0017 o'clock. I call to order the December 17th, 2025 district to board meeting. And let's all rise for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Start. Is it you? Uh, that moves us on the roll call. Thanks. Katie Casey here. Joel Johnson. Natalie Mel here. Joseph Quinn here. Tom Schwarz here. Mary Shoefeld here. Ali Stanbury here. Okay, that moves us over to consent agenda. Motion to approve consent to agenda items as submitted. Motion. Second. Meld, yes. Casey, yes. Stanberry, yes. Shoefeld, yes. Schwarz, yes. Quinn, yes. All right, that moves us on to our favorite part of the meeting, student recognition and the SGE fifth grade student council. All right,
002so we're going to have my our fifth graders come up and stand and face the school board. They're nice. Don't worry. So, they were told you guys were singing. Yeah, they just got done with their concert last night, so they should be in the mood to Okay. All right. Um, but we also have fourth graders who are part of our student um council as well. But since our fifth graders are the oldest in the building, we invited them um tonight to come. And Mrs. Lavar is our uh student council uh uh teacher who represents them and um you know she does things with them during uh their lunch times, recess as well and um they've been pretty busy lately and one of the things that you guys have just done uh was what? Candy cane
003operation. The candy cane oper and we did the cereal drive as well. So the latest that they did was the candy cane drive where they um during like recess time when kids were done with the recess they had candy canes and students would come and would donate money and they would get a candy cane and what was the money used for? Family needs I think gift cards correct that we used to get gift cards. And then they also organized um the cereal drive. Um the Richmond food pantry um really needed some more cereal and so they we organized the uh cereal drive and I think it was I don't know it's what 300 Yep. was it 312 312 cereal boxes that were $213 was donated for a family in need with the candy canes with
004the candy canes. You know it's a way for them to give back to the community and also um serve the school in a positive way. So I don't know Mrs. Labari you have anything else you want to add? Um just that so the board knows that how this all gets started there's a theme and actually Dr. Lynn started the theme this year at we have a kickoff breakfast. So when the teacher So he was talking about leadership. So that's been like our goal in our meetings when um before we're doing the events. We're also working on confidence right guys how to be when you have to do presentations just like you're doing right now. I can see how you guys are standing. You took the advice. So Dr. Lynn, thank you. You probably didn't even
005know the way you were starting out the year. I took that in my head and started the theme for student council and that's been going will go throughout the whole rest of the school year and uh we have four more main events coming up. So and this is a wonderful group of people. I mean really they have shown above and beyond coming up with ideas and they talk appropriately. They wait they take the professional moment as we say. So I'm very proud of them. Proud to be their representative. CONGRATULATIONS. [applause] Do you guys have any questions for any of them? No. I What's your favorite cereal? Reese's Reese's. Yeah. Who likes Frosted Mini? It's a good one. The only one. Actually, the teachers did a a survey. There was a survey that teachers which cereal
006they like the best. Oh, that one's charm. Lucky Charms. Oh, of course. That's the closest. Mine was Golden G. Yeah, that was Golden G. Oh, I think I'm by myself with Frosted. [laughter] You're a There was one There was one on that on our Was there was one I like that one. [laughter] Well, you guys again, thank you. Amazing work that you did. So, we appreciate if you guys want to turn around the other way so you can get a better picture. Yeah, definitely. If you guys want to get together, if any parents want to take pictures, you might need to scoot together. Guys, scoot a little bit closer. Maybe two rows or one. You guys have been together since kindergarten. That's better. Can you get up there, please? Thank you so much. Thank you.
007[applause] I also like too. Thank you so much. That was so scary. [laughter] I know a lot of them have fiber because of the rockets. Keeps the highway moving. I know. I know. I know. Okay, that was fun. That moves us on to public input. And I see four have signed, but one has asked to speak. Uh Eric, it's me again. [laughter] Okay. Um board members. Um so through my work so far with curriculum committee and my observing the structure and the function of other committees I noticed a reoccurring challenge. There's limited opportunity for meaningful dialogue between parents and community stakeholders in the schoolboard. So the current public comment structure which allows approximately three minutes to speak correct um express concerns does not provide the sufficient time for a thoughtful discussion or collaborative problem solving.
