Committee of the Whole - September 16, 2025

001Lauren, do we have a roll call, please? >> Hey, Ann Hill, >> present. Laura Brickstone, >> present. >> Carrie Steinbach, >> here. >> Lauren Hirs, here. Andrew Carlson >> here. >> Richard Driver >> here. >> Tim Pench >> here. >> We are all here. Nancy, since you're here tonight, would you like to read our mission, vision, and motto? >> Sure. >> Do you have it in front of you? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um, mission, ensure academic achievements and personal growth for all students throughout innovative and engaging educational opportunities. Vision, an inclusive community for of motivated learners who are inspired to change the world through exploration and collaboration. Motto, excellence in education. Um, enthusiasm for every student every day. Wonderful. Thank you. Um, and this is the pledge of allegiance. So, why don't we do that

002now? >> I pledge algiance to the flag of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. At this point in the meeting, we welcome public comment. I'm happy to see a lot of people here in the audience today. There's no pressure to make public comment, but if anybody would like to, you're welcome to now. All right, not seeing any, we'll move on. Thank you. And we'll get right into our discussions and presentations for the night. The first one being the growing native habitat. Sue Raymore, welcome. >> Hello. Good evening. >> And I have with me Annc, so we're gonna let her talk, too. what thought we'd start with a I have a couple slides to explain to us who we are

003and why we're here. So, um Amy, I think we're getting >> Okay, she's getting it up next. >> Yep. >> Falling books. All right. Well, this book is why we're here, but we'll get to that. You can leave now. But it is a book. So >> I don't have any of you heard of growing native habitat lake bluff that one. Okay, good. Good. We're here to educate a little bit. Hopefully not too much, but again we are a school. Um, growing native community. Um, we are a growing native community and everything we've done has been inspired by Doug Talamy's Nature's Best Hope. If you haven't read it, you may leave a copy. It's a phenomenal book and it it was my gateway drug my gateway drug. I'm a pharmacist. >> It changed my life. It

004changed a lot of people's life and it's an easy read. It's a wonderful book. We'll talk a little bit about it. Um he's got a quote. In the past we've asked one thing of our gardens to be pretty. Now they have to support life, sequester carbon, feed pollinators, and manage water. Um big lift from the world that we grew up with. I'll go to the next slide. Um before we get there, when I started um this a long time ago, we started as a sheep shoing group. We're now over 200 people in our growing native group. Our goal is to provide corridors for our pollinators and other insects and um and animals without which our food system collapses. Essentially support our ecosystem that has been mostly replaced by development and significant loss of diversity. And

005planting natives is really the key. From coast to coast, our cities and suburbs have become much more similar to each other and less and less like our natural habitat. And this is just a picture of the sky. Um, the growing uniformity of the American landscape is significantly reducing biodiversity. Like no other time and no o like none other in our lifetimes. Over a thousand US species are at risk of extinction. And each loss makes our ecosystem more fragile. In fact, onethird of America's wildlife species are at risk of extinction. So, you've got 90% with butterflies, 30% of birds. Um, >> well, the monarch butterfly specifically is like 95% down >> and most decent year season year, but the trend is still down. One year does not make a um statistical significant change. Um, want to

006go to the next slide. So the consequences of of lost habitat during the past decade research has established a strong link between biodiversity and human health. Scientists have shown have reduced diversity force the emergent and spread of infection such as Lyme disease westnau virus zika the microbes that cause these serious illnesses multiply rapidly in degraded and disturbed habitats. There was a recent study that linked the sharp drop in a local bat population to increased infant mortality. It really is nature and health and that is and Ann is a physician and that's her specialty now. It's nature and health. >> Yeah. Basically what happened was the farmers be had more insects on their property. So they had to use more pesticides because the bats eat so many insects but because of the whitenos fungus their population

007tanked about 90% in some areas. So he com the researcher compared counties that had the fungus in the bats with those that didn't and saw 8% increase in human mortality, infant mortality just because of the bats. So >> and an increase in pesticide use. >> Right. Yeah. >> Right. It's just it's so much more complicated than we have believed the interaction of all our species. So, let's dig in. If you notice the shovel, and I hope you see the child running across the window, that's one of our one of our group's daughters. Some of you may recognize her. Um, so we we started growing native habitat back in 2018. You can put it back down. Yeah. To that picture right there. Um, we started it in 2018. About six months ago, we heard that Highland

008Park had gotten something called the National Wildlife Federation Community Wildlife Habitat. I made Reg say that like six times a couple months ago. Um, and theirs is a um, they look at habitat, not necessar. They look at habitat. Doug Talamy is an entomologist. Um, it's a food web. It's a worldwide food web and they're all connected. So you can come at this from many different angles. So what National Wildlife Federation we started looking at that um get there um it provides the program provides us with some structure on how to do things and um h helps us with resources. We have a lot of resources for children for adults that helps us go faster. When we looked into this program we did a lot of research and we realized we were already doing this. We

009we were so far ahead of the game that um >> for example that's Artisian Park where we have a demonstration native garden that we had already done. >> Yeah, we did that >> which was one of the criterion. >> Has anyone seen it? >> Yeah, it's right by the courts. >> Yeah, >> we have a picture later on. This is what it looked like. >> This is what it was when we were digging it. Yeah. So, so the next page, so then this is their logo and as you can see, Habitat Essentials Checklist, it's a methodology that they have that they provide to us that lets us get there faster. And so, um, there's a lot of tears to that, a lot of work to be done, but, um, we figured that this was going

010to help us. It also gets us national rec recognition. So it's not just it's local but it's also um nationally renowned. So here um this is this is their methodology that the National Wildlife Federation uses and it's really that's why that we call it growing native habitat lake bluff as we started with plants but it's everything the food the water the cover places to raise young if you have all those things you will encourage your habitat habitat isn't just planting a plant it's attracting the insects it's it's um so much more and sustainable practices are just um reduced to zero if possible the use of pesticides because they're so detrimental to all of our um insects >> and human health even >> and human health. Yes, human health for sure. Places to raise young. I

011always say look up. Look up. You see the trees? Look up. Um cover for our bunny rabbits to hide and never be found. Um and then water. We know water is a big issue. We're redoing the sewers. We live in Lake County with so much water and um how we handle that water makes a difference. Um and then food and food can start with a bird feeder, but then hopefully you get to native plants that the birds eat and berries that the birds live on in the winter and hazelnuts for the squirrels to munch on. Next slide. So we ask why native growing native habitat? Um, by planting native plants, you attract the insects that provide service and food for others in the worldwide web. We provide the plants and the rest will come. And

012that really is true. Um, if you want to save the birds, you have to save the bugs. There's just no way around it. 90% of our song birds feed caterpillars to their babies. And it takes at least 5,000 caterpillars to feed one nest of baby birds. So, think about that. So, when we talk about getting rid of pesticides, it's to allow the caterpillars to be able to feed. We want the butterflies are so pretty, but we also have to feed the birds. Um, and there's room to do it. Um, there's over 63,000 acres of grass in our country, and grass is ecologically dead. It doesn't support any any of our food chain because it's not native here. In addition, because it isn't native here, we spent a lot of money on chemicals to keep it

013green and keep the the um weeds out. Yes. So, that much acres of not supporting wildlife, there's a lot we can do. Next slide. So, here's an example. I don't know if you can see. Can you see the caterpillar on the left? >> Is that not the cutest caterpillar? Mhm. That's called an eye um mark on it. That's really not an eye that you see. That caterpillar was on the Union Church spice bush and there's not a single leaf left on it. It was eaten by the by the caterpillars. They will come back. No harm to the plant. We worry about that. No harm to the plant. And this is what it turns into. It's a spice bush swallow tail. It's a lovely butterfly. And if you see it, you just you want to attract

014that. So that bug is the precursor to the butterfly, but it's also food for the birds. So very important. This is a good example of why native. The spice bush swallowtail will only feed on a spice bush. If you don't have a spice bush, you won't have a spice bush swallow tail. And I can give you the names of every single plant to support uh morning cloaks and painted ladies. And of course we all know monarchs and milkweed, but there's hundreds of them and hundreds of examples and they all many of them are specific to one if not one species to one genus of plants. Next one. >> That's our garden. >> This is our garden. So we planted this in 2022 and this picture was taken I think in 2023. >> Yeah. So, um,

015yeah, we did it as a demonstration garden and since this picture was taken, we've added an education board and then we've also added a um little mini little library, lending library and we keep it with with funding that we get from nice people and grants. We have been kept we've kept it stocked with um books on nature for adults and children. >> We have one row for adults, one row for kids and it's >> it's used. We have to restock the kid one every week. >> Yeah. So, if you have kid books in nature you don't want, >> we'll take them back. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, it's well used. >> So, here's our logo. As you can see, growing native habitats. This is what National Wildlife Federation did for us. We had we wanted to

016come up with a logo and we had to name a community and this was hard, but um but we did. Um, we also think it's so important that even though we're called Growing Native Lake Bluff, we are truly Growing Native District 65. So, um, National Wildlife Federation is tracking the number of communities to get certified. So, we had to we had to give it a name, but we are very clear that we felt it's so important for all the kids that that's who thinks of Lake Bluff as home. It's anyone who goes to school here as kids here. So um little 65 and it's not just because of that that we named it 65. We think it's really important once you start on this path seeing the interchange of I plant the native plant and

