tim Benich, >> yes. >> Anne Hill, >> yes. Steinbach. >> Yes. >> That motion passes. Next up is the consent agenda. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda for September 30, 2025 as presented by administration? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Is there any
119discussion? >> I don't have any questions. >> All right. >> Would anyone like me to pull anything out of the consent agenda for a separate vote? >> No. Lauren, please call vote. Richard Driver. Yes. >> Jerry Steinberg. >> Yes. >> Warren Hirsch. Yes. Tim Bennett. >> Yes. >> Ian Hill. >> Yes. >> Laura Brstone. >> Yes. >> Andrew Carlson. >> Yes. >> That motion passes. >> Open session meeting minutes. September 16, 201. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. Foyer requests. We did have six foyer requests since our last regular board meeting. Details are in the board packet. Uh this is simply a report. We do not have to approve these. But are there any questions about the FOYA requests? If not, then we will move on to our second chance for public
120comment. Is there anybody in the gallery who would like to make public comment this evening? All right. Well, then may I have a motion to adjourn the September 30, 2025 regular board of education meeting at 8:25 p.m. >> So much second. All in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Meeting is adjourned. Thanks everyone to sign the budget. >> Yes. Can we have your pen back up here?