008So at the middle school level, this issue was further compounded because of the dissolution of the PTO, leaving families with very few avenues to share ideas, ask questions, or voice concerns. As a result, many parents and community members feel disconnected from our district decision-making process. [clears throat] So one effective, relatively simple solution, just hear me out, citizens advisory council. Um I know other districts do this and this council could serve as a bridge between the admin the board the board and community by gathering input on district matters encouraging active civic participation and promoting better educational outcomes for all students. So it would also support the board of education by bringing the community perspectives into discussions related to curriculum which we talk about finance and district operations. So the citizen advisory council could look something like
009this. Um it be open to members who wish to participate with a membership cap approximately 75 I mean up to your discretion. Obviously individuals who obviously reside in district 2 and members could be elected and appointed by the board to ensure balanced representation. Um a well-rounded council might include parents, non-parents and perhaps two students. Um this council could meet four times a year which would be a good amount of time or however you f see fit. Um they can provide feedback, share insights and strengthen communication between the admin andor and the community. So I believe this type of structure would significantly improve the transparency, trust and collaboration within our district. So thanks for your time and consideration and that's a donut. Thank you. [laughter] Thank you very much. Anyone else? [clears throat] Okay, [snorts] that
010concludes public input. That moves us on to reports. Um, I'll go through these reports. Please stop if you have any questions in regards to these reports. So, first one is report 6.1, revenue and expenditure report. 6.2, fund balance comparison report. 6.3 special education revenue expenditure report 6.4 Impressed report 6.5 impact fees okay that moves us on to 6.6 administrative reports starting with Dr. Lind. Well, good evening and uh happy holidays as we go into our final couple days of this the 2025 and uh school break is coming up and all those good things. Couple things going on I want to talk real quick about. We had the special education um review or audit. Uh I met with uh one of the consultants. We did a feasibility discussion um kind of initial findings as well as
011some information that they still need to really come back and give us um a full report. And it looks like they're going to do it in two different ways. So the first part will be a review of everything that they they found. They talked to a lot of teachers, they talked to parents, they talked to administrators, they were in the build uh classrooms. Uh, a lot of really positive things were said about what's going on in our classrooms, which makes me feel great. Um, they talked about the staff, the teachers that they saw, the programs that were going on, all very positive. Um, but we're going to have to find numbers and a little bit more data and share with them on minutes that students receive. uh if I have an IEP, whether it's speech
012or OT or something like that, we need to know exactly every student's minutes on one sheet so that we can share that with them to make sure that we're providing enough uh speech individuals. We're we have enough OT, we have enough different personnel to provide those services. So, that's what they're asking for right now. We have that information, but it's not in one central location where you can quickly grab it and say, "Hey, here's 135 students. Here's what their needs are. Here's what they're receiving." And then go from there and kind of look at what do we need. So, that's going to probably be in part two of the report, but it looks like they're going to get the first part back to us uh here in the next month or two. So, it'll be
013good to read, but a lot of positive things will come out of that. They've had some suggestions that I think that will carry over not just through special ed but in how we do things in our regular ed classes too and how we kind of function [clears throat] um as a school district. So that's coming. The second thing I want to update you on is obviously we know that our buildings uh we're going through our building and grounds. We we kind of talked tonight um uh we're looking at the health life safety bonds. Uh over the last two weeks, we've had significant issues uh with roof leaks, steam pipes breaking. Um we had five classrooms at one time in RGS that didn't have heat. Our teachers have been wonderful working with us on this. But
014I think and Chris and his guys have been great. They've been fixing these things, making parts to fix them. Uh we had the people from the the roofing companies out the very next day. Found out on a Sunday. And these are just things that happen to schools that are 50, 60 years old and need replacements. Um, so I wanted to reiterate that because I think where we're going with our health, life, safety, bonds is exactly where we need to be. Um, because it's going to address those issues. We're at the point with Nipper Middle School because of the boilers and the pipes. We don't know if we get another freeze and we get a 20 below zero, what does that mean? Um, our staff is very good. Our maintenance staff, they come in on the
015weekends, they walk through on Saturday, it walk through on Sunday, and a lot of times they catch things that if they didn't come in on Sunday would have been big problems. So, I just want to update the board where we're at. We know those problems exist. We know they're there. Um Chris and his crew is doing a great job of fixing them and and and keeping things running, but certainly something that we're going to have to address sooner than later. Questions for Dr. Was there any long-term damage from the roof leaks or were they spot early enough? It's not. Yeah, it's not so much long-term damage, but what you see is, you know, you have the air conditioning unit and you have this freeze and then you have a thaw and another freeze and it
016starts to leak through the the older seals and those types of things. We do, you know, we we do have issues well with the boiler and the steam pipes that could cause a problem. um there's no guarantee that we don't have a catastrophic failure with one of the boilers where we can't have school that day. And that's what we're trying to prevent and that's why our maintenance, they're really in there early. They're there on the weekends um and they catch those things and we get them fixed. But we know we're we're running out of time with those things. Um, so we'll just keep doing all the maintenance we're doing and keep it up on it until we get to that replacement point. Yeah. Is there a contingency plan? Well, a contingency plan right now would
017have to be the high school. So, um, you know, let's say that we ran into a worst case scenario. It's more than a day. It's more than two days. We've got three weeks. Let's just say it's something big that we have to replace. Um, we would have to go to the high school. They certainly had the room. Uh, but it would be it would be some bumps in the road to get that going and and find a place for classes to take place. You have the gymnasium, you have some empty classrooms and things like that. That's the only contingency place for area that has space for students. Um, so again, hopefully we won't have that happen, but we do talk about that what we would do in case we do have like a catastrophic failure