017then I get the spice bush butterfly and I do this and this happens and then you start seeing the interaction of things that happen. It's truly amazing and um kids love it when they get a chance to see it. Adults love it. You start seeing birds and insects and start seeing the exchange and the awe. It's science, exploration, and a bit of meditation all in one. And it truly is. I am not a gardener, but now I call myself a habitat builder. >> And Ashley back there knows I'm not a gardener because my yard is not pristine. Okay, next one. So, why are we here? Um, we are certified. We in less than six months. It takes normally between two and three years to get certified. We did it in under six months. I mean

018there's a lot of criteria uh for education and outreach and admin. And then we had to get 150 points which included schools, the city and uh private homes. So it it was it does it may be like ah we just got this but it really uh was a lot of work by uh a core group of people. I mean it's very impressive. It's kind of like tree city or bird city but much more that you had to do many more criteria because we are in Lake already a tree city and a bird city but this is um a much bigger achievement. So not only did we get certified and the village got certified but the schools got certified. So, um, National Wildlife Federation really promotes youth in this group and we have, I don't think

019we've ever done anything had any kind of meeting where kids weren't welcome. We do scavenger hunts. We have them dig. We have them, we're just always adding to it. We work with Lake Woben Lands. >> That's what I was looking for. >> Yeah. >> Yes. And next weekend, we have a moth ball, >> which is a national trend, but you can describe it. It's at dusk looking for moths because they are the biggest pollinator, but we don't see them besides around our lights at night, which some of us would say should be dimmed >> or turned off. >> Yes. But she's Yeah. But um but so we're going to do one at Artisian at our garden for any kids who want to come with their parents um to show them the moss. We have a

020special way of doing it. >> Yeah. So, we are certified and the schools are c certified and um we we've spoken with the school and we we are very engaged. But um we're reaching out to everybody. We've talked to the village, the park district, the school, the library, the garden club, anybody we can talk to that will listen about how important we think this is. And like I said, we're up to 220 people on our list. So, it's attracting people. It's interesting. And we bring kids along the way whenever we can. Um, and we have worked like I did participate through Lake Forest open lands for some of the Lake Bluff school outings um at that was the green the reserve >> and so we've done things with the kids but we didn't have as

021much programs with this. We've met with Lisa. We've talked about some plans and well Nate knows 2002 and way back when I planted with the kids at least four gardens at East and then it got torn down. Um I planted prairie at Central because you guys had a prairie unit for third and fourth graders. We did it every year and we talked to them. That had to get torn down. We did Sullivan Woods. We cleared it from the buckthornne. Every year we would go out with Mr. Brown's class and others and remove the garlic mustard and we put in that educational um outdoor classroom. Of course, it's been a few years, 20 years. We had big dedication for the whole school to come out and we did plant stuff in the front. Now, I think

022the front just got replanted. The prairie got lost in the new building, but the woods are still there. That's sort of the last thing that we did. I did a little here too in the front entrance way by the sign. So, we've done a lot in the past and we are of course native but um interested in if we can assist in any way with the schools with that kind of an interest. I asked my son as I was coming here, do you remember that? Do you like I loved it and I'm telling you the kids love being out there digging in the soil and putting plants and what do you guys think? Do you like to get out in the dirt? >> Yeah. all. >> All right, good. I quote anywhere. >> Yeah. So,

023we we we're reaching out everybody. Um and we hope with the school district we can help. We are not educators, although there are a few educators with us. So, we aren't doing lesson plans, but we hope that we can help, you know, um implement programs that the schools want to do or encourage or give suggestions or however we can support the educators. Um because, you know, the kids are so important. Um the next one, we're reaching out to everybody. Um we're not educators, but we hope to help. Um so hopefully we can instill a love of nature. This is my grandson. We had a Chicago River Day and again we collaborate. So this we collaborated with with the Chicago River Day Association, the the stewards of them and Lake Bluff Open Lands. And we had

024a work day pulling garlic mustard. But then um some of the um some of our members had little projects for the kids. So we made um paper voses out of the weeds that we pulled. So we let them pull plants but only the ones we were trying to to discourage. Um so the other reason, this is a very personal thing for me, but the other reason I was drawn to this, the book just changed my life, but it was also my grandkids. I just had grandchildren and I'll probably start crying, but this is a quote from David Brower. We don't inherit the earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children. And if you think about that, you really care about the earth. And the last thing I want to do is leave this

025earth a mess for my grandchildren. So that was my motivation along with this book. It was a way forward. So I'll end with another quote from Albert Einstein. Look deep into nature and you will understand everything better. So thank you very much. Um any questions? Thank you so much. >> Thank you. How do you find out more about volunteering with him? >> Well, let's see. We have some handouts and QR code. >> We have So, we have a website. Um, we have an email address >> soft and um, oh, this >> we just had a lake oak sale. We actually collected acorns. I don't know if anyone knows this website at the house next door of the library and they have this beautiful bur oak in their backyard. And you know, with so many burrows

026have been injured and damaged from the droughts and excessive drought and then um flooding that we had about five years ago, we're having a lot of old trees die. But it's those older trees that can't get through all it's they don't have the um immune system anymore to fight those. So we took these acorns and we had them grown and we're selling them back with Lake Bluff OS. And the grower of the the um we had a a greenhouse for us to grow them. He said he'd never seen such beautiful oaks. So, um, that we can bring back Lake Fors and keep signing them. So, we're we're working on many different areas, but any way we can get the kids involved will be great. But, we very much appreciate it. >> Yeah. Thank you. This

027means that the school fulfilled all those criteria in two spots, right? >> Yes. >> Two spots um that they are already have some native habitats. So the middle school we kind of not really cheated but um back in the day when that um rain garden was built along Sheridan Road although technically it's not your property. I was a Lake Bluff park district in MCN at the time so I was okay with this um but the school did did build that with Lake Bluff open lands. So the kids helped build that middle school. Yeah. Yeah. I think my son helped with that one too. Yeah. Well, >> thank you very much for your time. Thank you. We will take those back to our schools. They just had enough and and Lisa, did you get this book

028yet? No. >> So, I hear her gift to you and pass it on to others. >> Thank you so much. You guys are awesome. >> It was fun. >> That was greatational. Fantastic. >> Um, okay. So, next up, we have a new staff video. Very excited. So, in the past, we've invited our new staff members, but it's really been quick, and we thought this would be a nicer way to introduce all of our new staff to you and the community. >> Hi, I'm Ally Craig. I'm going to be a fourth grade teacher this year. In my free time, I love hanging out with chats and baking. And I'm so excited to join the Lake Fluff community and be a part of a community that um really honors. >> Hi, everybody. My name is Amanda Suarez

029and I'm excited to be our new student support specialist supporting both buildings. Um I live in Lake Bluff with my husband and my son and love living in the Lake Bluff community and I am excited to support our person but I'm going to keep Okay. Hi, I'm Alex. I'm looking for teacher this year in my free time. I love I'm so excited to join the lake for community. My name is Savannah Suarez and I'm excited to be our new students and work specialist support for both buildings. Um, I live in Lake Bluff with my husband and my son and love living in the Lake community and I'm excited to see the other side. >> I am Barb Fox. I am Barb as our middle son. that I went back to school for nursing at my

030kids for a little. I had a son who got real sick and I just really greatly benefited from nursing care for him and how much they showed and they just gave him how they're saying hello. Um I'm excited about here is to uh new kids really I just really enjoy student there psychologist at Lake Elementary School going into my 13th year to serve the families of students I am I'm going to be teaching this year at LBS really excited to finally starting my fifth year education but my first year with my own Awesome. A fun fact about me is if I'm here at school, I'm like a traveling window outside. >> My name is Ben. I do. Fun fact about me is I work for 10 years. I like to come back for kids. What

031I'm most excited about is seeing those kids from my other job in sports. Hi, I'm Mary Delini and I'm going to be teaching birds this year. Something about me is that I really like to bake in my free time and go on a walk and I'm so excited. I want to welcome you. >> Hello everyone. My name is Elisa Luper and I'll be aware of being yourself here at the middle school. Um, this is my night here as a middle school nurse that I went back to school for nursing and my kids were real got real sick and I just really greatly benefited from excellent nursing care for him and how much compassion they showed and it just made gave me such an interest in helping others through that same role. Um, what I'm excited

032about here is to uh meet the kids really. I just really enjoy students and I'm really excited to start professional as well. Excited to be working with an enthusiastic team. >> I want to help. >> Hi, I'm Jenna Malloy. I'm going to be a pair professional at I'm a mom of two and I have a great love for live theater. I'm most excited to be working with an enthusiastic teenage creating inclusive and inspiring learning. >> Hello, I'm Donna Mossburger. I am one of the acting director this year. I am excited beyond belief to be back at Lake Elementary. Have a wonderful long time relationship with Lake schools. I was a parent. I was an alliance for excellence board member. so excited to be a substitute teacher and I've served as a pair professional before as

033well. Um I am just so excited to be working with the incredible dedicated staff at Lake um who are always striving for excellence and always striving to meet individual needs. helping dance team. >> Hi, my name is Katie Per and I'm going to be teaching fourth grade this upcoming year and something about me is this summer I was helping coach a dance team and nanny and something I'm excited about for district 65 is to get to know the community a little bit better. >> Hi, my name is Macy Clausing. I'm a new professional at elementary. One word about myself and I'm really excited to work in the development of my student. >> Hi, my name is Kia and I will be teaching kindergarten. This will be my fourth year teaching and I live in Evston

034with my husband and dog. I am most excited to nurture the development of my students and their growth and to work with a great team of teachers. >> Hi, my name is Olivia Capella. I will teach fourth grade. I just moved here from New Jersey and I got married in Italy this past summer. I am super excited to be working with the great staff and also to >> Hi, my name is Rebecca Chagas and I'm going to be teaching third grade at the elementary school this year. A fun fact about me is that I speak Portuguese and I'm most excited about joining the team to work on a highly collaborative >> and hi I'm Tara Calwell. I'm the new health teacher at the middle school. I spent the last medicalology unit 10 years. >> I'm

035Dr. Tagley. I'm coming back to Lake G as a pair professional. Interesting fact about me was I school building for 10 years. I'm really excited to be back. >> Yeah. Well, that's wonderful. That's a great way to do that. >> Yes. And that will be available I think online share. >> All right. Next up is Jackie. We're gonna talk about advanced learning services. All right. So, advanced learning services. Um, this is an update on a portion of our enrichment services, previously enrichment services, and I'll get into a little bit more of that. So, just some background on what we've historically called emergent services, but we're sort of expanding um the names of there is a state law that requires services for our advanced learners within the school district. Historically in Lake Bluff, we've had um

036some different models that we've approached this with. We've had uh enrichment programming, advanced learning programming, schoolwide enrichment, but there's been a lot of variation over the years depending on where there might be big kind of groups of students, what our resources were as far as staffing um and just a lot of variation. So, in 2324, we did have our audit with uh the Center for Talent Development through Northwestern. And through that, one thing was really clear that we needed to have uh more structure and consistency in our programming. So, we've been spending the last couple of years kind of targeting different areas. Um, we've looked at some of the neighboring district models in the area and what their programming looks like for these students and talked um and looked into what best practices. So, we

037learned that um best practices have something not too broad and that we really haven't been targeted enough at uh those truly advanced learners. So, we do now have a new model that we're continuing to work through. This is a continuation of our enrichment for all programming that has been really important to the philosophy of our school district over time. So we do still have this enrichment for all, but we're also now identifying targeted services for outlier students. So these are truly advanced learners that are what we would consider working far beyond the grade level. So why this work matters? Because we believe every student deserves to have the right level of challenge and to grow and learn within a school year. Just because a student might be already performing at an advanced level doesn't mean

038that they should be remaining static. Uh most students though do thrive with a strong grade level instruction. So the work that we've been doing on our guaranteed viable curriculum will really just enhance learning for all students in the grade level. Yet still there's going to be outliers within our programming. Um students that are working far beyond grade level. And that's what this advanced learning programming will really target. those students that are truly still even with a rigorous curriculum um working beyond what our grade level expectations would be. So again, targeting these services so that we're preventing kind of a diluted rigor, misuse of resources, and really targeting what it is that students are meeting. So again, coming back to some of those guiding principles that have been um historically important to us as a district,

039we wanted to stay away from any really strong labels. We want to provide services for students that need them, but not start to label students as gifted or talented. Some districts do kind of fall into that. Um, our concern with that is that we don't want to get into a position where we're tracking students or labeling them really early on in their education career. That can cause a lot of just challenges um, as a culture. We want to really look at students from a profile perspective. So not just one data point but looking holistically at the students through a variety of data points and really looking at them profile of the learning that they are. We want to acknowledge that um advanced potential can exist in a variety of backgrounds. So providing services that aren't

040just targeted in um in one way but that maybe pulls that students different strengths and also we want to have a flexible placement um that can be reviewed annually. So again, we want to really stay away from tracking and determining that a student is an advanced learner at a certain grade level and therefore this door is closed. We want to make sure that we're keeping options open for students to come in and out of programming. So coming out of the um center for talent development audit a couple of years ago, one of the things that they had identified was a blended model for um programming. So again, this is a schoolwide enrichment. So that is something that we're continuing. That's the um kindergarten through fifth grade science and social studies programming through enrichment services. And

041that's also going to begin to expand into the middle school a bit. But then also having really targeted instruction and acceleration opportunities for students that again are operating beyond the grade level. That profilebased student identification was a recommendation that came out of the audit. So again looking at students holistically, not just taking one data point and carrying that through um all the way through their time here with us. Uh it was recommended that we extend math acceleration into fourth and fifth grade which is something that we've done over the last couple of years explore options in 8 LA which is something I'll get to in a moment and then again a clear continuum of services. So these are some of the things that we're continuing to address and kind of making our way through um

042those recommendations. So we have our group of ser or our area of services for all students kindergarten through fifth grade. This is what we're still continuing to refer to as enrichment. This began in the fall of 2024. This is that weekly science and social studies enrichment blocks. When we're looking at enrichment, it's not just teaching the science and social studies standards, but we're really trying to focus on how we can create engaging experiences for students that are hands-on. Uh thinking about things like citizenship, critical thinking and communication, which are the foundations of that program. Those are tied to the portrait of a learner that was designed through the strategic plan process. Having a lot of field experiences. So, we have worked with Lake Bluff and Lake Forest Openland. field experiences for students that help them

043connect to the community that they're a part of. And then new for this year, um we are working on enrichment portfolios for families to have a better understanding of what it is that students are doing during this time. So those are services that are still going to be provided for all students. We're still referring to that as enrichment. And then we're moving to also have an advanced learning opportunity for students. So, this is going to look different depending on the grade level, but we've identified that um in grades three through five beginning this fall, we're going to have a small group pullout program opportunity for students. And these are students who are operating truly beyond the grade level. True outliers. Um so, we've worked with looking at data from area districts. What are some other

044programs? What could this look like for us? and what would work with the parameters of um our resources, the students we have in front of us, the time we have available and everything that we we have to work with. So, this is going to be small group pull out two times a week. There is going to be an ELA program and then also a math program. Students could qualify for both. They could qualify for one and not the other. It's truly going to depend on their profile as a learner. This instruction will be delivered by the enrichment specialist. We're going to be doing identification this fall. Um we have our MAP scores that we're still start continuing to gather. We have some makeups that will occur over the next couple of weeks. And then KAT,

045which is a cognitive abilities test that occurs in third grade. Um that assessment will take place next week. So we'll begin identification and then families will be notified directly of this opportunity and the instruction will be aligned to advanced readiness field. So we'll really be pushing beyond what the grade level standards are, having kids think more deeply and complexely. Um it's going to vary a little bit by grade level. There's also going to be a little an element to students taking the lead and looking at what it is that the students are truly interested in and an inquiry based approach. This is what the SAS for identification is going to look like. So we've created very clear guidelines looking at historical data within our district looking at area districts and what some of the norms

046are. Um this is there's still some opportunities for flexibility within this though. So you'll see that grades three through five, this is where their achievement could be in math and or Kogat, it's an or. So they don't need to have both of these. But if we have two scores within the last year in the MAP assessment that fall within the 95th percentile or above, that would qualify a student automatically for these services. Um we've got some cognitive ability scores. Quantitative is associated with high MAP um abilities. Verbal with ELA. And then we also have students um who don't meet these criteria. We want to make sure that we're also considering other factors. So there's still opportunities for students even if they don't meet these criteria. We can dig into teacher input, other classroom performance because

047we know not all students ask well. Um we can also look at Kogat Composite. Non-verbal is also an area where if a student is showing us really strong non-verbal skills, that's something that might make up a profile of a learner that might need some advanced um experiences. And we can also dig into our IR um IR assessments which come back from the state and then placement tests. So then in grades kindergarten through 2 grade we think it's very important for students to remain in their classrooms as much as possible. Um young learners are still learning how to be in the community of their school of their classroom and so we feel that the um instruction is best delivered by the classroom teacher in partnership with enrichment specialists. So this will be similar to the model

048that we've had in the past um which is really pushing in having supports provided within the classroom services being provided by the classroom teacher as much as possible with the enrichment team supporting the teachers in the planning of what that instruction looks like. So this could include curriculum compacting additional experiences that might extend students beyond the curriculum. Um and then also supporting with any family inquiries. How can we help our students at home? are you aware of any opportunities that might benefit to students and things of that nature? So again, just kind of an overview of the continuum. We kind of have that middle bubble which is all students kindergarten through fifth grade are still going to be experiencing weekly enrichment in science and social studies and field experiences. So that enrichment for all component

049that's historically just been a really big part of the Lake Bluff enrichment programming. But then on the out um on the outer ring also we have different experiences available for uh students that might be presenting the need for advanced learning opportunities. So we've got our some kindergarten and through 7th graders might be receiving advanced learning in small groups within their classroom. Some third through fifth graders will have those pull out groups in ELA. Some fourth and fifth graders have an accelerated math class opportunity which again there's entry points at fourth grade at fifth grade again at sixth grade and continues through the middle school. And then some third graders have the advanced learning pullout math groups. So goals for this year are to continue to build on a culture where every child is feeling challenged