018with one of our pipes or our boilers. Is it? Sorry. What about um e-learning? Is that a plan at all? If that should happen because I'm thinking even if we do cring um even if we are able to get that referendum, it still wouldn't go through for a couple years. So we have two years. We have to put a band-aid on those boilers, right? So, yeah, you bring up a good point. So, replacing the boilers is the easy part. The reason we haven't done that is cuz the pipes are shot. They're 78 years old in that one part. And if we hook up a new boiler to the old pipes, all the corrosion comes in and ruins the new boilers. Yeah. So, we're going to have to repipe the entire middle school. That is going
019to be uh the looking at it, what we're going to end up having to do is probably move eighth grade out of the middle school when it comes time for that. Eighth grade will probably have to go to the high school and then what we'll do is close a wing off, let them work for months at a time and then when they get that done, we'll close another section. It will be an inconvenience to say the least. But doing it that way will get it done within a year as opposed to if we just did it during the summers. It might take us two to three summers to get all that repiped and the boilers hooked up. So you're looking at probably a two-year span here that we're going to have until that all gets
020replaced. A lot of planning on, you know, busing, what kids are going to go to what school, and how that's going to look. I foresee extra costs aside from having to move students from the middle school to the high school. Bus routes will have to change and you know prepping the high school for eighth graders would have to be there. Yep. Um is there funding within the health life safety bonds that does not include those costs? No. So the bonding will only include the parts, the mechanics, the labor for that. Yeah. The good thing about the busing situation is that our our middle school students ride with our high school students. Yeah. So, we can drop off our sixth and seventh students and still bring the eighth up. What's going to be different is, okay,
021now how many rooms do we need for eighth grade? Where do they go? Who moves? How do we do everything? Yeah. So, it's certainly possible because again, that high school used to have over 800 students in it and we're down to 500. So, bringing 120 eighth graders over won't be uh, you know, a big issue, but the issue will be we've never had eighth graders of high schoolers. Yeah. Right. So, do we have those? Let's just say the Boilers go tomorrow. Yeah. Um, do we have that plan already drawn out as to what it looks like at the high school? We have about as much as we can right now. Okay. Um, given this given the the the information we have on where teachers are teaching, things like that. What we would have to do
022is we'd have to have an emergency setup where we'd probably start in the gymnasium and we'd probably create in the older gym uh classrooms, those types of things. We would also then look for the eighth grade maybe to have some of the rooms in the regular high school. It would be kind of a patchwork. Um we're down to really about three of the four boilers and the third one is it's on a cold day it's working very hard to keep heat in that building. Yeah. Okay. So, it it won't be an easy thing to do, but we have a general outlay of what that would look like if the worst happened and we needed to move students out of middle school. What about um the fifth grade over at R or was it fifth grade
023you said where they had classrooms where he wasn't working? Fifth grade very well could go to RGS. We have space um and that's one thing that or not fifth grade, I'm sorry. Um sixth grade. But didn't he say that some of the classrooms there were without heat also? without heat. They were without heat. So, a major um problem going on over there as well. Theirs is a little different in the sense that it's not so much the pipes and the boiler, it's the the heaters, the univvents. Okay. And the univvents are past their life and so those are going to be replaced with all the things. Right. Right. But until then, what we do is when they go I think Chris was driving if he's here back there. Yeah. Yeah, Chris was driving to three
024or four different towns to get the parts because again we're talking about heaters that are going back to 1965 and they they should have been replaced 30 40 years ago. So are they going to have the same problem though where they can't be in the school and we're going to have to RGS somewhere else? No, RGS won't need they won't have that problem. We won't be repiping. Okay. Um the fire suppression system we replace on the one side of the building, we'll replace on the other side. Uh but you won't be running pipes through classrooms during the day. So RGS and SGE will be fine, but to do it in a timely manner, excuse [clears throat] me, for NMS, we'll have to move the eighth grade out. So a lot of conversations will take place
025though before we get there. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you, Dr. Lynn. That moves us on to 6.6.3. NMS and principal grie curriculum. Curriculum first. Oh, 6.2. Oh, I'm sorry. That's okay. I went right over you. That's my bad. Dr. Enright, uh, curriculum report. Not much to report on. Majority of what we've been working on is the, uh, NOS grading policy update. And so we'll talk about that during the curriculum time. Great. So it wasn't that bad. [laughter] All right. You never know. On to 6.6.3 in principal. Good evening. Um so the pipes are bad and boilers are bad, but there are some good things, too. And that's what we're going to hit on here. Tell us. Um we've got some good things going on at at at the middle school. um for right now
026our our counseling uh our school counselor is working with the RB school counselors [clears throat] help our eighth graders transition to their freshman year and one of the things they're working on is what are graduation requirements what is a credit you know what is a core class what is an elective what and just getting kids to understand that because you know we kind of found kids the the counselors come over and our kids have no idea what's going on when they're signing up for classes so to try to help that transition Mrs. Rudolph's talked to the counselors already over there. She's going to meet with our students, kind of prep them for when the RB counselors come over to help them sign up for classes and get an I so they have a better idea
027of what they're doing prior to the day they do it. Um, so that's a really good thing. We're excited about that. Anything that makes the transition from the middle school to high school is obviously a good thing. We can make that better. So, we are working on that. Um, school celebration wise, you know, I wanted to talk a lot about what our music department is doing because they're doing really good things. Our our jazz, I'm sorry, our sixth, seventh, eighth grade uh band jazz band concert took place um at the end of November. Uh December 9th, our sixth grade choir went carolling in Richmond Village Hall and and the public library. They were also singing in the uh around the school. Uh, tomorrow night is our choir concert uh at the middle school at 6
028PM. Uh, we've started out tryyous for girls basketball and wrestling season. Wrestling doesn't have triyouts. They if you come out for wrestling, you've made the team. So, that began as well this week. And K Crew has done a lot of projects um for food drives uh for the Richmond Food Pantry, a competition for home bases and uh to see which home base would donate the most items. That home base got donuts. I do believe it was Miss Club's home base that won that award. Um, and then uh teachers have signed up for an adopt a family project and donated things uh uh to be given to families in the area who are in need. So, we've had a lot of really good things happening. It's been a very busy month um for everyone and we
029are looking forward to breaking. Great. Does the Does the lead crew at the high school get involved at all with the eighth graders this early in the process? Just curious. Not yet. Okay. Any questions for principal reason? I have a question. Um, just not having any experience with it. Uh, you know, in our district, the eighth grade selection process for you say high school classes moving into freshman year. How does that work? Like, you know, I'm hearing that the, you know, the high school counselors come over, they talk to the kids. Is that something where, you know, they're, you know, they, you know, they've got class time and then they bring like a worksheet home, cataloges home, they go over with their parents, then they come back with something to turn in. Their parents have
030to sign off on it as far as their course selections. How does how does that process work? That's that's the gist of it. And when they come back, then they sit down, uh, the counselors will go over again with them to make sure that everything lines up, that they are taking the right classes. So, they'll come over a second time talk. Okay. So it's like it's it's two waves. So they understand before they go home and meet with their parents and do these things and they come back and we just want them to understand more before they go home. Yeah. It's a it's it's another level when you get back. Okay. They also have an opportunity on January 12th is the incoming freshman orientation at the high school where they'll be able to ask more
031detailed questions if they need to. That's what the link crew. Okay. So they got opportunity to come and learn as well. Okay. And [clears throat] then link crew takes place in the uh in the fall, those two days right before school kids. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. That moves us on to 6.6.4 SG and Principal Pitman. Uh thank you. So um just like the other schools, uh this is a very busy time of year for us. Um, uh, Mrs. Kier, our technology teacher. She's been, um, working with the students and, um, kids have been participating in the hour of AI. Um, it's formerly known as the hour of code, but now it's hour of AI. So, um, she's been touching on that with our students. Um, I actually sat in
032on one of the, uh, fifth grade um, hour of AI and it was really interesting to see what they were doing. they were um given images to see if that was real or um generated by AI and then we give them a percentage of you know of how many they received correct. So um they were harder than you than you than you would think. Um but it's a good introduction to them and um to see kind of what AI can do and how it can be used um appropriately as well and stuff. Um school celebrations um Mr. Hiller, our custodian who's been there for um eight years, is retiring on January 2nd. Um so this is actually his last week um in the building with uh the teachers and staff. So um he's been wonderful
033um to work with. He's a hard worker. Um you know, you you ask, he does it. Um so he's going to be missed and we have something special planned for him um that he's not aware of. um he's a very humble person and so um but uh he he deserves it and uh we're we're we're thankful that we had the time with him that that we did. So u he will be greatly missed. Um and then we also um we just finished our concerts Monday night. We had our kindergarten through third grade um winter concert and then our fourth and fifth grade um concert was last night and it was the first time our fifth graders did their their band um performance. So, um, kids did great. Um, Mrs. Hartnett, our music teacher, she did
034a wonderful job. Mr. Prior, um, he's he's great at what he does as well. So, um, packed packed house. We had 600 chairs and Monday night we had over 700 people in there. Wow. Um, so it Tuesday wasn't far off either. What's that? I said Tuesday was packed too. Tuesday was packed too. Yeah. Usually we don't pack Tuesday the four or five. We had standing room weekend only um Tuesday night. So very well but very well received. Terrific. Thank you. Any questions for principal Pitman? Can public ask a question? That's a good question. Public ask question generally but but afterwards you could certainly after the meeting ask. Thank you. Yep. Thanks. Anything else? Okay, thank you. That moves us on to 6.6.5 RGS. Principal [clears throat] public. Hello. Good evening. Uh, we had our second
035grade team take our second graders out to the Discovery Summit Museum in Rockford. So, there you can see some fun photos of them taking part in some science and STEM and engineering activities. Uh, they had a blast. Uh, I think the highlight of their day was seeing the demonstration. Not as cool as elephant toothpaste, but super cool seeing um how polymers are created and can be changed through chemical reactions. Uh so there were a lot of oo and a's. They had a blast. They came back. I think the adults and the kids that attended learned a lot. Uh and they are excited to um have more science excitement in their lives uh and do that again in the future. So that's those four photos there. And then on to celebrations. We as well have had
036our music concerts last week. We had our fifth grade concert with some great soloists. Uh and then we had our band concert and just amazing. I'm always amazed at the artistry and the musicality of our department. Uh Mrs. Flores, Mr. Prior, all the kids, the hard work they put into it. Um again, from the neighboring district, Mr. Short is still telling buddies. Um, I'm always enamored by how much growth happens in such a short amount of time and how good the music is uh that comes from these guys. They work so hard. The kids do such an amazing job. So, congratulations to all of them and of course packed house. Great to see everybody. Very impressive. And then we have uh family reading night. Just want to share a shout out. We are always at
037RDS trying to connect with the community and we had an opportunity that kind of lobbed out there and said, "Hey, the Denver library is looking for uh folks to donate their time to volunteer for a family reading night and we had four amazing staff members that love reading and want to inspire reading and others that attended. Uh Mrs. Hamlin, Mrs. Mars, uh Mrs. Marshall and Mrs. Sprout, two interventionists. Pera, a second grade teacher, who just stepped up, stepped in and got to work one-on-one with our families, the kids in the community. Um, so we love the library. Are happy to work with them all the time. Uh, and this is where I give my shameless plug for the community resource fair coming up in January, which is another opportunity for all of us to connect