050and supported. That's something that's very important that all children are learning and growing each year within our school walls. Um that we can monitor and refine our services at LBES. So this is where a starting place, but of course we'll continue to evaluate and determine if it truly is meeting the needs of our students. providing that targeted instruction for students that are true outliers and working beyond the grade level. We really want to focus on increasing family communication and then also beginning some schoolwide experiences at the middle school level. Our goal for this year is that there will be one field experience or kind of external experience for students at each grade level and then we'll build from there. So again, just want to reiterate the commitment to excellence and moving all students forward. Um,

051we feel like this model really ensures enrichment for all and is well aligned to the CTB recommendations that we received. We want to make sure that our advanced learners are also receiving that challenge that they need and balancing our resources so that we can really move students forward. >> Any questions? Thank you. Yeah, please. Um, this is wonderful information and very helpful. So, thank you. If a child is truly an outlier and they, you know, their test scores show that or their teacher knows that or whatever and we then and let the parents know that they are eligible for this opportunity. Are we instantly slotting them into this opportunity? Is it optional by the family? How does that >> That's a great question. Families can opt out if it's something that they don't feel that

052they would want their student to be a part of it. um we are putting into place learning contracts with the students just as far as an agreement that this time is a sacred time and we want students to be um engaged and participating in a way that would continue their learning. Um but there the expect I would assume most families would probably jump at the opportunity. However, if this family felt like it wasn't the right fit for their student for a variety of reasons, it wouldn't be something that they were forced into. there's like very clear guidelines of you know you meet this how will that be communicated to families like even if they their child may not meet them but just so they're aware that this the district yes >> it is on the

053website as of today >> great >> so um that's something we've been working really hard toward the last several year including with our math placement as well having really clear criteria uh so that it isn't murky and so that there is very clear kind of line in the sand of what students are qualifying. Um, obviously want to provide those opportunities. If we really do think that a student isn't meeting criteria because of a one bad test score, we would never hold a child back. More often than not, it's helpful to have students moving forward at a quicker pace, but also we want to make sure students are successful. That's our biggest job is to make sure students are experiencing experiencing success. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. And when you say field experience, what do you

054mean? >> Sure. Um, I would say anything outside of the school walls. So, one of the the program that we're looking at for our eighth grade students is the Lake County Regional Office has put on a career fair that started last year. So, we'll be taking our eighth graders to a um it's at the Lake County Fairgrounds and it's a career fair where they have people coming from all sorts of fields. There's people in the medical field, people in farming, people in tech, people in welding, people in all sorts of places. And students can kind of explore what some of these career paths could look like. So, it's getting students outside of the building in their community. At the elementary, some of those experiences are um like I said, very open lands tied so far

055is what we've had. Um so, they've done like a ravine field trip or walking even the grounds at the elementary building and kind of being exposed to what some of the the native plants and um animals are in that area. continuing to expand potentially into arts and culture. >> And you said that we'll continue to do those experiences for all kids in enrichment as well. >> Yes, those are those are the experiences that we want to continue to expand for all students. >> Anything else? >> Thank you, Jackie. Great information. I'm up again. All right. We'll let you take the lead. GBTC launch. >> All right, here we go. Um, so guaranteed viable, transparent curriculum, >> tying back to our mission, vision, and motto. This is a big component. This is a big outcome I

056would say of our strategic plan. So really thinking about ensuring that academic achievement and personal growth for students and the education opportunities that they have the inclusive community of motivated learners and uh excellence in education enthusiasm for for life every student every day. It's very closely tied to our goal one of our strategic plan and it was the first strategy that fell into this goal again of providing innovative educational programming for students was our goal to develop and implement with fidelity a guaranteed bible and transparent curriculum. So when we're talking about GBTC um the guaranteed is the essential content identified for every grade level and every course. So that's the work that we've been doing over the past couple of years with uh with our staff primarily focused at this point on our ELA and

057math. Um and that's to make sure that we have equitable access and opportunities for our students. So it doesn't really matter what classroom they're in. It really is just a similar experience that they would receive across grade levels or similar knowledge that they would obtain. The viability is thinking through what what can actually be taught in the time that we have here with students in the hours that we have available to us. knowing all of the standards, all of the expectations, all of the mandates and all of the needs of our students, what can we do in the instructional time that we have um within our school day. And then the transparent component of this is the internal within our school district. How can we talk about again that kind of equal access to curriculum

058across classrooms and also what are those guarantees that for example if a second grade teacher coming in wants to know what the expectation was for their student that they've just met they can look back and kind of understand okay historically this is what they would have done in kindergarten and first grade. The public com um transparency component of this is that clear communication with families and community that continues to be something that we want to reach towards. So why is this important? This is a quote that I use all the time. You'll see it on the website that I'll show you in a minute. Um but Marzano, one of the top leaders um in educational research, this is something that come is considered to be one of the number one school level factors. So things

059that schools can control that impact student achievement. We believe every student deserves access to highquality learning. This again ensures equity. We really believe that it builds that clarity not just within our walls but also externally and will support our long-term growth. So the process of getting here so the point that we're at now I should say not a road that is ending. Um it's been a collaborative district-wide effort. We have staff that's dedicated countless hours through um some really sometimes hard conversations where we've really had to do some really deep digging into what standards are, what what they mean, what is important to us, what do we really think is um the prioritization of of skills and things that we want our students to walk away with. Not always easy, but it's definitely what we

060believe is what's best for students. And so I think our result is a pretty strong foundation for student learning. The framework that you'll see that will be um shared with the public. It's on our website now is uh an understanding by design framework. There's a lot of different curricular frameworks that exist out there. A lot of different processes. The one that we um have been utilizing is understanding by design or also backward design in mind. What is it that we want students to know and be able to do and let's talk about that and be very solid in that. And then you kind of backward plan into what does that really mean? What does that look like? Um what are those big kind of transfer goals? We call them things that we want students to

061do beyond the school walls. Big understandings, things that students are carrying forward in their day-to-day life. The essential questions, which you'll see um are thoughtprovoking questions. These aren't questions that students can say yes or no to or that have a correct answer. They're things that are really big picture and more more have more depth to them. Um the knowledge and skills. These are probably the things that people can kind of sink their teeth into a little bit more. These are the more tangible facts, concepts, vocabulary, things that we can expect students to demonstrate or could probably ask them or that you might see on an assessment. Um, so just to understand what this will look like in classrooms, we are looking for curriculum that's aligned and consistent but not scripted. So if you're walking into

062one third grade classroom, you might see content being taught in one style. And if you walk next door, it might be similar content but with a different style. And we value that. We want our teachers to have some creativity and autonomy to how they're working with their students. It builds the relationship. It's much more authentic. But what we want to be really consistent on is what are those aligned goals that students are the things they're able to do and the knowledge that they have. So again, there might be different experiences. There might be a style that works for one teacher um and a different style that works for another. I have many anecdotes that I share like overly share probably with staff in meetings about like my personal examples of these things, things that I

063just couldn't do the script and um other times where I loved the script. So I I we really want to provide that autonomy and creativity and style. But again, we want those core expectations that people can really kind of hang their hat on. Really important things to note, we will continue to be guided by the standards. So we always are coming back to the common standards. Those are outlined for us by the state. That is what our curriculum is aligned to. But also, this is all living and evolving. I was in meetings today with first and second grade teams and we already started changing what you're going to see here and those will be live by the end of the week. This is something that's got to be responsive to student needs. We have to

064be reflective. We have to be looking at our assessments and making sure that we're still um following through what is what our learners are needing right now. Um, so again, our staff's kind of constantly looking at new research. We're gathering feedback. We're thinking about the students in front of us. None of this is going to ever be final. We'll continue to move forward, but there's constantly going to be shifts um in the work that happens. So, this is our landing page on the website. Um, this just kind of summarizes some of the points that I've made in this presentation. And then here you can click to see our curriculum blueprint. So within each of these subject areas, you're able to click in. So if you wanted to explore ELA, you can pick a grade level.