038with each other and all the amazing things that this community has to offer. Uh, January 22nd from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at RGS. Everybody's welcome. Free pizza, water, and waffles. Thank you very much. Any questions? I actually have a question for both the elementary [clears throat] or principles. With the packed houses for all of your concerts, has it ever been a thought of maybe using either the high school or even the junior high so that we're a little more comfortable and there's more seating for everybody? It was discussed um many years ago about it and there was at that time there were some concerns just with logistics of moving kids over there to practice um you know because they're very um students are very you know they like consistency and being familiar with building and
039stuff. So um something it had it was it was brought up as well and stuff you know um it is definitely something that we can look at because it is tight. Yeah and parking is always an issue. Yes. We will be charging an admission. You do what you need to do next. We should be charging for everything. [laughter] It's definitely a conversation piece. Yeah. And was this the first time that the school had visited the children's museum at Rockford? Was this the first? Well, it was. Okay, great. Yeah, it was. I know they went years ago because I was the chef room for my prior way back in the day. Yeah, Spencer went. So, it is a cool. Awesome. Thank you. A little bit of a hug. Yeah. Actually, come to think of it, I
040think they had it scheduled to go there the year of co because then Nolan was in fifth grade, I think, at that time, and he was supposed to go, then they cancelled it. So, Spencer went in second, right? Second grade. Also, maybe second is what I Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you very much. That moves us on to transportation report. anything there? I talked a little bit again a little bit different because transportation is all controlled by district 157 and comes out of their budget and then they bill us back for for the service and as I was talking to Tom and he's certainly familiar with it. Um we're seeing big increases in cost per bus. So, we took a three-year lease at RB and then I kept extending it one year, one
041year just to keep that cost down. [snorts] Um, we're now at the point we have to get a new lease. So, I'm going to recommend a three-year lease, but you're looking at what used to cost 630,000 now close to 999 to a million dollars Over the life of the lease. But what we're going to do is we're going to reduce the fleet by at least four buses. So if a bus is three or $35,000, you could take that times four, subtract it from that amount. That brings it down a little bit. Um I'm going to also work on some uh uh uh routing and working with Tom a little bit. We couldn't get together in December, but certainly in January to see if we can't get more efficient or if there is efficiencies, they might
042be as efficient as they can, but is there a way we can do something so we can lower our fleet even more. You know, if we could if we could get rid of another two or three buses, bring that number down, and still provide the same service for our students, it's a significant savings. So, um, that's where we're at with it. what the impact of the cost will be for district two. I'm not sure yet. The problem is is that the state has cut transportation funding this year. Yeah. So, it's kind of all kind of coming out, you know, not the best, but um I think through some cost-saving measures, we're going to be able to manage it without there being issues. How long is a typical lease? So, you can go one to three
043years. After three years, if you go into that fourth, fifth year, you're going to have to um put new tires on, pull the tires, you're going to have to do certain maintenance that gets very expensive. So, what you have to what you have to kind of balance is if we go four years and we have to spend x thousands of dollars per bus to pull the tires and replace certain things, is it cheaper to retire the lease and negotiate a new one? Um, with the bus prices going up, we've been better off keeping those um, buses another year or two, paying for the company to come out, pull the tires, do that. It still was cheaper than going to a new lease. So, we h we we held on to it as long as we
044could. We also got rid of a bus last year, so we're going to be down five. Okay. Yeah. Now, Tom, the the bus lease we have now, they're currently in their fifth year, right? The correct. We've renewed it two one-year leases since year three. And that's and and Joe, that's what you'll see is, you know, the longer the term of the lease, right, the annual cost goes down, but you get to years four and five and there's increased maintenance costs, especially, you know, tires and tires have an expense to that. You know, you get brakes and, you know, typically brakes, you know, breaks be an annual thing depending on how many miles you put on the buses a year. Um, but like you talk about these prices, they they're um, you know, the the the
045increases in bus prices are nearly double what they were 5 years ago. When we talk about like a $900,000 potential bus lease, that's an annual cost. Yeah. I mean, that's just how many mind-blowing. Right now, I think we're around 34. Okay. So, we'll cut that down by four. One of the things we're looking to do is buy a a 15 person um bus, a smaller one uh that our coaches and things like that can drive. One of the reasons that we would like to do that is cuz you know, [clears throat] let's say we have five students that need to go somewhere or six students. Sometimes we have to take a whole bus, you know, a full-size bus. Um, if we had something that you didn't have to have your CDL to drive, um, then
046there's some things we could do to save on that as well because, as you know, bus drivers are are at a premium now, too. And when our numbers have gone back up, we've recruited really hard. We've gotten some good drivers, but it's hard to keep the number where you need it to be. What's the occupancy limit for a nonCDL? Uh, so 14. It's 14, but it depends on the vehicle, too. So, it depends on use. So, so you can transport up to 14 passengers in what they call a multi-function activity bus. It's basically your smaller type A buses, the ones that are on the van chassis. It's just they're painted white. They don't have school bus seats. They're limited to the 14 passengers. And uh they're really nice for, you know, smaller groups, uh extracurricular
047athletics that, you know, you go to a tournament all day. You're not, you know, you don't pay a bus driver to sit there all day long when the coach has flexibility to drive the students and stuff. So, it it it does help uh with with those smaller groups. Yeah. And what one of the things that we're looking at too and and I actually Tom and I talked about this. We're trying to find a way to maybe work with other districts on transportation of students to um programs outside of our district because we all have students that may be in a program in Streamwood or Palatine and maybe we only have one. The school next door to us might have two. If we could align that, yeah, we could split the cost of the bus because
048there's times we run a a 73 person bus all the way to Palatine with one student. Or what's worse than that, and this is what we've had to do in schools all across the state are doing, you don't have enough bus drivers or buses, usually it's bus drivers. So, what you have to do is get taxis. Yeah. And when you start taking a kid um from Richmond to Streamwood and back in a taxi, you're you're going to run an enormous bill very fast. So, if we could cut down on those kind of one-off programs and share that cost with surrounding districts or find a better way to do it, um we can bring our our transportation back, I think, in a more manageable budget. to put it into perspective that some of these outplayed schools
049like you're talking about. Yeah. Uh cost of $300 to $400 a day per student is typical transportation. Yeah. When you look at a bill for the district, you can be 30,000 a month. Crazy [clears throat] in transportation needs. And so these are real issues that when we talk about greater efficiencies, where can we not on our own we can't fix it, but can we work with Hein? and we work with um another school near us, Johnsburg or someone who might have students going the same direction that we can share costs. And I think that's some that's going to be a conversation we have over the next year too or the next spring to see where we can reduce some of the travel costs. A smaller bus like that, could we bring it back as an
050activities bus because I know we just had a few kids that needed it, right? So, you would get you wouldn't get reimbursement for it from the the state because of the use, but you could you could pay a person to drive it, you know, from the district. Pick kids up and try them. Yeah. For like 10 kids. Yeah. Would be it would be worth it. Yep. And then on the um on page three of the report, the enrollment, that's just the school enrollment. That's not the kids actually riding. Correct. Where's the table? That's all of the enrollment at all of the schools. Yeah, it's an old school. It's just enrollment to the school, not Do we know approximately how like what percentage is taking the bus? Well, that's part of what we're we do. I
051don't have that with me. Um, but one of the things we're going to to help cut down on our fleet, too, is right now we've had I I guess since I've been here um and before I got here, we've always had a policy that if you are eligible for bus service, you just get a seat. And so by doing that, you run your route and you might say, "Okay, we've got 60 kids on this bus, but really only 20 of them really ride the bus." So what we're going to ask for um this year in in registration is an opt out or an active optin, I guess you would say. If your student needs bus service on a daily basis, please opt into it so that we get an actual count. We know maybe that
052bus really only has 20 on any given day. So maybe we can combine another route with that. Um, but that doesn't mean that if you're eligible for bus service and you know your child needs to ride the bus one day a week or something, we'll still do that. Okay. But what we're trying to find out is our how many everyday riders are we going to have so that we can route for that as opposed to people who may never ride the bus. That's going to take place this summer or not summer, this this spring uh during registration. We're hoping to get again looking at any kind of efficiency we can with the inflation going on. It it really does help tremendously with you know I've been transportation director at Johnsburg for over 5 years and
053one of the things that I inherited was a bus all enrolled students policy and it made it nearly impossible to make times tables and schedules um with the resources that you had and so we did exactly that. the uh the opt out during registration and you know it's a lot of work you know for you know routing every year as the dynamics change and things like that but it really does free up a lot of resources and uh brings the bus times down it's uh I think it'll help tremendously in our situation. Yeah. And if there's that flexibility if people's situation changes they can always ride the bus. That'd be great. Yeah. What we're really trying to do is just get a daily count that we know every day we've got 30 students on this
054route. And it may go up three or four students given who has to ride that day, but we're looking for the everyday type student to get a number. Okay, other questions. Okay, that moves us on to 68 technology report. Any questions on the report that was provided? Okay. 69. Any foyer requests? None. Seven. Old business. No business. All right. That moves us on to eight. New business. Starting with approving the 2025 levy request, resolutions, and certificate of tax levy. So, nothing's changed from a month ago when we went through the numbers. Um, but we'd be glad if there's any questions to go over it. No updated values. They were updated on December 1st. Um, your EAB lost 300 uh $363,000. So, your um tax rate is going to go up point or I'm sorry, it's
055going to go up two uh 10,000s. I was going to say 300,000 is a very small. So, it was we were projecting it at 2.7946 and because the EAV went down, it's going to be now 2.79 I'm sorry, it was 2.7928. It's now going to be 2.7946. But again, it's going to be changing through the spring um until it finally lands on what their EAB is going to be in the spring. Well, I suppose at the end of the day, the value that was updated to was nominal. I mean $300,000 on a what is it $22 million number uh yeah it's 16 billion something is phenomenal but it like I said you know we've always [clears throat] said when the EV goes down the tax rate goes up or the tax rate goes down but
056now your EV actually lost a little bit so your tax rate is going to go up just that slightly that two 100 two thousands of a cent. Yeah. Yeah. I don't I think you're going to see I don't think you're going to see a large jump either way in the EAB. Yeah, I think we're pretty consistent right now. Um forecasting a year out, you could start to see some prices drop in homes. Yeah. Um that could affect it, but All right. So, with all that being said, any other questions in regards to the levy? Okay. We need a motion to approve the 2025 annual levy as presented. Motion second. Yes. Schwarz, yes. Mailfeld, yes. Casey, yes. Stansbury, yes. Quinn, yes. Motion has approved and has passed. That moves us on to 8.2 2 approving the
0572026 2027 NIP nursing district 2 school calendar. It's it's all ready to go. We had to go back and work with um district 157 to align Thanksgiving. Um but both calendars are in alignment now and ready to be voted on. We'll send it out tomorrow. Okay. And we'll be out before Memorial Day. What's that? We'll be out before Memorial Day. Yeah. Keep your fingers crossed. Don't say that. Now you We have two emergency days after that. Come on. We don't need them. We won't need them. Make my job hard. It's all good. Any questions on the school calendar? Okay. We need a motion to approve the 2026 27 to proceed district 2 school calendar. Motion. Second. [laughter] Malfun. Yes. Schwarz. Yes. Shoefeld, yes. Stansbury, yes. Casey, yes. Quinn, yes. Motion passes. All right, that moves