065You can then see some of the core subject areas. There is some overlap because within ELA, there might be a unit of study that is both reading and phonics or writing and reading. So there is some overlap, but if you're curious about what those standards are and how they are taught, this is where you would dig into that. So, if you were curious about kindergarten phonics, you can read a brief overview. Um, we have some kind of core end of end of the year skills that you could expect in this grade level. And then you can also dig into some of the specific units. So, this is our first unit um for PONX instruction in kindergarten, making friends with letters. You can see a brief summary. We have our established rules. So, these are kind

066of the common core, the teacher language. We have our long-term transfer goals. Those are the big picture goals that we want students to independently do, how they're making meaning of those um established goals that we've identified. Those essential questions, which again might not be something that a student can readily answer yes or no to, but kind of that big picture um question that they're thinking about. And then our knowledge and skills. So those are the things that are a little bit more tangible, right? like being able to name all upper and lowerase letters. And you can flip back, dig into math. You're curious about fourth grade. Then again, you can dig into specific units and get a sense of what's happening. Um, three fractions and decimals. So, this is something that our teachers are going

067to continue to be referring back to. Again, we already are starting to dig into like, all right, what are our knowledge and skills for this unit? um how are we going to know if students are are there or what are we going to do if they're not? So, this is a reference point for the community, a reference point for our staff and it's again something that will continue to evolve. Giving back to the presentation. Um again, this is just a starting place, a communication tool to help the community understand what our core curriculum is. but for specific questions about a a child's experience. Teachers are always the best resource. Um, but together we really want to make sure that we have students that are learning and having what they need to thrive here. So for

068our next steps, we've got obviously keep coming back to that continuous reflection component, continuing to evolve and improve upon this curriculum, ongoing collaboration across the district, and now our focus this year and our release time with teachers is really shifting towards assessments. How are we really assessing what students are able to do and what are we doing with that information? So, really talking more about data now that we have really clear goals and guidance, digging into how are we really evaluating how it's going. And I just want to give a shout out to all of our teachers and staff. This has been not an easy path. They have put in countless countless countless hours. Had incredibly thoughtful dialogue. Show true commitment to our students every day. um just really have had meaningful conversations, tough conversations,

069come back with research, come back with information, come back with best practices or ideas um and really just always showing the student service center. So definitely thank a teacher and thank you to this is an incredible >> and it's really impressive to see and a really great resource. So thank you. Yeah, it's not done. Like I said, the LA map is really the foundation right now. We're continuing now to expand into other areas. Got the fine arts teams are ready to go. Our wellness team is eager to jump in at the bit. Consulted studies um components of it, but we want to continue to refine it. World language. >> Will we push out? I think that landing page is awesome. Will we push that out to parents just so they >> Yeah. Yeah. like the

070weekly update email that goes out or something. >> The community newsletter will have >> maybe we can have principal update too. >> Yeah. I just think it'd be helpful just to know. >> Sure. >> Absolutely. >> Would you mind just really quickly explaining like how does a resource fit into this? >> Oh yes. Um so curricular resources are a great starting place. Um my they have more content than would be poss like feasible for a school day. There's a lot of research about like the amount of content that goes into a curricular resource and it might claim that it's 60 minutes a day >> for the school year. I don't know what school those people work in because we have a lot of hours with our children here and it's still far beyond that. Some

071research shows that it's actually has like two years of content instead of the one year that it claims to have. So, while those resources are a great starting point, they're not the answer. And also, they don't meet the needs of all students, right? They're not differentiated. They don't know what kids are already coming in with. So, for some students, it can be redundant or repetitive. For other students, it might be starting at a place that they need a lot of background knowledge to even get to that point. Um, so curricular resources are really valuable and helpful. Our teachers are really very savvy at pulling from a variety of resources. Today I was again working with they started our release time this week in our first and second grade teams like showing all the resources that

072they use and it's it's amazing how many places these teachers are familiar with Savvy with able to pull up something at the like drop of a hat and they know what to reference and they know what how to help students move forward based on the standard or based on that learning target. Yeah, resources are nice to have but they don't do the job. Thanks for that. >> Any other questions, Richard? Thank you. >> I I just have it. I mean, that's incredible out there, you know, and through the website that teachers, parents, everybody accesses all that information. Um, nothing like that's really been out there before, has it? Or or has it been out there? >> Not very many districts have anything like this. I've worked. >> But I'm especially impressed with the level of

073detail in that. That is that is very impressive. >> Yeah. I mean, that's the level of detail the conversations that we're having about student learning. >> Yeah. It's amazing. That's wonderful. >> So, I'm sorry. You're also like updating it weekly. I mean, if like Yeah, >> it's I I wouldn't say like check back every week for updates. So, there's little nuances. The example that we had today was something said for first grade. Um students will use punctuation and we're like that is so vague. What do we mean by punctuation in first grade? Like what is a first grade punctuation? You know, what does that mean at this point in the year? And we're like we need to really refine what that says because that's not necessarily an accurate portrayal. We mean they can use periods

074at the end of a sentence. So I think that like now we're like kind of like digging more into like really rereading some of it and saying like, okay, this is actually what we meant. Um, so little updates like that. Though at the middle school with the updated schedule, there's a lot of shifts that are continuing to happen. So you'll see for some of those units, we're only through to winter break because they want to evaluate student needs and continue to refine what those units look like after winter break based on um the data that we have in front of us. So yeah, it's huge. >> Yes. Thanks. Yep. Thank you, Jackie. >> And thank you to the board for supporting the enrichment and release time because a lot of the work is being done

075through that with Jack. So, >> I think it's amazing to see how much work has been done >> in a school year, right? I mean, >> Yeah. But I mean, the fact that that the pull out time was new last school, right? >> Yep. And even some of those signs were not necessarily this. It was working on a variety of things. Professional development happens during that time. Class placement is happening during that time. There it's very valuable. >> It is absolutely. >> Thank you. >> Okay. I think M I lost my place, but Mr. Blackmer, I think you're up next. Oh, yes. Ebike safety. >> We did miss an opportunity. >> Next, please. I I I don't have a presentation for you tonight, but definitely wanted to give you an update on how things are

076looking as far as the start of the school year goes as it relates to uh not just ebikes, but also uh some of the scooters, uh skateboards. Um the weather has been outstanding. We have had a huge number of kids uh you know, getting to school on one of those uh devices. Um, I should also back up to say that we brought in uh a late bluff police officer in the spring to talk to all of our students and just outline the laws and regulations that uh they're held accountable to. Uh I've also done a lot of sharing of that communication with parents uh through the principal's updates uh just so that they understand that there are uh some bikes that kids are allowed to ride and others that they aren't. uh and having to

077do with the size of the motor, whether it has pedals. The big issue for a lot of communities along the Northshore uh has more to do with um bikes that fall into the category of motorized cycles, like electric dirt bikes essentially. Um we had some students that were riding those to school last year. Please report that we don't have anyone that's riding those right now. Um, and in fact, if you've noticed our uh our students as they arrive at the park at the end of the day, we're at about 99% compliance with elements. I I can't say for certain that they're leaving their house with the helmets on, but I know that as they get closer to school, they they get put on because they know that I'm out there and asking about it. My

078my hope is that they're riding and wearing them both to and from. We have had students with some pretty significant head injuries as a result of um accidents either to and from school or in their own free time and we know that helmets helps reduce the risk. Uh so we're really pushing that. Uh I also want to thank the board, thank Jay um for helping make it a reality. Uh we increased our bike parking last year when we redid the parking lot and at first I thought it was excessive but we measured it out and uh and and we did it and sure enough those bikes are those racks are being utilized every day that got nice weather. So, um, the other thing that we've done is really, and I've got students who can attest

079to this back there, uh, work with our kids, uh, to remind them that as they approach school before crossing the road on the school property, they're walking the bikes. And really, that's an intent to, uh, get everybody going the same speed as they get in the heavily congested areas around school and trying to make sure that we're not crashing into one another because, as we know, those bikes do move quite fast. So, if you have any questions for me, I'd be happy to answer them, but I'm just coming to you with a really positive report and pleased uh at the way that the students have responded to our uh attempts to kind of welcome them on their personal vehicles, but also do it in a way that's safe for everybody. >> We like positive reports.

080>> Yeah. No, happy to do it. All right. Thank you. Thanks. >> Jay, you're up next with debt service fund balance cleanup. I do not have a presentation either. I'm just checking back in from his presentation when I was meeting uh where she described the debt service cleanout. Essentially, we have funds accumulating in the debt service um fund as a result of the county logging a little bit extra money to make sure that if they don't collect it all, we can still pay our debt service payments as well as interest accumulation. And the only way to actually get up that money and use it is to issue bonds without issuing taxes by paying the bonds off the debt service fund and then moving that money over to the final weekend. Before I ask any do

081a lot of additional work, I just wanted to see if there were any objections from the board to proceeding with this um next meeting. >> Okay. Um yeah. Does anybody have anything that they wanted to talk about? I know we got to see the presentation and talk a little bit last time, but we didn't really kind of >> come have any sort of formal answer about anything. >> Um, I personally sounds like a good idea to me. I have no objection to it. Does anyone else have any questions or thoughts or concerns? Next meeting we'll bring a resolution and we'll have formal approval. >> Great. >> Thank you. >> Dr. Lei, you're up. >> Yeah, we talked about this briefly at the last meeting. We have a draft of all the presentations that the board

082will be seeing for the rest of the year. We sent it out to everyone, tried to get some feedback. I think at this point it reflects kind of what our current thinking is about what you're going to see for the rest of our meetings. There is some time in there in April I think for any additional items that people want to add before the end of the year but at this point we're just going to go ahead and put it on the board website. So uh the community can have access to the draft knowing that some some of these things may be moved around but this is generally speaking when we're going to be reporting on things to the board. >> That's great. Thank you. So things like um you know the budget approval and

083all of those things >> we didn't put those in. I could include those. >> Oh, I understand. Yeah. So >> yeah, those are the annual reports. These are kind of like the special reports that don't happen every year necessarily. >> Okay. >> We can add those the tenative budget and like that. >> Oh, next the meeting in two weeks is we have to approve the budget. >> Yes. The tenative Y. Sorry, that's the final that'll be the third time we've seen it. >> Um, >> or third I can't because I know you always talk about it in the spring and then we talk about it again later in the spring. >> Well, we did the tenative budget I think in spring and then just this will be the first time for the final, >> right?