058us on to 8.3, approving the board of education 2026 meeting dates. Do you have any questions on our dates for next year? Keep in mind that these we're approving them now. If we need to change some of these dates as needed, we can always do so at a later time. Is there a reason we meet on the first day of school? Typically, that happens. [laughter] Totally coinc. [laughter] Yeah, it's the Oh, that's right. We have to have 30 days between the board meeting in August and September for budget. We have to put the budget on public display. Okay. Yeah, that's always a tough one. The first day they just found out [laughter] other than the disappointing date of August 19th. Does anybody else have any questions? That Monday of November is going to be rough,
059too. But it it it's always like that. Yeah. [snorts] Yeah, the busy weekend. Again, as we get closer to some of these dates, they can always be adjusted. Okay, wait. Is it Are we also meeting on the last day of Oh, no. Sorry. The last day of school this year maybe. But is it? Could be. Did it work out that way? Lucky us. Shouldn't be. It's closed, but I don't have my phone. We just had the calendar that we just Sorry. Go ahead. I don't know what year it is. [laughter] Okay. Any other questions? All right. We then need a motion to approve [clears throat] the 2026 board of education dates as submitted. Motion. Second. Yes. Quinn, yes. Casey, yes. Schwarz, yes. Shoefeld, yes. Stanford, yes. Okay. Motion is approved and is passed. Lot of
060approvals today. Move us. Moving on to 84. Approving updated language in the negotiated agreement between the precinct 2 board of education and the Richmond Springrove Educational Association. This was something and Joe certainly remembers when we negotiated there was a lot of language changes because of how we refer to certain jobs, their titles, where they fit and it was really just kind of modernizing I think updating the language to fit the positions of today. This was a section that we still needed to do that in. So, um it doesn't change anything other than def definitions of terms and things like that of of jobs. Yeah. Anybody have any questions on that? I was just wondering about the effective dates. Is that why because last year? Yeah, we Okay. You were so focused on the on this
061agreement that there was a paragraph or two that we just forgot to change the Yeah. There was a lot of lot of changes language wise and so this just kind of completes it. Yeah. Okay. We need a motion to approve. Before I go there, do we need to abstain from that because we were on that committee? No. Okay. We need a motion to approve updated language in the negotiated agreement between the precinct 2 board of education and Richmond Springrove Educational Association. Motion second. Mel, yes. Shansbury, yes. Shute, yes. Schwarz, yes. [clears throat] Yes. Gwyn, yes. Motion passes. That moves us on to 85, approving second reading of press policy update 120. We've gone over this a few times. Uh this is our third uh time addressing this uh at a a board meeting. Do we
062have any questions on this? I see none. So, we need a motion to approve the second reading of press policy update 120. Motion second. Shoefeld, yes. Stansbury, yes. Schwarz, yes. Milfeld, yes. Casey, yes. Quinn, yes. Motion passes. Kim, we got everyone right this time. That moves us on to 86 committee updates. And we'll start with 861, building and grounds. Yes. So, uh, obviously we've talked about all the issues that we do have and but there's a lot of good things happening and, uh, as you know, we've been working on this for a long time. One of the things, not just the health life safety bond process that we're talking about, but for the last seven or eight years, we've systematically been replacing roofs and windows and everything we can replace. But when we were talking
063in the committee tonight, one of the things that, you know, I brought up was that we can't fix the things fast enough because the cost of these big things is outrunning our ability to pay for it. Meaning that even if we saved and did all these things, we're never going to catch the inflationary rate of the amount of work that has to be done. So, but the good thing is we have over $3 million of um repairs that we've already accomplished over the last several years. And that $3 million worth of repairs aligns with the Healthife study. It also was budgeted in so we didn't go into deficit. So, that's a very positive thing. Um, and so you have a a a sheet here that shows a little bit about the things we've done up
064to December. And I'll let Tom talk a little bit and Natalie talk a little bit about it. But um below that we have these are things that we need to do yet that are in process. These dates aren't in stone. It depends you know we have to wait on the uh ISBE. We have to wait on you know the engineers and architects and approval but if everything goes right this would be a a basic template to complete the process for those bonds. Okay. So Tom, I'll let you. Yeah, I just I just want to thank Dr. Lynn for putting this uh summary together. You know, it it talks about the uh you know, the process uh working with buildings grounds committee, Chris Link, W Architects, and identifying the um priority one and two, you know,
065items uh that are uh critical, necessary uh repairs, replacements, you know, for the buildings to be sustainable. and then um you know the the process for the health life safety bond. So I mean something that you know taking a look at this the you know the needs of the buildings are um you know they're they're large. I mean the these things have been going on for a long time, right? And and this you know this opportunity to um you know utilize healthife safety bonds is really what we need to do uh in the you know that's provides the shortest timeline for these critical repairs. I mean, I've uh to, you know, speak speak to that. I've had several conversations with Chris Link over the last several weeks, and I would just like to commend him
066and his team on, you know, maintaining these, you know, these old facilities with these old systems. And you know, a lot of the repairs that have to be made, you know, we just talked about five classrooms at RGS with no heat. Talked about NMS with steam leaks, condens, you know, condensation, return lines, freezing and breaking and all of those things. You know, these uh you know, these systems are an obsolescence, right? So, uh, Chris has done a nice job of, you know, locating hard to find parts and being able to go out, you know, and get those or bring those back to his, you know, his maintenance teams to be able to replace them. Um, but it just it it speaks to the volume of work that needs to be done and, you know, the
067costs associated. So, um, so just uh, you know, this is a this is a great opportunity and really a mustdo. um you know in order to keep our schools functioning. Um the timeline for it again is great taking a look forward here. Uh we're you know we're looking at you know preparing documentation for the you know our review the board review as well as review to get that uh targeted for approval in the late spring. That'd be coupled with community engagement. though you know um open houses at the schools um community town halls u to communicate that and then um the formal health life safety bond uh recommendations and discussion in June so that's summer next year and then we go right to work with the u you know the engineers and architects and be