084>> I don't think there's been any. >> Okay. No. So, so this isn't an exhaustive list of what we're covering at >> No, good point. These are just the things we're adding into um but in addition to the annual report that we get every year, >> but we could make it into an exhaustive list if >> we can do that. >> Yes. >> Any other questions on that? For the spring and fall recognition and reception, is that like everything lumped together? or is that if >> we have things Yeah, if we have things to do, >> we're kind of still in figuring that one out. I think when we see what the thrill share is and if we want to invite people who have gotten the recognition, we can consider doing that. It's just a

085placeholder. >> Yeah, we do need to keep thinking about that. I love the idea of recognition. I don't love the idea of inviting people have to come spend extra time at the school for five minutes. >> Yeah. Okay. Um, but yes, let's continue to work on that. Uh, would you like to update us on treatment? >> I would love to. Uh, so give me one second. So my I'm going to project. Here we go. Okay. So, we've been talking since the spring about through North and the fact that unfortunately over the last uh couple of years or maybe more than a couple of years, some districts have felt really frustrated with um the organization and have started to put in their intent to withdraw and start to go through that process. And then towards the

086end of last school year, because these districts were pulling out, we got to the point where all of the districts put in their intent to withdraw because we were worried about being the last ones in the cooperative. So, um, as you know, we've been working on this this presentation that I'm going to give you in short tonight will be presented to the leadership council of True North tomorrow. Laura Brstone has already seen it. she's our leadership council um representative and um we're hoping that we're on a good path now towards it instead of a dissolution a reorganization. So out of that um out of that process where everyone put in their intent we had some groups emerge and we're going to go through kind of all of these topics really quickly tonight. So we have

087as you remember a few different attorney groups that have been working of the 18 districts. We were part of a group that was represented by Franzik and out of that group there was a subcommittee that formed to start studying the solution and out of that group a smaller subcommittee decided we would tackle perhaps a reimagination. So this is now the out um outgrowth of all of that work put together into one plan that will be presented to the leadership council tomorrow. Originally it was going to be two plans. We've now merged the whole thing into one way forward that we think is going to make sense. So this reorganiz reorganization committee was going to provide an alternative future, right? And so we got to one singular pathway that we feel will meet the most needs

088of all the member districts at this time. We held a lot of meetings. We did surveys, feedback sessions with superintendents, directors of special education. We looked at other cooperatives and financial structures and we learned that there is still among the 18 districts a demand for services. Um program priorities are still a necessity. So almost all districts indicated that they still wanted some type of programming for their students um either in the form of Arbor or Northshore Academy Elementary or Middle High School. But more importantly than all of that, there there was um an importance that we heard from all member districts on reestablishing trust, working on communication, and making sure that we're collaborating well. So, I'm not going to go through all these people, but just know that in here are dedicated superintendent, dedicated directors

089and assistant superintendent of student services. Um, the admin of True North has supported us as needed and some CSBOs throughout the cooperative, including I would highlight Tracy um as somebody who worked as is just like was critical to the effort of rebuilding this cooperative. And credit to J2 for being a sounding board for me on the CSBO end um as we tried to work through and really actually build this thing back up from the ground. So the highlights this reorganization includes no more membership fees for any member district. So as we used to pay a membership fee or an and an operations and maintenance fee and a professional development fee, those fees all go away. I'll explain in a second. We're then going to move to consolidating all the programs to one therapeutic day school

090that will serve students EC through 12th grade. And then we're also pres presenting a restructuring leadership, governance and staffing model for the organization. So the thing single therapeutic day school is recommended to support students with significant challenges. We're looking at making sure that this school is high quality um and has the unique academic instruction along with the therapies and small class size and specialized staff that these students need. Um we are going to be asking school districts that are currently contracting a full-time equivalent position through True North to consider moving those people back to their own district. So some districts would say we need a full-time speech and language pathologist True North. can you hire that person for us? But we'll have them in our district full-time. True North will no longer be acting as

091a middleman sort of staffing agency. We're asking that those districts that have the full-time equivalent people just move them back or consider moving them back to their district. We will continue to North. We're recommended that they continue to offer itinerant and specialized services, but no financial obligation unless they are actually utilized. So before we might pay to make sure that those things were available, this will now be build directly to districts that are utilizing those services. So in lie of the membership fees, districts will be charged tuition and delivery fees, service delivery fees that incorporate the total cost of providing the services. So all of the fees of building the school will go into for student tuition cost. And so all district will know that they aren't paying for anything extra. they're paying or just

092what it takes to run the school. At the time that we put this all together, um we acknowledge that some member districts were likely going to consider pursuing withdrawal even after this. But at this time, as of today, almost all of the districts have committed to staying with one. Um and so this plan is really right now looking to meet the most needs that we could meet of all almost all 18 districts. Um but if many decide after tomorrow night that they decide to not uh remain as a member then we might not be able to run this plan. But I don't think that that's going to happen. I think that we have enough of a commitment from everyone. So tomorrow night we'll present this to the leadership council. Um, in October, we will do

093a first reading of the actual proposed changes to the articles of agreement, and we're going to be doing that in an expedited fashion. So, we'll be waving a 60-day requirement to amend the articles. Um, we will give any information back to the member districts that they ask for after tomorrow night. And then we're going to be asking that in November, districts tell us whether they still intend to withdraw or they intend to stay. By November, we'd like to um approve the articles of agreement. We would like to get everyone's commitment to stay or continue to withdraw and then the leadership council would be taking official action on either reorganizing or dissolving at the December meeting and then in January we start with our new governance structure. So some of this work will take place starting

094in January. Some of the changes will take place if we go down this path. This whole slide really just has to do with changing the culture and making sure that we're addressing the needs of kids above and beyond anything that this organization addresses the needs of the students that it's designed to serve. And so we are going to be looking at high impact programming, moving professional development to work with the teachers at True North, um building and gaining deep expertise across the organization. Um, and really making sure that the administrators in the member districts understand what's happening at True North, which unfortunately I think was a little bit of a misstep for us and how we wound up in the situation we were in in the spring. So, the therapeutic day school, there's a lot

095of information on here, but essentially what it means is we're going to be combining the Arbor program, Northshore Academy, e uh Northshore Academy Elementary, middle and high school into this one school that will be providing what students need who attend at that school. That's basically what this says, that everything the students need who who go to that therapeutic day school will have what they need. Some things of note. Um, we will be providing transition services for students who attend Northshore Academy up to age of 22, but we will not be providing those standalone services for for like students that are still attending their home district. So, we're kind of eliminating the standalone transition services. Um, it will continue to be housed where True North is housed now. And we're creating this just for our member

096districts. We have had non-members. We probably will continue to have non-members, but what we're building is just for the member districts. There's a lot of information on here, but I'm just going to put some highlights. So, everything stays the same for this school year. The remainder of the school year, everything stays the same. At the end of this school year, a couple of programs are going to sunset. Supported learning environment and standalone ESY. So, those are the one SLE program has already been moved out into another district. So, we're just going to have that district to sort of take it over and then the extended school year we will sunset at the end of this year. Next year, at the end of next year, those transition services for students who are not at NS NSA

097will also sunset. That really only impacts our high school districts, but almost all of the rest of the services will merge into that one school, and we'll be able to continue offering early childhood as well. We will continue to provide contracted uh specialized services. Um, that's when like small districts like us can't necessarily hire a full-time person to do say speech and language. We might just need a 6. This is where True North helps a district like ours. They would give us a 6 and give a 2 to another small district and a point 2 to another small district and then they house that 1.0. That's really helpful for small districts like us. We're still going to be able to do that. The big change is True North will be asking for a two-year commitment

098for those for those staffing situations so that they can have some predictability and they will also provide substitute coverage which they haven't been able to do in the past. The big change here is we're not guarant we would not be asking for North to guarantee anything. We if we have a change midyear we would not expect them to have staff to cover that change if we have additional kids or if we have students move out of our program. we might not we might still have to pay for it because we committed to it. So before we were trying to do a lot of work to guarantee everyone getting what they need but it was costing a lot of money and it was financially untenable. So at this point we're just trying to be realistic about

099the fact that we're going to staff it for what we know in the spring and then we may or may not be able to meet those needs if things happen in the middle of the year which is what's happening now. Some other services adaptive PE will sunset at the end of this year. A lot of districts, including ours, are already planning on being able to take that back in house. Um, but many of our services will continue to be able to offer. Um, the LEA staffing is that piece of like hiring somebody for a district, but then maintaining them at True North. We're not going to be doing that anymore. And the big change here is also professional development and coaching. that entire department is going to no longer exist as member districts need. From

100a financial standpoint, we're not going to be doing the membership fees, but like I said, all of the costs associated with offering whatever we offer within that school will be put into tuition costs per student. And then our evidence-based funding discount that we we get an evidence-based funding allocation from the state as a cooperative that would be given as a discount to all member districts per student for their tuition. So that is the benefit of membership. Maintaining a membership is that you have that discounted tuition um with the EVF allocation. We might be able to allow other districts to join but we really don't know what that will look like yet. We're going to look at that after reorganization because of the fact that all the costs are going into tuition. Tuition costs are going