068able to have bid documents prepared for November bid that and that allows us to hold the health life safety bond hearing and award contracts in December and and we're talking about construction in uh summer 2027 ongoing. We talked about say 27. I I just saw that it says 26. I was really excited. Yeah, it should say 27. [laughter] So, not this year. Awesome. We'll fix that. So 2027 and ongoing and like to say the you know talking about create you know phase work and NMS and and to do things um you know to make construction efficient you know the more you can do outside of that premium summer window the costs come down you could do more you know I mean it's uh um you know I this this is a really really great opportunity
069lining up here and having the space at the high school lets us do that. So Um, lots of planning ahead, lots of discussions ahead, but uh, uh, but really on the right track. Really on the right track. Thank you. Yeah, really on the right track. Uh, and again, just want to just want to u, you know, talk about Chris and his team and and maintaining us until that point. You know, there's going to be, you know, you've got to have contingency plans. These guys have those. Um, even though our boilers are, you know, they're, you know, they're beyond their life, you know, expectancy and all that thing, most of the times there's redundant systems. So, if there something does fail, you can get things up in a reasonable amount of time, you know, with with
070Chris's team's expertise. So, um, just a little update from buildings and grounds and we'll bring, you know, more information as as we'll prepare his documents and and information for us. Great. Any questions for buildings and grounds? So, thinking of this too, where does that leave us with the potential for a separate referendum potentially in tandem with this? Uh I know there's still conversations that need to be had around that. Um my question is, is it something that's still feasible for November of next year or is it are we looking beyond that? I think if my my thought on it would be if you go with the health lake life safety bonds that's about a two to threeyear project. Yeah. Um I would do that. Yeah. Assess needs and then you can come back towards the
071end of that if you need to go to referendum for some other need that you would have. Ideally, what we're going to try to do in this process is instead of spending $2 $300,000 a year fixing steam pipes now that they'll be repaired, we can start to take that money and invest that so that we can start to look at adding on to Springrove or um you know getting rid of the mobiles and doing the things that you actually see and and and touch every day. Yeah. Yeah. That's just a thought. Obviously, I haven't had a lot of discussions with the committee or everybody on that. So, yeah, just an idea. Yeah, that's that's definitely a goal to take the savings from all of this reactive maintenance like we you know, we're talking about in
072the last, you know, several weeks we're we're spending, you know, 10 plus,000 a week in reactive maintenance. So, you know, you take take the savings through reduced reactive maintenance, possible efficiencies, and take those dollars and roll that into these projects that aren't covered by health safety. Yep. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you for the update. That moves us on to 8.6.2 curriculum committee updates. Um we did meet today and uh want to first of all thank a couple members of the community Erin and Christie for attending the meeting and providing the information that you provided. Uh but we went through today a couple of things. One um some brief updates on um where we're at with the grading policy at the Persing Middle School. Um and Dr. Dr. Enright and his group has have
073put a lot of uh thought into this, a lot of work into this, doing their own surveys on top of some members of our community doing surveys. And what's great is that the feedback that we did internally and the feedback that we received from community kind of lined up as to potentially where we see uh us moving forward when it comes to the grading policy at NEC Middle School. So where we sit right now is that internally principal Cryon and a group are going to review if we make changes what do those potential changes look like how do we enact those potential changes um and the idea is we're going to meet in most likely February have another curriculum committee meeting uh get an update on where we stand on some of those conversations and
074then if there is uh the decision to move forward with a change to the grading policy starting in next school here. Um what does that look like and what are our next steps to move towards that direction? Any questions? Anything to add? Nope. Just also talked about the standardsbased report card. That's correct. And the move to try the exploration of moving to trimesters. Yeah. Yeah. And so uh during that update on the standardsbased um report cards, now that project takes a little bit longer, right? It's going to be a three-year project. uh we'll have potentially a testing group next year seeing how this uh this goes and then if that all goes well then the following year after that actually enacting um you know a a new standardsbased report card metrics for the grade schools
075and so uh more to come on that the uh grade schools also moving to trimesters the rationale behind that all sounds extremely logical right now you have in the do you want to provide some rationale behind the quarterly aspect of this within the quarters right now. Um it doesn't because of elementary the first couple of weeks you know especially at kindergarten first grade level getting to know the students getting used to um you know being students in school and stuff and then there also a lot of assessments taking place. So by the time those first quarter report cards come out um there's not a lot of um academic you know grades that you know that the teacher have really had time to assess those students. So a trimester allows a longer period of time to
076um allow those students to to grow and to learn more academically from them. Yeah. So it makes complete sense. Yeah. And so we go from having basically 42 days on a quarterly basis to somewhere around 65 something like that days around 55 55 days on a trimesterly basis. uh it does not affect um your spring break time off, your Thanksgiving time off and so all that sort of How does it affect the exploratories for the middle school? Something else. Oh, okay. Yes. Okay. I think that's all we had for today. Any questions in regards to the community? Okay, that concludes our committee updates. That moves us into nine close session. Do we [clears throat] have a close session? I don't think we Okay. So then uh we don't need to motion to enter into one.
077That moves us to any actions after close session which we have none. That moves us to adjournment. And so do we have a motion to adjurnn? Motion. Second. All in favor of adjournment say I. I. All oppose same sign. All right. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Sorry. We need this whole box. Here's one. I like to stick with I do. I'm like a liner.