101up a little bit. But one thing that Tracy and the team that were working on staffing were really careful about was are we still competitive with other placements and we are we're still within that range. We'll be offering still a half day and a full day early childhood program. As you know, that's not something we really take a lot of advantage of. We have our most of ours in house. But our K12 tuition would look anywhere between 85 and 95,000 per year. It was pretty commensurate with other placements in the area. We would also have access to the tuitionbased programs or sorry the services um and we would still do some type of true up at the end of the year which means like looking at what the member districts actually used um as compared

102to their commitments that they made in the spring. And then the new governance structure would take a look at what they wanted to do with either an overage, you know, exceeding that revenue or not approaching the revenue. Non-member districts, if we can offer them placements, would have a non-member search charge of 25%. That money would go into the cooperative to help support facilities and maintaining the programs that we have. So, you're going to see in a second a chart of what the proposed cost savings would be. And this is just basically how did we get to these numbers. So the next chart includes all of the fees that we were assessed and looks at our highest enrollment in 24 or 25 26. So just kind of taking the highest enrollment that we had at True

103North of the last two years and then multiplying it by the new tuition that we would have to kind of give us a very conservative estimate of if there's any cost savings that we would be having with this new model. You can see that for us district 65 our total FY26 costs were 654,000 approximately. The new model given the enrollment that we had the highest of the last two years enrollments would be we'd be seeing a a savings of about $250,000. Again, that's pending what our enrollment is. if we have new students move in or not or we need new services. This is all approximate. But as you can see, for the most part, almost every district sees substantial savings through this reorganization. A couple of districts will see a slight increase and that's just

104based on the programs that they use and their current membership fees because they're one in the very small district and the other really only utilizes early childhood. And those costs actually went up a little bit in this model. We'll be reorganizing the district office administration. Instead of having a superintendent, we'll be hiring an executive director just to kind of signify that the cooperative is supposed to be serving the 18 districts, not exist as kind of a separate entity. So, we'll be seeking an executive director at some point. We're downsizing to only include a chief school business official, a director of human resources, and a director of programs and services. Again, this is more meaningful to the people that work at True North, but we're downsizing administration. And for you to know, we're also reorganizing the

105governance model. So according to school code, we still need to have a leadership council or a board that's made up of a board member of all the member districts, but they only need to meet twice a year. They can delegate the majority of their duties to what we're going to call an executive committee. That executive committee will be made up of all the member district superintendent. So, a lot of the leadership and decision- making is going to be put on the member superintendent to be meeting monthly in person to make the decisions that we need to make for the cooperative so we don't wind up in this position again. Then the board members from each of the districts will meet twice a year to to hear what's been going on at True North and to

106approve the things that they need to approve, budget, um doing anything, you know, some financial situations, the hiring of the executive director, probably at the recommendation of that executive committee. We are stipulating that if a superintendent is unable to attend, they may send their student services administrator, but that person will not be able to post. So we're really looking for a commitment from our superintendent. If we're able to do this reorganization, we would change this governance structure in January so that we can really start to move forward with the reorganization. So big picture benefits of maintaining and staying in True North priority enrollment for high quality programs in our community. We don't want to be sending kids far away. We want them close to us. So having this therapeutic day school close as well as

107our early childhood programs is a benefit as well as access to the specialized and contracted services that you'd only pay for if you use financial benefits. We're not paying we have some districts who've been paying and not utilizing. That's not going to be an issue anymore. So beginning of in July 26, we'll be eliminating those fees. If you stay a member, you'll have lower tuition and service rates compared to the non-members. And we won't lose the EVF credit. So the the evidence-based funding credit comes to True North if we remain a cooperative. If we no longer remain a cooperative, that money doesn't go back to our member districts. It gets absorbed into the state and goes and is dispersed more likely to tier one districts, districts that have a bigger gap between their foundational base

108funding and what their communities are able to provide. If you stay as a member, if the district decides to stay a member, they would continue to own a portion of the assets. Um, tuition rates would increase, which means we will probably get an increased reimbursement. As True North will still be able to support and guide us in state reporting, be able to provide us with some legislative updates and interpretation of special education law. So, basically, we have a hub that will help us with special special education issues. That's a benefit of being neighbor as well as a collective voice of the 18 districts and advocating for any legislative or um advocacy issues that come up around the state. And the last thing is that True North really as NSSED was a leader in kind of

109bringing up um special educators, directors of special education, creating a pipeline for our member districts to bring highquality people to have them trained at True North and then bring them onto our districts. We're hoping to recreate that. And then obviously if you're a member we will retain a seat on the governing board. The superintendent's time, the director's time and energy becomes our membership fee. We will be you know providing guidance to the cooperative. Um and that's part of membership. Um and then obviously we will have a seat at the table when we put staffing plans into place. So, in the spring months when we're looking to staff the building as a member, you will have the opportunity to get your students in there and have them in the staffing plan. If this plan weren't to

110go and we had to dissolve, some of the things that would be negatives for us, we would be competing with each other for existing therapeutic day placements in other um schools around us. And those placements are getting harder and harder to find. We would lose the evidence-based funding allocation, 2.5 million, that benefits all of our 18 member districts. We would not recoup that money. We would need to pay our liabilities in full and we would need to dispose of all of our assets, selling the buildings, figuring out what to do with the fund balance and all of the actual property, plant, and equipment. There would be a lot of um probably need for legal advice and counsel and support with all that. that would be a lot of work to do and as well uh

111staff um potentially would have access to positions in our own districts and they would have to come to each of the member districts and be placed within our own districts which obviously would be difficult for us to do as well. So, if the reorganiz reorganization plan does not get the 12 votes that it needs to move forward, this is the position we're going to be in. And there are um a lot of difficult things coming up for us if that doesn't work. We know that some districts may still want to leave. We know that what has been hard for districts to stay a member of Trinor is the financial obligation that they would have if they decided to leave. So, in the current bylaws, a district would have to prepay um their portion of liabilities,

112which equates to a pretty large check that they would have to write, which has prevented a lot of districts from leaving. So, we have decided that if a district wants to leave now, we're going to eliminate that obligation, but then those districts also walk away from their right to any portion of the assets, facilities, the fund balance, and all those other things. and our CSBOs and have kind of looked at that calculation for each district and it doesn't look to be that huge of a difference. That's a calculation that each district would have to make. We've also decided that we would like to reimburse Glen View District 34 for the audit that they've done. They have, as you know, Glen View was the first district that decided to go through the withdrawal process, the two-year

113process. They have been at this point through almost every step in that two-year process. they've followed all the rules and at this point we're proposing to change the rules and we feel like that is an an unfortunate situation that they're in. And regardless of how difficult they the time was that they had going through this process, regardless of how difficult all the other 17 districts experience have been in the last two years, we actually think we're in a much better place now. And um we appreciate Glen View efforts and we want to in a show of good faith reimburse that expense that they've had and then also incorporate the financial model into the articles of agreement to the degree that we feel like is responsible. so that we can feel confident that this is the

114way we're going to move forward. And then obviously like I talked about shifting a lot of the leadership to the superintendent. We just want to acknowledge that we did say we'd be reducing administrative um staff. There will be a significant reduction of um teaching and paraprofessional and clerical staff as well. So almost 50% of staff and administration over the next two years. Um that's a significant reduction. What we want to do through the member districts is to provide support to those educators that will um be not asked back to True North in the form of having our member district vacancies promoted in-house to our True North educators to coordinating letters of recommendations um to helping with resumes and cover letters and even to hosting a local job fair for other cooperatives or other districts outside

115of True North. um even in Lake Cook County where those educators might have an opportunity to interview and have another position. So again, we've been through all these next steps. Um tomorrow night is the first read and then we'll be looking at this kind of process to go through through the end of 2025. Just two things to note on this slide. We will probably be asking for additional support for human resources at True North and inform bringing maybe a retired um human resource professional in to help coordinate all of the reductions in staff. There are a lot of legalities and we we need to make sure this is done well um and we don't miss anything. And then also potentially exploring a second year for our interim superintendent because I don't believe that I don't

116think any of us believe that we will be in the position to hire a new executive director while we're in the middle of a reorganization. And our two interims are fantastic. They've been on top of everything. They have extensive special education experience and experience with cooperatives and they are um they've already gained a lot of trust in the 18 member district. So we would really like to consider having them stay on for a second year. It's not unprecedented. Seedall's in their second year of interim people. Sometimes you just need some folks to stay for a short period of time to help through kind of a big change like this. So this is what'll be presented tomorrow. Um if you have questions, yeah, please send them >> or you want me to >> No, bring them.

117>> I do have a handful, but I think you answered a couple. um percentage of yeses to no. How many so we need 12 districts to agree to >> to the reorganization plan, but they don't have to stay. >> So in other words, they can agree that this is the plan they want, but that doesn't mean that they have to stay. We just need 12 to say that this is the plan. >> Okay. >> And then we can move that way. So based on that, we as a board will like our the timeline for us will be similar like we have to >> Yeah. We I I'll come back to you in October to make sure that you're that you have some direction and you can give me some direction on whether or not you

118would like to stay. We would like to stay because if we want to stay, we will need to withdraw or intend to withdraw. >> Right. Okay. And then sorry and then I had a couple questions. you mentioned like this, we're kind of if this goes ahead in plan, if a child's needs change throughout the year, we could potentially not be able to adapt to that because we don't have, you know, so let me be clear about that one. So if a student is in an placement in Cherno, that school will adjust to whatever needs that child has >> just like we would we would have to find a way to make that happen. But if we have a child move in that say might need a placement at True North or might bump us up

119to an additional um portion of an FTE, we would go to True North first and say have a need for a student. they might or might not be able to take that student. Okay, >> that's the situation we're in now. >> So, we would then go shopping around um or talking to other districts to say, "Do you have anyone that we could maybe share?" Um it's just not a guarantee. >> Okay. >> For a while there, we were saying we could guarantee as we weren't really able to make. >> So, kind of based on that with the savings that we are maybe potentially going to get that could offset, >> right? we could be using it for in-house student needs, but also like we're missing a lot of professional development that we've utilized. So, and

120that's going to like all the people inhouse that are also working with all the kids that teach frees up some money for us to replace that. We actually have been a big user of the professional development >> and to be clear, professional development has been outstanding. There is not one member district that feels that it hasn't been. It's just too costly. >> Understood. Okay. And then I think that was it. Thank you. >> For any services that might be going away that our students are currently utilizing, what will will happen with that? >> Do you want to talk about that? >> Yeah. >> Good question. So um in July the member district directors all came together actually here in Lake Bluff and that was the first topic of conversation because at that point the only

121plan available was the potential dissolution. And so um we all came together to start talking about how we would work together in the events that that happened to be able to meet all of those student needs. that discussion has been paused while we've been working through this um reorganization plan. However, at that time, there were a number of um options on the table in order for us to either coordinate services together as districts um take on some of those pieces on our own and either hire staff or look to our current staff um to take on some additional certifications in order to meet student needs. And so, we'll be picking up those plans. And now now that we know what a reorganization could look like, now we can really fill in those gaps and start

122to work with our own staff members or other districts in order to coordinate those services. I truly believe with what we would be able to utilize through True North moving forward, the gaps that we do have, we will be able to find solutions in order to meet student needs. what what we're going to be able to do with our own staff and and and working together collaboratively. I believe that will be good. >> Thank you. >> And thank you both for all your on this >> indeed. >> It's been a lot good. It's been good. Actually, it has been good. I think um the superintendent meeting Tracy was there um to present to all the member superintendents and actually the feeling the room was really good. I think everyone's very hopeful. I think everyone's really

123grateful and everyone's um feeling like this is a good opportunity to make something really great happen for kids. >> So this has been completely shown to all 18 No, >> it has been shown to all 18 superintendents. Oh, for them to understand so that it can be like discussed. >> Yes. What we asked all the superintendent to do is make sure their leadership council member was fully briefed >> before they go in tomorrow to the meeting. >> Yeah. Okay. >> We anticipate all our families >> that will watch. >> There is a live stream link >> so you can watch it um or come in person. >> It's fun that way too. And um we it'll be the reward committee and dissolusion committee together >> presented >> and I again want to iterate. I don't

124think it can be overstated how much work this was and you two really let it and I'm so thankful. And the two issues that all the schools seem to have I mean there are a few issues but the big ones are the fees when they're not using the services >> and um and on and off ramp. And this fully takes care of both of those. So it's, you know, changes are >> amazing. I'm so amazed. >> I mean, the beginning of the summer, if you had me, I'd be like, well, this >> meeting with that that went until midnight, there would I would have never in a million years guess you guys would have to >> brought it back. >> I'm going to give a lot of credit to R.J. Gral, the new superintendent in

125Glen Brook High School. um he came in and has taken a a big leadership role in helping to support a new financial model and that really went a long way with a lot of people. So Glenn Brook and Glenn View have both said they did not need for the disillusion we patterned. They did they were not looking for the thing to dissolve. They So both um Glen Brook in particular have been willing to come to the table and really work to make something happen. Well, and it's really amazing that you be able to you were able to bring it back in the brain. It seems like it will go well tomorrow, but that you know there was so so much detail here and so many things to work out, but in the end it seems

126that the kids and the families that need these services really value these services and it's amazing. So, >> as Elisa, I appreciate this the update and all your work. I I hope you're going to be able to use this present. I hope you didn't have to write all this presentation just for us. >> Nope. This is the one. >> Okay, good. >> You're getting the actual presentation. >> Take it out. >> There's a lot of detail on there, too, which is why I didn't go through all the detail, but >> So, Andrew, I had a question for you. Is this >> is there any um similarities between your school and and True North that >> I mean what's your reaction to kind of this? >> So my school that I meant um you do not

127serve students that have you know specific learning needs is for students that have been removed from their schools for behavior reasons not necessarily for a specific learning disability so to speak. Um so it's for it's to open to all students um in the county. Um but yes it's not you know just for specific students but specific but it's for students that just maybe need a break from their home schools. We do have a whole different kind of a management. >> We are partnered with Cedol, but we do not offer special education services. But my specification, >> okay, but your funding and everything is kind of totally different than this. >> Um, grant funded, EGF funded, and tuition based. >> So yours is tuition based as well. So it it support this whole >> I mean

128to me it looks like we're still going to be able to support our learners which is most importantly but somehow also saving money. So >> yeah, I I'm blown away by it as I was watching the presentation. Like we're going to be able to support everyone and still save a substantial amount of money. Just seems make sense to me. >> And some of it will be reallocated. For example, the professional development dollars. We're required to put 5% of our IDA grants directly toward um professional development for um all teachers that would work with students with disabilities. And typically that 5% has gone straight to True North to pay for that professional development fee. Now we'll and then we've also purchased professional development on top of that fee. So now we can just take that professional

129development um percentage and put it straight towards the professional development that we design or we choose. Um but it's still that 5% is still required to go. So just a reallocation for that part. I didn't talk about it. We'll talk about it tomorrow, but part of the other proposal is to put some more oversight onto the program as well. So, some of this reduction in staffing, we we're looking to have some member district special education administrators conduct some audits of IEPs or some walkthroughs of spaces and facilities to make sure that actually we're continuing with the level of staffing that we think is appropriate for utilizing facilities and services the way they need to be. So we we got a little away from the oversight and so we're putting some of that back in so

130that we don't wind up in this situation then. >> Thank you. >> Do you want to stay up there? >> Yeah. >> All right. >> I need to share screen right? Oh, it's very tiny. >> Make it like 400%. >> Makes me feel better. >> There we go. >> A little bit better. >> Look, this one. >> Okay, bigger. >> So, this is our sixth day enrollment. Um, each year we um send into the regional office of education our enrollments on the sixth day of school. As you may know, enrollment fluctuates throughout the school year. And so, um, the regional office of education has set the sixth day of school as a data point for all school districts to utilize to be able to compare enrollment year-over-year. Um, and so these are our numbers for

131last year in the 2425 school year and then this year for the 2526 school year um on the sixth day so that you can see a comparison. Um you can also see how um we utilize information in the spring to roll um student numbers forward to the next grade level. So you can see differences um between each grade level as they roll forward and how we use that um for staffing to so we know for example at the elementary school when we need four sections versus five sections um within a grade level and you can see that there can be some large differences in numbers from from year to year in each grade level. Um you can see also that our number of students that have been placed in a therapeutic setting has remained steady

132um over the year. And then in terms of overall enrollment, we are down for enrollment um over the year by about 16 by 16 students. >> Is it great? I I think we had some concerns about with a third grade class that with they have four teachers in third grade. So we were concerned that that might tip over more than 25 or up to 27 in each student, but that that's not a concern now. >> Yeah. And and actually from last year to this year, we've gone down nine students. And um from second to third grade they went down two students as they moved from second graders to third graders. >> And the fourth grade then we have five teachers, right? >> Fourth grade has five sections this year. >> So was Yeah. Because fourth

133grade this year and fifth grade are both they're up and up. >> Yeah. So >> So we're we're good with headc counts then you know >> pupil teacher ratios. No, we have two classes at 24 in the school. >> No classes at 20. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you, Tracy. >> Thank you. >> Okay, our next and I believe last item tonight is policy discussion. >> Yep. So, our policy committee met earlier this last week. Sorry. >> No, it was last Friday. >> Yeah. and we went through and reviewed um press packet 119. Please take a look that most of it is legal references and five-year reviews. So, there really weren't any questions. Um there's nothing for us to really talk too much of. >> No, the only thing we talked about was putting

134in board member. >> Thank you. >> So, policy 280 just to bring your attention to it. Um, >> there was a choice to include um some language around what would specifically happen if a board member violated their order of this and essentially we decided to keep that language in. It was already in our policy and we decided to keep it on. Um, if you have any other questions, this is the first read. We'll have a second read at the next meeting and hopefully it app. But really no big changes. Nothing else. Nothing of any significance. No, that's it. Any questions on any of those policies? >> All right, we have one more opportunity for public comments. Anyone interested? >> Boys, I think this is the most exciting meeting. >> Good job. You get a badge

135for this. >> All right. Well, and on that note, then may I have a motion to adjourn the September 16th committee of the whole meeting at 8:48 p.m. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Any opposed? Meetings adjourned. Thank you. any other travel hasn't